This expedition, then, made firm the pedestal on which had been erected the great figure of D. John of Austria, and thenceforward he was looked up to by the captains as a leader, loved like a father by the soldiers and crews of the ships; the poor galley slaves, _tied to the hard bench_, saw in him a sort of archangel who descended to the purgatory of their prison to ease their work and raise their hopes, and never throwing their offences in their teeth. The death of Prince Carlos was announced to D. John when he disembarked at Barcelona; it had occurred two months before on the 24th of July, the Eve of St. James's Day, while D. John was at sea. This news affected him greatly, not so much for the death of the Prince, which was holy and Christian, and the best thing that could have happened to the unlucky man, but more for the sorrow he imagined it would cause to D. Philip as King and father. These sad warnings of the uncertainty of life made D. John remember the promise he had made Doña Magdalena de Ulloa to retire for a while to the convent of Abrojo to meditate in solitude on the eternal truths, and this seemed to him the best opportunity of fulfilling his word. The King gladly gave permission, and D. John set out for Madrid and from thence to Valladolid, where Doña Magdalena de Ulloa was waiting for him. There the sad news reached him that his sister-in-law, the good and gentle Queen, Doña Isabel of the Peace, had died on the 3rd of October (1568); this fresh sorrow spurred D. John on to put into execution his design of retiring to the convent of Abrojo, with only two valets and the secretary Juan de Quiroga. The monastery of Scala-Cœli, commonly called "of Abrojo," from the wood of that name in the midst of which Alvar Deaz de Villacreses founded it, was a convent of bare-footed Franciscans, situated in this thicket, half a league from Valladolid. The Kings of Castille had much veneration for it and made it a royal fortress, surrounding it with towers and battlemented walls, and by the church they kept for themselves a humble lodging where they retired for certain religious solemnities and in their times of mourning and sorrow. There was, in D. John's day, a very devout servant of God, called Fr. Juan de Calahorra, at Abrojo, who had known him as Jeromín in his youthful days, and had confessed him and often directed him in Valladolid and Villagarcia. D. John much esteemed his holiness and gentle ways, and wished to keep the brother at his side as confessor and spiritual director during all the time he was in retreat, which was more than two months. But during this time alarming news reached the solitude of the convent of Abrojo of the rebellion of the Moors of Granada, and Juan de Quiroga, who, like all those who knew him well, simply adored D. John and recognised his military qualities, which only needed scope in which to expand and triumph, advised him to beg the King to give him the command of the expedition.