Prince Henry—who was a mere boy—and, therefore, took no pains to learn the English language. But fresh events added fresh complications to her dreary case. Philip of Flanders, or, as he was oftener called, Philip the Fair of Austria, was but an invalid when he set out on his unlucky voyage to Spain. His detention in England during the three most trying months of its trying climate, January, February, and March, added to the vexation of the engagement forced upon him by the relentless Henry, are said to have completely broken his constitution; he sank and died in about six months. No sooner did King Henry hear this news, than, throwing aside all further thoughts of the Duchess of Savoy, he applied for the hand of Juana, the widow of Philip. "With Juana, Queen of Castille, and Charles, her son, the heir of all Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria, married to his daughter Mary, what visions of greatness and empire must have swum before the keen eyes of Henry, and excited his intense passion of acquisitiveness! Ferdinand returned for answer, that the proposal would have been well pleasing to him, but that Queen Juana, from violent grief for the loss of her husband, was become thoroughly and permanently insane. This answer, which would have been all-sufficient for most men, was treated as a mere trifle by Henry, who replied that he knew the queen, having seen her in England; that her derangement of mind was not the effect of grief, but of the harsh treatment of Philip; that she would soon be all right, and that he was quite ready to marry her. Ferdinand reiterated the certainty of the lady's fixed madness, and Henry rejoined that if he was not allowed to marry her, the king's other daughter, Catherine, should never marry his son.
The Port of Weymouth.(See page 112.)
There is no doubt that, could Henry have secured the hand of Juana, "the Mad Queen," as she came to be called, he would have broken off the contract betwixt Henry, his son, and Catherine, and kept her and her dower in England nevertheless. But the marriage of Henry VII. with Juana being an impossibility, Ferdinand promised to remit the remaining half of Catherine's dower by instalments, and Henry consented that the marriage of the two young people should take place as soon as the money was paid. Catherine, whose letters to her father had, for the most part, been intercepted and detained by Henry, at length gave up her opposition also to the wedding, declaring, in one of these letters, that it was better for her to marry the prince than remain in the woeful condition of destitution and dependence in which her father-in-law kept her—a condition vastly aggravated by the fact that Henry had corrupted the Spanish minister at his Court, Dr. Peubla, and made of him one of the most oppressive of his tools against his own princess and countrywoman. The remainder of the dower, however, was never paid up during Henry's time, and therefore the marriage did not take place till after his death.
