This series of manœuvres delayed the departure of Philip and his wife month after month; until Ferdinand, by consummate diplomacy, managed to patch up an agreement with Philip’s ambassadors at Salamanca at the end of November; which, though on the face of it fair enough, was really an iniquitous plot for the exclusion of Joan in any circumstances. Philip and Joan were to be acknowledged by Castile as sovereigns, and their son Charles as heir; but, at the same time, Ferdinand was to be accepted as perpetual governor in his daughter’s absence: and in the case of Queen Joan being unwilling or unable to undertake the government, the two Kings, Ferdinand and Philip, were to issue all decrees and grants in their joint names. The revenues of Castile and of the Grand Masterships were to be equally divided between Philip and Ferdinand.
When once this wicked but insincere agreement was ratified there was no further need for delay, and Philip’s fleet sailed for Spain on the 8th January 1506 to engage in the famous battle of wits with his father-in-law, which only one could win. All went well until the Cornish coast was passed, and then a dead calm fell, followed by a furious south-westerly gale which scattered the ships and left that in which Philip and Joan were without any escort. To add to the trouble a fire broke out upon this vessel, and a fallen spar gave the ship such a list as to leave her almost waterlogged. Despair seized the crew, and all gave themselves up for lost. Philip played anything but an heroic part. His attendants dressed him in an inflated leather garment, upon the back of which was painted in staring great letters, ‘The King, Don Philip,’ and thus arrayed, he knelt before a blessed image in prayer, alternating with groans, expecting every moment would be his last. Joan does not appear to have lost her head. She is represented by one contemporary authority[[105]] as being seated on the ground between her husband’s knees, saying that if they went down she would cling so closely to him that they should never be separated in death, as they had not been in life. The Spanish witnesses are loud in her praise in this danger. ‘The Queen,’ they say, ‘showed no signs of fear, and asked them to bring her a box with something to eat. As some of the gentlemen were collecting votive gifts to the Virgin of Guadalupe, they passed the bag to the Queen, who, taking out her purse containing about a hundred doubloons, hunted amongst them until she found the only half-doubloon there, showing thus how cool she was in the danger. A king never was drowned yet, so she was not afraid, she said.’[[106]]
At length, mainly by the courage and address of one sailor, the ship was righted, the fire extinguished, and the vessel brought into the port of Weymouth on the 17th January 1506. Henry VII. of England had been courted and conciliated by Philip for some time past, but it was a dangerous temptation to put in the wily Tudor’s way to enable him to make his own terms for an alliance. Above all, he wanted to get into his power the rebel Earl of Suffolk, who was in refuge in Flanders, and this seemed his opportunity. Philip had had enough of the sea for a while. We are assured by one who was there that he was ‘fatigate and unquyeted in mynde and bodie,’ and he yearned to tread firm land again. His councillors urged him to take no risk, but Philip and Joan landed at Melcombe Regis to await a fair wind for sailing again. From far and near the west country gentry flocked down with their armed bands, ready for war or peace, but when they found that the royal visitors were friendly their hospitality knew no bounds. Sir John Trenchard would take no denial. The King and Queen must rest in his manor-house hard by until the weather mended; and, in the meanwhile, swift horses carried the news to King Henry in London.
As may be supposed, when he heard the news, ‘he was replenyshed with exceeding gladnes ... for that he trusted it should turn out to his profit and commodity,’ which it certainly did. But Philip grew more and more uneasy at the pressing nature of the Dorsetshire welcome. The armed bands grew greater, and though the weather improved, Trenchard would not listen to his guests going on board until the King of England had a chance of sending greeting to his good brother and ally. At length Philip and Joan realised that they were in a trap, and had to make the best of it, which they did with a good grace, for they were welcomed by Henry with effusive professions of pleasure. Philip was conveyed with a vast cavalcade of gentlemen across England to Windsor, where he was met by Henry and his son, the betrothed of Katharine, Joan’s sister. Then the King of Castile was led to London and to Richmond with every demonstration of honour. But, withal, it was quite clear that Henry would not let his visitors go until they had subscribed to his terms, whatever they might be. And so the pact was solemnly sworn upon a fragment of the true cross in Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, by Philip and Henry, by which Suffolk was to be surrendered to his doom, Philip’s sister Margaret, with her fat dowry, was to be married to the widowed old Henry, and England was bound to the King of Castile against Ferdinand of Aragon.
Joan was deliberately kept in the background during her stay in England. She had followed her husband slowly from Melcombe, and arrived at Windsor ten days later, the day after Philip, with great ceremony, had been invested with the Order of the Garter and had signed the treaty. On her arrival at Windsor on the 10th February she saw her sister Katharine, though not alone, and Katharine left the next day to go to Richmond. Three days later, on the 14th February, Joan set out from Windsor again towards Falmouth, whilst Philip joined Henry at Richmond; and soon after the King of Castile was allowed to travel into the west and once more take ship for his wife’s kingdom. The cynical exclusion of Joan from all participation in the treaty with England,[[107]] and the fact that she was only allowed to see her sister once, and in the presence of witnesses in the interests of Philip, seems to prove that she was purposely kept in the dark as to the real meaning of the treaty, which was directed almost as much against herself as against her father, because, with England on his side, Philip could always paralyse France from interfering with him in Spain; and it is clear that, whether Joan was really incapacitated at the time or not, both Ferdinand and Philip had already determined to make out that she was.
Like a pair of wary wrestlers the two opponents still played at arms’ length. Ferdinand, after celebrating his second marriage—as he had celebrated his first, nearly forty years before—at Valladolid, awaited at Burgos, so as to be near on arrival of his daughter and her husband at one of the Biscay ports, as was expected. But nothing was further from Philip’s thoughts than to land at any place near where Ferdinand was waiting. His idea was to go to Andalucia, so as to be able to march through Spain before meeting the old King, and to gather friends and partisans on the way. Contrary winds, however, drove the fleet into Corunna, on the extreme north-west of the Peninsula, on the 26th April; and Ferdinand, when he got the news, for a moment lost his smooth self-control, and was for flying at his undutiful son-in-law sword in hand. But the outbreak was not of long duration, for the circumstances were serious, and needed all the great astuteness of which Ferdinand was capable. He was determined to rule Castile whilst he lived for the benefit of his great Aragonese aims.
He had, indeed, some cause for complaint against fortune; for, with the exception of the kingdom of Naples, he had not yet gathered the harvest that he had reckoned upon as the result of the union of the realms. His son-in-law, now that, by the death of other heirs, Joan had become Queen of Castile, was an enemy instead of an ally, and his defection had rendered necessary the pact between Ferdinand and France, which had stultified much of the advantage previously gained by the Castilian connection. At any cost Castile must be held, or all would be lost. If Joan herself took charge of the government, as was her right, then goodbye to the hope of Ferdinand employing for his own purposes the resources of Castile; for around her would be jealous nobles hating Aragon; whereas, with Philip as King, it was certain that his imprudence, his ignorance of Spain, and the Castilian distrust of foreigners, would soon provoke a crisis that might give Ferdinand his chance. Both opponents, therefore, were equally determined to keep Joan away from active sovereignty, whatever her mental state; and as Philip and his wife rode through Corunna, smiling and debonair, gaining friends everywhere, but surrounded with armed foreigners, German guards, archers, and the like, strange to Spaniards, as if in an enemy’s country, the plot thickened between the two antagonists.
Everywhere Philip took the lead, and Joan was treated as a consort.[[108]] In the verses of welcome it was Don Philip’s name that came first; and Joan showed her discontent at the position in which she was placed by refusing to confirm the privileges of the cities through which they passed until she had seen her father, though Philip promised readily to do so. No sooner did Philip find himself supported by the northern nobles, than he announced that he would not be bound by the treaty of Salamanca, and generally gave Ferdinand to understand that he, Philip, alone, intended to be master. Ferdinand travelled forward to meet his son-in-law, making desperate attempts at conciliation and to win Juan Manuel to his side, but without success: whilst Philip tarried on the way and exhausted every means of delay in order to gain strength before the final struggle. To Philip’s insulting messages Ferdinand returned diplomatic answers; in the face of Philip’s scornful rejection of advances, Ferdinand was amiable, conciliatory, almost humble; he who, with the great Isabel, had been master of Spain for well nigh forty years. But he must have chuckled under his bated breath and whispering humbleness, for he knew that he was going to win, and he knew how he was going to do it.
Slowly Ferdinand travelled towards the north-west, sending daily embassies to Philip soliciting a friendly interview, and at every stage, as he came nearer, his son-in-law grew in arrogance. When Ferdinand left Astorga in the middle of May, Juan Manuel sent a message to him that if he wished to see the King of Castile, he must understand three things: first, that no business would be discussed; second, that Philip must have stronger forces than he; and third, that he must not expect that he would be allowed to obtain any advantage by, or through, his daughter, Queen Joan, as they knew where that would lead them to. Therefore, continued Manuel, King Ferdinand had better not come to Santiago at all. In the meanwhile the inevitable discord was brewing in the Court of Joan and Philip at Corunna. The proud Castilian nobles, greedy and touchy, who had flocked to Philip’s side, found that Flemings and Germans always stood between them and the throne, and intercepted the favours for which they hungered. The Teutons, who thought they were coming to Spain to lord over all, found a jealous nobility and a nation convinced of its own heaven-sent superiority, ready to resist to the death any encroachment of foreigners, whom they regarded with hate and scorn.
The Castilians deplored most the isolation of Joan, and endeavoured by a hundred plans to persuade her to second her husband’s action towards her father. Philip ceased now even to consult her, since she had refused to oppose Ferdinand; and in the pageantry of the entrance into Santiago and the triumphal march through Galicia, with a conquering army rather than a royal escort, Joan, in deepest black garments and sombre face, passed like a shadow of death. As the Kings gradually approached each other, Ferdinand, in soft words, begged Philip to let him know what alterations he desired to make in the agreement of Salamanca. After much fencing, Philip replied that if his father-in-law would send Cardinal Jimenez with full powers, he would try to arrange terms. The great point, he wrote, was that of Queen Joan; and the King of Aragon knew full well that upon this point the issue between him and Philip would be joined. Ferdinand had little love or trust in the great Castilian Cardinal, Jimenez, though the latter was faithful to him, not for his own sake, but for the good of Spain; but the Cardinal went to Philip with full powers, and bearing a private letter, saying that, as Joan was incapacitated from undertaking the government, Ferdinand besought Philip to join and make common cause with him, in order to prevent her, either of her own accord or by persuasion of the nobles, from seizing the reins. This was the line upon which Philip was pleased to negotiate, and Cardinal Jimenez found a ready listener. Ferdinand, however, was ready with the other alternative solution if this failed. If Philip would not join with him to exclude Joan, he would join Joan to exclude Philip, and all preparations were quietly made to muster his adherents at Toro, make a dash for Benavente, the place where Philip was to stay, rescue Joan, and govern, with her or in her name, to the exclusion of foreigners.[[109]] But it was unnecessary. Jimenez’s persuasion and Ferdinand’s supple importunity conquered; and, though with infinite distrust and jealousy on all sides, the Kings still slowly approached each other, stage by stage, whilst the negotiations went on.