026) considered was the domestic felicity of their children; their marriages were pieces in the diplomatic game and sometimes the means by which States were built up.

While Duke of York, Henry had been proposed as a husband for Eleanor,[59] daughter of the Archduke Philip; and his sister Mary as the bride of Philip's son Charles, who, as the heir of the houses of Castile and of Aragon, of Burgundy and of Austria, was from the cradle destined to wield the imperial sceptre of Caesar.

No further steps were taken at the time, and Prince Arthur's death brought other projects to the front.
[Footnote 58: The next prince to hold the title was Charles, afterwards Charles I., who was created Duke of York on 6th Jan., 1605.] [Footnote 59: Afterwards Queen of Portugal and then of France._L.and P._, _Henry VII._, i., 285, 425.] Immediately on receiving the news, and two days before they dated their letter of condolence to Henry VII., Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned the Duke of Estrada to negotiate a marriage between the widowed Catherine and her youthful brother-in-law.[60] No doubt was entertained but that the Pope would grant the necessary dispensation, for the spiritual head of Christendom was apt to look tenderly on the petitions of the powerful princes of this world.

A more serious difficulty was the question of the widow's dower.

Part only had been paid, and Ferdinand not merely refused to hand over the rest, but demanded the return of his previous instalments.