Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/196

170 170 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF ISABELLA. II. PART The next jear, she followed to the grave the re- mains of her only son, the heir and hope of the monarchy, just entering on his prime ; and in the succeeding, was called on to render the same sad offices to the best beloved of her daughters, the amiable queen of Portugal. The severe illness occasioned by this last blow terminated in a dejection of spirits, from which she never entirely recovered. Her surviving children were removed far from her into distant lands ; with the occasional exception, indeed, of Joanna, who caused a still deeper pang to her mother's affection- ate heart, by exhibiting infirmities, which justified the most melancholy presages for the future. Far from abandoning herself to weak and use- less repining, however, Isabella sought consolation, where it was best to be found, in the exercises of piety, and in the earnest discharge of the duties attached to her exalted station. Accordingly, we find her attentive as ever to the minutest inter- ests of her subjects ; supporting her great minister Ximenes in his schemes of reform, quickening the zeal for discovery in the west, and, at the close of the year 1503, on the alarm of the French inva- sion, rousing her dying energies, to kindle a spirit of resistance in her people. These strong mental exertions, however, only accelerated the decay of her bodily strength, which was gradually sinking under that sickness of the heart, which admits of no cure, and scarcely of consolation. In the beginning of that very year she had de- clined so visibly, that the cortes of Castile, much