Tell these knights and citizens of Segovia that I am Queen of Castile and this city is mine.... I need not laws nor conditions, such as they would impose, to enter into my own.
Then with the Count of Benavente and the Cardinal of Spain, one on either side, she rode through the gate of San Juan and so to the Alcazar. Behind her surged the crowd, crying death to the Marquis and his adherents. So threatening was their attitude that the Cardinal of Spain begged her for her own safety to have the doors tightly closed and barred; but she, bidding them stay within, went out alone to the top of the staircase overlooking the big courtyard. At her command the gates were flung wide, and the mob surged through them, howling and gesticulating, but at the sight of the Queen their cries died away to silence.
“My vassals, what do you seek?” she demanded, “for that which is for your good is for my service, and I am pleased that it should be done.”
One of the crowd, speaking for the rest, begged that Andres de Cabrera might no longer have command of the Alcazar.
“That which you wish, I wish also,” answered the Queen.
She then bade them go up at once to the towers and walls and drive out all who were in possession, whether of Cabrera’s following or the actual rebels who had since occupied the place.
“I will entrust it,” she added, “to one of my servants, who will guard both his loyalty to me and your honour.”
Her words put an end to the rebellion for, both Cabrera’s adherents and the insurgent leaders being suppressed, the city remained quiet, and Isabel was able to enquire into the true facts of the case. This resulted in the punishment and dismissal of various minor officials, but the Marquis of Moya, whose conduct was cleared, was restored to his responsible post.
When Ferdinand returned from Biscay, the sovereigns, after a short time together, were separated once more; he remaining in the north to watch over the affairs of Aragon and France, while she went south to Estremadura and Andalusia. The civil war was practically at an end. Here and there some strongly fortified place still floated the Portuguese standard; or the nobles, like wild horses bridled for the first time and unable to believe themselves mastered, chafed in secret conspiracies or flamed into spasmodic rebellion. The history of their suppression is connected rather with the work of reconstruction than of actual warfare. For the moment this one change, effected by the sovereigns’ methods, challenges our attention,—that the great cities of the south, lately the scenes of chronic feuds and rebellions, were turning again to be the centres of civilization and justice for their neighbourhoods.
