was to check the
French advance towards north Italy and his own dominions. The second
daughter, Juana, was married to the Emperor's son, Philip, sovereign, in
right of his mother, of the rich inheritance of Burgundy, Flanders,
Holland, and the Franche Comte, and heir to Austria and the Empire, who
from Flanders might be trusted to watch the French on their northern and
eastern borders; and the youngest of Ferdinand's daughters, Katharine, was
destined almost from her birth to secure the alliance of England, the
rival of France in the Channel, and the opponent of its aggrandisement
towards the north.

Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry Tudor, Henry VII., were well matched. Both
were clever, unscrupulous, and greedy; each knew that the other would
cheat him if he could, and tried to get the better of every deal, utterly
regardless not only of truth and honesty but of common decency. But,
though Ferdinand usually beat Henry at his shuffling game, fate finally
beat Ferdinand, and a powerful modern England is the clearly traceable
consequence. How the great result was brought about it is one of the
principal objects of this book to tell. That Ferdinand had everything to
gain by thus surrounding France by possible rivals in his own interests is
obvious, for if his plans had not miscarried he could have diverted France
whenever it suited him, and his way towards the east would have been
clear; but at first sight the interest of Henry VII. in placing himself
into a position of antagonism towards France for the benefit of the King
of Spain is not so evident. The explanation must be found in the fact that
he held the throne of England by very uncertain tenure, and sought to
disarm those who would be most able and likely to injure him. The royal
house of Castile had been closely allied to the Plantagenets, and both
Edward IV. and his brother Richard had been suitors for the hand of
Isabel. The Dowager-Duchess of Burgundy, moreover, was Margaret
Plantagenet, their sister, who sheltered and cherished in Flanders the
English adherents of her house; and Henry Tudor, half a Frenchman by birth
and sympathies, was looked at askance by the powerful group of Spain, the
Empire, and Burgundy when first he usurped the English throne. He knew
that he had little or nothing to fear from France, and one of his earliest
acts was in 1487 to bid for the friendship of Ferdinand by means of an
offer of alliance, and the marriage of his son Arthur, Prince of