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 116 STATESMEN AND SAGES and friends. She watched over the declining years of her aged mother and min- istered to her sad infirmities with filial tenderness ; we have abundant proofs of how fondly and faithfully she loved her husband to the last ; while for her children she lived more than for herself, and for them too she died ; for it was their loss and their afflictions which froze the current of her blood before age had had time to chill it." Five children, four daughters and one son, grew to maturity under her guid- ing influence. Isabella, the first born, and ever the favorite child of the sover- eigns, was born in 14/0. She was twice married, first to Alfonso, Prince of Portugal, who was killed by a fall from his horse within five months after their marriage. Seven years later she married his brother, Emanuel, King of Portu- gal. To the intense grief of her husband, her parents, and her kingdom, she died in 1498, just one hour after the birth of her son, the first and only heir to the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. The little Prince Miguel did not live to fulfil the hopes that were centred in him, for he died, to the great grief of the nation, before he had completed his second year. The only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, Juan, Prince of Asturias, was born in 1478. In his twentieth year he married the Princess Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian ; but before the elaborate nuptial rejoicings had ended the young bridegroom died suddenly of a malignant fever. The Infanta Joanna, born 1479, married Philip I., son of the German em- peror, and became the mother of the great Emperor Charles V. of Germany, Charles I. of Spain. Her mental derangement, tending to permanent insanity, was a sore grief to the great queen, who nevertheless made her the heir to her crown, with Ferdinand as regent. The Infanta Maria, born in 1482, married Emanuel, the King of Portugal, in 1600. Her daughter Isabella married her cousin, Charles V., and was the mother of Philip II. The fifth and last child of Ferdinand and Isabella, Catalina, was born in 1485. She married, when scarcely sixteen, Arthur, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII., but was left a widow within a year. By special dispensation from the Pope she married her brother-in-law in 1509, and is better known in history as Catharine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII., of England, mother of Mary I., or " bloody Mary." Knowing her Spanish parentage, we can better understand why she was such an ardent Roman Catholic. Strange that one so loyal to the forms of her relig- ion should have been the innocent cause of the English Reformation ! The injured queen, divorced, remained in Englartd, a religious recluse, until her death in 1536. This brief outline of family life, with its joys, disappointments, and heart-break- ing sorrows, brings into clearer relief the mental strength and moral courage of Isabella, who, while carrying this burden on her heart never relaxed for a moment her vigilant, vigorous rule over a mighty empire ; and this brings us at last to the

GREAT HISTORIC QUEEN. From the very beginning of the re-conquest of Spain from the Arab-Moors in 718, when the brave band of refugees who had not bowed to the Saracen yoke is-