CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA
By Washington Irving
from the mss. of FRAY ANTONIO AGAPIDA
Author’s Revised Edition
[ NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION. ]
[ A CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. ]
[ CHAPTER I. -- Of the Kingdom of Granada, and the Tribute which it Paid to the Castilian Crown.]
[ CHAPTER IV. -- Expedition of the Muley Abul Hassan against the Fortress of Zahara. ]
[ CHAPTER V. -- Expedition of the Marques of Cadiz against Alhama. ]
[ CHAPTER VIII. -- Sequel of the Events at Alhama. ]
[ CHAPTER IX. -- Events at Granada, and Rise of the Moorish King, Boabdil el Chico. ]
[ CHAPTER X. -- Royal Expedition against Loxa. ]
[ CHAPTER XII. -- Foray of Spanish Cavaliers among the Mountains of Malaga. ]
[ CHAPTER XIII. -- Effects of the Disasters among the Mountains of Malaga.]
[ CHAPTER XIV. -- How King Boabdil el Chico Marched over the Border. ]
[ CHAPTER XV. -- How the Count de Cabra sallied forth from his Castle in Quest of King Boabdil. ]
[ CHAPTER XVI. -- The Battle of Lucena.]
[ CHAPTER XVII. -- Lamentations of the Moors for the Battle of Lucena.]
[ CHAPTER XVIII. -- How Muley Abul Hassan Profited by the Misfortunes of his Son Boabdil.]
[ CHAPTER XIX. -- Captivity of Boabdil el Chico.]
[ CHAPTER XX. -- Of the Treatment of Boabdil by the Castilian Sovereigns.]
[ CHAPTER XXI. -- Return of Boabdil from Captivity.]
[ CHAPTER XXII. -- Foray of the Moorish Alcaydes, and Battle of Lopera.]
[ CHAPTER XXIII. -- Retreat of Hamet el Zegri, Alcayde of Ronda. ]
[ CHAPTER XXVII.-- Foray of Christian Knights into the Territory of the Moors.]
[ CHAPTER XXVIII.-- Attempt of El Zagal to Surprise Boabdil in Almeria. ]
[ CHAPTER XXX. -- Siege of Ronda.]
[ CHAPTER XXXIII. -- Expedition against the Castles of Cambil and Albahar. ]
[ CHAPTER XXXIV. -- Enterprise of the Knights of Calatrava against Zalea. ]
[ CHAPTER XXXV. -- Death of Muley Abul Hassan. ]
[ CHAPTER XXXVI. -- Of the Christian Army which Assembled at the City of Cordova.]
[ CHAPTER XXXVIII. -- How King Ferdinand held a Council of War at the Rock of the Lovers. ]
[ CHAPTER XL. -- Conclusion of the Siege of Loxa. ]
[ CHAPTER XLI. -- Capture of Illora. ]
[ CHAPTER XLVII. -- How King Ferdinand laid Siege to Velez Malaga. ]
[ CHAPTER XLIX. -- Result of the Stratagem of El Zagal to Surprise King Ferdinand. ]
[ CHAPTER L. -- How the People of Granada Rewarded the Valor of El Zagal.]
[ CHAPTER LI. -- Surrender of the Velez Malaga and Other Places.]
[ CHAPTER LII. -- Of the City of Malaga and its Inhabitants.—Mission of Hernando del Pulgar. ]
[ CHAPTER LIII. -- Advance of King Ferdinand against Malaga. ]
[ CHAPTER LIV. -- Siege of Malaga. ]
[ CHAPTER LV. -- Siege of Malaga continued.—Obstinacy of Hamet el Zegri. ]
[ CHAPTER LVI. -- Attack of the Marques of Cadiz upon Gibralfaro. ]
[ CHAPTER LVII. -- Siege of Malaga continued.—Stratagems of Various Kinds.]
[ CHAPTER LVIII. -- Sufferings of the People of Malaga.]
[ CHAPTER LXII. -- How the People of Malaga expostulated with Hamet el Zegri. ]
[ CHAPTER LXIV. -- How the City of Malaga Capitulated. ]
[ CHAPTER LXV. -- Fulfilment of the Prophecy of the Dervise.—Fate of Hamet el Zegri. ]
[ CHAPTER LXIX. -- How the Moors made Various Enterprises against the Christians. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXI. -- The Battle of the Gardens before Baza. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXII. -- Siege of Baza.—Embarrassments of the Army.]
[ CHAPTER LXXIII. -- Siege of Baza continued.—How King Ferdinand completely Invested the City. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXIV. -- Exploit of Hernan Perez del Pulgar and Other Cavaliers. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXV. -- Continuation of the Siege of Baza. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXVI. -- How Two Friars from the Holy Land arrived at the Camp. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXVII. -- How Queen Isabella devised Means to Supply the Army with Provisions. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXVIII. -- Of the Disasters which Befell the Camp. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXX. -- How Queen Isabella arrived at the Camp, and the Consequences of her Arrival. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXI. -- Surrender of Baza. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXII. -- Submission of El Zagal to the Castilian Sovereigns. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXIII. -- Events at Granada subsequent to the Submission of El Zagal. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXIV. -- How King Ferdinand turned his Hostilities against the City of Granada. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXV. -- The Fate of the Castle of Roma. ]
[ CHAPTER LXXXVI. -- How Boabdil el Chico took the Field, and his Expedition against Alhendin.]
[ CHAPTER LXXXVII. -- Exploit of the Count de Tendilla. ]
[ CHAPTER XC. -- Preparations of Granada for a Desperate Defence. ]
[ CHAPTER XCIV. -- The Last Ravage before Granada. ]
[ CHAPTER XCV. -- Conflagration of the Christian Camp.—Building of Santa Fe. ]
[ CHAPTER XCVI. -- Famine and Discord in the City. ]
[ CHAPTER XCVII. -- Capitulation of Granada. ]
[ CHAPTER XCVIII. -- Commotions in Granada. ]
[ CHAPTER XCIX. -- Surrender of Granada.]
[ CHAPTER C. -- How the Castilian Sovereigns took Possession of Granada.]
INTRODUCTION.
Although the following Chronicle bears the name of the venerable Fray Antonio Agapida, it is rather a superstructure reared upon the fragments which remain of his work. It may be asked, Who is this same Agapida, who is cited with such deference, yet whose name is not to be found in any of the catalogues of Spanish authors? The question is hard to answer. He appears to have been one of the many indefatigable authors of Spain who have filled the libraries of convents and cathedrals with their tomes, without ever dreaming of bringing their labors to the press. He evidently was deeply and accurately informed of the particulars of the wars between his countrymen and the Moors, a tract of history but too much overgrown with the weeds of fable. His glowing zeal, also, in the cause of the Catholic faith entitles him to be held up as a model of the good old orthodox chroniclers, who recorded with such pious exultation the united triumphs of the cross and the sword. It is deeply to be regretted, therefore, that his manuscripts, deposited in the libraries of various convents, have been dispersed during the late convulsions in Spain, so that nothing is now to be met of them but disjointed fragments. These, however, are too precious to be suffered to fall into oblivion, as they contain many curious facts not to be found in any other historian. In the following work, therefore, the manuscript of the worthy Fray Antonio will be adopted wherever it exists entire, but will be filled up, extended, illustrated, and corroborated by citations from various authors, both Spanish and Arabian, who have treated of the subject. Those who may wish to know how far the work is indebted to the Chronicle of Fray Antonio Agapida may readily satisfy their curiosity by referring to his manuscript fragments, carefully preserved in the Library of the Escurial.
Before entering upon the history it may be as well to notice the opinions of certain of the most learned and devout historiographers of former times relative to this war.
Marinus Siculus, historian to Charles V., pronounces it a war to avenge ancient injuries received by the Christians from the Moors, to recover the kingdom of Granada, and to extend the name and honor of the Christian religion.*
* Lucio Marino Siculo, Cosas Memorabiles de Espana, lib. 20.
Estevan de Garibay, one of the most distinguished Spanish historians, regards the war as a special act of divine clemency toward the Moors, to the end that those barbarians and infidels, who had dragged out so many centuries under the diabolical oppression of the absurd sect of Mahomet, should at length be reduced to the Christian faith.*
* Garibay, Compend. Hist. Espana, lib. 18, c. 22.
Padre Mariana, also a venerable Jesuit and the most renowned historian of Spain, considers the past domination of the Moors a scourge inflicted on the Spanish nation for its iniquities, but the conquest of Granada the reward of Heaven for its great act of propitiation in establishing the glorious tribunal of the Inquisition! No sooner (says the worthy father) was this holy office opened in Spain than there shone forth a resplendent light. Then it was that, through divine favor, the nation increased in power, and became competent to overthrow and trample down the Moorish domination.*
* Mariana, Hist. Espana, lib. 25, c. 1.
Having thus cited high and venerable authority for considering this war in the light of one of those pious enterprises denominated crusades, we trust we have said enough to engage the Christian reader to follow us into the field and stand by us to the very issue of the encounter.
NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION.
The foregoing introduction, prefixed to the former editions of this work, has been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida was found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt over the credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein of irony indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening of some of the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the scenes. A word or two explanatory may therefore be of service.*
* Many of the observations in this note have already appeared in
an explanatory article which at Mr. Murray’s request, the author
furnished to the London Quarterly Review.
The idea of the work was suggested while I was occupied at Madrid in writing the Life of Columbus. In searching for traces of his early life I was led among the scenes of the war of Granada, he having followed the Spanish sovereigns in some of their campaigns, and been present at the surrender of the Moorish capital. I actually wove some of these scenes into the biography, but found they occupied an undue space, and stood out in romantic relief not in unison with the general course of the narrative. My mind, however, had become so excited by the stirring events and romantic achievements of this war that I could not return with composure to the sober biography I had in hand. The idea then occurred, as a means of allaying the excitement, to throw off a rough draught of the history of this war, to be revised and completed at future leisure. It appeared to me that its true course and character had never been fully illustrated. The world had received a strangely perverted idea of it through Florian’s romance of “Gonsalvo of Cordova,” or through the legend, equally fabulous, entitled “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by Ginez Perez de la Hita, the pretended work of an Arabian contemporary, but in reality a Spanish fabrication. It had been woven over with love-tales and scenes of sentimental gallantry totally opposite to its real character; for it was, in truth, one of the sternest of those iron conflicts sanctified by the title of “holy wars.” In fact, the genuine nature of the war placed it far above the need of any amatory embellishments. It possessed sufficient interest in the striking contrast presented by the combatants of Oriental and European creeds, costumes, and manners, and in the hardy and harebrained enterprises, the romantic adventures, the picturesque forays through mountain regions, the daring assaults and surprisals of cliff-built castles and cragged fortresses, which succeeded each other with a variety and brilliancy beyond the scope of mere invention.
The time of the contest also contributed to heighten the interest. It was not long after the invention of gunpowder, when firearms and artillery mingled the flash and smoke and thunder of modern warfare with the steely splendor of ancient chivalry, and gave an awful magnificence and terrible sublimity to battle, and when the old Moorish towers and castles, that for ages had frowned defiance to the battering-rams and catapults of classic tactics, were toppled down by the lombards of the Spanish engineers. It was one of the cases in which history rises superior to fiction.
The more I thought about the subject, the more I was tempted to undertake it, and the facilities at hand at length determined me. In the libraries of Madrid and in the private library of the American consul, Mr. Rich, I had access to various chronicles and other works, both printed and in manuscript, written at the time by eyewitnesses, and in some instances by persons who had actually mingled in the scenes recorded and gave descriptions of them from different points of view and with different details. These works were often diffuse and tedious, and occasionally discolored by the bigotry, superstition, and fierce intolerance of the age; but their pages were illumined at times with scenes of high emprise, of romantic generosity, and heroic valor, which flashed upon the reader with additional splendor from the surrounding darkness. I collated these various works, some of which have never appeared in print, drew from each facts relative to the different enterprises, arranged them in as clear and lucid order as I could command, and endeavored to give them somewhat of a graphic effect by connecting them with the manners and customs of the age in which they occurred. The rough draught being completed, I laid the manuscript aside and proceeded with the Life of Columbus. After this was finished and sent to the press I made a tour in Andalusia, visited the ruins of the Moorish towns, fortresses, and castles, and the wild mountain-passes and defiles which had been the scenes of the most remarkable events of the war, and passed some time in the ancient palace of the Alhambra, the once favorite abode of the Moorish monarchs. Everywhere I took notes, from the most advantageous points of view, of whatever could serve to give local verity and graphic effect to the scenes described. Having taken up my abode for a time at Seville, I then resumed my manuscript and rewrote it, benefited by my travelling notes and the fresh and vivid impressions of my recent tour. In constructing my chronicle I adopted the fiction of a Spanish monk as the chronicler. Fray Antonio Agapida was intended as a personification of the monkish zealots who hovered about the sovereigns in their campaigns, marring the chivalry of the camp by the bigotry of the cloister, and chronicling in rapturous strains every act of intolerance toward the Moors. In fact, scarce a sally of the pretended friar when he bursts forth in rapturous eulogy of some great stroke of selfish policy on the part of Ferdinand, or exults over some overwhelming disaster of the gallant and devoted Moslems, but is taken almost word for word from one or other of the orthodox chroniclers of Spain.
The ironical vein also was provoked by the mixture of kingcraft and priestcraft discernible throughout this great enterprise, and the mistaken zeal and self-delusion of many of its most gallant and generous champions. The romantic coloring seemed to belong to the nature of the subject, and was in harmony with what I had seen in my tour through the poetical and romantic regions in which the events had taken place. With all these deductions the work, in all its essential points, was faithful to historical fact and built upon substantial documents. It was a great satisfaction to me, therefore, after the doubts that had been expressed of the authenticity of my chronicle, to find it repeatedly and largely used by Don Miguel Lafuente Alcantara of Granada in his recent learned and elaborate history of his native city, he having had ample opportunity, in his varied and indefatigable researches, of judging how far it accorded with documentary authority.
I have still more satisfaction in citing the following testimonial of Mr. Prescott, whose researches for his admirable history of Ferdinand and Isabella took him over the same ground I had trodden. His testimonial is written in the liberal and courteous spirit characteristic of him, but with a degree of eulogium which would make me shrink from quoting it did I not feel the importance of his voucher for the substantial accuracy of my work:
“Mr. Irving’s late publication, the ‘Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada,’ has superseded all further necessity for poetry and, unfortunately for me, for history. He has fully availed himself of all the picturesque and animating movement of this romantic era, and the reader who will take the trouble to compare his chronicle with the present more prosaic and literal narrative will see how little he has been seduced from historic accuracy by the poetical aspect of his subject. The fictitious and romantic dress of his work has enabled him to make it the medium of reflecting more vividly the floating opinions and chimerical fancies of the age, while he has illuminated the picture with the dramatic brilliancy of coloring denied to sober history.” *
* Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. ii. c. 15.
In the present edition I have endeavored to render the work more worthy of the generous encomium of Mr. Prescott. Though I still retain the fiction of the monkish author Agapida, I have brought my narrative more strictly within historical bounds, have corrected and enriched it in various parts with facts recently brought to light by the researches of Alcantara and others, and have sought to render it a faithful and characteristic picture of the romantic portion of history to which it relates.
W. I.
Sunnyside, 1850.
A CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.
CHAPTER I.
OF THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA, AND THE TRIBUTE WHICH IT PAID TO THE CASTILIAN CROWN.
The history of those bloody and disastrous wars which have caused the downfall of mighty empires (observes Fray Antonio Agapida) has ever been considered a study highly delectable and full of precious edification. What, then, must be the history of a pious crusade waged by the most Catholic of sovereigns to rescue from the power of the infidels one of the most beautiful but benighted regions of the globe? Listen, then, while from the solitude of my cell I relate the events of the conquest of Granada, where Christian knight and turbaned infidel disputed, inch by inch, the fair land of Andalusia, until the Crescent, that symbol of heathenish abomination, was cast down, and the blessed Cross, the tree of our redemption, erected in its stead.
Nearly eight hundred years were past and gone since the Arabian invaders had sealed the perdition of Spain by the defeat of Don Roderick, the last of her Gothic kings. Since that disastrous event one portion after another of the Peninsula had been gradually recovered by the Christian princes, until the single but powerful and warlike territory of Granada alone remained under the domination of the Moors.
This renowned kingdom, situated in the southern part of Spain and washed on one side by the Mediterranean Sea, was traversed in every direction by sierras or chains of lofty and rugged mountains, naked, rocky, and precipitous, rendering it almost impregnable, but locking up within their sterile embraces deep, rich, and verdant valleys of prodigal fertility.
In the centre of the kingdom lay its capital, the beautiful city of Granada, sheltered, as it were, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, or Snowy Mountains. Its houses, seventy thousand in number, covered two lofty hills with their declivities and a deep valley between them, through which flowed the Darro. The streets were narrow, as is usual in Moorish and Arab cities, but there were occasionally small squares and open places. The houses had gardens and interior courts, set out with orange, citron, and pomegranate trees and refreshed by fountains, so that as the edifices ranged above each other up the sides of the hills, they presented a delightful appearance of mingled grove and city. One of the hills was surmounted by the Alcazaba, a strong fortress commanding all that part of the city; the other by the Alhambra, a royal palace and warrior castle, capable of containing within its alcazar and towers a garrison of forty thousand men, but possessing also its harem, the voluptuous abode of the Moorish monarchs, laid out with courts and gardens, fountains and baths, and stately halls decorated in the most costly style of Oriental luxury. According to Moorish tradition, the king who built this mighty and magnificent pile was skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished himself with the necessary funds by means of alchemy.* Such was its lavish splendor that even at the present day the stranger, wandering through its silent courts and deserted halls, gazes with astonishment at gilded ceilings and fretted domes, the brilliancy and beauty of which have survived the vicissitudes of war and the silent dilapidation of ages.
* Zurita, lib. 20, c. 42.
The city was surrounded by high walls, three leagues in circuit, furnished with twelve gates and a thousand and thirty towers. Its elevation above the sea and the neighborhood of the Sierra Nevada crowned with perpetual snows tempered the fervid rays of summer, so that while other cities were panting with the sultry and stifling heat of the dog-days, the most salubrious breezes played through the marble halls of Granada.
The glory of the city, however, was its Vega or plain, which spread out to a circumference of thirty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty mountains, and was proudly compared to the famous plain of Damascus. It was a vast garden of delight, refreshed by numerous fountains and by the silver windings of the Xenil. The labor and ingenuity of the Moors had diverted the waters of this river into thousands of rills and streams, and diffused them over the whole surface of the plain. Indeed, they had wrought up this happy region to a degree of wonderful prosperity, and took a pride in decorating it as if it had been a favorite mistress. The hills were clothed with orchards and vineyards, the valleys embroidered with gardens, and the wide plains covered with waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the orange, the citron, the fig, and the pomegranate, with great plantations of mulberry trees, from which was produced the finest silk. The vine clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in rich clusters about the peasant’s cottage, and the groves were rejoiced by the perpetual song of the nightingale. In a word, so beautiful was the earth, so pure the air, and so serene the sky of this delicious region that the Moors imagined the paradise of their Prophet to be situated in that part of the heaven which overhung the kingdom of Granada.
Within this favored realm, so prodigally endowed and strongly fortified by nature, the Moslem wealth, valor, and intelligence, which had once shed such a lustre over Spain, had gradually retired, and here they made their final stand. Granada had risen to splendor on the ruin of other Moslem kingdoms, but in so doing had become the sole object of Christian hostility, and had to maintain its very existence by the sword. The Moorish capital accordingly presented a singular scene of Asiatic luxury and refinement, mingled with the glitter and the din of arms. Letters were still cultivated, philosophy and poetry had their schools and disciples, and the language spoken was said to be the most elegant Arabic. A passion for dress and ornament pervaded all ranks. That of the princesses and ladies of high rank, says Al Kattib, one of their own writers, was carried to a height of luxury and magnificence that bordered on delirium. They wore girdles and bracelets and anklets of gold and silver, wrought with exquisite art and delicacy and studded with jacinths, chrysolites, emeralds, and other precious stones. They were fond of braiding and decorating their beautiful long tresses or confining them in knots sparkling with jewels. They were finely formed, excessively fair, graceful in their manners, and fascinating in their conversation; when they smiled, says Al Kattib, they displayed teeth of dazzling whiteness, and their breath was as the perfume of flowers.
The Moorish cavaliers, when not in armor, delighted in dressing themselves in Persian style, in garments of wool, of silk, or cotton of the finest texture, beautifully wrought with stripes of various colors. In winter they wore, as an outer garment, the African cloak or Tunisian albornoz, but in the heat of summer they arrayed themselves in linen of spotless whiteness. The same luxury prevailed in their military equipments. Their armor was inlaid and chased with gold and silver. The sheaths of their scimetars were richly labored and enamelled, the blades were of Damascus bearing texts from the Koran or martial and amorous mottoes; the belts were of golden filigree studded with gems; their poniards of Fez were wrought in the arabesque fashion; their lances bore gay bandaroles; their horses were sumptuously caparisoned with housings of green and crimson velvet, wrought with silk and enamelled with gold and silver. All this warlike luxury of the youthful chivalry was encouraged by the Moorish kings, who ordained that no tax should be imposed on the gold and silver employed in these embellishments; and the same exception was extended to the bracelets and other ornaments worn by the fair dames of Granada.
Of the chivalrous gallantry which prevailed between the sexes in this romantic period of Moorish history we have traces in the thousand ballads which have come down to our day, and which have given a tone and coloring to Spanish amatory literature and to everything in Spain connected with the tender passion.
War was the normal state of Granada and its inhabitants; the common people were subject at any moment to be summoned to the field, and all the upper class was a brilliant chivalry. The Christian princes, so successful in regaining the rest of the Peninsula, found their triumphs checked at the mountain-boundaries of this kingdom. Every peak had its atalaya, or watch-tower, ready to make its fire by night or to send up its column of smoke by day, a signal of invasion at which the whole country was on the alert. To penetrate the defiles of this perilous country, to surprise a frontier fortress, or to make a foray into the Vega and a hasty ravage within sight of the very capital were among the most favorite and daring exploits of the Castilian chivalry. But they never pretended to hold the region thus ravaged; it was sack, burn, plunder, and away; and these desolating inroads were retaliated in kind by the Moorish cavaliers, whose greatest delight was a “tala,” or predatory incursion, into the Christian territories beyond the mountains.
A partisan warfare of this kind had long existed between Granada and its most formidable antagonists, the kingdoms of Castile and Leon. It was one which called out the keen yet generous rivalry of Christian and Moslem cavaliers, and gave rise to individual acts of chivalrous gallantry and daring prowess; but it was one which was gradually exhausting the resources and sapping the strength of Granada. One of the latest of its kings, therefore, Aben Ismael by name, disheartened by a foray which had laid waste the Vega, and conscious that the balance of warfare was against his kingdom, made a truce in 1457 with Henry IV., king of Castile and Leon, stipulating to pay him an annual tribute of twelve thousand doblas or pistoles of gold, and to liberate annually six hundred Christian captives, or in default of captives to give an equal number of Moors as hostages,—all to be delivered at the city of Cordova.*
* Garibay, Compend., 1.17, c. 3.
The truce, however, was of a partial nature, with singular reservations. It did not include the Moorish frontier toward Jaen, which was to remain open for the warlike enterprises of either nation; neither did it prohibit sudden attacks upon towns and castles, provided they were mere forays, conducted furtively, without sound of trumpet or display of banners or pitching of camps or regular investment, and that they did not last above three days.*
* Zurita, Anales de Aragon, 1. 20, c. 42; Mariana, Hist. de Espana 1.
25, c. 1; Bleda, Coron. de los Moros, l. 5, c. 3.
Aben Ismael was faithful in observing the conditions of the truce, but they were regarded with impatience by his eldest son, Muley Abul Hassan, a prince of a fiery and belligerent spirit, and fond of casing himself in armor and mounting his war-horse. He had been present at Cordova at one of the payments of tribute, and had witnessed the scoffs and taunts of the Christians, and his blood boiled whenever he recalled the humiliating scene. When he came to the throne in 1465, on the death of his father, he ceased the payment of the tribute altogether, and it was sufficient to put him into a tempest of rage only to mention it.
“He was a fierce and warlike infidel,” says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida; “his bitterness against the holy Christian faith had been signalized in battle during the lifetime of his father, and the same diabolical spirit of hostility was apparent in his ceasing to pay this most righteous tribute.”
CHAPTER II.
OF THE EMBASSY OF DON JUAN DE VERA TO DEMAND ARREARS OF TRIBUTE FROM THE MOORISH MONARCH.
The flagrant want of faith of Muley Abul Hassan in fulfilling treaty stipulations passed unresented during the residue of the reign of Henry the Impotent, and the truce was tacitly continued without the enforcement of tribute during the first three years of the reign of his successors, Ferdinand and Isabella of glorious and happy memory, who were too much engrossed by civil commotions in their own dominions, and by a war of succession waged with them by the king of Portugal, to risk an additional conflict with the Moorish sovereign. When, however, at the expiration of the term of truce, Muley Abul Hassan sought a renewal of it, the pride and piety of the Castilian sovereigns were awakened to the flagrant defalcation of the infidel king, and they felt themselves called upon, by their dignity as monarchs and their religious obligations as champions of the faith, to make a formal demand for the payment of arrearages.
In the year of grace 1478, therefore, Don Juan de Vera, a zealous and devout knight, full of ardor for the faith and loyalty to the Crown, was sent as ambassador for the purpose. He was armed at all points, gallantly mounted, and followed by a moderate but well-appointed retinue: in this way he crossed the Moorish frontier, and passed slowly through the country, looking round him with the eyes of a practised warrior and carefully noting its military points and capabilities. He saw that the Moor was well prepared for possible hostilities. Every town was strongly fortified. The Vega was studded with towers of refuge for the peasantry: every pass of the mountain had its castle of defence, every lofty height its watch-tower. As the Christian cavaliers passed under the walls of the fortresses, lances and scimetars flashed from their battlements, and the Moorish sentinels darted from their dark eyes glances of hatred and defiance. It was evident that a war with this kingdom must be a war of posts, full of doughty peril and valiant enterprise, where every step must be gained by toil and bloodshed, and maintained with the utmost difficulty. The warrior spirit of the cavaliers kindled at the thoughts, and they were impatient for hostilities; “not,” says Antonio Agapida, “from any thirst for rapine and revenge, but from that pure and holy indignation which every Spanish knight entertained at beholding this beautiful dominion of his ancestors defiled by the footsteps of infidel usurpers. It was impossible,” he adds, “to contemplate this delicious country, and not long to see it restored to the dominion of the true faith and the sway of the Christian monarchs.”
Arrived at the gates of Granada, Don Juan de Vera and his companions saw the same vigilant preparations on the part of the Moorish king. His walls and towers were of vast strength, in complete repair, and mounted with lombards and other heavy ordnance. His magazines were well stored with the munitions of war; he had a mighty host of foot-soldiers, together with squadrons of cavalry, ready to scour the country and carry on either defensive or predatory warfare. The Christian warriors noted these things without dismay; their hearts rather glowed with emulation at the thoughts of encountering so worthy a foe. As they slowly pranced through the streets of Granada they looked round with eagerness on the stately palaces and sumptuous mosques, on its alcayceria or bazar, crowded with silks and cloth of silver and gold, with jewels and precious stones, and other rich merchandise, the luxuries of every clime; and they longed for the time when all this wealth should be the spoil of the soldiers of the faith, and when each tramp of their steeds might be fetlock deep in the blood and carnage of the infidels.
The Moorish inhabitants looked jealously at this small but proud array of Spanish chivalry, as it paraded, with that stateliness possessed only by Spanish cavaliers, through the renowned gate of Elvira. They were struck with the stern and lofty demeanor of Don Juan de Vera and his sinewy frame, which showed him formed for hardy deeds of arms, and they supposed he had come in search of distinction by defying the Moorish knights in open tourney or in the famous tilt with reeds for which they were so renowned, for it was still the custom of the knights of either nation to mingle in these courteous and chivalrous contests during the intervals of war. When they learnt, however, that he was come to demand the tribute so abhorrent to the ears of the fiery monarch, they observed that it well required a warrior of his apparent nerve to execute such an embassy.
Muley Abul Hassan received the cavalier in state, seated on a magnificent divan and surrounded by the officers of his court, in the Hall of Ambassadors, one of the most sumptuous apartments of the Alhambra. When De Vera had delivered his message, a haughty and bitter smile curled the lip of the fierce monarch. “Tell your sovereigns,” said he, “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 scimetars and heads of lances.” *
* Garibay, 1. 40, c. 29; Conde, Hist. Arab., p. 4, c. 34.
The defiance couched in this proud reply was heard with secret satisfaction by Don Juan de Vera, for he was a bold soldier and a devout hater of the infidels, and he saw iron war in the words of the Moorish monarch. Being master, however, of all points of etiquette, he retained an inflexible demeanor, and retired from the apartment with stately and ceremonious gravity. His treatment was suited to his rank and dignity: a magnificent apartment in the Alhambra was assigned to him, and before his departure a scimetar was sent to him by the king, the blade of the finest Damascus steel, the hilt of agate enriched with precious stones, and the guard of gold. De Vera drew it, and smiled grimly as he noticed the admirable temper of the blade. “His Majesty has given me a trenchant weapon,” said he: “I trust a time will come when I may show him that I know how to use his royal present.” The reply was considered a compliment, of course: the bystanders little knew the bitter hostility that lay couched beneath.
On his return to Cordova, Don Juan de Vera delivered the reply of the Moor, but at the same time reported the state of his territories. These had been strengthened and augmented during the weak reign of Henry IV. and the recent troubles of Castile. Many cities and strong places contiguous to Granada, but heretofore conquered by the Christians, had renewed their allegiance to Muley Abul Hassan, so that his kingdom now contained fourteen cities, ninety-seven fortified places, besides numerous unwalled towns and villages defended by formidable castles, while Granada towered in the centre as the citadel.
The wary Ferdinand, as he listened to the military report of Don Juan de Vera, saw that the present was no time for hostilities with a warrior kingdom so bristled over with means of defence. The internal discords of Castile still continued, as did the war with Portugal: under these circumstances he forbore to insist upon the payment of tribute, and tacitly permitted the truce to continue; but the defiance contained in the reply of Muley Abul Hassan remained rankling in his bosom as a future ground of war; and De Vera’s description of Granada as the centre of a system of strongholds and rock-built castles suggested to him his plan of conquest—by taking town after town and fortress after fortress, and gradually plucking away all the supports before he attempted the capital. He expressed his resolution in a memorable pun or play upon the name of Granada, which signifies a pomegranate. “I will pick out the seeds of this pomegranate one by one,” said the cool and crafty Ferdinand.
NOTE.—In the first edition of this work the author recounted a characteristic adventure of the stout Juan de Vera as happening on the occasion of this embassy; a further consultation of historical authorities has induced him to transfer it to a second embassy of De Vera’s, which the reader will find related in a subsequent chapter.
CHAPTER III.
DOMESTIC FEUDS IN THE ALHAMBRA—RIVAL SULTANAS—PREDICTIONS CONCERNING BOABDIL, THE HEIR TO THE THRONE—HOW FERDINAND MEDITATES WAR AGAINST GRANADA, AND HOW HE IS ANTICIPATED.
Though Muley Abul Hassan was at peace in his external relations, a civil war raged in his harem, which it is proper to notice, as it had a fatal effect upon the fortunes of the kingdom. Though cruel by nature, he was uxorious and somewhat prone to be managed by his wives. Early in life he had married his kinswoman, Ayxa (or Ayesha), daughter of his great-uncle, the sultan Mohammed VII., surnamed El Hayzari, or the Left-handed. She was a woman of almost masculine spirit and energy, and of such immaculate and inaccessible virtue that she was generally called La Horra, or the Chaste. By her he had a son, Abu Abdallah, or, as he is commonly named by historians, Boabdil. The court astrologers, according to custom, cast the horoscope of the infant, but were seized with fear and trembling as they regarded it. “Allah Akbar! God is great!” exclaimed they; “he alone controls the fate of empires. It is written in the book of fate that this child will one day sit upon the throne, but that the downfall of the kingdom will be accomplished during his reign.” From that time the prince had been regarded with aversion by his father, and the prediction which hung over him and the persecutions to which he became subjected procured him the surname of El Zogoybi, or the Unfortunate. He grew up, however, under the protection of his valiant-hearted mother, who by the energy of her character long maintained an undisputed sway in the harem, until, as her youth passed away and her beauty declined, a formidable rival arose.
In one of the forays of the Moorish chivalry into the Christian territories they had surprised a frontier fortress commanded by Sancho Ximenes de Solis, a noble and valiant cavalier, who fell in bravely defending it. Among the captives was his daughter Isabella, then almost in her infancy, who was brought to Granada, delicately raised, and educated in the Moslem faith.* Her Moorish captors gave her the name of Fatima, but as she grew up her surpassing beauty gained her the surname of Zoraya, or the Morning Star, by which she has become known in history. Her charms at length attracted the notice of Muley Abul Hassan, and she soon became a member of his harem. Some have spoken of her as a Christian slave whom he had made his concubine; but others, with more truth, represent her as one of his wives, and ultimately his favorite sultana; and indeed it was often the case that female captives of rank and beauty, when converted to the faith of Islam, became united to the proudest and loftiest of their captors.
* Cronica del Gran Cardinal, cap. 71.
Zoraya soon acquired complete ascendancy over the mind of Muley Abul Hassan. She was as ambitious as she was beautiful, and, having become the mother of two sons, looked forward to the possibility of one of them sitting on the throne of Granada. These ambitious views were encouraged, if not suggested, by a faction which gathered round her inspired by kindred sympathies. The king’s vizier, Abul Cacim Vanegas, who had great influence over him, was, like Zoraya, of Christian descent, being of the noble house of Luque. His father, one of the Vanegas of Cordova, had been captured in infancy and brought up as a Moslem.* From him sprang the vizier, Abul Cacim Vanegas, and his brother, Reduan Vanegas, likewise high in rank in the court of Muley Abul Hassan, and they had about them numerous and powerful connections, all basking in court favor. Though Moslems in faith, they were all drawn to Zoraya by the tie of foreign and Christian descent, and sought to elevate her and her children to the disparagement of Ayxa la Horra and her son Boabdil. The latter, on the other hand, were supported by the noble and once-potent family of the Abencerrages and by Aben Comixa, alcayde of the Alhambra; and between these two factions, headed by rival sultanas, the harem of Muley Abul Hassan became the scene of inveterate jealousies and intrigues, which in time, as will be shown, led to popular commotions and civil wars.**
* Cura de los Palacios, Hist. de los Reyes Catol., cap. 56.
* *It is to be noted that several historians have erroneously
represented Zoraya as the mother of Boabdil, instead of Ayxa la Horra,
and the Abencerrages as the opponents of Boabdil, instead of his
strenuous adherents. The statement in the text is according to the most
reliable authorities.
While these female feuds were threatening Muley Abul Hassan with trouble and disaster at home, his evil genius prompted him to an enterprise which involved him in tenfold danger from abroad. The reader has already been apprised of a singular clause in the truce existing between the Christians and the Moors, permitting hasty dashes into each other’s territories and assaults of towns and fortresses, provided they were carried on as mere forays and without the parade of regular warfare. A long time had elapsed, however, without any incursion of the kind on the part of the Moors, and the Christian towns on the frontiers had, in consequence, fallen into a state of the most negligent security. In an unlucky moment Muley Abul Hassan was tempted to one of these forays by learning that the fortress of Zahara, on the frontier between Ronda and Medina Sidonia, was but feebly garrisoned and scantily supplied, and that its alcayde was careless of his charge. This important post was built on the crest of a rocky mountain, with a strong castle perched above it upon a cliff, so high that it was said to be above the flight of birds or drift of clouds. The streets and many of the houses were mere excavations wrought out of the living rock. The town had but one gate, opening to the west and defended by towers and bulwarks. The only ascent to this cragged fortress was by roads cut in the rock, so rugged in many places as to resemble broken stairs. In a word, the impregnable security of Zahara had become so proverbial throughout Spain that a woman of forbidding and inaccessible virtue was called a Zaharena. But the strongest fortress and sternest virtue have weak points, and require unremitting vigilance to guard them: let warrior and dame take warning from the fate of Zahara.
CHAPTER IV.
EXPEDITION OF MULEY ABUL HASSAN AGAINST THE FORTRESS OF ZAHARA.
In the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred and eighty-one, and but a night or two after the festival of the most blessed Nativity, the inhabitants of Zahara were sunk in profound sleep the very sentinel had deserted his post, and sought shelter from a tempest which had raged for three nights in succession, for it appeared but little probable that an enemy would be abroad during such an uproar of the elements. But evil spirits work best during a storm. In the midst of the night an uproar rose within the walls of Zahara more awful than the raging of the storm. A fearful alarm-cry, “The Moor! the Moor!” resounded through the streets, mingled with the clash of arms, the shriek of anguish, and the shout of victory. Muley Abul Hassan, at the head of a powerful force, had hurried from Granada, and passed unobserved through the mountains in the obscurity of the tempest. While the storm pelted the sentinel from his post and bowled round tower and battlement, the Moors had planted their scaling-ladders and mounted securely into both town and castle. The garrison was unsuspicious of danger until battle and massacre burst forth within its very walls. It seemed to the affrighted inhabitants as if the fiends of the air had come upon the wings of the wind and possessed themselves of tower and turret. The war-cry resounded on every side, shout answering shout, above, below, on the battlements of the castle, in the streets of the town; the foe was in all parts, wrapped in obscurity, but acting in concert by the aid of preconcerted signals. Starting from sleep, the soldiers were intercepted and cut down as they rushed from their quarters, or if they escaped they knew not where to assemble or where to strike. Wherever lights appeared the flashing scimetar was at its deadly work, and all who attempted resistance fell beneath its edge.
In a little while the struggle was at an end. Those who were not slain took refuge in the secret places of their houses or gave themselves up as captives. The clash of arms ceased, and the storm continued its howling, mingled with the occasional shout of the Moorish soldiery roaming in search of plunder. While the inhabitants were trembling for their fate, a trumpet resounded through the streets summoning them all to assemble, unarmed, in the public square. Here they were surrounded by soldiery and strictly guarded until daybreak. When the day dawned it was piteous to behold this once-prosperous community, who had laid down to rest in peaceful security, now crowded together without distinction of age or rank or sex, and almost without raiment, during the severity of a wintry storm. The fierce Muley Abul Hassan turned a deaf ear to all their prayers and remonstrances, and ordered them to be conducted captives to Granada. Leaving a strong garrison in both town and castle, with orders to put them in a complete state of defence, he returned, flushed with victory, to his capital, entering it at the head of his troops, laden with spoil and bearing in triumph the banners and pennons taken at Zahara.
While preparations were making for jousts and other festivities in honor of this victory over the Christians, the captives of Zahara arrived—a wretched train of men, women, and children, worn out with fatigue and haggard with despair, and driven like cattle into the city gates by a detachment of Moorish soldiery.
Deep was the grief and indignation of the people of Granada at this cruel scene. Old men, who had experienced the calamities of warfare, anticipated coming troubles. Mothers clasped their infants to their breasts as they beheld the hapless females of Zahara with their children expiring in their arms. On every side the accents of pity for the sufferers were mingled with execrations of the barbarity of the king. The preparations for festivity were neglected, and the viands which were to have feasted the conquerors were distributed among the captives.
The nobles and alfaquis, however, repaired to the Alhambra to congratulate the king; for, whatever storms may rage in the lower regions of society, rarely do any clouds but clouds of incense rise to the awful eminence of the throne. In this instance, however, a voice rose from the midst of the obsequious crowd, and burst like thunder upon the ears of Abul Hassan. “Woe! woe! woe! to Granada!” exclaimed the voice; “its hour of desolation approaches. The ruins of Zahara will fall upon our heads; my spirit tells me that the end of our empire is at hand.” All shrank back aghast, and left the denouncer of woe standing alone in the centre of the hall. He was an ancient and hoary man in the rude attire of a dervise. Age had withered his form without quenching the fire of his spirit, which glared in baleful lustre from his eyes. He was (say the Arabian historians) one of those holy men termed santons who pass their lives in hermitages in fasting, meditation, and prayer until they attain to the purity of saints and the foresight of prophets. “He was,” says the indignant Fray Antonio Agapida, “a son of Belial, one of those fanatic infidels possessed by the devil who are sometimes permitted to predict the truth to their followers, but with the proviso that their predictions shall be of no avail.”
The voice of the santon resounded through the lofty hall of the Alhambra, and struck silence and awe into the crowd of courtly sycophants. Muley Abul Hassan alone was unmoved: he eyed the hoary anchorite with scorn as he stood dauntless before him, and treated his predictions as the ravings of a maniac. The santon rushed from the royal presence, and, descending into the city, hurried through its streets and squares with frantic gesticulations. His voice was heard in every part in awful denunciation: “The peace is broken! exterminating war is commenced. Woe! woe! woe to Granada! its fall is at hand! desolation will dwell in its palaces; its strong men will fall beneath the sword, its children and maidens be led into captivity. Zahara is but a type of Granada!”
Terror seized upon the populace, for they considered these ravings as the inspirations of prophecy. Some hid themselves in their dwellings as in a time of general mourning, while some gathered together in knots in the streets and squares, alarming each other with dismal forebodings and cursing the rashness and cruelty of the king.
The Moorish monarch heeded not their murmurs. Knowing that his exploit must draw upon him the vengeance of the Christians, he now threw off all reserve, and made attempts to surprise Castellan and Elvira, though without success. He sent alfaquis also to the Barbary powers, informing them that the sword was drawn, and inviting the African princes to aid him with men and supplies in maintaining the kingdom of Granada and the religion of Mahomet against the violence of unbelievers.
While discontent exhaled itself in murmurs among the common people, however, it fomented in dangerous conspiracies among the nobles, and Muley Abul Hassan was startled by information of a design to depose him and place his son Boabdil upon the throne. His first measure was to confine the prince and his mother in the Tower of Comares; then, calling to mind the prediction of the astrologers, that the youth would one day sit on the throne of Granada, he impiously set the stars at defiance. “The sword of the executioner,” said he, “shall prove the fallacy of those lying horoscopes, and shall silence the ambition of Boabdil.”
The sultana Ayxa, apprised of the imminent danger of her son, concerted a plan for his escape. At the dead of the night she gained access to his prison, and, tying together the shawls and scarfs of herself and her female attendants, lowered him down from a balcony of the Alhambra to the steep rocky hillside which sweeps down to the Darro. Here some of her devoted adherents were waiting to receive him, who, mounting him on a swift horse, spirited him away to the city of Guadix, in the Alpuxarras.
CHAPTER V.
EXPEDITION OF THE MARQUES OF CADIZ AGAINST ALHAMA.
Great was the indignation of King Ferdinand when he heard of the storming of Zahara, though the outrage of the Moor happened most opportunely. The war between Castile and Portugal had come to a close; the factions of Spanish nobles were for the most part quelled. The Castilian monarchs had now, therefore, turned their thoughts to the cherished object of their ambition, the conquest of Granada. The pious heart of Isabella yearned to behold the entire Peninsula redeemed from the domination of the infidel, while Ferdinand, in whom religious zeal was mingled with temporal policy, looked with a craving eye to the rich territory of the Moor, studded with wealthy towns and cities. Muley Abul Hassan had rashly or unwarily thrown the brand that was to produce the wide conflagration. Ferdinand was not the one to quench the flames. He immediately issued orders to all the adelantados and alcaydes of the frontiers to maintain the utmost vigilance at their several posts, and to prepare to carry fire and sword into the territories of the Moors.
Among the many valiant cavaliers who rallied round the throne of Ferdinand and Isabella, one of the most eminent in rank and renowned in arms was Don Roderigo Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz. As he was the distinguished champion of this holy war, and commanded in most of its enterprises and battles, it is meet that some particular account should be given of him. He was born in 1443 of the valiant lineage of the Ponces, and from his earliest youth had rendered himself illustrious in the field. He was of the middle stature, with a muscular and powerful frame, capable of great exertion and fatigue. His hair and beard were red and curled, his countenance was open and magnanimous, of a ruddy complexion and slightly marked with the small-pox. He was temperate, chaste, valiant, vigilant; a just and generous master to his vassals; frank and noble in his deportment toward his equals; loving and faithful to his friends; fierce and terrible, yet magnanimous, to his enemies. He was considered the mirror of chivalry of his times, and compared by contemporary historians to the immortal Cid.
The marques of Cadiz had vast possessions in the most fertile parts of Andalusia, including many towns and castles, and could lead forth an army into the field from his own vassals and dependants. On receiving the orders of the king he burned to signalize himself by some sudden incursion into the kingdom of Granada that should give a brilliant commencement to the war, and should console the sovereigns for the insult they had received in the capture of Zahara. As his estates lay near to the Moorish frontiers and were subject to sudden inroads, he had always in his pay numbers of adalides, or scouts and guides, many of them converted Moors. These he sent out in all directions to watch the movements of the enemy and to procure all kinds of information important to the security of the frontier. One of these spies came to him one day in his town of Marchena, and informed him that the Moorish town of Alhama was slightly garrisoned and negligently guarded, and might be taken by surprise. This was a large, wealthy, and populous place within a few leagues of Granada. It was situated on a rocky height, nearly surrounded by a river, and defended by a fortress to which there was no access but by a steep and cragged ascent. The strength of its situation and its being embosomed in the centre of the kingdom had produced the careless security which now invited attack.
To ascertain fully the state of the fortress the marques despatched secretly a veteran soldier who was highly in his confidence. His name was Ortega de Prado, a man of great activity, shrewdness, and valor, and captain of escaladors (soldiers employed to scale the walls of fortresses in time of attack). Ortega approached Alhama one moonless night, and paced along its walls with noiseless step, laying his ear occasionally to the ground or to the wall. Every time he distinguished the measured tread of a sentinel, and now and then the challenge of the night-watch going its rounds. Finding the town thus guarded, he clambered to the castle: there all was silent. As he ranged its lofty battlements between him and the sky he saw no sentinel on duty. He noticed certain places where the wall might be ascended by scaling-ladders, and, having marked the hour of relieving guard and made all necessary observations, he retired without being discovered.
Ortega returned to Marchena, and assured the marques of Cadiz of the practicability of scaling the castle of Alhama and taking it by surprise. The marques had a secret conference with Don Pedro Enriques, adelantado of Andalusia, Don Diego de Merlo, commander of Seville, Sancho de Avila, alcayde of Carmona, and others, who all agreed to aid him with their forces. On an appointed day the several commanders assembled at Marchena with their troops and retainers. None but the leaders knew the object or destination of the enterprise, but it was enough to rouse the Andalusian spirit to know that a foray was intended into the country of their old enemies, the Moors. Secrecy and celerity were necessary for success. They set out promptly with three thousand genetes or light cavalry and four thousand infantry. They chose a route but little travelled, by the way of Antiquera, passing with great labor through rugged and solitary defiles of the sierra or chain of mountains of Arrecife, and left all their baggage on the banks of the river Yeguas, to be brought after them. This march was principally in the night; all day they remained quiet; no noise was suffered in their camp, and no fires were made, lest the smoke should betray them. On the third day they resumed their march as the evening darkened, and, forcing themselves forward at as quick a pace as the rugged and dangerous mountain-roads would permit, they descended toward midnight into a small deep valley only half a league from Alhama. Here they made a halt, fatigued by this forced march, during a long dark evening toward the end of February.
The marques of Cadiz now explained to the troops the object of the expedition. He told them it was for the glory of the most holy faith and to avenge the wrongs of their countrymen at Zahara, and that the town of Alhama, full of wealthy spoil, was the place to be attacked. The troops were roused to new ardor by these words, and desired to be led forthwith to the assault. They arrived close to Alhama about two hours before daybreak. Here the army remained in ambush, while three hundred men were despatched to scale the walls and get possession of the castle. They were picked men, many of them alcaydes and officers, men who preferred death to dishonor. This gallant band was guided by the escalador Ortega de Prado at the head of thirty men with scaling-ladders. They clambered the ascent to the castle in silence, and arrived under the dark shadow of its towers without being discovered. Not a light was to be seen, not a sound to be heard; the whole place was wrapped in profound repose.
Fixing their ladders, they ascended cautiously and with noiseless steps. Ortega was the first that mounted upon the battlements, followed by one Martin Galindo, a youthful esquire full of spirit and eager for distinction. Moving stealthily along the parapet to the portal of the citadel, they came upon the sentinel by surprise. Ortega seized him by the throat, brandished a dagger before his eyes, and ordered him to point the way to the guard-room. The infidel obeyed, and was instantly despatched, to prevent his giving an alarm. The guard-room was a scene rather of massacre than combat. Some of the soldiery were killed while sleeping, others were cut down almost without resistance, bewildered by so unexpected an assault: all were despatched, for the scaling party was too small to make prisoners or to spare. The alarm spread throughout the castle, but by this time the three hundred picked men had mounted the battlements. The garrison, startled from sleep, found the enemy already masters of the towers. Some of the Moors were cut down at once, others fought desperately from room to room, and the whole castle resounded with the clash of arms, the cries of the combatants, and the groans of the wounded. The army in ambush, finding by the uproar that the castle was surprised, now rushed from their concealment, and approached the walls with loud shouts and sound of kettle-drums and trumpets to increase the confusion and dismay of the garrison. A violent conflict took place in the court of the castle, where several of the scaling party sought to throw open the gates to admit their countrymen. Here fell two valiant alcaydes, Nicholas de Roja and Sancho de Avila, but they fell honorably, upon a heap of slain. At length Ortega de Prado succeeded in throwing open a postern through which the marques of Cadiz, the adelantado of Andalusia, and Don Diego de Merlo entered with a host of followers, and the citadel remained in full possession of the Christians.
As the Spanish cavaliers were ranging from room to room, the marques of Cadiz, entering an apartment of superior richness to the rest, beheld, by the light of a silver lamp, a beautiful Moorish female, the wife of the alcayde of the castle, whose husband was absent attending a wedding-feast at Velez Malaga. She would have fled at the sight of a Christian warrior in her apartment, but, entangled in the covering of the bed, she fell at the feet of the marques, imploring mercy. That Christian cavalier, who had a soul full of honor and courtesy toward the sex, raised her from the floor and endeavored to allay her fears; but they were increased at the sight of her female attendants pursued into the room by the Spanish soldiery. The marques reproached his soldiers with unmanly conduct, and reminded them that they made war upon men, not on defenceless women. Having soothed the terrors of the females by the promise of honorable protection, he appointed a trusty guard to watch over the security of their apartment.
The castle was now taken, but the town below it was in arms. It was broad day, and the people, recovered from their panic, were enabled to see and estimate the force of the enemy. The inhabitants were chiefly merchants and tradespeople, but the Moors all possessed a knowledge of the use of weapons and were of brave and warlike spirit. They confided in the strength of their walls and the certainty of speedy relief from Granada, which was but about eight leagues distant. Manning the battlements and towers, they discharged showers of stones and arrows whenever the part of the Christian army without the walls attempted to approach. They barricadoed the entrances of their streets also which opened toward the castle, stationing men expert at the crossbow and arquebuse. These kept up a constant fire upon the gate of the castle, so that no one could sally forth without being instantly shot down. Two valiant cavaliers who attempted to lead forth a party in defiance of this fatal tempest were shot dead at the very portal.
The Christians now found themselves in a situation of great peril. Reinforcements must soon arrive to the enemy from Granada: unless, therefore, they gained possession of the town in the course of the day, they were likely to be surrounded and beleaguered, without provisions, in the castle. Some observed that even if they took the town they should not be able to maintain possession of it. They proposed, therefore, to make booty of everything valuable, to sack the castle, set it on fire, and make good their retreat to Seville.
The marques of Cadiz was of different counsel. “God has given the citadel into Christian hands,” said he; “he will no doubt strengthen them to maintain it. We have gained the place with difficulty and bloodshed; it would be a stain upon our honor to abandon it through fear of imaginary dangers.” The adelantado and Don Diego de Merlo joined in his opinion, but without their earnest and united remonstrances the place would have been abandoned, so exhausted were the troops by forced marches and hard fighting, and so apprehensive of the approach of the Moors of Granada.
The strength and spirits of the party within the castle were in some degree restored by the provisions which they found. The Christian army beneath the town, being also refreshed by a morning’s repast, advanced vigorously to the attack of the walls. They planted their scaling-ladders, and, swarming up, sword in hand, fought fiercely with the Moorish soldiery upon the ramparts.
In the mean time, the marques of Cadiz, seeing that the gate of the castle, which opened toward the city, was completely commanded by the artillery of the enemy, ordered a large breach to be made in the wall, through which he might lead his troops to the attack, animating them in this perilous moment by assuring them that the place should be given up to plunder and its inhabitants made captives.
The breach being made, the marques put himself at the head of his troops, and entered sword in hand. A simultaneous attack was make by the Christians in every part—by the ramparts, by the gate, by the roofs and walls which connected the castle with the town. The Moors fought valiantly in their streets, from their windows, and from the tops of their houses. They were not equal to the Christians in bodily strength, for they were for the most part peaceful men, of industrious callings, and enervated by the frequent use of the warm bath; but they were superior in number and unconquerable in spirit; old and young, strong and weak, fought with the same desperation. The Moors fought for property, for liberty, for life. They fought at their thresholds and their hearths, with the shrieks of their wives and children ringing in their ears, and they fought in the hope that each moment would bring aid from Granada. They regarded neither their own wounds nor the death of their companions, but continued fighting until they fell, and seemed as if, when they could no longer contend, they would block up the thresholds of their beloved homes with their mangled bodies. The Christians fought for glory, for revenge, for the holy faith, and for the spoil of these wealthy infidels. Success would place a rich town at their mercy; failure would deliver them into the hands of the tyrant of Granada.
The contest raged from morning until night, when the Moors began to yield. Retreating to a large mosque near the walls, they kept up so galling a fire from it with lances, crossbows, and arquebuses that for some time the Christians dared not approach. Covering themselves, at length, with bucklers and mantelets* to protect them from the deadly shower, the latter made their way to the mosque and set fire to the doors. When the smoke and flames rolled in upon them the Moors gave up all as lost. Many rushed forth desperately upon the enemy, but were immediately slain; the rest surrendered themselves captives.
* Mantelet—a movable parapet, made of thick planks, to protect
troops when advancing to sap or assault a walled place.
The struggle was now at an end: the town remained at the mercy of the Christians; and the inhabitants, both male and female, became the slaves of those who made them prisoners. Some few escaped by a mine or subterranean way which led to the river, and concealed themselves, their wives and children, in caves and secret places, but in three or four days were compelled to surrender themselves through hunger.
The town was given up to plunder, and the booty was immense. There were found prodigious quantities of gold and silver, and jewels and rich silks and costly stuffs of all kinds, together with horses and beeves, and abundance of grain and oil and honey, and all other productions of this fruitful kingdom; for in Alhama were collected the royal rents and tributes of the surrounding country: it was the richest town in the Moorish territory, and from its great strength and its peculiar situation was called the key to Granada.
Great waste and devastation were committed by the Spanish soldiery; for, thinking it would be impossible to keep possession of the place, they began to destroy whatever they could not take away. Immense jars of oil were broken, costly furniture shattered to pieces, and magazines of grain broken open and their contents scattered to the winds. Many Christian captives who had been taken at Zahara were found buried in a Moorish dungeon, and were triumphantly restored to light and liberty; and a renegado Spaniard, who had often served as guide to the Moors in their incursions into the Christian territories, was hanged on the highest part of the battlements for the edification of the army.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW THE PEOPLE OF GRANADA WERE AFFECTED ON HEARING OF THE CAPTURE OF ALHAMA, AND HOW THE MOORISH KING SALLIED FORTH TO REGAIN IT.
A moorish horseman had spurred across the Vega, nor reined his panting steed until he alighted at the gate of the Alhambra. He brought tidings to Muley Abul Hassan of the attack upon Alhama. “The Christians,” said he, “are in the land. They came upon us, we know not whence or how, and scaled the walls of the castle in the night. There have been dreadful fighting and carnage in its towers and courts; and when I spurred my steed from the gate of Alhama the castle was in possession of the unbelievers.”
Muley Abul Hassan felt for a moment as if swift retribution had come upon him for the woes he had inflicted upon Zahara. Still, he flattered himself that this had only been some transient inroad of a party of marauders intent upon plunder, and that a little succor thrown into the town would be sufficient to expel them from the castle and drive them from the land. He ordered out, therefore, a thousand of his chosen cavalry, and sent them in all speed to the assistance of Alhama. They arrived before its walls the morning after its capture: the Christian standards floated upon its towers, and a body of cavalry poured forth from its gates and came wheeling down into the plain to receive them.
The Moorish horsemen turned the reins of their steeds and galloped back for Granada. They entered its gates in tumultuous confusion, spreading terror and lamentation by their tidings. “Alhama is fallen! Alhama is fallen!” exclaimed they; “the Christians garrison its walls; the key of Granada is in the hands of the enemy!”
When the people heard these words they remembered the denunciation of the santon. His prediction seemed still to resound in every ear, and its fulfilment to be at hand. Nothing was heard throughout the city but sighs and wailings. “Woe is me, Alhama!” was in every mouth; and this ejaculation of deep sorrow and doleful foreboding came to be the burden of a plaintive ballad which remains until the present day.*
* The mournful little Spanish romance of “Ay de mi Alhama!” is
supposed to be of Moorish origin, and to embody the grief of the people
of Granada on this occasion.
Many aged men, who had taken refuge in Granada from other Moorish dominions which had fallen into the power of the Christians, now groaned in despair at the thoughts that war was to follow them into this last retreat, to lay waste this pleasant land, and to bring trouble and sorrow upon their declining years. The women were more loud and vehement in their grief, for they beheld the evils impending over their children, and what can restrain the agony of a mother’s heart? Many of them made their way through the halls of the Alhambra into the presence of the king, weeping, and wailing, and tearing their hair. “Accursed be the day,” cried they, “that thou hast lit the flame of war in our land! May the holy Prophet bear witness before Allah that we and our children are innocent of this act! Upon thy head, and upon the heads of thy posterity, until the end of the world, rest the sin of the desolation of Zahara!”*
* Garibay, lib. 40, c. 29.
Muley Abul Hassan remained unmoved amidst all this storm; his heart was hardened (observes Fray Antonio Agapida) like that of Pharaoh, to the end that through his blind violence and rage he might produce the deliverance of the land from its heathen bondage. In fact, he was a bold and fearless warrior, and trusted soon to make this blow recoil upon the head of the enemy. He had ascertained that the captors of Alhama were but a handful: they were in the centre of his dominions, within a short distance of his capital. They were deficient in munitions of war and provisions for sustaining a siege. By a rapid movement he might surround them with a powerful army, cut off all aid from their countrymen, and entrap them in the fortress they had taken.
To think was to act with Muley Abul Hassan, but he was prone to act with too much precipitation. He immediately set forth in person with three thousand horse and fifty thousand foot, and in his eagerness to arrive at the scene of action would not wait to provide artillery and the various engines required in a siege. “The multitude of my forces,” said he, confidently, “will be sufficient to overwhelm the enemy.”
The marques of Cadiz, who thus held possession of Alhama, had a chosen friend and faithful companion-in-arms, among the most distinguished of the Christian chivalry. This was Don Alonso de Cordova, senior and lord of the house of Aguilar, and brother of Gonsalvo of Cordova, afterward renowned as grand captain of Spain. As yet, Alonso de Aguilar was the glory of his name and race, for his brother was but young in arms. He was one of the most hardy, valiant, and enterprising of the Spanish knights, and foremost in all service of a perilous and adventurous nature. He had not been at hand to accompany his friend Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz, in his inroad into the Moorish territory, but he hastily assembled a number of retainers, horse and foot, and pressed forward to join the enterprise. Arriving at the river Yeguas, he found the baggage of the army still upon its banks, and took charge of it to carry it to Alhama. The marques of Cadiz heard of the approach of his friend, whose march was slow in consequence of being encumbered by the baggage. He was within but a few leagues of Alhama when scouts came hurrying into the place with intelligence that the Moorish king was at hand with a powerful army. The marques of Cadiz was filled with alarm lest De Aguilar should fall into the hands of the enemy. Forgetting his own danger and thinking only of that of his friend, he despatched a well-mounted messenger to ride full speed and warn him not to approach.
The first determination of Alonso de Aguilar when he heard that the Moorish king was at hand was to take a strong position in the mountains and await his coming. The madness of an attempt with his handful of men to oppose an immense army was represented to him with such force as to induce him to abandon the idea; he then thought of throwing himself into Alhama to share the fortunes of his friend; but it was now too late. The Moor would infallibly intercept him, and he should only give the marques the additional distress of beholding him captured beneath his walls. It was even urged upon him that he had no time for delay if he would consult his own safety, which could only be ensured by an immediate retreat into the Christian territory. This last opinion was confirmed by the return of scouts, who brought information that Muley Abul Hassan had received notice of his movements, and was rapidly advancing in quest of him. It was with infinite reluctance that Don Alonso de Aguilar yielded to these united and powerful reasons. Proudly and sullenly he drew off his forces, laden with the baggage of the army, and made an unwilling retreat toward Antiquera. Muley Abul Hassan pursued him for some distance through the mountains, but soon gave up the chase and turned with his forces upon Alhama.
As the army approached the town they beheld the fields strewn with the dead bodies of their countrymen, who had fallen in defence of the place, and had been cast forth and left unburied by the Christians. There they lay, mangled and exposed to every indignity, while droves of half-famished dogs were preying upon them and fighting and howling over their hideous repast.* Furious at the sight, the Moors, in the first transports of their rage, attacked those ravenous animals: their next measure was to vent their fury upon the Christians. They rushed like madmen to the walls, applied scaling-ladders in all parts without waiting for the necessary mantelets and other protections—thinking by attacking suddenly and at various points to distract the enemy and overcome them by the force of numbers.
* Pulgar, Cronica.
The marques of Cadiz, with his confederate commanders, distributed themselves along the walls to direct and animate their men in the defence. The Moors in their blind fury often assailed the most difficult and dangerous places. Darts, stones, and all kinds of missiles were hurled down upon their defenceless heads. As fast as they mounted they were cut down or dashed from the battlements, their ladders overturned, and all who were on them precipitated headlong below.
Muley Abul Hassan stormed with passion at the sight: he sent detachment after detachment to scale the walls, but in vain; they were like waves rushing upon a rock, only to dash themselves to pieces. The Moors lay in heaps beneath the wall, and among them many of the bravest cavaliers of Granada. The Christians also sallied frequently from the gates, and made great havoc in the irregular multitude of assailants.
Muley Abul Hassan now became sensible of his error in hurrying from Granada without the proper engines for a siege. Destitute of all means to batter the fortifications, the town remained uninjured, defying the mighty army which raged and roamed before it. Incensed at being thus foiled, Muley Abul Hassan gave orders to undermine the walls. The Moors advanced with shouts to the attempt. They were received with a deadly fire from the ramparts, which drove them from their works. Repeatedly were they repulsed, and repeatedly did they return to the charge. The Christians not merely galled them from the battlements, but issued forth and cut them down in the excavations they were attempting to form. The contest lasted throughout a whole day, and by evening two thousand Moors were either killed or wounded.
Muley Abul Hassan now abandoned all hope of carrying the place by assault, and attempted to distress it into terms by turning the channel of the river which runs by its walls. On this stream the inhabitants depended for their supply of water, the place being destitute of fountains and cisterns, from which circumstance it is called Alhama “la seca,” or “the dry.”
A desperate conflict ensued on the banks of the river, the Moors endeavoring to plant palisades in its bed to divert the stream, and the Christians striving to prevent them. The Spanish commanders exposed themselves to the utmost danger to animate their men, who were repeatedly driven back into the town. The marques of Cadiz was often up to his knees in the stream fighting hand to hand with the Moors. The water ran red with blood, and was encumbered with dead bodies. At length the overwhelming numbers of the Moors gave them the advantage, and they succeeded in diverting the greater part of the water. The Christians had to struggle severely to supply themselves from the feeble rill which remained. They sallied to the river by a subterraneous passage, but the Moorish crossbowmen stationed themselves on the opposite bank, keeping up a heavy fire upon the Christians whenever they attempted to fill their vessels from the scanty and turbid stream. One party of the Christians had, therefore, to fight while another drew water. At all hours of the day and night this deadly strife was maintained, until it seemed as if every drop of water were purchased with a drop of blood.
In the mean time the sufferings of the town became intense. None but the soldiery and their horses were allowed the precious beverage so dearly earned, and even that in quantities that only tantalized their wants. The wounded, who could not sally to procure it, were almost destitute, while the unhappy prisoners shut up in the mosques were reduced to frightful extremities. Many perished raving mad, fancying themselves swimming in boundless seas, yet unable to assuage their thirst. Many of the soldiers lay parched and panting along the battlements, no longer able to draw a bowstring or hurl a stone; while above five thousand Moors, stationed upon a rocky height which overlooked part of the town, kept up a galling fire into it with slings and crossbows, so that the marques of Cadiz was obliged to heighten the battlements by using the doors from the private dwellings.
The Christian cavaliers, exposed to this extreme peril and in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, despatched fleet messengers to Seville and Cordova, entreating the chivalry of Andalusia to hasten to their aid. They sent likewise, imploring assistance from the king and queen, who at that time held their court in Medina del Campo. In the midst of their distress a tank or cistern of water was fortunately discovered in the city, which gave temporary relief to their sufferings.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE DUKE OF MEDINA SIDONIA AND THE CHIVALRY OF ANDALUSIA HASTENED TO THE RELIEF OF ALHAMA.
The perilous situation of the Christian cavaliers, pent up and beleaguered within the walls of the Alhama, spread terror among their friends and anxiety throughout all Andalusia. Nothing, however, could equal the anguish of the marchioness of Cadiz, the wife of the gallant Roderigo Ponce de Leon. In her deep distress she looked round for some powerful noble who had the means of rousing the country to the assistance of her husband. No one appeared more competent for the purpose than Don Juan de Guzman, the duke of Medina Sidonia. He was one of the most wealthy and puissant grandees of Spain; his possessions extended over some of the most fertile parts of Andalusia, embracing towns and seaports and numerous villages. Here he reigned in feudal state like a petty sovereign, and could at any time bring into the field an immense force of vassals and retainers.
The duke of Medina Sidonia and the marques of Cadiz, however, were at this time deadly foes. An hereditary feud existed between them, which had often risen to bloodshed and open war; for as yet the fierce contests between the proud and puissant Spanish nobles had not been completely quelled by the power of the Crown, and in this respect they exerted a right of sovereignty in leading their vassals against each other in open field.
The duke of Medina Sidonia would have appeared, to many, the very last person to whom to apply for aid of the marques of Cadiz; but the marchioness judged of him by the standard of her own high and generous mind. She knew him to be a gallant and courteous knight, and had already experienced the magnanimity of his spirit, having been relieved by him when besieged by the Moors in her husband’s fortress of Arcos. To the duke, therefore, she applied in this moment of sudden calamity, imploring him to furnish succor to her husband. The event showed how well noble spirits understand each other. No sooner did the duke receive this appeal from the wife of his enemy than he generously forgot all feeling of animosity and determined to go in person to his succor. He immediately despatched a courteous letter to the marchioness, assuring her that in consideration of the request of so honorable and estimable a lady, and to rescue from peril so valiant a cavalier as her husband, whose loss would be great, not only to Spain, but to all Christendom, he would forego the recollection of all past grievances, and hasten to his relief with all the forces he could raise.
The duke wrote at the same time to the alcaydes of his towns and fortresses, ordering them to join him forthwith at Seville with all the forces they could spare from their garrisons. He called on all the chivalry of Andalusia to make a common cause in the rescue of those Christian cavaliers, and he offered large pay to all volunteers who would resort to him with horses, armor, and provisions. Thus all who could be incited by honor, religion, patriotism, or thirst of gain were induced to hasten to his standard, and he took the field with an army of five thousand horse and fifty thousand foot.* Many cavaliers of distinguished name accompanied him in this generous enterprise. Among these was the redoubtable Alonso de Aguilar, the chosen friend of the marques of Cadiz, and with him his younger brother, Gonsalvo Fernandez de Cordova, afterward renowned as the grand captain; Don Roderigo Giron also, master of the order of Calatrava, together with Martin Alonso de Montemayor and the marques de Villena, esteemed the best lance in Spain. It was a gallant and splendid army, comprising the flower of Spanish chivalry, and poured forth in brilliant array from the gates of Seville bearing the great standard of that ancient and renowned city.
* Cronica de los Duques de Medina Sidonia, por Pedro de Medina, MS.
Ferdinand and Isabella were at Medina del Campo when tidings came of the capture of Alhama. The king was at mass when he received the news, and ordered “Te Deum” to be chanted for this signal triumph of the holy faith. When the first flush of triumph had subsided, and the king learnt the imminent peril of the valorous Ponce de Leon and his companions, and the great danger that this stronghold might again be wrested from their grasp, he resolved to hurry in person to the scene of action. So pressing appeared to him the emergency that he barely gave himself time to take a hasty repast while horses were providing, and then departed at furious speed for Andalusia, leaving a request for the queen to follow him.* He was attended by Don Beltram de la Cueva, duke of Albuquerque, Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, count of Tendilla, and Don Pedro Mauriques, count of Trevino, with a few more cavaliers of prowess and distinction. He travelled by forced journeys, frequently changing his jaded horses, being eager to arrive in time to take command of the Andalusian chivalry. When he arrived within five leagues of Cordova the duke of Albuquerque remonstrated with him upon entering with such incautious haste into the enemies’ country. He represented to him that there were troops enough assembled to succor Alhama, and that it was not for him to venture his royal person in doing what could be done by his subjects, especially as he had such valiant and experienced captains to act for him. “Besides, sire,” added the duke, “Your Majesty should bethink you that the troops about to take the field are mere men of Andalusia, whereas your illustrious predecessors never made an inroad into the territory of the Moors without being accompanied by a powerful force of the stanch and iron warriors of Old Castile.”
* Illescas, Hist. Pontifical.
“Duke,” replied the king, “your counsel might have been good had I not departed from Medina with the avowed determination of succoring these cavaliers in person. I am now near the end of my journey, and it would be beneath my dignity to change my intention before even I had met with an impediment. I shall take the troops of this country who are assembled, without waiting for those of Castile, and with the aid of God shall prosecute my journey.” *
* Pulgar, Cronica, p. 3, cap. 3.
As King Ferdinand approached Cordova the principal inhabitants came forth to receive him. Learning, however, that the duke of Medina Sidonia was already on the march and pressing forward into the territory of the Moors, the king was all on fire to overtake him and to lead in person the succor to Alhama. Without entering Cordova, therefore, he exchanged his weary horses for those of the inhabitants who had come forth to meet him, and pressed forward for the army. He despatched fleet couriers in advance, requesting the duke of Medina Sidonia to await his coming, that he might take command of the forces.
Neither the duke nor his companions-in-arms, however, felt inclined to pause in their generous expedition and gratify the inclinations of the king. They sent back missives representing that they were far within the enemies’ frontier, and it was dangerous either to pause or turn back. They had likewise received pressing entreaties from the besieged to hasten their speed, setting forth their great sufferings and their hourly peril of being overwhelmed by the enemy.
The king was at Ponton del Maestre when he received these missives. So inflamed was he with zeal for the success of this enterprise that he would have penetrated into the kingdom of Granada with the handful of cavaliers who accompanied him, but they represented the rashness of such a journey through the mountainous defiles of a hostile country thickly beset with towns and castles. With some difficulty, therefore, he was dissuaded from his inclination, and prevailed upon to await tidings from the army in the frontier city of Antiquera.
CHAPTER VIII.
SEQUEL OF THE EVENTS AT ALHAMA.
While all Andalusia was thus in arms and pouring its chivalry through the mountain-passes of the Moorish frontiers, the garrison of Alhama was reduced to great extremity and in danger of sinking under its sufferings before the promised succor could arrive. The intolerable thirst that prevailed in consequence of the scarcity of water, the incessant watch that had to be maintained over the vast force of enemies without and the great number of prisoners within, and the wounds which almost every soldier had received in the incessant skirmishes and assaults, had worn grievously both flesh and spirit. The noble Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz, still animated the soldiery, however, by word and example, sharing every hardship and being foremost in every danger, exemplifying that a good commander is the vital spirit of an army.
When Muley Abul Hassan heard of the vast force that was approaching under the command of the duke of Medina Sidonia, and that Ferdinand was coming in person with additional troops, he perceived that no time was to be lost: Alhama must be carried by one powerful attack or abandoned entirely to the Christians.
A number of Moorish cavaliers, some of the bravest youth of Granada, knowing the wishes of the king, proposed to undertake a desperate enterprise which, if successful, must put Alhama in his power. Early one morning, when it was scarcely the gray of the dawn, about the time of changing the watch, these cavaliers approached the town at a place considered inaccessible from the steepness of the rocks on which the wall was founded, which, it was supposed, elevated the battlements beyond the reach of the longest scaling-ladder. The Moorish knights, aided by a number of the strongest and most active escaladors, mounted these rocks and applied the ladders without being discovered, for to divert attention from them Muley Abul Hassan made a false attack upon the town in another quarter.
The scaling party mounted with difficulty and in small numbers; the sentinel was killed at his post, and seventy of the Moors made their way into the streets before an alarm was given. The guards rushed to the walls to stop the hostile throng that was still pouring in. A sharp conflict, hand to hand and man to man, took place on the battlements, and many on both sides fell. The Moors, whether wounded or slain, were thrown headlong without the walls, the scaling-ladders were overturned, and those who were mounting were dashed upon the rocks, and from thence tumbled upon the plain. Thus in a little while the ramparts were cleared by Christian prowess, led on by that valiant knight Don Alonzo Ponce, the uncle, and that brave esquire Pedro Pineda, nephew, of the marques of Cadiz.
The walls being cleared, these two kindred cavaliers now hastened with their forces in pursuit of the seventy Moors who had gained an entrance into the town. The main party of the garrison being engaged at a distance resisting the feigned attack of the Moorish king, this fierce band of infidels had ranged the streets almost without opposition, and were making their way to the gates to throw them open to the army.* They were chosen men from among the Moorish forces, several of them gallant knights of the proudest families of Granada. Their footsteps through the city were in a manner printed in blood, and they were tracked by the bodies of those they had killed and wounded. They had attained the gate; most of the guard had fallen beneath their scimetars; a moment more and Alhama would have been thrown open to the enemy.
* Zurita, lib. 20, c. 43.
Just at this juncture Don Alonzo Ponce and Pedro de Pineda reached the spot with their forces. The Moors had the enemy in front and rear; they placed themselves back to back, with their banner in the centre. In this way they fought with desperate and deadly determination, making a rampart around them with the slain. More Christian troops arrived and hemmed them in, but still they fought, without asking for quarter. As their number decreased they serried their circle still closer, defending their banner from assault, and the last Moor died at his post grasping the standard of the Prophet. This standard was displayed from the walls, and the turbaned heads of the Moors were thrown down to the besiegers.*
* Pedro de Pineda received the honor of knighthood from the hand
of King Ferdinand for his valor on this occasion (Alonzo Ponce was
already knight.)—See Zuniga, Annales of Seville, lib. 12, an. 1482.
Muley Abul Hassan tore his beard with rage at the failure of this attempt and at the death of so many of his chosen cavaliers. He saw that all further effort was in vain; his scouts brought word that they had seen from the heights the long columns and flaunting banners of the Christian army approaching through the mountains. To linger would be to place himself between two bodies of the enemy. Breaking up his camp, therefore, in all haste, he gave up the siege of Alhama and hastened back to Granada; and the last clash of his cymbals scarce died upon the ear from the distant hills before the standard of the Duke of Medina Sidonia was seen emerging in another direction from the defiles of the mountains.
When the Christians in Alhama beheld their enemies retreating on one side and their friends advancing on the other, they uttered shouts of joy and hymns of thanksgiving, for it was as a sudden relief from present death. Harassed by several weeks of incessant vigil and fighting, suffering from scarcity of provisions and almost continual thirst, they resembled skeletons rather than living men. It was a noble and gracious spectacle—the meeting of those hitherto inveterate foes, the duke of Medina Sidonia and the marques of Cadiz. At sight of his magnanimous deliverer the marques melted into tears: all past animosities only gave the greater poignancy to present feelings of gratitude and admiration. The late deadly rivals clasped each other in their arms, and from that time forward were true and cordial friends.
While this generous scene took place between the commanders a sordid contest arose among their troops. The soldiers who had come to the rescue claimed a portion of the spoils of Alhama, and so violent was the dispute that both parties seized their arms. The duke of Medina Sidonia interfered, and settled the question with his characteristic magnanimity. He declared that the spoil belonged to those who had captured the city. “We have taken the field,” said he, “only for honor, for religion, and for the rescue of our countrymen and fellow-Christians, and the success of our enterprise is a sufficient and a glorious reward. If we desire booty, there are sufficient Moorish cities yet to be taken to enrich us all.” The soldiers were convinced by the frank and chivalrous reasoning of the duke; they replied to his speech by acclamations, and the transient broil was happily appeased.
The marchioness of Cadiz, with the forethought of a loving wife, had despatched her major-domo with the army with a large supply of provisions. Tables were immediately spread beneath the tents, where the marques gave a banquet to the duke and the cavaliers who had accompanied him, and nothing but hilarity prevailed in this late scene of suffering and death.
A garrison of fresh troops was left in Alhama, and the veterans who had so valiantly captured and maintained it returned to their homes burdened with precious booty. The marques and duke, with their confederate cavaliers, repaired to Antiquera, where they were received with great distinction by the king, who honored the marques of Cadiz with signal marks of favor. The duke then accompanied his late enemy, but now most zealous and grateful friend, the marques of Cadiz, to his town of Marchena, where he received the reward of his generous conduct in the thanks and blessings of the marchioness. The marques celebrated a sumptuous feast in honor of his guest; for a day and night his palace was thrown open and was the scene of continual revel and festivity. When the duke departed for his estates at St. Lucar the marques attended him for some distance on his journey, and when they separated it was as the parting scene of brothers. Such was the noble spectacle exhibited to the chivalry of Spain by these two illustrious rivals. Each reaped universal renown from the part he had performed in the campaign—the marques from having surprised and captured one of the most important and formidable fortresses of the kingdom of Granada, and the duke from having subdued his deadliest foe by a great act of magnanimity.
CHAPTER IX.
EVENTS AT GRANADA, AND RISE OF THE MOORISH KING, BOABDIL EL CHICO.
The Moorish king, Abul Hassan, returned, baffled and disappointed, from before the walls of Alhama, and was received with groans and smothered execrations by the people of Granada. The prediction of the santon was in every mouth, and appeared to be rapidly fulfilling, for the enemy was already strongly fortified in Alhama, in the very heart of the kingdom. At the same time, the nobles who had secretly conspired to depose the old king and elevate his son Boabdil to the throne had matured their plans in concert with the prince, who had been joined in Guadix by hosts of adherents. An opportunity soon presented to carry their plans into operation.
Muley Abul Hassan had a royal country palace, with gardens and fountains, called the Alixares, situated on the Cerro del Sol, or Mountain of the Sun, a height the ascent to which leads up from the Alhambra, but which towers far above that fortress, and looks down as from the clouds upon it and upon the subjacent city of Granada. It was a favorite retreat of the Moorish kings to inhale the pure mountain-breezes and leave far below the din and turmoil of the city; Muley Abul Hassan had passed a day among its bowers, in company with his favorite wife Zoraya, when toward evening he heard a strange sound rising from the city, like the gathering of a storm or the sullen roar of the ocean. Apprehensive of evil, he ordered the officers of his guard to descend with all speed to the city and reconnoitre. The intelligence brought back was astounding. A civil war was raging in the city. Boabdil had been brought from Guadix by the conspirators, the foremost of whom were the gallant race of the Abencerrages. He had entered the Albaycin in triumph, and been hailed with rapture and proclaimed king in that populous quarter of the city. Abul Cacim Vanegas, the vizier, at the head of the royal guards had attacked the rebels, and the noise which had alarmed the king was the din of fighting in the streets and squares.
Muley Abul Hassan hastened to descend to the Alhambra, confident that, ensconced in that formidable fortress, he could soon put an end to the rash commotion. To his surprise and dismay, he found the battlements lined with hostile troops: Aben Comixa, the alcayde, had declared in favor of Boabdil and elevated his standard on the towers: thus cut off from his stronghold, the old monarch was fain to return to the Alixares.
The conflict lasted throughout the night with carnage on both sides. In the morning Abul Cacim, driven out of the city, appeared before the old king with his broken squadrons, and told him there was no safety but in flight. “Allah Akbar!” (God is great!) exclaimed old Muley; “it is in vain to contend against what is written in the book of fate. It was predestined that my son should sit upon the throne—Allah forfend the rest of the prediction.” So saying, he made a hasty retreat, escorted by Abul Cacim Vanegas and his troops, who conducted him to the castle of Mondujar in the valley of Locrin. Here he was joined by many powerful cavaliers, relatives of Abul Cacim and partisans of Zoraya, among whom were Cid Hiaya, Aben Jamy, and Reduan Vanegas, men who had alcaydes, vassals, at their command, and possessed great influence in Almeria and Baza. He was joined also by his brother Abdallah, commonly called El Zagal, or the Valiant, who was popular in many parts of the kingdom. All these offered to aid him with their swords in suppressing the rebellion.
Thus reinforced, Muley Abul Hassan determined on a sudden blow for the recovery of his throne and the punishment of the rebels. He took his measures with that combination of dexterity and daring which formed his character, and arrived one night under the walls of Granada with five hundred chosen followers. Scaling the walls of the Alhambra, he threw himself with sanguinary fury into its silent courts. The sleeping inmates were roused from their repose only to fall by the exterminating scimetar. The rage of Abul Hassan spared neither age nor rank nor sex; the halls resounded with shrieks and yells, and the fountains ran red with blood. The alcayde, Aben Comixa, retreated to a strong tower with a few of the garrison and inhabitants. The furious Abul Hassan did not lose time in pursuing him; he was anxious to secure the city and to wreak his vengeance on its rebellious inhabitants. Descending with his bloody band into the streets, he cut down the defenceless inhabitants as, startled from their sleep, they rushed forth to learn the cause of the alarm. The city was soon completely roused; the people flew to arms; lights blazed in every street, revealing the scanty number of this band that had been dealing such fatal vengeance in the dark. Muley Abul Hassan had been mistaken in his conjectures: the great mass of the people, incensed by his tyranny, were zealous in favor of his son. A violent but transient conflict took place in the streets and squares: many of the followers of Abul Hassan were slain, the rest driven out of the city, and the old monarch, with the remnant of his band, retreated to his loyal city of Malaga.
Such was the commencement of those great internal feuds and divisions which hastened the downfall of Granada. The Moors became separated into two hostile factions, headed by the father and the son, the latter of whom was called by the Spaniards “El Rey Chico,” or the Young King; but, though bloody encounters took place between them, they never failed to act with all their separate force against the Christians as a common enemy whenever an opportunity occurred.
CHAPTER X.
ROYAL EXPEDITION AGAINST LOXA.
King Ferdinand held a council of war at Cordova, where it was deliberated what was to be done with Alhama. Most of the council advised that it should be demolished, inasmuch as, being in the centre of the Moorish kingdom, it would be at all times liable to attack, and could only be maintained by a powerful garrison and at a vast expense. Queen Isabella arrived at Cordova in the midst of these deliberations, and listened to them with surprise and impatience. “What!” said she, “destroy the first fruits of our victories? Abandon the first place we have wrested from the Moors? Never let us suffer such an idea to occupy our minds. It would argue fear or feebleness, and give new courage to the enemy. You talk of the toil and expense of maintaining Alhama. Did we doubt on undertaking this war that it was to be one of infinite cost, labor, and bloodshed? And shall we shrink from the cost the moment a victory is obtained and the question is merely to guard or abandon its glorious trophy? Let us hear no more about the destruction of Alhama; let us maintain its walls sacred, as a stronghold granted us by Heaven in the centre of this hostile land; and let our only consideration be how to extend our conquest and capture the surrounding cities.”
The language of the queen infused a more lofty and chivalrous spirit into the royal council. Preparations were made to maintain Alhama at all risk and expense, and King Ferdinand appointed as alcayde Luis Fernandez Puerto Carrero, senior of the house of Palma, supported by Diego Lopez de Ayala, Pero Ruiz de Alarcon, and Alonso Ortis, captains of four hundred lances and a body of one thousand foot, supplied with provisions for three months.
Ferdinand resolved also to lay siege to Loxa, or Loja, a city of great strength at no great distance from Alhama, and all-important to its protection. It was, in fact, a military point situated in a pass of the mountains between the kingdoms of Granada and Castile, and commanded a main entrance to the Vega. The Xenil flowed by its walls, and it had a strong castle or citadel built on a rock. In preparing for the siege of this formidable place Ferdinand called upon all the cities and towns of Andalusia and Estramadura, and the domains of the orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and of the priory of San Juan, and the kingdom of Toledo, and beyond to the cities of Salamanca, Toro, and Valladolid, to furnish, according to their repartimientos or allotments, a certain quantity of bread, wine, and cattle to be delivered at the royal camp before Loxa, one half at the end of June and one half in July. These lands, also, together with Biscay and Guipuscoa, were ordered to send reinforcements of horse and foot, each town furnishing its quota, and great diligence was used in providing lombards, powder, and other warlike munitions.
The Moors were no less active in their preparations, and sent missives into Africa entreating supplies and calling upon the Barbary princes to aid them in this war of the faith. To intercept all succor, the Castilian sovereigns stationed an armada of ships and galleys in the Straits of Gibraltar under the command of Martin Diaz de Mina and Carlos de Valera, with orders to scour the Barbary coast and sweep every Moorish sail from the sea.
While these preparations were making, Ferdinand made an incursion at the head of his army into the kingdom of Granada, and laid waste the Vega, destroying its hamlets and villages, ravaging its fields of grain, and driving away the cattle.
It was about the end of June that King Ferdinand departed from Cordova to sit down before the walls of Loxa. So confident was he of success that he left a great part of the army at Ecija, and advanced with but five thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry. The marques of Cadiz, a warrior as wise as he was valiant, remonstrated against employing so small a force, and indeed was opposed to the measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy. Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely remain in their city when they saw the Christian troops advancing to assail it. The Spanish chivalry, therefore, marched gallantly and fearlessly, and almost carelessly, over the border, scantily supplied with the things needful for a besieging army in the heart of an enemy’s country. In the same negligent and confident spirit they took up their station before Loxa.
The country around was broken and hilly, so that it was extremely difficult to form a combined camp. The river Xenil, which runs by the town, was compressed between high banks, and so deep as to be fordable with extreme difficulty; and the Moors had possession of the bridge. The king pitched his tents in a plantation of olives on the banks of the river; the troops were distributed in different encampments on the heights, but separated from each other by deep rocky ravines, so as to be incapable of yielding each other prompt assistance. There was no room for the operations of the cavalry. The artillery also was so injudiciously placed as to be almost entirely useless. Alonso of Aragon, duke of Villahermosa and illegitimate brother of the king, was present at the siege, and disapproved of the whole arrangement. He was one of the most able generals of his time, and especially renowned for his skill in battering fortified places. He recommended that the whole disposition of the camp should be changed, and that several bridges should be thrown across the river. His advice was adopted, but slowly and negligently followed, so that it was rendered of no avail. Among other oversights in this hasty and negligent expedition, the army had no supply of baked bread, and in the hurry of encampment there was no time to erect furnaces. Cakes were therefore hastily made and baked on the coals, and for two days the troops were supplied in this irregular way.
King Ferdinand felt, too late, the insecurity of his position, and endeavored to provide a temporary remedy. There was a height near the city, called by the Moors Santo Albohacen, which was in front of the bridge. He ordered several of his most valiant cavaliers to take possession of this height and to hold it as a check upon the enemy and a protection to the camp. The cavaliers chosen for this distinguished and perilous post were the marques of Cadiz, the marques of Villena, Don Roderigo Tellez Giron, master of Calatrava, his brother the count of Urena, and Don Alonso de Aguilar. These valiant warriors and tried companions-in-arms led their troops with alacrity to the height, which soon glittered with the array of arms, and was graced by several of the most redoubtable pennons of warlike Spain.
Loxa was commanded at this time by an old Moorish alcayde whose daughter was the favorite wife of Boabdil. The name of this Moor was Ibrahim Ali Atar, but he was generally known among the Spaniards as Alatar. He had grown gray in border warfare, was an implacable enemy of the Christians, and his name had long been the terror of the frontier. Lord of Zagra and in the receipt of rich revenues, he expended them all in paying scouts and spies and maintaining a small but chosen force with which to foray into the Christian territories; and so straitened was he at times by these warlike expenses that when his daughter married Boabdil her bridal dress and jewels had to be borrowed. He was now in the ninetieth year of his age, yet indomitable in spirit, fiery in his passions, sinewy and powerful in frame, deeply versed in warlike stratagem, and accounted the best lance in all Mauritania. He had three thousand horsemen under his command, veteran troops with whom he had often scoured the borders, and he daily expected the old Moorish king with reinforcements.
Old Ali Atar had watched from his fortress every movement of the Christian army, and had exulted in all the errors of its commanders: when he beheld the flower of Spanish chivalry glittering about the height of Albohacen, his eye flashed with exultation. “By the aid of Allah,” said he, “I will give those pranking cavaliers a rouse.”
Ali Atar privately and by night sent forth a large body of his chosen troops to lie in ambush near one of the skirts of Albohacen. On the fourth day of the siege he sallied across the bridge and made a feint attack upon the height. The cavaliers rushed impetuously forth to meet him, leaving their encampment almost unprotected. Ali Atar wheeled and fled, and was hotly pursued. When the Christian cavaliers had been drawn a considerable distance from their encampment, they heard a vast shout behind them, and, looking round, beheld their encampment assailed by the Moorish force which had been placed in ambush, and which had ascended a different side of the hill. The cavaliers desisted from the pursuit, and hastened to prevent the plunder of their tents. Ali Atar, in his turn, wheeled and pursued them, and they were attacked in front and rear on the summit of the hill. The contest lasted for an hour; the height of Albohacen was red with blood; many brave cavaliers fell, expiring among heaps of the enemy. The fierce Ali Atar fought with the fury of a demon until the arrival of more Christian forces compelled him to retreat into the city. The severest loss to the Christians in this skirmish was that of Roderigo Tellez Giron, grand master of Calatrava, whose burnished armor, emblazoned with the red cross of his order, made him a mark for the missiles of the enemy. As he was raising his arm to make a blow an arrow pierced him just beneath the shoulder, at the open part of the (1) corselet. The lance and bridle fell from his hands, he faltered in his saddle, and would have fallen to the ground, but was caught by Pedro Gasca, a cavalier of Avila, who conveyed him to his tent, where he died. The king and queen and the whole kingdom mourned his death, for he was in the freshness of his youth, being but twenty-four years of age, and had proved himself a gallant and high-minded cavalier. A melancholy group collected about his (2) corpse on the bloody height of Albohacen: the knights of Calatrava mourned him as a commander; the cavaliers who were encamped on the height lamented him as their companion-in-arms in a service of peril; while the count de Urena grieved over him with the tender affection of a brother.
King Ferdinand now perceived the wisdom of the opinion of the marques of Cadiz, and that his force was quite insufficient for the enterprise. To continue his camp in its present unfortunate position would cost him the lives of his bravest cavaliers, if not a total defeat in case of reinforcements to the enemy. He called a council of war late in the evening of Saturday, and it was determined to withdraw the army early the next morning to Rio Frio, a short distance from the city, and there wait for additional troops from Cordova.
The next morning early the cavaliers on the height of Albohacen began to strike their tents. No sooner did Ali Atar behold this than he sallied forth to attack them. Many of the Christian troops, who had not heard of the intention to change the camp, seeing the tents struck and the Moors sallying forth, supposed that the enemy had been reinforced in the night, and that the army was on the point of retreating. Without stopping to ascertain the truth or to receive orders they fled in dismay, spreading confusion through the camp, nor did they halt until they had reached the Rock of the Lovers, about seven leagues from Loxa.*
* Pulgar, Cronica.
The king and his commanders saw the imminent peril of the moment, and made face to the Moors, each commander guarding his quarter and repelling all assaults while the tents were struck and the artillery and ammunition conveyed away. The king, with a handful of cavaliers, galloped to a rising ground, exposed to the fire of the enemy, calling upon the flying troops and endeavoring in vain to rally them. Setting upon the Moors, he and his cavaliers charged them so vigorously, that they put a squadron to flight, slaying many with their swords and lances and driving others into the river, where they were drowned. The Moors, however, were soon reinforced, and returned in great numbers. The king was in danger of being surrounded, and twice owed his safety to the valor of Don Juan de Ribera, senior of Montemayor.
The marques of Cadiz beheld from a distance the peril of his sovereign. Summoning about seventy horsemen to follow him, he galloped to the spot, threw himself between the king and the enemy, and, hurling his lance, transpierced one of the most daring of the Moors. For some time he remained with no other weapon than his sword; his horse was wounded by an arrow and many of his followers were slain; but he succeeded in beating off the Moors and rescuing the king from imminent jeopardy, whom he then prevailed upon to retire to less dangerous ground.
The marques continued throughout the day to expose himself to the repeated assaults of the enemy: he was ever found in the place of the greatest danger, and through his bravery a great part of the army and camp was preserved from destruction.*
* Cura de los Palacios, c. 58.
It was a perilous day for the commanders, for in a retreat of the kind it is the noblest cavaliers who most expose themselves to save their people. The duke of Medina Celi was struck to the ground, but rescued by his troops. The count de Tendilla, whose tents were nearest to the city, received several wounds, and various other cavaliers of the most distinguished note were exposed to fearful jeopardy. The whole day was passed in bloody skirmishings, in which the hidalgos and cavaliers of the royal household distinguished themselves by their bravery: at length, the encampments being all broken up and most of the artillery and baggage removed, the bloody height of Albohacen was abandoned and the neighborhood of Loxa evacuated. Several tents, a quantity of provisions, and a few pieces of artillery were left upon the spot from the want of horses and mules to carry them off.
Ali Atar hung upon the rear of the retiring army, and harassed it until it reached Rio Frio; Ferdinand returned thence to Cordova, deeply mortified, though greatly benefited, by the severe lesson he had received, which served to render him more cautious in his campaigns and more diffident of fortune. He sent letters to all parts excusing his retreat, imputing it to the small number of his forces, and the circumstance that many of them were quotas sent from various cities, and not in royal pay; in the mean time, to console his troops for their disappointment and to keep up their spirits, he led them upon another inroad to lay waste the Vega of Granada.
CHAPTER XI.
HOW MULEY ABUL HASSAN MADE A FORAY INTO THE LANDS OF MEDINA SIDONIA, AND HOW HE WAS RECEIVED.
Muley Abul Hassan had mustered an army and marched to the relief of Loxa, but arrived too late; the last squadron of Ferdinand had already passed over the border. “They have come and gone,” said he, “like a summer cloud, and all their vaunting has been mere empty thunder.” He turned to make another attempt upon Alhama, the garrison of which was in the utmost consternation at the retreat of Ferdinand, and would have deserted the place had it not been for the courage and perseverance of the alcayde, Luis Fernandez Puerto Carrero. That brave and loyal commander cheered up the spirits of his men and kept the old Moorish king at bay until the approach of Ferdinand, on his second incursion into the Vega, obliged him to make an unwilling retreat to Malaga.
Muley Abul Hassan felt that it would be in vain, with his inferior force, to oppose the powerful army of the Christian monarch, but to remain idle and see his territories laid waste would ruin him in the estimation of his people. “If we cannot parry,” said he, “we can strike; if we cannot keep our own lands from being ravaged, we can ravage the lands of the enemy.” He inquired and learnt that most of the chivalry of Andalusia, in their eagerness for a foray, had marched off with the king, and left their own country almost defenceless. The territories of the duke of Medina Sidonia were particularly unguarded: here were vast plains of pasturage covered with flocks and herds—the very country for a hasty inroad. The old monarch had a bitter grudge against the duke for having foiled him at Alhama. “I’ll give this cavalier a lesson,” said he, exultingly, “that will cure him of his love of campaigning.” So he prepared in all haste for a foray into the country about Medina Sidonia.
Muley Abul Hassan sallied out of Malaga with fifteen hundred horse and six thousand foot, and took the way by the sea-coast, marching through Estiponia, and entering the Christian country between Gibraltar and Castellar. The only person that was likely to molest him on this route was one Pedro de Vargas, a shrewd, hardy, and vigilant soldier, alcayde of Gibraltar, and who lay ensconced in his old warrior rock as in a citadel. Muley Abul Hassan knew the watchful and daring character of the man, but had ascertained that his garrison was too small to enable him to make a sally, or at least to ensure him any success. Still, he pursued his march with great silence and caution; sent parties in advance to explore every pass where a foe might lie in ambush; cast many an anxious eye toward the old rock of Gibraltar as its cloud-capped summit was seen towering in the distance on his left; nor did he feel entirely at ease until he had passed through the broken and mountainous country of Castellar and descended into the plains. Here he encamped on the banks of the Celemin, and sent four hundred corredors, or fleet horsemen, armed with lances, to station themselves near Algeziras and keep a strict watch across the bay upon the opposite fortress of Gibraltar. If the alcayde attempted to sally forth, they were to waylay and attack him, being almost four times his supposed force, and were to send swift tidings to the camp. In the mean time two hundred corredors were sent to scour that vast plain called the Campina de Tarifa, abounding with flocks and herds, and two hundred more were to ravage the lands about Medina Sidonia. Muley Abul Hassan remained with the main body of the army as a rallying-point on the banks of the Celemin.
The foraging parties scoured the country to such effect that they came driving vast flocks and herds before them, enough to supply the place of all that had been swept from the Vega of Granada. The troops which had kept watch upon the rock of Gibraltar returned with word that they had not seen a Christian helmet stirring. The old king congratulated himself upon the secrecy and promptness with which he had conducted his foray, and upon having baffled the vigilance of Pedro de Vargas.
He had not been so secret, however, as he imagined; the watchful alcayde of Gibraltar had received notice of his movements, but his garrison was barely sufficient for the defence of his post. Luckily, there arrived at this juncture a squadron of the armed galleys, under Carlos de Valera, recently stationed in the Straits. Pedro de Vargas prevailed upon him to take charge of Gibraltar during his temporary absence, and forthwith sallied out at midnight at the head of seventy chosen horsemen. By his command alarm-fires were lighted on the mountains, signals that the Moors were on the ravage, at sight of which the peasants were accustomed to drive their flocks and herds to places of refuge. He sent couriers also spurring in every direction, summoning all capable of bearing arms to meet him at Castellar. This was a town strongly posted on a steep height, by which the Moorish king would have to return.
Muley Abul Hassan saw by the fires blazing on the mountains that the country was rising. He struck his tents, and pushed forward as rapidly as possible for the border; but he was encumbered with booty and with the vast cavalgada swept from the pastures of the Campina de Tarifa. His scouts brought him word that there were troops in the field, but he made light of the intelligence, knowing that they could only be those of the alcayde of Gibraltar, and that he had not more than a hundred horsemen in his garrison. He threw in advance two hundred and fifty of his bravest troops, and with them the alcaydes of Marabella and Casares. Behind this van-guard followed a great cavalgada of cattle, and in the rear marched the king with the main force of his little army.
It was near the middle of a sultry summer day when they approached Castellar. De Vargas was on the watch, and beheld, by an immense cloud of dust, that they were descending one of the heights of that wild and broken country. The van-guard and rear-guard were above half a league asunder, with the cavalgada between them, and a long and close forest hid them from each other. De Vargas saw that they could render but little assistance to each other in case of a sudden attack, and might be easily thrown into confusion. He chose fifty of his bravest horsemen, and, making a circuit, took his post secretly in a narrow glen opening into a defile between two rocky heights through which the Moors had to pass. It was his intention to suffer the van-guard and the cavalgada to pass, and to fall upon the rear.
While thus lying perdu six Moorish scouts, well mounted and well armed, entered the glen, examining every place that might conceal an enemy. Some of the Christians advised that they should slay these six men and retreat to Gibraltar. “No,” said De Vargas; “I have come out for higher game than these; and I hope, by the aid of God and Santiago, to do good work this day. I know these Moors well, and doubt not but that they may readily be thrown into confusion.”
By this time the six horsemen approached so near that they were on the point of discovering the Christian ambush. De Vargas gave the word, and ten horsemen rushed upon them; in an instant four of the Moors rolled in the dust; the other two put spurs to their steeds and fled toward their army, pursued by the ten Christians. About eighty of the Moorish van-guard came galloping to the relief of their companions; the Christians turned and fled toward their ambush. De Vargas kept his men concealed until the fugitives and their pursuers came clattering pell-mell into the glen. At a signal trumpet his men sallied forth with great heat and in close array. The Moors almost rushed upon their weapons before they perceived them; forty of the infidels were overthrown, the rest turned their back. “Forward!” cried De Vargas; “let us give the van-guard a brush before it can be joined by the rear.” So saying, he pursued the flying Moors down hill, and came with such force and fury upon the advance-guard as to overturn many of them at the first encounter. As he wheeled off with his men the Moors discharged their lances, upon which he returned to the charge and made great slaughter. The Moors fought valiantly for a short time, until the alcaydes of Marabella and Casares were slain, when they gave way and fled for the rear-guard. In their flight they passed through the cavalgada of cattle, threw the whole in confusion, and raised such a cloud of dust that the Christians could no longer distinguish objects. Fearing that the king and the main body might be at hand, and finding that De Vargas was badly wounded, they contented themselves with despoiling the slain and taking above twenty-eight horses, and then retreated to Castellar.
When the routed Moors came flying back upon the rear-guard, Muley Abul Hassan feared that the people of Xeres were in arms. Several of his followers advised him to abandon the cavalgada and retreat by another road. “No,” said the old king; “he is no true soldier who gives up his booty without fighting.” Putting spurs to his horse, he galloped forward through the centre of the cavalgada, driving the cattle to the right and left. When he reached the field of battle, he found it strewed with the bodies of upward of one hundred Moors, among which were those of the two alcaydes. Enraged at the sight, he summoned all his crossbowmen and cavalry, pushed on to the very gates of Castellar, and set fire to two houses close to the walls. Pedro de Vargas was too severely wounded to sally forth in person, but he ordered out his troops, and there was brisk skirmishing under the walls, until the king drew off and returned to the scene of the recent encounter. Here he had the bodies of the principal warriors laid across mules, to be interred honorably at Malaga; the rest of the slain were buried on the field of battle. Then, gathering together the scattered cavalgada, he paraded it slowly, in an immense line, past the walls of Castellar by way of taunting his foe.
With all his fierceness, old Muley Abul Hassan had a gleam of warlike courtesy, and admired the hardy and soldier-like character of Pedro de Vargas. He summoned two Christian captives, and demanded what were the revenues of the alcayde of Gibraltar. They told him that, among other things, he was entitled to one out of every drove of cattle that passed his boundaries. “Allah forbid,” cried the old monarch, “that so brave a cavalier should be defrauded of his dues!”
He immediately chose twelve of the finest cattle from the twelve droves which formed the cavalgada. These he gave in charge to an alfaqui to deliver to Pedro de Vargas. “Tell him,” said he, “that I crave his pardon for not having sent these cattle sooner; but I have this moment learnt the nature of his rights, and I hasten to satisfy them with the punctuality due to so worthy a cavalier. Tell him, at the same time, that I had no idea the alcayde of Gibraltar was so active and vigilant in collecting his tolls.”
The brave alcayde relished the stern soldier-like pleasantry of the old Moorish monarch. He ordered a rich silken vest and a scarlet mantle to be given to the alfaqui, and dismissed him with great courtesy. “Tell His Majesty,” said he, “that I kiss his hands for the honor he has done me, and regret that my scanty force has not permitted me to give him a more signal reception on his coming into these parts. Had three hundred horsemen, whom I have been promised from Xeres, arrived in time, I might have served up an entertainment more befitting such a monarch. I trust, however, they will arrive in the course of the night, in which case His Majesty may be sure of a royal regale in the dawning.”
Muley Abul Hassan shook his head when he received the reply of De Vargas. “Allah preserve us,” said he, “from any visitation of these hard riders of Xeres! A handful of troops acquainted with the wild passes of these mountains may destroy an army encumbered as ours is with booty.”
It was some relief to the king, however, to learn that the hardy alcayde of Gibraltar was too severely wounded to take the field in person. He immediately beat a retreat with all speed before the close of day, hurrying with such precipitation that the cavalgada was frequently broken and scattered among the rugged defiles of the mountains, and above five thousand of the cattle turned back and were regained by the Christians. Muley Abul Hassan returned triumphantly with the residue to Malaga, glorying in the spoils of the duke of Medina Sidonia.
King Ferdinand was mortified at finding his incursion into the Vega of Granada counterbalanced by this inroad into his dominions, and saw that there were two sides to the game of war, as to all other games. The only one who reaped real glory in this series of inroads and skirmishings was Pedro de Vargas, the stout alcayde of Gibraltar.*
* Alonzo de Palencia, 1. 28, c. 3, MS.
CHAPTER XII.
FORAY OF SPANISH CAVALIERS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF MALAGA.
The foray of old Muley Abul Hassan had touched the pride of the Andalusian chivalry, and they determined on retaliation. For this purpose a number of the most distinguished cavaliers assembled at Antiquera in the month of March, 1483. The leaders of the enterprise were, the gallant marques of Cadiz; Don Pedro Henriquez, adelantado of Andalusia; Don Juan de Silva, count of Cifuentes and bearer of the royal standard, who commanded in Seville; Don Alonso de Cardenas, master of the religious and military order of Santiago; and Don Alonso de Aguilar. Several other cavaliers of note hastened to take part in the enterprise, and in a little while about twenty-seven hundred horse and several companies of foot were assembled within the old warlike city of Antiquera, comprising the very flower of Andalusian chivalry.
A council of war was held by the chiefs to determine in what quarter they should strike a blow. The rival Moorish kings were waging civil war with each other in the vicinity of Granada, and the whole country lay open to inroads. Various plans were proposed by the different cavaliers. The marques of Cadiz was desirous of scaling the walls of Zahara and regaining possession of that important fortress. The master of Santiago, however, suggested a wider range and a still more important object. He had received information from his adalides, who were apostate Moors, that an incursion might be safely made into a mountainous region near Malaga called the Axarquia. Here were valleys of pasture-land well stocked with flocks and herds, and there were numerous villages and hamlets, which would be an easy prey. The city of Malaga was too weakly garrisoned and had too few cavalry to send forth any force in opposition; nay, he added, they might even extend their ravages to its very gates, and peradventure carry that wealthy place by sudden assault.
The adventurous spirits of the cavaliers were inflamed by this suggestion: in their sanguine confidence they already beheld Malaga in their power, and they were eager for the enterprise. The marques of Cadiz endeavored to interpose a little cool caution. He likewise had apostate adalides, the most intelligent and experienced on the borders: among these he placed especial reliance on one named Luis Amar, who knew all the mountains and valleys of the country. He had received from him a particular account of these mountains of the Axarquia.* Their savage and broken nature was a sufficient defence for the fierce people who inhabited them, who, manning their rocks and their tremendous passes, which were often nothing more than the deep dry beds of torrents, might set whole armies at defiance. Even if vanquished, they afforded no spoil to the victor. Their houses were little better than bare walls, and they would drive off their scanty flocks and herds to the fastnesses of the mountains.
* Pulgar, in his Chronicle, reverses the case, and makes the marques
of Cadiz recommend the expedition to the Axarquia; but Fray Antonio
Agapida is supported in his statement by that most veracious and
contemporary chronicler, Andres Bernaldez, curate of Los Palacios.
The sober counsel of the marques, however, was overruled. The cavaliers, accustomed to mountain-warfare, considered themselves and their horses equal to any wild and rugged expedition, and were flushed with the idea of terminating their foray by a brilliant assault upon Malaga.
Leaving all heavy baggage at Antiquera, and all such as had horses too weak for this mountain-scramble, they set forth full of spirit and confidence. Don Alonso de Aguilar and the adelantado of Andalusia led the squadron of advance. The count of Cifuentes followed with certain of the chivalry of Seville. Then came the battalion of the most valiant Roderigo Ponce de Leon, marques of Cadiz: he was accompanied by several of his brothers and nephews and many cavaliers who sought distinction under his banner, and this family band attracted universal attention and applause as they paraded in martial state through the streets of Antiquera. The rear-guard was led by Don Alonso Cardenas, master of Santiago, and was composed of the knights of his order and the cavaliers of Ecija, with certain men-at-arms of the Holy Brotherhood whom the king had placed under his command. The army was attended by a great train of mules, laden with provisions for a few days’ supply until they should be able to forage among the Moorish villages. Never did a more gallant and self-confident little army tread the earth. It was composed of men full of health and vigor, to whom war was a pastime and delight. They had spared no expense in their equipments, for never was the pomp of war carried to a higher pitch than among the proud chivalry of Spain. Cased in armor richly inlaid and embossed, decked with rich surcoats and waving plumes, and superbly mounted on Andalusian steeds, they pranced out of Antiquera with banners flying and their various devices and armorial bearings ostentatiously displayed, and in the confidence of their hopes promised the inhabitants to enrich them with the spoils of Malaga.
In the rear of this warlike pageant followed a peaceful band intent upon profiting by the anticipated victories. They were not the customary wretches that hover about armies to plunder and strip the dead, but goodly and substantial traders from Seville, Cordova, and other cities of traffic. They rode sleek mules and were clad in goodly raiment, with long leather purses at their girdles well filled with pistoles and other golden coin. They had heard of the spoils wasted by the soldiery at the capture of Alhama, and were provided with moneys to buy up the jewels and precious stones, the vessels of gold and silver, and the rich silks and cloths that should form the plunder of Malaga. The proud cavaliers eyed these sons of traffic with great disdain, but permitted them to follow for the convenience of the troops, who might otherwise be overburdened with booty.
It had been intended to conduct this expedition with great celerity and secrecy, but the noise of the preparations had already reached the city of Malaga. The garrison, it is true, was weak, but it possessed a commander who was himself a host. This was Muley Abdallah, commonly called El Zagal, or the Valiant. He was younger brother of Muley Abul Hassan, and general of the few forces which remained faithful to the old monarch. He possessed equal fierceness of spirit with his brother, and surpassed him in craft and vigilance. His very name was a war-cry among his soldiery, who had the most extravagant opinion of his prowess.
El Zagal suspected that Malaga was the object of this noisy expedition. He consulted with old Bexir, a veteran Moor, who governed the city. “If this army of marauders should reach Malaga,” said he, “we should hardly be able to keep them without its walls. I will throw myself with a small force into the mountains, rouse the peasantry, take possession of the passes, and endeavor to give these Spanish cavaliers sufficient entertainment upon the road.”
It was on a Wednesday that the pranking army of high-mettled warriors issued forth from the ancient gates of Antiquera. They marched all day and night, making their way, secretly as they supposed, through the passes of the mountains. As the tract of country they intended to maraud was far in the Moorish territories, near the coast of the Mediterranean, they did not arrive there until late in the following day. In passing through these stern and lofty mountains their path was often along the bottom of a barranco, or deep rocky valley, with a scanty stream dashing along it among the loose rocks and stones which it had broken and rolled down in the time of its autumnal violence. Sometimes their road was a mere rambla, or dry bed of a torrent, cut deep into the mountains and filled with their shattered fragments. These barrancos and ramblas were overhung by immense cliffs and precipices, forming the lurking-places of ambuscades during the wars between the Moors and Spaniards, as in after times they have become the favorite haunts of robbers to waylay the unfortunate traveller.
As the sun went down the cavaliers came to a lofty part of the mountains, commanding to the right a distant glimpse of a part of the fair vega of Malaga, with the blue Mediterranean beyond, and they hailed it with exultation as a glimpse of the promised land. As the night closed in they reached the chain of little valleys and hamlets locked up among these rocky heights, and known among the Moors by the name of the Axarquia. Here their vaunting hopes were destined to meet with the first disappointment. The inhabitants had heard of their approach: they had conveyed away their cattle and effects, and with their wives and children had taken refuge in the towers and fastnesses of the mountains.
Enraged at their disappointment, the troops set fire to the deserted houses and pressed forward, hoping for better fortune as they advanced. Don Alonso de Aguilar and the other cavaliers in the van-guard spread out their forces to lay waste the country, capturing a few lingering herds of cattle, with the Moorish peasants who were driving them to some place of safety.
While this marauding party carried fire and sword in the advance and lit up the mountain-cliffs with the flames of the hamlets, the master of Santiago, who brought the rear-guard, maintained strict order, keeping his knights together in martial array, ready for attack or defence should an enemy appear. The men-at-arms of the Holy Brotherhood attempted to roam in quest of booty, but he called them back and rebuked them severely.
At length they came to a part of the mountain completely broken up by barrancos and ramblas of vast depth and shagged with rocks and precipices. It was impossible to maintain the order of march; the horses had no room for action, and were scarcely manageable, having to scramble from rock to rock and up and down frightful declivities where there was scarce footing for a mountain-goat. Passing by a burning village, the light of the flames revealed their perplexed situation. The Moors, who had taken refuge in a watch-tower on an impending height, shouted with exultation when they looked down upon these glistening cavaliers struggling and stumbling among the rocks. Sallying forth from their tower, they took possession of the cliffs which overhung the ravine and hurled darts and stones upon the enemy. It was with the utmost grief of heart that the good master of Santiago beheld his brave men falling like helpless victims around him, without the means of resistance or revenge. The confusion of his followers was increased by the shouts of the Moors multiplied by the echoes of every crag and cliff, as if they were surrounded by innumerable foes. Being entirely ignorant of the country, in their struggles to extricate themselves they plunged into other glens and defiles, where they were still more exposed to danger. In this extremity the master of Santiago despatched messengers in search of succor. The marques of Cadiz, like a loyal companion-in-arms, hastened to his aid with his cavalry: his approach checked the assaults of the enemy, and the master was at length enabled to extricate his troops from the defile.
In the mean time, Don Alonso de Aguilar and his companions, in their eager advance, had likewise got entangled in deep glens and the dry beds of torrents, where they had been severely galled by the insulting attacks of a handful of Moorish peasants posted on the impending precipices. The proud spirit of De Aguilar was incensed at having the game of war thus turned upon him, and his gallant forces domineered over by mountain-boors whom he had thought to drive, like their own cattle, to Antiquera. Hearing, however, that his friend the marques of Cadiz and the master of Santiago were engaged with the enemy, he disregarded his own danger, and, calling together his troops, returned to assist them, or rather to partake their perils. Being once more together, the cavaliers held a hasty council amidst the hurling of stones and the whistling of arrows, and their resolves were quickened by the sight from time to time of some gallant companion-in-arms laid low. They determined that there was no spoil in this part of the country to repay for the extraordinary peril, and that it was better to abandon the herds they had already taken, which only embarrassed their march, and to retreat with all speed to less dangerous ground.
The adalides, or guides, were ordered to lead the way out of this place of carnage. These, thinking to conduct them by the most secure route, led them by a steep and rocky pass, difficult for the foot-soldiers, but almost impracticable to the cavalry. It was overhung with precipices, from whence showers of stones and arrows were poured upon them, accompanied by savage yells which appalled the stoutest heart. In some places they could pass but one at a time, and were often transpierced, horse and rider, by the Moorish darts, impeding the progress of their comrades by their dying struggles. The surrounding precipices were lit up by a thousand alarm-fires: every crag and cliff had its flame, by the light of which they beheld their foes bounding from rock to rock and looking more like fiends than mortal men.
Either through terror and confusion or through real ignorance of the country their guides, instead of conducting them out of the mountains, led them deeper into their fatal recesses. The morning dawned upon them in a narrow rambla, its bottom formed of broken rocks, where once had raved along the mountain-torrent, while above there beetled great arid cliffs, over the brows of which they beheld the turbaned heads of their fierce and exulting foes. What a different appearance did the unfortunate cavaliers present from that of the gallant band that marched so vauntingly out of Antiquera! Covered with dust and blood and wounds, and haggard with fatigue and horror, they looked like victims rather than like warriors. Many of their banners were lost, and not a trumpet was heard to rally up their sinking spirits. The men turned with imploring eyes to their commanders, while the hearts of the cavaliers were ready to burst with rage and grief at the merciless havoc made among their faithful followers.
All day they made ineffectual attempts to extricate themselves from the mountains. Columns of smoke rose from the heights where in the preceding night had blazed the alarm-fire. The mountaineers assembled from every direction: they swarmed at every pass, getting in the advance of the Christians, and garrisoning the cliffs like so many towers and battlements.
Night closed again upon the Christians when they were shut up in a narrow valley traversed by a deep stream and surrounded by precipices which seemed to reach the skies, and on which blazed and flared the alarm-fires. Suddenly a new cry was heard resounding along the valley. “El Zagal! El Zagal!” echoed from cliff to cliff.
“What cry is that?” said the master of Santiago.
“It is the war-cry of El Zagal, the Moorish general,” said an old Castilian soldier: “he must be coming in person, with the troops of Malaga.”
The worthy master turned to his knights: “Let us die,” said he, “making a road with our hearts, since we cannot with our swords. Let us scale the mountain and sell our lives dearly, instead of staying here to be tamely butchered.”
So saying, he turned his steed against the mountain and spurred him up its flinty side. Horse and foot followed his example, eager, if they could not escape, to have at least a dying blow at the enemy. As they struggled up the height a tremendous storm of darts and stones was showered upon them by the Moors. Sometimes a fragment of rock came bounding and thundering down, ploughing its way through the centre of their host. The foot-soldiers, faint with weariness and hunger or crippled by wounds, held by the tails and manes of the horses to aid them in their ascent, while the horses, losing their foothold among the loose stones or receiving some sudden wound, tumbled down the steep declivity, steed, rider, and soldier rolling from crag to crag until they were dashed to pieces in the valley. In this desperate struggle the alferez or standard-bearer of the master, with his standard, was lost, as were many of his relations and his dearest friends. At length he succeeded in attaining the crest of the mountain, but it was only to be plunged in new difficulties. A wilderness of rocks and rugged dells lay before him beset by cruel foes. Having neither banner nor trumpet by which to rally his troops, they wandered apart, each intent upon saving himself from the precipices of the mountains and the darts of the enemy. When the pious master of Santiago beheld the scattered fragments of his late gallant force, he could not restrain his grief. “O God!” exclaimed he, “great is thine anger this day against thy servants. Thou hast converted the cowardice of these infidels into desperate valor, and hast made peasants and boors victorious over armed men of battle.”
He would fain have kept with his foot-soldiers, and, gathering them together, have made head against the enemy, but those around him entreated him to think only of his personal safety. To remain was to perish without striking a blow; to escape was to preserve a life that might be devoted to vengeance on the Moors. The master reluctantly yielded to the advice. “O Lord of hosts!” exclaimed he again, “from thy wrath do I fly, not from these infidels: they are but instruments in thy hands to chastise us for our sins.” So saying, he sent the guides in the advance, and, putting spurs to his horse, dashed through a defile of the mountains before the Moors could intercept him. The moment the master put his horse to speed, his troops scattered in all directions. Some endeavored to follow his traces, but were confounded among the intricacies of the mountain. They fled hither and thither, many perishing among the precipices, others being slain by the Moors, and others taken prisoners.
The gallant marques of Cadiz, guided by his trusty adalid, Luis Amar, had ascended a different part of the mountain. He was followed by his friend, Don Alonso de Aguilar, the adelantado, and the count of Cifuentes, but in the darkness and confusion the bands of these commanders became separated from each other. When the marques attained the summit, he looked around for his companions-in-arms, but they were no longer following him, and there was no trumpet to summon them. It was a consolation to the marques, however, that his brothers and several of his relations, with a number of his retainers, were still with him: he called his brothers by name, and their replies gave comfort to his heart.
His guide now led the way into another valley, where he would be less exposed to danger: when he had reached the bottom of it the marques paused to collect his scattered followers and to give time for his fellow-commanders to rejoin him. Here he was suddenly assailed by the troops of El Zagal, aided by the mountaineers from the cliffs. The Christians, exhausted and terrified, lost all presence of mind: most of them fled, and were either slain or taken captive. The marques and his valiant brothers, with a few tried friends, made a stout resistance. His horse was killed under him; his brothers, Don Diego and Don Lope, with his two nephews, Don Lorenzo and Don Manuel, were one by one swept from his side, either transfixed with darts and lances by the soldiers of El Zagal or crushed by stones from the heights. The marques was a veteran warrior, and had been in many a bloody battle, but never before had death fallen so thick and close around him. When he saw his remaining brother, Don Beltran, struck out of his saddle by a fragment of a rock and his horse running wildly about without his rider, he gave a cry of anguish and stood bewildered and aghast. A few faithful followers surrounded him and entreated him to fly for his life. He would still have remained, to have shared the fortunes of his friend Don Alonso de Aguilar and his other companions-in-arms, but the forces of El Zagal were between him and them, and death was whistling by on every wind. Reluctantly, therefore, he consented to fly. Another horse was brought him: his faithful adalid guided him by one of the steepest paths, which lasted for four leagues, the enemy still hanging on his traces and thinning the scanty ranks of his followers. At length the marques reached the extremity of the mountain-defiles, and with a haggard remnant of his men escaped by dint of hoof to Antiquera.
The count of Cifuentes, with a few of his retainers, in attempting to follow the marques of Cadiz wandered into a narrow pass, where they were completely surrounded by the band of El Zagal. The count himself was assailed by six of the enemy, against whom he was defending himself with desperation, when their leader, struck with the inequality of the fight, ordered the others to desist, and continued the combat alone. The count, already exhausted, was soon compelled to surrender; his brother, Don Pedro de Silva, and the few of his retainers who survived, were likewise taken prisoners. The Moorish cavalier who had manifested such a chivalrous spirit in encountering the count singly was (3) Reduan Vanegas, brother of the former vizier of Muley Abul Hassan, and one of the leaders of the faction of the sultana Zoraya.
The dawn of day found Don Alonso de Aguilar with a handful of his followers still among the mountains. They had attempted to follow the marques of Cadiz, but had been obliged to pause and defend themselves against the thickening forces of the enemy. They at length traversed the mountain, and reached the same valley where the marques had made his last disastrous stand. Wearied and perplexed, they sheltered themselves in a natural grotto under an overhanging rock, which kept off the darts of the enemy, while a bubbling fountain gave them the means of slaking their raging thirst and refreshing their exhausted steeds. As day broke the scene of slaughter unfolded its horrors. There lay the noble brothers and nephews of the gallant marques, transfixed with darts or gashed and bruised with unseemly wounds, while many other gallant cavaliers lay stretched out dead and dying around, some of them partly stripped and plundered by the Moors. De Aguilar was a pious knight, but his piety was not humble and resigned, like that of the worthy master of Santiago. He imprecated holy curses upon the infidels for having thus laid low the flower of Christian chivalry, and he vowed in his heart bitter vengeance upon the surrounding country.
By degrees the little force of De Aguilar was augmented by numbers of fugitives who issued from caves and chasms where they had taken refuge in the night. A little band of mounted knights was gradually formed, and, the Moors having abandoned the heights to collect the spoils of the slain, this gallant but forlorn squadron was enabled to retreat to Antiquera.
This disastrous affair lasted from Thursday evening, throughout Friday, the twenty-first of March, the festival of St. Benedict. It is still recorded in Spanish calendars as the defeat of the mountains of Malaga, and the spot where the greatest slaughter took place is called “la Cuesta de la Matanza,” or the Hill of the Massacre. The principal leaders who survived returned to Antiquera. Many of the knights took refuge in Alhama and other towns: many wandered about the mountains for eight days, living on roots and herbs, hiding themselves during the day and sallying forth at night. So enfeebled and disheartened were they that they offered no resistance if attacked. Three or four soldiers would surrender to a Moorish peasant, and even the women of Malaga sallied forth and made prisoners. Some were thrown into the dungeons of frontier towns, others led captive to Granada, but by far the greater number were conducted to Malaga, the city they had threatened to attack. Two hundred and fifty principal cavaliers, alcaydes, commanders, and hidalgos of generous blood were confined in the alcazaba, or citadel, of Malaga to await their ransom, and five hundred and seventy of the common soldiery were crowded in an enclosure or courtyard of the alcazaba to be sold as slaves.*
* Cura de los Palacios.
Great spoils were collected of splendid armor and weapons taken from the slain or thrown away by the cavaliers in their flight, and many horses, magnificently caparisoned, together with numerous standards,—all which were paraded in triumph in the Moorish towns.
The merchants also who had come with the army, intending to traffic in the spoils of the Moors, were themselves made objects of traffic. Several of them were driven like cattle before the Moorish viragoes to the market of Malaga, and, in spite of all their adroitness in trade and their attempts to buy themselves off at a cheap ransom, they were unable to purchase their freedom without such draughts upon their money-bags at home as drained them to the very bottom.
CHAPTER XIII.
EFFECTS OF THE DISASTERS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS OF MALAGA.
The people of Antiquera had scarcely recovered from the tumult of excitement and admiration caused by the departure of the gallant band of cavaliers upon their foray when they beheld the scattered wrecks flying for refuge to their walls. Day after day and hour after hour brought some wretched fugitive, in whose battered plight and haggard woebegone demeanor it was almost impossible to recognize the warrior who had lately issued so gayly and gloriously from their gates.
The arrival of the marques of Cadiz almost alone, covered with dust and blood, his armor shattered and defaced, his countenance the picture of despair, filled every heart with sorrow, for he was greatly beloved by the people. The multitude asked of his companions where was the band of brothers which had rallied round him as he went forth to the field, and when told that one by one they had been slaughtered at his side, they hushed their voices or spake to each other only in whispers as he passed, gazing at him in silent sympathy. No one attempted to console him in so great an affliction, nor did the good marques speak ever a word, but, shutting himself up, brooded in lonely anguish over his misfortune. It was only the arrival of Don Alonso de Aguilar that gave him a gleam of consolation, rejoicing to find that amidst the shafts of death which had fallen so thickly among his family his chosen friend and brother-in-arms had escaped uninjured.
For several days every eye was turned in fearful suspense toward the Moorish border, anxiously looking in every fugitive from the mountains for the lineaments of some friend or relative whose fate was yet a mystery. At length every hope and doubt subsided into certainty; the whole extent of this great calamity was known, spreading grief and consternation throughout the land and laying desolate the pride and hopes of palaces. It was a sorrow that visited the marble hall and silken pillow. Stately dames mourned over the loss of their sons, the joy and glory of their age, and many a fair cheek was blanched with woe which had lately mantled with secret admiration. “All Andalusia,” says a historian of the time, “was overwhelmed by a great affliction; there was no drying of the eyes which wept in her.” *
* Cura de los Palacios.
Fear and trembling reigned for a time along the frontier. Their spear seemed broken, their buckler cleft in twain: every border town dreaded an attack, and the mother caught her infant to her bosom when the watch-dog howled in the night, fancying it the war-cry of the Moor. All for a time seemed lost, and despondency even found its way to the royal breasts of Ferdinand and Isabella amidst the splendors of their court.
Great, on the other hand, was the joy of the Moors when they saw whole legions of Christian warriors brought captive into their towns by rude mountain-peasantry. They thought it the work of Allah in favor of the faithful. But when they recognized among the captives thus dejected and broken down some of the proudest of Christian chivalry; when they saw several of the banners and devices of the noblest houses of Spain, which they had been accustomed to behold in the foremost of the battle, now trailed ignominiously through their streets; when, in short, they witnessed the arrival of the count of Cifuentes, the royal standard-bearer of Spain, with his gallant brother, Don Pedro de Silva, brought prisoners into the gates of Granada,—there were no bounds to their exultation. They thought that the days of their ancient glory were about to return, and that they were to renew their career of triumph over the unbelievers.
The Christian historians of the time are sorely perplexed to account for this misfortune, and why so many Christian knights, fighting in the cause of the holy faith, should thus miraculously, as it were, be given captive to a handful of infidel boors, for we are assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* “It was intended,” observes one historiographer, “as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God alone giveth the victory.”
* Cura de los Palacios.
The worthy father Fray Antonio Agapida, however, asserts it to be a punishment for the avarice of the Spanish warriors. They did not enter the kingdom of the infidels with the pure spirit of Christian knights, zealous only for the glory of the faith, but rather as greedy men of traffic, to enrich themselves by vending the spoils of the infidels. Instead of preparing themselves by confession and communion, and executing their testaments, and making donations and bequests to churches and convents, they thought only of arranging bargains and sales of their anticipated booty. Instead of taking with them holy monks to aid them with their prayers, they were followed by a train of trading-men to keep alive their worldly and sordid ideas, and to turn what ought to be holy triumphs into scenes of brawling traffic. Such is the opinion of the excellent Agapida, in which he is joined by that most worthy and upright of chroniclers, the curate of Los Palacios. Agapida comforts himself, however, with the reflection that this visitation was meant in mercy to try the Castilian heart, and to extract from its present humiliation the elements of future success, as gold is extracted from amidst the impurities of earth; and in this reflection he is supported by the venerable historian Pedro Abarca of the Society of Jesuits.*
* Abarca, Anales de Aragon, Rey 30, cap. 2, \0xA4 7.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW KING BOABDIL EL CHICO MARCHED OVER THE BORDER.
The defeat of the Christian cavaliers among the mountains of Malaga, and the successful inroad of Muley Abul Hassan into the lands of Medina Sidonia, had produced a favorable effect on the fortunes of the old monarch. The inconstant populace began to shout forth his name in the streets, and to sneer at the inactivity of his son Boabdil el Chico. The latter, though in the flower of his age and distinguished for vigor and dexterity in jousts and tournaments, had never yet fleshed his weapon in the field of battle; and it was murmured that he preferred the silken repose of the cool halls of the Alhambra to the fatigue and danger of the foray and the hard encampments of the mountains.
The popularity of these rival kings depended upon their success against the Christians, and Boabdil el Chico found it necessary to strike some signal blow to counterbalance the late triumph of his father. He was further incited by his father-in-law, Ali Atar, alcayde of Loxa, with whom the coals of wrath against the Christians still burned among the ashes of age, and had lately been blown into a flame by the attack made by Ferdinand on the city under his command.
Ali Atar informed Boabdil that the late discomfiture of the Christian knights had stripped Andalusia of the prime of her chivalry and broken the spirit of the country. All the frontier of Cordova and Ecija now lay open to inroad; but he especially pointed out the city of Lucena as an object of attack, being feebly garrisoned and lying in a country rich in pasturage, abounding in cattle and grain, in oil and wine. The fiery old Moor spoke from thorough information, for he had made many an incursion into these parts, and his very name was a terror throughout the country. It had become a by-word in the garrison of Loxa to call Lucena the garden of Ali Atar, for he was accustomed to forage its fertile territories for all his supplies.
Boabdil el Chico listened to the persuasions of this veteran of the borders. He assembled a force of nine thousand foot and seven hundred horse, most of them his own adherents, but many the partisans of his father; for both factions, however they might fight among themselves, were ready to unite in any expedition against the Christians. Many of the most illustrious and valiant of the Moorish nobility assembled round his standard, magnificently arrayed in sumptuous armor and rich embroidery, as though for a festival or a tilt of canes rather than an enterprise of iron war. Boabdil’s mother, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, armed him for the field, and gave him her benediction as she girded his scimetar to his side. His favorite wife Morayma wept as she thought of the evils that might befall him. “Why dost thou weep, daughter of Ali Atar?” said the high-minded Ayxa: “these tears become not the daughter of a warrior nor the wife of a king. Believe me there lurks more danger for a monarch within the strong walls of a palace than within the frail curtains of a tent. It is by perils in the field that thy husband must purchase security on his throne.”
But Morayma still hung upon his neck with tears and sad forebodings, and when he departed from the Alhambra she betook herself to her mirador, overlooking the Vega, whence she watched the army as it went in shining order along the road leading to Loxa, and every burst of warlike melody that came swelling on the breeze was answered by a gush of sorrow.
As the royal cavalcade issued from the palace and descended through the streets of Granada the populace greeted their youthful sovereign with shouts, anticipating deeds of prowess that would wither the laurels of his father. The appearance of Boabdil was well calculated to captivate the public eye, if we may judge from the description given by the abbot of Rute in his manuscript history of the House of Cordova. He was mounted on a superb white charger magnificently caparisoned. His corselets were of polished steel richly ornamented, studded with gold nails, and lined with crimson velvet. He wore a steel casque exquisitely chiselled and embossed; his scimetar and dagger of Damascus were of highest temper; he had a round buckler at his shoulder and bore a ponderous lance. In passing through the gate of Elvira, however, he accidentally broke his lance against the arch. At this certain of his nobles turned pale and entreated him to turn back, for they regarded it as an evil omen. Boabdil scoffed at their fears as idle fancies. He refused to take another spear, but drew forth his scimetar and led the way (adds Agapida) in an arrogant and haughty style, as though he would set both Heaven and earth at defiance. Another evil omen was sent to deter him from his enterprise: arriving at the rambla, or dry ravine, of Beyro, which is scarcely a bowshot from the city, a fox ran through the whole army and close by the person of the king, and, though a thousand bolts were discharged at it, escaped uninjured to the mountains. The principal courtiers now reiterated their remonstrances against proceeding; the king, however, was not to be dismayed by these portents, but continued to march forward.*
* Marmol, Rebel. de los Moros, lib. 1, c. xii., fol. 14.
At Loxa the army was reinforced by old Ali Atar with the chosen horsemen of his garrison and many of the bravest warriors of the border towns. The people of Loxa shouted with exultation when they beheld Ali Atar armed at all points and mounted on his Barbary steed, which had often borne him over the borders. The veteran warrior, with nearly a century of years upon his head, had all the fire and animation of youth at the prospect of a foray, and careered from rank to rank with the velocity of an Arab of the desert. The populace watched the army as it paraded over the bridge and wound into the passes of the mountains, and still their eyes were fixed upon the pennon of Ali Atar as if it bore with it an assurance of victory.
The Moorish army entered the Christian frontier by forced marches, hastily ravaging the country, driving off the flocks and herds, and making captives of the inhabitants. They pressed on furiously, and made the latter part of their march in the night, to elude observation and come upon Lucena by surprise. Boabdil was inexperienced in warfare, but had a veteran counsellor in his old father-in-law; for Ali Atar knew every secret of the country, and as he prowled through it his eye ranged over the land, uniting in its glare the craft of the fox with the sanguinary ferocity of the wolf. He had flattered himself that their march had been so rapid as to outstrip intelligence, and that Lucena would be an easy capture, when suddenly he beheld alarm-fires blazing upon the mountains. “We are discovered,” said he to Boabdil; “the country will be up in arms; we have nothing left but to strike boldly for Lucena: it is but slightly garrisoned, and we may carry it by assault before it can receive assistance.” The king approved of his counsel, and they marched rapidly for the gate of Lucena.
CHAPTER XV.
HOW THE COUNT DE CABRA SALLIED FORTH FROM HIS CASTLE IN QUEST OF KING BOABDIL.
Don Diego de Cordova, count of Cabra, was in the castle of Vaena, which, with the town of the same name, is situated on a lofty sun-burnt hill on the frontier of the kingdom of Cordova and but a few leagues from Lucena. The range of mountains of Horquera lies between them. The castle of Vaena was strong and well furnished with arms, and the count had a numerous band of vassals and retainers; for it behooved the noblemen of the frontiers in those times to be well prepared with man and horse, with lance and buckler, to resist the sudden incursions of the Moors. The count of Cabra was a hardy and experienced warrior, shrewd in council, prompt in action, rapid and fearless in the field. He was one of the bravest of cavaliers for an inroad, and had been quickened and sharpened in thought and action by living on the borders.
On the night of the 20th of April, 1483, the count was about to retire to rest when the watchman from the turret brought him word that there were alarm-fires on the mountains of Horquera, and that they were made on the signal-tower overhanging the defile through which the road passes to Cabra and Lucena.
The count ascended the battlement and beheld five lights blazing on the tower—a sign that there was a Moorish army attacking some place on the frontier. The count instantly ordered the alarm-bells to be sounded, and despatched couriers to rouse the commanders of the neighboring towns. He called upon his retainers to prepare for action, and sent a trumpet through the town summoning the men to assemble at the castle-gate at daybreak armed and equipped for the field.
Throughout the remainder of the night the castle resounded with the din of preparation. Every house in the town was in equal bustle, for in these frontier towns every house had its warrior, and the lance and buckler were ever hanging against the wall ready to be snatched down for instant service. Nothing was heard but the din of armorers, the shoeing of steeds, and furbishing up of weapons, and all night long the alarm-fires kept blazing on the mountains.
When the morning dawned the count of Cabra sallied forth at the head of two hundred and fifty cavaliers of the best families of Vaena, all well appointed, exercised in arms, and experienced in the warfare of the borders. There were besides twelve hundred foot-soldiers, brave and well-seasoned men of the same town. The count ordered them to hasten forward, whoever could make most speed, taking the road to Cabra, which was three leagues distant. That they might not loiter on the road he allowed none of them to break their fast until they arrived at that place. The provident count despatched couriers in advance, and the little army on reaching Cabra found tables spread with food and refreshments at the gates of the town. Here they were joined by Don Alonso de Cordova, senior of Zuheros.
Having made a hearty repast, they were on the point of resuming their march when the count discovered that in the hurry of his departure from home he had forgotten to bring the standard of Vaena, which for upward of eighty years had always been borne to battle by his family. It was now noon, and there was no time to return: he took, therefore, the standard of Cabra, the device of which is a goat, and which had not been seen in the wars for the last half century. When about to depart a courier came galloping at full speed, bringing missives to the count from his nephew, Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova, senior of Lucena and alcayde de los Donceles,* entreating him to hasten to his aid, as his town was beset by the Moorish king, Boabdil el Chico, with a powerful army, who were actually setting fire to the gates.
* The “Donceles” were young cavaliers who had been pages in
the royal household, but now formed an elite corps in the army.
The count put his little army instantly in movement for Lucena, which is only one league from Cabra; he was fired with the idea of having the Moorish king in person to contend with. By the time he reached Lucena the Moors had desisted from the attack and were ravaging the surrounding country. He entered the town with a few of his cavaliers, and was received with joy by his nephew, whose whole force consisted but of eighty horse and three hundred foot. Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova was a young man, yet he was a prudent, careful, and capable officer. Having learnt, the evening before, that the Moors had passed the frontiers, he had gathered within his walls all the women and children from the environs, had armed the men, sent couriers in all directions for succor, and had lighted alarm-fires on the mountains.
Boabdil had arrived with his army at daybreak, and had sent in a message threatening to put the garrison to the sword if the place were not instantly surrendered. The messenger was a Moor of Granada, named Hamet, whom Don Diego had formerly known: he contrived to amuse him with negotiation to gain time for succor to arrive. The fierce old Ali Atar, losing all patience, had made an assault upon the town and stormed like a fury at the gate, but had been repulsed. Another and more serious attack was expected in the course of the night.
When the count de Cabra had heard this account of the situation of affairs, he turned to his nephew with his usual alacrity of manner, and proposed that they should immediately sally forth in quest of the enemy. The prudent Don Diego remonstrated at the rashness of attacking so great a force with a mere handful of men. “Nephew,” said the count, “I came from Vaena with a determination to fight this Moorish king, and I will not be disappointed.”
“At any rate,” replied Don Diego, “let us wait but two hours, and we shall have reinforcements which have been promised me from Rambla, Santaella, Montilla, and other places in the neighborhood.” “If we await these,” said the hardy count, “the Moors will be off, and all our trouble will have been in vain. You may await them if you please; I am resolved on fighting.”
The count paused for no reply, but in his prompt and rapid manner sallied forth to his men. The young alcayde de los Donceles, though more prudent than his ardent uncle, was equally brave; he determined to stand by him in his rash enterprise, and, summoning his little force, marched forth to join the count, who was already on the move. They then proceeded together in quest of the enemy.
The Moorish army had ceased ravaging the country, and was not to be seen, the neighborhood being hilly and broken with deep ravines. The count despatched six scouts on horseback to reconnoitre, ordering them to return with all speed on discovering the enemy, and by no means to engage in skirmishing with stragglers. The scouts, ascending a high hill, beheld the Moorish army in a valley behind it, the cavalry ranged in five battalions keeping guard, while the foot-soldiers were seated on the grass making a repast. They returned immediately with the intelligence.