Although they agree in nothing else, Enrique el Quarto, like his father, loved this quaint Gothic town. Undutiful and disorderly as a son, he made a bad king. Indolent, licentious, and ignorant, he despised learning and cultivation of all kinds, and was by far the worst of the illegitimate Trastamares, on whom, as has been said, a curse for the murder of Don Pedro really seemed to rest. Nothing they undertook answered, and it might be said of them, “their names were written in water.” Yet, not to be too hard on Enrique, it must be allowed he so far redeemed himself from the nullity of his father as to lead his armies bravely in the usual campaigns against Navarre and Aragon, besides undertaking a ten years’ crusade against the Moors, authorised by Pope Calixtus III.; in all which, so long as he was assisted by the friends and advisers of his amiable father, his incapacity was concealed, but his later campaigns were unfortunate because fought alone. Nor could his love of pomp and splendid attendance blind his subjects to the fact that his court was a very sink of debauchery. It seems strange, too, that Don Enrique, who, as Prince of the Asturias, had for years stormed against favouritism, now fell into the same fault himself. Not with such a master of men as the Condestable de Luna, but with an obscure and needy adventurer, called Don Beltrano de las Cuevas, with no merit whatever but his skill in deceiving him. * * * * * The court is at Segovia. At this moment Don Beltrano is crossing the Sala de Ricebimento in the Alcazar, a Gothic Moresque apartment, with lofty raftered ceiling and cornices of dark oak, the sides splendidly gilt, setting off rows of royal shields and _bandieros_. He is a striking-looking man of robust proportions, with a florid face of that full sensual type so little seen among the thin-featured Spaniards. His love of display is apparent by the rich surcoat of satin and brocade he wears, cut in the latest mode and glittering with jewels, a plumed hat placed defiantly on one side of his head. But you must not call him by his vulgar name of Beltrano, drunkard, dicer, and reveller, but Sua Grandeza el Conde de Ledesma, by favour of the King, or, more correctly speaking, of the Queen. You must also pay a certain attention to him, upstart and braggart as he is, because it was through his agency that the dynasty of Castile came to be merged in that of Aragon, in the person of Isabel the great Queen, wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, and by her marriage constituting the union of the future kingdom of Spain. As he passes with a step full of importance across the motes of sunshine striking on the marble pavement from the historic window out of which the late king, Don Juan, was let fall, as a child, by a lady of the court, who lost her head for her carelessness, the vulgar showiness of his dress is in conspicuous contrast to the soberly habited grandees of the old school.