In recent times, attempts have been made by Mondejar,[k] and other historical critics, to vindicate the memory of this king, on the ground that his chronicler and contemporary, Pedro López de Ayala,[h] was a blind partisan of his rival’s, and has injuriously treated his memory. They tell us of a chronicle of this king, written by Don Juan de Castro, bishop of Jaen, in which Pedro is represented as one of the best sovereigns of the age--as one who, while he protected the oppressed, was severe only against his turbulent and lawless barons. There may be some truth in this latter assertion: Pedro, like Richard III of England, whom he partially resembles, was probably no enemy to the humbler orders, but eager only to break the formidable power of the nobles. Even admitting, what is very probable, that his character has been somewhat unfairly treated by Ayala, if one-half the deeds narrated by that author were actually perpetrated by him,--and the careful minuteness with which they are recorded gives them the appearance of authenticity,--he has had but one equal in ferocity, and that one was the czar Ivan IV of Russia. Until Castro’s pretended chronicle is actually produced--and it has been sought for in vain these three hundred years--and compared with Ayala, criticism is compelled to receive the testimony of the latter, confirmed, as it incidentally is, by Froissart[i] and other contemporary writers. That he was a man of lust, as well as of cruelty, is apparent from the number of his mistresses, to say nothing of his two pretended wives.[b] Prosper Mérimée[m] is one of the modern defenders of Pedro, but while his tone is apologetic, his facts leave the resulting opinion only the stronger. Hume[n] admits the black heart of Pedro, but denies that he was exceptionally heartless for that time, and insists that his struggles against the nobles were for the good of the people and his failure to restrain their feudal power a calamity. It is hard, however, to believe that a monstrosity whom even his contemporaries found worthy of the fame of the most cruel of the cruel, could have been moved by any altruistic care for his people, or any motive except ferocious hatred of any resistance to his unutterable selfishness.