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- BIOGRAPHY
A sickly youth, he was the only one of his parents' nine children to survive. In 1552 at the age of fifteen, he married his double first cousin, Juana, daughter of the Emperor Charles V. He became the subject of recurrent attacks of fever which were treated by blood-letting, weakening him still further. Eventually his physicians decided to separate him from his pregnant wife and forbade him to drink more than one cup of water a day. On the night of 1 January 1554 the young Prince woke crazed by thirst and, disobeying his medical advisers, soaked a towel in a pool of rainwater outside his window, wrang it out, and drank the resulting liquid. The foolhardy act proved fatal and, falling to the gound unconscious, he died the following day. His widow, herself still in her sixteenth year, was nearing the end of her pregnancy so it was decided to keep the news of her husband's death from her. Court mourning was deferred for three weeks and, on 19 January, the Princess was safely delivered of a son who was named Sebastian after the Saint on the eve of whose feast day he was born. Juana returned to Spain soon after, leaving the baby in the care of his grandparents. .
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