The Moors in Spain

by Stanley Lane-Poole

Such feats of daring, however, did little to advance the siege, nor were the few engagements conclusive. Ferdinand renewed his old tactics. He sallied forth from his camp, which had accidentally been burnt to the ground, and proceeded to lay waste what remained of the fertility of the Vega. The Moors made a last desperate sally to save their fields and orchards, and Mūsa and Boabdil fought like heroes at the head of their cavalry; but the foot soldiers, less steadfast, were beaten back to the gates, whither Mūsa sadly followed them, resolved never again to risk a pitched battle with such men behind him. It was the last fight of the Granadinos. For ten years they had disputed every inch of ground with their invaders; wherever their feet could hold they had stood firm against the enemy. But now there was left to them nothing beyond their capital, and within its walls they shut themselves up in sullen despair. To starve them out was an agreeable task for the Catholic king; and following the precedent of the third Abd-er-Rahmān in the siege of Toledo, he built in eighty days a besieging city over against Granada, and called it Santa Fé, in honour of his "Holy Faith," and there to this day it stands, a monument of Ferdinand's resolution. Famine did the work that no mere valour could effect. The people of Granada implored Boabdil to spare them further torture and make terms with the besiegers, and at last the unlucky king gave way. Mūsa would be no party to the surrender. He armed himself cap-à-pie, and mounting his charger rode forth from the city never to return. It is said that as he rode he encountered a party of Christian knights, half a score strong, and, answering their challenge, slew many of them before he was unhorsed, and then, disdaining their offers of mercy, fought stubbornly upon his knees, till he was too weak to continue the struggle: then with a last effort he cast himself into the river Xenil, and, heavy with armour, sank to the bottom.

On the 25th of November, 1491, the act of capitulation was signed, and a term was fixed during which a truce was to be observed, after which, should no aid come from outside, Granada was to be delivered up to their Catholic Majesties. In vain the Moors watched for a sign of the help they had sought from the Sultans of Turkey and Egypt. No aid came, and at the end of December Boabdil sent a message to Ferdinand to come and take possession of the city. The Christian army filed out of Santa Fé, and advanced across the Vega, watched with mournful eyes by the unhappy Moors. The leading detachment entered the Alhambra, and presently the great silver cross was seen shining from the summit of the Torre de la Vela; beside it floated the banner of St. James, while shouts of "Santiago!" rose from the army in the plain beneath; and lastly, the standard of Castile and Aragon was planted by the side of the cross. Ferdinand and Isabella fell on their knees and gave thanks to God; the whole army of Spain knelt behind them, and the royal choir sang a solemn Te Deum. At the foot of the Hill of Martyrs, Boabdil, attended by a small band of horsemen, met the royal procession. He gave Ferdinand the keys of Granada, and, turning his back upon his beloved city, passed on to the mountains. There, at Padul, on a spur of the Alpuxarras, Boabdil stood and gazed back upon the kingdom he had lost: the beautiful Vega, the towers of Alhambra, and the gardens of the Generalife; all the beauty and magnificence of his lost home. "Allahu Akbar," he said, "God is most great," as he burst into tears. His mother Ayesha stood beside him: "You may well weep like a woman," she said, "for what you could not defend like a man." The spot whence Boabdil took his sad farewell look at his city from which he was banished for ever, bears to this day the name of el ultimo sospiro del Moro, "the last sigh of the Moor." He soon crossed over to Africa, where his descendants learned to beg their daily bread.

There was crying in Granada when the sun was going down;

Some calling on the Trinity—some calling on Mahoun.

Here passed away the Koran—there in the Cross was borne—

And here was heard the Christian bell—and there the Moorish horn:

Te Deum Laudamus! was up the Alcala sung:

Down from the Alhambra's minarets were all the crescents flung;

The arms thereon of Aragon they with Castile display;

One king comes in in triumph—one weeping goes away.

Thus cried the weeper, while his hands his old white beard did tear,

Farewell, farewell, Granada! thou city without peer!

Woe, woe, thou pride of heathendom! seven hundred years and more

Have gone since first the faithful thy royal sceptre bore!

Thou wert the happy mother of a high renownèd race;

Within thee dwelt a haughty line that now go from their place;

Within thee fearless knights did dwell, who fought with mickle glee,

The enemies of proud Castile, the bane of Christentie.

Here gallants held it little thing for ladies' sake to die,

Or for the Prophet's honour, and pride of Soldanry;

For here did valour nourish and deeds of warlike might

Ennobled lordly palaces in which was our delight.

The gardens of thy Vega, its fields and blooming bowers—

Woe, woe! I see their beauty gone, and scattered all their flowers!

No reverence can he claim—the king that such a land hath lost—

On charger never can he ride, nor be heard among the host;

But in some dark and dismal place, where none his face may see,

There weeping and lamenting, alone that king should be.[30]

XIV.
BEARING THE CROSS.

BOABDIL'S "last sigh" was but the beginning of a long period of mourning and lamentation for the luckless Moors he had ushered to destruction. At first, indeed, it seemed as if the equitable terms upon which Granada had capitulated would be observed, and freedom of worship and the Mohammedan law would be upheld. The first archbishop, Hernando de Talavera, was a good and liberal-minded man, and forcible conversion formed no part of his policy. He strictly respected the rights of the Moors, and sought to win them over by force of example, by uniform justice and kindness, and by conforming as far as possible to their ways. He made his priests learn Arabic, and said his prayers in the same ungodly tongue, and by such concessions "so wrought on the minds of the populace that in 1499, when Cardinal Ximenes was sent by the queen to aid him in the work, it seemed as if the scenes which occurred at Jerusalem in the infancy of the Faith were about to be reenacted at Granada. In one day no less than 3,000 persons received baptism at the hands of the Primate, who sprinkled them with the hyssop of collective regeneration."[31] Ximenes was little in harmony with the archbishop's soft ways: he was the apostle of the Church Militant, always most active when militant meant triumphant, and would have the souls of these "infidels" saved from hell fire whether they liked it or no. He insinuated in Isabella's holy mind the pernicious doctrine that to keep faith with infidels was breaking faith with God; and it is one of the few blots on the good queen's name that she at length consented to the persecution of the Moors—or "Moriscos," as they now began to be called.

The first attempt to coerce the Granadinos was a failure. Some of the straiter Moslems expressed their repugnance to the new conversions to Christianity, and these malcontents were arrested. A woman being haled to prison on such a pretext roused the people of the Albaycin; they rose in arms and rescued her, and Granada was filled with uproar and barricade-fights. The garrison was hopelessly outnumbered; Ximenes raged with impotent fury; but the peaceful archbishop went forth, followed only by his cross-bearer, and, fearlessly entering the Albaycin, was at once surrounded by the people, who kissed his garments, and laid their wrongs before him in whom they accepted a just and generous mediator. Talavera composed the disputes, and the Cardinal had to retire.

Ximenes was, however, not a man to be easily deterred from his purpose. He induced the queen to promulgate a decree by which the Moors were given their choice of baptism or exile. They were reminded that their ancestors had once been Christian, and that by descent they themselves were born in the Church, and must naturally profess her doctrine. The mosques were closed, the countless manuscripts that contained the results of ages of Moorish learning were burnt by the ruthless Cardinal, and the unhappy "infidels" were threatened and beaten into the Gospel of Peace and Goodwill after the manner already approved by their Catholic Majesties in respect of the no less miserable Jews. The majority of course yielded, finding it easier to spare their religion than their homes; but a spark of the old Moorish spirit remained burning bright among the hillmen of the Alpuxarras, who for some time held their snowy fastnesses against their persecutors. The first effort to suppress the rebellion ended in disaster. Don Alonzo de Aguilar, whose fame in deeds of derring-do had been growing for forty years of valiant chivalry, was sent into the Sierra Bermeja in 1501, and sustained a terrible defeat at the hands of the Moriscos, who crushed his cavalry with the massive rocks which they hurled down upon them.