l della Rovere, in high dudgeon, flung out of Rome and
away to his Castle of Ostia to fortify--to wield the sword of St. Paul,
since he had missed the keys of St. Peter. It was a shrewd move.
He foresaw the injured dignity of the Spanish House of Naples, and
Ferrante's wrath at the Pope's light treatment of him and apathy for
his interests; and the cardinal knew that with Ferrante were allied the
mighty houses of Colonna and Orsini. Thus, by his political divorcement
from the Holy See, he flung in his lot with theirs, hoping for red war
and the deposition of Alexander.

But surely he forgot Milan and Lodovico Maria, whose brother, Ascanio
Sforza, was at the Pope's elbow, the energetic friend to whose efforts
Alexander owed the tiara, and who was therefore hated by della Rovere
perhaps as bitterly as Alexander himself.

Alexander went calmly about the business of fortifying the Vatican and
the Castle of Sant' Angelo, and gathering mercenaries into his service.
And, lest any attempt should be made upon his life when he went abroad,
he did so with an imposing escort of men-at-arms; which so vexed and
fretted King Ferrante, that he did not omit to comment upon it in
scathing terms in a letter that presently we shall consider. For the
rest, the Pope's Holiness preserved an unruffled front in the face of
the hostile preparations that were toward in the kingdom of Naples,
knowing that he could check them when he chose to lift his finger and
beckon the Sforza into alliance. And presently Naples heard an alarming
rumour that Lodovico Maria had, in fact, made overtures to the Pope,
and that the Pope had met these advances to the extent of betrothing
his daughter Lucrezia to Giovanni Sforza, Lord of Pesaro and cousin to
Lodovico.

So back to the Vatican went the Neapolitan envoys with definite
proposals of an alliance to be cemented by a marriage between Giuffredo
Borgia--aged twelve--and Ferrante's granddaughter Lucrezia of Aragon.
The Pope, with his plans but half-matured as yet, temporized, was
evasive, and continued to arm and to recruit. At last, his arrangements
completed, he abruptly broke off his negotiations with Naples, and on
April 25, 1493, publicly proclaimed that he had joined the northern
league.

The fury of Ferrante, who realized that he had been played with and
outwitted, was expressed in a rabid letter to his ambassador at the
Court of Spain.

"This Pope," he wrote, "leads a life that is the abomination of