“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.