Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/368

344 344 THE ROYAL FAMILY. II. .loanna Beltraiieja. PART illustrious mother ; great decorum and dignity of manners, combined with ardent sensibilities, and unaffected piety, which, at least in the eldest and favorite daughter, Isabella, was, unhappily, strongly tinctured with bigotry. They could not, indeed, pretend to their mother's comprehensive mind, and talent for business, although there seems to have been no deficiency in these respects ; or, if any, it was most effectually supplied by their excellent education.^ The marriage of the princess Isabella with Alon- so, the heir of the Portuguese crown, in 1490, has been already noticed. This had been eagerly de- sired by her parents, not only for the possible con- tingency, which it afforded, of bringing the various monarchies of the Peninsula under one head, (a de- sign of which they never wholly lost sight,) but from the wish to conciliate a formidable neighbour, who possessed various means of annoyance, which he had shown no reluctance to exert. The reigning monarch, John the Second, a bold and crafty prince, had never forgotten his ancient quarrel with the Spanish sovereigns in support of their rival Joanna Beltraneja, or Joanna the Nun, as she was generally called in the Castilian court after she had taken the veil. John, in open contempt of the treaty of Alcantara, and indeed of all monastic rule, had not only removed his relative from the convent of Santa Clara, but had permitted her to assume a royal 2 The only exception to these eccentricities, developed in later remarks, was that afforded by the life, must be imputed, indeed, to infanta Joanna, whose unfortunate bodily infirmity.