Within less than three years after the Inquisition had been established at Seville, Louis XI. of France, the old rival and colleague of John II. of Aragon, had died in Paris, August 30, 1483. He was succeeded by his son Charles VIII., a young prince whose ignorance was only equaled by his vanity, and was if possible exceeded by his presumption. With such an antagonist, Ferdinand of Aragon was well fitted to deal, with advantage to himself and to Spain. To win over the Duchess of Bourbon, who had virtually succeeded to the government of France on the death of Louis XI., and to marry his eldest daughter Isabella to the young King Charles VIII., were accordingly the first objects of his negotiations. But in spite of all the flattery lavished on the duchess, Ferdinand did not succeed in obtaining the crown for the Infanta. A more richly dowered bride was destined for the King of France, to whom the acquisition of the province of Brittany was of far greater importance than the doubtful friendship of Spain; and after much public and private negotiation, the Spanish embassador was reluctantly withdrawn from Paris in the summer of 1487 (29th of July). Disappointed in his dealing with the court of France, the ever-watchful and persistent Ferdinand turned his eyes to England; and in the last days of the year 1487 an embassador from the Spanish sovereigns, Roderigo de Puebla, doctor of canon and civil law, arrived at the court of London. Henry VII., who greatly desired to establish a closer alliance with Spain, succeeded in flattering the new envoy, and rendering him almost from the first subservient to his personal interests. Yet the King of England and the Spanish embassador together were no match for Ferdinand of Aragon. The negotiations between the sovereigns were prolonged for two years, and in the end Henry was worsted at every point. He had signed a treaty of offensive alliance with Spain against France, with which power he wisely desired to maintain friendly relations, and he had been prevailed upon to send some English troops into Brittany to co-operate with a Spanish contingent which never arrived, in the expulsion of the French from that country. He had concluded further treaties of friendship and alliance with the King of the Romans, who was actually encouraging Perkin Warbeck to assert his claim to the crown of England, and with the Archduke Philip, whom he personally and independently hated. And he had been forced to content himself with the promise of a very modest dowry with the Spanish princess who was affianced to his son Arthur, Prince of Wales.