Peterborough Abbey is both a destination on a difficult winter journey and the burial place of Katherine of Aragon. In January 1536, mourners arrive at the abbey amid anger over the suppression of religious houses and public sympathy for the dead queen. Her funeral there is quiet and comparatively modest, but its emblems and the response to her death make the abbey a place where religious loss, popular loyalty, and royal authority meet.

Setting and Arrival

The narrative identifies the setting as Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, in January 1536. Margaret Pole reaches the city after a punishing journey north from London: snow and impassable roads have made travel slow, and the travelers can no longer rely on monasteries for food and hospitality. Some houses have closed, monks have been transferred or expelled, and even pilgrim hostels have shut their doors as shrines are stripped of their wealth. Against this unsettled background, the sight of Peterborough Abbey’s spire above the snow marks the journey’s destination.

Margaret enters the city near curfew with a dozen men-at-arms. At first, the people watching from the streets seem resentful, but their response changes when they see her banner. A woman calls down blessings for the white rose, Katherine, and the princess; another old Yorkist cry, “À Warwick!”, makes clear that the queen’s funeral carries political meaning beyond private mourning. The welcome links Katherine’s memory with the Yorkist cause and with popular opposition to the king’s religious and political course.

The Guesthouse and the Mourners

The abbey’s guesthouse is already crowded with the retinues of noblewomen who have come from London. Among them is Maria de Salinas, Katherine’s faithful friend. She runs down the stairs to greet Margaret, and the two women embrace while both weep. Maria’s first assurance is that Katherine was at peace at the end; Margaret answers that she knew it. The guesthouse thus serves not only as accommodation for the funeral party but as a place where grief is shared between women whose friendship with the queen predates her final illness and death.

The funeral procession draws further attention to the gap between Katherine’s former standing and the honors now permitted to her. Her coffin is brought to the abbey by six black horses, followed by her household and much of the county, their heads bare in the cold. Margaret believes Henry VIII refused to bury Katherine at Westminster Abbey because Londoners would have turned out in such numbers that the city might have risen in mourning. In her account, the choice of Peterborough is bound up with fear of the public response to the queen’s death.

Funeral and Burial

The funeral takes place on a clear, bitterly cold day. Inside the abbey church, hundreds of candles cast a subdued light over a ceremony Margaret considers too simple for a great queen, the victor of Flodden, and an Infanta of Spain who had arrived in England with high hopes. Four bishops receive the coffin, which is draped in black velvet and edged with cloth of gold. Two heralds precede it and two follow, carrying banners that display Katherine’s own crest, the royal arms of Spain and England, and the two royal arms joined together.

Near the coffin stand, Katherine’s motto, “Humble and Loyal,” appears in gold letters. After the requiem Mass, the coffin is lowered into the vault before the high altar. That burial is the decisive event attached to the abbey: the church receives Katherine’s body, while the procession and funeral display preserve signs of the rank the king has denied her. Margaret, who had known Katherine since the queen was a young girl, stifles a sob as the coffin disappears from view.

Significance and Remembrance

Katherine’s will had requested burial in a church of the Observant Friars, with memorial Masses said by their devout congregation. Instead, she is buried at Peterborough Abbey. Margaret connects the change to the king’s denial of Katherine’s title and the closure of the friars’ houses, but believes the queen can reach heaven without their prayers. The contrast makes the funeral an emblem of the wider dismantling of religious institutions: the same changes that have made the travelers’ road uncertain also prevent Katherine from receiving the burial she requested.

The abbey’s significance extends beyond the ceremony’s formal honors. The public blessings and the mourners walking behind the coffin suggest that Katherine remains, in the eyes of those who loved her, Queen of England despite the king’s decision. Margaret’s memory of the burial closes on that distinction: royal title may be withheld by authority, but affection and remembrance continue to name Katherine as queen.