ingdom, made a truce in 1457 with Henry IV.,
king of Castile and Leon, stipulating to pay him an annual tribute of
twelve thousand doblas or pistoles of gold, and to liberate annually six
hundred Christian captives, or in default of captives to give an
equal number of Moors as hostages,--all to be delivered at the city of
Cordova.*

* Garibay, Compend., 1.17, c. 3.

The truce, however, was of a partial nature, with singular reservations.
It did not include the Moorish frontier toward Jaen, which was to
remain open for the warlike enterprises of either nation; neither did it
prohibit sudden attacks upon towns and castles, provided they were mere
forays, conducted furtively, without sound of trumpet or display of
banners or pitching of camps or regular investment, and that they did
not last above three days.*

* Zurita, Anales de Aragon, 1. 20, c. 42; Mariana, Hist. de Espana 1.
25, c. 1; Bleda, Coron. de los Moros, l. 5, c. 3.

Aben Ismael was faithful in observing the conditions of the truce, but
they were regarded with impatience by his eldest son, Muley Abul Hassan,
a prince of a fiery and belligerent spirit, and fond of casing himself
in armor and mounting his war-horse. He had been present at Cordova at
one of the payments of tribute, and had witnessed the scoffs and
taunts of the Christians, and his blood boiled whenever he recalled the
humiliating scene. When he came to the throne in 1465, on the death of
his father, he ceased the payment of the tribute altogether, and it was
sufficient to put him into a tempest of rage only to mention it.

"He was a fierce and warlike infidel," says the pious Fray Antonio
Agapida; "his bitterness against the holy Christian faith had been
signalized in battle during the lifetime of his father, and the same
diabolical spirit of hostility was apparent in his ceasing to pay this
most righteous tribute."

CHAPTER II.

OF THE EMBASSY OF DON JUAN DE VERA TO DEMAND ARREARS OF TRIBUTE FROM THE
MOORISH MONARCH.

The flagrant want of faith of Muley Abul Hassan in fulfilling treaty
stipulations passed unresented during the residue of the reign of
Henry the Impotent, and the truce was tacitly continued without the
enforcement of tribute during the first three years of the reign of his
successors, Ferdinand and Isabella of glorious and happy memory, who
were too much engrossed by civil commotions in their own dominions, and
by a war of succession waged with th