on his way, was to distribute twenty nobles to the poor. She beqeathed considerable legacies to her servants, and requested that her robes might be converted into ornaments for the church, in which her remains were to be deposited. The king religiously performed her injunctions, excepting that which respected the disposal of her body, resenting, probably, the opposition which the convent had given to his divorce. The corpse was interred in the abbey church at Peterborough, with the honours due to the birth of Catharine.
It is recorded by Lord Herbert, in the history of Henry the Eighth, that from respect to the memory of Catharine, Henry not only spared this church at the general dissolution of religious houses, but advanced it to be a cathedral.
CATHARINE OF BRAGANZA,
Wife of Charles the Second, King of England, and daughter of John the Fourth of Portugal, was born in 1638. In 1661, she was married to Charles the Second, in whose court she long endured all the neglect and mortification his dissolute conduct was calculated to inflict on her. This endurance was rendered more difficult by her having no children; but she supported her situation with great equanimity.
Lord Clarendon says of Catharine—"The queen had beauty and wit enough to make herself agreeable to the king; yet she had been, according to the mode and discipline of her country, bred in a monastery, where she had seen only the women who attended her, and conversed with the religious who resided there; and, without doubt, in her inclinations, was enough disposed to have been one of the number. And from this restraint she was called out to be a great queen, and to a free conversation in a court that was to be upon the matter new formed, and reduced from the manners of a licentious age, to the old rules and limits which had been observed in better times; to which regular and decent conformity the present disposition of men and women was not enough inclined to submit, nor the king to exact. After some struggle she submitted to the king's licentious conduct, and from that time lived on easy terms with him till his death." After Charles died, Catharine was treated with much respect.
In 1693, she returned to Portugal, where, in 1704, she was made regent by her brother, Don Pedro, whose increasing infirmities rendered retirement necessary. In this situation, Catharine showed considerable abilities, carrying on the war with Spain with great firmness and success. She died in 1705.
CATHARINE OF VALOIS,
Surnamed the Fair, was the youngest child of Charles the Sixth and Isabeau of Bavaria. She was born October 27th., 1401, at the Hotel de St. Paul, Paris, during her father's interval of insanity. She was entirely neglected by her mother, who joined with the king's brother, the Duke of Orleans, in pilfering the revenues of the household. On the recovery of Charles, Isabeau fled with the Duke of Orleans to Milan, followed by her children, who were pursued and brought back by the Duke of Burgundy. Catharine was educated at the convent at Poissy, where her sister Marie was
