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Another supporter who required no written correspondence may have exerted considerable influence over him. Household accounts kept by Heron strongly suggest that Catherine was believed to have played a part in Perkin’s disappearance. After all, she had aided his escape from the armies of Desmond and Kildare in Ireland on his previous flight. It was plausible that she had helped him once again this time.

Following her husband’s flight, her name vanished from the royal accounts for nearly a full year. In April 1499, her name reappeared—omitted and replaced by a dash—and her standing had clearly shifted dramatically. Her annual stipend was slashed so drastically that she was forced to borrow money from the crown. Her retinue of servants was cut from six down to a single attendant, and wages owed eleven months in advance were not disbursed until November of the subsequent year.

Stripping a noblewoman of her household staff was not merely a mark of social disgrace; it also served as a practical safeguard against conspiracies. For instance, Henry VII’s own mother, Margaret Beaufort, had been ordered by Richard III to be deprived of “all servants and attendants” on account of her involvement in the 1483 Buckingham Rebellion. In Catherine’s case, this punitive measure was likely levied as punishment for her complicity in Perkin’s plot. During the first year of the succeeding monarch’s reign, she was included in a general royal pardon for unspecified reasons.

Another conspirator remained at court, still young and beautiful. In June 1500, Molinet recorded her presence at Saint-Omer, six months after her husband’s death. At that time, Henry and Elizabeth had crossed the English Channel to escape the plague raging in London and renew their alliance with Philip. Catherine ranked fifth among the fifty English noblewomen accompanying the queen to church, described as “richly dressed.” As the celebrations unfolded, strawberries and cream, spiced cakes and seven cartloads of cherries were served for entertainment. Philip kissed her and danced with her, just as he did with all the queen’s principal ladies-in-waiting. Presumably he knew who she was, just as Molinet did: the chronicler referred to her as la veuve de Pierquin Wesebecq, as though widowhood had become her primary identity. Things were different at Henry’s court, at least officially. There she was known as Lady Gordon, her earlier marriage unrecognised, or the White Rose, a name that brought her both favour and distress. Catherine wore black for the rest of her life, relieved only by the faintest touches of colour: brass sequins stitched onto her dark gowns, a deep crimson velvet headband, and a tawny bodice glimpsed when she turned. The general pardon issued by the new king Henry VIII in 1509–10 included “Catherine Gordon, widow”, without specifying whose widow she was.

She never remarried. It may have been that the old king wished to prevent her from taking another husband, or that she had no desire to wed again. Bernard André was certainly surprised by this development. Towards the end of his lengthy letter to Catherine concerning Perkin, he had confidently predicted what lay in store for her: “For a time, stricken with grief, she lost faith in a marital partner in Christ, yet she would eventually marry [blank] and [blank], men utterly dependable, trustworthy and upright,” a stark contrast to her late husband. Even so, André continued revising the text as late as 1502, and was forced to leave blank spaces in the manuscript. The anticipated second marriage never came to pass, and Catherine’s profound disillusionment with men may not have been the sole reason, or even the main one.

Her life at court continued much as before, attending on Queen Elizabeth until the queen died in childbirth in 1503. At Margaret’s betrothal ceremony to James IV of Scotland in 1502, she received due respect by virtue of her Scottish royal bloodline. Her annuity resumed regular payments following her husband’s execution, and her personal allowance was fixed at forty pounds a year in 1508–09. The royal wardrobe continued supplying her with gowns, bodices, hose, shoes and bed linen. She once again wore black garments paid for by the crown during the official mourning period for Prince Arthur in 1502, and for the queen a year later. On the final day of Elizabeth’s funeral, clad in black, Catherine placed the fourth of thirty-seven mortuary cloths upon the coffin, each cloth representing one year of the queen’s age. At that moment, she may well have thought she was kneeling before someone who was both her sovereign and a sister figure.

By this stage England was her home, and she became a naturalised English subject in 1510. That same year, under arrangements made by the late king, she was granted extensive lands at Field in Berkshire. Her naturalisation and land holdings were subject to a condition: she could not leave England for Scotland or any other realm without royal permission. Such clauses were standard for landed estates, designed to ensure she remained in the country to manage her property. Restrictions of this kind were not, however, routine for citizenship applications. The crown had compelling financial and political reasons to keep Catherine within its borders. Far from her native land, she found herself facing an odd development in 1510: a striking woman claiming to be her appeared in Scotland, and was warmly received by her late husband’s former associates before her fraud was exposed.

The shadow of her younger son also hung over these events. He had vanished soon after their arrival in London, yet rumours later spread across Wales that one of Perkin’s children had been brought there. The Perkins family of Rhoose-y-Gelly traced their lineage to “Peter Osbeck of Tournai’s son”, while the Reynoldsston Perkins family on the tip of the Gower Peninsula likewise claimed descent from the boy. The tale, though likely entirely fictitious, gained an uncanny plausibility by originating in Wales, a region Richard (or Perkin) had never visited and where little was known about him. Later in life, having obtained royal leave, Catherine settled briefly in Swansea, eight miles from Reynoldsston. The child was evidently named Richard, adopting the surname Perkins: a faint Yorkist spectre taking root in the Welsh valleys.

Whatever deep-seated fears lingered in Henry’s mind, his fondness for Catherine never waned, another reason to retain her at court especially after Elizabeth’s death. In Scotland, Adam Abel repeated local gossip in his chronicle: “She kept constant company with King Harry, and some believed the two were married.” Physically speaking, however, the king was scarcely in any condition for such a relationship. Though not yet forty, he looked prematurely aged, his poor health directly stemming from the distress Perkin’s rebellion had caused him. He fell ill the very month Perkin was executed, suffering a severe decline at Wanstead that sparked private talk of his death and the succession. He began building his own tomb as early as 1501. Every spring he grew weak and suffered from a range of ailments, leading him to seek exemptions from Lenten fasting. He employed an ever-growing retinue of physicians and consulted medical schools in Germany and Italy. He attended sermons daily and deepened his religious devotions in hope of a cure. William Pullen lost favour and left his service after predicting the queen would live to the age of eighty. The quiet passing of his beloved wife further aged and weakened the king. His interest in Quintessentia, the fifth element concealed within earth, air, water and fire, may have been an attempt to concoct an elixir of life, distilled from fine wine or the blood of youthful men to preserve the body against decay and restore vitality. At that time, blood drawn from young healthy men was not an unobtainable remedy for him.

Catherine was sometimes at his side during his afflictions, though surviving records cannot confirm whether she was his mistress or merely a close companion. On 10 December 1508, after an absence of almost two years from the accounts, she received twenty shillings “for things bought for the king”, an entry format regularly recorded for Queen Elizabeth of York in previous years. Nearby was an entry recording money the king had lost at cards; they may well have played together. Yet Henry was by now gravely ill and no longer able to ride horses, commissioning his personal chaplain to hold an increasing number of daily masses and devotions for his soul. He was likely suffering from tuberculosis. Within weeks he was too feeble to receive the Eucharist, lying in bed weeping in prayer and gazing at the monstrance holding the consecrated host prepared for him. On Lady Day, 25 March 1509, Catherine was paid eighteen shillings and eight pence English for “four painted cloths made for his majesty the king”.

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Period Drama Rewatch

↳The White Princess (2017) Patrick Gibson as Richard Duke of York Perkin Warbeck and Amy Manson as Lady Catherine Gordon

#the white princess #perioddramaedit #catherine gordon #patrick gibson #amy manson #perioddramasource #tudoredit #tudorsedit

Period dramas dresses tournament: Blue dresses Round 2- Group A: Juliet Capulet, Romeo and Juliet (pics set) vs Catherine Gordon, The white princess (gifset kindof)

Best dress?

Juliet's dress (left)

Catherine's dress (right)

Voting ended onSep 22, 2024

Propaganda for Catherine's dress (written by a submitter):