In March 1518, Charles appointed to the custody of the Queen, the Marquis of Denia, who held her until his death, and was succeeded by his son. Soon after his appointment, he wrote a letter to the King which lifts the veil considerably on Joan’s condition. She tried, he says, persistently and with artful words, remarkable for one in her condition, to persuade him to take her out of her prison, and to summon the nobles of Castile, as she was discontented at the way she was being kept out of the government, and wished to complain. He details the excuses with which he put her requests aside, and evidently looks upon her blandishments as wiles to escape; but assures Charles, as he did for many years afterwards, that ‘nothing should be done against his interests,’ whatever that may have meant. But even in this letter we see signs of Joan’s undoubted madness. A day or two before she had thrown some pitchers at two of her women, and hurt them; and when Denia went with a grave face to her and said, ‘How is this, my lady? This is a strange way to treat your servants; your mother treated hers better;’ Joan rose hurriedly, and the very act of her rising sent her servants scurrying off in a fright. ‘I am not so violent as to do you any injury,’ she said; and so began again, and for the next five hours, to try by wheedling to get him to take her out, ‘for she could not bear these women.’ In reply to this, Charles warned Denia that his conversations with the Queen must never be overheard by anybody, and that all his letters about her must be strictly secret. Thus every few days news of his mother reached the young King, sometimes reporting improvement, sometimes the reverse; but always harping upon her desire to get out, her dislike of her woman attendants, and her extreme irregularity in getting up and eating, which she often did only at intervals of two days. At this time, too, began to develop her great repugnance to attend mass. The women seem to have been a great source of trouble to every one. They were, it appears, always gadding about the town, telling people of what passed in the palace, and what the Queen said, especially about religion, and her desire to go out, and to summon the grandees. What was worse, they defied Denia to dismiss them, until the King gave him full authority over them, and brought them to reason. In the autumn of the same year, 1518, there was a visitation of plague in the country, though Tordesillas had not suffered much, owing to the scrupulous care taken to isolate the place. The removal of the Queen, however, had to be considered. ‘If it be necessary,’ wrote the Marquis, ‘we shall want saddle mules with black velvet housings for the Queen and the Infanta.... It will also be necessary to take the body of the King, your father, and if this has to be done, we must put into proper order the car in which it was brought here, as it is now dismantled. Charles was against any removal if it could possibly be avoided, but if quite