Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/351

 FERDINAND AN!) ISABELLA.] SPAIN 327 John IT. of Portugal. After the death of that prince his widow married Emanuel, who succeeded to the Portuguese crown in 1495. Isabella herself died in giving birth to a son, but the connexion was still maintained by the marriage of Emanuel to her younger sister Mary. The fruits of this persistent policy were not reaped, however, till the reign of Philip II. Colonial (2) Maritime discovery was the task of the age, a task empire, forced upon it by the Turkish occupation of the Levant, which had closed the old commercial routes to the East. The foremost pioneers in the work were the Portuguese and Spaniards, whose efforts brought them into rivalry with each other. The treaty of Lisbon in 1479 secured the western coast of Africa to Portugal, but enabled Spain to complete the annexation of the Canaries. The Spaniards now turned further westwards, and a wholly new problem was created by Columbus's discovery of the West Indies in 1492. His voyage had been undertaken under the patronage of Isabella, and the new territories were regarded as pertaining to Castile. To solve any difficulties that might arise, a bull was obtained from Alexander VI. in 1493, which granted to Spain all dis- coveries west of an imaginary line drawn 100 leagues to the west of the Azores and the Cape Verd Islands. As this arrangement excited Portuguese discontent, it was modified by a treaty at Tordesillas in 1494, which removed the boundary line to 370 leagues west of the Cape Yerd Islands. This modification had important results for the Portuguese, as giving them their subsequent claim to Brazil. In the meanwhile Spain redoubled its exertions. In 1498 Columbus landed on the continent of South America, and in a few years the whole western coast was explored by subsequent adventurers. In 1512 Ponce de Leon dis- covered Florida, and in the next year Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Darien and gazed for the first time upon the Pacific. No exertions were spared by the Government to encourage settlement in its new territories ; but the regu- lations of colonial trade, and especially the provision that it should pass through the single port of Seville, were con- ceived in a narrow and selfish spirit which prevented the full development of their resources. Acquisi- (3) The foreign affairs of the reign, which were almost tion of wholly connected with Italy, were conducted by Ferdinand ap es ' on behalf of Aragon, just as the extension of the colonies ,was directed for the benefit of Castile. Charles VIII. 's invasion of Naples, which was ruled by an illegitimate branch of the house of Aragon, was undertaken in the full belief that the support or at least the neutrality of Spain was secured by the treaty of Barcelona. But Ferdinand, jealous of the rapid success of the French, seized the first pretext to disregard the treaty, and became a member of the league which was formed at Venice in 1495 against Charles. His troops, under the famous Gonsalvo de Cordova, took a prominent part in restoring Ferdinand II. to the Neapolitan throne. With the accession of Louis XII. came a great change in Ferdinand's policy, and he determined to advance the claim to Naples which he himself possessed as the legitimate head of the Aragonese house. By the treaty of Granada in 1500 Naples was to be divided between France and Spain, and the reigning king Frederick could make no resistance to such over- whelming forces. But a quarrel naturally arose about the terms of the partition, and by 1504 Gonsalvo de Cordova succeeded in expelling the French from Naples, which was henceforth annexed to the crown of Aragon. Death of In 1504 the unity of Spain was interrupted for a Isabella, time by the death of Isabella. The successive deaths of the infant John (1497), of Isabella of Portugal (1498), and of her infant son Miguel (1500) had left the succes- sion in Castile to the second daughter, Joanna ; she was married to the archduke Philip, son of Maximilian I., and ruler, through his mother Mary of Burgundy, of the Netherlands and Franche-Comte. Unfortunately Joanna, who was the mother of two sons, Charles and Ferdinand, had already given signs of that insanity which was to cloud the whole of her subsequent career. Philip, who had ^sited Spain in 1502, had then excited the distrust of his 'wife's parents, and Isabella by her will left the regency in Castile to her husband until the majority of their grandson Charles. But Ferdinand, in spite of his brilliant successes, was not popular among the Castilian nobles, who seized the opportunity to support the more natural claims of Philip to govern on behalf of his wife- Ferdinand showed his disgust by actions which threatened to undo all tha previous objects of his policy. He con- cluded a treaty with Louis XII. in 1505, by which he undertook to marry the French king's niece, Germaine de Foix. To her Louis resigned his claims upon Naples, but in case of her death without issue his share in the kingdom by the treaty of Granada was to revert to France. Thus Ferdinand was willing to gratify his spite and to perpetuate the division between Aragon and Castile, under the penalty of forfeiting his recent conquests in Italy. His second marriage was concluded in March 1506, and two months later he resigned the regency in Castile to Philip, and soon afterwards sailed to Naples. But the division of the Peninsula was not destined to last long. On September 25 Philip died at the age of twenty-eight, and the devotion of Ximenes secured the restoration of the regency to Ferdinand. Joanna, who had been devotedly attached to her husband, lost all semblance of reason after his death, and made no attempt to exercise any influence over the conduct of affairs. The remaining part of Ferdinand's reign is uneventful in the history of Spain. The government was carried on on the same system, but with more avowed absolutism, as during the lifetime of Isabella. Ximenes, whose energies found insufficient occupation in the compilation of his Polyglott Bible and in the foundation of the university of Alcala de Henares, fitted out and headed an expedition to Oran in 1509, which resulted in extensive but short-lived con- quests in northern Africa. Ferdinand threw himself with more energy than ever into the current of European poli- tics. By joining the league of Cambray he wrested from Venice five important towns in Apulia which had been pawned to the republic by Ferdinand II. As a member of the Holy League against France he succeeded in con- quering Navarre in 1512. Navarre had passed to the French family of Albret by the marriage of Catharine de Foix with Jean d'Albret, and it Avas the close connexion with France "which gave Ferdinand a pretext for its invasion. In 1515 his new conquest was formally in- corporated with the kingdom of Castile. This was Ferdi- Death of nand's last success; and he died on January 23, 1516. Ferdi- His will recognized Joanna as his heiress in Aragon, and na ' his grandson Charles as the regent in both kingdoms. Until his arrival, the administration of Castile was entrusted to Cardinal Ximenes and that of Aragon to his own natural son, the archbishop of Saragossa. With the death of Ferdinand begins the period of Hapsburg uninterrupted Hapsburg rule in Spain, which lasted for nearly two centuries. In the course of this period the monarchy obtained absolute authority, and Spain, after rising for a time to be the foremost state in Europe, sank to the position of a second-rate power, from which it has never since emerged. At first the condition of affairs was by no means promising for the crown. The unity of Spain, which had advanced with such rapid strides after the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, had been seriously shaken by the selfish policy pursued by the king since his