The Royal Armoury contains another sword improperly attributed both to Ferdinand the Third and Ferdinand the Catholic. It dates from the fifteenth century, and has a blade of unusual strength intended to resist plate armour. This blade, which has a central ridge continued to the very point, is very broad towards the handle, tapers rapidly, and measures thirty-two inches. At the broader end, and on a gilded ground embellished with concentric circles, are graven such legends as:—

“The Lord is my aid. I will not fear what man may do to me, and will despise my enemies. Superior to them, I will destroy them utterly.”

“Make me worthy to praise thee, O sweet and blessed Virgin Mary.”

The handle is of iron, with traces of gilded decoration, and corded with black silk. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says that no reliable information can be found concerning this fine arm. Its length and general design would allow of its being used with one hand or with both, and either slung from the saddle-bow or round the middle of a warrior on foot.

Another handsome sword, wrongly attributed by the ignorant to Alfonso the Sixth, is kept at Toledo, in the sacristy of the cathedral. The scabbard is adorned with fourteenth-century enamel in the champlevé style. Baron de las Cuatro Torres considers that this sword belonged to the archbishop Don Pedro Tenorio (see [p. 269]), and adduces his proofs in the Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones for March 1897. The prelate in question, appointed to command an army sent against Granada, was, like so many of the Spanish mediæval clerics, of a warlike temper, and “exchanged with great alacrity his rochet for his harness, and his mitre for his helm.”

One of the most ridiculous and barefaced forgeries in the Royal Armoury is a sixteenth-century sword which has inscribed upon its blade the name of the redoubtable Bernardo del Carpio. The Count of Valencia de Don Juan says he remembers to have met with other blades of later mediæval make, engraved with such legends as “belonging to Count Fernán-Gonzalez,” or even “Recaredus Rex Gothorum,” while others in this armoury are ascribed, without the least authority of fact or common sense, to García de Paredes, Alvaro de Sande, and Hernando de Alarcón. Others, again, with less extravagance, though not on solid proof, are said to have belonged to Hernán Cortés, the Count of Lemos, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza.

Some, upon the other hand, belonged undoubtedly to celebrated Spanish warriors of the olden time. Such are the swords of the Count of Coruña, of Gonzalo de Córdova, and of the conqueror of Peru, Francisco Pizarro. The first of these weapons (Pl. [lvii]., No. 4) has a superb hilt carved in the style of the Spanish Renaissance, with crossbars curving down, a pas d'âne, and a Toledo blade of six mesas (“tables”) or surfaces, grooved on both sides, and ending in a blunt point. The armourer's mark, which seems to represent a fleur-de-lis four times repeated, is that of the swordsmith Juan Martinez, whose name we read upon the blade, together with the words IN TE DOMINE SPERAVI, and on the other side, in Spanish, PARA DON BERNARDINO XVAREZ DE MENDOZA, CONDE DE CORVÑA.

The sword of “the great captain,” Gonzalo de Córdova (1453–1515), is not of Spanish make (Plate [lvii]., No. 3). It has a straight blade with bevelled edges. The pommel and quillons are decorated with Renaissance carving, and the bars, which are of gilded iron, grow wider at their end and curve towards the blade. The pommel, of gilded copper, is spherical, and bears, upon one side, a scene which represents a battle, together with the words GONSALVI AGIDARI VICTORIA DE GALLIS AD CANNAS. Upon the other side are carved his arms. Other inscriptions in Latin are also on the pommel and the blade.

The Count of Valencia de Don Juan believed that this sword was a present to Gonzalo from the corporation of some Italian town, and that it replaced, as an estoque real, or sword of ceremony, the state sword (see [p. 252]) of Ferdinand and Isabella.