Don Pedro had been sent to Scotland in response to Dr. De Puebla’s request for someone to manage that end of his plot to detach James IV [of Scotland] from Perkin Warbeck and arrange an Anglo-Scottish peace. Arrived there, Don Pedro began his peace mission by joining a raid across the border into England in the course of which he got most of his staff killed in skirmishes, and endeared himself to his hosts by an unecclesiastical enthusiasm for an all-out, help-yourself fight. James IV liked his ruffling ways so well that he was ready to listen to his advice to get rid of the milksop Perkin, and glad to send the unorthodox Spanish diplomat south with his terms of peace.
Once in London, Don Pedro stayed there. The wine was better and more copious, the manners more polished, and accommodations more comfortable than in James IV’s rude castles, and there was the additional sport of teasing Dr. De Puebla. He had some sort of credentials for England; Henry [VII] accepted him, and he was soon as popular at Richmond as he had been at Holyrood. The King could not help liking him. Anyone with half an eye could see that Don Pedro de Ayala was a gentleman and Dr. De Puebla was not, and if Henry preferred to talk business with the Doctor, he preferred to hunt and hawk, drink and dice, with the Bishop – to wink at his brawling, help him out of his scrapes, and from time to time extricate from jail one of the swaggering Scottish sworders with whom Ayala had filled up his war-depleted Spanish suite.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part I: A Spanish Princess (1485-1509); Chapter 2, Section ii” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 31, 32. Print.
Further Reading:
No comments, yet...