A more uninviting city does not exist in Spain, as we see it now, and although it suffered cruelly from the invasion of the French in the Peninsular War, uninteresting it must always have been. No charm leads one’s thoughts lovingly to Valladolid. The cathedral is hideous. Only the front of San Pablo and the Collegiata de San Gregorio, a magnificent gift of Cardinal Ximenes, dwell in the mind. Of course, with the exception of San Pablo, these buildings were erected centuries after Don Pedro’s reign, and one asks oneself what Valladolid could have been then? There are no environs. The river flows through flat banks with no timber except long lines of thin poplars, the poorest of all trees, and beyond, the eye wanders over endless plains towards Burgos and Salamanca to the borders of Portugal. But now, forgetting the present aspect of the city, we must go back to the 3d of June, 1375, the day on which Don Pedro was to arrive to meet the new queen, espoused in his name by his brother, the Grand Master of Santiago, to be kept as a great festival, for which thousands had assembled from all parts of the kingdom. For indeed, in those days of perpetual warfare, a _fiesta_ was well esteemed, as they were very rare, especially in the north, inhabited by a more serious and impassioned race of hardy men than the lighthearted southerners of Andalusia. Now this occasion had been seized as a gift from heaven, especially as it was to take the form of a tournament, in which the Infante Don Fadique was to take part, as well as the Infante of Aragon, and Don Juan de Mañara, known in all ages as “Don Juan,” the favourite of the king, gambler, reveller, and seducer, and that graceful but treacherous knight, Don Garcia de Padilla, brother of Maria, both being in attendance on the king. The queen-mother, Doña Maria of Portugal, had also journeyed from Seville to welcome the young queen, and Albuquerque followed her, full of alarm for the result of the alliance he had brought about. Much had been heard of the strange qualities of the young king, about whom men’s minds were divided. Such mysterious crimes were attributed to him, such unheard-of brutalities, that it was generally supposed he acted under the influence of magic spells, wrought on him by his mistress, Maria de Padilla, held by the populace as a witch accursed by God and man. Those who had not seen him, and they were many, and the women especially, who had heard harrowing tales of his misdeeds, crowded into Valladolid, where, accommodation not being easily obtained except for the rich, the season being summer, had built themselves huts of branches along the river, and camped out there, as near as possible to the green _vega_ where the tournament was to be held.