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Portugal, the only remaining independent crown, within the Spanish sphere of influence. And further abroad, they were determined to contain and challenge France. France was the greatest European power of the day; it also blocked Ferdinand's plans to recover his family's former territories in southern Italy and on either side of the Pyrenees. The marriage of his daughter Isabella would deliver Portugal to Ferdinand; his other children were available to bind France in a chain of golden wedding rings that would, he hoped, turn into a ring of steel.
        His plans received an immediate setback when Isabella's husband died at the age of twenty, and Isabella returned to Spain a youthful widow. Undeterred, the Catholic Kings pressed on. The year 1496–7 was the climacteric. On 22 August 1496 their daughter Juana sailed from Laredo in a great fleet captained by the Admiral of Castile. Its destination was the Netherlands, where Juana would marry the Archduke Philip.
        Philip was another product of a successful dynastic marriage. His mother Mary was heiress of Burgundy (which included modern Belgium, the Netherlands and much of north-eastern France), while his father, Maximilian von Habsburg, was Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman (that is, German) Emperor. There was a long-standing hostility between Burgundy and France, which Ferdinand cleverly exploited. To make absolutely sure of the Burgundian alliance, he also secured a second marriage, and, on its return journey to Spain after delivering Juana, his fleet carried the Archduke Philip's sister Margaret, previously jilted by the King of France, as bride-to-be of Ferdinand's son and heir, Juan. 2
        On the way, the fleet was hit by tremendous storms and Margaret, in fear of her life, wrote a wry epitaph:

CI GIST MARGOT LA GENTILLE DEMOISELLE
    MARIEE DEAUX FOIS, ET SI MOURUT PUCELLE
    (Here lies Margot, the willing bride
    Twice married – but a virgin when she died!)

    This sums up one of the hazards of the royal marriage game. A bride could be sent 'on approval', only to be turned down on some technicality which the Church was usually happy to endorse, if a better bargain came along. Margaret need not have worried. Ferdinand and Isabella were enthusiastic for the wedding, and her husband, young Don Juan, Prince of the Asturias, proved an enthusiast after it too. Her virginity vanished in a trice and she conceived quickly. 3
        The bride and groom were then left in Valladolid, while the King and Queen, together with their unmarried daughters, Catherine and Maria, went on Progress down the valley of the Douro to the town of Valencia de Alcantara on the Portuguese frontier, there to deliver Isabella to her new husband. For death was not to interfere with the Catholic Kings' determination to secure the Portuguese alliance. Manoel had succeeded his brother Alfonso as heir apparent to the Portuguese throne, so it was decided that he should succeed his brother in his marriage bed also. Isabella was reluctant but resigned. In the middle of the celebrations, however, came terrible news. The Infante Juan was seriously ill. Ferdinand rode furiously back to Valladolid. But Juan died. His parents had been warned of the risks of over-enthusiastic consummation of the marriage for the eighteen-year-old groom but Isabella had brushed aside the warnings. 'Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,' she had quoted. 4
        There was still hope for the future of the dynasty in Margaret's swollen belly. But, after a terrible labour, the baby was born dead. Then in 1498, Isabella, the young Queen of Portugal, died in childbirth. But at least she left behind a healthy boy. Two years later this child died, too.
        This string of deaths of her children and grandchildren came near to breaking Isabella, as nothing else could have done. Her health declined and her religious fervour increased. But nothing, not her health and happiness, nor her children's, was to get in