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continuation of the Anglo-Spanish alliance inaugurated by her own betrothal to Prince Arthur thirty years before. When Charles Poupet de Lachaulx, the imperial ambassador, visited England in March 1522, Katherine was anxious to display her daughter’s precocious abilities and would not let him leave until he had seen Mary dance. She “did not have to be asked twice” and performed with no hint of infant shyness, twirling “so prettily that no woman in the world could do better.” Mary then played the virginals and “two or three songs on the spinet” with impressive accomplishment. As Lachaulx reported to Charles, “Indeed, sire, she showed unbelievable grace and skill and such self-command as a woman of twenty might envy. She is pretty and very tall for her age, just turned seven and a very fine young cousin indeed.”14

It was exactly the response that Katherine had hoped for. Mary now chose Charles as her valentine and wore a golden brooch at her breast with “Charles” spelled out in jewels and owned another spelling out “the Emperour,” which appears pinned to her bodice in a portrait miniature by Lucas Horenbout.15 The marriage of her daughter to her nephew was a prospect that Katherine relished. As the imperial ambassador wrote to Charles, “her greatest desire, was to see you here and to receive you with the greatest honour and best cheer possible.”16

ON MAY 26, CHARLES returned to England to celebrate the signing of the new treaty and his betrothal to Mary. He was met at Dover by Wolsey and a train of noblemen and conducted to Canterbury, where the king greeted him. Together they took the royal barge from Gravesend to Greenwich, arriving in the early evening. “At the hall door the Queen and the Princess and all the ladies received and welcomed him … and the Emperor had great joy to see the Queen his Aunt and especially his young cousin germain the Lady Mary.”17 Mary was again expected to perform and impress. She danced and played the virginals once more and won the praise of all those who looked on. As one envoy reported, “she promises to become a handsome lady, although it is difficult to form an idea of her beauty as she is still so small.”18

Little over a week later, Charles was formally received into the City of London amid great pageantry. At London Bridge two giant figures of Samson and Hercules had been erected, and at Leadenhall, Italian merchants had constructed a genealogical tree showing their joint ancestry. The two monarchs then moved to Windsor, where for a month they jousted, hunted, and feasted before concluding a permanent treaty of peace and friendship that confirmed the Anglo-imperial match.19 Charles’s negotiators had at first insisted that Mary be delivered to them the following year so that she could be trained as a lady of the imperial court, but Wolsey had resisted. Mary would not go to the Habsburg court in Brussels until she was twelve, the lawful age of cohabitation, when she would become Charles’s consort.20 This fact was to dominate the next four years of her life. She was to be transformed as rapidly as possible into a Spanish lady, to be dressed “according to the fashion and manner of those parts,” trained in Spanish customs and politeness, and educated in a suitable manner.21

CHAPTER 5

THE INSTITUTION OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN

As concerning the bringing up of her, if he [King Henry, her father] should seek a Mistress for her to frame her after the manner of Spain, and of whom she might take example of virtue, he should not find in all Christendom a more mete than she now hath, that is to say, the Queen’s grace, her mother, who is cometh of this house of Spain and who, for the affection she beareth to the Emperor, will nourish her, and bring her up as may be hereafter to his most contentment.1

—CUTHBERT TUNSTALL, BISHOP OF LONDON, AND SIR RICHARD WINGFIELD, ENGLISH AMBASSADORS TO THE EMPEROR, JULY 8, 1525

MARY WAS NOW TO BE EDUCATED AS THE FUTURE WIFE OF THE emperor and, if she remained sole heir to Henry’s crown, queen of England. While it was a prospect that Henry was reluctant to