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.