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There remained in Spain about fifteen hundred men-at-arms faithful to Du Guesclin, himself faithful to Henry of Transtamare, who had made him Constable of Castile.
To give a notion of his tone, I will quote a few stanzas at the end of the Spanish Atridæ in which he describes, in the character of a visitor at the court of Henry of Transtamare at Segovia, Henry's treatment of the children of his brother, Pedro the Cruel. Don Diego Albuquerque, his neighbor, strolls after dinner through the castle with him:
The Duke of Anjou, governor of Languedoc, gave them encouragement, by agreement, no doubt with King Charles V., and from anxiety on his own part to rid his province of such inconvenient visitors. On the 1st of January, 1366, Du Guesclin entered Barcelona, whither Henry of Transtamare came to join him.
Peter was at last the victim of a crime similar to those of which he had so often himself been guilty: his illegitimate brother, Henry de Transtamare, deprived him of his crown and his life, A.D. 1369, Heg. 771.
After several months' preparation the prince of Wales, purchasing the complicity of the King of Navarre, marched into Spain in February, 1367, with an army of twenty- seven thousand men, and John Chandos, the most able of the English warriors. Henry of Transtamare had troops more numerous, but less disciplined and experienced.
There is no occasion to give a detailed account here of that expedition, which appertains much more to the history of Spain than to that of France. There was a brief or almost no struggle. Henry of Transtamare was crowned king, first at Calahorra, and afterwards at Burgos.
On arriving at Toulouse from Avignon, Du Guesclin and his bands, with a strength, it is said, of thirty thousand men, took the decided resolution of going into Spain to support the cause of Prince Henry of Transtamare against the King of Castile his brother, Don Pedro the Cruel.
Du Guesclin, grievously hurt, sent to the king his sword of constable, adding that he was about to withdraw to the court of Castile, to Henry of Transtamare, who would show more appreciation of his services.
When well prepared for war, the Moorish sovereign sent ambassadors to the King of Castile, to solicit his friendship. Don Juan, the son and successor of Henry de Transtamare, being sufficiently occupied by his quarrels with Portugal and England, readily signed a treaty with the royal follower of the Crescent; and Abouhadjad, on his part, kept it unbroken.
We find the cities, at the end of the thirteenth century, forming a confederation, called a "fraternity," against the nobles. Their deputies at that time had more power in the assemblies than the nobles and clergy. But the power of the nobles increased, especially from the accession of Henry of Transtamare.
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