Ferdinand in the meanwhile, having realized that the crisis of the war was over, had gone to Aragon to see his father. The old King, clear of mind and enterprising as ever at an age when most men have set aside their life work in weariness of spirit, was planning new schemes for gaining Roussillon and Cerdagne, while he worked to keep Navarre, now owned by his grandson Francis Phœbus, from undue French influence. He had fought through his other difficulties, recovered his sight, subdued Barcelona, achieved the Castilian alliance; perhaps time would be given him to realize the rest of his ambitions. If not, there was the son in whom he had always believed to carry on his work; and he greeted Ferdinand, not with the mediæval condescension of father to child, but with the reverence one sovereign offers to another of somewhat higher rank. From Aragon Ferdinand was called to help the men of Biscay and Guipuzcoa in their struggle against their French invaders; while Isabel, left as sole ruler in Castile, carried on her policy of mingled suppression and reconciliation. At the beginning of August, 1476, what threatened to be a serious rebellion broke out in Segovia, during the absence of the governor, Andres de Cabrera, now Marquis of Moya. The malcontents, whose disaffection had been roused by his appointment of certain officials, succeeded by a ruse in gaining entrance to the citadel and seized the deputy governor, the father of Beatriz de Bobadilla, while the rest of the garrison were forced to take refuge in one of the towers with the Infanta Isabel. The Queen, warned by messengers, came in haste from Tordesillas and found the city in confusion, all but one of the gates being in the hands of the insurgents. The latter begged her not to enter by the gate of San Juan, which remained faithful to Moya, nor to take with her Beatriz de Bobadilla his wife nor the Count of Benavente his friend, as such actions would be bitterly resented by the mob. To this Isabel sent prompt reply: Tell these knights and citizens of Segovia that I am Queen of Castile and this city is mine.... I need not laws nor conditions, such as they would impose, to enter into my own. Then with the Count of Benavente and the Cardinal of Spain, one on either side, she rode through the gate of San Juan and so to the Alcazar. Behind her surged the crowd, crying death to the Marquis and his adherents. So threatening was their attitude that the Cardinal of Spain begged her for her own safety to have the doors tightly closed and barred; but she, bidding them stay within, went out alone to the top of the staircase overlooking the big courtyard. At her command the gates were flung wide, and the mob surged through them, howling and gesticulating, but at the sight of the Queen their cries died away to silence. “My vassals, what do you seek?” she demanded, “for that which is for your good is for my service, and I am pleased that it should be done.”