[30] L. and P. R. III. and H. VII., ii. 147.
[32] Vesp. C., xii. 239. b., quoted in Green's "Lives of the Princesses of England," v. 4.
The upshot of this visit was a contract of marriage between Mary and Charles, and between Henry VII. and Philip's sister, the Duchess of Savoy, not long a widow for the second time, provided the lady consented. The lady would not consent, and Jehan le Sauvage, President of Flanders, wrote to Maximilian, her father, the King of the Romans, that though he had laboured daily with her for a full month, she still decidedly refused.[33] Again and again Maximilian, in need of money and help against the Duke of Gueldres, pressed his daughter to consent, if only to amuse the King of England with promises, but she always answered "that although an obedient daughter she will never agree to so unreasonable a marriage."[34] So Henry was fain in the end to be content with the marriage of Philip's son Charles, Duke of Luxemburg, to his daughter Mary.
September 1506 saw Henry's horizon suddenly widen. Philip of Castile died in that month. Henry would marry his widow Joanna and control Castile. Fortune this time favoured Ferdinand, who had been none too well pleased by the marriage projects; Joanna went mad, and though Henry said he did not mind that, seeing that she could still bear children, it gave Ferdinand an excuse for delaying negotiations. Mad or sane, Henry wanted to marry her, and de Puebla, the Spanish agent in England, suggested that marriage with such a man as Henry would restore her to sanity.[35] Margaret of Savoy[36] had obeyed her father in "amusing" Henry, and the King played off one marriage against the other, telling Ferdinand that he must decide soon about Joanna, for Margaret of Savoy was waiting to marry him,[37] while to Margaret he said that there were so many other great and honourable matches daily offered to him on all sides[38] that he could hardly choose which to have. It is true Margaret of Savoy had come to the Netherlands, but not as the prospective wife of the King of England waiting to cross the channel at his nod. She had been appointed Governess of the Netherlands and guardian to her nephew Charles, Prince of Castile. By her means a treaty was concluded in 1507 with England, and the marriage of the children was to have taken place at once, but Henry's illness prevented it. France, Spain and Austria were to meet at Cambrai in December 1508 for the adjustment of their claims in Italy, and Henry, in pursuance of his policy, tried hard, by means of Wolsey, to get the Bishop of Gurk, Maximilian's secretary, to help him to weaken Aragon by detaching France from him, so that Ferdinand, who was maintaining himself in a usurped Castile by French support, would find it impossible to continue to hold the kingdom. Henry's desires had no weight at Cambrai, and England, having no stake in Italy, was ignored. But on December 16, 1508, the marriage between Charles of Castile and Mary of England was celebrated at Richmond.