Between them he and the Marquis hatched a scheme, whose success would, they hoped, make them the arbiters of Castile. This was nothing less than a Portuguese alliance by which Alfonso V., married to his niece, would in her name cross the border, and aided by his Castilian allies drive out Ferdinand and his Queen. With this intention, the Marquis dispatched a letter to Alfonso full of showy promises. The most important Castilian nobles, he declared, including himself and all his relations, the Duke of Arévalo, and the Archbishop of Toledo, were pledged to Joanna’s cause; while numbers were only waiting to follow their example as soon as they were reassured by the first victory. Furthermore, he guaranteed the goodwill of fourteen of the principal towns in the kingdom; while, alluding to the factions that convulsed the rest, he prophesied that one side would be certain to adopt the Portuguese cause and with a little help secure the upper hand. Victory was the more certain by reason of the penniless state in which Henry IV. had left the treasury. It was impossible that Ferdinand and Isabel could compete without financial assistance against the wealth and well-known military strength of Portugal. Such arguments had a surface plausibility; though a statesman might have asked himself if they did not take Fortune’s smiles too much for granted. Was it safe to ignore the deep-rooted dislike that Castile bore Portugal, or to assume the friendliness of the larger towns, on whose possession the ultimate victory must depend? Alfonso V. was not the type of man to ask uncomfortable questions. He saw the object of his desire in a glamour that obscured the pitfalls along the road on which he must travel; and where courage and enthusiasm were the pilgrim’s main requisites he was rewarded by success. Three times he had defeated the Moors beyond the sea; and, dowered with the proud title “El Africano,” he now aspired to be the victor of a second Aljubarrota. The rôle pleased his romantic and highly strung nature for, while posing as the defender of injured womanhood in the person of his niece, he could also hope to avenge on Queen Isabel the slight his vanity had suffered from her persistent refusal of his suit. Practical-minded councillors shook their heads over his sanguine expectations and pointed out the untrustworthy reputations of the Marquis of Villena and the Archbishop of Toledo. That these same men had sworn to Joanna’s illegitimacy and made it a cause of rebellion against King Henry looked as if love of self rather than love of justice were now their inspiration. Isabel and the Cardinal of Spain wrote letters of remonstrance to the same effect, begging Alfonso to submit the matter to arbitration; but that credulous monarch chose to believe that their advice arose merely from a desire to gain time, and therefore hurried on his preparations for war.