The political situation created by the Queen’s death was both perplexing and menacing.[2] Dona Juana, wife of the Archduke Philip, inherited the crown of Castile from her mother in default of male heirs, but her mental state excluded the possibility of her assuming the functions of government.  Already during her mother’s lifetime, the health of this unhappy princess, who has passed into history under the title of Juana the Mad, gave rise to serious anxiety.  Deserted by the handsome and frivolous Philip at a time when she most required his presence, she sank into a state of profound melancholy.  She waited, in vain, for the return of the husband whom her unreasoning jealousy and amorous importunities had driven from her.

[Note 2:  The Infante Don Juan died in October, 1497, shortly after his early marriage with the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, and without issue.  Isabella, Queen of Portugal, died after giving birth to a son, in whom the three crowns of Portugal, Castile, and Aragon would have been united had the prince not expired in 1500, while still a child.  Dona Juana, second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella and next heir, had married, in 1496, the Archduke Philip of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, and became the mother of Charles I. of Spain, commonly known by his imperial title of Charles V.]

In conformity with the late Queen’s wishes, Ferdinand hastened to proclaim his daughter and Philip sovereigns of Castile, reserving to himself the powers of regent.  He was willing to gratify the archduke’s vanity by conceding him the royal title, while keeping the government in his own hands, and had there been no one but his absent son-in-law with whom to reckon, his policy would have stood a fair chance of success.  It was thwarted by the intrigues of a powerful faction amongst the aristocracy, who deemed the opportunity a promising one for recovering some of the privileges of which they had been shorn.

Ferdinand of Aragon had gained little hold on the affections of the people of his wife’s dominions, hence his position became one of extreme difficulty.  His opponents urged the archduke to hasten his arrival in Spain and to assume the regency in the name of his invalid wife.  Rumours that Louis XII. had accorded his son-in-law permission to traverse France at the head of a small army rendered the regency insecure, and to forestall the complication of a possible alliance between Philip and King Louis, Ferdinand, despite his advanced age and the recent death of his wife, asked the hand of a French princess, Germaine de Foix, in marriage, offering to settle the crown of Naples upon her descendants.  To conciliate Philip, he proposed to share with him the regency.  Upon the arrival of the latter at Coruna in the month of May, Martyr was chosen by the King to repair thither and obtain the archduke’s adhesion to this proposal.  That the latter had distinguished the Italian savant by admitting him to his intimacy during his former stay in Spain, did not save the mission from failure, and where Peter Martyr failed, Cardinal Ximenes was later equally unsuccessful.  Ferdinand ended by yielding and, after a final interview with his son-in-law in Remesal, at which Peter Martyr was present, he left Spain on his way to Naples, the latter remaining with the mad queen to observe and report the course of events.