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adolescence: tertian fever and a troublesome irregularity in the menstrual cycle which, after her marriage to Henry, led Katherine into repeated misjudgments about whether or not she was pregnant.
    When Henry became king on his father’s death in 1509, the same diplomatic advantages that had compelled Arthur’s marriage to Katherine now led Henry to marry her, after receiving the papal dispensationrequired to legitimize in the eyes of the church the joining of a man with his brother’s widow. To Henry’s relief, Katherine’s bedchamber women pronounced her pregnant soon after the wedding in June, but late in the following January the child was born prematurely, a stillborn daughter. No one but the king, two Spanish women and Katherine’s physician and chancellor knew of her misfortune; Henry kept up the pretense of her continued pregnancy by ordering sumptuous fittings for the royal nursery for the confinement expected in March. The queen was willing to go to any length to hide the truth, and went through the public ceremony of withdrawing for her confinement knowing she could not prolong the deceit much longer. In a transparent attempt to save face it was given out by Katherine’s confessor that she had been pregnant with twins, only one of which had been stillborn, and that she was confined to await the birth of the second child. But through his spies the Spanish ambassador had learned that she had begun to menstruate again, at least for a time, and from February through the end of May reports of abdominal swelling and deflating, ceasing and returning of the menses succeeded one another to everyone’s confusion. Henry was annoyed and his privy councilors angry, though they had the tact to blame not Katherine but her bedchamber women for the “error.” The ambassador’s own conclusion was that “some irregularity in her eating and the food she takes cause her some trouble, the consequence of which is that she does not menstruate as she should.”
    Adding to the queen’s anxieties was Henry’s first recorded infidelity. The woman was a sister of the duke of Buckingham, who lived in the palace with her husband. Another of the duke’s sisters found out about the affair, and told both her brother and her sister’s husband all she knew. A scene between Buckingham and the king followed, and the upshot was that the duke, mortally offended, left the palace and the king’s mistress was shut away in a convent where no one was allowed to see her. Henry took out his anger on the talebearing sister, banishing her permanently from the court. This in turn angered Katherine—the girl was among her intimates—and led to a fiery exchange between the king and queen. Courtiers wrote that the atmosphere was thick with tension between them, and harmony was not fully restored for some time.
    Through all these domestic upheavals what Katherine feared most was her father’s displeasure. Late in May she finally found the courage to write him about the stillbirth. She had not written before, she explained, because a stillbirth “is considered here an ill omen.” She begged Ferdinand not to be angry with her, but to look on her ill luck “as an act of God.” And she hurried to add the good news that she believed herself pregnant once again.
    This time there was no error. The child came to full term without incident,and the birth was normal. The doubts about the queen’s capacity for motherhood were laid to rest. On New Year’s Day, when by custom valuable gifts were exchanged at court, Katherine presented Henry with the finest gift of all: a son.
    When the jousts were over and the prizes bestowed, the knights retired to disarm and, after evensong, went in to supper. A banquet had been prepared, and all the foreign ambassadors joined the nobles and officials of the court and their ladies in dining with the king and queen. When the tables had been removed, the entire company reassembled in a great hall to see the entertainments.