LETTERS OF A QUEEN

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

LETTERS OF A QUEEN

KATHERINE OF ARAGON. A great deal has been written regarding the divorce of Henry VHi. from Katherine of Aragon—on the grounds that she had been his brother’s wife, but in fact because he desired to marry Anne Boleyn. Letters written by the unhappy Katherine prove that she never recognised the divorce, but only reproved her husband gently, so we can but come to the conclusion that she loved him sincerely. When her daughter Mary, afterwards Queen of England, was taken from her care, her grief was intense, but she wrote this letter to the young princess who was studying with her new tutor, Dr. Featherstone. “Daughter, “I am in that case that the absence of the King and you trouble me. My health is metely good; and I trust God that he who sent it me, doth it for the best, and will shortly turn all to come with good effect. And in the meanwhile I am very glad to hear from you, especially when they show me that ye be well amended. I pray God to continue it to his pleasure. “As for your writing in Latin I am glad that ye shall change from me to maister Federston, for that shall do you much good to learn from him to write right. And so I pray to recommend me to my lady of Salisbury. At Woburn, this Friday night. “Your loving mother, Katherine the Queen.”

When she was dying she wrote to Henry, imploring him to let her see Mary, but he -efused. A few days before her death she wrote a farewell letter.

“My lord and dear husband, “I commend me unto you. The hour of my death draweth fast on and my case being such, the tender love I owe you forceth me, with a few words, to put you in remembrance of the health and safe-guard of your soul, which you ought to prefer before all worldly matter, and before the care and tendering of your own body, for the which you have cast me into many miseries and yourself into many cares. For my part I do pardon you all, yea, I do wish and devoutly pray God that he will also pardon you. “For the rest I commend, unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as" heretofore I 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 a year’s pay more than their due, lest they should be unprovided for. “Lastly I do vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.” Henry is said to have wept over Katherine's letter, and he sent the ambassador Capucius to her with his kind greetings, and allowed her friend Lady Willoughby also to travel to Kimbolton. They were both present when Katherine died, apparently happy, and quite calm.