Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/446

432 ; and entered into a treaty with the queen and new duke against the dauphin. Henry became king; but, by his early death, Charles VII. recovered part of his dominions, and, in 1535, concluded a treaty with the duke of Burgundy. The grief and disappointment the unnatural Isabella felt at this success of her son, terminated her wretched existence. She died in 1435, despised by the English, and detested by the French. Gyfford's France.

. king of Castile and Leon, having wearied out his subjects by his indolent and licentious life, in 1464, they declared him deposed, and elected his brother, Don Alphonso, a boy of twelve years of age, king in his stead. This extraordinary proceeding was followed by all the horrors of a civil war, which did not cease till some time after the death of the young prince. The archbishop of Toledo, the head of the party, continued to carry on war in the name of Isabella, the king's sister, to whom they gave the title of Infanta; and Henry could not extricate himself out of those troubles, nor remain quiet upon his throne, till he had signed one of the most humiliating treaties ever extorted from a sovereign. He acknowledged his sister Isabella the only lawful heiress of his kingdom, in prejudice to the rights of his reputed daughter Joan, whom the mal-contents affirmed to be the daughter of Don la Cueva, and the abandoned life of the queen gave a colour to the pretence.

The grand object of Isabella's party was her marriage; upon which it was evident the security of the crown and the happiness of the people must in a great measure  pend.