In 1420 the young king assumed the regal authority, and held it till 1454. During his reign the Jews seem to have been, comparatively speaking, unmolested; and, as was always the case under such circumstances, to have regained both their wealth and their political influence. In 1435 the Jews at Palma were charged with the old stock offence of crucifying children, though this time the victim was a Moor. They confessed, as usual, under torture, and, having agreed to accept baptism, were pardoned. In Toledo, in 1441, the Infante Henry, who was in rebellion against his father, being greatly in want of money to pay his troops, was advised to plunder the houses of the Jews—both those who adhered to their old creed and those who had recently been converted—as the surest and most popular mode of raising funds. He greatly approved of the counsel, and proceeded straightway to follow it, notwithstanding the opposition of the principal citizens and the clergy. The populace, we are told, followed his example. In 1445 the Jews of the same city were accused of having undermined the streets through which the procession of the Host was to pass; and one of the customary massacres would have taken place, if the authorities had not made inquiry and ascertained that the charge was wholly without foundation. Again, at Tavora, some youths, after one of their feasts, sallied forth into the streets, and slew several Jews whom they met, their excuse being that they thought the Jews were on the point of making an attack upon _them_. A similar story to that propagated at Palma was also fabricated at Valladolid of some Jews at Savona. But in no case did any of the wholesale massacres take place by which the Spanish cities were disgraced both in previous and after times. In 1454 Henry IV. succeeded his father. His action at Toledo, thirteen years before, in plundering the Jews, caused the idea to be entertained that he would be unfavourable to them; but his conduct, when he came to the throne, did not bear out the notion. A riot having occurred in 1461 at Medina del Campo, in consequence of the preaching of an enthusiastic monk; and a number of Jews having been slain and their property pillaged, Henry put the outbreak down, and executed due justice on the rioters. He also appointed a Jew, Gaon by name, as his finance minister, and sent him to levy the taxes in the Basque provinces. But this was regarded by the Basques as an infringement of their constitutional rights. The Jew was assassinated in the streets of Tolosa; and when the king sent to require the surrender of the murderers, he received a defiant refusal, nor did he venture to take any measures against them.