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.