carried out, the dowry she would bring being very much more satisfactory
than that of Joanna of Naples.

[Sidenote: 1507-8 Matrimonial projects]

In a very short time, however, Margaret had another rival, at least for the
purposes of diplomacy. This was Joanna of Castile, Philip's widow, whom
Henry had seen in the spring of 1506. That her sanity was already very much
in question seems to have made very little difference. Throughout the
greater part of 1507 and 1508 the English King was making overtures to
Margaret herself, and for Joanna to Ferdinand, blowing hot and cold in the
matter of his son Henry and Katharine, and pushing on the betrothal of his
younger daughter Mary with the boy Charles--a proposal brought forward,
when the latter was but four months old, in 1500, but not at that time
sedulously pressed. In part, at least, the explanation of all this
diplomatic play lies in Henry's relations with Ferdinand. The King of
Aragon, having lost his wife Isabella, wished to retain control of Castile;
at the same time he was in difficulties about paying up the balance of
Katharine's dowry, without which Henry would not allow her marriage with
his son to go forward, while the luckless princess was kept scandalously
short of supplies. Henry certainly wished to put all the pressure possible
on Ferdinand to get the dowry; perhaps he seriously contemplated marriage
with Joanna as a means of himself depriving Ferdinand of control in
Castile; the marriage of Charles to his daughter Mary would have a similar
advantage. On the other hand, if he married Margaret of Savoy he would get
control of the Netherlands, and still grasp at the control of Castile
through Charles, while playing off the boy's two grandfathers, Maximilian
and Ferdinand, against each other. Henry was in fact paying Ferdinand back
in his own coin; but the picture is an unedifying one, of craft against
craft, working by sordid methods for ends which had very little to do with