[269] The first edition of Ayala’s Chronicles is of Seville, 1495, folio, but it seems to have been printed from a MS. that did not contain the entire series. The best edition is that published under the auspices of the Academy of History, by D. Eugenio de Llaguno Amirola, its secretary (Madrid, 1779, 2 tom. 4to). That Ayala was the authorized chronicler of Castile is apparent from the whole tone of his work, and is directly asserted in an old MS. of a part of it, cited by Bayer in his notes to N. Antonio, Bib. Vet., Lib. X. cap. 1, num. 10, n. 1.
[270] There are about a dozen ballads on the subject of Don Pedro, of which the best, I think, are those beginning, “Doña Blanca esta en Sidonia,” “En un retrete en que apenas,” “No contento el Rey D. Pedro,” and “Doña Maria de Padilla,” the last of which is in the Saragossa Cancionero of 1550, Parte II. f. 46.
[271] See the Crónica de Don Pedro, Ann. 1353, Capp. 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 21; Ann. 1354, Capp. 19, 21; Ann. 1358, Capp. 2 and 3; and Ann. 1361, Cap. 3.
[272] The fairness of Ayala in regard to Don Pedro has been questioned, and, from his relations to that monarch, may naturally be suspected;—a point on which Mariana touches, (Historia, Lib. XVII. c. 10,) without settling it, but one of some little consequence in Spanish literary history, where the character of Don Pedro often appears connected with poetry and the drama. The first person who attacked Ayala was, I believe, Pedro de Gracia Dei, a courtier in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella and in that of Charles V. He was King-at-Arms and Chronicler to the Catholic sovereigns, and I have, in manuscript, a collection of his professional coplas on the lineages and arms of the principal families of Spain, and on the general history of the country;—short poems, worthless as verse, and sneered at by Argote de Molina, in the Preface to his “Nobleza del Andaluzia,” (1588,) for the imperfect knowledge their author had of the subjects on which he treated. His defence of Don Pedro is not better. It is found in the Seminario Erudito, (Madrid, 1790, Tom. XXVIII. and XXIX.,) with additions by a later hand, probably Diego de Castilla, Dean of Toledo, who, I believe, was one of Don Pedro’s descendants. It cites no sufficient authorities for the averments which it makes about events that happened a century and a half earlier, and on which, therefore, it was unsuitable to trust the voice of tradition. Francisco de Castilla, who certainly had blood of Don Pedro in his veins, followed in the same track, and speaks, in his “Pratica de las Virtudes,” (Çaragoça, 1552, 4to, fol. 28,) of the monarch and of Ayala as
El gran rey Don Pedro, quel vulgo reprueva
Por selle enemigo, quien hizo su historia, etc.
All this, however, produced little effect. But, in process of time, books were written upon the question;—the “Apologia del Rey Don Pedro,” by Ledo del Pozo, (Madrid, folio, s. a.,) and “El Rey Don Pedro defendido,” (Madrid, 1648, 4to,) by Vera y Figueroa, the diplomatist of the reign of Philip IV.; works intended, apparently, only to flatter the pretensions of royalty, but whose consequences we shall find when we come to the “Valiente Justiciero” of Moreto, Calderon’s “Médico de su Honra,” and similar poetical delineations of Pedro’s character in the seventeenth century. The ballads, however, it should be noticed, are almost always true to the view of Pedro given by Ayala;—the most striking exception that I remember being the admirable ballad beginning “A los pies de Don Enrique,” Quinta Parte de Flor de Romances, recopilado por Sebastian Velez de Guevara, Burgos, 1594, 18mo.
[273] The first edition of the “Crónica del Señor Rey D. Juan, segundo de este Nombre,” was printed at Logroño, (1517, fol.,) and is the most correct of the old editions that I have used. The best of all, however, is the beautiful one printed at Valencia, by Monfort, in 1779, folio, to which may be added an Appendix by P. Fr. Liciniano Saez, Madrid, 1786, folio.
[274] See his Prólogo, in the edition of 1779, p. xix., and Galindez de Carvajal, Prefacion, p. 19.
[275] He lived as late as 1444; for he is mentioned more than once in that year, in the Chronicle. See Ann. 1444, Capp. 14, 15.