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 must belong to England in appearance if her mission was to succeed; and though Spain was always in her heart as the exotic pomegranate of Granada was on her shield, England in future was the name she conjured by, and all England loved her, from the hour she first set foot on English soil to the day of the final consummation of her martyrdom. CHAPTER II 1501-1509 KATHARINE'S WIDOWHOOD AND WHY SHE STAYED IN ENGLAND The arrival of Katharine in England as his son's affianced wife meant very much for Henry VII. and his house. He had already, by a master-stroke of diplomacy, betrothed his eldest daughter to the King of Scots, and was thus safe from French intrigue on his vulnerable northern border, whilst the new King of France was far too apprehensive of Ferdinand's coalition to arouse the active enmity of England. The presence of Ferdinand's daughter on English soil completed the security against attack upon Henry from abroad. It is true that the Yorkists and their friends were still plotting: "Solicited, allured and provoked, by that old venomous serpent, the Duchess of Burgundy, ever the sower of sedition and beginner of rebellion against the King of England;"[3] but Henry knew well that with Katharine at his Court he could strike a death-blow, as he soon did, at his domestic enemies, without fear of reprisals from her brother-in-law Philip, the present sovereign of Burgundy and Flanders.