ile she is in the
deepest anguish, her servants almost begging for alms, and she herself
nearly naked. She has been at death's door for months, and prays
earnestly for a Spanish confessor, as she cannot speak English."[14]

How false Ferdinand met his "dear children," and made with his daughter's
husband that hellish secret compact in the church of Villafafila, that
seemed to renounce everything to Philip whilst Ferdinand went humbly to
his realm of Naples, and his ill-used daughter Juana to life-long
confinement, cannot be told here, nor the sudden death of Philip the
Handsome, which brought back Ferdinand triumphant. If Juana was sane
before, she certainly became more or less mad after her husband's death,
and moreover was morbidly devoted to his memory. But what mattered madness
or a widow's devotion to Henry VII. when he had political objects to
serve? All through the summer and autumn of 1506 Katharine had been ill
with fever and ague, unhappy at the neglect and poverty she suffered.
Ferdinand threw upon Castile the duty of paying the rest of her dowry; the
Castilians retorted that Ferdinand ought to pay it himself: and Katharine,
in the depth of despondency, in October 1506 learnt of her brother-in-law
Philip's death. Like magic Henry VII. became amiable again to his
daughter-in-law. He deplored her illness now, and cordially granted her
the change of residence from Eltham to Fulham that she had so long prayed
for in vain. The reason was soon evident; for before Juana had completed
her dreary pilgrimage through Spain to Granada with her husband's dead
body, Henry had cajoled Katharine to ask her father for the distraught
widow for his wife. Katharine must have fulfilled the task with
repulsion, though she seems to have advocated the match warmly; and
Ferdinand, though he knew, or rather said, that Juana was mad, was quite
ready to take advantage of such an opportunity for again getting into
touch with Henry. The letter in which Ferdinand gently dallied with
Henry's offer was written in Naples, after months of shifty excuses for
not sending the rest of Katharine's dowry to England,[15] and doubtless
the time he gained by postponing the answer about Juana's marriage until
he returned to Spain was of value to him; for he was determined, now that
a special providence carefully prepared had removed Philip from his path,
that once more all Spain should bear his sway whilst he lived, and then
should be divided, rather tha