Pedro the Cruel takes the Castilian throne

1350

The new king of Castile, sixteen and humorless, began his reign by ordering the murder of his father's mistress. He would acquire the epithet 'the Cruel' through years of poisonings and decapitations, drag Castile into the Hundred Years' War as an English ally, and die at his half-brother Henry of Trastamara's hand in a campaign tent.