himself to a vain and shallow court beauty who wished to be
a veritable queen and longed for the overthrow of her rival! Such was
the sad spectacle presented to the world by Castile at this time, but
the crisis was soon to come which would clarify the air and lead to a
more satisfactory condition in the state. Matters were hastened to their
climax when the queen gave birth, in 1462, to a daughter who was called
after her mother, Juana; but so evident was the paternity of this
pitiful little princess, that she was at once christened La Beltraneja
in common parlance; and by that sobriquet she is best known in history.
It is doubtful if the sluggish moral natures of this time would have
been moved by this fact, if the king had not insisted that this baby
girl should be acknowledged as his daughter and heiress to the crown of
Castile. This was too much for the leaders of the opposition, and they
demanded that Henry's younger brother, Alfonso, be recognized as his
successor. This proposition brought about civil warfare, which was ended
by Alfonso's death in 1468, and then Isabella was generally recognized
as the real successor to her unworthy brother Henry, in spite of the
claims he continued to put forth in favor of La Beltraneja.

Before the cessation of domestic hostilities, Isabella had been sorely
tried by various projects which had been advanced for her marriage. She
had been brought up by her mother, Queen Isabella, in the little town of
Arevalo, which had been settled upon her at the time of the death of her
husband, King John II. There, in quiet and seclusion, quite apart from
the vice and tumult of the capital, the little princess had been under
the close tutelage of the Church, as her mother had grown quite devout
with advancing years; and as Isabella ripened into womanhood, it became
evident that she possessed a high seriousness and a strength of
character quite unusual. Still, all was uncertain as to her fate. Her
brother Henry had first endeavored to marry her to Alfonso V. of
Portugal, the elder and infamous brother of his own shameless queen, but
Isabella had declined this alliance on the ground that it had not been
properly ratified by the Cortes of Castile, and as a result the plan was
soon dropped. In the midst of the rebellion which had broken out after
Henry's attempt to foist La Beltraneja upon the state, he had proposed
as a conciliatory measure that one of the most turbulent of the
factional leaders, D