[70] The intricacies of this affair, at once the scandal and the stumbling-block of the Spanish historians, have been unravelled by Señor Clemencin, with his usual perspicuity. See Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. pp. 105-116, Ilust. 2.
[71] Alonso de Palencia, Corónica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16.—A lively narrative of the adventures of Prince Ferdinand, detailed in this chapter, may be found in Cushing's Reminiscences of Spain, (Boston, 1833,) vol. i. pp. 225-255.
[72] Castillo, Crónica, cap. 137.—Alonso de Palencia, Corónica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16.
CHAPTER IV.
FACTIONS IN CASTILE.—WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND ARAGON.—DEATH OF HENRY IV., OF CASTILE.
1469-1474.
Factions in Castile.—Ferdinand and Isabella.—Gallant Defence of
Perpignan against the French.—Ferdinand Raises the Siege.—Isabella's
Party gains Strength.—Interview between King Henry IV. and Isabella.—The
French Invade Roussillon.—Ferdinand's Summary Justice.—Death of Henry
IV., of Castile.—Influence of his Reign.
The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella disconcerted the operations of the marquis of Villena, or, as he should be styled, the grand master of St. James, since he had resigned his marquisate to his elder son, on his appointment to the command of the military order above mentioned, a dignity inferior only to the primacy in importance. It was determined, however, in the councils of Henry to oppose at once the pretensions of the princess Joanna to those of Isabella; and an embassy was gladly received from the king of France, offering to the former lady the hand of his brother the duke of Guienne, the rejected suitor of Isabella. Louis the Eleventh was willing to engage his relative in the unsettled politics of a distant state, in order to relieve himself from his pretensions at home. [1]
An interview took place between Henry the Fourth and the French ambassadors in a little village in the vale of Lozoya, in October, 1470. A proclamation was read, in which Henry declared his sister to have forfeited whatever claims she had derived from the treaty of Toros de Guisando, by marrying contrary to his approbation. He then with his queen swore to the legitimacy of the princess Joanna, and announced her as his true and lawful successor. The attendant nobles took the usual oaths of allegiance, and the ceremony was concluded by affiancing the princess, then in the ninth year of her age, with the formalities ordinarily practised on such occasions, to the count of Boulogne, the representative of the duke of Guienne. [2]
This farce, in which many of the actors were the same persons who performed the principal parts at the convention of Toros de Guisando, had on the whole an unfavorable influence on Isabella's cause. It exhibited her rival to the world as one whose claims were to be supported by the whole authority of the court of Castile, with the probable co-operation of France. Many of the most considerable families in the kingdom, as the Pachecos, [3] the Mendozas in all their extensive ramifications, [4] the Zuñigas, the Velascos, [5] the Pimentels, [6] unmindful of the homage so recently rendered to Isabella, now openly testified their adhesion to her niece.