Of the disturbed and corrupt reign of Henry the Fourth, who, at one period, was nearly driven from his throne by his younger brother, Alfonso, we have two chronicles: the first by Diego Enriquez de Castillo, who was attached, both as chaplain and historiographer, to the person of the legitimate sovereign; and the other by Alonso de Palencia, chronicler to the unfortunate pretender, whose claims were sustained only three years, though the Chronicle of Palencia, like that of Castillo, extends over the whole period of the regular sovereign’s reign, from 1454 to 1474. They are as unlike each other as the fates of the princes they record. The Chronicle of Castillo is written with great plainness of manner, and, except in a few moral reflections, chiefly at the beginning and the end, seems to aim at nothing but the simplest and even the driest narrative;[286] while the Chronicle of Palencia, who had been educated in Italy under the Greeks recently arrived there from the ruins of the Eastern Empire, is in a false and cumbrous style; a single sentence frequently stretching through a chapter, and the whole work showing that he had gained little but affectation and bad taste under the teachings of John Lascaris and George of Trebizond.[287] Both works, however, are too strictly annals to be read for any thing but the facts they contain. [286] When the first edition of Castillo’s Chronicle was published I do not know. It is treated as if still only in manuscript by Mondejar in 1746 (Advertencias, p. 112); by Bayer, in his notes to Nic. Antonio, (Bib. Vetus, Vol. II. p. 349,) which, though written a little earlier, were published in 1788; and by Ochoa, in the notes to the inedited poems of the Marquis of Santillana, (Paris, 1844, 8vo, p. 397,) and in his “Manuscritos Españoles” (1844, p. 92, etc.). The very good edition, however, prepared by Josef Miguel de Flores, published in Madrid, by Sancha, (1787, 4to,) as a part of the Academy’s collection, is announced, on its title-page, as the _second_. If these learned men have all been mistaken on such a point, it is very strange. [287] For the use of a manuscript copy of Palencia’s Chronicle I am indebted to my friend, W. H. Prescott, Esq., who notices it among the materials for his “Ferdinand and Isabella,” (Vol. I. p. 136, Amer. ed.,) with his accustomed acuteness. A full life of Palencia is to be found in Juan Pellicer, Bib. de Traductores, (Madrid, 1778, 4to,) Second Part, pp. 7-12.