But though there are few sketches in the Chronicle of Alfonso the Eleventh like the preceding, we find in general a well-ordered account of the affairs of that monarch’s long and active reign, given with a simplicity and apparent sincerity which, in spite of the formal plainness of its style, make it almost always interesting, and sometimes amusing. The next considerable attempt approaches somewhat nearer to proper history. It is the series of chronicles relating to the troublesome reigns of Peter the Cruel and Henry the Second, to the hardly less unsettled times of John the First, and to the more quiet and prosperous reign of Henry the Third. They were written by Pedro Lopez de Ayala, in some respects the first Spaniard of his age; distinguished, as we have seen, among the poets of the latter part of the fourteenth century, and now to be noticed as the best prose-writer of the same period. He was born in 1332,[264] and, though only eighteen years old when Peter ascended the throne, was soon observed and employed by that acute monarch. But when troubles arose in the kingdom, Ayala left his tyrannical master, who had already shown himself capable of almost any degree of guilt, and joined his fortunes to those of Henry of Trastamara, the king’s illegitimate brother, who had, of course, no claim to the throne but such as was laid in the crimes of its possessor, and the good-will of the suffering nobles and people. [264] For the Life of Ayala, see Nic. Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. X. c. 1. At first, the cause of Henry was successful. But Peter addressed himself for help to Edward the Black Prince, then in his duchy of Aquitaine, who, as Froissart relates, thinking it would be a great prejudice against the estate royal[265] to have a usurper succeed, entered Spain, and, with a strong hand, replaced the fallen monarch on his throne. At the decisive battle of Naxera, by which this was achieved, in 1367, Ayala, who bore his prince’s standard, was taken prisoner[266] and carried to England, where he wrote a part at least of his poems on a courtly life. Somewhat later, Peter, no longer supported by the Black Prince, was dethroned; and Ayala, who was then released from his tedious imprisonment, returned home, and afterwards became Grand-Chancellor to Henry the Second, in whose service he gained so much consideration and influence, that he seems to have descended as a sort of traditionary minister of state through the reign of John the First, and far into that of Henry the Third. Sometimes, indeed, like other grave personages, ecclesiastical as well as civil, he appeared as a military leader, and once again, in the disastrous battle of Aljubarrota, in 1385, he was taken prisoner. But his Portuguese captivity does not seem to have been so long or so cruel as his English one; and, at any rate, the last years of his life were passed quietly in Spain. He died at Calahorra in 1407, seventy-five years old.