Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1872-07-19
Last Days of Isabella I.
BY JOHN S. c. ABBOTT.

Spain, has filled the world. And yet the
latter days of her life we're darkened by
as deep gloom as ever descended upon
palace or cottage. In the year 1490 her
eldest daughtar, who had received her
mothers name, married Alfonso, heir to
the crown of Portugal. The nuptials
were celebrated with as much brilliancy
as the opulence and art of the fifteenth
century could create. Scarcely had the
bridal couple reached Portugal ere Alon-
so was thrown from his horse and killed.
The widowed bride was let heart-broken
with every prospect in life blighted. She
returned to her mother so stricken with
grief that she was seldom again seen to
smile. Though she ere long married
again, she soon after died in giving birth
to her first child.
Prince John, the only son of Isabella
and Ferdinand, and the heir of their
united crowns, married Margaret, a
daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of
Austria. She was beautiful and high
ly educated princess of seventeen. But
six months passed after their marriage,
ere Prince John lay gasping upon the
bed of death. In the midst of their
nuptial rejoicing he was seized with a
fever at Salamanca. Ferdinand hasten
ed to the bedside of his dying son. 1t
is an affecting comment upon the equali-
ty of griefs in the palace and the cottage
but the young prince, who was heir to
the proudest inheritance which Europe
then could afford, was quite willing to
die. He assured his weeping father that
without regret he left world where ex-
perience had already taught him that all
was vanity and vexation of spirit. He
only prayed that those left behind might
experience the sameresignation which he
felt. Perhaps there never was death
which created more widespread and in
tense mourning.
Isabella herself was, at the time, SO
sick that she could not be present at the
bedside of her only and dying son.
Hourly dispatches were sent to her, Civ
ing an account of his gradual decline
When the tidings came that he had
breathed his last, the grief-stricken moth
er meekly bowed her head and said,
"The Lord gave, and the Lord hath ta-
ken away, blessed be the name of the
Lord" A few weeks after the death of
John, Margaret gave birth to a lifeless
child.
The youngest daughter, Catharine,
known in history as Catharine of Ara
gon, married Arthur of England, Prince
of Wales. In five months after her
marriage she was left widow. Soon af-
ter by moral compulsion she was forced
to marry her deceased husbands brother
Henry VIII. He was then lad of fif-
teen years, and publicly protested against
the marriage. The life of Catharine of
Aragon is one of the most melancholy
tragedies in the sad annals of the past.
The fate of poor Joanna the second
daughter, will ever remain prominent in
the records of human suffering. She
married Phillip, son of the Emperor of
Germany. He was the hands omest man
in Europe, frivolous and disolute. Jo-
anna, accustomed in her home to the
highest principles of Christianity, was
| shocked at the atrocious conduct of her
husband. She loved him with fervor
perhaps never exceeded, and his conduct
drove her to madness. Woe-stricken
she went home to her mother. She would
sit day and night, gazing silently upon
the floor, taking no interest in the scenes
around, and scarcely replying to those
who addressed her. Upon one occasion
in paroxism of maniacal rage, she fell
upon one of the frail and beautiful fa-
vorites of Phillip with such fury as to
tear the clothes from her back, and hand
fuls of clustering ringlets from her head
We have not space here to describe ali
the vagaries of this unhappy child, who
was residing with her father and mother
at the castle of Medina.
These aecumulations of woe threw
both Isabella and her husband Ferdi-
nand, into a fever. Isabella's cup of
grief now seemed full to the brim. Fer
dinand slowly recovered, but Isabella
sank beneath the malady. She execut-
ed her last will and testament, remark
able document, which alike attests the
purity and the grandeur of her charac-
ter. She requested that her body might
be buried in the Alhambra at Grenada,
but added
"Should the king. my lord, prefer a
sepulchre in some other place, than my
will is that my body be there transported
and laid by his side: that the union we
have enjoyed in this world, and through
the mercy of God may hope for our souls
in heaven, may be represented by our
Ill -