Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/170

26 26 REIGN OF JOHN II., OF CASTILE. PART numerous instances of his magnanimity. They — '- — reflected, that the ambitious schemes of his rivals had been not a whit less selfish, though less suc- cessful, than his own ; and that, if his cupidity appeared insatiable, he had dispensed the fruits of it in acts of princely munificence. He himself maintained a serene and even cheerful aspect. Meeting one of the domestics of Prince Henry, he bade him request the prince "to reward the attach- ment of his servants with a different guerdon from what his master had assigned to him." As he ascended the scafibid, he surveyed the apparatus of death with composure, and calmly submitted himself to the stroke of the executioner, who, in the savage style of the executions of that day, plunged his knife into the throat of his victim, and deliberately severed his head from his body. A basin, for the reception of alms to defray the expenses of his interment, was placed at one ex- tremity of the scaffold ; and his mutilated remains, after having been exposed for several days to the gaze of the populace, were removed, by the breth- ren of a charitable order, to a place called the 1453. hermitage of St. Andrew, appropriated as the ceme- tery for malefactors. ^° Such was the tragical end of Alvaro de Luna ; a man, who, for more than thirty years, controlled trait, sketched by John do Mena, ^0 Cibdarcal, Centon Epistola- of the constable in the noontide of rio, ep. 103. — Cr6nica de Juan his glory. H., p. 564. — Cronica de Alvaro "Eete raualganobre Infortuna de Luna, tit. 128, and Apend. p. y domn «ii rnello con lUipernH rieiulns .eg y iiiinqiie del lengii Inii iiiiiclms de prendns ^'J°' ella lion le o«a tocar de iiiiiguiia," <kc. Laberiuto, coplus 235 ft acq.