A History of Spain from the Earliest Times to the Death of Ferdinand the Catholic Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIX. PETER THE CRUEL. (1350--1369.) I.--A Royal Assassin. Of the nine children whom Leonora de Guzman had borne to Alfonso XL, Henry, the eldest, was endowed with the magnificent domain and title of Trastamara.1 His twin brother, Fadrique, was elected, at ten years of age, to the more than princely position of Grand Master of Santiago. His cousin, Perez Ponce, already enjoyed the scarcely inferior honour of the Grand Mastership of Alcantara. It was but natural, upon the sudden death of Alfonso XL, that his illegitimate family should seek to maintain their exceptional position, in spite of the queen's son, Peter, who had lived up to this time neglected and almost forgotten at Seville. But the Guzmans were too prosperous to be popular; and the young king found a powerful protector in his father's palace. Don Juan de Albuquerque, a scion of the royal house of Portugal, who had accepted the friendship of the mistress during the life-time of King Alfonso XL, and had thus risen to the highest position in the State, at once turned upon the Guzmans, imprisoned Dona Leonora--provided with a safe conduct under his own hand--in the Alcazar at Seville, drove her many sons into exile, and constituted himself the guide, if not the master, of the legitimate sovereign, who had but just attained the year of his legal majority.2 One of the first political incidents of his reign was the assassination of his step-mother (1351), in which it is possible 1The name is spelt by contemporary writers indifferently as Trestamera, Trastameira, Trastamena. The modern conventional Spanish is Trastamara. "He was born at Burgos, 30th August, 1333. that he took no personal part.1 But if the murder was, as is suggested, entirely the work of Albuquerque, the...