The frantic jealousy of her husband during life, together with the knowledge that he was determined to confine her as a lunatic, whilst ruling her kingdom at his will, turned into gloomy misanthropy and rebellion at her fate at his death; and her refusal to sign the formal documents presented to her as Queen in the first days of her widowhood, made evident to the few nobles who kept their heads that some sort of government would have to be improvised, pending the return of Ferdinand from Naples. Juan Manuel, fiercely hated by every one, kept in the background; only hoping to save his life and some of his booty; but the stern old man in his coarse grey frock, to whom money and possessions were nothing, though, next to the Pope, he was the richest churchman in Christendom, Cardinal Jimenez, who perhaps was not taken by surprise by the opportune disappearance of Philip, had everything ready, even before the King died, for the establishment of a provisional government; and on the day of the death a meeting of all the nobles and deputies in Burgos confirmed the arrangements he had made. All parties of nobles were represented upon the governing council; but Jimenez himself was president, and soon became autocrat by right of his ability. Order was temporarily guaranteed, and all the members, in a self-denying ordinance, undertook not to try to obtain possession of the Queen or of her younger son, Ferdinand, who was in Simancas Castle,[116] the elder, Charles, being in Flanders. Joan, sunk in lethargy, refused to sign the decrees summoning Cortes; and the latter were irregularly convoked by the government. But when they were assembled, carefully chosen under Jimenez’s influence in favour of Ferdinand, Joan would not receive the members, until, under pressure, she did so only to tell them to go home and not meddle with government any more without her orders. Thus with a provisional government, whose mandate expired with the year 1506, a Queen who refused to rule, and already anarchy and rebellion rife in the South, Castilians could only pray for the prompt return of King Ferdinand, who, but a few short weeks before, had been expelled with every circumstance of insult and ignominy the realm he had ruled so long.