No sooner was she safe in her husband’s territory than the plot that had long been hatching against her father came to a head. In September 1504 Philip, his father Maximilian, Louis XII., and a little later the Pope, joined in a series of leagues, from which Ferdinand was pointedly excluded. It was intended as a notice to Ferdinand, that when his wife died he would no longer be King of Spain, but only King of Aragon, unable to hold what he had grasped; and, though the wily King fell ill and was like to die at the news, he was not beaten yet, and in time to come was more than a match for all his enemies. But Isabel was sick unto death. A united orthodox Spain had been her life’s ideal. With labour untiring she and her husband had attained it, and now she saw the imminent ruin of her work through the undutifulness of her daughter’s foreign husband. It was no fault of Isabel’s, for she had been single-minded in her aims; but Ferdinand had been brought to this pass by his own overreaching cleverness. In yoking stronger powers than himself to his car he had enlisted forces that he could not control, and which were now pulling a different way from that in which he wanted to go. Those that he depended upon to be his prime instruments had been removed by death, whilst those who he had hoped to make subsidiary factors in his favour were now principals and against him. The accumulating troubles at length, in the autumn of 1504, threw Isabel into a tertian fever, which was aggravated by the fact that Ferdinand, being also ill in bed, could not visit his wife. Isabel’s anxiety for her husband was pitiable to witness; and though her physicians assured her that he was in no danger, his absence from her bedside increased the fever and threw her into delirium. Symptoms of dropsy, and probably diabetes, since constant insatiable thirst and swelling of the limbs are mentioned as symptoms, ensued, and for three months the Queen lay gradually growing worse and worse. Rogations for her recovery were offered up in every church in Castile, but by her own wish, after a time, this was discontinued, and the heroic Queen, strong to the last, faced death undismayed, confident that she had done her best, yet humble and contrite. When the extreme unction was to be administered she exhibited a curious instance of her severe modesty, almost prudery, by refusing to allow even her foot to be uncovered to receive the sacred oil, which was applied to the silken stocking that covered the limb instead of to the flesh.