Philip and Joanna of Castile speak almost perfect English, with no attempt by the English to afford them the use of a lingua franca such as French or Latin as Margaret Beaufort did when meeting Margaret. Joanna immediately talks to Catherine in English even when they are in private and could easily speak in Spanish. Heir Club for Men: Played straight for the English, who want Catherine and Arthur to have a son. Somewhat Averted for the Spanish, who have two ruling queens, Isabella and Joanna. It also seemed unlikely to me that even the most constant heart would cling, as she did, to a memory that had an endurance of six months and occurred at the tender age of fifteen. I also found the idea that she wavered in her religious views and came to think of the Moors as equal, if not superior, to her own countrymen untenable. She is known to have fought for Catholicism to her death and the attitude toward the Moors would have been far too modern a view to have made sense in her time. It is, in a word, an anachronistic invention to propound a modern view. To me, Gregory's penultimate words for Katherine feel like a roar: "This is me. This is my moment. This is my battle cry"

The truth is that the Muslim Empire of the Moors was built on conquest and aimed to forcibly convert non-Muslims, treating minorities with a Dhimmi status (Ever heard of the slaughter in Spain by the fanatical Almohads?) Subverted: Princess Margaret doesn't want to marry James IV of Scotland, and manages to convince her grandmother that England is too poor to pay her dowry to Scotland if they haven't received Catherine's dowry from Spain. Other political circumstances eventually push the match ahead, however.Ficou noiva de Artur, filho de Henrique VII, aos 3 anos e foi treinada desde criança para ser Princesa de Gales e Rainha de Inglaterra. Decadent Court: The Tudor court is potrayed this way, even more so then the Spanish and French royal courts.

Catherine's role is very similar to Elizabeth Woodville in Queen and Elizabeth of York in Princess, the main character marrying the king/heir to the throne at the beginning of the series with many political enemies at court. The novel opens in Granada, Spain, as five-year-old Catalina witnesses her parents, Isabella and Ferdinand, conquer the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain. What does this chapter reveal about Catalina, as well as about her mother and their relationship? In what ways did having this portrait of Catalina as a child help you better understand some of her later decisions and motivations? Wolf Hall portrays him as a sadistic torturer, The Tudors shows him attending the burning of a heretic, Simon Fish (who actually died of an illness in prison, but six other Protestants were burned while he was Lord Chancellor). In The Spanish Princess he does not enjoy torturing Protestants. He thinks that is the only way to protect Catholics from Protestants.

As for the narrator, Jill Tanner was brilliant. I think she was more than capable of sounding queenly and regal (though Jill did not give Catalina the foreign accent she did in TOBG) and the other characters were decently voiced as well, distinct enough that I knew who was saying what. In the beginning, Catherine and Henry were shown to be in a truly loving husband-wife relationship. However, as she aged and it became apparent that she could no longer conceive, he turned away from her to the Boleyn sisters - first Mary, then Anne. Anne, in particular, makes no secret of how she intended to be much, much more than Henry's mistress - she did not love or even desire him as a man, but was after Catherine's throne as Queen of England. Due to her own understanding of Henry, as well as his history of lovers and mistresses, Catherine initially believed that even the seductive, stylish, and ruthlessly ambitious Anne was just a passing phase of the King's, and therefore was not threatened by her in the least.