o one poor
Spanish princess. In each case the royal alliances which were contracted
by the Spanish rulers for their various children were the subject of
much careful planning and negotiation, and yet, in spite of it all,
these measures constitute the most conspicuous failure in all their long
reign. Particularly pathetic and distressing is the story of the poor
Princess Juana, whose prospects were most brilliant and whose destiny
was most cruel. Juana was married in 1496 to the Archduke Philip of
Austria, Governor of the Netherlands and heir to the great domain of his
father, the Emperor Maximilian, and the wedding had been celebrated in a
most gorgeous fashion. It was in the month of August that a splendid
Spanish fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and
Santander, to carry the Spanish maiden to her waiting bridegroom. As is
usual in such affairs, the beauty of the girl had been much extolled,
and the archduke, then in his eighteenth year, was all aglow with hope
and expectation. Watchmen had been posted to keep a lookout for the
ships from Spain, and when they finally came in sight with their
glistening white sails and their masts and spars all gay with flags and
streamers, salutes were fired and they received a royal welcome. The
Spanish admiral in person led the Princess Juana to meet her affianced
husband, and soon after, in the great cathedral at Lille, the two young
people were married in the midst of great festivities. It seems almost
pitiful to think of the human side of all this great and glittering
show. Juana was barely seventeen years of age, alone, without mother or
father or sister or brother, in a strange land, in the midst of a
strange court, where all about her were speaking a strange language, and
the wife of a youth whom she had never seen until the eve of her
marriage! For a few long weeks Juana was somewhat reserved in her new
surroundings, and in her heart she longed again for Spain; but as the
days passed she became accustomed to her new home, took pleasure in the
greater liberty which was now accorded her as a married woman, and soon,
neglected by her parents, so far as any show of affection was concerned,
she learned to grow indifferent to them and to all their interests. By
the year 1500, however, Juana had become a most important person, as
death had claimed her brother and her older sisters and she now remained
the rightful heir not only to Aragon, but to her mother's realm