Henry accomplished more by the marriages of his children and by
diplomacy than other monarchs had by their wars. He gave his daughter
Margaret to King James IV of Scotland, and thus prepared the way for
the union of the two kingdoms in 1603. He married his eldest son,
Prince Arthur, to Catharine of Aragon, daughter of the King of Spain,
by which he secured a very large marriage portion for the Prince, and,
what was of equal importance, the alliance of Spain against France.
Arthur died soon afterward, and the King got a dispensation from the
Pope, granting him permission to marry his younger son Henry to
Arthur's widow. It was this Prince who eventually became King of
England, with the title of Henry VIII, and we shall hereafter see that
this marriage was destined by its results to change the whole course
of the country's history.