# Lady Katharine — Chivalry character guide

> Lady Katharine in Chivalry by James Branch Cabell.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Dame Katharine

**First appearance:** 0004-i-the-story-of-the-sestina

## Snapshot

A princess who trades book-learning for the face of a passing knight, then weeps in her chamber and walks the orchard at dawn, knowing princesses must marry detestable kings.

## Who they are

Lady Katharine meets Alain, a harper bound for Milan to take Duke Filippo's service, when his hunt for a chicken-stealing fox leads him to her wall; they talk two hours as if seated on the loftiest turret of Paradise, and he tells her destiny brought him. She goes to her apartments singing an inane spring song and bursts into tears, reflecting that hosts of women-children are born every day who are not princesses and therefore need not marry detestable kings. At dawn she is in the orchard under a cloudy sky, watching coppery light flare against the gray like embers swaddled by ashes.

## In the story

### [X: The Story of the Fox-Brush](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/chivalry_se/chapters/x-the-story-of-the-fox-brush)

Princess of Valois, left at the Convent of Saint Scholastica, falls in love with a huntsman who is later revealed to be King Henry V.

### [The Epilogue](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/chivalry_se/chapters/the-epilogue)

Remarried to a private gentleman of Wales, she confirmed the matter of the ninth and tenth stories.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/chivalry_se/characters/katharine
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/chivalry_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/chivalry_se/characters