CIGARETTE PAPERS.

Southland Times, Issue 21660, 23 March 1932, Page 8

CIGARETTE PAPERS.

A WRITING KING. On March 23, 1369, at the early age of thirty-five Don Pedro 1., King of Castile, died under the dagger of his illegitimate brother, Enrique (who usurped his throne) at Montiel. Pedro had been styled the Cruel, and was also accused of being an infidel and a fratricide. It is open to doubt, however, that these charges were well founded. He certainly ordered the death of an illegitimate brother who had attempted to assassinate him, and his hatred of Monks was the basis of the accusation that he was an infidel. It is from the writings of the monks, who hated him in turn that the terrible reputation historygives him has come. He is not the only ruler who has suffered in the eyes of posterity because his political or religious opponents have been energetic in leaving blackening records. Modern ideas of Nero and Cesare Borgia modify- considerably-, and even deny the popular estimates left by biassed recorders. But Pedro, who was born in 1334, is notable because he was one of the first modern kings to possess the accomplishment of writing, which was believed in those days to be not in keeping with the dignity of a king. England’s Henry I (Beauclerc) could not write and signed with a mark. Pedro’s two surviving daughters, by the way, became the wives of John of Gaunt and Edmund Langley, sons of Edward 111 of England. —CRITICUS.