Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/234

90 CASTILE UNDER HENRY IV. PART I. ])cath nnd rliaracter of Alfonso. 1468. July S. interpreted the ordinary operations of nature as signs of celestial wrath ; ^^ and the minds of men were filled with dismal bodings of some inevitable evil, like that which overwhelmed the monarchy in the days of their Gothic ancestors.^^ At this crisis, a circumstance occurred, which gave a new face to afifairs, and totally disconcerted the operations of the confederates. This was the loss of their young leader, Alfonso ; who was found dead in his bed, on the 5th of July, 1468, at the village of Cardenosa, about two leagues from Avila, which had so recently been the theatre of his glory. His sudden death was imputed, in the usual suspicious temper of that corrupt age, to poison, supposed to have been conveyed to him in a trout, on which he dined the day preceding. Others attributed it to the plague, which had followed in the train of evils, that desolated this unhappy country. Thus at the age of fifteen, and after a brief reign, if reign it may be called, of three years, perished this young prince, who, under happier auspices and in maturer life, might have ruled over his country with a wisdom equal to that of any of its monarchs. Even in the disadvan- tageous position, in which he had been placed, 32 " Quod in pace fors, seu na- tura, tunc fatum et ira dei vocaba- tur ; " says Tacitus, (Historise, lib. 4, cap. 2f),) adverting to a similar state of excitement. 33 Saez quotes a MS. letter of acontemporary, exhibiting a fright- ful picture of these disorders. (Monedas de Enrique IV., p. 1, not. — Castillo, Cr6nica, cap. 83, 87, et passim. — Mariana, Hist, de Espafia, torn. ii. p. 451. — Marina, Teorla, tom. ii. p. 487. — Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, MS., part. 1, cap. C9.) The active force Ivep* on duty by the Hermandad amount- ed to 3000 horse. Ibid., cap. 89, 90.