Isabella may be regarded as the soul of this war. She engaged in it with the most exalted views, less to acquire territory than to re-establish the empire of the cross over the ancient domain of Christendom. On this point she concentrated all the energies of her powerful mind, never suffering herself to be diverted by any subordinate interest from this one great and glorious object. When the king, in 1484, would have paused a while from the Granadine war, in order to prosecute his claims to Roussillon against the French after the death of Louis XI, Isabella strongly objected to it; but, finding her remonstrance ineffectual, she left her husband in Aragon, and repaired to Cordova, where she placed the cardinal of Spain at the head of the army, and prepared to open the campaign in the usual vigorous manner. Here, however, she was soon joined by Ferdinand, who, on a cooler revision of the subject, deemed it prudent to postpone his projected enterprise.
Ever since the victory of Lucena, the sovereigns had made it a capital point of their policy to foment the dissensions of their enemies. The young king Abdallah, after his humiliating treaty with Ferdinand, lost whatever consideration he had previously possessed. Although the sultana Zoraya, by her personal address and the lavish distribution of the royal treasures, contrived to maintain a faction for her son, the better classes of his countrymen despised him as a renegade and a vassal of the Christian king. As their old monarch had become incompetent, from increasing age and blindness, to the duties of his station in these perilous times, they turned their eyes on his brother Abdallah, surnamed El Zagal, or “the valiant,” who had borne so conspicuous a part in the rout of the Axarquia. The Castilians depict this chief in the darkest colours of ambition and cruelty; but the Moslem writers afford no such intimation, and his advancement to the throne at that crisis seems to be in some measure justified by his eminent talents as a military leader.
On his way to Granada he encountered and cut to pieces a body of Calatrava knights from Alhama, and signalised his entrance into his new capital by bearing along the bloody trophies of heads dangling from his saddle-bow, after the barbarous fashion long practised in these wars. It was observed that the old king Abul-Hassan did not long survive his brother’s accession. The young king Abdallah sought the protection of the Castilian sovereigns in Seville, who, true to their policy, sent him back into his own dominions with the means of making headway against his rival.
Notwithstanding these auxiliary circumstances, the progress of the Christians was comparatively slow. Every cliff seemed to be crowned with a fortress; and every fortress was defended with the desperation of men willing to bury themselves under its ruins. The old men, women, and children, on occasion of a siege, were frequently despatched to Granada. Such was the resolution, or rather ferocity, of the Moors, that Malaga closed its gates against the fugitives from Alora, after its surrender, and even massacred some of them in cold blood. The eagle eye of El Zagal seemed to take in at a glance the whole extent of his little territory, and to detect every vulnerable point in his antagonist, whom he encountered where he least expected it, cutting off his convoys, surprising his foraging parties, and retaliating by a devastating inroad on the borders.
No effectual and permanent resistance, however, could be opposed to the tremendous enginery of the Christians. Tower and town fell before it. Besides the principal towns of Cartama, Coin, Setenil, Ronda, Marbella, Illora, termed by the Moors, “the right eye,” Moclin, “the shield” of Granada, and Loja, after a second and desperate siege in the spring of 1486, Bernáldez[h] enumerates more than seventy subordinate places in the Val de Cartama, and thirteen others after the fall of Marbella. Thus the Spaniards advanced their line of conquest more than twenty leagues beyond the western frontier of Granada. This extensive tract they strongly fortified, and peopled partly with Christian subjects and partly with Moorish, the original occupants of the soil, who were secured in the possession of their ancient lands, under their own law.
Thus the strong posts which might be regarded as the exterior defences of the city of Granada were successively carried. A few positions alone remained of sufficient strength to keep the enemy at bay. The most considerable of these was Malaga. Before commencing operations against Malaga, it was thought expedient by the Spanish council of war to obtain possession of Velez Malaga, situated about five leagues distant from the former.
The sensation excited in Granada by the tidings of its danger was so strong, that the old chief, El Zagal, found it necessary to make an effort to relieve the beleaguered city, notwithstanding the critical posture in which his absence would leave his affairs in the capital. But having been foiled in a well-concerted attempt to surprise the Christian quarters by night, he was driven across the mountains by the marquis of Cadiz, and compelled to retreat on his capital, completely baffled in his enterprise. There the tidings of his disaster had preceded him. The fickle populace, with whom misfortune passes for misconduct, unmindful of his former successes, now hastened to transfer their allegiance to his rival, Abdallah, and closed the gates against him; and the unfortunate chief withdrew to Guadix, which, with Almeria, Baza, and some less considerable places, still remained faithful.
Malaga
(From the Alameda)