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She was born in winter, when yet another year concluded for her mother's Holy War - a crusade forcing out her country's Moors.
In England, later events proved Catalina very much her mother's daughter. Yet - the history changing measures enforced by her mother, when her children witnessed long seasons of war and conquest, a land often rent by a constant state of change, were lessons she never forgot. In many ways, she proved herself a wiser and nobler woman than Isabel. Her parents decided, signed and sealed her life before her third birthday, agreeing to wed her to another infant, the first-born son of a new English royal family. That wasn't unusual. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, early betrothals were common for princesses. They were pawns for their family, brokered and discarded whenever needed. Especially so in Katherine's case - her parents were beginning to gain a reputation for marrying rather warring to increase their power base. Her parent's descendants continued this, so much so it was said: Bella gerant alii, tu, felix Austria, nube (Let others make war, you, fortunate Austria, marry.) Thirteen years after the first negotiations, at only fifteen, Catalina journeyed overland from Granada to the seaports of Corunna. Ships waited there to take her to England, where she would marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, the fifteen-year-old heir to the English throne. The dangerous journey across Castile took Catalina months. Her mother, ill and broken by grief, couldn't bear accompanying her youngest child for any part of the journey. With her other daughters, she made a habit of going far with them, personally handing them over to their new lives with joy. But her joy within months turned into grief. By the time her youngest child left her side, death sliced the number of her children from five to three. Her only son died at nineteen. Loved and doted on, his death cast a dark shadow on all his parents' hopes for a unified Castilla and Aragon. Shortly after his death, Isabel's eldest daughter died in childbirth, after going to a marriage she tried her best for years to avoid. With Catalina, Queen Isabel kept her by her side as long as she could, giving excuses to the English for all the delays. Finally, the Queen could delay no more. Catalina left her mother's arms for the last time in Granada. They both knew they would never see one another again in life. |
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