Unable to leave Andalusia themselves, they warned the citizens of Madrigal that any favour shown to the Princess would be regarded as an act of treachery to the Crown, while she was so surrounded by spies and enemies that even her faithful lady-in-waiting, Beatriz de Bobadilla, grew frightened and besought her to break off the Aragonese alliance. Isabel knew that, once intimidated into doing this, she would remain absolutely at her brother’s mercy, and she therefore implored the Archbishop of Toledo to come to her assistance before it was too late. A lover of bold and decisive actions, that warlike prelate was soon at the gates of Madrigal at the head of an armed force; and Isabel, refusing to listen to the threats of the Bishop of Burgos, at once joined him, going with him to Valladolid, the headquarters of the Admiral, Don Fadrique.
She had burned her boats, and it only remained for the man on whom she had pinned her faith to play his part in the drama adequately. Both Ferdinand and his father realized the seriousness of the situation. If the treaty of Fuenterrabia had spelled trouble and disaster for Castile, it had been the source of even greater evils in Aragon; for the Catalans, far from returning to their old allegiance, as they were advised, had continued to maintain their desperate resistance in Barcelona. They had elected as their Count first one prince of royal extraction and then another; each new puppet doomed to ultimate failure, but leaving behind him a defiance increasing in ferocity as it lost power in other ways.
Nor was chronic rebellion John II.’s only serious trouble. The important counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne, pledged to Louis XI. in return for troops, had been seized by that monarch, as soon as he saw his neighbour too involved in difficulties to show practical resentment; and the web of French diplomacy was now being spun over Navarre, through the medium of the King of Aragon’s son-in-law, the Count of Foix. Personal sorrows added their quota: the loss of sight at a time when political clouds looked blackest, followed by the death of Queen Joanna, whose courage and brains had made her a fitting helpmate for her ambitious husband, whether in the council-chamber or on the battlefield. John was indeed repaid with added measure for the turbulence and treachery of his early days; but like many men of his type he showed better in adversity than in success.
Doggedly he laid fresh plans, and Providence that seldom hates the brave rewarded him by the recovery of his eyesight.
The realization of his son’s marriage with Isabel of Castile, always favoured by him, was now his dearest ambition; for he believed that the final union of the two kingdoms would mean the death-blow to Louis XI.’s hopes of dominating the Pyrenees, as well as the building up of the power of the Crown at home against unruly subjects. Such designs were, however, of the future, while the immediate steps to achieve them were fraught with danger.
Isabel, the bride-elect was at Valladolid, temporarily protected by the Archbishop of Toledo and the Admiral; but to the north lay the hostile Bishopric of Burgos, to the south-east a line of fortified strongholds, all in the hands of the Mendozas, the chief supporters of Joanna La Beltraneja and therefore enemies of the Aragonese match. It only needed the return of Henry IV. from Andalusia to make her position untenable.
Isabel and the Archbishop of Toledo therefore dispatched messengers to Aragon in haste to insist that the King of Sicily should come to Valladolid. They found him in Saragossa, and suggested that, as every moment of delay increased the danger, he should disguise himself and go to Castile with only a few adherents, thus hoodwinking the Mendozas, who would never expect him to take this risk, and who also believed the negotiations for the marriage to be at a much earlier stage.
Notwithstanding his later reputation for a hard head and a cool heart, Ferdinand in his youth possessed a certain vein of adventurous chivalry. It was with difficulty that he had been prevented from leading an entirely rash expedition to Isabel’s rescue at Madrigal, and he now readily agreed to a scheme, whose chief merit lay in its apparent impossibility.
Sending one of the Castilian messengers on before to announce his coming, he and a few of the most trusted members of his household boldly crossed the frontier. The rest were disguised as merchants, Ferdinand himself as a servant; and at the inns where they were forced to halt he played his part, waiting at table and tending the mules. They did not stop often, riding in spite of the intense cold by day and night; with the result that they arrived before they were expected at the friendly town of Burgo de Osma. Ferdinand, whom excitement had rendered less tired and sleepy than the others, spurred forward as they came in sight of the gates, narrowly escaping death at the hands of an over-zealous sentry. Soon, however, their identity was explained, and amid the blowing of trumpets and joyful shouts the young King was welcomed by his allies.
At Valladolid the news of his arrival into safe territory was the signal for feasting and jousts, and preparations for the marriage were pushed on apace. Ferdinand came by night to Valladolid, and, being met at a postern gate by the Archbishop of Toledo was led to the house where the Princess lodged.