On the termination of these troubled scenes, Leonora and one of her sons took refuge in Castile. But misfortunes assailed them there, superior, perhaps, to any which would have befallen them in Aragon. How the infante Juan was murdered at Bilbao, and Leonora herself in the castle of Castro Xeres, by order of Pedro the Cruel, has been related in the reign of that monarch. Ferdinand, indeed, escaped the vengeance of the tyrant; but, as we shall soon see, a fate no less tragical awaited him. The misunderstanding between the two Pedros commenced in 1356, on the refusal of the Castilian to restore a prize made at sea by one of his Biscayan pirates. The second offence was committed by an admiral of Catalonia, who, under the eyes of the Castilian, captured two Pisan vessels--a power with which the Aragonese were at war--in the port of Santa Maria. With some justice, the Castilian remonstrated against the violation of a neutral port; and on the refusal of his brother sovereign to make satisfaction for it, he levied a heavy contribution on the Catalan inhabitants of Seville, and declared war against Aragon. Hostilities now commenced, with various success and many suspensions. [Illustration: CORDOVA] In general, the success of the war rested with the Castilian. In 1363, through the interference of the papal legate, the first peace was made, the secret conditions of which were of an atrocious character. Pedro of Aragon engaged not only to remove by death the obnoxious brothers of the Castilian, but his own, the infante Ferdinand. A servant of Count Henry of Castile dealt the victim a fatal blow. Henry himself was spared--doubtless because Pedro foresaw that his new ally of Castile would not fulfil his engagements; perhaps, also, because he himself had no disposition to do so. His anticipations were right: war was renewed by the Castilian. His operations were as indecisive as those of the former. Seeing that the war did not and could not lead to any result, in 1365 Pedro concerted with the count of Trastamara the invasion of Castile, and the dethronement of the Castilian king. The aid which Henry obtained from France, the fate of his first and second invasions, we have already related. But the Aragonese king--so true it is that no honour can long subsist among the wicked--was never on good terms with the new king of Castile. He insisted on Murcia, which Henry, while count of Trastamara, had agreed to resign, in the event of his obtaining the Castilian throne; and on the refusal of that prince to dismember so important a province from the crown, not only coolness, but actual hostilities, between the two kingdoms were preparing. But those hostilities were soon averted by the papal legates; and the truce was, from time to time, prolonged, until 1374, when peace was finally arranged between the two monarchs. [Sidenote: [1338-1386 A.D.]]