ISABEL THE CATHOLIC AT THE SURRENDER OF GRANADA.
After a Painting by Pradilla.
The want of magnanimity and common humanity to these poor people, who had only defended their homes against the invader, is usually ascribed entirely to Ferdinand; but there is nothing whatever to show that Isabel thought otherwise than he, except that she objected to a suggestion that they should all be put to the sword. She was a child of her age, an age that did not recognise the right of others than orthodox Christians to be regarded as human beings; and in Isabel all instinctive womanly feeling was dominated by her conviction of the greatness of her duty as she understood it, and the sacred mission of her sovereignty. The fall of Malaga rendered inevitable that of the city of Granada, only held, as it was, under the nominal rule of the miserable Boabdil, supported by the Christian troops under Gonzalo de Cordova. Every week his little realm grew smaller, and every hour the streets of Granada rang with Moslem curses of his name. Outside the walls rapine and war, inside treachery and murder, scourged Granada; and whilst the pomegranate was rotting to its fall, in the intervals of fresh conquests Isabel and her husband progressed through Aragon and Valencia, everywhere carrying terror to evildoers and strengthening the arm of the Inquisition. The next year, 1488, the same process was continued, and in 1489 the large cities of Baza, Almeria and Guadix were conquered from Boabdil’s rebel uncle. Baza was the strongest fortress in the kingdom, and offered a resistance so obstinate that the Christians, despairing of taking it, sent to Isabel at Jaen, asking her permission to raise the siege. She commanded them to redouble their efforts. Fresh men, money and munitions were sent to them. The Dukes of Alba and Najera, and the Admiral of Castile, were bidden to lead their men to aid Ferdinand before Baza. New field hospitals were supplied, and all the Mancha and Andalucia were swept for food and transport, no less than 14,000 mules, for the relief of the besiegers. Floods broke down the bridges and made the roads impassable, but still Isabel did not lose heart. A body of 6000 men were raised to repair the ways. The cost exhausted the Queen’s treasury, but she laid hands on the church plate and the treasures of the convents, pledged her own crown with the Jews to overcome the obstacle, and raised a hundred million maravedis for her purpose. Her ladies followed her example and poured their gold and jewels into her coffers, and yet Baza still held out, and winter was close at hand. Ferdinand was for abandoning the siege, but the stout-hearted Queen herself set out from Jaen in November, and rode undaunted through the bitter weather, night and day, to join her troops at Baza. Her presence struck the Moors with dismay, and filled the Christian hearts with confidence, for both knew that there she would stay, at any cost, until the place surrendered, as it did, to her, on the 4th December 1489,[[46]] whereupon Almeria and Guadix gave up the struggle, and the Queen and her husband returned to winter at Seville, knowing now that Granada itself was theirs for the plucking when the season should arrive.
All through the year 1490 the preparations for the crowning feat went on throughout Castile. Patriotism, in the sense of a common pride of territory, did not exist in Spain; but already in the nine years that the Inquisition had been at work, and Isabel’s fiery zeal against the Moors had continued, the spiritual arrogance, always latent, had knit orthodox Spaniards together as they had never been bound before. To the majority, the persecution of a despised and hated minority was confirmation of their own mystic selection. Isabel was the personification of the feeling, and to her, as to her people now, the oppression of the unbeliever was an act that singled her out as the chosen of God to vindicate His faith. So Torquemada and the Inquisition, with the approval of the Queen, harried the wretched Jews, who professed Christianity, more cruelly every day.[[47]] If a ‘New Christian’ broke bread with a Jew it was the former who was punished. If he dared to wear clean linen on Saturday, or used a Hebrew name, the Dominican spies, who dogged his footsteps, accused him, and the flames consumed his carcass whilst Ferdinand emptied his coffers. The revenue of the Jewish confiscations had provided much of the treasure needed for the constant war of the last eight years; but Ferdinand wanted more, and ever more, money before Granada could be made into a Christian city. Isabel would conquer Granada, and at any cost gain the undying glory of recovering for Christ the last spot in Spain held by the infidel. Injustice, cruelty, robbery, and the torture of innocent people were nothing, less than nothing, to the end she aimed at; and when the flames were found all too slow for feeding Ferdinand’s greed, Isabel easily consented to a blow being struck at the unbaptised Jews, in a body, whenever it was necessary to collect a specially large sum of money for her war.
In April 1491, the siege of the lovely city, set in its vast garden plain, was begun. The Moors inside were gallant and chivalrous, determined to sell their city dearly, however their spiritless King might deport himself; but their dashing cavalry sallies where almost futile against an army so carefully organised and disciplined as that of Isabel. The head quarters of the Christian Queen were about two leagues from Granada, and when Isabel joined her army the siege opened in grim earnest. The many contemporary chroniclers of the campaign have left us astonishing descriptions of the dazzling splendour which surrounded the Queen. She, who in the privacy of her palace was sober in her attire, and devoted to housewifely duties, could, when she thought desirable, as she did before Granada, present an appearance of sumptuous splendour almost unexampled. Her encampment, with its silken tents magnificently furnished, its floating banners and soaring crosses, were such as had never been since the time of the Crusades. On a white Arab charger, with floating mane and velvet trappings to the ground, the Queen, herself dressed in damascened armour and regal crimson, was everywhere animating, consoling, and directing. Cardinals and bishops, princes, nobles and ladies, thronged around her; and every morning as the sun tipped with gold the snow peaks of the Sierra, all in that mighty host, from the Queen down to the poorest follower, bowed before the gorgeous altar in the midst of the camp, whilst the Cardinal of Spain (Mendoza) performed the sacred mystery of the mass.
One night in the summer (14th July) the Queen had retired to her tent and was sleeping, when, two hours after midnight, a lamp by her bedside caught the hangings, stirred by the breeze, and in a minute the great pavilion was ablaze. Isabel in her night garb had barely time to escape, and witnessed the conflagration spread from tent to tent till much of the encampment was reduced to ruin. At the cries and bugle calls of the distressed Christians, the Moors afar off on the walls beheld with joy the discomfiture of their enemies; and if another leader than Boabdil had been in command, it would have gone ill with Isabel and her men. But there was no defeat for a woman with such a spirit as hers. The suggestions that the siege should be raised until the next year, she rejected in scorn. Once again her virile spirit had its way. More money was raised, mostly squeezed out of the miserable Jews; the army was quartered in neighbouring villages, and within eighty days a city of masonry and brick replaced the canvas encampment, and here, in the city of Santa Fe,[[48]] Isabel solemnly swore to stay, winter and summer, until the city of Granada should surrender to her.
Granada was entirely cut off from the world. The coast towns were no longer in Moorish hands, and no succour from Africa could come to the unhappy Boabdil. The desperate warriors of the crescent were for sallying en masse and dying or conquering, once for all; but Boabdil was weak and incapable; and less than a month after the completion of Isabel’s new city of Santa Fe, he made secret advances to his enemy at his gates for a capitulation. The Queen entrusted the greatest of her captains, Gonzalo de Cordova, who understood Arabic, with the task of negotiation; but soon the news was whispered inside the city, and twenty thousand furious Moorish warriors rushed up the steep hill to the Alhambra, to demand a denial from the King. Seated in the glittering hall of the ambassadors, Boabdil received the spokesmen of his indignant people, and pointed out to them with the eloquence of despair the hopelessness of the situation; and the wisdom of making terms whilst they might. Stupefied and grief-stricken the populace acknowledged the truth, bitter as it was, and with bowed heads and coursing tears left the beautiful palace that was so soon to pass from them.
The negotiations were protracted, for Granada was divided and might still have held out, and the Moors begged hard for at least some vestige of independence as a State. But at last, on the 28th November 1491, the conditions were agreed to. The Granadan Moors were to enjoy full liberty for their faith, language, laws and customs; their possessions and property were to be untouched, and those who did not desire to owe allegiance to Christian sovereigns were to be aided to emigrate to Africa. The tribute to be paid was the same as that rendered to the Moorish King, and the city was to be free from other taxation for three years; whilst Boabdil was to have a tiny tributary kingdom (Purchena) of his own in the savage fastnesses of the Alpujarra mountains, looking down upon the splendid heritage that had been his. The terms were generous to a beaten foe, and their gentleness is usually ascribed to Isabel. Since, however, they were afterwards all violated with her full consent, it matters little whether the Queen or her husband drafted them. But mild as the conditions of surrender were, many of the heartbroken Moors of the city were still for fighting to the death in defence of the land of their fathers and their faith; and Boabdil, in deadly fear for his life, begged the visitors to hasten the taking possession of the city. On the last day but one of the year 1491, the Christian men-at-arms entered the Alhambra; and on the 2nd January 1492, a splendid cavalcade went forth from the besieging city of Santa Fe to crown the work of Isabel the Catholic. Surrounded by all the nobles and chivalry of Castile and Aragon, the Queen, upon a splendid white charger, rode by her husband’s side, followed by the flower of the victorious army. Upon a hill hard by the walls of the city, Isabel paused and gazed upon the towers and minarets, and upon the two fortresses that crowned the sister heights, for which her heart had yearned. This must have seemed to her the most glorious moment of her life: for the last stronghold of Islam was within her grasp; and well she must have known that, capitulations notwithstanding, but a few short years would pass before the worship of the false prophet would disappear from the land where it had prevailed so long.
At a signal the gates of the city opened, and a mournful procession came towards the royal group upon the rise. Mounted upon a black barb came Boabdil the Little, dusky of skin, with sad, weeping eyes downcast. His floating haik of snowy white half veiled a tunic of the sacred green, covered with barbaric golden ornaments. As he approached the group upon the mound, the conquered King made as if to dismount, and kneel to kiss the feet of the Queen and her husband. But Ferdinand, with diplomatic chivalry, forbade the last humiliation, and took the massive keys of the fortress, whilst Boabdil, bending low in his saddle, kissed the sleeve of the King as he passed the keys to the Queen, who handed them to her son, and then to the Count of Tendilla, the new governor of the city. Four days later, Granada was swept and garnished, purified with holy water, ready for the entry of the Christian Sovereigns.[[49]] The steep, narrow lane leading to the Alhambra from the Gate of Triumph was lined by Christian troops, and only a few dark-skinned Moors scowled from dusky jalousies high in the walls, as the gallant chivalry of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, flashed and jingled after the King and Queen. As they approached the Alhambra, upon the tower of Comares there broke the banner of the Spanish Kings fluttering in the breeze, and at the same moment, upon the summit of the tower above the flag, there rose a great gilded cross, the symbol of the faith triumphant.
Then, at the gates, the heralds cried aloud, ‘Granada! Granada! for the Kings Isabel and Ferdinand;’ and Isabel, dismounting from her charger, as the cross above glittered in the sun, knelt upon the ground in all her splendour, and thanked her God for the victory. The choristers intoned Christian praise in the purified mosque, whilst the Moors, who hoped to live in favour of the victors, led by the renegade Muza, added the strange music of their race to the thousand instruments and voices that acclaimed the new Queen of Granada. Amidst the rejoicing and illuminations that kept the city awake that night, Boabdil the beaten was forgotten. When he had delivered the keys of the Alhambra, he had refused to be treated by his followers any longer with royal honours, and had retired weeping to the citadel, soon to steal forth with a few followers and his masculine mother to the temporary shelter of his little principality.[[50]] When the sad cavalcade came to the hill called Padul, ‘The last sigh of the Moor,’ thenceforward tears coursed down the bronze cheeks of the King as he gazed upon the lost kingdom he was to see no more. ‘Weep! weep!’ cried his mother, ‘weep! like a woman for the city you knew not how to defend like a man.’
Throughout Christendom rang the fame of the great Queen, whose steadfastness had won so noble a victory; and even in far-off England praise of her, and thanks to the Redeemer whose cause she had championed, were sung throughout the land. For the conquest of Granada marked an epoch, and sealed with permanence and finality the Christianisation of Europe, the struggle for which had begun eight centuries before, from the mountains of Asturias. The imagination of the world was touched by the sight of a warrior-crusading Queen, more splendid in her surroundings than any woman since Cleopatra, who yet was so modest, meek, and saintly in the relations of daily life, so exemplary a mother, so faithful a wife,[[51]] so wise a ruler; and the cautious, unemotional Ferdinand, whose ability as a statesman was even greater than that of his wife, was overshadowed by her radiant figure, because she fought for an exalted abstract idea, whilst his eyes were for ever turned towards the aggrandisement of himself and Aragon. She could be cruel, and deaf to pleas for mercy, because in her eyes the ends she aimed at transcended human suffering; he could be mean and false, because his soul was baser and his objects all mundane.