Death of Isabel
The country between Salamanca and Valladolid is very flat, the finest
corn-growing region in all Spain. Now a railway passes through it, and
when the summer sun blazes on the thick shocks of wheat, they glisten as
with living flames, while the crisp, hot wind passes fluttering by. As
the sun sinks, a dazzling ball of fire, into banks of intense crimson,
the shadows of the after-glow fall long and dark. Nothing but the
horizon between earth and sky; a land, boundless, monotonous, reflecting
the stubborn will of the nation. The only kingdom in Europe which has
retained its mediæval character for good and bad, simple, grand,
immutable as its great plains!
Passing the small station of Vento de Baños, the ruins of an ancient
castle rise to the sight. It is built of small red bricks, tempered to a
pale hue by time and sunshine, and the lofty walls broken by solid
towers and bastions. From its low position the height seems great, and
for this same reason the walls are of enormous strength.
This is the Castello de la Mota, built for Juan II. in 1444, and here
his daughter, the great Isabel, has come to die.
It is not age which is killing her, for she is only fifty-four, but
sorrow has done its work upon her tender heart.
Child after child has been taken from her. First, her only son Juan,
barely twenty, always delicate, dying of a fever in the midst of
rejoicings for his marriage with a princess of France. Vainly did
Ferdinand, who had rushed to his side at the first symptoms of danger,
break the news to her gently by letter, describing his gradual decline
after he was really dead; but the shaft struck home.
“Never,” says Peter Martyr, “could the bereaved parents speak of him.”
They laid him in a sumptuous tomb in the Dominican church at Avila.
Even after the lapse of so many centuries their love appears in the
minute care with which each detail of his marble monument is wrought.
The calm, pure, upturned face of the boy, so delicate and young, the
light regal circlet on the rich curls of hair, the simple folds of
drapery, the small shapely feet, and thin, long hands; the iron
gauntlets, placed on one side to show that he was knighted by his father
in the field.
The mere artistic beauty of the work is forgotten in the anguish of the
parents, who used to sit for hours in two stalls opposite, where they
could gaze down on the effigy of their son. A picture of lonely
[Illustration:
Photo by J. Laurent, Madrid.
A GENERAL VIEW OF RONDA.]
grief sweeping the chords of passionate sorrow to all time.
Then her daughter Isabel, Queen of Portugal, whom she loved with all her
heart, died; her other daughter Juana, married to Philippe le Bel of
Burgundy, is mad, and now a mortal illness has seized herself.
* * * * *
The queen is reclining on a couch, for she cannot sit up, in a vaulted
hall divided into various rooms by thick screens of tapestry. Not far
from her is an altar, on which the sacrament and various relics are
exposed. The glare from the lighted tapers falls on that once lovely
countenance with a cruel glare. She is greatly changed. The soft blue
eyes have become too prominent, the face has lost its delicacy of
outline, the skin its clearness, and the grey locks which have replaced
the abundant meshes of her auburn hair are gathered under a thick coil.
Nothing but her inherent majesty remains, and that unalterable
expression of calm which has distinguished her all her life, as one
ready to meet good or bad fortune with an unmoved mind.
As she lies, the great pendants of the gilded roof falling above her
head, and escutcheons and badges bordering the walls round--everything
bears the token of the joint names, Ferdinand and Isabel, entwined and
interlaced. In every detail of the furniture it appears. The heavy
carved chairs bear it, the table before her, on which stands a
crucifix, her illuminated missal, and the finely wrought silver
_casserole_ with strong essences to revive her.
Her eyes have closed in a light slumber, for she is very weak. Now she
opens them with a smile, and fixes them vaguely on the setting sun,
streaming in through the narrow Gothic casements which open into the
great court. Then a sudden look of anxiety comes into her face.
“Hiya Marquesa,” she says, addressing her friend Beatrix, who has never
left her since her illness, “what news of the king? Have despatches
arrived from Don Gonsalvo de Cordoba at Naples? Where is Peter Martyr?”
“Here, your Highness,” answers her secretary, entering at that moment
with a bundle of papers in his hand. “A great victory has been gained by
Gonsalvo on the Garigliano. The French are driven out of Naples.”
“Ah! Is it so? I have ever esteemed him a hero. But the king! Where is
he? When will he return?”
A silence follows. The queen’s countenance falls.
“His Highness was last heard of at Gerona,” answers Martyr, “with the
army.”
“War, always war!” says the queen with a deep sigh. “Once we rode out
together in the field--I wonder if he misses me!” Here she paused.
“Beatrix,” she continues, seizing her hand and wringing it in her own,
“I see by your face that something is amiss; the king’s absence, what
does it mean? My body is indeed weak, but my heart is strong. Conceal
nothing from me.”
“His Grace,” answered Beatrix, making a sign to Martyr not to speak, “is
safe with the army at Perpignan.”
“And where is the Princess Juana?”
At the mention of her daughter’s name anxiety and distress are plainly
visible on her face.
“She has left the castle” (at these words Isabel grows deadly pale),
“and she refuses to return unless she can leave at once to join the
archduke in Flanders.”
“Who attends her?” asks Isabel, speaking quickly.
“No one. She escaped alone. But her suite has been sent from the
castle.”
“Now Heaven protect us!” cries the queen, greatly agitated. “Martyr,
call to me here the Archbishop of Granada.”
“My dearest mistress,” says Beatrix, kneeling beside her and tenderly
encircling her with her arms, “these fancies of the Infanta will pass.
She is madly in love with the archduke when she is with him.”
“Alas! It is not returned,” interrupts the queen. “He only cares for the
succession, not for her.”
The arras was now raised, and the dignified figure of Talavera,
Archbishop of Granada, stood before the queen.
For years he had been her confessor, and to her death remained her
devoted friend. Raising herself on her couch with difficulty, Isabel
kissed the jewel which he wore in his episcopal ring, then sank back
exhausted on the embroidered pillows at her back.
“I pray you, my Lord Archbishop,” she says in a low voice, “by the love
you bear me and the king, to bring home to the castle the Infanta Juana,
who has escaped. Tell her from me--to whom she will not listen in
person--that it is her health that alone prevents her from joining her
husband. As soon as she has recovered from her confinement she shall
start, should the archduke still refuse to join her in Spain.”
Talavera stood before the queen, his eyes cast on the ground. He knew
that she was sending him on a fruitless errand to Juana, who, short of
main force, would obey no one. He knew how near her extravagance
bordered on madness, and that this knowledge was breaking the queen’s
heart, but the weakness in which he found her forbade his reminding her
of it.
“What I can do I will; your Highness may rely on me,” was his answer.
“Go--go at once!” cried the queen, trembling all over, and almost rising
to her feet. “Would I had strength to do it, but--but,” and she sank
back, almost fainting, into the arms of the Marquesa de Moya.
* * * * *
“Now we are alone,” she says, in a voice perfectly composed, having
swallowed some strong medicine given to her by Beatrix. “Believe me,
Hiya, I am deluded by no false hopes. The end is near. Fain would I see
the end of these troubles. Oh, that Ferdinand were here!”
“Shall an express be sent to his Highness?” asks the marquesa,
endeavouring to master her grief.
“No, no!” cries Isabel, in a full voice, rousing to a momentary
excitement. “The king is commanding the army in France. Let me not
trouble him. He knows that I am ill. He might,”--she stops--a deep sigh
escapes her, a look of inexpressible longing comes into her eyes, fixed
on vacancy, as if, by the spell of her great love, she would draw him to
her. Even to Beatrix she would not own the anguish she feels at his
prolonged absence.
“Before I die,” she continues, “I must see the succession settled, and
the king named Regent. All the documents are prepared. I should have
liked to tell him so face to face. I will not command his presence, but
I would that he had come to me as he was wont.”
Something in the pathetic insistence with which she spoke of him told an
ill-assured mind. She dared not look at the marquesa, for she felt she
would read her thoughts.
Had Ferdinand changed? There was agony in the thought, but it was there.
That strange prescience, which so often accompanies the passing of life
into death, had come to her with a revelation more bitter than the
grave.
Worn with a life of constant hardship (in peace or war she was ever by
his side) and broken by the loss of her children, although of the same
age, she had become old while he was still comely enough to wed another
wife. She knew it. Martial, erect, the fire of youth still gleaming in
his eye, and his masterful spirit still unsubdued.
That others had pleased his fickle fancy she knew to her cost, and had
suffered from pangs of silent jealousy. But that he would be absent from
her dying bed did not seem possible.
So united had they been, the thought that he might survive her had never
troubled her. Now it was a phantom she could not banish--Ferdinand
alone!
Would another sit beside him in her place?
* * * * *
“We wait sorrowfully in the palace all day long,” writes the faithful
chronicler of her life, Peter Martyr, “tremblingly waiting the hour when
she will quit the earth. Let us pray that we may be permitted to follow
hereafter where she will go. She so far transcends all human excellence
that there is scarcely anything mortal about her. She can hardly be said
to die, but to pass into a nobler existence. She leaves the world filled
with her renown, and she goes to enjoy life eternal with God in heaven.
I write this,” he says, “between hope and fear, while the breath is
still fluttering within her.”
But the faithful pen of the secretary does not record the presence of
Ferdinand at her side.
She was mercifully spared the knowledge of his inconstancy.
Already, during his campaigns, he had seen the young princess of
eighteen, Germaine de Foix, cousin of the King of France, whom he
married in such indecent haste, a volatile beauty, brought up at the
dissipated Court of Louis XII. For her sake (had she borne him children)
he would have severed the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, a greater
insult, if possible, to the memory of the queen than his marriage.
Indirectly, this marriage was the cause of his death. It is the busy pen
of Peter Martyr which records it.
In order to invigorate his constitution, he placed himself in the hands
of quacks. A violent fever ensued, and (in 1515) he died at Granada.
The body of Isabel had already been brought there from the Castle de la
Mota and interred within the Capilla Real.
Side by side they lie, the royal spouses united at least in death; the
truant Ferdinand yearning for the presence of his first love, and at his
own request laid beside her.
There they rest on two alabaster tombs, a marvel of exquisite
workmanship, erected to their memory by their grandson, Charles V.
A frigid smile yet lingers on the queen’s marble lips as she turns her
head lovingly towards Ferdinand, who, as in life, looks straight out,
determined and warlike as he ever was. Both wear their crowns.
Beside them, on another monument, is their daughter Juana _la loca_
(mad), her fickle Burgundian at her side. Their countenances are
averted, their position as uneasy as was their life. Troubled lines
wander over Juana’s form, and the comely head of Philip sinks on a
marble pillow in selfish rest.
The four coffins lie in a narrow cell beneath; “a small place,” said
their grandson, Charles V., “for so much greatness.”
A lofty Gothic portal separates the Capilla Real from the cathedral by a
_reja_, or iron gates, elaborately worked.
No gilded canopy obscures the figures from the light, so royal is their
simplicity, and when the radiance of the eastern sun lights up the
vaulted ceiling, knitted into broad bands into bosses, leaves, and
borders, and pictures, golden _retablos_ and sculptured saints stand out
on the subdued splendour of the walls, the effect is as a scene of
actual history, enacted in what was once the great mosque of the Moors,
conquered by the arms of these dead sovereigns (_Los Reyes Catolicos_)
and converted into this Christian sepulchre, as a triumph to last as
long as the world stands.
THE END
* * * * *
_A Selection from the
Catalogue of_
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Complete Catalogue sent
on application
Old
Court Life in France
By Frances Elliot
Author of “Old Court Life in Spain,” etc.
_Two Volumes, Octavo. With 60 Photogravure and Other
Illustrations, Net $5.00. Carriage 50 cents_
“Probably the most readable and successful work of the kind ever
attempted. It has been through many editions, and its popularity remains
unimpaired. The work is charming in manner and carries with it the
impress of accuracy and careful investigation.
“Mrs. Elliot’s is an anecdotal history of the French Court from Francis
I to Louis XIV. She has conveyed a vivid idea of the personalities
touched upon, and her book contains a great deal of genuine
vitality.”--_Detroit Free Press_
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York London
_By Elise W. Rose and Vida Hunt Francis_
Cathedrals and Cloisters
of the Isle-de-France
(Including Bourges, Troyes, Auxerre, Reims and Rouen)
In Two Volumes
Cathedrals and Cloisters of
Midland France
Burgundy, Savoy, Dauphiné, Auvergne, Aquitaine
In Two Volumes
Cathedrals and Cloisters of
the South of France
Provence, Languedoc, Gascony
In Two Volumes
_Each Set of Two Volumes Contains over 200 Illustrations
(some in Photogravure) from Original Photographs,
Per set (of 2 Vols.), $5.00 net_
These volumes are the fruit of many successive summers spent in
wanderings in “rare unspoiled France,” where the tourist and his
suit-case are practically unknown.
With pen and camera the authors picture the Cathedrals of France,
presenting the views of the consecrated structures as they appear to-day
and telling their life story, with its drama and its glory in the days
of old, before secularism sought to lay its paralyzing hand upon them.
“One of the best books we have read for many a day.... Interesting in
its material and information and charming in its method of
presentation.... To lovers and students of architecture, the
illustrations in these beautiful volumes will be found more attractive
than the letterpress, and this is itself a charming quality.”--_London
Spectator._
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
New York London
_By Elizabeth W. Champney_
Romance of the French Châteaux
Feudal--Renaissance--Bourbon
2 vols. 8º. With 22 photogravure and 94 other illustrations
Previously issued in 3 vols., entitled “Romance of the Feudal Châteaux,”
“Romance of the Renaissance Châteaux,” “Romance of the Bourbon
Châteaux.”
Romance of the Feudal Châteaux
With 40 photogravure and other illustrations
Romance of the Renaissance Châteaux
With 40 photogravure and other illustrations
Romance of the French Abbeys
With 2 colored, 9 photogravure, 50 other illustrations
Romance of the Bourbon Châteaux
With colored frontispiece and 47 photogravure and other
illustrations
Romance of the Italian Villas
(Northern Italy)
With colored frontispiece and 57 photogravure and other
illustrations
Romance of the Roman Villas
(The Renaissance)
With 52 photogravure and other illustrations
Romance of Imperial Rome
With 1 colored, 60 photogravure, and other illustrations
_Seven volumes. Profusely illustrated with photogravure and other
illustrations and ornamental headpieces._
_Octavo, gilt tops, in a box, each, net, $3.50. (By mail, $3.75.)_
“A delightful blending of history, art, and romance. Many of the stories
are thrilling and none the less exciting because they belong to
history.”
_The Chicago Dial._
“Told with a keen eye to the romantic elements and a clear understanding
of historical significance.”--_Boston Herald._
“Good history, good story, and good art. They are books that will be
read with interest this year or ten or twenty years hence.”
_Hartford Courant._
_Send for descriptive Circular_
New York G. P. Putnam’s Sons London
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The Balax of the Red King was given by Don Pedro after the battle
of Navarrete. This is the same “fair ruby, great as a racket ball,”
which Queen Elizabeth showed to Melville, the ambassador of Mary Queen
of Scots, and which he asked her to bestow on his mistress, which she
refused, and it is the identical gem which adorned the centre of the
royal crown of Queen Victoria.
[B] “To the memory of the greatest sinner who ever lived, Don Juan de
Mañara.”
* * * * *
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
with an angry scrowl=> with an angry scowl {pg 43}
stituated to the north of Burgos=> situated to the north of Burgos {pg
210}
misundertand the astonished glances=> misunderstand the astonished
glances {pg 227}
so daintly apparelled=> so daintily apparelled {pg 239}
Ese, ess el Conde de Ledesma=> Ese, es el Conde de Ledesma {pg 270}
the seige of Baza=> the siege of Baza {pg 316}