time to retain her
influence over her husband, and her popularity in England, is certain from
the letter of Ferdinand's ambassador (6th December 1514). He complains
that on the recommendation of Friar Diego Katharine had thrown over her
father's interests in order to keep the love of Henry and his people. The
Castilian interest and the Manuels have captured her, wrote the
ambassador, and if Ferdinand did not promptly "put a bridle on this colt"
(_i.e._ Henry) and bring Katharine to her bearings as her father's
daughter, England would be for ever lost to Aragon.[26] There is no doubt
that at this time Katharine felt that her only chance of keeping her
footing was to please Henry, and "forget Spain," as Friar Diego advised
her to do.

When the King of France died on New Year's Day, 1515, and his young
widow--Katharine's friend, Mary Tudor--clandestinely married her lover,
Charles Brandon, Katharine's efforts to reconcile her husband to the
peccant pair are evidence, if no other existed, that Henry's anger was
more assumed than real, and that his vanity was pleased by the submissive
prayers for his forgiveness. As no doubt the Queen, and Wolsey, who had
joined his efforts with hers, foresaw, not only were Mary and Brandon
pardoned, but taken into high favour. At the public marriage of Mary and
Brandon at Greenwich at Easter 1515 more tournaments, masques and balls,
enabled the King to show off his gallantry and agility in competition with
his new brother-in-law; and on the subsequent May Day at Shooter's Hill,
Katharine and Mary, who were inseparable, took part in elaborate and
costly _al fresco_ entertainments in which Robin Hood, several pagan
deities, and the various attributes of spring, were paraded for their
delectation. It all sounds very gay, though somewhat silly, as we read the
endless catalogues of bedizenment, of tilts and races, feasting, dancing,
and music that delighted Henry and his friends; but before Katharine there
ever hovered the spectre of her childlessness, and Henry, after the
ceremonial gaiety and overdone gallantry to his wife, would too frequently
put spurs to his courser and gallop off to New Hall in Essex, where Lady
Tailebois lived.

A gleam of hope and happiness came to her late in 1515 when she was again
expecting to become a mother. By liberal gifts--"the greatest presents
ever brought to England," said Henry himself--and by flattery unlimited,
Ferdinand, almost on his death-bed, managed t