For all his folly and weakness, it is difficult to believe that Henry would consent to such terms, but so low were the straits in which he found himself that he immediately expressed his satisfaction, sending word to Don Pedro Giron to come as quickly as he could. Isabel on her part was aghast and, finding entreaties and remonstrances of no avail, she spent days and nights upon her knees, praying that God would either remove the man or herself, before such a marriage should take place. Her favourite lady-in-waiting, Doña Beatriz de Bobadilla, moved by her distress, assured her that neither God nor she would permit such a crime, and, showing her a dagger that she wore hidden, swore to kill the Master, if no other way of safety should present itself.
Help, indeed, seemed far away, for the bridegroom, having obtained from Rome a dispensation from his ill-kept vow of celibacy, was soon on his way to Madrid at the head of a large company of knights and horsemen. His only reply to those who told him of the Infanta’s obstinate refusal of his suit was that he would win her, if not by gentleness then by force.
At Villa Real, where he halted for the night, the unexpected happened, for, falling ill of an inflammation of the throat, he died a few days later.
“He was suddenly struck down by the hand of God,” says Enriquez del Castillo; while Alonso de Palencia describes how at the end “he blasphemously accused God of cruelty in not permitting him to add forty days to his forty and three years.”
Both the King and the Marquis of Villena were in consternation at the news. The latter had begun to lose his influence with the league, who justly suspected him of caring more for his own interests than theirs; and, while he bargained and negotiated with a view to securing for himself the Mastership of Santiago, a position that he no longer considered belonged to the young Alfonso “of right,” the Archbishop of Toledo and the Admiral were bent on bringing matters to an issue by open war.
Henry was forced to collect his loyalists once more; and on the 20th of August, 1467, a battle took place on the plain of Olmedo, just outside the city. The King’s army had the advantage in numbers; indeed he had been induced to advance on the belief that the enemy would not dare to leave the shelter of their walls, and by the time they appeared it was too late to sound the retreat. Conspicuous amongst the rebels were the Infante Alfonso clad, notwithstanding his youth, in full mail armour, and the fiery Archbishop of Toledo in his surcoat of scarlet emblazoned with a white cross. The latter was wounded in his left arm early in the fight but not for that ceasing to urge on his cavalry to the attack. On the other side the hero of the day was Beltran de La Cueva, whose death forty knights had sworn to accomplish, but whose skill and courage were to preserve him for service in a better cause.
Alone, amongst the leading combatants, Henry IV. cut but a poor figure, for, watching the action from a piece of rising ground, he fled at the first sign of a reverse, persuaded that the battle was lost. Late that evening a messenger, primed with the news of victory, discovered him hiding in a neighbouring village, and he at last consented to return to the camp.
The royalists succeeded in continuing their march, but since the enemy remained in possession of the larger number of banners and prisoners, both armies were able to claim that they had won.
The battle of Olmedo was followed by the treacherous surrender to the league of the King’s favourite town of Segovia. Here he had left the Queen and his sister; but while the former sought refuge in the Alcazar, which still held out for her husband, Isabel preferred to remain in the palace with her ladies-in-waiting. She had not suffered such kindness at the hands of Henry IV. as would make her rate either his love or his power of protection highly; and, when the rebels entered the town she surrendered to them with a very goodwill.
Henceforward her fortunes were joined to those of Alfonso; but death which had saved her from marriage with a man she loathed, was soon to rob her of her younger brother. It is difficult to form a clear estimate of either Alfonso’s character or abilities from the scanty references of the chroniclers; but already, at the age of fourteen, he had proved himself a better soldier than Henry IV.; and we are told that those who knew him personally judged him more upright. The news of his death, on July 5, 1468, was therefore received with general dismay. His death had been ostensibly the result of swollen glands, but it was widely believed that the real cause of its seriousness was a dish of poisoned trout prepared for him by a secret ally of the King.