orish feeling. Of the palace where lived
the Mussulman Kings nothing, indeed, remains; but Pedro the Cruel, with
whom the edifice now standing is more especially connected, was no less
oriental than his predecessors, and he employed Morisco architects to
rebuild it. Parts are said to be exact reproductions of the older
structure, while many of the beautiful tiles were taken from Moorish
houses.

The atmosphere, then, is but half Arabic; the rest belongs to that
flaunting, multi-coloured barbarism which is characteristic of Northern
Spain before the union of Arragon and Castile. Wandering in the deserted
courts, looking through horseshoe windows of exquisite design at the
wild garden, Pedro the Cruel and Maria de Padilla are the figures that
occupy the mind.

Seville teems with anecdotes of the monarch who, according to the point
of view, has been called the Cruel and the Just. He was an amorist for
whom platonic dalliance had no charm, and there are gruesome tales of
ladies burned alive because they would not quench the flame of his
desires, of others, fiercely virtuous, who poured boiling oil on face
and bosom to make themselves unattractive in his sight. But the head
that wears a crown apparently has fascinations which few women can
resist, and legend tells more frequently of Pedro's conquests than of
his rebuffs. He was an ardent lover to whom marriage vows were of no
importance; that he committed bigamy is certain--and pardonable, but
some historians are inclined to think that he had at one and the same
time no less than three wives. He was oriental in his tastes.

In imitation of the Paynim sovereigns Pedro loved to wander in the
streets of Seville at night, alone and disguised, to seek adventure or
to see for himself the humour of his subjects; and like them also it
pleased him to administer justice seated in the porch of his palace. If
he was often hard and proud towards the nobles, with the people he was
always very gracious; to them he was the redressor of wrongs and a
protector of the oppressed; his justice was that of the Mussulman
rulers, rapid, terrible and passionate, often quaint. For instance: a
rich priest had done some injury to a cobbler, who brought him before
the ecclesiastical tribunals, where he was for a year suspended from his
clerical functions. The tradesman thought the punishment inadequate, and
taking the law into his own hands gave the priest a drubbing. He was
promptly seized, tried, co