Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, episode 203 of Spanish Princess.

Last week, Perkins' story came to an end, along with that of Clarence's hapless son.

To let us for a while turn to happier things, in a sense, or at least for a while.

This will allow us to introduce a new figure to the stage, that of Catherine of Aragon,

who will be something of a heroic and tragic figure in our story over the next few decades.

Famously, Henry VIII's brutally effective minister Tomos Cromwell is supposed to have said,

if not for her sex, she could have defied all the heroes of history.

The diplomatic history of Catherine is either absolute agony or an absolute hoot,

depending on your viewpoint. I have to say from a personal position as a thoroughly rotten

negotiator whose best line is, uh, ok then, how do you like that? Tell us all five of us.

I find it all a bit agonising. After all, this is about the future of sons and daughters.

And it goes backwards and forwards, forwards and backwards.

Well, I won't go through the whole thing in fine detail. Let's just say that in Ferdinand of

Aragon, one half of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain team, we have a hard-bitten negotiator.

And in Henry VII, he'd found his equal. If they'd ever met and gone for the pub together,

I'd love to have seen them outfumble each other at the bar when it came time to pay.

Oh, I'm sure I might wallet here somewhere. Oh, sorry, it was it? No, hang on. Now where is it?

Oh, oh, you've paid, how lovely. So sorry, I'll get the next one.

But of course, a marriage, as you know, was a matter of high politics, not just if you

were going to like the cut of your son-in-law's jib, so it's fair enough, I guess,

though the matter of money seemed to figure indecently highly.

Though was the matter of the dowry a pretty substantial sum of 200,000 crowns from the Spaniards,

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