This advice pleased Ferdinand and Isabel, and soon the humiliating terms, on which the Prince should receive his liberty, were drawn up and signed. Boabdil did homage to the rulers of Castile, consenting to pay an annual tribute of twelve thousand doblas of gold, and to surrender four hundred Christian captives. Most galling of all, he publicly promised to appear at the Castilian Court, whenever summoned, and to allow the Christian armies free passage through his territory, in their campaigns against Muley Hacen and “El Zagal.” Having surrendered his own son and those of his principal nobles as hostages for his good faith, he returned to his own kingdom, free; yet bound by chains that were to cost him his kingdom and hold him in perpetual bondage. CHAPTER VII THE FALL OF GRANADA: THE MOORISH WAR 1484–1492 The kingdom of Granada had been cut off by land and sea from outward assistance, her plains and valleys had been ravaged by a foreign foe, her principal towns were torn by the factions of her ruling family, yet she turned a defiant, almost mocking gaze on those who had pledged themselves to her downfall. The thought of this defiance rankled with the Queen as bitterly as had the contempt shown for her commands by the young Enriquez. There was nothing in her nature of the Oriental acceptance of ill-fortune as the will of a far-seeing Providence. Disaster to her spelt rather divine wrath visited on human incompetency; and Isabel looked on even temporary failure as something unclean and abhorrent, that could only be purified and overcome by perseverance ending in success. So sincere was her conviction, so wholehearted and untiring her share in whatever plan of action was laid down, that she could not but inspire her generals and councillors with something of her own enthusiasm. At times her will clashed with Ferdinand’s ambitions, as when in 1484 he urged her to leave the weary struggle against Granada and help him regain the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne; but though in later years the foreign policy of Aragon was to assume predominance, on this occasion the interests of Castile were jealously maintained. Ferdinand argued his cause with no little truth and ability. The death of Louis XI. in the previous summer had left his son Charles VIII., a mere boy, as the figurehead of France, to the natural weakening of the government. Now was the time, before the child developed into a man, to win back Aragon’s lawful possessions, the Pyrenean counties, whose sympathies were Spanish rather than French. Isabel did not attempt to controvert these views. She even admitted that had it been a question of making war on Granada for the first time, or recovering Roussillon or Cerdagne, the latter policy would have been undoubtedly the best.