Like Juan Pacheco, he loved wealth, the more that he was in secret an alchemist and squandered the revenues of his see in a vain endeavour to make gold; but even the glitter of precious metals lost its charm beside his lust for power and influence. He must be first. This was the motive that had driven him to desert Henry IV., to break with his nephew in the revolt of the League, and now, finally, when the cause for which he had laboured was on the eve of success, to renounce his allegiance to Isabel, because of his jealousy of her new adviser the Cardinal of Spain.
In vain the Queen, who knew his character, tried to dissipate his suspicions. Carrillo’s temperament set his imagination afire at the least glimmer of insult or neglect; his manner grew morose and overbearing, his desire for gifts and rewards every day more rapacious. At length, when Ferdinand ventured to oppose his demands, the Archbishop openly expressed his anger and, leaving the Court, withdrew to his town of Alcalá de Henares, where he began to plot secretly with Joanna’s supporters.
Between them he and the Marquis hatched a scheme, whose success would, they hoped, make them the arbiters of Castile. This was nothing less than a Portuguese alliance by which Alfonso V., married to his niece, would in her name cross the border, and aided by his Castilian allies drive out Ferdinand and his Queen. With this intention, the Marquis dispatched a letter to Alfonso full of showy promises. The most important Castilian nobles, he declared, including himself and all his relations, the Duke of Arévalo, and the Archbishop of Toledo, were pledged to Joanna’s cause; while numbers were only waiting to follow their example as soon as they were reassured by the first victory. Furthermore, he guaranteed the goodwill of fourteen of the principal towns in the kingdom; while, alluding to the factions that convulsed the rest, he prophesied that one side would be certain to adopt the Portuguese cause and with a little help secure the upper hand. Victory was the more certain by reason of the penniless state in which Henry IV. had left the treasury. It was impossible that Ferdinand and Isabel could compete without financial assistance against the wealth and well-known military strength of Portugal.
Such arguments had a surface plausibility; though a statesman might have asked himself if they did not take Fortune’s smiles too much for granted. Was it safe to ignore the deep-rooted dislike that Castile bore Portugal, or to assume the friendliness of the larger towns, on whose possession the ultimate victory must depend? Alfonso V. was not the type of man to ask uncomfortable questions. He saw the object of his desire in a glamour that obscured the pitfalls along the road on which he must travel; and where courage and enthusiasm were the pilgrim’s main requisites he was rewarded by success. Three times he had defeated the Moors beyond the sea; and, dowered with the proud title “El Africano,” he now aspired to be the victor of a second Aljubarrota. The rôle pleased his romantic and highly strung nature for, while posing as the defender of injured womanhood in the person of his niece, he could also hope to avenge on Queen Isabel the slight his vanity had suffered from her persistent refusal of his suit.
Practical-minded councillors shook their heads over his sanguine expectations and pointed out the untrustworthy reputations of the Marquis of Villena and the Archbishop of Toledo. That these same men had sworn to Joanna’s illegitimacy and made it a cause of rebellion against King Henry looked as if love of self rather than love of justice were now their inspiration.
Isabel and the Cardinal of Spain wrote letters of remonstrance to the same effect, begging Alfonso to submit the matter to arbitration; but that credulous monarch chose to believe that their advice arose merely from a desire to gain time, and therefore hurried on his preparations for war.
In May, 1475, having collected an army of 5600 horse and 14,000 foot, he crossed the border and advanced to Plasencia. His plan of campaign was to march from there northwards in the direction of Toro and Zamora, as secret correspondence had aroused his hope of winning both these strongholds. At Plasencia he halted, until the Marquis of Villena and the Duke of Arévalo appeared with his niece, and then he and Joanna were married on a lofty platform in the centre of the city, the marriage awaiting fulfilment pending the necessary dispensation from Rome. A herald, however, using the old formula at once proclaimed the union: “Castile! Castile for the King Don Alfonso of Portugal and the Queen Doña Joanna his wife, the rightful owner of these kingdoms.”
From Plasencia the Portuguese at length marched to Arévalo, where another delay, this time of two months, took place, Alfonso determining to await the troops that had been promised him by his Castilian allies. He had with him the chivalry of his own Court, young hot-bloods, who had pledged their estates in the prospect of speedy glory and pillage. In their self-confidence the easy theories of Villena found an echo; and they loudly boasted that Ferdinand and his wife would never dare to meet them, but were in all probability on the road to Aragon. “Before gaining the victory they divided the spoil,” comments Pulgar sarcastically.
The Castilian sovereigns were far from meditating flight. The war had not been of their choosing, but, since it had been forced upon them, they were ready to prosecute it to the end. For the moment affairs looked threatening. Not only was their treasury practically empty, and a hostile army on the march across their western border, but news came from France that Louis XI., who had at first expressed his pleasure at their accession, was now in league with their enemies and intended to invade the provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa; Villena and his companions were in arms; the Archbishop of Toledo sulking in Alcalá de Henares.
To him the Queen determined to go and address a last appeal in person, leaving her husband to watch the movements of the Portuguese from Valladolid. Some of those at Court, who knew the pitch of resentment and fury to which the old Primate had brought his broodings, assured her that her mission would be in vain, saying that it was beneath her dignity to thus humble herself to a subject. Isabel replied that she counted as little on his service as she feared his disloyalty, and that if he had been anyone else, she would most certainly have weighed the matter more carefully, but she added, “I would not accuse myself later with the thought that if I had gone to him in person, he would have withdrawn from the false road he now seeks to follow.”