ISABEL AND HER CHILDREN
If it is true that the trappings of the monk often conceal the wearer’s
individuality, it might be added that so also do royal robes. The
contemporary historian is apt to portray his King or Queen garbed in a
cloak of politics, morality, or pageantry, according to his special
enthusiasm; and, unless to his task he brings also the biographer’s
instinct for personality, his likeness though regal and exemplary will
leave the spectator cold. He has forgotten that the abiding measure of
our interest in others is the very humanity he has neglected or tried to
excel.
In the case of “Isabel of Castile” the conventional atmosphere of a
Court is intensified by her own determination to play a royal part. She
rarely forgot that she was Queen. On one occasion the Admiral of
Castile, Ferdinand’s uncle, had ventured to address the King as nephew;
whereupon she, overhearing, reproved him sharply.
“My Lord, the King has no kindred or friends but servants or subjects!”
A petty snub! Unless in judging it we recall the Court of Henry IV.,
where Isabel had seen her brother mocked and bullied by insolent nobles,
amongst them a former Admiral of Castile.
Her lifework in building up the reputation of the monarchy must be
carried out in detail as well as on the broad lines of governmental
reform, and the dignity and magnificence of royalty formed part of the
scheme, that aimed at the exaltation of the Crown, not only in the eyes
of Europe but still more of Spain itself. The Castilian grandee might be
losing his official status, the Admiral be no longer essential to the
Fleet, the Constable to the Army, the Duke or Marquis to the Royal
Council; but in the throne-room and ante-chambers of the palace
etiquette more and more demanded their presence. Silken chains were
binding the unruly in a peaceful servitude.
Pulgar, the historian, commenting on Isabel’s insistence on the outward
forms of state, declared that “it pleased her to be served by grandees
and nobles,” while in another place he mentions her retinue of the
daughters of great families “such that we do not read in the Chronicles
that any Queen had before her.”
A household maintained on this scale and with corresponding luxury was a
costly item in royal expenses and, considering the chronic deficiencies
of the Treasury, was perhaps excessive. Yet Ferdinand and Isabel were
both by nature simple and abstemious in their tastes, and wont in other
matters, as we have seen in the case of Columbus, to err rather on the
side of economy than extravagance.
“A King must outshine his subjects,” says Pulgar with a conviction born
of his intimate knowledge of Spanish character. The easy familiarity of
the Emperor Maximilian, “Max the Penniless,” and his son might be
appreciated in Germany and Flanders; the private thrift of a Louis XI.,
or lack of ostentation of a Lorenzo de Medici respected in France or
Florence; but the Castilian nature demanded magnificence and aloofness
in its rulers. Even a Ximenes de Cisneros had been unable to shake off
the outward glory of his office when he accepted the Archbishopric of
Toledo; and Ferdinand and Isabel, children of their race, were fully
alive to the appeal of surroundings suitable to their rank.
Of the impression made by their magnificence on foreigners we can gather
from the diary of a certain Roger Machado who, in the capacity of
king-at-arms, accompanied an English embassy to the Spanish Court at
Medina del Campo in 1488. “People speak,” he says, “of the honour done
to Ambassadors in England; but it is not to be compared to the honour
which is done to Ambassadors in the kingdom of Castile.”
The torchlight procession that accompanied them from their lodgings to
their evening reception at the palace; the majesty and condescension of
the sovereigns; the speeches, dances, bull-fights, tourneys; each in
turn arouses his admiration; but it is in his account of the costumes
and jewellery that his diary really reaches its apogee of enthusiasm.
The King is “dressed in a rich robe of cloth-of-gold, woven entirely of
gold, and furred with a rich trimming of fine sable.” The Queen has “a
rich robe of the same woven cloth-of-gold ... and over the said robe a
riding-hood of black velvet, all slashed in large holes so as to show
under the said velvet the cloth-of-gold in which she is dressed.” She
wears “crosswise over her left side ... a short cloak of fine crimson
satin furred with ermine, very handsome in appearance and very
brilliant.”
[Illustration:
ISABEL OF CASTILE
CARVED WOODEN STATUE FROM THE CATHEDRAL AT GRANADA
FROM “A QUEEN OF QUEENS” BY CHRISTOPHER HARE, PUBLISHED BY MESSRS.
HARPER
]
Roger Machado, had he lived to-day, would surely have made his fortune
as journalist of some fashion-weekly; but even his facile pen finds it
difficult to express adequately the splendour of the Queen’s
jewellery,—her necklace of gold and jewelled roses,—the ribbon at her
breast adorned with diamonds, rubies, and pearls,—the pouch of her white
leather girdle set “with a large balass ruby the size of a tennis-ball
between five rich diamonds and other stones the size of a bean.”
“Truly, as I believe,” he comments, “and also as I heard it said at the
time, I estimate the dress she then wore at the value of 200,000 crowns
of gold”; while on another occasion he declares her dress so rich that
“there is no man who can well imagine what could be the value of it.”
At a somewhat similar reception of a French embassy, tales of the
Queen’s magnificence evidently spread through Spain; and Fra Fernando de
Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, though no longer her official
Father-Confessor, felt bound to write and remonstrate. Isabel was,
however, able to offer a good defence, declaring that neither the
dresses of herself nor her ladies had been new,—indeed her own “made of
silk and with three bands of gold as plainly as possible,” she had worn
before in Aragon in the presence of these same Frenchmen. If some of the
men’s garments were costly, it had not been by her orders, rather she
had done her uttermost to discountenance it.
She might have mentioned also how, in the critical stages of the Moorish
war, she had pledged the crown jewels to merchants of Barcelona, thus
showing that for all her appreciation of the luxuries of dress, they did
not rank for a second in her thoughts with more important
considerations.
Her magnificence like her severity was calculated and the same might be
said of her liberality. She had seen money wasted on ne’er-do-wells and
was fully determined that no man, merely because he was powerful or
plausible, should prey on her revenues; while for the regular type of
Court-flatterer hunting for sinecures her contempt amounted to aversion.
Galindez Carvajal tells us in his chronicle that she and Ferdinand kept
a book in which they wrote down the names of those at Court whom they
thought most capable and worthy of reward, consulting it whenever an
office fell vacant, and that they did not hesitate to prefer prudent men
of the middle-class to the highly-born incompetent. Their actual gifts,
though scarcely lavish, were sufficient to cause satisfaction, and Lucio
Marineo declares that “when between the King and Queen there was
discussion as to the fitting reward of any particular service, she on
her part always gave more than the sum on which the two had determined.”
Ferdinand was not unlike his contemporary, Henry VII. of England,
according to Ayala, the Spanish Ambassador’s description of that
monarch: “If gold once enters his strong boxes it never comes out again.
He pays in depreciated coin.”
Against this criticism may be set Machiavelli’s praise: “If the present
King of Spain had desired to be thought liberal, he would not have been
able to contrive, nor would he have succeeded in so many undertakings.”
It is pleasant to turn from calculated policy to uncalculated
enthusiasm; and this may be truly said of Isabel’s love of her faith.
Both she and the King were strict in the outward observances of
catholicism, and every morning would find Ferdinand at Mass before he
broke his fast, while we are told that on Maundy Thursday his servants
would seek out twelve of the poorest of his subjects and that he would
serve them at supper and wash their feet. Isabel herself would recite
the hours every day like a priest; and, for all the whirl of ceremonies
and duties in which she found herself involved, she would make time for
special devotions so that it seemed to those about her that her life was
“contemplative rather than active.”
Her marked individuality, and the respect she inspired in Ferdinand, had
completely changed the character of the Court from the old licentious
days of Henry IV.; priests of the type of Ximenes and Fra Fernando de
Talavera thronged her ante-chambers; and courtiers, when they saw her
coming, would walk with eyes cast down in the hope of establishing a
reputation for sanctity.
Their hypocrisy can have brought them little. The Queen might be a saint
in her private life; but those who think saints necessarily fools stand
convicted of folly themselves. She was too shrewd a judge of character
to desire to change her Court into a convent, and her letters to Fra
Fernando de Talavera, while breathing affection and admiration yet
venture occasionally to question the suitability to herself and her
surroundings of his standard of asceticism.
It is my wish that not only in matters of importance but in all that
concern these kingdoms you should give me your advice; ... and this I
do most earnestly beg, that you will not cease from writing your
opinion on the ground that these things do not concern you since you
are no longer here; for well I know that although absent your counsel
will be worth more to me than that of another present.
She then goes on to thank him for the reproofs he had administered on
the score of the too-great gaiety at Court and to assure him that in
explaining certain matters she is not seeking to free herself from
blame.
As for the French people supping with the ladies at table, that is a
thing they are accustomed to do. They do not get the custom from us;
but, when their great guests dine with sovereigns, the others in their
train dine at tables in the hall with the ladies and gentlemen; and
there are no separate tables for ladies. The Burgundians, the English,
and the Portuguese also follow this custom; and we on similar
occasions to this.... I say this that you may see there was no
innovation in what we did, nor did we think we were doing anything
wrong in it.... But if it be found wrong after the inquiry I will
make, it will be better to discontinue it in future.... As for the
bull-fights, I feel with you, though perhaps not quite so strongly.
But after I had consented to them, I had the fullest determination
never to attend them again in my life nor to be where they were held.
One of Queen Isabel’s biographers on the contrary tells us that the
Queen admired this national pastime for the skill and courage it
demanded, a statement it is difficult to reconcile with the avowed
distaste in her own letter. Perhaps her enthusiasm was evoked after the
adoption of her device to place false horns, turned points inwards, on
the horns of the bull, that the frequent loss of human life might be
prevented. It was hardly a suggestion to win her popularity with her
subjects, whose enjoyment of a spectacle was always proportionate to its
risks. Isabel herself did not lack the true sporting instinct, for the
chroniclers record a bear-hunt in the woods near Madrid, where one of
the most ferocious of the beasts fell a trophy to her javelin.
Courage, the natural heritage of her race, her will and pride exalted
almost to a fetish; and Pulgar tells us that “even in the hour of
childbirth she disguised her sufferings and forced herself neither to
show nor utter the pain that in that hour women are wont to feel and
manifest.”
Her reserve was deep, in all that concerned her innermost thoughts
almost like a curtain veiling some sanctuary, that she felt would be
profaned by other eyes, but now and then torn back for the moment by the
stress of some sudden emotion. Her agony of mind was obvious after the
attempted murder of Ferdinand in Barcelona in August, 1492. The
assassin, a madman who believed the King’s death would result in his own
accession to the throne, had hurled himself on his victim from behind,
as he was descending the palace stairway, inflicting a deep wound in his
neck. This, though not fatal, was aggravated by fever, and for many days
the King’s life hung in the balance.
And on the seventh day [wrote the Queen to Fra Fernando] the fever
reached its climax, so that we were then in fear greater than all that
through which we had previously passed; and this lasted a day and a
night of which I will not say that which Saint Gregory said in the
Office for Holy Saturday, more than that it was a night of hell; so
that you may believe, Father, never was the like seen amongst the
people at any time, for officials ceased their work, and none paused
to speak with another. All was pilgrimages, processions, and
almsgiving, and more hearing of confessions than ever in Holy Week.
Ferdinand was popular in Barcelona, and the Council of Justice there
condemned his assassin to a death of ghastly torment, of which tearing
the flesh with red-hot pincers formed but a part. One is thankful that
Isabel issued a special command ordering the man to be beheaded before
this barbarous sentence was enacted.
Her love for Ferdinand was the strongest of her personal affections,
growing rather than diminishing as the years passed, so that, dying, she
sought that she should not be parted from him for long.
Let my body be interred in the monastery of San Francisco, which is in
the Alhambra of the city of Granada, ... but I desire and command
that, if the King, My Lord, should choose a sepulchre in any church or
monastery in any other part or place of these my kingdoms, my body be
translated thither and buried beside the body of His Highness.
Her wish is fulfilled, and the Catholic sovereigns lie side by side in
the Royal Chapel of Granada; but the love she gave in such ungrudging
measure was never fully returned. Isabel was fair in her youth, not
beautiful perhaps, but graceful and dignified, with soft
chestnut-coloured hair, and blue-green eyes that looked out candidly
upon the world; and to Ferdinand, arriving in disguise at Valladolid,
his blood set on fire by romance and excitement, she had seemed a bride
very worthy of his chivalrous care. Later he learned to respect and
admire her both as his wife and Queen, to love her even after his
fashion; but he was temperamentally cold and self-centred, and the age
set no high standard of fidelity. The chronicles record that he had four
illegitimate children by different mothers, of whom one, Alfonso, became
Archbishop of Saragossa; and Isabel was destined to suffer bitterly from
a jealousy intensified by her pride and strength of will.
[Illustration:
TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL
FROM NERVO’S “ISABELLE LA CATHOLIQUE”
]
Her private life was not, however, unhappy, at least in those years when
her own children were growing up around her, and she could find time
amid the many cares of state to superintend their education and build
dream kingdoms round their future. Her ambitions and Ferdinand’s were
alike centred on their only son, Prince John, whose birth in Seville on
June 30, 1478, we have mentioned in an earlier chapter.
“My angel” Isabel would playfully call the boy, alluding to his fair
skin and halo of curls; and she spared no pains in moulding his
character that he might one day satisfy her ideal of kingship. The
retinue that attended the little Prince of Asturias was in miniature a
counterpart of the elaborate household of officials and servants that
surrounded his father and mother; and, while from this environment he
imbibed a sense of the grandeur and aloofness of his position, he also
learned early the lesson of regal responsibility.
As president of a miniature Council of State, he listened to frequent
discussions of the economic and political problems of the day by men
chosen for their ability and experience; but it must not be imagined
that such strong diet was alone provided for his mental digestion. Youth
cries out for the companionship of youth; and Isabel, recognizing the
wisdom of this decree of nature, established a class of ten boys, five
older and five of his own age, against whose wits the heir to the throne
might sharpen his intellect in healthy competition.
His love of music, inheritance from his grandfather, John II. of
Castile, was encouraged and developed; and often in the evenings the
choir boys of the Royal Chapel would assemble in his room, and he and
they sing together; or on other occasions he would summon his musicians
and play on the organ, or on one of the stringed instruments of the day.
Musical proficiency was a sure road to his interest and regard.
In his position as heir to the Spanish dominions, it was natural that
Prince John’s life should stand more in the limelight of publicity than
his sisters’: but their education was in fact scarcely less considered
and planned than his. The Queen had always possessed an intense
admiration for classical learning; and it was one of Ferdinand’s regrets
that civil war had called him from the schoolroom to the camp, when he
could do little more than read and write. He never understood Latin, the
common language of cultured Europe; but Isabel made time to study its
grammar and composition with Beatriz de Galindo, a famous teacher of her
own sex, on whom the Court had bestowed the appropriate nickname “La
Latina.”
This course of education the Queen pursued with her usual thoroughness
and determination; and, if she did not achieve the true scholar’s
facility in translation and speech, she was at any rate able to
understand the orations of foreign ambassadors, and to interpret to her
husband the letters of the young Italian diplomat, Peter Martyr, who
took so lively an interest in her student’s career.
I am very anxious to know how your Highness is progressing with the
Latin [he wrote on one occasion]. I say this, Señora, because a
certain style of Latin is too difficult to be mastered by those who
are much occupied with other matters. Nevertheless my belief in your
powers of intelligence is so great that, if you really make up your
mind to do it, I am convinced you will succeed as you have done with
other languages.
The courtier here permits himself to eulogize; but the compliment if
insincere was yet grounded in sincerity. Peter Martyr found in his royal
mistress a correspondent ready to grant his letters their due meed of
appreciation, a patroness moreover eager to plant the fruits of the
classical renaissance in the somewhat arid soil of Castile.
Two other Italians of note at that time in the world of scholarship,
Antonio and Alessandro Geraldino, were appointed as tutors to the young
princesses; and from their instructions Isabel’s daughters emerged
fitting contemporaries of the famous D’Este sisters of Ferrara. It is
said that Joanna, the second of the Castilian Infantas, astonished the
Flemish Court by immediately replying to the Latin oration of some
learned scholar in the same tongue; while the youngest, Catherine, won
from the great Erasmus the comment, whether intended as praise or
otherwise, that she was “egregiously learned.”
Castilian chroniclers, when recording with pride the intelligence and
learning of Isabel and her daughters, make a point of showing that such
ability did not entirely quench more feminine tastes. The Queen’s visits
to the unruly convents of her kingdom in company with her needle and her
spinning-wheel have been already mentioned; while many were the gifts of
elaborate vestments and altar-cloths that she and her ladies worked for
the new Cathedral of Granada, and the other churches and religious
houses founded during her reign. That her share in such employment was
no mere occasional easy stitch we may perhaps assume when we learn from
Father Florez that “her husband never wore a shirt she herself had not
woven and worked.” Ferdinand’s chivalry was hardly of the type that
would suffer rough or badly-fitting clothes for sentimental reasons.
[Illustration:
AVILA, TOMB OF PRINCE JOHN, SON OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID
]
“With such a mother,” adds Florez, “the daughters could hardly be idle.
They learned to sew, to spin, and to embroider.”
Well-brought-up mediæval princesses, indeed, could have little in common
with the daughters of kings in fairy-tale romances, condemned to
luxurious sloth in high-walled gardens or battlemented towers. From
their earliest days they must prepare to play their part in the future
destiny of the nation, to tread the matrimonial measure not according to
their fancy but at the parental wish; and then, their marriage achieved,
to unite with the rôle of wife and mother the arduous task of political
agent, maintaining friendly relations, often at the price of
nerve-racking strain, between their old home and their new.
To Ferdinand his children were veritable “olive-branches,” emblems and
instruments of the web of peace that his diplomacy was slowly spreading
over Europe till France his old enemy should stand defenceless before
his network of alliances. The foreign policy of Spain developed
naturally under his guidance on Aragonese lines; yet Castile, though
absorbed into his anti-French hostility against the traditional
friendship of centuries, never entirely disregarded her own ambitions.
The conquest of Granada and the discovery of the New World had been
mainly Castilian triumphs, the one the extension of her border
southwards, the other a successful stage in her rivalry with Portugal on
the high seas.
Yet a third Castilian ambition was the maintenance of the _status quo_
with Portugal at home, an end by no means permanently achieved by the
Treaty of Lisbon in 1479. By its terms Joanna “La Beltraneja” had
entered a convent at Coimbra and taken vows that were to separate her
for ever from the world; but she was too valuable a puppet in the hands
of her mother’s people to be allowed to remain long in such seclusion.
More than once she quitted her cloister for the palace at Lisbon, posing
according to her own signature as “I the Queen,” though the Portuguese
preferred to recognize her by the less provocative title of “the
Excellent Lady.”[6]
Footnote 6:
She died in Lisbon in 1530 in her sixty-ninth year.
Without once more committing themselves in an open manner to her claims
as “Queen of Castile,” they could employ her name in projects of
alliance with Navarre and elsewhere to the indignation and discomfiture
of Ferdinand and Isabel. The latter during the earlier part of their
reign were too fully occupied in their war against the Moors to show
practical resentment at this infringement of their treaty. Realizing
that a conquest of Portugal was beyond their powers, they turned to
diplomacy; and in April, 1490, betrothed their eldest daughter Isabel to
Alfonso, son and heir of John II., and grandson of the Queen’s old
suitor, Alfonso V.
[Illustration:
AVILA, THE CATHEDRAL
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HAUSER AND MENET
]
Isabel was their favourite child,—her gentle, sweet-tempered yet
somewhat melancholy nature so recalling her invalid grandmother, that
the Queen in private would teasingly address her as “Mother.” It would
not be a far journey to the Court of Lisbon; and nothing but rejoicing
filled her parents’ hearts at the gorgeous festivities in Seville, which
were the background of her formal betrothal. Not only had peace been
established on a firm foundation, but one more link was forged in the
chain between the Houses of Portugal and Castile, that might at some
future date unite all Spain under a single sovereign.
In the autumn of 1490 the young Princess departed to her new home; but
contrary to the general expectations she was to reap sorrow rather than
joy. A few months of happiness with her bridegroom, whose memory she
never ceased to cherish, and the Castilian Infanta was left a widow. She
returned to her parents, seeking only a sanctuary, where she might
indulge in her grief; and it was with genuine horror, on King John of
Portugal’s death in 1495, that she repudiated the offer made for her
hand by his cousin and successor, the new King, Emmanuel. To Ferdinand
and Isabel the proposed match was both politically and personally
agreeable. Their daughter was too young to let a single sorrow eat away
her joy of life; while Emmanuel’s obvious anxiety to please and win her
augured well for their future domestic peace. They therefore pressed his
suit, hoping once more to consummate the union so dear to Castilian
ambitions, but at first quite without avail.
We must tell you [wrote the Queen to her ambassador in England] that
the Princess, our daughter, is very determined not to marry; on which
account we are obliged to give the Infanta, Doña Maria, to the King of
Portugal.
Emmanuel, however, preferred the elder sister to the younger; and Maria
was destined to wait for her bridegroom till a more formidable barrier
than mere disinclination had removed her rival. In the meanwhile, when
the Portuguese alliance still hung in the balance, proposals for other
marriages, no less fateful for Spain, were occupying the sovereigns’
attention. Where should they find a fitting bride for their son and
heir?
[Illustration:
ISABEL, QUEEN OF PORTUGAL, ELDEST DAUGHTER OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL
FROM “ICONOGRAFIA ESPAÑOLA” BY VALENTIN CARDERERA Y SOLANO
]
Since the days, when still almost in his cradle, he had been suggested
as a husband for Joanna “La Beltraneja,” both gossip and statesmanship
had been busy weaving his matrimonial fate. The threads were often
broken abruptly; but one design ran clear through all, the circumvention
of the growing power of France.
We have already noticed Louis XI.’s desire to establish his influence
over Navarre, as shown in his support of Eleanor, Countess of Foix, and
her French husband, and in the marriage of his sister Madeleine with
their son Gaston.[7] His hopes were realized by Eleanor’s accession to
the throne on the death of her father, John II. of Aragon in 1479,
though she did not live to enjoy for more than a few weeks the
sovereignty she had purchased at the price of a sister’s blood. She was
succeeded by her grandson, Francis Phœbus, and he on his death in 1483
by his sister, Catherine.
Footnote 7:
See page 43.
Ferdinand and Isabel at once suggested the marriage of this eligible
heiress of thirteen with their five-year-old son; but her mother
Madeleine of Valois, infinitely preferred to ally her child with one of
her own race; and Catherine carried her inheritance to the French House
of Albret. Spain was for the moment foiled; but a wedding many years
later, its more than doubtful claims on Navarre enforced by arms, was
yet to gain for Ferdinand the southern half of the mountain kingdom,
whose double outlook across the Pyrenees had been the source of so much
crime and bloodshed.
Another alliance proposed for Prince John was with Anne of Brittany,
heiress of a duchy, whose independence had always threatened the peace
of France. It would have been a fitting revenge for French interference
in Navarre and Aragon; but here again Spain was forestalled; and Anne of
Beaujeu, regent of France on the death of her father Louis XI.,
succeeded in marrying her younger brother, Charles VIII., to Anne of
Brittany thus linking to the French Crown the most important of its
great provincial dependencies.
As it happened, this marriage was to set free a bride for the Spanish
Infante, Margaret of Hapsburg, daughter of Maximilian, King of the
Romans, a Princess betrothed in her early youth to the Dauphin Charles
and even sent to France for her education, but now repudiated in favour
of a more advantageous match. Maximilian was by no means a proud man,
but even his careless nature burned with resentment at his daughter’s
return home under such circumstances; and he welcomed the idea of her
union with a son of Ferdinand the Catholic, France’s antagonist for so
many years. To make this Hapsburg-Aragonese friendship the more obvious
and complete, the wedding became a double one; and Philip, Archduke of
Austria and Count of Flanders, Maximilian’s son and heir, took as his
bride the Spanish sovereigns’ second daughter, Joanna.
With many misgivings Isabel bade the latter good-bye and consigned her
to the grand fleet in the harbour of Lerida that was to convey her to
the Netherlands and bring back from thence the Prince of Asturias’
betrothed. The Infanta Joanna, in spite of her careful training, had
shown at times an alarming lack of mental balance. She could be clever
and witty, but also morose or, if roused, recklessly passionate in her
speech. From a home, where the air breathed decorum and self-control,
she now went to a pleasure-loving Court presided over by a fickle
Adonis. Would she cling tenaciously to the orthodox views in which she
had been bred amid surroundings palpably lax and cynical? Would she know
how to keep her jealousy in leash, if Philip “the Fair,” as in all
probability, proved faithless? Would she hold her head high and steer
her course with dignity amid the many political pitfalls, that would be
laid for her in a strange land?
The Queen could only sigh in answer to these questions. Joanna in many
ways resembled her grandmother and namesake, the Admiral’s daughter,
Joanna Enriquez, and that passionate temperament would in a moment of
crisis be its own councillor. Advice and warning were of little avail.
The Spanish bride in her ship of state sailed away northwards; and
Isabel watched the clouds gather with gloomy forebodings. Weeks passed,
and she was tortured with anxiety till at length news came that,
although the fleet had been compelled to shelter in English harbours and
several of the vessels had been lost, yet her daughter was safe in
Flanders and soon to be married at Lille.
Early in March, 1497, Margaret of Austria after an equally adventurous
voyage, whose dangers induced her to compose light-heartedly her own
epitaph, landed in Spain and was welcomed with all the state and
ceremony befitting a future Queen.
How this matrimonial venture, introducing into the close air of the
Spanish Court a Paris-bred gaiety and insouciance, would have stood the
test of time we cannot tell. The Prince and his bride were young; and,
if her contempt of convention scandalized the Castilian grandee, he
could blame her youth and build hopeful arguments on feminine
adaptability. Thus the brief honeymoon, a triumphal progress from one
large town of the kingdom to another, was a period of unmixed rejoicing
in Spain. All promised well. Even the Princess Isabel had put aside her
long mourning and consented at last to share the throne of Portugal with
her patient suitor, demanding however with the fanaticism of her race,
so strangely in contrast with her natural sweetness, that Emmanuel’s
wedding-gift to her should be the expulsion of the Jews from the land to
which she went.
The glory of the Faith! The glory of Spain! Were they in truth achieved?
the Queen must have asked herself, as she and Ferdinand attended their
daughter’s second wedding in the border town of Alcantara.
Fortune’s wheel never stands still in this world [says Bernaldez
sorrowfully]. It gives and it takes away; it exalts and it humbles; to
the poor and miserable it grants long years of which in their
weariness they would fain be quit; while to the wealthy, to Princes,
to Kings, and great lords,—to all for whom according to human
understanding life is a boon, it decrees naught but death.
In the very midst of the wedding rejoicings came the news that the
Prince of Asturias, never robust, had fallen ill of a fever in
Salamanca; and Ferdinand, hurrying as fast as he could to his bedside,
only arrived when the end was all too certain. On October 4, 1497, at
the age of nineteen, Prince John died. Apart from the private grief of
his parents for a son, whose character had held the promise of all that
is best in manhood, his death was a national calamity; and for weeks the
shadow of mourning hung alike over cottage and castle.
I never heard [says Commines] of so solemn and so universal a mourning
for any Prince in Europe. I have since been informed by ambassadors
that all the tradesmen put themselves into black clothes and shut up
their shops for forty days together; the nobility and gentry covered
their mules with black cloth down to their very knees, so that there
was nothing of them to be seen but their eyes; and set up black
banners on all the gates of the cities.
Even the hope that an heir at least would be left to their Prince was
destroyed when the young widow, nerve-stricken at her sudden loss, gave
birth a few months later to a still-born daughter.
[Illustration:
AVILA FROM BEYOND THE CITY WALLS
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID
]
The succession to the throne now devolved on the young Queen Isabel of
Portugal; and early in 1498 she and her husband appeared in Toledo to
receive the homage of the Castilian Cortes. The Aragonese Cortes however
utterly declined to follow this example, declaring that they owed
allegiance to Ferdinand and his male heirs alone; their obstinacy
producing a public tension only relieved when in August, 1498, the young
Queen gave birth to a son, whom all were willing to acknowledge.
The longed-for Prince, heir of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal was born at
last; the highest ideals of Spanish unity seemed on the eve of
fulfilment; but, almost within the hour that gave him life, his mother
died; and the Infante Miguel, weak and fragile, was not destined to
reach his second year.
Three deaths within three years and those the most precious in the land!
The first keen blade of sorrow that transfixed the Queen’s soul [says
Bernaldez] was the death of the Prince; the second the death of Doña
Isabel her eldest daughter, Queen of Portugal; the third the death of
her grandson Don Miguel, for in him she had found consolation. From
this time the life of the famous and very virtuous Queen Isabel,
protector of Castile, was without pleasure; and her days and her
health were alike shortened.