n
the acquisition of Castile he set his mind. If he could not gain (p. 028)
it by marriage with Juana, he thought he could do so by marrying
her son and heir, the infant Charles, to his daughter Mary. Whichever
means he took to further his design, it would naturally irritate
Ferdinand and make him less anxious for the completion of the marriage
between Catherine and Prince Henry. Henry VII. was equally averse from
the consummation of the match. Now that he was scheming with Charles's
other grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian, to wrest the government of
Castile from Ferdinand's grasp, the alliance of the King of Aragon had
lost its attraction, and it was possible that the Prince of Wales
might find elsewhere a more desirable bride. Henry's marriage with
Catherine was to have been accomplished when he completed the age of
fourteen; but on the eve of his fifteenth birthday he made a solemn
protestation that the contract was null and void, and that he would
not carry out his engagements.[62] This protest left him free to
consider other proposals, and enhanced his value as a negotiable
asset. More than once negotiations were started for marrying him to
Marguerite de Valois, sister of the Duke of Angouleme, afterwards
famous as Francis I.;[63] and in the last months of his father's
reign, the Prince of Wales was giving audience to ambassadors from
Maximilian, who came to suggest matrimonial alliances between the
prince and a daughter of Duke Albert of Bavaria, and between Henry
VII. and the Lady Margaret of Savoy, Regent of the Netherlands.[64]
Meanwhile, Ferdinand, threatened on all sides, first came to terms (p. 029)
with France; he married a French princess, Germaine de Foix, abandoned
his claim to Navarre, and bought the security of Naples by giving
Louis XII. a free hand in the north of Italy. He then diverted
Maximilian from his designs on Castile by humouring his hostility to
Venice. By that bait he succeeded in drawing off his enemies, and the
league of Cambrai united them all, Ferdinand and Louis, Emperor and
Pope, in an iniquitous attack on the Italian Republic. Henry VII.,
fortunately for his reputation, was left out of the compact. He was
still cherishing his design on Castile, and in December, 1508, the
treaty of marriage between Mary and Charles was formally signed. It
was the last of his worldly triumphs; the days of his life were
numbered, and in the early months of 1509 he was engaged in making a
peace with