And on the seventh day [wrote the Queen to Fra Fernando] the fever reached its climax, so that we were then in fear greater than all that through which we had previously passed; and this lasted a day and a night of which I will not say that which Saint Gregory said in the Office for Holy Saturday, more than that it was a night of hell; so that you may believe, Father, never was the like seen amongst the people at any time, for officials ceased their work, and none paused to speak with another. All was pilgrimages, processions, and almsgiving, and more hearing of confessions than ever in Holy Week. Ferdinand was popular in Barcelona, and the Council of Justice there condemned his assassin to a death of ghastly torment, of which tearing the flesh with red-hot pincers formed but a part. One is thankful that Isabel issued a special command ordering the man to be beheaded before this barbarous sentence was enacted. Her love for Ferdinand was the strongest of her personal affections, growing rather than diminishing as the years passed, so that, dying, she sought that she should not be parted from him for long. Let my body be interred in the monastery of San Francisco, which is in the Alhambra of the city of Granada, ... but I desire and command that, if the King, My Lord, should choose a sepulchre in any church or monastery in any other part or place of these my kingdoms, my body be translated thither and buried beside the body of His Highness. Her wish is fulfilled, and the Catholic sovereigns lie side by side in the Royal Chapel of Granada; but the love she gave in such ungrudging measure was never fully returned. Isabel was fair in her youth, not beautiful perhaps, but graceful and dignified, with soft chestnut-coloured hair, and blue-green eyes that looked out candidly upon the world; and to Ferdinand, arriving in disguise at Valladolid, his blood set on fire by romance and excitement, she had seemed a bride very worthy of his chivalrous care. Later he learned to respect and admire her both as his wife and Queen, to love her even after his fashion; but he was temperamentally cold and self-centred, and the age set no high standard of fidelity. The chronicles record that he had four illegitimate children by different mothers, of whom one, Alfonso, became Archbishop of Saragossa; and Isabel was destined to suffer bitterly from a jealousy intensified by her pride and strength of will. [Illustration: TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABEL FROM NERVO’S “ISABELLE LA CATHOLIQUE” ] Her private life was not, however, unhappy, at least in those years when her own children were growing up around her, and she could find time amid the many cares of state to superintend their education and build dream kingdoms round their future. Her ambitions and Ferdinand’s were alike centred on their only son, Prince John, whose birth in Seville on June 30, 1478, we have mentioned in an earlier chapter.