Before the cessation of domestic hostilities, Isabella had been sorely tried by various projects which had been advanced for her marriage. She had been brought up by her mother, Queen Isabella, in the little town of Arevalo, which had been settled upon her at the time of the death of her husband, King John II. There, in quiet and seclusion, quite apart from the vice and tumult of the capital, the little princess had been under the close tutelage of the Church, as her mother had grown quite devout with advancing years; and as Isabella ripened into womanhood, it became evident that she possessed a high seriousness and a strength of character quite unusual. Still, all was uncertain as to her fate. Her brother Henry had first endeavored to marry her to Alfonso V. of Portugal, the elder and infamous brother of his own shameless queen, but Isabella had declined this alliance on the ground that it had not been properly ratified by the Cortes of Castile, and as a result the plan was soon dropped. In the midst of the rebellion which had broken out after Henry's attempt to foist La Beltraneja upon the state, he had proposed as a conciliatory measure that one of the most turbulent of the factional leaders, Don Pedro Giron, Grand Master of Calatrava, should wed Isabella, and the offer had been accepted. This man, who was old enough to be her father, was stained with vice, in spite of his exalted position in the religious Order of Calatrava, and his character was so notoriously vile that the mere mention of such an alliance was nothing short of insult to Isabella. Again she did not allow herself to be dominated by her brother, and after announcing that she utterly refused to consent to such an arrangement, she shut herself up in her apartments and declared her intention of resisting any attempts which might be made to coerce her. But the king gave no heed to her remonstrances, and made arrangements for the wedding festivities, the bridegroom having been summoned. The pope had absolved the profligate grand master from his vows of celibacy, which he had never kept, and poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was able to breathe again freely.