About ten years after this event, the unfortunate Joseph, who had been so often attacked by {155} foreign enemies, met his death from the hands of his own subjects.
It may have been remarked by the reader, that no established law regulated the regal succession among the Moors. Yet, notwithstanding the perpetual conspiracies and intrigues which rendered the possession of the crown so insecure and of such uncertain duration, a prince of the royal race always occupied the throne. We have seen Grenada divided, since the violent termination of the reign of Ismael, between the factions of the Alhamar and the Farady, and the former deposed by the latter, who always regarded the Alhamars as usurpers. This unhappy contest was the source of numberless disorders, conspiracies, and assassinations.
The monarch next in order to Joseph I. on the throne of Grenada was his uncle, a Farady prince named Mohammed VI., and called the Old, in consequence of his succeeding at a somewhat advanced period of life.
Mohammed the Red, a scion of the Alhamar race, drove his cousin, Mohammed the Old, from the throne, A.D. 1360, Heg. 762, and retained it for some years, through the protection of the King of Aragon.
{156}
Peter the Cruel, then king of Castile, espoused the cause of the banished Farady, supported his claims by warlike arguments, and so closely pressed Mohammed the Alhamar, that he adopted the resolution of repairing to Seville, and abandoning himself to the magnanimity of his royal foe.
Mohammed arrived at the court of Seville accompanied by a suite composed of his most faithful friends, and bearing with him vast treasures. He presented himself with noble confidence in the presence of the monarch. "King of Castile!" said he to Peter, "the blood alike of Christian and Moor has too long flowed in my contest with the Farady. You protect my rival; yet it is you whom I select to adjudge our quarrel. Examine my claims and those of my enemy, and pronounce who shall be the sovereign of Grenada. If you decide in favour of the Farady, I demand only to be conducted to Africa; if you accord the preference to me, receive the homage that I have come to render you for my crown!"
The astonished Peter lavished honours upon the Mussulman king, and caused him to be seated at his side during the magnificent feast by {157} which he signalized the occasion. But, when the Alhamar retired from the entertainment, he was seized and thrown into prison. From thence he was afterward conducted through the streets of the city, seated, half naked, upon an ass, and led to a field termed the Tablada, where thirty-seven of his devoted followers were deprived of their heads in his presence. The execrable Peter, envying the executioner the pleasure of shedding his blood, then thrust through the unfortunate King of Grenada with his own lance. The dying sovereign uttered only these words as he expired, "Oh Peter, Peter, what a deed for a cavalier!"
By a very extraordinary fatality, every throne in Spain was at this period occupied by princes whose characters were blackened by the most atrocious crimes. Peter the Cruel, the Nero of Castile, assassinated the kings who confided themselves to his protection, put to death his wife Blanche of Bourbon, and, in short, daily imbrued his hands in the blood of his relatives or friends. Peter IV. of Aragon, less violent than the Castilian, but equally unfeeling and even more perfidious, despoiled one of his brothers of his kingdom, commanded another to be {158} put to death, and delivered his ancient preceptor to the executioners. Peter I., king of Portugal, the lover of the celebrated Inez de Castro,[12] whose ferocity was doubtless excited and increased by the cruelty that had been exercised against his mistress, tore out the hearts of the murderers of Inez, and poisoned a sister with whom he was displeased. Finally, the contemporary King of Navarre was that Charles the Bad, whose name alone is sufficient still to cause a shudder. All Spain groaned beneath the iron rule of these monsters of cruelty, and was inundated by the blood of their victims. If it be remembered that, at the same time, France had become a prey to the horrors which followed the imprisonment of King John; that England witnessed the commencement of the troubled reign of Richard II.; that Italy was delivered up to the contentions of the rival factions of the Guelfs and Ghibelines, and beheld two occupants at the same time upon the papal throne; that two emperors disputed the right to the imperial crown of Germany; and that Timurlane ravaged Asia from the territories of the Usheks to the borders of India, it will not be disputed {159} that the history of the world records the annals of no more unhappy epoch in its affairs.
Grenada was at last tranquil after the crime of Peter the Cruel. Mohammed the Old, or the Farady, being now freed from the rival claims of his competitor, remounted the throne without opposition.