ent, and that the march of a French army
through Italy would arouse the hatred and fear of the Italian princes and
make them easy tools in his hands. The King of Naples, moreover, was
extremely unpopular and of illegitimate descent: and Ferdinand doubtless
saw that if the French seized Naples he could not only effect a powerful
coalition to expel them, but in the scramble might keep Naples for
himself; and this is exactly what happened. The first cry against the
French was raised by the Pope Alexander VI., a Spanish Borgia. By the time
Charles VIII. of France was crowned King of Naples (May 1495) all Italy
was ablaze against the intruders, and Ferdinand formed the Holy League--of
Rome, Spain, Austria, Venice, and Milan--to crush his enemies.

Then, as usual, he found it desirable to secure the benevolence of Henry
VII. of England. Again Henry was delighted, for Perkin Warbeck had been
received by Maximilian and his Flemish kinsmen as the rightful King of
England, and the Yorkist nobles still found aid and sympathy in the
dominions of Burgundy. But Henry had already been tricked once by the
allies, and was far more difficult to deal with than before. He found
himself, indeed, for the first time in the position which under his
successors enabled England to rise to the world power she attained;
namely, that of the balancing factor between France and Spain. This was
the first result of Ferdinand's coalition against France for the purpose
of forwarding Aragonese aims, and it remained the central point of
European politics for the next hundred years. Henry was not the man to
overlook his new advantage, with both of the great European powers bidding
for his alliance; and this time he drove a hard bargain with Ferdinand.
There was still much haggling about the Spanish dowry for Katharine, but
Henry stood firm at the 200,000 gold crowns, though a quarter of the
amount was to take the form of jewels belonging the bride. One stipulation
was that the new marriage was to be kept a profound secret, in order that
the King of Scots might not be alarmed; for Ferdinand was trying to draw
even him away from France by hints of marriage with an Infanta. By the new
treaty, which was signed in October 1497, the formal marriage of Arthur
and Katharine _per verba de presenti_ was to be celebrated when Arthur
had completed his fourteenth year; and the bride's dowry in England was to
consist of a third of the revenues of Wales, Cornwall, and Cheste