Informed of the weak condition of Gibraltar, a body of troops was detached from the army besieging Algeziras to surprise it. The attempt was successful; by the aid of cannon a breach was opened; the defences were stormed, and the famous fortress whose Moslem occupation dated from the invasion of Tarik passed for the time from the hands of the Saracens, by whom it was commonly regarded as the key of the Peninsula.
The siege of Algeziras was now pushed with increased vigor, and Mohammed, apprehensive of the results of the Aragonese invasion as well as of a conspiracy formed by malcontents in his own capital, offered proposals for peace. His overtures were heard with attention, but important and degrading concessions were demanded by the victorious enemy, who, well aware of the extremity to which the garrison was reduced, determined to exact an enormous compensation for raising the siege. No alternative but acceptance remained for the unfortunate Emir. The frontier towns of Quesada, Bedmar, Quadros were surrendered as an equivalent for the continued possession of Algeziras, and the Moorish inhabitants retired. Their houses were occupied by Christian colonists, the fruits of the last victorious campaign of Mohammed II. were lost, and the humiliated sovereign returned to his capital amidst the whispered murmurs of the nobility and the public execration of an exasperated populace. He had now to confront a new peril, more to be feared than the weapons of an enterprising and courageous enemy.
The court had long been distracted by the intrigues of the rival viziers, Abu-Sultan-Aziz, who had been the trusted councillor of Mohammed II., and Abd-al-Rahman-al-Ramedy, the favorite of the present emir, who had profited by his opportunities to amass a great fortune, enabling him to display an ostentation offensive to the pride of the nobles and arousing the envy of the people. The growing unpopularity of Mohammed III., his failing eyesight,—the result of immoderate sensuality,—his enforced surrender of the territory acquired by the talents of his father, and the universal hatred of his arrogant minister culminated in an attack upon the throne. His uncle, Al-Nazer, was proclaimed by the mob of Granada, which, suddenly rising in arms, pillaged the palace of the detested vizier and murdered him in the presence of his master. In the midst of the tumult, the Emir was confronted by the leaders of the revolt, who offered him the alternative of abdication or death. Forced to divest himself of the insignia of royal authority, the deposed sovereign was imprisoned in the fortress of Almuñecar, where for five years he languished in solitude and wretchedness.
The Moorish chroniclers paint in the most glowing colors the virtues, the talents, the accomplishments of Al-Nazer. In him the fortuitous advantages of birth and comeliness were far surpassed by noble and brilliant qualities of mind. His courteous condescension and the charming affability of his manners endeared him to his subjects, while his erudition and taste for scientific pursuits made him the welcome associate of the learned and philosophical society of the capital. His opinions had been formed and his education conducted under the most famous professors of the age. An excellent mathematician, an experienced astronomer, he had calculated and drawn up astronomical tables not inferior in accuracy to those executed by the chosen scholars acting under the directions of Alfonso X. With a special bent for mechanics, he designed and constructed a curious clock, whose complex and perfect mechanism surprised and delighted even those familiar with the capabilities of his inventive genius. Under his liberal and discerning protection, literature and the elegant arts received a new and enduring importance; institutions of learning were multiplied, innumerable philosophical and scientific works were issued, the physicians and pharmacists of Granada, already famous in Europe for their skill, acquired new laurels in the distant empires of Africa and Asia, and the public and private edifices of the capital began to assume that distinctive character of architectural symmetry and elegance which subsequently enabled it to attain to an unrivalled eminence among the cities of the mediæval world.
On learning of the revolution by which Mohammed had been deposed, Ferdinand IV. marched against the usurper, and sent reinforcements to Jaime II., who, separated from his base of supplies, harassed by an active and vigilant enemy, and drenched by storms and inundations, still obstinately maintained his ground before the walls of Almeria. In the mean time, the troubles incident to a title acquired by sedition and violence afflicted the new emir. His nephew, born and bred amidst insurrection, tried unsuccessfully to seize the crown, and, having fled to Malaga, was protected by his father, wali of that city, himself not destitute of royal aspirations. A sudden attack of illness having given rise to a rumor of the death of Al-Nazer, the partisans of Mohammed III. assembled, rescued him from his prison in Almuñecar, and escorted him with every token of ostentatious loyalty to the capital. On their arrival, they perceived with surprise that the city was illuminated, the streets were full of people in holiday garb, the shops were closed, the houses decorated with flowers, and everything bore the appearance of a public festival. An inquiry revealed the fact that the illness of the Emir had in reality been but trifling and temporary, and that these manifestations of popular satisfaction were caused by his unexpected recovery. It required all the astuteness and ingenuity of the banished prince to frame an excuse for his sudden appearance at the head of a royal escort, but the wily Mohammed did not shrink from the responsibility. After proffering his congratulations, he announced that he had merely come to inquire after the health of his uncle—an explanation which was received by Al-Nazer with outward respect and secret indignation. Dissembling his resentment, he ordered the crestfallen Mohammed to be taken back to his prison, where the enthusiastic partisans who had prematurely espoused his cause were forced to share his captivity.
The sudden death of Ferdinand IV., which took place during an expedition into the province of Jaen, left the destinies of the Castilian monarchy in the hands of an infant of thirteen months, who afterwards became king under the name of Alfonso XI., offered new temptations to rival aspirants to the regency, removed the salutary restraints of law, and abandoned whole districts to anarchy. Civil war raged between the numerous factions into which the nobility was divided—the weaker being often exterminated and their possessions confiscated by the victors; cavaliers of noble birth and distinguished ancestry embraced the profession of robbery; to travel without an armed escort was to invite certain destruction; the roads were encumbered with naked and festering corpses; unfortified towns were deserted, and the castles were occupied by aristocratic highwaymen, who, at the head of bands of adventurers of merciless character and desperate fortunes, swept into their inaccessible strongholds the merchandise of the trader, the effects of the traveller, and the harvests, the flocks, and the children of the shepherd and the husbandman. Existence was impossible without the protection of some powerful noble, whose livery was to one faction an object of respect and to all others a symbol of irreconcilable enmity.
Nor was the spirit of discord which infected every class of society more considerate of the rights and authority of the sovereign. The ministers of justice were ridiculed and defied, and the will of the most powerful chieftain in the locality where he was obeyed was practically the law of the land. Superstitious awe and the venerable traditions of the Church, for the most part, preserved intact her princely possessions, but during the disastrous turbulence of the period the defenceless ecclesiastic not infrequently paid tribute to the outlaw, and the mitre fared sometimes even worse than the crown.
A country abandoned to violence must necessarily soon be depopulated. Once fertile and highly cultivated regions became a desert, forests sprang up on the sites of deserted hamlets, the commerce of great cities disappeared, intercommunication of adjoining provinces was entirely suspended, heirs of magnificent estates renounced their patrimony, and the sense of public insecurity was so universal that thousands of families in every part of the kingdom sought refuge from their countrymen in the more peaceful states of Portugal and Aragon. Such were the conditions which afforded another respite to the Emirate of Granada, whose existence was thus continually prolonged by the dissensions and the weakness of its barbarous neighbors.
The manifestations of disloyalty and turbulence which thus afflicted the kingdom of Castile were repeated in Granada, without, however, producing the same destructive and permanent effects upon the authority of the government or the welfare of the nation. The successful usurpation of Al-Nazer, demonstrating the weakness of hereditary attachments and the facility with which an unpopular sovereign might be deposed, was an example not lost upon the adventurous and aspiring Moorish nobles. The death of Mohammed III., which occurred a few months after his return to Almuñecar, relieved Al-Nazer from all apprehensions of a rival, who, if not formidable through his talents and influence, had at least a legitimate claim upon the throne and a share of the public sympathy, which is always aroused by the sight of royal humiliation and of greatness in distress. But there soon arose a far more dangerous enemy of the peace of Al-Nazer. Secure from Christian interference,—for he had concluded a truce with the regents of Castile,—he was employing his leisure in the elegant amusements of the court, when his nephew Abu-al-Walid, also called Ismail by the Moslem historians, fomented a second insurrection, this time with greater success. The avarice of an unpopular vizier was again made the pretext for sedition. The populace was instigated by the emissaries and corrupted by the gold of Abu-al-Walid, the promised dismissal of the obnoxious minister was deferred, and, supported by a formidable army, the young prince advanced on Granada. The numbers of his force increased as he approached the city, when his adherents rose and drove the Emir into the Alhambra, where he was at once besieged. In his extremity, the latter implored the aid of the Castilian regents, the Infantes Don Pedro and Don Juan; but, before they could assemble their troops, the defection of his partisans induced him to abdicate and to accept, in return for this concession, the government of the insignificant principality of Guadix. An attempt to revive the fallen fortunes of Al-Nazer, projected by the regents of Castile, resulted in a fatal disaster to the Christian arms. The invaders, encompassed by a multitude of Moslems, were cut to pieces on the slope of the Sierra Elvira, where the flower of the Spanish chivalry, who had joined the enterprise, animated by religious enthusiasm and the expectation of booty and renown, was annihilated. After the battle the bodies of the two princes were found under heaps of fallen enemies, and the condition of the Castilian monarchy, deprived at one blow of its legal protectors, became more desperate than ever. This great victory was not less remarkable for its political results than for the spoil obtained by the Moors. Forty-three thousand pounds of gold, fourteen hundred of silver, and seven thousand prisoners fell into their hands. The skin of Don Pedro, stuffed with cotton, was suspended before the principal gate of Granada, where it remained for many years. Twenty-five princes of the blood—heads of the most noble houses of the Peninsula—were killed in the action. The prestige of Ismail was greatly increased by this important victory. His military ambition was inflamed by success. He surprised some isolated castles and took others by assault, the spoils of the frontier were swept away by sudden incursions, and the borders of Aragon, long exempt from the dreaded visitations of the Arab horsemen, experienced once more the ruinous effects of their audacity and valor.
Through detailed information furnished by spies and merchants, the feuds and intrigues of the Castilian court, distracted by the weakness of the crown and the unprincipled ambition of the nobles, were as well known at Granada as in the council chambers of Toledo and Seville. Successful in his marauding expeditions, Ismail now directed his attention to projects of greater importance, whose accomplishment was certain to produce a substantial and permanent accession to the territory and wealth of his kingdom. Provided with every appliance at that time known to warfare, he laid siege to the important and well-fortified city of Baza, June 23, 13824. Its situation, strong by nature, had been rendered doubly formidable by art. The genius of the Moor, whose confidence was placed in the swift and unexpected movements of his cavalry, had hitherto not exhibited the patience and endurance necessary for the successful prosecution of besieging operations. But under the skilful dispositions of Ismail, the investment of Baza was made with all the thoroughness and deliberation which characterize the movements of the accomplished military engineer. A ditch was excavated, a rampart was thrown up, and all intercourse with the surrounding country intercepted. The inhabitants, confident in the security of their massive fortifications, viewed with curiosity rather than apprehension the mounting of a number of strange but apparently harmless machines before the walls. These appeared to consist of segmented bars of iron united by heavy hoops of the same metal. Dragged from place to place by means of ropes, their immense weight was indicated by the number of men it took to move them; they evidently contained no apparatus for missiles like the familiar balista or catapult, and their use was a mystery to the unconcerned inhabitants. But suddenly from the mouths of these apparently innocuous engines issued great bursts of flame and smoke, accompanied by a roar that rivalled that of the thunderbolt, and ponderous balls of stone and of iron, hurled into the city, crushing and splintering everything in their path, announced what has been erroneously stated as the first use of artillery in the wars of Europe. Against the force of these projectiles, whose novelty increased the terror their destruction inspired, the boasted strength of the defences and the courage of the garrison availed nothing. Great breaches soon appeared in the walls, and with the towers crumbling over their heads and many of their houses in flames, the panic-stricken citizens of Baza, by a timely surrender, succeeded in saving their city from pillage.