In spite of all this intellectual advance, the game of politics was still being played, and women were still, in more than one instance, the unhappy pawns upon the board who were sacrificed from time to time in the interest of some important move. The success of Spanish unity had aroused Spanish ambition, Fernando and Isabella had arranged political marriages for their children, and the sixteenth century was to show that, in one instance at least, this practical and utilitarian view of the marriage relation brought untold misery and hardship to one poor Spanish princess. In each case the royal alliances which were contracted by the Spanish rulers for their various children were the subject of much careful planning and negotiation, and yet, in spite of it all, these measures constitute the most conspicuous failure in all their long reign. Particularly pathetic and distressing is the story of the poor Princess Juana, whose prospects were most brilliant and whose destiny was most cruel. Juana was married in 1496 to the Archduke Philip of Austria, Governor of the Netherlands and heir to the great domain of his father, the Emperor Maximilian, and the wedding had been celebrated in a most gorgeous fashion. It was in the month of August that a splendid Spanish fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and Santander, to carry the Spanish maiden to her waiting bridegroom. As is usual in such affairs, the beauty of the girl had been much extolled, and the archduke, then in his eighteenth year, was all aglow with hope and expectation. Watchmen had been posted to keep a lookout for the ships from Spain, and when they finally came in sight with their glistening white sails and their masts and spars all gay with flags and streamers, salutes were fired and they received a royal welcome. The Spanish admiral in person led the Princess Juana to meet her affianced husband, and soon after, in the great cathedral at Lille, the two young people were married in the midst of great festivities. It seems almost pitiful to think of the human side of all this great and glittering show. Juana was barely seventeen years of age, alone, without mother or father or sister or brother, in a strange land, in the midst of a strange court, where all about her were speaking a strange language, and the wife of a youth whom she had never seen until the eve of her marriage! For a few long weeks Juana was somewhat reserved in her new surroundings, and in her heart she longed again for Spain; but as the days passed she became accustomed to her new home, took pleasure in the greater liberty which was now accorded her as a married woman, and soon, neglected by her parents, so far as any show of affection was concerned, she learned to grow indifferent to them and to all their interests. By the year 1500, however, Juana had become a most important person, as death had claimed her brother and her older sisters and she now remained