the harbour of
Corunna, her little fleet lay at anchor awaiting her.

From the 21st of May, when she last looked upon the Alhambra, it took her
nearly two months of hard travel to reach Corunna, and it was almost a
month more before all was ready for the embarkation with the great train
of courtiers and servants that accompanied her. On the 17th August 1501
the flotilla sailed from Corunna, only to be stricken the next day by a
furious north-easterly gale and scattered; the Princess's ship, in dire
danger, being driven into the little port of Laredo in the north of Spain.
There Katharine was seriously ill, and another long delay occurred, the
apprehension that some untoward accident had happened to the Princess at
sea causing great anxiety to the King of England, who sent his best seamen
to seek tidings of the bride. The season was late, and when, on the 26th
September 1501, Katharine again left Laredo for England, even her stout
heart failed at the prospect before her. A dangerous hurricane from the
south accompanied her across the Channel and drove the ships finally into
the safety of Plymouth harbour on Saturday the 2nd October 1501.

The Princess was but little expected at Plymouth, as Southampton or
Bristol had been recommended as the best ports for her arrival; and great
preparations had been made for her reception at both those ports. But the
Plymouth folk were nothing backward in their loyal welcome of the new
Princess of Wales; for one of the courtiers who accompanied her wrote to
Queen Isabel that "she could not have been received with greater
rejoicings if she had been the saviour of the world." As she went in
solemn procession through the streets to the church of Plymouth to give
thanks for her safety from the perils past, with foreign speech sounding
in her ears and surrounded by a curious crowd of fair folk so different
from the swarthy subjects of her mother that she had left behind at
Granada, the girl of sixteen might well be appalled at the magnitude of
the task before her. She knew that henceforward she had, by diplomacy and
woman's wit, to keep the might and wealth of England and its king on the
side of her father against France; to prevent any coalition between her
new father-in-law and her brother-in-law Philip in Flanders in which Spain
was not included; and, finally, to give an heir to the English throne,
who, in time to come, should be Aragonese in blood and sympathy.
Thenceforward Katharine mu