From this tour the Conventual section of the Franciscans did not emerge scatheless; and the indignation, aroused amongst its members, at the penalties inflicted and changes introduced was so great that an appeal against the Archbishop’s tyranny was finally lodged at Rome. Four hundred friars, it was declared, rather than submit to the new order of things had been driven to turn Mahometan and seek refuge in Africa. Such a tale might well have inspired the conviction that the drastic measures of the Queen and her adviser were fully justified; but in Alexander VI. it only prompted a heartfelt sympathy with the Conventuals; and in January, 1496, he dispatched a bull, forbidding further reform until he was satisfied as to its necessity. Isabel replied by sending special ambassadors to plead her side of the case; a transaction in which they succeeded so admirably that the Pope withdrew his opposition. In the meanwhile she and Cisneros had continued with unwavering energy the task they had begun. Her own share was no sinecure; for, taking her needlework or her spinning, she would visit the convents and, seated amongst the nuns, strive by her personal influence to win them back to a sense of their duties, and the devotion that could alone inspire their calling. According to his biographer, success also attended the harsher treatment meted out to the Franciscans by Cisneros, till at length “few monasteries remained where the rules of the Observants were not kept, to the great satisfaction of the Archbishop and edification of the people.”