MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY IN ROYALTY. 173 



Sancho's reign was short, lasting only eleven years. During the 

 life of the queen mother, she exercised, as we have said, a beneficial 

 influence, but after her death the reign of the feeble Ferdinand IV. 

 was one long list of disasters. Some may wonder why Ferdinand 

 should have been so weak, but as many of his immediate ancestors 

 were far from being endowed with vigorous minds, of course he had 

 a chance to get qualities from the poorer of them. He did repeat 

 the cruel, passionate and tyrannical disposition to perfection, but no 

 one appears to have paid any attention to his wishes. 



Now again when the mental qualities are threatened we find them 

 brilliantly restored. Constantine, the wife of Ferdinand, was just 

 the one to effect this, as a glance at the chart will show. It is inter- 

 esting to see Alfonso X., the scholar and poet, again in his grandson 

 Diniz of Portugal, in another country and in another day where 

 probably no influence of environment could come into play. Alfonso 

 was the first and he was the second royal personage who was also a 

 man of letters. The issue of this union was another one of the heroes 

 of old Castile, Alfonso II., who succeeded to the throne in 1312, 

 when only one year old ; grew to be a great warrior against the Moors, 

 and taking after his maternal grandmother possessed a large share 

 of prudence and virtue, some of the rarer characteristics of his tribe. 

 As an example of the respect felt for him even by his enemies the 

 following may suffice : The Moorish king of Granada is said to have 

 exclaimed when he heard of Alfonso's death, 'We have lost the best 

 king in the world one who knew how to honor the worthy, whether 

 friend or foe.' This eulogy is, however, somewhat offset by the evi- 

 dence that he was extremely cruel at times. 



It is now to be noted that there are an unusual number in the 

 pedigree of Alfonso, who have the adjective cruel or some other designa- 

 tion of depravity attached to them. Now a close intermarriage here 

 will undoubtedly give rise to some of those great and valiant qualities, 

 courage, energy and ability in the leadership of men, which were pos- 

 sessed by some, though not by all these royal lords and dames. There 

 is a fair chance that the literary or possibly the pious and amiable 

 qualities may reappear. But such a close intermarriage would be a 

 hazardous one to say the least. 



Let us take a survey of the pedigree of Alfonso XL in order to 

 see what proportionate amount of cruelty and depravity there is in 

 the ancestr}- of each succeeding generation. 



In five degrees of kinship back of Ferdinand II. (d. 1187) we 

 find three such, among the nine persons whose records were obtain- 

 able. In the same degree for Alfonso IX. there were only two among 

 the nine. Ferdinand III. (d. 1252), who represents the next genera- 



