CHAPTER IV.
THE PROFESSOR’S TALK ABOUT SPAIN.
As usual, the professor had a large map posted where all could see it. It was a map of Spain and Portugal in this instance, in which the physical as well as the political features of the peninsula were exhibited. The instructor pointed at the map, and commenced his lecture.
“The ancient name of Spain was Iberia; the Latin, Hispania. The Spaniards call their country España. Notice the mark over the n in this word, which gives it the value of ny, the same as the French gn. You will find it in many Spanish words.
“With Portugal, Spain forms a peninsula whose greatest length, from east to west, is six hundred and twenty miles; and, from north to south, five hundred and forty miles. It is separated from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees Mountains: they extend quite across the isthmus, which is two hundred and forty miles wide. It contains two hundred and fourteen thousand square miles, of which one hundred and seventy-eight thousand belong to Spain, and thirty-six thousand to Portugal. Spain is not quite four times as large as the State of New York; and Portugal is a little larger than the State of Maine.
“Spain has nearly fourteen hundred miles of seacoast, four-sevenths of which is on the Mediterranean. Spain is a mountainous country. About one-half of its area is on the great central plateau, from two to three thousand feet above the level of the sea. The mountain ranges, you observe, extend mostly east and west, which gives the rivers, of course, the same general direction. The Cantabrian and the Pyrenees are the same range, the former extending along the northern coast to the Atlantic. Between this range and the Sierra Guadarrama are the valleys of the Duero and the Ebro. This range reaches nearly from the mouth of the Tagus to the mouth of the Ebro, and takes several names in different parts of the peninsula. The mountains of Toledo are about in the centre of Spain. South of these are the Sierra Morena, with the basin of the Guadiana on the north and that of the Guadalquiver on the south. Near the southern coast is the Sierra Nevada, which contains the Cerro de Mulahacen, 11,678 feet, the highest peak in the peninsula. Sierra means a saw, which a chain of mountains may resemble; though some say it comes from the Arabic word Sehrah, meaning wild land.
“There are two hundred and thirty rivers in Spain; but only six of them need be mentioned. The Minho is in the north-west, and separates Spain and Portugal for about forty miles. It is one hundred and thirty miles long, and navigable for thirty. The Duero, called the Douro in Portugal, has a course of four hundred miles, about two-thirds of which is in Spain. It is navigable through Portugal, and a little way into Spain, though only for boats. The Tagus is the longest river of the peninsula, five hundred and forty miles. It is navigable only to Abrantes in Portugal, about eighty miles; though Philip II. built several boats at Toledo, loaded them with grain, and sent them down to Lisbon. The Guadiana is in the south-west, three hundred and eighty miles long, and navigable only thirty-five. Near its source this river, like the Rhone and some others, indulges in the odd freak of disappearing, and flowing through an underground channel for twenty miles. The river loses itself gradually in an expanse of marshes, and re-appears in the form of several small lakes, which are called ‘los ojos de la Guadiana,’—the eyes of the Guadiana.
“The Guadalquiver is two hundred and eighty miles long, and, like all the rivers I have mentioned, flows into the Atlantic. It is navigable to Cordova, and large vessels go up to Seville. The Ebro is the only large river that flows into the Mediterranean. It is three hundred and forty miles long, and is navigable for boats about half this distance. Great efforts have been made to improve the navigation of some of these rivers, especially the largest of them. There are no lakes of any consequence in Spain, the largest being a mere lagoon on the seashore near Valencia.
“Spain has a population of sixteen millions, which places it as the tenth in rank among the nations of Europe. In territorial extent it is the seventh. It is said that Spain, as a Roman province, had a population of forty millions.
“Spain, including the Balearic and Canary Islands, contains forty-nine provinces, each of which has its local government, and its representation in the national legislature, or Cortes. But you should know something of the old divisions, since these are often mentioned in the history of the country. There are fourteen of them, each of which was formerly a kingdom, principality, or province. Castile was the largest, including Old and New Castile, and was in the north-central part of the peninsula. This was the realm of Isabella; and, by her marriage with Ferdinand, it was united with Aragon, lying next east of it. East of Aragon, forming the north-east corner of Spain, is Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the chief city. North of Castile, on or near the Bay of Biscay, are the three Basque provinces. Bordering the Pyrenees, nearest to France, is the little kingdom of Navarre, with Aragon on the east. Forming the north-western corner of the peninsula is the kingdom of Galicia. East of it, on the Bay of Biscay, is the principality of the Asturias. South of this, and between Castile and Portugal, is the kingdom of Leon, which was attached to Castile in the eleventh century. Estremadura is between Portugal and New Castile. La Mancha, the country of Don Quixote, is south of New Castile. Valencia and Murcia are on the east, bordering on the Mediterranean. Andalusia is on both sides of the Guadalquiver, including the three modern provinces of Seville, Cordova, and Jaen. Granada is in the south, on the Mediterranean. You will hear the different parts of Spain spoken of under these names more than any other.
“The principal vegetable productions of Spain are those of the vine and olive. The export of wine is ten million dollars; and of olive-oil, four millions. Raisins, flour, cork, wool, and brandy are other important exports, to say nothing of the fruits of the South, such as grapes and oranges. Silver, quicksilver, lead, and iron are the most valuable minerals. Silk is produced in Valencia, Murcia, and Granada.
“The climate of Spain, as you would suppose from its mountainous character, is very various. The north, which is in the latitude of New England, is very different from this region of our own country. On the table-lands of the centre, it is hot in summer and cold in winter. In the south, the weather is hot in summer, but very mild in winter. Even here in Barcelona, the mercury seldom goes down to the freezing point. The average winter temperature of Malaga is about fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
“Three thousand miles of railroad have been built, and two thousand miles more have been projected. One can go to all the principal cities in Spain now by rail from Madrid; and those on the seacoast are connected by several lines of steamers.
“The army consists of one hundred and fifty thousand men, and may be increased in time of war by calling out the reserves; for every man over twenty is liable to do military duty. The navy consists of one hundred and ten vessels, seventy-three of which are screw steamers, twenty-four paddle steamers, and thirteen sailing vessels. Seven of the screws are iron-clad frigates. They are manned by thirteen thousand sailors and marines; and this navy is therefore quite formidable.
“The government is a constitutional monarchy. The king executes the laws through his ministers, but is not held responsible for any thing. If things do not work well, the ministers are to bear the blame, and his Majesty may dismiss them at pleasure. The laws are made by the Cortes, which consists of two bodies, the Senate and the Congress. Any Spaniard who is of age, and not deprived of his civil rights, may be a member of the Congreso, or lower house. Four senators are elected for each province. They must be forty years old, be in possession of their civil rights, and must have held some high office under the government in the army or navy, in the church, or in certain educational institutions.
“The present king is Amedeo I., second son of Vittorio Emanuele, king of Italy. He was elected king of Spain Nov. 16, 1870.[1]
“All but sixty thousand of the population of Spain are Roman Catholics; and of this faith is the national church, though all other forms of worship are tolerated. In 1835 and in 1836 the Cortes suppressed all conventual institutions, and confiscated their property for the benefit of the nation. In 1833 there were in Spain one hundred and seventy-five thousand ecclesiastics of all descriptions, including monks and nuns. In 1862 this number had been reduced to about forty thousand, which exhibits the effect of the legislation of the Cortes. The archbishop of Toledo is the head of the Church, primate of Spain.
“Though there are ten universities in Spain some of them very ancient and very celebrated, the population of Spain have been in a state of extreme ignorance till quite a recent period. At the beginning of the present century, it was rare to find a peasant or an ordinary workman who could read. Efforts have been put forth since 1812 to promote popular education; but with no great success, till within the last forty years. In 1868 there were a million and a quarter of pupils in the public and private schools; and not more than one in ten of the population are unable to read. But the sum expended for public education in Spain is less per annum than the city of Boston devotes to this object.
“Money values in Spain are generally reckoned in reales, a real being five cents of our money. This is the unit of the system. The Isabelino, or Isabel as it is generally called, is a gold coin worth one hundred reales, or five dollars. A peso, or duro, is the same as our dollar: it is a silver coin. The escudo is half a dollar. The peseta is twenty cents; the half peseta is ten. The real is the smallest silver coin. Of the copper coins, the medio real means half a real. You will see a small copper coin stamped ‘1 centimo de escudo,’ which means one hundredth of an escudo, or half dollar. It is the tenth of a real, or half a cent. Then there is the doble decima, worth one cent; and the medio decima, worth a quarter of a cent. But probably you will not hear any of these copper coins mentioned. Instead of them the small money will be counted in cuartos, eight and a half of them making a real. An American cent, an English halfpenny, a French sou, or any other copper coin of any nation, and about the same size, will go for a cuarto. A maravedis is an imaginary value, four of which were equal to a cuarto. It is used in poetry and plays; and, though there is no such coin, any piece of base metal, even a button, will pass for a maravedis. There is a vast quantity of bad money in circulation in Spain, especially of the gold coins; and the traveller should be on the lookout for it. There are also a great many counterfeit escudos, or half-dollars. Travellers should have nothing to do with paper money, as it is not good away from the locality where it is issued.
“Having said all that occurs to me on these general topics, I shall now ask your attention to the history of Spain, which is very interesting to the student, though I am obliged to make it quite brief. I hope you have read the historical writings of our own Prescott, which are more attractive than the novels of the day. If you have not read these works, do so before you are a year older; and here in Spain is the time for you to begin.
“Recent events have called an unusual amount of attention to the Spanish peninsula; and this unhappy country has long been in so uneasy a state that a revolution surprises very few. Spain has had its full share, both of the smiles and the frowns of fortune. It was as widely known in early ages for its wealth, as it has been in modern times for its beggars.
“Nearly three thousand years ago, the Phœnicians began to plant colonies in the South of Spain. They found the country abounding with silver. So plenty, indeed, was the silver ore, that, according to one account, they not only loaded their fleet with it, but they returned home with their anchors and the commonest implements made of the same precious metal.
“This is doubtless an exaggeration; but we have reason to believe that silver was more abundant in Spain than in any other quarter of the ancient world. Few silver-mines were known in Asia in those days: yet an immense quantity of silver was in circulation there during the flourishing period of the Persian empire. Herodotus tells us that in the reign of Darius, son of Hystaspes, all the nations under the yoke of the Persians, except the Indians and the Ethiopians, paid their tribute in silver. A large portion of this was obtained from the Phœnicians, and was distributed through Asia by the traders who came to Tyre. The Carthaginians also drew uncounted treasures in silver from Spain. When Carthagina was taken from them by Scipio, the portion of the precious metals that went into the Roman treasury was eighteen thousand three hundred pounds in weight of silver, two hundred and seventy-six golden cups each weighing a pound, and silver vessels without number. Near this city is a silver-mine which is said to have employed forty thousand workmen, and which paid the Romans nearly two million dollars annually. Another mine in the Pyrenees furnished to the Carthaginians in Hannibal’s time three hundred pounds every day. The quantities of gold and silver brought into the public treasury by the Roman consuls who subjugated the different parts of the Spanish peninsula were enormous. Still the country was not exhausted; for it was almost as highly favored in soil and climate as in its mineral treasures. ‘Next to Italy, if I except the fabulous regions of India, I would rank Spain,’ wrote Pliny in the first century of our era. At that time the country contained four hundred and nine cities; and there was not within the Roman empire a province where the people were more industrious or more prosperous. How strongly this account contrasts with the history of modern Spain! When the Spanish monarchs were aspiring to rule the world, in the sixteenth century, the streets of their cities were overrun with beggars. Only a century ago, the number of people in Spain who were without shirts, because they were too poor to buy such a luxury, was estimated at three millions, or one-third of the population of the kingdom. Within a hundred years, however, in spite of numerous drawbacks, the wealth of the country has vastly increased, and the population has nearly doubled.
“The Spaniards are the descendants of various races, tribes, and nations. At the dawn of history, we find the country in possession of the Iberians and Celts. Of the Iberians we know but little. From them Spain received its ancient name, Iberia; and the Iberus River, now the Ebro, took the name by which, with slight changes, it is still known. The language of the Iberians is supposed to survive in that of the Basque provinces of Biscaya, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, which I located a few moments since.
“The Celts, who a little more than two thousand years ago had not lost possession of Northern Italy and the countries now known as England, Scotland, and Ireland, drove the Iberians from the South of France and from the north-western part of Spain, in very early times. In the centre of the latter country these people united, and were afterwards known as Celt-Iberians.
“About a thousand years before Christ, the Phœnicians began to build towns on the southern coast of Spain; and, a century or two later, colonies were established on the eastern coast by the Rhodians and by other Greeks. Cadiz, Malaga, and Cordova were Phœnician towns; and Rhodos and Saguntum—now Rosas and Murviedro—were among those founded by the Greeks.
“Carthage was founded by the Tyrians; but the Carthaginians did not allow relationship to stand in the way of gain or conquest. Nearly six hundred years before our era, they found an opportunity to supplant the Phœnicians in Spain; and in the course of two centuries and a half they had brought under their sway a large portion of the country. At length the Greek colonies on the coast of Catalonia and Valencia, and several independent nations of the interior, seeing no other way to avoid submitting to Carthage, called upon the Romans for help. Rome sent commissioners to Carthage in the year B.C. 227, who obtained a promise that the Carthaginians would not push their conquests beyond the Ebro, and that they would not disturb the Saguntines and other Greek colonies. But, in spite of this agreement, Saguntum was besieged eight years later, by a Carthaginian army under Hannibal. The siege and destruction of this city caused the second Punic war, lasting from B.C. 218 to 201, during which Carthage lost her last foot-hold in Spain.
“But the Romans did not obtain quiet possession of the country their great enemy had lost. Nearly all the territory had to be won again from the natives; and in some parts of the peninsula the contest was doubtful for years. As if this were not enough, many of the battles of the civil wars, during the decline of the Roman republic, were fought on the soil of Spain, which, for two centuries after the fall of Saguntum, hardly knew the blessing of peace for a single year. To say nothing of lesser celebrities, we find the names of Hasdrubal, Hanno, Mago, and Hannibal, among the Carthaginians; of Viriathus, the Lusitanian; and, of the Romans, the Scipios, Sertorius, Metellus, Pompey the Great, and Julius Cæsar,—in the military annals of Spain during this period.
“Shortly after the Roman republic became an empire, under Augustus,—B.C. 30 to A.D. 14,—war was suspended throughout the Roman empire; and the Spaniards enjoyed a large share of tranquillity from that time till the barbarians poured across the Pyrenees, at the beginning of the fifth century. As a province of the empire, Spain held a high rank. The stupendous Bridge of Alcantara, the well-preserved Theatre of Murviedro, and the celebrated Aqueducts of Segovia and Tarragona, still attest the magnificence of that period. Nor was the peninsula wanting in illustrious men during these times. The most learned and practical writer on agriculture among the ancients,—Columella,—the poets Martial and Lucan, the philosopher Seneca, the historian Florus, the geographer Pomponius Mela, and the rhetorician Quintilian, were Spaniards. Three of the Roman emperors—Trajan, one of the greatest princes that ever swayed a sceptre; Hadrian, the enlightened protector of arts and literature; and Marcus Aurelius, whose name was long held in grateful remembrance by his subjects—were also natives of the Spanish peninsula.
“After the death of Constantine, A.D. 337, the prosperity of Spain began to decline. The taxes became heavier, and were increased till they were more than the people could bear. In a short time towns were deserted, fields ran to waste, and fruit-trees were uprooted, so as to reduce the value of property in order to avoid taxation. At the close of the century nothing was to be seen but desolation, poverty, and misery. But there was still a lower deep: the barbarians crossed the Pyrenees, and the country was turned into a desert.
“The great irruption of the northern nations into the Roman empire began in 375. A century later, the western empire fell. The most important division of the barbarians, who occupy so large a place in the history of the fourth and fifth centuries, were the Germans. The Vandals and Suevi, two of the nations that entered Spain in 409, were Germans. It is not certain that the third nation coming to Spain, the Alani, were of the same race. The ravages of these barbarians were terrible. Towns were burned, the country laid waste, and the inhabitants were massacred without distinction of age or sex. Famine and pestilence made fearful havoc, and the wild beasts left their hiding-places to make war on the wretched people. Even the corpses were devoured by the starving population.
“At length the conquerors themselves saw that converting a land in which they intended to live into a desert was not the wisest policy. They divided by lot, among themselves, those parts of the peninsula which they occupied. The southern part fell to the Vandals, whence it received the name of Vandalicia, which has easily become Andalusia. Lusitania, which was very nearly the modern Portugal, went to the Alani; and the Suevi had the north-western part of the peninsula, which is now Galicia. The Romans still held the rest of the country.
“But this division was soon destroyed by the Visigoths, or West Goths, another Germanic tribe. All these Germans were only a little less savage than our North American Indians. They neglected agriculture, and no man tilled the same field more than one year. War was really their only occupation. One of them boasted to Julius Cæsar that his soldiers had been fourteen years without entering a house; another declared that the only country he knew as his home was the territory occupied by his troops; and we are told by Tacitus that war was the only work they liked.
“The Visigoths, under their King Alaric, had ravaged Greece and Italy, and had taken Rome, before they established themselves in Southern Gaul, in 411. They commenced the conquest of Spain almost immediately after the foundation of their new kingdom; but they were the nominal rather than the real masters of the kingdom for more than half a century.
“Euric (466 to 484) was the founder of the Gothic kingdom of Spain; and Amalaric (522 to 531) was the first sovereign to hold his court in the country. Before long, Spain became the most flourishing of the governments established by the Germans on the ruins of the western empire. The conquerors, as they were the few while the civilized Roman inhabitants were the many, adopted the manners, the religion, the laws, and the language, of the subject people. They mingled a little Gothic with the Latin; and from this mixture arose, in the course of time, the noble and beautiful Castilian, or Spanish language.
“By degrees the Visigoths became less warlike, and finally ceased to be a nation of soldiers. Their kings were elective, and seem to have possessed more power than those of other German tribes. Still they were controlled to a great extent by the clergy. The councils of Toledo figured largely in the history of that period; and in these the bishops were a power. ‘Let no one in his pride seize upon the throne,’ says one of the Visigothic laws; ‘let no pretender excite civil war among the people; let no one conspire the death of the prince. But, when the king is dead in peace, let the principal men of the whole kingdom, together with the bishops—who have received power to bind and to loose, and whose blessing and unction confirm princes in their authority—appoint his successor by common consent, and with the approval of God.’ But the kings were not always allowed to die in peace. From Euric to Roderick, the greater number of them were assassinated or deposed. Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings of Spain, drove his predecessor from the throne. The relations of the dethroned monarch invited the Arabs, or Moors, of Africa to their aid; and the famous battle fought on the plains of the modern Xeres de la Frontera, near Cadiz, a battle that lasted three days, put an end to the life of Roderick, and to the Gothic kingdom of Spain, in the year 711.
“In the days of the patriarch Jacob, the people of Arabia were far enough advanced in civilization to maintain an active overland trade with Egypt. The Midianite merchantmen to whom Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver—about a dozen dollars—were from Arabia. Yet, for more than two thousand years from that time, the Arabs continued to be so divided into hostile clans, that they were almost unknown to history. The religion of Mohammed first united them; and the history of the Arabs really begins with the Hegira, or flight of the Prophet from Mecca, in the year 622. For ten years Mohammed had proclaimed his new creed in Mecca; his followers had been few, and had suffered incessant persecution; and now he was promised, by men from Medina, that, if he would flee to their city, his faith should be adopted and maintained. He made his escape from Mecca, though not without great risk, and reached Medina in safety, accompanied by a single friend. In Mecca he had preached patience and resignation under the wrongs inflicted by man. At Medina, where he had followers, his doctrine was, that one drop of blood shed in the cause of God—meaning the new faith, of course—was to be of more avail in working out the salvation of his hearers than two months of fasting and prayer. At first he made war on the caravan trade of his native city; and Mecca sent out an army to meet him. Mohammed had but three hundred and twenty-four men, while the Meccans were a thousand. But the prophet assured his followers that three thousand angels were fighting on his side; and with these unseen allies he utterly routed his enemy. After this first victory, conquest followed conquest in rapid succession. In less than a century from the Hegira, Arabia was but a small province of the empire which had been founded by Mohammed’s successors; an empire that extended from India to the Atlantic, and included Syria, Phœnicia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Bactriana, Egypt, Libya, Numidia, Spain, and many important islands of the Mediterranean.
“After King Roderick’s defeat and death at Xeres, the Moors almost immediately took possession of the whole country, except Biscaya, Navarre, a part of Aragon, and the mountains of the Asturias. Here a few resolute Goths made a stand, under Pelayo, and established a kingdom; a stronghold which enabled the Christians step by step to recover their lost territory, till after eight centuries the last foot of Spanish soil was retaken from the Moslems.
“During a part of the Moors’ dominion in Spain the country was very prosperous. For more than forty years after the conquest, however, it was ruled by viceroys dependent upon the caliphs who reigned in Damascus. This was a time of discord and civil war; and, towards the close of this period, many a city and village was laid in ruins never again to rise.
“The eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries were the most prosperous in the history of Mohammedan Spain; and the last was its golden age. The Moors, though warlike, were also industrious, and agriculture flourished during this period as it has never flourished since. Roads and bridges were built, and canals for fertilizing the land were made in all parts of the country. Learning was encouraged by the kings of Cordova; and, at the end of the eleventh century, Moorish Spain could boast of seventy large libraries; while her poets, historians, philosophers, and mathematicians were second to none of that age. Cordova, the capital, was equal to many cities like the Cordova of to-day. At one time there were in that city six hundred mosques, and nearly four thousand chapels, or mosques of smaller dimensions; four hundred and thirty minarets, or towers from which the people were called to prayers, such as you saw in Constantinople; nine hundred baths; more than eighty thousand shops; sixty thousand palaces and mansions; and two hundred and thirteen thousand common dwelling-houses. The city extended eight leagues along the Guadalquiver. If these statistics are correct, the city must have contained not less than a million inhabitants. We can form some idea of its splendors when we are told that a palace built near the city, by Abderrahman III., had its roof supported by more than four thousand pillars of variegated marble; that the floors and walls were of the same costly material; that the chief apartments were adorned with exquisite fountains and baths; and that the whole was surrounded by most magnificent grounds.
“In 1031 the kingdom, or caliphate, of Cordova came to an end; and several petty kingdoms took its place. But all of them soon became dependent upon the Moorish monarch of Northern Africa. The Christian kings of Spain were prompt in taking advantage of this division among the infidels, as the Moors were called; and the power of the Moslems began to decline. The Christians gained rapidly on the Moors; and in 1238, when the kingdom of Granada was founded, the Moors held only a part of Southern Spain. Granada was the last realm of the Moors in Spain; and its population was largely composed of the Moslems who fled there from the kingdoms which had been overthrown by the victorious arms of the Christian monarchs.
The little kingdom of Granada, though it had an area of only nine thousand square miles, contained thirty-two large cities and ninety-seven smaller ones, and a population of three million souls. The city of Granada had seventy thousand houses. This kingdom held out against the Christians till the beginning of the year 1492. This was the year in which America was discovered; and Columbus followed Ferdinand and Isabella, in their campaign against the Moors, to this city.
“With the fall of Granada, came the close of the Moorish rule in the peninsula. A few years later many of the Moors were expelled from the country. In many parts of Spain the traveller still sees numerous traces of their dominion. He finds these traces in the Oriental style of the older buildings; in the alcazars, or palaces, they built; in the mosques now converted into Christian churches; and in the canals which still fertilize the soil from which the Moslems were driven more than three centuries ago.
“The old Gothic monarchy founded by Pelayo survived in the kingdom of the Asturias. As the Christians began to recover their lost territory from the Moors, these conquests, instead of being joined to the Asturian kingdom, were erected into independent states; but, by the middle of the fifteenth century, the number of them had been reduced to five,—Navarre, Aragon, Castile, Granada, and Portugal. We shall say something of Portugal at another time, for it has a history of its own. In 1479 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile united these two monarchies into one. The kingdom of the Asturias had been merged into that of Leon, which was united to Castile in 1067. Granada was added in 1492, and Navarre twenty years later.
“At the death of Ferdinand in 1516, Charles I. became king of Spain. He was the son of ‘Crazy Jane,’ daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was elected emperor of Germany three years after his accession to the throne, as Charles V. His reign and that of his son and successor covered the most splendid period in the history of modern Spain, ending with the death of Philip in 1588. Their dominions were the most extensive among the monarchs of Europe; their armies were the best of that age; and their treasuries were supplied by the exhaustless mines of the new world which Columbus had given to Spain. But, after the death of Philip II., the monarchy rapidly declined; so rapidly indeed that a century later, when Charles II. died, in 1700, it was without money, without credit, and without troops.
“I must again call your attention to the magnificent works of our own Prescott. I hope you will all read them, for I have not time to mention a score of topics which are treated in these volumes, such as the Inquisition, the Spanish Rule in Naples, the Conquest of Granada, the Great Captain, the Cardinal Ximines, and the Spanish Rule in the Netherlands. I commend to you also the works of Motley and Washington Irving; of the latter, especially ‘The Life of Columbus,’ ‘The Alhambra,’ and ‘The Conquest of Granada.’”
“Charles II., as he had no children, and there was no heir to the throne, signed an instrument, before his death, declaring Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of the grand monarch Louis XIV., his successor. This king was Philip V., the first of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon family, to which Isabella II., the late queen of Spain, belonged. England, Holland, and Germany objected to this arrangement, because it placed both France and Spain under the rule of the same family; and for twelve years resisted the claim of Philip to the throne. This was ‘the war of the Spanish succession,’ in which Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough won several great victories. But Philip retained the throne, though he lost the Spanish possessions in Italy and the Netherlands, and was obliged to cede Gibraltar and Minorca to England. Under Philip V. and his successors, the prosperity of Spain revived; and the kingdom flourished till the French Revolution.
“Philip was followed by his son Ferdinand VI. in 1748; but he was mentally unfit to take an active part in the government, and was succeeded by his stepbrother Charles III. in 1759. He was a wise prince, and greatly promoted the prosperity of his country. Charles IV., who came to the throne in 1788, began his reign by following the wise policy of his father; but he soon placed himself under the influence of Godoy, his prime minister, who led him into several fruitless wars and expensive alliances, which reduced the country to a miserable condition. In 1808 an insurrection compelled him to abdicate in favor of his son, who ascended the throne as Ferdinand VII. A few days later the ex-king wrote a letter to Napoleon, declaring that he had abdicated under compulsion; and he revoked the act. Napoleon offered to arbitrate between the father and son, and he met them at Bayonne for this purpose. He induced both of them to resign their claims to the throne, and then made his brother Joseph king of Spain. The new king started for his dominion; but the Spaniards were not satisfied with this little arrangement, and insurrections broke out all over the country. England decided to take a hand in the game, made peace with Spain, acknowledged Ferdinand VII. as king of Spain, and formed an alliance with the government. Thus began the peninsular war, in which the Duke of Wellington prepared the way for the destruction of Napoleon’s power. As you travel, you will visit the battle-fields of this great conflict, and your guide-book will contain full accounts of the struggle in various places.
“In 1812, while Ferdinand was a prisoner in France, and the war was still raging, the Cortes, driven from Madrid to Seville, and then to Cadiz, drew up a written constitution, the first of the kind known in the peninsula. The regency acting for the absent monarch, recognized by England and Russia, took an oath to support it. In 1814 Ferdinand was released, and came back to Spain. He declared the constitution null and void, and the Cortes that adopted it illegal. He ruled the nation in an arbitrary manner, and even attempted to restore the inquisition, which had been abolished, and to annul the reforms which had been for years in progress. But in 1820 the patience of the people was exhausted, and a revolution was undertaken. The king was deserted by his troops; and the royal palace was surrounded by a multitude of the people, who demanded his acceptance of the constitution of 1812. The humbled monarch appeared at a balcony, holding a copy of the instrument in his hand, as an indication that he was ready to accept it, and take the oath to support it. In a few months the Cortes met; and the king formally swore to obey the constitution, and accept the new order of things. But this did not suit France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia: they had no stomach for liberal constitutions; and these powers sent a French army into Spain, which soon overpowered the resistance offered; and Ferdinand was again in condition to rule as absolutely as ever. It was during this period that the Spanish-American colonies, which had begun to revolt in 1808, secured their independence.
“Even those who favored the king’s views were not wholly satisfied with the king, and believed he was not energetic enough for the situation. Many of the people wished to dethrone Ferdinand, and elevate his brother Carlos, or Charles, to his place. Several insurrections broke out, but they were failures. Of course this state of things did not create the best of feeling between Ferdinand and Carlos. The Bourbon family were governed by the Salic law, which excludes females from the throne. In 1830, the year in which Isabella the late queen, who was the daughter of Ferdinand VII., was born, Maria Christina induced her husband, the king, to abolish the Salic law. Two years later, when the king was very sick, the Church party compelled him to revoke the act; but he got better; and, as the Cortes had sanctioned the annulling of the Salic law, he destroyed the documents which had been extorted from him on his sick-bed. His queen had been made regent during his illness. When Ferdinand died, his daughter was proclaimed queen, in accordance with the programme, as Isabella II. Don Carlos had protested against his exclusion from the throne, and now he took up arms to enforce his right. In the Basque provinces he was proclaimed king, as Charles V. His arms were successful at first; but, though the war lasted seven years, it was a failure in the end.
“While the Carlist war was still raging, in 1836, a revolution in favor of a constitution broke out; and the next year that of 1812, with important amendments, was adopted by the Cortes, and ratified by the queen regent, for Isabella was a child of only six years. In 1841, Maria Christina having resigned, Espartero was appointed regent, by the Cortes, for the rest of the queen’s minority. He was a progressive man, and his administration very largely promoted the prosperity of the country. The government had abolished convents, and confiscated the revenues of the Church; and this awakened the hostility of the clergy, who, for a time, prevented the sale of the property thus acquired. This question finally produced a rupture between Espartero and the clergy, resulting in a general insurrection. The regent fled to England, and the Cortes declared the queen to be of age when she was only thirteen years old. Espartero was recalled a few years later, and has since held many high offices. The pope eventually permitted the Church property to be sold; but the contest between the progressive and the conservative parties was continued for a long period. Narvaez, Serrano, General Prim, Castelar, and Espartero are the most prominent statesmen; and doubtless the last-named is the most able.
“The frequent insurrections gave the government some excuse for ruling with little regard to the fundamental law of the land; and this led to another revolution in 1854, in favor of a little more constitution. The evil was corrected for the time; and the instrument adopted, or rather restored, is sometimes called the constitution of 1854. But the queen was a Bourbon, and seemed to be always in favor of tyrannical measures and of the party that advocated them; and the country has continued to be in a disorganized state largely on this account. She has been noted for the frequent changes of her ministers. A few years ago General Prim raised the standard of revolt; but the time for a change had not yet come, and the general was glad to escape into Portugal.
“The revolution of 1868 commenced with the fleet off Cadiz; but, the cry, ‘Down with the Bourbons!’ soon reached the army and the people, and the revolution was accomplished almost without opposition. The queen fled to France. A provisional government was organized, and an election of members of the Cortes was ordered to decide on the form of the new government. The Cortes met, and in May, 1869, decreed that the new government should be a monarchy. About the same time the crown was offered to King Louis of Portugal, who, however, declined it. Last June, Queen Isabella abdicated in favor of her son Alfonso, prince of the Asturias, who will be Alfonso XII. if he ever becomes king of Spain. Later in the year Prince Leopold, of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen, was invited to the throne. He was a relative of the king of Prussia; and, when he accepted the crown, it was a real grievance to France. Leopold was withdrawn from the candidacy; but this matter was made the pretext for the Franco-Prussian war now raging on the soil of France.
“But we read history in the newspapers for the latest details; and only last month the Cortes elected Amedeo, second son of the king of Italy, king of Spain. He has accepted the crown, and departed for his kingdom. We can wish him a prosperous reign; but in a country like Spain he will find that a crown is not a wreath of roses. I will not detain you longer, young gentlemen.”
The professor bowed, and descended from his rostrum. Most of the students had given good attention to his discourse; for they desired to understand the history of the country they were about to visit.
Since Professor Mapps finished his lecture in the port of Barcelona, King Amedeo, after two long years of fruitless struggling with the enemies of Spain’s peace and prosperity, renounced the crown for himself, his children, and successors. Nearly a year later Alfonso XII. was proclaimed king of Spain, and now occupies the throne. While the country was looking for a king, the third Carlist war was begun,—the last two led by the son of the original Don Carlos,—but it was a failure.