The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 10 : $b Spain and Portugal
History
The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 10 : $b Spain and Portugal
World history
The brilliant success of the Spanish general now roused the envy of a
few brother officers, who represented him to the sovereign as meditating
designs inconsistent with the preservation of the new conquest to the
Castilian crown. In the frequent orders he received, he but too plainly
saw the distrust of Ferdinand, whom, however, he continued to serve with
the same ability and with unshaken fidelity.[59] In 1506, Ferdinand
arrived at Naples, and his distrust was greatly diminished by his
frequent intercourse with the general. But, as his own heart taught him
that human virtue is often weak, he brought Gonsalvo with him to Spain,
leaving the viceregal authority in the hands of Don Raymond de Cardona.
Into the interminable affairs of Italy, from this time to the death of
Ferdinand, the ever varying alliances between the pope, the emperor,
the Venetians, and the kings of France and Spain, and their results, as
they had not any influence over Spain--scarcely, indeed, any connection
with it--we forbear to enter. We need only observe that Spain retained
uninterrupted possession of her conquest; the investiture of which, in
1510, was conferred by the pope, as a fief of the church, on Ferdinand.
The happiness of the Catholic sovereigns was not commensurate with the
splendour which surrounded them. To whom must their magnificent empire
devolve? In 1497, the infante Juan, their only son, whom they had just
married to the archduchess Margaret of Austria, died, and his widow
was soon afterwards brought to bed of a still-born child. Hence their
daughters only remained through whom they could hope to transmit their
sceptre to posterity; but even in this expectation they were doomed to
much disappointment.
Doña Isabella, the eldest of the princesses, who was married to the heir
of the Portuguese monarchy, was left a widow as soon as the archduchess
Margaret; and though she was next given to her brother-in-law, Dom
Emmanuel, now become king of Portugal, and the following year was
delivered of a son, she died at the time; nor did the young prince,
the acknowledged heir of the whole peninsula, Navarre excepted, long
survive her. Still, to be prepared against every possible contingency,
they married another daughter, the princess Maria, to the Lusitanian
widower; and their youngest, Catherine, destined to be so famous from her
connection with the English reformation, first to Arthur prince of Wales,
and next to Henry, his brother, afterwards Henry VIII.
Their hopes of an heir, however, rested in their second daughter, the
wife of Philip archduke of Austria, Juana, who, in 1500, was delivered of
a prince, afterwards the celebrated Charles V.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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