It is small wonder if Louis XI. had for the ruler of Castile “little value or esteem,” or that Commines himself, summing up the situation, caustically dismisses Henry as “a person of no great sense.” There could not have been a stronger contrast between the two kings: Henry with his pale blue eyes and mass of reddish hair, his awkwardly-built frame, overdressed and loaded with jewels, towering above his meagre companion; Louis, sardonic and self-contained, well aware of the smothered laughter his appearance excited amongst Castilian courtiers, but secretly conscious that his badly cut suit of French homespun and queer shaped hat, its sole ornament an image of the Virgin, snubbed the butterfly throng about him. “The convention broke up and they parted,” says Commines, “but with such scorn and contempt on both sides, that the two kings never loved one another heartily afterwards.” The result of the interview, May, 1463, was soon published. In return for King John’s future friendship, and in compensation for her expenses as an ally of Charles of Viana, a few years before, Castile found herself the richer for the town of Estella in Navarre, a gain so small that it was widely believed the Archbishop of Toledo and his fellow-politicians had allowed themselves to be bribed. If the Castilians were bitter at this decision, still more so were the Catalans, deserted by their ally and offered nothing save the unpalatable advice that they should return to King John’s allegiance. The messengers from Barcelona quitted Fuenterrabia as soon as they heard, openly uttering their contempt for Castile’s treachery. “It is the hour,” they exclaimed, “of her shame and of her King’s dishonour!” They could not realize to the full the truth of their words, nor to what depths Henry was shortly to fall and drag the fortunes of his country with him. CHAPTER III THE REIGN OF HENRY IV.: CIVIL WAR AND ANARCHY 1464–1474 Henry IV. had been merely a figurehead at the meeting of Fuenterrabia, a rôle to which with his habitual lethargy he had no objection. When, however, he attempted to obtain possession of the town of Estella and failed to do so in spite of Villena’s outwardly strenuous efforts, he began at last to suspect that he had been also a dupe, and that French and Aragonese money had bribed his ministers to his own undoing.