King Fernando was prevented for a time from taking the field in person, but sent in advance Don Lope Diaz de Haro and Ruy Gonsalvo de Giron and Alonzo Tellez de Meneses, with five hundred cavaliers well armed and mounted. The very sight of them effected a conquest over Aben Mohamed, the Moorish king of Baeza, insomuch that he sent an embassy to King Fernando, declaring himself his vassal.
When King Fernando afterwards took the field, he was joined by this Moorish ally at the Navas or plains of Tolosa; who was in company with him when the king marched to Jaen, to the foot of a tower, and set fire to it, whereupon those Moors who remained in the tower were burned to death, and those who leaped from the walls were received on the points of lances.
Notwithstanding the burnt-offering of this tower, Heaven did not smile upon the attempt of King Fernando to reduce the city of Jaen. He was obliged to abandon the siege, but consoled himself by laying waste the country. He was more successful elsewhere. He carried the strong town of Priego by assault, and gave the garrison their lives on condition of yielding up all their property, and paying, moreover, eighty thousand maravedis of silver. For the payment of this sum they were obliged to give as hostages fifty-five damsels of great beauty, and fifty cavaliers of rank, besides nine hundred of the common people. The king divided his hostages among his bravest cavaliers and the religious orders; but his vassal, the Moorish king of Baeza, obtained the charge of the Moorish damsels.
The king then attacked Loxa, and his men scaled the walls and burnt the gates, and made themselves masters of the place. He then led his army into the Vega of Granada, the inhabitants of which submitted to become his vassals, and gave up all the Christian captives in that city, amounting to thirteen hundred.
Aben Mohamed, king of Baeza, then delivered to King Fernando the towers of Martos and Andujar, and the king gave them to Don Alvar Perez de Castro, and placed with him Don Gonzalo Ybañez, Master of Calatrava, and Tello Alonzo Meneses, son of Don Alonzo Tellez, and other stout cavaliers, fitted to maintain frontier posts. These arrangements being made, and having ransacked every mountain and valley, and taken many other places not herein specified, King Fernando returned in triumph to Toledo, where he was joyfully received by his mother Berenguela and his wife Beatrix.
Clerical historians do not fail to record with infinite satisfaction a signal instance of the devout and zealous spirit which King Fernando had derived from his constant communion with the reverend fathers of the Church. As the king was one day walking with his ghostly adviser the archbishop, in the principal church of Toledo, which was built in the Morisco fashion, having been a mosque of the infidels, it occurred, or more probably was suggested to him, that, since God had aided him to increase his kingdom, and had given him such victories over the enemies of his holy faith, it became him to rebuild his holy temple, which was ancient and falling to decay, and to adorn it richly with the spoils taken from the Moors. The thought was promptly carried into effect. The king and the archbishop laid the first stone with great solemnity, and in the fullness of time accomplished that mighty cathedral of Toledo, which remains the wonder and admiration of after ages.
