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 ]