But Ferdinand’s way was always a tortuous one, and the letters from him the same night that carried to Flanders the news of his wife’s death were addressed to Joan and Philip, by the grace of God Sovereigns of Castile, Leon, Granada, Princes of Aragon, etc., etc.’; whilst every city in the realms was informed that henceforward the title of King of Castile would be borne no more by Ferdinand, but only that of Administrator for Joan.[[100]] The step was profoundly diplomatic, for all Europe and half Spain was distrustful of Ferdinand, and the open usurpation of Castile would have been forcibly resisted. And yet, as we shall see, he intended to rule Castile; and in the end had his way. Philip and Joan, in reply to their loving father, declined to commit themselves as to Ferdinand’s proceedings, and announced their coming to take possession of their realm of Castile. They were equally cool to Ferdinand’s envoy, Fonseca, Bishop of Cordova, whom Joan had no reason to love. In the meanwhile, Cortes was convoked at Toro (January 1505) in the name of Joan; and there Ferdinand played his first card, by claiming, under the clause in Isabel’s will, the right to govern Castile until Joan should be present and demonstrate her fitness to rule.[[101]] The nobles of Castile, already jealous of Aragon, were determined to resist this, though the Cortes agreed; and Juan Manuel, the most notable diplomatist in Castile, descended from the royal house, and Ferdinand’s deadly enemy, was sent to Philip, over whom his influence was complete, as the envoy of the Castilian nobles; thenceforward from Flanders to animate and direct the diplomatic campaign against Ferdinand.
The situation thus became daily more strained. Ferdinand’s confidential agents endeavoured to sow discord between Joan and her husband, not a difficult matter; and on one occasion the Queen, in a fit of jealousy, was persuaded by the Aragonese Secretary Conchillos to sign a letter approving of her father’s acts. The messenger to whom it was entrusted betrayed it to Philip, and Conchillos was cast into a dungeon; all Spaniards were warned away from Court, and Joan completely isolated, even from her chaplain. Thinking that in the palace of Brussels Joan was too easy of access, Philip arranged that she should be secretly removed. Whilst the Burgomaster and Councillors were discussing at dead of night in the palace the details of the secret flitting, poor Joan herself learnt what was in the wind; and being denied an interview with the Spanish bishop who attended her, she peremptorily summoned the Prince of Chimay. He dared not enter her chamber alone; but accompanied by another courtier he obeyed the Queen’s summons. They found her in a violent passion, and with difficulty escaped personal attack; with a result that, though the Queen was not immediately removed, she was thenceforward kept strictly guarded in her chambers, a prisoner.[[102]]
When news came of the decision of the Cortes of Toro that Joan was unfit to rule, Philip prevailed upon his wife to sign a remarkable letter[[103]] for publication in Castile. ‘Since they want in Castile to make out that I am not in my right mind, it is only meet that I should come to my senses again, somewhat; though I ought not to wonder that they raise false testimony against me, since they did so against our Lord. But, since the thing has been done so maliciously, and at such a time, I bid you (M. de Vere) speak to my father the king on my behalf, for those who say this of me are acting not only against me but against him; and people say that he is glad of it, so as to have the government of Castile, though I do not believe it, as the King is so great and catholic a sovereign and I his dutiful daughter. I know well that the King my Lord (i.e. Philip) wrote thither complaining of me in some respect; but such a thing should not go beyond father and children! especially as, if I did fly into passions and failed to keep up my proper dignity, it is well known that the only cause of my doing so was jealousy. I am not alone in feeling this passion; for my mother, great and excellent person as she was, was also jealous; but she got over it in time, and so, please God, shall I. Tell everybody there (i.e. in Castile) ... that, even if I was in the state that my enemies would wish me to be, I would not deprive the King, my husband, of the government of the realms, and of all the world if it were mine to give.’...—Brussels, 3rd May 1505.
We can see here, and in the several reports sent, that Joan had little or no control over herself. In the conflict, daily growing more bitter, between her husband and her father, she swayed from one side to another according to the influences brought to bear upon her. Her gusts of jealous rage and frenzied violence gave to both sides the excuse of calling her mad when it suited them to do so, or to declare that such temporary fits were compatible with general sanity when they wanted her sane. Joan’s affection for her husband was fierce, and monopolous, and his influence over her was great, especially when he appealed to her pride and her rights as Queen of Castile, but her sense of filial duty was also high; and whenever she understood that a measure was intended to be against her father, she indignantly refused to countenance it. Ferdinand knew that the King of France had been enlisted by Philip and Maximilian against him; and that an army was being mustered in Flanders; whilst a project was on foot for Philip to come to Castile without Joan. This he was determined to prevent; and warned his son-in-law that he would not be allowed to act as King without his wife. To this warning Philip retorted by ordering his father-in-law to leave Castile, and return to his own realm of Aragon.
In this contest poor hysterical Joan was but a cypher, with her gusts of jealous passion and her lack of fixed resolution. When she had arrived in Flanders after her detention in Spain, she had discovered that her husband, whose coolness she noted from the first, was carrying on a liaison with a lady of the court. We are told that she sought out the lady in a raving fury and seriously injured her; as well as causing all her beautiful hair, of which she was proud, to be cut off close to the scalp. This led to a violent scene between Philip and Joan, in which not only hard words but hard blows were exchanged; and Joan took to her bed, seriously ill both in body and mind. These scenes continued at intervals, either with or without good reason, but with the natural result that Philip in his relations with his father-in-law acted almost independently of his wife; who, as Ferdinand afterwards said, was really a good dutiful daughter, proud of Spain and her people.
Ferdinand had at his side at this juncture the great Cardinal Jimenez. The stern Franciscan had been no friend of the King, who had opposed his appointment as primate; but he was a patriotic Spaniard, and could not fail to see that if Flemish Philip was paramount in Spain, the work of Isabel for the faith would be in peril. Ferdinand, he knew, was an able and experienced ruler, who would not greatly change the existing system; and he threw all his powerful influence on the side of an arrangement that might leave Ferdinand real power in Castile, without entirely alienating Philip. Above all, Jimenez was determined to prevent the ambitious Castilian nobles from again dominating the government; which they hoped to do if an inexperienced foreigner like Philip took the reins. It was, indeed, quite as much a struggle between Ferdinand and Jimenez and the Castilian nobles, as between Ferdinand and his son-in-law. But Jimenez’s patriotic efforts met with little success, so far as Philip was concerned; and, in the meantime, Ferdinand, whilst ostensibly solacing himself in hunting, was quietly planning a characteristic stroke at his enemy.
He was fifty-five years of age and still robust, and he bethought himself that he might yet win the game by a second marriage. It was almost sacrilege to contemplate such a thing in the circumstances; but to Ferdinand of Aragon any crooked way was straight that led him to his goal. So he sent his natural son, Hugo de Cardona, to propose secretly to the King of Portugal that the forgotten Beltraneja should leave her convent and become Queen of Aragon, joining her claims to Castile to those of Ferdinand and ousting Joan and Philip.[[104]] It was a wicked cynical idea, for it made Isabel a usurper; but neither the King of Portugal nor his cousin, the Beltraneja, would have anything to say to it; so Ferdinand turned towards a solution, which, if not quite so iniquitous morally, was even more inimical to the interest of Spain as a nation. This was nothing less than to outbid Philip for the friendship of the King of France, upon which he mainly depended to frustrate his father-in-law’s plans. Ferdinand had broken all his former covenants with Louis XII. The French had been turned out of Naples, and the great Gonzalo de Cordova was there as Ferdinand’s viceroy. He was a Castilian; and already Ferdinand’s spies had reported that the Castilian nobles, in union with Philip and France, were tampering with Cordova’s loyalty and endeavouring to establish the claim of Castile, instead of Aragon, to Naples. Ferdinand, with what sincerity may be supposed, rapidly patched up an alliance with Louis XII., by which the widowed King of Aragon was to marry the niece of the King of France, Germaine de Foix, a spoiled and petted young beauty of twenty-one. Any heirs of the marriage were to inherit Aragon, Sicily, and Naples; but in the case of no children being left, Naples was to be divided between France and Aragon; great concessions were made at once to the French in Naples, and a million gold crowns were to be paid by Ferdinand to France as indemnity for the late war.
This, it will be seen, quite isolated Philip, threatened again to separate Aragon and Castile, and at one blow to undo the work both of Isabel and her husband. But as Ferdinand never kept more of a treaty than suited him at the moment, it may be fairly assumed that he signed this only to bridge his present difficulty and with such mental reservation as was usual with him. When the news reached Brussels Maximilian himself was there with his son, and they at once tried their best to deal a counterstroke. When certain papers were presented to Joan for signature denouncing to the Castilian people Ferdinand’s treaty and second marriage, she stood firm in her refusal to sign. Philip exerted the utmost pressure upon his wife; but at last, worn out by his and Maximilian’s importunity, the unhappy lady burst into ungovernable rage, flinging the papers from her and crying that she would never do anything against her father. The isolation and close guard over the Queen was indeed working its natural effect upon her highly wrought nervous system; and Ferdinand’s ambassadors, who had come to announce his marriage with his French bride, and to offer terms of friendship to his son-in-law, were scandalised at the treatment of their Queen. When, after much difficulty, they were allowed to see her at the palace of Brussels it was only on condition that they should have no conversation with her.
Shortly afterwards, in September 1505, Joan was delivered of a daughter (Maria, afterwards Queen of Hungary and Governess of the Netherlands), and Philip then decided that the time had come to carry her to Castile and claim the throne. First issuing a manifesto to the Castilian nobles and towns, ordering them not to obey Ferdinand in anything, he made overtures to the King of France to allow him to pass overland to Spain. This was flatly refused. The French princess, Germaine, was now Ferdinand’s wife, and all the help that Louis XII. could give would be against Philip and Joan. It was therefore decided to make the voyage by sea, and a large fleet of sixty ships, with a retinue of three thousand persons, was mustered in one of the ports of Zeeland. In the meanwhile ceaseless intrigue went on both in Spain and abroad. France having abandoned him, Philip turned to England. Juan Manuel’s sister, Elvira, was the principal lady-in-waiting upon Katharine, Princess of Wales, and through her and Katharine secret negotiations were opened for a marriage between Henry VII. and Philip’s sister, the Archduchess Margaret, the widow of Juan, Prince of Asturias and of the Duke of Savoy, with an alliance between England and Philip—though Katharine probably did not understand at first how purely this was a move against her father. So, although Henry VII. still professed to be on Ferdinand’s side in the quarrel, he was quite ready for a secret alliance with Philip and Joan against him and the King of France.
The King and Queen of Castile left Brussels early in November to join the waiting fleet, but from the slowness of their movements and the ostentatious publicity given to them, it is clear that their first object was to prepare Castile in their favour. Philip, for a time, scouted all idea of arrangement with Ferdinand. He knew that the Castilian nobles were on his side, and that his wife’s legal right was unimpeachable. The wily old King of Aragon saw that his best policy was to temporise, and to do that he must seem strong. His first move was to declare to the Castilians that Joan was sane, but was kept a prisoner by her husband, and he proposed to send a fleet to rescue her and bring her and her son Charles to Castile. Philip’s Flemish subjects were discontented at his proposed long absence, and also threatened trouble. Then Ferdinand hinted that he would mobilise all his force to resist Philip’s landing.