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THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
enrich her. Loyalty, piety and love of adventure were the most striking traits of Spanish character.
After the fall of Granada, until her death, Isabella’s life as a Queen was brilliant with success; the glory and prosperity of Spain satisfied her patriotism and her ambition, but she carried hidden from the world a burden of domestic grief and anxiety, that clouded the splendor of her royalty and at last caused her health, always good until now, to fail. Her mother, the loved companion of her life, became insane a few years before her death, in 1496. Isabella’s sorrow was intensified by the fear of the inheritance that might fall on her children, a fear so sadly realized in the fate of her daughter Jane.
Isabella was the mother of four children, one son and three daughters. The eldest daughter, Isabella, married the King of Portugal. In this marriage the Spanish sovereigns hoped to see Spain and Portugal united under one government. This hope was never realized, the young Queen dying in 1498, leaving an infant son who survived his mother only one year. The second daughter, Katherine, married an English prince, the son of Henry VII.;he lived only a few months after the wedding, and the King to keep her rich dowery in England married the young widow to his second son afterward Henry VIII. of England. She is known in history as Katherine of Aragon, the mother of the English Queen who by her severity gained the name of Bloody Mary. The only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, Prince John, was a boy of great promise. His education had been carefully directed to develop his naturally brilliant mind in the qualities most to be desired in the heir to a glorious kingdom like Spain. He fulfilled the brightest hopes of his parents by an early manhood, graced by every accomplishment, and dignified by a trained intellect and serious mind. He was married, when he was twenty years old, to Margaret daughter of the Emperor of Germany. The marriage was celebrated in October, 1497, with splendor befitting the rank and expectations of the young couple, but the bridegroom took cold at one of the fetes and died after a few days of terrible suffering. He met death with serene courage, and prayed in his last moments that his parents might feel his own sincere resignation to the Divine will. His death was a great misfortune for Spain, and the whole nation mourned with the bereaved parents. When Isabella was told that her son was dead, she bowed in submission saying, “ The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord;” but her life from this time dwelt in the shadow of this great affliction.
The death of Prince John made Jane, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, heiress to the throne of Spain. She was married to Philippe le Bel of Austria, and lived at Brussels, but payed a visit to her parents, with her husband, after the death of her brother, in obedience to their wish that the future King and Queen of Spain should become acquainted with the country and its people. Philippehad such remarkable personal beauty, that the Spaniards declared on seeing him “ that Spain had been ruled by men, but now it was to be ruled by an angel.”
Jane was the least attractive of Isabella’s children. She was plain in person, and her moody and irritable disposition indicated the insanity that afterward developed itself and gave her the name of Jane the Foolish, by which she is known in history. The only child of Philippe and Jane the Foolish was born at Alcala in 1503, and afterward ruled Spain as Charles V. The deepest natures have the greatest capacity for suffering, and the agony caused by repeated bereavements seriously affected Isabella’s health. In the autumn of 1504 she was attacked by a fever. Enfeebled by years of grief and anxiety Isabella sank rapidly under it and died on the twenty-sixth of November. Death had no terrors for her; after a life so full of action and responsibility the thought of rest must have been sweet. During her illness she was serene and cheerful, and said to those who wept beside her bed a few hours before her death, “ Do not weep for me; pray for the safety of my soul.”
Escorted by a guard of honor Isabella's body was carried from Medina del Campo to Granada. The peasants thronged the roads to see the royal procession, and sank