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All lay in profound repose, the gorgeous pageant was over, the shades of evening deepened, the stars came out serene in that large firmament, and lighted up the streets of tents, gay with banners and devices, where the camp-fires burned.

Alone, the queen had not retired to rest, and was offering up her fervent prayers for the success of the war and the safety of Ferdinand. In an instant a vivid and startling blaze burst forth beside her. The tent was in flames. The light materials fed the fire. She had barely time to escape from the burning embers falling about her, and to rush to her husband’s tent. Into his arms she cast herself – the valiant queen for a moment all the woman – in her alarm.

“The Moors have done this!” cried Ferdinand, as he listened to her confused account. “They will be on us. Let the trumpets sound to charge,” and hastily wrapping himself in his manto he made his way through the blazing camp to command his forces.

But no Moors were there. The towers of Granada rose white and placid in the night. The only light, the beacon fire in the high outpost of the Vega. No sound came from the city. For a moment the thought of magic floated through Ferdinand’s mind. He was superstitious, and the Moors dealt much in necromancy, but it was evident that in its course the fire was associated with the queen (whether by purpose or accident), and he was resolved to take advantage of this to rouse his indignant army to action.

“Heaven,” said he, as his knights came rushing round him, “has saved the queen. Let this danger to her life break up the camp and lead us to the solid walls of Granada. Let us lodge her safely within the walls of the Alhambra. Woe to the Moslem and his wiles!”

At these words lances rattled and swords leaped from the scabbard.

“Woe to the Moslem!” echoed from every side.

With the morning light a vigorous assault was made, and a fierce battle fought among the charred wrecks of the smouldering camp. But Ferdinand’s cold and sober policy was principally bent on restraining the fiery spirits he commanded. Mostly he contented himself with skirmishes and closing all the issues through which provisions could reach Granada.

It was the accident of the fire which led to the building of Santa Fé (the city of Sacred Faith) in the Vega, as a permanent refuge, to convince the Moors that nothing would turn the Christians from the conquest.

The ruins of Santa Fé still remain on the slope of a line of low hills opposite Granada, close by the castle of Rum or Roma, granted by Ferdinand VII. to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War.

At Santa Fé Isabel appeared in complete armour at the head of the Castilians. She inspected every tent, reviewed her troops, consoled, exhorted, encouraged, a very Christian Bellona, who carried victory in her hand.

At Santa Fé she met Columbus, and after refusing him what he needed for his enterprise, sent after him, when he had crossed the bridge of Peñas on his return, and consented to find funds for his departure to the New World.

Now nothing in the siege was so fatal to the Moors as the building of Santa Fé.

While their enemies were revelling in the plenty of the land the supplies of the city were cut off. Autumn brought them no crops, the Christians spoiled them; all their sheep and cattle were lifted, and famine began to be felt.

Then Boabdil, who had succeeded his father, Muley Hassan, called together the heads of the city – the alcaides, dervishes, alfaquis, and imams of the faith, within the great Hall of the Ambassadors, where his father had sat. By his side his mother, Ayxa la Horra, just middle-aged, of commanding stature, in long, ample robes, worked with jewels, her dark hair shaded by a turban diademed with gold – and asked them, “What is to be done?” At the momentous question every face grew white, and they who had fought so many years so manfully, hung their heads and wept.

For a time no voice answered until an aged alcaide rose and with a faltering voice uttered the word “Surrender!”

As with one voice all joined in: “Surrender!” echoes up to the domed roof, glittering with crystal damasked in deep-coloured wood – the arabesques and the fantastic devices echo it, the fairy-like arcades bordered with orange and lemon-trees carry it on to the women’s quarter beyond the Court of the Alberca, where wails and shrieks repeat it.

“Surrender!” sounds from the towers upon the cliff down to the deep valley of the Darro where the bubbling waters foam.

“Surrender!” is carried by the winds into the narrow streets of Granada, where want and famine stalk, tangible to the eye in sunken faces of famished men.

“Surrender! Yes!” cries the aged alcaide, taking up the word. “Alas! we have no food. None can reach us since the armed walls of Santa Fé command the place. We are 200,000 young and old. We are all starving. Of what avail are the Alhambra walls? The Christians are at home, well defended. Allah has willed it. Kismet! It is done. We must surrender.”

They know it, these hard-visaged Moslems sitting round on ancient seats, hiding their eyes under their vast turbans, swarthy warriors grizzled with toil, and silken, effeminate courtiers, and the imperious queen standing erect, her arms folded on her breast, yet resolute to the last.

Meanwhile, Boabdil, calm but ashen, eagerly scans each face, but speaks not. Then the fierce Mousa, the most valiant of all the Moorish knights and they are many, starts to his feet.

“Surrender!” he shouts, in a voice like a clarion. “Who dares say that word is a traitor. Surrender to whom? To Ferdinand, the Christian king? to Isabel, his slave? They are liars, invaders, giaours! Death is the least evil we have to fear from them. Surrender means plunder, sacking, the profanation of our mosques, the violation of our women, whips, chains, dungeons, the fagot, and the stake. This is surrender! Let him that has a man’s heart follow me to the Christian camp. There let us die!”

But the words of Mousa brought no response. Boabdil el Chico yielded to the general voice, and the venerable dervish, Aval-Cazem, was sent out to Santa Fé to treat for terms with the Catholic sovereigns.

Alas! Then came a night of mourning and of wailing, as the sun went down over the Alhambra in clouds of blood.

Within the walls where they had been born and lived, there they would linger! Among those enchanting courts, beside gushing fountains, the song of birds, the scent of flowers. The soft shadows of pale groves, and those painted halls, the very picture books of history and of song.

Now, all is to be abandoned. The royal treasure packed, the inlaid walls stripped of their hangings, the gold vessels set with pearls, the carved platters for perfumed water, the turbaned crown and royal robes and garments woven in Persian looms, the accumulated treasures of centuries, unknown to the outer world, unspeakable, garnered in the lace-walled recesses of the harem.

At break of day all must depart into a cold and arid world – the stately Sultana, La Horra, and Boabdil’s large-eyed queen, in robes of death and mourning, bearing ashes on their heads, followed by all the pomp of an Eastern court. Guards, slaves, mutes, and eunuchs, passed out of the gate of the Siete Suelos, the conquered city sleeping at their feet, while on the opposite side, by the Gate of Justice with the mystic hand, rode in a dazzling company of Christian knights, lighted up by the rising sun – Aragonese and Castilian horsemen with round casques, knights in chain-armour rattling their spears, gold-tabarded trumpeters, men-at-arms and arquebusiers with hedges of lances and bucklers, led by the primate of Spain, bearing in his hand the silver cross to be planted on the signal tower of the Vega.

CHAPTER XXVI
The End of the Moors

AT the end of the Alameda, outside Granada, there is a bridge over the Xenil, opening from a broad and lofty avenue of elms. How gay it is! The murmur of the green-tinged river! The soft, warm wind among the trees, the borders of old-fashioned flowers! How majestic the infinite whiteness of the range of the Sierra Nevada backing all, a smooth, pure world lost in a firmament of blue!

Beyond is a road along which carts and coaches roll, a dirty, muddy country road, leading to Motril, and from that to the sea, passing through barriers of mountains.

A mile or so on, a little chapel, dedicated to San Sebastian, lies to the right, close on the road. You might pass it a thousand times without notice, it is so dark and small. Yet, homely as it looks, there is no place in all the range of history more sacred than this spot.

It is the 2d of January, 1492, when Boabdil el Chico, King of Granada, mounted on a powerful war-horse, rides slowly forth from the Alhambra by the gate of the Siete Suelos. We know his face, from a portrait in the palace of the Generalife – a sad-expressioned visage, as of one born to ill-luck, swarthy-complexioned, with coal-black hair under his turban; and we know too, that at his special request, the gate of the Siete Suelos has been walled up from that day, and so remains, encumbered by huge masses of masonry, over which time has cast a softening hand in trails of vine leaves and low shrubbery.

Slowly he descends the hill by a winding path still existing, cleaving the steep ravine, very stony now, and difficult to traverse, and passing by high walls (to be called henceforth the Cuesta de los Matires), crosses the bridge over the Xenil, gallops down the road, and draws rein before the chapel of San Sebastian, then a mosque.

His very dress is recorded. A dark mantle over an Eastern tunic of embroidered silk, a regal crown attached to his turban, and in his hand two keys. (Thus he is represented on a stone carving in the Capilla Real in the cathedral.)

Before the little mosque, Los Reyes Catolicos await him. They are also on horseback: Isabel rides a white jennet, richly caparisoned. Her grand head bound by a jewelled coif, forming a regal coronet, her face radiant, her queenly form erect.

Ferdinand is beside her, with a sparkle in his cunning eye, which the rigid canons of courtly reserve cannot master, so triumphant does he feel.

Beside them is their young daughter, Catalina, to become wife of Henry the Eighth, and her gallant brother, the delicate Infante, lately knighted by his father upon the battle-field, and around, a brilliant group of valiant knights: Ponce de Leon, browned by the long war, the faultless-featured; Gonsalvo de Cordoba, that king of men, who, young as he is, has been entrusted with the negotiations with Boabdil; Medina Sidonia, of the noble race of Guzman; the Marqués de Villena, Fernandez, Cifuentes Cabra, Tendila, and Monte Mayor.

Behind press in three hundred Christian captives released at the signing of the treaty, besides bishops, monks, cardinals, statesmen, veterans, grown grey in war, Asturian arquebusiers, Aragonese sharpshooters, lances, banners, battle-axes, croziers, crosses, and blood-stained trophies, all backed by the red walls of the Alhambra towering on the hills.

Hurriedly dismounting from his horse, the unhappy Boabdil would kneel and kiss Ferdinand’s hand, but he generously forbids it. Then the poor humbled monarch offers the same homage to Isabel, who also graciously declines it, a wan smile breaking over his haggard face, for in her hand she holds that of his little son – detained as a hostage at Sante Fé – whom he seizes and embraces.

And now the moment has come when he must deliver up the insignia of royalty, and, with the natural dignity which so rarely forsakes an Oriental he tenders the keys of the Alhambra.

“Take them,” he says, “you have conquered. Thus, O King and Queen! receive our kingdom and our person! Allah is great! Use us with the clemency you have promised. Be merciful as you are strong!”

At these words, uttered as by a dying man, Isabel’s great heart melts, and her eyes fill with tears.

Not so the astute Ferdinand. With difficulty he can suppress his joy; he knows too well the crafty part he meant to play with Boabdil and his kingdom, and his appealing words grate on his ears.

But, suppressing these feelings, “Doubt not, O King!” is his reply, “the sanctity of our promise, nor that by a timely submission you should suffer. I give you our royal word that our Moslem subjects shall find equal justice with our own.”

Ferdinand then hands the keys to Isabel, who passes them on to her son, Prince Juan, who in his turn gives them to the Conde de Tendila the new Alcaide of Granada.

Then, in breathless silence, the glittering group await the signal which is to make the Alhambra theirs. Isabel, her hands clasped in silent prayer, Ferdinand, casting anxious glances to the fortress-crowned hill. Behold! in the clear morning light, the silver cross borne by the Bishop of Salamanca blazes from the citadel, the red and yellow flag of Spain beside it, fluttering over the crescent banner, which is slowly withdrawn. One great shout of triumph rises to the skies; trumpets sound, artillery booms, and to the voice of the shrill clarions comes the cry: “Santiago! Santiago! for God and for Spain!” and the pious queen, hastily dismounting, enters the little chapel beside the road (that morning become a Christian church), to celebrate a solemn Te Deum to the warlike music of fifes, flutes, and joy-bells.

Such is the chapel of San Salvador on the road to Motril, the Arab walls untouched, the altar, a rude Mithrab, under a Saracenic arch, still standing, an incrusted dome overhead, edged with a coloured border, the whole a little circular interior of fit proportion, and honeycombed niches at its sides. On the outer wall an inscription, in old Spanish letters, sets forth that:

“On this spot King Boabdil met Los Reyes Catolicos, and delivered to them the keys of Granada; who, in memory of their gratitude to God for overcoming the Moors, converted this mosque into a chapel, in honour of San Sebastian.”

The sovereigns enter the city towards nightfall (dreary in that season of January, for Granada is a mountain place), the shadow of tossing plumes and glancing armour falling on fields of snow, which deaden the tramp of the war-horses and the passing of arquebusiers. But the bells ring out triumphant in the dark air, and penetrate into the deepest recesses of the Moorish patios, where every Moslem has shut himself up in black despair.

 
“There was a crying in Granada
When the sun was going down;
Some calling on the Trinity,
Some calling on Mahomet.
Thus cried the Moslem while his hands
His own beard did tear:
‘Farewell! farewell, Granada!
Thou city without peer!
Woe! woe! thou pride of Heathendom,
Seven hundred years and more
Have gone, since first the faithful
Thy royal sceptre bore.’ ”
 

At the door of the great mosque, the same on which the harebrained knight of Pulgar with his fifteen companions as wild as himself had fixed the tablet with the words Ave Maria, they halted. Like the chapel, it had been hastily consecrated. Here the sovereigns offered up prayer and thanksgiving.

In what part of the present cathedral did this occur? At what is now the high altar, or within the Capilla Real?

Did any wandering spirit whisper into the ear of the still beautiful queen, in the swell of the triumphant anthems which rise to celebrate her fame, that there she would lie entombed with Ferdinand by her side?

The first interview of Columbus with the queen took place in the middle of the Moorish war, when all available revenues were absorbed.

It was the Andalusian Fray Perez de Marchena, who sent him to Santa Fé, recommending him to the Bishop of Talavera, a learned prelate, at that time confessor to the queen and shortly to become Archbishop of Granada.

It was Talavera who presided at the council of Salamanca, before which Columbus exhibited his charts and detailed his projects.

Like Galileo, he was rejected as a vain dreamer, not altogether free from suspicion of magic.

A second time he came to Santa Fé, and boldly expostulated with Isabel on her backwardness.

“Her refusal,” said Columbus, “was not in consonance with the magnanimous spirit of her reign.”

The great queen was touched at the rough sincerity of his words.

“I will assume the undertaking,” was her reply, “for my own kingdom of Castile. I will pawn my jewels if the money you raise is not sufficient.”

The box or casket, with a gold pattern, which she gave him, is still preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral at Granada. He returned it to her filled with virgin gold, “As admiral, viceroy, and captain-general of all islands and continents in the western ocean,” titles which descended to his son.

The memory of Columbus (or Colon, as he is called in Spain, a name continued in his present descendants, the Duques de Veragua) is perpetuated at Seville by a large flagstone let into the marble floor in the centre of the cathedral.

 
A Castilia y a Leon
Nuovo Mundo dio Colon,
 

is the motto. On either side the rude outlines of two small caravels are cut, models of the vessels in which he started from Palos in Andalusia in search of the new world.

In shape they resemble Grecian triremes without the bank of oars. A raised stern bears a square metal lantern as a night signal, and floating at the prow flies the flag of Spain.

On the deck appears the outline of a giant mariner wearing a broad sombrero, which may represent Columbus, in a thick coat, and with a telescope to his eye.

Within the Capitular Library are his books of reference, neatly annotated in his own clear hand, and a chart drawn by himself on parchment – a rude sketch of the American seaboard and the surrounding ocean, with soundings for sunken rocks; the course of winds, tides, and currents specially noted, the parchment partly blurred, as if by marks of sea-water.

Gazing at these relics, so neatly precise, and finished with the care of a man who knows how to wait with the patience of genius, a tall form rises before the eye, fair-complexioned, thin-faced, blue-eyed, and grey at thirty, such as Queen Isabel saw him, sitting at the poop of his little vessel, his eyes fixed on the chart, issuing orders to his helmsman to steer into unknown seas, while around him a mutinous crew gathers, calling on him to turn the rudder and sail home.

Time after time this happened. The sailors mutinied and threatened to throw him overboard. Time after time his dignity and eloquence mastered them, until that wild cry of “Tierra! Tierra!” broke from the masthead, as the advancing waves gathered on the shore of San Salvador.

On his return from his fourth voyage, his constant friend and protectress, Isabel, was dead!

This was the last drop in the cup of suffering to a broken-hearted man. His robust constitution broke down, and he sank into a premature old age.

At Segovia, where the court was, he presented himself to Ferdinand, but obtained nothing but empty words. He actually lived on borrowed money until his death.

His son and heir commuted his claims, which were enormous and unreasonable, into a large grant of land and the title of Grandee of Spain.

CHAPTER XXVII
Death of Isabel

THE country between Salamanca and Valladolid is very flat, the finest corn-growing region in all Spain. Now a railway passes through it, and when the summer sun blazes on the thick shocks of wheat, they glisten as with living flames, while the crisp, hot wind passes fluttering by. As the sun sinks, a dazzling ball of fire, into banks of intense crimson, the shadows of the after-glow fall long and dark. Nothing but the horizon between earth and sky; a land, boundless, monotonous, reflecting the stubborn will of the nation. The only kingdom in Europe which has retained its mediæval character for good and bad, simple, grand, immutable as its great plains!

Passing the small station of Vento de Baños, the ruins of an ancient castle rise to the sight. It is built of small red bricks, tempered to a pale hue by time and sunshine, and the lofty walls broken by solid towers and bastions. From its low position the height seems great, and for this same reason the walls are of enormous strength.

This is the Castello de la Mota, built for Juan II. in 1444, and here his daughter, the great Isabel, has come to die.

It is not age which is killing her, for she is only fifty-four, but sorrow has done its work upon her tender heart.

Child after child has been taken from her. First, her only son Juan, barely twenty, always delicate, dying of a fever in the midst of rejoicings for his marriage with a princess of France. Vainly did Ferdinand, who had rushed to his side at the first symptoms of danger, break the news to her gently by letter, describing his gradual decline after he was really dead; but the shaft struck home.

“Never,” says Peter Martyr, “could the bereaved parents speak of him.”

They laid him in a sumptuous tomb in the Dominican church at Avila.

Even after the lapse of so many centuries their love appears in the minute care with which each detail of his marble monument is wrought. The calm, pure, upturned face of the boy, so delicate and young, the light regal circlet on the rich curls of hair, the simple folds of drapery, the small shapely feet, and thin, long hands; the iron gauntlets, placed on one side to show that he was knighted by his father in the field.

The mere artistic beauty of the work is forgotten in the anguish of the parents, who used to sit for hours in two stalls opposite, where they could gaze down on the effigy of their son. A picture of lonely grief sweeping the chords of passionate sorrow to all time.

Then her daughter Isabel, Queen of Portugal, whom she loved with all her heart, died; her other daughter Juana, married to Philippe le Bel of Burgundy, is mad, and now a mortal illness has seized herself.

The queen is reclining on a couch, for she cannot sit up, in a vaulted hall divided into various rooms by thick screens of tapestry. Not far from her is an altar, on which the sacrament and various relics are exposed. The glare from the lighted tapers falls on that once lovely countenance with a cruel glare. She is greatly changed. The soft blue eyes have become too prominent, the face has lost its delicacy of outline, the skin its clearness, and the grey locks which have replaced the abundant meshes of her auburn hair are gathered under a thick coil.

Nothing but her inherent majesty remains, and that unalterable expression of calm which has distinguished her all her life, as one ready to meet good or bad fortune with an unmoved mind.

As she lies, the great pendants of the gilded roof falling above her head, and escutcheons and badges bordering the walls round – everything bears the token of the joint names, Ferdinand and Isabel, entwined and interlaced. In every detail of the furniture it appears. The heavy carved chairs bear it, the table before her, on which stands a crucifix, her illuminated missal, and the finely wrought silver casserole with strong essences to revive her.

Her eyes have closed in a light slumber, for she is very weak. Now she opens them with a smile, and fixes them vaguely on the setting sun, streaming in through the narrow Gothic casements which open into the great court. Then a sudden look of anxiety comes into her face.

“Hiya Marquesa,” she says, addressing her friend Beatrix, who has never left her since her illness, “what news of the king? Have despatches arrived from Don Gonsalvo de Cordoba at Naples? Where is Peter Martyr?”

“Here, your Highness,” answers her secretary, entering at that moment with a bundle of papers in his hand. “A great victory has been gained by Gonsalvo on the Garigliano. The French are driven out of Naples.”

“Ah! Is it so? I have ever esteemed him a hero. But the king! Where is he? When will he return?”

A silence follows. The queen’s countenance falls.

“His Highness was last heard of at Gerona,” answers Martyr, “with the army.”

“War, always war!” says the queen with a deep sigh. “Once we rode out together in the field – I wonder if he misses me!” Here she paused. “Beatrix,” she continues, seizing her hand and wringing it in her own, “I see by your face that something is amiss; the king’s absence, what does it mean? My body is indeed weak, but my heart is strong. Conceal nothing from me.”

“His Grace,” answered Beatrix, making a sign to Martyr not to speak, “is safe with the army at Perpignan.”

“And where is the Princess Juana?”

At the mention of her daughter’s name anxiety and distress are plainly visible on her face.

“She has left the castle” (at these words Isabel grows deadly pale), “and she refuses to return unless she can leave at once to join the archduke in Flanders.”

“Who attends her?” asks Isabel, speaking quickly.

“No one. She escaped alone. But her suite has been sent from the castle.”

“Now Heaven protect us!” cries the queen, greatly agitated. “Martyr, call to me here the Archbishop of Granada.”

“My dearest mistress,” says Beatrix, kneeling beside her and tenderly encircling her with her arms, “these fancies of the Infanta will pass. She is madly in love with the archduke when she is with him.”

“Alas! It is not returned,” interrupts the queen. “He only cares for the succession, not for her.”

The arras was now raised, and the dignified figure of Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, stood before the queen.

For years he had been her confessor, and to her death remained her devoted friend. Raising herself on her couch with difficulty, Isabel kissed the jewel which he wore in his episcopal ring, then sank back exhausted on the embroidered pillows at her back.

“I pray you, my Lord Archbishop,” she says in a low voice, “by the love you bear me and the king, to bring home to the castle the Infanta Juana, who has escaped. Tell her from me – to whom she will not listen in person – that it is her health that alone prevents her from joining her husband. As soon as she has recovered from her confinement she shall start, should the archduke still refuse to join her in Spain.”

Talavera stood before the queen, his eyes cast on the ground. He knew that she was sending him on a fruitless errand to Juana, who, short of main force, would obey no one. He knew how near her extravagance bordered on madness, and that this knowledge was breaking the queen’s heart, but the weakness in which he found her forbade his reminding her of it.

“What I can do I will; your Highness may rely on me,” was his answer.

“Go – go at once!” cried the queen, trembling all over, and almost rising to her feet. “Would I had strength to do it, but – but,” and she sank back, almost fainting, into the arms of the Marquesa de Moya.

“Now we are alone,” she says, in a voice perfectly composed, having swallowed some strong medicine given to her by Beatrix. “Believe me, Hiya, I am deluded by no false hopes. The end is near. Fain would I see the end of these troubles. Oh, that Ferdinand were here!”

“Shall an express be sent to his Highness?” asks the marquesa, endeavouring to master her grief.

“No, no!” cries Isabel, in a full voice, rousing to a momentary excitement. “The king is commanding the army in France. Let me not trouble him. He knows that I am ill. He might,” – she stops – a deep sigh escapes her, a look of inexpressible longing comes into her eyes, fixed on vacancy, as if, by the spell of her great love, she would draw him to her. Even to Beatrix she would not own the anguish she feels at his prolonged absence.

“Before I die,” she continues, “I must see the succession settled, and the king named Regent. All the documents are prepared. I should have liked to tell him so face to face. I will not command his presence, but I would that he had come to me as he was wont.”

Something in the pathetic insistence with which she spoke of him told an ill-assured mind. She dared not look at the marquesa, for she felt she would read her thoughts.

Had Ferdinand changed? There was agony in the thought, but it was there. That strange prescience, which so often accompanies the passing of life into death, had come to her with a revelation more bitter than the grave.

Worn with a life of constant hardship (in peace or war she was ever by his side) and broken by the loss of her children, although of the same age, she had become old while he was still comely enough to wed another wife. She knew it. Martial, erect, the fire of youth still gleaming in his eye, and his masterful spirit still unsubdued.

That others had pleased his fickle fancy she knew to her cost, and had suffered from pangs of silent jealousy. But that he would be absent from her dying bed did not seem possible.

So united had they been, the thought that he might survive her had never troubled her. Now it was a phantom she could not banish – Ferdinand alone!

Would another sit beside him in her place?

“We wait sorrowfully in the palace all day long,” writes the faithful chronicler of her life, Peter Martyr, “tremblingly waiting the hour when she will quit the earth. Let us pray that we may be permitted to follow hereafter where she will go. She so far transcends all human excellence that there is scarcely anything mortal about her. She can hardly be said to die, but to pass into a nobler existence. She leaves the world filled with her renown, and she goes to enjoy life eternal with God in heaven. I write this,” he says, “between hope and fear, while the breath is still fluttering within her.”

But the faithful pen of the secretary does not record the presence of Ferdinand at her side.

She was mercifully spared the knowledge of his inconstancy.

Already, during his campaigns, he had seen the young princess of eighteen, Germaine de Foix, cousin of the King of France, whom he married in such indecent haste, a volatile beauty, brought up at the dissipated Court of Louis XII. For her sake (had she borne him children) he would have severed the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, a greater insult, if possible, to the memory of the queen than his marriage.

Indirectly, this marriage was the cause of his death. It is the busy pen of Peter Martyr which records it.

In order to invigorate his constitution, he placed himself in the hands of quacks. A violent fever ensued, and (in 1515) he died at Granada.