Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/372

348 348 THE ROYAL FAMILY. II Alliances with the house of Austria. PART tween the royal houses of Spain and Austria, by which the weight of these great powers was thrown into the same scale, and the balance of Europe un- settled for the greater part of the following cen- tury. ^ The treaty provided, that Prince John, the heir of the Spanish monarchies, then in his eighteenth year, should be united with the princess Margaret, daughter of the emperor Maximilian ; and that the archduke Philip, his son and heir, and sovereign of the Low Countries in his mother's right, should marry Joanna, second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. No dowry was to be required with either princess.^ And that of In the course of the following year, arrange- England. i: J ' & ments were also concluded for the marriage of the youngest daughter of the Castilian sovereigns with a prince of the royal house of England, the first example of the kind for more than a century. '" Ferdinand had cultivated the good-will of Henry the Seventh, in the hope of drawing him into the confederacy against the French monarch ; and in 8 Zurita, Hist, del Rey Hernan- parent of Castile, was first created do, torn. V. fol. 63. for the infant Don Henry, after- 9 Zurita, Hist, del Rey Hernan- wards Henry HL, on occasion of do, torn. V. lib. 2, cap. 5. — Fer- his marriage with John of Gaunt's reras, Hist. d'Espagne, torn. viii. daughter, in 1388. It was pro- p. 160. fossedly in imitation of the English 10 I believe there is no instance title of Prince of Wales ; and the of such a union, save that of John Asturias were selected as that por- of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, with tion of the ancient Gothic monar- Dofia Constanza, daughter of Peter chy, which had never bowed be- the Cruel, in 1371, from whom neath the Saracen yoke. Florez, Queen Isabella was lineally de- Reynas Catholicas, torn. ii. pp. 708 scended on the father's side. -715. — Mendoza, Dignidades, lib. The title of Prince of the Astu- 3, cap. 23. rias, appropriated to the heir ap-