the grand prior, representing the Abbot of Morimond in the spiritual government; the sacristan (guardian of the relics); and the obrero (supervisor of buildings). The order, having reached its apogee of prosperity, now held sway over fifty-six commanderies and sixteen priories, or cures, distributed between the Diocese of Jaén and the Vicariate of Ciudad Real. Its lordships included sixty-four villages, with a population of 200,000 souls, and produced an annual income estimated at 50,000 ducats. The kings whose fortune the mismanagement of the late reigns had depleted could not but covet these riches, while such formidable military power filled with distrust the monarchs who were obliged to tolerate the autonomous existence of the order. During the struggle between Afonso V of Portugal and Ferdinand of Aragon for the right of succession to Henry IV of Castile, the last male of his house (1474), much depended upon the attitude of Calatrava. The knights were divided. While the grand master, Rodrigo Giron, supported Portugal, his lieutenant, Lopez de Padilla, stood by Aragon. The battle of Toro (1479), where the pretensions of Portugal were annihilated, ended this schism, the last in the history of the order. The grand master, reconciled with Ferdinand of Aragon, fell, during the war against the Moors, at the siege of Loja (1482). His lieutenant, Lopez de Padilla, succeeded him and, as the last of the twenty-seven independent grand masters of Calatrava, revived for a season the heroic virtues of his order's better days. A mortified monk in his cell, a fearless warrior on the battlefield, the glory of Padilla shed its last rays in the war of the conquest of Granada, which he did not live to see completed. After the fall of Granada At Padilla's death (1487), Ferdinand of Aragon exhibited to the chapter, assembled for the election of a new grand master, a Bull from Innocent VIII that invested him with authority to administer the order, and to this decree he compelled the electors to submit. Thus ended the political autonomy of the Order of Calatrava. The reason of its being—the struggle against the Moors—seemed, indeed, to end with the fall of Granada (1492). The canonical bond between Calatrava and Morimond had been relaxing more and more. The King of Spain was too jealous of his authority to tolerate any foreign—especially French—intervention in the affairs of his kingdom. The canonical visits of the Abbot of Morimond