The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume II Part 24

Ordinances were also pa.s.sed for encouraging the breed of horses, which had suffered greatly from the preference very generally given by the Spaniards to mules. This had been carried to such a length, that, while it was nearly impossible, according to Bernaldez, to mount ten or twelve thousand cavalry on horses, ten times that number could be provided with mules.

(Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 184.) "E porque si a esto se diesse lugar,"

says one of the _pragmaticas_, adverting to this evil, "muy prestamente se perderia en nuestros reynos la n.o.bleza de la cauelleria que en ellos suele auer, e se oluidaria el exercicio militar de que en los tiempos pa.s.sados nuestra nacion de Espana ha alcancado gran fama e loor;" it was ordered that no person in the kingdom should be allowed to keep a mule, unless he owned a horse also; and that none but ecclesiastics and women should be allowed the use of mules in the saddle. These edicts were enforced with the utmost rigor, the king himself setting the example of conformity to them. By these seasonable precautions, the breed of Spanish horses, so long noted throughout Europe, was restored to its ancient credit, and the mule consigned to the humble and appropriate offices of drudgery, or raised only for exportation. For these and similar provisions, see Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. 127-132.

Mateo 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 pa.s.sage 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 Espana, 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 pa.s.sed 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.surance 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]

On King John's death, in 1495, the crown of Portugal devolved on Emanuel, that enlightened monarch, who had the glory in the very commencement of his reign of solving the grand problem, which had so long perplexed the world, of the existence of an undiscovered pa.s.sage to the east. This prince had conceived a pa.s.sion for the young and beautiful Isabella during her brief residence in Lisbon; and, soon after his accession to the throne, he despatched an emba.s.sy to the Spanish court inviting her to share it with him. But the princess, wedded to the memory of her early love, declined the proposals, notwithstanding they were strongly seconded by the wishes of her parents, who, however, were unwilling to constrain their daughter's inclinations on so delicate a point, trusting perhaps to the effects of time, and the perseverance of her royal suitor. [7]

In the mean while, the Catholic sovereigns were occupied with negotiations for the settlement of the other members of their family. The ambitious schemes of Charles the Eighth established a community of interests among the great European states, such as had never before existed, or, at least, been understood; and the intimate relations thus introduced naturally led to intermarriages between the princ.i.p.al powers, who, until this period, seem to have been severed almost as far asunder as if oceans had rolled between them. The Spanish monarchs, in particular, had rarely gone beyond the limits of the Peninsula for their family alliances. The new confederacy into which Spain had entered, now opened the way to more remote connections, which were destined to exercise a permanent influence on the future politics of Europe. It was while Charles the Eighth was wasting his time at Naples, that the marriages were arranged between the royal houses of Spain and Austria, by which the weight of these great powers was thrown into the same scale, and the balance of Europe unsettled for the greater part of the following century. [8]

The treaty provided, that Prince John, the heir of the Spanish monarchies, then in his eighteenth year, should be united with the princess Margaret, daughter of the emperor Maximilian; and that the archduke Philip, his son and heir, and sovereign of the Low Countries in his mother's right, should marry Joanna, second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. No dowry was to be required with either princess. [9]

In the course of the following year, arrangements were also concluded for the marriage of the youngest daughter of the Castilian sovereigns with a prince of the royal house of England, the first example of the kind for more than a century. [10] Ferdinand had cultivated the good-will of Henry the Seventh, in the hope of drawing him into the confederacy against the French monarch; and in this had not wholly failed, although the wary king seems to have come into it rather as a silent partner, if we may so say, than with the intention of affording any open or very active co-operation.

[11] The relations of amity between the two courts were still further strengthened by the treaty of marriage above alluded to, finally adjusted October 1st, 1496, and ratified the following year, between Arthur, prince of Wales, and the infanta Dona Catalina, conspicuous in English history, equally for her misfortunes and her virtues, as Catharine of Aragon. [12]

The French viewed with no little jealousy the progress of these various negotiations, which they zealously endeavored to thwart by all the artifices of diplomacy. But King Ferdinand had sufficient address to secure in his interests persons of the highest credit at the courts of Henry and Maximilian, who promptly acquainted him with the intrigues of the French government, and effectually aided in counteracting them. [13]

The English connection was necessarily deferred for some years, on account of the youth of the parties, neither of whom exceeded eleven years of age.

No such impediment occurred in regard to the German alliances, and measures were taken at once for providing a suitable conveyance for the infanta Joanna into Flanders, which should bring back the princess Margaret on its return. By the end of summer, in 1496, a fleet consisting of one hundred and thirty vessels, large and small, strongly manned and thoroughly equipped with all the means of defence against the French cruisers, was got ready for sea in the ports of Guipuscoa and Biscay. [14]

The whole was placed under the direction of Don Fadrique Enriquez, admiral of Castile, who carried with him a splendid show of chivalry, chiefly drawn from the northern provinces of the kingdom. A more gallant and beautiful armada never before quitted the sh.o.r.es of Spain. The infanta Joanna, attended by a numerous suite, arrived on board the fleet towards the end of August, at the port of Laredo, on the eastern borders of the Asturias, where she took a last farewell of the queen her mother, who had postponed the hour of separation as long as possible, by accompanying her daughter to the place of embarkation.

The weather soon after her departure became extremely rough and tempestuous; and it was so long before any tidings of the squadron reached the queen, that her affectionate heart was filled with the most distressing apprehensions. She sent for the oldest and most experienced navigators in these boisterous northern seas, consulting them, says Martyr, day and night on the probable causes of delay, the prevalent courses of the winds at that season, and the various difficulties and dangers of the voyage; bitterly regretting that the troubles with France prevented any other means of communication, than the treacherous element to which she had trusted her daughter. [15] Her spirits were still further depressed at this juncture by the death of her own mother, the dowager Isabella, who, under the mental infirmity with which she had been visited for many years, had always experienced the most devoted attention from her daughter, who ministered to her necessities with her own hands, and watched over her declining years with the most tender solicitude.[16]

At length, the long-desired intelligence came of the arrival of the Castilian fleet at its place of destination. It had been so grievously shattered, however, by tempests, as to require being refitted in the ports of England. Several of the vessels were lost, and many of Joanna's attendants perished from the inclemency of the weather, and the numerous hards.h.i.+ps to which they were exposed. The infanta, however, happily reached Flanders in safety, and, not long after, her nuptials with the archduke Philip were celebrated in the city of Lisle with all suitable pomp and solemnity.

The fleet was detained until the ensuing winter, to transport the destined bride of the young prince of the Asturias to Spain. This lady, who had been affianced in her cradle to Charles the Eighth of France, had received her education in the court of Paris. On her intended husband's marriage with the heiress of Brittany, she had been returned to her native land under circ.u.mstances of indignity never to be forgiven by the house of Austria. She was now in the seventeenth year of her age, and had already given ample promise of those uncommon powers of mind which distinguished her in riper years, and of which she has left abundant evidence in various written compositions. [17]

On her pa.s.sage to Spain, in midwinter, the fleet encountered such tremendous gales, that part of it was s.h.i.+p-wrecked, and Margaret's vessel had wellnigh foundered. She retained, however, sufficient composure amidst the perils of her situation, to indite her own epitaph, in the form of a pleasant distich, which Pontenelle has made the subject of one of his amusing dialogues, where he affects to consider the fort.i.tude displayed by her at this awful moment as surpa.s.sing that of the philosophic Adrian in his dying hour, or the vaunted heroism of Cato of Utica. [18]

Fortunately, however, Margaret's epitaph was not needed; she arrived in safety at the port of Santander in the Asturias, early in March, 1497.

The young prince of the Asturias, accompanied by the king his father, hastened towards the north to receive his royal mistress, whom they met and escorted to Burgos, where she was received with the highest marks of satisfaction by the queen and the whole court. Preparations were instantly made for solemnizing the nuptials of the royal pair, after the expiration of Lent, in a style of magnificence such as had never before been witnessed under the present reign. The marriage ceremony took place on the 3d of April, and was performed by the archbishop of Toledo in the presence of the grandees and princ.i.p.al n.o.bility of Castile, the foreign amba.s.sadors, and the delegates from Aragon. Among these latter were the magistrates of the princ.i.p.al cities, clothed in their munic.i.p.al insignia and crimson robes of office, who seem to have had quite as important parts a.s.signed them by their democratic communities, in this and all similar pageants, as any of the n.o.bility or gentry. The nuptials were followed by a brilliant succession of fetes, tourneys, tilts of reeds, and other warlike spectacles, in which the matchless chivalry of Spain poured into the lists to display their magnificence and prowess in the presence of their future queen. [19] The chronicles of the day remark on the striking contrast, exhibited at these entertainments, between the gay and familiar manners of Margaret and her Flemish n.o.bles, and the pomp and stately ceremonial of the Castilian court, to which, indeed, the Austrian princess, nurtured as she had been in a Parisian atmosphere, could never be wholly reconciled. [20]

The marriage of the heir apparent could not have been celebrated at a more auspicious period. It was in the midst of negotiations for a general peace, when the nation might reasonably hope to taste the sweets of repose, after so many uninterrupted years of war. Every bosom swelled with exultation in contemplating the glorious destinies of their country under the beneficent sway of a prince, the first heir of the hitherto divided monarchies of Spain. Alas! at the moment when Ferdinand and Isabella, blessed in the affections of their people, and surrounded by all the trophies of a glorious reign, seemed to have reached the very zenith of human felicity, they were doomed to receive one of those mournful lessons, which admonish us that all earthly prosperity is but a dream. [21]

Not long after Prince John's marriage, the sovereigns had the satisfaction to witness that of their daughter Isabella, who, notwithstanding her repugnance to a second union, had yielded at length to the urgent entreaties of her parents to receive the addresses of her Portuguese lover. She required as the price of this, however, that Emanuel should first banish the Jews from his dominions, where they had bribed a resting- place since their expulsion from Spain; a circ.u.mstance to which the superst.i.tious princess imputed the misfortunes which had fallen of late on the royal house of Portugal. Emanuel, whose own liberal mind revolted at this unjust and impolitic measure, was weak enough to allow his pa.s.sion to get the better of his principles, and pa.s.sed sentence of exile on every Israelite in his kingdom; furnis.h.i.+ng, perhaps, the only example, in which love has been made one of the thousand motives for persecuting this unhappy race. [22]

The marriage, ushered in under such ill-omened auspices, was celebrated at the frontier town of Valencia de Alcantara, in the presence of the Catholic sovereigns, without pomp or parade of any kind. While they were detained there, an express arrived from Salamanca, bringing tidings of the dangerous illness of their son, the prince of the Asturias. He had been seized with a fever in the midst of the public rejoicings to which his arrival with his youthful bride in that city had given rise. The symptoms speedily a.s.sumed an alarming character. The prince's const.i.tution, naturally delicate, though strengthened by a life of habitual temperance, sunk under the violence of the attack; and when his father, who posted with all possible expedition to Salamanca, arrived there, no hopes were entertained of his recovery. [23]

Ferdinand, however, endeavored to cheer his son with hopes which he did not feel himself; but the young prince told him that it was too late to be deceived; that he was prepared to part with a world, which in its best estate was filled with vanity and vexation; and that all he now desired was, that his parents might feel the same sincere resignation to the divine will, which he experienced himself. Ferdinand gathered new fort.i.tude from the example of his heroic son, whose presages were unhappily too soon verified. He expired on the 4th of October, 1497, in the twentieth year of his age, in the same spirit of Christian philosophy which he had displayed during his whole illness. [24]

Ferdinand, apprehensive of the effect which the abrupt intelligence of this calamity might have on the queen, caused letters to be sent at brief intervals, containing accounts of the gradual decline of the prince's health, so as to prepare her for the inevitable stroke. Isabella, however, who through all her long career of prosperous fortune may be said to have kept her heart in constant training for the dark hour of adversity, received the fatal tidings in a spirit of meek and humble acquiescence, testifying her resignation in the beautiful language of Scripture, "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be his name!" [25]

"Thus," says Martyr, who had the melancholy satisfaction of rendering the last sad offices to his royal pupil, "was laid low the hope of all Spain."

"Never was there a death," says another chronicler, "which occasioned such deep and general lamentation throughout the land." All the unavailing honors which affection could devise were paid to his memory. His funeral obsequies were celebrated with melancholy splendor, and his remains deposited in the n.o.ble Dominican monastery of St. Thomas at Avila, which had been erected by his parents. The court put on a new and deeper mourning than that hitherto used, as if to testify their unwonted grief.

[26] All offices, public and private, were closed for forty days; and sable-colored banners were suspended from the walls and portals of the cities. Such extraordinary tokens of public sorrow bear strong testimony to the interest felt in the young prince, independently of his exalted station; similar, and perhaps more unequivocal evidence of his worth, is afforded by abundance of contemporary notices, not merely in works designed for the public, but in private correspondence. The learned Martyr, in particular, whose situation, as Prince John's preceptor, afforded him the best opportunities of observation, is unbounded in commendations of his royal pupil, whose extraordinary promise of intellectual and moral excellence had furnished him with the happiest, alas! delusive auguries, for the future destiny of his country. [27]

By the death of John without heirs, the succession devolved on his eldest sister, the queen of Portugal. [28] Intelligence, however, was received soon after that event, that the archduke Philip, with the restless ambition which distinguished him in later life, had a.s.sumed for himself and his wife Joanna the t.i.tle of "princes of Castile." Ferdinand and Isabella, disgusted with this proceeding, sent to request the attendance of the king and queen of Portugal in Castile, in order to secure a recognition of their rights by the national legislature. The royal pair, accordingly, in obedience to the summons, quitted their capital of Lisbon, early in the spring of 1498. In their progress through the country, they were magnificently entertained at the castles of the great Castilian lords, and towards the close of April reached the ancient city of Toledo, where the cortes had been convened to receive them. [29]

After the usual oaths of recognition had been tendered, without opposition, by the different branches to the Portuguese princes, the court adjourned to Saragossa, where the legislature of Aragon was a.s.sembled for a similar purpose.

Some apprehensions were entertained, however, of the unfavorable disposition of that body, since the succession of females was not countenanced by the ancient usage of the country; and the Aragonese, as Martyr remarks in one of his Epistles, "were well known to be a pertinacious race, who would leave no stone unturned, in the maintenance of their const.i.tutional rights." [30]

These apprehensions were fully realized; for, no sooner was the object of the present meeting laid before cortes in a speech from the throne, with which parliamentary business in Aragon was always opened, than decided opposition was manifested to a proceeding, which it was declared had no precedent in their history. The succession of the crown, it was contended, had been limited by repeated testaments of their princes to male heirs, and practice and public sentiment had so far coincided with this, that the attempted violation of the rule by Peter the Fourth, in favor of his own daughters, had plunged the nation in a civil war. It was further urged that by the will of the very last monarch, John the Second, it was provided that the crown should descend to the male issue of his son Ferdinand, and in default of such to the male issue of Ferdinand's daughters, to the entire exclusion of the females. At all events, it was better to postpone the consideration of this matter until the result of the queen of Portugal's pregnancy, then far advanced, should be ascertained; since, should it prove to be a son, all doubts of const.i.tutional validity would be removed.

In answer to these objections, it was stated, that no express law existed in Aragon excluding females from the succession; that an example had already occurred, as far back indeed as the twelfth century, of a queen who held the crown in her own right; that the acknowledged power of females to transmit the right of succession necessarily inferred that right existing in themselves; that the present monarch had doubtless as competent authority as his predecessors to regulate the law of inheritance, and that his act, supported by the supreme authority of cortes, might set aside any former disposition of the crown; that this interference was called for by the present opportunity of maintaining the permanent union of Castile and Aragon; without which they must otherwise return to their ancient divided state, and comparative insignificance.

[31]

These arguments, however cogent, were far from being conclusive with the opposite party; and the debate was protracted to such length, that Isabella, impatient of an opposition to what the practice in her own dominions had taught her to regard as the inalienable right of her daughter, inconsiderately exclaimed, "It would be better to reduce the country by arms at once, than endure this insolence of the cortes." To which Antonio de Fonseca, the same cavalier who spoke his mind so fearlessly to King Charles the Eighth, on his march to Naples, had the independence to reply, "That the Aragonese had only acted as good and loyal subjects, who, as they were accustomed to mind their oaths, considered well before they took them; and that they must certainly stand excused if they moved with caution in an affair, which they found so difficult to justify by precedent in their history." [32] This blunt expostulation of the honest courtier, equally creditable to the sovereign who could endure, and the subject who could make it, was received in the frank spirit in which it was given, and probably opened Isabella's eyes to her own precipitancy, as we find no further allusion to coercive measures.

Before anything was determined, the discussion was suddenly brought to a close by an unforeseen and most melancholy event,--the death of the queen of Portugal, the unfortunate subject of it. That princess had possessed a feeble const.i.tution from her birth, with a strong tendency to pulmonary complaints. She had early felt a presentiment that she should not survive the birth of her child; this feeling strengthened as she approached the period of her delivery; and in less than one hour after that event, which took place on the 23d of August, 1498, she expired in the arms of her afflicted parents. [33]

This blow was almost too much for the unhappy mother, whose spirits had not yet had time to rally, since the death of her only son. She, indeed, exhibited the outward marks of composure, testifying the entire resignation of one who had learned to rest her hopes of happiness on a better world. She schooled herself so far, as to continue to take an interest in all her public duties, and to watch over the common weal with the same maternal solicitude as before; but her health gradually sunk under this acc.u.mulated load of sorrow, which threw a deep shade of melancholy over the evening of her life.

The infant, whose birth had cost so dear, proved a male, and received the name of Miguel, in honor of the saint on whose day he first saw the light.

In order to dissipate, in some degree, the general gloom occasioned by the late catastrophe, it was thought best to exhibit the young prince before the eyes of his future subjects; and he was accordingly borne in the arms of his nurse, in a magnificent litter, through the streets of the city, escorted by the princ.i.p.al n.o.bility. Measures were then taken for obtaining the sanction of his legitimate claims to the crown. Whatever doubts had been entertained of the validity of the mother's t.i.tle, there could be none whatever of the child's; since those who denied the right of females to inherit for themselves, admitted their power of conveying such a right to male issue. As a preliminary step to the public recognition of the prince, it was necessary to name a guardian, who should be empowered to make the requisite engagements, and to act in his behalf. The Justice of Aragon, in his official capacity, after due examination, appointed the grandparents, Ferdinand and Isabella, to the office of guardians during his minority, which would expire by law at the age of fourteen. [34]

On Sat.u.r.day, the 22d of September, when the queen had sufficiently recovered from a severe illness brought on by her late sufferings, the four _arms_ of the cortes of Aragon a.s.sembled in the house of deputation at Saragossa; and Ferdinand and Isabella made oath as guardians of the heir apparent, before the Justice, not to exercise any jurisdiction whatever in the name of the young prince during his minority; engaging, moreover, as far as in their power, that, on his coming of age, he should swear to respect the laws and liberties of the realm, before entering on any of the rights of sovereignty himself. The four estates then took the oath of fealty to Prince Miguel, as lawful heir and successor to the crown of Aragon; with the protestation, that it should not be construed into a precedent for exacting such an oath hereafter during the minority of the heir apparent. With such watchful attention to const.i.tutional forms of procedure, did the people of Aragon endeavor to secure their liberties; forms, which continued to be observed in later times, long after those liberties had been swept away. [35]

In the month of January, of the ensuing year, the young prince's succession was duly confirmed by the cortes of Castile, and, in the following March, by that of Portugal. Thus, for once, the crowns of the three monarchies of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal were suspended over one head. The Portuguese, retaining the bitterness of ancient rivalry, looked with distrust at the prospect of a union, fearing, with some reason, that the importance of the lesser state would be wholly merged in that of the greater. But the untimely death of the destined heir of these honors, which took place before he had completed his second year, removed the causes of jealousy, and defeated the only chance, which had ever occurred, of bringing under the same rule three independent nations, which, from their common origin, their geographical position, and, above all, their resemblance in manners, sentiments, and language, would seem to have originally been intended to form but one. [36]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The princess Dona Isabel, the eldest daughter, was born at Duenas, October 1st, 1470. Their second child and only son, Juan, prince of the Asturias, was not born until eight years later, June 30th, 1478, at Seville. Dona Juana, whom the queen used playfully to call her "mother-in- law," _suegra_, from her resemblance to King Ferdinand's mother, was born at Toledo, November 6th, 1479. Dona Maria was born at Cordova, in 1482, and Dona Catalina, the fifth and last child, at Alcala de Henares, December 5th, 1485. The daughters all lived to reign; but their brilliant destinies were clouded with domestic afflictions, from which royalty could afford no refuge. Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., loc. mult.

[2] The only exception to these remarks, was that afforded by the infanta Joanna, whose unfortunate eccentricities, developed in later life, must be imputed, indeed, to bodily infirmity.