believe that it would be neither coarseness of manners, nor rapacity, nor inveterate habits of violence in the powerful. The most salient characteristic of this sad period is, in my opinion, duplicity. Never indeed has history recorded so many acts of treason, so much perfidy. This age, in other respects so rude, exhibited ingenuity only in the art of deception. It delighted in subtleties. In all engagements, and even in the code of chivalrous honour, there lurk equivocations which self-interest could easily turn to account. Oaths were lavished upon all occasions, in the most ordinary transactions, and accompanied by the most solemn ceremonies, and yet they were viewed as mere formalities sanctioned by custom. He who pledged his faith, his hand laid upon the Holy Gospels, would not be trusted, unless he delivered up his wife and children, above all, his fortresses as hostages; and indeed this last pledge was always considered the only true test. Distrust was universal, and every man regarded his neighbour as his enemy. The nobles never quitted their castles without being attended by a number of men-at-arms; the peasant went to the fields his lance upon his shoulders,* for every man, and especially every fellow-countryman was justly an object of suspicion. He who had been injured was to be feared, but still more, perhaps, he who had been loaded with benefits. Prudence was the only virtue practised. The men of the fourteenth century lived apart like *Cortès de Valladolid, art. I. Orden. contra los ladrones y malhechores. beasts of prey, and that energy, that strength of will which we now admire in them, they probably owed to a consciousness of their own bad faith, which constantly reminded them that they neither had, nor could expect to have any human succour but that of their own strong arm. CHAPTER II. REIGN OF ALFONSO, FATHER OF DON PEDRO. I. DON ALFONSO of Castile, the eleventh of that name and the father of Don Pedro, was a truly great king. Ever since the death of San Fernando,* Castile had been a prey to continual anarchy; weak princes and long minorities had combined to increase in the highest degree the insolence of the Ricos Hombres, and whilst these contended for pre-eminence, that is to say, for the exclusive privilege of pillaging the country, the townspeople and peasants, maddened by the excess of their misery, rose in all parts and revenged themselves by sanguinary attacks upon their oppressors. A contemporary author has left us the following picture of the condition of Castile on the accession of Don Alfonso. "Now you must know that there was sufficient cause to fear that the king's towns and other places in the kingdom should receive great hurt, and be entirely destroyed; for the Ricos Hombres and cavalleros, lived by the robberies and extortions which they practised in the land, and the king's guardians lent them assistance *This happened in 1252.-T. for the sake of having theirs in return. But whenever one of these Ricos Hombres or cavalleros renounced the friendship of one of the guardians, the latter immediately destroyed the towns, and slew the vassals of his former friend, declaring that he was justified in thus retaliating upon the traitor the evil he had done when in his service. You must bear in mind that while he remained his friend, he was allowed to do as he listed. Moreover, the people of the towns were banded together in hostile factions, as well in those places which supported the guardians, as in those which were opposed to them. In towns obedient to the said guardians, the most powerful oppressed the others, not merely to obtain the means of becoming independent, but to get rid of their own private enemies. In the towns which did not recognize the guardians, those who had the authority took the king's rents, and with them maintained men-at-arms, who trampled upon the poor, and taxed them without mercy. Whence it happened, that in such towns, and for the causes above stated, several artificers rose at the cry of "Commons!" killing their oppressors, and seizing and confiscating their property. Then too in no part of the kingdom was justice duly administered, so that persons did not dare to go out upon the high way, unless well armed, and in sufficient numbers to defend themselves against the marauders. In places which were not fortified-no one would live, whilst in such as were, the greater part subsisted only by robbery and plunder, in which many of the townspeople, artificers as well as hidalgos, joined ; so great, indeed, was the general lawlessness, that no VOL. I. E one marvelled at meeting with dead bodies in the roads, neither could the continual thefts, larcenies, wrongs, and injuries of all kinds committed both in town and country, excite surprise. Still the guardians daily imposed new taxes, and burdens too heavy to be borne, whereby good towns became wastes, as also the villages of the Ricos Hombres and cavalleros."* Such was the sad condition of Castile when Don Alfonso took the government into his own hands. He felt equal to his high station, and determined to be a king in very deed. At first, having no adherents of his own, he was obliged to accept the assistance of one of the factions which were desolating his kingdom; thus borrowing power from one to destroy the others. Afterwards, when the great vassals, who had furnished him with the means of enforcing his authority, exacted a reward for their services, he found that he was strong enough to command instead of purchasing obedience. At once uniting severity with clemency, he made an example of the most factious, but pardoned others so soon as he had proved to them his superiority, and had forced them to sue for mercy. His first successes did not blind him to the inveteracy of the evil he had resolved to eradicate; he saw that he must provide a safety valve for the restless and perturbed spirits of his nobility. His Ricos Hombres, although incorrigible rebels in time of peace, were docile soldiers in time of war, and Alfonso, by leading them against the Moors of Granada, turned to his own advantage, and the aggrandizement of his kingdom, the very weapons which for * "Cronica de Don Alfonso," p. 78. |