Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/227

MARRIAGE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 83 order ; and splendid preparations were instantly chapter 22 III. commenced for the approaching nuptials. Isabella was then in her sixteenth year. On her Hereariy •' education. father's death, she retired with her mother to the little town of Arevalo, where, in seclusion, and far from the voice of flattery and falsehood, she had been permitted to unfold the natural graces of mind and person, which might have been blighted in the pestilent atmosphere of a court. Here, under the maternal eye, she was carefully instructed in those lessons of practical piety, and in the deep reverence for religion, which distinguished her maturer years. On the birth of the princess Joanna, she was re- moved, together with her brother Alfonso, by Henry to the royal palace, in order more eflectually to dis- courage the formation of any faction, adverse to the interests of his supposed daughter. In this abode of pleasure, surrounded by all the seductions most dazzling to youth, she did not forget the early lessons, that she had imbibed ; and the blameless purity of her conduct shone with additional lustre amid the scenes of levity and licentiousness by which she was surrounded.^^ The near connexion of Isabella with the crown, as well as her personal character, invited the ap- plication of numerous suitors. Her hand was first solicited for that very Ferdinand, who was destined to be her future husband, though not till after the 22 Rades y Andrada, Chronica 23 L. Marineo, Cosas Memora- de Las Tres Ordenes y Cavallerias, bles, fol. 154. — Florez, Reynas (Toledo, 1572,) fol. 76. — Castillo, Catholicas, torn. ii. p. 789. — Cas- Cr6nica,cap.85. — Alonso de Palen- tillo, Cronica, cap. 37. cia, Coronica, MS., part. 1, cap. 73.