“It is the hour,” they exclaimed, “of her shame and of her King’s dishonour!”

They could not realize to the full the truth of their words, nor to what depths Henry was shortly to fall and drag the fortunes of his country with him.

CHAPTER III
THE REIGN OF HENRY IV.: CIVIL WAR AND ANARCHY
1464–1474

Henry IV. had been merely a figurehead at the meeting of Fuenterrabia, a rôle to which with his habitual lethargy he had no objection. When, however, he attempted to obtain possession of the town of Estella and failed to do so in spite of Villena’s outwardly strenuous efforts, he began at last to suspect that he had been also a dupe, and that French and Aragonese money had bribed his ministers to his own undoing.

He could not make up his mind to break openly with the Marquis and his uncle, the Archbishop of Toledo; but a perceptible coldness appeared in his manner where they were concerned, in contrast to the ever-increasing favour that he now bestowed on Beltran de La Cueva, Count of Ledesma. The latter’s share in the conferences had been mainly ornamental. Indeed his talents had lain hitherto rather in the ballroom or the lists than in the world of practical politics; but success had stirred his ambitions, and especially his marriage with the daughter of the Marquis de Santillana, head of the powerful family of Mendoza. With this connection at his back he might hope to drive Villena and his relations from Court, and with the Queen’s aid control the destinies of Castile.

In the struggle between the rival favourites, the Princess Isabel was regarded as a useful pawn on their chess-board. She and her brother had been summoned to Court at Villena’s suggestion that “they would be better brought up and learn more virtuous customs than away from his Majesty’s presence.” Whether irony were intended or no, Henry had accepted the statement seriously; and while Alfonso was handed over to a tutor, his sister joined the Queen’s household.

There were hopes at this time of another heir to the crown; and the King, foreseeing in the prospect of a son the means to raise his fallen dignity, was anxious to gratify his wife’s wishes. When she pleaded therefore for an alliance with her own country, to be cemented by the marriage of her brother Alfonso, then a widower, with the twelve-year-old Isabel, he readily agreed. The scheme was the more pleasing that it ran counter to the union of Isabel and Ferdinand of Aragon, still strongly advocated by King John. Villena, who had been bribed into assisting the latter negotiation, received the first real intimation that his ascendancy was shaken, when he learned that the King and Court had set off to the south-western province of Estremadura without consulting him.

Through the medium of the Queen and Count of Ledesma, the Portuguese alliance was successfully arranged; and Alfonso V. was so impressed by the young Princess that he gallantly protested his wish that the betrothal could take place at once. Isabel replied with her strange unchildlike caution, that she could not be betrothed save with the consent of the National Cortes, an appeal to Cæsar that postponed the matter for the time being. Perhaps she knew her brother well enough to doubt his continued insistence that “she should marry none save the King of Portugal”; or she may thus early have formed a shrewd and not altogether flattering estimate of the volatile and uncertain Alfonso.

In the meantime the Marquis of Villena was plotting secretly with his brother, the Master of Calatrava, the Archbishop of Toledo, the Admiral of Castile, and other nobles how he might regain his old influence. After a series of attempts on his rival’s life, from which Beltran de La Cueva emerged scatheless with the additional honour of the coveted Mastership of Santiago, he and his fellow-conspirators retired to Burgos, where they drew up a schedule of their grievances. Secret measures having failed they were determined to browbeat Henry into submission by playing on his well-known fears of civil war.

The King’s hopes of an undisputed succession had been shattered by the premature birth of a still-born son; and thus the question of the Infanta Joanna’s legitimacy remained as a convenient weapon for those discontented with the Crown. Nor had the gifts and honours heaped on Beltran de La Cueva encouraged the loyalty of the principal nobles. The new favourite was rapacious and arrogant, while even more intolerable to courtiers of good family and wealth was the rise of an upstart nobility, that threatened to monopolize the royal favour.