In the meanwhile the fires of rebellion were alight once more in Andalusia and burnt so furiously, that it was felt only the King in person could hope to allay them. With great reluctance he left his sister in Ocaña, but he dared not risk further unpopularity by using force. At the Master of Santiago’s suggestion he demanded that she should promise to take no new steps about her marriage until his return, thinking in this way to place her in an equivocal position. Either she would refuse, in which case she would stand self-convicted of some secret plot, or she would take the oath, condemning herself as a perjurer if she broke it. Isabel, appreciating the situation, gave her promise. Even the Master of Santiago, for all his vigilance, did not know that her consent to the Aragonese alliance was of previous date, and therefore arrangements concerned with it could be argued not to fall under the heading “new.” As soon as Henry IV. and his favourite had gone southwards, she herself left Ocaña, with the ostensible object of taking her brother Alfonso’s body to be buried in state at Avila, and from there went to Madrigal her birthplace, where her mother was living. It was her hope that here she would be able to complete her negotiations with King John and his son, undetected; but she found the Bishop of Burgos, a nephew of the Master of Santiago, in the town ready to spy on all her actions. The King had by now planned for his sister a new match, with Charles, Duke of Berri, brother and heir-presumptive to Louis XI. Not only would this alliance cement the customary friendship of Castile and France, but Isabel’s close connection with the French throne would remove her very thoroughly from the danger zone of Castilian affairs. When the Cardinal of Arras arrived in Andalusia he was therefore encouraged by Henry to go to Madrigal in person and urge the Duke’s suit. Nothing doubting the success of his mission, for he was a man famed for his oratory, the Cardinal, having gained admittance to the Princess, brought forward all his arguments, laying stress not only on the wealth and personal charms of the Duke, but on the joy such an alliance would give her father in the other world. Now Isabel had previously sent secret messengers to report on the respective appearance and bearing of Ferdinand and the French Duke, and the comparison was hardly favourable to the latter, who was a weakling with thin ungainly limbs and watery eyes. She could thus estimate the worth of the Cardinal’s statements and replied firmly that “she could not dispose of her hand in marriage save by the advice of the leading nobles and knights of the kingdoms, and that having consulted them she would do what God ordained.”