CATHERINE of Braganza (1638-1705), queen of Charles II. of England, was born at Villa Vi?osa in Portugal, 25th November 1638. Her father, John, duke of Braganza, who was rightful heir to the crown of Portugal, then under Spanish sway, headed the revolt of 1640, which after many years fighting succeeded, and became king of Portugal. Her mother was a woman of great ability, and governed Portugal after the death of her husband. She was penetrating enough to foresee the Restoration in England, and, some years before, proposed the marriage of Charles with her daughter Catherine, in order to secure an ally in the prolonged struggle against Spain. After the Restoration the marriage was agreed upon, not without much diplomatic manoeuvring, especially on the side of Spain, which was naturally averse to it. The marriage treaty was very advantageous to England, as the Portuguese promised a dowry in money of 500,000, the towns of Tangier and Bombay (the first English possession in the East), and many privileges of trade with their colonial dependencies. On his marriage at Plymouth, 13th May 1663, Charles expressed himself highly pleased with his Portuguese bride. But the union did not prove a happy one. Catherine had been brought up in a convent, and therefore had not the tact and the manners suited to one of the most fashionable and profligate courts of Europe. But the principal fault lay in the heartless and inconstant nature of Charles. He insisted on bringing to court his abandoned mistress, Lady Castlemaine, and, when the queen expressed her indignation at the insult, made Clarendon himself lecture her on the duty of submission. Gradually Charles s neglect of her grew into a feeling of settled aliena tion, and after repeated humiliations her spirit was broken. Being a Roman Catholic, too, she was an object of suspicion and calumny during the Popery panics. Perhaps the only satisfaction she enjoyed from her connection with England was the decisive aid rendered by the country to her native land in its struggle against Spain. After a life of great retirement during the reigu of James II. and the early part of that of William, she returned to Portugal in 1692. Some little time before her death (at the close of 1705), she acted with great ability in the capacity of regent to her brother, Don Pedro. She had no children.
CATHERINE of Valois (1401-1437), consort of Henry V. of England, was born at Paris in 1401. She was most unfortunate in her early years ; for her father, Charles VI., king of France, was subject to prolonged fits of insanity, and her mother, one of the most abandoned women of her time, neglected her children to such an extent that they were often without suitable food and clothes. At last, in one of his lucid intervals, Charles had her children separated from their mother, and Catherine, the youngest of them, was sent to a convent to be educated. On his accession to the English throne in 1413, Henry V. asked Catherine in marriage ; but as the proposal was coupled with the demand of a large dowry in money, and especially the restitution to England of the provinces once held in France, it was unceremoniously rejected. In the invasion of France which ensued, Henry proved himself so able to assert his claims, and the country had been thrown into such a state of distress and disorder, that the court of Charles, then under the control of Philip of Burgundy, was fain to comply with all the demands of the English king. Accordingly Henry, who had already seen and loved Catherine, received her in marriage at Troyes in 1420, and, along with her, the immediate possession of the provinces claimed, the regency of France during the life of his father-in-law, and the reversion of the sovereignty of France. Early next year Catherine was solemnly crowned at London. In December 1421, Henry VI. was born at Windsor. Catherine was again in France, when her royal husband died (1422). She returned to London with the funeral cortege ; but, after taking some part in the arrangements connected with the regency during her son s minority, she almost dis appears from the history of the country. The only remarkable circumstance of her subsequent life is her secret marriage. Her second husband, Owen Tudor, was sprung from a princely house of Wales, had followed Henry to his French wars, and had been made a squire of his body for bravery displayed at Agincourt. Subsequently, he became an officer in the queen s household, and in this capacity gained her affections. He seems to have been a man of high character ; but as his position in England was of the lowest, the marriage was for many years kept a profound secret. The vexations the queen had to endure in consequence of its ultimate disclosure probably hastened her death, which took place in 1437. As is well known, her eldest son to Owen Tudor was created earl of Richmond, and, marrying Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of the house of Somerset and representative of the junior branch of John of Gaunt, became the father of Henry VII., and the ancestor of the Tudor line of kings.
CATHOLIC (Gr. Ka6ou<6<;, general, universal), a desig nation adopted at a very early period by the Christian church to indicate its world-wide universality in contrast with the national particularism of Judaism. It has also been used by ecclesiastical writers, from Ignatius down wards, to denote the church as the depository of uni versally-received doctrine (quod semper, quod ubiqiie, ft quod ab omnibus) in contrast with heretical sects. In the latter or exclusive sense it is still claimed on the ground of historic continuity by the Roman Catholic Church ; but the claim, in so far as it is exclusive, is, of course, not recognized by other Christian denominations. See Roman Catholic Church.
munity often called " Irvingites," but not itself acknow ledging any other name than that of " the Catholic Apostolic Church," which, the members say, belongs to them in common with the whole of baptized Christendom. The relation of the celebrated preacher Edward Irving to this community was, as they state it, somewhat similar to that of John Baptist to the early Christian church, i.e., he was the forerunner and prophet of the coming dispensation, not the founder of a new sect; and indeed the only connection which Irving seems to have had with the existing organization of the Catholic Apostolic body was in " fostering spiritual persons who had been driven out of other congregations for the exercise of their spiritual gifts." Shortly after Irving s trial and deposition, certain persons were at some meetings held for prayer designated as " called to be apostles of the Lord" by certain others claiming prophetic gifts. In the year 1835, six months after Irving s death, six others were similarly designated as " called to complete the number of the " twelve," who were then formally " separated" by the pastors of the local congregations to which they belonged to their higher office in the universal church on the 14th July 1835. This separation is understood by the com munity not as " in any sense being a schism or separation from the one Catholic Church, but a separation to a special work of blessing and intercession on behalf of it." The twelve were afterwards guided to ordain others, twelve prophets, twelve evangelists, and twelve pastors, " sharing equally with them the one Catholic Episcopate," and also seven deacons for administering the temporal affairs of the Church Catholic. The central episcopacy of eight-and- forty was regarded as "indicated by prophecy," being fore shown in the forty -eight boards of the Mosaic Tabernacle. For ecclesiastical purposes the church universal is under
their charge in twelve tribes; for Christendom is considered