Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

HENRY VII. 331
giversations, it was finally decided upon. The papal
dispensation was duly obtained (1505), and 4 Henry
and Catherine were affianced. The marriage tJ did
not take place during the lifetime of Henry VIL, for,
it would seem, the most ignoble of reasons-a money
question. Ferdinand had paid only half Catherine's
dowry, and Henry held the bride-elect in fast keeping
as a surety.1 The history of this marriage
belongs indeed to the following reign.
The king's n mother was the holy J Countess of Eichmond,
who became in 1502 the penitent L of John
Fisher, afterwards Bishop of Kochester and Cardinal.
Her influence over the mind of Henry VII. -is un-
doubted. She took the "Order of Widowhood"
during the lifetime of her last husband,'2 and set an
example of personal piety and ascetic life closely
followed by Catherine of Aragon. Her own son,
too, imitated, at least, her faith, and has left of it a
monument in stone " re perenmus. Modern worship-
pers in the chapel of Henry VII. have lost the abid- I
ing Presence to which this king had so great a devotion.
His ordinary manner of approaching the
Sacraments was full of no ordinary piety ; " the
Sacrament of Penance he received with a marvellous
compassion and flow of tears, that at some time he
wept and sobbed by the space of three-quarters of an
hour. The Sacrament of the Altar he received at
Mid-Lent, and again upon Easter Day, with so great
1 Liu_.ini, History of England, p. 3-2$.
-Bri. -20.