Chapter XVII: Don Enrique again Crowned King--Flight of Don Pedro

The time has now come that Don Pedro knows not where to turn. All Spain is divided by civil war. Seville, his own Seville, is full of conspirators, awaiting the arrival of Don Enrique to declare for him; and the Black Prince, on whom he so confidently reckoned, remains absolutely deaf to his appeals.

Even were he willing to repent, he is for ever shut out from salvation in this world and the next. No church is open to him; no priest, however base, dare shrive him for his sins. He is as one accursed.

What those words were, traced by the dying hand of Blanche, no man yet knows--not his closest friends, and they are few; but ever since a strange gloom clings to him which never lifts, and in his sleep he wrestles as in throes of agony.

Events succeed each other with dramatic rapidity. His ally, Charles the Bad, King of Navarre, alarmed at the passage of the French, breaks the alliance and joins with the King of Aragon against him.

Enrique, worshipped by his followers, is again solemnly crowned within the ancient capital of Burgos, in that lovely cathedral, embroidered like a state robe, lately completed, his _padrino_ and godfather being the great warrior Du Guesclin, the first commander of the age, although it is said he can neither read nor write.

The Comte de la Marche, cousin of Blanche, and also of the House of Bourbon, represents the King of France, and stands on his right hand on the steps of the high altar, under that glorious window which floods the space with light, along with marshals and generals, Castilian and French, condes and great lords of Aragon, and a lordly show of knights and _caballeros_ from Leon and Andalusia.

The troops are, as usual in such levies, mixed in nationalities and wanting in unity and discipline, but commanded by Du Guesclin who dares contemplate defeat?

“Remember, most valiant constable,” had said to him his master Charles, the King of France, son of the unfortunate John, prisoner in England, “I shall owe you more than if you gained me a province, if you destroy the murderer of Blanche.”

Nor should this command be forgotten in Du Guesclin’s justification later on; Charles was his liege lord; he had issued his orders, and in the feudal spirit of the age, at _any price_ Du Guesclin is bound to obey.

* * * * *

Open and generous, Enrique makes gifts to all, forgetting he has as yet nothing to bestow. Condes and princedoms drop from his hand on all around (real _châteaux en Espagne_). There is no end to his _largesse_, and so successful is this method that in twenty-five days he holds the south and marches on Toledo, where he is received with cries of “Long live Enrique the merciful, who comes to save us from our enemy, Don Pedro.”

* * * * *

Again Enrique is at the lordly Alcazar overlooking the everlasting plains, from whence he was so ignominiously driven by Don Pedro and the Jews. Again behold him, the very picture of a young king whom fortune favours, as he descends the stately flights of stairs and moves once more among the magnificent ranges of colonnades which hold up the great _patio_, to receive the salutations of long lines of knights and nobles who have flocked from all parts to his standard.

What a tossing of feathers and flash of arms around! True lovers’ knots on shields and shoulders, helmets shaded with waving plumes, lances bound with gaily-embroidered scarves, the inlaid handles of swords and falchions sparkling with gems, and corselets and breastplates bound in with glittering girdles.

Enrique comes in war but he wears the dress of peace, as one at ease, certain of success. Let Pedro flaunt the morions, casques, shields, bucklers, and weapons of conflict, Enrique has already assumed the _débonnaire_ air of a well-established monarch sure of his subjects’ love. (That he is a bastard with no legal right to the throne is forgotten in the general triumph.)

Graceful and polished in his manners as becomes _El Rey Caballero_, the personal charm he exercises over all who approach him is unbounded, especially when compared to the morose cynicism of Don Pedro, who mocks ere he destroys.

Sir Hugh Calverley and many English knights and esquires of the free companies which have overrun France in the late wars are with him during the present inactivity of the Black Prince at Bordeaux, and his old friend and loyal supporter, the Asturian noble, Don Jaime Alvarez, rules his counsels as heretofore. Pope Urban V., incensed at the blasphemies and profligacy of Don Pedro, subsidises and blesses him. Even the rough warrior Du Guesclin yields to the fascination of his address, an influence destined soon to lead him to the commission of a crime by which his good name is for ever tarnished.

No female element fills in the frame of this chivalrous court. He has a wife, her name casually occurs, but there all information ends. At all events, no woman takes a prominent part in his career, as with his brother Don Pedro.

Meanwhile the king, warned by his ministers that he is no longer safe in Seville, rides out of the gates guarded by a small troop of men-at-arms, commanded by the faithful Emanuel, and accompanied by his chancellor, Fernando de Castro, Don Martino Lopez de Cordova, Grand Master of Alcantara, Don Diego Gomez, Don Mem Rodrigues, a warlike captain who has taken the place of Don Juan de Mañara in his confidence, and some others.

You may count his adherents on your fingers they are so few. Even that pampered villain Garcia de Padilla has forsaken him since his sister’s death, and gone over to the winning side, and along with him are Orosco, Mendoza, and La Vega.

The three daughters of Maria de Padilla accompany him, young girls whose names leave no record on the page of history--Costanza married John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III., and thus established a claim, often asserted but never seriously entertained, to the throne of Castile; and Isabel, the younger, espoused his brother Edmund of Cambridge.

But, dearer than child or friend, Don Pedro carries with him his treasure and the famous ruby (Balax) of the Moors hid in his bosom.

* * * * *

The outlook is not cheerful. Spite of his constant boast of close alliance with the English, the Black Prince at Bordeaux as yet has made no sign. It is true that his daughter Costanza is at this time affianced to her cousin, the Infante of Portugal, and Don Pedro rides straight over the Sierra Morena to the frontier, certain of the protection of his uncle the king.

Don Diego Gomez is sent forward from Talavera, where he waits, to hasten the marriage. The Infanta is ready; with her she brings the crown of Castile, the jewels of her mother, Maria de Padilla, and such dower as is required; anything he has, even the Balax, so that Costanza is wedded!

It is a matter of life or death. All depends on Portugal. An uncle, an ally, a natural protector--it is impossible he can fail.

Don Diego returns. The King of Portugal will not receive him. He declines the marriage with Costanza for his son, the visionary crown, treasure, all--and warns Don Pedro sternly from crossing the borders of his kingdom upon peril of his life.

Many of his followers now forsake him in his need. But the chancellor, Don Fernando de Castro, is faithful, and Mem Rodrigues and Emanuel are ready to offer up their lives.

An absolute fugitive, Don Pedro craves from his uncle a safe conduct into Galicia, the only province in Spain, except Murcia, which still acknowledges him as sovereign.

In this miserable plight he arrives in the fruitful valley of beautiful Monterey in a most disconsolate condition, at the very moment that Don Enrique and Du Guesclin enter the city of Seville.

Yet even now the track of blood follows Don Pedro. As he passes through Santiago, the holy city of pilgrimage, where lie the relics of the Protector of Spain, after dining in company with the Archbishop, he calls him to the gate and has him murdered before his eyes, as well as the _Decano_ or Dean, within the precincts of the cathedral.

* * * * *

Express after express flies in swift-rigged boat across the Bay of Biscay to Bayonne, addressed to the Black Prince and to his ally, that arrant traitor, the King of Navarre, who is with him at Bordeaux.

No answer comes. At last, driven to despair, Don Pedro himself rides forward to the coast, fits out a galley at La Groyne, and sets sail for Bayonne, escorted by all the vessels he can find, to plead his cause in person before the Prince of Wales.