Mohammed V. was as virtuous and as unfortunate as his father. He had reigned but four years when he was attacked in his own palace by the partisans of his half-brother, Ismail. Narrowly escaping death, he fled to his harem, and in the disguise of a slave eluded his pursuers and made his way to Guadix. Ismail II. ran a brief and inglorious career, and was dethroned and slain (1360) by the “Red King,” Abu Saïd. Meantime, Pedro I. of Castile espoused the cause of the lawful sultan and invaded the territory of Granada. But the magnanimous Moor would not consent to remount the throne at the cost of his people’s blood. Pedro accordingly withdrew, but freed Mohammed from his enemies by murdering Abu Saïd when the latter incautiously paid a visit to Seville. Mohammed was reinstated on his throne, and mindful of the services rendered him by Pedro, advanced to his support with a Grenadine army against Enrique de Trastamara. The tragedy of Montiel made a continuance of the struggle useless, and the Moorish sultan devoted the remainder of his reign to improving the condition of his subjects. He founded charitable institutions and asylums, and raised Granada to a high pitch of prosperity. The city, according to the contemporary writer, El Khattib, became the metropolis of the Mediterranean, the emporium of commerce, and the common fatherland of all nations. Under Mohammed V., the kingdom may be considered to have reached its zenith. Thence to its nadir we count but a century of years.
Yusuf II., who succeeded his father in 1391, was so averse to war that his subjects suspected him of Christian sympathies. His son rose against him, and the pacific monarch was disposed to abdicate rather than draw the sword. The exhortations of the Moroccan ambassador induced him to take a manlier course, and putting himself at the head of the army lately arrayed against him, he ravaged Murcia with fire and sword. It was against this peace-loving sultan that Don Martin de la Barbuda, the Quixotic Master of Calatrava, directed his wild expedition—defeated, of course, and emphatically disavowed by Enrique III. of Castile. Yusuf’s younger son and successor, Mohammed VII.,[A] was a prince of a very different stamp. Accompanied by only twenty-five horsemen, he penetrated to Toledo, and negotiated in the heart of Castile with Enrique III. The peace thus concluded was soon interrupted, and Mohammed was quickly waging war throughout the length and breadth of Andalusia. The war continued with varying fortunes, and was carried on, as was usual in those days, by a series of forays, neither side making any determined effort to take the other’s capital or to secure his conquests. On feeling his end approaching, the warlike Sultan bethought him of his elder brother, Yusuf, whom he had confined in the castle of Salobreña. Fearing that the captive might now supplant his own son, Mohammed sent a messenger to command his execution. Yusuf was playing chess with the governor of the castle when the fatal mandate arrived. He asked leave of the emissary to finish the game, and before he had made the final move, the news arrived of the death of Mohammed and of his proclamation as Sultan of Granada. Yusuf showed himself as calm and unmoved at his accession to the throne as when he had stood upon the threshold of death.
As peaceably disposed as his father, Yusuf III. had to withstand some of the most determined assaults upon his doomed kingdom. In his reign took place the celebrated siege of Antequera by the Castilians, the survivors of which founded the suburb of Antequeruela adjacent to Granada. Yusuf ultimately found peace and a valuable ally as the outcome of a strange story of fraternal animosity. The people of Gibraltar revolted against Granada and proclaimed themselves the subjects of Fez. The Sultan of that realm sent his hated brother, Abu Saïd, to take possession of the town, and treating him as David did Uriah, left him at the mercy of the enemy. Yusuf, however, treated the captured prince with generosity, and showed him a letter which he shortly after received from the Sultan of Fez, requesting that he might be poisoned. Thirsting for vengeance, Abu Saïd procured arms and soldiers at Granada, and, invading Morocco, drove his perfidious brother from the throne. Thereafter he was the sworn ally of the Sultan of Granada, whom Castile and Aragon no longer ventured to trouble. Yusuf III. passed away in 1417.
The history of Granada is henceforward one of almost continuous revolution and tumult. Mohammed VIII. was driven into exile by a namesake reckoned as the ninth of his name, and then restored by a counter-revolution. A Castilian army ravaged the Vega up to the walls of the capital. Granada itself would have fallen, had not Juan II. and the great Constable, Alvaro de Luna, been recalled to Castile by the disorders which resulted in the latter’s overthrow. An earthquake desolated the distracted kingdom; and we may suppose that Mohammed VIII. was not altogether sorry when he abandoned his throne to a pretender and fled to Malaga.
The new sultan, Yusuf IV., held his throne as a fief of Castile, the support of which he had to purchase with humiliating concessions. He anticipated inevitable assassination by dying after sixteen months of authority; and for the third time, Mohammed VIII. was proclaimed at Granada (1432). Hostilities with Castile were at once renewed. This time the fortune of war was with the Moors, who routed their opponents at Illora, Archidona, and Castril. But Mohammed VIII.’s star was never long in the ascendant. He quarrelled with the powerful family of the Abencerrages; and, deprived of their support, was finally expelled from his kingdom, by his kinsman, Aben Osmin.[B] The usurper was victorious over the Christians and took several strongholds, but his army suffered at last a bloody defeat at Alporchones. This reverse seems to have maddened Osmin, who henceforward conducted himself as a tyrant of the old Roman type. Revolutions had now become as frequent in Granada as in some South American states. The usurper ran his brief career, and was then forced to make room for Mohammed VIII.’s cousin Saïd. Granada was all for peace. Tribute was paid to Enrique IV. of Castile, Christian captives released—all in vain. The intermittent warfare went on as before. Jaen, Archidona, Gibraltar, were lost, despite the desperate valour of the Prince, Muley Hassan, and of the Chieftain, Ibrahim, who, on being vanquished, plunged on horseback into the depths of a ravine. At last, however, the distracted Ibn Ismail obtained peace for his wretched country by a personal interview with Enrique, outside the walls of Granada. He devoted the remainder of his reign to the encouragement of commerce, industry, and agriculture in his dominions—labour that did not benefit even those who were to succeed him; and died at Almeria in the year 1465. The knell of the Moorish Empire in Europe was sounded over his bier.
The reigns of Ali Abu-l-Hassan, Mohammed XI. (Boabdil), and Mohammed XII. (Az-Zaghal) covered the years 1465-1492, during which the downfall and extinction of the kingdom were accomplished. The history of these events has already filled many bulky tomes, and has been made familiar to English readers by the works of Prescott. Even our brief survey, however, cannot be concluded without a summary of the last chapter of the story of Granada.
The character of Muley Ali Abu-l-Hassan was the reverse of his predecessor’s. He was arrogant, impetuous, and warlike, a fanatical hater of the Christians, and a zealous Muslim. In the first years of his reign he gained some successes over the feeble Enrique IV., and proved himself strong enough to quell a revolt at Malaga. But he let slip the opportunity of attacking the new sovereigns of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabel, when they were engaged in war with the partisans of “La Beltraneja,” nor did he make any attempt to effect an alliance with their numerous enemies. State-craft does not appear to have been possessed to any great extent by the descendants of Al Ahmar. In 1476, Abu-l-Hassan condescended to sue for a renewal of the alliance with the Queen of Castile; but when Ferdinand of Aragon made the payment of the tribute stipulated by Ibn Ismail a condition of the treaty, the Moor’s proud nature revolted. “Return to your sovereigns,” he said to the Spanish ambassadors, “and tell them that the sultans who paid tribute to the Christians are dead; that here we manufacture only iron spear-heads for our enemies.” These words sealed the fate of the Moors in Spain, though the ruler who uttered them probably thought them merely the prelude to just such a frontier war as had raged intermittently for so many years.
The first act in the long-drawn-out drama was the capture of Zahara by the troops of Granada, in 1481—provoked by the predatory incursions of the Marquis of Cadiz. The Christian garrison was surprised during a furious tempest, and put to the sword. The rest of the inhabitants were carried off in captivity to Granada. Abu-l-Hassan, inflated with pride, returned to his capital. There were popular rejoicings, but the wiser Moors shook their heads and predicted that the ruins of Zahara would fall upon their own city.
The fiery chivalry of Andalusia were not slow to retaliate. Two months after the capture of Zahara, the more important Grenadine stronghold of Alhama was taken by storm by the forces of the Marquis of Cadiz. The news produced the utmost consternation in Granada. Abu-l-Hassan at once set out with 53,000 men, and invested the place. Ferdinand the Catholic, who had now conceived the idea of reducing the whole kingdom of Granada, hurried to its relief; but he had only reached Lucena when tidings arrived of the raising of the siege by the Marquis’s hereditary foe, the Duke of Medina Sidonia. Abu-l-Hassan returned to the attack a few weeks later, and Ferdinand resumed his advance, before which the Moors retired. The Catholic sovereigns made their triumphal entry into Alhama on May 14, 1482.
Great preparations were made throughout Castile and Aragon for the prosecution of the war, but the army actually assembled before Loja on July 1—16,000 men—fell far short of Ferdinand’s requirements and expectations. The town was ably defended by one of the bravest Moorish chieftains, Ali Atar, who repulsed the Christians with severe loss. The King of Aragon narrowly escaped with his life, and was compelled to beat a retreat. Abu-l-Hassan swept the country as far as the Rio Frio.