The Story of Don John of Austria

by Luis Coloma

Meanwhile all seemed to sleep in the Albaicin; but behind the barred doors and shut windows the Moors were watching in ambush, prepared for defence, and, knowing that night the risk they ran if they let the Christians be beforehand, resolved to hasten the atrocious undertaking that they were meditating. They met in the house of a wax chandler of the Albaicin named Adelet, and there discussed their doubts and laid their plans.

They decided to strike the blow on New Year's Day and not at Christmas as they had intended, because there existed a prophecy that the Moors would regain Granada on the same day as that on which the Christians took it, which was the 1st of January, 1492. It was determined to make a register among the farms of the Vega and the villages of Decrin and Orgiba of 8000 men, who were to be ready, at a signal made to them from the Albaicin, to attack the town by the gate of the Vega, wearing coloured caps and Turkish head-dresses so as to inspire confidence in some and terror in others, passing themselves off as Turks or Berbers who had come to help the Moors.

This register was well filled by two saddle-makers, who, making a pretext of their trade, went through all these places without awaking anyone's suspicions. They also enrolled among the mountains another 2000 picked men, who, hidden in a bed of reeds, should wait the signal of the Albaicin to scale the wall of the Alhambra, which looks towards the Generalife, with seventeen ladders which were being made in Quejar and Quentan; they were ladders of hempen rope with rungs of wood so wide that three men could easily mount at the same time. The attack which was to be made on Granada from outside being arranged, they then settled that which the Moors of the Albaicin were to make from within. They divided themselves into three parties each with a head. Miguel Acis with the inhabitants of the parishes of St. Gregory, St. Christopher and St. Nicholas and a flag of crimson silk with a silver half-moon and a fringe of gold were to take the gate of Frax el Leuz on the top of the Albaicin; Diego Miqueli with the dwellers of St. Salvador, St. Elizabeth and St. Luis and a yellow silk flag the square of Bib-el-Bonut; and Miguel Moragas with the people of St. Michael, San Juan de los Reyes, and St. Peter and St. Paul and a flag of turquoise-blue damask the gate of Guadix.

When united all were to fall first on the Christians who lived on the Albaicin, beheading them without truce or pity. Then the first group would descend to the town to the prisons of the Holy Office to release the Moorish prisoners, killing and burning all in their path. The second group was to go to the town prisons to liberate the prisoners, then to murder the Archbishop and burn his palace. The third group was to attack the Royal Courts, murder the President, and set free the Chancery prisoners, all reuniting in the square of Bibarrambla, whither the 8000 Moors of the Vega were also to repair. From there they would go all over the city, as it seemed best, to put everything to fire and sword. The principal instigator of these plans was the sanguinary Farax Abenfarax, an African renegade, of the house of the Abencerrajes, a bandit of the kind the Moors call "monfies." To this fierce and brutal man the Moorish conspirators entrusted the work of making known this decree in the Alpujarras, and the summoning of a numerous assembly to elect a king, assuring them that from that moment the choice of the Alpujarras should be confirmed in the Albaicin.

This chosen man was D. Hernando de Valor, a very rich Moor of the Alpujarras, a descendant of Mahomet through the families of Aben-Humeyas and Almanzores, Kings of Córdoba and Andalucia. D. Hernando's ancestors, as they lived in a place in the mountains called Valor, had taken the name. He was a youth of twenty-four, swarthy, with scanty beard, big black eyes, eyebrows that joined, and a very fine figure; sensual, vindictive, sly and false, and, as he showed himself later, extremely wicked.

He was elected according to the ancient ceremony of the Kings of Andalucia, widowers at one end, those going to be married at the other, the married on one side, the women on the other: in the midst the priest, an "alfaqui," who read an ancient Arab prophecy, that a youth of royal lineage who was baptized and a heretic to his law, because in public he professed that of the Christians, should liberate his people.

They all shouted that these signs were found united in D. Hernando; the alfaqui assured them that according to his observations the courses of the stars testified to the same thing and hastened to clothe him in rich purple, and to put round his neck and shoulders a coloured badge, like a sash, and on his head a crown with a cap also of purple. They spread four flags on the ground, for the four quarters of the world, and D. Hernando prayed, leaning over them, with his face to the east, and swearing to die in his law and his kingdom, defending them and his vassals. Then he lifted one foot and, as a sign of general obedience, Farax Abenfarax prostrated himself in the name of all and kissed the ground where the new king had stood. Then he was lifted up on their shoulders and all shouted, "May God exalt Mahomet Aben-Humeya, King of Granada and of Córdoba."

This act made him King, and he named officers and gave appointments, among others that of Chief Magistrate to Farax Abenfarax and that of Captain-General to his uncle D. Fernando el Zaguer, called in Arabic Aben Jauher. He sent his ambassadors to the Kings of Algiers and Tunis, notifying his election and asking for brotherly help: to which they replied with great promises and demonstrations, offering to send galleys with men, arms, and provisions, which should be known by their red-dyed sails.

Meanwhile the month of December had arrived and Farax Abenfarax went secretly to Granada, leaving the sedition prepared behind him, like a train of powder which can be fired in a second when the moment arrives.

But the covetousness and ill-contained hatred of the Moors took fire before the time. On the 28th of December seven clerks of the Courts of Ujijar of Albacete set out for Granada guided by a Moor; they were going to spend Christmas with their wives and were taking a large quantity of fowls, chickens, honey, fruits and money.