To Me Shes Themost Beautiful Creature On Gods Earth

To me she’s the most beautiful creature on God’s earth

William Logsdail (1859-1944, British) ~ Portrait of Alice Crawford in the role of Olivia - Twelfth Night, 1907

“The young Goethe, witnessing the burning of a book in Frankfurt, felt that he was attending an execution. “To see an inanimate object being punished,” he wrote, “is in and of itself something truly terrible.””

— Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading

And the Katherine who could sob that she had barely enough cash to clothe herself, and who professed that she had 'suffered martyrdom' for her country and her family, managed to secure sufficient resources to buy books for her beloved confessor. She also berated her chamberlain for trying to stop her from selling plate 'to satisfy the follies of the friar', as Fuensalida put it.

Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana of Castile

The Duchess, Hans Holbein the Younger, 16th century, Harvard Art Museums: Prints

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, John Witt Randall Fund Medium: Woodcut on off-white antique laid paper

https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/246281

As fair a Queen as any in Christendom.