Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/116

90 II. 90 INSANITY OF JOANNA. PART as his credentials.^ If this be true, the negotia- tions must be admitted to exliibit, on the part of Ferdinand, as gross an example of political jug- glery and falsehood, as ever disgraced the annals of diplomacy. ^ But it is altogether improbable, as I have before remarked, that a monarch so astute and habitually cautious should have intrusted unlimited authority, in so delicate a business, to a person whose discre- tion, independent of his known partiality for the French monarch, he held so lightly. It is much more likely that he limited, as is often done, the full powers committed to him in public, by private instructions of the most explicit character ; and that the archduke was betrayed by his own vanity, and perhaps ambition (for the treaty threw the im- mediate power into his own hands), into arrange- ments unwarranted by the tenor of these instruc- tions.'^ 5 Se3'ssel, Hist.de Louys XII., cortes, and to the general disgust p. 61. — St. Gelais, Hist, de Louys of the whole nation, as is repealed- XII., p. 171. — Gaillard, Rivali- ly stated by Gomez, Martyr, and t6, torn. iv. p. 239. — Gamier, other contemporaries. The second Hist, de France, torn. v. p. 387. — will be difficult to refute and still D'AiUon, Hist, de Louys XII., harder to prove, as it rests on a part.2,chap. 32. man'ssecretintentions, known only 6 Varillas regards Philip's mis- to himself. Such are the flimsy sion to France as a coup de maitre cobwebs of which this political on the part of Ferdinand, who dreamer's theories are made. Tru- thereby rid himself of a dangerous ly chateaux en Espagne. rival at home, likely to contest his 7 Martyr, whose copious corre- succession to Castile on Isabella's spondence furnishes the most valua- death, while he employed that rival ble commentary, unquestionably, on in outwitting Louis XII. by a treaty the proceedings of this reign, is which he meant to disavow. (Poii- provokingly reserved in regard to tique de Ferdinand, liv. 1, pp. 146 this interesting matter. He con- - 150.) The first of these imputa- tents himself with remarking in one lions is sufficiently disproved by the of his letters, that " the Spaniards fact that Philip quitted Spain in derided Philip's negotiations as of opposition to the pressing remon- no consequence, and indeed alto- strances of the king, queen, and gether preposterous, considering I