The state of the town in the succeeding years was so terrible that the citizens sent the Bachelor Fernan Sanchez Calderon to supplicate the king's interference, and enable them to possess in security their goods and products of those who had beaten, robbed, and ruined the town. The King declined to interfere himself, and expressed surprise that a man of such marvellous learning and science as the bachelor should come on such an errand. To the King's rebuke, the bachelor replied: "God forfend, illustrious lord, that I should hold as worthy of your majesty's attention such things, but I accepted this embassy to make manifest to your excellency the evil things that are being done." The King retorted: "It is my duty to punish evil, not to reward it." Temporary peace came with the union of the two powerful houses of Ayala and Silva, in the marriage of Doña Maria de Silva and Pero Lopez de Ayala. But King Henry's entry into Toledo aroused the old lion. The alarm bells rung, and the citizens rushed armed to the bishop's palace, where the King was. Fearing bloodshed, a squadron of cavaliers rode hot haste to the palace and begged the King to leave the city, and he went forth surrounded by the reconciled Ayalas and Silvas. To all the troubles that followed between Isabel and Henry, Toledo added more than her share. One moment the nobles held the town, and then the people, both parties ever opposed in interests, allegiance, and both in reality caring greatly more for their own archbishop, their real sovereign, than the throned king who ruled all Castille. With two parties contending for the crown of Castille, Isabel and the _Beltranaje_, Henry's acknowledged heiress, his wife's but not his own daughter, sympathy ran high in Toledo on both sides. The Marquis of Villena attempted to capture the Princess Isabel, but was defeated by the vigilant archbishop, who collected a body of horse, and carried her off to Valladolid. Never were betrothal and marriage solemnised under more romantic and thrilling circumstances than were those of Isabel, Shakespeare's "queen of earthly queens," the sole majestic and perfect sovereign of Spain, and Ferdinand her unworthy husband, whose single virtue lay in the admirable way during her lifetime in which he seconded her rule. In gratitude for Toledo's sympathy, the great queen visited the town immediately after her marriage, but the scenes of her triumphs and glory lie elsewhere. There is but one blot on them, due to her husband and the terrible Torquemado, the introduction of the Inquisition into Castille. This was shortly before the great Cortes held at Toledo, 1480, where the salutary measures of reform instituted by her were such to leave her subjects awestruck in admiration of her genius. But there were the Portuguese and the Moors calling her attention, with blare of trumpet and shock of steel, while Toledo's true sovereign was the great Cardinal, the Cardinal of Spain, Mendoza. Gallant, learned and liberal, a _grand