Henry lived in the midst of balls, banquets, and jousting, and madly squandered the treasures his father had slowly accumulated. Magnificent tournaments succeeded each other without interval. In these sports the king, who was distinguished above all the combatants by his manly beauty, played the chief part.[176] If the contest appeared for a moment doubtful, the strength and address of the young monarch, or the artful policy of his opponents, gave him the victory, and the lists resounded with shouts and applause in his honour. The vanity of the youthful prince was inflated by these easy triumphs, and there was no success in the world to which he thought he might not aspire. The queen was often seen among the spectators. Her serious features and sad look, her absent and dejected air, contrasted strongly with the noise and glitter of these festivities. Shortly after his accession to the throne, Henry VIII. had espoused for reasons of state Catherine of Aragon, his senior by eight years: she was his brother Arthur's widow, and aunt to Charles V. While her husband followed his pleasures, the virtuous Catherine, whose piety was truly Spanish, would leave her bed in the middle of the night to take a silent part in the prayers of the monks.[177] She would kneel down without cushion or carpet. At five in the morning, after taking a little rest, she would again rise, and putting on the Franciscan dress, for she had been admitted into the tertiary order of St Francis, and hastily throwing the royal garments around her,[178] would repair to church at six o'clock to join in the service. [176] Eximia corporis forma præditus, in qua etiam regiæ majestatis augusta quædam species elucebat. Sanderus de Schismate Anglicano, p. 4. This work of Sanders, papal nuncio in Ireland, should be read very cautiously; for it abounds in false and calumnious assertions, as has been remarked by Cardinal Quirini and the Roman-catholic Doctor Lingard. See the History of England by the latter, vol. vi. 173. [177] Surgebat media nocte ut nocturnis religiosorum precibus interesset. Ibid. 5. [178] Sub regio vestitu _Divi Francisci_ habitu utebatur. Sanders, p. 5. [Sidenote: FISHER AND MORE.] Two beings, living in such different spheres, could not long continue together. Romish piety had other representatives besides Catherine in the court of Henry VIII. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, then nearly seventy years of age, as distinguished for learning as for the austerity of his manners, was the object of universal veneration. He had been the oldest councillor of Henry VII., and the Duchess of Richmond, grandmother to Henry VIII., calling him to her bedside, had commended to his care the youth and inexperience of her grandson. The king, in the midst of his irregularities, long continued to revere the aged bishop as a father.