The king soon closed the states, without yielding any further to the demands of the union, and hastened into Catalonia, with the avowed purpose of collecting troops, to reduce the whole body to obedience. That the leaguers did not prevent his departure was owing to the suspicions irresistibly forced on their minds that there was treachery in their camp, and that he had more secret adherents than they had expected. He was followed to Barcelona by the infante Don James, who sickened and died in that city, not without suspicions of poison. The union of Valencia, nowise discouraged by the ill success of that of Aragon, immediately invested the fortresses which held for the king, whose troops they defeated before Jativa. The infante Ferdinand, who was now proclaimed lieutenant-general of that province and head of the confederacy, with a force estimated at thirty thousand obtained a second victory over the royalists. Pedro now hastened from Barcelona, to crush in person this formidable rebellion. He had soon an army on foot with which two of his generals attacked, defeated, and took Ferdinand.[41] The infante, however, from fear of the king’s vengeance, was conducted into Castile. Pedro himself advanced against Saragossa, the very stronghold of faction. One instance of ill fortune had damped, as much as success had encouraged, the rebels: they received him with great humility, renounced the privileges of the union, and threw themselves wholly on his mercy. Thirteen of the most obnoxious ringleaders were put to death; the rest he pardoned. In an assembly of the states, which he was no longer afraid of convoking, the _ricos homes_ [or _hombres_] and deputies solemnly renewed the renunciation of the privileges claimed by the union; in presence of them all, the king tore in pieces the registered act of that body, but at the same time he confirmed his subjects in the possession of all their ancient rights. Aragon was now pacified; its union was no more: but Valencia remained in rebellion. Having assembled a formidable army, James marched into that province, and, in a general battle near the capital, triumphed over the leaguers. Valencia immediately surrendered at discretion. [Sidenote: [1356-1365 A.D.]]