Matéo Aleman's whimsical picaresco novel, Guzman d'Alfarache, contains a comic adventure, showing the excessive rigor with which the edict against mules was enforced, as late as the close of Philip II.'s reign. The passage is extracted in Roscoe's elegant version of the Spanish Novelists, Vol. I. p. 132.
[13] See a copy of the ordinance taken from the Archives of Simancas; apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. apend. 13.
When Francis I, who was destined to feel the effects of this careful military discipline, beheld, during his detention in Spain in the beginning of the following century, striplings with scarce down upon the chin, all armed with swords at their sides, he is said to have cried out, "O bienaventurada España, que pare y eria los hombres armados!" (L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, lib. 5.) An exclamation not unworthy of a Napoleon,—or an Attila.
CHAPTER IV.
ALLIANCES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.—DEATH OF PRINCE JOHN AND PRINCESS ISABELLA.
Royal Family of Castile.—Matrimonial Alliances with Portugal.—With
Austria.—Marriage of John and Margaret.—Death of Prince John.—The
Queen's Resignation.—Independence of the Cortes of Aragon.—Death of the
Princess Isabella.—Recognition of her Infant Son Miguel.
The credit and authority which the Castilian sovereigns established by the success of their arms, were greatly raised by the matrimonial connections which they formed for their children. This was too important a spring of their policy to be passed over in silence. Their family consisted of one son and four daughters, whom they carefully educated in a manner befitting their high rank; and who repaid their solicitude by exemplary filial obedience, and the early manifestation of virtues rare even in a private station. [1] They seem to have inherited many of the qualities which distinguished their illustrious mother; great decorum and dignity of manners, combined with ardent sensibilities, and unaffected piety, which, at least in the eldest and favorite daughter, Isabella, was, unhappily, strongly tinctured with bigotry. They could not, indeed, pretend to their mother's comprehensive mind, and talent for business, although there seems to have been no deficiency in these respects; or, if any, it was most effectually supplied by their excellent education. [2]
The marriage of the princess Isabella with Alonso, the heir of the Portuguese crown, in 1490, has been already noticed. This had been eagerly desired by her parents, not only for the possible contingency, which it afforded, of bringing the various monarchies of the Peninsula under one head, (a design of which they never wholly lost sight,) but from the wish to conciliate a formidable neighbor, who possessed various means of annoyance, which he had shown no reluctance to exert. The reigning monarch, John the Second, a bold and crafty prince, had never forgotten his ancient quarrel with the Spanish sovereigns in support of their rival Joanna Beltraneja, or Joanna the Nun, as she was generally called in the Castilian court after she had taken the veil. John, in open contempt of the treaty of Alcantara, and indeed of all monastic rule, had not only removed his relative from the convent of Santa Clara, but had permitted her to assume a royal state, and subscribe herself "I the Queen." This empty insult he accompanied with more serious efforts to form such a foreign alliance for the liberated princess as should secure her the support of some arm more powerful than his own, and enable her to renew the struggle for her inheritance with better chance of success. [3] These flagrant proceedings had provoked the admonitions of the Roman see, and had formed the topic, as may be believed, of repeated, though ineffectual remonstrance from the court of Castile. [4]
It seemed probable that the union of the princess of the Asturias with the heir of Portugal, as originally provided by the treaty of Alcantara, would so far identify the interests of the respective parties as to remove all further cause of disquietude. The new bride was received in Portugal in a spirit which gave cordial assurance of these friendly relations for the future; and the court of Lisbon celebrated the auspicious nuptials with the gorgeous magnificence, for which, at this period of its successful enterprise, it was distinguished above every other court in Christendom. [5]
Alonso's death, a few months after this event, however, blighted the fair hopes which had begun to open of a more friendly feeling between the two countries. His unfortunate widow, unable to endure the scenes of her short-lived happiness, soon withdrew into her own country to seek such consolation as she could find in the bosom of her family. There, abandoning herself to the melancholy regrets to which her serious and pensive temper naturally disposed her, she devoted her hours to works of piety and benevolence, resolved to enter no more into engagements, which had thrown so dark a cloud over the morning of her life. [6]