History for Young Readers

SPAIN

NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1912

Copyright, 1899,

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Printed in the United States of America

[PREFACE.]

As I pause in my work to pass in review the events of three thousand years, which I have tried to narrate in this little book, I probably anticipate my readers in wondering at the audacity, not to say presumption, which moved me to this undertaking. It came about quite naturally, to be sure, as the result of an interest awakened many years ago in a nation which had sent to America such discoverers as Columbus and Vespucci, such soldiers as Cortes and Pizarro, De Soto, and Ponce de Leon. At first I became curious to visit the scenes of their adventures, then to journey through the country whence they had come; and the result has been that I have devoted a portion of my life to a study of both people and country.

I do not, of course, assume that an interest in a subject should warrant one in writing about it, be he never so well equipped for the purpose; but with me, the seeing gives birth to a desire to convey to others the pleasure I feel, or the lesson I may derive, from the object under contemplation. Thus, while I never intended more than to make a few forays into the historic fields of Spain, when I visited that country ten years ago, it has eventuated that instead of skirmishing with the outposts, I have attacked the very citadel. That I have come off unscathed, and with spoil of some sort, is self-evident; but whether it might not have been to my readers’ profit if I had not done so, is a question for them to decide. I feel it to be, indeed, as true to-day as it was a score of years ago that (in the words of a standard encyclopædia) “there is no good general history of Spain!”

Without attempting to extenuate any possible errors, yet I would call attention to the fact that it is extremely difficult to clothe in picturesque language (and at the same time be faithful to the verities of history) the details of a story extending over so vast a range, and bring that story within the compass of a single volume.

The best histories are those which treat of single episodes or periods, such as Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Irving’s Conquest of Spain, Spanish Voyages, and Conquest of Granada. To these, in truth, I would refer my young readers for a more extended acquaintance with Spain and her fascinating history. In those charming narratives the dry bones of fact are clothed in graceful drapery, and the reader moves and acts with their heroes, kings, and queens, in most distinguished company.

I do not like to allude to the recent events in Spanish history, by which our own country was forced into collision with Spain; and I will dismiss the subject merely with the statement that it has been my endeavour to present an accurate account of the unfortunate war, in which I have had the benefit of supervision by competent authorities.

To them, and to the silent companions of my voyages and excursions, drawn from the musty shelves of the library, and frequently exposed to peril “by flood and field,” I would herewith express my heartfelt thanks.

F. A. O.

Washington, D. C., February, 1899.

CONTENTS.

SPAIN.

CHAPTER I.

ANCIENT IBERIA.

In the southwestern corner of Europe, with the Atlantic Ocean on the north and west, and the Mediterranean Sea south and east, lies the Iberian Peninsula, eleven thirteenths of which belong to the country known as Spain. The other two thirteenths pertain to Portugal, a country politically distinct from Spain, but with similar physical features in the main.

Although we do not know when it first received its ancient name, Iberia, nor even whence came its very first peoples, yet we know that for ages it has existed as a fair and fertile land, capable of supporting millions of inhabitants.

It is essentially a mountainous country, for, first of all, there are the Pyrenees, which partly bound it on the north; the Cantabrian range, in the northwest; the Guadarrama, in the central region; and the Sierras Morena and Nevada, in the south. Between these mountain ranges lie great tablelands and deep valleys, the latter traversed by rivers swift and long, but few of them navigable far from the sea.

It is its mountainous character that has given this land, lying as it does beneath a southern sun, a great diversity of climate; so that we may say it has at least four climatic zones: First, the zone of the plateau, cold in winter and hot in summer, where the soil is arid; second, that of the northwestern provinces, with a moist climate; third, that of the eastern coast, where a balance is preserved between the two extremes of the others; and, fourth, the subtropical zone of the south coast, which is hot as well as humid.

Thus Spain has a more varied vegetation than any other country of Europe, for its high plains and mountainous valleys are almost Alpine in the character of their flora; its North Atlantic region has ferns and grassy meadows, forests of oak, beech, and chestnut; and the southeast and south a flora that is almost African, and comprising many species that are purely tropical.

So we find that Spain, though only six hundred and fifty miles in greatest length, and with an area of but little more than one hundred and ninety thousand square miles, can boast forests of olives and cork oaks, hillsides covered with vineyards, valleys filled with orange trees, almonds, pomegranates, sugar cane, and with a range of fruits extending from the apple of the northern region to the date palm of the south, which last was brought over from Africa. Honeybees lay up rich stores from the thyme-covered tablelands, silkworms flourish in the mulberry groves of the eastern provinces, and the cochineal feeds on the cactus of the south.

Not only does the land yield every variety of food for the sustenance of man, but, with its thirteen hundred miles of coast line, Spain has boundless stores of fish, such as anchovies, tunnies, and salmon in their season. And again, while almost every species of the animal as well as the vegetable kingdom might find a congenial home here, Nature has not been sparing of her minerals, such as copper, lead, silver, gold, coal, iron, cobalt, and quicksilver.

These are some of the natural resources of Spain, showing, as has been said already, that it was bountifully endowed by the Creator with all things necessary to man’s subsistence, even though he might through ignorance prodigally waste them.

We have no authentic history of the first peoples inhabiting Iberia, but it is believed that a remnant of their descendants yet exists in northern Spain, in the Basques, whose speech and customs differ from those of all others on the face of the earth. The Basques claim that they are descended from the original people, and say, moreover, that their language was the veritable speech of Paradise. It is difficult enough to acquire, at all events, and they have a tradition that the “Evil One” himself once spent seven years in attempting to master it, and then gave up in despair, after having acquired but two words, “yes” and “no,” which he forgot as soon as he left the country!

But by the twilight of tradition we observe an invasion of the peninsula by the Celts, or Kelts, a wave from the great Aryan deluge that at one time submerged all Europe, and which overleaped the Pyrenees and swept all before it. And these Aryan Kelts, or Keltic Aryans, became masters of Spain, not so much through conquest in war as by intermingling with the natives; and there resulted, it is said, another and distinct people, or race, called the Celtiberian. Now, while the aborigines were probably swarthy and short of stature, the incoming Kelts were tall and fair, excellent horsemen, hunters, and tillers of the soil. As both races were warlike, their descendants became celebrated, in after years, for their prowess, and when the Romans invaded Spain these brave Celtiberians gave them great trouble, and resisted subjection to the very last.

They were rude and uncivilized, and, if they built cities or towns, no remains of such exist, of which we are aware. In their religion they were Nature worshippers, blindly revering the god of day, the stars of night, and the “phenomena of dawn and sunrise.” Remains of their rude temples, it is claimed, have been found in Portugal, where dwelt that branch of the race known as Lusitanians.

CHAPTER II.

PHŒNICIANS AND CARTHAGINIANS.

The native Iberians knew of silver and gold ore in the hills of southern Spain, which the Phœnician merchant-sailors from Tyre taught them to utilize, giving them in exchange the products of their skill, and in course of time a great trade was carried on between distant Phœnicia on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean and Iberian “Tarshish” beyond its western end. Does not the prophet Ezekiel say, speaking of Phœnician Tyre, “Tarshish was thy merchant, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches”?

Tarshish, sometimes called by its Latin form, Tartessus, was the name applied, probably, to the region about the mouth of the river Guadalquivir, and perhaps to all that portion of Spain now known as Andalusia. Here the Phœnicians founded the city to-day known as Cadiz, and which they called “Gaddir,” or fortress, subsequently named Gadez by the Romans. Although the Phœnician sailors had long traded here—for the founding of cities is not the first occupation of explorers or traders—yet the probable beginning of Cadiz, about 1100 b.c., or three thousand years ago, is the first date that we can even approximately establish in Spanish chronology.

Two centuries later, or about 900 b.c., Greek sailors arrived at the Catalonian coast of northeastern Spain, and there founded a colony which became prosperous through its traffic with the natives. The Greeks had already sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and declared that they had reached the extreme verge of the habitable globe. In token of this their great Hercules, or the Tyrian hero, had set up two monuments, one on the European and the other on the African coast, which even to-day are known as the “Pillars of Hercules.” There are other traditions referring to Hercules and his connection with Spain, for it is thought that in this country he sought the oxen of the triplebodied Geryones, as he was on his way back from Gadira (or Gaddir), when he killed the monster Cacus. And further, there is not much doubt that the famed “Hesperides” were located here, from which, as one of the Herculean “labours,” the son of Zeus was to fetch the golden apples. Hence it will be seen that the early traditions of Spain are very respectably connected! And, moreover, we should not forget that the Pillars of Hercules are perpetuated in the American “dollar mark” ($), the two upright columns, wreathed within a scroll, according to a fanciful legend.

In the seventh century b.c., Gaddir, or Cadiz, was a flourishing city, as also was another Phœnician settlement on the northeast coast, Tartessus, or Tarracco, the modern Tarragona, since famous for its wines and Roman ruins. During the first centuries of Phœnician commerce with Spain, traditions tell us, silver was so abundant that the Tyrians not only loaded their vessels with the ore, but hammered it into anchors and ballast for their ships. Gold, silver, and copper coins were minted and ornaments wrought; and these, together with other objects of antiquity, are frequently found to-day—relics of the ancient Gaddir, or of Phœnician “Cadiz under the Sea.” Some have held that, while the first city was founded here, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir, yet the mines of gold, silver, and copper were those we find to-day more northerly, in the province of Huelva. From the port of Huelva, at the mouth of the Rio Tinto, vast amounts of copper have been exported in modern times; and, moreover, this same river, down which the caravels of Columbus sailed at the very beginning of their first voyage to America, derived its ancient name from the copper colour of its waters.

The Phœnicians came here as merchant rovers; perhaps at times they had acted as pirates of the sea, but had carried on no war of conquest. At the most, they colonized a few seacoast cities, and in exchange for the natural products of Spain they bestowed upon the natives the benefits of their civilization, including, it is thought, the alphabet and the art of writing.

It was left for the Phœnician colony of Carthage to bring the Iberians directly tributary to another people, soon after the close of the first Punic war. Though, according to tradition, an embassy of Gauls and Iberians was sent to Alexander the Great, in the fourth century b.c., yet they still existed in obscurity when the great Hamilcar Barca turned his attention to Spain as a possible recruiting ground for his depleted armies. Rome had conquered him in Sardinia and Sicily, which provinces he had lost to Carthage, and he had been compelled to sue for peace. But his hatred of Rome was implacable, and, foreseeing the futility of waging further war from Africa direct, he passed over into Spain, and there again built up his forces with recruits from the wild but fearless Celtiberians.

Hasdrubal, Hamilcar’s son-in-law, who founded the city of New Carthage, or Cartagena, in Spain, after Hamilcar was killed, in the year 228 b.c., carried on the conquest of Spain until himself assassinated seven years later.

Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, was but eighteen years old when his father died, and twenty-six when Hasdrubal was killed, but he had been bred to war from childhood, trained to fight with the Spanish levies, and taught to hate the arch-enemy of Carthage. When, as a boy, he had pleaded with Hamilcar to be taken with him to Spain, his father had consented only after he had sworn, on the altar of Jupiter the Great, eternal enmity to Rome. Not only was he brought up in camp, sleeping and eating with the native troops, but in early manhood he was married to a Spanish woman, and by this act had won the native soldiers’ regard, as well as by his valour.

Chosen by the troops as Hasdrubal’s successor, Hannibal began his real campaign against Rome two years later, 218 b.c., laying siege to Saguntum, a Greek city under Roman protection, in the province of Valencia. Famous in history has become that siege of Saguntum, for the valour of its defenders and the persistence of its foes, lasting nearly a year, and ending in its total destruction; for, finding themselves hemmed in by Hannibal’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and their fortifications crumbling beneath the terrible battering-rams, the Saguntine soldiers made a vast heap of all their valuables, gathered around it their women and children, and sallied forth to meet their death without the walls. At the same time the women set fire to the pile and cast themselves into it, along with their children; and thus perished the last of the heroic Saguntines.

You will not find Saguntum on the map of modern Spain; but in its place, and on its site, Murviedro—meaning the old walls—on the east coast, north of the city of Valencia.

Thus was ushered in what was known as the second Punic War—for Rome promptly resented this destruction of a colony in alliance with her; and for the first time sent an army to Spain. To forestall his enemies, Hannibal resolved to carry the war into Italy. That same summer he left the city of Cartagena with twelve thousand horsemen, thirty-seven elephants, and ninety thousand foot soldiers, for the conquest of Rome. He had been drilling his soldiers and husbanding his resources for years, in anticipation of this momentous event; but even then it would seem that he was poorly prepared to meet a nation that could put in the field an army of trained soldiers three times as great as his. But, after the wonderful passage of the Alps, when his force had been reduced to less than six thousand horse and twenty thousand foot soldiers, Hannibal still pushed on, to that long and terrible campaign against Rome, lasting fifteen years, and not to end until this great commander—declared to have been the greatest of his age—was recalled to Carthage to assist in its defence.

CHAPTER III.

SPAIN A ROMAN PROVINCE.

It is not within the scope of our inquiry to follow the mighty Carthaginian throughout his marvellous campaign against Rome, during which he came so close to final success that he rode up to one of its gates and threw his spear into the city; but we must not fail to note that it was planned in Spain, carried out from that country as a base, and at first was mainly fought by Celtiberian soldiers. Meanwhile, though Hannibal had carried out his scheme of war on a magnificent scale, and in the end all but brought Rome to terms, yet in Spain, the country he had left, affairs had not progressed well with the Carthaginians.

They had been left with Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal in charge, who, after defeating a Roman army under Cneius Scipio, in the year 212, four years later marched through Gaul to the assistance of the Africans. He made the perilous passage of the Alps successfully, but was surprised and defeated by the Roman consul Nero, by whose brutal orders his head was cut off and thrown into Hannibal’s camp.

The first actual reverses to the Carthaginians in Spain came through Publius Cornelius Scipio, who, a Roman ædile of noble appearance, eloquent and popular, was sent thither by acclamation to attack them in the rear. He had already felt the might of Hannibal, first at the battle of Ticinus—where he had saved his father’s life—at Trebia, and at Cannæ, where the Romans suffered such terrible defeats. He met and checked Hasdrubal, but could not prevent him from crossing the Pyrenees, and so turned his attention to Cartagena, the wealthy city on the southern coast. So well timed were his movements that his fleet and army arrived there the same day, and leading his soldiers through a shallow lake, where the fortifications were the weakest, after fierce fighting he drove the defenders from the citadel, took the city, and put every warrior to the sword. The plunder of this Carthaginian stronghold was immense, for besides the five war ships and one hundred and thirteen merchant vessels in the harbour, there were brought to him two hundred and seventy-six golden bowls weighing a pound apiece, and eighteen thousand pounds of silver, wrought and coined. Ten thousand prisoners fell into his hands, including many hostages of Spanish tribes left as pledges to Hannibal and Hasdrubal for the fidelity of native soldiers. These, by a conciliatory policy, Scipio soon secured as allies, and with their aid eventually drove the last of the Carthaginians out of the peninsula. The last city to fall was Cadiz, in b.c. 206, and in 205 Scipio returned to Rome, and was elected consul in recognition of his great achievements.

All this time Hannibal was waging desperate war against Rome, but in the year 203 he was recalled to Africa, on account of the threatened invasion by the Romans under Scipio, who, although he had brought all Carthaginian Spain under Roman dominion, had yet failed of the original object of his invasion, which had been the diversion of Hannibal from the conquest of Italy. So he resolved to “carry the war into Africa,” and so successful was he that Hannibal was utterly defeated at the battle of Zama, 19th October, 202 b.c. Peace was concluded between Rome and Carthage the following year, but the African city was left shorn of all her colonial possessions, and in such pitiable condition as to be no longer a menace to her foes.

For this great victory Scipio received the surname of “Africanus,” by which he is known to history, and brought to a close the second Punic War, which has been called “the war of one man (Hannibal) with a nation.” The first, as we have seen, resulted in the occupation of Spain by Hamilcar Barca; the second was the outcome of the destruction of Saguntum by his son Hannibal; the third and last Punic War was brought about by the protests of humiliated Carthage against Roman aggressions, and ended in its siege, capture, and total destruction in the year 146 b.c.

Both Hannibal and Scipio Africanus died in the year 183 b.c., the former an exile, the latter in retirement at his country seat in Campania. It was another Scipio, Æmilianus, who thirty-seven years later acquired the surname of “Africanus Minor” for his capture of Carthage; and it was he who carried out the Roman senate’s orders to raze the walls, drive the ploughshare over its site, and sow it with salt.

Three years before the final destruction of Carthage, died another Roman, Cato, whose reiterated “Delenda est Carthago” in 207, and in Africa with the proconsul Scipio Africanus, whose luxurious mode of living he denounced. Appointed to a position in Spain, in the year 195 he crushed a rising of the Celtiberi, in which his military genius shone so conspicuously that he was given a “triumph” when he returned to Rome the next year.

The Celtiberi were those brave and powerful people of ancient Spain to whom we have already alluded. At the time of the Carthaginian expulsion from the peninsula the Romans had not conquered the whole of Spain, for the Celtiberians held all the vast interior region, where they were firmly intrenched; and besides these there were yet unknown and unsubjugated peoples in the northwest. Scipio’s rule, though brief, was on the whole salutary, and at this time the Roman soldiery began to look upon Spain as a desirable country to settle in after their terms of service had expired. Many of them married Spanish women, proconsuls were appointed from Rome, cities were built, colonies planted, military roads constructed, and through these means the Latin language gradually took the place of native dialects. In this manner was the Iberian peninsula Romanized—which in those days meant civilized. It became a province of the Roman Empire, and was divided into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior, or Hither and Farther Spain. Still, Spain yet required prætors who were invested with consular power, and some twenty thousand Roman legionaries, to keep it in order, as the turbulent Celtiberians, intrenched in their mountain fastnesses, were constantly threatening an outbreak.

The elder Gracchus, and after him his two more famous sons, served as governors of Hither Spain, and captured more than one hundred Celtiberian towns. They were eminently successful, but in or about 154 the Romans under Mummius suffered a defeat, and many were massacred by the Lusitanians.

These defeats were avenged and Roman supremacy restored by a grandson of the great Marcellus Claudius, who had met and checked Hannibal after the disaster of Cannæ, when the Romans lost sixty thousand men. He founded the city of Cordoba as a Roman colony, and it soon became a seat of learning and the home of men eminent in literature and in the arts of peace. Rome was now mistress of the Mediterranean, which from Spain to Syria was “hardly more than a Roman lake.” During the years 147 to 140 b.c. the Lusitanians were in revolt, led by the gallant Viriathus, a simple herdsman, who, having seen his people treacherously massacred, vowed vengeance against the emissaries of Rome. He cut to pieces army after army, and at last penned a famous Roman general and his entire command in a deep defile, and exacted terms by which Lusitanian independence was recognised. For that alone had Viriathus been fighting, and he was content with that; but the treaty was repudiated by the Roman senate, and once more he took the field, only to fall a victim to treachery and assassination.

The Lusitanian revolt was brought to a close by the taking of Numantia (134 b.c.), after a siege of fifteen months, during which its inhabitants performed prodigies of valour, and nearly all of its eight thousand defenders fell by famine and the sword. The Roman army, said to have been sixty thousand strong, was led by no less a personage than the younger Scipio, Africanus Minor, who served Numantia as he had unhappy Carthage twelve years before, and utterly destroyed it. His work was carried on by others, notably by Junius Brutus, until all signs of revolution were extinguished, and the peninsula was again at peace.

But for the invasion of the Cimbri, about 105 b.c., and the turbulent factions of Rome, Spain would probably have remained quiet and prosperous; but there came to this country as an exile one Quintus Sertorius, who had been a soldier under Marius when he was opposing Sulla, and espoused his cause. Upon the downfall of Marius he fled to Spain and gained a refuge with the Lusitanians, among which barbarous but brave people he acquired immense influence. He trained them in the arts of war, and when the Roman soldiers came against them, defeated five of their generals in succession, including the veteran Metellus. He aimed at establishing an independent republic in Spain, and perhaps might have succeeded had not some of his followers, probably bribed by Roman gold, treacherously stabbed him at a banquet.

About the time that Sertorius was fighting the barbarous Cimbri in defence of his native country, there was born a child who became known in after years as Pompey. It came about that, when he had grown to manhood, he was sent to Spain to defeat and capture the older soldier, then leader of the revolted Lusitanians. He was several times defeated by the wily Sertorius, but after his assassination he found the matter of pacifying Spain comparatively easy. He gained repeated victories, and eventually returned to Rome in triumph, his star in the ascendant.

At the beginning of this century, so charged with momentous events, the great Cæsar was born, five or six years the junior of Pompey, whose rival he became in later years for the applause and favours of the Roman populace. In the year 68 b.c. he also went to Spain, having obtained a quæstorship; and again, in 63, he was given the province of Farther Spain, where he amassed great wealth, and gained a military experience which was of such service to him while conducting those immortal campaigns in Britain and Gaul.

Though the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey had the exclusive possession of Rome as its object, yet most of their battles were fought on the soil of Spain. In the year 49 Cæsar defeated Pompey’s legates in Spain; the following year he overthrew Pompey himself at Pharsalia, in Thessaly; but the final battle was fought about the year 45, between Cæsar and the sons of his dead rival.

These great Romans had subdued for their country the East and the West; had conquered Gaul and Syria, Britain and Africa; but the great and decisive conflict, which was to forever settle the question of supremacy between the Roman senate and the greatest Roman of all time, took place in Spain! It was at Munda, not far from Cordova, in the valley of the Guadalquivir, and it is said that Cæsar himself led the soldiers in the ranks; saying afterward that though he had often fought for victory, yet he had never before fought for his life. More than thirty thousand men were slain, among them one of Pompey’s sons; and this great victory made Cæsar “undisputed master of the Roman world,” From Spain he returned to a triumph in Rome; but he was not long to enjoy the fruits of his victories, the titles of “Pater patriæ” and “Imperator” for he was assassinated the following year.

How inextricably interwoven are the threads of history which bind Rome and Spain, we may note by glancing at the names of four only of the former’s greatest men: Sulla, the first Roman to invade the Eternal City with her own troops, “set the pace” for Cæsar at the Rubicon; Sulla’s champion, Pompey, pursued Sertorius, friend of Marius, into Spain and accomplished his death; in his turn, Pompey fell before the might of Cæsar, who triumphed over all!

While it is true that “peace hath her victories,” yet they are not often recorded, and the history of Spain for the next four hundred years is mainly uneventful. But although Hispania had been freed from participation in Roman feuds, yet the barbaric population of the far north was not entirely subjugated until the time of Augustus, who finally completed the work begun by the Scipios and continued by Pompey and Cæsar. Ten years later, under Marcus Agrippa, Spain had become completely Latinized, and finally was considered “more completely Roman than any other province beyond the limits of Italy.”

During the Roman occupation cities were founded, notably Cordova, Saragossa, and Italica (the latter now in ruins, near Seville); magnificent public works were constructed, such as roads, aqueducts, bridges, and amphitheatres. The best examples of Roman engineering and architecture may now be found and studied in Spain, such as an amphitheatre at Merida, another at Saguntum, the Roman bridges at Cuenca, Salamanca, and Cordova, and that splendid bridge over the Guadiana built by Trajan, which is half a mile long, thirty-three feet above the river, on eighty-one arches of granite; the aqueducts of Tarragona, Evora, and Seville, and that surpassing piece of engineering work which has commanded the admiration of centuries, the aqueduct bridge of Segovia, twenty-six hundred feet long and one hundred feet in height.

These material evidences of Roman occupation may be seen to-day, and besides these, the finest of Roman coins are frequently discovered. But more than in mere mechanical works Rome has left her impress upon Hispania: in the language spoken there, in the illustrious names of Roman citizens born there, such as Trajan and Hadrian, her great rulers; Lucan, Martial, the two Senecas, Quintilian, Columella, Pomponius Mela, Silius Italicus, Florus—most of whose works are classics in the Latin tongue.

Thus, while the names of Rome’s greatest soldiers are written across Spain’s page of history, in the years of her peace and prosperity other Romans appeared equally famous in the realms of literature.

CHAPTER IV

A KINGDOM OF THE GOTHS.

Except for an invasion of the Franks, about a.d. 256, the peace of Spain was unbroken for nearly four hundred years. But in the time of the Roman Emperor Honorius, the empire having been greatly weakened by repeated attacks of the northern barbarians, as well as by the sloth and effeminacy of its own citizens, her distant provinces soon began to experience dissensions and invasions. The death of Stilicho, the trusted adviser of Honorius and commander of his forces, removed the only obstacle to Alaric’s advance upon Rome, and the city yielded to his persistent attacks. And the same year that Rome first felt the rude barbarian’s terrible hand upon her, was also that, if we may believe the chronicles, in which a host of Suevi, Alani, and Vandals poured over the Pyrenees and swept across defenceless Spain.

Roman civilization and influence were felt mainly on the coast and in southern Spain; in the north and west lived the semi-barbarous tribes we have already noted, who were now but loosely held together by the disintegrating bonds of Rome. Hispania’s conquerors could do nothing to help her, for was not Rome herself at the mercy of the Goths, and compelled to pay an enormous ransom, after enduring humiliating siege and capitulation? It came about, however, that the successor of Alaric, Ataulpha, or Atawulf, made captive lovely Placidia, sister of Honorius, whom he married and carried away into Aquitania. Honorius made the best of the matter and granted to Atawulf all southern Gaul and Roman Spain, on condition that he would expel the Suevi and Alani, and hold the province tributary to his empire. He accomplished his task, so far as southern Gaul was concerned, and then went over the mountains and established his court at Barcelona, which had been successively a Phœnician, Carthaginian, and Roman city, and was now held by the Visigoths.

Though Atawulf seems to have been a faithful ally of Rome, and in her name held his new kingdom of Hispania-Gothia, as he called it, yet Honorius sent an army against him under Constantius, who, according to report, was in love with Hacidia before she was carried off and married by the Goth. Atawulf was basely assassinated by a creature of his court, and Constantius made truce with his successor, on condition that he should be given possession of Placidia. It was a cheap purchase of peace, the Goths concluded, and so the Roman general retired with the widow of Atawulf as his only captive, and married in Rome her who became the mother of the future emperor Valentinian.

Sigric, successor to Atawulf, had murdered the five children of the latter and compelled his wife to walk barefoot through the streets of Barcelona, one historian tells us; yet he lived but a month to enjoy his ill-gotten throne, and was followed by the real founder of the Visigothic kingdom in Spain, the warrior Walia, whose reign lasted four years, when he died, and was succeeded by Theodoric.

Walia had reconquered the greater part of Spain for Rome, and was allowed to recover the territory of southern Gaul, where he established his kingdom of Toulouse, and whither his successor also went to hold court. Theodoric continued the conquests of his predecessor, but committed the unpardonable sin, in the eyes of Rome, of keeping his acquisition for himself and the Visigothic kingdom. In the year 428 the Vandals and Suevi, under the renowned Genseric, defeated an allied army of Goths and Romans, for a long time ravaged all southern Spain, and then went over into Africa. Some say that the present name of Andalusia, applied to the south of Spain, which in Roman times was called Boetica, was derived from the Vandal occupation—Vandalusia, or the land of the Vandals.

The greatest event of Theodoric’s reign occurred in the year of his death, a.d. 451, when the Visigoths, assisted by the allied armies of Rome and the Franks, defeated Attila the Hun, that famed “Scourge of God,” who had thus far led his horde of “beasts on two legs” out of the east and the north, to the ravage of the south.

Theodoric was killed on the field of battle, and the crown fell to a son, Theodoric II, after him to another son, Euric, or Evaric, who defied the waning power of Rome, and finally threw it off and brought the peninsula under the sole supremacy of the Visigoths.

Under Alaric II, who became king upon the death of Euric, the Visigoths lost nearly all their possessions north of the Pyrenees, and became more particularly a Spanish people. Their capital was established at Toledo, that ancient and interesting city on the Tagus, and, as compared with the other invaders, they were cultured and polished. At the same time they were more virile than the Romans, hence had been able to expel the latter and subdue the former. They were not, however, sufficiently civilized to hold sacred human life, and especially they secured a reputation as regicides, so many kings of theirs were murdered. During the three hundred years of their dominion in Spain they had thirty-three kings ruling over them, many of whom fell by the assassin’s knife.

By sword and good right arm, the Visigothic kings generally won their thrones, but the time came when they were dominated by the Church. To show how this came about, we must look back to the time when, a menace to Rome and a terror to all southern Europe, the barbarous Goths descended from their northern fastnesses. They were pagans then, enemies of the true faith, until between the years 340 and 380 they were converted to Christianity by one Ulfilas, who invented an alphabet for them and translated much of the New Testament into Gothic. This was about the middle of the fourth century; but even when Alaric was thundering at the gates of Rome, it is said that the Goths held more seriously the tenets of their faith and were of purer morals than those from whom they had received their new religion.

Now, the primitive Christianity which the Goths had received from Ulfilas was silent as to the mysteries and the dogmas which had gathered around the religion of Rome during the centuries which had passed. They still held to the primitive faith taught them by Ulfilas and their Gothic Bible. In a word (without pretending to say which might have been right, or which party wrong), the Goths were Arians in their belief, while the Romans of Spain and their converts were Trinitarians. There were other minor differences between them, but so long as this radical discrepancy existed between the two religions, they were always at odds. This trouble was brought to a head in the time of King Leovigild, who reigned from a.d. 567 to 586, and who was such a rigid Arian that he finally beheaded a beloved son for becoming a convert to and publicly professing a belief in the Roman religion. This son, Hermenigild, had married a French wife who was a Roman Catholic and who had been the means of his conversion, and encouraged him to lead a revolt against his father. He received his reward in the sixteenth century, when he was canonized as a saint.

King Leovigild was succeeded by another son, Recared, who, though he had stood by and seen his brother executed for opinion’s sake, and whom his father thought to be a good Arian, yet became a Catholic soon after his coronation. With the zeal peculiar to all new converts, he insisted that all his subjects should become Catholics also, and rooted out the “Arian heresy” wherever he could find it. Recared was the first Catholic king of Spain, but not the last bigot, for he lighted the fires of religious persecution, which burned so brightly and balefully through many succeeding centuries. Not content with causing all the Goths to renounce their Arianism, he—or the priests, at his suggestion—turned upon the Jews of the kingdom and threatened them with expulsion unless they also recanted.

Thus in the last years of the sixth century the Church acquired a voice in royal affairs, and the Gothic monarchy became elective and dependent very much upon the choice of the bishops.

During the next seventy years twelve kings occupied the throne, each king seated at the pleasure of the bishops, and sometimes unseated—not without violence—at their dictation. Of all the Gothic monarchs who reigned in the capital city of Toledo, perhaps none has been held in more sacred remembrance than King Wamba, who, a simple shepherd, was made a king against his will, and then, after he had acquired a liking for the throne, was deposed, also against his will, even after he had performed prodigies of valour for his country. It seems that the clerical party wanted him for king because they thought he might be a pliant instrument in their hands, like his predecessors. But Wamba had a will of his own, so a person of his court, one Ervigius by name, was persuaded to administer a cup of poison to the obstinate old man, which plunged him into a sleep so deep that his attendants thought him about to die.

Now it was a tradition of the Church that no king, no matter what his previous life had been, could receive the blessings of the future life unless he died garbed in the habit of a monk. So his servants dressed Wamba in a monk’s cowl and cloak, and when he recovered his senses—for he did not die just then—he was almost insane with rage; for, according to the same unwritten law of the Church, once in the cowl, never more could one reign a king; and so poor old Wamba made the best of it, though protesting that it was a very scurvy trick, and retired to a cloister, where he passed the remainder of his days. All this occurred about the year 680, and it is averred that then began the dissensions, caused by the desire for ecclesiastical supremacy, which divided the Gothic kingdom against itself, and caused its downfall about thirty years later.

Wamba was succeeded by the usurper Ervigius, or Erwic—the same who had sent the old king to a cell—who reigned seven years, and after him came Egica and Witica, who between them carried Gothic domination up to the year 710, when the portents were strong for some unknown disaster. Church and state had been in the main united hitherto, or since the advent of Recared; but now there were signs of dissolution, and the final severance came with the elevation of King Roderick.

Around King Roderick, “the last of the Goths,” cluster legends and traditions so thickly that it is difficult to separate fiction from truth. If you would know to what extent fable and fiction have enmeshed him, read Washington Irving’s fascinating Legend of Don Roderick. He was a son of a brave Goth, Duke Theodifred, who was blinded and imprisoned by orders of King Witica; but he succeeded in hurling the tyrant from his throne and inflicting upon him the same punishment. He banished the sons of Witica and set himself to work reforms; but the kingdom had been so weakened by the foolish and evil deeds of his late predecessors, and he found himself so surrounded by enemies (friends and relations of the former king), that he could not save it from ruin. He was to be known to history as the last reigning sovereign before the kingdom was overthrown by that mighty Moslem host from Africa. Some Spanish chroniclers have sought to account for this overthrow by ascribing to Don Roderick a foul deed done to a daughter of a certain Count Julian, commander of the Gothic forces in Africa, and the name of fair Florinda has come down to us coupled in infamy with that of the king. But the truth probably is that, while Count Julian’s defection did assist the African invasion, yet the real reason for it runs further back, to the time when the ecclesiastics began to meddle in royal affairs, and especially when their bigotry led to the expulsion of the Jews, who, settling along the North African coast, conspired with the Moors to obtain a foothold in that fair land across the straits.

The sad truth is that the Gothic reign was near its end; it was to perish from the earth, leaving few memorials of its existence save a lasting impress upon the speech of Spain, which has been called “a Gothic language handled in a Latin grammar.”

Another race was to occupy the land successively won by Roman and Visigoth; and to obtain a clear conception of the manner in which the conquest was effected we must review the previous century.

CHAPTER V.

THE INVASION FROM AFRICA.

Within ninety years after El Hijra—the “flight of Mohammed”—which occurred a.d. 622, Syria, Persia, and North Africa were brought under the control of his fanatical followers. The city of Damascus was taken in 634; in 640, Alexandria, when six million Copts are said to have embraced the religion of their conquerors. Moslem bigotry, ignorance, and fanaticism are well illustrated in the burning of the famous Alexandrian Library, according to the decree of Omar the Califa: “If these writings of the Greeks agree with the Koran, they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed!”

North Africa at that time was known by the names of its Roman provinces, such as Numidia, Mauritania, and Tingitania, and these were successively overrun and subjugated by the trusted general Musa (or Moses), who was made Emir of Africa and supreme commander. One of his six noble sons captured the coast city of Tangier, command of which was given to a veteran of Damascus named Tarik Ibn Zeyad, who had lost an eye in the wars and was known as el Tuerto, or “Tarik the One-eyed.” His force was small, but composed mainly of Berbers, or natives of North Africa recently converted to the Moslem faith, and as fierce and fanatical as himself.

At that time the chief Gothic stronghold in Africa was Ceuta, the ancient Abyla of the Greeks, and forming, with Gibraltar, or Calpa, on the European side of the straits, the famed “Pillars of Hercules”—mentioned in our account of the Phœnician voyages. In command of the forces at Ceuta was Count Julian, who for reasons not known, but probably because he was a relative of the late King Witica and wanted to punish Don Roderick, offered to lead the Moslems to conquest in Spain if they would reward him as his treason deserved. So, under his directions, Tarik the One-eyed was sent across the Straits of Hercules and landed with a small force at Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain as well as in all Europe. It is said to have derived its name from the Moslem commander Tarif, or Tarik, and this name also is perpetuated in our word “tariff.” But however it was, Tarik saw enough to convince him that Spain could be easily invaded, if not readily conquered, and so went back with a report to that effect to Musa the emir, laden with the spoils of his ravage.

Having received permission from the Califa at Bagdad to invade the country across the straits, Musa gathered an army of twelve thousand men and sent it over under the command of the fierce Tarik, who landed this time at Calpa, since named, after him, Gebel el Tarik, or Gibraltar, and made that the base of his operations against the unfortunate country. The apostate Count Julian joined him and served as a guide in this the first real invasion of Spain by a Moslem army. In short, the invaders were strongly re-enforced by the discontented masses of that section of Spain, the maltreated Jews and the debased agricultural classes, who saw, or thought they saw, freedom from a yoke that had galled them for generations and had grown heavier with succeeding years. Besides, they did not think that the Moslems would more than ravage the country and perhaps attempt to destroy the military power of the Goths, and then would retire to the land from which they had come. There are two things, at least, we should note: first, that the army of Tarik was composed mainly of native Africans, then called Moors or Berbers; and that they had come with the settled purpose of conquest and plunder. In order to enforce upon his men the desperate nature of their task, Tarik caused his ships to be burned, and thus impressed them with the fact that they must either conquer or be destroyed—for they could not retreat.

Meanwhile, the gallant but unfortunate King Roderick had done his best to arouse the disunited kingdom to a sense of its impending danger, and had gathered an army of one hundred thousand men to resist the approaching infidels. The opposing forces met on a plain near Xeres, on the banks of the river Guadalete, and, after two days of desperate fighting, victory crowned the efforts of Tarik and his traitorous allies. Owing to the defection of Bishop Oppas, a brother of King Witica, and the latter’s two sons, at a most critical moment, when they and all their followers went over to the enemy, the field was lost to King Roderick, who vanished from the scene completely, and was never seen or heard of more.

The base Julian, the bishop, and the two princes were rewarded for their perfidy, it is related, by a gift of the three thousand farms pertaining to the crown. Thus, after three centuries of dominion, extending from about 410 to 711 a.d., the Goths were driven from the throne they had won by the sword and held by force; for the battle of Guadalete was a decisive blow to the disintegrating kingdom, and after that the advance of the Moorish armies was almost unopposed. It may well be imagined that the warlike Tarik was not satisfied to rest here, when before him was all Spain, with wealthy cities to sack, fertile regions to be possessed, and a numerous population to be converted to Islamism or to escape only by paying tribute.

Although the conquerors professed the same religion, bowed to the same prophet, and waged war for the same great calif in the East, yet they were not all of the same nationality, for in the army of invasion were not only Arabs, but Moors, Egyptians, and Syrians. In time, however, all came to be called by the name of Moors, though their differences of birth and divergence of views led to serious quarrels among them. The first estrangement was when Musa, the emir, finding that Tarik had disobeyed his orders, and, instead of returning to Africa after defeating the Goths in battle and acquiring vast plunder, had pursued his conquests toward the north, hastily gathered another army and followed on his tracks.

Musa found, however, that though Tarik had followed up his victory by effectually scattering the defeated Goths, and even taking the capital city, Toledo, there was yet room for another conqueror to operate; so, instead of immediately pursuing Tarik, after he had landed he made a detour through Andalusia and took Medina Sidonia and the rich Roman city of Seville. Then, though gorged with plunder enough to have satisfied a king, he pushed on after and overtook the recreant Tarik at the city of Toledo. “I gave thee orders to make a foray only, then return to Africa,” he said to the veteran, “yet thou hast marched through all this territory without my permission.” The warrior received this reproof in silence, and for a time a truce was made between them; they pushed on their conquests, the one into the northwest, the other into the north and east, until only the Pyrenees separated them from the country of the Gauls.

Between them they brought all Spain under subjection, with the exception of certain remote districts, which they thought too small or too distant to be attacked. But it was within the confines of these small mountain valleys of the northwest that, protected by their rugged barriers, the defeated Goths halted and found a home, and gathered as a nucleus for future forays upon their enemies; as we shall see.

When the country had been practically conquered, the quarrel between Musa and Tarik was renewed; finally it reached the ears of the Calif at Bagdad that his most valiant generals were fighting like jackals over their prey, and he summoned them both to the Orient, there to give account of themselves. It would seem that gratitude was a sentiment entirely foreign to the Arab character, as instanced not only on this occasion, but on many another during the conquest and continuance of the Moors in Spain; for, in spite of his inestimable services to the califate, notwithstanding he had given to the Moslems a new country as their own, and had extended the sway of Islam westward to the Atlantic, Musa was degraded, even sentenced to death, and finally ended his life in poverty.

But despite the severity of Oriental rule, Spain continued a tributary to the Eastern califs until about the middle of the century in which it was conquered, when (as we shall see in due course) an independent califate was established in Cordova. Musa had left as emir in his absence his favourite son Abdalasis, who governed the conquered territory wisely, but had the misfortune, during his father’s absence, to see and fall in love with beautiful Exilona, the unhappy widow of the departed King Roderick. They were married; but as he was a Moslem and she a Christian, soon there began murmurs among their subjects, notwithstanding the generous nature of Abdalasis, who had ever in mind their well-being. These rumours reached the ears of the Calif, cruel and bloodthirsty Suleiman, and he sent orders that the devoted pair should be murdered. His commands were obeyed: both were basely killed while at morning prayers, and the head of Abdalasis was embalmed and sent in a casket to Syria, to the court of the Calif. The unfortunate Musa was in attendance at the court, and when the casket arrived the Calif took out the head of Abdalasis and held it up before his victim:

“Dost thou know this head?” he demanded. Musa gazed in anguish. “Yes,” he murmured, “well do I know it; and may the curse of God light upon him who has destroyed a better man than himself!” The stricken father did not long survive this terrible stroke; but the wrath of Suleiman was not appeased until the other sons of Musa, whom he had left at important posts in Africa, were also numbered with the dead.

Still, despite the ingratitude and cruelty of the Califas, able generals were found to carry on the war for Islam, until even the Pyrenees were leaped and the Moslem hosts invaded France. It seemed as though all Europe would become subject to the bonds of the Arabs, and soon be brought to acknowledge the “one God and Mohammed his prophet.” But in the year 732, twenty-one years after the invasion of Spain, the tide was turned at Tours, when Charles Martel slew thirty thousand Moslems and turned back the remainder, eventually to retreat to the land whence they had come. No other country suited them so well, and here they lived, they and their descendants, from first to last, more than eight hundred years.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WESTERN CALIFATE.

Within three years after their first appearance in Spain the Moors had subjected nearly the entire territory, save only a restricted region in the north and west. For about fifty years thereafter they were governed by emirs sent from the califate of Damascus, and the last of some twenty emirs was one Yusef, an Abbasside. To understand the Arab terms which we are now compelled to use in relating this portion of Spain’s history, we must transport ourselves once again to the Orient, and glance at the line of califs, or caliphs, successors to Mahomet, or Mohammed, which had carried on his conquests for many years.

The Prophet left no direct heirs, and this led to continual wrangling among the various tribes; even the succession of Abu-bekr, father of Mohammed’s favourite wife Ayeshah, did not settle anything, for at his death the question was reopened. Not right, but might, however, prevailed with the Arabs, and about the year 661 the first calif of the Ommiades seated himself at Damascus. One of this line was in power when Spain was invaded, but about the middle of the eighth century three brothers came forward to dispute his rights. The calif was killed, and eighty Ommiades of influence, invited to a feast at Damascus, were murdered in cold blood. Thus arose the line of Abbassides, so called from alleged descent from Abbas, uncle of Mohammed. Like most of the Arab rulers, the Abbassides signalled their rise to power by deeds of blood, their first effort being toward the entire obliteration of the house of Ommiades. But two of this noble house escaped: one fled to Arabia, where his descendants ruled a while; and the other to Africa, where, among the devoted adherents of his line, the Bedouins and the Berbers, he passed several years under their protection.

It happened that most of the Moslem chiefs in Spain were also allied to the house of Ommiades, and when they learned that the young Syrian Abderrahman was wandering in Africa a fugitive, with a price upon his head, they earnestly entreated him to come over and become their ruler. Yusef, the last emir of the Abbassides, was routed in battle and sent away, and Spain at last made independent of Eastern influence under a king of her own—the first of a line which governed, in the main wisely, for nearly three hundred years.

Prince Abderrahman made the city of Cordova the seat of the Western califate, and under him it became a centre of learning as well as prosperity, rivalling all other cities of the peninsula. Magnificent palaces were built, hospitals and mosques, one of the last named being the glorious mosque of Cordova, its site four acres in extent, renowned throughout the world for its beauty. This was begun by Abderrahman in the year 786, and has lasted to our time, with its unrivalled mosaics, tiles, and arabesques, and its thousand columns of porphyry and alabaster.

Then were begun those vast irrigation works which reclaimed the desert plains of the country and made them flourish with vegetation; the immense aqueducts, the bridges, towers, and walls of defence. And yet the reign of Abderrahman was by no means a peaceful one, as he had to placate the many different sects and tribes of his own countrymen on the one hand, and the Jews and Christians on the other. In the north was a turbulent Christian population, ever at war; in the south, a Mohammedan population always quarrelling over the division of spoils, and particularly of the conquered territory.

Toward the last of his reign there appeared in the north a mightier than he—no less than the magnificent Charlemagne, Emperor of the French, who, about the year 778, having been invited thither by a disaffected Arab captain, crossed the Pyrenees and captured several towns. He did not stay long, however, for a rising of the Saxons called him back, after he had taken Saragossa and razed the walls of Pampeluna. Perhaps his brief campaign in Spain might never have been chronicled had it not been for his disastrous rout in the Pyrenean Pass of Roncesvalles, and the death of that hero of early song, the gallant Roland, a semi-mythical figure in history. It was for a long time believed that they were infidel Saracens who attacked and destroyed Charlemagne’s rear guard in the Pass of Roncesvalles; but later investigations show them to have been Basques, descendants of the primitive Iberians, who resented this invasion of their territory, even by a grandson of the great Charles Martel, who had beaten back the Moslems in 732 and 737.

Abderrahman died in 788, and was succeeded by Hicham I, and he by others of the line, whose moral tone may be indicated by the remark of one Mohammed, eldest of forty-five brothers, who, when congratulated by a favourite upon his elevation, exclaimed: “What an absurd idea to say this world would be beautiful if there were no death! If there were no death, should I be reigning? Death is a good thing; my predecessor is dead; that is why I reign.” Another calif before him, who refused to treat Christian and Mussulman alike in the eyes of the law, invited seven hundred citizens of Toledo to a banquet, admitting each one separately within the doorway of his castle, when he was seized and taken to the parapet, where his head was lopped off and thrown into the fosse. But this was only a playful manifestation of power, which caused the calif to be regarded as eccentric, rather than cruel or bloodthirsty.

During the reign of Abderrahman II the Spanish coast was ravaged by the Norman sea-robbers, who even sailed up the river Guadalquivir as far as Seville, and with whom the Arab navy is said to have had a great sea fight; though this is doubtful. One hundred years later—the interim being filled with three inconsequential rulers—another, Abderrahman III, carried Cordova and the califate to the summit of power. He held the government for nearly fifty years, from 912 to 961, and came to be one of the wealthiest rulers in the then known world. The city contained half a million inhabitants, one hundred thousand houses, and twenty-eight suburbs, and the surplus population was urged to dwell in a new city outside the walls, which was called Zahra, after one of Abderrahman’s six thousand wives, and which rivalled the finest city of the Orient in the beauty of its palaces.

Material and intellectual growth kept even pace, and Cordova was a torch of enlightenment during that time which in Europe was known as the “Dark Ages.” The son of Abderrahman III, who reigned fifteen years as Hacam II, was a gifted bibliophile, if not a scholar, for he collected, read, and annotated (it is said) a library of four hundred thousand volumes. From distant Cairo, Bagdad, and Damascus he drew the precious books which went to swell his great catalogue of forty-four volumes; and among them, at one time, was the veritable copy of the Koran stained by the blood of Othman, who was beheaded in the year 650. The University of Cordova was known abroad, and hither flocked scholars, poets, and Arab singers, while thousands of students listened to eloquent teachers of theology and law. Of all the cities of Spain, none rivals in interest golden Cordova, on the banks of the Guadalquivir—though Seville, Granada, and Toledo press it close—either in the list of famous Arabs or Romans, born and educated here.

Skilled in astrology and astronomy we know they were, and from Cordova, in the latter half of the tenth century, were obtained the Arabic numerals, which were carried to Rome by Pope Sylvester II, it is said, soon after he had studied at the university; and where, doubtless, he acquired those attainments in mathematics, chemistry, and philosophy which caused it to be said of him that he was in league with the devil.

From the name Cordova, also, we get the term “cordwainer,” out of “cordovan,” the celebrated leather manufactured there. Many arts and a few sciences flourished in this noble city; and we should not forget our indebtedness to the Spanish Arabs, who kept alight the lamp of learning, and who have left in their architecture, if in nothing else, a memorial of their greatness.

Under another calif, Hicham II, the Moors in Spain reached the zenith of their prosperity; but not through any act of the calif himself, except negatively, when he resigned all power to his hadjib, or vizier, Abou-Amir Mohammed, who under the surname of Almansor Billah—“victorious by help of God”—nearly destroyed the rising Christians of the north. The renowned hero of more than fifty battles, Almansor carried death and destruction to all parts of rebellious Spain. He marched upon and captured the cities of Leon, Barcelona, Pampeluna, Salamanca, and Zamora; but the greatest of his achievements—that upon which he most prided himself—was the sacking of the sacred shrine of Campostella, and the hanging of its bells of bronze in the great mosque at Cordova, where they were used as lamps.

Campostella, or the Field of the Star, was the holy spot where, according to early Christian legend, the body of Saint James the apostle was found, having been brought here by his disciples. Its discovery, after having been for centuries buried here, was owing to the shining of a star of exceeding lustre above the sacred spot, and hence the name applied to the church subsequently erected here, and which became a shrine for pilgrims from all parts of Christian Spain. As scallop shells are found here imbedded in the rock, a shell of this sort was the pilgrim’s badge; but was not, it need hardly be said, respected by the fierce Almansor.

Calif in all save name, Almansor ruled supreme; whenever he went to battle—and which always ended in victory for the Moslem—he took with him forty poets to chant his praises and sing his greatness. Yet he too died, at last; with his departure began the decline of Moorish and the consequent rise of Christian power. But for more than two centuries longer the Moors were to dwell—

“Where Cordova is hidden among
The palm, the olive, and the vine;

Gem of the South, by poets sung,
And in whose mosque Almansor hung

As lamps the bells that once had rung
At Campostella’s shrine.”

CHAPTER VII.

SPAIN’S HEROIC AGE.

We have followed the Moors in Spain through the first three hundred years of their history. Let us now retrace our steps and pursue the fleeing Goths, when, after their defeat on the banks of the Guadalete, they left all southern Spain in the hands of the invaders. “At the time of the general wreck of Spain by the sudden tempest of Arab (African) invasion,” says Washington Irving, “many of the inhabitants took refuge in the mountains of the Asturias, burying themselves in narrow valleys difficult of access, wherever a constant stream of water afforded a green bosom of pasture land and scanty fields for cultivation. For mutual protection they gathered together in small villages, called castros or castrellos, with watch-towers and fortresses on impending cliffs, in which they might shelter and defend themselves in case of sudden inroad. Thus arose the kingdom of the Asturias, of Pelayo and the king’s successors, who gradually extended their dominion, built towns and cities, and after a time fixed their seat of government at the city of Leon. An important part of the region over which they bore sway was ancient Cantabria, extending from the Bay of Biscay to the Duero, and called Castile, from the number of castles with which it was studded.”

By referring to a map of Spain you will find the Asturias in the far north, all of four hundred miles from the scene of the disastrous battle; and here it was, in the mountain valleys, surrounded by frowning peaks and gloomy gorges, that Pelayo the Cave King, first ruler of the Goths after their defeat, established his little kingdom. Living at first in caves, then in rude habitations of earth and stone, the hardy mountaineers gradually gathered in hamlets and villages, and in a few years were strong enough to resist the forces that finally penetrated to their abode. With their backs against the mountain walls, from the brinks of dizzy precipices, they hurled down rocks and trees upon the invading Africans, and drove them back to ravage the more fertile plains below.

Pelayo the Cave King is said to have been the son of a noble Goth who was banished by Witica, but who returned to serve Roderick as sword-bearer on the fatal field of Guadalete. Little is known of his career, and by some he is treated as a myth; but the Spaniards believe in his existence, and in recent years one of Spain’s most powerful battleships received the name of this first king who stemmed the tide of Moorish conquest.

To the Asturias was later united Galicia, in the extreme northwest of Spain, then Leon farther south; the Moslems soon encountered opposition in Navarra, to the east of Leon, in Aragon, still farther toward the eastern coast, and finally in Catalonia, where the Counts of Barcelona fought the Saracens in their ancient seaport founded by the father of Hannibal. The story of the reconquest of Spain—in its first stages at least—is long and complicated, involving the development of no less than six separate provinces: Aragon, Catalonia, Navarra, Asturias, Castile, and Leon, stretching across the country from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. But, without descending to wearisome detail in the narration of the feuds and fights of petty kings and chiefs, we should note, first of all, that the first stand against the Moslems was in the north. There, with their castled towns and hamlets defended by the almost inaccessible mountain ranges, the Goths drew valour and might from the difficulties of their situation, and soon were developed scores and hundreds of heroes, whose sole occupation was war; fighting often among themselves, but always ready to unite against the common enemy, the hated Moslem.

We have already had a glimpse of this unhappy country during the reign of the Ommiades, and have seen that, while the Moor might be victorious in one direction, the Christian would prevail in another. But, with the mountains behind them ever, as places of refuge and retreat, the growing hosts of the Christians became more and more annoying to the Moors. Under the first Alfonso, between the years 739 and 756, the territory of Leon was greatly extended, while during the reign of Alfonso II (791-842) this king, who had allied himself with the great Charlemagne, founded the cities of Oviedo and Compostella, and raided the region southward to Portugal. There are so many and various Alfonsos, Ferdinands, Sanchos, Pedros, Don Juans, Ordoños, etc., rulers over different kingdoms and over the same territory at different times, that it will be impossible to narrate the doings of them all. But, however they might quarrel among themselves, they were persistent in their opposition to the Moors, through decades and centuries, until finally the detested infidels were expelled from Spain.

We can, however, merely glance at those most conspicuous for gallantry, for deeds of daring, and mention only those great battles that were decisive in their effect upon the general welfare of Spain and the progress of the hosts engaged in its reconquest. During the reign of Alfonso the Victorious, one of his Moorish neighbours invaded his territory and ravaged his fields, until he was met and defeated by that gallant hero, Bernardo del Carpio, who cut off the Moslem’s head and took it to Alfonso as a precious gift. Having performed such a service for his sovereign, it might be supposed that Bernardo would be richly rewarded; but, far from that being the case, his father was kept in prison, upon some pretext, by Alfonso, and Bernardo’s great services were ignored. At last, wearied by the injustice of which he was the victim, Bernardo resolved to leave Alfonso’s court and go over to the Moors. He shut himself up in his castle of Carpio, from which he made many a pillaging raid into the territory of his king, until at last Alfonso besieged him there. But Bernardo’s defence was so valiant that the king offered to give him possession of his father if he would yield up his castle. This was a great price to pay, but the devoted son at once agreed to it. The treacherous Alfonso sent assassins who murdered Count Sancho in prison, then seated his corpse upon a horse, richly attired, and led him to meet Bernardo. When the latter saw him coming he went to meet him, and not until he had taken his father’s hand to kiss it did he discover the cruel deception. Then he turned his face aside and cried: “Ah my father, Don Sancho Diaz, in an evil hour didst thou beget me. Thou art dead, and I—I have given my stronghold for thee, and now indeed have lost all!”

Some time later reigned one Alfonso III (from 866-909), who gained many a victory over the Moors, but who unwisely divided his kingdom, at his death, among several sons, and thus brought about the disunion of territory already united, and retarded the general advance of Christian power so amply extended by the prowess of his arms. Before him, however, came King Ramiro, whose short reign was made memorable by his refusal to pay to Abderrahman the customary tribute, which had been agreed upon by some of his predecessors, of one hundred beautiful maidens annually. In the patio of the Alcázar of Seville is shown to-day the spot where these disconsolate maidens, abandoned by their friends to the savage mercies of the Moors, were gathered when this base bargain was carried out. But Ramiro refused to pay this tribute, and so Abderrahman sent an army against him which, after two days of terrible fighting, the Christians destroyed.

In the noble city of Burgos stands the statue of another hero of that age, Fernan Gonzalez, grandson of one of the first judges of Castile, after that province had thrown off its allegiance to Leon. When Fernan Gonzalez was but seventeen years old he was elected to rule, under Alfonso the Great, with the title of count. A Moorish captain was ravaging the territory of Castile at that very time, and Count Fernan placed himself at the head of a small body of troops and set out to meet him. He was successful, and returned to Burgos with immense booty, part of which he used for the endowment of a convent. After that he kept the field almost continually, widening the range of his conquests until Castile was freed from the Moors. But his great successes gained for him the ill will of other Christian kings and leaders, notably of Sancho, King of Navarre, with whom he was obliged to fight, and whom he killed in single combat.

A son of Sancho the Fat (who was cured of obesity by a Moorish physician), Don Garcia, surnamed “the Trembler,” finding himself unable to cope with Count Fernan in the open field, resorted to treachery, and, having proposed that he should marry his sister, when Fernan went to claim her, with but a feeble guard, he was captured by the wily Garcia and thrown into a dungeon. The Princess Sancha, the lady in question, wondered why her lover did not come to take her away as his bride, and when she finally learned the truth—heard that an honourable cavalier was languishing in chains for her sake, in a dismal dungeon—she bribed the guards, appeared before the count an angel of beauty, and led him forth to liberty, after first exacting an oath that he would make her his wife as soon as they were safe within the confines of his domains.

And, after many perilous adventures, they arrived safely in the city of Burgos, where the princess was welcomed with acclamation as the future “first lady of the land,” and their marriage was followed by feastings, tilts, and tournaments. Garcia the Trembler followed hard after them with his army, but in the battle that eventuated he was taken prisoner, though subsequently sent home laden with honours, at the intercession of his sister; which shows what a noble gentleman Count Fernan was, and what a jewel he got for a wife.

Such are the stories told of the heroic days of early Spain, chiefly of Castile, when continual fighting between Moors and Christian had wrought the warriors to the highest state of efficiency. They were not happy unless engaged in warfare, and this accounts for the many feuds among the Goths themselves; and it was owing to their continual dissensions that the reconquest of all Spain was so long delayed. And yet, among the Moors there was still greater dissension, on account of the hatred that existed between the Arabs and the Berbers.

CHAPTER VIII.

DECLINE OF THE MOORS.

The eleventh and twelfth centuries were momentous ones to Spain, and in the hundred years between 1000 and 1100 more battles were fought, perhaps, and more victories gained by the Christians, than in any equal period before. The great Almansor of Cordova, who had inflicted upon the Goths defeat after defeat, himself lost a battle, at Catalañazor, in the year 1001 or 1002, which caused his death. A rebellion in Morocco had compelled him to send an army thither, and the Christians had taken advantage of this weakening of his forces and fallen upon him at the Leon and Castile frontier.

Almansor’s death weakened the Ommiade dynasty, and Cordova fell a prey to discord; in place of one strong ruler now were many petty chiefs, each one anxious to make himself supreme, but only succeeding in adding to the confusion then prevailing among the Moors. Before the middle of the century the crowns of Leon and Castile had been united under Ferdinand the Great, and in the year 1082 his son and successor, Alfonso VI, went down and besieged the ancient city of Toledo (which had been in Moorish possession four hundred years), taking it three years later. It was never recovered by the Moors, and the Moslems became alarmed at this signal instance of Gothic bravery and effrontery, and for a time ceased their dissensions. But, in their alarm at the aggressions of the Christian forces, they placed their necks within a yoke of slavery far worse than would have been forced upon them by the Goths. They conferred together, and, realizing their own weakness, sent over into Africa for assistance. There then reigned in Morocco the fierce Yussef, a fanatical Bedouin, who hated all Arabs almost as much as he hated the “Christian dogs.” But he hastened to the relief of his fellow-Moslems with a great army of fanatics as fierce and uncouth as himself. He had hardly landed and learned of the fall of Toledo, when he summoned King Alfonso either to embrace the faith of Mohammed, consent to pay tribute, or prepare for battle. Flushed with his successes, Alfonso chose to fight, and the two great armies met in the battle of Zallaca, in the month of October, 1086, when the Spanish army was utterly overthrown. Yussef pursued his advantage vigorously, and eventually all southern Spain was subjected to him, including the city of Seville, which was taken in 1091; and not only were the Christians themselves the object of his fury, but the Moslem chiefs who had sent for him to come to their aid, who were all either murdered or transported to Africa. Thus was the Almoravid dynasty established, with its capital at Cordova, and which lasted until 1147. Yussef died about twenty years later, leaving the kingdom to his son Ali, and the Spanish Moslems were oppressed by the Bedouin chiefs, who were as savage and illiterate as the Ommiades were gentle and refined. Cordova soon lost its libraries, its schools and universities, and became a place to be shunned, rather than sought, by scholars and men of letters.

Meanwhile the Gothic provinces, called kingdoms (sometimes united, sometimes divided), had not been blind to their advantage in pressing the Moors on every side, and the latter steadily, though slowly, shrank within more restricted confines, until the Tagus and the Guadiana were their most northern boundaries. Grim Yussef died in 1104, and the great Alfonso in 1109. The latter, under whom Castile had risen steadily to the first rank among the kingdoms of the north, and who was known as the “Buckler of the Faith,” had been victor in thirty-nine battles, and had but twice suffered defeat.

The year 1104 saw the crown of Aragon pass to Alfonso I, who was married to a daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile. It has been said that if the two Alfonsos had but united their forces, while holding their respective kingdoms, the Moors might have been expelled from Spain three hundred years sooner than they were.

About this time rose to power in Morocco a fanatical Moslem known as Mohammed ben Abdullah, the son of a lamplighter in the mosque of Cordova. He was educated in Cordova and in Bagdad, but later went to Morocco, where he made his home in the Atlas Mountains and proclaimed himself the Mahdi, or leader of the faithful. He soon had many followers, who called themselves Almohades, or followers of the one God. Raising an immense army, Mohammed came down from the mountains and besieged the city of Morocco, which was defended by Ali the son of Yussef. Both Ali and Mohammed died during the siege, and one Abdelmummen succeeded the Mahdi in command. He took the city, driving out and killing the inhabitants, and repeopling it with Bedouins from the desert and the mountains.

Proclaimed sovereign of all Africa and Moslem Spain, Abdelmummen invaded the peninsula with an army so vast that two months were consumed in crossing the straits, and an alarm spread throughout all Europe; but the men of the new sect were more anxious, apparently, for converts to their creed than victories over the Christians, for in the end the Almoravides were either expelled or converted, and the Almohades reigned supreme. Their dominion extended from the Atlantic to the Nile in Africa, and in Spain over all that the Christian arms had not wrested from their predecessors.

Abdelmummen died in 1162, leaving the kingdom to his son Cid Yussef, who built the mosque of Seville, the great aqueduct that brought water to that city, and the bridge across the Guadalquivir. He was killed in 1184 and his son Yacoub succeeded, who in the year 1195 won a great victory over Alfonso VIII, at the battle of Alarcos. A little more than a century previously the Moslems had gained another victory, at Zallaca; but these two, vast as were their results, were to be avenged by an overwhelming defeat which the God of the Christians was preparing for them.

The chronicles of the eleventh century (to turn back a moment) would not be complete without mention of the doughty deeds of the great Cid Campeador, who, like Count Fernan Gonzalez, was descended from Nuño Rastro, one of the first judges of Castile.

His real name was Rodrigo or Ruy Diaz, and he was born at Bivar, near the city of Burgos, about the year 1040, although so much of myth envelops him that the exact date of his birth is uncertain. At all events, he was a Castilian of noble birth, who at an early age commanded the forces of Sancho II of Castile, when that ruler deprived his brothers of their kingdoms of Leon and Galicia. According to the numerous “Ballads of the Cid,” which were written and sung as early as the twelfth century, no hero of history ever performed more valiant deeds than he, though he can hardly be held up to the world as a model of constancy and patriotism: for he fought, first on the side of his native Castile, then, becoming offended at a slight put upon him by King Alfonso (though he had led the army into Toledo), he went over to the Emir of Saragossa and battled stoutly for the Moors.

His first appearance seems to have been as the avenger of his father’s death, when he challenges his slayer, Count Lozeno, to mortal combat, and leaves him dead on the field. Then at the command of the king he marries the count’s daughter, the lovely Ximena, who has prayed her sovereign to avenge this deed; and yet when Rodrigo proposes, she consents to be his wife. The king argued, with true kingly logic, that “he whose hand had made her an orphan should of a right be her protector”; but the ballads do not tell us what Ximena thought about it. Still, they inform us often that he was in every respect a model husband, and that, more than all else in the world, he loved his gallant steed Babieca, his good sword Tizona, and his faithful wife Ximena—probably the order named being their rank in his affections.

Although he had fought against his king, yet in his latter years he made amends, became a terror to the Moors, and took the Moorish province of Valencia in 1088, which he held until his death in the year 1099. And, that we may be sure his devoted wife was faithful to the last, we are told that she held the city of Valencia for two years after her husband died, though surrounded by enemies, and then carried his embalmed body to Burgos, where for ten years it sat in state beside the high altar of a convent church.

The empty tomb, to which the Cid was borne upon his charger, and in which he and his wife rested for many years, may yet be seen in the old convent of San Pedro de Cardena, near to Burgos; and in that old Castilian city, preserved in a glass case in the town hall, are shown the veritable “bones of the Cid and his wife Ximena.” Here also is the “solar del Cid,” or the site of the house he lived in, now indicated by three obelisks of stone, which stand not far from a memorial arch erected to Count Fernan Gonzalez. And, moreover, in one of the cathedral cloisters is still preserved an ancient iron-clasped trunk, which belonged to the Cid, and which, tradition states, he once filled with sand and pledged to some wealthy Jews for an enormous sum, as full of priceless jewels. It is also stated, to his credit, that he afterward redeemed his pledge and paid his debts in full.

The renowned Cid Campeador may or may not have performed all the valorous feats ascribed to him, but it is certain that Spain yet holds his name in grateful remembrance. When his end drew nigh (knowing that a battle was imminent), he ordered that his corpse should be placed erect upon his war horse, his sword in hand, and taken forth to fight a last battle for his country:

“‘Bring in my Babieca’—the Cid a-dying lay—

‘That I may say farewell to him before I pass away.’

The good horse, strong and gentle, full quiet did he keep,

His large soft eyes dilating, as though he fain would weep.

‘I am going, dear companion, thy master rides no more,

Thou well deservest high reward, I leave thee this in store:

Thy master’s deeds shall keep thy name until earth’s latest day;’

And speaking not another word, the good Cid passed away.”

The ruined castle still stands, on a hill above the city of Burgos, in which Don Garcia was imprisoned in 958; where Alfonso of Leon was confined by the Cid, and where Edward I of England was married to Eleanor of Castile.

CHAPTER IX.

KINGS OF CASTILE AND ARAGON.

We have been hitherto tracing the course of several streams which, rising in various parts of Africa and Spain in the south and in the north, yet have mingled their currents somewhat; but we shall soon find that the stream which had its source in the north became eventually a resistless torrent that swept all before it.

At or near the close of the twelfth century we find three Alfonsos on as many thrones: Alfonso VIII, surnamed the Noble, in Castile; Alfonso IX in Leon and Oviedo; and Alfonso II ruling in Portugal, which had become separated from Spain in 1095. Navarre was under Sancho VII, while Aragon and the greater portion of Catalonia acknowledged Pedro II. At the same time the Moslems were governed by Mohammed abu Abdallah, the son of Yacoub, who had won the great battle of Alarcos. These are names merely, some of which have hardly survived, in connection with great deeds, the lives of those who bore them. But it was permitted Alfonso VIII, in the year 1212, to inflict a defeat upon the Moors from which they never recovered. This was at the great battle of Navas de Tolosa, when, according to the statements of the victors, at least one hundred thousand Moslems fell, victims to Christian prowess, and, sad to relate, after the victory was assured, objects of Christian bigotry; for they treated with shameful barbarity those who survived.

The battlefield of Tolosa was the turning point of Moslem fortunes, for from the date of that great event the followers of Mahommed lost steadily in Spain, retreating ever nearer the southern coast, whence their ancestors had invaded the peninsula five hundred years before.

Alfonso the Noble survived this achievement but two years, and died in 1214, leaving a reputation not only as a great warrior, but as a lover of learning, having established, it is said, the first university in Spain in the year 1209. He left his throne to his son Henry I, and under the regency of his daughter Berenguela, who, when Henry was accidentally killed, secured the kingdom for her own son Ferdinand. Two momentous events came to pass at this time—the battle of Tolosa, which drove back the Moslems, and the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon under one ruler; for at the death of Alfonso IX of Leon the kingdom passed to Ferdinand III, who was thus placed in possession of resources and armies which he could unite toward the expulsion of the Moors.

He was later canonized for his great services to Christendom, and is known to history as St. Ferdinand. It is a curious fact that his cousin, Louis of France, son of his mother’s sister, and likewise a grandson of Alfonso VIII of Castile, was also canonized; and the grandmother of both was Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II.

Well, St. Ferdinand, to call him by the title bestowed upon him three hundred years after his death, was a flaming sword as toward the Moors. He captured their capital, Cordova, in 1236, the city of Jaen in 1246, and at last the “Queen of the Guadalquivir,” beautiful Seville (ancient port of the Phœnicians, the Roman Hispalis), where he died in 1252, and where his tomb and many precious relics of his time may be seen in the great cathedral there.

Almost equally renowned was Jayme I, the King of Aragon, who took the Balearic Isles from the Moors in 1229, Valencia in 1237, the province of Murcia in 1266, and who, before he died in 1276, had gained thirty pitched battles with the enemy, and had founded, some say, more than two thousand Christian churches. But he has the credit of having introduced into Spain the terrible Inquisition (in 1232), and that goes far toward counterbalancing his meritorious work for the freedom of his country.

Alfonso X, called “the Wise,” because he was more a scholar than soldier, succeeded St. Ferdinand, and under him, it is recorded, the Castilian became the national language. Slowly but steadily the ancient Gothic had been changing, and it was now in a sense crystallized when Alfonso caused the Bible to be translated into the Castilian, as well as works on chemistry and philosophy, and wrote a chronicle of Spain down to the time of Ferdinand, his father and predecessor. The “Fuero Juzgo, or Forum Judicum,” the ancient Visigothic code of laws, which he translated and codified, became the law of the land and the model of yet existing laws in Spain.

But, though quite learned, Alfonso was not morally much in advance of his time, for he caused his brother to be strangled, and provoked a rebellion of his sons, by which he was driven from his throne two years before his death. His son, Sancho IV, who was as vigorous as his father was feeble, drove the Emir of Morocco back to Africa in 1291, and after a short reign left the kingdom to his son, Ferdinand IV, who, dying in 1312, was succeeded by Alfonso XI of Castile. He was the last of that name to sit on the throne until Alfonso XII, father of the boy king of our time, Alfonso XIII, after an interval of five hundred and sixty years.

Ferdinand IV was an infant too young to reign at the death of his father, but affairs of the kingdom were ably managed by the queen regent, his mother, and when he reached man’s estate he nobly devoted himself to the great work bequeathed him by his ancestors. Under him the Castilian frontiers were extended to Gibraltar, the fortress of which he took, in the year 1302. But his reign was likewise short, and at his death he left the kingdom to an infant son, and the regency to his mother, Maria, who a second time assumed the cares of royalty without its remunerations.

Alfonso XI showed the lack of parental guidance during youth by the errors of his early manhood, among other indiscretions forming an illegitimate alliance with a lady who became the mother of Don Enrique of Trastamara, who later slew his half-brother Pedro “the Cruel.” By the great victory of the Rio Salado, in 1340, Alfonso retrieved his damaged reputation in the eyes of the people and firmly established the kingdom upon an impregnable basis. The combined hosts of Spanish Moors and Africans had assembled and laid siege to Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain. The Christian armies, under the lead of Alfonso and the king of Portugal, met and overthrew them near the plains of Algeciras, inflicting such slaughter that the dead lay piled in heaps, the slain, it was estimated, amounting to two hundred thousand.

This was the last invasion from Africa, which had been so prolific in barbarian and semi-barbarian conquerors; and if any other was in contemplation it was prevented the following year, when Alfonso’s fleet destroyed that of the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar. King Alfonso besieged the fortress of Gibraltar itself—which had been in Moorish possession since 1333—but failed to dislodge the enemy, and it was not until more than a hundred years later, in 1462, that it again fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Alfonso doubtless held the ambitious project of ridding the peninsula entirely of the Moors; but his country was not sufficiently united, and one hundred and fifty years were to elapse before the consummation of this object, under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. That he was a valiant warrior, despite his many failings, is shown by his death in the field, while besieging Gibraltar, when he fell a victim to the terrible pestilence known as the “black death,” in the year 1350.

His son and successor, Don Pedro of Castile, is known to history as “Pedro the Cruel,” which name well illustrates his character. Cruel and licentious to a degree never before shown in any occupant of the throne, Pedro followed his father’s pernicious example, his amour with Doña Maria de Padilla being maintained while his lawful wife was a prisoner by his command. Though for a time popular with the masses, owing to his inclination rather toward the people than the nobility, his lust, covetousness, and cruelty caused a revolt. He overcame his opponents, but signalled his return to power by the murder of his half-brother, Don Fadrique, his mother, many of his relatives, and his wife. It is charged against him that he cut the throats of the Emir of Granada and fifty of his nobles, while they were his guests under a flag of truce, and committed other atrocious deeds. His half-brother, Henry, having escaped to France, returned with an army, but Pedro appealed to the son of the English Edward III, the “Black Prince,” and that gallant adventurer, then fighting in France, came to his assistance. By his aid he discomfited his enemies, but his cruelty to prisoners so disgusted his noble ally that he retired and left him to his fate. Henry then appeared with a small force, around which the people eagerly gathered, and Pedro was defeated and taken prisoner.

The last act of this terrible drama took place in a tent where the half-brothers, sons of the same father, met in deadly combat, which ended by Pedro’s being stabbed in the back, and pouring out his life-blood at the fratricide’s feet. Thus were the sins of Alfonso XI quickly visited upon his children, and the kingdom which he had founded threatened with disruption.

Pedro the Cruel was killed in 1369, and as Henry II his half-brother, the regicide, assumed his place, claimants arose to contest his dubious title to the throne, and among them John of Gaunt, the English Duke of Lancaster, Pedro’s son-in-law. At the same time, as enemies, he could count the Kings of Moorish Granada, Aragon, and Navarre. But he defeated the machinations of all these opponents and eventually reduced the kingdom to a state of peace, in which it continued till his death, in 1379, which was occasioned by a pair of poisoned boots, sent him as a present by the treacherous Emir of Granada.

His son, John I, reigned eleven years, or from 1379 to 1390, though in 1385 the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, assumed the title of king, with the arms of Castile, Leon, and France. He was, however, dissuaded by the promise that his daughter Catherine (whose mother was Constance, daughter of Pedro the Cruel and Maria de Padilla) should marry Henry III, who succeeded to the throne of Castile in 1390, and reigned until 1406. The heir of this union was John II, who was King of Castile from 1406 to 1454, and whose chief claim to distinction is as the father of Isabella, who, after her brother, Henry IV, had died, in 1474, became Queen of Castile. Thus in the veins of the woman who was to become the greatest of her line ran the blood, not only of Pedro the Cruel, but of his bastard brother, Henry of Trastamare.

But the resultant issue of her marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon, in 1469, was to be yet more deeply tinctured with the blood of the regicide; for the son of Henry of Trastamare had married a daughter of Pedro of Aragon, who was almost as cruel and implacable as Pedro of Castile. Ferdinand, son of John I, and grandson of Henry, became King of Aragon, and was succeeded by his son, John II of Aragon, through whom at his death the throne passed to Ferdinand, later called the Catholic, and who became the royal consort of Isabella.

CHAPTER X.

FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.

What had hitherto been the curse of Spain, its intestinal divisions, feuds, rival projects of petty kings, was soon to be removed by the union of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, whose marriage took place October 19, 1469. Isabella was eighteen years of age, Ferdinand only seventeen; but their training had been such that their intelligence and deportment were in advance of their years. They were cousins and lovers. Isabella was a blonde, with blue eyes and chestnut hair, a small but symmetrical figure, graceful and modest of carriage, intellectual, devout, charming, but not handsome. Ferdinand was tall and manly, a fine horseman, courteous, chivalrous, like his wife of the fair, Gothic type, eloquent of speech, with elegant bearing and polished manners.

These were the two who for thirty years were to reign together, who were to unite the dismembered fragments of war-harried Spain, who were to establish a throne that was to command the respect of all Europe, a kingdom whose influence was to extend around the world. And yet, if the historians are to be credited, they were so poor at the time of their betrothal that they were compelled to borrow money for their wedding. Fortunately, their credit was good, for, despite their poverty, it was known to all that they had great expectations. But their enemies pressed them hard, and it was only by stealing off in disguise, with a few attendants merely as company, that Ferdinand was able to reach Valladolid, where Isabella was awaiting him, and claim his bride.

Five years later, in 1474, Isabella’s brother Enrique, the last male of the house of Trastamare, passed away, and his sister succeeded to the throne of Castile, to which she was already entitled. In the ancient city of Segovia, with attendant pomp and ceremony, on the 13th of December, 1474, the heralds proclaimed her Queen of Castile. But her claim was disputed, and there ensued the “war of succession,” only ended by the defeat of the Portuguese at the battle of Toro, after which peace was concluded, with France and Portugal, in 1479. That same year, by the death of his father, John II, Ferdinand succeeded to Aragon and its dependencies, and thus the twain found themselves virtual rulers of the best part of Spain.

With the exception of Navarre, which went to Eleanor, Ferdinand’s half-sister, and of the kingdom of Granada, still held by the Moors, united Castile and Aragon may be said to have included all Spain, from the Atlantic east to the Mediterranean, and from the Pyrenees on the north to the Straits of Gibraltar on the south, though each kingdom was independent. By the exercise of consummate skill, patience, and persistence, both in the field of war and in diplomacy, the entire peninsula, with the exception of Portugal, eventually was welded into one kingdom, and the various armies that had so frequently clashed in conflict were placed under one supreme command. This was not accomplished until after many years, but almost from the first these two wise sovereigns bent all their energies to the consummation of their purpose: Isabella in the domestic administration, Ferdinand in war and diplomacy, which was to unite Spain and expel the hated infidel.

We will not now pause to inquire their motives, but note only the vastness of the undertaking. More than any other nation, perhaps, the Spanish were divided, one section speaking a French dialect, another the Basque; one province might be aristocratic, another monarchical, and yet another democratic, while every one had its own peculiar laws and rights, called “fueros.” To show the feeling of independence which pervaded Aragon, for instance, we may quote the ancient formula used in seating a king on the throne: “We, each of whom is as good as you, and who altogether are more powerful, make you our king as long as you shall keep our fueros; otherwise not.”

These fueros were charters of privileges, which had been granted by former kings, lords, or counts to the inhabitants of certain towns, particularly to those which were, or at one time had been, on the exposed frontiers, deserted by or recaptured from the Moors. The occasion had long since passed for the granting of these privileges, but the people still clung to them, jealously guarding against their infringement or revocation. In some provinces, as in the Basque region, the fueros rendered the inhabitants almost immune from service to the king or queen, free from national taxes, not liable for soldiers to serve beyond their own frontiers, etc. The first of the fueros was granted as early as 1020, and seems to have been that of Leon. Then there was the Cortes, or popular assemblage of representatives from all over the kingdom, the first of Castile, consisting of a deputy from each city, having met in 1169.

Again, there was the Church to reckon with, for it was now established on a sure foundation, and the primacy of Spain, with its archbishopric at Toledo, was considered second only to the papacy in its influence and revenues. As Isabella was devout by nature, and as Ferdinand was politic, they allied themselves with the Church from the first, and though themselves swayed by its servants, made it the means toward an ultimate end, which was the consolidation of their empire and the subjugation of the people.

We have seen already that one of the forces in Spain ever acting against united effort for the expulsion of the Moors was the independence of the nobility. Castile itself derived its name from the number of its castles, mainly belonging to independent nobles, rich and warlike, possessed of vast estates, not subject to taxation or imprisonment—in fact little kings, some of them at the outset almost as powerful as their sovereigns themselves. These were the ricos hombres, who held most of the lucrative offices; next to them ranked the hidalgos and caballeros (Hijo de algo, son of somebody, and caballero, a horseman, knight, cavalier, nobleman), who comprised the floating population of warriors or free lances, ready for a fight at a moment’s notice, and always spoiling for a tilt with the enemy.

These were all dealt with in due course, in one manner or another, until all were more or less firmly attached to the crown and pledged to its support. The manner in which the sovereigns attached to their service the three great military orders of Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcantara well illustrates the subtlety of Isabella and the craft of Ferdinand. These orders were founded after the models of the Hospitalers and the Templars during the Crusades; but while originally intended for warfare against the Moors, they had become possessed of vast wealth and influence during the three hundred years of their existence. They were, in fact, through their strength, their capacity to send thousands of armed cavaliers into the field, and their absolute independence, a possible menace to the crown; so, when it happened that a vacancy occurred in the grand mastership of Santiago, in 1476, the queen by intrigue secured it for Ferdinand. Eleven years later he secured that of Calatrava, and in 1494, the last of all, the grand mastership of Alcantara. Thus were the most powerful of the independent military organizations secured and held in fealty to the crown. Though it required eighteen years to accomplish this, yet eventually it was brought about—an exhibition of persistence and craft which throws a flood of light upon the doings and aims of these astute rulers over regenerated Spain.

The unarmed and undisciplined masses were of little account, in the scheme of reconquest planned by Ferdinand and Isabella. But the upper classes, with their immense wealth and privileges, with their castles, princely domains, and armed retainers—these were the first objects aimed at by the sovereigns, when they were forging the weapons and welding the nation together, preliminary to their onslaught upon the Moors. Isabella, as early as 1476, revived the association of common people which had once risen against the nobles, two hundred years before, called the Hermandad, or Brotherhood, composed mainly of people of the middle class, who acted as police and detectors of crime, and in the end became powerful enough to prove an effectual check upon the arrogance of the feudal lords. When, however, the sovereigns found themselves possessed of a strong standing army, with servile soldiers to do their bidding, the Hermandad was disbanded; having served as a means to an end, it passed away.

It was during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and early in their reign, that another factor tending to the consolidation of their power was availed of, in the establishment of the “Holy Office” of the Inquisition. That terrible tribunal, with its spies working in secret, its judges shielded from public view, its proceedings veiled in secrecy, was revived in Spain and presided over, by the infamous Tomas de Torquemada, as inquisitor general, who was prior of a Dominican monastery at Segovia. Yielding to his pleadings, Isabella consented to apply to the Pope for permission to use the institution as a means of weeding out heresy from among the Jews and Moors in her dominions. In an evil day for Spain, and to the discredit of the humanity of those days, this queen—who has received the praise of generations for her eminent wisdom, modesty, generosity, maternal tenderness, discretion, moderation—not only gave her consent, but did all in her power, to bring to the flames thousands of her subjects, whose only offence was that they differed from her on points of religious belief!

During the remaining years of Torquemada’s life, or from 1483 to 1498, it is estimated that eight or nine thousand “heretics” were burned to death at the stake. And he was but one, the first, of a line of Spanish “inquisitors,” who inflicted upon others of his race, made in God’s image, entitled to compassion, the most fiendish tortures it was possible for man to conceive. We can not forget nor ignore the terrible truth that it was by the express sanction of Isabella, as well as through her connivance, that this monstrosity reared its hideous head in her kingdom, and devoured her loyal subjects. In her day was inaugurated that barbarous “solemnity” called the “auto da fé,” edict of the Inquisition, when the heretics ferreted out by the familiars of the Holy Office were marched through the principal streets of her capital, clad in robes covered with hellish emblems, flames and devils, and followed by processions of priests and monks to the great square, where they were burned at the stake; consumed by flames which even royalty considered it an honour to light and a pleasure to gaze upon!

Ferdinand, of course, was an accessory; he even forced the Inquisition upon the Aragonese, who rebelled against it; but to him have never been imputed the high and honourable qualities ascribed to the “gentle” Isabella. This, the darkest, foulest blot upon her escutcheon—which neither the plea of the exigencies of the time, nor that equally puerile argument that she lived when ideas of morality and human brotherhood were crude, will avail to remove—will stand against her forever, an ineffaceable witness to the innate cruelty and bigotry of this descendant of Pedro the Cruel and Henry of Trastamare, fratricides both, and one a regicide!

But the country prospered awhile—that is, the kingdom gained in material wealth—chiefly, however, from the confiscated properties of the expelled heretics. During the thirty years between the accession of Isabella and her death—1474 to 1504—the royal revenues increased more than thirtyfold. After the discoveries in America the sovereigns were compelled to establish five great councils to manage affairs, the most important of which was the Council of the Indies, with its headquarters at Seville; but, notwithstanding, all power was more and more centralized, until after the death of Ferdinand and the accession of Charles I.

CHAPTER XI.

HOW THE MOORS WERE SUBJUGATED.

The Castilian court was established at Cordova, where Isabella and Ferdinand received the swarms of courtiers and noble knights with brilliant retinues, as well as foreign ambassadors, who swarmed hither to do homage to the Spanish sovereigns. And, though Christian and Moslem were still at enmity, the turbaned Arab, the warlike Saracen, with scimitar at his side, might be seen among the assembled thousands in the busy streets of Cordova. For, although an eternal barrier existed between these two peoples in their respective religions, and mutual hatred may have smouldered in their bosoms, yet they met and freely mingled, even intermarried, exchanged courtesies and compliments, and engaged in friendly jousts and tourneys.

But the time came when this strained condition of affairs was suddenly changed, about the year 1478. The Moorish dominions, which once extended practically over all Spain, were now reduced to a single great province, or kingdom, that of Granada. Yet it was a fertile and populous province, comprising the best and most beautiful lands in the peninsula, with deep and rich valleys hidden among forest-clad mountains, the peaks of some of which reached the clouds and were covered with perpetual snows. The capital of this kingdom was founded by the Moors soon after their first arrival from Africa, in the eighth century, near the remains of a Roman town called Illiberis. It had grown in wealth and population, until, at the time of which we speak, it probably contained 400,000 inhabitants, and was surrounded by massive walls fortified with numerous towers.

Granada the capital consisted of two cities within one line of fortifications, the portion known as the Albaicin, perched on a hill, and containing the marts and dwellings of the common people, and the hill of the Alhambra, separated from the Albaicin by a deep gorge through which flows the river Darro. Here, about the year 1248, the founder of the Granadan dynasty, Ibn Alhamar, began to build that glorious palace, the Alhambra, which was completed by his grandson, Mohammed III, seventy years later. Within the surrounding walls defended by ninety towers the king held court, with a retinue that constituted the nucleus of a small town in itself. The founder of the Alhambra assembled here artists and artisans from every part of the Moslem world: from Damascus and Bagdad, Cairo and Morocco; and their genius here evolved one of the most beautiful structures ever created by man. Who has not read of the beautiful Alhambra, with its pillared corridors, its assemblage of marble and alabaster columns, its halls and patios refreshed by plashing fountains, its cornices mazes of arabesques, its latticed windows, iridescent tiles, perfumed courts and gardens; and above all, its peerless situation, overlooking Granada, the Darro, the vast meadows of the vega, and with a background of cloud-capped, snow-crested mountains, shining in the sun?

More than two centuries had passed since Ibn Alhamar intrenched himself within the Alhambra walls, and purchased exemption from Christian assaults by the payment of tribute. It was just before the capture of Seville by Ferdinand the Saint that he bound himself and his people to serve the Christians as vassals, and, in consideration that his rich territory should be undisturbed, pay an annual tribute of two thousand doblas of gold and sixteen hundred Christian captives, or the same number of Moors to serve as slaves. Less than three hundred years before (as we may recall) it was the Christians who paid tribute, and in the halls of the Alcázar, at Seville, were assembled the Christian maidens, shamelessly given over to the rapacious Moors. Now, however, the tide had turned, and the founder of the last Moslem dynasty on Spanish soil was glad to avert the possible loss of his kingdom by surrendering a tithe of his possessions to the Christians. Still, each ruler maintained his armies, and a state of armed neutrality existed.

Two centuries of comparative peace had broadened and strengthened the Moorish kingdom until it embraced a portion of south-eastern Spain estimated as containing more than eleven thousand square miles, with a population of three millions, including one hundred thousand valiant men of war. The natural resources of the country were enhanced by irrigation, at which the Orientals are so expert, canals and aqueducts supplied the cities and plains with water, and trade with Africa, and with the Christians of Spain, brought great wealth into the kingdom.

The King of Granada, at the time the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united the thrones of Aragon and Castile, was one Muley Aben Hassan, a descendant in direct line of the founder of the Alhambra, and when he succeeded his father, Ismael, he found himself ruler over no less than fourteen fortified cities and nearly one hundred towns, as well as many castled hamlets and villages. This fierce warrior, taking account of his vast possessions, refused longer to pay tribute to the Castilian sovereigns, and in the year 1478 a noble knight, Don Juan de Vara, was sent to Granada to demand it. He was admitted, with his retinue of cavaliers, and found King Muley Hassan seated on his royal divan, within the Alhambra, in the spacious Hall of the Ambassadors. He was received with courtesy, but when he named his errand Muley Hassan haughtily replied: “Tell your sovereigns that the Kings of Granada who used to pay tribute in money to the Castilian crown are dead! Our mint at present coins nothing but blades of scimitars and heads of lances!”

Now, the name of Granada signifies in Arabic a pomegranate; and when King Ferdinand received this insolent answer from the Moor he quietly replied, “It is well; I will pluck the seeds from this pomegranate, one by one!” and he began preparations for reducing the Moorish strongholds. But he was not to strike the first blow, for the old King of Granada, confident in the wealth of his provinces and the strength of his defences, and urged on by his fiery soldiery, led an army against an isolated frontier post of the Christians called Zahara. It was naturally so strong, being perched upon a craggy crest of a mountain, that its garrison neglected to keep watch, and, one dark and stormy night, was surprised and put to the sword. The wretched captives taken in the town below were driven like cattle to Granada; and thus in the year 1481 the gauntlet of war was thrown down by Muley Hassan, King of the Moors.

King Ferdinand was willing enough to take it up; in truth, had the Moors not taken the initiative, war would have eventuated just the same, for the one darling project of the Christian sovereigns was the expulsion of the Arabs from the country. But yet again the Christian king was forestalled, though this time it was by one of his own cavaliers. The valiant Marquis of Cadiz, Roderigo Ponce de Leon, who owned vast estates in Andalusia, and could assemble a small army of his own retainers, resolved to avenge Zahara and strike a terrible blow at the Moors. Informed by his spies that the Moorish town and castle of Alhama, in the mountains of Granada, were but carelessly defended, he gathered together a small force of cavalry and foot soldiers, and, surprising the garrison and scaling the walls, took both castle and town by storm.

Alhama was known as the “Key of Granada,” and was not many miles distant from the capital itself; it also was the richest town of the kingdom, and the Marquis of Cadiz and his soldiers secured a vast amount of booty, besides taking many captives. But their position was now perilous in the extreme, for when Muley Hassan learned the news he raged like a tiger and immediately set forth to retake Alhama with an army of fiercest warriors. The sufferings of the Spanish soldiers were intense, for they were cut off from water, attacked on every side, and allowed no rest; but succour came to them from an unexpected source. The Duke of Medina Sidonia—like the Marquis of Cadiz, owner of vast possessions and lord over an army of dependants, although an hereditary foe of the latter—collected a large force and hastened to the assistance of his beleaguered brethren. King Ferdinand also turned toward the scene of war; but, outstripped by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, halted on the way at Antiquera, and there began the assembling of an army, to follow up the advantage so unexpectedly gained by his ardent knights and soldiers.

Thus the immediate effect of this daring assault and reprisal was the joining together in friendly rivalry of two powerful lords who had hitherto been at enmity, and the union of many other rivals in arms, so that Ferdinand soon found himself in command of forces sufficient for the accomplishment of his long-cherished designs against the Moors.

Meanwhile there were strife and dissension in the capital city of Granada. The ill-timed assault upon Zahara was deprecated by the Moors, even before their loss of Alhama, and eventually King Muley was driven from the city during a revolt headed by his own son, Boabdil el Chico.

The grief and indignation of the Moorish populace of Granada are depicted in a popular Spanish poem, with its sad refrain, “Ay de mí, Alhama!” and which Lord Byron rendered into English verse, beginning:

“The Moorish king rides up and down

Through Granada’s royal town;
From Elvira’s gates to those
Of Vivarambla on he goes.

Woe is me, Alhama!

“Letters to the monarch tell

How Alhama’s city fell;
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.

Woe is me, Alhama!”

The aged Muley Hassan was expelled, but he returned a few weeks later, and, gaining the Alhambra, made the fountains and corridors run with human blood in his endeavours to regain his crown. But in vain: Boabdil el Chico was then King of Granada, and it was foreordained that his weakness should be the cause of its downfall; for, in an assault he later made upon a Christian castle, he was taken prisoner and only released after promising to hold himself a vassal to King Ferdinand. Meanwhile the contest spread over a widening territory, until all the kingdom was aflame with war.

King Muley Hassan, who had retreated to the port of Malaga, made a raid into the dominions of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, in revenge for the part the latter had taken at Alhama, and regained his stronghold with vast plunder. An incident of this raid shows a romantic trait of Moorish as well as Spanish character. Old Muley asked some captive Christians what were the revenues of his opponent, Don Pedro de Vargas, captain of the castle of Gibraltar, whose territory he was then invading. They answered that he was entitled to an ox out of every drove of cattle that crossed his boundaries. “Then,” said the gallant old Moor, “Allah forbid that so brave a cavalier should be defrauded of his dues,” and he selected twelve of the finest cattle and sent them to Don Pedro with his compliments. The latter, surprised and touched by this display of gallantry, reciprocated by sending Muley Hassan a scarlet mantle and a costly vest of silk, with his regrets that he had not been able to meet him personally in the field!

Stung by this successful raid of the Moors into the heart of Christian territory, some cavaliers, headed by the Marquis of Cadiz and Don Alonzo de Aguilar, made a foray into the mountains of Malaga, expecting to take and sack several wealthy towns. But they were ambuscaded by a Moorish army under the veteran Zagal, of Malaga, and not only vanquished, but nearly exterminated, a miserable remnant only escaping to Antiquera, on the borders of Granada. In the meantime a siege of the wealthy city of Loxa, which lies not far from Granada, was abandoned by King Ferdinand on account of the superior tactics of another Moorish veteran, Ali Atar, father-in-law of Boabdil the king, and more than ninety years of age. He, too, led the Spaniards into an ambuscade, and then set upon them with such vigour that their camp was captured and many Christians slain.

So the demon of war stalked up and down the land, with victory first with Spaniard, then with Moor. Still, all the time the Spanish forces were augmenting, their territory being steadily extended by the capture of one stronghold after another, until, when King Ferdinand again sat down before the city of Loxa with a vast army, well equipped with cannon and foreign auxiliaries, he could count up more than seventy places that had fallen before the assaults of his soldiers. Among these were Coin and Cartama, and the almost inaccessible castle of Ronda, on the crest of the mountain of that name. Loxa (pronounced Lo´ha) finally fell, and then the victors were within thirty miles of the capital, Granada, against which Ferdinand’s forces were impatient to be led.

But though the ill-fated Boabdil, King of Granada—who had violated his pledge of vassalage to Ferdinand, and had hastened to the defence of the city—was among the captives, and though later the Castilians captured the important towns and castles of Illora and Moclin, within ten or twelve miles of Granada, yet the army was temporarily withdrawn. Ferdinand ravaged the vega, or plain of Granada, up to the very gates of the capital; but he was at that time unprepared to attempt its capture or siege, and so retired with his army to Cordova, whence he had set forth in May of that year.

The next year (1487), early in the spring, a mighty army might have been seen leaving Cordova, composed of twenty thousand horse and fifty thousand foot. Its destination was Malaga, the Mediterranean seaport, sometimes called the “hand and mouth of Granada”; for it was the outlet of the province, through which its trade was conducted, and also through which assistance came from the Moslems in Africa. Isabella and Ferdinand had received information that the Oriental infidels in Turkey and Egypt were preparing to make a landing here, and come with a vast army to the assistance of the last of their faith in Spain. So it was excellent strategy to first dispose of this opulent seaport, with its towers of defence, its large and hostile population, and adjacent tributary country, before marching upon the capital. The siege of Malaga was prolonged many months by the valour of its defenders. In the grim old tower above the city, the ruins of which may still be seen, a grizzled warrior, Hamet el Zegri, held out the longest, with a handful of warriors who had already tasted Christian blood at Ronda and other places; but finally he too was obliged to capitulate, and was cast into a dungeon.

From the ransoms of the Moors of Malaga Ferdinand probably derived a larger amount than the Romans received from the Carthaginians, fourteen hundred and eighty years before. Many unfortunates, who could not pay the extortionate sums demanded, were carried off into slavery, to the number of more than ten thousand.

The cities of Guadix and Baza suffered in their turn the fate of Malaga, and at last Almeria, the final refuge of that brave, fierce son of Africa, El Zagal, an uncle of Boabdil, and yet his bitterest enemy. With his surrender the last of Granada’s outlying provinces also fell into the hands of the enemy, and the old warrior went over into Africa, where he was imprisoned by the King of Fez and ended his life in poverty.

During the ensuing winter Ferdinand was busy with preparations for the final attack upon the capital. He had, in truth, plucked out nearly all the “seeds” of Granada, “the pomegranate”; the time was now ripe for finishing the fruit. In his acknowledgment of vassalage, Boabdil had stipulated that, should the chances of war give to the Christians the cities of Baza, Guadix, and Almeria, he would surrender Granada itself, accepting other and inferior towns in exchange. But when the demand came for his compliance, he at first hesitated, then shut himself up within the city and bade the king defiance.

So it was, in April, 1491, that the Spanish army, fifty thousand strong, again appeared in the vega of Granada, and was soon encamped so near the city walls that the soldiers could hear the cries of the muezzins, as they sent forth the Moslem calls to prayer.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FALL OF GRANADA.

Granada, the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain, capital city of the delightful Andalusia, since called by the Spaniards “the Land of the most Holy Virgin,” was finally invested by the Castilian host. In vain flashed signal fires from the atalayas on surrounding hills; no friendly succour could now reach the beleaguered city, either from the coast, from the mountains, or from Africa. It lay like an Oriental gem, a “diamond in an emerald setting” with the green vega outspread at its feet, embossed with olive groves, glistening with silver streams, and with a background of rugged mountains flashing the sun and reflecting the moonlight from their snow-clad summits.

In this beautiful city the Moors had lived two hundred and fifty years. Its downfall was hastened by the rivalry of two tribes or factions among the Moors themselves. Those of the tribe of the Abencerrages were the most noble and humane, the most favourably disposed toward the Spaniards, and are said to have been descended from the ancient kings of Arabia. But the fierce Zegris, their rivals, were of African blood, hated the Christians intensely, and retained to the last all the savage traits of the desert Bedouins. Not many years before the advent of the Christians into the vega, the Zegris had massacred the Abencerrages, beheaded the flower of their noble warriors, and the fountain basin of the Alhambra hall which still retains their name was filled with their blood.

The Zegris had conquered, but in their endeavours to overcome their domestic enemies they had so weakened their own forces that the final triumph of their hated Christian foes was the more easily assured. Ferdinand and his army came in the blossoming springtime, when the glorious vega was spangled with flowers and all Nature joyous. “He will stay through the summer, and in the autumn, as the winter rains come on, will go away,” said the Moors. “If we can hold out till winter, we can at least survive another year. Perhaps help will then arrive from Africa or from the East.”

But the spring faded into summer and through the long, hot months the Castilian army lay intrenched; autumn came, and still no signs of departure; instead, in place of the city of tents, with which the plain had been flecked and whitened, arose the stone city of Santa Fé, which exists in our time, and which may be seen to-day, covering the site of the Christian camp.

Then the Moors despaired of succour indeed, for hitherto it had been Ferdinand’s custom to retire to his capital for the winter season, and campaign in summer only. The Moors had planted no crops, reaped no harvests, and now gaunt famine was staring them in the face; the cavalgadas of supplies, sent to them by friendly chiefs, were captured by the watchful Christians, and their condition was most pitiable. Still, the siege had not been without its incidents of startling character, its display of chivalrous deeds of high renown; for, after the arrival of Isabella at the camp, the spirited cavaliers vied with each other as to which should perform the most daring deed, until, the Moors usually getting the best of those individual encounters, Ferdinand forbade them.

However, you may see, high up between the towers of the church subsequently erected at Santa Fé, the marble effigy of a Moor’s head, which reminds us of the most notable of those encounters. One of the most defiant and insolent of the Moorish cavaliers was Yarfe the Moslem, who carried his insolence so far as one day to dash into the Spanish camp and throw his spear into the tent of the queen. To offset this reckless deed, one of the Spanish caballeros, seeing the gate of Granada one day but negligently guarded, passed the sentinels and rode into the city, right up to the door of the great mosque, against which, with the point of his poniard, he affixed a piece of wood, with “Ave Maria” printed on it. Then he wheeled about and clattered down the street, now thronging with astonished and angered Moors, and miraculously escaped, hurling cries of defiance at his enemies as he passed through the gate.

When the Moslems found the Christian emblem fastened to the door of their sacred mosque, they were beside themselves with rage, and the next day gigantic Yarfe attached the bit of wood to the tail of his horse and paraded with it, dragging in the dust, before the Spanish army. This insult was not to be borne, and as he defied any one of the cavaliers to meet him in single combat, Ferdinand was overwhelmed with petitions for permission to engage him. He reluctantly gave consent to a fiery young Castilian, Garcilasso de la Vega, who, after kneeling at the feet of his beloved queen, armed himself completely and sallied forth to fight the Moor. His foe treated him at first with contempt, being almost twice his size and more finely mounted; but what Garcilasso lacked in stature he made up in spirit, and in the sight of the Christian army, and of the Moslems gathered on the battlements, he slew the infidel after a terrible combat, cut off his head, and took it to the tent of Isabella.

The site of this encounter is marked to-day with a large stone cross covered with a canopy, and between the church towers of Santa Fé still rests the marble head of Yarfe the Moor. Across the vega, at Zubia, stand several great stone crosses, also to commemorate the narrow escape of the queen, one day, from capture by the Moors. Yet another reminder of that memorable siege of Granada is the commemorative chapel on the bank of the river Xenil, which indicates the spot where Boabdil el Chico surrendered the keys of the capital; for at last, as we know, Granada capitulated, to famine rather than assault, to overwhelming numbers rather than to superior feats of arms.

On the 2d of January, 1492, the Moorish king came down from the fortified palace on the Alhambra hill with a small retinue, and met the Castilian sovereigns on the right bank of the Xenil. “El Rey Chico”—the Little King—gave up what his fiercer ancestors, and particularly his own father, would have fought to defend till the last gasp. His real power had departed; the emblems of it he handed to Ferdinand, saying: “These keys, O king, are thine, since Allah hath decreed it: use thy success with clemency and thy power with moderation.” The exit of the “Little King” was more dramatic than his action on the stage of war; yet he went not out as a warrior, but as a woman. Within sight of the battlements of Granada is a gap in the hills which surround the plain, and here it is related Boabdil paused to look his last on the fair city he had so ignominiously abandoned, and wept at the remembrance of his misfortunes. And his mother reproached him with—“You do well to weep, like a woman, for what you could not defend like a man!” The scene of this incident is still known as “El último suspiro del Moro,” or “The last sigh of the Moor.”

But it was not his last sigh by any means, for he lived for years thereafter: lived to see the dismemberment of his empire, the scattering of his people, and finally to die in a foreign land, in the service of the King of Morocco. In the capitulation it was stipulated that Boabdil and his subjects should do homage to the Castilian sovereigns, that they should be protected in their religious exercises, be governed by their own cadis, be exempt from tribute for three years, and within that period all who wished to emigrate to Africa should be furnished with free transportation thither. Boabdil was granted lands in the Alpuxarras Mountains, and at first lived peacefully in a secluded valley; but eventually, through the treachery or mistaken zeal of his vizier, he parted with his possessions in Spain for a sum of money, and went over to Africa, where travellers may see what is alleged to be his tomb, in the city of Tlemcen in Algiers.

CHAPTER XIII.

A MEMORABLE REIGN.

The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella has been called the most celebrated, and the year 1492 the most eventful, in Spanish history. Not the fall of Granada alone made that year notable; not the culmination of a long series of wars, extending through centuries, and conducing to the final triumph of Christian arms, made the year 1492 memorable—for the youth of this age scarcely need be told that it was, in a sense, the birth year of America!

A sad and preoccupied witness of the Christian triumph at Granada, one who saw the tumultuous entrance into the Alhambra of the Spanish army, the unfurling of the Castilian banner on the tower of La Vela, the departure of the broken-hearted Moors—one Christopher Columbus was attendant through it all. Possessed with his grand idea of reaching the Indies by sailing directly westward—a thing hitherto unheard of, at least unattempted—after his rebuffs at the court of Portugal he had come to Spain as early as the year 1482, and was sent by the Duke of Medina Celi to Isabella at Cordova. He followed her court to Salamanca in 1486, there had audience with the queen, and the next year appeared before the famous Council in the Dominican convent. Nothing came of that except discouragement; but he returned to Cordova the same year, whence he was summoned by Isabella to the military camp at Malaga. We have no continuous itinerary of his travels, but in 1489 he was with the army before the walls of Baza, where he probably saw and conversed with two holy men who had come from Jerusalem to enlist the aid of Spain against the infidels in the Orient.

For eight long years he was a hanger-on at court, ever fed on promises, put off with half denials, and again reassured with the prospect of assistance when the Moors should have been subjugated. At last, in 1491, weary and heartsick, Columbus resolved to depart from Spain, and on his way to the coast stopped at the convent of La Rabida, near the port of Palos, where his distinguished appearance attracted the attention of the prior. This was the turning of the tide in his fortunes, for the prior had formerly been confessor to the queen, and, impressed with the scheme of his visitor, offered to intercede in his favour. He did so, and, as the result, Columbus was again ordered to wait upon the queen, and with money for the journey from the royal exchequer, set out for Santa Fé, where he arrived in time to witness, as we have noticed, the surrender of Granada. But that was no propitious time for the king or queen to engage in new adventures, with the royal treasury drained by the terrible drafts upon it for the Moorish wars, and again Columbus was disappointed, and a second time bade farewell to the court and set out for the coast. He had, however, proceeded but a few miles on his journey when the queen’s courier overtook him with the pledge of her assistance, and so he returned to Granada. The point at which he was halted by the courier was at the Bridge of Pines, still spanning the stream as of yore, and the last decisive interview is said to have been in a corridor of the Alhambra, known as the Hall of Justice.

Here, finally, amid the tumults attendant upon the occupation of Granada, on the 17th of April, 1492, the “capitulation” was signed, by the terms of which the queen was to provide the funds for the voyage, and Columbus was to go forth to explore the territory and conquer the inhabitants of the unknown Western world.

Some historians have asserted, and some have denied, that the queen pledged her jewels for the necessary funds; but certainly she is entitled to all the glory of that adventure, since the prudent Ferdinand looked coldly upon the schemes of the Genoese sailor, and if his advice had been followed he would have been promptly dismissed. It required a lofty faith, a serene confidence in Providence, to embark in such an enterprise, when she may have been already sated with the glory of conquest; and once having pledged her assistance, Isabella never wavered in her pecuniary and moral support. Ten days after the “capitulation” Columbus was at Palos with the royal command for sailors and caravels to be furnished by that port, and by the 1st of August the little expedition dropped down the Rio Tinto and made its final preparations for the long voyage across the Atlantic.

All students of our history know the glorious sequel to this voyage begun under such discouragements: of the discovery of land in the Bahamas in October following; of the meetings with strange copper-coloured people whom Columbus called “Indians”; of the triumphant return of two out of the three caravels that set forth, and the magnificent reception of Columbus by his sovereigns at their royal court in Barcelona. But with his departure from the Spanish coast Columbus temporarily sails out of our ken, and we must return to trace the course of events after the fall of Granada.

Happy should we be to chronicle such events as the preceding, only; to record acts of clemency and magnanimity toward the conquered peoples now absolutely dependent upon Isabella and Ferdinand for their fortunes and their lives. But almost contemporaneously with their arrival at the summit of their power, the Castilian sovereigns committed at least one act which the whole world has regarded with aversion even to the present day. Intent upon the union of the diverse peoples of their extensive kingdom under one religious faith, and perhaps with an eye to the material advantages which might also accrue, they issued an edict of expulsion against the most thrifty and law-abiding inhabitants of Spain, the Jews. These people had long been resident here, had accumulated vast properties, and under the Moors had been exempt from the persecution to which they were subject by the Goths in ancient times and by many of their successors.

Learning that this terrible edict was in contemplation, the wealthier of the Jews offered an immense ransom to be allowed to remain in the enjoyment of their religion and possessions. But while this offer was under advisement by the sovereigns, and when they seemed to incline to mercy, it is said that the Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, injected the venom of his depraved nature into the discussion with disastrous effect. Bursting into the royal presence, he exclaimed with fury, as he held aloft a crucifix: “Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Your Highnesses will sell him for thirty thousand. Here he is, take him and barter him away!” Saying this, he dashed the crucifix upon the table and darted from the room.

Sad to relate, bigotry triumphed. The mercenary and bloodthirsty schemes of Torquemada were carried out to the full, and more than two hundred thousand stricken Jews were expelled the country, losing homes, wealth, all they possessed, which eventually reverted to the crown through the dastardly work of the Inquisition. This act of the crown, by which Spain lost some of its best subjects, was signed on the 30th of March, 1492; and thus the sovereigns, while at the same time outstretching one hand to grasp a new continent which was to yield them vast treasure, yet with the other strangled domestic thrift and trade, and undermined the foundations of the kingdom they had sacrificed so much to consolidate and perpetuate.

The Jews had brought commerce and manufactures, they were skilled agriculturists, some of them learned for their time; the Moors had brought into Spain, or had developed there, a glorious architecture, schools, and colleges, renowned throughout Europe, arts, and even sciences, and had reclaimed from the desert vast areas of waste lands; they had built beautiful cities and towns, castles and palaces, which are the admiration of all who see them to-day; yet both Jews and Moors were driven from Spain as though they were its deadly enemies. Those who drove them forth were not capable of creating a tithe of what the Moors and Jews had done; to their credit is not one work of art, not one beautiful structure of renown; but they were through force of circumstance and skill at arms the conquerors, and the lives of these vastly superior peoples were at their mercy.

Had they but treated them with leniency, had they encouraged them in their peculiar industries and pursuits, Spain would probably have become the grandest nation in Europe, instead of merely rising to temporary greatness and ultimately sinking to insignificant proportions. As with the Jews, so the Castilian sovereigns dealt with the Moors. Though they had stipulated on oath that they should be protected in the observances of their own religion, yet not long after, urged thereto by the inquisitors of the Holy Office, they broke their sacred pledges and turned them over to their enemies. Many professed to become converted, to escape persecution, but others were driven to rebellion, fled to the mountains and waged a bloody war until overcome by force.

Says a learned historian of that time, when the Inquisition claimed its innocent victims by hundreds and thousands: “Now a scene of persecution and cruelty began which far exceeds in atrocity anything which history has related. Every tie of nature and society was broken, every duty and every relation violated, and torture forced from all alike false accusations, betrayal of friends, confession of impossible crimes; while the actors in these horrible tragedies were shielded by impenetrable secrecy from the revenge of their victims and the detestation of society.”

Were it not for such acts as these, and had Isabella and Ferdinand inclined to mercy rather than listened to the advice of bigoted counsellors, their reign might have earned the distinction of being, what many have claimed for it, the greatest that Spain ever knew. They built wisely in many things, they advanced Spain from obscurity to become a power among nations; they earned the love and regard of their Christian subjects by works promoting their welfare; but at the same time they vitiated the good deeds by their barbarous treatment of “heretics.”

It is no matter of wonder that an attempt was made on Ferdinand’s life, in Catalonia, soon after the capture of Granada, and that even Isabella was not safe from covert attack. Still, they were a well-matched pair, and, from a worldly and contemporary point of view, were all-sufficient to Spain in her time of greatest need. Isabella was calm and lucid in her counsels, inclined to benevolence and mercy where religious questions were not involved, and, as one writer has expressed it, followed after Ferdinand’s armies to garner the wheat which he had cut on the fields of war. Ferdinand was crafty, a diplomat whose match all Europe could not then produce. This is shown in his conduct of the Neapolitan wars, when he outwitted the King of France, and eventually gathered the rewards to himself, adding the title of King of Naples to his other distinctions. “Foreign affairs were conducted by the king in behalf of Aragon, just as colonial affairs were for the benefit of Castile.”

They did not lack for learned and astute counsellors, such as Cardinal Mendoza, Torquemada, and Ximenes. The last named, born before his sovereigns, yet outlived them both, and to the end was a faithful, even though bigoted, servant and courtier. Chosen as the queen’s confessor in 1492, he was later appointed Archbishop of Toledo, and after Isabella’s death became a cardinal, throughout his career remaining loyal to the throne.

Another faithful servant of the Crown was Gonsalvo de Cordova, who fought magnificently against the Moors, and then was sent to carry on the wars in Naples, where Spanish arms were so triumphant that he earned the title of the “Great Captain,” and covered Ferdinand’s reign with glory.