Not so Chandos, who observes Don Pedro at his ease, and marks with suspicion the sinister expression of his young face, and the falseness of the smile he calls up in answer to the hearty greetings of the prince.
Adversity and dissipation had already scored with hard lines that yet boy-like countenance. The faultless mould of feature is still there, as we see it perpetuated in the bust at Seville, but a perfidious glance mars its beauty.
Small and thin in stature, Don Pedro is entirely overtopped by the English prince, who sits erect and strong as a young oak beside the willow-like suppleness of his Spanish guest.
Much discussion of ways and means takes place between them after the collation, the Black Prince lending a willing ear to the representations of Don Pedro and his reiterated promises to reinstate the English king in such subsidies as should be advanced to him in order to raise a fighting army to take the field.
From Bordeaux Don Pedro passes to Angoulême with his daughters—in the same state, accompanied by the Black Prince, his young brother, the King of Navarre, and the Duke of Lancaster, in whose young heart the girlish beauty of Doña Costanza has made a serious impression—to salute the princess, who is daily expecting her confinement.
The reticence of the Black Prince alarmed Don Pedro. No decision of any kind as to the support he had come to seek could be extracted from him; open-hearted and honest almost to a fault, he had been so earnestly implored by Chandos to enter into no semblance of an engagement before he had obtained the assent of his father, Edward III., that he absolutely put a bridle on his lips whenever Don Pedro sought speciously to approach the subject so near his heart, until he had received the royal sanction. That such sanction would come he felt convinced, the very idea of an open attack upon royalty (in those feudal times held so sacred and inviolable) would probably have sufficed to ensure the consent of King Edward, but more amply so when united to the political advantages ensured by a close alliance with Castile.
Not only is a formal permission demanded by the Black Prince himself to march into Spain, but it is backed by the official protest of Don Pedro against the manifold wrongs and injuries inflicted on him.
Of gifts the Black Prince will have none. To him jewels and treasures come as ignoble bribes; but in the meantime at least it is open to Don Pedro to lavish presents on the Princess of Wales as an indirect mode of gaining her goodwill. A table of curious workmanship, set with priceless gems, is presented and long preserved in England, and, though last not least, the precious Balax, destined so strangely to find a central place in the English crown.
Nothing could exceed the lavish promises of Don Pedro. The lordship of Biscay, which, as close to Guienne, is important, is conferred on the Black Prince and his heirs for ever, signed with the seal of Castile, a curious state document which remains in England to this day—Pedro binding himself also, by the most solemn oaths, to pay large subsidies to the English troops, and equal parts of the general cost of the war to the Prince himself; a rich dower to the Infanta Costanza, forthwith affianced to the young Duke of Lancaster, already languishing in a not hopeless passion which is, he thinks, to insure to him the crown of Spain—she, in the meantime, as well as her two sisters, to remain at Bayonne as hostages for her father’s word.
All this was concluded in the presence of Charles of Navarre, surnamed “the Bad,” who, having secretly largely facilitated the passage of the Grandes Compagnies into Spain against Don Pedro, now receives from him the grant of the provinces of Guipuzcoa and Alava, the town of Vittoria, and any other he may choose to claim, upon condition that he will serve in person in the coming expedition against Don Enrique.