il the fourth generation from don Sancho thy
son, when thy male heirs shall fail, and none shall remain to inherit
this lordship; and the people shall be in grief and trouble, not knowing
what counsel to follow. And all this dole shall be for thy sins and
others, especially for the sin which thy son and those of the realm have
committed in rising against thee. But the Highest shall send them
salvation from the East,--a right noble king, and a good and a perfect
one, and one endued with justice, and with all the great and noble
things becoming a king. And he shall be fatherly to the people, in such
wise that the living, and those even whose bones lie in the grave, shall
bless God for his coming and for his goodness. And he shall be aided by
the High God, as he shall well merit; so his people shall forget their
past sufferings, how great ones soever may befall them before that
joyful day. Moreover, know thou for a surety, that by reason of thy
continual prayers to the Glorious Mother of God, from seventeen years of
age until now, she hath obtained from the Highest, that in thirty days
hence thy soul depart from the world and enter purgatory, which is good
hope; and in time, when the Highest shall see fit, it shall enter into
glory everlasting!'

"And these words being said, the angel vanished: and the king was long
afraid. Then he arose quickly, and opened the door of his cabinet, and
he found in the room his four chaplains, who never forsook him; and he
had great comfort with them in his sufferings, and in reckoning his
hours with them: and he made them bring ink and paper, and he made them
write down all which the angel had told him. And during the thirty days
he confessed and communicated every third day; and except on Sundays,
during the whole thirty days, he ate only three mouthfuls of bread in
the week, and drank water only, and that no more than once a day. And he
confirmed his last testament, and promoted his servants. And at the end
of the thirty days, his soul departed according to the angel's warning,
which he knew through the intercession of Our Lady the Virgin St. Mary."

Ortiz thinks it necessary to enter into a formal and lengthened
refutation of the angel's visit, and to prove, from the style, the
anachronisms, and other circumstances, that it must be a forgery.

Don Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo, bishop of Valencia (in his Historia
Hispana, lib. iv. cap. 5.), was the first to publish the apparition, but
wi