Joanna's interests were alone compromised, or rather sacrificed, by the treaty. She readily discerned in the provision for her marriage with an infant still in the cradle, only a flimsy veil intended to disguise the king of Portugal's desertion of her cause. Disgusted with a world, in which she had hitherto experienced nothing but misfortune herself, and been the innocent cause of so much to others, she determined to renounce it for ever, and seek a shelter in the peaceful shades of the cloister. She accordingly entered the convent of Santa Clara at Coimbra, where, in the following year, she pronounced the irrevocable vows, which divorce the unhappy subject of them for ever from her species. Two envoys from Castile, Ferdinand de Talavera, Isabella's confessor, and Dr. Diaz de Madrigal, one of her council, assisted at this affecting ceremony; and the reverend father, in a copious exhortation addressed to the youthful novice, assured her "that she had chosen the better part approved in the Evangelists; that, as spouse of the church, her chastity would be prolific of all spiritual delights; her subjection, liberty,--the only true liberty, partaking more of Heaven than of earth. No kinsman," continued the disinterested preacher, "no true friend, or faithful counsellor, would divert you from so holy a purpose." [36]
Not long after this event, King Alfonso, penetrated with grief at the loss of his destined bride,--the "excellent lady," as the Portuguese continue to call her,--resolved to imitate her example, and exchange his royal robes for the humble habit of a Franciscan friar. He consequently made preparation for resigning his crown anew, and retiring to the monastery of Varatojo, on a bleak eminence near the Atlantic Ocean, when he suddenly fell ill, at Cintra, of a disorder which terminated his existence, on the 28th of August, 1481. Alfonso's fiery character, in which all the elements of love, chivalry, and religion were blended together, resembled that of some paladin of romance; as the chimerical enterprises, in which he was perpetually engaged, seem rather to belong to the age of knight-errantry, than to the fifteenth century. [37]
In the beginning of the same year in which the pacification with Portugal secured to the sovereigns the undisputed possession of Castile, another crown devolved on Ferdinand by the death of his father, the king of Aragon, who expired at Barcelona, on the 20th of January, 1479, in the eighty-third year of his age. [38] Such was his admirable constitution that he retained not only his intellectual, but his bodily vigor, unimpaired to the last. His long life was consumed in civil faction or foreign wars; and his restless spirit seemed to take delight in these tumultuous scenes, as best fitted to develop its various energies. He combined, however, with this intrepid and even ferocious temper, an address in the management of affairs, which led him to rely, for the accomplishment of his purposes, much more on negotiation than on positive force. He may be said to have been one of the first monarchs who brought into vogue that refined science of the cabinet, which was so profoundly studied by statesmen at the close of the fifteenth century, and on which his own son Ferdinand furnished the most practical commentary.