From the time when "il gran Capitano" Consalvo, on behalf of his master, Ferdinand of Spain, having previously assisted the French in driving out the unfortunate Frederick, the last of the Aragonese kings of Naples, had afterwards finally succeeded in expelling the French from their share of the stolen kingdom, the affairs of the Colonna cousins, Fabrizio and Prospero, began to brighten. The last French troops quitted Naples on January 1, 1504. By a diploma, bearing date November 15, 1504,[160] and still preserved among the Colonna archives, eighteen baronies were conferred on Prospero Colonna by Ferdinand. On the 28th of the same month, all the fiefs which Fabrizio had formerly possessed in the Abruzzi were restored to him; and by another deed, dated the same day, thirty-three others, in the Abruzzi and the Terra di Lavoro, were bestowed on him. In the meantime, earth had been relieved from the presence of the Borgia Vicegerent of heaven, and Julius II. reigned in his stead. By him the Colonna were relieved from their excommunication, and restored to all their Roman possessions. So that the news of the family fortunes, which from time to time reached the daughter of the house in her happy retirement in rocky Ischia, from the period at which she began to be of an age to appreciate the importance of such matters, were altogether favourable. [Sidenote: AFFAIRS IN NAPLES.] But the tranquil life there during these years was not unbroken by sympathy with the vicissitudes which were variously affecting the excitable city, over which the little recluse court looked from their island home. The untimely death of Ferdinand II., on Friday, October 7, 1496, threw the first deep shade over the household of the Duchessa di Francavilla, which had crossed it since Vittoria had become its inmate. Never, according to the contemporary journalist, Giuliano Passeri,[161] was prince more truly lamented by his people of every class. Almost immediately after his marriage, the young king and his wife both fell ill at Somma, near Naples. The diarist describes the melancholy spectacle of the two biers, supporting the sick king and queen, entering their capital side by side. Everything that the science of the time could suggest, even to the carrying in procession of the head as well as the blood of St. Januarius, was tried in vain. The young king, of whom so much was hoped, died; and there arose throughout the city, writes Passeri, "a cry of weeping so great, that it seemed as if the whole world were falling in ruin, all, both great and small, male and female, crying aloud to heaven for pity. So that I truly think, that since God made the world, a greater weeping than this was never known."