The strange phases of her life, which had formed her character to a tone of masculine decision, had not yet developed the softer qualities she possessed. Born in the midst of conspiracy, she had been the toy of each party in turn; now with her mother leading almost a cloistered life, then dragged into the fierce magnificence of an abandoned court. Forcibly affianced to any prince who suited the king’s politics, even refusing food and sleep to escape from these toils. Passionately urged by the archbishop to assume the crown on the death of her brother Alfonso, and firmly resisting a proposal she looked on as treason, she had already passed through the vicissitudes of a long and chequered career ere her own life had begun. Yet her innate purity had not suffered from contact with the vileness of others. The secrets of life were open to her. She knew all that should be hid from the mind of an innocent woman, but this only served to form her character to the most rigid virtue and to make of her the great sovereign she became. Isabel’s noble qualities had been developed under two stormy reigns--the feeble, humiliating government of her father Juan II., and the vicious violence and treachery of her brother Enrique. Since the death of her father she had never known what it was to be free. Secluded after the dethronement she had been summoned to Burgos as a pledge of the good faith of the king; but what she had seen there had so deeply disgusted her, that she entreated the Archbishop of Toledo, who had charge of her, to make her a home apart with her little court at Valladolid. And now the moment has come which will decide her life. * * * * * All human lights are extinguished. The moon rides high in the heaven in fields of azure light over the sleeping town of Valladolid. The stars have come out one by one, doubling themselves on the shallow waters of the Pisuerga that flows by the walls through woods of light-branched aspen and elm. Not a breath stirs outside the old palace, so quaint in its homely outlines, except when the _sereno_ passes and rouses the ire of some whelping cur to bay at the full moon. Looking at that quiet front, who could guess that a drama is to be enacted within between two young princes, the issue of which will permanently alter the politics, religion, and government, not only of the Old World but of the New, shortly to be discovered by Columbus? * * * * * As midnight strikes at San Pablo, the tapestry is withdrawn, and, under the sudden glare of torches and candles, the Archbishop of Toledo appears, leading in the upright figure of the Infante of Aragon concealed in a cloak. With him enters Don Gutierra de Cardeñas, and, too impatient to wait for the more formal presentation of the archbishop, he presses on Ferdinand in front of the Infanta. “Look at him!” he cries, “_Ese es_” (this is he), in memory of which the Cardeñas’ shield still bears the letters S.S.