Wales,
then a year old, with the Infanta Katharine, who was a few months older.
Ferdinand at the time was trying to bring about a match between his
eldest daughter, Isabel, and the young King of France, Charles VIII., and
was not very eager for a new English alliance which might alarm the
French. Before the end of the year, however, it was evident that there was
no chance of the Spanish Infanta's marriage with Charles VIII. coming to
anything, and Ferdinand's plan for a great coalition against France was
finally adopted.

In the first days of 1488 Ferdinand's two ambassadors arrived in London to
negotiate the English match, and the long duel of diplomacy between the
Kings of England and Spain began. Of one of the envoys it behoves us to
say something, because of the influence his personal character exercised
upon subsequent events. Rodrigo de Puebla was one of the most
extraordinary diplomatists that can be imagined, and could only have been
possible under such monarchs as Henry and Ferdinand, willing as both of
them were to employ the basest instruments in their underhand policy.
Puebla was a doctor of laws and a provincial mayor when he attracted the
attention of Ferdinand, and his first diplomatic mission of importance was
that to England. He was a poor, vain, greedy man, utterly corrupt, and
Henry VII. was able to dominate him from the first. In the course of time
he became more of an intimate English minister than a foreign ambassador,
though he represented at Henry's court not only Castile and Aragon, but
also the Pope and the Empire. He constantly sat in the English council,
and was almost the only man admitted to Henry's personal confidence. That
such an instrument would be trusted entirely by the wary Ferdinand, was
not to be expected: and though Puebla remained in England as ambassador
to the end of his life, he was, to his bitter jealousy, always associated
with others when important negotiations had to be conducted. Isabel wrote
to him often, sometimes threatening him with punishment if he failed in
carrying out his instructions satisfactorily, sometimes flattering him and
promising him rewards, which he never got. He was recognised by Ferdinand
as an invaluable means of gaining knowledge of Henry's real intentions,
and by Henry as a tool for betraying Ferdinand. It is hardly necessary to
say that he alternately sold both and was never fully paid by either.
Henry offered him an English bishopric which his ow