William Hickling Prescott - The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (Vol. 1-3)

[25] See Sanchez, Poesías Castellanas, tom. i. pp. 1–119.—A copious catalogue of the marquis de Santillana's writings is given in the same volume, (pp. 33 et seq.) Several of his poetical pieces are collected in the Cancionero General, (Anvers, 1573,) fol. 34 et seq.

[26] Pulgar, Claros Varones, tit. 4.—Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquía, tom. i. p. 218.—Idem, Orígen de las Dignidades Seglares de Castilla y Leon, (Madrid, 1794,) p. 285.—Oviedo makes the marquis much older, seventy-five years of age, when he died. He left, besides daughters, six sons, who all became the founders of noble and powerful houses. See the whole genealogy, in Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 8.

[27] "Flor de saber y cabellería." El Laberinto, copla 114.

[28] Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. pp. 265 et seq.

[29] Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, epist. 47, 49.

[30] See Velazquez, Poesía Castellana, p. 49.

[31] A collection of them is incorporated in the Cancionero General, fol. 41 et seq.

[32] Castro, Biblioteca Española, (Madrid, 1781,) tom. i, pp. 266, 267.— This interesting document, the most primitive of all the Spanish cancioneros , notwithstanding its local position in the library is specified by Castro with great precision, eluded the search of the industrious translators of Bouterwek, who think it may have disappeared during the French invasion. Literatura Española, trad. de Cortina y Mollinedo, p. 205, nota Hh.

[33] See these collected in Castro, Biblioteca Española, tom. ii. p. 265 et seq.—The veneration entertained for the poetic art in that day may be conceived from Baena's whimsical prologue. "Poetry," he says, "or the gay science, is a very subtile and delightsome composition. It demands in him, who would hope to excel in it, a curious invention, a sane judgment, a various scholarship, familiarity with courts and public affairs, high birth and breeding, a temperate, courteous, and liberal disposition, and, in fine, honey, sugar, salt, freedom, and hilarity in his discourse." p. 268.

[34] Castro, Biblioteca Española, tom. i. p. 273.

[35] Perhaps the most conspicuous of these historical compositions for mere literary execution is the Chronicle of Alvaro de Luna, to which I have had occasion to refer, edited in 1784, by Flores, the diligent secretary of the Royal Academy of History. He justly commends it for the purity and harmony of its diction. The loyalty of the chronicler seduces him sometimes into a swell of panegyric, which may he thought to savor too strongly of the current defect of Castilian prose; but it more frequently imparts to his narrative a generous glow of sentiment, raising it far above the lifeless details of ordinary history, and occasionally even to positive eloquence.

Nic. Antonio, in the tenth book of his great repository, has assembled the biographical and bibliographical notices of the various Spanish authors of the fifteenth century, whose labors diffused a glimmering of light over their own age, which has become faint in the superior illumination of the succeeding.

[36] Sempere, in his Historia del Luxo, (tom. i. p. 177,) has published an extract from an unprinted manuscript of the celebrated marquis of Villena, entitled Triunfo de las Doñas , in which, adverting to the petits- maîtres of his time, he recapitulates the fashionable arts employed by them for the embellishment of the person, with a degree of minuteness which might edify a modern dandy .

[37] Crónica de Juan II., p. 499.—Faria y Sousa, Europa Portuguesa, (1679,) tom. ii. pp. 335, 372.

[38] Crónica de Alvaro de Luna, tit. 128.—Crónica de Juan II., pp. 457, 460, 572.—Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 227, 228.—Garibay, Compendio Historial de las Chrónicas de España, (Barcelona, 1628,) tom. ii. p. 493.

[39] Crónica de Alvaro de Luna, tit. 128.—What a contrast to all this is afforded by the vivid portrait, sketched by John de Mena, of the constable in the noontide of his glory.

"Este caualga sobre la fortuna

y doma su cuello con asperas riendas

y aunque del tenga tan muchas de prendas

ella non le osa tocar de ninguna," etc.

Laberinto, coplas 235 et seq.

[40] Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, ep. 103.—Crónica de Juan II., p. 564.—Crónica de Alvaro de Luna, tit. 128, and Apend. p. 458.

[41] Entitled "Doctrinal de Privados." See the Cancionero General, fol. 37 et seq.—In the following stanza, the constable is made to moralize with good effect on the instability of worldly grandeur.

"Quo se hizo la moneda que guarde para mis daños tantos tiempos tantos años plata joyas oro y seda y de todo no me queda sine este cadahalso; mundo malo mundo falso no ay quien contigo pueda."

Manrique has the same sentiments in his exquisite "Coplas." I give Longfellow's version, as spirited as it is literal.

"Spain's haughty Constable—the great

And gallant Master—cruel fate

Stripped him of all.

Breathe not a whisper of his pride,

He on the gloomy scaffold died,

Ignoble fall!

The countless treasures of his care,

Hamlets and villas green and fair,

His mighty power—

What were they all but grief and shame,

Tears and a broken heart—when came.

The parting hour!"

Stanza 21.

[42] Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, ep. 103.—Crónica de Alvaro de Luna, tit. 128.

[43] Crónica de Juan II., p. 576.—Cibdareal, Centon Epistolario, epist. 105.

There has been considerable discrepancy, even among cotemporary writers, both as to the place and the epoch of Isabella's birth, amounting, as regards the latter, to nearly two years. I have adopted the conclusion of Señor Clemencin, formed from a careful collation of the various authorities, in the sixth volume of the Memorias de la Real Academia de Historia, (Madrid, 1821,) Ilust. 1, pp. 56–60. Isabella was descended both on the father's and mother's side from the famous John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. See Florez, Memorias de las Reynas Cathólicas, (2d ed. Madrid, 1770,) tom. ii. pp. 743, 787.

Table of Contents

1452–1472.

John of Aragon.—Difficulties with his Son Carlos.—Birth of Ferdinand.— Insurrection of Catalonia.—Death of Carlos.—His Character.—Tragical Story of Blanche.—Young Ferdinand besieged by the Catalans.—Treaty between France and Aragon.—Distress and Embarrassments of John.—Siege and Surrender of Barcelona.

We must now transport the reader to Aragon, in order to take a view of the extraordinary circumstances, which opened the way for Ferdinand's succession in that kingdom. The throne, which had become vacant by the death of Martin, in 1410, was awarded by the committee of judges to whom the nation had referred the great question of the succession, to Ferdinand, regent of Castile during the minority of his nephew, John the Second; and thus the sceptre, after having for more than two centuries descended in the family of Barcelona, was transferred to the same bastard branch of Trastamara, that ruled over the Castilian monarchy. [1] Ferdinand the First was succeeded after a brief reign by his son Alfonso the Fifth, whose personal history belongs less to Aragon than to Naples, which kingdom he acquired by his own prowess, and where he established his residence, attracted, no doubt, by the superior amenity of the climate and the higher intellectual culture, as well as the pliant temper of the people, far more grateful to the monarch than the sturdy independence of his own countrymen.

During his long absence, the government of his hereditary domains devolved on his brother John, as his lieutenant-general in Aragon. [2] This prince had married Blanche, widow of Martin, king of Sicily, and daughter of Charles the Third, of Navarre. By her he had three children; Carlos, prince of Viana; [3] Blanche, married to and afterwards repudiated by Henry the Fourth, of Castile; [4] and Eleanor, who espoused a French noble, Gaston, count of Foix. On the demise of the elder Blanche, the crown of Navarre rightfully belonged to her son, the prince of Viana, conformably to a stipulation in her marriage contract, that, on the event of her death, the eldest heir male, and, in default of sons, female, should inherit the kingdom, to the exclusion of her husband. [5] This provision, which had been confirmed by her father, Charles the Third, in his testament, was also recognized in her own, accompanied however with a request, that her son Carlos, then twenty-one years of age, would, before assuming the sovereignty, solicit "the good will and approbation of his father." [6] Whether this approbation was withheld, or whether it was ever solicited, does not appear. It seems probable, however, that Carlos, perceiving no disposition in his father to relinquish the rank and nominal title of king of Navarre, was willing he should retain them, so long as he himself should be allowed to exercise the actual rights of sovereignty; which indeed he did, as lieutenant-general or governor of the kingdom, at the time of his mother's decease, and for some years after. [7]