Catherine of Braganza (Portuguese: Catarina de Bragança; 25 November 1638 – 31 December 1705) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland during her marriage to King Charles II, which lasted from 21 May 1662 until his death on 6 February 1685.

On 28 November 1678, Oates accused Catherine of high treason, and the English House of Commons passed an order for the removal of her and of all Roman Catholics from the Palace of Whitehall.

[3] Catherine was born at the Ducal Palace of Vila Viçosa as the second surviving daughter of John, 8th Duke of Braganza, and his wife, Luisa de Guzmán.

With her father's new position as one of Europe's most important monarchs, Portugal then possessing the widespread colonial Portuguese Empire, Catherine became a prime choice for a wife for European royalty, and she was proposed as a bride for John of Austria, the duc de Beaufort, Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England.

Commonly regarded as the power behind the throne, Queen Luisa was also a devoted mother who took an active interest in her children's upbringing and personally supervised her daughter's education.

It appears to have been a very sheltered upbringing, with one contemporary remarking that Catherine, "was bred hugely retired" and "hath hardly been ten times out of the palace in her life".

In return, Portugal obtained English military and naval support (which would prove to be decisive) in her fight against Spain, as well as liberty of worship for Catherine.

The procession continued over a large bridge, especially designed and built for the occasion, which led into the palace where Henrietta Maria, the Queen Mother, waited along with the English court and nobility.

Catherine possessed several good qualities, but had been brought up in a convent, secluded from the world, and was scarcely a wife Charles would have chosen for himself.

While her mother plotted to secure an alliance with England and thus support Portugal's fight for independence, and her future husband celebrated his restoration by dallying with his mistresses, Catherine's time had been spent in the sombre seclusion of her convent home, with little opportunity for fun or frivolity.

Although her difficulties with the English language persisted, as time went on, the once rigidly formal Portuguese Infanta mellowed and began to enjoy some of the more innocent pleasures of the court.

In 1670, on a trip to Audley End with her ladies-in-waiting, the once chronically shy Catherine attended a country fair disguised as a village maiden, but was soon discovered and, due to the large crowds, forced to make a hasty retreat.

[10] And when in 1664 her favourite painter, Jacob Huysmans, a Flemish Catholic, painted her as St Catherine, it promptly set a trend among court ladies.

In 1669 she involved herself in the last-ditch effort to relieve Candia in Crete, which was under siege by the Ottoman Empire and whose cause Rome was promoting, although she failed to persuade her husband to take any action.

[5] The same year, Charles II ordered the building of a Royal yacht HMY Saudadoes for her, used for pleasure trips on the River Thames and to maintain communications with the Queen's homeland of Portugal, making the journey twice.

[5] In 1675 the stress of a possible revival of the divorce project indirectly led to another illness, which Catherine's physicians claimed and her husband cannot fail to have noted, was "due as much to mental as physical causes".

De Mello was dismissed the following year for ordering the printing of a Catholic book, leaving the beleaguered Catherine even more isolated at court".

Although she was not active in religious politics, in 1675 Catherine was criticised for supposedly supporting the idea of appointing a bishop to England who, it was hoped, would resolve the internal disputes of Catholics.

As the highest-ranking Catholic in the country, Catherine was an obvious target for Protestant extremists, and it was hardly surprising that the Popish Plot of 1678 would directly threaten her position.

However, Catherine was completely secure in her husband's favour ("she could never do anything wicked, and it would be a horrible thing to abandon her" he told Gilbert Burnet), and the House of Lords, most of whom knew her and liked her, refused by an overwhelming majority to impeach her.

[5] Relations between the royal couple became notably warmer: Catherine wrote of Charles's "wonderful kindness" to her and it was noted that his visits to her quarters became longer and more frequent.

Catherine remained in England, living at Somerset House,[14] through the reign of James and his deposition in the Glorious Revolution by William III and Mary II.

Catherine's fondness for money is one of the more unexpected features of her character: her brother-in-law James, who was himself notably avaricious, remarked that she always drove a hard bargain.

Catherine was a mentor for her nephew, Dom João Prince of Brazil, from 1706 onward, the Portuguese Sun King (o Rei-Sol Português).

Audrey Flack was hired by the society to serve as the sculptor of the proposed statue, and the project received support from several notable public figures in New York City, including Claire Shulman and Donald Trump.

[22] Novelists, notably Margaret Campbell Barnes in With All My Heart, Jean Plaidy in her Charles II trilogy and Susanna Gregory in her Thomas Chaloner mystery novels, usually portray the Queen in a sympathetic light.