[29] Two of the most distinguished of these were the Colonnas, Prospero and Fabrizio, of whom frequent mention has been made in our narrative. The best commentary on the military reputation of the latter, is the fact, that he is selected by Machiavelli as the principal interlocutor in his Dialogues on the Art of War.
[30] See Dubos, Ligue de Cambray, dissert. prelim., p. 60.—This French writer has shown himself superior to national distinctions, in the liberal testimony which he bears to the character of these brave troops. See a similar strain of panegyric from the chivalrous pen of old Brantôme, Oeuvres, tom. i. disc. 27.
CHAPTER XVI.
ILLNESS AND DEATH OF ISABELLA.—HER CHARACTER.
1504.
Decline of the Queen's Health.—Alarm of the Nation.—Her Testament.—And
Codicil.—Her Resignation and Death.—Her Remains Transported to Granada.
—Isabella's Person.—Her Manners.—Her Character.—Parallel with Queen
Elizabeth.
The acquisition of an important kingdom in the heart of Europe, and of the New World beyond the waters, which promised to pour into her lap all the fabled treasures of the Indies, was rapidly raising Spain to the first rank of European powers. But, in this noontide of her success, she was to experience a fatal shock in the loss of that illustrious personage, who had so long and so gloriously presided over her destinies. We have had occasion to notice more than once the declining state of the queen's health during the last few years. Her constitution had been greatly impaired by incessant personal fatigue and exposure, and by the unremitting activity of her mind. It had suffered far more severely, however, from a series of heavy domestic calamities, which had fallen on her with little intermission since the death of her mother in 1496. The next year, she followed to the grave the remains of her only son, the heir and hope of the monarchy, just entering on his prime; and in the succeeding, was called on to render the same sad offices to the best beloved of her daughters, the amiable queen of Portugal.
The severe illness occasioned by this last blow terminated in a dejection of spirits, from which she never entirely recovered. Her surviving children were removed far from her into distant lands; with the occasional exception, indeed, of Joanna, who caused a still deeper pang to her mother's affectionate heart, by exhibiting infirmities which justified the most melancholy presages for the future.
Far from abandoning herself to weak and useless repining, however, Isabella sought consolation, where it was best to be found, in the exercises of piety, and in the earnest discharge of the duties attached to her exalted station. Accordingly, we find her attentive as ever to the minutest interests of her subjects; supporting her great minister Ximenes in his schemes of reform, quickening the zeal for discovery in the west, and, at the close of the year 1503, on the alarm of the French invasion, rousing her dying energies, to kindle a spirit of resistance in her people. These strong mental exertions, however, only accelerated the decay of her bodily strength, which was gradually sinking under that sickness of the heart, which admits of no cure, and scarcely of consolation.
In the beginning of that very year she had declined so visibly, that the cortes of Castile, much alarmed, petitioned her to provide for the government of the kingdom after her decease, in case of the absence or incapacity of Joanna. [1] She seems to have rallied in some measure after this, but it was only to relapse into a state of greater debility, as her spirits sunk under the conviction, which now forced itself on her, of her daughter's settled insanity.