ief of her
husband, her parents, and her kingdom, she died in 1498, just one hour
after the birth of her son, the first and only heir to the kingdoms of
Castile, Aragon, and Portugal. The little Prince Miguel did not live to
fulfil the hopes that were centred in him, for he died, to the great
grief of the nation, before he had completed his second year.

The only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, Juan, Prince of Asturias, was
born in 1478. In his twentieth year he married the Princess Margaret,
daughter of the Emperor Maximilian; but before the elaborate nuptial
rejoicings had ended the young bridegroom died suddenly of a malignant
fever.

The Infanta Joanna, born 1479, married Philip I., son of the German
emperor, and became the mother of the great Emperor Charles V. of
Germany, Charles I. of Spain. Her mental derangement, tending to
permanent insanity, was a sore grief to the great queen, who
nevertheless made her the heir to her crown, with Ferdinand as regent.

The Infanta Maria, born in 1482, married Emanuel, the King of Portugal,
in 1600. Her daughter Isabella married her cousin, Charles V., and was
the mother of Philip II.

The fifth and last child of Ferdinand and Isabella, Catalina, was born
in 1485. She married, when scarcely sixteen, Arthur, Prince of Wales,
son of Henry VII., but was left a widow within a year. By special
dispensation from the Pope she married her brother-in-law in 1509, and
is better known in history as Catharine of Aragon, first wife of Henry
VIII., of England, mother of Mary I., or "bloody Mary." Knowing her
Spanish parentage, we can better understand why she was such an ardent
Roman Catholic. Strange that one so loyal to the forms of her religion
should have been the innocent cause of the English Reformation! The
injured queen, divorced, remained in England, a religious recluse, until
her death in 1536.

This brief outline of family life, with its joys, disappointments, and
heart-breaking sorrows, brings into clearer relief the mental strength
and moral courage of Isabella, who, while carrying this burden on her
heart never relaxed for a moment her vigilant, vigorous rule over a
mighty empire; and this brings us at last to the

GREAT HISTORIC QUEEN.

From the very beginning of the reconquest of Spain from the Arab-Moors
in 718, when the brave band of refugees who had not bowed to the Saracen
yoke issued from the mountains of Asturias in the extreme northwest
cor