Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/228

84 84 CASTILE UNDER HENRY IV. PART I. Projected union with the grand master of Calatrava. intervention of many inauspicious circumstances. She was next betrothed to his elder brother, Car- los ; and some years after his decease, when thir teen years of age, was promised by Henry to Al- fonso, of Portugal. Isabella was present with her brother at a personal interview with that monarch in 1464, but neither threats nor entreaties could induce her to accede to a union so unsuitable from the disparity of their years ; and with her charac- teristic discretion, even at this early age, she rested her refusal on the ground, that " the infantas of Castile could not be disposed of in marriage, with- out the consent of the nobles of the realm." ^^ When Isabella understood in what manner she was now to be sacrificed to the selfish policy of her brother, in the prosecution of which, compulsory measures if necessary were to be employed, she was filled with the liveliest emotions of grief and resentment. The master of Calatrava was well known as a fierce and turbulent leader of faction, and his private life was stained with most of the licentious vices of the age. He was even accused of having invaded the privacy of the queen dow- ager, Isabella's mother, by proposals of the most degrading nature, an outrage which the king had either not the power, or the inclination, to resent.^* With this person, then, so inferior to her in birth, 24 Aleson, Analcs de Navarra, 25 Decad. de Palencia, apud torn. iv. pp. 561, 562. — Zurita, Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., torn. Anales, lib. 16, cap. 46, lib. 17, vi. p. 65, nota. cap. 3. — Castillo, Cr6nica, cap. 31, 57. — Alonso de Palencia, Co- r6nica, MS., cap. 55.