On the same day (26th November 1504) that Isabel died, Ferdinand, with sorrow-stricken face, and tears coursing down his cheeks, sallied from the palace of Medina del Campo, and upon a platform hastily raised in the great square of the town, proclaimed his daughter Joan Queen of Castile, with the usual ceremony of hoisting pennons and the crying of heralds: ‘Castile, Castile, for our sovereign lady Queen Joan.’ Then the clause of the dead Queen’s will was read, giving to Ferdinand power to act as King of Castile whenever Joan was absent from Spain, or was unable or unwilling to govern, and enjoining upon Joan and her husband obedience and submission to Ferdinand. Castile was in a ferment; for all men knew that the death of the Queen opened infinite possibilities of change. The Castilian nobles, so long humbled by Isabel, dared again to hope that better times for them might come in the contending interests around the throne; and there were not a few, especially Aragonese, that counselled Ferdinand to claim the throne of Castile for himself^[99] by right of descent, instead of governing in his daughter’s name.

But Ferdinand’s way was always a tortuous one, and the letters from him the same night that carried to Flanders the news of his wife’s death were addressed to Joan and Philip, by the grace of God Sovereigns of Castile, Leon, Granada, Princes of Aragon, etc., etc.’; whilst every city in the realms was informed that henceforward the title of King of Castile would be borne no more by Ferdinand, but only that of Administrator for Joan.^[100] The step was profoundly diplomatic, for all Europe and half Spain was distrustful of Ferdinand, and the open usurpation of Castile would have been forcibly resisted. And yet, as we shall see, he intended to rule Castile; and in the end had his way. Philip and Joan, in reply to their loving father, declined to commit themselves as to Ferdinand’s proceedings, and announced their coming to take possession of their realm of Castile. They were equally cool to Ferdinand’s envoy, Fonseca, Bishop of Cordova, whom Joan had no reason to love. In the meanwhile, Cortes was convoked at Toro (January 1505) in the name of Joan; and there Ferdinand played his first card, by claiming, under the clause in Isabel’s will, the right to govern Castile until Joan should be present and demonstrate her fitness to rule.^[101] The nobles of Castile, already jealous of Aragon, were determined to resist this, though the Cortes agreed; and Juan Manuel, the most notable diplomatist in Castile, descended from the royal house, and Ferdinand’s deadly enemy, was sent to Philip, over whom his influence was complete, as the envoy of the Castilian nobles; thenceforward from Flanders to animate and direct the diplomatic campaign against Ferdinand.

The situation thus became daily more strained. Ferdinand’s confidential agents endeavoured to sow discord between Joan and her husband, not a difficult matter; and on one occasion the Queen, in a fit of jealousy, was persuaded by the Aragonese Secretary Conchillos to sign a letter approving of her father’s acts. The messenger to whom it was entrusted betrayed it to Philip, and Conchillos was cast into a dungeon; all Spaniards were warned away from Court, and Joan completely isolated, even from her chaplain. Thinking that in the palace of Brussels Joan was too easy of access, Philip arranged that she should be secretly removed. Whilst the Burgomaster and Councillors were discussing at dead of night in the palace the details of the secret flitting, poor Joan herself learnt what was in the wind; and being denied an interview with the Spanish bishop who attended her, she peremptorily summoned the Prince of Chimay. He dared not enter her chamber alone; but accompanied by another courtier he obeyed the Queen’s summons. They found her in a violent passion, and with difficulty escaped personal attack; with a result that, though the Queen was not immediately removed, she was thenceforward kept strictly guarded in her chambers, a prisoner.^[102]

When news came of the decision of the Cortes of Toro that Joan was unfit to rule, Philip prevailed upon his wife to sign a remarkable letter^[103] for publication in Castile. ‘Since they want in Castile to make out that I am not in my right mind, it is only meet that I should come to my senses again, somewhat; though I ought not to wonder that they raise false testimony against me, since they did so against our Lord. But, since the thing has been done so maliciously, and at such a time, I bid you (M. de Vere) speak to my father the king on my behalf, for those who say this of me are acting not only against me but against him; and people say that he is glad of it, so as to have the government of Castile, though I do not believe it, as the King is so great and catholic a sovereign and I his dutiful daughter. I know well that the King my Lord (i.e. Philip) wrote thither complaining of me in some respect; but such a thing should not go beyond father and children! especially as, if I did fly into passions and failed to keep up my proper dignity, it is well known that the only cause of my doing so was jealousy. I am not alone in feeling this passion; for my mother, great and excellent person as she was, was also jealous; but she got over it in time, and so, please God, shall I. Tell everybody there (i.e. in Castile)... that, even if I was in the state that my enemies would wish me to be, I would not deprive the King, my husband, of the government of the realms, and of all the world if it were mine to give.’...—Brussels, 3rd May 1505.

We can see here, and in the several reports sent, that Joan had little or no control over herself. In the conflict, daily growing more bitter, between her husband and her father, she swayed from one side to another according to the influences brought to bear upon her. Her gusts of jealous rage and frenzied violence gave to both sides the excuse of calling her mad when it suited them to do so, or to declare that such temporary fits were compatible with general sanity when they wanted her sane. Joan’s affection for her husband was fierce, and monopolous, and his influence over her was great, especially when he appealed to her pride and her rights as Queen of Castile, but her sense of filial duty was also high; and whenever she understood that a measure was intended to be against her father, she indignantly refused to countenance it. Ferdinand knew that the King of France had been enlisted by Philip and Maximilian against him; and that an army was being mustered in Flanders; whilst a project was on foot for Philip to come to Castile without Joan. This he was determined to prevent; and warned his son-in-law that he would not be allowed to act as King without his wife. To this warning Philip retorted by ordering his father-in-law to leave Castile, and return to his own realm of Aragon.

In this contest poor hysterical Joan was but a cypher, with her gusts of jealous passion and her lack of fixed resolution. When she had arrived in Flanders after her detention in Spain, she had discovered that her husband, whose coolness she noted from the first, was carrying on a liaison with a lady of the court. We are told that she sought out the lady in a raving fury and seriously injured her; as well as causing all her beautiful hair, of which she was proud, to be cut off close to the scalp. This led to a violent scene between Philip and Joan, in which not only hard words but hard blows were exchanged; and Joan took to her bed, seriously ill both in body and mind. These scenes continued at intervals, either with or without good reason, but with the natural result that Philip in his relations with his father-in-law acted almost independently of his wife; who, as Ferdinand afterwards said, was really a good dutiful daughter, proud of Spain and her people.

Ferdinand had at his side at this juncture the great Cardinal Jimenez. The stern Franciscan had been no friend of the King, who had opposed his appointment as primate; but he was a patriotic Spaniard, and could not fail to see that if Flemish Philip was paramount in Spain, the work of Isabel for the faith would be in peril. Ferdinand, he knew, was an able and experienced ruler, who would not greatly change the existing system; and he threw all his powerful influence on the side of an arrangement that might leave Ferdinand real power in Castile, without entirely alienating Philip. Above all, Jimenez was determined to prevent the ambitious Castilian nobles from again dominating the government; which they hoped to do if an inexperienced foreigner like Philip took the reins. It was, indeed, quite as much a struggle between Ferdinand and Jimenez and the Castilian nobles, as between Ferdinand and his son-in-law. But Jimenez’s patriotic efforts met with little success, so far as Philip was concerned; and, in the meantime, Ferdinand, whilst ostensibly solacing himself in hunting, was quietly planning a characteristic stroke at his enemy.

He was fifty-five years of age and still robust, and he bethought himself that he might yet win the game by a second marriage. It was almost sacrilege to contemplate such a thing in the circumstances; but to Ferdinand of Aragon any crooked way was straight that led him to his goal. So he sent his natural son, Hugo de Cardona, to propose secretly to the King of Portugal that the forgotten Beltraneja should leave her convent and become Queen of Aragon, joining her claims to Castile to those of Ferdinand and ousting Joan and Philip.^[104] It was a wicked cynical idea, for it made Isabel a usurper; but neither the King of Portugal nor his cousin, the Beltraneja, would have anything to say to it; so Ferdinand turned towards a solution, which, if not quite so iniquitous morally, was even more inimical to the interest of Spain as a nation. This was nothing less than to outbid Philip for the friendship of the King of France, upon which he mainly depended to frustrate his father-in-law’s plans. Ferdinand had broken all his former covenants with Louis XII. The French had been turned out of Naples, and the great Gonzalo de Cordova was there as Ferdinand’s viceroy. He was a Castilian; and already Ferdinand’s spies had reported that the Castilian nobles, in union with Philip and France, were tampering with Cordova’s loyalty and endeavouring to establish the claim of Castile, instead of Aragon, to Naples. Ferdinand, with what sincerity may be supposed, rapidly patched up an alliance with Louis XII., by which the widowed King of Aragon was to marry the niece of the King of France, Germaine de Foix, a spoiled and petted young beauty of twenty-one. Any heirs of the marriage were to inherit Aragon, Sicily, and Naples; but in the case of no children being left, Naples was to be divided between France and Aragon; great concessions were made at once to the French in Naples, and a million gold crowns were to be paid by Ferdinand to France as indemnity for the late war.

This, it will be seen, quite isolated Philip, threatened again to separate Aragon and Castile, and at one blow to undo the work both of Isabel and her husband. But as Ferdinand never kept more of a treaty than suited him at the moment, it may be fairly assumed that he signed this only to bridge his present difficulty and with such mental reservation as was usual with him. When the news reached Brussels Maximilian himself was there with his son, and they at once tried their best to deal a counterstroke. When certain papers were presented to Joan for signature denouncing to the Castilian people Ferdinand’s treaty and second marriage, she stood firm in her refusal to sign. Philip exerted the utmost pressure upon his wife; but at last, worn out by his and Maximilian’s importunity, the unhappy lady burst into ungovernable rage, flinging the papers from her and crying that she would never do anything against her father. The isolation and close guard over the Queen was indeed working its natural effect upon her highly wrought nervous system; and Ferdinand’s ambassadors, who had come to announce his marriage with his French bride, and to offer terms of friendship to his son-in-law, were scandalised at the treatment of their Queen. When, after much difficulty, they were allowed to see her at the palace of Brussels it was only on condition that they should have no conversation with her.

Shortly afterwards, in September 1505, Joan was delivered of a daughter (Maria, afterwards Queen of Hungary and Governess of the Netherlands), and Philip then decided that the time had come to carry her to Castile and claim the throne. First issuing a manifesto to the Castilian nobles and towns, ordering them not to obey Ferdinand in anything, he made overtures to the King of France to allow him to pass overland to Spain. This was flatly refused. The French princess, Germaine, was now Ferdinand’s wife, and all the help that Louis XII. could give would be against Philip and Joan. It was therefore decided to make the voyage by sea, and a large fleet of sixty ships, with a retinue of three thousand persons, was mustered in one of the ports of Zeeland. In the meanwhile ceaseless intrigue went on both in Spain and abroad. France having abandoned him, Philip turned to England. Juan Manuel’s sister, Elvira, was the principal lady-in-waiting upon Katharine, Princess of Wales, and through her and Katharine secret negotiations were opened for a marriage between Henry VII. and Philip’s sister, the Archduchess Margaret, the widow of Juan, Prince of Asturias and of the Duke of Savoy, with an alliance between England and Philip—though Katharine probably did not understand at first how purely this was a move against her father. So, although Henry VII. still professed to be on Ferdinand’s side in the quarrel, he was quite ready for a secret alliance with Philip and Joan against him and the King of France.

The King and Queen of Castile left Brussels early in November to join the waiting fleet, but from the slowness of their movements and the ostentatious publicity given to them, it is clear that their first object was to prepare Castile in their favour. Philip, for a time, scouted all idea of arrangement with Ferdinand. He knew that the Castilian nobles were on his side, and that his wife’s legal right was unimpeachable. The wily old King of Aragon saw that his best policy was to temporise, and to do that he must seem strong. His first move was to declare to the Castilians that Joan was sane, but was kept a prisoner by her husband, and he proposed to send a fleet to rescue her and bring her and her son Charles to Castile. Philip’s Flemish subjects were discontented at his proposed long absence, and also threatened trouble. Then Ferdinand hinted that he would mobilise all his force to resist Philip’s landing.

This series of manoeuvres delayed the departure of Philip and his wife month after month; until Ferdinand, by consummate diplomacy, managed to patch up an agreement with Philip’s ambassadors at Salamanca at the end of November; which, though on the face of it fair enough, was really an iniquitous plot for the exclusion of Joan in any circumstances. Philip and Joan were to be acknowledged by Castile as sovereigns, and their son Charles as heir; but, at the same time, Ferdinand was to be accepted as perpetual governor in his daughter’s absence: and in the case of Queen Joan being unwilling or unable to undertake the government, the two Kings, Ferdinand and Philip, were to issue all decrees and grants in their joint names. The revenues of Castile and of the Grand Masterships were to be equally divided between Philip and Ferdinand.

When once this wicked but insincere agreement was ratified there was no further need for delay, and Philip’s fleet sailed for Spain on the 8th January 1506 to engage in the famous battle of wits with his father-in-law, which only one could win. All went well until the Cornish coast was passed, and then a dead calm fell, followed by a furious south-westerly gale which scattered the ships and left that in which Philip and Joan were without any escort. To add to the trouble a fire broke out upon this vessel, and a fallen spar gave the ship such a list as to leave her almost waterlogged. Despair seized the crew, and all gave themselves up for lost. Philip played anything but an heroic part. His attendants dressed him in an inflated leather garment, upon the back of which was painted in staring great letters, ‘The King, Don Philip,’ and thus arrayed, he knelt before a blessed image in prayer, alternating with groans, expecting every moment would be his last. Joan does not appear to have lost her head. She is represented by one contemporary authority^[105] as being seated on the ground between her husband’s knees, saying that if they went down she would cling so closely to him that they should never be separated in death, as they had not been in life. The Spanish witnesses are loud in her praise in this danger. ‘The Queen,’ they say, ‘showed no signs of fear, and asked them to bring her a box with something to eat. As some of the gentlemen were collecting votive gifts to the Virgin of Guadalupe, they passed the bag to the Queen, who, taking out her purse containing about a hundred doubloons, hunted amongst them until she found the only half-doubloon there, showing thus how cool she was in the danger. A king never was drowned yet, so she was not afraid, she said.’^[106]

At length, mainly by the courage and address of one sailor, the ship was righted, the fire extinguished, and the vessel brought into the port of Weymouth on the 17th January 1506. Henry VII. of England had been courted and conciliated by Philip for some time past, but it was a dangerous temptation to put in the wily Tudor’s way to enable him to make his own terms for an alliance. Above all, he wanted to get into his power the rebel Earl of Suffolk, who was in refuge in Flanders, and this seemed his opportunity. Philip had had enough of the sea for a while. We are assured by one who was there that he was ‘fatigate and unquyeted in mynde and bodie,’ and he yearned to tread firm land again. His councillors urged him to take no risk, but Philip and Joan landed at Melcombe Regis to await a fair wind for sailing again. From far and near the west country gentry flocked down with their armed bands, ready for war or peace, but when they found that the royal visitors were friendly their hospitality knew no bounds. Sir John Trenchard would take no denial. The King and Queen must rest in his manor-house hard by until the weather mended; and, in the meanwhile, swift horses carried the news to King Henry in London.

As may be supposed, when he heard the news, ‘he was replenyshed with exceeding gladnes... for that he trusted it should turn out to his profit and commodity,’ which it certainly did. But Philip grew more and more uneasy at the pressing nature of the Dorsetshire welcome. The armed bands grew greater, and though the weather improved, Trenchard would not listen to his guests going on board until the King of England had a chance of sending greeting to his good brother and ally. At length Philip and Joan realised that they were in a trap, and had to make the best of it, which they did with a good grace, for they were welcomed by Henry with effusive professions of pleasure. Philip was conveyed with a vast cavalcade of gentlemen across England to Windsor, where he was met by Henry and his son, the betrothed of Katharine, Joan’s sister. Then the King of Castile was led to London and to Richmond with every demonstration of honour. But, withal, it was quite clear that Henry would not let his visitors go until they had subscribed to his terms, whatever they might be. And so the pact was solemnly sworn upon a fragment of the true cross in Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor, by Philip and Henry, by which Suffolk was to be surrendered to his doom, Philip’s sister Margaret, with her fat dowry, was to be married to the widowed old Henry, and England was bound to the King of Castile against Ferdinand of Aragon.

Joan was deliberately kept in the background during her stay in England. She had followed her husband slowly from Melcombe, and arrived at Windsor ten days later, the day after Philip, with great ceremony, had been invested with the Order of the Garter and had signed the treaty. On her arrival at Windsor on the 10th February she saw her sister Katharine, though not alone, and Katharine left the next day to go to Richmond. Three days later, on the 14th February, Joan set out from Windsor again towards Falmouth, whilst Philip joined Henry at Richmond; and soon after the King of Castile was allowed to travel into the west and once more take ship for his wife’s kingdom. The cynical exclusion of Joan from all participation in the treaty with England,^[107] and the fact that she was only allowed to see her sister once, and in the presence of witnesses in the interests of Philip, seems to prove that she was purposely kept in the dark as to the real meaning of the treaty, which was directed almost as much against herself as against her father, because, with England on his side, Philip could always paralyse France from interfering with him in Spain; and it is clear that, whether Joan was really incapacitated at the time or not, both Ferdinand and Philip had already determined to make out that she was.

Like a pair of wary wrestlers the two opponents still played at arms’ length. Ferdinand, after celebrating his second marriage—as he had celebrated his first, nearly forty years before—at Valladolid, awaited at Burgos, so as to be near on arrival of his daughter and her husband at one of the Biscay ports, as was expected. But nothing was further from Philip’s thoughts than to land at any place near where Ferdinand was waiting. His idea was to go to Andalucia, so as to be able to march through Spain before meeting the old King, and to gather friends and partisans on the way. Contrary winds, however, drove the fleet into Corunna, on the extreme north-west of the Peninsula, on the 26th April; and Ferdinand, when he got the news, for a moment lost his smooth self-control, and was for flying at his undutiful son-in-law sword in hand. But the outbreak was not of long duration, for the circumstances were serious, and needed all the great astuteness of which Ferdinand was capable. He was determined to rule Castile whilst he lived for the benefit of his great Aragonese aims.

He had, indeed, some cause for complaint against fortune; for, with the exception of the kingdom of Naples, he had not yet gathered the harvest that he had reckoned upon as the result of the union of the realms. His son-in-law, now that, by the death of other heirs, Joan had become Queen of Castile, was an enemy instead of an ally, and his defection had rendered necessary the pact between Ferdinand and France, which had stultified much of the advantage previously gained by the Castilian connection. At any cost Castile must be held, or all would be lost. If Joan herself took charge of the government, as was her right, then goodbye to the hope of Ferdinand employing for his own purposes the resources of Castile; for around her would be jealous nobles hating Aragon; whereas, with Philip as King, it was certain that his imprudence, his ignorance of Spain, and the Castilian distrust of foreigners, would soon provoke a crisis that might give Ferdinand his chance. Both opponents, therefore, were equally determined to keep Joan away from active sovereignty, whatever her mental state; and as Philip and his wife rode through Corunna, smiling and debonair, gaining friends everywhere, but surrounded with armed foreigners, German guards, archers, and the like, strange to Spaniards, as if in an enemy’s country, the plot thickened between the two antagonists.

Everywhere Philip took the lead, and Joan was treated as a consort.^[108] In the verses of welcome it was Don Philip’s name that came first; and Joan showed her discontent at the position in which she was placed by refusing to confirm the privileges of the cities through which they passed until she had seen her father, though Philip promised readily to do so. No sooner did Philip find himself supported by the northern nobles, than he announced that he would not be bound by the treaty of Salamanca, and generally gave Ferdinand to understand that he, Philip, alone, intended to be master. Ferdinand travelled forward to meet his son-in-law, making desperate attempts at conciliation and to win Juan Manuel to his side, but without success: whilst Philip tarried on the way and exhausted every means of delay in order to gain strength before the final struggle. To Philip’s insulting messages Ferdinand returned diplomatic answers; in the face of Philip’s scornful rejection of advances, Ferdinand was amiable, conciliatory, almost humble; he who, with the great Isabel, had been master of Spain for well nigh forty years. But he must have chuckled under his bated breath and whispering humbleness, for he knew that he was going to win, and he knew how he was going to do it.

Slowly Ferdinand travelled towards the north-west, sending daily embassies to Philip soliciting a friendly interview, and at every stage, as he came nearer, his son-in-law grew in arrogance. When Ferdinand left Astorga in the middle of May, Juan Manuel sent a message to him that if he wished to see the King of Castile, he must understand three things: first, that no business would be discussed; second, that Philip must have stronger forces than he; and third, that he must not expect that he would be allowed to obtain any advantage by, or through, his daughter, Queen Joan, as they knew where that would lead them to. Therefore, continued Manuel, King Ferdinand had better not come to Santiago at all. In the meanwhile the inevitable discord was brewing in the Court of Joan and Philip at Corunna. The proud Castilian nobles, greedy and touchy, who had flocked to Philip’s side, found that Flemings and Germans always stood between them and the throne, and intercepted the favours for which they hungered. The Teutons, who thought they were coming to Spain to lord over all, found a jealous nobility and a nation convinced of its own heaven-sent superiority, ready to resist to the death any encroachment of foreigners, whom they regarded with hate and scorn.

The Castilians deplored most the isolation of Joan, and endeavoured by a hundred plans to persuade her to second her husband’s action towards her father. Philip ceased now even to consult her, since she had refused to oppose Ferdinand; and in the pageantry of the entrance into Santiago and the triumphal march through Galicia, with a conquering army rather than a royal escort, Joan, in deepest black garments and sombre face, passed like a shadow of death. As the Kings gradually approached each other, Ferdinand, in soft words, begged Philip to let him know what alterations he desired to make in the agreement of Salamanca. After much fencing, Philip replied that if his father-in-law would send Cardinal Jimenez with full powers, he would try to arrange terms. The great point, he wrote, was that of Queen Joan; and the King of Aragon knew full well that upon this point the issue between him and Philip would be joined. Ferdinand had little love or trust in the great Castilian Cardinal, Jimenez, though the latter was faithful to him, not for his own sake, but for the good of Spain; but the Cardinal went to Philip with full powers, and bearing a private letter, saying that, as Joan was incapacitated from undertaking the government, Ferdinand besought Philip to join and make common cause with him, in order to prevent her, either of her own accord or by persuasion of the nobles, from seizing the reins. This was the line upon which Philip was pleased to negotiate, and Cardinal Jimenez found a ready listener. Ferdinand, however, was ready with the other alternative solution if this failed. If Philip would not join with him to exclude Joan, he would join Joan to exclude Philip, and all preparations were quietly made to muster his adherents at Toro, make a dash for Benavente, the place where Philip was to stay, rescue Joan, and govern, with her or in her name, to the exclusion of foreigners.^[109] But it was unnecessary. Jimenez’s persuasion and Ferdinand’s supple importunity conquered; and, though with infinite distrust and jealousy on all sides, the Kings still slowly approached each other, stage by stage, whilst the negotiations went on.

The Teutons and Castilians were at open loggerheads now; Queen Joan, reported Jimenez, was more closely guarded and concealed than ever, and Philip less popular in consequence. But, at length, the two rival Kings, on the 20th June 1506, found themselves in neighbouring villages; and on that day at a farmhouse half-way between Puebla and Asturianos they met. Ferdinand, in peaceful guise, was attended only by the Duke of Alba and the gentlemen of his household, not more than two hundred in all, mostly mounted on mules and unarmed; whilst Philip came in warlike array with two thousand pikemen and hundreds of German archers in strange garments and outlandish headgear, whilst the flanks of his great company of nobles were protected by a host of Flemish troops. When Philip approached his father-in-law, with steel mail beneath his fine silken doublet, and surrounded by armed protectors, it was seen that his face was sour and frowning, whilst Ferdinand, almost alone and quite unarmed, came smiling and bowing low at every step. When the Castilian nobles came forward one by one shamefacedly, to kiss the hand of the old monarch they had betrayed, Ferdinand’s satiric humour had full play, and many a sly thrust pierced their breasts, for all their hidden armour. After a few empty polite words between the Kings the conference was at an end, and each returned the way he came; Ferdinand more than ever chagrined that he had not been allowed even to see his daughter.

For the next few days the Kings travelled along parallel roads towards Benavente; Philip continuing to treat his father-in-law as an intruder in the most insulting fashion. At length their roads converged at a small village called Villafafila, at the time when the long discussed agreement had been settled by their respective ministers; and here, in the village church, the two rivals finally met to sign their treaty of peace on the 27th June 1506. It was a hellish compact, and it sealed the fate of unhappy Joan whatever might happen. Ferdinand came, as he said, with love in his heart and peace in his hands, only anxious for the happiness of his ‘beloved children,’ and of the realm that was theirs: and, after warmly embracing Philip, he led him towards the little village church to sign and swear to the treaty. With them, amongst others, were Don Juan Manuel and Cardinal Jimenez, and when the treaty was signed and the church cleared, the great churchman took the arm of Manuel, and whispered, ‘Don Juan, it is not fitting that we should listen to the talk of our masters. Do you go out first, and I will serve as porter.’ And there alone, in the humble house of prayer, the two Kings made the secret compact which explains the treaty they had just publicly executed. In appearance Ferdinand gave up everything. He was, it is true, to have half the revenues from the American discoveries, and to retain much plunder from the royal Orders and other grants of money, but he surrendered completely all share and part in the government of Castile, and allied himself to Philip for offence and defence against the world.

The secret deed, the outcome of that sinister private talk between two cruel scoundrels in the village church, allows us to guess, in conjunction with what followed, the reason for Ferdinand’s meek renunciation of the government. ‘As the Queen Joan on no account wishes to have anything to do with any affair of government or other things; and, even if she did wish it, it would cause the total loss and destruction of these realms, having regard to her infirmities and passions, which are not described here for decency’s sake’; and then the document provides that, ‘if Joan of her own accord, or at the instance of others, should attempt to interfere in the government or disturb the arrangement made between the two Kings, they will join forces to prevent it.’ ‘And so we swear to God our Lord, to the Holy Cross, and the four saintly evangelists, with our bodily hands placed upon His altar.’ And the two smiling villains came out hand in hand, both contented; each of them sure that the best of the evil bargain lay with him, and Ferdinand made preparations for departure to his own Aragon, and so to his realm of Naples and Sicily, delighted that his ‘beloved children’ should peacefully reign over the land of Castile.

It was more than two years and a half since Ferdinand had seen his daughter Joan. During that time both he and Philip had alternately declared she was quite sane and otherwise, as suited their plans. Now both were agreed, not only that she did not wish to govern her country: but that if ever she did wish, or Castilians wished for her to do so, then her ‘passions and infirmities,’ so vaguely referred to, would make her rule disastrous. It ensured Philip being King of Castile so long as he lived, and Ferdinand being master if he survived, and until the majority of his grandson Charles. There is no reason to deny that Joan was wayward, morbid, and eccentric; subject to fits of jealous rage at certain periods or crises, and that subsequently she developed intermittent lunacy. But at this time, according to all accounts, she was not mad in a sense that justified her permanent exclusion from the throne that belonged to her. Philip, heartless, ambitious, and vain, wished to rule Castile alone, according to Burgundian methods, which were alien to Spain and to the Queen. Ferdinand knew that, in any case, such an attempt could not succeed for long; and by permanently excluding Joan he secured for himself the reversion practically for the rest of his life. And so Joan was pushed aside and wronged by those whose sacred duty it was to protect and cherish her, and as Joan the Mad she goes down to all posterity.

But old Ferdinand had not yet shot his last bolt, for symmetry and completeness in his villainy was always his strong point. On the very day that the secret compact was signed, he came again to that humble altar of Villafafila, accompanied this time only by those faithful Aragonese friends who would have died for him, Juan Cabrero, who had befriended Colon, and his secretary, Almazan. Before these he swore and signed a declaration that Philip had come in great force whilst he had none, and had by intimidation and fear compelled him to sign a deed so greatly to the injury of his own daughter. He swore now that he had only done so to escape his peril, and never meant that Joan should be deprived of her liberty of action: on the contrary, he intended when he could to liberate her and restore to her the administration of the realm that belonged to her: and he solemnly denounced and repudiated the former oath he had just taken on the same altar. And then, quite happy in his mind, Ferdinand the Catholic went on his way, having left heavily bribed all the men who surrounded doomed Philip, including even the all-powerful favourite Juan Manuel.

Philip lost no time. Before Ferdinand had got beyond Tordesillas, a courtier reached him from his son-in-law giving him news of Joan’s anger and passion when she learnt that she was pushed aside and was not to see her father. What would Ferdinand recommend? asked Philip. But the old King was not to be caught; he would not be cajoled into giving his consent to Joan being shut up, but he sent a long sanctimonious rigmarole enjoining harmony, but meaning nothing. Philip then appealed to the nobles one by one, asking them to sign a declaration assenting to Joan’s confinement. The Admiral of Castile, Ferdinand’s cousin, led a strong opposition to this, and demanded a personal interview with the Queen to which Philip consented, and the Admiral and Count Benavente went to the fortress of Murcientes, where Joan and her husband were staying. At the door of the chamber stood Garcilaso de la Vega, a noble in Philip’s interest, and Cardinal Jimenez was just inside; whilst in a window embrasure in the darkened room sat the Queen alone, garbed in black with a hood which nearly obscured her face. She rose as Admiral Enriquez approached, and with a low curtsey, asked him if he came from her father. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I left him yesterday at Tudela on his way to Aragon.’ ‘I should so much have liked to see him,’ sighed poor Joan; ‘God guard him always.’ For many hours that day and the next the noble spoke to the Queen, saying how important it was to the country that she should agree well with her husband, and take part in the government that belonged to her. He reported afterwards that in all these conferences she never gave a random answer.

The Admiral was too important a person to be slighted, and Philip was forced to listen to some plain warnings from him. He must not venture to go to Valladolid without the Queen, or ill would come of it: the people were jealous already, and if Joan was shut up their fears would be confirmed. So Joan was borne by her husband’s side to Valladolid in state, though her face was set in stony sorrow beneath the black cowl that shrouded it. Near there one other interview took place between the two kings with much feigned affection, but no result as regards Joan. On the 10th July 1506, Joan and her husband rode through the city of Valladolid with all the pomp of Burgundy and Spain. Two banners were to be carried before the royal pair, but Joan knew she alone was Queen of Castile, and insisted that one should be destroyed before she would start. She was mounted upon a white jennet, housed in black velvet to match her own sable robes, and a black hood almost covered her face.^[110] Shows, feasts and addresses were arranged for their reception, but they rode straight through the crowded, flower-decked streets without staying to witness them; and this joyous entry, we are told by an eyewitness, meant to be so gay, was blighted by an all-pervading gloom, as of some great calamity to come.

On the following day the Cortes took the oath of allegiance to Joan as Queen, and to Philip only as consort, and she personally insisted upon seeing the powers of the deputies. The ceremonies over, Philip came to business. Great efforts were made to persuade the Cortes to consent to Joan’s confinement and Philip’s personal rule; and Jimenez did his best to get the custody of her.^[111] But the stout Admiral Enriquez stood in the way, and insisted that this iniquity should not be, so that Philip was obliged to put up with the position of administrator for his wife, since he could not be King in her stead. Flemings, Germans and Castilians, in the meanwhile, vied with each other in rapacity. Philip was free enough with the money of others, but even he had to go out hunting by stealth to escape importunity when he had given away all he had to give and more. But of all the greedy crew there was none so rapacious as Juan Manuel, little of body but great of mind, who, like the Marquis of Villena forty years before, grabbed with both hands insatiate. Fortresses, towns, pensions, assignments of national revenue, nothing came amiss to Manuel, and at last his covetous eyes were cast upon the fortress-palace of Segovia, still in the keeping of that stout AndrÉs Cabrera and his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, the lifelong friend of the great Isabel. Philip gave an order that the Alcazar of Segovia was to be surrendered to Manuel. Surrender the Alcazar! after fifty years of keeping! No, forsooth, said big-hearted Dona Beatriz; only to Queen Joan will we give the fortress that her great mother entrusted to our keeping.

And so it happened that Philip, with Joan still in black by his side, rode out of Valladolid in August towards Segovia, to demand the fortress from its keeper. When the cavalcade reached Cogeces, half way to Segovia, Joan would go no further. They were taking her to Segovia, she cried, to imprison her in the Alcazar, and she threw herself from her horse writhing upon the ground, and refused to stir another step on the way. The prayers and threats of Philip and his councillors, whom she hated, were worse than useless, and all that night she rode hither and thither across country refusing to enter the town. When the morning came Philip learnt that Cabrera had surrendered the Alcazar of Segovia to Manuel; and as there was no reason now for going thither, they rode back to Burgos. As they travelled through Castile, brows grew darker and hearts more bitter at this fine foreign gallant with his fair face and his gay garments, who kept the Queen of Castile in durance in her own realms, and packed his friends and foreign pikemen in all the strong castles of the land. When Burgos was reached on the 7th September, Philip deepened the discontent by ordering the immediate departure of the wife of the Constable of Castile, an Enriquez by birth, and consequently a cousin of Ferdinand, in order that Joan should have no relative near her, although they lodged in the Constable’s palace. The Admiral of Castile and the Duke of Alba were also attacked by Philip, who demanded their fortresses as pledges of loyalty; and soon all Castile was in a ferment, clamouring for the return of the old King Ferdinand, and the liberation of their Queen Joan.

The King, not content with conferring upon his favourite Manuel the Alcazar of Segovia, now entrusted to his keeping the castle of Burgos, where it was determined to celebrate the surrender by entertaining Philip at a banquet. After the feast the King was taken ill of a malignant fever, it was said, caused by indulgence or over-exercise, and Philip lay ill for days in raging delirium. Joan, dry-eyed and cool, never left his side, saying little, but attending assiduously to the invalid. At one o’clock on the 25th September 1506 Philip I., King of Castile, breathed his last, in his twenty-eighth year: but yet Joan, without a tear or a tremor, still stayed by his side, deaf to all remonstrance and condolence, to all appearance unmoved. She calmly gave orders that the corpse of her husband should be carried in state to the great hall of the Constable’s palace upon a splendid catafalque of cloth of gold, the body clad in ermine-lined robes of rich brocade, the head covered by a jewelled cap, and a magnificent diamond cross upon the breast. A throne had been erected at the end of the hall, and upon this the corpse was arranged, seated as if in life. During the whole of the night the vigils for the dead were intoned by friars before the throne, and when the sunlight crept through the windows the body, stripped of its incongruous finery, was opened and embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, from which, for the rest of her life, Joan never willingly parted.^[112]

Joan, in stony immobility, dazed and silent, gave no indication that she understood the tremendous importance of her husband’s death; but courtiers and nobles, Castilians and Teutons alike, did not share her insensibility. Dismay fell upon the rapacious crew, fierce denunciations of poison,^[113] scrambling for such plunder as could be grasped,^[114] and dread apprehensions as to what would happen to them all when the King of Aragon should return. Joan had to be forcibly removed from the corpse; and for days remained shut up in a darkened room without speaking, eating, or undressing. When, at length, she learnt that the coffin had been carried to the Cartuja de Miraflores, near Burgos, she insisted upon going thither, and ordered an immense number of new mourning garments fashioned like nun’s weeds. Arriving at the church, she heard mass, and then caused the coffin to be raised from the vault and broken open, the cerecloths removed from the head and feet, which she kissed and fondled until she was persuaded to return to Burgos, on the promise that the coffin should be kept open for her to visit it when she pleased; which she did thenceforward every few days whilst it remained there.

The Flemish chronicler, whom I have quoted several times, gives a curious description of Joan’s jealous amorous obsession for her husband. Philip is represented as being libidinous to the last degree, as well as being the handsomest man of his time; whilst Joan herself is praised for her beauty, grace, and delicacy. ‘The good Queen fell into such jealousy that she could never get free from it, until at last it became a bad habit which reached amorous delirium, and excessive and irrepressible rage, from which for three years she got no repose or ease of mind; as if she was a woman possessed or distraught.... She was so much troubled at the conduct of her husband that she passed her life shut up alone, avoiding the sight of all persons but those who attended upon and gave her food. Her only wish was to go after her husband, whom she loved with such vehemence and frenzy, that she cared not whether her company was agreeable to him or not. When she returned to Spain, she would not rest until all the ladies that had come with them were sent home, or she threatened to make a public scandal. So far did she carry this mania, that it ended by her having no woman near her but a washerwoman, whom, at any hour that seized her caprice, she made to wash the clothes in her presence. In this state, without any women attendants, she kept close to her husband, serving herself like a poor, miserable woman. Even in the country she did not leave him, and went by his side, followed sometimes by ten thousand men, but not one person of her own sex.’^[115]

The frantic jealousy of her husband during life, together with the knowledge that he was determined to confine her as a lunatic, whilst ruling her kingdom at his will, turned into gloomy misanthropy and rebellion at her fate at his death; and her refusal to sign the formal documents presented to her as Queen in the first days of her widowhood, made evident to the few nobles who kept their heads that some sort of government would have to be improvised, pending the return of Ferdinand from Naples. Juan Manuel, fiercely hated by every one, kept in the background; only hoping to save his life and some of his booty; but the stern old man in his coarse grey frock, to whom money and possessions were nothing, though, next to the Pope, he was the richest churchman in Christendom, Cardinal Jimenez, who perhaps was not taken by surprise by the opportune disappearance of Philip, had everything ready, even before the King died, for the establishment of a provisional government; and on the day of the death a meeting of all the nobles and deputies in Burgos confirmed the arrangements he had made. All parties of nobles were represented upon the governing council; but Jimenez himself was president, and soon became autocrat by right of his ability. Order was temporarily guaranteed, and all the members, in a self-denying ordinance, undertook not to try to obtain possession of the Queen or of her younger son, Ferdinand, who was in Simancas Castle,^[116] the elder, Charles, being in Flanders. Joan, sunk in lethargy, refused to sign the decrees summoning Cortes; and the latter were irregularly convoked by the government. But when they were assembled, carefully chosen under Jimenez’s influence in favour of Ferdinand, Joan would not receive the members, until, under pressure, she did so only to tell them to go home and not meddle with government any more without her orders. Thus with a provisional government, whose mandate expired with the year 1506, a Queen who refused to rule, and already anarchy and rebellion rife in the South, Castilians could only pray for the prompt return of King Ferdinand, who, but a few short weeks before, had been expelled with every circumstance of insult and ignominy the realm he had ruled so long.

No entreaty could prevail upon Joan to fulfil any of the duties of government. Her father would see to everything, she said, when he returned; all her future work in the world was to pray for the soul of her husband, and guard his dead body. On Sunday, 19th December 1506, after mass at the Cartuja, Joan announced her intention of carrying the body for sepulture in the city of Granada, near the grave of the great Isabel, in accordance with Philip’s last wish.^[117] The steppes of Castile in the depth of winter are as bleak and inhospitable as any tract in Europe. For scores of miles over tableland and mountain the snow lay deep, and the bitter blast swept murderously. The Queen cared for nothing but the drear burden that she carried upon the richly bedizened hearse; and with a great train of male servitors, bishops, churchmen, and choristers, she started on her pilgrimage on the 20th December.^[118] The nights were to be passed in wayside inns or monasteries, and at each night’s halt the grisly ceremony was gone through of opening the coffin that the Queen might fondle and kiss the dead lips and feet of what had been her husband. At one point on the way, when after nightfall the cortÈge entered the courtyard of the stopping place, Joan learnt that, instead of being a monastery for men, it was a convent of nuns. Instantly her mad jealousy of women flared up, and she peremptorily ordered the coffin to be carried out of the precincts. Through the crude winter’s night Joan and her attendants kept their vigil in the open field over the precious dust of Philip the Handsome, until daylight enabled them to go again upon their dreary way. Such experiences as this could not be long continued, for Joan was far advanced in pregnancy; and when she arrived at Torquemada, only some thirty miles from her starting-place, the indications of coming labour warned her that she could go no further; and here, on the 14th January 1507, her youngest child, Katharine, was born.

There is no doubt whatever that Joan was throughout carefully watched by the agents of her father and Jimenez; and that, although ostensibly a free agent, any attempt on her part to act independently or enter into a political combination would have promptly checked. Her mental malady was certainly not minimised by her father or his agents; who were as anxious to keep her in confinement now as her husband had been. Nevertheless, when every deduction has been made, it is indisputable that in her morbid condition it might have been disastrous to the country to have allowed her to exercise full political power at this time, even if she had consented to do so; though if Ferdinand had not been, as he was, solely moved by his own interests, the unhappy woman might after his arrival have been associated with him in the government, and have retained, at least, her personal liberty and ostensible sovereignty.

Jimenez, in the meanwhile, kept his hand firmly on the helm of State. The great military orders, of which Ferdinand was perpetual Grand Master, were at his bidding, and enabled him to hold the nobles in check,^[119] as well as the Flemish party, which claimed for the Emperor Maximilian the regency of Castile as representing the dead King’s son Charles. The great Cardinal, far stronger than any other man in Spain, thus kept Castile from anarchy until the arrival of Ferdinand in July 1508. His methods were, of course, arbitrary and unconstitutional; for the Queen either would not, or was not allowed to, do anything; but, at least, Jimenez governed in this time of supreme crisis, as he did at a crisis even more acute on the death of Ferdinand eight years later: and when Ferdinand eventually came from Naples everything was prepared for him to govern Castile as he listed for the ends of Aragon.

So far Ferdinand had triumphed both at home and abroad. The death of Philip made it necessary for Henry of England to change his attitude and court the friendship of the King of Spain. Katharine of Aragon, the neglected and shamefully treated widowed Princess of Wales, once more found her English father-in-law all smiles and amiability. To please him further she consented to try to bring about a marriage between Henry VII., recently a widower by the death of Queen Elizabeth of York, and poor Joan, languishing by her dead husband’s side at Torquemada. The proposal was a diabolical one; for Joan’s madness and morbid attachment to her husband’s memory had been everywhere proclaimed from the housetops: but Katharine of Aragon made no scruple at urging such a match, in order to improve her own position in England. Ferdinand gently dallied with the foul proposal. It was a good opportunity for gaining some concession as to the payment of Katharine’s long overdue dowry, without which Henry threatened to break off her match with his son and heir. So Ferdinand wrote in March 1507 from Naples, praying that the proposal to marry Joan should be kept very secret until he arrived in Spain, or Joan ‘might do something to prevent it’; but if she ever married again he promised that it should be to no one but to his good brother of England.

Whatever may have been Ferdinand’s real intention, and it would appear very unlikely that he would have permitted so grasping a potentate as Henry Tudor to gain a footing, as regent or otherwise, in Castile, his agent in England was quite enamoured of this plan for getting Joan out of the way in Spain. ‘No king in the world,’ he wrote on the 15th April 1507, ‘would make so good a husband (as Henry VII.) for the Queen of Castile, whether she be sane or insane. She might recover her reason when wedded to such a husband; but even in that case King Ferdinand would, at all events, be sure to retain the Regency of Castile. On the other hand, if the insanity of the Queen should prove incurable, it would perhaps be not inconvenient that she should live in England. The English do not seem to mind her insanity much; especially as it is asserted that her mental malady will not prevent child-bearing.^[120]

Whilst Katharine in England was, as she says, ‘baiting’ Henry VII. for her own benefit with the tempting morsel of the marriage with Joan, and the King of France was offering the hand of a French prince, the Queen of Castile remained in lethargic isolation at Torquemada, though the plague raged through the summer in the over-crowded village. Joan had been told by some roguish friar that Philip would come to life again there, and she obstinately stayed on in the face of danger; saying when she was urged to go to the neighbouring city of Palencia, where there was more accommodation, that it was not meet that a widow should be seen in public, and the only move she would consent to make was to a small place called Hornillos, a few miles from Torquemada, in April.^[121] She spoke little, and with the exception of listening to music, of which she was fond, she had no amusement; but it is evident from at least one incident that, however strange her conduct might be, she was not deprived entirely of her reason. Jimenez had obtained from her a decree dismissing all the Councillors appointed by Philip. These favourites of her husband were naturally furious, and demanded audience of the Queen at Hornillos. They were received by her in the church where the corpse of Philip was deposited. ‘Who put you into the Council?’ she asked them. ‘We were appointed by a decree issued and signed by your Highness,’ they replied. An angry exchange of words then took place, and Joan, turning to the Marquis of Villena,^[122] who was behind her, told him that it was his smartness that brought such affront as this upon her. Then she declared in a resolute tone that it was her wish that every one should return to the office or position he held before she and her husband landed in Spain; so that when King Ferdinand arrived he should find everything as it used to be in his time. This, of course, was a victory for Ferdinand’s party, but it is clear that Joan knew what she was talking about on this occasion.^[123]

At length, in the early autumn of 1507, came the happy news that King Ferdinand had landed at Valencia; and, accompanied by a large force, was entering Castile; being generally welcomed by nobles and people.^[124] As soon as Joan learnt that her father had entered her realm, she caused a Te Deum to be sung in the church of Hornillos, and set forth to receive him, carrying always the corpse of her husband, and travelling only by night, as was now her custom. At a small place called Tortoles, about twenty-five miles beyond Valladolid, father and daughter met. The King approached, surrounded and followed by great crowds of nobles and prelates. He was met at the door of the house by Joan, attended by her half-sister and the Marchioness of Denia; and as he doffed his cap she threw back the black hood which she wore as a Flemish widow, and bared the white coif with which her hair was covered. Casting herself upon her knees she sought to kiss her father’s hand; but he also knelt and embraced her tenderly; leading her afterwards by the hand into the house. Every sign of dutiful submission was given by Joan to her father; and after several long private conferences between them, Ferdinand announced that she had delegated to him the government of Castile.

JOAN THE MAD WITH THE UNBURIED BODY OF HER HUSBAND.
After a Painting by Pradilla.