[1] W. Wright, _Short Hist. of Syr. Lit._ p. 51.
[2] The fullest list, by G. Bickell, contains 191 which are extant in
MSS.
[3] The trustworthy _Chronicle of Edessa_ gives his date as 451-452
(Hallier, No. lxvii.); and the recently published _Chronicle_ of
Michael the Syrian makes him contemporary with Nonus, who became the
31st bishop of Edessa in 449.
[4] The date of Isaac of Nineveh is now known from the _Liber
fundatorum_ of Isho'-denah, an 8th-century writer; see Bedjan's
edition, and Chabot, _Livre de la chastete_, p. 63. Assemani (_B.O._
i. 445) had placed him late in the 6th century, and Chabot (_De S.
Isaaci Ninivitae vita_, &c.) in the second half of the 5th.
[5] Lamy (_op. cit._ iv. 364-366) has pointed out that several of the
poems are in certain MSS. attributed to Ephraim. Possibly the author
of the orthodox poems was not named Isaac at all.
[6] Assemani's list of 104 poems (_B.O._ i. 214-234) is completely
covered by Bickell's.
[7] From a really noble poem (Bedjan 60) on the problem whether _God_
suffered and died on the cross.
[8] Possibly in the war at the beginning of the reign of Bahram V.:
but on the uncertainty see Noldeke, _Gesch. d. Perser und Araber_,
117.
[9] Probably at the hands of the Hephthalites or White Huns of
Kushan: cf. Isaac's mention of the Huns in 1. 420 of the 1st poem.
[10] The author refers to the weeping for Tammuz (1. 125 of the 1st
poem), and speaks of his city as illustrious throughout the world
(ib. 1. 132).
ISABELLA (1451-1504), surnamed _la Catolica_, "the Catholic," queen of
Castile, was the second child and only daughter of John II. of Castile
by his second wife Isabella, granddaughter of John I. of Portugal (thus
being through both parents a descendant of John of Gaunt), and was born
at Madrigal on the 22nd of April 1451. On the death of her father, who
was succeeded by her brother Henry IV. (1454), she was withdrawn by her
mother to Arevalo, where her early education was conducted in the
deepest seclusion; in 1462, however, along with her uterine brother
Alphonso, she was removed by Henry to the court, where she showed a
remarkable example of staidness and sobriety. Already more than one
suitor had made application for her hand, Ferdinand of Aragon, who
ultimately became her husband, being among the number; for some little
time she was engaged to his elder brother Charles, who died in 1461. In
her thirteenth year her brother promised her in marriage to Alphonso of
Portugal, but she firmly refused to consent; her resistance seemed less
likely to be effectual in the case of Pedro Giron, grand master of the
order of Calatrava and brother of the marquis of Villena, to whom she
was next affianced, when she was delivered from her fears by the sudden
death of the bridegroom while on his way to the nuptials in 1466. After
an offer of the crown of Castile, made by the revolutionary leaders in
the civil war, had been declined by her, she was in 1468 formally
recognized by her brother as lawful heir, after himself, to the united
crowns of Castile and Leon. New candidates for her hand now appeared in
the persons of a brother of Edward IV. of England (probably Richard,
duke of Gloucester), and the duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI., and
heir presumptive of the French monarchy. Finally however, in face of
very great difficulties, she was married to Ferdinand of Aragon at
Valladolid on the 19th of October 1469. Thence forward the fortunes of
Ferdinand and Isabella were inseparably blended. For some time they held
a humble court at Duenas, and afterwards they resided at Segovia, where,
on the death of Henry, she was proclaimed queen of Castile and Leon
(December 13, 1474). Spain undoubtedly owed to Isabella's clear
intellect, resolute energy and unselfish patriotism much of that
greatness which for the first time it acquired under "the Catholic
sovereigns." The moral influence of the queen's personal character over
the Castilian court was incalculably great; from the debasement and
degradation of the preceding reign she raised it to being "the nursery
of virtue and of generous ambition." She did much for letters in Spain
by founding the palace school and by her protection of Peter Martyr
d'Anghiera. The very sincerity of her piety and strength of her
religious convictions led her more than once, however, into great errors
of state policy, and into more than one act which offends the moral
sense of a more refined age: her efforts for the introduction of the
Inquisition into Castile, and for the proscription of the Jews, are
outstanding evidences of what can only be called her bigotry. But not
even the briefest sketch of her life can omit to notice that happy
instinct or intuition which led her, when all others had heard with
incredulity the scheme of Columbus, to recall the wanderer to her
presence with the words, "I will assume the undertaking for my own crown
of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it,
if the funds in the treasury should be found inadequate." She died at
Medina del Campo on the 24th of November 1504, and was succeeded by her
daughter Joanna "la loca" (the "Crazy") and her husband, Philip of
Habsburg.
See W. H. Prescott, _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella_
(1837), where the original authorities are exhaustively enumerated;
and for later researches, Baron de Nervo, _Isabella the Catholic_,
translated by Lieut.-Col. Temple-West (1897).
ISABELLA II. (1830-1904), queen of Spain, was born in Madrid on the 10th
of October 1830. She was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand VII., king of
Spain, and of his fourth wife, Maria Christina, a Neapolitan Bourbon,
who became queen-regent on 29th September 1833, when her daughter, at
the age of three years, was proclaimed on the death of the king. Queen
Isabella succeeded to the throne because Ferdinand VII. induced the
Cortes to assist him in setting aside the Salic law, which the Bourbons
had introduced since the beginning of the 18th century, and to
re-establish the older succession law of Spain. The brother of
Ferdinand, Don Carlos, the first pretender, fought seven years, during
the minority of Isabella, to dispute her title, and her rights were only
maintained through the gallant support of the army, the Cortes and the
Liberals and Progressists, who at the same time established
constitutional and parliamentary government, dissolved the religious
orders, confiscated the property of the orders and of the Jesuits,
disestablished the Church property, and attempted to restore order in
finances. After the Carlist war the queen-regent, Christina, resigned to
make way for Espartero, the most successful and most popular general of
the Isabelline armies, who only remained regent two years. He was turned
out in 1843 by a military and political _pronunciamiento_, led by
Generals O'Donnell and Narvaez, who formed a cabinet, presided over by
Joaquin Maria Lopez, and this government induced the Cortes to declare
Isabella of age at thirteen. Three years later the Moderado party or
Castilian Conservatives made their queen marry, at sixteen, her cousin,
Prince Francisco de Assisi de Bourbon (1822-1902), on the same day (10th
October 1846) on which her younger sister married the duke of
Montpensier. These marriages suited the views of France and Louis
Philippe, who nearly quarrelled in consequence with Great Britain; but
both matches were anything but happy. Queen Isabella reigned from 1843
to 1868, and that period was one long succession of palace intrigues,
back-stairs and ante-chamber influences, barrack conspiracies, military
_pronunciamientos_ to further the ends of the political
parties--Moderados, who ruled from 1846 to 1854, Progressists from 1854
to 1856, Union Liberal from 1856 to 1863; Moderados and Union Liberal
quickly succeeding each other and keeping out the Progressists so
steadily that the seeds were sown which budded into the revolution of
1868. Queen Isabella II. often interfered in politics in a wayward,
unscrupulous manner that made her very unpopular. She showed most favour
to her reactionary generals and statesmen, to the Church and religious
orders, and was constantly the tool of corrupt and profligate courtiers
and favourites who gave her court a deservedly bad name. She went into
exile at the end of September 1868, after her Moderado generals had made
a slight show of resistance that was crushed at the battle of Alcolea by
Marshals Serrano and Prim. The only redeeming traits of Queen Isabella's
reign were a war against Morocco, which ended in an advantageous treaty
and some cession of territory; some progress in public works, especially
railways; a slight improvement in commerce and finance. Isabella was
induced to abdicate in Paris on 25th June 1870 in favour of her son,
Alphonso XII., and the cause of the restoration was thus much furthered.
She had separated from her husband in the previous March. She continued
to live in France after the restoration in 1874. On the occasion of one
of her visits to Madrid during Alphonso XII.'s reign she began to
intrigue with the politicians of the capital, and was peremptorily
requested to go abroad again. She died on the 10th of April 1904.
ISABELLA, ISABEAU, or ELIZABETH OF BAVARIA (1370-1435), wife of Charles
VI. of France, was the daughter of Stephen II., duke of Bavaria. She was
born in 1370, was married to Charles VI. on the 17th of July 1385, and
crowned at Paris on the 22nd of August 1389. After some years of happy
married life she fell under the influence of the dissolute court in
which she lived, and the king having become insane (August 1392) she
consorted chiefly with Louis of Orleans. Frivolous, selfish, avaricious
and fond of luxury, she used her influence, during the different periods
when she was invested with the regency, not for the public welfare, but
mainly in her own personal interest. After the assassination of the duke
of Orleans (November 23, 1407) she attached herself sometimes to the
Armagnacs, sometimes to the Burgundians, and led a scandalous life.
Louis de Bosredon, the captain of her guards, was executed for
complicity in her excesses; and Isabella herself was imprisoned at Blois
and afterwards at Tours (1417). Having been set free towards the end of
that year by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, whom she had called to
her assistance, she went to Troyes and established her government there,
returning afterwards to Paris when that city had capitulated to the
Burgundians in July 1418. Once more in power, she now took up arms
against her son, the dauphin Charles; and after the murder of John the
Fearless she went over to the side of the English, into whose hands she
surrendered France by the treaty of Troyes (May 21, 1420), at the same
time giving her daughter Catherine in marriage to the king of England,
Henry V. After her triumphal entry into Paris with the latter she soon
became an object of loathing to the whole French nation. She survived
her husband, her son-in-law, and eight out of her twelve children, and
she passed the last miserable years of her life in poverty, solitude and
ill-health. She died at the end of September 1435, and was interred
without funeral honours in the abbey of St Denis, by the side of her
husband, Charles VI.
See Vallet de Viriville, _Isabeau de Baviere_ (1859); Marcel Thibault,
_Isabeau de Baviere, Reine de France, La Jeunesse, 1370-1405_ (1903).
(J. V.*)
ISABELLA OF HAINAUT (1170-1190), queen of France, was the daughter of
Baldwin V., count of Hainaut, and Margaret, sister of Philip of Alsace,
and was born in 1170 at Lille. She was married to Philip Augustus, and
brought to him as her dowry the province of Artois. She was crowned at
St Denis on the 29th of May 1180. As Baldwin V. claimed to be a
descendant of Charlemagne, the chroniclers of the time saw in this
marriage a union of the Carolingian and Capetian dynasties. Though she
received extravagant praise from certain annalists, she failed to win
the affections of Philip, who, in 1184, waging war against Flanders, was
angered at seeing Baldwin support his enemies, and called a council at
Sens for the purpose of repudiating her. Robert, the king's uncle,
successfully interposed. She died in childbirth in 1190, and was buried
in the church of Notre Dame in Paris. Her son became Louis VIII. of
France.
See Cartellieri, "L'Avenement de Phil. Aug." in _Rev. hist._ liii. 262
et seq.
ISABEY, JEAN BAPTISTE (1767-1855), French painter, was born at Nancy on
the 11th of April 1767. At nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont,
miniature painter to Marie Antoinette, he became a pupil of David.
Employed at Versailles on portraits of the dukes of Angouleme and Berry,
he was given a commission by the queen, which opens the long list of
those which he received, up to the date of his death in 1855, from the
successive rulers of France. Patronized by Josephine and Napoleon, he
arranged the ceremonies of their coronation and prepared drawings for
the publication intended as its official commemoration, a work for which
he was paid by Louis XVIII., whose portrait (engraved, Debucourt) he
executed in 1814. Although Isabey did homage to Napoleon on his return
from Elba, he continued to enjoy the favour of the Restoration, and took
part in arrangements for the coronation of Charles X. The monarchy of
July conferred on him an important post in connexion with the royal
collections, and Napoleon III. granted him a pension, and the cross of
commander of the Legion of Honour. "Review of Troops by the First
Consul" was one of his most important compositions, and "Isabey's
Boat,"--a charming drawing of himself and family--produced at a time
when he was much occupied with lithography--had an immense success at
the Salon of 1820 (engraved, Landon, _Annales_, i. 125). His portrait of
"Napoleon at Malmaison" is held to be the best ever executed, and even
his tiny head of the king of Rome, painted for a breast-pin, is
distinguished by a decision and breadth which evidence the hand of a
master.
A biography of Isabey was published by M. E. Taigny in 1859, and M. C.
Lenormant's article, written for Michaud's _Biog. univ._, is founded
on facts furnished by Isabey's family.