ARAGON IN ITALY AND SPAIN, 1458-94daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Juana, about whose
sanity there were increasing doubts, and on her husband, the
Flemish archduke Philip, whose knowledge of Spanish affairs
was very limited. These difficulties were accentuated when
Isabella died in 1504, leaving Ferdinand's status in Castile
highly uncertain; he had ruled in right of his wife, and it
had been agreed in advance that were she to predecease him,
her death would mark also the end of his reign over Castile.
Moreover, he had made enough enemies at the Castilian
court to make it unlikely that the nobility would support any
attempt on his part to hold on to the crown of Castile.
Ferdinand tried to make up for the loss of Castile by with-
drawing to Aragon, and awaiting the arrival from Flanders of
Philip and Juana, who were set to become rulers of Castile.
Ferdinand accordingly tried to ensure that his own pat-
rimony, the lands of the Crown of Aragon, would have a
separate, native-born, ruler once again. Ferdinand was, as
ever, highly pragmatic in his approach to political problems,
choosing a new bride, Germaine of Foix, who would, he
hoped, produce a male heir to Aragon as well as some dip-
lomatic advantages in his relations with France and Navarre.
Once again a son was born, but lived only a short time.
However, in the summer of 1506 the Treaty of Villafafila
between Philip and Ferdinand marked an attempt to secure
a few remaining rights in Castile to Ferdinand, such as the
mastership of the Military Orders and a half share in royal
income from Caribbean trade, from which the Catalan mer-
chants were largely excluded. At least Ferdinand was able to
show that he could not be kept out of Castilian politics; and
the unexpected death of Philip later the same year, while
Ferdinand was away in Naples, prompted the archbishop of
Toledo to summon Ferdinand back as regent. The alternat-
ive seemed to be a relapse into the divisiveness that had been
rampant half a century before under Henry IV. The rights
of Juana were easily set aside by making public her mental
state. Castile thus fell into Ferdinand's hands by chance; and
even so he had to reconcile himself to the eventual succes-
sion of yet another Flemish prince, Philip's son Charles of
Habsburg (the future Emperor Charles V). ~^4
- Elliott, Imperial Spain, pp. 125-33; J.F. Ramsey, Spain: the rise of the first
world power (Alabama, 1973), pp. 290-318.