Queen Isabella was now broken in health, from her many domestic sorrows. She died in November, 1504. The last years of Ferdinand afford a sad contrast to his early life and brilliant manhood. As the death of Queen Isabella took from Ferdinand the crown of Castile, Philip, the husband of the poor crazy Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, seized upon the throne of Castile. A bitter family quarrel ensued. In order to secure the help of France, Ferdinand, though it was only eleven months after the death of his deeply loved wife, was married to the princess Germaine, a gay and frivolous girl of eighteen, daughter of one of the sisters of Louis XII. “It seemed hard,” says one writer, “that these nuptials should take place so soon, and that, too, in Isabella’s own kingdom of Castile, where she had lived without peer, and where her ashes are still held in as much veneration as she enjoyed while living.” The marriage ceremony took place at Duenas, where, thirty-six years before, he had pledged his faith to Isabella. In 1513 the health of Ferdinand began to fail. Dropsy and partial paralysis made his life a torment. Hoping to gain relief, he travelled southward; but, having reached the small village of Madrigalejo, he was unable to proceed farther. On the 22d of January, 1516, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, Ferdinand breathed his last. He died in a small room in an obscure village. “In so wretched a tenement did the lord of so many lands close his eyes upon the world.” Thus ended the lives of Ferdinand and Isabella, shrouded with gloom and disappointment. “A crown! What is it? It is to bear the miseries of a people, To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents, And sink beneath a load of splendid care.” [Illustration: PHILIP. II. _King of_ SPAIN.] PHILIP II. OF SPAIN. 1527-1598 A.D. “Princes who would their people should do well, Must at themselves begin, as at the head; For men, by their example, pattern out Their imitations and regard of laws: A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.”—BEN JONSON.