Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 401, March 1849

In a very few months after the equivocal union he had brought about, Alburquerque began to experience its bad effects. Maria Padilla secretly incited the young king to shake off his leading-strings, and grasp the reins of government. Afraid to do this boldly and abruptly, Pedro conspired with the Padillas, and planned a reconciliation with his brothers Henry and Tello, believing, in his inexperience, that he could nowhere find better friends, or more disinterested advisers. The secret of the plot was well kept: Alburquerque unsuspiciously accepted a frivolous mission to the King of Portugal; during his absence, a treaty of amity was concluded between the king and the two bastards. Whilst these intrigues went on, Blanche of Bourbon, niece of the King of France, waited at Valladolid, in company with the dowager queens of Castile and Arragon, until it should please Pedro to go thither and marry her. Pedro had established himself at Torrijos near Toledo, holding tournaments and festivals in honour of his mistress, with whom he was more in love than ever; and the French princess waited several months, to the great indignation of her suite of knights and nobles. Suddenly a severe countenance troubled the joy of Maria Padilla's lover. It was that of Alburquerque, who, in grave and regretful words, represented to the king the affront he put upon the house of France, and the anxiety of his subjects, who awaited, in his marriage, a guarantee of future tranquillity. It was of the utmost importance to give a legitimate heir to the crown of Castile. Subjugated by the voice of reason, and by the old ascendency of his austere counsellor, Pedro set out for Valladolid, and was joined on his way by Count Henry and Don Tello, who came to meet him on foot and unarmed; kissed his foot and his right hand, as he sat on horseback; and were received by him with all honour and favour, to the mortification of Alburquerque, who saw in this reconciliation a proof of the credit of the Padillas, and a humiliating blow to his authority. The mortification was all the greater that he, a veteran politician, had been outwitted by mere children. On the third day of June the king's marriage took place, the royal pair being conducted in great pomp to the church, mounted upon white palfreys, and attired in robes of gold brocade trimmed with ermine – a costume then reserved for sovereigns. In their retinue, Henry of Trastamare had the precedence of the princes of Arragon – an honour held excessive by some, and attributed by others to the sincerity of the reconciliation between the sons of Don Alphonso. A tournament and bull-fight succeeded the ceremony, and were renewed the next day. "But in the midst of these festivities, all eyes were fixed upon the newly-married pair. Coldness, and even aversion for his young bride, were visible upon the king's countenance; and as it was difficult to understand how a man of his age, ardent and voluptuous, could be insensible to the attractions of the French princess, many whispered that he was fascinated by Maria Padilla, and that his eyes, charmed by magic art, beheld a repulsive object in place of the young beauty he led to the altar. Aversion, like sympathy, has its inexplicable mysteries."²⁷

Upon the second day after his marriage, Don Pedro being alone at dinner in his palace, (the dinner hour in those days was at nine or ten in the morning,) his mother and aunt appeared before him, all in tears, and, having obtained a private audience, taxed him with being about to desert his wife, and return to Maria Padilla. The king expressed his astonishment that they should credit idle rumours, and dismissed them, repeating that he thought not of quitting Valladolid. An hour afterwards he called for mules, saying he would go visit his mother; but, instead of doing so, he left the city, accompanied only by the brother of his mistress, Don Diego Padilla, and by two of his most confidential gentlemen. Regular relays were in waiting, and he slept that night at sixteen long leagues from Valladolid. The next day Doña Maria met him at Puebla de Montalvan. This strange and indecent escapade was simultaneous with a complete transfer of the king's confidence from Alburquerque to his brothers and the Padillas. The minister preserved his dignity to the last, and sent a haughty but respectful message to his sovereign, by the mouth of his majordomo. "You know, sire," concluded this knight, Rui Diaz Cabeza de Vaca, "all that Don Juan Alonzo has done for your service, and for that of the queen your mother. He has been your chancellor from your birth. He has always loyally served you, as he served the late king your father. For you he exposed himself to great perils, when Doña Leonora de Guzman, and her faction, had all power in the kingdom. My master is still ignorant of the crimes imputed to him: make them known to him, and he will refute them. Nevertheless, if any knight do doubt his honour and his loyalty, I, his vassal, am here ready to defend him with my body, and with arms in hand." Thus did the arrogant ricos hombres of the fourteenth century dare address their sovereign, by the mouth of their knightly retainers. What a contrast between these bold-spoken, strong-armed magnates, and the puny degenerate grandees of the present day, sunk in vice, effeminacy, and sloth, and to whom valour, chivalry, and patriotism are but empty sounds! Alburquerque is a fine type of the feudal lord – noble as a crowned king, and almost as powerful. Receiving a cold and discouraging reply to Cabeza de Vaca's lofty harangue, he retired, followed by an army of adherents and vassals, to his vast domains and strong castle in Portugal. On their passage, his men-at-arms pillaged and devastated the country, that being then the most approved manner for a feudal lord to testify his discontent. Don Pedro ill concealed his joy at being thus easily rid of an importunate mentor, whose faithful services to himself and his father rendered a positive dismissal a most ungraceful act, the shame of which was saved the king by Alburquerque's voluntary retreat. The reaction was complete: all the ex-minister's friends were dismissed, and their places filled by partisans of the Padillas. Many of his acts were annulled, and several sentences he had given were reversed. Pedro had no rest till he had effaced every vestige of his wise and prudent administration. Ingratitude has too often been the vice of kings; in this instance it brought its own punishment. A few months later we find Henry of Trastamare, and his brother Tello, leagued with Alburquerque against the sovereign who had disgraced him in great measure on their account. This perfidy of the bastards was perfectly in keeping with the character of the age. "To characterise the fourteenth century in Spain by its most prevalent vice," says M. Mérimée, "one should cite, in my opinion, neither brutality of manners, nor rapacity, nor violence. The most prominent feature of that sad period is its falseness and deceit: never did history register so many acts of treason and perfidy. The century, rude in all other things, shows itself ingenious in the art of deception. It revels in subtleties. In all agreements, and even in the code of chivalrous honour, it conceals ambiguities, by which interest knows well how to profit. The oaths lavished in all transactions, accompanied by the most solemn ceremonies, are but vain formalities and matters of habit. He who plights his word, his hand upon the holy Scriptures, is believed by none unless he deliver up his wife and children, or, better still, his fortresses, as hostages for his truth. The latter pledge is held to be the only safe guarantee. Distrust is general, and every man sees an enemy in his neighbour." The fidelity of this gloomy picture is fully confirmed by the events of Don Pedro's reign. Alburquerque set the example to his royal pupil, who was not slow to follow it, and who soon, in his turn, suffered from the dominant vice of the time.

The necessity of pressing forward through a book whose every page offers temptations to linger, prevents our tracing, in detail, the subsequent events of Alburquerque's life. He died in the autumn of 1354, almost suddenly, at Medina del Campo, which he and his confederates had taken by assault, and given up to pillage. His physician, Master Paul, an Italian attached to the house of Prince Ferdinand of Arragon, was suspected of having mixed a subtle poison in the draught he administered to him for an apparently trifling indisposition. Don Pedro, the person most interested in the death of his quondam counsellor, and now bitter enemy, was accused of instigating the deed, and magnificent presents subsequently made by him to the leech, gave an air of probability to the suspicion. "In his last moments, Alburquerque belied not the firmness of his character. Near to death, he assembled his vassals, and made them swear to accept neither peace nor truce with the king, till they had obtained satisfaction for his wrongs. He ordered his body to be carried at the head of their battalion so long as the war lasted, as if resolved to abdicate his hatred and authority only after triumph. Enclosed in his coffin, he still seemed to preside over the councils of the league; and, when deliberations were held, his corpse was interrogated, and his majordomo, Cabeza de Vaca, replied in the name of his departed master." There is something solemn and affecting in this post-humous deference, this homage paid by the living to the dead. Alburquerque was unquestionably the man of his day in the Peninsula: his grand and haughty figure stands out upon the historical canvass, in imposing contrast with the boy-brawlers and intriguing women by whom he was surrounded.

Deserted by all – betrayed even by his own mother, who gave up his last stronghold whilst he was absent on a visit to his mistress – the king had no resource but to throw himself into the hands of the rebels, trusting to their magnanimity and loyalty to preserve him his crown. With Hinestrosa, Simuel Levi his Jew treasurer, and Fernand Sanchez his private chancellor, for sole companions – and followed by a few lackeys and inferior officers, mounted on mules and unarmed – he set out for Toro, then the headquarters of the insurgent league. "Informed of the approach of this melancholy procession, the chiefs of the confederates rode out to meet him, well mounted and in magnificent dresses, beneath which their armour was visible, as if to contrast their warlike equipage with the humble retinue of the vanquished king. After kissing his hand, they escorted him to the town with great cries of joy, caracoling about him, performing fantasias, pursuing each other, and throwing reeds in the Arab manner. It is said that when Don Henry approached his brother to salute him, the unfortunate monarch could not restrain his tears. 'May God be merciful to you!' he said; 'for my part, I pardon you.'" There was no sincerity in this forgiveness; already, in the hour of his humiliation, Pedro had vowed hatred and vengeance against its authors. At present, however, artifice and intrigue were the only weapons at his disposal. By the assistance of Simuel the Jew, who was sincerely attached to him, and who rendered him many and great services, he gained over a portion of the revolted nobility, concluded an alliance with the royal family of Arragon, and finally effected his escape from the sort of semi-captivity in which he was held. "Profiting by dense fog, Don Pedro rode out of Toro very early in the morning, a falcon on his wrist, as though he went a-hawking, accompanied by Levi, and by his usual escort of some two hundred cavaliers. Either these were bribed, or the king devised means of detaching them from him, for he soon found himself alone with the Jew. Then, following the rout to Segovia at full speed, in a few hours they were beyond pursuit." During the short period of Pedro's captivity, a great change had taken place in public feeling. The king's misfortunes, his youth and firmness, interested many in his behalf. The Cortes, which he summoned at Burgos, a few days after his escape, granted all his demands of men and money. M. Mérimée thinks it probable the commons obtained from him, in return, an extension of their privileges and franchises; but this is mere conjecture, no records existing of the proceedings of this Cortes, which was, in fact, rendered irregular by the absence of the clerical deputies, the Pope having just excommunicated Don Pedro for his adulteries. "The excommunication, fulminated by a papal legate at Toledo, the 19th January 1355, does not appear to have altered, in any degree, the disposition of the people towards the king. On the contrary, it excited indignation, now that he was reconciled with his subjects; for Spaniards have always disliked foreign interference in their affairs." The thunders of Avignon lost not Pedro a single partisan. He replied to them by seizing the possessions of Cardinal Gilles Albornoz, and of some other prelates; and, returning threat for threat, he announced his intention of confiscating the domains of all the bishops who should waver between him and the Pope. The rebellion of his nobles, the treason of his mother and friends, the humiliation he had suffered, had wrought a marked change in the still plastic character of the young sovereign. Hitherto we have seen him violent and impetuous; henceforward we shall find dissimulation and cruelty his most prominent qualities. He had prided himself on chivalrous loyalty and honour; now all means were good that led to a triumph over his enemies. Full of hatred and contempt for the great vassals who, after having insolently vanquished him, basely sold the fruits of their victory for fair promises and for Simuel Levi's gold, he vowed to destroy their power, and to build up his authority upon the ruins of feudal tyranny.

The angry king lost no time in commencing the work of vengeance. After a fierce contest in and around Toledo, he routed the army of Count Henry and Don Fadrique, slew all the wounded, put to death one of the twenty leaguers, whom he caught in the town, (two had already been massacred by his order at Medina del Campo,) imprisoned many nobles, as well as the Bishop of Siguenza, whose palace was given up to pillage. "Twenty burgesses of Toledo were publicly decapitated as abettors of the rebellion. Amongst the unfortunate persons condemned to death was a jeweller, upwards of eighty years old. His son threw himself at the feet of Don Pedro, petitioning to die in place of his father. If we may credit Ayala, this horrible exchange was accepted both by the king and by the father himself." From Toledo, Pedro marched on Toro, where the bastards, the queen-mother, and most of the ricos hombres and knights who adhered to the league, had concentrated their forces, and prepared an obstinate resistance. He established himself in a village near the town, but lacked the engines, instruments, and stores necessary to invest the place regularly. Money was scarce. Fortunately, Simuel Levi was at hand, the pearl of finance ministers, compared to whom the Mons and Mendizabals of the nineteenth century are bunglers of the most feeble description.

"Don Pedro, in his quarters at Morales, was amusing himself one day by playing at dice. Before him stood open his military chest, which was also his play-purse. It contained 20,000 doubloons. 'Gold and silver,' said the king, in a melancholy tone, – 'here is all I possess.' The game over, Simuel took his master aside: 'Sire,' he said, 'you have affronted me before all the court. Since I am your treasurer, is it not disgraceful for me that my master be not richer? Hitherto, your collectors have relied too much upon your easiness and indulgence. Now that you are of an age to reign for yourself, that all Castile loves and fears you, it is time to put an end to disorder. Only be pleased to authorise me to treat with your officers of the finances, and confide to me two of your castles, and I pledge myself that, in a very short time, you shall have in each of them a treasure of greater value than the contents of this casket.'" The king gladly gave what was required of him, and the Jew kept his word. His manner of doing so paints the strange immorality of the times. It was customary to pay all court-salaries and pensions by orders on the royal receivers of imposts. These usually paid only a part of the amount of such orders, and unless the demand for the balance were backed by force, it was never honoured. Simuel Levi, having men-at-arms, jailers, and executioners at his orders, compelled these reluctant paymasters to disgorge all arrears; then sending for the king's creditors, he offered them fifty per cent of their due against receipts for the whole. Most of them, never expecting to recover a real of the sums kept back by the dishonest stewards, caught eagerly at the offer. This clumsy fraud, against which none found anything to say, brought considerable wealth into the king's coffers, and gave him the highest opinion of his treasurer, by whose careful administration he soon found himself the richest monarch in Spain.

Money removed the obstacles to the siege of Toro. Before the place was invested, however, Henry of Trastamare, with his usual precocious selfishness and prudence, found a pretext to leave it. A breach made, and part of the exterior fortifications in the possession of the royal troops, the Master of Santiago passed over to the king, who, from the opposite bank of the Douro, had given him verbal promise of pardon. The same night an officer of the civic guard opened the gates of the town to Pedro and his army. At daybreak the garrison of the castle saw themselves surrounded by overpowering forces, about to mount to the assault. "None spoke of resistance, or even of capitulation; safety of life was almost more than they dared hope. Fearing the king's fury, all refused to go out and implore his clemency. At last a Navarrese knight, named Martin Abarca, who in the last troubles had taken part with the bastards, risked himself at a postern, holding in his arms a child of twelve or thirteen years, natural son of King Alphonso and of Doña Leonora. Recognising the king by his armour, he called to him and said – 'Sire! grant me pardon, and I hasten to throw myself at your feet, and to restore to you your brother Don Juan!' – 'Martin Abarca,' said the king, 'I pardon my brother Don Juan; but for you, no mercy!' – 'Well!' said the Navarrese, crossing the ditch, 'do with me as you list.' And, still carrying the child, he prostrated himself before the king. Don Pedro, touched by this hardihood of despair, gave him his life in presence of all his knights." This clemency was soon obscured by the terrible scenes that followed the surrender of the castle, when the robe of Pedro's own mother was stained with the blood of the nobles struck down by her side. She fainted with horror – perhaps with grief; for Martin Telho, a Portuguese, and her reputed lover, was amongst the murdered; and, on recovering her senses, "she saw herself sustained in the arms of rude soldiers, her feet in a pool of blood, whilst four mangled bodies lay before her, already stripped of their armour and clothes. Then, despair and fury restoring her strength, she cursed her son, in a voice broken by sobs, and accused him of having for ever dishonoured her. She was led away to her palace, and there treated with the mockery of respect which the leaguers had shown, the year before, to their royal captive."

It were quite incompatible with the necessary limits of this paper, to give even the most meagre outline of the numerous vicissitudes of Don Pedro's reign, and to glance at a tithe of the remarkable events and striking incidents his biographer has so industriously and tastefully assembled. M. Mérimée's work does not bear condensing in a review; indeed, it is itself a condensation: an ordinary writer would have spread the same matter over twice the space, and still have deemed himself concise. The impression left on the reader's mind by this spirited and admirably written volume is, that not one page could be omitted without being missed. Sparing as we have been of detail, and although confining ourselves to a glance at prominent circumstances, we are still at the very commencement of Don Pedro's reign – the busiest and most stirring, perhaps, that ever was comprised within the space of twenty years. Not a few of this warlike, cruel, and amorous monarch's adventures have been handed down in the form of ballads and heroic legends, still current in southern Spain, where many of them have the weight of history – although the license of poetry, and the transmission through many generations, have frequently greatly distorted facts. Amongst the numerous objects of his fickle passion was Doña Aldonza Coronel, who, after some show of resistance, and taking refuge for a while in a convent where her sister was nun, showed herself sensible to the solicitations of royalty. Popular tradition has substituted for Aldonza her sister Maria, widow of Juan de la Cerda, whom Pedro had put to death. The people of Seville the Beautiful still believe and tell how "Doña Maria, chaste as lovely, indignantly repulsed the king's addresses. But in vain did she oppose the gratings of the convent of St Clara as a bulwark against the impetuous passion of the tyrant. Warned that his satellites were about to drag her from the sanctuary, she ordered a large hole to be dug in the convent garden, in which she lay down, and had herself covered with branches and earth. The fresh-turned soil would infallibly have betrayed her, had not a miracle supervened. Scarcely had she entered this manner of tomb, when flowers and herbage sprang up over it, so that nothing distinguished it from the surrounding grass. The king, discrediting the report of his emissaries, went in person to the convent to carry off the beautiful widow; this time it was not a miracle, but an heroic stratagem, that saved the noble matron. Abhorring the fatal beauty that thus exposed her to outrage, she seized, with a steady hand, a vase of boiling oil, and poured it over her face and bosom; then, covered with horrible burns, she presented herself to the king, and made him fly in terror, by declaring herself afflicted with leprosy. 'On her body, which has been miraculously preserved,' says Zuñiga, 'are still visible the traces of the burning liquid, and assuredly it may with good reason be deemed the body of a saint.'²⁸ I have dwelt upon this legend, unknown to the contemporary authors," adds M. Mérimée, "to give an idea of the transformation Don Pedro's history has undergone at the hands of tradition, and of the poetical colours imparted to it by the lively imagination of the people of Spain. After the marvellous narrative, comes the simple truth of history." Ballads and traditions are echoes of the popular voice; and, in many of those relating to Don Pedro, we may trace a disposition to extenuate his faults, extol his justice, and bring into relief his occasional acts of generosity. The truth is, that, although harsh and relentless with his arrogant nobles, he was affable with the people, who beheld in him their deliverer from oppression, and the unflinching opponent of the iniquities of the feudal system. Facility of access is a great source of popularity in Spain, where the independent tone and bearing of the lower orders often surprise foreigners. In no country in the world is the character of the people more free from servility. In the poorest peasant there is an air of native dignity and self-respect, which he loves to see responded to by consideration and affability on the part of his superiors. Don Pedro was very accessible to his subjects. When he met his first Cortes at Valladolid, in 1351, he promised the deputies of the commons that every Castilian should have liberty to appeal from the decisions of the magistrates to the king in person. This promise he kept better than was his wont. In the court of the Alcazar at Seville, near the gate known as that of the Banners, are shown the remains of a tribunal, in the open air, where he sat to give his judgments. He had another habit likely to conciliate and please the people. In imitation of the Eastern caliphs, whose adventures had doubtless amused his childhood, he loved to disguise himself, and to ramble at night in the streets of Seville – to listen to the conversation of the populace, to seek adventures, and overlook the police. Here was a suggestive text for balladists and romance writers, who have largely availed themselves of it. The story of Don Pedro's duel with a stranger, with whom he quarrelled on one of these expeditions, is well known. An old woman, sole witness of the encounter, deposed that the combatants had their faces muffled in their cloaks, but that the knees of one of them made a cracking noise in walking. This was known to be a peculiarity of Don Pedro's. Justice was puzzled. The king had killed his adversary, and had thereby incurred the punishment of decapitation. Pedro had his head carved in stone, and placed in a niche in the street where the duel had taken place. The bust, which was unfortunately renewed in the seventeenth century, is still to be seen at Seville, in the street of the Candilejo, which takes its name, according to Zuñiga, from the lamp by whose light the duel was fought. Condemned at his own tribunal, we need not wonder at the lenity of his sentence, more creditable to the royal culprit's invention than to his justice. He appears to have been frequently ingenious in his judgments. A rich priest had seriously injured a poor shoemaker, and, for sole punishment, was condemned by the ecclesiastical tribunal to a few months' suspension from his sacerdotal functions. The shoemaker, deeming the chastisement inadequate, waylaid his enemy, and soundly drubbed him. Arrested immediately, he was condemned to death. He appealed to the king. The partiality of the ecclesiastical judges had excited some scandal; Don Pedro parodied their sentence by condemning the shoemaker to make no shoes for one year. Whether this anecdote be true, or a mere invention, it is certain that a remarkable law was added, about that time, to the code of the city of Seville, to the effect that a layman, injuring an ecclesiastic, should thenceforward be liable only to the same punishment that the priest would have incurred by a like offence against the layman.

The murder of the Grand-master of Santiago, slain by his brother's order, and the death of the unfortunate French princess, who found a tyrant where she expected a husband, are recorded in the Romances of the Master Don Fadrique, and of Blanche de Bourbon. The fate of Blanche, attributed by contemporary chroniclers and modern historians to Don Pedro's orders, is one of the blackest of the stains upon his character. The poor queen died in the castle of Jerez – some say by poison, others by the mace of an arbalister of the guard. She had lived but twenty-five years, ten of which she had passed in prison. There is no appearance or probability that Maria Padilla instigated her assassination. That favourite was kind-hearted and merciful, and on more than one occasion we find her interceding with the king for the lives of his enemies and prisoners, and weeping when her supplications proved fruitless. The ballad makes free with fact, and sacrifices truth to poetry. It was dramatically correct that the mistress should instigate the wife's death. "Be not so sad, Doña Maria de Padilla," says the king; "if I married twice, it was for your advantage, and to show my contempt for this Blanche of Bourbon. I send her to Medina Sidonia, to work me a banner – the ground, colour of her blood, the embroidery, of her tears. This banner, Doña Maria, I will have it made for you: " and forthwith the ruthless arbalister departs, after a knight had refused to do the felon deed. "Oh France, my noble country! oh my Bourbon blood!" cries poor Blanche; "to-day I complete my seventeen years, and enter my eighteenth. What have I done to you, Castile? The crowns you gave me were crowns of blood and sighs!" And thus she laments till the mace falls, "and the brains of her head are strewed about the hall." The song-writer, amongst other liberties, has struck eight years off the victim's age, perhaps with the idea of rendering her more interesting. The exact manner of her death seems uncertain, although Ayala agrees with the ballad, and most subsequent historians have followed his version. M. Mérimée is disposed to exculpate Pedro, alleging the complete inutility of the murder, and that ten years of captivity and ill treatment were sufficient to account for the queen's death. Admitting the latter plea, we cannot see in it a diminution of the crime. In either case Pedro was the murderer of his hapless wife, who was innocent of all offence against him; and his extraordinary aversion for whom might well give rise, in that superstitious age, to the tales of sorcery and magic charms already quoted. The details of Don Fadrique's death are more precise and authentic, as it was also more merited. But, although the Master of Santiago had been guilty of many acts of treason, and at the time of his death was conspiring against the king, his execution by a brother's order, and before a brother's eyes, is shocking and repugnant. It was Don Fadrique's policy, at that moment, to parade the utmost devotion to Pedro, the better to mask his secret plans. Arriving one day at Seville, on a visit to the king, he found the latter playing at draughts with a courtier. True to his habits of dissimulation, Pedro, who only a few hours previously had decided on the Master's death, received him with a frank air and pleasant smile, and gave him his hand to kiss; and then, seeing that he was well attended, bade him take up his quarters, and then return. After visiting Maria Padilla, who gazed at him with tears in her eyes, – knowing his doom, but not daring to warn him, – Fadrique went down into the court, found his escort gone, and the gates shut. Surprised and uneasy, he hesitated what to do, when two knights summoned him to the king's apartments, in a detached building within the walls of the Alcazar.