The young king wrote that he would obey Ferdinand as he had obeyed his own father.

His obedience was soon to be tested.
Ferdinand seized on his new ally as a pawn in the great game which he was playing on the European chess-board, a game which left its traces on the political and religious map of Europe for centuries after him.

It was not without good ground that Henry the Seventh faced so coolly the menacing growth of France.

He saw what his son failed to see, that the cool, wary king of Aragon was building up as quickly a power which was great enough to cope with it, and that grow as the two rivals might they were matched too evenly to render England's position a really dangerous one.

While the French kings aimed at the aggrandizement of a country, Ferdinand aimed at the aggrandizement of a House.