The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown Read Online Free PDF Page B

Great Matter and by the fact that it had led to England breaking with Rome – were they down to her stubbornness, her refusal to go quietly? These were the questions preying on her mind during her last days.
    Catherine's health seemed to rally in the first few days of January. She ate some meals without being sick, she was sleeping well and was chatting and laughing with visitors, so Chapuys was dispatched back to London. However, on the night of 6th January, Catherine became fidgety and in the early hours of the 7th she asked to take communion. It was unlawful for communion to be taken before daylight but Jorge de Athequa, Catherine's confessor and the Bishop of Llandaff, could see that his mistress did not have long to live. So he administered communion and listened to her confession. Catherine settled her affairs, giving instructions on what she wanted done with her worldly goods and her burial – she wanted to be buried in a chapel of Observant Friars (Franciscans). It is also said that she wrote a letter to her former husband, Henry VIII, although some historians doubt its authenticity:
"My most dear lord, king and husband,
The hour of my dear now drawing on, the tender love I owe you forceth me, my case being such, to commend myself to you, and to put you in remembrance with a few words of the health and safeguard of your soul which you ought to prefer before all worldly matters, and before the care and pampering of your body, for the which you have cast me into many calamities and yourself into many troubles. For my part I pardon you everything and I wish to devoutly pray to God that He will pardon you also. For the rest, I commend unto you our daughter Mary, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have heretofore desired. I entreat you also, on behalf of my maids, to give them marriage portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants, I solicit the wages due to them, and a year or more, lest they be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things." 5
    Catherine then prayed, asking God's forgiveness for herself and also for the King who had done her so much wrong. She continued praying until the end, until her loving Father took her into Paradise. Catalina de Aragón, daughter of the great Catholic Reyes, Isabel I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, was dead. She had died not in some sumptuous palace surrounded by her loved ones, but in a small, dark, cold castle with her faithful staff in attendance. A sad end for a woman who had once been Queen of England and who had defeated the Scots as Regent.
    Catherine of Aragon was laid to rest at Peterborough Abbey, now Peterborough Cathedral, on 29th January 1536. She was, of course, buried as the Dowager Princess of Wales, not as Queen, but her grave is now marked with the words "Katharine Queen of England".
    Catherine of Aragon's will is recorded in Letters and Papers:
"Desires the King to let her have the goods she holds of him in gold and silver and the money due to her in time past; that her body may be buried in a convent of Observant Friars; that 500 masses be said for her soul; that some personage go to our Lady of Walsingham on pilgrimage and distribute 20 nobles on the way. Bequests: to Mrs. Darel 200l. for her marriage. To my daughter, the collar of gold which I brought out of Spain. To Mrs. Blanche 100l. To Mrs. Margery and Mrs. [Whyller] 40l. each. To Mrs. Mary, my physicians [wife, and] Mrs. Isabel, daughter to Mr. Ma[rguerite], 40l. each. To ray physician the year's coming [wages]. To Francisco Philippo all that I owe him, and 40l. besides. To Master John, my apothecary, [a year's wages] and all that is due to him besides. That Mr. Whiller be paid expenses about the making of my gown, and 20l. besides. To Philip, Anthony, and Bastian, 20l. each. To the little maidens 10l. each. That my goldsmith be paid his wages for the year coming and all that is due to him besides. That my lavander