We may now return to Ferdinand and Isabella. This was the brightest period of their lives. The repulse of Charles VIII., and the victories of Gonsalvo, added fresh luster to their reign. Moreover, through measures then undertaken, the unconverted Moors were subdued, and the French provinces were regained; but, over and above all, a new world had been discovered, and marriages, seemingly the most fortunate, were concluded: Ferdinand and Isabella’s son and heir, Don John, having married the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian; their second daughter Joanna, Philip, the son and heir of that monarch, by Mary of Burgundy, and already, in right of his deceased mother, sovereign of the rich and fertile Netherlands; the third, Katharine, was affianced to Arthur, Prince of Wales; and Manuel, duke of Beja, having succeeded to his cousin John II. of Portugal, despite all intrigues in favor of the illegitimate Don George, solicited and obtained the hand of the eldest Infanta, the widow of the Prince of Portugal. The first to be celebrated of all these royal marriages was that of the Princess Isabella with Alfonso, the heir to the crown of Portugal, which took place in the autumn of the year 1490, and which was apparently calculated to lead to the happiest results. But the magnificent wedding festivities at Lisbon were scarce concluded when the bridegroom died, and the widowed princess returned disconsolate to her mother (January, 1491). The marriage of John, prince of Asturias, was the next, and apparently the most important alliance that engaged the attention of his parents; and, moved by many considerations of policy and prestige, they turned their thoughts to far-away Flanders. Maximilian of Hapsburg, the titular sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, had, by his first wife, Mary, a daughter of Charles the Bold, and in her own right Duchess of Burgundy, been made the father of two children, Philip, born in 1478, and Margaret, in 1480. Their mother, the beautiful empress, died in 1482; and Philip, on attaining his legal majority at the age of sixteen, assumed, in her right, the government of the Low Countries in 1494. It was with this youthful sovereign, the heir to yet more splendid possessions, that the Catholic sovereigns desired to unite their younger daughter in marriage, while the hand of his sister Margaret was sought for the Prince of Asturias. The advantages to Spain of such a double marriage were enormous.