Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/317

WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 17^ Thus terminated, after a duration of four years chapter and a half, the War of the Succession. It had '- — fallen with peculiar fury on the border provinces of Leon and Estremadura, which, from their local position, had necessarily been kept in constant colli- sion with the enemy. Its baneful effects were long visible there, not only in the general devastation and distress of the country, but in the moral dis- organization, which the licentious and predatory habits of soldiers necessarily introduced among a simple peasantry. In a personal view, however, the war had terminated most triumphantly for Is- abella, whose wise and vigorous administration, seconded by her husband's vigilance, had dispelled the storm, which threatened to overwhelm her from abroad, and established her in undisturbed posses- sion of the throne of her ancestors. Joanna's interests were alone compromised, or Joanna takes ^ _ the veil. rather sacrificed, by the treaty. She readily dis- cerned in the provision for her marriage with an infant still in the cradle, only a flimsy veil intend- ed 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 clois- ter. 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,