"I am Catalina, Princess of Spain, daughter of the two greatest monarchs the world has ever known... and I will be Queen of England."

Katherine of Aragon is betrothed at the age of three to Prince Arthur, son and heir of Henry VII of England. She is raised to be Princess of Wales, and knows it is her destiny to rule that far-off, wet, cold land.

Her faith is tested when her prospective father-in-law greets her arrival with a great insult; Arthur seems little better than a boy; the food is strange and the customs coarse. Slowly she adapts to the first Tudor court, and life as Arthur's wife grows ever more bearable. Unexpectedly in this arranged marriage, a tender and passionate love develops.

But when the studious young man dies, she is left to make her own future: how can she now be queen, and found a dynasty?