After some time Charles of Viana was released from captivity; but the opposite party had in the meantime so successfully gained the upper hand in Navarre, that he could not maintain himself in the government. He betook himself to Naples to the court of his royal uncle Alfonso V, to beg for his intervention. The chivalrous, open bearing of the prince won him many friends and he was able to flatter himself with the prospect of being speedily reinstated in his mother’s inheritance by the aid of a powerful protector; but his uncle’s death rendered the hope vain (1458). By the dispositions of the late king’s will, his brother Juan was to succeed to his possessions in Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily, and his illegitimate son Ferdinand to the kingdom of Naples. [Sidenote: [1458-1461 A.D.]] The Neapolitans, who mistrusted the gloomy, equivocal character of the new prince, Ferdinand, tried in vain to persuade the chivalrous prince of Viana to come forward as a candidate for Naples, holding out to him the prospect of the people’s support. The magnanimous prince resisted the temptation; even in Sicily, to which he now turned, similar allurements awaited him; for there also the memory of his mother Blanche, who as the consort of King Martin had formerly won much affection in the island, procured him a good reception and many friends. But here again he withstood all seductive temptations; he contented himself with the generous assistance offered him by the gratitude of the islanders, and passed a long time in the quiet of a Benedictine cloister at Messina, occupied with scientific studies. He did not give up the thought of a reconciliation with his father and a restoration of his rights. After all he, as eldest son, was the rightful heir to the crown of Aragon, and the cortes of the three provinces were on his side. In this expectation he obeyed an invitation from his father to a personal interview at Iguala (1460). By a submissive and penitent demeanour towards the royal couple he endeavoured to put an end to the ancient enmity and win his father’s heart, but the queen, who wished to secure the succession to her own son Ferdinand, contrived to keep the distrust of her stepson still alive and by hostile insinuations to throw suspicion on everything he did. Whilst he was deceived by a delusive friendliness, he was surrounded by a web of intrigues. Above all there was exhibited a zealous eagerness to keep him from receiving any sort of homage or recognition of his rights on the part of the cortes.