In 1387, Juan I was peaceably acknowledged. His accession was regarded with great apprehension by his stepmother, Sybilla (the late king led four ladies to the altar), who, since 1384, had been his open enemy. The reason of this animosity was here, as in former cases, the eagerness of the king to alienate the crown domains in favour of his new queen and her family, and the indignant opposition of the heir apparent. At one time, so vindictive was the queen that she had expelled the infante from the palace, and had probably instigated her uxorious husband to try him, and exclude him from the succession; but the protection of the grand justiciary of Aragon had screened him from her malice: now, it was her turn to dread his displeasure. Just before the death of Pedro, she fled from Barcelona, accompanied by her brother: they were pursued by the Catalonians; were brought back, and imprisoned until the pleasure of the new monarch, who then lay ill at Gerona, could be learned. On his recovery, he hastened to that city; caused the queen to be tried as a witch, who had enchanted the late king, and several of her kindred and servants as accomplices. Some of the latter were executed; and she herself would probably have shared the same fate, but for the interference of the papal legate, and more still for the facility with which she restored the fortresses conferred on her by her royal husband. These possessions were immediately transferred to the new queen. The eagerness which the new king showed to gratify his queen Violante, surprised and offended the Aragonese. As her disposition was gay, she insisted on converting the palace into a theatre: balls, concerts, theatrical representations, and the exhibitions of the _gaya ciencia_, succeeded each other without intermission. As the Aragonese themselves were too sober or too dull to excel in such diversions, professors were brought from France, and even schools established for instruction in the idle art. It became not merely the relaxation, but the business of life; the duties of government were neglected or despised, until remonstrances both frequent and loud fell on the royal ear. Apparently, however, they produced little effect, beyond the convocation of the states at Monzon, to deliberate on this pernicious novelty. There the prelates, nobles, and deputies insisted that the king should expel from his palace his singers and dancers, his buffoons and his poets--above all, Doña Carraza Villaragut, one of the queen’s ladies, and the chief promoter of such fooleries. At first he resisted this interference with his royal recreations; but when he perceived that his barons were in earnest, that they were even preparing to arm for his moral reformation, he yielded: the fiddlers were dismissed, and with them the obnoxious lady.