tion for the marriage years before, in terms that covered the case
of the union with Arthur having been duly consummated, though Katharine
strenuously denied that it had been, or that she knew how the dispensation
was worded. The Spanish confessor also appears to have suggested to
Fuensalida some doubts as to the propriety of the marriage, but King
Ferdinand promptly put his veto upon any such scruples. Had not the Pope
given his dispensation? he asked; and did not the peace of England and
Spain depend upon the marriage? The sin would be not the marriage, but the
failure to effect it after the pledges that had been given. So the few
doubters were silenced; young Henry himself, all eager for his marriage,
was not one of them, nor was Katharine, for to her the match was a triumph
for which she had worked and suffered for years: and on the 11th June 1509
the pair were married privately by Warham at Henry's palace of Greenwich.

Rarely in its long history has London seen so brave a pageant as the bride
and bridegroom's triumphal passage through the city on Saturday the 21st
June from the Tower to Westminster for their coronation. Rich tapestries,
and hangings of cloth of gold, decked the streets through which they
passed. The city companies lined the way from Gracechurch Street to Bread
Street, where the Lord Mayor and the senior guild stood in bright array,
whilst the goldsmiths' shops in Chepe had each to adorn it a figure of the
Holy Virgin in white with many wax tapers around it. The Queen rode in a
litter of white and gold tissue drawn by two snowy palfreys, she herself
being garbed in white satin and gold, with a dazzling coronet of precious
stones upon her head, from which fell almost to her feet her dark russet
hair. She was twenty-four years of age, and in the full flush of
womanhood; her regular classical features and fair skin bore yet the
curves of gracious youth; and there need be no doubt of the sincerity of
the ardent affection for her borne by the pink and white young giant who
rode before her, a dazzling vision of crimson velvet, cloth of gold, and
flashing precious stones. "God save your Grace," was the cry that rattled
like platoon firing along the crowded ways, as the splendid cavalcade
passed on.

The next day, Sunday, 24th June, the pair were crowned in the Abbey with
all the tedious pomp of the times. Then the Gargantuan feast in
Westminster Hall, of which the chronicler spares us no detail, and the
e