Juan II was unfortunate in living when he did. Peace-loving and amiable, one of the greatest patrons of letters who ever ruled in Spain, he was not without considerable gifts of mind, but utterly unfitted to hold the reins of government in a state during the crucial period of struggle between the aristocratic and democratic principles. Alvaro de Luna, though greedy and intolerant, ruled on the whole not unwisely, with a view to the increase of the power of the crown, and with a strong king to support him the latter might have become supreme over both elements, as his great-grandson did. But though his long reign was politically a failure, it marks a period of social splendour at court and almost universal luxury such as had never been seen in Spain before; while Castilian letters, under the patronage of the king, reached one of those culminating points of development which appear in Spain at intervals of about two centuries. With the advance of culture and the arts of peace the old rough epics of an earlier time and the didactic verse that followed had become unfashionable; and in the early fifteenth century, both in the courts of Castile and Aragon, lyric poetry and chronicles of romantic incident became the rage. From King Juan II and Alvaro de Luna downward, almost every noble and knight wrote verses of some sort; and of the 136 poets who wrote the songs in the _Cancionero General_ (Valencia, 1511), probably more than half belonged to the court of Juan II, while in the _Cancionero de Baena_ the proportion must be still larger. Music, dances, theatrical interludes, and poetic competitions were the favourite diversions which kept the king amused, while Alvaro de Luna governed according to his will.[i] THE DISASTERS OF HENRY IV The reign of Henry IV, surnamed the Impotent, was even more disastrous than that of his father. That this surname was not undeserved, we have the testimony of his own wife, Blanche of Navarre, whom he led to the altar in 1440, and who, after a union of thirteen years, could complain that the _debitum conjugale_ remained unpaid. On this ground, in 1453, the marriage was annulled. After his accession, however, he obtained the hand of a Portuguese infanta.