y the Spanish advance guard. The retreat
being checked at a bridge, the Spanish rear was enabled to come up, and
the French were driven in route. Gaeta surrendered on January 4; no
further resistance was offered. South Italy was in the hands of
Gonsalvo.

_IV.--After Isabella_

Throughout 1503 and 1504 Queen Isabella's strength was failing. In
November 1504 she died, leaving the succession to the Castilian crown to
her daughter Joanna, and naming Ferdinand regent. Magnanimity,
unselfishness, openness, piety had been her most marked moral traits;
justice, loyalty, practical good sense her political characteristics--a
most rare and virtuous lady.

Her death gives a new complexion to our history. Joanna was proclaimed
Queen of Castile; Ferdinand was governor of that kingdom in her name,
but his regency was not accepted without demur. To secure his brief
authority he made alliance with Louis, including a marriage contract
with Louis' niece, Germaine de Ford. Six weeks after the wedding, the
Archduke Philip landed in Spain. Ferdinand's action had ruined his
popularity, and he saw security only in a compact assuring Philip the
complete sovereignty--Joanna being insane.

Philip's rule was very unpopular and very brief. A sudden illness, in
which for once poison was not suspected of playing a part, carried him
off. Ferdinand, absent at the time in Italy, was restored to the regency
of Castile, which he held undisputed--except for futile claims of the
Emperor Maximilian--for the rest of his life.

The years of Ferdinand's sole rule displayed his worst characteristics,
which had been restrained during his noble consort's life. He was
involved in the utterly unscrupulous and immoral wars issuing out of the
League of Cambray for the partition of Venice. The suspicion and
ingratitude with which he treated Gonsalvo de Cordova drove the Great
Captain into a privacy not less honourable than his glorious public
career. Within a twelvemonth of Gonsalvo's death, Ferdinand followed him
to the grave in January 1516--lamented in Aragon, but not in Castile.

During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the overgrown powers and
factious spirit of the nobility had been restrained. That genuine piety
of the queen which had won for the monarchs the title of "The Catholic"
had not prevented them from firmly resisting the encroachments of
ecclesiastical authority. The condition of the commons had been greatly
advanced, but political power