This answer deprived the league of any legitimate excuse for rebellion; and they therefore sent letters to the King, declaring their willingness to return to his service, if he would acknowledge Isabel as heir to the throne. The Marquis of Villena also pressed the suggestion, thinking by this means to re-establish his influence completely; since his enemies, the House of Mendoza, and especially its cleverest representative Pedro Gonsalez, Bishop of Siguenza, who had been promoted from the See of Calahorra, had taken up the cause of Queen Joanna and her daughter. Henry, anxious for peace, no matter what the price, fell in with Villena’s schemes. On the 19th of September, 1468, a meeting was held at the Toros de Guisandos near Avila; and there, in the presence of the Papal Legate, Henry swore away for a second time the honour of his so-called daughter, and recognized Isabel as legitimate heir to the throne and Princess of Asturias. By the terms of an agreement previously drawn up, he also promised that his sister should not be compelled to marry against her will, while she in return agreed to obtain his consent; furthermore he declared that he would divorce and send back to her own land his wife, whose lax behaviour had now become a byword. Isabel’s own position had materially improved; and there were no lack of suitors for this eligible heiress. Amongst them was a brother of Edward IV. of England, but whether the Duke of Clarence or Richard of Gloucester, the chroniclers do not say. The English alliance was never very seriously considered, whereas a veritable war of diplomacy was to be waged around the other proposals. The Infanta’s chief adviser at this time was the Archbishop of Toledo, though it does not appear that she was as much under his thumb, as Enriquez de Castillo would have us believe. There is evidence of considerable independence of judgment both in her refusal of the crown on Alfonso’s death, and in her willingness to meet her brother at the Toros de Guisandos, in spite of the Archbishop’s violent opposition. Throughout the negotiations, the Archbishop had been on the watch for evidence of some hidden plot, and only Isabel’s tact and firmness had induced him to accompany her to the meeting. Nevertheless it was natural that a girl of her age should rely considerably on the judgment of a man so well versed in the politics of the day, especially as the alliance that he urged appealed in every way to her own inclinations. Ferdinand of Aragon, the Archbishop’s protégé, was her junior by eleven months; a slight disparity in comparison with the age of former suitors such as Charles of Viana, Alfonso of Portugal, and the Master of Calatrava, all her seniors by at least twenty years.