Ferdinand V. of Castile, II. of Aragon, III. of Naples, and II. of Sicily, surnamed the Catholic, born at Sos, Aragon, March 10, 1452, died at Madrigalejo, Jan. 23, 1516. The son of John II., king of Navarre and Aragon, and of his second wife Juana Henriquez, he was as early as 14G8, through the influence of his mother, declared by his father king of Sicily and associate in the crown of Aragon. On Oct, 10, 1469, he married at Valladolid Isabella, princess of Asturias, the sister and lawful heiress of King Henry IV. of Castile. On the demise of the latter, Dec. 12, 1474, Ferdinand and Isabella were proclaimed joint sovereigns of Castile. Several powerful nobles, among whom were the marquis of Villena, the archbishop of Toledo, and the grand master of Calatrava, aided by the king of Portugal, rose in arms in the name of Juana (called Beltra-neja, from her supposed father, Beltran de la Cueva), whom the late king had recognized as his daughter, but who had been set aside by the cortes on a charge of illegitimacy, which was never legally proved. Ferdinand's army gained a decisive victory over them at Toro, and in 1470 a treaty put an end to the civil war, and Juana, deserted by all her partisans, took the veil.

John II. having died at the beginning of the same year, Ferdinand inherited Aragon, and thus became the undisputed master of the peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, Navarre (which was given to John's daughter Eleanor), and Granada. His chief policy was to fortify the power of the crown, and he reached his aim principally by reorganizing and increasing the hermandad or brotherhood for the suppression of disorder and brigandage, by improving the administration of justice, by acquiring the mastership of the several orders of knighthood, and obtaining the power of appointing the bishops, but above all by means of the inquisition, which served not only as a guard against heresy, but also as a political institution to keep the nobility and clergy in check. The intolerance was perhaps still greater against the Jews than the relapsed heretics. On March 31, 1402, an edict for their expulsion was issued by the sovereigns at Granada. The number thus driven forth is estimated by some as high as 800,000, but by others, according to Prescott with more probability, at 160,000. They sought refuge in Portugal, France, Italy, Africa, and the Levant, Before this, however, Ferdinand and Isabella had succeeded in accomplishing their long cherished design of destroying the last vestige of Moorish power in Spain. The kingdom of Granada, all that remained of the once powerful empire of the Moors, succumbed to the assaults of the Christian warriors; the city itself, the siege of which was conducted by the king and queen in person, surrendered Jan. 2, 1402, after a heroic resistance; and the last of its sovereigns, Abdallah or Boabdil, retired to Africa. When the Moors attempted a revolt in 1501, Ferdinand ordered them to become converted or to leave the kingdom, and it is said that from then till the time of Philip about 3,000,000 Moors left the country.

In the discovery of America by Columbus Ferdinand had little if any share; he evinced no disposition to assist the discoverer, and the glory of having aided him belongs exclusively to Isabella. Charles VIII. of France having conquered the kingdom of Naples in 1404, Ferdinand sent thither in the following year his great general Gonsalvo de Cordova, and within a few months the French were expelled and the Spaniards got a foothold in Italy, which advantage they afterward improved. In 1500 he concluded a treaty of alliance with Louis NIL of France, by which the two monarchs divided between themselves beforehand the kingdom, which was to be conquered by their united forces; but scarcely was this accomplished when the allies quarrelled, and Gonsalvo de Cordova for the second time drove the French out of southern Italy (1503-'4), which thenceforth remained in the hands of Ferdinand, as king of Naples and Sicily. Family difficulties interfered for a while with his power and the progress of his conquests. Juana, the only daughter left to him (Isabella having been married to Emanuel of Portugal, and Catharine to Prince Arthur and afterward to Henry VIII. of England), had been married in 1406 to the archduke Philip, son of the emperor Maximilian; and on the death of Isabella in 1504, this young prince claimed the regency of Castile in the name of his wife.

This brought on a contest between him and his father-in-law, which terminated in favor of Ferdinand, who was appointed regent in place of the young heir Charles on account of the premature death of Philip in 1506 and the insanity of his wife Juana. The king now found himself at liberty to give undivided attention to the affairs of Italy, and exercised there a paramount influence, not by his arms only, but by his superior political talents. He took part in the league of Cambrai against Venice in 1508; then in the holy league in 1511 against the French, whom the princes of Italy desired to expel from the peninsula; and in all these transactions he was generally the gainer. Besides the kingdom of Naples, he added to his dominions several towns and fortresses on the coast of Africa, which were conquered by Cardinal Ximenes and Count Navarro in 1500 and 1510, and the kingdom of Navarre, which he wrested from Catherine de Foix and her hus-band Jean d'Albret in 1512. By a singular whim, or perhaps through the troubles created by the archduke Philip, Ferdinand had been estranged from his grandson Charles, afterward emperor under the title of Charles V.; and he thought of depriving him of part at least of his inheritance.

He had consequently married in 1505 Germaine de Foix, a niece of Louis XII. of France; but the child he had by her died, and he was thus disappointed in his hopes. In 1513 he took a philtre for the purpose of restoring his exhausted vigor; but the potion produced a lingering illness which ended in death. Ferdinand was the founder of the greatness of Spain; he consolidated the whole peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, into a single political body; gained for the crown a power which it had never possessed before; extended its influence beyond the peninsula, and gave it weight in the general affairs of Europe. To reach the aim of his ambition he was far from being over scrupulous in his means; a crafty politician and avaricious in every respect, he did not hesitate to break his word, or even his oath, when interest or bigotry commanded. But notwithstanding his perfidy and treachery, his memory has been held in great reverence in Spain; and the severity shown toward him by some historians cannot prevent posterity from regarding him as one of the ablest princes of his age.

A just appreciation of his life and times may be found in Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella." (See Isabella.)