belied, glanced alternately at the little group of sponsors, and at the noblest figure of all the courtly throng: a young man glittering with gems who stood behind the King. Tall, almost, as Henry himself, with flashing dark eyes and jet black hair, a fair skin and gallant mien, this youth formed with the King, and the group at the font, the elements of a great drama, which ended in the renascence of Spain. For the young man was Beltran de la Cueva, the new Count of Ledesma, who, all the court was whispering, was really the father of the new-born Princess, and the sponsors, besides the Frenchman Armignac, were the gorged and spoiled favourite of the King, the all-powerful Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, and his wife, and the King’s half-sister, Princess Isabel of Castile. The girl had seen nothing of court life, for up to this time, from her orphaned babyhood, she had lived with her widowed mother and younger brother in neglected retirement at the lone castle of Arevalo, immersed in books and the gentle arts that modest maids were taught; but she went through her part of the ceremony composedly, and with simple dignity. She was already tall for her age, with a fair, round face, large, light blue eyes, and the reddish hair of her Plantagenet ancestors; and if she, in her innocence, guessed at some of the tumultuous passions that were silently raging around her, she made no sign, and bore herself calmly, as befitted the daughter of a long line of kings.[1] Seven weeks afterwards, on the 9th May, in the great hall of the palace, the nobles, prelates, and deputies of the chartered towns met to swear allegiance to the new heiress of Castile. One by one, as they advanced to kneel and kiss the tiny hand of the unconscious infant, they frowned and whispered beneath their breath words of scorn and indignation which they dared not utter openly, for all around, and thronging the corridors and courtyards, there stood with ready lances the Morisco bodyguard of the King, eager to punish disobedience. And so, though the insulting nickname of the new Infanta Juana, _the Beltraneja_, after the name of her assumed father, passed from mouth to mouth quietly, public protest there was none.[2]