and I thought I should be happy for the rest of my days.
I learned that I was to be married when I was twelve years old.
England had declared war on France, and my father and the Emperor had agreed as to how they would divide that country between them when they had conquered it.
I was dismayed when I heard that Charles wished me to go to Spain that I might be brought up in the Spanish manner. Fortunately my parents would not allow this. I was delighted and flattered that they did not want to part with me.
My father said that, if I was to be brought up as a Spanish lady, who better to supervise the upbringing than my own mother?
I could see that the idea delighted her, for she could spend more time with me than previously her duties as Queen had allowed her to.
There always had been a special love between my mother and me and as we grew closer she talked to me more openly than she had before. I was growing up; and she was delighted that I was destined for Spain.
“My dearest child,” she said. “I always knew that a daughter has to leave her mother at some time. I left mine to come to England. But I shall know that you will be in Spain, my country… the land where I spent my childhood, and you will go there as a bride. You will love Spain, Mary. You will love it because it was your mother's home and you will love it for itself and because it will become yours. We are more serious than the English. We are more restrained … more formal. Your father is one whom the English love—although in truth he is half Welsh … but he has become an ideal Englishman. He is greatly loved by his subjects. You, my child, are more as I am. Spain will be your natural home. I am so happy for you.”
She talked then of her mother and her father, Isabella and Ferdinand. “My mother was the most wonderful lady I ever knew. She was a great ruler and a loving mother. It is not always easy to be both. You are an only child.” I saw the look of terror pass over her face, and it frightened me. “I was the youngest of the family,” she went on. “I had a brother and three sisters. I was happy in my family, and in spite of the fact that my mother was much engaged in matters of state, she had always time to spend with us, to listen to what we had to say and to make us understand that, whatever else she was, she was first our mother.”
Her sad eyes looked back to those days and I saw them light up with the pleasure which comes from happy memories, even though they must be tinged with sorrow because they are past.
“I was only five…more or less your age… when my sister Isabel was betrothed in Seville to Alfonso of Portugal. It was a grand ceremony. My sisters Juana and Maria were with me. Two years later I was present at the triumphant entry into Granada. That was when my parents had driven out the Moors. They were stirring times… and yet I remember more clearly our family life than these great events.”
“You must have been sad, my lady, to leave it.”
“Ah, my dear child, how sad I was…and how frightened! I was sixteenyears old when I set sail for England. I came to marry your Uncle Arthur, you know. Poor Arthur, he died soon after our marriage.”
“And then you married my father.”
“Yes, but it was not until some time after.” She shut her eyes as though this was something too painful to contemplate.
“So you have had two husbands, my lady.”
“Arthur was not really a husband. Well, we had gone through the ceremony but he was too young for marriage, and all the time we were together he was ill…so ill.”
“You loved him, did you?”
She hesitated. “He was a kind, good boy, but he was so sick…so different from your father. It was hard to believe that they were brothers. We were sent down to Ludlow because, as he was Prince of Wales, he must have his own Court. We had only been there a few months when he died. Poor Arthur, his was a sad life. And then your father, who had been destined for the Church,
Elizabeth Amelia Barrington