words?

QUEEN KATHERINE OF ARRAGON.

To have a just idea of the accuracy and beauty of this historical
portrait, we ought to bring immediately before us those circumstances of
Katherine's life and times, and those parts of her character, which
belong to a period previous to the opening of the play. We shall then be
better able to appreciate the skill with which Shakspeare has applied
the materials before him.

Katherine of Arragon, the fourth and youngest daughter of Ferdinand,
King of Arragon, and Isabella of Castile, was born at Alcala, whither
her mother had retired to winter after one of the most terrible
campaigns of the Moorish war--that of 1485.

Katherine had derived from nature no dazzling qualities of mind, and no
striking advantages of person. She inherited a tincture of Queen
Isabella's haughtiness and obstinacy of temper, but neither her beauty
nor her splendid talents. Her education under the direction of that
extraordinary mother, had implanted in her mind the most austere
principles of virtue, the highest ideas of female decorum, the most
narrow and bigoted attachment to the forms of religion, and that
excessive pride of birth and rank, which distinguished so particularly
her family and her nation. In other respects, her understanding was
strong, and her judgment clear. The natural turn of her mind was simple,
serious, and domestic, and all the impulses of her heart kindly and
benevolent. Such was Katherine; such, at least, she appears on a
reference to the chronicles of her times, and particularly from her own
letters, and the papers written or dictated by herself which relate to
her divorce; all of which are distinguished by the same artless
simplicity of style, the same quiet good sense, the same resolute, yet
gentle spirit and fervent piety.

When five years old, Katherine was solemnly affianced to Arthur, Prince
of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII.; and in the year 1501, she landed
in England, after narrowly escaping shipwreck on the southern coast,
from which every adverse wind conspired to drive her. She was received
in London with great honor, and immediately on her arrival united to the
young prince. He was then fifteen and Katherine in her seventeenth
year.

Arthur, as it is well known, survived his marriage only five months; and
the reluctance of Henry VII. to refund the splendid dowry of the
Infanta, and forego the advantages of an alliance with the most powerful
prince of Europe