o "bridle" his son-in-law, to
borrow a large sum of money from him and draw him anew into a coalition
against France. But the hope was soon dashed; King Ferdinand died almost
simultaneously with the birth of a girl-child to his daughter Katharine.
It is true the babe was like to live, but a son, not a daughter, was what
Henry wanted. Yet he put the best face on the matter publicly. The
Venetian ambassador purposely delayed his congratulations, because the
child was of the wrong sex; and when finally he coldly offered them, he
pointedly told the King that they would have been much more hearty if the
child had been a son. "We are both young," replied Henry. "If it is a
daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow." The desire of
the King for a male heir was perfectly natural. No Queen had reigned
independently over England; and for the perpetuation of a new dynasty like
the Tudors the succession in the male line was of the highest importance.
In addition to this, Henry was above all things proud of his manliness,
and he looked upon the absence of a son as in some sort reflecting a
humiliation upon him.

Katharine's health had never been robust; and at the age of thirty-three,
after four confinements, she had lost her bloom. Disappointment and
suffering, added to her constitutional weakness, was telling upon her, and
her influence grew daily smaller. The gorgeous shows and frivolous
amusements in which her husband so much delighted palled upon her, and she
now took little pains to feign enjoyment in them, giving up much of her
time to religious exercises, fasting rigidly twice a week and saints' days
throughout the year, in addition to the Lenten observances, and wearing
beneath her silks and satins a rough Franciscan nun's gown of serge. As in
the case of so many of her kindred, mystical devotion was weaving its grey
web about her, and saintliness of the peculiar Spanish type was covering
her as with a garment. Henry, on the contrary, was a full-blooded young
man of twenty-eight, with a physique like that of a butcher, held by no
earthly control or check upon his appetites, overflowing with vitality and
the joy of life; and it is not to be wondered at that he found his
disillusioned and consciously saintly wife a somewhat uncomfortable
companion.

The death of Louis XII., Maximilian, and Ferdinand, and the peaceful
accession of young Charles to the throne of Spain and the prospective
imperial crown, entirely