It was in the fulness of this tide that the great historic events of her reign occurred, viz., the conquest of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews, the Inquisition, and the discovery of America. After each of these, for honor or dishonor, we interline the name of Isabella. Yet the conquest of Granada, or the reconquest of every foot of land which the Moors had taken from the Goths, was foreordained in Castilian councils centuries before Isabella was born. The expulsion of the Jews, the so-called "enemies of Christ," was but a part of the same effort "to rid the land of unbelieving invaders." The Inquisition, with all its horrors, was re-established by the Church during that age of intolerance to which the reign of Isabella belongs. Yet these are still named to the dishonor of Isabella.
But the discovery of America, with all its lasting benefits to mankind, is the immortal crown which the world has woven out of her proffered "Jewels;" and with this crown it has crowned Isabella of Castile.
In the marriage contract of the youthful prince and princess it was agreed that Ferdinand should lead the armies of Castile against the Moors as soon as the affairs of the kingdom would permit. The opportunity and the provocation came after twelve years, when the sovereigns sent to demand of the Moors the long unpaid tribute, and received only the defiant answer, "Tell your masters that the Moors who paid tribute to Castile are dead. Our mints no longer coin gold, but steel!" And to prove the efficacy of their steel they sallied forth and took Zahara, one of the strongholds which the father of Ferdinand had taken from the Moors. The chivalry of Spain sprang quickly into well-girt saddles, and the ten years' siege of Granada, "the last stronghold of the Moors in Spain," began in 1481. The Iliad of the reconquest of Spain from the Arab-Moors has yet to be written; the Homer of its Iliad has yet to appear. But the closing year of the struggle between Christian knight and turbaned Moor would furnish as stirring incidents, and immortalize the names of its heroes as successfully, as has the Greek Homer the Trojan war.
Those of us who have read the story of the Arab-Moors in Spain, the quick-witted, light-footed, brave-hearted Moors, who coveted the land "flowing with milk and honey" that lay across a narrow strait; who conquered it, redeemed its barren wastes, and made them to blossom as the rose; who, in their quick flight from the Arabian deserts through civilized lands, gathered seeds of knowledge and planted them so freely in the land of their adoption that their planting overspread the earth; who, like the Goths, became enervated when they became stationary, and were no longer able to resist the powerful foe who had from their entrance into Spain sworn their expulsion or their extermination, will be ready to weep when the final retribution comes. Yet come it did, when Ferdinand and Isabella pitched their tents and planted their banners of Castile and Aragon upon the verdant vega, or plain, around Granada.
And yet we as readily accept the inevitable. We have known that it was impossible for Isabella to allow any portion of her dominions to be possessed by a people alien in race, language, customs, and religion; to see the Crescent triumphant over any site that had been hallowed by the Cross. To the Spanish Christian the fall of Granada was only the final victory of a righteous war. It was the triumph of his race, his nation, and his creed. And, looking back over the long march from Asturias to Granada, he claimed to have invaded no man's right; every victory but won back what was his own: every step retraced by the Moors but left him in possession of another portion of his inheritance from his forefathers.
The Arab-Moors claimed also hereditary rights. For nearly eight hundred years the Moors had held possession of that strip of land between the "Snow Mountains" and the blue sea, in Southern Spain. One cannot but feel respect for the brave Moorish king of Granada, who said, when threatened with invasion, "Our mint no longer coins gold, but steel!" In this last great chivalrous war, a war for race and creed and country, all honor is due to the vanquished, who poured out their blood like water for their homes and their religion. The details of this heroic death-struggle belong to history rather than to biography. Yet Isabella was the great animating spirit of the war. Her tent was side by side with that of Ferdinand, and her counsel was ever wise and practical.
And near the royal tents were others which she erected, where the wounded in the fray might have medical aid and tender nursing. Thus our "Warrior Queen," with a woman's heart, provided the first Army Hospital on record. The tents were burned down, but a substantial city arose, as if by magic, to take their place. The knights would have called it "Isabella," but she named it "Santa Fé," the city of Holy Faith. And this city helped to bring the war to a close. The Moors knew by it that Isabella had come to stay until she had added Granada to the crown of Castile.
Another form rises before us as we look back four hundred years across the vega of Granada to the city of Sante Fé. We forget for a time the Christians and the Moors, we see only the great queen and the great discoverer. The man of science, Christoforo Colombo, had been lately dismissed from the court at Sante Fé. The sovereigns had no time for adventurers seeking aid to discover unknown lands when the reconquest of their own was just within their grasp. Cast down, but not discouraged, Columbus, all alone, was retracing his steps across the vega, en route for a port from whence to sail for England, when the queen sent a royal summons for him to return, and he reached Sante Fé just in time to be present at the surrender of Granada. Let me add that while the Moors as a nation fell with Granada, they were not as individuals banished from Spain until the reign of Philip II., the great-grandson of Isabella.
