This was equivalent to a refusal; and the Cardinal, having exerted his eloquence once more in vain, returned to France, nursing his resentment and wrath. He left the Princess in a critical position; for her brother could draw but one conclusion from her refusal of such an advantageous match; and he and the Master of Santiago now strained every effort to stop her marriage with the King of Sicily. Unable to leave Andalusia themselves, they warned the citizens of Madrigal that any favour shown to the Princess would be regarded as an act of treachery to the Crown, while she was so surrounded by spies and enemies that even her faithful lady-in-waiting, Beatriz de Bobadilla, grew frightened and besought her to break off the Aragonese alliance. Isabel knew that, once intimidated into doing this, she would remain absolutely at her brother’s mercy, and she therefore implored the Archbishop of Toledo to come to her assistance before it was too late. A lover of bold and decisive actions, that warlike prelate was soon at the gates of Madrigal at the head of an armed force; and Isabel, refusing to listen to the threats of the Bishop of Burgos, at once joined him, going with him to Valladolid, the headquarters of the Admiral, Don Fadrique. She had burned her boats, and it only remained for the man on whom she had pinned her faith to play his part in the drama adequately. Both Ferdinand and his father realized the seriousness of the situation. If the treaty of Fuenterrabia had spelled trouble and disaster for Castile, it had been the source of even greater evils in Aragon; for the Catalans, far from returning to their old allegiance, as they were advised, had continued to maintain their desperate resistance in Barcelona. They had elected as their Count first one prince of royal extraction and then another; each new puppet doomed to ultimate failure, but leaving behind him a defiance increasing in ferocity as it lost power in other ways. Nor was chronic rebellion John II.’s only serious trouble. The important counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne, pledged to Louis XI. in return for troops, had been seized by that monarch, as soon as he saw his neighbour too involved in difficulties to show practical resentment; and the web of French diplomacy was now being spun over Navarre, through the medium of the King of Aragon’s son-in-law, the Count of Foix. Personal sorrows added their quota: the loss of sight at a time when political clouds looked blackest, followed by the death of Queen Joanna, whose courage and brains had made her a fitting helpmate for her ambitious husband, whether in the council-chamber or on the battlefield. John was indeed repaid with added measure for the turbulence and treachery of his early days; but like many men of his type he showed better in adversity than in success. Doggedly he laid fresh plans, and Providence that seldom hates the brave rewarded him by the recovery of his eyesight.