Women of the Romance Countries Part 9

"Next there went St. Andrew, Then goes St. Philip too; And see, there is an end Of St. Bartholomew.

"St. Simon is in the snuff, But it is a matter of doubt, Whether he or St. Thomas could be said, Soonest to have gone out.

"There are only three remaining, St. Jude and the two Saints James, And great was then Queen Mary's hope, For the best of all good names.

"Great was then Queen Mary's hope, But greater her fear, I guess, When one of the three went out, And that one was St. James the less.

"They are now within less than quarter inch, The only remaining two.

When there came a thief in St James, And it made a gutter too.

"Up started Queen Mary, Up she sate in her bed, 'I can never call him Judas,'

She clasped her hands and said.

'I never can call him Judas!'

Again did she exclaim.

'Holy Mother, preserve us!

It is not a Christian name.'

"She opened her hands and clasped them again, And the infant in the cradle Set up a cry, a l.u.s.ty cry, As loud as he was able.

"'Holy Mother, preserve us!'

The Queen her prayer renewed, When in came a moth at the window, And fluttered about St. Jude.

"St. James had fallen in the socket, But as yet the flame is not out, And St. Jude hath singed the silly moth, That flutters so idly about.

"And before the flame and the molten wax, That silly moth could kill, It hath beat out St. Jude with its wings, But St. James is burning still.

"Oh, that was a joy for Queen Mary's heart, The babe is christened James, The Prince of Aragon hath got, The best of all good names.

"Glory to Santiago, The mighty one in war, James he is called, and he shall be King James the Conqueror.

"Now shall the Crescent wane, The Cross be set on high, In triumph upon many a mosque, Woe, woe to Mawmetry!"

So Jayme the youth was named, Jayme being the popularly accepted Aragonese form for James, and early in life he entered upon an active career which soon showed him to possess a strong and crafty nature, though he was at the same time brutal, rough, and dissolute. In his various schemes for conquest and national expansion, he stopped at nothing which might ensure the success of his undertakings, and in particular did he attempt by matrimonial ventures of various kinds to increase his already large domain. This rather unusual disregard of the sacredness of the marriage relation, even for that time, may have been induced to some extent by the atmosphere in which he pa.s.sed his youthful days; for his mother, the devout Queen Maria, in spite of all her pious zeal for the Church, was pleasure-loving, and in the excitement of court life it was whispered that she had looked with favor more than once upon some gallant troubadour from Provence who had written verses in her honor. Jayme's first marriage was with Eleanor of Castile, Berenguela's sister, but when he discovered that the young Castilian king, Fernando, was strong and capable and that there was no possibility whatever of an ultimate union of Aragon and Castile, at least within his own time, he promptly divorced Eleanor, and then wedded Yolande, the daughter of King Andrew of Hungary. Yolande's eldest son, Pedro, was married to Constance, daughter of King Manfred of Sicily, for purely political reasons; and when the King of France opposed this alliance as one detrimental to the best interests of the pope, who was being much aided at this time by Gallican support, Jayme cleverly silenced this complaint by marrying his daughter Isabel to Philip, the French dauphin. This daring King of Aragon had dreams of a great Romance Empire which might extend all over the southern part of Europe, with Aragon as its centre, and it was to this end that he bent all his energies. While he was not able to realize this fond hope, he was remarkably successful; and not a little of his success must be attributed to his lack of sentiment and his practical view of the matrimonial question.

With his conquests and the corresponding prosperity which is to be seen in Castile at the same general period, Christian Spain slowly became the most civilized and enlightened country in all Europe. Spain was rich, there was much culture and refinement, and her artistic manufactures excited the wonder of the world. With the knights who were coming in ever increasing numbers to do battle against the Moors, now that the time of the Crusades had pa.s.sed, there came a goodly number of the troubadours and minstrels who had recently been driven from Provence by the cruel Simon de Montfort at the time of the Albigensian ma.s.sacres, and the whole condition of Spanish society was such that the stern simplicity of the early Spaniards quickly disappeared. So great was the craze for poetry and for glittering entertainments and a lavish display of wealth, that Don Jayme felt called upon to take some restraining measures. Aragon, as well as Castile, was filled with the wealth of captured Moorish cities, there was a new sense of national security with each successive Christian victory, luxuries of all kinds were being brought within the reach of the people as the result of a newly aroused spirit of commercialism, and, all in all, to a warlike king, the situation was fraught with danger. Accordingly, Jayme determined to take matters into his own hands, and he proceeded to issue a number of sumptuary laws which were far from mild. Food was regulated, minstrels were not allowed to sit at the same table with ladies and gentlemen, most rigid rules were formulated against the abuse of gold, silver, and tinsel tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs on the dresses of the women, and of the men as well, and the use of ermine and of all fine and Costly furs was carefully restricted. In Castile the same movement was taking place, and Alfonso X., who followed Fernando, issued similar laws, wherein women were forbidden to wear any bright colors, to adorn their girdles with pearls, or to border their skirts with either gold or silver thread. As in Italy at about the same time, and notably in Florence, extravagant wedding feasts were condemned, no presents of garments were permitted, and the whole cost of a bride's trousseau could not exceed sixty maravedis, a maravedi being a gold coin containing about sixty grains of the yellow metal.

It was in the midst of this brilliant period of national well-being that Spain was called upon to celebrate a wedding festival which far surpa.s.sed in magnificence anything that had ever before been seen among the Christians of the peninsula. The sister of King Alfonso X. of Castile, Eleanor, was given in marriage to Edward Plantagenet, the attractive young heir to the English throne, and it was in honor of this event that all Burgos was in gala dress in the month of October, 1254.

All were on tiptoe with excitement, crowds thronged into the old cathedral city, and the windows and housetops were black with people, on that eventful day when the stalwart prince rode in through the great gate, with a glittering train of n.o.bles at his back, to claim his bride.

Prince Edward was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, towering almost head and shoulders above his fellows, and the gorgeous entertainments which were prepared for him and his followers gave good opportunity for all to witness his courtly grace and his distinguished bearing. The chronicles of the time are full of the most superlative descriptions of this whole affair, and often they seem lost in wonderment, lacking words with which to describe the scene properly.

Before the wedding, in accord with mediaeval custom, Edward received knighthood at the hands of King Alfonso. In that same old monastery at Las Huelgas where the youth Fernando had kept his lonely vigil before he had been knighted by his n.o.ble mother, Queen Berenguela, the English prince now kept his watch; and when the morning came and he stood, tall and fair, clothed in a robe of white, ready to receive the accolade, before a company of chosen knights and ladies, the scene must have been wonderfully impressive. The bride, Eleanor, had been a great favorite with all her people, of both high and low degree, and all were glad to see that the future seemed to smile upon her.

A worthy companion to the wise Berenguela is found in the person of Maria de Molina, the wife of Sancho IV., called the Ferocious, King of Castile. His reign, which had extended over a period of eleven years, came to a close with his death in the year 1295, and in all that time there had been nothing but discord and confusion, warfare and a.s.sa.s.sination, as Sancho's claim to the throne had been disputed by several pretenders, and they lost no occasion to hara.s.s him by plot and revolution. It may well be imagined, then, that when he died, leaving his throne to his son Fernando, a child of nine, the situation was most perplexing for the queen-mother, who had been made regent, by the terms of her husband's will, until Fernando should become of age. A further matter which tended to complicate the situation was the fact that the marriage between Sancho and Maria had never been sanctioned by the pope, as the two were within the forbidden limits of consanguinity, and he had refused to grant his special dispensation. With this doubt as to her son's legitimacy, Maria was placed in a position which was doubly hard, and if she had not been a woman of keen diplomacy and great wisdom, she would never have been able to steer her s.h.i.+p of state in safety amid so many threatening dangers. Her first care was to induce the pope to grant, after much persuasion, the long-deferred dispensation which legalized her marriage; and this matter settled, she was ready to enter the conflict and endeavor to maintain her rights. The first to attempt her overthrow was the Infante Juan, the young king's uncle, who made an alliance with the Moorish king of Granada and a.s.sumed a threatening att.i.tude. Maria sent against him her greatest n.o.bles, Haro, and the Lords of Lara; but she had been deceived in the loyalty of these followers, as they promptly deserted the regent's cause and, with all their men, went over to the insurgents and helped to make more powerful the coalition which was forming against the infant king. For a brief moment Maria was in despair and felt almost ready to yield in the face of the opposition, as the hostile combination now included Portugal, Aragon, Navarre, France, and Granada, and it was their intent to separate the kingdoms of Leon and Castile if possible and undo all that Berenguela had labored so hard and with such success to accomplish.

Inasmuch as this was, above all else, a quarrel which concerned the n.o.bility, a contention which had its rise in the jealousy and mutual distrust of several powerful houses, Maria, with a keen knowledge of the situation, and with a sagacity which was rather surprising in a woman untrained in politics or government, decided to win to her side the great ma.s.s of the common people, with whom she had always lived in peace and harmony. Her first act was to call a meeting of the Cortes in Valladolid, which was the only city upon which she could depend in this crisis. The Cortes speedily acknowledged Fernando IV. as king, and with this encouragement Maria de Molina set bravely about her arduous task of organization and defence. Few of the n.o.bles rallied to her support, but she soon won over the chartered towns by the liberal treatment she accorded them in matters of taxation and by her protection of the various civic brotherhoods which had been organized by the people that they might defend themselves from the injustice of the n.o.bility, which was now showing itself in countless tyrannical and petty acts. She labored early and late, conducted her government in a most businesslike manner, convoked the Cortes in regular session every year, and by the sheer force of her integrity and her moral strength she finally quelled all internal disturbances and brought back the government to its former strength and solidity. In the year 1300 Fernando was declared king in his own right, at the age of fourteen, and then, for a short time, it looked as if all that the regent had sought to accomplish might suddenly be nullified. The king, inclined to be arrogant, and with his head somewhat turned as the result of his sudden accession to power, was prevailed upon to listen to evil counsellors, who tried in every way to make him believe that Maria had administered her regency with an eye to her own interests, and that much of the revenue which legally belonged to him had been diverted to her own private uses. Fernando, in spite of all his mother's goodness, was simple enough to believe these idle tales, and, in most unfilial and suspecting fas.h.i.+on, he sternly ordered Maria to render up a detailed account of her stewards.h.i.+p during his minority. Maria was much affected by this thoughtless and inconsiderate act, but before she had had time to reply or attempt her own defence in any way, a storm of indignation broke forth from the free towns, and Fernando was informed that he would not be allowed to enter the town of Medina del Campo, where the Leonese Cortes was to be held, unless he restored his mother to favor and brought her with him to the a.s.sembly.

Fernando knew enough to fear the veiled threat which this communication contained, and the queen-regent appeared with him at the opening of the session. The scene which followed is pathetic in the extreme, and shows the magnanimity and unselfishness of Maria in a most striking manner.

She spoke to the members of the Cortes, recalled their former struggles against the encroachments of the n.o.bles, and urged them to prudent action, that there might be no further occasion for domestic strife.

Loyalty to country and to king were the keynotes of her speech, and before she had finished, those who had a.s.sembled in anger, ready to renounce their allegiance on account of Fernando's shameful treatment of his mother, were now willing to forgive and pardon for that same mother's sake. This point once established and a loyal following secured, Maria proceeded to give in detail that account of her stewards.h.i.+p which had been called for, and she had no trouble in showing that her administration had been above reproach. Then it was that Fernando made public acknowledgment of the fact that he had been led astray by evil-minded advisers; and the Cortes adjourned, faithful to the king and more than ever devoted to his mother. At Fernando's death in 1312, Maria de Molina was again called to the regency, so great was her reputation for wisdom and fair play; and when she ended her public career, in 1324, all hastened to do honor to her memory, and she was called Maria the Great, a t.i.tle which has never been bestowed upon any other queen-regent in Spain. Her reputation for goodness was unchanged by the lapse of time, her goodness stands approved to-day, and two dramatists, Tirso de Molina and Roca de Togores, have depicted her as a heroine in their plays.

Under the reign of Alfonso XI., Castile was rent by two factions, one in support of the king's wife, Maria of Portugal, and the other friendly to his beautiful mistress, Leonora de Guzman. When a youth of seventeen, Alfonso had fallen captive to the charms of the fair Leonora; but his grandmother, Maria de Molina, actuated by political motives, had forced him to marry the Infanta Maria of Portugal. What might have been expected came to pa.s.s: Maria was the queen in name, but Leonora was the queen in fact. After three years had pa.s.sed and no heir to the throne had been born, Alfonso threatened to plead his kins.h.i.+p as a reason and get a divorce; but Leonora, antic.i.p.ating the trouble into which this might plunge the country, as Alfonso was eager to marry her as soon as the divorce should have been granted, urged him not to bring about this separation and did all in her power to make him abide by the arrangement which had been made for him. Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that two sons were finally born to Maria and the succession was a.s.sured, Leonora was by far the most influential woman in the kingdom, and was in every way better fitted to rule as queen than the neglected Maria. Leonora had her court and her courtiers, and had not only the love but the respect and confidence of the king, and exercised a considerable interest in affairs of state for a s.p.a.ce of twenty years.

So established was her position at the court, that she was allowed unhindered to found an order of merit, whose members wore a red ribbon and were called Caballeros de la Banda. This order was for the promotion of courtesy and knightly behavior, as it seems that there was still much crudity of manner in Castile; and according to Miss Yonge, the ceremonious Arabs complained that the Castilians were brave men, but that they had no manners, and entered each other's houses freely without asking permission. Finally, after the battle of Salado in 1340, which was a great triumph for Alfonso and the Christians, the king was induced to part definitely with his mistress. Maria, the true wife, had long been jealous of her power and had lost no opportunity to bring about her downfall. In the course of their long relations.h.i.+p Leonora had borne ten children to the king, and her beauty, if accounts be true, was in no way impaired; but, as he grew older, Alfonso could see more clearly the complications which might ensue if he persisted in this double course; and so, with a heavy heart, he consented to the separation, but not without having given to Leonora the well-fortified city of Medina-Sidonia, while her children were so well provided for that the royal revenues were sadly depleted. With the death of Alfonso in 1350 came the opportunity which Queen Maria had long since sought in vain, an opportunity for revenge. Leonora was summoned to Seville, that Maria might consult with her with regard to the interests of her children; and when the one-time mistress showed some disinclination to accept this invitation and gave evident signs of distrust, two n.o.blemen of Maria's following pledged their honor for her safety. a.s.sured by this show of good faith, Leonora went to Seville as she had been summoned, but no sooner had she entered the walls of the city than she was made a prisoner at Maria's order, dragged about in chains after the court, which was travelling to Burgos, and finally she was sent to Talavera, where she met an ignominious death at the hands of a servant, who cruelly strangled her. Strange to say, this act caused no special comment at the time, for, in spite of Leonora's general popularity, her influence had been of such incalculable harm to Maria and her followers in more ways than one, that their revenge was taken somewhat as a matter of course. Maria, however, in this display of savagery, had done more than she had antic.i.p.ated; for, although she had continually tried to excite her son to this revenge upon her rival, her desire for b.l.o.o.d.y satisfaction had been satisfied at Leonora's death, and she now tried to have Pedro treat Leonora's sons as his own brothers, but all to no purpose. Young Pedro was cruel by nature; the early training which he had received from her hands had in no way softened him, and as a natural result, when he came to the throne and became his own master, he soon made himself known and feared by his many terrible and wicked deeds; and so marked did this fierce trait of character appear, that he was ever known as Pedro the Cruel, much to his mother's shame.

"If you ever feel disposed, Samivel, to go a-marryin' anybody,--no matter who,--just you shut yourself up in your own room, if you've got one, and pison yourself off-hand,"--such was the sententious advice of the elder Weller, as recorded by Charles d.i.c.kens in the immortal pages of the _Pickwick Papers_; and investigation will show that in all literatures, from the earliest times, similar warnings have been uttered to men who contemplated matrimony. A Tuscan proverb says: "in buying horses and in taking a wife, shut your eyes tight and commend yourself to G.o.d;" and a sage of Araby has remarked: "Before going to war, say a prayer; before going to sea, say two prayers; before marrying, say three prayers;" but the majority of men since the world began have been content to close their eyes tightly or utter their three prayers and take the goods the G.o.ds provide. Pedro the Cruel was no exception to this rule, and his capricious ventures in search of married bliss would fill many pages. According to Burke, "he was lawfully married in 1352 to the lady who pa.s.sed during her entire life as his mistress, Maria de Padilla; he was certainly married to Blanche of Bourbon in 1353; and his seduction, or rather his violation, of Juana de Castro was accomplished by a third profanation of the sacrament, when the Bishops of Salamanca and Avila, both accessories to the king's scandalous bigamy, p.r.o.nounced the blessing of the Church upon his brutal dishonor of a n.o.ble lady."

Whether Pedro was ever married to Maria de Padilla is still an open question, but, if not his wife, she was his mistress for many years and had great power over him. The details of all this life of intrigue are somewhat confused, but enough is known to make it clear that Pedro was as cruel in love as in war and politics.

The queen-mother, ignorant of her son's marriage to Maria de Padilla, or deciding to ignore it, prevailed upon Pedro to ask for the hand of Blanche, the daughter of the Duke of Bourbon, and sister to Jeanne, wife to Charles, the heir of France. His request was granted, and the king sent his half-brother, the Master of Santiago, one of Leonora's sons, to fetch the bride to Spain. While this journey was being made, Pedro fell in love with one of the n.o.ble ladies in waiting of Dona Isabel of Albuquerque, and so great was his pa.s.sion for this dark-eyed damsel that it was with difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to leave her and go to greet the French princess when she finally arrived in Valladolid.

But he tore himself away, went to Blanche, and was married with great pomp and ceremony. Some had said before the marriage that Maria de Padilla must have bewitched Pedro, so great was his infatuation; and three days after the wedding a strange thing happened, which caused people to shake their heads again and suggest the interference of the powers of sorcery. For, after this short time, Pedro rode away from Valladolid and his new queen and went to Montalvao, where Maria de Padilla was waiting to receive him. Just what had happened, it is somewhat difficult to discover, and the story is told that the king, listening to scandalous talk, was made to believe that his royal messenger and half-brother, Fadrique, had played the role of Sir Tristram as he brought the lady back, and that she had been a somewhat willing Isolde. There were others who said that Blanche, knowing the king's volatile disposition and of his relations with the notorious Maria, had endeavored upon the eve of her marriage to seek aid from the arts of magic in her effort to win the love of her husband, and had obtained from a Jewish sorcerer a belt which she was told would make Pedro faithful, kind, and true. But the story goes on to say that this wizard had been bribed by Maria de Padilla; and when the king tried on the girdle which his wife presented, it forthwith was changed into a hideous serpent, which filled him with such disgust that he could no longer bear the sight of her. Don Alfonso of Albuquerque, who had first introduced Pedro to Maria de Padilla, now tried to take her away from him, in the hope that he might be prevailed upon to return to his wife, the unfortunate Blanche. This so angered the king that he resolved upon Don Alfonso's death, and if it had not been for the timely warning given by Maria, this gentleman would certainly have been a.s.sa.s.sinated. This action on Maria's part, however, was the occasion for a fresh outburst of anger; and Pedro left, wooed Dona Juana de Castro in stormy fas.h.i.+on, and induced her to marry him, on the statement that he had made a secret protest against Blanche and that the pope would soon annul this marriage. Thomas Hardy has said that the most delicate women get used to strange moral situations, and there must have been something of this in Juana's makeup, or she would never have been forced into so shameful a position; but, however that may be, she was made to rue the day, as the king left her the next morning for Maria, his Venus Victrix, and never went to see her again, although he gave her the town of Duefias and allowed her to be addressed as "queen." The chronicles of the time tell of the remarkable beauty of Maria and of the adulation she enjoyed in the heyday of her prosperity. As an instance of the extreme gallantry of the courtiers, we are informed that, with King Pedro, it was their custom to attend the lovely favorite at her bath and, upon her leaving it, to drink of its water.

The fate of Blanche was still hanging in the balance. Pedro, on leaving her so abruptly, had left orders that she be taken to his palace at Toledo, but Blanche, fearing to trust herself to his power, tried to slip from his grasp and finally succeeded in doing so. Arrived in Toledo, she asked permission, before entering the palace, to go to the cathedral, for ma.s.s; and once within the walls of the sanctuary, she refused to go back to her guards, demanded the right of protection which the churches had always possessed in the Middle Ages, and, finally, told her story with such dramatic effect, that the clergy crowded about her, the n.o.bles unsheathed their swords and swore to uphold her cause, and a revolution was begun which soon a.s.sumed great proportions and so frightened Pedro that he consented to take back his wife and send away the baleful Maria. For four years his n.o.bles kept stern watch over him, and he was never allowed to ride out of his palace without a guard of a thousand men at his heels, so fearful were they that he might break away from them, surround himself again with evil counsellors, and recommence his career of wantonness and crime. Their efforts were at last of no avail, as he eluded his followers one day upon a hunting expedition, through the kindly intervention of a heavy fog, rode off to Segovia, ordered his mother, who had been exercising a practical regency during this period, to send him the great seal of state, and then he proceeded to wreak vengeance upon all those who had been instrumental in his humiliation. Blanche was sent to prison at Medina-Sidonia on a trumped-up charge, was shamefully treated during the time of her captivity, and died in 1359, in the same year that Maria de Padilla, discredited and cast aside, also found rest in death. Pitiful as these stories are, they serve to show that women, even at this time, when Spain was the seat of learning and refinement for all Europe, were but the servants of their lords and masters, and that pa.s.sion still ran riot, while justice sat upon a tottering seat.

In Aragon, near the close of this fourteenth century, similar scenes of cruelty were enacted, although the king, Juan I., cannot be compared for cruelty with the infamous Pedro. Burke has said that if Pedro was not absolutely the most cruel of men, he was undoubtedly the greatest blackguard who ever sat upon a throne, and King Juan was far from meriting similar condemnation. Sibyl de Foix, his stepmother, had exercised so strange and wonderful a power over his father, that when Juan came to the throne he was more than eager to turn upon this enchantress and make her render up the wide estates which the late king had been prevailed upon to leave to her. It is actually a.s.serted that Juan charged Sibyl with witchcraft and insisted that she had bewitched his father and that she had all sorts of mysterious dealings with Satan and his evil spirits. Whatever the truth may have been, the unhappy queen only escaped torture and death by surrendering all of the property which had been given her. Juan was by no means a misogynist, however, for he was noted for his gallantry, and his beautiful queen, Violante, was surrounded by a bevy of court beauties who were famed throughout all Christendom at this time. Juan's capital at Saragossa was the talk of all Europe. It became famed for its elegance, was a veritable school of good manners and courtly grace, and to it flocked poets and countless gentlemen who were knightly soldiers of fortune, only too willing to serve a n.o.ble patron who knew how to appreciate the value of their chivalry. Violante was the acknowledged leader of this gay and brilliant world; at her instigation courts of love are said to have been established, and in every way did she try to reproduce the brilliant social life which had been the wonder and admiration of the world before Simon de Montfort had blighted the fair life of Provence. More than ever before in Spain, women were put into positions of prominence in this court; and so great was the poetic and literary atmosphere which surrounded them, that they were known more than once to try their hands at verse making. Their attempts were modest, however, and no one has ever been tempted to quote against them Alphonse Karr's well-known epigram: "A woman who writes, commits two sins: she increases the number of books, and she decreases the number of women;" for they were content, for the most part, to be the source of inspiration for their minstrel knights. Violante's gay court was looked upon with questioning eye, however, by the majority of her rude subjects, and, finally, when the sum demanded from the Cortes each year for the maintenance of this brilliant establishment continued to increase in a most unreasonable manner, the Cortes called a halt, Violante was obliged to change her mode of life, and the number of her ladies in waiting was reduced by half, while other unnecessary expenses were cut in proportion.

CHAPTER XVII

THE AGE OF ISABELLA--SPANISH UNITY

In the first half of the fifteenth century in Spain there was one woman, Isabella of Portugal, who deserves to be remembered for her many good qualities and for the fact that she was the mother of the great Queen Isabella. It was as the wife of John II. of Castile that the elder Isabella was brought into the political life of the time and made to play her part. This King John was one of the weakest and in some ways the most inefficient of monarchs, for, in spite of his intelligence, his good manners, and his open and substantial appreciation of the learned men of his time, his political life was contemptible, as he was completely under the control of the court favorite, Alvaro de Luna.

_Alvaro de Luna era el hombre mas politico, disimulado, y astuto de su tiempo_ [Alvaro de Luna was the most politic, deceitful, and astute man of his time], so says the Spanish historian Quintana; and as Burke puts it, he had the strongest head and the bravest heart in all Castile.

There was no one to excel him in knightly sport, no one lived in greater magnificence, and he was, in truth, "the gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on, the mould of form, the observed of all observers." To this perfect knight, the king was a mere puppet who could be moved this way or that with perfect impunity. So complete was the ascendency of Luna, that it is said on good authority that the king hesitated to go to bed until he had received his favorite's permission. When King John's first wife, Maria of Portugal, died in 1445, it was his desire to marry a princess of the royal house of France; but, for his own reasons, the Lord of Luna willed otherwise, and the king, submissive, obeyed orders and espoused Isabella of Portugal, a granddaughter of King John I. No sooner had this fiery princess taken her place beside King John, after their marriage in 1450, than she began to a.s.sert her independence in a way which caused great scandal at the court and brought dismay to the heart of Alvaro de Luna.

Isabella opposed the plans of this masterful n.o.bleman at every turn, refused to accept his dictation about the slightest matter, declined to make terms with him in any way, and declared herself entirely beyond his control, in spite of the fact that he had been responsible for her marriage. King John was at first as much surprised as any of the other people at the boldness of his young queen, but he soon saw that it would be possible, with Isabella's aid, to throw off the hateful yoke which Luna had put about his neck, and this is what took place in a very short time. The queen was more than a match for all who opposed her, court intrigues, instigated by Luna, were to no avail, and in the end he had to give up, beaten by a woman, and one whom he had hoped to make his agent, or ally, in the further subjection of the king. A year after the marriage of John and Isabella, the Princess Isabella was born, and with her advent there came new hope for Spain.

In the neighboring little kingdom of Navarre there was another princess who lived at about the same time, who distinguished herself not by the same boldness of manner perhaps, but by a quiet dignity, and by a wise and temperate spirit which was often sorely tried. Blanche, Princess of Navarre, had been married in 1419 to the Prince of Aragon, John; but in the early years of their married life, before Navarre, the substantial part of Blanche's marriage portion, came under her definite control, the young prince spent the most of his time in Castile, where he was connected with many of the court intrigues which were being woven around the romantic figure of Alvaro de Luna. Finally, Blanche became Queen of Navarre, upon her father's death in 1425, but John was still too much concerned with his Castilian affairs to care to leave them and come to take his place at the side of his wife's throne. For three years Blanche was left to her own devices, and during that time she ruled her little state without the aid or a.s.sistance of king or prime minister, and was so eminently successful in all her undertakings that her capacity was soon a matter of favorable comment. Finally, in 1428, John was forced to leave Castile, as Luna had gained the upper hand for the moment, and he considered this as a favorable opportunity to go to Navarre and gain recognition as Queen Blanche's husband. Accordingly, he went in great state to Pamplona, the capital city, and there, with imposing ceremonies, the public and official coronation of John and Blanche was celebrated. At the same time, Blanche's son Charles was recognized as his mother's successor in her ancestral kingdom. But Navarre was not a congenial territory for King John, who was of a restless, impulsive disposition; and he was so bored by the provincial gayety of Pamplona that after a very short stay he could endure it no longer, and set off for Italy, leaving Blanche in entire control as before. Navarre was a sort of halfway ground between France and the various governments of Spain, and was often the centre of much intrigue and plotted treachery; but John was so completely overshadowed now by Luna's almost absolute power, that he knew there was no field for his activity at home.

Blanche, however, was confronted more than once by the most delicate situations, as her good city of Pamplona was constantly filled with the agents of foreign powers; but so firm was the queen's character, and so careful were her judgments, that she was able to administer her government until her death, in 1441, with much success and very little criticism.

The next woman to occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of Aragon and Navarre is Dona Juana Henriquez, the second wife of this same John II.

Dona Juana was the daughter of Don Fadrique Henriquez, Admiral of Castile, who had become the most influential man in the kingdom during a moment of temporary disgrace for Alvaro de Luna; and at this time of his success, for factional reasons, John considered that an alliance with the admiral might further his own plans with respect to Castile. This second wife was not a woman of high birth, and was totally unaccustomed to the new surroundings in which she found herself placed; but with the quick adaptive power which is possessed by women to so marked a degree, Juana was soon able to hold her own at court and to make a good showing, in fact, on any occasion. She was a very beautiful woman, of the traditional Spanish type, with dark eyes and dark hair, and a very engaging manner, and to her cleverness she joined a great ambition which made her unceasing in her efforts for her husband's advancement. She was inclined to be haughty and domineering in tone, was not overscrupulous, as might have been expected of one who had lived in the atmosphere of the Castilian court at this time, and the sum total of her efforts did little more than to perpetuate the period of strife and turmoil. The admiral, Don Fadrique, was in control for but a short time; and upon the return to power of Alvaro, John was driven out of the country, after being wounded in battle, and the admiral himself was killed in the fighting at Olmedo. John took his wife with him to Pamplona, where he now went, as that city offered him a most convenient exile. His return to his wife's country was not made in peace, for no sooner had he arrived than he proceeded to dispossess his son Charles, who had been openly acknowledged as his mother's heir at the time of her coronation.

In the warfare which ensued, and which was a snarl of petty, selfish interests, Juana did yeoman service in her husband's cause. At the time of her hurried flight to Navarre, she had tarried for a short time in the little town of Sos, in Aragon, and there she had given birth to a son, Fernando, who was to be instrumental in bringing peace and glory to Spain in spite of the fact that he first saw the light in the midst of such tumult and confusion. Notwithstanding her delicate condition, Juana was soon in the thick of the fray, as she hastened to the town of Estella, which had been threatened, fortified the place, and defended it effectually from all the attacks made upon it by the hostile forces. She seems to have been a born fighter, and, though her efforts may often have been misdirected, she must have exerted a powerful influence upon the mind of her son, who was to show himself at a later day as good a fighter in a larger cause.

To turn back to Castile now for a time, in the labyrinth of this much involved period, where the duplication of names and the multiplicity of places makes it difficult to thread one's way intelligently, it will be found that the court, during the reign of Henry IV., was chiefly distinguished by its scandalous immorality. Quintana, in his volume ent.i.tled the _Grandezas de Madrid_, gives enough information on the subject to reveal the fact that the roues of that period could learn little from their counterparts to-day, as the most shameless proceedings were of everyday occurrence, and men and women both seemed to vie with each other in their wickedness. It would be somewhat unjust to include the great body of the people in this vicious cla.s.s, as the most conspicuous examples of human degradation and degeneracy were to be found at the court, but the fact remains that public ideas in regard to moral questions were very lax; the clergy was corrupt, and the moral tone of the whole country was deplorably low, as judged by the standards of to-day. Women deceived their husbands with much the same relish as Boccaccio depicts in his _Decameron_; pa.s.sions were everywhere the moving forces, in the higher and lower cla.s.ses as well, and nowhere was there to be seen the continence which comes from an intelligent self-control.

In the midst of this carnival of vice and corruption, King Henry, the older brother of the Princess Isabella, was a most striking figure. He had been divorced from his first wife, Blanche of Aragon, on the ground of impotence, but had succeeded, in spite of this humiliation, in contracting another alliance, this time with the beautiful, but not overscrupulous, Juana of Portugal. Beltran de Cueva, a brilliant n.o.bleman, was the favorite and influential person at the court at this time, and his gradual rise to favor had been due in no small measure to the protection of the new queen, who was Beltran's all but acknowledged mistress and took no pains to conceal the matter at any time. In fact, at a great tournament held near Madrid in 1461, soon after Juana's arrival at the court, Beltran posed as her preferred champion, and held the lists against all comers in defence of his mistress's preeminent and matchless beauty. The king was far from displeased at this liaison between Beltran and the queen, and he was so delighted at the knight's unvarying success in this tournament, that the story goes that he founded a monastery upon the spot and named it, in honor of Saint Jerome and Beltran, San Geronimo del Paso, or of the "pa.s.sage of arms"! The king was little moved by all this, for the simple reason that he was paying a most ardent court at the same time to one of the queen's ladies in waiting. This Lady Guiomar, his mistress, was beautiful, but bold and vicious, as her relations with such a king demonstrate, but for a time at least she was riding upon the crest of the wave. Proud in her questionable honor, and daring to be jealous of the real queen, she made King Henry pay dearly for her favors, and she was soon installed in a palace of her own and living in a splendor and magnificence which rivalled that of the queen herself. The Archbishop of Seville, strange to relate, openly espoused her cause. Her insolent and domineering ways were a fit counterpart to those of the queen, and the unfortunate people were soon making open complaint. Beltran, the king in fact, was the open and accepted favorite of the queen, and Henry, the king in name only, was devoting himself to a vain and shallow court beauty who wished to be a veritable queen and longed for the overthrow of her rival! Such was the sad spectacle presented to the world by Castile at this time, but the crisis was soon to come which would clarify the air and lead to a more satisfactory condition in the state. Matters were hastened to their climax when the queen gave birth, in 1462, to a daughter who was called after her mother, Juana; but so evident was the paternity of this pitiful little princess, that she was at once christened La Beltraneja in common parlance; and by that sobriquet she is best known in history.

It is doubtful if the sluggish moral natures of this time would have been moved by this fact, if the king had not insisted that this baby girl should be acknowledged as his daughter and heiress to the crown of Castile. This was too much for the leaders of the opposition, and they demanded that Henry's younger brother, Alfonso, be recognized as his successor. This proposition brought about civil warfare, which was ended by Alfonso's death in 1468, and then Isabella was generally recognized as the real successor to her unworthy brother Henry, in spite of the claims he continued to put forth in favor of La Beltraneja.

Before the cessation of domestic hostilities, Isabella had been sorely tried by various projects which had been advanced for her marriage. She had been brought up by her mother, Queen Isabella, in the little town of Arevalo, which had been settled upon her at the time of the death of her husband, King John II. There, in quiet and seclusion, quite apart from the vice and tumult of the capital, the little princess had been under the close tutelage of the Church, as her mother had grown quite devout with advancing years; and as Isabella ripened into womanhood, it became evident that she possessed a high seriousness and a strength of character quite unusual. Still, all was uncertain as to her fate. Her brother Henry had first endeavored to marry her to Alfonso V. of Portugal, the elder and infamous brother of his own shameless queen, but Isabella had declined this alliance on the ground that it had not been properly ratified by the Cortes of Castile, and as a result the plan was soon dropped. In the midst of the rebellion which had broken out after Henry's attempt to foist La Beltraneja upon the state, he had proposed as a conciliatory measure that one of the most turbulent of the factional leaders, Don Pedro Giron, Grand Master of Calatrava, should wed Isabella, and the offer had been accepted. This man, who was old enough to be her father, was stained with vice, in spite of his exalted position in the religious Order of Calatrava, and his character was so notoriously vile that the mere mention of such an alliance was nothing short of insult to Isabella. Again she did not allow herself to be dominated by her brother, and after announcing that she utterly refused to consent to such an arrangement, she shut herself up in her apartments and declared her intention of resisting any attempts which might be made to coerce her. But the king gave no heed to her remonstrances, and made arrangements for the wedding festivities, the bridegroom having been summoned. The pope had absolved the profligate grand master from his vows of celibacy, which he had never kept, and poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was able to breathe again freely.

With the death of the younger Alfonso, there were many who urged Isabella to declare herself at once as the Queen of Castile and to head a revolution against her brother, the unworthy Henry. Her natural inclinations, as well as the whole character of her early education, had made her devout, almost bigoted, by nature, and it was but natural that her advisers at this time in her career were mostly members of the clergy, who saw in this young queen-to-be a great support for the Spanish Church in the future. But this girl of sixteen was wiser than her advisers, for she refused to head a revolution, and contented herself with a claim to the throne upon her brother's death. Such a claim necessarily had to run counter to the claim of the dubious Princess Juana, and to discredit her cause as much as possible her sobriquet _La Beltraneja_ was zealously revived. Sure of the support of the clergy, and still wis.h.i.+ng to be near to her advisers, Isabella went to the monastery at Avila, where, it is said, deputations from all parts of Castile came to entreat her to a.s.sume the crown at once. Her policy of delay made possible an interview between sister and brother, at which Henry, unable to withstand the manifest current of public sentiment, agreed to accept Isabella as his successor and as the lawful heir to the throne of Castile. With this question settled in this satisfactory way, the matter of Isabella's marriage again became an affair of national importance. There were suitors in plenty, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV. of England, and the Duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI. and heir to the French throne, being among the number; but the young Isabella, influenced as much by policy as by any personal feeling in the matter, had decided that she would wed Fernando, son of John II. of Aragon and his second wife, the das.h.i.+ng Dona Juana Henriquez, and nothing would change her from this fixed purpose. In a former day it had been a woman, Queen Berenguela, who had labored long and successfully for the union of Castile and Leon; and now another woman, this time a girl still in her teens, was laboring for a still greater Spanish unity, which will consolidate the interests of the two kingdoms of Aragon and Castile and give to all Spain the peace which was now such a necessity to the future well-being of the country. There were numerous obstacles thrown in the way of this marriage, which was not pleasing to all of the Castilian factions. The Archbishop of Seville tried to kidnap Isabella to prevent it, and would have done so but for the activity of another prelate, the Archbishop of Toledo, who rescued the unfortunate maiden and carried her off to sure friends in Valladolid, where she awaited Fernando's coming.

Burke gives an admirable description of Isabella at this time, in the following lines: "That royal and n.o.ble lady was then in the full bloom of her maiden beauty. She had just completed her eighteenth year. In stature somewhat superior to the majority of her countrywomen, and inferior to none in personal grace and charm, her golden hair and her bright blue eyes told perhaps of her Lancastrian ancestry. Her beauty was remarkable in a land where beauty has never been rare; her dignity was conspicuous in a country where dignity is the heritage not of a cla.s.s but of a nation. Of her courage, no less than of her discretion, she had already given abundant proofs. Bold and resolute, modest and reserved, she had all the simplicity of a great lady born for a great position. She became in after life something of an autocrat and overmuch of a bigot. But it could not be laid to the charge of a persecuted princess of nineteen that she was devoted to the service of her religion." Such was Isabella when she married Fernando; and the wedding was quietly celebrated at Valladolid, in the house of a friend, Don Juan de Vivero, while the warlike Archbishop of Toledo had charge of the ceremony. Never was there a simpler royal wedding in all the annals of Spanish history: there was no throng of gay n.o.bles, there were none of the customary feasts or tournaments, there was no military display, no glitter of jewels, no s.h.i.+mmer of silks and satins, but all was quiet and serious, and the few guests at this solemn consecration seemed impressed with the dignity of the occasion. The pathway of the young princess was not all strewn with roses, however, as her marriage seemed to enrage her degenerate brother and to stimulate him to new deeds of unworthiness. In spite of the fact that King Henry's shameless conduct in private life had been given a severe rebuke, by implication at least, at the time that Isabella was being urged on all sides to declare herself as queen and dispossess her brother, this perverted monarch continued his profligate career in most open fas.h.i.+on. He had not only one mistress but many of them at the court, he loaded them with riches and with favors, and often, in a somewhat questionable excess of religious zeal, he appointed them to posts of honor and importance in conventual establishments! No sooner had Isabella's wedding been celebrated than Henry began to stir up trouble again, declared that the queen's daughter, La Beltraneja, was the only lawful heir to his estates, and to further his projects he succeeded in arranging for a betrothal ceremony between this young woman and the young Duke of Guienne, heir presumptive to the crown of France, who had been one of Isabella's suitors, as will be remembered. This French alliance, threatening for a moment, was soon impaired by the unexpected death of the young duke, and Isabella's position was strengthened daily by the growing disbelief in La Beltraneja's legitimacy. To give in detail an account of all the plots which were concocted against Isabella would take many chapters in itself, for she met with bitter opposition in spite of the fact that she seems to have won the sympathies of the larger part of the population of the two countries.

In the midst of this continual intrigue came the news of King Henry's death in 1474, and then Isabella, who had been biding her time, was proclaimed queen by her own orders, and the proclamation was made at Segovia, which was then her place of residence. As a mere matter of curiosity, it may be interesting to record the long list of t.i.tles which actually belonged to Isabella at this time. She was Queen of Castile, Aragon, Leon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Mallorcas, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, Alguynias, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, Countess of Barcelona, Sovereign Lady of Biscay and Molina, d.u.c.h.ess of Athens and Neopatria, Countess of Roussillon, Cerdagne, Marchioness of Ovistan and Goziano!

After a.s.suming the heavy burden implied by this somewhat overpowering list of t.i.tles, the young queen's first serious annoyance came from her husband, strange as the case may seem. Fernando of Aragon was the nearest living male representative of King Henry, and he somewhat selfishly began to take steps to supplant Isabella in her succession.

Little did he know his wife, however, if he imagined it possible to deprive her of Castile, and events soon showed that she was the stronger of the two. At her orders, the laws and precedents with regard to royal succession were carefully examined, and it was soon published abroad that there was no legal objection to her a.s.sumption of power. Fernando was appeased to some degree by certain concessions made by his wife, their daughter Juana was recognized as heiress of Castile, and, all in all, in spite of his disgruntled state of mind, he wisely concluded to remain at Isabella's side and help to fight her battles. A new cause for alarm soon appeared: another of Isabella's former suitors, Alfonso, King of Portugal, was affianced to the pitiful La Beltraneja, the two were proclaimed King and Queen of Castile, and the country was at once invaded by a hostile force. Isabella interested herself personally in the equipment of her troops, she faced every emergency bravely, and after a short campaign her banners were triumphant and all things seemed to indicate that an era of peace had been begun. The pope dissolved the marriage between Alfonso and La Beltraneja soon after, and these two unhappy mortals forthwith retired from the world, she to the convent of Saint Clare at Coimbra, while the poor king resigned his crown and became a Franciscan monk. So great, in fact, was Isabella's victory at this time, and so keen was her appreciation of the fact that her greatest cause for alarm had been completely removed from the scene of action, that she walked barefooted in a procession to the church of Saint Paul at Tordesillas, to express her feeling of thanksgiving for her great success.

Following close upon the heels of this last stroke of good fortune for Castile came the news that the old King of Aragon, Fernando's father, was dead, and now, in truth, came that unity of Spain which had been the dream of more than one Utopian mind in days gone by. With fortune smiling upon them in so many ways, the sovereigns of this united realm were still confronted by many serious problems of government, especially in Castile, which called for speedy settlement. The long years of weak and vicious administration had filled the country with all kinds of abuses, and the task of internal improvement was difficult enough to cause even a stouter heart to quail. The queen in all these matters displayed a rare sagacity and developed a rare faculty for handling men which stood her in good stead. The recalcitrant n.o.bles and the rebellious commoners were all brought to terms by her influence, and her power was soon unquestioned. She had an army at her back and a crowd of officers ready to carry out and enforce her instructions to the letter, but, more than all this, her great and personal triumph was the result of her tremendous personal power and magnetism. She travelled all over Spain in a most tireless fas.h.i.+on, she met the people in a familiar manner, and showed her sympathy for them in countless ways; but there was always about her something of that divinity which doth hedge a king, which made all both fear and respect her. No nook or corner of the whole country was too remote, her visits covered the whole realm, and everywhere it was plain to see that her coming had been followed by the most satisfactory results. Having thus created a great and mighty public sentiment in her favor, Isabella was not slow to attack the great questions of national reforms, which were sadly in need of her attention. She boldly curtailed the privileges of the grandees of Spain, and to such good effect that she transformed, in an incredibly short s.p.a.ce of time, the most turbulent aristocracy on the continent into a body of devoted and submissive retainers, the counterpart of which was not to be found in any other country of Europe. Her wide grasp of affairs is seen in the support she was willing to give to Columbus in his voyage overseas, and time and time again she showed herself equal to the most trying situations in a way which was most surprising in one of her age and experience. Her firmness of character was ever felt, although her manners were always mild and her whole att.i.tude was calculated to conciliate rather than to antagonize.