While Ferdinand had much to do with the events which have thus far been discussed, he and his subjects of Aragon and Catalonia were more interested in other affairs. Ferdinand aimed at nothing less than a predominant place for Spain in European affairs, to be preceded by the establishment of Aragonese supremacy in the Mediterranean. The principal stumbling-block was the power of the French kings. Ferdinand schemed, therefore, to bring about the isolation and humiliation of France. The entering wedge came through the French possession of the Catalan regions of Cerdagne and the Roussillon which had been granted to the king of France by Juan II. Charles VIII of France consented to restore the two provinces, but in return exacted Ferdinand’s promise not to interfere with the former’s designs respecting the kingdom of Naples. Ferdinand readily agreed in 1493 to aid no enemy of the French king save the pope, and not to form matrimonial alliances between members of his family and those of the reigning houses of Austria, England, and Naples. With Cerdagne and the Roussillon in his possession he proceeded with characteristic duplicity to disregard the treaty. Marriage alliances were projected or arranged, some of them to be sure before 1493, not only with the ruling families of Portugal and Navarre but also with those of Austria and England. Thus Ferdinand hoped to secure considerable accessions of territory and to avoid any interference on the part of the Holy Roman Empire and England, the only outstanding powers which might be able to hinder his plots against France. It is perhaps poetic justice that these plans, so cleverly made and executed at the time, were to have an ultimate result which was quite different from that which Ferdinand had reason to expect. Untimely deaths rendered the various Portuguese alliances of no effect; the authorities of Navarre would have nothing to do with Ferdinand’s proffer; and Spanish Catherine in England was to figure in the famous divorce from Henry VIII, precipitating the English Reformation. One marriage was productive of results, that of Juana, heir of Ferdinand and Isabella, to Philip the Handsome of Burgundy. Thus the Spanish kings were brought into the line of the Hapsburg family and of imperial succession, which was to prove less a boon than a fatality.
The acquisition of Naples.
Charles VIII wished to revive the Angevin claim to the Neapolitan territory held at the time by the illegitimate branch of Alfonso V of Aragon, related by blood to Ferdinand the Catholic. Alleging that Naples was a fief of the pope and therefore excepted from the treaty of 1493, Ferdinand resisted the pretensions of Charles, and formed an alliance with the pope, the emperor, Venice, and Milan against him. The forces of the league proving too much for him, Charles was forced in 1497 to suspend hostilities, whereupon Ferdinand agreed with him in secret to divide Naples between them, renewing the agreement with Louis XII, who ascended the French throne in 1498. The division was carried into effect, but a quarrel sprang up over a certain portion of the territory, and war broke out. Thanks to the military genius of the great Spanish leader, Gonzalo de Córdoba, Ferdinand was victorious by the year 1504, and Naples came under his authority.
Juana la Loca and Philip the Handsome.
In the same year, 1504, Isabella the Catholic died, leaving her throne to her elder daughter, Juana, and in case she should prove unable to govern to Ferdinand as regent until Juana’s heir should become twenty years of age. Since Juana had already given evidence of that mental instability which was to earn for her the soubriquet “La Loca” (the Crazy), it was the intention of both Isabella and Ferdinand that the latter should rule, but Philip the Handsome, husband of Juana, intervened to procure the regency for himself. This was a serious set-back to the plans of Ferdinand, but fortunately for him there occurred the unexpected death of Philip in 1506. On the occasion of the latter’s burial Juana gave such ample proof of her mental unfitness that it was now clear that Ferdinand would be called in as regent. In 1507 he was so installed, and he now had the resources of Spain at his back in the accomplishment of his ambitious designs. Leaving Cardinal Ximénez to effect conquests in northern Africa and to carry into execution other Castilian projects Ferdinand once again turned his attention to the aggrandizement of Aragon in Italy.
The aggrandizement of Aragon in Italy and the conquest of Navarre.
In 1508 Ferdinand joined an alliance of the pope, the emperor, and Louis XII of France against Venice, whereby he rounded out his Neapolitan possessions. Seeing that the French were gaining more than he desired he formed a new alliance, in 1511, with the pope, the emperor, Venice, and Henry VIII of England against France. The French were defeated and thrown out of Italy. Meanwhile, Ferdinand had taken advantage of the French sympathies of the ruler of Navarre and the excommunication of that king by the pope to overrun Navarre in 1512. The pope sanctioned the conquest of that part of the kingdom lying south of the Pyrenees, and it was definitely added to the Spanish domain. The French became dangerous anew with the accession of the glory-loving, ambitious Francis I in 1515. Ferdinand hastened to concert a league against him, into which entered the pope, the emperor, Milan, Florence, the Swiss states, and England, but war had hardly broken out when in 1516 Ferdinand died. For good or evil he had brought Spain into a leading place in European affairs. If his methods were questionable they were in keeping with the practices of his age; he was only worse than his rivals in that he was more successful.
The accession of Charles I.
Juana was still alive, but was utterly incompetent to act as head of the state. The logic of events and the will of Ferdinand pointed to her eldest son, Charles of Ghent, as the one to rule Aragon and Navarre and to act as regent of Castile (during his mother’s life), although he had not attained to his twentieth year, a condition which had been exacted by the will of Isabella. Until such time as he could reach Spain, for he was then in the Low Countries, Cardinal Ximénez served as regent. With two acts of doubtful propriety Charles I, the later Charles V of the Empire, began his reign in the peninsula. He sent word to Ximénez, demanding that he be proclaimed king of Castile, despite the fact that the queen, his mother, was living. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Cortes and his own unwillingness Ximénez did as Charles had required. In 1517 Charles reached Spain, surrounded by a horde of Flemish courtiers. Foreseeing the difficulties likely to result from this invasion of foreign favorites Ximénez wrote to Charles, giving him advice in the matter, and hastening to meet him asked for an interview. Instead of granting this request Charles sent him a note, thanking him for his services, and giving him leave to retire to his diocese “to rest and await the reward of Heaven for his merits.”