DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA
FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE ROYAL MUSEUM AT MADRID.
London: George Routledge & Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill.

HISTORY OF THE REIGN
OF
PHILIP THE SECOND
KING OF SPAIN

VOLUME THE THIRD

AND
BIOGRAPHICAL & CRITICAL MISCELLANIES

BY
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT

LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET

CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME.

HISTORY
OF
PHILIP THE SECOND.

BOOK V

CHAPTER I.
THE MOORS OF SPAIN.

Conquest of Spain by the Arabs.—Slow Recovery by the Spaniards.—Efforts to convert the Moslems.—Their Homes in the Alpujarras.—Their Treatment by the Government.—The Minister Espinosa.—Edict against the Moriscoes.—Their ineffectual Remonstrance.

1566, 1567.

It was in the beginning of the eighth century, in the year 711, that the Arabs, filled with the spirit of conquest which had been breathed into them by their warlike apostle, after traversing the southern shores of the Mediterranean, reached the borders of those straits that separate Africa from Europe. Here they paused for a moment, before carrying their banners into a strange and unknown quarter of the globe. It was but for a moment, however, when, with accumulated strength, they descended on the sunny fields of Andalusia, met the whole Gothic array on the banks of the Guadalete, and, after that fatal battle, in which King Roderick fell with the flower of his nobility, spread themselves, like an army of locusts, over every part of the Peninsula. Three years sufficed for the conquest of the country,—except that small corner in the north, where a remnant of the Goths contrived to maintain a savage independence, and where the rudeness of the soil held out to the Saracens no temptation to follow them.

It was much the same story that was repeated, more than three centuries later, by the Norman conquerors in England. The battle of Hastings was to that kingdom what the battle of the Guadalete was to Spain; though the Norman barons, as they rode over the prostrate land, dictated terms to the vanquished of a sterner character than those granted by the Saracens.

But whatever resemblance there may be in the general outlines of the two conquests, there is none in the results that followed. In England the Norman and the Saxon, sprung from a common stock, could not permanently be kept asunder by the barrier which at first was naturally interposed between the conqueror and the conquered; and in less, probably, than three centuries after the invasion, the two nations had imperceptibly melted into one; so that the Englishman of that day might trace the current that flowed through his veins to both a Norman and a Saxon origin.

It was far otherwise in Spain, where difference of race, of religion, of national tradition, of moral and physical organization, placed a gulf between the victors and the vanquished too wide to be overleaped. It is true, indeed, that very many of the natives, accepting the liberal terms offered by the Saracens, preferred remaining in the genial clime of the south to sharing the rude independence of their brethren in the Asturias, and that, in the course of time, intermarriages, to some extent, took place between them and their Moslem conquerors. To what extent cannot now be known. The intercourse was certainly far greater than that between our New-England ancestors and the Indian race which they found in possession of the soil,—that ill-fated race, which seems to have shrunk from the touch of civilization, and to have passed away before it like the leaves of the forest before the breath of winter. The union was probably not so intimate as that which existed between the old Spaniards and the semi-civilized tribes that occupied the plateau of Mexico, whose descendants, at this day, are to be there seen filling the highest places, both social and political, and whose especial boast it is to have sprung from the countrymen of Montezuma.

The very anxiety shown by the modern Spaniard to prove that only the sangre azul—"blue blood"—flows through his veins, uncontaminated by any Moorish or Jewish taint, may be thought to afford some evidence of the intimacy which once existed between his forefathers and the tribes of Eastern origin. However this may be, it is certain that no length of time ever served, in the eye of the Spaniard, to give the Moslem invader a title to the soil; and after the lapse of nearly eight centuries,—as long a period as that which has passed since the Norman conquest,—the Arabs were still looked upon as intruders, whom it was the sacred duty of the Spaniards to exterminate or to expel from the land.

This, then, was their mission. And it is interesting to see how faithfully they fulfilled it; and during the long period of the Middle Ages, when other nations were occupied with base feudal quarrels or border warfare, it is curious to observe the Spaniard intent on the one great object of reclaiming his country from the possession of the infidel. It was a work of time; and his progress, at first almost imperceptible, was to be measured by centuries. By the end of the ninth century it had reached as far as the Ebro and the Douro. By the middle of the eleventh, the victorious banner of the Cid had penetrated to the Tagus. The fortunes of Christian Spain trembled in the balance on the great day of Navas de Tolosa, which gave a permanent ascendancy to the Castilian arms; and by the middle of the thirteenth century the campaigns of James the First of Aragon, and of St. Ferdinand of Castile, stripping the Moslems of the other southern provinces, had reduced them to the petty kingdom of Granada. Yet on this narrow spot they still continued to maintain a national existence, and to bid defiance for more than two centuries longer to all the efforts of the Christians. The final triumph of the latter was reserved for the glorious reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was on the second of January, 1492, that, after a war which rivalled that of Troy in its duration, and surpassed it in the romantic character of its incidents, the august pair made their solemn entry into Granada; while the large silver cross which had served as their banner through the war, sparkling in the sunbeams on the red towers of the Alhambra, announced to the Christian world that the last rood of territory in the Peninsula had passed away for ever from the Moslem.

EFFORTS TO CONVERT THEM.

The peculiar nature of the war in which the Spaniard for eight centuries had thus been engaged, exercised an important influence on the national character. Generation after generation had passed their lives in one long uninterrupted crusade. It had something of the same effect on the character of the nation that the wars for the recovery of Palestine had on the Crusaders of the Middle Ages. Every man learned to regard himself as in an especial manner the soldier of Heaven,—for ever fighting the great battle of the Faith. With a mind exalted by this sublime conviction, what wonder that he should have been ever ready to discern the immediate interposition of Heaven in his behalf—that he should have seen again and again the patron saint of his country, charging on his milk-white steed at the head of his celestial chivalry, and restoring the wavering fortunes of the fight? In this exalted state of feeling, institutions that assumed elsewhere only a political or military aspect wore here the garb of religion. Thus the orders of chivalry, of which there were several in the Peninsula, were founded on the same principles as those of Palestine, where the members were pledged to perpetual war against the infidel.

As a consequence of these wars with the Moslems, the patriotic principle became identified with the religious. In the enemies of his country the Spaniard beheld also the enemies of God; and feelings of national hostility were still further embittered by those of religious hatred. In the palmy days of the Arabian empire, these feelings, it is true, were tempered by those of respect for an enemy who, in the various forms of civilization, surpassed not merely the Spaniards, but every nation in Christendom. Nor was this respect wholly abated under the princes who afterwards ruled with imperial sway over Granada, and who displayed, in their little courts, such a union of the courtesies of Christian chivalry with the magnificence of the East, as shed a ray of glory on the declining days of the Moslem empire in the Peninsula.

But as the Arabs, shorn of their ancient opulence and power, descended in the scale, the Spaniards became more arrogant. The feelings of aversion with which they had hitherto regarded their enemies, were now mingled with those of contempt. The latent fire of intolerance was fanned into a blaze by the breath of the fanatical clergy, who naturally possessed unbounded influence in a country where religious considerations entered so largely into the motives of action as they did in Spain. To crown the whole, the date of the fall of Granada coincided with that of the establishment of the Inquisition,—as if the hideous monster had waited the time when an inexhaustible supply of victims might be afforded for its insatiable maw.

By the terms of the treaty of capitulation, the people of Granada were allowed to remain in possession of their religion and to exercise its rights; and it was especially stipulated that no inducements or menaces should be held out to effect their conversion to Christianity.[1] For a few years the conquerors respected these provisions. Under the good Talavera, the first archbishop of Granada, no attempt was made to convert the Moslems, except by the legitimate means of preaching to the people and of expounding to them the truths of revelation. Under such a course of instruction the work of proselytism, though steadily, went on too slowly to satisfy the impatience of some of the clergy. Among others, that extraordinary man, Cardinal Ximenes, archbishop of Toledo, was eager to try his own hand in the labour of conversion. Having received the royal assent, he set about the affair with characteristic ardour, and with as little scruple as to the means to be employed as the most zealous propagandist could have desired. When reasoning and expostulation failed, he did not hesitate to resort to bribes, and, if need were, to force. Under these combined influences the work of proselytism went on apace. Thousands were added daily to the Christian fold; and the more orthodox Mussulmans trembled, at the prospect of a general defection of their countrymen. Exasperated by the unscrupulous measures of the prelate, and the gross violation they involved of the treaty, they broke out into an insurrection, which soon extended along the mountain ranges in the neighbourhood of Granada.

Ferdinand and Isabella, alarmed at the consequences, were filled with indignation at the high-handed conduct of Ximenes. But he replied, that the state of things was precisely that which was most to be desired. By placing themselves in an attitude of rebellion, the Moors had renounced all the advantages secured by the treaty, and had, moreover, incurred the penalties of death and confiscation of property! It would be an act of grace in the sovereigns to overlook their offence, and grant an amnesty for the past, on condition that every Moor should at once receive baptism or leave the country.[2] This precious piece of casuistry, hardly surpassed by anything in ecclesiastical annals, found favour in the eyes of the sovereigns, who, after the insurrection had been quelled, lost no time in proposing the terms suggested by their minister as the only terms of reconciliation open to the Moors. And, as but few of that unhappy people were prepared to renounce their country and their worldly prospects for the sake of their faith, the result was, that in a very short space of time, with but comparatively few exceptions, every Moslem in the dominions of Castile consented to abjure his own faith and receive that of his enemies.[3]

A similar course of proceeding was attended with similar results in Valencia and other dominions of the crown of Aragon, in the earlier part of Charles the Fifth's reign; and before that young monarch had been ten years upon the throne, the whole Moorish population—Moriscoes, as they were henceforth to be called—were brought within the pale of Christianity,—or, to speak more correctly, within that of the Inquisition.[4]

Such conversions, it may well be believed, had taken too little root in the heart to bear fruit. It was not long before the agents of the Holy Office detected, under the parade of outward conformity, as rank a growth of infidelity as had existed before the conquest. The blame might in part, indeed, be fairly imputed to the lukewarmness of the Christian labourers employed in the work of conversion. To render this more effectual, the government had caused churches to be built in the principal towns and villages occupied by the Moriscoes, and sent missionaries among them to wean them from their errors and unfold the great truths of revelation. But an act of divine grace could alone work an instantaneous change in the convictions of a nation. The difficulties of the preachers were increased by their imperfect acquaintance with the language of their hearers; and they had still further to overcome the feelings of jealousy and aversion with which the Spaniard was naturally regarded by the Mussulman. Discouraged by these obstacles, the missionary became indifferent to the results. Instead of appealing to the understanding, or touching the heart, of his hearer, he was willing to accept his conformity to outward ceremony as the evidence of his conversion. Even in his own performance of the sacred rites, the ecclesiastic showed a careless indifference, that proved his heart was little in the work; and he scattered the purifying waters of baptism in so heedless a way over the multitude, that it was not uncommon for a Morisco to assert that none of the consecrated drops had fallen upon him.[5]

THEIR HOMES IN THE ALPUJARRAS.

The representations of the clergy at length drew the attention of the government. It was decided that the best mode of effecting the conversion of the Moslems was by breaking up those associations which connected them with the past,—by compelling them, in short, to renounce their ancient usages, their national dress, and even their language. An extraordinary edict to that effect, designed for Granada, was accordingly published by Charles in the summer of 1526; and all who did not conform to it were to be arraigned before the Inquisition. The law was at once met, as might have been expected, by remonstrances from the men of most consideration among the Moriscoes, who, to give efficacy to their petition, promised the round sum of eighty thousand gold ducats to the emperor in case their prayers should be granted. Charles, who in his early days did not always allow considerations of religion to supersede those of a worldly policy, lent a favourable ear to the petitioners; and the monstrous edict, notwithstanding some efforts to the contrary, was never suffered to go into operation during his reign.[6]

Such was the state of things on the accession of Philip the Second. Granada, Malaga, and the other principal cities of the south, were filled with a mingled population of Spaniards and Moriscoes, the latter of whom,—including many persons of wealth and consideration,—under the influence of a more intimate contact with the Christians, gave evidence, from time to time, of conversion to the faith of their conquerors. But by far the larger part of the Moorish population was scattered over the mountain-range of the Alpujarras, south-east of Granada, and among the bold sierras that stretch along the southern shores of Spain. Here, amidst those frosty peaks, rising to the height of near twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, and readily descried, from their great elevation, by the distant voyager on the Mediterranean, was many a green, sequestered valley, on which the Moorish peasant had exhausted that elaborate culture which, in the palmy days of his nation, was unrivalled in any part of Europe.[7] His patient toil had constructed terraces from the rocky soil, and, planting them with vines, had clothed the bald sides of the sierra with a delicious verdure. With the like industry he had contrived a network of canals along the valleys and lower levels, which, fed by the streams from the mountains, nourished the land with perpetual moisture. The different elevations afforded so many different latitudes for agricultural production; and the fig, the pomegranate, and the orange grew almost side by side with the hemp of the north and the grain of more temperate climates. The lower slopes of the sierra afforded extensive pastures for flocks of merino sheep;[8] and the mulberry-tree was raised in great abundance for the manufacture of silk, which formed an important article of export from the kingdom of Granada.

Thus, gathered in their little hamlets among the mountains, the people of the Alpujarras maintained the same sort of rugged independence which belonged to the ancient Goth when he had taken shelter from the Saracen invader in the fastnesses of the Asturias. Here the Moriscoes, formed into communities which preserved their national associations, still cherished the traditions of their fathers, and perpetuated those usages and domestic institutions that kept alive the memory of ancient days. It was from the Alpujarras that, in former times, the kings of Granada had drawn the brave soldiery who enabled them for so many years to bid defiance to their enemies. The trade of war was now at an end. But the hardy life of the mountaineer gave robustness to his frame, and saved him from the effeminacy and sloth which corrupted the inhabitants of the capital. Secluded among his native hills, he cherished those sentiments of independence which ill suited a conquered race; and, in default of a country which he could call his own, he had that strong attachment to the soil which is akin to patriotism, and which is most powerful among the inhabitants of a mountain region.

The products of the husbandman furnished the staples of a gainful commerce with the nations on the Mediterranean, and especially with the kindred people on the Barbary shores. The treaty of Granada secured certain commercial advantages to the Moors, beyond what were enjoyed by the Spaniards.[9] This, it may be well believed, was looked upon with no friendly eye by the latter, who had some ground, moreover, for distrusting the policy of an intercourse between the Moslems of Spain and those of Africa, bound together as they were by so many ties—above all, by a common hatred of the Christians. With the feelings of political distrust were mingled those of cupidity and envy, as the Spaniard saw the fairest provinces of the south still in the hands of the accursed race of Ishmael, while he was condemned to earn a scanty subsistence from the comparatively ungenial soil of the north.

In this state of things, with the two races not merely dissimilar, but essentially hostile to one another, it will readily be understood how difficult it must have been to devise any system of legislation by which they could be brought to act in harmony as members of the same political body. That the endeavours of the Spanish government were not crowned with success would hardly surprise us, even had its measures been more uniformly wise and considerate.

THEIR TREATMENT BY THE GOVERNMENT.

The government caused the Alpujarras to be divided into districts, and placed under the control of magistrates, who, with their families, resided in the places assigned as the seats of their jurisdiction. There seem to have been few other Christians who dwelt among the Moorish settlements in the sierra, except, indeed, the priests who had charge of the spiritual concerns of the natives. As the conversion of these latter was the leading object of the government, they caused churches to be erected in all the towns and hamlets; and the curates were instructed to use every effort to enlighten the minds of their flocks, and to see that they were punctual in attendance on the rites and ceremonies of the Church. But it was soon too evident that attention to forms and ceremonies was the only approach made to the conversion of the heathen; and that below this icy crust of conformity the waters of infidelity lay as dark and deep as ever. The result, no doubt, was to be partly charged on the clergy themselves, many of whom grew languid in the execution of a task which seemed to them to be hopeless.[10] And what task, in truth, could be more hopeless than that of persuading a whole nation at once to renounce their long-established convictions, to abjure the faith of their fathers, associated in their minds with many a glorious recollection, and to embrace the faith of the very men whom they regarded with unmeasured hatred? It would be an act of humiliation not to be expected even in a conquered race.

In accomplishing a work so much to be desired, the Spaniards, if they cannot be acquitted of the charge of persecution, must be allowed not to have urged persecution to anything like the extent which they had done in the case of the Protestant Reformers. Whether from policy or from some natural regard to the helplessness of these benighted heathen, the bloodhounds of the Inquisition were not as yet allowed to run down their game at will; and, if they did terrify the natives by displaying their formidable fangs, the time had not yet come when they were to slip the leash and spring upon their miserable victims. It is true there were some exceptions to this more discreet policy. The Holy Office had its agents abroad, who kept watch upon the Moriscoes; and occasionally the more flagrant offenders were delivered up to its tender mercies.[11] But a more frequent source of annoyance arose from the teasing ordinances from time to time issued by the government, which could have answered no other purpose than to irritate the temper and sharpen the animosity of the Moriscoes. If the government had failed in the important work of conversion, it was the more incumbent on it, by every show of confidence and kindness, to conciliate the good-will of the conquered people, and enable them to live in harmony with their conquerors, as members of the same community. Such was not the policy of Philip, any more than it had been that of his predecessors.

During the earlier years of his reign, the king's attention was too closely occupied with foreign affairs to leave him much leisure for those of the Moriscoes. It was certain, however, that they would not long escape the notice of a prince who regarded uniformity of faith as the corner-stone of his government. The first important act of legislation bearing on these people was in 1560, when the Cortes of Castile presented a remonstrance to the throne against the use of negro slaves by the Moriscoes, who were sure to instruct them in their Mahometan tenets, and thus to multiply the number of infidels in the land.[12] A royal pragmatic was accordingly passed, interdicting the use of African slaves by the Moslems of Granada. The prohibition caused the greatest annoyance; for the wealthier classes were in the habit of employing these slaves for domestic purposes, while in the country they were extensively used for agricultural labour.

In 1563 another ordinance was published, reviving a law which had fallen into disuse, and which prohibited the Moriscoes from having any arms in their possession, but such as were duly licensed by the captain-general and were stamped with his escutcheon.[13] The office of captain-general of Granada was filled at this time by Don Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, count of Tendilla, who soon after, on his father's death, succeeded to the title of marquis of Mondejar. The important post which he held had been hereditary in his family ever since the conquest of Granada. The present nobleman was a worthy scion of the illustrious house from which he sprung.[14] His manners were blunt, and not such as win popularity; but he was a man of integrity, with a nice sense of humour and a humane heart,—the last of not too common occurrence in the iron days of chivalry. Though bred a soldier, he was inclined to peace. His life had been passed much among the Moriscoes, so that he perfectly understood their humours; and, as he was a person of prudence and moderation, it is not improbable, had affairs been left to his direction, that the country would have escaped many of those troubles which afterwards befell it.

It was singular, considering the character of Mendoza, that he should have recommended so ill-advised a measure as that relating to the arms of the Moriscoes. The ordinance excited a general indignation in Granada. The people were offended by the distrust which such a law implied of their loyalty. They felt it an indignity to be obliged to sue for permission to do what they considered it was theirs of right to do. Those of higher condition disdained to wear weapons displaying the heraldic bearings of the Mendozas instead of their own. But the great number, without regard to the edict provided themselves secretly with arms, which, as it reached the ears of the authorities, led to frequent prosecutions. Thus a fruitful source of irritation was opened; and many, to escape punishment, fled to the mountains, and there too often joined the brigands who haunted the passes of Alpujarras, and bade defiance to the feeble police of the Spaniards.[15]

THE MINISTER ESPINOSA.

These impolitic edicts, as they were irritating to the Moriscoes, were but preludes to an ordinance of so astounding a character as to throw the whole country into a state of revolution. The apostasy of the Moriscoes,—or, so to speak more correctly, the constancy with which they adhered to the faith of their fathers,—gave great scandal to the old Christians, especially to the clergy, and above all to its head, Don Pedro Guerrero, archbishop of Granada. This prelate seems to have been a man of an uneasy, meddlesome spirit, and possessed of a full share of the bigotry of his time. While in Rome, shortly before this period, he had made such a representation to Pope Pius the Fourth as drew from that pontiff a remonstrance, addressed to the Spanish government, on the spiritual condition of the Moriscoes. Soon after, in the year 1567, a memorial was presented to the government, by Guerrero and the clergy of his diocese, in which, after insisting on the manifold back-slidings of the "New Christians," as the Moriscoes were termed, they loudly called for some efficacious measures to arrest the evil. These people, they said, whatever show of conformity they might make to the requisitions of the Church, were infidels at heart. When their children were baptized, they were careful, on returning home, to wash away the traces of baptism, and, after circumcising them, to give them Moorish names. In like manner, when their marriages had been solemnized with Christian rites, they were sure to confirm them afterwards by their own ceremonies, accompanied with the national songs and dances. They continued to observe Friday as a holy day; and what was of graver moment, they were known to kidnap the children of the Christians, and sell them to their brethren on the coast of Barbary, where they were circumcised, and nurtured in the Mahometan religion. This last accusation, however improbable, found credit with the Spaniards, and sharpened the feelings of jealousy and hatred with which they regarded the unhappy race of Ishmael.[16]

The memorial of the clergy received prompt attention from the government, at whose suggestion, very possibly, it had been prepared. A commission was at once appointed to examine into the matter; and their report was laid before a junta, consisting of both ecclesiastics and laymen, and embracing names of the highest consideration for talent and learning in the kingdom. Among its members we find the Duke of Alva, who had not yet set out on his ominous mission to the Netherlands. At its head was Diego de Espinosa, at that time the favourite minister of Philip, or at least the one who had the largest share in the direction of affairs. He was a man after the king's own heart, and, from the humble station of colegial mayor of the college of Cuença in Salamanca, had been advanced by successive steps to the high post of president of the Council of Castile and of the Council of the Indies. He was now also bishop of Siguenza, one of the richest sees in the kingdom. He held an important office in the Inquisition, and was soon to succeed Valdés in the unenviable post of grand inquisitor. To conclude the catalogue of his honours, no long time was to elapse before, at his master's suggestion, he was to receive from Rome a cardinal's hat. The deference shown by Philip to his minister, increased as it was by this new accession of spiritual dignity, far exceeded what he had ever shown to any other of his subjects.

Espinosa was at this time in the morning, or rather, the meridian of his power. His qualifications for business would have been extraordinary, even in a layman. He was patient of toil, cheerfully doing the work of others as well as his own. This was so far fortunate that it helped to give him that control in the direction of affairs which was coveted by his aspiring nature. He had a dignified and commanding presence, with but few traces of that humility which would have been graceful in one who had risen so high by his master's favour as much as by his own deserts. His haughty bearing gave offence to the old nobility of Castile, who scornfully looked from the minister's present elevation to the humble level from which he had risen. It was regarded with less displeasure, it is said, by the king, who was not unwilling to see the pride of the ancient aristocracy rebuked by one whom he had himself raised from the dust.[17] Their mortification, however, was to be appeased ere long by the fall of the favourite—an event as signal and unexpected by the world, and as tragical to the subject of it, as the fall of Wolsey.

The man who was qualified for the place of grand inquisitor was not likely to feel much sympathy for the race of unbelievers. It was unfortunate for the Moriscoes that their destinies should be placed in the hands of such a minister as Espinosa. After due deliberation, the junta came to the decision that the only remedy for the present evil was to lay the axe to the root of it; to cut off all those associations which connected the Moriscoes with their earlier history, and which were so many obstacles in the way of their present conversion. It was recommended that they should be interdicted from employing the Arabic either in speaking or writing, for which they were to use only the Castilian. They were not even to be allowed to retain their family names; but were to exchange them for Spanish ones. All written instruments and legal documents, of whatever kind, were declared to be void and of no effect unless in the Castilian. As time must be allowed for a whole people to change its language, three years were assigned as the period at the end of which this provision should take effect.

They were to be required to exchange their national dress for that of the Spaniards; and, as the Oriental costume was highly ornamented, and often very expensive, they were to be allowed to wear their present clothes one year longer if of silk, and two years if of cotton, the latter being the usual apparel of the poorer classes. The women, moreover, both old and young, were to be required, from the passage of the law, to go abroad with their faces uncovered,—a scandalous thing among Mahometans.

Their weddings were to be conducted in public, after the Christian forms; and the doors of their houses were to be left open during the day of the ceremony, that any one might enter and see that they did not have recourse to unhallowed rites. They were further to be interdicted from the national songs and dances with which they were wont to celebrate their domestic festivities. Finally, as rumours—most absurd ones—had got abroad that the warm baths which the natives were in the habit of using in their houses were perverted to licentious indulgences, they were to be required to destroy the vessels in which they bathed, and to use nothing of the kind thereafter.

These several provisions were to be enforced by penalties of the sternest kind. For the first offence the convicted party was to be punished with imprisonment for a month, with banishment from the country for two years, and with a fine varying from six hundred to ten thousand maravedis. For a second offence the penalties were to be doubled; and for a third, the culprit, in addition to former penalties, was to be banished for life. The ordinance was closely modelled on that of Charles the Fifth, which, as we have seen, he was too politic to carry into execution.[18]

EDICT AGAINST THE MORISCOES.

Such were the principal provisions of a law which, for cruelty and absurdity, has scarcely a parallel in history. For what could be more absurd than the attempt by an act of legislation to work such a change in the long-established habits of a nation—to efface those recollections of the past, to which men ever cling most closely under the pressure of misfortune—to blot out by a single stroke of the pen, as it were, not only the creed, but the nationality of a people—to convert the Moslem, at once, both into a Christian and into a Castilian? It would be difficult to imagine any greater outrage offered to a people than the provision compelling women to lay aside their veils—associated as these were in every Eastern mind with the obligations of modesty; or that in regard to opening the doors of the houses, and exposing those within to the insolent gaze of every passer; or that in relation to the baths—so indispensable to cleanliness and comfort, especially in the warm climate of the South.

But the masterpiece of absurdity, undoubtedly, is the stipulation in regard to the Arabic language; as if by any human art a whole population, in the space of three years, could be made to substitute a foreign tongue for its own; and that, too, under circumstances of peculiar difficulty, partly arising from the total want of affinity between the Semitic and the European languages, and partly from the insulated position of the Moriscoes, who, in the cities, had separate quarters assigned to them, in the same manner as the Jews, which cut them off from intimate intercourse with the Christians. We may well doubt, from the character of this provision, whether the Government had so much at heart the conversion of the Moslems as the desire to entangle them in such violations of the law as should afford a plausible pretext for driving them from the country altogether. One is strengthened in this view of the subject by the significant reply of Otadin, professor of theology at Alcalá, who, when consulted by Philip on the expediency of the ordinance, gave his hearty approbation of it, by quoting the appalling Spanish proverb, "The fewer enemies, the better."[19] It was reserved for the imbecile Philip the Third to crown the disasters of his reign by the expulsion of the Moriscoes. Yet no one can doubt that it was a consummation earnestly desired by the great body of the Spaniards, who looked, as we have seen, with longing eyes to the fair territory which they possessed, and who regarded them with the feelings of distrust and aversion with which men regard those on whom they have inflicted injuries too great to be forgiven.

Yet there were some in the junta with whom the proposed ordinance found no favour. Among these, one who calls to mind his conduct in the Netherlands may be surprised to find the duke of Alva. Here, as in that country, his course was doubtless dictated less by considerations of humanity than of policy. Whatever may have been his reasons, they had little weight with Espinosa, who probably felt a secret satisfaction in thwarting the man whom he regarded with all the jealousy of a rival.[20]

What was Philip's own opinion on the matter, we can but conjecture from our general knowledge of his character. He professed to be guided by the decision of the "wise and learned men" to whom he had committed the subject. That this decision did no great violence to his own feelings, we may infer from the promptness with which he signed the ordinance. This he did on the 17th of November, 1566, when the pragmatic became a law.

It was resolved, however, not to give publicity to it at once. It was committed to the particular charge of one of the members of the junta, Diego Deza, auditor of the Holy Office, and lately raised by Espinosa to the important post of president of the chancery of Granada. This put him at once at the head of the civil administration of the province, as the Marquis of Mondejar was at the head of the military. The different views of policy entertained by the two men led to a conflict of authority which proved highly prejudicial to affairs. Deza, who afterwards rose to the dignity of cardinal, was a man whose plausible manners covered an inflexible will. He showed, notwithstanding, an entire subserviency to the wishes of his patron, Espinosa, who committed to him the execution of his plans.

The president resolved, with more policy than humanity, to defer the publication of the edict till the ensuing first of January, 1667, the day preceding that which the Spaniards commemorated as the anniversary of the surrender of the capital. This humiliating event, brought home at such a crisis to the Moriscoes, might help to break their spirits, and dispose them to receive the obnoxious edict with less resistance.

On the appointed day the magistrates of the principal tribunals, with the corregidor of Granada at their head, went in solemn procession to the Albaicin, the quarter occupied by the Moriscoes. They marched to the sound of kettle-drums, trumpets, and other instruments; and the inhabitants, attracted by the noise, and fond of novelty, came running from their houses to swell the ranks of the procession on its way to the great square of Bab el Bonat. This was an open space, of large extent, where the people of Granada, in ancient times, used to assemble to celebrate the coronation of a new sovereign; and the towers were still standing from which the Moslem banners waved, on those days, over the heads of the shouting multitude. As the people now gathered tumultuously around these ancient buildings, the public crier, from an elevated place, read, in audible tones and in the Arabic language, the royal ordinance. One may imagine the emotions of shame, sorrow, and indignation with which the vast assembly, consisting of both sexes, listened to the words of an instrument, every sentence of which seemed to convey a personal indignity to the hearers—an outrage on all those ideas of decorum and decency in which they had been nurtured from infancy; which rudely rent asunder all the fond ties of country and kindred; which violated the privacy of domestic life, deprived them of the use of their own speech, and reduced them to a state of utter humiliation unknown to the meanest of their slaves. Some of the weaker sort gave way to piteous and passionate exclamations, wringing their hands in an agony of grief. Others, of sterner temper, broke forth into menaces and fierce invective, accompanied with the most furious gesticulations. Others, again, listened with that dogged, determined air which showed that the mood was not the less dangerous that it was a silent one. The whole multitude was in a state of such agitation that an accident might have readily produced an explosion which would have shaken Granada to its foundations. Fortunately there were a few discreet persons in the assembly, older and more temperate than the rest, who had sufficient authority over their countrymen to prevent a tumult. They reminded them that in their fathers' time the emperor Charles the Fifth had consented to suspend the execution of a similar ordinance. At all events, it was better to try first what could be done by argument and persuasion. When these failed, it would be time enough to think of vengeance.[21]

THEIR INEFFECTUAL REMONSTRANCE.

One of the older Moriscoes, a man of much consideration among his countrymen, was accordingly chosen to wait on the president and explain their views in regard to the edict. This he did at great length, and in a manner which must have satisfied any fair mind of the groundlessness of the charges brought against the Moslems, and the cruelty and impracticability of the measures proposed by the government. The president, having granted to the envoy a patient and courteous hearing, made a short and not very successful attempt to vindicate the course of the administration. He finally disposed of the whole question by declaring that "the law was too just and holy, and had been made with too much consideration, ever to be repealed; and that, in fine, regarded as a question of interest, his majesty estimated the salvation of a single soul as of greater price than all the revenues he drew from the Moriscoes."[22] An answer like this must have effectually dispelled all thoughts of a composition, such as had formerly been made with the emperor.

Defeated in this quarter, the Moriscoes determined to lay their remonstrance before the throne. They were fortunate in obtaining, for this purpose, the services of Don Juan Henriquez, a nobleman of the highest rank and consideration, who had large estates at Beza, in the heart of Granada, and who felt a strong sympathy for the unfortunate natives. Having consented, though with much reluctance, to undertake the mission, he repaired to Madrid, obtained an audience of the king, and presented to him a memorial on behalf of his unfortunate subjects. Philip received him graciously, and promised to give all attention to the paper. "What I have done in this matter," said the king, "has been done by the advice of wise and conscientious men, who have given me to understand that it was my duty."[23]

Shortly afterwards, Henriquez received an intimation that he was to look for his answer to the president of Castille. Espinosa, after listening to the memorial, expressed his surprise that a person of the high condition of Don Juan Henriquez should have consented to take charge of such a mission. "It was for that very reason I undertook it," replied the nobleman, "as affording me a better opportunity to be of service to the king." "It can be of no use," said the minister; "religious men have represented to his majesty that at his door lies the salvation of these Moors; and the ordinance which has been decreed, he has determined shall be carried into effect."[24]

Baffled in this direction, the persevering envoy laid his memorial before the councillors of state, and endeavoured to interest them in behalf of his clients. In this he met with more success; and several of that body, among whom may be mentioned the duke of Alva and Luis de Avila, the grand commander of Alcántara, whom Charles the Fifth had honoured with his friendship, entered heartily into his views. But it availed little with the minister, who would not even consent to delay the execution of the ordinance until time should have been given for further inquiry, or to confine the operation of it, at the outset, to one or two of the provisions, in order to ascertain what would probably be the temper of the Moriscoes.[25] Nothing would suit the peremptory humour of Espinosa but the instant execution of the law in all its details.

Nor would he abate anything of this haughty tone in favour of the captain-general, the marquis of Mondejar. That nobleman, with good reason, had felt himself aggrieved that, in discussions so materially affecting his own government, he should not have been invited to take a part. From motives of expediency, as much as of humanity, he was decidedly opposed to the passage of the ordinance. It was perhaps a knowledge of this that had excluded him from a seat in the junta. His representations made no impression on Espinosa; and when he urged that, if the law were to be carried into effect, he ought to be provided with such a force as would enable him to quell any attempt at resistance, the minister made light of the danger, assuring him that three hundred additional troops were as many as the occasion demanded. Espinosa then peremptorily adjourned all further discussion, by telling the captain-general that it would be well for him to return at once to Granada, where his presence would be needed to enforce the execution of the law.[26]

It was clear that no door was left open to further discussion, and that, under the present government, no chance remained to the unfortunate Moriscoes of buying off the law by the payment of a round sum, as in the time of Charles the Fifth. All negotiations were at an end. They had only to choose between implicit obedience and open rebellion. It was not strange that they chose the latter.

CHAPTER II.
REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Resistance of the Moriscoes—Night Assault on Granada—Rising in the Alpujarras—Election of a King—Massacre of the Christians.

1568.

The same day on which the ordinance was published in the capital, it was proclaimed in every part of the kingdom of Granada. Everywhere it was received with the same feelings of shame, sorrow, and indignation. Before giving way to these feelings by any precipitate action, the Moriscoes of the Alpujarras were discreet enough to confer with their countrymen in the Albaicin, who advised them to remain quiet until they should learn the result of the conferences going on at Madrid.

Before these were concluded, the year expired after which it would be penal for a Morisco to wear garments of silk. By the president's orders it was proclaimed by the clergy, in the pulpits throughout the city, that the law would be enforced to the letter. This was followed by more than one edict relating to other matters, but yet tending to irritate still further the minds of the Moriscoes.[27]

RESISTANCE TO THE EDICT.

All hope of relieving themselves of the detested ordinance having thus vanished, the leaders of the Albaicin took counsel as to the best mode of resisting the government. The first step seemed to be to get possession of the capital. There was at this time in Granada a Morisco named Farax Aben-Farax, who followed the trade of a dyer. But though he was engaged in this humble calling, the best blood of the Abencerrages flowed in his veins. He was a man of a fierce, indeed ferocious nature, hating the Christians with his whole heart, and longing for the hour when he could avenge on their heads the calamities of his countrymen. As his occupation earned him frequently into the Alpujarras, he was extensively acquainted with the inhabitants. He undertook to raise a force there of eight thousand men, and bring them down secretly by night into the vega, where, with the aid of his countrymen in the Albaicin, he might effect an entrance into the city, overpower the garrison in the Alhambra, put all who resisted to the sword, and make himself master of the capital. The time fixed upon for the execution of the plan was Holy Thursday, in the ensuing month of April, when the attention of the Spaniards would be occupied with their religious solemnities.

A secret known to so many could not be so well kept, and for so long a time, but that some information of it reached the ears of the Christians. It seems to have given little uneasiness to Deza, who had anticipated some such attempt from the turbulent spirit of the Moriscoes. The captain-general, however, thought it prudent to take additional precautions against it; and he accordingly distributed arms among the citizens, strengthened the garrison of the Alhambra, and visited several of the great towns on the frontiers, which he placed in a better posture of defence. The Moriscoes, finding their purpose exposed to the authorities, resolved to defer the execution of it for the present. They even postponed it to as late a date as the beginning of the following year, 1569. To this they were led, we are told, by a prediction found in their religious books, that the year of their liberation would be one that began on a Saturday. It is probable that the wiser men of the Albaicin were less influenced by their own belief in the truth of the prophecy, than by the influence it would exert over the superstitious minds of the mountaineers, among whom it was diligently circulated.[28]

Having settled on the first of January for the rising, the Moslems of Granada strove, by every outward show of loyalty, to quiet the suspicions of the government. But in this they were thwarted by the information which the latter obtained through more trustworthy channels. Still surer evidence of their intentions was found in a letter which fell by accident into the hands of the marquis of Mondejar. It was addressed by one of the leaders of the Albaicin to the Moslems of the Barbary coast, invoking their aid by the ties of consanguinity and of a common faith. "We are sorely beset," says the writer, "and our enemies encompass us all around like a consuming fire. Our troubles are too grievous to be endured. Written," concludes the passionate author of the epistle, "in nights of tears and anguish, with hope yet lingering,—such hope as still survives amidst all the bitterness of the soul."[29]

But the Barbary powers were too much occupied by their petty feuds to give much more than fair words to their unfortunate brethren of Granada. Perhaps they distrusted the efficacy of any aid they could render in so unequal a contest as that against the Spanish monarchy. Yet they allowed their subjects to embark as volunteers in the war; and some good service was rendered by the Barbary corsairs, who infested the coasts of the Mediterranean, as well as by the monfis,—as the African adventurers were called,—who took part with their brethren in the Alpujarras, where they made themselves conspicuous by their implacable ferocity against the Christians.

Meanwhile the hot blood of the mountaineers was too much inflamed by the prospect of regaining their independence to allow them to wait patiently for the day fixed upon for the outbreak. Before that time arrived, several acts of violence were perpetrated,—forerunners of the bloody work that was at hand. In the month of December, 1568, a body of Spanish alguazils, with some other officers of justice, were cut off in the neighbourhood of Granada, on their way to that city. A party of fifty soldiers, as they were bearing to the capital a considerable quantity of muskets,—a tempting prize to the unarmed Moriscoes,—were all murdered, most of them in their beds, in a little village among the mountains where they had halted for the night.[30] After this outrage Aben-Farax, the bold dyer of Granada, aware of the excitement it must create in the capital, became convinced it would not be safe for him to postpone his intended assault a day longer.

At the head of only a hundred and eighty followers, without waiting to collect a larger force, he made his descent, on the night of the twenty-sixth of December, a week before the appointed time, into the vega of Granada. It was a dreadful night. A snow-storm was raging wildly among the mountains, and sweeping down in pitiless fury on the plains below.[31] Favoured by the commotion of the elements, Aben-Farax succeeded, without attracting observation, in forcing an entrance through the dilapidated walls of the city, penetrated at once into the Albaicin, and endeavoured to rouse the inhabitants from their slumbers. Some few came to their windows, it is said, but, on learning the nature of the summons, hastily closed the casements and withdrew, telling Aben-Farax that "it was madness to undertake the enterprise with so small a force, and that he had come before his time."[32] It was in vain that the enraged chief poured forth imprecations on their perfidy and cowardice, in vain that he marched through the deserted streets, demolishing crucifixes and other symbols of Christian worship which he found in his way, or that he shouted out the watchword of the faithful, "There is but one God, and Mahomet is the prophet of God!" The uproar of the tempest, fortunately for him, drowned every other noise; and no alarm was given till he stumbled on a guard of some five or six soldiers, who were huddled round a fire in one of the public squares. One of these Farax despatched; the others made their escape, raising the cry that the enemy was upon them. The great bell of St. Salvador rang violently, calling the inhabitants to arms. Dawn was fast approaching; and the Moorish chief, who felt himself unequal to an encounter in which he was not to be supported by his brethren in the Albaicin, thought it prudent to make his retreat. This he did with colours flying and music playing, all in as cool and orderly a manner as if it had been only a holiday parade.

RISING IN THE ALPUJARRAS.

Meantime the citizens, thus suddenly startled from their beds, gathered together, with eager looks, and faces white with fear, to learn the cause of the tumult; and their alarm was not diminished by finding that the enemy had been prowling round their dwellings, like a troop of mountain wolves, while they had been buried in slumber. The marquis of Mondejar called his men to horse, and would have instantly given chase to the invaders, but waited until he had learned the actual condition of the Albaicin, where a population of ten thousand Moriscoes, had they been mischievously inclined, might, notwithstanding the timely efforts of the government to disarm them, have proved too strong for the slender Spanish garrison in the Alhambra. All, however, was quiet in the Moorish quarter; and, assured of this, the captain-general sallied out, at the head of his cavalry and a small corps of foot, in quest of the enemy. But he had struck into the mountain-passes south of Granada; and Mendoza, after keeping on his track, as well as the blinding tempest would permit, through the greater part of the day, at nightfall gave up the pursuit as hopeless, and brought back his wayworn cavalcade to the city.[33]

Aben-Farax and his troop, meanwhile, traversing the snowy skirts of the Sierra Nevada, came out on the broad and populous valley of Lecrin, spreading the tidings everywhere, as they went, that the insurrection was begun, that the Albaicin was in movement, and calling on all true believers to take up arms in defence of their faith. The summons did not fall on deaf ears. A train had been fired which ran along the mountain regions to the south of Granada, stretching from Almeria and the Murcian borders on the east to the neighbourhood of Velez Malaga on the west. In three days the whole country was in arms. Then burst forth the fierce passions of the Arab,—all that unquenchable hate which seventy years of oppression had nourished in his bosom, and which now showed itself in one universal cry for vengeance. The bloody drama opened with the massacre of nearly every Christian man within the Moorish borders,—and that too with circumstances of a refined and deliberate cruelty, of which, happily, few examples are to be found in history.

The first step, however, in the revolutionary movement had been a false one, inasmuch as the insurgents had failed to secure possession of the capital, which would have furnished so important a point d'appui for future operations. Yet, if contemporary chroniclers are correct, this failure should rather be imputed to miscalculation than to cowardice. According to them, the persons of most consideration in the Albaicin were many of them wealthy citizens, accustomed to the easy, luxurious way of life so well suited to the Moorish taste. They had never intended to peril their fortunes by engaging personally in so formidable a contest as that with the Castilian crown. They had only proposed to urge their simple countrymen in the Alpujarras to such a show of resistance as should intimidate the Spaniards, and lead them to mitigate, if not indeed to rescind, the hated ordinance.[34] If such was their calculation, as the result showed, it miserably failed.

As the Moriscoes had now proclaimed their independence, it became necessary to choose a sovereign in place of the one whose authority they had cast aside. The leaders in the Albaicin selected for this dangerous pre-eminence a young man who was known to the Spaniards by his Castilian name of Don Fernando de Valor. He was descended in a direct line from the ancient house of the Omeyas,[35] who for nearly four centuries had sat with glory on the throne of Cordova. He was but twenty-two years of age at the time of his election, and, according to a contemporary who had seen him, possessed a comely person and engaging manners. His complexion was of a deep olive; his beard was thin; his eyes were large and dark, with eyebrows well defined, and nearly approaching each other. His deportment was truly royal; and his lofty sentiments were worthy of the princely line from which he was descended.[36] Notwithstanding this flattering portrait from the pen of a Castilian, his best recommendation, to judge from his subsequent career, seems to have been his descent from a line of kings. He had been so prodigal in his way of life that, though so young, he had squandered his patrimony, and was at this very time under arrest for debt. He had the fiery temperament of his nation, and had given evidence of it by murdering, with his own hand, a man who had borne testimony against his father in a criminal prosecution. Amidst his luxurious self-indulgence he must be allowed to have shown some energy of character and an unquestionable courage. He was attached to the institutions of his country; and his ferocious nature was veiled under a bland and plausible exterior, that won him golden opinions from the multitude.[37]

Soon after his election, and just before the irruption of Aben-Farax, the Morisco prince succeeded in making his escape from Granada, and, flying to the mountains, took refuge among his own kindred, the powerful family of the Valoris, in the village of Beznar. Here his countrymen gathered round him, and confirmed by acclamation the choice of the people of Granada. For this the young chieftain was greatly indebted to the efforts of his uncle, Aben-Jahuar, commonly called El Zaguer, a man of much authority among his tribe, who, waiving his own claims to the sceptre, employed his influence in favour of his nephew.

The ceremony of the coronation was of a martial kind, well suited to the rough fortunes of the adventurer. Four standards, emblazoned with the Moslem crescent, were spread upon the ground, with their spear-heads severally turned towards the four points of the compass. The Moorish prince, who had been previously arrayed in a purple robe, with a crimson scarf or shawl, the insignia of royalty, enveloping his shoulders, knelt down on the banners, with his face turned towards Mecca, and, after a brief prayer, solemnly swore to live and die in defence of his crown, his faith, and his subjects. One of the principal attendants, prostrating himself on the ground, kissed the footprints of the newly-elected monarch, in token of the allegiance of the people. He was then raised on the shoulders of four of the assistants, and borne aloft amidst the waving of banners and the loud shouts of the multitude, "Allah exalt Muley-Mohammed-Aben-Humeya, lord of Andalucia and Granada!"[38]

MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS.

Such were the simple forms practised in ancient times by the Spanish-Arabian princes, when their empire, instead of being contracted within the rocky girdle of the mountains, stretched over the fairest portions of the Peninsula.[39]

The first act of Aben-Humeya was to make his appointments to the chief military offices. El Zaguer, his uncle, he made captain-general of his forces. Aben-Farax, who had himself aspired to the diadem, he removed to a distance, by sending him on an expedition to collect such treasures as could be gathered from the Christian churches in the Alpujarras. He appointed officers to take charge of the different tahas, or districts, into which the country was divided. Having completed these arrangements, the new monarch—the reyezuelo, or "little king," of the Alpujarras, as he was contemptuously styled by the Spaniards—transferred his residence to the central part of his dominions, where he repeated the ceremony of his coronation. He made a rapid visit to the most important places in the sierra, everywhere calling on the inhabitants to return to their ancient faith, and to throw off the hated yoke of the Spaniards. He then established himself in the wildest parts of the Alpujarras, where he endeavoured to draw his forces to a head, and formed the plan of his campaign. It was such as was naturally suggested by the character of the country, which, broken and precipitous, intersected by many a deep ravine and dangerous pass, afforded excellent opportunities for harassing an invading foe, and for entangling him in those inextricable defiles, where a few mountaineers acquainted with the ground would he more than a match for an enemy far superior in discipline and numbers.

While Aben-Humeya was thus occupied in preparing for the struggle, the work of death had already begun among the Spanish population of the Alpujarras; and Spaniards were to be found, in greater or less numbers, in all the Moorish towns and hamlets that dotted the dark sides of the sierras, or nestled in the green valleys at their base. Here they dwelt side by side with the Moriscoes, employed probably less in the labours of the loom, for which the natives of this region had long been famous, than in that careful husbandry which they might readily have learned from their Moorish neighbours, and which, under their hands, had clothed every spot with verdure, making the wilderness to blossom like the rose.[40] Thus living in the midst of those who professed the same religion with themselves, and in the occasional interchange, at least, of the kind offices of social intercourse, which sometimes led to nearer domestic ties, the Christians of the Alpujarras dwelt in blind security, little dreaming of the mine beneath their feet.

But no sooner was the first note of insurrection sounded, than the scene changed as if by magic. Every Morisco threw away his mask, and, turning on the Christians, showed himself in his true aspect, as their avowed and mortal enemy.

A simultaneous movement of this kind, through so wide an extent of country, intimates a well-concerted plan of operations; and we may share in the astonishment of the Castillan writers, that a secret of such a nature, and known to so many individuals, should have been so long and faithfully kept,—in the midst, too, of those who had the greatest interest in detecting it,[41]—some of them, it may be added, spies of the Inquisition, endowed, as they seem to have been, with almost supernatural powers for scenting out the taint of heresy.[42] It argues an intense feeling of hatred in the Morisco, that he could have been so long proof against the garrulity that loosens the tongue, and against the sympathy that so often, in similar situations, unlocks the heart, to save some friend from the doom of his companions. But no such instance, either of levity or lenity, occurred among this extraordinary people. And when the hour arrived, and the Christians discerned their danger in the menacing looks and gestures of their Moslem neighbours, they were as much astounded by it as the unsuspecting traveller on whom, as he heedlessly journeys through some pleasant country, the highwayman has darted from his covert by the roadside.

The first impulse of the Christians seems to have been very generally to take refuge in the churches; and every village, however small, had at least one church, where the two races met together to join in the forms of Christian worship. The fugitives thought to find protection in their holy places and in the presence of their venerated pastors, whose spiritual authority had extended over all the inhabitants. But the wild animal of the forest, now that he had regained his freedom, gave little heed to the call of his former keeper,—unless it were to turn and rend him.

Here crowded together, like a herd of panic-stricken deer with the hounds upon their track, the terrified people soon found the church was no place of security, and they took refuge in the adjoining tower, as a place of greater strength, and affording a better means of defence against an enemy. The mob of their pursuers then broke into the church, which they speedily despoiled of its ornaments, trampling the crucifixes and other religious symbols under their feet, rolling the sacred images in the dust, and desecrating the altars by the sacrifice of swine, or by some other act denoting their scorn and hatred of the Christian worship.[43]

They next assailed the towers, the entrances to which the Spaniards had barricaded as strongly as they could; though, unprovided as they were with means of defence, except such arms as they had snatched in the hurry of their flight, they could have little hope of standing a siege. Unfortunately, these towers were built more or less of wood, which the assailants readily set on fire, and thus compelled the miserable inmates either to surrender or to perish in the flames. In some instances they chose the latter; and the little garrison—men, women, and children—were consumed together on one common funeral pile. More frequently they shrank from this fearful death, and surrendered at the mercy of their conquerors,—such mercy as made them soon regret that they had not stayed by the blazing rafters.

MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS

The men were speedily separated from the women, and driven with blows and imprecations, like so many cattle, to a place of confinement. From this loathsome prison they were dragged out, three or four at a time, day after day, the longer to protract their sufferings; then, with their arms pinioned behind them, and stripped of their clothing, they were thrown into the midst of an infuriated mob, consisting of both sexes, who, armed with swords, hatchets, and bludgeons, soon felled their victims to the ground, and completed the bloody work.

The mode of death was often varied to suit the capricious cruelty of the executioners. At Guecija, where the olive grew abundantly, there was a convent of Augustine monks, who were all murdered by being thrown into caldrons of boiling oil.[44] Sometimes the death of the victim was attended with circumstances of diabolical cruelty, not surpassed by anything recorded of our North-American savages. At a place called Pitres de Ferreyra, the priest of the village was raised by means of a pulley to a beam that projected from the tower, and was then allowed to drop from a great height upon the ground. The act was repeated more than once in the presence of his aged mother, who, in an agony of grief, embracing her dying son, besought him "to trust in God and the blessed Virgin, who through these torments would bring him into eternal life." The mangled carcase of the poor victim, broken and dislocated in every limb, was then turned over to the Moorish women, who, with their scissors, bodkins, and other feminine implements, speedily despatched him.[45]

The women, indeed, throughout this persecution, seem to have had as rabid a thirst for vengeance as the men. Even the children were encouraged to play their part in the bloody drama; and many a miserable captive was set up as a target to be shot at with the arrows of the Moorish boys.

The rage of the barbarians was especially directed against the priests, who had so often poured forth anathemas against the religion which the Moslems loved, and who, as their spiritual directors, had so often called them to account for offences against the religion which they abhorred. At Coadba the priest was stretched out before a brazier of live coals until his feet, which had been smeared with pitch and oil, were burned to a cinder. His two sisters were compelled to witness the agonies of their brother, which were still further heightened by the brutal treatment which he saw them endure from their tormentors.[46]

Fire was employed as a common mode of torture, by way of retaliation, it may be, for similar sufferings inflicted on the Infidel by the Inquisition. Sometimes the punishments seemed to be contrived so as to form a fiendish parody on the exercises of the Roman Catholic religion. In the town of Filix the pastor was made to take his seat before the altar, with his two sacristans, one on either side of him. The bell was rung, as if to call the people together to worship. The sacristans were each provided with a roll containing the names of the congregation, which they were required to call over, as usual, before the services, in order to see that no one was absent. As each Morisco answered to his name, he passed before the priest, and dealt him a blow with his fist, or the women plucked his beard and hair, accompanying the act with some bitter taunt expressive of their mortal hate. When every one had thus had the opportunity of gratifying his personal grudge against his ancient pastor, the executioner stepped forward, armed with a razor, with which he scored the face of the ecclesiastic in the detested form of the cross, and then, beginning with the fingers, deliberately proceeded to sever each of the joints of his wretched victim![47]

But it is unnecessary to shock the reader with more of these loathsome details, enough of which have already been given, not merely to prove the vindictive temper of the Morisco, but to suggest the inference that it could only have been a long course of cruelty and oppression that stimulated him to such an awful exhibition of it.[48] The whole number of Christians who, in the course of a week, thus perished in these massacres—if we are to receive the accounts of Castilian writers—was not less than three thousand![49] Considering the social relations which must to some extent have been established between those who had lived so long in the neighbourhood of one another, it might be thought that, on some occasions, sympathy would have been shown for the sufferers, or that some protecting arm would have been stretched out to save a friend or a companion from the general doom. But the nearest approach to such an act of humanity was given by a Morisco, who plunged his sword in the body of a Spaniard in order to save him from the lingering death that otherwise would await him.[50]

Of the whole Christian population very few of the men who fell into the hands of the Moslems escaped with life. The women were not always spared. The Morisco women, especially, who had married Christian husbands and embraced Christianity, which they refused to abjure, became the objects of vengeance to their own sex. Sad to say, even the innocence and helplessness of childhood proved no protection against the fury of persecution. The historians record the names of several boys, from ten to twelve or thirteen years of age, who were barbarously murdered because they would not renounce the religion in which they had been nurtured for that of Mahomet. If they were too young to give a reason for their faith, they had at least learned the lesson that to renounce it was a great sin; and, when led out like lambs to the slaughter, their mothers, we are told, stifling the suggestions of natural affection in obedience to a higher law, urged their children not to shrink from the trial, nor to purchase a few years of life at the price of their own souls.[51] It is a matter of no little gratulation to a Catholic historian, that, amongst all those who perished in these frightful massacres, there was not one of any age or either sex who could be tempted to secure personal safety by the sacrifice of religious convictions.[52] On the contrary, they employed the brief respite that was left them in fortifying one another's courage, and in bearing testimony to the truth in so earnest a manner that they might almost seem to have courted the crown of martyrdom. Yet among these martyrs there were more than one, it is admitted, whose previous way of life showed but a dim perception of the value of that religion for which, they were thus prepared to lay down their lives.[53]

MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS.

The chief blame of these indiscriminate proscriptions has been laid on Aben-Farax, the famous dyer of Granada, whose appetite for blood seems to have been as insatiable as that of any wild beast in the Alpujarras. In executing the commission assigned to him by Aben-Humeya, he was obliged to visit all parts of the country. Wherever he came, impatient of the slower movements of his countrymen in the work of destruction, he caused the prisons to be emptied, and the wretched inmates to be butchered before his eyes. At Ugijar he thus directed the execution of no less than two hundred and forty Christians, laymen and ecclesiastics.[54] His progress through the land was literally over the dead bodies of his victims.

Fierce as he was, Aben-Humeya had some touches of humanity in his nature, which made him revolt at the wholesale murders perpetrated by his lieutenant. He was the more indignant when, on hastening to Ugijar to save the lives of some of the captives, his friends, he found that he had come too late, for the man of blood had been there before him. He soon after summoned his officer into his presence, not with the impolitic design of taxing him with his cruelties, but to call him to a reckoning for the treasure he had pillaged from the churches; and dissatisfied, or affecting to be so, with his report, he at once deposed Aben-Farax from his command. The ferocious chief submitted without a murmur. He descended into the common file, and no more appears on the scene. He was one of those miscreants who are thrown on the surface by the turmoil of a revolution, and, after floating there for a while, disappear from sight, and the wave of history closes over them for ever.

CHAPTER III.
REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Panic in Granada—Muster of Troops—Mondejar takes the Field—Bold Passage at Tablate—Retreat of the Moriscoes—Combat at Alfajarali—Perilous March—Massacre at Jubiles—The Liberated Christians.

1568, 1569.

As day after day brought tidings to the people of Granada of the barbarities perpetrated in the Alpujarras, the whole city was filled with grief and consternation. The men might be seen gathered together in knots in the public squares; the women ran about from house to house, telling the tale of horrors which could hardly be exaggerated in the recital. They thronged to the churches, where the archbishop and the clergy were all day long offering up prayers to avert the wrath of heaven from Granada. The places of business were abandoned. The shops and booths were closed.[55] As men called to mind the late irruption of Aben-Farax, they were filled with apprehensions that the same thing would be attempted again; and rumours went abroad that the mountaineers were plotting another descent on the city, and, with the aid of their countrymen in the Albaicin, would soon deluge the streets with the blood of the Christians. Under the influence of these fears, some took refuge in the fortress of the Alhambra; others fled into the country. Many kept watch during the long night, while those who withdrew to rest started from their slumbers at the least noise, supposing it to be the war-cry of the Moslem, and that the enemy was at the gates.

Nor was the alarm less that was felt by the Moriscoes in the city, as it was certainly better founded,—for the Moriscoes were the weaker party of the two. They knew the apprehensions entertained of them by the Christians, and that, when men have the power to relieve themselves of their fears, they are not apt to be very scrupulous as to the means of doing so. They were afraid to venture into the streets by day, and at night they barricaded their houses as in a time of siege.[56] They well knew that a single act of imprudence on their part, or even the merest accident, might bring the Spaniards upon them, and lead to a general massacre. They were like the traveller who sees the avalanche trembling above him, which the least jar of elements, or his own unwary movements, may dislodge from its slippery basis, and bring down in ruin on his head. Thus the two races, inhabitants of the same city, were like two hostile camps, looking on each other with watchful and malignant eyes, and ready at any moment to come into deadly conflict.

In this stage of things the Moriscoes, anxious to allay the apprehensions of the Spaniards, were profuse in their professions of loyalty, and in their assurances that there was neither concert nor sympathy between them and their countrymen in the Alpujarras. The government, to give still greater confidence to the Christians, freely distributed arms among them, thus enabling them, as far as possible, to provide for their own security. The inhabitants enrolled themselves in companies. The citizen was speedily converted into the soldier, and every man, of whatever trade or profession,—the mechanic, the merchant, the lawyer,—took his turn of military service. Even the advocates, when attending the courts of justice, appeared with their weapons by their side.[57]

MUSTER OF TROOPS.

But what contributed above all to revive the public confidence was the care of the government to strengthen the garrison in the Alhambra by the addition of five hundred regular troops. When, by these various means, the marquis of Mondejar saw that tranquillity was restored to the capital, he bestowed all his thoughts on an expedition into the Alpujarras, desirous to crush the insurrection in its bud, and to rescue the unfortunate captives, whose fate there excited the most dismal apprehensions amongst their friends and relatives in Granada. He sent forth his summons accordingly to the great lords and the cities of Andalusia, to furnish him at once with their contingents for carrying on the war. The feudal principle still obtained in this quarter, requiring the several towns to do military service for their possessions, by maintaining, when called upon, a certain number of troops in the field, at their own expense for three months, and at the joint expense of themselves and the government for six months longer.[58] The system worked well enough in those ancient times, when a season rarely passed without a foray against the Moslems. But since the fall of Granada, a long period of inactivity had followed, and the citizen, rarely summoned to the field, had lost all the essential attributes of the soldier. The usual term of service was too short to supply the experience and the discipline which he needed; and far from entering on a campaign with the patriotic or the chivalrous feeling that gives dignity to the profession of arms, he brought with him the mercenary spirit of a trader, intent only on his personal gains, and eager, as soon as he had enriched himself by a lucky foray, or the sack of some ill-fated city, to return home, and give place to others, as inexperienced and possessed of as little subordination as himself.[59]

But, however deficient this civic militia might be in tactics, the men were well provided with arms and military accoutrements; and, as the motley array of troops passed over the vega, they made a gallant show, with their gay uniforms and bright weapons glancing in the sun, while they proudly displayed the ancient banners of their cities, which had waved over many a field of battle against the infidel.[60]

But no part of the warlike spectacle was so brilliant as that afforded by the chivalry of the country; the nobles and cavaliers who, with their retainers and household troops, had taken the field with as much alacrity on the present occasion as their fathers had ever shown when roused by the cry that the enemy was over the borders.[61] They were much inferior in numbers to the militia of the towns. But inferiority of numbers was more than compensated by excellence of discipline, by their perfect appointments, and by that chivalrous feeling which made them discard every mercenary consideration in the pursuit of glory. Such was the feeling of Luis Paer de Castillego, the ancient regidor of Córdova. When offered an independent command, with the emoluments annexed to it, he proudly replied: "I want neither rank nor pay. I, my sons, my kindred, my whole house, will always be found ready to serve our God and our king. It is the title by which we hold our inheritance and our patent of nobility."[62]

With such loyal and high-mettled cavaliers to support him, Mondejar could not feel doubtful of the success of his arms. They had, however, already met with one reverse; and he received tidings that his advance-guard, sent to occupy a strong pass that led into the mountains, had been driven from its position, and had sustained something like a defeat. This would have been still more decisive, had it not been for the courage of certain ecclesiastics, eight in number—four of them Franciscans, and four of the Society of Jesus—who, as the troops gave way, threw themselves into the thick of the fight, and by their example shamed the soldiers into making a more determined resistance. The present war took the form of a religious war; and many a valiant churchman, armed with sword and crucifix, bore his part in it as in a crusade.

Hastening his preparations, the captain-general, without waiting for further reinforcements, marched out of Granada on the second of January, 1569, at the head of a small body, which did not exceed in all two thousand foot and four hundred horse. He was speedily joined by levies from the neighbouring towns—from Jaen, Loja, Alhama, Antequera, and other places—which in a few days swelled his little army to double its original size. The capital he left in the hands of his son, the count of Tendilla; a man of less discretion than his father, of a sterner and more impatient temper, and one who had little sympathy for the Morisco. By his directions, the peasantry of the vega were required to supply the army with twenty thousand pounds of bread daily.[63] The additional troops stationed in the city, as well as those who met there, as in a place of rendezvous, on their way to the sierra, were all quartered on the inhabitants of the Albaicin, where they freely indulged in the usual habits of military licence. The Moriscoes still retained much of that jealous sensibility which leads the natives of the East to seclude their wives and daughters from the eye of the stranger. It was in vain, however, that they urged their complaints in the most respectful and deprecatory terms before the governor. The haughty Spaniard only answered them with a stern rebuke, which made the Moriscoes too late repent that they had not profited by the opportunity offered them by Aben-Farax of regaining their independence.[64]

Leaving Granada, the captain-general took the most direct route, leading along the western slant of the Sierra Nevada, that mountain-range which, with its frosty peaks glistening in the sun like palisades of silver, fences round the city on the south, and screens it in the summer from the scorching winds of Africa. Thence he rapidly descended into the beautiful vale of Lecrin, which spreads out, like a gay carpet embroidered with many a wild flower, to the verge of the Alpujarras. It was now, however, the dead of winter, when the bright colouring of the landscape, even in this favoured region, watered as it was by numerous fountains and running streams, had faded into the sombre tints more in harmony with the rude scenes on which the Spaniards were about to enter.

BOLD PASSAGE AT TABLATE.

Halting a night at Padul to refresh his troops, Mondejar pressed forward to Durcal, which he reached barely in time to save his advance-guard from a more shameful discomfiture than it had before experienced; for the enemy, pressing it on all sides, was in possession of the principal avenues to the town. On the approach of the main body of the Spaniards, however, he made a hasty retreat, and established himself in a strong position at the pass of Tablate. The place was defended by a barranca, or ravine, not formidable from its width, but its rocky side swept sheer down to a depth that made the brain of the traveller giddy as he looked into the frightful abyss. The chasm extended at least eight leagues in length, thus serving, like a gigantic ditch scooped out by the hand of Nature, to afford protection to the beautiful valley against the inroads of the fierce tribes of the mountains.

Across this gulf a frail wooden bridge had been constructed, forming the only means of access from this quarter to the country of the Alpujarras. But this structure was now nearly demolished by the Moriscoes, who had taken up the floor, and removed most of the supports, till the passage of the tottering fabric could not safely be attempted by a single individual, much less by an army.[65] That they did not destroy the bridge altogether, probably arose from their desire to re-establish as soon as possible their communications with their countrymen in the valley.

Meanwhile the Moslems had taken up a position which commanded the farther end of the bridge, where they calmly awaited the approach of the Spaniards. Their army, which greatly fluctuated in its numbers at different periods of the campaign, was a miscellaneous body, ill disciplined and worse armed. Some of the men carried fire-arms, some crossbows; others had only slings or javelins, or even sharp-pointed stakes; any weapon, in short, however rude, which they had contrived to secrete from the Spanish officials charged with enforcing the laws for disarming the Moriscoes. But they were a bold and independent race, inured to a life of peril and privation; and, however inferior to the Christians in other respects, they had one obvious advantage, in their familiarity with the mountain wilds in which they had been nurtured from infancy.

As the Spaniards approached the ravine, they were saluted by the enemy, from the other side, with a shower of balls, stones, and arrows, which, falling at random, did little mischief. But as soon as the columns of the Christians reached the brow of the barranca, and formed into line, they opened a much more effective fire on their adversaries; and when the heavy guns with which Mendoza was provided were got into position, they did such execution on the enemy that he thought it prudent to abandon the bridge, and take post behind a rising ground, which screened him from the fire.

All thoughts were now turned on the mode of crossing the ravine; and many a look of blank dismay was turned on the dilapidated bridge, which, like a spider's web, trembling in every breeze, was stretched across the formidable chasm. No one was bold enough to venture on this pass of peril. At length a Franciscan monk, named Christoval de Molina, offered himself for the emprise. It was again an ecclesiastic who was to lead the way in the path of danger. Slinging his shield across his back, with his robe tucked closely around him, grasping a crucifix in his left hand, and with his right brandishing his sword, the valiant friar set his foot upon the bridge.[66] All eyes were fastened upon him, as, invoking the name of Jesus, he went courageously but cautiously forward, picking his way along the skeleton fabric, which trembled under his weight, as if about to fall in pieces and precipitate him into the gulf below. But he was not so to perish; and his safe arrival on the farther side was greeted with the shouts of the soldiery, who, ashamed of their hesitation, now pressed forward to follow in his footsteps.

The first who ventured had the same good fortune as his predecessor. The second, missing his step or becoming dizzy, lost his foothold, and, tumbling headlong, was dashed to pieces on the bottom of the ravine. One after another, the soldiers followed, and with fewer casualties than might have been expected from the perilous nature of the passage. During all this time they experienced no molestation from the enemy, intimidated, perhaps, by the unexpected audacity of the Spaniards, and not caring to come within the range of the deadly fire of their artillery. No sooner had the arquebusiers crossed in sufficient strength, than Mondejar, putting himself at their head, led them against the Moslems. He was received with a spirited volley, which had well-nigh proved fatal to him; and had it not been for his good cuirass, that turned the ball of an arquebuse, his campaign would have been brought to a close at its commencement. The skirmish lasted but a short time, as the Moriscoes, already disheartened by the success of the assailants, or in obedience to the plan of operations marked out by their leader, abandoned their position, and drew off rapidly towards the mountains. It was the intention of Aben-Humeya, as already noticed, to entangle his enemies in the defiles of the sierra, where, independently of the advantage he possessed from a knowledge of the country, the rugged character of the ground, he conceived, would make it impracticable for both cavalry and artillery, with neither of which he was provided.[67]

The Spanish commander, resuming his former station, employed the night in restoring the bridge, on which his men laboured to such purpose, that by morning it was in a condition for both his horse and his heavy guns to cross in safety. Meanwhile he received tidings that a body of a hundred and eighty Spaniards, in the neighbouring town of Orgiba, who had thrown themselves into the tower of the church on the breaking out of the insurrection, were still holding their position, and anxiously looking for succour from their countrymen. Pushing forward, therefore, without loss of time, he resumed his march across the valley, which was here defended on either side by rugged hills, that, growing bolder as he advanced, announced his entrance into the gorges of the Alpujarras. The weather was tempestuous. The roads were rendered worse than usual by the heavy rains, and by the torrents that descended from the hills. The Spaniards, moreover, suffered much from straggling parties of the enemy, who had possession of the heights, whence they rolled down huge rocks, and hurled missiles of every kind on the heads of the invaders. To rid himself of this annoyance, Mondejar ordered detachments of horse—one of them under the command of his son, Don Antonio de Mendoza—to scour the crests of the hills and dislodge the skirmishers. Pioneers were sent in advance, to level the ground and render it practicable for cavalry. The service was admirably performed; and the mountaineers, little acquainted with the horse, which they seemed to have held in as much terror as did the ancient Mexicans, were so astounded by seeing the light-footed Andalusian steed scaling the rough sides of the sierra, along paths where the sportsman would hardly venture, that, without waiting for the charge, they speedily quitted the ground and fell back on the main body of their army.

RETREAT OF THE MORISCOES.

This was posted at Lanjaron, a place but a few miles off, where the Moriscoes had profited by a gentle eminence that commanded a narrow defile, to throw up a breastwork of stone and earth, behind which they were entrenched, prepared, as it would seem, to give battle to the Spaniards.

The daylight had begun to fade, as the latter drew near the enemy's encampment; and, as he was unacquainted with the ground, Mondejar resolved to postpone his attack till the following morning. The night set in dark and threatening. But a hundred watchfires blazing on the hill-tops illumined the sky, and sent a feeble radiance into the gloom of the valley. All night long the wild notes of the musical instruments peculiar to the Moors, mingling with their shrill war-cries, sounded in the ears of the Christians, keeping them under arms, and apprehensive every moment of an attack.[68] But a night attack was contrary to the usual tactics of the Moors. Nor, as it appeared, did they intend to join battle with the Spaniards at all in this place. At least, if such had been their design, they changed it. For at break of day, to the surprise of the Spaniards, no vestige was to be seen of the Moriscoes, who, abandoning their position, had taken flight, like their own birds of prey, into the depths of the mountains.

Mondejar, not sorry to be spared the delay which an encounter must have caused him at a time when every moment was so precious, now rapidly pushed forward to Orgiba, where he happily arrived in season to relieve the garrison, reduced almost to the last extremity, and to put to flight the rabble who besieged it.

In the fulness of their hearts, and with the tears streaming from their eyes, the poor prisoners came forth from their fortress to embrace the deliverers who had rescued them from the most terrible of deaths. Their apprehensions of such a fate had alone nerved their souls to so long and heroic a resistance. Yet they must have sunk ere this from famine, had it not been for their politic precaution of taking with them into the tower several of the Morisco children whose parents secretly supplied them with food, which served as the means of subsistence—scanty though it was—for the garrison. But as the latter came forth into view, their wasted forms and famine-stricken visages told a tale of woe that would have softened a heart of flint.[69]

The situation of Orgiba pointed it out as suitable for a fortified post, to cover the retreat of the army, if necessary, and to protect the convoys of supplies to be regularly forwarded from Granada. Leaving a small garrison there, the captain-general, without longer delay, resumed his pursuit of the enemy.

Aben-Humeya had retreated into Poqueira, a rugged district of the Alpujarras. Here he had posted himself, with an army amounting to more than double its former numbers, at the extremity of a dangerous defile, called the Pass of Alfajarali. Behind lay the town of Bubion, the capital of the district, in which, considering it as a place of safety, many of the wealthier Moriscoes had deposited their women and their treasures.

Mondejar's line of march now took him into the heart of the wildest regions of the Alpujarras, where the scenery assumed a character of sublimity very different from what he had met with in the lower levels of the country. Here mountain rose beyond mountain, till their hoary heads, soaring above the clouds, entered far into the region of eternal snow. The scene was as gloomy as it was grand. Instead of the wide-spreading woods that usually hang round the skirts of lofty mountains, covering up their nakedness from the eye, nothing here was to be seen but masses of shattered rock, black as if scathed by volcanic fires, and heaped one upon another in a sort of wild confusion, as if some tremendous convulsion of nature had torn the hills from their foundations, and thrown them into primitive chaos. Yet the industry of the Moriscoes had contrived to relieve the savage features of the landscape, by scooping out terraces wherever the rocky soil allowed it, and raising there the vine and other plants, in bright patches of variegated culture, that hung like a garland round the gaunt and swarthy sierra.

The temperature was now greatly changed from what the army had experienced in the valley. The wind, sweeping down the icy sides of the mountains, found its way through the harness of the cavaliers and the light covering of the soldiers, benumbing their limbs, and piercing them to the very bone. Great difficulty was experienced in dragging the cannon up the steep heights, and along roads and passes, which, however easily traversed by the light-footed mountaineer, were but ill suited to the movements of an army clad in the heavy panoply of war.

The march was conducted in perfect order, the arquebusiers occupying the van, and the cavalry riding on either flank, while detachments of infantry, the main body of which occupied the centre, were thrown out to the right and left, on the higher grounds along the route of the army, to save it from annoyance from the mountaineers.

On the thirteenth of January, Mondejar entered the narrow defile of Alfajarali, at the farther end of which the motley multitude that had gathered round the standard of Aben-Humeya were already drawn up in battle-array. His right wing rested on the bold side of the sierra; the left was defended by a deep ravine, and his position was strengthened by more than one ambuscade, for which the nature of the ground was eminently favourable.[70] Indeed, ambushes and surprises formed part of the regular strategy of the Moorish warrior, who lost heart if he failed in these,—like the lion, who, if balked in the first spring upon his prey, is said rarely to attempt another.

COMBAT AT ALFAJARALI.

Putting these wily tactics into practice, the Morisco chief, as soon as the Spaniards were fairly entangled in the defile, without waiting for them to come into order of battle, gave the signal; and his men, starting up from glen, thicket, and ravine, or bursting down the hill-sides like their own winter-torrents, fell at once on the Christians,—front, flank, and rear,—assailing them on every quarter.[71] Astounded by the fiery suddenness of the assault, the rear-guard retreated on the centre, while the arquebusiers in the van were thrown into still greater disorder. For a few moments it seemed as if the panic would become general. But the voice of the leader was heard above the tumult, and by his prompt and sagacious measures he fortunately succeeded in restoring order, and reviving the confidence of his men. He detached one body of cavalry, under his son-in-law, to the support of the rear, and another to the front under the command of his son, Antonio de Mendoza. Both executed their commissions with spirit; and Mendoza, outstripping his companions in the haste with which he galloped to the front, threw himself into the thickest of the fight, where he was struck from his horse by a heavy stone, and was speedily surrounded by the enemy, from whose grasp he was with difficulty, and not till after much hard fighting, rescued by his companions. His friend, Don Alonso Portocarrero, the scion of a noble house in Andalusia, whose sons had always claimed the front of battle against the infidel, was twice wounded by poisoned arrows; for the Moors of the Alpujarras tipped their weapons with a deadly poison distilled from a weed that grew wild among the mountains.[72]

A fierce struggle now ensued; for the Morisco was spurred on by hate and the recollection of a thousand wrongs. Ill provided with weapons for attack, and destitute of defensive armour, he exposed himself to the hottest of his enemy's fire, and endeavoured to drag the horsemen from their saddles, while stones and arrows, with which some musket-balls were intermingled, fell like rain on the well-tempered harness of the Andalusian knights. The latter, now fully roused, plunged boldly into the thickest of the Moorish multitude, trampling them under foot, and hewing them down, right and left, with their sharp blades. The arquebusiers, at the same time, delivered a well-directed fire on the flank of the Moriscoes, who, after a brave struggle of an hour's duration, in which they were baffled on every quarter, quitted the field, covered with their slain, as precipitately as they had entered it, and, vanishing among the mountains, were soon far beyond pursuit.[73]

From the field of battle Mondejar marched at once upon Bubion, the capital of the district, and now left wholly unprotected by the Moslems. Yet many of their wives and daughters remained in it; and what rejoiced the heart of Mondejar more than all, was the liberation of a hundred and eighty Christian women, who came forth, frantic with joy and gratitude, to embrace the knees of their deliverers. They had many a tale of horror to tell their countrymen, who had now rescued them from a fate worse than that of death itself; for arrangements had been made, it was said, to send away those whose persons offered the greatest attractions, to swell the harems of the fierce Barbary princes in alliance with the Moriscoes. The town afforded a rich booty to the victorious troops, in gold, silver, and jewels, together with the finest stuffs, especially of silk, for the manufacture of which the people of the country were celebrated. As the Spanish commander, unwilling to be encumbered with unnecessary baggage, had made no provision for transporting the more bulky articles, the greater part of them, in the usual exterminating spirit of war, was consigned to the flames.[74] The soldiers would willingly have appropriated to themselves the Moorish women whom they found in the place, regarding them us the spoils of victory; but the marquis, greatly to the disgust of his followers, humanely interfered for their protection.

Mondejar now learned that Aben-Humeya, gathering the wreck of his forces about him, had taken the route to Jubiles,—a place situated in the wildest part of the country, where there was a fortress of much strength, in which he proposed to make a final stand against his enemies. Desirous to follow up the blow before the enemy had time to recover from its effects, Mondejar resumed his march. He had not advanced many leagues before he reached Pitres, the principal town in the district of Ferreiras. It was a place of some importance, and was rich in the commodities usually found in the great Moorish towns, where the more wealthy of the inhabitants rivalled their brethren of Granada in their taste for sumptuous dress and in the costly decorations of their houses.

The conquerors had here the satisfaction of releasing a hundred and fifty of their poor countrywomen from the captivity in which they had been held, after witnessing the massacre of their friends and relatives. The place was given up to pillage; but the marquis, true to his principles, notwithstanding the murmurs, and even menaces, of his soldiers, would allow no injury to be done to the Moorish women who remained in it. In this he acted in obedience to the dictates of sound policy, no less than of humanity, which indeed, happily for mankind, can never be dissevered from each other. He had no desire to push the war to extremities, or to exterminate a race whose ingenuity and industry were a fruitful source of revenue to the country. He wished, therefore, to leave the door of reconciliation still open; and while he carried fire and sword into the enemy's territory, he held out the prospect of grace to those who were willing to submit and return to their allegiance.

The route of the army lay through a wild and desolate region, which, from its great elevation, was cool even in midsummer, and which now, in the month of January, wore the dreary aspect of a polar winter. The snow, which never melted on the highest peaks of the mountains, lay heavily on their broad shoulders, and, sweeping far down their sides, covered up the path of the Spaniards. It was with no little difficulty that they could find a practicable passage, especially for the train of heavy guns, which were dragged along with incredible toil by the united efforts of men and horses. The soldiers, born and bred in the sunny plains of Andalusia, were but ill provided against an intensity of cold of which they had never formed a conception. The hands and feet of many were frozen. Others, benumbed, and exhausted by excessive toil, straggled in the rear, and sunk down in the snow-drifts, or disappeared in the treacherous ravines and crevices, which, under their glittering mantle, lay concealed from the eye. It fared still worse with the Moriscoes, especially with the women and children, who, after hanging on the skirts of the retreating army, had, the better to elude pursuit, scaled the more inaccessible parts of the mountains, where, taking refuge in caverns, they perished, in great numbers, of cold and hunger.[75]

Meanwhile Aben-Humeya, disheartened by his late reverses, felt too little confidence in the strength of his present position to abide there the assault of the Spaniards. Quitting the place, therefore, and taking with him his women and effects, he directed his course by rapid marches towards Paterna, his principal residence, which had the advantage, by its neighbourhood to the Sierra Nevada, of affording him, if necessary, the means of escaping into its wild and mysterious recesses, where none but a native would care to follow him. He left in the castle of Jubiles a great number of Morisco women, who had accompanied the army in its retreat, and three hundred men, who, from age or infirmity, would be likely to embarrass his movements.

MASSACRE AT JUBILES.

On reaching Jubíles, therefore, the Spanish general met with no resistance from the helpless garrison who occupied the fortress, which, moreover, contained a rich booty in gold, pearls, and precious stones, to gratify the cupidity of the soldiers.[76] Yet their discontent was expressed in more audacious terms than usual at the protection afforded by their commander to the Morisco women, of whom there were more than two thousand in the place. Among the women found there was also a good number of Christian captives, who roused the fierce passions of their countrymen by their piteous recital of the horrors they had witnessed, of the butchery of fathers, husbands, and brothers, and of the persecutions to which they had themselves been subjected in order to convert them to Islamism. They besought the captain-general to take pity on their sufferings, and to avenge their wrongs by putting every man and woman found in the place to the sword.[77] It is evident that, however prepared they may have been to accept the crown of martyrdom rather than abjure their faith, they gave little heed to the noblest of its precepts, which enjoined the forgiveness of their enemies. In this respect Mondejar proved himself decidedly the better Christian; for while he listened with commiseration to their tale of woe, and did all he could to comfort them in their affliction,[78] he would not abandon the protection of his captives, male or female, nor resign them to the brutality of his soldiers.

He provided for their safety during the night by allowing them to occupy the church. But as this would not accommodate more than a thousand persons, the remainder, including all the men, were quartered in an open square in the neighbourhood of the building. The Spanish troops encamped at no great distance from the spot.

In the course of the night one of the soldiers found his way into the quarters of the captives, and attempted to take some freedoms with a Morisco maiden. It so happened that her lover, disguised in woman's attire, was at her side, having remained with her for her protection. His Moorish blood fired at the insult, and he resented it by striking his poniard into the body of the Spaniard. The cry of the latter soon roused his comrades. Rushing to the place, they fell on the young Morisco, who, now brandishing a sword which he had snatched from the disabled man, laid about him so valiantly that several others were wounded. The cry rose that there were armed men, disguised as women, among the prisoners. More soldiers poured in to the support of their comrades, and fell with fury on their helpless victims. The uproar was universal. On the one side might be heard moans and petitions for mercy; on the other, brutal imprecations, followed by deadly blows, that showed how little prayers for mercy had availed. The hearts of the soldiers were harder than the steel with which they struck; for they called to mind the cruelties inflicted on their own countrymen by the Moriscoes. Striking to the right and left, they hewed down men and women indiscriminately,—both equally defenceless. In their blind fury they even wounded one another; for it was not easy to discern friend from foe in the obscurity, in which little light was to be had, says the chronicler, except such as came from the sparks of clashing steel or the flash of fire-arms.[79] It was in vain that the officers endeavoured to call off the men from their work of butchery. The hot temper of the Andalusian was fully roused; and it would have been as easy to stop the explosion of the mine when the train has been fired, as to stay his fury. It was not till the morning light showed the pavement swimming in gore, and the corpses of the helpless victims lying in heaps on one another, that his appetite for blood was satisfied. Great numbers of the women, and nearly all the men, perished in this massacre.[80] Those in the church succeeded in making fast the doors, and thus excluding their enemies, who made repeated efforts to enter the building. The marquis of Mondejar, indignant at this inhuman outrage perpetrated by his followers, and at their flagrant disobedience of orders, caused an inquiry into the affair to be instantly made; and the execution of three of the most guilty proved a salutary warning to the Andalusian soldier that there were limits beyond which it was not safe to try the patience of his commander.[81]

Before leaving Jubíles, Mondejar sent off to Granada, under a strong escort, the Christian captives who, since their liberation, had remained with the army. There were eight hundred of them, women and children,—a helpless multitude, whose wants were to be provided for, and whose presence could not fail greatly to embarrass his movements. They were obliged to perform that long and wearisome journey across the mountains on foot, as there were no means of transportation. And piteous was the spectacle which they presented when they reached the capital. As the wayworn wanderers entered by the gate of Bib-arranbla, the citizens came forth in crowds to welcome them. A body of cavalry was in the van,—each of the troopers holding one or two children on the saddle before him, with sometimes a third on the crupper clinging to his back. The infantry brought up the rear; while the centre of the procession was occupied by the women,—a forlorn and melancholy band, with their heads undefended by any covering from the weather; their hair, bleached by the winter's tempests, streaming wildly over their shoulders; their clothes scanty, tattered, and soiled with travel; without stockings, without shoes, to protect their feet against the cold and flinty roads; while in the lines traced upon their countenances the dullest eye might read the story of their unparalleled sufferings. Many of the company were persons who, unaccustomed to toil, and delicately nurtured, were but poorly prepared for the trials and privations of every kind to which they had been subjected.[82]

SITUATION OF ABEN-HUMEYA.

As their friends and countrymen gathered round them, to testify their sympathy and listen to the story of their misfortunes, the voices of the poor wanderers were choked with sobs and lamentations. The grief was contagious; and the sorrowing and sympathetic multitude accompanied the procession like a train of mourners to the monastery of Our Lady of Victory, in the opposite quarter of the city, where services were performed with much solemnity, and thanks were offered up for their deliverance from captivity. From the church they proceeded to the Alhambra, where they were graciously received by the marchioness of Mondejar, the wife of the captain-general, who did what she could to alleviate the miseries of their condition. Those who had friends and relations in the city, found shelter in their houses; while the rest were kindly welcomed by the archbishop of Granada, and by the charitable people of the town, who provided them with raiment and whatever was necessary for their comfort.[83] The stories which the fugitives had to tell of the horrid scenes they had witnessed in the Alpujarras, roused a deeper feeling of hatred in the Spaniards towards the Moriscoes, that boded ill for the security of the inhabitants of the Albaicin.

CHAPTER IV.
REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Situation of Haben-Humeya—Fate of the Moorish Prisoners—Storming of Guajaras—Escape of Haben-Humeya—Operations of Los Velez—Cabal against Mondejar—Licence of the Soldiers—Massacre in Granada—The Insurrection rekindled.

1569.

Before the marquis of Mondejar quitted Jubíles, he received a visit from seventeen of the principal Moriscoes in that part of the country, who came to tender their submission, exculpating themselves, at the same time, from any share in the insurrection, and humbly suing for the captain-general's protection. This, agreeably to his policy, he promptly accorded, granting them a safe-conduct, with instructions to tell their countrymen what he had done, and persuade them, if possible, to return to their allegiance, as the only way of averting the ruin that else would speedily overtake them. This act of clemency, so repugnant to the feelings of the Spaniards, was a new cause of disgust to his soldiers, who felt that the fair terms thus secured by the rebels were little less than a victory over themselves.[84] Yet the good effects of this policy were soon made visible, when the marquis resumed his march; for, as his favourable dispositions became more generally known, numbers of the Moriscoes, and several places on the route, eagerly tendered their submission, imploring his mercy, and protection against his followers.

Aben-Humeya, meanwhile, who lay at Paterna, with his wives and his warriors gathered around, saw with dismay that his mountain throne was fast sliding away from beneath him. The spirit of distrust and disaffection had crept into his camp. It was divided into two parties; one of these, despairing of further resistance, would have come instantly to terms with the enemy; the other still adhered to a bolder policy; but its leaders, if we may trust the Castilian writers, were less influenced by patriotic than by personal motives, being for the most part men who had borne so conspicuous a part in the insurrection, that they could scarcely hope to be included in any amnesty granted by the Spaniards. Such, in particular, were the African adventurers, who had distinguished themselves above all others by their ferocious persecution of the Christians. They directed, at this time, the counsels of the Moorish prince, filling his mind with suspicions of the loyalty of some of his followers, especially of the father of one of his wives,—a person of much authority among the Moriscoes. To suspect and to slay were words of much the same import with Aben-Humeya. He sent for his relative, and, on his entering the apartment, caused him to be despatched before his eyes.[85] He would have followed this up by the murder of some others of the family, if they had not eluded his grasp; thus establishing his title to a descent from those despots of the East with whom the lives of their kindred were of as little account as the vermin in their path.[86]

He was still at the head of a numerous army; its number, indeed, amounting to six thousand men, constituted its greatest strength; for, without discipline, almost without arms, it was made up of such rude, incongruous materials, that, as he already had experience, it could never abide the shock of battle from the militia of Castile. The Moorish prince had other causes for discouragement in the tidings he was hourly receiving of the defection of his subjects. The clemency shown by the conqueror was doing more for him than his arms,—as the snow which the blasts of winter have only bound more closely to the hill-side loosens its hold and falls away under the soft touch of spring. Notwithstanding his late display of audacity, the unhappy young man now lost all confidence in his own fortunes and in his followers. Sorely perplexed, he knew not where to turn. He had little of the constancy or courage of the patriot who has perilled his life in a great cause; and he now had recourse to the same expedient which he had so lately punished with death in his father-in-law.

He sent a message to the marquis of Mondejar, offering to surrender, and, if time were given, to persuade his people to follow his example. Meanwhile he requested the Spanish commander to stay his march, and thus prevent a collision with his troops. Mondejar, though he would not consent to this, advanced more leisurely, while he opened a negotiation with his enemy. He had already come in sight of the rebel forces, when he consented, at the request of Aben-Humeya, to halt for a night in the neighbouring village of Iniza, in order to give time for a personal interview. This required the troops, some of whom had now advanced within musket-range of the enemy, to fall back, and take up ground in the rear of their present position. In executing this manœuvre, they came almost in contact with a detachment of the Moorish army, who, in their ignorance of its real object, regarding the movement as a hostile demonstration, sent a shower of arrows and other missiles among the Spaniards, which they returned, with hearty goodwill, by a volley of musketry. The engagement soon became general. Aben-Humeya at the time was reading a letter, which he had just received from one of Mondejar's staff, arranging the place for the interview, when he was startled by the firing, and saw with consternation his own men warmly engaged with the enemy. Supposing he had been deceived by the Spaniards, he flung the letter on the ground, and throwing himself into the saddle, without so much as attempting to rally his forces, which were now flying over the field in all directions, he took the road to the Sierra Nevada, followed by only five or six of his attendants.[87] His horse was fleet, and he soon gained the defiles of the mountains. But he was hotly pursued; and, thinking it safer to trust to himself than to his horse, he dismounted, cut the hamstrings of the animal, to prevent his being of service to his pursuers, and disappeared in the obscure depths of the sierra, where it would have been fruitless to follow him.

THE FALL OF JUBILES.

The rout of his army was complete; and the victors might have inflicted an incalculable loss on the fugitives, had not the marquis of Mondejar called off his troops, and put a stop to the work of death. He wished to keep open as widely as possible the door of reconciliation. His conduct, which was not understood, and could not have been appreciated by his men, was stigmatized by them as treachery. They found some amends for their disappointment in the pillage of Paterna, the residence of Aben-Humeya, which well provided with the costly finery so much loved by the Moriscoes, furnished a welcome booty to the conquerors.[88]

Among the Moorish captives were Aben-Humeya's mother, two of his sisters, and one of his wives, to whom, as usual, Mondejar extended his protection.

Yet the disposal of his prisoners was a subject of perplexity to the Spanish commander. His soldiers, as we have seen, would have settled it at once, had their captain consented, by appropriating them all as the spoils of victory. There were many persons, higher in authority than these soldiers, who were of the same way of thinking on the subject with them. The question was one of sufficient importance to come before the government. Philip referred it to the council of state; and, regarding it as a case of conscience, in which the interests of religion were concerned, he asked the opinion of the Royal Audience of Granada, over which Deza presided. The final decision was what might have been expected from tribunals with inquisitors at their head. The Moriscoes, men and women, were declared to have incurred by their rebellion the doom of slavery. What is more remarkable is the precedent cited for this judgment, it being no other than a decision of the Council of Toledo, as far back as the time of the Visigoths, when certain rebellious Jews were held to have forfeited their liberty by an act of rebellion.[89] The Morisco, it was said, should fare no better than the Jew, since he was not only, like him, a rebel and an infidel, but an apostate to boot. The decision, it was understood, was very satisfactory to Philip, who, however, "with the pious moderation that distinguished so just and considerate a prince,"[90] so far mitigated the severity of the sentence, in the pragmatic which he published, as to exempt from its operation boys under ten years of age and girls under eleven. These were to be placed in the care of responsible persons, who would give them the benefits of a Christian education. Unhappily, there is reason to think that the good intentions of the government were not very conscientiously carried out in respect to this provision by those intrusted with the execution of it.[91]

While the question was pending, Jubíles fell into the hands of the victors; and Mondejar, not feeling himself at liberty to release his female captives, of whom more than a thousand, by this event, had come into his possession, delivered them in charge to three of the principal Moriscoes, to whom, it may be remembered, he had given letters of safe-conduct. They were allowed to restore the women to their families, on condition that they should all be surrendered on the demand of the government. Such an act, it must be admitted, implies great confidence in the good faith of the Moslems,—a confidence fully justified by the result. When, in obedience to the pragmatic, they were claimed by the government, they were delivered up by their families,—with the exception of some who had died in the meantime,—and the greater part of them were sold by public auction in Granada.[92]

The only place of any importance which now held out against Mondejar was Las Guájaras, situated in the plains of Salobreña, in the direction of Velez Malaga. This was a rocky, precipitous hill, on the summit of which, nature, with little assistance from art, had constructed a sort of rude fortress. It was held by a fierce band of Moriscoes, who, descending from the heights, swept over the plains, carrying on devastating forays, that made them the terror of the surrounding country. Mondejar, moved by the complaints of the inhabitants, left Ugijar on the fifth of February, at the head of his whole array, now much augmented by the arrival of recent levies, and marched rapidly on Guájaras. He met with a more formidable resistance than he had expected. His first attempt to carry the place was repulsed with a heavy loss on the part of the assailants. The Moorish garrison, from its elevated position, poured a storm of missiles on their heads, and, what was worse, rolled down huge masses of rock, which, ploughing through the Castilian ranks, overthrew men and horses, and did as great execution as would have been done by artillery. Eight hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field: and many a noble house in Andalusia had to go into mourning for that day's disaster.

Mondejar, stung by this repulse,—the first reverse his arms had experienced,—determined to lead the attack in person on the following day. His approaches were made with greater caution than before; and, without much injury, he succeeded in bringing his arquebusiers on a higher level, where their fire swept the enemy's intrenchments and inflicted on him a terrible loss. Still the sun went down, and the place had not surrendered. But El Zamar, its brave defender, without ammunition, almost without arms, felt that there was no longer hope for his little garrison. Silently evacuating the place, therefore, at dead of night, the Moriscoes, among whom were both women and children, scrambled down the precipice with the fearlessness of the mountain goat, and made their escape without attracting the notice of the Spaniards. They left behind only such as, from age or infirmity, were unable to follow them in their perilous descent.

On the next day, when the Spanish general prepared to renew the assault, great was his astonishment to find that the enemy had vanished, except only a few wretched beings incapable of making any resistance. All the evil passions of Mondejar's nature had been roused by the obstinate defence of the place, and the lives it had cost him. In the heat of his wrath, he ordered the helpless garrison to be put to the sword. No prayer for mercy was heeded. No regard was had to age or to sex. All were cut down in the presence of the general, who is even said to have stimulated the faltering soldiers to go through with their bloody work.[93] An act so hard to be reconciled with his previous conduct has been referred by some to the annoyance which he felt at being so frequently taxed with excessive lenity to the Moriscoes, an accusation which was carried, indeed, before the crown, and which the present occasion afforded him the means of effectually disproving. However this may be, the historian must lament the tarnished honour of a brave and generous chief, whose character up to this time had been sullied by none of those acts of cruelty which distinguished this sanguinary war.[94]

CAPTURE AND DEATH OF EL ZAMAR.

But even this cruelty was surpassed by that of his son, the count of Tendilla. El Zamar, the gallant defender of the fortress, wandered about among the crags with his little daughter, whom he carried in his arms. Famished and fainting from fatigue, he was at length overtaken by his enemies, and sent off as a prisoner to Granada, where the fierce Tendilla caused the flesh to be torn from his bones with red-hot pincers, and his mangled carcase, yet palpitating with life, to be afterwards quartered. The crime of El Zamar was that he had fought too bravely for the independence of his nation.

Having razed the walls of Guajaras to the ground, Mondejar returned with his blood-stained laurels to his head-quarters at Orgiba. Tower and town had gone down before him. On every side his arms had proved victorious. But one thing was wanting—the capture of Aben-Humeya, the "little king" of the Alpujarras. So long as he lived, the insurrection, now smothered, might be rekindled at any time. He had taken refuge, it was known, in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada, where, as the captain-general wrote, he was wandering from rock to rock with only a handful of followers.[95] Mondejar sent two detachments of soldiers into the sierra, to discover his haunts, if possible, and seize upon his person.

The commander of one of these parties, named Maldonado, ascertained that Aben-Humeya, secreting himself among the fastnesses of the mountains by day, would steal forth at night, and repair, with a few of his followers, to a place called Mecina, on the skirts of the sierra. Here he found shelter in the house of his kinsman, Aben-Aboo, one of those Moriscoes who, after the affair of Jubíles, had obtained a safe-conduct from Mondejar. Having gained this intelligence, and learned the situation of the house, the Spanish captain marched, with his little band of two hundred soldiers, in that direction. He made his approach with the greatest secrecy. Travelling by night, he reached undiscovered the neighbourhood of Aben-Aboo's residence. Advancing under cover of the darkness, he had arrived within gunshot of the dwelling, when, at this critical moment, all his precautions were defeated by the carelessness of one of his company, whose arquebuse was accidentally discharged. The report, reverberating from the hills in the silence of night, roused the inmates of the house, who slept as the wearied mariner sleeps when his ship is in danger of foundering. One of them, El Zaguer, the uncle of Aben-Humeya, and the person who had been mainly instrumental in securing him his crown—a crown of thorns—was the first roused, and, springing to the window, he threw himself down, though the height was considerable, and made his way to the mountains.

His nephew, who lay in another part of the building, was not so fortunate. When he reached the window, he saw with dismay the ground in front occupied by a body of Castilian troops. Hastening to another window, he found it still the same; his enemies were everywhere around the house. Bewildered and sorely distressed, he knew not where to turn. Thus entrapped, and without the means of making any terms with his enemies, he knew he had as little to hope from their mercy as the wolf has from the hunters who have caught him in his lair. The Spaniards, meanwhile, were thundering at the door of the building for admittance. Fortunately it was well secured. A sudden thought occurred to Aben-Humeya, which he instantly put in execution. Hastening down stairs, he took his station behind the door, and gently drew the bolts. The noise was not heard amidst the din made by the assailants, who, finding the door give way, supposed they had forced the fastenings, and pouring in, soon spread themselves in every direction over the house in search of the fugitive. Aben-Humeya, ensconced behind the door, escaped observation; and, when his enemies had disappeared, stole out into the darkness, and, under its friendly mantle, succeeded in finding his way to the mountains.

It was in vain that the Spaniards, enraged at the loss of the quarry, questioned Aben-Aboo as to the haunts of his kinsman, and of El Zaguer, his uncle, in the sierra. Nor could the most excruciating tortures shake his constancy. "I may die," said the brave Morisco, "but my friends will live." Leaving him for dead, the soldiers returned to the camp, taking with them a number of prisoners, his companions. There was no one of them, however, that was not provided with a safe-conduct from the marquis, who accordingly set them at liberty; showing a respect for his engagements, in which unhappily, as we shall see hereafter, he was not too well imitated by his soldiers. The heroic Aben-Aboo, though left for dead, did not die, but lived to head another insurrection, and to take ample vengeance on his enemies.[96]

While the arms of the marquis of Mondejar were thus crowned with success, the war raged yet more fiercely on the eastern slopes of the Alpujarras, where a martial race of mountaineers threatened a descent on Almeria and the neighbouring places, keeping the inhabitants in perpetual alarm. They accordingly implored the government at Granada to take some effectual measures for their relief. The president, Deza, in consequence, desired the marquis of Los Velez, who held the office of adelantado of the adjoining province of Murcia, to muster a force and provide for the defence of the frontier. This proceeding was regarded by Mondejar's friends as an insult to that nobleman, whose military authority extended over the country menaced by the Moriscoes. The act was the more annoying, that the person invited to assume the command was a rival, between whose house and that of the Mendozas there existed an ancient feud. Yet the king sanctioned the proceeding, thinking perhaps that Mondejar was not in sufficient force to protect the whole region of the Alpujarras. However this may be, Philip, by this act, brought two commanders of equal authority on the theatre of action; men who, in their characters and habitual policy, were so opposed to each other, that little concert could 'be expected between them.

Don Luis Fajardo, marquis of Los Velez, was a nobleman somewhat advanced in years, most of which had been passed in the active duties of military life. He had studied the art of war under the great emperor, and had acquired the reputation of a prompt and resolute soldier, bold in action, haughty, indeed overbearing, in his deportment, and with an inflexible will, not to be shaken by friend or foe. The severity of his nature had not been softened under the stern training of the camp; and, as his conduct in the present expedition showed, he was troubled with none of those scruples on the score of humanity which so often turned the edge of Mondejar's sword from the defenceless and the weak. The Moriscoes, who understood his character well, held him in terror, as they proved by the familiar sobriquet which they gave him of the "iron-headed devil."[97]

OPERATIONS OF LOS VELEZ.

The marquis, on receiving the invitation of Deza, lost no time in gathering his kindred and numerous vassals around him; and they came with an alacrity which showed how willingly they obeyed the summons to a foray over the border. His own family was a warlike race, reared from the cradle amidst the din of arms. In the present expedition he was attended by three of his sons, the youngest of whom a boy of thirteen, had the proud distinction of carrying his father's banner.[98] With the levies promptly furnished from the neighbouring places, Los Velez soon found himself supported by a force of greater strength than that which followed the standard of Mondejar. At the head of this valiant but ill-disciplined array, he struck into the gloomy gorges of the mountains, resolved on bringing the enemy at once to battle.

Our limits will not allow room for the details of a campaign which in its general features bears so close a resemblance to that already described. Indeed the contest was too unequal to afford a subject of much interest to the general reader, while the details are of still less importance in a military view, from the total ignorance shown by the Moriscoes of the art of war.

The fate of the campaign was decided by three battles, fought successively at Huécija, Filix, and Ohanez, places all lying in the eastern ranges of the Alpujarras. That of Filix was the most sanguinary. A great number of stragglers hung on the skirts of the Morisco army; and besides six thousand—many of them women[99]—left dead upon the field, there were two thousand children, we are told, butchered by the Spaniards.[100] Some fled for refuge to the caves and thickets; but they were speedily dragged from their hiding-places, and massacred by the soldiers in cold blood. Others, to escape death from the hands of their enemies, threw themselves headlong down the precipices,—some of them with their infants in their arms,—and thus miserably perished. "The cruelties committed by the troops," says one of the army, who chronicled its achievements, "were such as the pen refuses to record.[101] I myself," he adds, "saw the corpse of a Morisco woman, covered with wounds, stretched upon the ground, with six of her children lying dead around her. She had succeeded in protecting a seventh, still an infant, with her body, and though the lances which pierced her had passed through its clothes, it had marvellously escaped any injury. It was clinging," he continues, "to its dead mother's bosom, from which it drew milk that was mingled with blood. I carried it away and saved it."[102] For the credit of human nature he records some other instances of the like kind, showing that a spark of humanity might occasionally be struck out from the flinty breasts of these marauders.

The field of battle afforded a rich harvest for the victors, who stripped the dead, and rifled the bodies of the women of collars, bracelets, ornaments of gold and silver, and costly jewels, with which the Moorish female loved to decorate her person. Sated with plunder, the soldiers took the first occasion to leave their colours and return to their homes. Their places were soon supplied, as the display of their riches sharpened the appetites of their countrymen, who eagerly floaked to the banner of a chief that was sure to lead them on to victory and plunder. But that chief, with all his stern authority, was no match for the spirit of insubordination that reigned among his troops; and, when he attempted to punish one of their number for a gross act of disobedience, he was made to understand that there were three thousand in the camp ready to stand by their comrade and protect him from injury.[103]

The wild excesses of the soldiery were strangely mingled with a respect for the forms of religion, that intimated the nature of the war in which they were engaged. Before entering into action the whole army knelt down in prayer, solemnly invoking the protection of Heaven on its champions. After the battle of Ohanez, where the mountain streams were so polluted with the gore that the Spaniards found it difficult to slake their thirst, they proceeded to celebrate the fête of the Purification of the Virgin.[104] A procession was formed to the church, which was headed by the marquis of Los Velez and his chivalry, clad in complete mail, and bearing white tapers in their hands. Then came the Christian women, who had been rescued from captivity, dressed, by the general's command, in robes of blue and white, as the appropriate colours of the Virgin.[105] The rear was brought up by a body of friars and other ecclesiastics, who had taken part in the crusade. The procession passed slowly between the files of the soldiery, who saluted it with volleys of musketry as it entered the church, where Te Deum was chanted, and the whole company prostrated themselves in adoration of the Lord of Hosts, who had given his enemies into their hands.

CABAL AGAINST MONDEJAR.

From this solemn act of devotion the troops proceeded to the work of pillage, in which the commander, unlike his rival, the marquis of Mondejar, joined as heartily as the meanest of his followers. The Moorish captives, to the number of sixteen hundred, among whom, we are told, were many young and beautiful maidens, instead of meeting with the protection they had received from the more generous Mondejar, were delivered up to the licentious soldiery; and for a fortnight there reigned throughout the camp a carnival of the wildest riot and debauchery.[106] In this strange confusion of the religious sentiment and of crimes most revolting to humanity, we see the characteristic features of the crusade. Nowhere do we find such a free range given to the worst passions of our nature as in the wars of religion,—where each party considers itself as arrayed against the enemies of God, and where the sanctity of the cause throws a veil over the foulest transgressions that hides their enormity from the eye of the transgressor.

While the Moriscoes were stunned by the fierce blows thus dealt in rapid succession by the iron-hearted marquis, the mild and liberal policy of his rival was still more effectually reducing his enemies to obedience. Disheartened by their reverses, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, as they roved among the mountains, without raiment to clothe or a home to shelter them, the wretched wanderers came in one after another to sue for pardon. Nearly all the towns and villages in the district assigned to Mondejar, oppressed with like feelings of despondency, sent deputations to the Spanish quarters, to tender their submission and to sue for his protection. While these were graciously received, the general provided for the future security of his conquests, by establishing garrisons in the principal places, and by sending small detachments to different parts, to act as a sort of armed police for the maintenance of order. In this way, says a contemporary, the tranquillity of the country was so well established, that small parties of ten or a dozen soldiers wandered unmolested from one end of it to the other.[107]

Mondejar, at the same time, wrote to the king, to acquaint him with the actual state of things. He besought his master to deal mercifully with the conquered people, and thus afford him the means of redeeming the pledges he had given for the favourable dispositions of the government.[108] He made another communication to the marquis of Los Velez, urging that nobleman to co-operate with him in the same humane policy, as the one best suited to the interests of the country. But his rival took a very different view of the matter; and he plainly told the marquis of Mondejar, that it would require more than one pitched battle yet to break the spirit of the Moriscoes; and that, since they thought so differently on the subject, the only way left was for each commander to take the course he judged best.[109]

Unfortunately, there were others—men, too, of influence at the court—who were of the same stern way of thinking as the marquis of Los Velez; men acting under the impulse of religious bigotry, of implacable hatred of the Moslems, and of a keen remembrance of the outrages they had committed. There were others who, more basely, thought only of themselves and of the profit they should derive from the continuance of the war.

Among those of the former class was the president Deza, with the members of the Audience and the civil authorities in Granada. Always viewing the proceedings of the captain-general with an unfriendly eye, they loudly denounced his policy to the king, condemning his ill-timed lenity to a crafty race, who would profit by it to rally from their late disasters and to form new plans of rebellion. It was not right, they said, that outrages like those perpetrated against both divine and human majesty should go unpunished.[110] Mondejar's enemies did not stop here, but accused him of defrauding the exchequer of its dues, the fifth of the spoils of war gained in battle from the infidel. Finally, they charged him with having shown want of respect for the civil authorities of Granada, in omitting to communicate to them his plan of operations.

The marquis, advised by his friends at court of these malicious attempts to ruin his credit with the government, despatched a confidential envoy to Madrid, to present his case before his sovereign and to refute the accusations of his enemies. The charge of peculation seems to have made no impression on the mind of a prince who would not have been slow to suspect, had there been any ground for suspicion. There may have been stronger grounds for the complaint of want of deference to the civil authorities of Granada. The best vindication of his conduct in this particular must be found in the character and conduct of his adversaries. From the first, Deza and the municipality had regarded him with jealousy, and done all in their power to thwart his plans and circumscribe his authority. It is only confidence that begets confidence. Mondejar, early accustomed to command, was probably too impatient of opposition.[111] He chafed under the obstacles and annoyances thrown in his way by his narrow-minded rivals. We have not the means before us of coming to a conclusive judgment on the merits of the controversy, but from what we know of the marquis's accusers, with the wily inquisitor at their head, we shall hardly err by casting our sympathies into the scale of the frank and generous-hearted soldier, who, while those that thus censured him were living at ease in the capital, had been fighting and following up the enemy, amidst the winter's tempests and across mountains covered with snow; and who, in little more than a month, without other aid than the disorderly levies of the cities, had quelled a dangerous revolt, and restored tranquillity to the land.

Philip was greatly perplexed by the different accounts sent to him of the posture of affairs in Granada. Mondejar's agent suggested to the council of state that it would be well if his majesty would do as his father, Charles the Fifth, would have done in the like case—repair himself to the scene of action, and observe the actual state of things with his own eyes. But the suggestion found no favour with the minister, Espinosa, who affected to hold the Moriscoes in such contempt, that a measure of this kind, he declared, would be derogatory to the royal dignity. A better course would be for his majesty to send some one as his representative, clothed with full powers to take charge of the war, and of a rank so manifestly pre-eminent, that neither of the two commanders now in the field could take umbrage at his appointment over their heads.

This suggestion, as the politic minister doubtless had foreseen, was much more to Philip's taste than that of his going in person to the scene of strife; for, however little he might shrink from any amount of labour in the closet, he had, as we have seen, a sluggish temperament, that indisposed him to much bodily exertion. The plan of sending some one to represent the monarch at the seat of war was accordingly approved; and the person selected for this responsible office was Philip's bastard brother, Don John of Austria.[112]

LICENCE OF THE SOLDIERS.

Rumours of what was going on in the cabinet at Madrid, reaching Granada from time to time, were followed by the most mischievous consequences. The troops, in particular, had no sooner learned that the marquis of Mondejar was about to be superseded in the command, than they threw off the little restraint he had been hitherto able to impose on them, and abandoned themselves to the violence and rapine to which they were so well disposed, and which seemed now to be countenanced by the president and the authorities in Granada. The very patrols whom Mondejar had commissioned to keep the peace were the first to set the example of violating it. They invaded the hamlets and houses they were sent to protect, plundered them of their contents, and committed the foulest outrages on their inmates. The garrisons in the principal towns imitated their example, carrying on their depredations, indeed, on a still larger scale. Even the capital, under the very eyes of the count of Tendilla, sent out detachments of soldiers, who with ruthless violence trampled down the green plantations in the valleys, sacked the villages, and dragged away the inhabitants from the midst of their blazing dwellings into captivity.[113]

It was with the deepest indignation that the marquis of Mondejar saw the fine web of policy he had been so busily contriving thus wantonly rent asunder by the very hands that should have protected it. He now longed as ardently as any in the province for the coming of some one entrusted with authority to enforce obedience from the turbulent soldiery; a task of still greater difficulty than the conquest of the enemy. While such was the state of things, an event occurred in Granada which, in its general character, may remind one of some of the most atrocious scenes of the French Revolution.

In the beginning of the troubles, the president had caused a number of Moriscoes, amounting to not less than a hundred and fifty, it is said, to be arrested and thrown into the prison of the Chancery. Certain treasonable designs, of which they had been suspected for a long time, furnished the feeble pretext for this violent proceeding. Some few, indeed, were imprisoned for debt. But the greater number were wealthy men, who enjoyed the highest consideration among their countrymen. They had been suffered to remain in confinement during the whole of the campaign; thus serving, in some sort, as hostages for the good behaviour of the people of the Albaicin.

Early in March, a rumour was circulated that the mountaineers, headed by Aben-Humeya, whose father and brother were among the prisoners, were prepared to make a descent on the city by night, and, with the assistance of the inhabitants of the Albaicin, to begin the work of destruction by assaulting the prison of the Chancery and liberating their countrymen. This report, readily believed, caused the greatest alarm among the citizens, boding no good to the unhappy prisoners. On the evening of the seventeenth, Deza received intelligence that lights had been seen on some of the neighbouring mountains, which seemed to be of the nature of signals, as they were answered by corresponding lights in some of the houses in the Albaicin. The assault, it was said, would doubtless be made that very night. The president appears to have taken no measures for the protection of the city, but, on receiving the information, he at once communicated it to the alcayde of the prison, and directed him to provide for the security of his prisoners. The alcayde lost no time in gathering his friends about him, and caused arms to be distributed among a body of Spaniards, of whom there appears to have been a considerable number confined in the place at this time. Thus prepared, they all remained, as in silent expectation of some great event.

At length, some time before midnight, the guard posted in the Campana, one of the towers of the Alhambra, struck the bell with a succession of rapid strokes, such as were used to give an alarm. In a moment every Spaniard in the prison was on his feet; and, the alcayde throwing open the doors and leading the way, they fell at once on their defenceless victims, confined in another quarter of the building. As many of these were old and infirm, and most of them inoffensive citizens, whose quiet way of life had little fitted them for brawl or battle, and who were now destitute of arms of any kind, they seemed to be as easy victims as the sheep into whose fold the famishing wolves have broken in the absence of the shepherd. Yet they did not give up their lives without an effort to save them. Despair lent them strength, and snatching up chairs, benches, or any other article of furniture in their cells, they endeavoured to make good their defence against the assailants. Some, exerting a vigour which despair only could have given, succeeded in wrenching stones from the walls or iron bars from the windows, and thus supplied themselves with the means, not merely of defence, but of doing some mischief to the assailants in their turn. They fought, in short, like men who are fighting for their lives. Some, however, losing all hope of escape, piled together a heap of mats, bedding, and other combustibles, and, kindling them with their torches, threw themselves into the flames, intending in this way to set fire to the building, and to perish in one general conflagration with their murderers.[114] But the flames they had kindled were soon extinguished in their own blood, and their mangled remains were left to blacken among the cinders of their funeral pile.

For two hours the deadly conflict between parties so unequally matched had continued; the one shouting its old war-cry of "Saint Iago," as if fighting on an open field; the other, if we may take the Castilian account, calling on their prophet to come to their assistance. But no power, divine or human, interposed in their behalf; and, notwithstanding the wild uproar caused by men engaged in a mortal struggle, by the sound of heavy blows and falling missiles, by the yells of the victors and the dying moans and agonies of the vanquished, no noise to give token of what was going on—if we are to credit the chroniclers—found its way beyond the walls of the prison. Even the guard stationed in the court-yard, we are assured, were not roused from their slumbers.[115]

At length some rumour of what was passing reached the city, where the story ran that the Moriscoes were in arms against their keepers, and would soon probably get possession of the gaol. This report was enough for the people, who, roused by the alarm-bell, were now in a state of excitement that disposed them to any deed of violence. Snatching up their weapons, they rushed, or rather flew, like vultures snuffing the carrion from afar, to the scene of slaughter. Strengthened by this reinforcement, the assailants in the prison soon completed the work of death; and, when the morning light broke through the grated windows, it disclosed the full extent of the tragedy. Of all the Moriscoes only two had escaped,—the father and brother of Aben-Humeya, over whom a guard had been especially set. Five Spaniards were slain, and seventeen wounded; showing the fierce resistance made by the Moslems, though destitute of arms.[116]

THE INSURRECTION REKINDLED.

Such was the massacre in the prison of the Chancery of Granada, which, as already intimated, nowhere finds a more fitting parallel than in the murders perpetrated on a still larger scale during the French Revolution, in the famous massacres of September. But the miscreants who perpetrated these enormities were the tools of a sanguinary faction, that was regarded with horror by every friend of humanity in the country. In Granada, on the other hand, it was the government itself, or at least those of highest authority in it, who were responsible for the deed. For who can doubt that a proceeding, the success of which depended on the concurrence of so many circumstances as to preclude the idea of accident, must have been countenanced, if not contrived, by those who had the direction of affairs?

Another feature, not the least striking in the case, is the apathy shown by contemporary writers,—men who on more than one occasion have been willing to testify their sympathy for the sufferings of the Moriscoes. One of these chroniclers, after telling the piteous tale, coolly remarks that it was a good thing for the alcayde of the prison, who pocketed a large sum of money which had been found on the persons of the wealthy Moors. Another, after noticing the imputation of an intended rising on the part of the prisoners as in the highest degree absurd, dismisses the subject by telling us that "the Moriscoes were a weak, scatter-brained race, with just wit enough to bring on themselves such a mishap,"—as he pleasantly terms the massacre.[117] The government of Madrid received the largest share of the price of blood. For when the wives and families of the deceased claimed the inheritance of their estates, in some cases very large, their claims were rejected—on what grounds we are not told—by the alcaldes of the Court of Audience in Granada, and the estates were confiscated to the use of the crown. Such a decision, remarks a chronicler, may lead one to infer that the prisoners had been guilty of even more heinous offences than those commonly imputed to them.[118] The impartial reader will probably come to a very different conclusion; and since it was the opulent burghers who were thus marked out for destruction, he may naturally infer that the baser passion of avarice mingled with the feelings of fear and hatred in bringing about the massacre.

However this may be, so foul a deed placed an impassable gulf between the Spaniards and the Moriscoes. It taught the latter that they could no longer rely on their perfidious enemy, who, while he was holding out to them one hand in token of reconciliation, was raising the other to smite them to the ground. A cry of vengeance ran through all the borders of the Alpujarras. Again the mountaineers rose in arms. They cut off stragglers, waylaid the patrols whom Mondejar had distributed throughout the country, and even menaced the military posts of the Spaniards. On some occasions, they encountered the latter with success in the open field, and in one instance defeated and slew a large body of Christians, as they were returning from a foray laden with plunder. Finally they invited Aben-Humeya to return and resume the command, promising to stand by him to the last. The chief obeyed the call and, leaving his retreat in the Sierra Nevada, again took possession of his domains, and, planting his blood-red flag on his native hills,[119] soon gathered around him a more formidable host than before. He even affected a greater pomp than he had before displayed. He surrounded himself with a body-guard of four hundred arquebusiers.[120] He divided his army into battalions and companies, and endeavoured to introduce into it something of the organization and tactics of the Spaniards.[121] He sent his brother Abdallah to Constantinople, to represent his condition to the Sultan, and to implore him to make common cause with his Moslem brethren in the Peninsula. In short, rebellion assumed a more audacious front than at any time during the previous campaign; and the Christians of Andalusia and Granada looked with the greatest anxiety for the coming of a commander possessed of sufficient authority to infuse harmony into the counsels of the rival chiefs, to enforce obedience from the turbulent soldiery, and to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.

CHAPTER V.
REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Early life of Don John of Austria—Acknowledged by Philip—His Thirst for Distinction—His Cruise in the Mediterranean—Made Commander-in-chief—The War renewed—Removal of the Moriscoes.

1569.

As Don John of Austria is to occupy an important place, not only in the war with the Moriscoes, but in some of the most memorable scenes in the remainder of this history, it will be proper to acquaint the reader with what is known of the earlier part of his career. Yet it is precisely over this part of it that a veil of mystery hangs, which no industry of the historian has been able wholly to remove.

It seems probable that he was born in the year 1547.[122] The twenty-fourth of February is assigned by common consent—I hardly know on what ground—as the day of his birth. It was also, it may be remembered, the birthday of his father, Charles the Fifth. His mother, Barbara Blomberg, was an inhabitant of Ratisbon, in Germany. She is described as a beautiful young girl, who attracted the emperor's notice several years after the death of the empress Isabella.[123] The Spanish chroniclers claim a noble descent for Barbara.[124] Indeed, it would go hard but a Spaniard could make out a pedigree for his hero. Yet there are several circumstances which suggest the idea that the mother of Don John must have occupied a very humble position.

DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.

Subsequently to her connexion with Charles she married a German named Kegell, on whom the emperor bestowed the office of commissary.[125] The only other notice, so far as I am aware, which Charles took of his former mistress was the settlement on her of a yearly pension of two hundred florins, which he made the day before his death.[126] It was certainly not a princely legacy, and infers that the object of it must have been in a humble condition in life to have rendered it important to her comfort. We are led to the same conclusion by the mystery thrown around the birth of the child, forming so strong a contrast to the publicity given to the birth of the emperor's natural daughter, Margaret of Parma, whose mother could boast that in her veins flowed some of the best blood of the Netherlands.

For three years the boy, who received the name of Geronimo, remained under his mother's roof, when, by Charles's order, he was placed in the hands of a Fleming, named Maffi, a musician in the imperial band. This man transferred his residence to Leganes, a village in Castile, not far from Madrid. The instrument still exists that contains the agreement by which Maffi, after acknowledging the receipt of a hundred florins, engages for fifty florins annually, to bring up the child with as much care as if he were his own.[127] It was a moderate allowance, certainly, for the nurture of one who was some day to come before the world as the son of an emperor. It showed that Charles was fond of a bargain, though at the expense of his own offspring.

No instruction was provided for the child except such as he could pick up from the parish priest, who, as he knew as little as Maffi did of the secret of Geronimo's birth, probably bestowed no more attention on him than on the other lads of the village. And we cannot doubt that a boy of his lively temper must have preferred passing his days in the open fields, to confinement in the house and listening to the homilies of his teacher. As he grew in years, he distinguished himself above his young companions by his courage. He took the lead in all their rustic sports, and gave token of his belligerent propensities by making war on the birds in the orchards, on whom he did great execution with his little crossbow.[128]

Four years were passed in this hardy way of life, which, if it did nothing else for the boy, had the advantage of strengthening his constitution for the serious trials of manhood, when the emperor thought it was time to place him in a situation where he would receive a better training than could be found in the cottage of a peasant. He was accordingly transferred to the protection of Luis Quixada, Charles's trusty major-domo, who received the child into his family at Villagarcia, in the neighbourhood of Valladolid. The emperor showed his usual discernment in the selection of a guardian for his son. Quixada, with his zeal for the faith, his loyalty, his nice sentiment of honour, was the very type of the Castilian hidalgo in his best form; while he possessed all those knightly qualities which made him the perfect mirror of the antique chivalry. His wife, Doña Magdalena de Ulloa, sister of the marquis of Mota, was a lady yet more illustrious for her virtues than for her rank. She had naturally the most to do with the training of the boy's earlier years; and under her discipline it was scarcely possible that one of so generous a nature should fail to acquire the courtly breeding and refinement of taste which shed a lustre over the stern character of the soldier.

However much Quixada may have reposed on his wife's discretion, he did not think proper to try it, in the present instance, by communicating to her the secret of Geronimo's birth. He spoke of him as the son of a great man, his dear friend, expressing his desire that his wife would receive him as her own child. This was the less difficult, as Magdalena had no children of her own. The solicitude shown by her lord may possibly have suggested to her the idea that the boy was more nearly related to him than he chose to acknowledge,—in short, that he was the offspring of some intrigue of Quixada previous to his marriage.[129] But an event which took place not long after the child's introduction into the family, is said to have awakened in her suspicions of an origin more in accordance with the truth. The house at Villagarcia took fire; and, as it was in the night, the flames gained such head that they were not discovered till they burst through the windows. The noise in the street roused the sleeping inmates; and Quixada, thinking first of his charge, sprang from his bed, and, rushing into Geronimo's apartment, snatched up the affrighted child, and bore him in his arms to a place of safety. He then reentered the house, and, forcing his way through the smoke and flames, succeeded in extricating his wife from her perilous situation. This sacrifice of love to loyalty is panegyrized by a Castilian chronicler as "a rare achievement, far transcending any act of heroism of which antiquity could boast."[130] Whether Magdalena looked with the same complacency on the proceeding we are not informed. Certain it is, however, that the interest shown by her husband in the child had no power to excite any feeling of jealousy in her bosom. On the contrary, it seemed rather to strengthen her own interest in the boy, whose uncommon beauty and affectionate disposition soon called forth all the tenderness of her nature. She took him to her heart, and treated him with all the fondness of a mother,—a feeling warmly reciprocated by the object of it, who, to the day of his death, regarded her with the truest feelings of filial love and reverence.

In 1558, the year after his retirement to Yuste, Charles the Fifth, whether from a wish to see his son, or, as is quite as probable, in the hope of making Quixada more contented with his situation, desired his major-domo to bring his family to the adjoining village of Cuacos. While there, the young Geronimo must doubtless sometimes have accompanied his mother, as he called Doña Magdalena, in her visits to the monastery. Indeed, his biographer assures us that the sight of him operated like a panacea on the emperor's health.[131] We find no allusion to him, however, in any of the letters from Yuste; and, if he did go there, we may be sure that Charles had sufficient control over himself not to betray, by any indiscreet show of fondness, his relationship to the child.[132] One tradition respecting him lingered to a late period among the people of Cuacos, where the peasants, it is said, pelted him with stones as he was robbing their orchards. It was the first lesson in war of the future hero of Lepanto.

DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA.

There is no reason to doubt that the boy witnessed the obsequies of the emperor. One who was present tells us that he saw him there, dressed in full mourning, and standing by the side of Quixada, for whose page he passed among the brethren of the convent.[133] We may well believe that a spectacle so solemn and affecting as these funeral ceremonies must have sunk deep into his young mind, and heightened the feelings of veneration with which he always regarded the memory of his father. It was, perhaps, the appearance of Geronimo as one of the mourners that first suggested the idea of his relationship to the emperor. We find a letter from Quixada to Philip, dated soon after, in which he speaks of rumours on the subject as current in the neighbourhood.[134]

Among the testamentary papers of Charles was found one in an envelope sealed with his private seal, and addressed to his son Philip, or in case of his death, to his grandson Carlos, or whoever might be in possession of the crown. It was dated in 1554, before his retirement to Yuste. It acknowledged his connexion with a German maiden, and the birth of a son named Geronimo. The mother's name was not given. He pointed out the quarter where information could be got respecting the child, who was then living with the violin-player at Leganes. He expressed the wish that he should be trained up for the ecclesiastical profession, and that, when old enough, he should enter a convent of one of the reformed orders. Charles would not, however, have any constraint put on the inclinations of the boy, and in case of his preferring a secular life, he would have a suitable estate settled on him in the kingdom of Naples, with an annual income of between thirty and forty thousand ducats. Whatever course Geronimo might take, the emperor requested that he should receive all the honour and consideration due to him as his son. His letter concluded by saying that, although for obvious reasons he had not inserted these directions in his will, he wished them to be held of the same validity as if he had.[135] Philip seems from the first to have so regarded them, though, as he was then in Flanders, he resolved to postpone the public acknowledgment of his brother till his return to Spain.

Meanwhile, the rumours in regard to Geronimo's birth had reached the ears of the regent, Joanna. With natural curiosity, she ordered her secretary to write to Quixada and ascertain the truth of the report. The trusty hidalgo endeavoured to evade the question, by saying that some years since a friend of his had entrusted a boy to his care; but as no allusion whatever was made to the child in the emperor's will, the story of their relationship to each other should be treated as idle gossip.[136] The reply did not satisfy Joanna, who seems to have settled it in her own mind that the story was well founded. She took an occasion soon after to write to Doña Magdalena, during her husband's absence from home, expressing her wish that the lady would bring the boy where she could see him. The place selected was at an auto de fe about to be celebrated in Valladolid. Doña Magdalena, reluctant as she was, felt herself compelled to receive the request from such a source as a command, which she had no right to disobey. One might have thought that a ceremony so heartrending and appalling in its character as an auto de fe would be the last to be selected for the indulgence of any feeling of a light and joyous nature. But the Spaniard of that and of a much later age regarded this as the sweetest sacrifice that could be offered to the Almighty; and he went to it with the same indifference to the sufferings of the victim—probably with the same love of excitement—which he would have felt in going to a bull-fight.

On the day which had been named, Magdalena and her charge took their seats on the carpeted platform reserved for persons of rank, in full view of the scaffold appropriated to the martyrs who were to suffer for conscience' sake. It was in the midst of the august company here assembled, that the son of Charles the Fifth was to receive his first lesson in the school of persecution; that he was to learn to steel his heart against sympathy with human suffering; to learn, above all, that compassion for the heretic was a crime of the deepest dye. It was a terrible lesson for one so young—of an age when the mind is most open to impressions; and the bitter fruits of it were to be discerned ere long in the war with the Moriscoes.

As the royal train approached the place occupied by Doña Magdalena, the regent paused and looked around for the boy. Magdalena had thrown her mantle about him, to conceal him as much as possible from the public eye. She now drew it aside; and Joanna looked so long and earnestly on the child, that he shrunk abashed from her gaze. It was not, however, before she had recognized in his bright blue eyes, his ample forehead, and the rich yellow locks that clustered round his head, some of the peculiarities of the Austrian line, though happily without the deformity of the protruding lip, which was no less its characteristic. Her heart yearned with the tenderness of a sister, as she felt convinced that the same blood flowed in his veins as in her own; and, stooping down, she threw her arms around his neck, and, kissing him, called him by the endearing name of brother.[137] She would have persuaded him to go with her and sit by her side, but the boy, clinging closely to his foster-mother, refused to leave her for the stranger lady.

This curious scene attracted the attention of the surrounding spectators, which was hardly diverted from the child by the appearance of the prisoners on the scaffold to receive their sentences. When these had been pronounced, and the wretched victims led away to execution, the multitude pressed so eagerly round Magdalena and the boy, that it was with difficulty the guards could keep them back, till the regent, seeing the awkwardness of their situation, sent one of her train, the count of Osorno, to their relief; and that nobleman, forcing his way through the crowd, carried off Geronimo in his arms to the royal carriage.[138]

DON JOHN ACKNOWLEDGED BY PHILIP.

It was not long before all mystery was dispelled by the public acknowledgment of the child as the son of the emperor. One of the first acts of Philip, after his return to Spain in 1559, was to arrange an interview with his brother. The place assigned for the meeting was an extensive park, not far from Valladolid, in the neighbourhood of the convent of La Espina, a spot much resorted to by the Castilian princes of the older time for the pleasures of the chase.

On the appointed day, Quixada, richly dressed, and mounted on the best horse in his stables, rode forth, at the head of his vassals, to meet the king, with the little Geronimo, simply attired, and on a common palfrey, by his side. They had gone but a few miles when they heard, through the woods, the sound of horses' hoofs, announcing the approach of the royal cavalcade. Quixada halted, and alighting, drew near to Geronimo, with much deference in his manner, and, dropping on one knee, begged permission to kiss his hand. At the same time he desired his ward to dismount, and take the charger which he had himself been riding. Geronimo was sorely bewildered by what he would have thought a merry jest on the part of his guardian, had not his sedate and dignified character forbidden the supposition. Recovering from his astonishment, he complied with his guardian's directions; and the vision of future greatness must have flashed on his mind, if, as we are told, when preparing to mount, he turned round to Quixada, and with an affected air of dignity, told him that, "since things were so, he might hold the stirrup for him."[139]

They had not proceeded far when they came in sight of the royal party. Quixada pointed out the king to his ward, adding that his majesty had something of importance to communicate to him. They then dismounted; and the boy, by his guardian's instructions, drawing near to Philip, knelt down and begged leave to kiss his majesty's hand. The king, graciously extending it, looked intently on the youth; and at length broke silence by asking "if he knew who was his father." Geronimo, disconcerted by the abruptness of the question, and, indeed, if the reports of his origin had ever reached his ears, ignorant of their truth, cast his eyes on the ground and made no answer. Philip, not displeased with his embarrassment, was well satisfied, doubtless, to read in his intelligent countenance and noble mien an assurance that he would do no discredit to his birth. Alighting from his horse, he embraced Geronimo, exclaiming, "Take courage, my child, you are descended from a great man. The emperor Charles the Fifth, now in glory, is your father as well as mine."[140] Then, turning to the lords who stood around, he presented the boy to them as the son of their late sovereign, and his own brother. The courtiers, with the ready instinct of their tribe, ever prompt to worship the rising sun, pressed eagerly forward to pay their obeisance to Geronimo. The scene was concluded by the king's buckling a sword on his brother's side, and throwing around his neck the sparkling collar of the Golden Fleece.

The tidings of this strange event soon spread over the neighbourhood, for there were many more witnesses of the ceremony than those who took part in it; and the king and his retinue found, on their return, a multitude of people gathering along the route, eager to get a glimpse of this newly discovered gem of royalty. The sight of the handsome youth called forth a burst of noisy enthusiasm from the populace, and the air rang with their tumultuous vivas as the royal party rode through the streets of the ancient city of Valladolid. Philip expressed his satisfaction at the events of the day, by declaring that "he had never met better sport in his life, or brought back game so much to his mind."[141]

Having thus publicly acknowledged his brother, the king determined to provide for him an establishment suited to his condition. He assigned him for his residence one of the best mansions in Madrid. He was furnished with a numerous band of retainers, and as great state was maintained in his household as in that of a prince of the blood. The count of Priego acted as his chief major-domo; Don Luis Carrillo, the eldest son of that noble, was made captain of the guard; and Don Luis de Córdova master of the horse. In short, nobles and cavaliers of the best blood in Castile did not disdain to hold offices in the service of the peasant boy. With one or two exceptions, of little importance, he enjoyed all the privileges that belonged to the royal infantes. He did not, like them, have apartments in the palace; and he was to be addressed by the title of "Excellency," instead of "Highness," which was their peculiar prerogative. The distinction was not always scrupulously observed.[142]

A more important change took place in his name, which from Geronimo was now converted into John of Austria,—a lofty name, which intimated his descent from the imperial house of Hapsburg, and on which his deeds in after-life shed a lustre greater than the proudest title that sovereignty could confer.

Luis Quixada kept the same place after his pupil's elevation as before. He continued to be his ayo, or governor, and removed with Doña Magdalena to Madrid, where he took up his residence in the house of Don John. Thus living in the most intimate personal relations with him, Quixada maintained his influence unimpaired till the hour of his own death.

Philip fully appreciated the worth of the faithful hidalgo, who was fortunate in thus enjoying the favour of the son in as great a degree as he had done that of the father,—and, as it would seem, with a larger recompense for his services. He was master of the horse to Don Carlos, the heir to the crown; he held the important post of president of the Council of the Indies; and he possessed several lucrative benefices in the military order of Calatrava. In one of his letters to the king, we find Quixada remarking that he had endeavoured to supply the deficiencies of his pupil's early education by training him in a manner better suited to his destinies in after-life.[143] We cannot doubt that, in the good knight's estimate of what was essential to such a training, the exercises of chivalry must have found more favour than the monastic discipline recommended by the emperor. However this may have been, Philip resolved to give his brother the best advantages for a liberal education by sending him to the University of Alcalá, which, founded by the great Ximénes, a little more than a century before, now shared with the older school of Salamanca the glory of being the most famous seat of science in the Peninsula. Don John had for his companions his two nephews, Don Carlos and Alexander Farnese, the son of Margaret of Parma. They formed a triumvirate, each member of which was to fill a large space in the pages of history; Don Carlos from his errors and misfortunes, and the two others from their military achievements. They were all of nearly the same age. Don John, according to a writer of the time, stood foremost among the three for the comeliness, or rather beauty of his person, no less than for the charm of his manners;[144] while the soul was filled with those nobler qualities which gave promise of the highest excellence.[145]

DON JOHN'S THIRST FOR DISTINCTION.

His biographers tell us that Don John gave due attention to his studies, but the studies which found most favour in his eyes were those connected with the art of war. He was perfect in all chivalrous accomplishments; and he sighed for some field on which he could display them. The knowledge of his real parentage filled his soul with a generous ambition, and he longed by some heroic achievement to vindicate his claim to his illustrious descent.

At the end of three years, in 1564, he left the university. The following year was that of the famous siege of Malta; and all Christendom hung in suspense on the issue of the desperate conflict, which a handful of warriors, on their lonely isle, were waging against the whole strength of the Ottoman empire. The sympathies of Don John were roused in behalf of the Christian knights; and he resolved to cast his own fortunes into the scale with theirs, and win his maiden laurels under the banner of the Cross. He did not ask the permission of his brother. That he knew would be refused to him. He withdrew secretly from the court, and with only a few attendants took his way to Barcelona, whence an armament was speedily to sail, to carry succour to the besieged. Everywhere on the route he was received with the respect due to his rank. At Saragossa he was lodged with the archbishop, under whose roof he was detained by illness. While there he received a letter from the king, who had learned the cause of his departure, commanding him to return, as he was altogether too young to take part in this desperate strife. Don John gave little heed to the royal orders. He pushed on to Barcelona, where he had the mortification to find that the fleet had sailed. He resolved to cross the mountains and take ship at Marseilles. The viceroy of Catalonia could not dissuade the hot-headed youth from his purpose, when another despatch came from court, in which Philip, in a more peremptory tone than before, repeated his orders for his brother to return, under pain of his severe displeasure. A letter from Quixada had warned him of the certain disgrace which awaited him, if he continued to trifle with the royal commands. Nothing remained but to obey; and Don John, disappointed in his scheme of ambition, returned to the capital.[146]

This adventure caused a great sensation throughout the country. The young nobles and cavaliers about the court, fired by Don John's example, which seemed like a rebuke on their own sluggishness, had hastened to buckle on their armour, and follow him to the war.[147] The common people, peculiarly sensible in Spain to deeds of romantic daring, were delighted with the adventurous spirit of the young prince, which gave promise that he was one day to take his place among the heroes of the nation. This was the beginning of the popularity of John of Austria with his countrymen, who in time came to regard him with feelings little short of idolatry. Even Philip, however necessary he may have thought it to rebuke the insubordination of his brother, must in his heart have been pleased with the generous spirit he had exhibited. At least, the favour with which he continued to regard the offender showed that the royal displeasure was of no long continuance.

The sudden change in the condition of Don John might remind one of some fairy tale, where the poor peasant boy finds himself all at once converted by enchantment into a great prince. A wiser man than he might well have had his head turned by such a rapid revolution of the wheel of fortune; and Philip may naturally have feared that the idle dalliance of a court, to which his brother was now exposed, might corrupt his simple nature and seduce him from the honourable path of duty. Great, therefore, must have been his satisfaction, when he saw that, far from this, the elevation of the youth had only served to give a wider expansion to his views, and to fill his bosom with still higher and nobler aspirations.

The discreet conduct of Don John in regard to his nephew, Don Carlos, when the latter would have engaged him in his wild and impracticable schemes, established him still more firmly in the royal favour.[148]

In the spring of the year 1568, an opportunity occurred for Philip to gratify his brother's ambition, by entrusting him with the command of a fleet then fitting out, in the port of Carthagena, against the Barbary corsairs, who had been making alarming depredations of late on the Spanish commerce. But, while giving him this appointment, the king was careful to supply the lack of experience in his brother by naming as second in command an officer in whose abilities he perfectly confided. This was Antonio de Zuñiga y Requesens, grand commander of St. James, an eminent personage, who will come frequently before the reader in the progress of the narrative. Requesens, who at this time filled the post of ambassador at Rome, was possessed of the versatility of talent so important in an age when the same individual was often required to exchange the duties of the cabinet for those of the camp. While Don John appeared before the public as the captain of the fleet, the actual responsibility for the conduct of the expedition rested on his lieutenant.

On the third of June, Don John sailed out of port, at the head of as brave an armament as ever floated on the waters of the Mediterranean. The prince's own vessel was a stately galley, gorgeously fitted up, and decorated with a profusion of paintings, the subjects of which, drawn chiefly from ancient history and mythology, were of didactic import, intended to convey some useful lesson to the young commander. The moral of each picture was expressed by some pithy maxim inscribed beneath it in Latin. Thus, to whatever quarter Don John turned his eyes, they were sure to fall on some homily for his instruction; so that his galley might be compared to a volume richly filled with illustrations, that serve to impress the contents on the reader's memory.[149]

The cruise was perfectly successful; and Don John, on his return to port, some eight months later, might boast that, in more than one engagement, he had humbled the pride of the corsairs, and so far crippled them that it would be long before they could resume their depredations; that, in fine, he had vindicated the honour of his country's flag throughout the Mediterranean.

His return to Madrid was welcomed with the honours of a triumph. Courtier and commoner, men of all classes, in short, vied with each other in offering up the sweet incense of adulation, filling his young mind with lofty visions of the future, that beckoned him forward in the path of glory.

DON JOHN MADE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

When the insurrection of the Moriscoes broke out in 1568, the eyes of men naturally turned on Don John of Austria, as the person who would most likely be sent to suppress it. But Philip thought it would be safer to trust the command to those who, from their long residence in the neighbourhood, were better acquainted with the character of the country and of its inhabitants. When, however, the dissensions of the rival chiefs made it necessary to send some one invested with such powers as might enable him to overawe this factious spirit and enforce greater concert of action, the council of state recommended Don John to the command. Their recommendation was approved by the king, if, indeed, it was not originally made at his suggestion.

Still the "prudent" monarch was careful not to invest his brother with that independent command which the public supposed him to possess. On the contrary, his authority was restricted within limits almost as narrow as those which had curbed it in the Mediterranean. A council of war was appointed, by whose opinions Don John was to be guided in every question of moment. In case of a division of opinion, the question was to be referred to the decision of Philip.[150]

The chief members of this body, in whom the supreme power was virtually lodged, were the marquis of Mondejar, who from this time does not appear to have taken the field in person; the duke of Sessa, grandson of the great captain, Gonsalvo de Córdova, and endowed with no small portion of the military talent of his ancestor; the archbishop of Granada, a prelate possessed of as large a measure of bigotry as ever fell to the lot of a Spanish ecclesiastic; Deza, president of the Audience, who hated the Moriscoes with the fierce hatred of an inquisitor; and, finally, Don John's faithful ayo, Quixada, who had more influence over him than was enjoyed by any other, and who had come to witness the first of his pupil's campaigns, destined, alas! to be the closing one of his own.[151]

There could hardly have been a more unfortunate device than the contrivance of so cumbrous a machinery as this council, opposed as it was, from its very nature, to the despatch so indispensable to the success of military operations. The mischief was increased by the necessity of referring every disputed point to the decision of the king. As this was a contingency that often occurred, the young prince soon found almost as many embarrassments thrown in his way by his friends as by his foes,—embarrassments which nothing but an uncommon spirit of determination on his own part could have overcome.

On the sixth of April, 1569, Don John took leave of the king, then at Aranjuez, and hastened towards the south. His coming was eagerly expected by the inhabitants of Granada; by the Christians, from their hopes that it would remedy the disorders in the army and bring the war to a speedy conclusion; by the Moriscoes, from the protection they anticipated he would afford them against the violence of the Spaniards. Preparations were made in the capital for giving him a splendid reception. The programme of the ceremonies was furnished by Philip himself.[152] At some miles from the city, Don John was met by the count of Tendilla, at the head of a small detachment of infantry, wearing uniforms partly of the Castilian fashion, partly of the Morisco,—presenting altogether a strange and picturesque spectacle, in which silks, velvets, and rich embroidery floated gaily amidst the iron mail and burnished weapons of the warrior.[153] As the prince proceeded along his route, he was met by a long train of ecclesiastical and civic functionaries, followed by the principal cavaliers and citizens of Granada. At their head were the archbishop and the president, the latter of whom was careful to assert his rank by walking on the right of the prelate. Don John showed them both the greatest deference; and as they drew near, he dismounted from his horse, and, embracing the two churchmen, stood with hat in hand, for some moments, while conversing with them.[154] As their train came up, the president presented the most eminent persons to the prince, who received them with that frank and graceful courtesy which won the hearts of all who approached him. He then resumed his route, escorted on either side by the president and the archbishop. The neighbouring fields were covered with spectators, and on the plains of Béyro he found a large body of troops, not less than ten thousand, drawn up to receive him. As he approached, they greeted him with salvoes of musketry, delivered with admirable precision. As Don John glanced over their beautiful array, and beheld their perfect discipline and appointments, his eyes brightened and his cheek flushed with a soldier's pride.

Hardly had he entered the gates of Granada, when he was surrounded by a throng of women, who gathered about him in an attitude of supplication. They were the widows, the mothers, and the daughters of those who had so miserably perished in the massacres of the Alpujarras. They were clad in mourning, some of them so scantily as too plainly to reveal their poverty. Falling on their knees, with tears streaming from their eyes, and their words rendered almost inarticulate by their sobs, they demanded justice,—justice on the murderers of their kindred. They had seen their friends fall, they said, beneath the blows of their executioners; but the pain with which their hearts were then rent was not so great as what they now felt on learning that the cruel acts of these miscreants were to go unpunished.[155] Don John endeavoured to calm their agitation by expressions of the deepest sympathy for their misfortunes,—expressions of which none who saw his countenance could doubt the truth; and he promised that he would do all in his power to secure them justice.

A livelier scene awaited him as the procession held its way along the streets of the ancient capital. Everywhere the houses were gaily decorated with tapestries of cloth of gold. The multitude who thronged the avenues filled the air with their loyal acclamations. Bright eyes glanced from balconies and windows, where the noblest matrons and maidens of Granada, in rich attire, were gathered to look upon the splendid pageant, and the young hero who was the object of it.[156] In this state he moved along until he reached the palace of the Royal Audience, where, by the king's command, apartments had been sumptuously fitted up for his accommodation.[157]

DISCUSSIONS OF THE COUNCIL.

The following day, a deputation waited on Don John from the principal Moriscoes of the city, claiming his protection against the injuries and insults to which they were exposed whenever they went abroad. They complained especially of the Spanish troops quartered on them, and of the manner in which they violated the sanctity of their dwellings by the foulest outrages. Don John replied in a tone that expressed little of the commiseration which he had shown to the female petitioners on the preceding day. He told the Moriscoes that he had been sent to restore order to Granada, and that those who had proved loyal would find themselves protected in all their rights. Those, on the contrary, who had taken part in the late rebellion, would be chastised with unsparing rigour.[158] He directed them to state their grievances in a memorial, with a caution to set down nothing which they could not prove, or it would go hard with them. The unfortunate Moriscoes found that they were to expect such justice only as comes from the hand of an enemy.

The first session of the council showed how defective was the system for conducting the war. In the discussions that ensued, Mondejar remarked that the contest, in his opinion, was virtually at an end; that the Moriscoes, for the most part, were in so favourable a mood, that he would undertake, if the affair were placed in his hands, to bring them all to submission in a very short time. This proposal was treated with contempt by the haughty president, who denounced them as a false-hearted race, on whose promises no one could rely. The war, he said, would never be ended so long as the Moriscoes of the capital were allowed to communicate with their countrymen in the mountains, and to furnish them with secret intelligence respecting what was passing in the Christian camp. The first step was to remove them all from Granada into the interior; the second, to make such an example of the miscreants who had perpetrated the massacres in the Alpujarras as should strike terror into the hearts of the infidels, and deter them from any further resistance to authority. In this division of opinion the members took different sides, according to the difference of their tempers. The commander-in-chief and Quixada both leaned to Mondejar's opinion. After a protracted discussion, it became necessary to refer the question to the king, who was by no means distinguished for the promptness with which he came to his conclusions. All this required much time, during which active operations could not be resumed.[159]

Yet Don John did not pass it idly. He examined the state of the works in Granada and its neighbourhood; he endeavoured to improve the condition of the army, and to quell the spirit of insubordination which had risen in some portions of it; finally, he sent his commands for enforcing levies, not merely in Andalusia and the adjoining provinces, but in Castile. The appeal was successful; and the great lords in the south, more particularly, gathering their retainers, hastened to Granada, to draw their swords under this popular chieftain.[160]

Meanwhile the delay was attended with most mischievous consequences, as it gave the enemy time to recover from the disasters of the previous campaign. Aben-Humeya had returned, as we have seen in the former chapter, to his mountain throne, where he soon found himself in greater strength than before. Even the "Moriscoes of the peace," as they were called, who had resumed their allegiance to the crown, exasperated by the outrages of the Spanish soldiery, and the contempt which they showed for the safe-conduct of the marquis of Mondejar, now came in great numbers to Aben-Humeya's camp, offering their services, and promising to stand by him to the last. Other levies he drew from Africa. The Moslem princes to whom he had applied for succour, though refusing to embark openly in his cause, as he had desired, allowed such of their subjects as chose to join his standard. In consequence a considerable body of Barbary Moors crossed the sea, and entered into the service of the Morisco chief. They were a fierce, intrepid race, accustomed to a life of wild adventure, and possessing a better acquaintance with military tactics than belonged to the Spanish mountaineers.[161]

While strengthened by these recruits, Aben-Humeya drew a much larger revenue than formerly from his more extended domains.[162] Though showy and expensive in his tastes, he did not waste it all on the maintenance of the greater state which he now assumed in his way of living. He employed it freely in the pay of foreign levies, and in procuring arms and munitions for his own troops; and he profited by his experience in the last campaign, and by the example of his African mercenaries, to introduce a better system of tactics among his Morisco warriors. The policy he adopted, as before, was to avoid pitched battles, and to confine himself chiefly to the guerilla warfare, better suited to the genius of the mountaineer. He fell on small detachments of Spaniards, who were patrolling the country, cut off the convoys, and thus greatly straitened the garrisons in their supplies. He made forays into the Christian territories, penetrating even into the vega, and boldly carried the war up to the walls of Granada.

His ravages in this quarter, it is true, did not continue long after the arrival of Don John, who took effectual measures for protecting the capital from insult. But the prince was greatly chagrined by seeing the rapid extension of the Morisco domain. Yet he could take no decisive measures to check it until the council had determined on some plan of operations. He was moreover fettered by the king's orders not to take the field in person, but to remain and represent him in Granada, where he would find enough to do in regulating the affairs and providing for the safety of the city.[163] Philip seems to have feared that Don John's adventurous spirit would lead him to some rash act that might unnecessarily expose him to danger. He appears, indeed, as we may gather from numerous passages in his letters, to have been more concerned for the safety of his brother than for the success of the campaign.[164] He may have thought, too, that it was better to trust the war to the hands of the veteran chief, the marquis of Los Velez, who could boast so much larger experience than Don John, and who had possessed the king with a high idea of his military talents.

THE WAR RENEWED.

This nobleman still held the command of the country east of the Alpujarras, in which lay his own large property. He had, as we have seen, a hard and arrogant nature, which could ill brook the paramount authority of the young commander-in-chief, to whom he rarely condescended to write, preferring to make his communications directly to the king.[165] Philip, prompted by his appetite for power, winked at this irregular proceeding, which enabled him to take a more direct part in the management of affairs than he could otherwise have done. It was a most injudicious step, and was followed, as we shall see, by disastrous consequences.

The marquis, without waiting for orders, resolved to open the campaign by penetrating into the Alpujarras with the small force he had under his command. But a body of some four hundred troops, which he had caused to occupy the pass of Ravaha, was cut off by the enemy, and the haughty chieftain reluctantly obeyed the orders of Don John to abandon his design. Aben-Humeya's success encouraged him to attack the marquis in his new quarters at Verja. It was a well-concerted enterprise, but unfortunately, before the time arrived for its execution, it was betrayed by a prisoner to the Spanish commander. It consequently failed. Aben-Humeya penetrated into the heart of the town, where he found himself in the midst of an ambuscade, and with difficulty, after a heavy loss, effected his retreat. But if the victory remained with the Spaniards, the fruits of it fell to the Moriscoes. The spirit shown by the Moslem prince gave new life to his countrymen, and more than counterbalanced the effects of his defeat. The rich and populous country of the Rio de Almanzora rose in arms. The marquis of Los Velez found it expedient to abandon his present position, and to transfer his quarters to Adra, a seaport on the Mediterranean, which would afford him greater facilities for receiving reinforcements and supplies.[166]

The spirit of insurrection now spread rapidly over other parts of the Alpujarras, and especially along the sierra of Bentomiz, which stretches from the neighbourhood of Alhama towards the south. Here the mountaineers, who had hitherto taken no part in the troubles of the country, ranging themselves under the crimson banner of Aben-Humeya, broke forth into open rebellion. The inhabitants of Velez and of the more important city of Malaga were filled with consternation, trembling lest the enemy should descend on them from the mountains and deluge their streets with blood. They hastily mustered the militia of the country, and made preparations for their defence.

Fortunately, at this conjuncture, they were gladdened by the sight of the grand-commander, Requesens, who sailed into the harbour of Velez-Malaga with a squadron from Italy, having on board several battalions of Spanish veterans, who had been ordered home by the government to reinforce the army of the Alpujarras. There were no better troops in the service, seasoned as they were by many a hard campaign, and all under the most perfect discipline. The first step of Requesens,—the same officer, it will be remembered, who had acted as the lieutenant of Don John of Austria in his cruise in the Mediterranean,—was to request of his young general the command of the expedition against the rebels of Bentomiz. These were now gathered in great force on the lofty table-land of Fraxiliana, where they had strengthened the natural defences of the ground by such works as rendered the approach to it nearly impracticable. The request was readily granted; and the grand-commander of St. James, without loss of time, led his battalions into the heart of the sierra.

We have not space for the details. It is enough to say that the expedition was one of the best-conducted in the war. The enemy made a desperate resistance; and, had it not been for the timely arrival of the bold burghers of Malaga, the grand-commander would have been driven from the field. The Morisco women fought by the side of their husbands; and when all was lost, many threw themselves headlong from the precipices rather than fall into the hands of the Spaniards.[167] Two thousand of the enemy were slain, and three thousand captives, with an immense booty of gold, silver, jewels, and precious stuffs, became the spoil of the victors. The spirit of rebellion was effectually crushed in the sierra of Bentomiz.

Yet it was not a bloodless victory. Full six hundred of the Christians fell on the field of battle. The loss bore most heavily on the troops from Italy. Nearly every captain in this valiant corps was wounded.[168] The bloody roll displayed, moreover, the name of more than one cavalier as distinguished for his birth as for his bravery. Two thousand Moriscoes succeeded in making their escape to the camp of Aben-Humeya. They proved a seasonable reinforcement, for that chief was meditating an assault on Seron.[169]

This was a strongly-fortified place, perched like an eagle's eyry on the summit of a bold cliff that looked down on the Rio de Almanzora, and commanded its formidable passes. It was consequently a most important post, and at this time was held by a Spanish garrison under an officer named Mirones. Aben-Humeya sent a strong detachment against it, intending to carry it by storm. But the Moriscoes had no battering train, and, as it soon appeared, were little skilled in the art of conducting a siege. It was resolved, therefore, to abandon the present plan of operations, and to reduce the place by the slower but surer way of blockade. Five thousand men, accordingly, sat down before the town on the 18th of June, and effectually cut off all communication from abroad.

The garrison succeeded in conveying intelligence of their condition to Don John, who lost no time in ordering Alonso de Carbajal to march with a body of troops and a good supply of provisions to their relief. But, just after his departure, Don John received information that the king had entrusted the marquis of Los Velez with the defence of Seron. He, therefore, by Quixada's advice, countermanded his orders to Carbajal, and directed him to return. That officer, who had approached within a short distance of the place, reluctantly obeyed, and left Seron to its fate. The marquis of Los Velez, notwithstanding the jealousy he displayed of the interference of Don John in the affair, showed so little alacrity in providing for the safety of the beleaguered fortress, that the garrison, reduced to extremity, on the eleventh of July, surrendered on honourable terms. But no sooner had they given up the place, than the victors, regardless of the terms of capitulation, murdered in cold blood every male over twelve years of age, and made slaves of the women and children. This foul act was said to have been perpetrated by the secret command of Aben-Humeya. The Morisca chief might allege, in vindication of his perfidy, that he had but followed the lesson set him by the Spaniards.[170]

REMOVAL OF THE MORISCOES.

The loss of Seron caused deep regret to the army. Nor could this regret be mitigated by the reflection, that its loss was to be attributed not so much to the valour of the Moslems as to the misconduct of their own commanders, or rather to the miserable system adopted for carrying on the war. The triumph of the Moriscoes, however, was greatly damped by the intelligence which they had received, shortly before the surrender of Seron, of disasters that had befallen their countrymen in Granada.

Philip, after much hesitation, had given his sanction to Deza's project for the removal of the Moriscoes from the capital into the interior of the country. The day appointed for carrying the measure into effect was the twenty-third of June. A large body of troops, with the principal commanders, was secretly assembled in the capital to enforce the execution of the plan. Meanwhile, rumours were current that the Moriscoes in the city were carrying on a secret communication with their countrymen in the Alpujarras; that they supplied the mountaineers with arms and money; that the young men were leaving Granada to join their ranks; finally, that a conspiracy had been planned for an assault on the city, and even that the names of the leaders were given. It is impossible, at this time, to say what foundation there was for these charges; but the reader may recollect that similar ones had been circulated previous to the barbarous massacre in the prison of the Chancery.

On the twenty-third of the month, on the eve of St John's, an edict was published, commanding all the Morisco males in Granada between ten and sixty years of age, to repair to the parish churches to which they respectively belonged, where they were to learn their fate. The women were to remain some time longer in the city, to dispose of the most valuable effects, such as could not easily be transported. This was not difficult, at the low prices for which, in their extremity, they were obliged to part with their property. We are left in ignorance of the fate of the children, who, no doubt, remained in the hands of the government, to be nurtured in the Roman Catholic faith.[171]

Nothing could exceed the consternation of the Moriscoes on the publication of this decree, for which, though so long suspended by a thread, as it were, over their heads, they were wholly unprepared. It is not strange, as they recalled the atrocious murders perpetrated in the prison of the Chancery, that they should have been led to believe that nothing less than a massacre of the whole Moorish population was now designed. It was in vain that the marquis of Mondejar endeavoured to allay their fears. They were somewhat comforted by the assurance of the President Deza, given under his own hand, that their lives were in no danger. But their apprehensions on this point were not wholly quieted till Don John had pledged his royal word that no harm should come to their persons; that, in short, the great object of the government was to secure their safety. They then submitted without any attempt at resistance. Resistance, indeed, would have been hardly possible, destitute as they were of weapons or other means of defence, and surrounded on all quarters by the well-armed soldiery of Castile. They accordingly entered the churches assigned to them, at the doors of which strong guards were stationed during the night.

On the following morning the Moriscoes were marched out and formed into a procession, which was to take its way to the great hospital in the suburbs. This was a noble building, erected by the good Queen Isabella the Catholic, not long after the Conquest. Here they were to stay till the arrangements were completed for forming them into divisions according to their several places of destination. It was a sad and solemn spectacle, that of this company of exiles, as they moved with slow and uncertain step, bound together by cords,[172] and escorted, or rather driven along like a gang of convicts, by the fierce soldiery. There they were, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, now, alas! brought to the same level, the forms of most of them bowed down, less by the weight of years than of sorrow, their hands meekly folded on their breasts, their cheeks wet with tears, as they gazed for the last time on their beautiful city, the sweet home of their infancy, the proud seat of ancient empire, endeared to them by so many tender and glorious recollections.[173]

The march was conducted in an orderly manner, with but a single interruption, which, however, was near being attended by the most disastrous consequences. A Spanish alguazil, offended at some words that fell from one of the prisoners—for so they might be called—requited him with a blow from his staff. But the youth whom he struck had the fiery blood of the Arab in his veins. Snatching up a broken tile, he dealt such a blow on the offender's head as nearly severed his ear from it. The act cost him his life. He was speedily cut down by the Spaniards, who rushed to the assistance of their wounded comrade. A rumour now went round that the Moriscoes had attempted the life of Don John, whose dress resembled in its colour that of the alguazil. The passions of the soldiery were roused. They flocked to the scene of violence, uttering the most dreadful imprecations. Their swords and lances glittered in the air, and in a few moments would have been sheathed in the bodies of their terrified victims.

Fortunately, the quick eye of Don John discerned the confusion. Surrounded by a body-guard of arquebusiers, he was there in person to superintend the removal of the Moriscoes. Spurring his horse forward into the midst of the tumult, and showing himself to the troops, he exclaimed that no one had offered him any harm. He called on them to return to their duty, and not to dishonour him as well as themselves, by offering violence to innocent men, for whose protection he had so solemnly pledged his word. The soldiers, abashed by the rebuke of their young chief, and satisfied with the vengeance they had taken on the offender, fell back into their ranks. The trembling Moriscoes gradually recovered from their panic, the procession resumed its march, and without further interruption reached the hospital of Isabella.[174]

REMOVAL OF THE MORISCOES.

There the royal contadores were not long in ascertaining the number of the exiles. It amounted to thirty-five hundred. That of the women, who were soon to follow, was much greater.[175] The names, the ages, and the occupations of the men were all carefully registered. The following day they were marched into the great square before the hospital, where they were distributed into companies, each under a strong escort, to be conducted to their various places of destination. These, far from being confined to Andalusia, reached into New Castile. In this arrangement we may trust that so much respect was paid to the dictates of humanity, as not to separate those of the same kindred from one another. But the chroniclers give no information on the subject; probably regarding details of this sort, in regard to the fallen race, as below the dignity of history.

It was on the twenty-fifth of June, 1569, that, bidding a sad farewell to the friends and companions of their youth, from whom they were now to be for ever parted, they set forth on their doleful pilgrimage. The morning light had broken on the red towers of the Alhambra, as the bands of exiles, issuing from the gates of their beloved capital, the spot dearest to them upon earth, turned their faces towards their new homes,—homes which many of them were destined never to behold. The government, with shameful indifference, had neglected to provide for the poor wanderers the most common necessaries of life. Some actually perished of hunger by the way. Others, especially those accustomed from infancy to a delicate nurture, sank down and died of fatigue. Some were seized by the soldiers, whose cupidity was roused by the sight of their helplessness, and were sold as slaves. Others were murdered by their guards in cold blood.[176] Thus reduced far below their original number, they reached their appointed places, there to linger out the remainder of their days in the midst of a population who held them in that abhorrence with which a good Catholic of the sixteenth century regarded "the enemies of God."[177]

But the evils which grew out of this stern policy of the government were not wholly confined to the Moriscoes. This ingenious people were so far superior to the Spaniards in the knowledge of husbandry, and in the various mechanical arts, that they formed the most important part of the population of Granada. The only art in which their rivals excelled them was that which thrives at the expense of every other—the art of war. Aware of this, the government had excepted some of the best artisans in the capital from the doom of exile which had fallen on their countrymen, and they had accordingly remained in the city. But their number was too small to produce the result desired; and it was not long before the quarter of the town which had been occupied by the Moriscoes exhibited a scene of woeful desolation. The light and airy edifices, which displayed in their forms the fantastic graces of Arabian architecture, fell speedily into decay. The parterres and pleasure-grounds, filled with exotics, and glowing in all the exuberance of southern vegetation, became a wilderness of weeds; and the court-yards and public squares, where tanks and sparkling fountains, fed by the streams of the Sierra Nevada, shed a refreshing coolness over the atmosphere in the sultriest months of summer, were soon converted into a melancholy heap of rubbish.

The mischiefs growing out of the removal of the Moriscoes fell sorely on the army. The men had been quartered, as we have seen, in the houses of the Moriscoes. From the present occupants, for the most part needy and thriftless speculators, they met with very different fare from what they had enjoyed under the former wealthy and luxurious proprietors. The troops supplied the deficiency, as far as they could, by plundering the citizens. Hence incessant feuds arose between the people and the army, and a spirit of insubordination rapidly grew up in the latter, which made it more formidable to its friends than to its foes.[178]

An eyewitness of these troubles closes his narrative of the removal of the Moriscoes by remarking that it was a sad spectacle to one who reflected on the former policy and prosperity of this ill-starred race; who had seen their sumptuous mansions in the day of their glory, their gardens and pleasure-grounds, the scene of many a gay revel and jocund holiday, and who now contrasted all this with the ruin into which everything had fallen.[179] "It seems," he concludes, "as if Providence had intended to show, by the fate of this beautiful city, that the fairest things in this world are the most subject to decay."[180] To the philosopher of the present age it may seem rather the natural result of that system of religious intolerance which had converted enemies those who, under a beneficent rule, would have been true and loyal subjects, and who by their industry and skill would have added incalculably to the resources of the country.

CHAPTER VI.
REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Operations of Los Velez—Conspiracy against Aben-Humeya—His Assassination—Election of Aben-Aboo—Vigorous Prosecution of the War—Fierce Combats in the Vega—Impetuous Spirit of Don John—Surprise of Guejar.

1569.

While the events related in the preceding chapter were occurring, the marquis of Los Velez lay, with a considerable force, at Adra, a port on the Mediterranean, at the foot of the Alpujarras, which he had selected chiefly from the facilities it would afford him for getting supplies for his army. In this he was disappointed. Before the month of June had expired, his troops had begun to be straitened for provisions. The evil went on increasing from day to day. His levies, composed chiefly of raw recruits from Andalusia, were full of that independent, and indeed turbulent spirit, which belongs to an ill-disciplined militia. There was no lack of courage in the soldiery. But the same men who had fearlessly braved the dangers of the campaign, now growing impatient under the pinch of hunger, abandoned their colours in great numbers.

There were various causes for the deficiency of supplies. The principal one of these may probably be found in the remissness of the council of war, several of whose members regarded the marquis with an evil eye, and were not sorry to see his embarrassments.

OPERATIONS OF LOS VELEZ.

Some vigorous measures were instantly to be taken, or the army, it was evident, would soon altogether melt away. By the king's command, orders were despatched to Requesens, who lay with his squadron off the port of Velez-Malaga, to supply the camp with provisions, while it received reinforcements, as before, principally from the Andalusian militia. The army received a still more important accession in the well-disciplined veterans who had followed the grand-commander from Italy. Thus strengthened, and provisioned for a week or more, Los Velez, at the head of twelve thousand men, set forth on the twenty-sixth of July, and struck at once into the Alpujarras. He had been directed by the council to establish himself at Ugibar, which, by its central position, would enable him to watch the movements of Aben-Humeya, and act on any point as occasion required.

The marquis, without difficulty, defeated a force of some five or six thousand men, who had been stationed to oppose his entrance into the mountain country. He then pressed forward, and on the high lands beyond Ugibar—which place he had already occupied—he came in sight of Aben-Humeya, with the flower of his troops drawn up to receive him.

The two chiefs, in their characters, their persons, and their equipments, might be considered as no bad types of the European and the Arab chivalry. The marquis, sheathed in complete mail, of a sable colour, and mounted on his heavy war-horse, also covered with armour, was to be seen brandishing a lance which, short and thick, seemed rather like a truncheon, as he led his men boldly on, prepared to plunge at once into the thick of the fight.[181] He was the very emblem of brute force. Aben-Humeya, on the other hand, gracefully managing his swift-footed, snow-white Andalusian, with his Morisco mantle of crimson floating lightly from his shoulders, and his Turkish turban wreathed around his head,[182] instead of force, suggested the opposite ideas of agility and adroitness, so characteristic of the children of the East.

Riding along his lines, the Morisco prince exhorted his followers not to fear the name of Los Velez: for, in the hour of danger, God would aid His own; and better was it, at any rate, to die like brave men in the field, than to live dishonoured.[183] Notwithstanding these magnanimous words, it was far from Aben-Humeya's wish to meet his enemy in a fair field of fight. It was contrary to the genius and the habit of his warfare, which was of the guerilla kind, abounding in sallies and surprises, in which, seeking some vulnerable point, he could deal his blow and retreat precipitately among the mountains.

Yet his followers, though greatly inferior in numbers to the enemy, behaved with spirit; and the field was well contested, till a body of Andalusian horse, making a détour under cover of some rising ground, fell unexpectedly on the rear of the Moriscoes, and threw them into confusion. The marquis pressing them at the same time vigorously in front, they broke, and soon gave way on all sides. Aben-Humeya, perceiving the day lost, gave the rein to his high-mettled genet, who swiftly bore him from the field; and, though hotly pursued, he soon left his enemies behind. On reaching the foot of the Sierra Nevada, the chief dismounted, and hamstringing his noble animal, plunged into the depths of the mountains, which again opened their friendly arms to receive him.[184] Yet he did not remain there long before he was joined by his followers; and no sooner was he in sufficient strength, than he showed himself on the eastern skirts of the sierra, whence, like an eagle stooping on his prey, he rushed down upon the plains below, sweeping through the rich valley of the Rio de Almanzora, and carrying fire and sword to the very borders of Murcia. Here he revenged himself on Los Velez by falling on his town of Las Cuevas, firing his dwellings, ravaging his estates, and rousing his Morisco vassals to rebellion.[185]

Meanwhile the marquis, instead of following up his victory, remained torpid within the walls of Calahorra. Here he had desired the council to provide stores for the subsistence of his army. To his dismay, none had been provided; and as his own attempts to procure them were unsuccessful, he soon found himself in the same condition as at Adra. The famine-stricken troops, with little pay and less plunder, first became discontented, then mutinous, and at length deserted in great numbers. It was in vain that the irascible old chief poured out his wrath in menaces and imprecations. His arrogant temper had made him hated even more than he was feared by his soldiers. They now went off, not stealthily and by night, but in the open day, whole companies at a time, their arquebuses on their shoulders, and their matches lighted.[186] When Don Diego Fajardo, the marquis's son, endeavoured to stay them, one, more audacious than the rest, lodged a musket-ball in his body. It was not long before the gallant array with which the marquis had so proudly entered the Alpujarras, was reduced to less than three thousand men. Among them were the Italian veterans, who refused to tarnish their well-earned laurels by thus basely abandoning their commander.

The council of war complained loudly to the king of the fatal inactivity of the marquis, and of his neglect to follow up the advantages he had gained. Los Velez angrily retorted by throwing the blame on that body, for neglecting to furnish him with the supplies which would have enabled him to do so. Philip, alarmed, with reason, at the critical aspect of affairs, ordered the marquis of Mondejar to repair to court, that he might confer with him on the state of the country. This was the avowed motive for his recall. But, in truth, it seems probable that the king, aware of that nobleman's leaning to a pacific policy, and of his personal hostility to Los Velez, deemed it best to remove him altogether from any share in the conduct of the war. This he did most effectually, by sending him into honourable exile, first appointing him Viceroy of Valentia, and afterwards raising him to the important post of Viceroy of Naples. From this period the name of Mondejar no more appears on the theatre of the Morisco war.[187]

DECLINE OF ABEN-HUMEYA'S POPULARITY.

The marquis did not win the favour to which he was entitled by his deserts. He seems to have possessed some of the best qualities of a good captain. Bold in action, he was circumspect in council. Slow and sagacious in the formation of his plans, he carried them out with singular perseverance. He knew the country well which was the seat of the insurrection, and perfectly understood the character of its inhabitants. What was more rare, he made allowance for the excesses into which they had been drawn by a long course of insult and oppression. The humanity of his disposition combined with his views of policy to make him rely more on conciliatory measures than on fear, for the reduction of the enemy. How well this worked we have seen. Had he been properly supported by those engaged with him in the direction of affairs, we can hardly doubt of his ultimate success. But, unhappily, the two most prominent of these, the President Deza and the Marquis of Los Velez, were narrow-minded, implacable bigots, who, far from feeling compassion for the Moriscoes, looked on the whole race as "God's enemies." Unfortunately, these views found favour with the government; and Philip, who rightly thought that the marquis of Mondejar would only prove a hindrance to carrying on hostilities with vigour, acted consistently in sending him from the country. Yet, while he was thus removed from the conduct of the war, it may be thought an unequivocal acknowledgment of Mondejar's deserts, that he was transferred to the most considerable post in the gift of the crown.

Before the marquis's departure, Philip had transferred his court to Córdova, in order to facilitate his communication with the seat of war. He hoped, too, that the knowledge of his being so near would place some check on the disorderly temper of the soldiery, and animate them with more loyal and patriotic feelings. In this way of proceeding he considered himself as imitating the example of his great ancestors, Ferdinand and Isabella, who, during the war of Granada, usually transferred their court to one of the capitals of the South. He did not, however, think it necessary, like them, to lead his armies in person, and share in the toils of the campaign.

On the nineteenth of October, Philip published an edict, which intimated his design of following up the war with vigour. It commanded that such of the Moriscoes as had hitherto been allowed to remain in Granada should now be removed from it, in order that no means of communication might be left to them with their brethren in the mountains. It was further proclaimed, that the war henceforth was to be carried on with "fire and blood;"[188] in other words, that no mercy was to be shown the insurgents. This was the first occasion on which this fierce denunciation had been made by the government. To reconcile the militia of the towns to the service, their pay was to be raised to a level with that of the Italian volunteers; and to relieve the towns, the greater part of the expense was to be borne by the crown. Before the publication of this ordinance the king had received intelligence of an event unexpected alike by Christian and by Moslem—the death of Aben-Humeya, and that by the hands of some of his own followers.

The Morisco prince, after carrying the war up to the borders of Murcia, laid siege to two or three places of strength in that quarter. As might have been expected, he failed in these attempts, from his want of battering artillery. Thus foiled, he led back his forces into the Alpujarras, and established his quarters in the ancient Moorish palace of Lanjaron, on the slopes of the mountains commanding the beautiful valley of Lecrin. Here the torpid condition of the Spaniards under Los Velez allowed the young monarch to remain, and give himself up to those sensual indulgences with which the Moslem princes of the East were apt to solace their leisure in the intervals of war. His harem rivalled that of any Oriental satrap in the number of its inmates. This was strange to the Moriscoes, who, since their nominal conversion to Christianity, had of course repudiated polygamy. In the eyes of the Moslems, it might pass for good evidence of their prince's orthodoxy.

Ever since Aben-Humeya's ascent to the throne he had been declining in popularity. His handsome person, the courtesy of his manners, his chivalrous spirit, and his devotion to the cause, had easily won him the affections of his subjects. But a too sudden elevation had unfortunately that effect on him which it is wont to have on weak minds, without any settled principles or lofty aim to guide them. Possessed of power, he became tyrannical in the use of it.[189] His arbitrary acts created enemies, not the less dangerous that they were concealed. The consciousness of the wrongs he had committed made him suspicious. He surrounded himself with a body-guard of four hundred men. Sixteen hundred more were quartered in the place where he was residing; and the principal avenues to it, we are told, were defended by barricades.[190] Those whom he suspected he treated with particular kindness. He drew them around his person, overwhelmed them with favours, and, when he had won them by a show of confidence, he struck the fatal blow.[191] During the short period of his reign, no less than three hundred and fifty persons, we are assured, fell victims to his jealousy or his revenge.[192]

Among Aben-Humeya's officers was one named Diego Alguazil, who had a beautiful kinswoman, with whom he lived, it is said, on terms of greater intimacy than was justified by the relationship of the parties. As he was one day imprudently speaking of her to Aben-Humeya in the glowing language of a lover, the curiosity of the king was so much inflamed by it that he desired to see her. In addition to her personal charms, the fair Zahara was mistress of many accomplishments which rendered her still more attractive. She had a sweet voice, which she accompanied bewitchingly on the lute, and in her dancing displayed all the soft and voluptuous movements of the dark-eyed beauties of Andalusia.[193] When brought before the king, she did her best to please him; for though attached, as it seems, to her kinsman, the ambitious coquette had no objection to having a royal suitor in her chains. In this she perfectly succeeded; and the enamoured prince intimated his desire to Alguazil that he would resign to him the possession of his mistress. But the Morisco loved her too well; and neither threats nor promises of the most extravagant kind were able to extort his consent. Thus baffled, the reckless Aben-Humeya, consulting only his passion, caused the perhaps not reluctant Zahara to be taken by force and lodged in his harem. By this act he made a mortal enemy of Alguazil.