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GATE OF THE COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE CATHEDRAL. 
 Frontispiece. 
 
flhe Stoig dJ tip Aations 
 
 
 THE 
 
 STORY OF SPAIN 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 AND 
 
 SUSAN HALE 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 %\z fmicktrbochcr |)ress 
 
 1887 
 
COPYRIGHT 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 1886 
 
 Press of 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
 New York 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 SPAIN has held, for two thousand years, an inter- 
 esting and important position among the states of 
 Europe. She is of Europe and she is not. For the 
 Pyrenees separate her so far from the continent, that 
 her people have always had characteristics of their 
 own, more deeply stamped upon them than those of 
 any other European nation. Yet the Pyrenees are not 
 impassable, and the Mediterranean is easily traversed. 
 So that Spain has been no separated Japan, but she 
 has had to give and take in the international cour- 
 tesies, exchanges, and conflicts of the western 
 world. There have been times when the monarchs 
 of Spain gave the law to Europe. Even the Greek 
 emperor once owed his crown to the succor of 
 Catalonia. There have been times, again, when none 
 have been so poor as to render to Spain any reverence. 
 There are spots in Spain where a year may pass with- 
 out a drop of rain. But within a few hundred miles 
 the rainfall of the same year is all that is needed for 
 the most successful agriculture, and these regions are 
 rich and beautiful, while the others are arid deserts. 
 The history of Spain shows contrasts which are as 
 strong. It is hard to believe that we are reading of 
 the same nation, when we follow the history of the 
 great expeditions of discovery and war by which she 
 
 iii 
 
iv THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 traversed and conquered two hemispheres ; and when, 
 within a few generations after, we drag through the 
 wretched annals of petty court intrigues, which are 
 all that is left of the story of the descendants of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. 
 
 To write every detail of such a history for English 
 readers, would literally not be worth the ink and the 
 paper w T hich it would cost. Of what is forgotten 
 in it, much is well forgotten, and no writer need at- 
 tempt to raise it from its grave. But we have 
 thought that the reader of to-day ought to know 
 what are the successive steps by which the Iberia, 
 which was almost a fabled country to the Romans of 
 the time of the Consuls, has become the Spain of 
 to-day, with the proud record of Spain in literature, 
 in adventure, in discovery, in statesmanship, and in 
 war. The book which the reader holds undertakes 
 to show these important steps. We pass, intention- 
 ally and without a word, much of the detail of long- 
 periods, that we may have the more space and 
 chance to describe the essential movements of his- 
 tory, on which the real fortunes of Spain have de- 
 pended, and, in many instances, the fortunes of the 
 world. What is left out is by no means without 
 interest, and we do not pretend that it is without 
 importance. We shall be glad, indeed, if in the 
 story as we tell it, the reader shall be tempted to 
 search for himself, in those narratives in different 
 languages, by which he can fill out our intentional 
 omissions. 
 
 It might probably be said that no country has 
 furnished more fascinating subjects for literature and 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 art than Spain. The mere contrasts of which we 
 have spoken are such as dramatists and poets delight 
 in ; and one might almost say that the rare variety 
 which fascinates the traveller in Spain, and the con- 
 flicts and rivalries of the five or six nations which 
 make up the Spanish people, have given a sort of 
 stimulus, especially to romance, which we should 
 hardly expect where nature and life are more com- 
 monplace. From the first century, when Martial, 
 Lucan, the Senecas, and Quintilian, all Spaniards by 
 birth, were leaders in the literary circles of Rome, 
 down to our days when Mr. Longfellow writes " The 
 Spanish Student," and George Eliot " The Spanish 
 Gipsy," the authors of every western nation have 
 felt the Spanish fascination. The origin of modern 
 romance might be fairly ascribed to Amadis of Gaul. 
 It would be well indeed if some of the nineteenth- 
 century romancers would imitate the directness of 
 its narrative and the simplicity of its description. 
 Though it is not to be accounted a Spanish romance 
 originally, it owes all its early reputation to Spain ; 
 the readers of Spain knowing how to give full 
 sympathy to the work of Lobeira, who is indeed one 
 of their own brothers, writing in the neighboring 
 country of Portugal and in its kindred tongue. 
 
 Within the last three months it has been said, on 
 good authority, that among leaders of our own 
 colored races at the South, there are traditions of 
 the times when Islam held possession of Granada, 
 and a vague feeling that, in the future, Africa and 
 Africans shall regain their lost empire in Spain. 
 This is certain, that Islam has never forgotten those 
 
VI THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 glorious centuries when Cordova and the sister cities 
 were at the head of the civilization of the world. It 
 is not, therefore, the literature of Europe or America 
 only which looks fondly for its subjects to Spain, 
 but we follow her legends and her truer histories as 
 well in the Eastern writers, so long as the East had 
 any literature. 
 
 It has been, therefore, a part of our plan in follow- 
 ing the Story of Spain, to refer, from chapter to 
 chapter, to such illustrations from the writings of 
 various authors of different countries, as might inter- 
 est young readers and tempt them to follow, not 
 only the history of Spain in its chronological order, 
 but the series of writings which in romance, in 
 poetry, and in other literature we owe to her sug- 
 gestions. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 I. 
 
 Early Traditions ...... 3-18 
 
 The necklace of the queen, 3 — Iberians on the peninsula, 
 4 — Thirty-seven monkeys at Gibraltar, 4 — Celts from Asia 
 migrate from the West, 5 — Celts, Iberians, and Celtiberi- 
 ans, 5 — Their arms, their food, their dress, 6 — Names of the 
 different tribes, -8 — Asturians, 8 — Cantabrians, 9 — Vascones 
 or Basques, 9 — Basque language, or Esquera, 10 — Galici- 
 ans, 11 — Lusitania, and the religion of the Druids, 12 — 
 Characteristics of these Northern tribes, 12 — Early races of 
 Southern Spain, 14 — Phoenicians, tempted by the wealth of 
 the country, 16 — The alphabet of the Phoenicians, 17 — Dif- 
 ference between tradition and written history, 17. 
 
 II. 
 
 Carthaginians ...... i9~ 2 9 
 
 First acquaintance of Spain with the rest of the world, 19 — 
 The ships of Tarshish, 19 — Foothold for the Carthaginians, 
 20 — Carthage steadily gaining power, 20 — Hannibal's 
 scheme of subduing the Spaniards, 21 — Hamilcar had built 
 New Carthage, 21 — The boy Hannibal and his oath, 21 — 
 War against Saguntum, 22 — The Saguntines resist bravely, 
 24 — But, left to their fate, surrender, 25 — Result, described 
 by Livy, 26 — Carthaginian tinge in the blood of Spain, 
 27 — Its mark on literature, 28 — Poem of Zamora, 29. 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 III. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 The Scipios 3°~4 2 
 
 Rome attracted toward Spain, 30 — Her conquests make of 
 it a Roman province, 30 — Scipio Africanus, the first com- 
 manding figure, 32 — Publius Scipio appointed general, 33 — 
 His wise policy with the Spaniards, 33 — He blockades New 
 Carthage, 34 — Surprise of Mago, the Carthaginian general, 
 34 — Success of the attack, 34 — Wealth of the city, brought 
 to Scipio, 35 — He releases the hostages, 36 — Carthaginians 
 expelled from Spain, 37 — Noble character of Publius 
 Scipio, 37 — Cato the elder at Jaca, 38 — Assimilation of Ro- 
 mans and Spaniards, 38 — Latin language prevails, 38 — 
 Camilius Scipio takes control of the province, 40 — Fall of 
 
 Numantia, 40. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sertorius . . . . . . 44-53 
 
 His picturesque story told by Plutarch, 44 — A soldier of 
 ability, 44 — His voyage toward the Islands of the Blest, 45 — 
 Lands in Mauritania, 46 — Received the white hind, 46 — He 
 is regarded as divine in Lusitania, 47 — Helps the Spaniards 
 to resist Rome, 47 — Founds a university at Osca, 47 — Devo- 
 tion of his troops, 48 — His achievement against the Characi- 
 tanians, 49 — Recognized master of a large part of Spain, 
 52 — Not encouraged by Sylla ; an army despatched to crush 
 him, 52 — Treaty with Mithridates, 52 — Conspiracy against 
 Sertorius ; close of the episode, 53 — Corneille's tragedy, 53. 
 
 V. 
 
 Julius Cesar in Spain .... 54-69 
 
 Death of Sertorius, 54 — Followed by Pompey, 54 — Caesar 
 and Pompey at Munda, 55 — Position of the armies, 56 — 
 The Waterloo of the conflict, 56 — Army of Pompey broken, 
 57 — Victory of Caesar celebrated by a triumph, 57 — Augus- 
 tus Caesar brings peace into Spain, 5S — Five cities of Spain 
 established, 60 — Roman customs adopted, 61 — Historians 
 and poets born in Spain, 62 — Martial's ode, 63 — Ode by 
 Prudentius, 64 — His long poem, Peristephanior, 64 — Ro- 
 man impress upon Spanish life, 67 — On language, 68. 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PART II. 
 VI. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ataulphus — Evaric ..... 73-91 
 
 Northern invaders in Southern Europe, 73 — Change the 
 destinies of Spain, 73 — Establishment of a Gothic dynasty, 
 73 — Southern France, its military base, 74 — Advance of its 
 armies to the Guadalquivir, 74 — Vigor infused into the 
 Roman province, 75 — Southern France overrun, and Rome 
 powerless, besieged by Alaric, 76 — Goths established in 
 Toulouse, 77 — Becoming civilized, 77 — Ataulphus their 
 king, 77 ; in love with Placidia, 78 — Receives her as his wife 
 from Honorius, 7S — Court of Ataulphus at Barcelona, 79 — 
 Trouble with his soldiers, 80 — assassinated by a dwarf, 80 — 
 Wallia chosen king, 81 — Conditions of peace with Romans, 
 82 — Hostilities against the barbarians, 84 — Theodoric suc- 
 cessor to Wallia, 84 — Invasion of the Huns, 84 — Attila, the 
 Scourge of God, 85 — Conquered, 85 — His death, 86 — Theo- 
 doric the Visigoth, 86 — Evaric, king at Toulouse, 87 — The 
 founder of the Gothic kingdom in Spain, 87 — Goths grown 
 to be cultivated people, 88 — Gothic language, 8S — Evaric's 
 death at Aries, 89 — Government of the Visigoths, 90 — In- 
 auguration of their king, 91. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Arians ........ 92-105 
 
 Origin of the Goths, 92 — Ulfilas converts them to the Chris- 
 tian religion and reduces their language to writing, 93 — 
 Their respect for the priests, 94 — Their form of religion 
 called Arianism, 95 — Confronted with the dogmas of the 
 Church, 96 — Conflict between Arians and Catholics, 9S — 
 Not really a conflict as to the divine realities, 99 — Most 
 valuable gift of Arianism to Spain, 100 — Muzarabic ritual, 
 100 — Traces of the Gothic language, 101 — Sermon on the 
 Mount in four languages, 102 — Resemblance of English and 
 Spanish languages, 103 — Romance authors of Spain, 104— 
 Influence of Spanish literature, 105. 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Leovigild — Recared .... 106-124 
 
 Leovigild an Arian, 106 — His son, Erminigild, married to a 
 princess of France, 107 — Her mother a Gothic princess, 108 
 — Married in France, no — Ingunda a Catholic, in — Quar- 
 rels with her step-mother, 112 — Erminigild becomes Catho- 
 lic, [13 — Deeply offending his father, 114 — Rebels against 
 Leovigild, 115 — Punished and exiled to Valencia, 116 — 
 Thrown into prison, 117 — Obstinate in his faith, 118 — Exe- 
 cuted by his father's order, 119 — Death of Leovigild, 12c — 
 Recared converted from Arianism, 121 — His moderate 
 measures, 122 — Catholic faith declared the religion of the 
 state, 123 — Death of Recared, 124. 
 
 IX. 
 Toledo — Wamba ..... 125-138 
 
 Toledo the capital of the Visigothic kings, 125 — Reigning 
 there for several centuries, 126 — Catholic religion firmly 
 established, 126 — Wamba unwillingly chosen king, 127 — 
 An energetic sovereign, 128 — His troops suppress a rebellion 
 in Gothic Gaul, 129 — Duke Paul its author, 130 — Rebels 
 consigned to prison, 131 — Gothic Gaul pacified, 132 — 
 Wamba persecutes the Jgws, 133 — Defends the court from 
 Saracens, 134 — His trance, by which he was made a monk, 
 135 — Ervigius reigns, 136 — Presence of the Goths in Toledo, 
 137 — Spirit of Roderick, 138. 
 
 X. 
 
 Roderick, the Last of the Goths . . 139-15 1 
 
 Roderick assumes the rule of Spain, 139 — Count Julian, the 
 commander of the Spanish army in Africa, 140 — Has de- 
 feated Musa, 141 — Betrays to him the strongholds of the 
 Goths, 141 — Symbols of the pillars of Hercules, 142 — 
 Legend of Roderick's visit to the cave of Hercules, 143 — 
 Roderick learns of the invasion of Tarik, 145 — Rallies his 
 forces, 146 — Battle of the Guadalete lost to the Goths, 146 
 — Roderick drowned — Tarik advances to Toledo7 148 — Spain 
 reduced to a Mohammedan province, 149 — "Roderick, the 
 Last of the Goths," by Southey, 150. 
 
CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PART III. 
 XL 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Caliphate of Cordova . . . 155-170 
 
 Mohammed, the founder of Islamism, 155 — The triumphs 
 of its armies, checked at Tours, 156 — Moslems content 
 themselves with Spain, 157 — Abderahman, prince of the 
 Omeyyades, 158 — Entertained by Bedouins, 160 — Offered 
 sovereignty, 161 — Enters Spain, 162 — Resisted by Yussef, 
 but successful, 163 — Spain governed by the Omeyyades, 
 164 — Their munificence, 165 — The mosque of Gordova, 
 166 — Cordova, centre of learning, 168 — Almanza, the re- 
 gent, 169 — War with Christians, 169 — End of the Caliphate 
 of the West, 170. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Song of Roland .... 171-186 
 
 Charlemagne at Saragossa, 171 — Attacked in the Pyre- 
 nees by Basques, 172 — Battle of Roncesvalles, 173 — Diver- 
 gence between history and legend, 173 — Roland and Olivier, 
 174 — Journey of Ganelon, 175 — His treachery, 176 — The 
 rear of the army entrusted to Roland, 177 — Approach of the 
 Saracens, 178 — Fearful struggle, 179 — Archbishop Turpin, 
 180 — Roland sounds his horn, 181 — Too late, 182 — Death 
 of Olivier, 183 — The emperor hears the horn, 184 — Death 
 of Roland, 185. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Almoravides — Almohades . . . 187-202 
 
 Christians regain some power, 187 — Almoravides called to 
 protect the Moslems, 188 — Abdallah their leader, 189 — Yus- 
 sef ben Taxfin, 190 — Takes possession of the kingdom, 191 
 — And leads the armies to Spain, 192 — Overcomes the petty 
 princes of Andalusia, 193 — Dies at Morocco, 194 — Short 
 duration of the Almoravides, 195 — Mohammed the son of 
 the lamp-lighter, 196 — Becomes Mahdi, 197 — Leader of the 
 Almohades, or Unitarians, 198 — His successor, Abdelmu- 
 raen, victorious in Africa, 199 — Becomes sovereign of all 
 Mohammedan Spain, 200 — Crusade of Christians, 200 — Bat- 
 tle of Navas de Tolosa, 201. 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Story of the Abencerrages . . . 203-212 
 
 Abencerrages, a legendary family, 203 — Their rivals, the 
 Zegris, 204 — Intense jealousies, 205 — Aixa, Tepi princess, 
 bride of the king of Grenada, 206 — Wedding at the Moorish 
 court, 207 — Splendors of the tribes, 208 — Competition in 
 games, 209 — Abenhamet the flower of the Abencerrages, 
 210 — Zorai'de, his beloved, married to the royal prince, 210 
 — Interview discovered, 211 — Abencerrages ordered to the 
 palace, 211 — Slaughtered in the Court of Lions, 212. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The Fall of Granada .... 213-228 
 
 Mohammed ben Alhamar, 213 — Fortifies the kingdom of 
 Grenada, 214 — Intercourse of Christians and Moors, 215 — 
 Moors divided, and Christians united, 216 — Treachery in 
 the Alhambra, 217 — End of the romantic period, 219 — Isa- 
 bella determined to destroy the Moors, 220 — Boabdil the last 
 prince of Grenada, 221 — Situation of the Alhambra, 222 — 
 Zahara and Alhama, 223 — The mother of Boabdil, 224 — 
 Grenada invested, capitulates, 225 — Boabdil surrenders the 
 keys, 226 — " El ultimo sx>spiro del moro," 227 — Moors 
 dreaming of Granada, 228. 
 
 PART IV. 
 
 XVI. 
 Pelayo ....... 231-247 
 
 Goths after their defeat, 231 — Retreat to the mountains, 
 232 — Pelayo the head of a little kingdom, 233 — Alfonso el 
 Casto, 234 — Legend of Bernardo del Carpio, 235 — His father 
 imprisoned, 236 — Treachery of the king, 237 — Catholic 
 faith of the early Goths, 238 — Ramiro visited by Santiago, 
 239 — Santiago at Clavigo, 240 — Other legends of the saint, 
 241 — Sancho the fat, 243 — Counts of Castile, 244 — Fernan 
 Gonzalez, 245 — Miracle of the grotto, 246 — Successes of 
 the Christians, 247. 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 XVII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cm ....... 248-261 
 
 Warfare between Mussulmans and Christians, 248 — The Cid, 
 a hero coolly doubted by critics, 249 — Absolute veracity of 
 the chronicle for us not important, 250 — Single story in his 
 life, 251 — Boldness in presence of King Alfonso, 252 — Kind- 
 ness of the monarch, 253 — Banished from Leon and Castile, 
 254 — Attacks the Moors and becomes governor of Valencia, 
 256 — Resists King Yussef, 257 — Twenty-nine Moorish kings 
 slain, 258 — Courage of the Cid, 259 — His death, 260 — 
 Translations of the chronicle and poem, 261. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Alfonso X. 262-280 
 
 Seville, city of the perfect climate, 262 — Won for the Chris- 
 tians by Ferdinand III., 264 — This king a saint, 265 — His 
 son, Alfonso the Learned, 266 — His claim to be Emperor of 
 Germany, 268 — Ferdinand de la Cerda, 268 — Quarrels about 
 the succession, 269 — Sancho proclaimed king, 270 — Pedro 
 the Cruel adorns the Alcazar, 271 — Loves Maria de Padilla, 
 272 — 111 treats his bride, Blanche of Bourbon, 273 — Kills 
 his brother Fadrique, 274 — Rouses the hostility of the French, 
 276 — Flees before Henry at Trastamara, 277 — Gains the 
 battle of Navarrete, 278 — Slain by his brother, 279 — Henry 
 of Trastamara, 280. 
 
 XIX. 
 Arragon 281-297 
 
 Occupies the northeast of Spain, 281 — Successes in war, 282 
 — John of Arragon, 2S3 — Carlos, Prince of Viana, 2S4 — 
 Joan Henriques, the disagreeable step-mother, 285 — Carlos 
 in Naples, 286 — Urged to return, 2S7 — refused the title of 
 heir-apparent, 28S — Arrested, 289 — Acknowledged by the 
 insistance of the Catalans ; death of the Prince of Viana, 
 289 — Blanche, his sister, persecuted by Joan, 291 — Shut up 
 at Orthes, and poisoned, 292 — Misfortunes of King John, 
 294 — Death of Joanna, 295 — Renewed courage of the old 
 king, 296 — Enters Barcelona on a white charger, 297. 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 XX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella . . . 298-320 
 
 Maria of Castile and Arragon, 298 — Isabella's offers of mar- 
 riage, 299 — Her attractions, 300 — Affianced to Ferdinand, 
 30 1' — Meeting with her betrothed, 302 — The marriage, 304 — 
 Proclaimed queen at Segovia, 305 — Isabella strengthens the 
 kingdom, 306 — Head-quarters at Seville, 307 — Soul of the 
 war against Grenada, 308 — Receives Columbus, 310 — As- 
 sumes his undertaking, 311 — Return of Columbus, 312 — 
 Children of Ferdinand and Isabella, 314 — The Princess 
 Joanna, 315 — Illness of the queen, 316 — Her death, 317 — 
 Buried in the cathedral at Grenada, 318 — Effigies on the 
 tomb, 319 — The royal standard, 320. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Charles I. of Spain — Charles V. of Ger- 
 many ...... 321-340 
 
 Power of Charles in Europe, 321 — Tried by prosperity, 
 322 — His endless w.ars, 324 — Grandson of Isabella, 325 — 
 Born at Ghent, 326 — Cardinal Ximenes regent, 327 — Jo- 
 anna, mother of Charles, insane, 32S — Clemency of Charles, 
 329 — Wars with Francisi., 330 — Bravery of Spanish troops, 
 Moorish piracy, 331 — Siege of Pampeluna, 332 — Loyola, 
 333 — Society of Jesus, 334 — Charles retires to Trieste, 335 
 — His conquests at home, 336 — Extent of his kingdom, 337 
 Reputation of Spaniards for cruelty, 339 — Courage, pa- 
 tience, and foresight of Spain, 340. 
 
 PART V. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Three Philips 343~357 
 
 Decline of the country, 343 — Possessions of Philip II., 
 Poem of Numantia, 345 — Don Quixote, 346 — Marriages of 
 Philip II., 347 — Portrait by Titian, 34S — " Bloody" Mary, 
 348 — Double marriage at the court of France, 349 — Revolt 
 of the Moriscos, 350 — Their contempt for Christian forms, 
 
CONTENTS. xv 
 
 351 — Insurrection put down, 352 — Expelled by Philip III., 
 353 — Treasures of the Moors, 353 — Another double mar- 
 riage, 354 — Philip III.'s death, 355 — Philip IV., 356 — End 
 of the real Spanish line of sovereigns, 357. 
 
 XXIII. 
 The Bourbons ...... 358-371 
 
 Charles II. a weak descendant of the emperor, 358 — Con- 
 temporary of Charles II. of England, 359 — Settlements in 
 America, 360 — War of the Spanish Succession, 361 — Claim- 
 ants to the throne, 362 — Philip V. proclaimed, 363 — Treaty 
 of Utrecht, 365 — Blow to the Jesuits, 366 — United States of 
 America, 368 — Charles III., 370 — Manuel Godoy, 371 
 
 XXIV. 
 Napoleon ....... 372-378 
 
 Spain betrayed by Ferdinand, 372 — Battle of Trafalgar, 373 
 — French and Spanish fleets, 374 — Death of Nelson, 375 — 
 Villeneuve a prisoner, 376 — Joseph Bonaparte usurps the 
 Spanish crown, 377 — Wellesley at Salamanca ; Wellington 
 at Victoria, 378 — Fall of Napoleon, 378. 
 
 PART VI. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The Nineteenth Century . . . 381 — 396 
 
 Shelley's ode to the Spaniards, 381 — Return of Ferdinand 
 VII., 382 — Rebellion of the American colonies, 3S4 — Car- 
 list plots, 385 — Isabella, heiress to the throne, 3S6 — Her 
 cause that of liberalism, 387 — wretched failure of her life, 
 388 — Protected by Espartero, 389 — Declared queen, 390 — 
 Deposed, 391 — Amadeo made king ; abdicates, 392 — Al- 
 fonso XII., 393 — His death, 394 — Birth of a prince, 395 — 
 Dirge of Larra, 395. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 GATE OF THE COURT OF ORANGES, SEVILLE 
 DRAL . 
 
 mountain gorge in the asturias 
 monument of the druids 
 roman amphitheatre at murviedro 
 roman bridge at salamanca 
 roman bridge at cuenca 
 roman remains at merida . 
 julius cesar .... 
 
 Caesar's method of attack . 
 roman aqueduct, segovia . 
 roman temple at vienne 
 roman gateway at treves . 
 
 TOLEDO ...... 
 
 THE WINDING PASS .... 
 
 PUERTA DEL SOL, TOLEDO 
 GIBRALTAR ..... 
 
 MOORISH TOWER, TOLEDO 
 
 MOORISH MILLS, CORDOVA 
 
 MOSQUE AT CORDOVA 
 
 THE GATE OF JUSTICE, ALHAMBRA . 
 
 VIEW OF THE ALHAMBRA 
 
 FOUNTAIN OF THE LIONS 
 
 PUERTA DI SANTA MARIA, BURGOS . 
 
 STREET IN VALENCIA 
 
 xvii 
 
 CATHE- 
 
 Frontispicce 
 7 
 13 
 2 3 
 3i 
 .39 
 43 
 55 
 59 
 65 
 %3 
 89 
 
 97 
 108 
 
 JI 3 
 
 J 43 
 
 151 
 
 i59 
 167 
 
 205 
 
 228 
 2 53 
 2 55 
 
XVlil 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 TORRE DEL ORO, SEVILLE 
 
 GALLERY OF PEDRO I., SEVILLE 
 
 DIE GIRALDA .... 
 
 DOOR IN THE ALCAZAR . 
 
 AVIGORNAGNA, BILBAO . 
 
 SARAGOSSA . 
 
 CHATEAU DE BELLEGARDE 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ISABELLA . 
 
 CHURCH OF SAN JUAN DE LOS REYES 
 
 PORTRAIT OF COLUMBUS . 
 
 DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS 
 
 COLUMBUS ON THE DECK OF HIS SHIP 
 
 HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS, ALHAMBRA 
 
 TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA 
 
 CHARLES THE FIFTH IN HIS THIRTY-FIRST YEAR 
 
 BATTLE OF PAVIA . 
 
 VALLADOLID .... 
 
 BULL AND MATADOR, MADRID 
 
 MALAGA .... 
 
 CLOISTERS, TOLEDO 
 
 SAN SEBASTIAN 
 
 THE PASS OF PANCORBO . 
 
 LEANING TOWER, SARAGOSSA . 
 
 PALACIO REALE, MADRID 
 
 MADRID, GENERAL VIEW . 
 
 26l 
 
 263 
 267 
 
 272 
 
 275 
 289 
 
 ' 2 93 
 299 
 
 3°3 
 3°9 
 3ii 
 3i3 
 3*7 
 3 J 9 
 3 2 3 
 333 
 343 
 35i 
 359 
 3 6 3 
 367 
 369 
 373 
 383 
 387 
 
CASTLES IN SPAIN. 
 
 H. W. Longfellow. 
 
 How much of my young heart, O Spain 
 
 Went out to thee in days of yore ! 
 What dreams romantic filled my brain 
 And summoned back to life again 
 The Paladins of Charlemagne, 
 The Cid Campeador ? 
 
 And shapes more shadowy than these, 
 In the dim twilight half revealed, 
 Phoenician galleys on the seas, 
 The Roman camps like hives of bees, 
 The Goth uplifting from his knees 
 Pelayo on his shield. 
 
 Yet something sombre and severe 
 
 O'er the enchanted landscape reigned ; 
 
 A terror in the atmosphere 
 
 As if King Philip listened near, 
 
 Or Torquemada the austere, 
 
 His ghostly sway maintained. 
 
 The softer Andalusian skies 
 
 Dispelled the sadness and the gloom ; 
 There Cadiz by the seaside lies, 
 And Seville's orange orchards rise, 
 Making the land a paradise 
 
 Of beauty and of bloom. 
 
XX THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 There Cordova is hidden among 
 
 The palm, the olive, and the vine ; 
 Gem cf the South, by poets sung, 
 And in whose mosque Almansor hung 
 As lamps the bells that once had rung 
 At Campostella's shrine. 
 
 But over all the rest supreme, 
 
 The star of stars, the cynosure, 
 
 The artist's and the poet's theme, 
 
 The young man's vision, the old man's dream, 
 
 Granada by its winding stream, 
 The city of the Moor. 
 
 And there the Alhambra still recalls 
 Aladdin's palace of delight : 
 
 Allah il Allah through its halls 
 
 Whispers the fountain as it falls. 
 
 The Darro darts beneath its walls. 
 The hills with snow are white. 
 
 The Vega cleft by the Xenil, 
 
 The fascination and allure 
 Of the sweet landscape chains the will, 
 The traveller lingers on the hill, 
 His parted lips are breathing still 
 
 The last sigh of the Moor. 
 
 How like a ruin overgrown 
 
 With flowers that hide the rents of time, 
 Stands now the Past that I have known, 
 Castles of Spain not built of stone, 
 But of white summer clouds and blown 
 
 Into this little mist of rhyme. 
 
 | 
 
 / 
 
PART I. 
 
THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY TRADITIONS 
 
 A CASTILIAN geographer, proud of his country, 
 made a map of Europe representing a woman, with 
 Spain for her head, the Pyrenees for her necklace, 
 the Alps for her girdle. One arm was stretched out 
 for Italy, while her feet ran off into Russia and 
 Turkey.-" 
 
 The necklace of the queen forms a line of separa- 
 tion between her head and her bodv, sometimes a 
 convenience, sometimes an obstacle to her welfare. 
 The Pyrenees are mountains of secondary import- 
 ance, compared with the Alps, but they make a strong 
 barrier between the Spanish peninsula and the rest 
 of Europe. On the northern or French side the 
 descent from the summits is gradual, while on the 
 Spanish side the valleys seem hollowed out like enor- 
 mous chasms, with deep precipices and perpendicular 
 cliffs thousands of feet high. The northern slope, 
 exposed to the Atlantic, partakes of the European 
 climate ; the southern, influenced by Mediterranean 
 breezes, is more like Africa than Europe. 
 
4 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 On this peninsula, shut off from the rest of Europe 
 by such a sharp mountain chain, long, long ago, 
 before books were written, before people troubled 
 themselves to make histories, there lived men called 
 Iberians. ' No one can tell how they came to be liv- 
 ing in this sunny southern corner of the continent. 
 Probably they came across from Africa, and perhaps, 
 when they did so, there was dry land for them to 
 cross upon, where the narrow Straits of Gibraltar 
 now lead the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to join 
 those of. the Mediterranean Sea. Geologists think 
 there may once have been an isthmus at the 
 narrowest point, at Tarifa, where the distance from 
 one continent to the other is now but twelve miles, 
 over which it would be easy to cross. There is a 
 tradition of a canal being cut, with a bridge built 
 over it by the Phoenicians. The waters of the At- 
 lantic rushed in and widened more and more the 
 opening, making Europe and Africa separate conti- 
 nents. 
 
 Thirty-seven monkeys still hold their place in the 
 woods and among the crags of the headlands of Gib- 
 raltar. In the days of peace there is no duty more 
 carefully impressed on the garrison than the watch 
 over these survivors of another civilization, and in the 
 daily report of the sentries they include the number 
 of monkeys who have appeared. Many of the sol- 
 diers, who have watched these gentry from another 
 country and time, will tell the traveller that there is 
 now a subterranean passage from Europe to Africa, 
 and that the monkeys still know the way. 
 
 This is certain, that in the early days of history 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS. 5 
 
 Iberians were there, and are supposed to have come 
 from the south. Other people came from the north, 
 around the spurs of the Pyrenees, or over them 
 through the easier passes. These were a part of 
 the Celtic race, who at an unknown epoch had mi- 
 grated toward the west from the plains of Central 
 Asia. These Celts are supposed to have left Asia, 
 and in immense armies to have poured over Europe. 
 Some of them stopped in the. valley of the Danube, 
 some of them pushed as far as Great Britain, others 
 came into the Spanish peninsula, where they found 
 the Iberians. 
 
 It is hard to know exactly what these people were 
 like, and to keep any distinct idea in our minds of 
 the difference between Celts and Iberians, or to trace 
 the mingling of the two races into another called 
 Celtiberians, as the historians of this earlv time do. 
 We must imagine'a warlike set of people, for they 
 had to protect themselves from each other and from 
 wild beasts. They thought every obstacle was to be 
 overcome by fighting, so they threatened the sky 
 with shooting arrows at it when it thundered, and 
 drew their swords against the rising tide. They 
 were generally friendly with each other, and often 
 united to avenge an injustice done to one of their 
 neighbors. 
 
 The Celts who came over the Pyrenees into Spain 
 were tall, with white skins and light hair. Some 
 of them shaved their beards, leaving a long mustache 
 growing down over the lip, and wore their hair in 
 long braids. Their voices were rough and rude, but 
 they had among them bards who sang to them songs 
 
6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of praise or blame, accompanying themselves on a 
 sort of lyre. Their arms were simple, consisting of 
 two lances about three feet long. A short sword, a 
 pole hooked at the end to seize the reins of horses, 
 and a sling, were some of the weapons of foot- 
 soldiers. The horsemen had swords, or sharp weap- 
 ons which answered the purpose, and lances six feet 
 long. They had great skill in managing horses, of 
 which they had in early times discovered the value. 
 Their food was frugal, a few dried acorns or chest- 
 nuts, with mead or cider, satisfied the wants of 
 several tribes ; and they were temperate and sober in 
 their habits of eating and drinking, even in those 
 barbarous times. They had no tables, the guests at 
 a feast sat on benches set against the wall. At 
 these feasts there was music and dancing, but the 
 women were not allowed to be present. 
 
 Their dress was simple. Soldiers wore garments 
 of linen or leather belted around the waist, with caps 
 on their heads ; in time of peace they had black 
 woollen cloaks which fell down to their feet. 
 
 These rough people were kind to their women, but 
 allowed them a full amount of labor, for they left 
 the cultivation of the fields entirely to them, as their 
 reasonable share of the burden of living, while the 
 men were away hunting, killing wild beasts, or keeping 
 off enemies. The women guided the oxen, held the 
 plough, and ground the corn, besides looking after 
 all domestic concerns. < 
 
 These early tribes had a coast-trade with the 
 countries near them, consisting in the exchange of 
 their produce with that of the neighboring islands of 
 

 MOUNTAIN GORGE IN THE ASTURIAS. 
 7 
 
8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 the Mediterranean, especially for wine. They knew 
 the properties of iron, and the swords and spears 
 which they made of steel formed from it, were in de- 
 mand wherever they were known. 
 
 Bull-fights appear to have been a favorite amuse- 
 ment from the earliest time in the Spanish peninsula. 
 It is evident that this custom existed before the 
 Romans entered Spain, for it is represented upon 
 ancient medals of a period earlier than their arrival. 
 
 These early tribes had different names, and their 
 characters were affected by the situations they lived 
 in. At the present time the descendants of these 
 early races living in the north of Spain have strongly 
 marked traits of character which may be traced even 
 to these remote ancestors. There are at present but 
 few railroads or means of communication with the 
 modern world, so that these people do not learn new 
 fashions, and they keep up the old traditions of their 
 fathers from year £o year, even from century to 
 century, and talk an old language not modified by 
 words from other languages, as has happened to the 
 Spanish now spoken in other parts of Spain. 
 
 The ASTURIANS lived in the mountain-gorges of the 
 northwest, a region now romantic and picturesque, 
 as it must have been in early days. It is full of 
 steep ravines, through which foaming torrents come 
 tumbling down on rocks from great heights. The 
 hills are covered with great trees, oaks and beeches, 
 for the most part. The streams come down leaping 
 over precipices and running off into fertile valleys 
 where fruit-trees grow, also chestnut and ash-trees. 
 
 The people are a hardy, honest, good-hearted 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS. 9 
 
 race, steady and industrious. They wear the same 
 picturesque costume their great-grandfathers did, 
 and speak the dialect which prevailed in Spain six 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 They believe in ghosts and fairies, and fill up their 
 simple lives, in which not many things happen dur- 
 ing a whole year of extreme interest, with fancies 
 and fears springing from their superstitutions. 
 
 The old women, as they sit spinning in the sun, 
 tell long stories, over and over again, just the same 
 as they heard them when they were little children, 
 about the doings of the xanas, who are tiny fairies 
 that come out of fountains and springs in the middle 
 of the night, to dry their long damp hair in the 
 moonbeams, and about the huestes, mischief-making 
 imps who lurk about in the woods and marshes, only 
 coming out when something sad or dreadful is going 
 to happen, to foretell the misfortune. 
 
 Next the Asturians, on the east, came the Can- 
 tabrians, in a territory abounding in the precious 
 metals, above all in iron ; and beside them dwelt the 
 Vascones or Basques. These are thought to have 
 been Iberians, strayed up from the south, and not 
 Celts who came from the north into Spain. This 
 belief is founded on the peculiarity of their lan- 
 guage, which is entirely different from Spanish, or 
 from any other known tongue. It is impossible to 
 understand without learning it systematically, and it 
 is hard to learn. Only those who were born and 
 who have grown up among the Basques can really 
 master it. 
 ■ There are many traditions about this strange old 
 
IO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 language, preserved unchanged since the beginning 
 of knowledge. One legend calls it the language of 
 the angels, with which Adam and Eve used to talk 
 to each other. Another says that Tubal brought it 
 into Spain, where he came, long before the confusion 
 of tongues at the tower of Babel, so that it was not 
 there mixed up with other languages. It is said that 
 the devil tried to learn it, and studied it for seven 
 years, but as he then only knew three words, he gave 
 it up. The Andalusians say that in Basque "you 
 spell Solomon and pronounce it Nebuchadnezzar." 
 
 It is also prevalent in Navarre, and it is still spoken 
 by 600,000 Spaniards and French. Its native name 
 is Esquera. It cannot be classed with any Indo- 
 European or Semitic tongue, and appears to be of 
 earlier origin, presenting some grammatical analo- 
 gies with Mongol, North American, and certain East 
 African languages' The forms of ordinary grammar 
 are therefore imperfectly applicable to it. The sub- 
 stantive has no distinction of gender ; it is made to 
 express, by means of an extensive system of affixes, 
 all the ordinary relations of declension and conjuga- 
 tions, and many which, in other languages, can only 
 be expressed by periphrases. The termination of a 
 word may thus express together, mood, tense, per- 
 son, number, and case of' the object, and also the 
 sex, rank, and number of the individuals addressed, 
 besides other relations. Foreign words are easily 
 assimilated, but with such modifications as suit the 
 Basque ear, and these vary according to local dialect. 
 Diminutives, and other general affixes, increase the 
 delicacy of expression, and a wide range of speech is 
 
EARL Y TRADITIONS. I I 
 
 early acquired by the natives. Compound words are 
 readily formed by mere juxtaposition, or by elision 
 of syllables, not peculiar modifications, for euphony. 
 The article has two forms — a for the singular, ala 
 for the plural — affixed to the substantive. There 
 appears to be no genuine Basque word beginning 
 with r. In the usual structure of the sentences the 
 noun, with the article affixed, occupies the first place ; 
 it is followed by the adjective, then the adverb, next 
 the verb, and lastly the object, with its prepositional 
 affix. No written Basque is known of earlier date 
 than the fifteenth century, and little genuine litera- 
 ture exists ; the orthography is therefore arbitrary, 
 and the earliest writings are difficult to interpret. 
 
 The Basques are very proud of their ancient lan- 
 guage and their long descent. 
 
 The GALICIANS possessed the sea-coast in the 
 northwest corner of the peninsula. They were like 
 their neighbors, bold and warlike, and were prosper- 
 ous on account of the abundance of fish on their 
 coasts, which attracted merchants from other nations. 
 
 The LusiTANlANS occupied what is now Portugal, 
 but their territory extended farther into Spain than 
 that country does now. They had the reputation of 
 being the most learned tribe on the peninsula. -The 
 Romans reported in their time that for six thousand 
 years this race had possessed poems, and laws, and 
 grammatical rules for their language, but there is 
 nothing now left to show that they differed from 
 the other races in the neighborhood. - 
 
 In Cantabria and Lusitania the religion of the 
 Druids prevailed, for in these regions are found the 
 
12 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 monuments of their strange ceremonies ; there are 
 great blocks of stone standing alone, or set in circles, 
 sometimes marked with coarse carvings or figures in 
 relief. Such traces of the past are more frequent in 
 other countries where the Celts lived, but there are 
 enough in Spain to prove that this religion was prac- 
 tised there. It was a worship of the forces of nature, 
 for though the Druids believed in one Supreme God, 
 they adored also the stars, the ocean, thunder, and 
 wind. 
 
 Oak-forests were their sanctuaries. D?"uid means 
 " men of oak," and in these forests they celebrated 
 their rites. Every year, on the sixth day of the moon 
 of Marel, the priests, dressed in a long white tunic, 
 with their feet bare, and their heads crowned with 
 ivy, marched with great ceremony into the forest, 
 where they cut off mistletoe from the trees with a 
 golden sickle. 
 
 Mistletoe is an evergreen bush with white berries 
 which attaches itself to the trunks and branches of 
 trees, and grows by thrusting its roots into them. The 
 Druids considered it sacred when they found it grow- 
 ing upon the oak. 
 
 This part of their worship seems to us simple and 
 graceful, but they believed in human sacrifice, and 
 the stones which remain standing are known to be 
 altars on which victims were killed to gratify their 
 gods. 
 
 It is well to know something about these early 
 Northern tribes, because as we go on with the story 
 we shall see their descendants, the men who led the 
 same sort of lives they did, and grew up under simi- 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS. 
 
 13 
 
 lar influences, under a cool mountain climate, shut 
 off from the rest of the world, exhibiting the same 
 brave characteristics, with temperate habits, great 
 
 MONUMENT OF THE DRUIDS. 
 
 love of country, and a superstitious faith in whatever 
 form of religion they were led to accept by their 
 priests. 
 
 Of the early races in the southern part of Spain it 
 
14 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 is not easy to judge, for the population there has 
 changed from century to century, by the invasions 
 of other races. If the Iberians came along the shore 
 of Africa to enter Spain by Gibraltar they were 
 probably dark men, of Eastern characteristics, very 
 different from the blond, hardy Celts. As they were 
 spread over the central part of the peninsula, and 
 mingled with the Celts who came down from the 
 north, the two races came to live together, and to 
 share each others habits and manners, so that in time 
 they were a combination of both, called Celtiberians 
 by the Romans who found them there. 
 
 The northeastern part of Spain is occupied by the 
 Catalonians, a race with its own characteristics, as 
 strongly marked as the races of Basques or Asturi- 
 ans. This part of the country seems to have been 
 settled by the Phoenicians, a roving people who 
 were dwelling on the sea-coast of Syria at the earli- 
 est dawn of history. Their reputation was that, having 
 settled themselves in any country, they immediately 
 undertook distant voyages, and carrying cargoes of 
 goods, visited other places. They are the people 
 called Canaanites in the Bible. They were pirates 
 as well as merchants, for they did not hesitate to 
 kidnap the crews of the ships they met, and to carry 
 them off as their slaves. But although they made 
 the nations suffer whom they visited, they also left 
 behind them an improved civilization, and the trade 
 they established in the ports they touched at was a 
 benefit to these as well as to themselves. 
 
 They sailed through the Red Sea and the Persian 
 Gulf, and thus communicated with India and the 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS. I 5 
 
 eastern coast of Africa. They searched every inlet 
 of the Mediterranean Sea, and, passing through the 
 Straits of Gibraltar, visited the British Isles, where 
 they found tin. 
 
 All the sea-coast towns of Spain benefited by their 
 commerce, and sometimes they left colonies behind 
 them. The Catalonians are supposed to have sprung 
 from some of these, but by the time when written 
 history begins there is a mixture of other races in 
 their blood. They have received additions from 
 other nations, and their province is near enough to 
 Gaul to have been subject to invasions from there, 
 as well as to Gallic influence. 
 
 The Phoenicians, who were always on the look-out 
 for trade, found Spain to be a country which prom- 
 ised great advantage to their commerce. Cadiz 
 was their most powerful settlement. It is just out- 
 side the Straits of Gibraltar, and when the first enter- 
 prising Phoenician sailors reached it, they thought 
 they had come to the very end of the world. They 
 supplied the natives with things they had brought 
 from the far East, and took in exchange gold, silver, 
 and iron. * A tradition says that they took away more 
 silver than their ships could well carry, and that their 
 anchors and all their common implements were made 
 of it/ It is said that the Celts and Iberians did not 
 know how to use their gold and silver until the new- 
 comers taught them, but they had made themselves 
 weapons of steel out of iron. 
 
 The Phoenicians spread all over the country, look- 
 ing for mines, which they prevailed upon the natives 
 to open and work for their benefit. Almost every- 
 
1 6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 where in Spain coins and medals bearing the mark 
 of Phoenician workmanship have been found, and 
 ruins of their buildings. 
 
 We can imagine that after people had learned 
 how to make boats and to go sailing about over the 
 sea on voyages of discovery, the news spread from 
 country to country about what was to be found in 
 each. The rumor that Spain was full of mines of 
 gold and silver came back to the nations farther east, 
 and excited the desire of adventurers there, just as 
 when later, in Spain itself, Columbus dreamed of 
 more gold and silver far in the West, and sailed in 
 search of it. Such a rich field of wealth was not left 
 to the hands of the Phoenicians ; other explorers 
 came and took what they wanted. Their successful 
 example led the Greeks to try their luck. • About 
 eight or nine hundred years before Christ, the Rho- 
 dians arrived on the coast of Catalonia, and founded 
 a town which they called Rhodia ; and other expedi- 
 tions set out from different parts in Greece, and gave 
 names to places which may still sometimes be recog- 
 nised. It does not appear that these early colonists 
 cared to take any control of the country ; probably 
 they never thought of such a thing, but each for 
 himself sought to get what he could and what he 
 cared for from the inhabitants, who, for their part, 
 welcomed the new-comers, who brought objects of 
 luxury, new ideas and customs, into their simple lives. 
 These Greeks, Phoenicians, and others mingled with 
 the population, founded their own towns, and estab- 
 lished their own industries, all for the mutual good of 
 themselves and the original inhabitants. 
 
EARLY TRADITIONS. I 7 
 
 One thing the Phoenicians gave to the colonies 
 they founded, — an alphabet, for it was to this people 
 that Western Europe — including all the races from 
 which English-speaking people spring — owes the 
 alphabet which we now employ. So soon as an 
 alphabet and written language comes into use, 
 history changes its form. Till then every thing is 
 handed down by tradition — that is, by what is told 
 from the old to the young for generation after gen- 
 eration. Now, in tradition, there is but a very indis- 
 tinct notion of time. What happened to " your 
 grandfather " is soon mixed with what happened to 
 "your grandfather's grandfather." In the case of 
 Spain, up to the time when the Phoenicians had set- 
 tled their colonies in Spain, every thing we know 
 about the country is vague and doubtful, but after 
 that, the story of the land is found in the narratives 
 that were written about what was going on in the 
 world, and thus preserved. 
 
 The period we have been describing in this chap- 
 ter lasts from the very earliest traditions of the 
 country, down' to a time about four hundred years 
 before Christ. Some of the Iberians may have 
 reached the north of Spain where they settled them- 
 selves, and the old Basque language may be the 
 nearest dialect now spoken to the ancient tongue of 
 the Iberians. Celts came from the countries north 
 of Spain and settled in the peninsula, keeping them- 
 selves apart in some cases, sometimes w r andering tow- 
 ards the south and mixing with the Iberians. The 
 Phoenicians came later from the eastern shores of the 
 Mediterranean, formed colonies, roused traffic, and 
 
1 8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 introduced many features of an advanced civilization, 
 while they were developing the resources of the 
 country. 
 
 The fame of its mines spread abroad, and excited 
 the desire of other nations, who came not only to 
 share its wealth, but to conquer. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 CARTHAGINIANS. 
 
 But the first acquaintance which Spain made 
 with the rest of the world, after the westward-flow- 
 ing wave of Celts poured in on her, was made in 
 her trade with Phoenicia and Carthage. 
 
 And to-day, as we of other lands read of Spain, 
 our first glimpse of her is in the Bible language, 
 where we read of the ships of Tarshish. Tarshish 
 was but a vague name to the Hebrew writers, as 
 India has been to many an English writer. But as 
 an " Indiaman " stands in English literature for a 
 ship of great burden which comes from a rich land 
 far away, — and this because India is India, — so the 
 ships of Tarshish of the Bible writers, were the 
 Phoenician ships which dealt with Tartessus. ' Tar- 
 tessus was the district west of our Gibraltar, in the 
 south of Spain. The traveller of to-day finds heavy 
 English steamers there, taking in copper ore at the 
 mouth of the River Tinto, and, if he be an American 
 traveller, he remembers that from that same river, in 
 other " ships of Tarshish," Columbus sailed for the 
 discovery of lands rich with gold. 
 
 The Phoenician trade with Spain naturally gave 
 the Carthaginians a foothold there, for Carthage was 
 
 19 
 
20 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 simply a Phoenician colony, which in time far out- 
 grew the strength and empire of the northern cities 
 of Phoenicia. Isaiah, in predicting the fall of Tyre, 
 comes back with a steady refrain to the people of 
 Tarshish as finding no city, no port, no welcome 
 when they came back to Syria. In his day — that is 
 to say, in the eighth century B.C. — the trade with Tar- 
 tessus was so important for Tyre, that he brings it 
 in in the very front of his description. Meanwhile 
 Carthage was steadily gaining in power, and Cartha- 
 ginian merchants and miners were extending the foot- 
 hold which Syrian tradesmen had begun. 
 
 In what we call the first Punic war between Rome 
 and Carthage, and in the events which led to it, 
 Carthage had lost her hold on the great islands of 
 Sardinia and Sicily. We owe to Niebuhr the obser- 
 vation, that her statesmen or her statesman resolved 
 to repair that loss by creating a province in Spain. 
 
 " When, after the, American war, it was thought 
 in England that the ignominious peace of Paris had 
 put an end to the greatness of England, Pitt under- 
 took, with double courage, the restoration of his 
 country, and displayed his extraordinary powers. It 
 was in the same spirit that Hamilcar acted : he 
 turned his eyes to Spain ; he formed the plan of 
 making Spain a province which should compensate 
 for the loss of Sicily and Sardinia. 
 
 " The weakness of Carthage consisted in her 
 having no armies ; and it was a grand conception of 
 Hamilcar's to transform Spain into a Carthaginian 
 country, from which national armies could be ob- 
 tained. His object, therefore, was, on the one hand, 
 
CA R THA GIN I A N S. 2 I 
 
 to subdue the Spaniards, and on the other, to win 
 their sympathy, and to change them into a Punic 
 nation, under the dominion of Carthage. 
 
 " The whole of the southern coast of Spain had 
 resources of no ordinary kind ; it furnished all the 
 productions of Sicily and Sardinia, and in addition 
 to these it had very rich silver mines, the working of 
 which has been revived in our own days. Hamilcar 
 was the first who introduced there a regular and sys- 
 tematic mode of mining, and this led him or his son-in- 
 law, to build the town of New Carthage. While the 
 Carthaginians thus gained the sympathy of the 
 nation, they acquired a population of millions, which 
 relieved them from the necessity of hiring faithless 
 mercenaries, as they had been obliged to do in the 
 first Punic war. They were enabled to raise armies 
 in Spain just as if it had been in their own country." 
 
 To that province, the boy Hannibal was taken by 
 his father, immediately after the oath by which he 
 swore that he would always be the enemy of the 
 Romans. This pretty story, which is cited so often, 
 is perfectly authenticated. When Hannibal was an 
 exile at the close of his life he told it to King Anti- 
 ochus. 
 
 He said : 
 
 " When I was a little boy not more than nine 
 years old, my father offered sacrifices to Jupiter the 
 Best and Greatest, on his departure from Carthage as 
 general in Spain. While he was conducting the sac- 
 rifice, he asked me if I would like to go to the camp 
 with him. I said I would gladly, and began to beg 
 him not to hesitate to take me. He replied : ' I will 
 
22 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 do it if you will make the promise I demand.' He 
 took me at once to the altar, at which he had offered 
 his sacrifice. He bade me take hold of it, having 
 sent the others away, and bade me swear that I 
 would never be in friendship with the Romans." 
 
 The Carthaginian faction, which opposed the 
 family of Hamilcar, his father, opposed him also. 
 " I think that this youth should be kept at home," 
 said Hanno, stoutly, " and taught under the restraint 
 of laws and magistrates, to live on an equal footing 
 with the rest of the citizens, lest at some time or 
 other this small fire should kindle a vast conflagra- 
 tion." But they could not keep him at home. He 
 was sent -into Spain, and was very soon a favorite 
 with the army, as well he might be. No toil dis- 
 mayed him. He slept and he waked when the du- 
 ties of the camp required, and was satisfied with a 
 bed on the ground. He never spared himself in any 
 danger, and cavalry t and infantry knew him as their 
 leader before he' was of the age of manhood. 
 
 So soon as he had an army under, him he moved 
 really against Rome. " From the day on which he 
 was declared general, as if Italy had been decreed to 
 him as a province, and war with Rome committed 
 to him," he resolved to make war against Saguntum. 
 
 Whoever goes to find Saguntum now, finds only 
 a town called Mur Viedro. " Mur Viedro " is what 
 is left of the Latin words " Muri Veteres " — " Old 
 Walls," — and these old walls are all that is left of 
 Saguntum. But Saguntum, in the days of Hanni- 
 bal, was a strong and rich Greek city. It had been 
 settled from Zacynthus, which is now Zante, and 
 
^ilBii'ilMiililjiilliiHiilii 
 
24 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 sends you the currants for your mince pies, and was 
 well known to Ulysses. From Zacynthus, they say, 
 came its name. Hannibal meant to march against 
 Rome, and finding in his way this strong city — 
 which had quite forgotten Greece, I think, and hoped 
 for Roman support, because in a sense it was an ally 
 of Rome, — he attacked Saguntum. 
 
 He made the regular approaches of those times. 
 Protecting his troops by " vinese," for which the 
 ground was not unfavorable, he advanced a battering- 
 ram 'towards the wall. His army is said to have 
 numbered one hundred and fifty thousand men. 
 The Saguntines were heartily united. They made 
 frequent sallies with courage, and severe engage- 
 ments took place, in one of which, to the dismay of 
 his men, Hannibal himself was wounded in the thigh. 
 Till he recovered, the siege was little more than a 
 blockade. But, so soon as he recovered, he pressed 
 it eagerly.- Three successive towers and the walls 
 between were overthrown by the besiegers. But, in a 
 pitched battle over the breach, the brave Saguntines 
 drove the Carthaginians back to their camp. And, 
 at this juncture, it was announced that ambassadors 
 had arrived at the sea-shore from Rome, whence the 
 citizens were hoping for assistance. 
 
 That assistance, alas for them, was only diplo- 
 matic ! Rome was not yet aroused to a sense of 
 the importance to her of this Spanish quarrel. The 
 ambassadors had no army behind them. Hannibal 
 sent word ty them that he had no time to listen to 
 embassies-,-^ and that they could not come to him 
 through so many armed bodies of savage tribes. 
 
CA R THA GINIA NS. 2 5 
 
 They turned aside, therefore, to Carthage, and the 
 Saguntines were left to their fate. 
 
 This fate came on with terrible certainty. In the 
 short respite the Saguntines had repaired their wall. 
 But Hannibal inflamed his army by the promise of 
 the spoil of the city, and led to a new attack. He 
 brought up a tower higher than any of the walls, and, 
 by the catapults and balistae upon it, cleared the walls 
 from their defenders. With five hundred Africans 
 at work with pickaxes, he undermined the wall itself 
 on that side, so that it fell with a terrible crash, and 
 the city was open again by a breach which gave 
 space for fighting, as in the field. 
 
 Then for the first time was some offer of surrender 
 made by the Saguntines. Alcon, one of their num- 
 ber, went to Hannibal's camp to offer him terms. 
 But Hannibal's answer was so severe that Alcon did 
 not venture to carry it back. On Hannibal's part, 
 Alorcus carried the same terms to the Saguntine 
 senate. 
 
 Here is the result as it is described by Livy, the 
 Roman historian : 
 
 " He takes away from you your city," said Alorcus, 
 " which, already for the greater part in ruins, he has 
 almost wholly in his possession ; he leaves you your 
 territory, intending to mark out a place in which 
 you may build a new town ; he commands that all 
 the gold and silver, both public and private, shall be 
 brought to him ; he preserves inviolate your persons 
 and those of your wives and children, provided you 
 are willing to depart from Saguntum, unarmed, 
 each with two garments. These terms a vie- 
 
26 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 torious enemy dictates. These, though harsh and 
 grievous, your condition commends to you. In- 
 deed, I do not despair, when the power of every 
 thing is given to him, that he will remit something 
 from these terms. But even these, I think, you 
 ought rather to endure, than suffer, by the rights of 
 war, yourselves to be slaughtered, your wives and 
 children to be ravished and dragged into captivity 
 before your faces." 
 
 When an assembly of the people, by the gradual 
 crowding round of the multitude, had mingled with 
 the senate, to hear these proposals, the chief men 
 suddenly withdrawing before an answer was returned, 
 and throwing all the gold and silver collected, both 
 from public and private stores, into a fire hastily 
 kindled for that purpose, the greater part flung 
 themselves into it. When the dismay and agitation 
 produced by this deed had pervaded the whole city, 
 another noise was heard in addition from the citadel. 
 A tower, long battered, had fallen down ; and when 
 a Carthaginian cohort, rushing through the breach, 
 had made a signal to the general that the city was 
 destitute of the usual outposts and guards, Hanni- 
 bal, thinking that there ought to be no delay at 
 such an opportunity, having attacked the city with 
 his whole forces, took it in a moment, command 
 being given that all the adults should be put to 
 death ; which command, though cruel, was proved 
 in the issue to have been almost necessary. For 
 to whom of those men could mercy have been 
 shown, who, either shut up with their wives and 
 children, burned their houses over their own heads, 
 
CA R Til A GINIA NS. 2 7 
 
 or abroad in arms made no end in fighting except 
 in death ? 
 
 " The town was taken with immense spoil. Though 
 the greater part of the goods had been purposely 
 damaged by their owners, and resentment had made 
 scarce any distinction of age in the massacre, and the 
 captives were the booty of the soldiers ; still it 
 appears that some money was raised from the price 
 of the effects that were sold, and that much costly 
 furniture and garments were sent to Carthage. "<» 
 
 And so Hannibal gave to Rome that affront, which 
 was never atoned for, till he died, a fugitive, — by 
 suicide. For nearly forty years he was the terror of 
 Rome. 
 
 Thus is it that, as we read the story of Spain, it 
 has mixed in with the stream this little eddy of 
 Phoenician or Carthaginian life. What eddy, indeed, 
 does not flow in that stream somewhere? When one 
 reads in his Bible of Hiram, King of Tyre, or of that 
 handsome Isabella — who has given to all Jezebels of 
 modern days her name of Jezebel, — when one reads 
 in his Virgil of her cousin — or was it her grand- 
 niece — the Elissa or Dido, " who wept in silence " 
 because yEneas would not come, — one must remem- 
 ber that people with their names, and of their blood, 
 came and lived, and married, and bore children, 
 and died, in our beautiful Spain. There is their 
 blood to-day, — all mixed in with the blood of 
 Basques, and Celtiberians, and Galicians, and Goths, 
 and Romans, and Moors. A bit of their language is 
 in " Barcelona/' — which word preserves the memory 
 of the Barca family of Carthage, to which Hamilcar 
 
28 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and Hannibal belonged. Barca is of same root as 
 the name of Barak — who sent Balaam on his errand, 
 — and it means " lightning." In " Carthagena," — 
 both in the Old World and the New, — we have the 
 memorial of " Carthage." And " Carthage " means 
 "the city." Where you read, in the Book of Job, 
 " I went out to the gate through the city," — you 
 read what Job wrote when he said " through Kcreth." 
 And in the Book of Joshua you find that Kartah, in 
 Zebulun, was one of the cities of the Levites. Kartah 
 was the ancient godmother of Carthage, of Crita, 
 and of the Carthagenas. Kartah-tuba, " an import- 
 ant city " — became the Corduba of the Romans, — 
 and is the Cordova of to-day. From Cordovan 
 leather, the best in the world, the workmen in leather 
 were called cordwainers till within the memory of 
 x this generation.* 
 
 Hannibal's sway in Spain has made less mark 
 than one might have supposed in Spanish literature. 
 But occasionally it has furnished a subject for a 
 picture or a poem. There is an old Spanish poem, 
 by Lorenzo de Zamora, — called " La Saguntina," — 
 which, with such fact as the author has, and a suffi- 
 cient addition of imagination, describes the siege of 
 Saguntum. There is large intermixture of tourna- 
 ments of the chivalric period, and of other customs 
 which belong to the period of the Romancers. When 
 Zamora wrote there was an enthusiasm in Spain for 
 narrative poems. He died in 1614. 
 
 Here are two stanzas from the long poem, which 
 will illustrate its simplicity : 
 
 * Not because they waxed their thread. 
 
CAR THA GIN IAN S. 
 
 2 9 
 
 " The city chooses of iis best 
 
 Thrice five with every year ; 
 No one is chief above the rest 
 
 But each with each is peer. 
 And five shall watch in strength and truth, 
 
 To keep the bad in awe ; 
 And five shall teach the maids and youth, 
 
 And five shall make the law. 
 
 " Lord Hannibal upon the town 
 
 His hirelings brings from far ; 
 The men of Ocana come down, 
 
 To seive him in the war. 
 With all that Andalusia yields 
 
 Her trooping soldiers come ; 
 From rich Granada's fertile fields, 
 
 From Cadiz washed with foam ; 
 With guards and spears, find helms and shields 
 
 They march to fight with Rome." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SCIPIOS. 
 
 Two things followed naturally from the move- 
 ment of Hannibal, by way of Spain, against Rome. 
 The first was that the attention of the Roman sen- 
 ate and people was attracted to a region which had, 
 till now, only interested miners and merchants. The 
 indifference with which the Roman senate heard the 
 first appeal made to them by the people of Sagun- 
 tum, shows that Spain was then quite outside of 
 their world. It was not until the annihilation of 
 Saguntum proved to be the beginning of Hannibal's 
 march of triumph, that the government of Rome 
 began to see the importance of Spain, and to send 
 armies to a region which had before attracted men 
 of commerce only. 
 
 From the armed occupation of garrisons, from the 
 necessary invasion of provinces which must be either 
 friends or enemies, sprang the permanent Roman oc- 
 cupation of Spain. Steadily, and now without any 
 long interruption for centuries, the conquests go' for- 
 ward which make of Spain a Roman province. To 
 this occupation Spain owes the basis of her language 
 of to-day, which, as we shall see, is a language of Ro- 
 man roots, handled in a Gothic or Northern gram- 
 
 30 
 
32 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 mar. And it is to this Roman occupation that the 
 antiquarian owes it, that he may now see in Spain 
 traces of Roman customs, for which, sometimes, he 
 searches unsuccessfully in Italy itself. 
 
 The first commanding figure who comes into the 
 story of Spain in the Roman occupation is that of 
 Scipio, the first Scipio who received the title, then 
 honorable, of " the African," — Scipio Africanus. 
 Young men came to the front in trying times like 
 those of Hannibal and his enemies. The Romans 
 believed that the young Scipio saved his father's life 
 at the battle of Ticinus, where Hannibal defeated 
 him with terrible slaughter. From that time he was 
 engaged against Hannibal, in one field or another, 
 .until he finally defeated him at Zama, sixteen years 
 after. Of this interval much of the time was spent 
 in Spain. 
 
 Scipio's father had been killed in battle there, and 
 his uncle also. The family was mourning the loss of 
 these men and of ofhers killed in the war, when an 
 assembly of the Roman people was called to name 
 a general for the command in Spain. It was not the 
 simplest thing in the world, seeing that all men knew 
 that in a period of thirty days two generals had been 
 killed there, and the Roman arms thoroughly de- 
 feated. No one at first volunteered for the com- 
 mand, though it was the custom of enterprising- 
 generals to offer themselves to the people. Then 
 Publius Scipio appeared. He was only twenty-four 
 years old. He took his stand in the Roman forum, 
 where every one could see him. He asked that he 
 might be sent to the country where his father had 
 
THE SCIPIOS. 3$ 
 
 fallen, to take the command of the army which had 
 been beaten. He was appointed by acclamation. 
 Every " century " voted for him, and every man in 
 every century. He took the command, where, as 
 Livy says, he must carry on his work " between the 
 tombs of his father and his uncle." 
 
 He arrived in Spain in the summer of the year 2 10 
 B.C. The whole country south of the Ebro was in 
 possession of the Carthaginians. But the three Car- 
 thaginian generals were engaged on roving expedi- 
 tions up and down in the interior, and were not on 
 any good terms with each other. 
 
 Scipio used his time to great advantage, as it after- 
 ward proved, in conciliating the important Spaniards. 
 They were already beginning to find that the Car- 
 thaginians were hard masters, and the courtesy and 
 the justice of Scipio did much to detach them from 
 their alliances. Scipio rejected all the advice which 
 he received to attack either of the Carthaginian gen- 
 erals, and instead of this, marched directly upon New 
 Carthage, which was the capital and the head-quarters 
 of the whole Carthaginian movement. He encour- 
 aged the old soldiers, who had met so many reverses 
 in Spain, by telling them of the Roman successes 
 elsewhere, and by that convenient rule of life which 
 all optimists are apt to bring forward, which he 
 stated thus : " It has happened to us by a kind of 
 fatality, that in all important wars we have been vic- 
 torious after having been defeated." He closed his 
 speech by saying : " Come, then, veterans, lead youi 
 new commander and your new army across ths 
 Iberus; lead us into a country with many a deed oi 
 
34 THE STORY OF SPAIN: 
 
 valor." He sent his fleet around to blockade New 
 Carthage, and moved on the city himself with such 
 precision that the fleet arrived for a blockade and the 
 army for a siege on the same day. 
 
 Mago, the Carthaginian general, who was in com- 
 mand at New Carthage, was taken by surprise. He 
 had but a small garrison, which proved to be insuffi- 
 cient. Scipio did not wait for a formal siege. He 
 attacked the city at once, attempting to scale the 
 walls. While the enemy were engaged on this side, 
 he pushed an attack in person on the north, and led 
 a body of men across the lake which Mago had relied 
 upon for protection. 
 
 " It w T as about mid-day, and, besides that the water 
 was being drawn off naturally, in consequence of the 
 tide receding, a brisk north wind rising impelled the 
 water in the lake, which was already in motion, in 
 the same direction as the tide, and rendered it so 
 shallow that in some parts the water reached only 
 to the navel, while in others it scarcely rose above 
 the knees. Scipio, referring this discovery, which 
 he made by his own diligence and penetration, to 
 the gods and to miracle, which had turned the 
 course of the sea, withdrawn it from the lake, and 
 opened ways never before trodden by human feet to 
 afford a passage to the Romans, ordered them to 
 follow Neptune as their guide, and, passing through 
 the middle of the lake, make good their way to the 
 walls." The success of this attack quickened the 
 assault on the walls, and the defenders, finding their 
 lines broken in two quarters, retired into the citadel. 
 The Roman army entered the city and put to the 
 
THE SCIPIOS. 35 
 
 sword every man they found, till, as Livy says, " on 
 a signal given they put a stop to the carnage and 
 turned their attention to plunder." 
 
 The recapitulation of the wealth of New Carthage 
 gives some idea of the civilization to which Spain 
 had then attained. Two hundred and seventy-six 
 golden bowls, almost all of which weighed a pound, 
 were brought to Scipio ; an immense number of sil- 
 ver vessels, and eighteen thousand pounds' weight of 
 coined and wrought silver. One hundred and thir- 
 teen merchant ships were captured in the harbor and 
 five ships of war. But the most valuable part of the 
 capture, for the purposes of the victor, was to be 
 found in his prisoners. For he took all the hostages 
 whom the Spanish tribes had given in pledge of 
 their fidelity to Carthage ; he took two thousand 
 artisans whom he made the slaves of the Roman 
 people, but he held out to them a hope of emancipa- 
 tion if they would serve in the war loyally and 
 strenuously. He filled up the rowers of his fleet 
 with young men and able-bodied slaves. The proper 
 citizens of New Carthage had their property restored 
 to them and were recognized as freemen. It was by 
 such a policy that he conciliated the leaders of 
 Spain, and steadily detached them from the Cartha- 
 ginian alliance. The total number of prisoners 
 which he took by this bold push on the city was 
 ten thousand. 
 
 The custom of giving hostages who were the rela- 
 tives or dear friends of the persons bound by a 
 treaty, was one of the wretched peculiarities of 
 ancient warfare, from which states and statesmen 
 
36 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 are now happily set free. Here in New Carthage, 
 Scipio found a large number of such people, all 
 of high rank of course, who were held in captivity, 
 however honorable that captivity might be, and 
 whose lives would have certainly been forfeited 
 had the Spanish allies of the Carthaginians proved 
 false to their engagements. Some writers state the 
 number of these hostages who fell into Scipio's 
 hands as high as seven hundred and twenty-five. 
 So soon as he released them, the Carthaginians lost 
 their native allies, if they had been holding them by 
 fear. Scipio meanwhile was doing his best to con- 
 ciliate them by the courtesy and moderation of his 
 bearing ; and, in truth, he gained such an ascendancy 
 over the Spaniards by his unselfish manliness, his 
 courage and justice, that, on one occasion, a large 
 body of them offered him the crown and would 
 gladly have made him king. But with true repub- 
 lican dignity, Scipio refused the honor. He said to 
 a multitude who had«saluted him as king : " I think 
 that the most honorable title is that of General. 
 This my soldiers have given me. Other nations 
 revere the name of King. But no Roman can en- 
 dure that name. If you think a royal spirit is the 
 noblest spirit of man, I shall be glad if you think 
 that such a spirit is mine. But you must never call 
 me King." The Romans called these Spaniards bar- 
 barians. But even such barbarians could feel the 
 grandeur of such words. They brought to Scipio 
 the best presents they could give, and did what he 
 valued more : they entered into loyal alliances with 
 the Romans, which they never broke, and which re- 
 
THE SCIPIOS. 37 
 
 suited in the expulsion of the Carthaginians from 
 Spain. In the year B.C. 206, Gades, now Cadiz, which 
 was their last stronghold, surrendered to the Romans, 
 and Romans and Spaniards held the whole peninsula 
 free from any Carthaginian army or garrison. 
 
 It ought to be said that, so far as we know, Scipio 
 deserved this success. He is one of the noblest ex- 
 amples, not only of that class of the sterner virtues, 
 which we should perhaps call Roman virtues, but of 
 that unselfish manliness to which all virtue owes its 
 name, and from which indeed it springs. A writer 
 as narrow as Livy intimates that Scipio had a pecul- 
 iar address in displaying his virtues, and that he did 
 this or that for effect. But it is not fair to say that 
 when a leader like Scipio went every day into the 
 Capitoline temple, and spent a short period in silent 
 meditation, he only did this to be " seen of men." 
 This is certain, that somehow or other Publius Scipio 
 gained that absolute self-control, which, as we have 
 seen, won for him the admiration and even the ven- 
 eration of barbarous tribes. The same self-control 
 and the steady loyalty of the man won for him the 
 life-long love as well as the admiration of troops of 
 friends. It is not fair to call all this the result of 
 that vulgar contrivance, in which a candidate for 
 applause tries to purchase it. 
 
 One single incident of Scipio's Spanish career, in 
 which he restored a captive lady to her lover, has 
 often been the theme of poetry and given the sub- 
 ject to art. 
 
 Carthaginians and Romans had not established 
 
38 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 their dominion over more than half of the penin- 
 sula. They seemed to have entirely subdued Cata- 
 lonia, Valencia, Murcia, and Andalusia — that is, the 
 region east and south of the mountain ranges. The 
 Celtiberian tribes in the centre founded a republic 
 which was in a certain alliance with the Romans, but 
 at this time the Romans scarcely knew, even by 
 name, the independent tribes of the north and the 
 northwest. A few years after Scipio's success, Cato 
 the elder took command in Spain, and there are 
 traces of his occupancy there to-day. Whatever 
 traveller is fortunate enough to visit in the Pyre- 
 nees, the picturesque little town of Jaca, will see 
 walls which they say Cato built, and there he estab- 
 lished a fortress for the protection of this defile. 
 From that time downward the Romans steadily in- 
 creased their power in Spain, until for the first four 
 centuries of the Christian era Spain '■* ceased to have 
 a place in military history," because the conquest 
 or assimilation was so complete. Roman soldiers 
 married Spanish women, and when their terms of 
 service were over, they preferred, as well they might 
 do, to remain in beautiful Spain, rather than to go 
 back to the harder chances of Italian life. Gradu- 
 ally the Latin language took the place of the native 
 dialect, and to a certain extent Latin customs took 
 the place of native customs. Scipio adopted as his 
 son Camilius Scipio, who was the younger son of 
 yEmilius Paulus. It was his fortune also to will 
 the title of " Africanus." He also volunteered to 
 take the province in Spain when he was very young, 
 and afterwards in repeated disasters to the Roman 
 
ROMAN BRIDGE, CUENCA. 
 
 39 
 
40 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 arms there, he was sent out to that province. This 
 was in the year 134 B.C., after the third Punic war. 
 It was in this consulship that Numantia fell under 
 that terrible siege which is remembered in history by 
 the side of the sieges of Saguntum and Saragossa, 
 for the signal hardihood and persistency by which 
 the beleaguered people held their own. The following 
 passage from Cervantes' tragedy of " Numantia " 
 recalls the story of those days of terrible suffering 
 and brave endurance. 
 
 MORANDO. 
 
 Why so swiftly art thou flying ? 
 
 Go not, Lira, — let me still 
 
 Taste what may my spirit fill 
 With glad life, even while I 'm dying. 
 Lira, let mine eyes awhile 
 
 Gaze upon thy loveliness 
 
 Since so deep is my distress, 
 Thus it would its pangs beguile. 
 
 sweetest Lyre, that soundest so, 
 For ever yi my phantasy, 
 With such delicious harmony 
 
 It turns to glory all my woe ! 
 
 What now ? What stand'st thou mutely thinking ? 
 Thou of my soul the only treasure. 
 
 ' LIRA. 
 
 1 'm thinking how thy dream of pleasure, 
 And mine so fast away is sinking : 
 
 It will not fall beneath the hand 
 Of him who wastes our native land ; 
 For long, or e'er the war be o'er, 
 My hapless life will be no more. 
 
 MORANDO. 
 Joy of my soul, what hast thou said ? 
 
THE SCIPIOS. 41 
 
 LIRA. 
 
 That I am worn with hunger so, 
 
 That quickly will the o'erpowering woe 
 For ever break my vital thread. 
 
 What bridal rapture dost thou dream 
 
 From one at such a sad extreme ? 
 
 For, trust me, ere an hour be past, 
 
 I fear I shall have breathed my last. 
 My brother fainted yesterday, 
 
 By wasting hunger overborne ; 
 
 And then my mother, all outworn 
 By hunger, slowly sunk away. 
 And if my health can struggle yet 
 ' With hunger's cruel power, in truth 
 
 It is because my stronger youth 
 Its wasting force hath better met. 
 But now so many a day hath passed, 
 
 Since aught I 've had its powers to strengthen 
 
 It can no more the conflict lengthen, 
 But it must faint and fail at last. 
 
 MORANDO. 
 
 Lira, dry thy weeping eyes ; 
 
 But, ah ! let mine, my love, the more 
 Their overflowing rivers pour, 
 
 Wailing thy wretched agonies. 
 
 But though thou still art held in strife 
 With hunger thus incessantly, 
 Of hunger still thou shalt not die, 
 
 So long as I retain my life. 
 
 I offer here, from yon high wall 
 To leap o'er ditch and battlement : 
 Thy death one instant to prevent, 
 
 I fear not on mine own to fall : 
 
 The bread the Roman eateth now 
 I '11 snatch away, and bear to thee ; 
 For oh, 't is worse than death to see, 
 
 Lady, thy dreadful state of woe ! 
 
42 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 LIRA. 
 
 Thou speakest like a lover : — still, 
 Morando, surely, 't were not good 
 That I should find a joy in food 
 
 For which thy life-blood thou mayst spill. 
 
 But little will that succor be, 
 
 Whate'er of booty thou canst make ; 
 While thou a surer way dost take 
 
 To lose thyself than win for me. 
 
 Enjoy thou still thy youthful prime 
 In fresh and blooming years elate ; 
 My life is nothing to the state,— 
 
 Thine, every thing at such a time. 
 
 Its noblest bulwark thou canst be 
 Against the fierce and crafty foe : 
 What can the feeble prowess do 
 
 Of such a wretched maid as me ? 
 
 
 

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 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 SERTORIUS. 
 
 The most picturesque, perhaps, of the separate 
 episodes in the Roman conquest is to be found in 
 the story of Sertorius, which has accordingly been 
 seized upon by one modern author and another for 
 romance or drama. His life is told at length by 
 Plutarch in his gossiping way. 
 
 Quintus Sertorius was a soldier of first-rate ability 
 and of good education, and of Sabine birth. He 
 served under Marius, when the German tribes first 
 came down on Italy, and in the civil wars he took 
 the side of Marius against Sylla. After Sylla was 
 master of Rome, Sertorius hastened into Spain, 
 where he had formerly served, and by his popularity 
 with the natives, and by arming the Romans, hoped 
 to maintain himself against any of Sylla's partisans. 
 
 Finding his force insufficient, he seized a fleet at 
 New Carthage, our Carthagena, and crossed to Africa. 
 It was in this escape from his enemies that he went 
 through the Straits of Gibraltar, and sailing outward, 
 keeping the Spanish shore on his right hand, landed 
 a little above the mouth of the river Baetis, where it 
 falls into the Atlantic sea, and gives the name to 
 that part of Spain. Here he met with seamen re- 
 
 44 
 
SERTORIUS. 45 
 
 cently arrived from the " Atlantic islands," two in 
 number, divided from one another only by a narrow 
 channel, and distant from the coast of Africa ten 
 thousand furlongs. " These islands," he was told, 
 " are called the Islands of the Blest ; rains fall there 
 seldom, and in moderate showers, but for the most 
 part, they have gentle breezes, bringing along with 
 them soft dews, which render the soil not only rich 
 for ploughing and planting, but so abundantly fruit- 
 ful that it produces spontaneously an abundance of 
 delicate fruits, sufficient to feed the inhabitants, who 
 may here enjoy all things without trouble or labor. 
 The seasons of the year are temperate, and the 
 transitions from one to another so moderate that 
 the air is almost always serene and pleasant. The 
 rough northerly and easterly winds which blow from 
 the coasts of Europe and Africa, dissipated in the 
 vast open space, utterly lose their force before they 
 reach the islands. The soft western and southerly 
 winds which breathe upon them sometimes produce 
 gently sprinkling showers, which they convey along 
 with them from the sea, but more usually bring days 
 of moist, bright weather, cooling and gently fertiliz- 
 ing the soil, so that the firm belief prevails, even 
 among the barbarians, that this is the seat of the 
 blessed, and that these are the Elysian Fields cele- 
 brated by Homer. 
 
 " When Sertorius heard this account he was seized 
 with a wonderful passion for these islands, and had 
 an extreme desire to go and live there in peace and 
 quietness, and safe from oppression and unending 
 wars. But his inclinations were perceived by the 
 
46 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Sicilian pirates, whom he had under his nominal 
 command. They desired not peace nor quiet, but 
 riches and spoils, and they immediately forsook him, 
 and sailed away into Africa to assist Ascalis, the son 
 of Iphtha, and to help to restore him to his kingdom 
 of Mauritania." 
 
 Sertorius was not discouraged, but landed in Mauri- 
 tania, and took one side in the civil war there. He 
 opened the grave of Antaeus, which he found in the 
 city of Tingis, and found the body sixty cubits in. 
 length. He made himself master of all Mauritania. 
 The Lusitanians, inhabiting the western part of the 
 Spanish peninsula, hearing of his success, asked him 
 to become their ruler, and he accepted the trust. It 
 was then that he obtained possession of the famous 
 white hind, the story of which is so closely connected 
 with his name. " A countryman named Spanus, 
 who lived in those parts, meeting by chance a hind 
 that had recently calved flying from the hunters, let 
 the dam go, and pursuing the fawn, took it, wonder- 
 fully pleased with the rarity of the color, which was 
 all milk-white. As at that time Sertorius was living 
 in the neighborhood, and accepted gladly any pres- 
 ents of fruit, fowl, or venison that the country af- 
 forded, and rewarded liberally those who presented 
 them, the countryman brought him his young hind. 
 Sertorius took it, and was well pleased with it at first 
 sight. When in time he had made it so tame and 
 gentle that it would come when he called, and follow 
 him wheresoever he went, and could endure the 
 noise and tumult of the camp, knowing well that un- 
 civilized people are naturally prone to superstition, 
 
SEkTORlus. 47 
 
 by little and little he raised it into something super- 
 natural, saying that it was given him by the goddess 
 Diana, and that it revealed to him many secrets." 
 
 This was one of the devices by which he recom- 
 mended himself to the Lusitanian tribes. Plutarch 
 says that they really regarded him as divine, and 
 followed him, confident in his supernatural powers. 
 
 He had landed in Lusitania with only twenty-six 
 hundred men, whom he called Romans, and seven 
 hundred Africans. The Lusitanians added fifty 
 seven hundred more. With a force so insignificant 
 he made war against five Roman generals, who had 
 armies amounting to nearly one hundred and thirty 
 thousand men. In this war for a long time he was 
 superior. He beat Cotta in a sea fight. On land he 
 routed Aufidius, Domitius, Thoranius, and Metellus 
 himself. Manlius came from Gaul to assist Metel- 
 lus, and Pompey was sent in all haste from Rome 
 with considerable force as an additional relief. 
 
 Sertorius held his own against these combined 
 forces. He introduced discipline into the Spanish 
 ranks, and taught the Spaniards that they were quite 
 as good men as the Romans. He was not satisfied 
 with improvements in war. He watched the train- 
 ing of the people in the arts, and was specially care- 
 ful of their education. From all the tribes he called 
 for the boys of good parents and placed them in a 
 school which he founded at Osca — now Huesca — in 
 the northeast of Spain. There is at this day a uni- 
 versity there which preserves his name in the title 
 of the University of Sertorius. Here they had Ro- 
 man and Greek masters, so that, as he said, they 
 
48 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 might be fit when the time came to take their share 
 in the government. Plutarch says that they were 
 really hostages while he called them students. How- 
 ever this may be, the fathers were well pleased to 
 see them dressed in the costume of young Roman 
 gentlemen, and were not displeased at the care taken 
 of their sons. It is certain that Sertorius is to be 
 counted as one of the civilizers of Spain, Nor is 
 there any history more interesting, of a great leader 
 whose duty it has been to uplift and encourage 
 ignorant and almost barbarous tribes. 
 
 So sagacious were his methods of elevating the 
 fine race of men with which he had to do, that we 
 wish we had more detail. But alas, all the archives 
 of his government, and the accounts, said to have 
 been considerable, of the earlier history of Lusitania, 
 perished in the confusions which accompanied his 
 fall. It is clear that he had the enthusiastic sup- 
 port of his people^ and apparently this was due to 
 hearty affection. Plutarch says it was a custom 
 among these tribes that " when a commander was 
 slain in battle those who attended his person fought 
 it out till they all died with him, which the inhabi- 
 tants of those countries called an offering or libation. 
 There were few Spanish commanders, therefore, that 
 had any considerable guard or number of attend- 
 ants ; but Sertorius was followed by thousands who 
 offered themselves as his body-guard and vowed to 
 spend their blood with him. It is said that when 
 his army was once defeated, and hard pressed by the 
 enemy, his men took him up on their shoulders and 
 passed him from one to another till they carried him 
 
3EAT0K1US. 49 
 
 into the city, and only when they had thus placed 
 their general in safety, provided afterwards each man 
 for his own security." 
 
 Sertorius certainly had great resource as a com- 
 mander, and knew how to use the circumstances as 
 well as the men with whom he had to do. He had 
 a singular success in his achievement against the 
 Characitanians. " These are a people beyond the 
 river Tagus, who inhabit neither cities nor towns, 
 but live in a vast high hill, within the deep dens and 
 caves of the rocks, the mouths of which open all tow- 
 ards the north. The country below is of a soil 
 resembling a light clay, so loose as easily to break 
 into powder, and is not firm enough to bear any one 
 that treads upon it, and if you touch it in the least, 
 it flies about like ashes or unslaked lime. In any 
 danger of war these people descend into their caves, 
 and carrying in their booty and prey along with them, 
 stay quietly within, secure from every attack. And 
 when Sertorius, leaving Metellus some distance off, 
 had placed his camp near this hill, they slighted and 
 despised him, imagining that he retired into these 
 parts being overthrown by the Romans. And 
 whether out of anger and resentment, or out of his 
 unwillingness to be thought to fly from his enemies, 
 early in the morning he rode up to view the situa- 
 tion of the place. But finding there was no way to 
 come at it, as he rode about, threatening them in 
 vain and disconcerted, he took notice that the wind 
 raised the dust and carried it up toward the caves of 
 the Characitanians, the mouths of which, as I said 
 before, opened toward the north, and the northerly 
 
SO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 wind, which some call Caecias, prevailing most in 
 those parts, coming up out of moist plains or moun- 
 tains covered with snow, at this particular time, in 
 heat of summer, being further supplied and increased 
 by the melting of the ice in the northern regions, 
 blew a delightful fresh gale, cooling and refreshing 
 the Characitanians and their cattle all the day long. 
 Sertorius, considering Well all circumstances in 
 which either the information of the inhabitants or 
 his own experience had instructed him, commanded 
 his soldiers to shovel up a great quantity of this 
 light, dusty earth, to heap it up together, and make 
 a mound of it over against the hill in which these 
 barbarous people resided, who, imagining that all this 
 preparation was for raising a mound to get at them, 
 only mocked and laughed at it. However, he con- 
 tinued the work till the evening, and brought his 
 soldiers back into their camp. The next morning a 
 gentle breeze at first arose, and moved the lightest 
 parts of the earth, and dispersed it about as the chaff 
 before the wind, but when the sun coming to be 
 higher, the strong northerly wind had covered the 
 hills with dust, the soldiers came and turned this 
 mound of earth over and over, and broke the hard 
 clods in pieces, whilst others on horseback rode 
 through it backward and forward, and raised a cloud 
 of dust into the air, then with the wind the whole 
 of it was carried away and blown into the dwellings 
 of the Characitanians, all lying open to the north. 
 And there being no other vent or breathing-place 
 than that through which the Csecias rushed in upon 
 them, it quickly blinded their eyes, and filled their 
 
SERTORIUS. 51 
 
 lungs, and all but choked them, whilst they strove to 
 draw in the rough air mingled with dust and pow- 
 dered earth. Nor were they able, with all they could 
 do, to hold out above two days, but yielded up them- 
 selves on the third, adding, by their defeat, not so 
 much to the power of Sertorius as to his renown in 
 proving that he was still able to conquer places by 
 art, which were impregnable by the force of arms." 
 
 Sertorius was the ruler of the tribes, which he 
 was civilizing, for nearly ten years. He was able in 
 that time to see the fulfilment of some of the plans 
 which he made for his people. It was one of the 
 darkest periods of the civil wars of Rome, and many 
 a Roman senator, obliged to flee for his life, was 
 glad to follow Sertorius's example, and to join him 
 among his Lusitanian admirers. The reader will 
 understand that before the end of the success of Ser- 
 torius he was more than the ruler of the country 
 we call Portugal. He was the recognized master of 
 more than half of Spain. He made his new allies 
 accept the position as he understood it. He had 
 come there with a Roman army. They were not to 
 suppose that they were Spanish rebels. They were 
 to understand that he was a Roman officer, and that 
 he was teaching them how great and how desirable 
 a thing was the gentle sway of Rome. Had Rome 
 only had a chief able to see the grandeur of this 
 position, had the life of this remarkable man been 
 spared, we should not speak of him, as we are apt to, 
 as a sort of Robin Hood, but should rate him as he 
 was, as one of the more remarkable leaders of man- 
 kind. But Sylla did not want to encourage other 
 
52 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 leaders, whose power might come too near his own. 
 Army after army was despatched to crush Sertorius, 
 and with varying success. For himself, he sent word 
 to Metellus and to Pompey that he would lay down 
 his arms and live a private life, if he were allowed to 
 return home. He had rather, he said, live as the 
 meanest citizen in Rome than be supreme com- 
 mander of all other cities, if he were an exile. He 
 was wholly attached to his mother, and when he 
 heard of her death he almost died himself. For 
 seven days he lay in his tent without admitting his 
 nearest friends. It was only with the greatest diffi- 
 culty that he was persuaded to resume the command 
 of his army. Mithridates, in Asia Minor, was trying 
 to make head again against Sylla. Hearing of the 
 success of Sertorius, he sent an embassy to him to 
 arrange some cooperation against their common 
 enemy. But Sertorius answered that Mithridates 
 might reign in Bithynia and Cappadocia, because 
 they had never belonged to Rome ; but he would 
 have no part in assisting him to regain that part of 
 Asia Minor which the Romans had made a province. 
 On this basis, Mithridates in the east and Ser- 
 torius in the west made a treaty. Sertorius was 
 strong enough to send Marius, one of his generals, 
 with an army to assist Mithridates, and the alliance 
 was successful. But at this moment, unfortunately, 
 the senators around Sertorius in Spain, who had not, 
 it would seem, risen higher than the level of the 
 senators left at home, became envious of his au- 
 thority. They made a conspiracy against him, and 
 assassinated him at a feast to which he had invited 
 
SERTORIUS. 
 
 53 
 
 them. In this act of treachery closed the most 
 interesting episode in the slow steps by which bar- 
 barous Spain became one of the most highly culti- 
 vated provinces in the Roman empire. 
 
 The story of Sertorius is so romantic that it has 
 been eagerly seized upon by the writers of poetry in 
 Spain and in other lands. Corneille takes from it 
 the subject of one of his more celebrated tragedies. 
 An English author has made it the subject of his 
 poem called the " The White Hind of Sertorius." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR IN SPAIN. 
 
 The death of Sertorius took place in the year 72 
 B.C. His rule, on the whole beneficent, had lasted 
 nearly ten years. His people in general submitted 
 to the Romans. Pompey followed up his successes, 
 and considered Spain as one of the provinces on 
 which he could rely. It was nearly thirty years after 
 the death of Sertorius that, in the great contest be- 
 tween Julius Caesar and that part of the senate 
 which adhered tp Pompey and his family, the de- 
 cisive battle of the world was fought out in Southern 
 Spain. This was not much more than a year before 
 Caesar was killed in the senate-house at Rome. 
 The younger Pompey was his antagonist. Caesar 
 was following up his own victories in Africa, and had 
 come to Spain to end the civil war in person. The 
 decisive battle was at Munda. 
 
 Pompey seems really to have supposed that he 
 was superior in force, — so large a proportion of 
 Caesar's men were new levies. He certainly had 
 the advantage of the ground. The narrative of the 
 battle is not more intelligible than are the narratives 
 of most battles where we have not the advantage of 
 an accurate map of the«place. But it is certain that 
 
 54 
 
JULIUS C^SAR IN SPAIN. 
 
 55 
 
 Pompey and his army had the advantage of the 
 fortifications of the town of Munda, and apparently 
 of considerable military stores there.* He fixed his 
 camp about five miles from Caesar's, where he had 
 there advantages to rely upon. The country between 
 
 j*lli.&v t r.j J 4 
 
 JULIUS C^SAR. 
 
 the two armies was flat, but Pompey's front was pro- 
 tected by a stream, which was not easy to cross. 
 On his left, particularly, it flowed through marshy 
 
 * Munda was not far from the city of Cordova, and the spot is to 
 be sought for somewhere in the valley of the Guadalquiver. The 
 author of Carmen weaves in with that story, an amusing disquisition 
 on the discovery of the site of the city. 
 
5 6 THE STORY OF SPAIN.- 
 
 ground which was wellnigh impracticable. Not- 
 withstanding this, Caesar determined to attack him 
 where he was, though he himself seems to have 
 thought that this was somewhat rash. He saw that 
 he must push his enemy in front, so well defended 
 were both wings. The day was magnificent. " It 
 almost seemed as if the immortal gods themselves 
 had given such wonderful weather — just as he could 
 have chosen it — for battle." It was early in March, 
 and those who have travelled in Andalusia at that 
 time can imagine what a day it was, of which a con- 
 temporary writer speaks such words. Every man 
 knew that the final issue of the long struggle had 
 come. An hour might decide it. It was the Water- 
 loo of the conflict between the Senate and the 
 Imperator. 
 
 Caesar's men pressed forward expecting to meet 
 their enemy. But Pompey's men did not abandon 
 at the first their faYorable position. They awaited 
 attack. Their line of battle consisted of thirteen 
 legions of heavy infantry, and the wings were covered 
 by cavalry. They had six thousand light infantry 
 beside, and almost as many native " auxiliaries." 
 Caesar's army was made up of eighty cohorts of 
 infantry, and eight thousand cavalry. When he 
 found that he could not startle Pompey's troops 
 from their secure position, he felt himself, as has 
 been said, how critical was his position ; and for a 
 while paused, to reconsider the ground. His men 
 were displeased by this delay, and the enemy was 
 encouraged. They were lured to their first mistake. 
 They delivered an attack, while they should still 
 
JULIUS C^SAR IN SPAIN. S7 
 
 have awaited it, on their left. Caesar's extreme right 
 was formed by the " decumani," which held their 
 own ; they were supported by the 3d and 5th legions 
 on their left. The conflict was severe and ever 
 wavering, but on the extreme of the wings of both 
 armies Caesar's veterans not only held their own, 
 but gradually drove their enemy to give way a little. 
 On the instant Caesar's cavalry pounced on the 
 shattered wing, though the rough country on which 
 it fell back was all unfit for a charge. The army of 
 Pompey was broken and fell back into the town of 
 Munda. 
 
 In that fight more than thirty thousand men had 
 fallen, among whom were Sextus Pompey, Labienus, 
 Attius Varus, and other distinguished officers. 
 Caesar himself, at one moment, when he saw a 
 legion broken, rallied it in person, and took the field 
 as a private soldier might have done. He ran through 
 the ranks and cried to his men : " Are you not 
 ashamed to deliver me into the hands of boys?" 
 And when the battle was won, he told his friends 
 that he had often fought for victory before, but that 
 this was the first time he had ever fought for his life. 
 In this battle, as has been said, the war with Pom- 
 pey and his army was virtually ended. It was 
 fought on the day of the Feast of Bacchus, fouryears, 
 to a day, after Pompey had left Rome to begin the 
 war, which had cost him his life, and now virtually 
 came to an end as Sextus Pompey died. 
 
 Julius Caesar celebrated his victory by a triumph. 
 This ceremonial was not very kindly taken at Rome. 
 It was said, not unnaturally, that a victory gained 
 
58 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 over fellow-countrymen was not one which the peo- 
 ple of Rome should be expected to rejoice in unani- 
 mously. This was not the last triumph for which 
 Spain gave the cause. Augustus, more than once, 
 conceded the same honor to the lieutenants to whom 
 he entrusted its subjugation. 
 
 The Spaniards took the occasion of the civil wars 
 of the Triumvirate to do what they could in re- 
 asserting their independence. Even when Augustus 
 closed the gates of the Temple of Janus, it was ac- 
 knowledged that Spain was not wholly at peace. 
 But civil war was ended, and the complaints of such 
 distant barbarians were not permitted to inter- 
 fere with the rejoicing at the capital. Augustus, 
 however, made it his first duty to go to Spain in 
 person, and bring the peninsula to real peace. He 
 seldom took the field himself. Indeed he spent a 
 considerable time on his sick-bed at Tarraco, now 
 Tarragona. The regular passage between Italy and 
 Spain was from Rome to this seaport. The Roman 
 lieutenants were too strong for the Spanish rebels, 
 even when they were defending their mountain 
 passes. By the time Augustus had recovered, peace 
 was really secured, and he devoted himself,»in per- 
 son, to those arrangements which should make it 
 permanent. He built new cities in the plains, in 
 which he compelled the mountaineers to reside* He 
 established military colonies for his soldiers, and gave 
 them for their clients, the Spaniards who had been 
 compelled to submit to him. Large numbers of the 
 defeated were sold into captivity. It is thus that 
 some of the finest cities of Spain were established. 
 
illpi.l 
 
 ,.,:,.,'., ' , . '^:M\ 
 
60 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Most of them retain a memorial of their origin in 
 their present names. Thus Saragossa was " Caesar- 
 Augusta." The site was well chosen as convenient 
 for communication between the East and the West, 
 and between the Pyrenees and the Tagus. In the 
 north of Portugal, about twenty-five miles from 
 Oporto, the city of Braga preserves the name of 
 "Bracata-Augusta." A modern traveller speaks of 
 the scenery in the neighborhood as " the most lovely 
 in all Portugal." The Romans gave it the name of 
 the Elysian Fields, and called the Lima River by the 
 name of Lethe or the River of Oblivion. " The banks 
 of the Lima equal any thing Europe contains." 
 Merida is the " Emerita-Augusta " of the emperor. 
 It is still called " the Rome of Spain." The mag- 
 nificent bridge over the Guadiana, built by Trajan, 
 still stands a noble monument of Roman skill. It is 
 half a mile long, twenty-six feet broad, and thirty- 
 three feet above the bed of the river. It consists of 
 eighty-one arches, constructed of granite. Merida 
 was the capital of the province of Lusitania, the 
 smallest of the three provinces into which Rome 
 divided the peninsula. One of the great reservoirs 
 in the neighborhood of Merida retains the name of 
 the Lake of Proserpine. Nowhere in Europe, in- 
 deed, can be found more interesting memorials of 
 Roman engineering than in Spain. 
 
 Badajos in the same neighborhood is a corruption 
 from " Pax Augusta." And here also may be found 
 Roman memorials. In the south, Cordova, which 
 the Romans called Corduba, was the capital of the 
 province of Baetica, and so completely was the spirit 
 
JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 6l 
 
 of insurrection broken that it was not necessary to 
 maintain here any military force. Strabo tells us 
 that in the whole country around the Bsetis or 
 Guadalquiver, the natives had so completely adopted 
 the Roman customs that they had even forgotten 
 their own native tongue. Of the three provinces, 
 that of which Tarraco was the head was the largest. 
 In this and in Lusitania, however, a single legion was 
 enough to maintain the authority of Rome. They 
 needed these troops only to protect them against 
 raids from their own mountaineers. Agriculture, 
 trade, and industry flourished through all Spain. 
 Italy needed all the grain which she could furnish, 
 and the supply of the demand gave an ample market 
 to her farmers. In the contest which followed, wars 
 and insurrections died away, and in four centuries, as 
 we have said, Spain disappears from military history. 
 In the fifth century the historian Orosius writing, 
 alas, with too little of the spirit of prophecy, says, 
 " All Spain fell back into eternal peace." Yet Livy 
 writing while Augustus was living, had said that 
 Spain, which was the first province outside of Italy 
 which Rome attempted to subjugate, was the last of 
 all the provinces to be completely subdued. 
 
 Such were the triumphs of peace in the exquisite 
 valleys of the south, that, after the Augustan con- 
 quest, it was observed that no province in the Roman 
 empire produced so long a list of historians, poets, 
 and philosophers as the schools of Baetica. 
 
 Indeed, if we left out the Spaniards, the list of the 
 authors who have distinguished the early days of the 
 empire would seem very meagre. The two Senecas, 
 
62 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 — father and son, — and the brother of the younger, 
 known to us best as the Gallio of the Book of Acts, 
 were all born in Cordova. Lucius Seneca, the min- 
 ister of Nero, who met death at Nero's command, 
 was born in the second or third year of the Christian 
 era, and died in the year 65 A.D. During his life- 
 time Lucan, the author of the Pharsalia, was born at 
 Aduba in Spain, and not long after, the poet Martial 
 at Bilbilis, — which is in our Arragon. The rhetori- 
 cian, Quintilian, is another Spaniard. He was born at 
 Callagurris, now Callahorra, in the upper valley of 
 the Ebro. These six distinguished men of letters 
 lived in Rome nearly at the same time. It is also 
 known that the Emperor Vespasian was favorably 
 affected toward Spain, because this was the first 
 province whose troops gave a cordial assent to his 
 appointment as Imperator. It is easy to see that 
 Spain and Spaniards may have been, so to speak, 
 the fashion in Rome in the middle of the first 
 century of our era and at its close. 
 
 The three Senecas do not seem to have spent 
 much time in Spain. Lucan died in his twenty- 
 seventh year. Martial returned to Spain at the end 
 of his life. He went there in the third year of 
 Trajan, the year 100 of our era, and married a 
 lady named Marcella, who lived on the banks of 
 the Cello. He speaks warmly of her, as he should 
 have done from mere gratitude ; for in her house 
 on her means he lived for the three remaining years 
 of his life. 
 
 In a playful little ode to his friend Licianus or 
 Licinianus, Martial amuses himself by bringing in a 
 
JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 63 
 
 sheaf of the names of different places in Spain, with 
 some of which apparently Licianus was familiar. 
 
 Come and see our Spaniards, Lician, 
 
 Other lands shall never shame us ; 
 Come and see my Bilbilis 
 
 Both for arms and horses famous. 
 Come to craggy Vadavero ; , 
 
 Come and and rest you in the groves 
 Of my dainty, sweet Botrodes, 
 
 Which the blithe Pomona loves. 
 You shall bathe in warm Congedus 
 
 Which the water-nymphs environ ; 
 Or in freezing Salo cool you, 
 
 Where we cool our blades of iron. 
 Beasts and birds shall make your dinner, 
 
 As you cross Vobisca's meadows, 
 Golden Tagus shall refresh you 
 
 Underneath her leafy shadows. 
 
 Are you thirsty ? here 's Dircenna, 
 
 And Nemea's melted snow r s ; 
 Or, when fierce December rages, 
 
 And the Gallic north-wind blows, 
 We '11 go down to Tarragona, 
 
 To Laletania repair. 
 You shall shoot the does with arrows, 
 
 You shall shoot the wild boar there ; 
 The keeper shall bring home the stag, 
 
 And you on horseback course the hare. 
 
 Far away be squabbling clients, 
 
 Far away Liburnus too ; 
 Not a dun shall break your slumbers, 
 
 You shall sleep the morning through. 
 You shall hear no woman whimper, 
 
 And no senator debate ; 
 Other men to bores shall listen, 
 
 Others hear the fools dilate. 
 
64 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 You know how to taste the pleasure 
 
 When your Sura wins his meed. 
 We know how to keep the treasure — 
 
 How to live, and live indeed. 
 
 In quite a different strain from that of this playful 
 poem of Martial's is an ode by Prudentius, also a 
 Spaniard, the Christian poet of the fifth century. 
 Probably Prudentius had in mind Martial's catalogue 
 of hard proper names, as he tried his skill in weaving 
 into Sapphic and Adonian verses the names of the 
 Spanish cities. He also was born, like Martial, in 
 the modern Arragon. As it happens, none of his 
 names are the same as those used by Martial, but the 
 reader will be able to place most of them. 
 
 The verses come at the beginning of a long poem, 
 called the " Peristephanior," which is an elaborate 
 and somewhat theological tribute to the memory of 
 the martyrs of the Church. It will be seen that he 
 claims credit for his own Saragossa, that she had 
 more than any of suoh martyrs among the Spanish 
 cities. What is curious is, that he intimates that 
 Rome herself scarcely exceeds her in this regard. 
 
 Dear Saragossa offers, all together, 
 Sacred memorials of her eighteen martyrs ; 
 Well may we hail her " City of Augustus," * 
 rich with such Treasure ! 
 
 Thou who hast been the home of mighty Angels, 
 Thou shalt not fear, though worlds shall fall to ruin, 
 Thou who canst offer, all at once, so many 
 gifts to a Saviour ! 
 
 When the great God shall scatter far his Lightnings, 
 Put forth at last His hand to weigh the Sinner 
 
 * " Csesar- Augusta, " whence Saragossa. 
 
ROMAN AQUEDUCT, SEGOVIA. 
 65 
 
66 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 From the red cloud in which so long He hides it, 
 judging the Nations, 
 
 Then shall each city, from our many peoples, 
 Hasten to meet Christ Jesus with their Tributes, 
 And in rich baskets bear along the priceless 
 gifts of their Treasures. 
 
 Dear Cyprianus, eloquent and learned, 
 African Carthage offers Him thy relics ; 
 Cordova brings Acisclus and Zoilus, 
 while Tarragona 
 
 Weaves in one diadem her triple honors, 
 And, on the crown which Fructuosus left her, 
 Fastens twin gems which shine with equal glory, 
 blazing with Fire. 
 
 Little Gerunda, rich in sacred relics, 
 Joins with the rest in honor of her Felix ; 
 Our Calagorris * joins the host to carry 
 two whom we honor. 
 
 Barcelona brings the ashes of Circufas, 
 Beautiful Narbo bears* along her Paulus, 
 Excellent Aretas never will forget thee, 
 holy Gensesis ! 
 
 Merida, queen of Lusitanian peoples, 
 Going to meet thy Saviour, thou shalt carry 
 Her, the brave girl whom thou dost well remember, 
 up to the Altar ! 
 
 Noble Complutum, in the same procession, 
 Carries together Pastor and his Justus, 
 Pressing, as brother by the side of brother, 
 one bed of Glory. 
 
 Tingis among Massilian kings remembers 
 Cassian the blest, still living in his ashes, 
 
 * Calagorris was the birthplace of Prudentius. 
 
JULIUS C&SAR IN SPAIN. 6y 
 
 Who with Christ's yoke — the yoke so light and easy — 
 conquered the Nations. 
 
 Nay, all the cities, all the little hamlets, 
 Gladly come forward with such honored tribute ; 
 One, two, or three they offer to the Saviour 
 those who confessed Him. 
 
 Thou, Saragossa, city of the Caesars, 
 Thou shalt record twice nine upon thy banner, 
 Wearing the olive crown of Peace Eternal 
 won in his Service. 
 
 Thou, in such graces richer than the richest, 
 Standest supreme amid thy crowd of martyrs, 
 Honored beyond all others in the radiance 
 of Light Eternal ! 
 
 Scarcely great Carthage, parent of the nations, 
 Scarcely great Rome, upon her throne of Empire, 
 Vying with thee in rivalry of service, 
 boasts of such Glory ! 
 
 If the American reader will remember that the 
 peaceful domination of Spain by Rome lasted four 
 hundred years without a serious ripple, and if he will 
 also remember that this is a longer period than has 
 passed since the discovery of America by Columbus, 
 he will understand, as we are not apt to, how Spain 
 became largely Roman in those centuries. The stu- 
 dent of Roman antiquities has therefore, as has been 
 implied, much to learn in travelling in Spain. He 
 may find in an ancient town the same arrangements 
 of the atrium and the chambers around it, which 
 have puzzled him as he read the classics. He will 
 find the curtain stretched over the atrium to protect 
 it from the sun or a sudden shower. He will find 
 
68 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 the implurium in the middle, the cubicula and other 
 rooms arranged substantially as in classical times. 
 He will understand exactly what defence such Ro- 
 man city as Jaca, which has been spoken of, offered 
 against the attacks of armies which had no cannon. 
 From well-built fortifications like these, round to 
 such details as the bells jingled by a train of mules, 
 the traveller who has even a smattering of classical 
 reading is reminded every time he is in Spain of the 
 Roman origin of manners and customs. 
 
 But the most remarkable memorial of Rome in 
 Spain is in the Spanish language. In a later chapter 
 of this book we shall try to show how under the in- 
 fluence of Northern invaders the Latin of Quintilian 
 and Lucan gave way and became eventually the 
 Spanish of to-day. It is enough here to say that 
 the roots of the Spanish language are almost with- 
 out exception Latin. The traveller meets them in 
 places where he would least expect them. Thus in 
 the days of the early settlement of a wild country, as 
 in the woods of Wisconsin or of Maine to-day, the 
 wayfarer in the wilderness knows that when he 
 comes to a farm he may expect shelter and some 
 form of hospitality. The trace of such a stage of 
 civilization lingers in the Spanish language, where the 
 word fonda, derived from the Latin fttndus, a farm, is 
 now the word for an inn, or what in the East would 
 be called a caravansary. With such roots the Gothic 
 invaders w r orked strange havoc in forming the gram- 
 mar of their language, and Spanish may be called a 
 language of Latin radicals with a Teutonic con- 
 struction. 
 
JULIUS CyESAR IN SPAIN. 
 
 69 
 
 We have not space here to follow out the curious 
 illustrations of the persistency by which the Roman 
 language has held its own, century after century. 
 But even a novice in the Spanish language will be 
 interested in studying such illustrations, and they 
 force themselves upon the attention of every travel- 
 ler. It follows, of course, that to natives of the 
 country the classical literature of Rome may become 
 almost as familiar as their own. 
 
PART II. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ATAULPHUS — EVARIC — 4OO-50O A.D. 
 
 The peaceful condition of affairs which removed 
 Spain from military history for four centuries, came 
 to an end when the Northern invaders from the 
 forests of Germany poured down upon Southern 
 Europe. The southern provinces of France, which 
 were so completely under Roman sway that they 
 are spoken of as The Province, and even now known 
 as " Provence," held back the invaders from Spain 
 only so long as their comforts and wealth satisfied 
 the barbarian necessities. From the beginning of 
 the invasion of Western Europe the destinies of 
 Spain, had she known it, were changed. The com- 
 parative serenity, which Orosius even then described 
 as eternal peace, was at an end. There have been 
 intervals when, for a generation or two, Spain has 
 known some such tranquillity within her own borders, 
 but it has never happened since that for four cen- 
 turies together she was " withdrawn from military 
 history." 
 
 We are to observe in the story, to which we now 
 introduce the reader, of the Conquest of Spain by 
 the Goths, and the permanent establishment of a 
 Gothic dynasty there, that this dynasty long consid- 
 
 73 
 
74 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ered Southern France as its military base, so that in 
 Southern France were its favorite capitals. The ele- 
 gant Roman civilization of Spain of which we have 
 spoken belonged in the south of Spain. It founded 
 centres in the cities of Cordova, Hispalis, and Cadiz.* 
 But between the fertile valley of the Guadalquiver, 
 where were the luxuries of Roman civilization, and 
 the Northern Pyrenees, were hundreds of miles of 
 country but little occupied, and, in some mountain 
 valleys, a sort of Scotch highlands still in the posses- 
 sion of barbarous tribes. In the cities of the north- 
 east and the country behind them, there was the 
 wealth and prosperity which belonged to their com- 
 mercial position. Such wealth and prosperity 
 attracted the attention of the Gothic settlers in 
 Provence, and as soon as they were strong enough 
 they seized upon them. The advance of their armies 
 pressed before them southward, their vandal pre- 
 cursors, into the valley of the Guadalquiver, and 
 some time elapsed before the Gothic leaders 
 themselves made that region a place of favor- 
 ite residence. It took its name Andalusia, origi- 
 nally Vandalusia, from its new possessors. In- 
 deed, the history of the conquest of all Spain 
 resembles that of other conquests where a strong 
 military power takes possession of a region of a 
 more refined civilization. Those who are conquered 
 in arms subdue their conquerors in the gradual em- 
 pire of the arts. And the history which we are to 
 follow, whether of social organization or of religious 
 controversy, is this history of action and reaction. 
 We shall find the strong organization and the vigor- 
 
A TA ULPHUS—E VA RIC. 7 5 
 
 ous military hand of the Goths steadily taking pos- 
 session of Spain. On the other hand, we shall find 
 the arts, the accomplishments, or, one may say, the 
 civilities of Southern Spain gradually taking hold of 
 the Goths. At the beginning we shall find the Goths 
 retaining their seats of government at Narbonne, at 
 Toulouse, and at Aries, on the northern side of the 
 Pyrenees. At the end we shall find that their capi- 
 tals were in Spain, and that their French possessions 
 w T ere regarded more as outlying provinces. 
 
 English readers may find a rough parallel with 
 this gradual occupation in the possession of England 
 By the Normans. Just as the Norman dukes gradu- 
 ally found it a greater thing to be kings of England 
 than to be dukes of Normandy, and as finally their 
 Norman possessions fell away or were torn away, so 
 the Gothic conquerors of Spain began by consider- 
 ing Spain the outlying province, but ended in sur- 
 rendering more or less unwillingly their original 
 possessions on the north of the Pyrenees. 
 
 In that remarkable development of civilization 
 which is connected with the name of Provence, to 
 which the world has owed so much and to which, 
 but for the stupidity and cruelty of Dominic, it 
 might have owed so much more, a large part is 
 due to the infusion of Northern blood by the 
 arrival and conquest of the Goths. New vigor 
 came to the highly civilized Roman province from 
 that manliness which is innate in Teutonic institu- 
 tions. At the beginning of the fifth century the 
 Roman general Stilicho, gathering every man he 
 could command, to keep out the Northern deluge 
 
76 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 from Italy, stripped Southern Gaul of troops. It 
 was simply a matter of course then that one wave 
 of the deluge flowed west and overran Gaul. They 
 overpowered the garrisons of Franks and Alemans 
 whom Stilicho had left to guard the fords of the 
 upper Rhine ; they even took these garrisons into 
 their train, and, on the last day of the year, " like 
 a sullen winter storm," swept into undefended Gaul. 
 They stopped only at the foot of the Pyrenees. The 
 Basques, who were used to the cold of winter and not 
 used to be interfered with by conquerors, arrested 
 their progress. From that moment to this moment 
 descendants of these Northern tribes have lived in 
 what we call Southern France, nor did many years 
 elapse before such conquerors found their way across 
 or around the mountains. The Sueves plundered 
 Galicia, the Alans Lusitania, and the Vandals 
 Bcetica. In such incursions Rome could do noth- 
 ing to interfere. She was herself besieged by Alaric, 
 was obliged to capitulate and to pay an enormous 
 ransom to her conquerors. This ransom consisted 
 of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 4,000 tunics 
 of silk, 3,000 pieces of fine scarlet cloth, and 3,000 
 pounds of pepper, the pepper being then worth 
 almost as much as gold. 
 
 Fortunately for the Roman emperor, Alaric died 
 before the year was ended. The Romans then began to 
 negotiate with Ataulphus,* with whom, as the reader 
 will see, they had one valuable intercessor. As a 
 result of these negotiations all actual conquests were 
 respected. The Goths were in Southern France and 
 
 * The Adolphus of Gibbon. 
 
ATAULPHUS.. 77 
 
 in Spain. It was admitted that they were there. 
 They accepted what they already had as a grant. 
 They did not object to being called nominal sub- 
 jects of the empire on the single condition of mili- 
 tary service. Honorius on this condition gave them 
 what they had already — two thirds of the cultivated 
 lands between the Pyrenees and the Garonne. 
 Toulouse was chosen as the residence of their king. 
 They retained their own laws, customs, and magis- 
 trates, while they acknowledged in form the imperial 
 sway. 
 
 ATAULPHUS A.D. 4II-415. 
 
 The wife of Alaric the Goth had a brother named 
 Ataulphus, and he became the second king of 
 the Visigoths. These people, wild, barbarous, and 
 rude at first, were becoming civilized through their 
 intercourse with the Romans, for though they were 
 so strong and bold that they could overcome the 
 Romans in battle, they had much to learn from them 
 in using their minds, and in making life worth some- 
 thing, instead of spending all their time in killing 
 wild beasts for food, and afterward eating them. 
 
 Ataulphus was with his brother-in-law, Alaric, in 
 Italy, and helped him in the siege of Rome. There 
 he saw Placidia, the sister of the Roman emperor, 
 Honorius, and later, when he marched away, he 
 carried her off with him as his captive, as these 
 barbarian conquerors often did with the women of 
 their enemies. 
 
 But Ataulphus loved Placidia so much that he 
 wished to marry her, and the Roman maiden, who 
 
78 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 had fallen in love with her brave, strong suitor, with 
 blue eyes and blond hair, consented. Honorius at 
 first thought it best to make friends with so power- 
 ful a chieftain, and he yielded to him the fertile 
 provinces of Southern Gaul, and all that part of the 
 Spanish Peninsula which was under Roman rule. 
 
 To take possession of his empire, Ataulphus had 
 first to drive out the Sueves and Vandals who were 
 ravaging it, but this he did, and in the town of Nar- 
 bonne, now a large city in the south of France, 
 he established himself with his Roman bride. He 
 tried to please Honorius by a constant warfare with 
 their mutual enemies the Vandals and Sueves, who 
 laid claim also to lands in Spain, and by showing his 
 reverence to the Roman supremacy. 
 
 " It was at first my wish," he said, " to destroy the 
 Roman name, and erect in its place a Gothic empire, 
 taking to myself the place and the powers of Caesar 
 Augustus. But when experience taught me that the 
 untamable barbarism of the Goths would not suffer 
 them to live beneath the sway of law, and that the 
 abolition of the institutions on which the state rested 
 would involve the ruin of the state itself, I chose the 
 glory of renewing and maintaining by Gothic strength 
 the fame of'Rome, desiring to go down to posterity 
 as the restorer of that Roman power, which it was 
 beyond my power to replace. Wherefore I avoid 
 war and strive for peace." 
 
 But all the efforts of the barbarian king to keep on 
 good terms with Honorius were of no avail. Another 
 lover of Placidia, who had wished to marry her, a 
 Roman, better suited to her than the Goth by birth 
 
A TA ULPHUS. 79 
 
 and blood, instigated the emperor to make war upon 
 the Goths ; so he and his armies were driven out of 
 Gaul, and retreated into their Spanish territories. 
 
 They did not give way without a struggle, fierce 
 and sharp, as the battles of the barbarians always 
 were. They burned Bordeaux before they left it, and 
 the Roman arches which stand there now, bear the 
 marks of the Gothic destroyer's hand. 
 
 Ataulphus and his court retreated to Barcelona, 
 and there he established himself. Barcelona is a 
 lovely city on the Mediterranean Sea, on the shores 
 of Catalonia, as has been said, one of the sea- 
 ports early visited by traders from the East, raised to 
 a town by the Carthaginians, and prospering under 
 the Romans, who left behind them columns, altars, 
 and temples, of which the ruins are still standing. 
 
 Ataulphus made it the capital of his kingdom 
 which he called Hispana-Gothia, and there he strove 
 to reign peacefully, adopting the manners and civil- 
 ized habits of the Romans. But this it was not easy 
 to do, for his Goths, by whom he was surrounded, 
 thought he was growing effeminate ; they disliked to 
 submit to Roman laws, and they considered the 
 Roman soldiers cowardly and lazy, as no doubt 
 they were, compared with the turbulent, stormy, 
 fight-loving Goths. 
 
 Ataulphus, therefore, had a hard time of it 
 between his countrymen who w r ere always grumb- 
 ling, and his haughty, handsome, dignified Roman 
 wife, Placidia, who probably sometimes found fault 
 with the rough manners of her husband. They were 
 happy together, however. They had six children, 
 
80 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 who were growing up to inherit the brave characteris- 
 tics of their warlike father, and the refinement of 
 their mother. 
 
 The king thought the best way to manage his 
 soldiers was to keep them fighting, and as this would 
 suit his Roman connections also, he arranged an 
 expedition against the Sueves and Vandals, to drive 
 these tribes out of the Peninsula, and make himself 
 king of the whole of it. But the Goths could not 
 fight cheerfully side by side with the Romans; there 
 was great dissatisfaction in the camp. 
 
 One day, in the great court-yard of his palace, at 
 Barcelona, the king in all his state was watching the 
 evolutions of his cavalry, surrounded by his wife and 
 children, who were thinking only of the display of 
 men and horses, when a dwarf employed about the 
 palace stealthily crept up behind Ataulphus, and 
 pierced him with a sword. Instantly all was confu- 
 sion, but so great was the feeling against the mur- 
 dered monarch that th"e poor queen found no one to 
 avenge him. Another Goth, Sigeric, succeeded 
 him, one of those who most hated the Roman influ- 
 ence. The first thing he did was to kill the six 
 children of Ataulphus, and, thinking doubtless to 
 please the people, he compelled Placidia to walk 
 barefoot through the streets of Barcelona. But such 
 barbarous conduct caused a reaction in the minds of 
 the excitable populace. After a few days of tri- 
 umph he was killed in his turn. 
 
 The election of the Goths now fell upon Wallia, 
 who was a chief well worthy of their choice. Their 
 feeling against the Romans was gratified by an expe- 
 
A TA ULPHUS. 8 1 
 
 dition against the Roman possessions in Africa, and 
 a fleet started in that direction from Barcelona. But 
 a violent tempest drove them back and scattered the 
 troops, and before they could be collected again, a 
 strong army came from Rome towards the Pyrenees, 
 and Wallia was obliged to gather the remnant of his 
 forces to go against this enemy. 
 
 Fortunately for the Gothic king, the general of the 
 Roman forces was Constantius, the Roman lover of 
 Placidia. Now that she was a widow, the Emperor 
 had told him that he might marry her, if he could 
 win her, so he came to love rather than to fight. 
 No sooner were the two armies encamped in sight 
 of each other than Constantius proposed peace, on 
 condition that Wallia should surrender the royal 
 widow. 
 
 Wallia was willing enough to do this. It 
 smoothed his way to send Placidia back to Rome, 
 and she was glad enough to go, having by this time 
 come to hold in horror the rude Goths who had 
 killed her husband and her children. 
 
 She was transferred to the Roman camp, and to 
 the keeping of her faithful suitor Constantius, and 
 went back with him to Rome, forgetting, perhaps, 
 her troubled life with the Gothic king, and her 
 palace at Barcelona. She became, by Constantius, 
 the mother of the Emperor Valentinian. 
 
 Another condition of peace was that Wallia should 
 march against the other nations who held ground in 
 the Peninsula, to secure it for the Romans, and this he 
 was ready and willing to do. But he had the same 
 difficulty that his predecessor had, to reconcile his 
 
82 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 followers to fighting for the Romans. He showed 
 more tact and judgment than Ataulphus, for before 
 he gave any answer to the Roman general, he laid 
 the subject before his soldiers, in a little speech, in 
 which he said : 
 
 " Invincible Goths ! with arms in our hands we 
 have opened a path from the North to the far West ; 
 nothing has arrested our progress ; distance, climate, 
 mountains, rivers, wild beasts, the valor of many 
 enemies, have been opposed to us in vain. Now the 
 Vandals, the Alans, the Sueves dare to assail us be- 
 hind, while the Romans are in front. It is for you, 
 valiant warriors, to choose which most pleases you ; 
 which enemy you will take first. 
 
 " Choose as you will, I am confident that your 
 bravery will ensure victory, while, at the head of 
 men to whom fear is unknown, I have no reason for 
 fear myself. If the decision were left to me I should 
 remember only that I am your king ; I should listen 
 to courage alone, ana select the enemy most worthy 
 to contend with us. As to the Romans, you know 
 them well enough ; you know how often their cities 
 have felt the weight of our swords, how the gates of 
 their very capital have opened at our command ; 
 why waste any time on such a despicable set of cow- 
 ards ? There is more glory in despising than in sub- 
 duing them." 
 
 He concluded by advising them to deliver up 
 Placidia, — which he had already himself decided 
 upon, — and to march against the fierce northern 
 tribes, who had the boldness to hold a country 
 which of right belonged to the Goths alone. 
 
ATAULPHUS. 
 
 83 
 
 A shout of approbation followed. Placidia was 
 restored and peace made with the Romans. 
 
 Hostilities were now begun in earnest against the 
 
 ROMAN TEMPLE AT VIENNE. (SOUTHERN GAUL.) 
 
 barbarians. The right which Wallia the Goth as- 
 serted over the northern regions of the Peninsula 
 was questionable, for had the children of the earlier 
 
84 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 inhabitants been consulted, they might have said 
 that Goth and Vandal were alike invaders of their 
 mountain homes ; but in those days Might made 
 Right. 
 
 At all events the force of the Gothic arms tri- 
 umphed. The tribe called the Alans was al- 
 most entirely destroyed, and their name even 
 disappeared forever from the Peninsula. The Van- 
 dals were driven into Gallicia, and the Sueves put 
 themselves under the protection of Rome. 
 
 Honorius the emperor was well pleased with 
 these successes. He rewarded the victor, Wallia, 
 with lands in Southern Gaul, from Toulouse to the 
 ocean. 
 
 Wallia made Toulouse the seat of his kingdom, 
 and died there after enjoying for two years the fame 
 of his conquests. 
 
 Five Visigoth princes reigned there after Wallia, 
 of which the first was Theodoric. 
 
 In the second half of the fifth century, the formid- 
 able invasion of the Huns happened. These Huns 
 were the terror of all the nations of Western Europe. 
 
 They had nothing in common with any of them, 
 neither in their appearance, language, nor their habits 
 of life. The face of the Hun was sharp and angular, 
 the brown skin drawn tight over the bone, with little 
 holes for the eyes, which peered out with a vicious 
 expression, — his nose was flat and broad, his ears 
 enormous and projecting, his beard was scanty. 
 " They are beasts on two legs," says an early writer. 
 
 They came across the vast steppes between Asia 
 and Europe in enormous chariots, or mounted upon 
 
ATAULPHUS. 85 
 
 small but untiring horses ; their food on these jour- 
 neys was meat, which they ate after keeping it long 
 enough between the saddle and the back of the 
 horse, and mare's milk. 
 
 This was the people which swept down upon 
 Europe, and destroyed every thing in its path. 
 
 Attila their king and leader, " the Scourge of 
 God," compelled every tribe he met with to follow 
 his armies. With an immense force he crossed the 
 Rhine into Gaul. The whole population of the 
 country fled before him, for wherever he passed he 
 left not one stone upon another, destroying city 
 after city, until he came near Orleans, where he 
 made a stand. 
 
 Orleans was even then an ancient city, the key to 
 the cities around it. At that time there was living 
 there the bishop St. Aignan, a brave man who kept 
 up the courage of the inhabitants, until a strong 
 force arrived to resist the barbarians, composed of 
 all the armies of all the different nations then in 
 Gaul, combined to further resist the Huns. 
 
 Theodoric the Visigoth, was there with an army 
 from Toulouse, successor to Wallia, already a great 
 general, who had made successful war with the 
 Romans, and gained fame in battle. 
 
 There was a fierce encounter not far from Orleans 
 at Chalons, or the Catalaunian plains (451), and in 
 the end Attila was conquered. 
 
 He shut himself up in a camp composed of all his 
 war chariots ranged around the enclosure in a circle, 
 and there, on the day after the battle, the conquer- 
 ors could see an immense pyre made of saddles 
 
86 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 heaped up on one another. Attila himself had 
 mounted to the top of it, and there he stood while 
 all the Huns left after the bloody combat surrounded 
 the pile, with torches in their hands ready to set fire 
 to it as soon as they were attacked. 
 
 The allies did not press their advantage, and al- 
 lowed the vanquished foe to pass free. Perhaps 
 they were filled with a sort of admiration of this lion 
 thus standing at bay before them. 
 
 Attila died the next year and his empire per- 
 ished with him, but not the terrible remembrance 
 of his name and his cruelty. 
 
 Theodoric, the Visigoth, was killed upon the field 
 of battle. To him and to the Roman general ^Etius, 
 were due the glory of the defeat of the Scourge of 
 God. His son became king after him, but he was 
 put to death by his brothers, one of whom reigned 
 in his stead. He was soon succeeded by the re- 
 maining brother, Evaric, who is said, in his turn, to 
 have gained his throng by assassinating the king, his 
 brother, in his capitol at Toulouse, but perhaps he 
 had no immediate hand in the deed. He became a 
 great monarch and extended the kingdom of the 
 Visigoths far to the north and east, while he was 
 master of a great part of Spain. A writer of his 
 time gives a glowing idea of the power of Evaric, 
 and the splendor of the court at Toulouse, to which 
 all nations came as the centre of luxury and pleasure. 
 
 " There was the blue-eyed Saxon, accustomed to 
 playing in the surf of the ocean ; the old Sicambrian, 
 shaved when he was made a captive, with his hair 
 just coming again on his forehead since peace had 
 
A TA ULPHUS. 87 
 
 restored him to liberty; the Herulean, with his 
 cheeks tattooed with blue, the color of the waves; 
 the tall Burgundian, seven feet high ; the Ostrogoth, 
 proud of the protection of Evaric against the attacks 
 of the Huns ; — and envoys came from the far-off king, 
 dom of Persia." 
 
 We can imagine this description to be the work of 
 a reporter, just as if he were writing an account of 
 the collection of people at any modern capital. The 
 writer was a poet of the period, he says: " I have 
 been at court while the moon has twice completed 
 her course, and in all this time have gained but one 
 audience from the king ; the master of these regions 
 has little leisure for such as I ; the whole universe is 
 asking his notice, and awaiting it with submission." 
 
 The predecessors of Evaric had not had much to 
 do with Spain, busy with fighting their enemies and 
 keeping up their state in Southern Gaul. He de- 
 spatched an army into the Peninsula against the 
 Sueves, and afterwards drove out the Roman colo- 
 nies, so that they renounced all their provinces to 
 him, and thenceforward the Goths regarded Spain as 
 their lawful inheritance. 
 
 Evaric, therefore, was the founder of the Gothic 
 kingdom of Spain. He was also the first legislator 
 of the nation. The laws which he collected and 
 committed to writing served as the foundation of 
 the famous Gothic code, known as the Fuero Juzgo, 
 which has had much to do with Spanish jurispru- 
 dence ever since. 
 
 By this time the Goths had lost their character of 
 barbarians, and were a civilized and enlightened 
 
88 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 people. The language they found there was that of 
 the Romans, Latin, but corrupted by a mixture of 
 the tongues of the earlier people. The Goths added 
 to the confusion of the mixture their own words, but 
 their books were written in Latin. The Spanish 
 historian Orosius, about this time, wrote a book to 
 combat the notion that all the miseries of mankind 
 had been occasioned by Christianity. It was a 
 history of the World from the creation to the reign 
 of Wallia, relating all the plagues, famines, earth- 
 quakes, wars, and all other sorts of calamity that had 
 happened since the world began, in order to prove 
 that things have been no worse since the birth of 
 Christ than they were before. He conceived it to be 
 worth while to write this book, because there was a 
 very general habit among the Pagans to say that 
 all the wickedness then existing was caused by 
 Christianity. 
 
 The work was received with great enthusiasm 
 when it appeared in* 419; the greater part of it 
 has no title as to historic value, but the portion 
 describing events nearest the time of the writer are 
 still relied on by historians. 
 
 In this period of one hundred years the character 
 of the Goths changed from a wild barbaric race to a 
 proud and civilized race, whose king held a court 
 among the most brilliant in the world. The ances- 
 tors of Ataulphus had swept down upon the Roman 
 Empire like a whirlwind ; it was his descendant 
 Theodoric who, armed for the cause of law and 
 order, and fighting side by side with a bishop of 
 the church, put a stop to the ravages of the fierce 
 barbarian Attila. 
 
A TA ULPIJUS. 
 
 8 9 
 
 Ataulphus, king of the Goths, was despised by the 
 courtly Romans, as scarcely worthy to be the hus- 
 band of Placidia, the sister of the Emperor, but in 
 less than one hundred years Evaric, king of the 
 Goths, regarded himself, doubtless, as equal, if not 
 superior, to any reigning monarch. The Romans 
 had, by this time, ceased to be the proud and power- 
 ful nation they had been, while the arms of the 
 Goth everywhere triumphed. 
 
 £JL1CM1E& 
 
 ROMAN GATEWAY AT TREVES. 
 
 Thus far the Visigoth monarchs had not held their 
 courts in Spain itself, but made their capitals in 
 Southern Gaul. Evaric, at the time of his death, 
 was at Aries, a town as old as Julius Caesar, with an 
 amphitheatre of which the ruins are still standing. 
 
go THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 To these Gothic kings, accustomed to the luxuries 
 of Provence, Spain appeared a rough territory, to be 
 fought for, to be guarded from invasion, but not to 
 be lived in, as they notably saw but little of the 
 fertile fields of Andalusia. 
 
 The government of the Visigoths was, in appear- 
 ance, an absolute monarchy, but the power of the 
 king was so restrained by the influence of the pre- 
 lates of the church, that it might be called a 
 theocracy. In the beginning the Gothic kings were 
 controlled by their nobles, they had no royal descent, 
 no hereditary houses, but were elected by their peers, 
 like the emperors of Germany. 
 
 Every fierce, proud, and haughty chieftain, there- 
 fore, considered himself as good as his king, for he 
 might become one at any moment. As the dignity 
 was originally military, conferred on superior bravery 
 and warlike skill, these qualities might in any case 
 lead to the throne ; the early electors were too bar- 
 barous to form any notion of other qualifications. 
 It was the sword which had opened them a path 
 from the far North to their fertile abodes in the 
 Southern Peninsula, and by the sword only could 
 they preserve their dominion. 
 
 In the times of the first Visigothic kings the 
 whole ceremony of electing a chief consisted in 
 making the successful candidate promise that he 
 would behave valiantly in war, and rule with justice 
 during peace. He was then raised on a buckler 
 above the heads of the surrounding multitudes, who 
 hailed him as their leader. Later, when the elective 
 power had come to rest with the clergy as much as 
 
ATAULPHUS. 
 
 9 1 
 
 in the warlike chiefs, there was more pomp and 
 circumstance attending the inauguration. Both the 
 secular and spiritual chiefs were assembled for the 
 purpose of nominating the candidate. He swore to 
 observe the laws, to administer justice without par- 
 tiality, and received oaths of fidelity and obedience 
 from every one asssembled. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ARIANS. 
 
 The Eternal Peace, of which the fond historian of 
 Spain wrote, was to be broken by a Gothic in- 
 vasion. The most careful students of the history 
 of the Goths do not affect more than tradition 
 as their authority, in supposing that they had 
 come originally from Scandinavia. History really 
 knows them just near the mouth of the Vistula, 
 in the region now covered mainly by Prussia. 
 The Vandals, who, with a different name, seem to 
 be but another tribe of the same great people, 
 lived west of them. In their original residence 
 in Scandinavia, those Goths who lived at the east- 
 ward, had been called Ostro-Goths, and those at 
 the westward, Visi-Goths. But Ostro-Goths and 
 Visi-Goths are the same people, speaking substan- 
 tially the same language. And in the period of 
 which we are speaking these names are to be taken 
 simply as names, and the reader is not to puzzle 
 himself by expecting to find any geographical rela- 
 tion remaining. Among the Vandals, who were 
 frequently their allies, and who belonged to the 
 same race and shared their characteristics, were 
 tribes which had the names of Lombards and Bur- 
 
 92 
 
ARIANS. 93 
 
 gundians, which have since been transferred to parts 
 of Europe very far from the original seats of the 
 conquerors. The Heruli were a third Vandal tribe, 
 once equally distinguished, but their name has dis- 
 appeared from geography. 
 
 Pressed by some wave of eastern invasion, perhaps, 
 or perhaps led by some spirited soldier's ambition, 
 or perhaps directed from their own homes by an 
 oracle, Goths and Vandals swept southward on the 
 Roman Empire. In the third century, their attack 
 pressed most heavily on the line of the Danube. 
 Eventually they crossed that river, and, building 
 ships for themselves on the Black Sea, attacked, with 
 success the coasts of Greece and of Asia Minor. 
 The history of the end of that century, and of the 
 fourth century is the history of Roman wars with 
 Goths and Vandals, and of the truces and treaties 
 by which such wars were, for a time, arrested. In 
 the middle of the fourth century, Ulfilas, as he is 
 called by most modern writers, converted these 
 barbarians to the Christian religion. In the lan- 
 guage which he wrote, first of all men, his name 
 is Wulf-i-las — " The little wolf." The piety, the 
 learning, and the energy of this man, and the 
 inestimable results which have followed from his 
 devotion, give him a high place among the found- 
 ers of modern Europe and the benefactors of man- 
 kind. The Gothic language was reduced to writing 
 by him. He used twenty-two of the Roman let- 
 ters and invented one letter, w, and a letter for ///, 
 which has since fallen out from the German alpha- 
 bet. Ulfilas did this, that he might translate for the 
 
94 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 use of his converts the Scriptures of the New and 
 Old Testaments. His translation of the New Testa- 
 ment was complete. Of the old Testament, it is 
 specially said, that he omitted the four books of 
 Kings from fear of the effect upon the warlike pas- 
 sions, so difficult at best to control, of his converts. 
 All the stores of German, Dutch, and English litera- 
 ture have their origin in the experiment which " The 
 Little Wolf," thus tried of the capacities of the 
 Gothic language. 
 
 His converts seem to have accepted the new faith 
 seriously and with determination, as has been the 
 religious habit of their race from that time down. 
 When Alaric, the great Gothic leader, established 
 his western court at Toulouse, the dignity of its 
 worship and the seriousness of its morals were such 
 as to put to shame the Christian Court of Constanti- 
 nople at the same time. And those who make the 
 mistake of considering religion a mattter of books, 
 — where the learned have better chances than the 
 ignorant, — must remember that such dignity and 
 seriousness were attained by a nation of new con- 
 verts, who had no literature but a part of the Bible 
 which a few of them had but just learned to read. 
 As we shall see, the simplicity of their training had 
 much to do with the ecclesiastical quarrels of the 
 next century. The conversion from Pagan worship 
 did not diminish the respect which the Goths were 
 always accustomed to pay to their priests. When 
 they were in the forests of the north, the priests 
 shared with the officers of the army in the govern- 
 ment of the people ; and we shall see, as we go on, 
 
ARIANS. 95 
 
 that priests and bishops had no less power in the 
 affairs of the converted nation. 
 
 This Gothic nation, having rested itself by taking 
 possession of Southern France, almost without op- 
 position, is the power which in the fifth century 
 broke in upon the dream of peace in Spain. Before 
 this time the Franks had sent invading bodies across 
 or around the Pyrenees. But they had made no 
 permanent establishments. When the Goths and 
 Vandals came to Spain they came to stay. 
 
 The reader will observe in following the history of * 
 this conquest, and of the contemporaneous move- 
 ments of Gothic leaders further east, that we have 
 passed the period in their history when they became 
 a Christian people. Indeed, Ulfilas, the father of 
 their faith, died about the year 390. After this time, 
 in the great contests which follow between North 
 and South, we have, for the first time, a conflict of 
 two Christian nations against each other. But the 
 Christianity of the North was as simple and as un- 
 theological a form of religion as can be conceived. 
 For its theological basis was what was called Arian- 
 ism. Little wonder, indeed, that prelates and 
 doctors at the South refused to call it Christianity at 
 all. Suppose a South Sea Islander of to-day, who 
 has just been trained to read the four Gospels in his 
 own language, and from them has his only idea of 
 Saviour, of God, or of heaven, were brought into a 
 meeting of theologians at Rome or at Oxford, or to 
 the discussions of a clerical association in the United 
 States. The amazement which this poor man would 
 feel, and his utter inability to understand even the 
 

 96 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 terms of discussion, show precisely the experience of 
 the intelligent Goths of the first generation of inva- 
 ders, when they found themselves in presence of the 
 subtleties of the church of the Mediterranean shore. 
 For Italians, Greeks, and Spaniards, Christianity was 
 now a matter of more than three centuries of history, 
 literature, and study. It was as old as Protestantism is 
 to-day. It is safe to say that its dogmas had been 
 refined upon with more intricate discussion than has 
 shown itself even in the discussions of Protestantism. 
 It had been discussed by literary men, trained to 
 rhetoric and logic. It had been discussed by philoso- 
 phers, trained in Greek philosophy, in Asian extrava- 
 gances, in Egyptian mysteries, and in African readi- 
 ness to assent. Thus it had become a complicated 
 theological system, all wrought in with the intricacies 
 of a highly organized social order, through which ran 
 all the electric nerves of the great imperial system, 
 and in which every, fashion, every habit of speech, 
 and every mental process, was allied to whatever 
 was the ruling theological dogma of the time. In 
 that social order, bishops and often prelates, were 
 leaders. They were the advisers of monarchs, and 
 sometimes even took their places in council, and in 
 war. 
 
 The Gothic leaders and the simple Gothic people 
 found themselves of a sudden in presence of this com- 
 plicated social order, with which they had scarcely 
 one point in sympathy. That point was, their ven- 
 eration for Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. 
 But they did not know Jesus Christ by any of the 
 epithets which had been developed by the learning 
 
ff^ 
 
 
 TOLEDO 
 
9$ THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of three centuries. They knew him only in the 
 simple phrases which they had spelled out in the 
 simple version of the four Gospels which their be- 
 loved apostle had made for them. They knew him 
 as the well-beloved Son of God. They knew him 
 as him whom the Father had sent into the world. 
 In this sense they knew him as Emanuel — God with 
 us. They knew him as the Messiah who claimed to 
 fulfil Jewish prophecy. But when bishops or other 
 teachers spoke to them of a Trinity of three persons 
 and one God, they used words which these Germans 
 had never heard before, and of which they did not 
 know the meaning. They used words which, to this 
 hour, the German languages have never been able to 
 translate, and which they have been obliged to in- 
 corporate with their own. 
 
 But it was on no theological subtlety such as the 
 world has played over for fourteen centuries since, 
 without any satisfactory solution, that the Gothic 
 Arians of Spain came to battle with the Roman 
 Catholics whom they found there. The real con- 
 flict was that of a nation without science and with- 
 out a literature, meeting another nation with science 
 and with a literature. As it happened, the literature 
 was orthodox in its theology ; and the science, such 
 as it was, borrowed the orthodox expressions and 
 belief. But the Goths, whom we are following, had 
 neither literature nor science. When the conflict 
 began, they were perfectly' true to the intelligible 
 and simple theology which they brought with them. 
 But as, man by man, they entered into the fascinat- 
 ing arcana of learning and art, by which they were 
 
ARIANS. 99 
 
 tempted in the older civilization of Spain, they 
 followed almost, of course, in the steps of their 
 teachers. Two or three generations were quite 
 enough to bring the sons and grandsons of Gothic 
 princes to follow very meekly the directions of the 
 learned prelates of their times. Who should under- 
 stand these mysteries, indeed, if not the learned men 
 who studied them ? The contest was a contest be- 
 tween unlearned simplicity and a cultivated and 
 learned theology. So far as there was any tribunal 
 to which both parties could appeal for a decision, 
 such appeals must be rendered to Rome herself. 
 In such a contest there w r as, from the beginning, no 
 question what the end must be. 
 
 It would be foolish, then, to make any attempt to 
 decide which of the two parties in the contest which 
 swept over Spain now for nearly one hundred years 
 had made the nearest approach to absolute truth. 
 The statement of neither party would now be ac- 
 cepted as final by any theologian in the world. The 
 conflict, as has been said, was not really a conflict as 
 to the Divine realities. It was the conflict which 
 must come where a simple people without letters is 
 living in the same streets with a people who are 
 using a literature, complicated and refined, which 
 has stood for hundreds of years. 
 
 Civilization will have its way. It will be for the 
 reader to see, in the narrative which follows, which 
 of the parties exhibited more of the true Christian 
 spirit. Nothing need be added here but to say that 
 the learned still find some traces of the Arianism of 
 Spain left in the texts of the Spanish liturgies. Its 
 
IOO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 most valuable gift to Spain was probably that spirit 
 of proud independence which for centuries enabled 
 the Spanish Church to defy the decrees of the Ro- 
 man Pontificate. It was this same independence 
 which so long preserved separate rituals and admin- 
 istrations in the Spanish churches. To-day, the 
 northern traveller in Toledo, led by his sympathy 
 for freedom in religion, goes to worship in the little 
 chapel of the cathedral, where what is called the Muz- 
 arabic ritual is still maintained, — though he and the 
 choir-boys be the only congregation, and the priest 
 who conducts the service himself seems to wonder 
 why they are there. This traveller will remember 
 that this anomaly in the ritual of that church, which 
 would be glad to have one ritual in one language 
 for every country under heaven, is the survival of 
 the simple independence of those unlearned invaders 
 who brought into Spain such Christianity as Ulfilas 
 had taught them from the four Gospels. They 
 were not trained to the Christology or the theology, 
 which could be better studied in the schools of 
 Toledo, of Rome, of Athens, of Antioch, and of 
 Alexandria. 
 
 Exactly as in the case of the Roman occupation, 
 the principal memorial which the Goths have left in 
 Spain is the impress of their language. As has been 
 already said, Spanish is a language of Latin roots 
 with a Teutonic grammar. Because this is so, a 
 piece of good Spanish has all the aspects to the 
 English reader, of a piece of bad Latin, as Latin 
 is written by a school-boy in the first months of his 
 training. Without disrespect to a noble language, 
 
ARIANS. IOI 
 
 Spanish has been compared to the " hog-Latin " of 
 an English school — such as a boy if he meant to 
 write in Latin " I have spoken," would say " Ego, 
 I; habeo, have; dictus, spoken" This would be as 
 bad Latin as it could possibly be. Every word 
 would be wrong and one might say that the arrange- 
 ment would be wrong. Now all the southern and 
 modern languages, which are made on Latin roots, 
 make this boy's curious error of changing a passive 
 perfect participle into an active one. The Roman 
 language had no active perfect participle ; Gothic and 
 French speakers of Latin needed one as the school- 
 boy does. They took the passive participle and 
 used it as if it «were active. The Frenchman says 
 "j'ai parle," — and the Spaniard " yo he hablado." 
 To such rough treatment of Latin, — common to all 
 this group of languages, — Spanish adds peculiarities 
 of its own. The indefinite article, which the German 
 retains as ein, is in Spanish un, as in French, and its 
 use follows old Gothic analogies. By a habit, diffi- 
 cult to understand, the definite article is used in 
 ways more familiar to Englishmen than to French- 
 men. For instance " l'honneur " and "la Patrie " 
 are forms which would not be found in Spanish. 
 
 The reader who takes any interest in the compari- 
 son of languages may like to look at the four ver- 
 sions of the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount 
 in Spanish, Italian, French, and English. 
 
 " Y viendo Jesus las multitudes, subio a un monte ; 
 y sentandose el, se llegaron a el sus discipulos. Y 
 abriendo el su boca los ensenaba, diciendo : 
 
 " Ed egli, vedendo le turbe, sali sopra il monte ; 
 
102 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 e postosi a sedere, i suoi discipoli s'accostaronoa lui. 
 Ed egli, aperta la bocca, gli ammaestrava ; dicendo : " 
 
 " Voyant la foule, Jesus monta sur la montagne ; 
 et apres qu'il se fut assis, ses disciples s'approcherent 
 de lui. Puis, ayant ouvert la bouche, il les enseigna, 
 et dit : " 
 
 " And seeing the multitudes, he went up unto the 
 mountain ; and when he had sat down, his disciples 
 came unto him ; and he opened his mouth and 
 taught them, saying : " 
 
 It happens, curiously enough, that some gradual 
 changes, such as the philologists would account for 
 by Grimm's Law, have even changed familiar radi- 
 cals in the same way in which they have been 
 changed in English, where the Norman French intro- 
 duced Latin roots into a Saxon language. Even the 
 philologist finds it rather hard to account for 
 " mucho " in Spanish and "much " in English, — two 
 words, which, on their way down from the original 
 Sanscrit, have, after an eventful history, come out 
 almost as much alike as twin sisters should. 
 
 It is for this reason that English readers, who 
 have any knowledge of the Latin language, find 
 Spanish so easy a language to learn. For reasons 
 understood by the philologists, the combination of 
 Latin roots into Teutonic grammar made by the 
 Franks, does not retain so many German peculiarities. 
 In Italian fewer still are found. Of the three lan- 
 guages, therefore, Spanish is the easiest for an 
 English speaking person, who has any knowledge of 
 Latin, to guess his way through. 
 
 The relations of Spain with England and America, 
 
ARIANS. 103 
 
 in modern times, have done a good deal to increase 
 the resemblance between the English and Spanish 
 languages. Here, we are not to trace a long descent 
 from an original Sanscrit ancestry, but merely find 
 cases where the word has been bodily transferred, 
 for convenience, from one language to another. It 
 is curious to see that England, since then the mis- 
 tress of the seas, took many of the words now in 
 familiar use in maritime affairs, from Spanish au- 
 thorities. Thus our word " mizzen " is from the 
 Spanish "mesana"; our " gaff " is the Spanish 
 " garfio." In military affairs the same transfers 
 took place, probably in the times of wars in the 
 Low Countries. Our " canteen ' is the Spanish 
 "cantina," whose root is to be found in the Latin 
 "quantus," whence we get our word ''quantity." 
 A traveller in Spain who arrives at an inn asks for 
 " cuartos " for his party — that is for " rooms." The 
 word originated in the division of a house into four 
 rooms, each of which was a fourth part of the whole. 
 When in England or America, a person tells you he 
 is changing his quarters, he uses the same phrase, 
 without knowing, perhaps, that he is talking Span- 
 ish. In later times the relations both of navies and 
 of armies have been somewhat changed ; and in 
 Spain, as in all the rest of the world, the language 
 of steam-engineering takes most of its phrases from 
 the words carried by the countrymen of Watt and 
 Boulton, Stephenson and Fulton. 
 
 From point to point, as the Story of Spain goes on, 
 we shall have occasion to show how the remarkable 
 literature developed, by the people who have used 
 
104 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 this language of great power, has interested all West- 
 ern Europe, and has won a commanding place in the 
 literature of modern times. The romance authors 
 of Spain led the way in the series of stories long so 
 fashionable, which were the first books Europe had 
 to read after it escaped from merely monkish litera- 
 ture. One may say, in passing, that there is hardly 
 one of the romances which does not show signs of 
 ecclesiastical training in the author. Coming later 
 down, the statesmanship and diplomacy of Spain, in 
 the days of Ferdinand, of Charles V., and his imme- 
 diate successors, brought the Spanish language to 
 the general attention of civilized Europe. So soon 
 as Cervantes and Lope de Vega wrote, their works 
 were translated into every Western language, and 
 there are high authorities who even insist that we 
 owe " Gil Bias " to a Spanish original, though that 
 original has never been found. For centuries, in- 
 deed, the plots of French and English and German 
 plays were borrowed from the Spanish," as certainly 
 and as confidently as the plots of English plays 
 have since been taken from the French, and those 
 of French plays from the German. It has happened 
 in some instances that the translations from language 
 to language have been made by master hands. The 
 " Don Quixote " of Smollett, for instance, might be 
 reckoned almost as an English classic. 
 
 To people of this generation, Spain seems set 
 apart from the rest of the world, and men travel 
 there as they might go to the planet Mars or to 
 Japan. In Seville they find what reminds them of 
 Arabian Nights. In .the rest of Spain they find 
 
 i 
 
ARIANS. 
 
 105 
 
 traces of the Roman arts, or mingle in customs 
 which carry them back to their recollections of 
 Scott's novels of the Middle Ages. But, in other 
 times, the relations of Spain with the rest of Eu- 
 rope have been very intimate. To these relations 
 we owe the origin of the modern novel — the history 
 of which cannot be traced without going back to 
 Spanish originals. In giving to the world " Amadis," 
 " Esplandian," and the other romances, " Don 
 Quixote," " Gil Bias," and the plays of Cervantes, 
 Calderon, and De Vega, the Peninsula has made a 
 permanent mark on the literature of Europe. For 
 the reasons which have been hinted at, the student 
 of English or American blood comes to the great 
 originals with perfect ease and satisfaction. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LEOVIGILD — RECARED. 
 
 rrj 
 
 LEOVIGILD was a great and warlike king (57*0-601), 
 who was always successful in keeping enemies out of 
 Spain with his army. He would not allow people in 
 the kingdom who acknowledged any one else but him- 
 self as their sovereign, and drove out from Granada 
 and other towns the imperialists who considered 
 themselves under the rule of the Roman emperor. 
 He had to put down rebellions which arose in sev- 
 eral parts of the country. These were manifestations 
 of the Spaniards, or» descendants of the early inhab- 
 itants of Spain, who had never become wholly 
 blended with the Goths. Their religion was not 
 the religion of the king, for he was an Arian, and 
 this heresy, as it was called, had no foothold among 
 the fierce inhabitants of the northern mountains, 
 where the Christian religion, taught by zealous 
 priests of the Roman Church, had displaced their 
 earlier barbarous worship. These wild tribes were 
 hard to subdue. For ten years the king was hard at 
 work establishing peace throughout his dominions, 
 from the Bay of Biscay to the Straits of Gibraltar. 
 
 Leovigild was twice married. His sons, Erminigild 
 and Recared, were grown up when their father gave 
 
 106 
 
LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. I OJ 
 
 them, as step-mother, Goswinda, a princess of great 
 decision of character, who was, like her husband, an 
 Arian. 
 
 The young prince and heir to the throne, Ermini- 
 gild, was at the time married to Ingunda, a princess 
 who came from France, although she was descended 
 on her mother's side from Gothic king's. 
 
 Athanagild, king of the Visigoths, had two daugh- 
 ters, both of whom he gave in marriage to French 
 princes, hoping thus to buy the friendship of the 
 Franks. An early historian describes the grief with 
 which the queen-mother parted with her daughter 
 whom she sent to seek an unknown lord in the North. 
 The description shows how much the Goths had ad- 
 vanced in civilization, by their life in Spain, since 
 the mother regarded the journey of her daughter as 
 a return to barbarism. The sequel showed that she 
 was not far wrong. 
 
 " When the ambassadors of the Franks, at Toledo, 
 presented themselves to salute the future bride of 
 their king, they found her sobbing in the arms of her 
 mother. Rough as they were, they were touched, 
 and dared not mention the journey for two days, 
 but on the third, they ventured to approach the 
 queen and point out to her that they must hasten 
 their departure, on account of the impatience of 
 Chilperic, their master, and of the length of the 
 journey. The queen with tears besought them for 
 one more day. ' But one day more,' she said, ' and 
 I will ask nothing further, — yet know you not that 
 where you are carrying my daughter there will be no 
 mother for her ! ' After every possible excuse for 
 
108 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 delay, Athanagild imposed his authority as king 
 aad father, and in spite of her mother's tears, the 
 princess was consigned to the charge of those who 
 were to conduct her to her future spouse. 
 
 " A long train of cavaliers, chariots, and baggage, 
 filed through the narrow streets of Toledo towards 
 the northern gate. The king followed the escort of 
 his daughter as far as the bridge over the Tagus, at 
 some distance from the city, but the queen could 
 not make up her mind then to turn back, and chose 
 to go on further. She left her own carriage and sat 
 in that of the princess close to her daughter, and 
 thus went on day after day for a distance of more 
 than a hundred miles. Every day she said, ' I will 
 just go on to the next stopping-place ' ; and when 
 they reached that, she still went on. As they ap- 
 proached the mountains, travelling grew difficult, 
 and as the queen's own people and baggage greatly 
 increased and complicated the dangers of the jour- 
 ney, the Gothic lords made up their minds not to 
 let the queen go a step further. They convinced 
 her that she must resign herself to a separation which 
 was inevitable, and the tender scenes of parting were 
 renewed. 
 
 " ' May you be happy my daughter,' she said, ' but 
 I have grave fears for you ; be on your guard, always 
 on your guard.' The princess wept bitterly at these 
 words, for she felt some presentiment of evil. 
 
 " ' God wills, I must submit,' " she sadly said. 
 
 " Then a division was made of the cavaliers and 
 carriages, some going forward with the princess, 
 while the rest turned back towards Toledo. Before 
 
THE WINDING PASS. 
 IOg 
 
IIO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 mounting the chariot which was to take her home, 
 the Queen of the Goths paused by the way-side, 
 and fixed her eyes upon the departing conveyance 
 of her daughter, which she followed until it van- 
 ished at a turn in the winding pass. 
 
 " The princess pursued her destination in the North. 
 With her escort, composed of lords and warriors of 
 both nations, Goths and Franks, she crossed the 
 Pyrenees, passed through Narbonne and Carcassonne, 
 which still belonged to her father's kingdom, then, 
 by way of Poitiers and Tours, she came to Rouen 
 where the marriage was to be celebrated. At the 
 gates of every large town the cortege stopped in 
 order to make a grand entrance. The knights laid 
 aside their travelling mantles and appeared in all the 
 splendor of rich dresses ; the princess exchanged her 
 heavy travelling carriage for a triumphal car in the 
 form of a tower all covered with plates of silver. 
 
 "The wedding was t celebrated with great magnifi- 
 cence. The Frank warriors took oaths of fidelity 
 to the foreign princess, and waved their swords in 
 the air pronouncing an old Pagan formula which 
 condemned to the sword him who violated this oath. 
 Then the king solemnly renewed his vows of con- 
 stancy and conjugal faith, and swore, with his hand 
 upon a casket containing sacred relics, never to repu- 
 diate the daughter of the king of the Goths, his law- 
 ful and only wife." 
 
 This promise was kept for a while. In less than 
 six months, the Gothic princess was strangled in her 
 sleep by the orders of the king, to gratify a rival in his 
 affections. 
 
LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. I I I 
 
 There were two Gothic princesses who were thus 
 sent to France. This was the fate of one, the other 
 was the famous Brunhilda, whose career and whose 
 crimes have been the subject of many a romance. 
 She lived to a wicked old age, and was finally killed 
 by her enemies who accused her of the death of no 
 less than ten kings. 
 
 The daughter of Brunhilda, born in France, came 
 to Spain to marry a Gothic prince, Erminigild, the 
 son of Leovigild. She was warmly received at the 
 Gothic court. Her husband, the heir to the throne, 
 was already associated with his father in the royal 
 dignities, and treated with the greatest liberality and 
 affection. 
 
 Unfortunately the princess Ingunda had been 
 brought up in the Catholic faith, while Goswinda, her 
 step-mother, was a violent Arian. The two princesses 
 early declared war against each other. The queen 
 was no longer young, her temper was violent, she 
 brooked no opposition. The French princess was 
 but sixteen when she arrived at court, very beautiful, 
 with the vivacious spirit and love of power of her 
 mother. Such causes were enough to breed jealousy 
 and quarrelling ; differences of religious faith were 
 made the grounds for dispute and bitterness, leading 
 to violence which the principles and precepts of 
 neither creed were able to restrain. 
 
 Goswinda was determined that her step-daughter 
 should embrace the religion of the Goths ; Ingunda 
 was equally resolved that no force at battle should 
 induce her to do so. 
 
 Goswinda was of a violent disposition, it is said, 
 
112 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and, when resisted, resembled a fury rather than a 
 woman. She so far forgot all sense of dignity, not 
 merely, but of decency, as to punish the obstinacy 
 of Ingunda with blows. She seized her one day, 
 says Saint Gregory of Tours, by the hair of her 
 head, threw her down and trampled on her, and 
 afterwards forcibly thrust her into the water to be 
 baptized by an Arian priest. Such treatment was 
 not to be borne. Ingunda flew to her husband, and 
 poured out her injuries in a torrent of French in- 
 vectives. The prince went, of course, to his father, 
 but Leovigild had no influence with his angry and 
 offended wife, who hated her step-daughter the 
 more, the worse she treated her. The repose of 
 the court was broken up by such scandals, divided 
 into two parties, which espoused the two causes of 
 the rival princesses, and, after the manner of good 
 society, reported, surmised, and discussed each scan- 
 dal as it took place, and invented others which did 
 not occur. 
 
 The two husbands, whose mutual affection was in 
 nowise disturbed by the want of harmony between 
 their wives, agreed that such a life was intolerable, 
 and decided to separate. The elder established his 
 court at Toledo, while the younger, with his fair 
 young princess, lived at Seville, in a splendor little 
 inferior to that of Leovigild and Goswinda. 
 
 Erminigild had not long been installed in his new 
 palace when he abjured Arianism and embraced the 
 Catholic religion. This was a great triumph for his 
 wife, Ingunda, to whose influence it was chiefly due, 
 as she had by this time acquired great power over 
 
LEO VIGILD—RECARED. 
 
 "3 
 
 her husband. She was aided by the arguments of a 
 bishop they happened to have in the family, St. Le- 
 
 PUERTA DEL SOL. TOLEDO. 
 
 ander, the brother of Theodosia, the first wife of 
 Leovigild. This lady is celebrated as the sister of 
 three saints — all uncles of Erminigild, and one of 
 
114 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 them bishop of Seville. Under these circumstances, 
 it was natural enough that the prince should abjure a 
 faith made so unamiable in the person of his violent 
 stepmother, for another made attractive by the charms 
 of his fair young wife, and recommended by all his 
 own mother's relations. The change was most un- 
 welcome at the court at Toledo. Leovigild, though 
 of a soul naturally noble, was violent when roused, 
 like his queen. That the heir to his throne should 
 abandon the ancient faith of his fathers, filled him 
 with indignation. In the first moments of anger, he 
 declared that the crown of the Goths should never 
 adorn the brow of an apostate. Goswinda encour- 
 aged this temper in her lord and master, and fos- 
 tered it with all the bitter arguments she could 
 think of. 
 
 Leovigild, however, could not long maintain in 
 his heart hard feelings against a son he so deeply 
 loved. He sent to him requesting an interview, in 
 the hope that he might change the resolve of the 
 young man ; perhaps if they could have met, they 
 would have agreed to differ without quarrelling, but 
 the prince refused to meet his father. Probably his 
 advisers thought it dangerous for their new convert 
 to be exposed to the arguments and entreaties of an 
 affectionate parent. For the Catholic bishops it was 
 a great gain to have a prince and heir to the throne 
 converted to orthodoxy. They were even eager to 
 take up arms and dethrone the Arian monarch, in 
 order to place his orthodox son in his stead. 
 
 Erminigild opened intercourse with his father's 
 enemies, and took advantage of his own conversion 
 
LEO VIGILD—RE CA RED. 1 1 $ 
 
 to win for his cause such subjects of Leovigild as 
 professed the orthodox belief. Among them was 
 Mir, the king of the Sueves, in Galicia, where a num- 
 ber of these people still remained, after all the at- 
 tempts of the Gothic kings to turn them out of the 
 Peninsula. Mir marched to his assistance, but be- 
 fore he reached Seville, he was surrounded by the 
 royal troops, and compelled to swear that he would 
 aid his liege-lord. For Erminigild, the undutiful 
 son and audacious rebel, had to deal with an able 
 opponent in the king, his father, who had already 
 proved his skill as a leader of armies. He besieged 
 Erminigild in Seville. The city was closely invested 
 by a powerful army ; yet the prince was so well sup- 
 ported that the place held out for a year. At the 
 end of this time, their provisions were giving out, 
 their patience exhausted. The prince succeeded in 
 effecting his escape before Seville capitulated. He 
 fled to Cordova, but that city was compelled to 
 surrender by the troops of Leovigild, and after 
 several attempts to defend himself, his troops cut to 
 pieces, his fortifications destroyed by fire, he betook 
 himself to sanctuary in a church whence he implored 
 pardon. 
 
 The king, justly incensed with the undutiful con- 
 duct of his son, which in his eyes could not be ex- 
 cused under the plea of religious fervor, since the 
 father regarded the new professions of his son as ex- 
 treme errors, nevertheless promised to spare his life 
 if he would leave the sanctuary. Prince Recared, 
 another son of Leovigild, entered the church and 
 persuaded his brother to come forth. Erminigild 
 
Il6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 appeared and threw himself at the feet of his parent, 
 with every sign of grief and repentance. The king 
 raised him with much emotion, kissed him, and wept 
 bitterly. His anger was forgotten, and he felt all 
 his affection returning for his favorite son. But the 
 rebel must be punished ; he was despoiled of his 
 ornaments, the signs of royalty, and exiled to Valen- 
 cia, there to live as a private man. 
 
 Erminigild withdrew to Valencia, but it was not 
 likely that he would rest there quietly, nor that Ingun- 
 da, the ambitious French princess, would allow herself 
 to be thus extinguished, while her rival, Goswinda, 
 triumphed at Toledo. It was not long before Er- 
 minigild had collected an army combined from those 
 of. the enemies of his father, and invaded his ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 The old writer who describes these things, being 
 orthodox, regards the cause of Erminigild as a holy 
 one, undertaken for the true faith, and he relates a 
 miracle which took place in the contest between the 
 rebel forces of Erminigild and the veteran troops of 
 his father, Leovigild, the Arian. He says that Leovi- 
 gild's soldiers everywhere plundered and burned the 
 churches and monasteries of the orthodox, and mas- 
 sacred the inmates without compunction. On one 
 occasion his army advanced upon a monastery in such 
 force that the monks all fled in terror, leaving their 
 aged abbot alone and unprotected. The old man, in 
 all the splendor of his priestly robes, stood in the 
 gate-way, armed only with his cross. A soldier raised 
 his sword agaiast the holy man, but was instantly 
 Struck dead, seeing which his comrades fled with 
 
LEO VIGILD—RECARED. I T J 
 
 haste. When the king heard of it, he acknowledged 
 the interference of Heaven for that monastery, and 
 forbade it to be plundered. 
 
 The cause of the rebel son was hopeless, in spite of 
 the support it received from the orthodox party in 
 Spain, for this was not strong enough to resist the 
 force of well-trained arms, and the power of existing 
 institutions. Ingunda herself saw this, and urged her 
 husband to escape into France, where they might 
 persuade her brother to arm in their cause. Ermini- 
 gild decided to try this, too late ; he was seized 
 by emissaries of his father, and thrown into prison in 
 Tarragona. 
 
 Leovigild seems to have shown great patience 
 with his son, for in spite of all he had done he was 
 not executed, as might have been expected from the 
 customs of irritated fathers in those times. Leovi- 
 gild was convinced that the difficulty was caused by 
 the connection of his- son with the Catholics. He 
 hoped, and almost felt sure, that if Erminigild could 
 be separated from their influence, he would return to 
 his old allegiance and affection for his father. The 
 old man underrated the influence of Ingunda on her 
 husband, although he must have known in his own 
 case the force of conjugal counsels. 
 
 He despatched confidential messengers to the 
 prince in prison, promising not only pardon, but a 
 full restoration to royal favor, if he would return to 
 the Arian faith. Erminigild remained firm, but his 
 father continued to work upon him, hoping at last to 
 win him back to the creed of his childhood. The 
 prince resisted promises and threats, and after every 
 
Il8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 interview declared his unalterable resolve to live and 
 die in the Catholic communion. 
 
 Leovigild's persistence was due in the first place to 
 his own strong conviction that the Arian creed was 
 the only true faith, in which view he was supported 
 . by the determined convictions of his wife, who would 
 not have allowed him to think otherwise, and also by 
 his wish to separate his son from the opposite party, 
 and thus ensure his allegiance for the rest of his life, 
 since the strong body of Catholic Christians were the 
 most powerful opponents there were in the country, 
 to the reign of an Arian king. 
 
 One night the king sent an Arian bishop to the 
 dungeon where Erminigild lay, to tell him that 
 he need not even admit really the Arian faith, but 
 that if he would but receive the communion from the 
 Arian prelate, so that it could be publicly announced 
 that he had, nothing more should be required 
 of him, and his iu\[ pardon should be immediately 
 signed. The .king doubtless thought it would be 
 enough to spread the report that the prince had out- 
 wardly conformed to Arianism, in order to break the 
 bond between him and the rebels of the Catholic 
 faith. 
 
 The bishop entered the cell, and went over all the 
 ground of persuasion, which the prince had heard so 
 often that his mind was weary of giving attention to 
 arguments which did not affect him in the least. His 
 
 o 
 
 mind was made up. Whether conscience forbade him 
 to receive outwardly a sign which he did not in- 
 wardly accept, whether the memory of Ingunda, or 
 the ancient wrongs inflicted on him by his step- 
 
LEO VLGLLD—RECARED. 1 1 9 
 
 mother, prevailed, he grew more and more restless 
 and irritated by the conversation of the bishop, and 
 at last, starting up and longing to get rid of him, he 
 exclaimed : " As the minister of the Devil, thou canst 
 guide only to hell. Begone, wretch ! to the pun- 
 ishments prepared for thee ! " 
 
 This was not a very pleasant answer for the bishop 
 to receive, and he retired in great wrath. It was 
 not a politic one for Erminigild, for when the king 
 heard of it from the lips of the insulted and angry 
 prelate, he broke out into a fit of ungovernable fury, 
 and gave orders for the execution of his son. They 
 were promptly obeyed. His head was cut off with- 
 out delay, and thus ended the life of this prince of 
 the Goths. It is said that Leovigild bitterly re- 
 gretted the deed, decreed in a hasty moment, after 
 long years of patient hope for a reconciliation with 
 his son. Yet there is no doubt that the prince 
 deserved the death of a traitor for his rebellion 
 against the crown. 
 
 Erminigild was regarded by the orthodox as a 
 martyr, and was canonized as a saint. Ancient 
 chronicles record that the dungeon, on the night 
 of his execution, was illuminated with celestial light, 
 that angels hovered over the corpse, and celebrated 
 his martyrdom with holy songs. 
 
 After they received the news of Erminigild's death, 
 the relations of his widow, the Princess Ingunda, 
 armed in the cause of their sister, and marched into 
 Gothic Gaul, but Leovigild sent his remaining son, 
 Recared, to oppose them, and he expelled the in- 
 vaders. 
 
126 THE STORY OF SPAIN: 
 
 Leovigild was now a great prince, the undisputed 
 master of the Peninsula. He assumed more splen- 
 dor than his predecessors, wore the crown in public, 
 erected a magnificent throne in his palace at Toledo, 
 and displayed everywhere his wealth and power. He 
 is the first of the Visigoth kings represented on 
 ancient coins with the royal diadem on his brow. 
 He built cities and introduced improvements into 
 the national legislation. He put an end to the 
 domination of the Sueves, who had for nearly two 
 hundred centuries troubled the country. 
 
 He stained the lustre of his reign by a relentless 
 persecution of the orthodox or Catholic party. He 
 bribed, or terrified the prelates into apostasy, or if 
 they withstood him, he punished them with exile, 
 imprisonment, or death. Goswinda, his Arian wife, 
 was now at the summit of her power. Her rival was 
 driven from the court, her religion was in the ascend- 
 ant, her royal consordt firmly seated upon his throne, 
 the splendors of which were furnished by treasures 
 stolen from the orthodox churches and monasteries, 
 which he plundered without hesitation, on the plea 
 of true religion. But her triumphs and his glory did 
 not last long. But a few years after the execution 
 of his rebellious son, Leovigild died, A.D. 587. He 
 had already associated his other son with the royal 
 dignity, and on the death of his father, Recared 
 Was unanimously acknowledged sole king of the 
 Goths. 
 
 Strangely enough, the subject which had shaken 
 the whole kingdom in the time of Erminigild, creating 
 dissension and civil war, and bringing death to this 
 
LEOVIGILD—RECARED. 121 
 
 turbulent prince, was now, by his brother, quietly 
 disposed of, and the very change accomplished which 
 the former wished to see. 
 
 Before the death of his father, Recared had been 
 converted from Arianism to orthodoxy, but, more 
 prudent and less impetuous than his brother, he 
 concealed his new sentiments ; above all, we may 
 suppose, from his step-mother, Goswinda. 
 
 As determined in the new faith as his father had 
 been in the old, Recared conceived the plan of re- 
 claiming his subjects from heresy, which he now con- 
 sidered the faith of the Arians to be. He well knew 
 what difficulties he would encounter, and had seen 
 by experience how unwise the course of his brother 
 had been, in attempting by arms and violence to 
 gain his cause, the same, in pretence at least, as his 
 own. He knew that the Goths were too fierce a 
 race to be compelled to any measure, especially to 
 one against which their inveterate prejudices were 
 allied. Time and patience, with the greatest pru- 
 dence, were necessary for the success of his project. 
 
 He had the happy inspiration to invite the Cath- 
 olic and Arian prelates to dispute in his presence, and, 
 by assuming the appearance of perfect impartiality 
 between them, he laid the foundations for a change. 
 He professed himself an enemy to all persecution for 
 conscience sake, and exhorted the two parties to 
 peace and harmony, and, by his own moderation, 
 he disposed the minds of both parties to calmness 
 and reflection. Meanwhile, he despatched mes- 
 sengers, who were in his confidence, to teach the 
 same lessons in the same moderate manner through- 
 out the provinces. 
 
122 THE SiTORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 His next step was a bolder one. He restored to 
 the Catholic churches the treasures of which they 
 had been deprived by his predecessors, and espe- 
 cially by his own father. The influence of his per- 
 sonal character was so great, that this was accom- 
 plished quietly, and without exciting the displeasure 
 of his Arian subjects, while, of course, the Catholic 
 ones were well pleased. He was deservedly popu- 
 lar ; for he was liberal to the poor, generous to all, 
 kind and gentle in his manners, but inexorably just 
 when occasion demanded. 
 
 When Recared saw his preparations sufficiently 
 advanced, he assembled all his nobles and clergy at 
 Toledo. This was on the 8th of May, 589. 
 
 He first prevailed on the assembly to pass three 
 consecutive days in fasting and prayer, and not un- 
 til these were over did the consultation begin. 
 
 He opened the business in a well-considered speech. 
 He represented religion as a concern of 'the highest 
 moment to man — not only as it involved the happi- 
 ness or misery of an eternal state, but as affecting 
 human welfare in the present life, since no society 
 could long remain organized without its sanction. 
 He next adverted to the two religions, Catholic and 
 Arian, in a mild tone, but at the same time with 
 great resolution. He appealed to the miracles al- 
 leged to have been wrought in behalf of the Catho- 
 lic faith to prove its divine origin, expressing his 
 firm belief in their reality. 
 
 His address was clear, eloquent, and long. He 
 concluded by saying that, as after mature delibera- 
 tion he himself was convinced of the truth of the 
 Catholic faith, he had already determined to make 
 
LEO VI GILD— REARED. 1 23 
 
 public profession of it, though he disclaimed all in- 
 tention of forcing the conscience of any other man. 
 He submitted, however, to the assembly the con- 
 sideration, that, if unity of religion could be re- 
 stored to the kingdom, an end would be put to the 
 troubles which had so long agitated it, to the destruc- 
 tion of national prosperity and individual happiness. 
 
 Lastly, he caused an instrument to be read, con- 
 taining his abjuration of Arianism, and the confes- 
 sion of his belief in the co-equality of the Three 
 Persons, and in the authority of the Catholic and 
 Apostolic Church, and entreated all who were pres- 
 ent to follow his example. 
 
 This discourse of Recared was received not merely 
 with applause, but when he and his queen, who fully 
 shared his convictions, had solemnly signed the act 
 of confession, most of the prelates and nobles in the 
 assembly hastened to do the same. Probably their 
 minds had been prepared beforehand for the scene, so 
 that the abjuration of the king did not burst upon them 
 with the shock of surprise. So much may be effected 
 by judicious management, rather than violence. 
 
 The Catholic faith was thus quietly declared the 
 religion of the state. Spaniard, Sueve, and Goth 
 were now joined in one communion, and a canon 
 was drawn up at the suggestion of Leander, with 
 the full concurrence of the several members pres- 
 ent, that thenceforth no person should be admitted 
 to the Lord's Supper who should not previously re- 
 cite the symbol of belief as sanctioned by the Coun- 
 cil of Constantinople. 
 
 Leander was the uncle of Recared, under whose in- 
 fluence the unfortunate Prince Erminigild had taken 
 
124 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 up arms for the Catholic Church. His second nephew 
 possessed a balance and judgment, lacking in his 
 brother, which made the same counsels turn to good 
 for the cause they both espoused, rather than evil. 
 Leander was canonized, and is one of the present 
 saints of the Spanish Church. 
 
 Goswinda, the queen dowager, did not receive 
 calmly the news of so great a change in the reli- 
 gion of the state. We may be sure she was not in- 
 vited to the assembly at Toledo, and that as soon as 
 she heard of it, she endeavored to arouse the Arian 
 prelates to resistance. 
 
 These denounced the action of the assembly as 
 apostasy, and in public and private inveighed against 
 it. There were plots against the life of Recared in 
 which Goswinda was deeply implicated, but these 
 conspiracies were discovered, and punished, but not 
 with rigor. The old queen, powerful no longer, was 
 left to Heaven and her own conscience. 
 
 Recared succeeded in suppressing the French who 
 again attacked his possessions in Southern Gaul. 
 Carcassonne, the stronghold of the Goths, fell into 
 the hands of the enemy, but they could not retain it, 
 and near the same city they were utterly routed. He 
 controlled the antagonistic elements within the king- 
 dom. The rest of his reign was a continual effort to 
 promote the happiness of his people ; his administra- 
 tion was prosperous, and he enjoyed their confidence 
 and affection. 
 
 It has been said of this king that in all his wars he 
 was victorious, all rebellions he crushed, all conspira- 
 cies he discovered. 
 
 Recared died in 601. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 TOLEDO — WAMBA. 
 
 TOLEDO was the capital of the Visigothic kings, a 
 city old even in time of Leovigild, who removed the 
 court there from Seville. According to tradition it 
 was founded by Jews, six centuries before Christ, 
 and named by them Toledoth, " the mother of peo- 
 ple." Before it became the capital, it was chosen by 
 the Spanish Church for the seat of its councils, the 
 first of which was held there in 400 A.D. 
 
 It is on the top of a high hill, with almost perpen- 
 dicular slopes descending to the river Tagus, which 
 surrounds it on three sides. It is now approached 
 by two bridges, on opposite sides of the town ; near 
 one of them, the bridge of San Martin, is supposed 
 to have been the palace of the Gothic kings, close to 
 the river and overhanging it. The cathedral, one of 
 the finest in Spain, stands on the site of a very early 
 building, of whose foundation nothing is known. Its 
 stone of consecration is still preserved in the cloister 
 of the present cathedral ; it reads that the church 
 Santa Maria was consecrated under King Recared, 
 the Catholic, in the year 587 A.D., and that several 
 councils took 'place within its walls. Tradition says 
 it was founded by the Apostle Saint James, who is 
 
 125 
 
126 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 / firmly believed by the Spaniards to have visited 
 their country in person. It was dedicated to the 
 Virgin Mary, and legend says that she descended 
 from heaven to visit her church, and to present its 
 bishop, Ildefonso, with a splendid chasuble or cloak. 
 The mark of her footprint upon the stair is still 
 shown in a chapel of the cathedral, and Murillo, the 
 great Spanish painter, made the legend the subject 
 of one of his beautiful pictures. 
 
 In this lofty city, protected by its position from 
 the sudden attacks of enemies, the Goths reigned for 
 several centuries. The city became very prosperous 
 and important, and its wealth enormous. There 
 were always many Jews living there, perhaps ever 
 since the founding of the city, a people who have al- 
 ways brought commercial success to the places where 
 they live, but also often dissension, for the intoler- 
 ance of Christian sovereigns has led them to perse- 
 cute the Jews. Intthe sixth Council of Toledo, a 
 canon decreed that all future kings were to swear 
 that they would rigorously enforce the laws against 
 " that accursed people." 
 
 In the second half of the seventh century, when the 
 Gothic kingdom in Spain was thus prosperous, the 
 Catholic religion firmly established, her enemies sub- 
 dued, the alien tribes merged with the older inhabi- 
 tants, it became necessary to choose a king, and the 
 electors searched about to find one wise and good 
 enough for the office. They chose a man of princely 
 descent, who had filled some honorable posts at court, 
 but, tired of its splendors, he had retired from pub- 
 lic life and was living far off from the capital. The 
 
TO LED 0— WA MBA . 1 2 7 
 
 legend goes that Leo, a holy man, afterwards Pope, 
 at the earnest request of the electors, prayed that 
 they might be divinely directed in their choice. He 
 was admonished in answer to his prayers, that the 
 man to be sought, who must wear the crown, was a 
 laborer living in the west, and his name was Wamba. 
 Soldiers were despatched in search of him.^ They 
 travelled towards the west inquiring for him, and at 
 last, when they were nearly out of their own country, 
 on the borders of Portugal, they came to the place 
 where they had been told he was living. They were 
 sent out into the fields, and there, to their surprise no 
 doubt, they found the future candidate to the throne 
 of Spain following the plough and turning up his 
 own furrows. Nevertheless, as the servants of the 
 Gothic electors knew they must obey orders, however 
 singular they were, the messengers bowed before the 
 ploughman, and informed him that he had been se- 
 lected as king of Spain. 
 
 Wamba laughed, and taking the information as an 
 elaborate joke, replied lightly : 
 
 " Yes, and I shall be king about the time that my 
 pole puts out leaves." As he spoke he struck the 
 pole into the ground, and suddenly, as they all stood 
 looking at it, it began to bud, and in a few minutes 
 was covered with verdure. After this there was 
 nothing to be said, and Wamba, yielding to the 
 power of the miracle, suffered himself to be carried 
 to Toledo and crowned. 
 
 So much for the legend. ' According to historians, 
 Wamba was visited by the dukes of the land who 
 informed him of the honors intended for him. He 
 
128 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 urged his advanced age, which made him loath to 
 undertake duties requiring such labor and activity. 
 Prayers and tears were vainly employed to move 
 him. At length one of the dukes of the palace 
 placed a poniard at his breast, probably a Toledo 
 blade, and bade him choose between the sepulchre 
 and a throne. Such a choice was no longer difficult, 
 and Wamba yielded his assent. He begged, how- 
 ever, for delay, thinking that perhaps the electors 
 would change in favor of some other candidate, but 
 they were consistent, and he was crowned in nineteen 
 days after his forcible proclamation. 
 
 Though Wamba was so attached to a private life 
 and so unwilling to leave it to become king, he w T as 
 fully equal to the difficulties of his new situation, 
 although they became many, partly in consequence 
 of his own course. He issued a decree banishing all 
 Jews who refused to be baptized ; this was not worthy 
 of his reputation for wisdom, for the exiles all flocked 
 to Nismes, in Gothic Gaul, where there was already 
 a rebellion against the throne, headed by Hilderic 
 the Count of Nismes. The Duke Paul, a Greek, de- 
 spatched by Wamba to reduce the rebellion, joined 
 it himself, took lead of the malcontents, and even 
 prevailed on the Goths in Gaul to proclaim him 
 king. 
 
 Wamba was armed and in camp when he received 
 this intelligence, accompanied by a whimsical letter 
 written by the Duke Paul in a boasting vein, as if his 
 success had already turned his head. Wamba had 
 found himself, at his accession, in control of an admira- 
 ble army. He marched across the Pyrenees, subduing 
 
TOLEDO— WAMBA. 1 29 
 
 on the way all the places which had risen against him, 
 and came to Narbonne, the old stronghold of the 
 Goths, where Ataulphus kept his honeymoon with 
 the Roman princess Placidia. Paul had fled to 
 Nismes, leaving Narbonne in the hands of an able 
 general, who, with the citizens, made a vigorous re- 
 resistance, but the city was forced to yield, and the 
 royal army marched against Nismes,* where Paul was 
 entrenched with his bravest troops. The assault was 
 made with great fury and as furiously repelled. 
 During a whole day the Goths made no impres- 
 sion on the place, and when the darkness of night 
 stopped the desperate struggle, they were still 
 further depressed by the report that a considerable 
 body of German and French auxiliaries were ad- 
 vancing to the aid of the rebels. This report was 
 a fabrication of the artful Paul ; but for a time it 
 answered his purpose. He was soon, however, con- 
 founded in his turn by the arrival of ten thousand 
 fresh troops, despatched by Wamba, who was him- 
 self now approaching the scene of strife. At the 
 dawn of the following morning Paul beheld, from 
 the top of a tower, the increased force of the enemy 
 drawn up for a new and more vigorous assault. But 
 Paul was no coward ; he resolved to withstand the 
 coming onset as befitted one who had staked every 
 thing for a throne. Knowing that something must 
 be done to relieve the sudden despondency of his 
 followers, he hastily assembled them, and harangued 
 them with characteristic volubility. He said : " Old 
 Wamba has triumphed hitherto, but only because he 
 has found little or no resistance. He finds now that 
 
I30 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 he has to do with hard walls and with hearts still 
 harder than walls, and he accordingly begins to dis- 
 play his natural cowardice. He has brought up all 
 his force to resist us ; destroy that handful of men 
 in the plain below, and you may march unopposed 
 from the Rhine to the Bsetis." 
 
 His discourse somewhat relieved his troops, though 
 he could not prevail on them to sally forth and fight 
 on the plain. The contest was for some time vigor- 
 ously maintained from the fortifications ; but the 
 arrows and other missiles of the assailants were so 
 destructive that the ranks of the besieged were fear- 
 fully thinned. 
 
 " These Goths are no cowards, Paul ! " they ex- 
 claimed, as they cast reproachful looks on the leader 
 who had sacrificed them to his selfish ambition. 
 
 The combat had continued for five hours without 
 intermission, when Wamba's general cried : 
 
 "Come, soldiers ! § bring fire and scaling-ladders! 
 The sun is high, and sbimeful it will be for us if we 
 do not enter the fortress to-day ! " 
 
 Instantly the gates were burned, the walls sur- 
 mounted. The struggle on the summit was terrible, 
 but short. It was renewed in the streets, where the 
 sword of the Goth still pursued its victims. Such of 
 the defenders as could escape fled to the amphithea- 
 tre, an immense Roman building like the Coliseum 
 at Rome, built long before for the exhibition of ath- 
 letic games. Its ruins are still standing in the. fine 
 old city of Nismes. 
 
 But here the rebels fell in with some of the inhabi- 
 tants of the city, incensed with them for bringing 
 
TOLEDO— WA MBA . 1 3 1 
 
 them into misfortune, who, also with the idea of 
 winning the favor of Wamba, now they knew he was 
 hard by, pursued and massacred the flying crowd. 
 Paul himself every moment expected death, but he 
 was intentionally spared by the indignant populace, 
 while they wreaked their vengeance on his relatives. 
 One of these was pierced before his eyes, another at 
 his side, as he, left unharmed, stood on the steps of 
 the amphitheatre. 
 
 As the day began to close, Paul threw off his royal 
 apparel, and with a few of his companions sought 
 refuge in the vaults of the huge building. There he 
 passed a night more bitter than death. 
 
 The next morning the inhabitants, resolving to 
 throw themselves on the clemency of their victor, 
 sent their bishop to meet him. The prelate, in his 
 splendid pontifical robes, found the monarch about 
 four miles from the city, and by a touching address 
 obtained a promise that no more blood should be 
 spilt. Wamba now entered triumphant into Nismes, 
 and was received by the pardoned inhabitants with 
 unfeigned gratitude. 
 
 Paul, with the other leading rebels, was dragged 
 by the hair of the head from the vaults of the amphi- 
 theatre and consigned to a prison to await the doom 
 that was to be awarded him. The conqueror caused 
 the dead to be buried, gave liberty to many captives, 
 and endeavored to repair the evils which the city 
 had sustained, and then he ordered his crestfallen 
 rival to be brought before the tribunal. 
 
 The behavior of the duke was now as humble as it 
 had been bold. When he was asked by his sovereign 
 
I3 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 what reason he had to rebel, and whether he had 
 ever received just cause of offence, he admitted that 
 he had received only benefits from the hands of the 
 king, and that it was his ambition alone which had 
 impelled him to ingratitude and treason. He pros- 
 trated himself at the feet of the victor, and begged 
 that his life might be spared. 
 
 " Thy life," replied King Wamba, "and the lives 
 of thy companions have I promised to spare, though 
 such indulgence is little deserved." 
 
 The judges of the tribunal, hastily assembled for 
 the occasion, voted for the death of the most guilty, 
 but the merciful monarch satisfied himself with con- 
 demning them to have their crowns shaved and to 
 submit to a religious confinement within the walls of 
 Toledo. 
 
 Gothic Gaul was now pacified. Wamba deposed 
 the governors of some places, and put others more 
 trustworthy iri their stead. He banished all the 
 Jews, as the moving cause of contention, and then 
 went home to his capital. 
 
 The return of the king was met with great rejoic- 
 ing, and his entry into the capital triumphant. Be- 
 fore him marched the rebels, their heads and chins 
 shaved, their feet bare, and their bodies clothed in 
 camel's hair. Paul was conspicuous among the rest 
 by the crown made of leather which adorned his 
 brow, as an emblem of his futile pretence at sover- 
 eignty. The jeers of the populace and confinement 
 for life were, for that time, a mild punishment for the 
 treason he had committed against his sovereign. 
 
 After these glorious exploits, Wamba applied him- 
 
TOLEDO— WAMBA . 1 3 3 
 
 self to the interest of his subjects, and cultivated the 
 arts of peace. He strengthened the walls of Toledo, 
 improved the temporal condition of his people, and 
 stimulated the efforts of the clergy in making them 
 good Christians. He persecuted the Jews who re- 
 mained with vigor, forcing them to assume the name 
 of Christians and conform to their habits, which 
 seems now unwise and tyrannical. 
 
 But the customs of the Jews, as well as their denial 
 of Christ, were detestable and loathesome to the 
 Christians, and all their thrift and wealth, which was 
 generally regarded as ill-gotten, could not recom- 
 mend them to their neighbors who professed a dif- 
 ferent faith. So although they built splendid palaces 
 and lived in them, and possessed jewels and precious 
 stones they dared not wear in public, they could asso- 
 ciate only with each other, in their own quarter of 
 the city, closely watched by royal authority, and per- 
 forming the rites of their religion by stealth. From 
 time to time, such oppression resulted in rebellion, 
 then banishment, then matters settled down again, 
 to repeat once more and again the same course. 
 The advantages they found in Spain for their 
 commerce, then very lucrative, induced many Jews 
 to keep on living there, in spite of the severity with 
 which they* were treated. Naturally they detested a 
 government with which they were in no sympathy 
 whatever, and were always ready for rebellion. 
 
 Wamba's zeal, judgment, and vigilance foresaw the 
 danger of invasion which already threatened his coun- 
 try from the Saracens, as they were called, followers 
 of Mohammed, who lived not far off on the shores of 
 
134 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Africa, masters of all that region from the Nile to 
 the Atlantic ocean. The fleet by which Wamba de- 
 fended the coast long kept these Mussulmans in awe, 
 and had his successors shown equal prudence and 
 activity, they might have saved Spain from the Sara- 
 cenic invasion. 
 
 In the midst of his wise and active career, a strange 
 thing befell King Wamba, which put a premature 
 end to his reign, though not to his life. 
 
 On the 14th of October, 680, the king fell into a 
 state of insensibility, and seemed to be deprived of 
 life. All the servants and members of the court who 
 surrounded him were convinced that he was dying, 
 and as there seemed to be no doubt about it, in con- 
 formity with the custom of the time, his head was 
 shaved, and he was transformed from a layman into 
 a member of the monastic profession. 
 
 This custom came about from the practice of pious 
 persons who, when they found themselves in danger 
 of death, used to assume the tonsure and the peni- 
 tential garb, engaging to continue them through the 
 rest of their lives, if God spared them. This penance 
 became so common, that those who did not use it 
 were regarded as wanting in piety, and so, if the sick 
 man were unable to ask himself for the monk's habit, 
 his relations or friends made bold to invest him with 
 it ; and in case he recovered, his obligation to a peni- 
 tential life was just as great as if it had been im- 
 posed at his own request, since as he was charitably 
 assumed to be pious, he must wish to become a 
 penitent. 
 
 This custom had already given rise to such abuses, 
 
TO LED 0— WA MBA . 135 
 
 that a late king of the Goths had decreed that such 
 obligation imposed by others should be void unless 
 the penitent shall ratify it when returned to a sound 
 state of mind ; but in spite of this innovation, in the 
 time of King Wamba the practice was in full force. 
 
 The king recovered his full health and sense in 
 about twenty-four hours, but his doom was sealed. 
 Though his profession of penitence had been entirely 
 involuntary, his head was shaven, he wore the garb of 
 a monk, he was no longer of the world, and must re- 
 tire from public life. 
 
 Thus strangely disqualified from pursuing his ac- 
 customed life, and fulfilling all the schemes he had 
 on hand for the benefit of his kingdom, Wamba sub- 
 mitted, without resistance, to the force of circum- 
 stance, and passed the remainder of his days in a 
 monastery near Burgos. 
 
 No one tells us whether he made a good monk, 
 whether he cheerfully returned to the plough whence 
 he was taken to become king, whether he murmured 
 against the will of Heaven, as he regarded it, or was 
 glad to be relieved from the cares of state. 
 
 People wondered, then and afterwards, whether 
 Wamba's brief, but serious, attack of indisposition 
 were a natural or contrived event. Two chroniclers 
 of the ninth century assert that the trance of the 
 king, and his consequent tonsure, were the work of 
 Ervigius, a royal prince who had long aspired to the 
 throne. According to their view, he administered a 
 draught to the monarch which he intended to be 
 powerful enough to destroy reason, if not life itself. 
 The effect, if not that he had anticipated, was just as 
 
136 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 well suited to his aim ; in the lethargy which fol- 
 lowed the dose, the monastic penitence was imposed 
 upon the king, perhaps in good faith, by the piety of 
 his royal attendants. 
 
 However this may be, Ervigius became the succes- 
 sor of Wamba upon the throne, in consequence of 
 three authentic instruments which he was able to 
 produce : the first, which was signed by the great 
 officers of the palace, stated the fact of the habit 
 and tonsure being imposed ; the second, signed by 
 Wamba himself, contained his renunciation of the 
 crown in favor of Ervigius ; and the third was a 
 paper, also signed by Wamba, enjoining upon the 
 bishop of Toledo to proceed with the coronation of 
 his successor. 
 
 So Wamba passes out of history, into the shadow 
 of a monastery, and Ervigius reigns. But from that 
 time, the power and splendor of the Gothic kings 
 declined towards their fall. 
 
 Toledo, as it now stands upon the summit of a 
 barren hill, retains but few traces of the days of its 
 ancient Gothic splendor. Since Leovigild estab- 
 lished his court in the city his palace has fallen to 
 pieces, and its site is only guessed at. Another more 
 splendid cathedral has risen upon the ruins of that 
 where Recared abjured Arianism, and other churches, 
 of architecture called Gothic, in a style little dreamed 
 of by the builders of that early time, are also falling 
 into ruin, leaving only the broken fragments of 
 pointed arch and slender spire. The steep streets, 
 winding about the almost perpendicular sides of the 
 hill, and so narrow that you can touch both sides at 
 
TOLEDO— WA MBA . I 3 7 
 
 once, were the work of the Moors who followed the 
 Goths ; and so are light and graceful buildings of ara- 
 besque tracery and the horse-shoe arch, also falling 
 into ruin. Yet still in many of the low, solid struc- 
 tures of stone, we may imagine we see the work of 
 the real Gothic builder. It must be remembered 
 that the style of architecture called Gothic, came 
 into use many centuries after the kingdom of the 
 Visigoths in Spain was forgotten, so that even in 
 their ancient capital the arches and towers called 
 " Gothic " have nothing whatever to do with the 
 Goth, but are of much later date, erected by 
 Moors or Christians who took pains to destroy 
 whatever was left of the early architecture of the 
 real Goths. 
 
 The guide-book leaves little foothold in this pres- 
 ent age for the Goth in Toledo, but there are houses 
 still there which one may imagine to have been 
 standing in the time of Wamba. A huge gate-way 
 frowns upon the narrow street, with stone pillars 
 surmounted by balls. Inside the great door is a 
 smaller door, which opens mysteriously in answer to 
 a knock. Within is a court-yard ; and a narrow stair- 
 way, built into the wall, and lighted by a dim lamp 
 from an alcove, leads to a corridor from which open 
 long, low rooms with heavy beams across the ceiling, 
 and huge mysterious side doors, that may not have 
 been unlocked within the memory of man. These 
 houses may be modern, may be Moorish, but the 
 romantic traveller prefers to fancy that they were in 
 existence before the glory of the Visigothic kings 
 had departed from their ancient capital, and that the 
 
138 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ghost of Wamba, after a life so abruptly withdrawn 
 from the cares of the world, or the restless spirit of 
 Roderic might at any moment slowly open that un- 
 frequented door, green with damp and stiff with the 
 rust of ages. 
 

 CHAPTER X. 
 
 RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 
 
 WHERE a monarchy is elective, we must not ex- 
 pect the same regularity of succession and the same 
 precision of dates as if, at the death of one king, all 
 men had determined that his son should succeed 
 him. It seems probable, indeed, that Witiza and 
 Roderick reigned in different parts of Spain at 
 the same time. It seems probable that Roderick 
 drove Witiza into exile. It is certain that the vices 
 of Witiza and his selfish administration of power en- 
 raged his people against him. While Witiza reigned 
 at Toledo, Roderick reigned in the south, in Anda- 
 lusia. Roderick had been in danger under the cru- 
 elty of Witiza, as it is supposed that his father 
 suffered from him. For it is said that the tyrant 
 put out Theodofred's eyes. Roderick was the son of 
 Theodofred. Fearing a like fate or worse, Roderick 
 escaped from Spain, and allied himself with the Greek 
 emperors. They consented to assist him in a struggle 
 against the tyrant. Witiza's fate is uncertain. As 
 we have said, he seems to have been exiled and to 
 have died in exile. What is certain is that Roderick, 
 who had before held control in Andalusia only, 
 assumed the rule of all Spain in the year 709. 
 
 139 
 
140 THE STORY, OF SPAIN. 
 
 But he did not assume this rule without opposi- 
 tion. The sons of Witiza still lived and expected to 
 succeed him. The bishop of Toledo, Oppas, either 
 their uncle or their brother, was at the head of the 
 church. A certain Count Julian, who held an almost 
 independent command in Africa, where the Goths 
 possessed the posts of Ceuta, opposite to Gibraltar, 
 Tangier, and Arsilla, belonged to their party of 
 opposition. It was in the face of as formidable 
 rivals as were thus represented that Roderick as- 
 sumed the crown. Some form of election probably 
 preceded his coronation, but the history, or rather 
 the legend, is very vague about this, as it is in all the 
 early history of Roderick. 
 
 It was now a century since the success of Moham- 
 med had given the signal for that marvellous wave of 
 conquest, in which the Saracen armies swept so soon 
 over Northern Africa and Western Asia. At the point 
 where Africa comes § closest to Europe, where they 
 say even that it once touched Europe, the wave of 
 their conquest had been flung back by the stubborn 
 resistance of the three Gothic garrisons which have 
 been named. The Goths, in their prosperity, had 
 taken possession of this part of Mauritania, which we 
 now call Morocco. It should not be forgotten that 
 it is one of the most fertile regions of the world, and 
 were it not for its wretched misgovernment, the 
 wheat harvests of Morocco would supply the food 
 of Europe to-day. Indeed, when Roderick assumed 
 the crown, the only considerable experience which 
 the Goths had in war, was on these African fields. 
 Excepting in the contests by which he had secured 
 
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. I4I 
 
 his own supremacy, the Goths had known no con- 
 siderable wars for generations on Spanish soil. 
 
 Of the Spanish army in Africa, Count Julian, as 
 has been said, was commander. He had defeated 
 Musa, the Saracen leader. Musa was called El 
 Zahani. He was commissioned as governor of these 
 regions by Miramolin Almanzor, who was the caliph 
 of all Northern Africa at this time. But of a sudden, 
 wholly to Musa's surprise, he received a visit from 
 Count Julian, who offered to surrender to him the 
 strongholds of the Goths, if he would give the assist- 
 ance of the Saracen army to the party which was 
 opposed to King Roderick. Musa was afraid to 
 meddle with such lofty treason himself, and sent the 
 traitor to Arabia with letters introducing him to 
 Miramolin, the caliph. The caliph received him 
 gladly, approved his plan, and sent him back to 
 Musa with his approval. The treason was so atro- 
 cious, that to this hour Count Julian is called "the 
 Traitor " in the legends and histories of Spain, almost 
 as if there were no other traitor. Musa put his sin- 
 cerity to a test by sending over a hundred Arabs and 
 four hundred Africans, under Tarif, to the northern 
 shore. This chief, almost unknown, has had this 
 curious fortune, that he has given the name to Tarifa, 
 the place where he landed, and thus, because of the 
 duties of goods imposed there, his name lives in the 
 word " tariff," used so largely in the commercial 
 legislation of the civilized world. All passed as 
 Julian had promised. The men of the desert found 
 themselves free to range at their will through exqui- 
 site Andalusia. They gave, as well they might, the 
 
H 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 most tempting accounts of the country which had 
 been betrayed to them. The next spring Musa sent 
 over five thousand soldiers, under the command of 
 Tarik, whose name, also, lives to us in " Gibraltar," 
 where he landed, which was " Gebel-al-Tarik " (the 
 \ mountain of Tarik).* The reader will remember that 
 Gibraltar and Ceuta were the two pillars of Hercules. 
 The symbols of these pillars still survive in the arms 
 of Spain, on the Spanish coins, and in the familiar 
 mark taken from them to designate a dollar ($), 
 which represents the two pillars of Hercules encir- 
 cled by the scroll " Ne plus ultra " (nothing beyond). 
 It was the destiny of Spain, in opening the western 
 world to Europe, to demonstrate the falsity of her 
 own ancient motto, v 
 
 Roderick heard of the treason of his officers, and 
 did not flinch in his duty. But, at the best, the 
 contest was not an easy one, and Roderick and his 
 Goths were not at their best. His own right of suc- 
 cession was disputed. Beside this, the Goths had 
 been for generations now at peace. It is at this 
 juncture that we are to place the legend of his visit 
 to the cave of Hercules: 
 
 There came to the king the keepers of that house 
 which is in Toledo which they call Pleasure with 
 Pain ; and it was called also by another name, The 
 Honor of God. Now this house had been built by 
 Hercules, and Hercules had commanded that neither 
 king nor lord of Spain should seek to know that which 
 was within. And every one instead should put a lock 
 upon the doors of this house, and fasten it with his 
 
 * The reader must not confound Tarif and Tarik. 
 
GIBRALTAR. 
 
 143 
 
144 THE STORY OF SPAIN 
 
 key. And the King Don Roderick did the same. But 
 remembering this afterward, in an evil moment he 
 insisted on opening all the locks, his knights in vain 
 attempting to dissuade him. They opened all the 
 locks, and the king pushed the door and entered 
 with his chiefs. Here, in a square hall, they found 
 a bed, and in the bed the statue of a man exceeding 
 great, and in the man's hand was a scroll. And on 
 the scroll the king read that the man was Hercules 
 the Strong — " Never could any conquer me, save 
 only Death. Look well to what thou doest, for from 
 this world thou w 7 ilt carry with thee nothing but the 
 good which thou hast done." 
 
 After Don Roderick had read this he was very 
 sorry he had undertaken this enterprise. But he 
 would not retreat, but pushed on with his chiefs. 
 They came into an apartment of which one part was 
 white as snow, and that over against it more black 
 than pitch. One part was green as emerald, and. 
 that which was over against it was redder than fresh 
 blood. There was a door in it, cunningly made, and 
 on the door a legend that Hercules built this house 
 in the 306th year of Adam. And when the king 
 had read these letters, and understood that which 
 they said, he opened the door, and when it was 
 opened they found Hebrew letters which said : 
 " This house is one of the wonders of Hercules." 
 And when they had read these letters they saw a 
 niche made in that pillar, in which was a coffer of 
 silver, right subtly wrought, and after a strange 
 manner, and it was gilded, and covered with many 
 precious stones, and of great price, and it was fast- 
 
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 45 
 
 ened with a lock of mother-of-pearl. And this was 
 made in such a manner that it was a strange thing, 
 and there were cut upon it Greek letters which said : 
 " It cannot be but that the king, in whose time this 
 coffer shall be opened, shall see wonders before his 
 death : thus said Hercules the Lord of Greece and 
 of Spain, who knew some of those things which are 
 to come." And when the king understood this, he 
 said : " Within this coffer lies that which I seek to 
 know, and which Hercules has so strongly forbidden 
 to be known." And he took the lock and broke it 
 with his hands, for there was no other who durst 
 break it ; and when the lock was broken, and the 
 coffer open, they found nothing within except a 
 white cloth folded between two pieces of copper ; 
 and he took it and opened it, and found Moors por- 
 trayed therein, with turbans and banners in their 
 hands, and with their swords round their necks, and 
 their bows behind them at the saddle-bow ; and over 
 these figures were letters which said : " When this 
 cloth shall be opened, and these figures seen, men 
 apparelled like them shall conquer Spain and shall 
 be Lords thereof." 
 
 This picturesque fiction, as we need hardly say, is 
 the work of later times. The hard fact is that The- 
 odemir, Roderick's lieutenant in Andalusia, reported 
 to his sovereign the invarion of the Saracens. Their 
 first force of five thousand soldiers was enlarged by 
 reinforcements of seven thousand more. Theodemir 
 wrote to Roderick that a horde of Africans had 
 landed — " So strange is their appearance that we 
 might take them for inhabitants of the sky. Send 
 
146 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 me more troops without a moment's delay. Collect 
 all who could bear arms." Roderick was, at the 
 moment, attempting to reduce some of the adherents 
 of Witiza's family. But the call was too pressing to 
 be disregarded. The king rallied his utmost forces, 
 and appeared on the scene of action with an army so 
 large that the Moors were dismayed. It is said that 
 he had ninety thousand men in arms. But Tarik 
 had literally burned his ships behind him. His 
 men knew he had. He told them that in victory was 
 their only chance. And the result was the reward 
 of his desperate courage. In the opening skirmishes 
 of the war the Moors held the advantage which they 
 at first won. And in the great conflict, which for 
 its consequences must be counted one of the critical 
 battles of history, they were successful. 
 
 The two armies met on the plains of Xeres, about 
 two leagues from Cadiz. It is the Xeres, whose 
 vineyards are so well known to the modern world 
 for their wine. The little stream of the Guadalete, 
 which falls into the bay near Cadiz, divided the two 
 armies. After three days of skirmishing they joined 
 in serious battle. Stories which cannot be fully 
 credited speak of Roderick as going into battle on a 
 car of ivory, drawn by two white mules, in a robe of 
 silk embroidered with gold. And Gibbon w r ell says 
 that Alaric, the great Gothic leader, might well have 
 blushed to see his unworthy successor. But the 
 chariot and the robe, and the diadem of pearls which 
 go with them, are probably the creation of the sneers 
 of conquerors. Roderick does not seem to have 
 misbehaved in the fight itself. The multitude of the 
 
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 47 
 
 Goths indeed would have secured their success, 
 had they been quite sure of the loyalty of all their 
 forces. As it was, they pressed the Moors severely. 
 Again Tarik had to remind his men that they could 
 only retire to the sea, and ask what they would do 
 there. He led the way in person, in an attack on 
 the enemy. His men followed willingly, fighting for 
 victory or paradise. The Goths were not used to such 
 enemies. They did not yield without a struggle. It 
 is said that sixteen thousand men were killed in the 
 battle. The issue was, that the Gothic army was 
 broken by Tank's impetuous attack. The divided 
 sections of it retreated, and at last fled in confusion. 
 Roderick himself in the flight was drowned in the 
 Quadalquivir. The Moors took possession of his 
 diadem, his robes, and his horse. And some head, 
 called Roderick's, was sent as far as the palace at 
 Damascus, as a trophy of the battle. But in truth 
 the body of the king had been lost in the river. 
 
 The historians of both parties account for this 
 rout by alleging treason in the army of Roderick 
 The two sons of Witiza, and his brother the Bishop 
 of Toledo, held important posts, and their defection 
 at a critical juncture is enough to account for the 
 defeat, without any cowardice on the part of the 
 king. The pursuit continued for three days, and the 
 remnants of the Gothic army were for the moment 
 scattered. 
 
 Tarik received from Musa instructions which bade 
 him wait before attempting the subjugation of the 
 Peninsula. But Count Julian, " the Traitor," gave 
 other and wiser advice. He knew the Gothic force, 
 
14^ THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and he knew that they must act promptly, if they 
 were to succeed at all. By a bold push he took the 
 town of Cordova. The garrison retired to the 
 church, and there maintained a siege for three 
 months. Tarik advanced, through La Mancha, to 
 the Tagus, and appeared under the walls of Toledo. 
 The city capitulated on terms which allowed the 
 continuance of religious rites in some churches, and 
 permitted such citizens as wished, to depart with 
 their property. From that time the Moor reigned in 
 Toledo, though Cordova and Granada were more 
 agreeable capitals. And this quaint and curious 
 city still shows memorials of Moorish sway, mixed 
 with the houses of Goths, which still show the 
 escutcheons of the men who fought with Roderick. 
 Tarik rewarded the Jews he found there, by terms of 
 toleration, which repaid in a manner the essential 
 services they had rendered him from the beginning. 
 Tarik did not tarry at Toledo even. He continued 
 his triumphal march to the bay of Biscay, and only 
 returned to Toledo when it was necessary for him to 
 meet the wrath of his master Musa. 
 
 Musa had followed his lieutenant with a new army 
 of eighteen thousand men. He marched against 
 Seville and Merida, which were still held by garri- 
 sons loyal to Roderick. When he beheld the re- 
 mains of Roman art, which have been described in 
 another chapter, Musa said : " The human race must 
 have united their art and power to found this city. 
 Happy shall be the man who masters it." After a 
 long siege of the city, the "Emeriti" whose ancestors 
 had been so called because the veterans of Augustus, 
 
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 1 49 
 
 surrendered. Musa was able to go on and meet his 
 disobedient but successful lieutenant. 
 
 Tarik met him midway between Merida and To- 
 ledo. Musa demanded and received a rigid account 
 of the treasures of Spain. Tarik was suspected and 
 abused ; he was imprisoned, reviled, and scourged. 
 Yet, after these insults, Musa appointed him to 
 command in the reduction of the northeast. The 
 Gothic armies were driven, by his success, beyond 
 the Pyrenees. After three hundred years of con- 
 quest they had to take refuge in the " Province " of 
 Gaul. 
 
 Little more than two years sufficed for the reduc- 
 tion of Spain to a province which rendered allegiance 
 to the caliph at Damascus. In some of the valleys 
 of the mountains were left Christian fugitives who 
 had not surrendered. In most of the conquered 
 cities the Christians were permitted to maintain their 
 rites. For some time Theodemir, the spirited offi- 
 cer, whom we have seen as first meeting the on- 
 slaught of the Moors, maintained that sort of war in 
 which Spain delights, and of which her name — 
 "guerrilla," " a little war " — has been adopted by all 
 nations. But Theodemir at last consented to pay 
 tribute, to give up some cities which he held, and 
 not to make any further efforts against the caliph. 
 
 It was in the year 411 that Ataulphus had taken 
 possession of Spain, where Vandals, Ulans, and 
 Sueves had led the way, and had established his 
 capital there. Just three centuries after, in the year 
 711, Roderick lost his kingdom and his life. He is 
 popularly called the last of the Goths, and properly 
 
I50 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 so if we mean the last of the Gothic kings. Theo- 
 demir can hardly be called a king, and Pelayo, from 
 whose valor later kings will claim, is only a rebel, 
 in the mountains. 
 
 The downfall of Roderick and his people makes a 
 subject too pathetic to have been neglected in liter- 
 ature. Mr. Southey's " Roderick, the Last of the 
 Goths," published in i8i4,had in that day a reputation 
 of its own. But it won that reputation rather by the 
 learning with which the author had compiled it, than 
 to any interest which he added to Roderick's mourn- 
 ful story. A very short extract is sufficent to give 
 a notion of its quality. Here is a passage in which 
 the siege of Merida is referred to : 
 
 RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 
 
 ' ' They went forth ; 
 They cross'd the stream ; and when Romano turned 
 For his last look toward the Castilian towers, 
 Far off the Moorish standards in the light 
 Of morn were glittering, where the miscreant host 
 Toward the Lusitanian capital 
 To lay. their siege advanced ; the eastern breeze 
 Bore to the fearful travellers far away 
 The sound of horn and tambour o'er the plain. 
 All day they hasten'd, and when evening fell, 
 Sped toward the setting sun, as if its line 
 Of glory came from heaven to point their course. 
 But feeble were the feet of that old man 
 For such a weary length of way ; and now 
 Being pass'd the danger (for in Merida 
 Sacaru long in resolute defence 
 Withstood the tide of war), with easier pace 
 The wanderers journey'd on ; till having cross'd 
 Rich Tagus, and the rapid Zezere, 
 
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS. 
 
 151 
 
 They from Albardos' hoary height beheld 
 Pine-forest, fruitful vale, and that fair lake 
 Where Alcoa, mingled there with Baza's stream, 
 Rests on its passage to the Western Sea — 
 That sea the aim and boundary of their toil. 
 
 MOORISH TOWER. TOLEDO. 
 
PART III. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 
 
 The people who defeated Roderick the Goth and 
 took possession of his kingdom, were the followers of 
 Islam, or Mohammedans, who were persuaded by 
 their creed that they could conquer the whole world. 
 They were so successful in battle that they overran 
 the whole of Arabia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, 
 and in less than a hundred years from the time when 
 their religion was established they had made for 
 themselves a foothold in Spain. 
 
 Mohammed, the founder of their religion was born 
 in Mecca about five centuries after Christ. Mis fol- 
 lowers believe him to be the real Messiah, and date 
 their 3'ears from him as we date ours from the birth 
 of Christ. The Koran, which is their book of laws, ex- 
 acts military service from every one, and assures the 
 joys of heaven to every martyr who falls in battle, 
 so that the armies of their chiefs were large, and the 
 courage of their warriors reliable. Those with whom 
 we have to do are called Moors, because of their 
 residence in Morocco, and in general they bear in 
 the history of that time the name of Saracens, by 
 which name they were called by the Christian writers 
 and crusaders of the middle ages. They were the 
 
 155 
 
156 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 detestation of the Christian world, because they de- 
 nied the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, and 
 because they very early took possession of Jerusalem 
 and the Holy Sepulchre, which they have retained, 
 with brief intervals, until this day. 
 
 In all the full force and glory of their first tri- 
 umphs they swept over Northern Africa, and made 
 their way into the heart of Spain, intending to carry 
 the banner of the prophet to the very shores of the 
 Baltic, and, indeed, subjugate all Europe on their 
 way back to Damascus, which was the home of their 
 highest ruler. 
 
 Abderahman, their leader, carried the Moslem 
 army into France, destroying every thing before 
 him ; but near Tours he was checked in a memora- 
 ble battle by the famous Charles Martel (a.D. 732). 
 Three hundred thousand Saracens fell under the 
 sword, say the old chroniclers, with their usual ex- 
 aggeration. It was a great victory, and all Chris- 
 tendom breathed freefy when it was over. The fight 
 was long and bloody ; when darkness came the 
 ground was strewn with bodies, and Abderahman, 
 the Moslem leader, was among the slain. But the 
 Christians could not be sure that the victory was 
 theirs, and they remained in their tents under arms 
 all night. At break of day they were prepared to 
 renew the struggle ; the tents of the Arabs, extend- 
 ing as far as the eye could reach, were still before 
 them, but not a living creature came forth to meet 
 them. The enemy had abandoned their camp, their 
 own wealth, and the immense plunder which they 
 had amassed in their hitherto victorious progress. 
 
THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 57 
 
 Relinquishing all for the sake of safety, they had 
 silently crept away, in this case without folding their 
 tents, after the manner of the typical Arab. 
 
 Christendom was saved. Pope and monk, prince 
 and peasant thanked heaven in an ecstasy of devo- 
 tion for so signal a victory. 
 
 After this the Moslems, as the followers of Mo- 
 hammed we're also called, recognizing that they 
 were not invulnerable, moderated their ambition ; 
 and those who had established themselves in Spain 
 now turned their attention to prosperous living 
 there. 
 
 The country was governed, at first, by viceroys 
 called emirs, sent from the caliphate at Damascus. 
 This lasted about forty years, but they were not 
 years of tranquillity. Twenty different emirs had 
 been either appointed, or had raised themselves to 
 direct the government. Jealousy of one another, 
 revolt, rebellion, disturbed the repose of the country. 
 The caliphs were too remote to remedy such evils. 
 
 At this time there reigned at Damascus the house 
 of the Omeyyades, but civil dissensions prevailed 
 there, as in Spain, and in a contest between this family 
 and another called the Abbasides, all the Omeyyades 
 were treacherously massacred by the others, who 
 took the throne for themselves. All but two were 
 killed : one of them fled to a corner of Arabia, where 
 his descendants ruled for a long time ; the other 
 became great in Spain. 
 
 He was named Abderahman. He effected his 
 escape from Damascus with horses and money, and 
 choosing unfrequented paths, succeeded in joining a 
 
158 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 band of Bedouins, wandering Arab tribes, who from 
 time immemorial have lived in tents, passing from 
 one place to another, with no continuing city. 
 Their tents were then, doubtless, as they are now, 
 dark brown, with low, shelving sides like the roof of 
 a house. They wear a woollen garment with a belt 
 round it containing their weapons, which are nu- 
 merous and dangerous ; over their head is thrown the 
 picturesque kufia, or square handkerchief folded 
 cornerwise. Their hands are against every man, and 
 and so it has been always ; but they lead peaceful 
 lives among themselves with their flocks and herds, 
 and practise, after their own fashion, an open hospi- 
 tality. 
 
 They received the prince kindly, and he lived 
 with them some time, accommodating himself to 
 their simple habits, but passing from one tribe to 
 another for fear of being traced and discovered by 
 the enemies of his house. From Arabia he thus 
 wandered into Africa, through Egypt, as far as 
 Barca, where the governor, who was devoted to the 
 Abbasides, heard about him. Learning that a young 
 stranger was within his territory, who might answer 
 to the description of the fugitive prince everywhere 
 sought by the new caliph, this governor sent out 
 agents in all directions to seize the youth. 
 
 The tribe of Bedouins with whom he was, became 
 very fond of him, and, besides, they were always 
 ready to do an ill-turn to the agents of civilization. 
 When, therefore, a troop of horsemen, one evening, 
 surrounded their tents, inquiring for a handsome 
 young Syrian, they thought of nothing less than 
 
159 
 
l6o THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 betraying their guest. They replied that they had 
 seen such a person, and in fact he was at that 
 moment out hunting wild beasts with some of their 
 own young men ; that very likely the party might 
 be found passing the night in a valley, at some dis- 
 tance, which they described at length, with a careful 
 description how to get there. The officers of the 
 governor were very much obliged, 'and rode off 
 towards the valley. As soon as they were surely off, 
 the Bedouins ran and woke up their guest, who, all 
 the time, had been comfortably asleep in the best 
 spare tent. 
 
 Abderahman was full of gratitude. As it was no 
 longer safe for him to linger there, he fled with some 
 of the bold young men of the tribe into the desert. 
 After some days of fatigue and thirst on friendless 
 plains of sand, he reached a town in Mauritania, of 
 which the sheik was a kinsman of his mother. Here 
 he was well received and protected. 
 
 About this time there was a meeting in Cordova of 
 some eighty of the wisest chiefs of the Arabs, to 
 discuss the condition of affairs of state, the confu- 
 sion around them, and the anarchy at Damascus. 
 Their chiefs were all devoted to the family of 
 the Omeyyades, and they regarded the Abbasides as 
 usurpers. 
 
 One of the members of the meeting, a sheik named 
 Wahib, recited the tale of the wandering prince of 
 the royal Omeyyades, and ended by saying : 
 
 "Abderahman still remains in Mauritania ; let him 
 be our sovereign." 
 
 The proposal was received with unanimous ap- 
 
THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. l6l 
 
 plause. Wahib, with a companion, deputed by the 
 assembly to offer an independent crown to the young 
 prince, passed over into Africa, found him, and laid 
 before him his mission. They did not disguise the 
 difficulties to be contended with, but they assured 
 him of their own fidelity, and of the obedience of 
 many tribes. The prince immediately accepted the 
 proposal. 
 
 " Noble deputies," said he, " I will unite my des- 
 tiny with yours. I will go and fight with you. 
 Young as I am, misfortune has already proved me, 
 and has not yet found me wanting." 
 
 Abderahman felt bound to consult his relatives, 
 the sheiks, who had so kindly received him, and take 
 their opinion. 
 
 " Go, my son," said his kinsman, the oldest of all. 
 " It is the finger of Heaven that beckons you. Your 
 scimitar shall restore the honor of your line." 
 
 Every young man in the tribe longed to accom 
 pany the prince ; he selected from them seven hun- 
 dred and fifty well-armed horsemen for the expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 It was a bold undertaking, to overthrow the agent 
 of a well-established government, and to build up an 
 independent kingdom in a country full of turbulent 
 spirits. The Christians, although conquered, were 
 not subdued, but ready to rise at any moment, while 
 the officers of the ruling caliph, both great and small, 
 were prepared to resist the overthrow of the existing 
 power. 
 
 The emir then in control of Spain under the new 
 Abbaside caliph, was named Yussuf. He happened 
 
1 62 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 to be returning from Saragossa with a couple of 
 captives laden with chains, when, as he was halting 
 one day in his pavilion, on account of the heat of 
 noon-day, among the mountains, on his way from 
 Toledo to Cordova, he was surprised by the appear- 
 ance of a messenger, hot and breathless with haste, 
 who presented to him an anonymous note addressed 
 to himself. The letter informed him that his reign 
 was about to expire, that the destroyer of his power 
 was rapidly approaching. 
 
 While Yussef was trying to make out what this 
 could mean, another messenger, despatched by his 
 son from Cordova, came up, with the startling in- 
 telligence that a prince of the Omeyyades, invited 
 by Arabian, Syrian, and Egyptian sheiks, was already 
 advancing with a body of troops. 
 
 In a transport of fury, Yussef ordered the two 
 prisoners he had with him, although they had noth- 
 ing at all to do with the business, to be cut to pieces, 
 after which, having disposed of them, he hastened 
 towards Cordova, despatching messengers in all di- 
 rections to raise troops for his defence. 
 
 Abderahman landed on the southern coast of 
 Spain in the early part of the year 755. The people 
 received him with open arms, and shouts of welcome. 
 His appearance was greatly in his favor, his bearing 
 majestic, his countenance open and gracious. His 
 march to Seville was one continued triumph, twenty 
 thousand scimitars, it is said, were at his disposal. 
 The towns through which he passed and those in the 
 neighborhood sent deputies with their submission, 
 and the offer of their services. 
 
THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 63 
 
 Yussef and his party offered a stout resistance, but 
 the bravery of Abderahman and the enthusiasm of 
 his followers drove them from their territory, and 
 made the emir negotiate for peace. In the short space 
 of one year the prince had triumphed over all opposi- 
 tion, and established himself as king, independent of 
 control from the Caliph of Damascus, whose sover- 
 eignty he did not acknowledge. 
 
 Abderahman, now at peace, devoted himself to the 
 improvement of his capital. Under his rule and that 
 of his successors, Cordova came to be a magnificent 
 city. Abderahman, by building embankments, nar- 
 rowed the bed of the Guadalquivir, and transformed 
 the space rescued from the waters into extensive 
 gardens. He is said to have been the first who 
 transplanted the palm into the Peninsula, where it 
 was not native, although the climate suits it well. 
 He is described by Arabic poets as saying to the 
 tree : " Beautiful palm ! thou, like me, art a stranger 
 in the land ; but breezes from our West kiss thy 
 broad leaves, thy roots strike into a fertile soil, thy 
 head rises into a pure heaven. Before I was banished 
 from my home, my tears bedewed thy kindred, upon 
 the banks of the Euphrates, but the palm and the 
 river have forgotten my grief." 
 
 For nearly three centuries after this, Spain was 
 governed by the descendants of the house of Omey- 
 yah, of whom the first was the fugitive Prince 
 Abderahman. During this time the sovereign of 
 Damascus was not of this family, because the throne 
 had passed into the hands of their enemies, of the 
 house of Abbas. These caliphs were too much oc- 
 
164 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 cupied with troubles at home, in securing their own 
 seats, to disturb the new dynasty in Spain, a province 
 too far off in those days to be easily controlled. Yus- 
 suf, the deposed emir, and after his death, his sons 
 were always ready to make trouble, and raise sedi- 
 tion ; but the party of the king always proved the 
 stronger, and the government, although seldom with- 
 out discord, became firmly established. 
 
 The period during which the family of Omeyyah 
 thus reigned in the Peninsula forms the most brilliant 
 part of the history of the Arabs in Spain. The new 
 government resembled in form that of the East- 
 ern caliphs. The sovereign was called the " Com- 
 mander of the Faithful," and his supremacy was both 
 spiritual and temporal. 
 
 The caliph had the right to select a successor from 
 his own family. The princes of the blood were en- 
 trusted to the care of learned men, to be taught the 
 duties befitting their station. In the academies of 
 Cordova, which were celebrated, they mingled in 
 disputation, and often carried off the prizes for poetry 
 and eloquence. Many of them amused their leisure 
 with writing poetry, and wrote elaborate works, which 
 have maintained to this day their reputation with 
 Arabic scholars. 
 
 The Omeyyades, in general, ruled their kingdom 
 with an authority founded in the affection of their 
 subjects, as is shown by their long reigns, their peace- 
 ful deaths, and the unbroken line of succession in 
 one family for many years. They supported a large 
 military force, often keeping two or three armies in 
 the field at the same time. The flower of these 
 
THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 65 
 
 forces was a body-guard of twelve thousand men, 
 some of them Christians, superbly equipped, and with 
 officers belonging to the royal family. 
 
 These monarchs displayed their munificence in 
 building palaces, mosques, and hospitals. The 
 Arabs have always shown a love for moving water, 
 and a knowledge of the great importance of irriga- 
 tion. They constructed aqueducts which rivalled 
 in their porportions those of the Romans, penetrat- 
 ing the sides of mountains, or crossing the valleys 
 upon lofty arches. Fountains sparkled in their gar- 
 dens, and places now parched and bare, were, in the 
 days of the Spanish Arab, rich and verdant gardens 
 made by the careful irrigation they understood so 
 well. 
 
 It was in the reign of another Abderahman of 
 this family, that the splendid palace of Azhara was 
 built, of which now nothing remains but a few frag- 
 ments of broken pillars. It was a fairy palace. The 
 roof is said to have been supported by more than 
 four thousand pillars of variegated marble. The 
 floors and walls were of the same material ; the chief 
 apartments were adorned with fountains. The whole 
 was surrounded with magnificent gardens, in which 
 a pavilion stood, resting on pillars of white marble 
 ornamented with gold, in the centre of which was a 
 fountain of quicksilver which played all the time, re- 
 flecting the rays of the sun. 
 
 Not a vestige of this splendor remains, but the 
 Mosque of Cordova, although it is denuded of its 
 original decorations, and most of its ornament, is still 
 standing, to give an idea of the scale of magnificence 
 
1 66 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of the Spanish Caliphs. The first impression on 
 entering it is of a maze of pillars. It has often been 
 compared to pine-forest, where vistas of lofty trunks 
 are seen overarched by branches. Of these pillars 
 there were once more than twelve hundred, all differ- 
 ent, for they were brought from different countries, 
 France, Carthage, and even Constantinople. They 
 are of marble of different hues and kinds, green and 
 red jasper, deep black, white, red rose, and emerald 
 porphyry. 
 
 In the day of its glory, the gates of the Mosque 
 were of embossed bronze ; myriads of lamps il- 
 lumined the lofty roof, which glistened with gilding 
 and vivid colors. Its walls were carved like lace- 
 work, and its arches were studded with emeralds and 
 rubies. 
 
 The jewels and gold have long been stolen, the rich 
 coloring of the walls is hidden by whitewash ; in the 
 very middle of the forest of pillars, a modern chapel 
 was built in the tinie of Charles V. But in spite of 
 so much ignorance and neglect, enough of the 
 building remains to testify to the magnificence and 
 religious ardor of the dynasty, which could spend 
 vast wealth in its erection. 
 
 The Spanish Arabs reached the height of their im- 
 portance in the reign of Alhakem the Second, a mon- 
 arch who employed his despotic power for the real 
 happiness and improvement of his subjects. In his 
 refined taste, his desire for knowledge, and his liberal 
 patronage, he may be ranking among the most en- 
 lightened rulers. He assembled the eminent schol- 
 ars of his time, both native and foreigners, at his 
 
MOSQUE AT CORDOVA. 
 
 167 
 
1 68 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 court, and to Cordova. He made his palace the 
 familiar resort of men of letters, and selected suitable 
 persons to write books for him about natural history, 
 or the history of mankind. He was himself a stu- 
 dent, and above all intent upon collecting for himself 
 a fine library. He employed agents all over the 
 world, to collect manuscripts for him. 
 
 Such a spirit in the sovereign gave a literary im- 
 pulse to the whole of Spain. Not only men, but 
 women, of the highest rank devoted themselves to 
 letters, and contended for prizes in eloquence and 
 poetry. Cordova was the centre of all this learning. 
 The reputation of its schools attracted scholars from 
 all Christendom. For this period of Saracen literary 
 brilliancy corresponds with a time of deepest barbar- 
 ism in the rest of Europe, when the only libraries 
 were collections, in monasteries, of three or four hun- 
 dred volumes. The great library" of Cordova is said 
 to have contained six hundred thousand. 
 
 Such an elevation of wealth and intellectual de- 
 velopment did not last very long. The successes of 
 Alhakem were less distinguished, and the empire was 
 broken up by dissension. The magnificent capital 
 dwindled into a second-rate city. 
 
 The son and successor of Alhakem was but eleven 
 years old when he ascended the throne, and Alman- 
 zor was made regent, a man of great genius, valor, 
 and activity. He made constant war upon the 
 Christians, who were all this time increasing in 
 power in the northern parts of Spain. Almanzor's 
 hostility was active against the enemies of the Cres- 
 cent, but the Christians were sometimes ready for 
 
THE CALIPHATE OF CORDOVA. 1 69 
 
 him. On one occasion both armies met near the 
 walls of Leon. 
 
 When the regent beheld the dense ranks of his 
 opponents, he felt some anxiety for the result. Turn- 
 ing to cue of his generals, he asked : 
 
 " How many good soldiers dost thou think we may 
 number in our army ? " 
 
 " Thou shouldst know thyself," replied Mustapha. 
 
 " I do not," said Almanzor ; " dost thou think 
 there are a thousand ? " 
 
 " A thousand ! nothing like the number." 
 
 " Five hundred ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Fifty?" 
 
 " To speak candidly," replied Mustapha, " I would 
 not vouch for more than three." He was, of course, 
 obliged to explain, as the camp was crowded with 
 armed men. It seems that a Christian knight, as was 
 the custom of these times, had just presented himself 
 with a challenge to single combat. Two had ac- 
 cepted, and had been, one after the other, over- 
 thrown. No third opponent appeared, and the 
 Christian knight was much elated, crying out with a 
 loud voice, "Why do ye loiter, cowards!" The 
 Christians applauded, the Moslems foamed with 
 wrath, and an Andalusian horseman left the ranks for 
 the encounter, but he too was laid low. The victor 
 mounted a fresh horse, and returned to challenge the 
 whole host of the misbelievers. 
 
 Almanzor, summoned by the words of Mustapha, 
 witnessed the last challenge, and turning to him, 
 he said, " You are right. I perceive that I had but 
 three men cf valor among my soldiers." 
 
170 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 "Wait a moment, sire," said Mustapha. "Dost 
 thou perceive that beautiful tiger-skin which covers 
 his horse ? It shall soon be thine!" and mounting 
 his steed he advanced toward the Christian. 
 
 The knight keenly eyed his fourth antagonist, and 
 proudly demanded, " Who and what are thou ? " 
 
 " Here is my nobility," replied Mustapha, shaking 
 his lance ; and, plunging at once into combat, the 
 Moslem, after a severe struggle, wounded the Chris- 
 tian, who reeled in his saddle and fell to the ground. 
 Mustapha dismounted, cut of! the knight's head, 
 and returned with it to Almanzor. He presented 
 the tiger-skin to his liege lord, who, how T ever, allowed 
 him to keep it, as a reward for his prowess. 
 
 Internal dissension, treachery, the murder of kings 
 for the sake of succession, destroyed the noble race 
 of Omeyyah, and the Caliphate of the West ended 
 with Hixem III., who retired, before the mob who 
 demanded his deposition, to private life. From this 
 period (a.D. 103 1), Moslem Spain was governed by 
 independent petty kings. The great kingdom of 
 the Omeyyades fell by the turbulence of its own 
 children. 
 
 Cordova, their capital, once the centre of European 
 civilization, the successful rival of Bagdad and Da- 
 mascus, the seat of learning and science, is a small, 
 silent town, a city of the dead. The gardens and 
 orchards are gone, and the valleys are parched and 
 dry, without trees, and bare. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 the so:;g cf roland. 
 
 In the year yjy Charlemagne had convoked at 
 Paderborn in Westphalia, an assembly of the various 
 nations which were subject to his sceptre. Thither 
 came before him as a suppliant, Ibn-el Arabi, the 
 Saracen governor of Saragossa. He came to implore 
 the aid of the great king of the Franks against 
 Abderahman, the Omeyyad usurper, whose genius 
 and daring had made him all but master of Spain. 
 
 Charlemagne eagerly grasped at the occasion. 
 Possibly he might win and keep some Spanish 
 cities, possibly alleviate the condition of the Chris- 
 tians. In any case, there w r ere influence and glory to 
 be gained, so he assembled a mighty army, and in the 
 spring of f/S marched towards the Pyrenees. He 
 crossed them, passing through the valley of Ronces- 
 valles, took Pampeluna, and moved straight upon 
 Saragossa. But there his good fortune ended. The 
 presence of the detested unbeliever had united all 
 factions cf the Moslems. Saragossa made a ccsper- 
 ate defence. The Franks failed to capture it, and a 
 negotiation entered. Charlemagne, according to the 
 chronicles, received large presents of gold with hos- 
 tages, and promises of fidelity. However this may 
 
 171 
 
I? 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 have been, he certainly raised the siege and marched 
 toward France, levelling to the ground the walls of 
 Pampeluna on his way. But when, with the van of 
 his army, he had passed through the defiles, a new 
 enemy,the Basques, or Gascons of the mountains, as- 
 sailed his rear. 
 
 " While the army, compelled thereto by the nature 
 of the ground and the straitness of the defile, 
 marched in a long and narrow line, the Basques, who 
 lay in ambush on the crests, rushed suddenly from 
 their heights on the men who were stationed in the 
 rear-guard to protect those in front. The Basques 
 cast them down into the valley beneath, and, in the 
 battle that ensued, slew them to the last man. Hav- 
 ing pillaged the baggage, they made their escape, 
 and rapidly dispersed under favor of the night, 
 which was now drawing on. The success of the 
 Basques was greatly due to the lightness of their 
 arms and the character of the ground. The Franks, 
 on the other hand, heavily armed, were in every re- 
 spect an unequal match for their enemies. In this 
 battle perished Aeggihard, provost of the royal 
 table ; Anselm, count of the palace ; and Hrustlau- 
 dus, prefect of the march of Brittany. There was 
 no means of taking vengeance for this blow, for the 
 enemy dispersed so rapidly that no information 
 could be had of the place where they were to be 
 found." 
 
 This is the account of the battle of Roncesvalles, 
 given by Eginhard, the secretary of Charlemagne. 
 The event was the subject of many ballads, sung or 
 recited perhaps soon after it happened, and one of 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. 173 
 
 them has become very famous — the song of Ro- 
 land. It belongs almost as much to Spanish story as 
 to France, since the scene of it is on or near Spanish 
 soil. There are many points of divergence between 
 the history and the legend ; for instance, in the lat- 
 ter, Charlemagne is in the extreme of old age, with 
 his white beard flowing down over mail and belt. 
 At the epoch fixed by his historians for the disaster, 
 he was thirty-six years old. 
 
 The song relates how our king, the Emperor 
 Charlemagne, hath been for seven full years in 
 Spain. City, keep, and castle alike went down be- 
 fore him, except Saragossa, held by King Marsillius, 
 who seeks not the grace of God, but serves Moham- 
 med, who, however, saved him not from his fate. 
 
 King Massillius made his council-seat in Saragossa 
 upon a throne of azure marble. There stood his 
 courtiers around him, and before him twenty thou- 
 sand men and more, and he sought counsel from his 
 dukes and counts. One of them, a wise heathen, 
 advised him to humble himself before Charlemagne 
 with tribute of seven hundred camels and a thou- 
 sand hawks, four hundred mules laden with fifty 
 wagon loads of silver and gold, and the offer of hos- 
 tages. All assented to this, and ten messengers on 
 ten fair mules of snowy white, with olive boughs in 
 their hands, rode to seek the emperor where he sate 
 besieging a city in the Pyrenees. They found him 
 in a jocund mood, for the city had just fallen. He 
 was in an orchard, surrounded by his brave cavaliers, 
 full fifteen thousand, sitting upon white carpets play- 
 ing games of chess or lightly fencing. Charlemagne 
 
174 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 himself sat under a pine close beside an eglantine, 
 upon a throne of beaten gold. 
 
 The ten messengers alighted before him with all 
 observance and gave their errand, promising the 
 hawks and mules and camels, and also that later on 
 the king would come and be baptized as a Christian. 
 
 The Saracens were treated with great hospitality, 
 and the next morning, the emperor held a council 
 of his knights, under a pine-tree. There among the 
 rest were Roland and his faithful Olivier, and there 
 was Ganelon, by whom was the deed of treason done. 
 When the emperor had explained the message of 
 the Saracen king, Roland rose, and said : " Trust him 
 not. He hath ever been a traitor. Lead us on to 
 battle and to Saragossa." But Ganelon advised the 
 opposite cause, and all the knights agreed with him 
 that peace was better. It was questioned now who 
 should be sent to King Marsillius with the reply of 
 the emperor, a dangerous mission, but a glorious one. 
 Roland proposed Ganelon, who, as it happened, was 
 his step-father. Every one thought this a good ap- 
 pointment, but Ganelon burst into rage against 
 Roland, accusing him of wishing to send him on a 
 fatal errand. " Let me go then ! " cried Roland. 
 But Charlemagne said no, that Ganelon was the one. 
 Ganelon was thus forced to go, but he went unwil- 
 lingly home to his hostel, and donned his choicest 
 of arms and harness, mounted his charger Tasche- 
 brun, with his good sword Murgleis at his side. 
 His followers stood about him in tears as for one 
 who was going to his death, and they all charged it 
 upon Roland, who had proposed it with a hope for 
 his destruction. 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. 
 
 / 5 
 
 Ganelon passed on his journey, and left their sight, 
 and joining the Saracen envoys, they rode along to- 
 gether, till they drew bridle in Saragossa and 
 alighted beneath a yew-tree. 
 
 FUENTARABIA. 
 
 They found the monarch of Spain under a pine- 
 tree, upon a throne covered with Alexandrian silk, 
 surrounded by twenty thousand Saracens, from whom 
 came no breath nor sound, so did they strain to hear 
 
 the tidings of the messengers. 
 
176 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 When Ganelon came to the king, he handed him 
 a scroll containing the will of his royal master. If 
 Marsillius should become a Christian, peace should 
 be declared. He should keep half his kingdom of 
 Spain, the other half to be given to Count Roland, 
 the nephew of the king. If he should refuse these con- 
 ditions, the scroll ran : " You shall be bound in 
 strong fetters, and led to Aix, and there your head 
 shall be struck off." At first the Saracens were in 
 a great rage, but the king concluded to parley with 
 Ganelon, and between them a treacherous thing was 
 planned, out of the fears of the heathen, and the 
 hatred Ganelon had for his kinsman Roland. In this 
 discourse the heathen said : 
 
 " I marvel that Charlemagne tires not yet of war, 
 at his age, which is, I believe, two hundred years, 
 and after overrunning so many lands." 
 
 " Not while his nephew Roland lives, will he tire," 
 replied Ganelon, " and Olivier besides, and the 
 twelve peers he loves so much, with twenty thousand 
 Franks beside." 
 
 Ganelon then urged King Marsillius to send to 
 the emperor gifts and hostages, and let him go back 
 into France. " But the rear," he continued, " will 
 tarry behind, with Roland and Olivier, and you may 
 there bring upon them your army of a hundred 
 thousand heathens. Roland will be slain, and after 
 that, the marvellous hosts of the emperor will melt 
 away and your land will repose in peace." 
 
 King Marsillius kissed him in the neck, and Gane- 
 lon swore to Roland's fall on the relics in the hilt of 
 his sword Murgleis, while Marsillius swore upon the 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. IJJ 
 
 book containing the laws of Mahmoud and Terma- 
 gaunt to keep the compact. Ganelon received gifts 
 from the chief heathen, and Braminonde, King Mar- 
 sillius' queen, sent clasps of gold and jacinth and 
 amethyst to his spouse, which he hid within his 
 boot. So Ganelon returned to Charlemagne. These 
 were his words : " May God you save ! I bring the 
 keys of Saragossa, vast treasure, and twenty hos- 
 tages. For the Saracen king, before a month, he 
 will follow you into France, and bend the knee to 
 our Christian law, and swear homage to you for his 
 Spanish realm." 
 
 " Now praise to God," said the emperor, " and 
 thanks to you, my Ganelon." 
 
 A thousand clarions then resounded, the sumpter 
 mules were girt, and the Franks made ready to re- 
 turn to France. 
 
 Charlemagne had wasted Spain, sacked her cities, 
 seized her castles, and now his great army are en- 
 camped, and sleeping on their way home across the 
 Pyrenees. Alas ! meanwhile the heathen here were 
 riding on the track of the Christians, all armed in 
 steel, their lances poised, their helmets laced, their 
 falchions glittering, they rode among the steeps, till 
 in a dark forest they rested till the morning light, 
 four hundred thousand couching there. 
 
 When the day dawned, the emperor scanned his 
 host, and asked, " To whom shall I trust the rear ? " 
 and Ganelon replied : " You have no knight like my 
 step-son Roland, let him keep the rear." The em- 
 peror heard him with moody brow, but Roland 
 begged for the post, and the emperor sadly yielded. 
 
178 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Roland asked his uncle to yield him his own bow ; 
 the emperor reached it forth and Roland received it. 
 He donned his peerless armor, laced his helmet, and 
 girt on Durindana, his famous sword, and mounting 
 Veillantif, his favorite steed, he grasped his lance, with 
 its white pennon with edges of gold and fringe that 
 fell down to the handle. Twenty thousand Franks 
 followed him, among them the faithful Olivier. 
 
 Through Roncesvalles the march began, fearing 
 nothing, for Roland was there to guard the rear. 
 The Franks wound through the mountains dark and 
 steep, and thought gladly of their homes and their 
 wives, as they looked down on the fields of Gascony. 
 But Charlemagne wept for Roland left behind. 
 
 Before three suns were set King Marsillius had 
 mustered four hundred thousand Saracens, under his 
 nephew and eleven barons, among them the Mis- 
 creant Monarch of Barbary, Turgis, Count of Tortosa, 
 a Mauritanian Almanzor and the rest. One of them 
 said : " Fear nothing, Peter of Rome is no match for 
 Mohammed." They all donned their hauberks of 
 Saracen mould, their helmets made in Saragossa, 
 their swords of steel, their bright lances with pen- 
 nons of of azure, red, and white. They leaped upon 
 their chargers, and their resplendent arms reflected 
 the bright sunshine. A thousand clarions sounded, 
 so loud that the Franks could hear it. 
 
 " Sir comrade," " said Olivier, I trow there is a 
 battle at hand." " God grant it may be so," replied 
 brave Roland. 
 
 Sir Olivier climbed a peak from which he could 
 look far upon the Spanish realm. When he came 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 79 
 
 * 
 
 down, he said : " I have seen the Paynim ; never such 
 host on earth appeared. My lords of France, be 
 God your stay, that you may not fall before them." 
 Then all the Franks said: "Accursed be they who 
 fly; not one of us shall blench." "'My comrade," 
 said Olivier then to Roland, "sound upon your ivory 
 horn, and Charlemagne will return with all the host." 
 " I were mad," said Roland, " to do the deed. My 
 Durindana shall smite the heathen. It shall never 
 be spoken of me in scorn that I blew one blast for 
 heathen felons. 
 
 Then daring Roland and wise Olivier awaited the 
 foe. Archbishop Turpin blessed the host, and assailed 
 the Franks as tjiey knelt on the ground, and then 
 turned to face the heathen, with Roland at their 
 head, upon his true charger Veillantif, joyous of 
 visage and exceeding beautiful of frame. From all 
 the Franks resounded their cry " Montjoie ! " and 
 with rowels dashed in their coursers' side they proudly 
 rode to meet the foe. Their Paynim foes too were 
 fearless, and thus they closed. 
 
 It was a fearful struggle. Each Paynim knight 
 attacked one of the Christian leaders, and all fought 
 with fiercest bravery. Roland used his lance in fif- 
 teen encounters, and when it broke, he grasped in 
 hand his Durindana, making fell havoc of the foe till 
 the field flowed with the bright blood shed. Olivier 
 too wielded his blade with fearful effect, and around 
 them the cry "Montjoie ! " arose. 
 
 Now a wondrous storm passed over France with 
 thunder and whirlwind. There was an earthquake, 
 and at high noon it was dark, save for the lightning 
 
ISO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 flashes in the cloven sky. A mighty fear came on 
 all, and they said, " The end of the world is near." 
 They spake idly, for it was the great lament for 
 Roland's death. 
 
 The Franks fought with such prowess that of a 
 hundred thousand Saracens but one escaped. King 
 Margaris fled alone from the field, but in no dis- 
 grace, for he was wounded in four places, to tell 
 King Marsillius what had chanced that day. He 
 fell at the feet of the king, and said : " Ride, sire, 
 ride ; you will find the Franks in an evil plight, it 
 were easy now to crush them." And with a mighty 
 battalion the king sped through the valley. When 
 the Franks saw them, they cried, " This is the treach- 
 ery of Ganelon ! " Proudly they mounted, and 
 spurred, like chafing lions, to meet the foe anew. 
 Among them came the Saracen Valdabrun, who 
 owned galleys upon the sea, and was lord of all the 
 mariners. He had erst falsely won Jerusalem and 
 profaned the temple of Solomon. He struck and 
 slew Duke Samson, one of Roland's trustiest knights ; 
 and when Roland heard this, he raised aloft Durin- 
 dana, and smote with uncontrolled passion on the 
 heathen's helmet with its jewelled crown, down 
 through head, and cuirass, and body, and down 
 through the saddle embossed with gold, until the 
 steel was buried in the charger's flank. " A fearful 
 stroke ! " said the heathen crew. 
 
 Archbishop Turpin fought gallantly among the 
 rest ; never has priest sung mass, who has done such 
 feats of his body. 
 
 So great was the carnage that at length the 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. l8l 
 
 heathen turned to fly. The Saracens cried : " May ill 
 betide the hour we came on this fatal track ! " But 
 King Marsillius urged them to continue the battle 
 until Roland should be slain. The Saracens lay dead 
 by the hundred, yet the fight kept on till all the cava- 
 liers of the Franks were slain but sixty. God pre- 
 served these that ere they should die they might 
 sell their lives at the highest cost. 
 
 Then at last Roland consented to sound his ivory 
 horn. He sounded such a mighty strain that the 
 bright blood rushed forth from his mouth and his 
 temples burst. On and onward the blast was borne 
 until far away it was heard by Charlemagne. " It is 
 Roland's horn," said the emperor, "our men have 
 battle on hand." " Battle," said Ganelon, " there is 
 none. Ride onward, Sire, your mighty land is yet far 
 away." A second and a third time Roland sounds 
 his horn in anguish drear, and at last the king com- 
 mands to sound the alarm. The barons leap on their 
 steeds and speed back through the passes. Ah ! 
 what availeth ! it is all too late. 
 
 .In wrath the emperor had Ganelon bound and 
 consigned to Besqua, chief of his kitchen train. Then 
 full a hundred of kitchen valets, the worst and best, 
 pressed round him. Each dealt him four cuffs of the 
 fist, and beat him with rods and staves, then flung a 
 chain about him and led him like a bear. 
 
 The emperor and his train rode back to Roland, 
 dark, vast, and high soared the summits, the waters 
 poured down the valleys. The trumpets made answer 
 to Roland's horn; the Franks were full of grief, 
 beseeching God to let them stand beside Roland 
 
1 82 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 upon the field. Ah, timeless succor, and all in vain. 
 Too late! 
 
 Roland looked upon the lines of his slain warriors 
 and wept, and then pressed again into the fight. The 
 Franks struck like wrathful lions, but Marsillius bore 
 himself braveiy, till his good right hand was severed 
 by Durindana ; then he turned and fled with a hun- 
 dred thousand of the heathen train. 
 
 But though Marsillius fled, his uncle, the Algalif, 
 was still there, lord of Ethiopia, accursed land. The 
 black battalions he commanded, with large nostrils, 
 and ears flattened, outnumbered fifty thousand spears. 
 When Roland saw this abhorred race, more black 
 than blackest ink, he said, " Now is the hour of our 
 death close at hand ; fight, my Franks, to the last." 
 
 The Algalif sate on a sorrel horse ; he smote Olivier 
 in the back, and pressed his lance through the har- 
 ness so the steel came out at the baron's breast. 
 Olivier felt the deadly wound, yet he grasped his 
 sword Hauteclere, and smote on the Algalif's crest 
 of gold, cleaving his head to the teeth. 
 
 Olivier knew himself hurt to death, yet he shouted 
 " Montjoie ! " shrill and clear, and then called to 
 Roland to draw near to him. 
 
 Roland looked Olivier in the face. He was ghastly 
 pale and the bright blood flowed forth from the 
 wound. " Oh God ! " said Roland, " is this the end 
 of all thy prowess ? " At the words he fainted upon 
 his steed. There were Roland swooning upon his 
 charger, and Olivier smitten with his death wound. 
 
 Olivier's eyes were dimmed with bleeding, and 
 seeing nothing he smote a fierce blow upon his com- 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 83 
 
 rade's helmet which passed no further, not piercing 
 his head. Roland marvelled at the blow, and said 
 softly : " It is I, Roland, who loves thee so dear ; thou 
 hast no quarrel to seek with me?" Olivier answered: 
 " I hear thee speak, but see thee not. God seeth thee. 
 Have I struck thee, my brother ? Oh, forgive it me ! " 
 
 " I am not hurt Olivier, and in the sight of God, I 
 forgive thee." And in love like this was their part- 
 ing made. 
 
 Olivier lay upon the ground and cried aloud his 
 Mea culpa, prayed God to grant that he might share 
 Paradise, prayed God to bless King Charlemagne and 
 France, and over all others, Roland. Then his heart 
 sank, his head bowed, and stretched at his length upon 
 the earth, Sir Olivier passed away. 
 
 Roland was left alone to weep. " Ah friend," he 
 said, "since thou art dead, to live is pain." He 
 swooned again upon his horse Veillantif, but his 
 golden stirrups held him fast in the saddle. 
 
 When his senses were restored he saw what ruin 
 lay around him. All his Franks had perished save 
 two, the archbishop, and Walter of Hum, the latter 
 wounded and dying fast. Yet the three surviving 
 Franks fought hotly. Roland left not one of a score 
 alive, Walter slew six, five were slain by the arch- 
 bishop. The heathen pour down upon them. A 
 thousand Saracens are struck from their steeds, yet 
 forty thousand remain in the saddle. 
 
 Walter was slain and the steed of the archbishop 
 dropped dead. Turpin fell to the ground with four 
 lance wounds in him, but he sprang up, and con- 
 tinued to deal about him deadly blows. 
 
184 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Roland fought on, his body burning and bathed in 
 sweat, a mighty pain in his brow, since his temple 
 had burst when he sounded his horn ; yet he lifted 
 his horn once more, and blew a faint and feeble 
 note. 
 
 The emperor listened and stood still. "That," he 
 said, " is the blast of a dying man. Sound every 
 trump our ranks possess." 
 
 Sixty thousand clarions pealed forth, the hills 
 echoed, the vales replied. The heathen cried, 
 " Charlemagne is at hand ! " and they gathered them- 
 selves once more to slay Roland. 
 
 When Roland saw them, he spurred Veillantif 
 towards them, with Archbishop Turpin at his side. 
 " Let us flee ! " said the heathen, " those are the 
 trumpets of France we hear." They withdrew to a 
 distance, and held aloof, but thence hurled their 
 missiles, javelin, barb, and arrow. Roland's buckler 
 was torn, his cuirass broken, Veillantif bled from 
 thirty wounds, and fell dead at last. Then the 
 heathen vanished from the field, and left Roland, on 
 foot, alone. 
 
 He turned to succor Turpin, who lay stretched on 
 the sward. " Mea culpa" he called out, raised his 
 hands to heaven, and died. Roland took the fair 
 white hands, crossed and clasped them upon his 
 breast, and was now alone upon the field. 
 
 Roland felt that his death was near, and stretched 
 himself upon the green grass. A Saracen who saw 
 him sought to take away his Durindana, but the 
 hero roused himself and smote him on the crest, 
 shattering bone and skull with his horn. Then, that 
 
THE SONG OF ROLAND. 1 85 
 
 no other should ever wield his famous sword, he 
 strove to break it by smiting ten grievous blows 
 upon a dark brown rock. The breach in the stone 
 he made is still there, but the steel was not broken, 
 nor the grain notched. 
 
 Then Roland felt his hour was at hand. He beat 
 upon his breast and confessed his sins, and raised 
 his glove to heaven in sign of penance. His resting- 
 place was beneath a pine ; he had turned his face to 
 the land of Spain. Many a thought rose upon his 
 memory of the lands he had won, the fields he had 
 fought, of his gentle France, his kin and friends, and 
 his beloved and loving king. He raised his right- 
 hand glove, and St. Gabriel took the gift from his 
 hand. Then drooped his head upon his breast, and 
 he slept with clasped hands the sleep of death. God 
 from on high sent down to him one of his angels, 
 Saint Michael, and with him came Gabriel, and they 
 bore his soul with them back to Paradise. 
 
 There is another part to tell of the reprisals, but 
 we will leave Roland here. Charlemagne's grief is 
 dwelt upon, and the chastisement he gave to the 
 Saracens, and his return to France, where the be- 
 trothed of Roland came to him to demand her love. 
 When she learned that he was dead she too fell at 
 the feet of Charlemagne and died. A terrible punish- 
 ment was dealt to Ganelon ; he was bound to four 
 wild horses and torn asunder. 
 
 The Queen of the Saracens, a captive in the train 
 of the emperor was baptized as a Christian. When 
 the emperor had done all he could for justice, his 
 
i86 
 
 THE STORY OF SPA IX 
 
 wrath subsided. Then Saint Gabriel came to him 
 to say that he was called by God to bring relief to a 
 Christian king besieged by heathen. 
 
 Fain would Charles such task decline. 
 " God ! what a life of toil is mine ! " 
 He wept ; his hoary beard he wrung. 
 
 So ends the lay. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ALMORAVIDES. — ALMOHADES. 
 
 AFTER the fall of the Caliphate of Cordova, the 
 local governors of cities took upon themselves an in- 
 dependent power, and often assumed the title of 
 kings, boasting each of a brief authority, and declar- 
 ing war upon each other upon slight pretence. These 
 numerous small kings agreed on one subject only, 
 that of renouncing all allegiance to the former seat 
 of empire. 
 
 This broken state of things among the Moslems 
 gave a fair opportunity to the Christians to regain 
 something of their ancient power in Spain. The 
 descendants of the Goths, of whom we shall hear 
 more by and by, asserted themselves especially in 
 the northern provinces. Among them the king of 
 Leon, Alfonso VI., was now able to besiege Toledo, 
 which after three years of resistance was compelled 
 to capitulate, and Alfonso triumphantly entered the 
 ancient capital of the Goths, which had remained in 
 the power of the Saracens for nearly four centuries. 
 
 Alfonso continued his successes by the capture 
 of many other strongholds of the Mohammedans, 
 so that their chiefs, alarmed, assembled together to 
 confer upon the situation. 
 
 187 
 
1 88 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 In this council an appeal was proposed to the 
 celebrated African conqueror, Yussef ben Taxfin, 
 and the proposal was received with general applause, 
 except by the Governor of Malaga, who exclaimed: 
 
 " What ! Call in the aid of the terrible Almora- 
 vides ! Do not you know that these fierce inhabi- 
 tants of the desert are more like their native tigers 
 than men ? Suffer them not, I beseech you, to enter 
 the fertile plains of Andalusia and Granada ! They 
 might break for us the sceptre of iron which Alfonso 
 holds over us, but we should wear under them the 
 chains of a worse slavery ! " 
 
 This was the aged Zagat who said this, but he was 
 overruled. " Any thing," they said, " rather than 
 that Andalusia should become the prey of the Chris- 
 tians. We would rather become humble shepherds, 
 or drive the camels of the Yussef, than reign depen- 
 dent on these dogs of Christians." 
 
 " May Allah then protect us ! " said the aged 
 Zagat, thus silenced. 
 
 Beyond the chains of Mount Atlas, in the deserts 
 of Northern Africa, from time immemorial, had 
 dwelt two tribes of Arabian descent. Their lives 
 were passed in perfect freedom under their tents ; 
 their only possessions were their herds and camels. 
 
 An Arab of one of these tribes, whose name was 
 Yahia ben Ibrahim, on his return from the pilgrim- 
 age to Mecca, met a famous alfaqui, originally of 
 Fez. Being questioned by the alfaqui as to the re- 
 ligion and manners of his countrymen, Yahia replied 
 that they were sunk in ignorance and lost to all 
 knowledge of the world, but that they were strangers 
 
A LMORA VIDES. —A LMOHA DES. 1 89 
 
 also to cruelty, and were amenable to instruction. 
 This alfaqui and his friends became enough interested 
 in this remote tribe to wish to disturb their ignorant 
 bliss, and one of their disciples, one Abdallah ben 
 Yassim, fired with missionary zeal, was induced to 
 go back with Yahia. 
 
 Abdallah was one of those ruling- minds, which, 
 fortunately for the peace of society, nature seldom 
 produces. His superior knowledge so won the devo- 
 tion of the tribe to which Yahia brought him, that 
 he soon conceived the idea of making himself king 
 over them, and to enlarge his kingdom he prevailed 
 upon his dutiful disciples to make war upon the 
 neighboring tribe, which also until now had dwelt in 
 happy ignorance. His plea was that of diffusing the 
 true religion and useful knowledge. The tribe, thus 
 attacked in the cause of progress, submitted. Ab- 
 dallah gave to his new subjects the name of Murabi- 
 tins, or Almoravides, which means " Religious Peo- 
 ple," or men consecrated to the service of God. 
 
 The whole surrounding country was gradually 
 subdued by this new apostle, and his authority was 
 acknowledged over a region large enough to make a 
 respectable kingdom, but he left the temporal power 
 nominally in the hands of the emir he found exercis- 
 ing it, and allowed it to go to his successor, whose 
 power and fame spread far and wide, thanks to the 
 counsels and teachings of the progressive Abdallah. 
 
 This emir, Abu Bekir, exceeded the instructions of 
 his spiritual guide so far as to extend his dominion 
 by conquest and plunder. He spread his territory 
 beyond the chain of mountains, even to the shores 
 
190 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of the sea, and even laid the foundations for a great 
 city, his capital, which was Morocco. Whilst in the 
 middle of his work upon the city he had to go back 
 over the mountains to suppress a quarrel between 
 his different tribes ; he left the superintendence of 
 his buildings and the command of his army during 
 his absence to his cousin, Yussef ben Taxfin. This 
 cousin, it appears, was the greater man, whose glory, 
 by gradual steps was prepared by the camel driver, 
 the alfaqui, the apostle, and the chief. 
 
 Yussef, we are told, was noble of stature, and tall, 
 his countenance prepossessing, his eyes dark and 
 piercing, his beard long, his tone of voice harmoni- 
 ous, his frame strong, robust, and familiar with 
 fatigue. His mind corresponded with his outward 
 appearance, for his generosity, his care of the poor, 
 his sobriety, his justice, his religious zeal, rendered 
 him the admiration of strangers and the love of his 
 own people. 
 
 In this catalogue of his virtues, gratitude, honor, 
 and good faith must be omitted, for scarcely had his 
 kinsman left the city than Yussef set himself to win- 
 ning away from him the affections of his subjects. 
 He began by marrying the beautiful Zainab, sister 
 of Abu Bekir ; then, being all in the family, he went 
 on with the magnificent city of Morocco, and there 
 established the seat of his empire. He encouraged 
 people of other nations to settle there, and soon filled 
 it with a prosperous population, out of which he 
 built up an army which reached the number of one 
 hundred thousand men. 
 
 All this time poor old Abu Bekir was away on the 
 
ALMORA VIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 9 1 
 
 other side of the mountains reconciling his hostile 
 tribes. No telegram reported the state of things at 
 home. No chance newspaper came under his eye, 
 nor did the modern interviewer call to inquire his 
 impressions on losing an empire. He went on quietly 
 soothing his tribes, until he had brought them to his 
 mind, and then he returned from the desert and en- 
 camped in his old city of Agmat, where he used to 
 live before Morocco was thought of. Here he learned 
 for the first time what had been going on in his ab- 
 sence ; to his mortification, his own horsemen, who 
 went on to Morocco to find out all about it, came 
 back loud in the praises of Yussef, whose liberality to 
 his army every one was talking about. 
 
 Abu Bekir, at a loss to know what would happen 
 next, invited an interview with his cousin. The two 
 chiefs met about half way between Morocco and 
 Agmat, and after a formal salutation, took their 
 seats on the same carpet. It was an awkward scene 
 for Abu Bekir, but his visitor seemed not to find it 
 so. The grandeur which surrounded Yussef, his 
 formidable guard, and the alacrity with which he was 
 obeyed, prevented the poor emir from even making 
 the remark that he thought it was about time he 
 should take the kingdom back into his own hand. 
 Yussef, on his side, made no such suggestion, but 
 smoked his pipe and sipped his coffee just as if he 
 had nothing upon his mind. So Abu Bekir meekly 
 said that he had long given up the thoughts of em- 
 pire, and that his only wish was to pass the remainder 
 of his days in the desert, which Yussef cordially 
 approved, accepting without hesitation the continued 
 
1 92 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 care of the kingdom. The sheiks and walis were 
 instantly summoned to witness the abdication of the 
 emir. Yussef sent him a magnificent present the 
 next day, and indeed kept up this custom every 
 year till he died ; and Abu Bekir returned to his 
 desert sooner than he had expected. 
 
 Yussef now assumed the title of Nazaravin, or de- 
 fender of the faith, and chief of the already large 
 band of the Almoravides. His power was solid, he 
 was in peaceful possession of a- large empire, when 
 letters from the Spanish Moslems reached him ask- 
 ing his aid against the Christians. Yussef consented, 
 and, arming a vast body of soldiers, set forth for 
 Spain. 
 
 Alfonso was besieging Saragossa when intelli- 
 gence reached him of Yussef's disembarkation. He 
 advanced towards Andalusia with all the forces he 
 could muster. 
 
 Yussef summoned the Christian king by letter 
 either to embrace the faith of the prophet, to con- 
 sent to pay him annual tribute, or to prepare for im- 
 mediate battle. 
 
 The indignant Alfonso trampled the letter under 
 foot, and at the same time said to the messenger who 
 brought it : 
 
 " Tell thy master what thou hast seen ! Tell him 
 also not to hide himself during the action ; let him 
 meet me face to face." 
 
 The two armies engaged on the thirteenth day of 
 the moon Regeb, A. H. 479. This is the same as our 
 October 23, 1086. The Christians fought with des- 
 perate valor, but Alfonso was compelled to retreat. 
 
ALMORA VIDES.—ALMOHABES. 1 93 
 
 This victory, however, had no especial result, other 
 than to give Yussef a foothold on the Peninsula. His 
 victories over the Christians did not gain much for 
 the Mohammedan princes of Spain, but, in fulfilment 
 of the fears of the wisest among them, Yussef, one 
 by one, subdued all the princes of Andalusia. Among 
 them was Mohammed, from whom came the original 
 proposal to invite the African chieftain into Spain. 
 Mohammed and his family were thrown into prison 
 until a ship was prepared to carry them in exile into 
 Africa. Surrounded by the best beloved of his 
 wives, his daughters, and his four surviving sons, his 
 hands loaded with chains, he wept as the ship that 
 bore them moved away from the shores of Spain. 
 " It is the will of Allah," said this true Moslem ; 
 " my children, let us learn to support our lot with 
 resignation." 
 
 The royal party were confined in a fortress at 
 Agmat. We are told that a compassionate poet 
 presented the fallen king with a copy of verses de- 
 ploring his misfortunes, and that he rewarded the 
 author with thirty-six pieces of gold, which was the 
 only money he had left. 
 
 His future life was passed in penury — his daugh- 
 ters earned his living and their own by the labor of 
 their hands. 
 
 Thus ended the petty kingdoms of Andalusia, after 
 a stormy existence of less than a century, and now 
 began the dynasty of the ALMORAVIDES or RELI- 
 GIOUS People. 
 
 Yussef was more interested in his great capital, 
 Morocco, than in his new possessions in the Penin- 
 
194 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 sula, but he came to Cordova, which he wished to 
 honor as their chief city, as the Omeyyas had done, 
 and there he convoked the sheiks and walis, and 
 caused his son Ali to be proclaimed heir to hrs-vast 
 empire. The instructions which he gave the young 
 prince were full of wisdom : to preserve his frontier 
 fortresses well guarded ; to employ the Andalusians 
 chiefly against the Christians, because they under- 
 stood, better than the Africans, the enemy's method 
 of warfare ; to pay his troops punctually, to honor all 
 Moslems, and to exercise clemency, were among the 
 admonitions which the prince received from his 
 father. 
 
 Yussef soon afterwards returned to Morocco, 
 where he died on the third day of the moon Muhar- 
 ram, A. H. 500, having lived one hundred Arabian 
 or lunar years, or about ninety-seven of the Christian 
 or solar calendar. 
 
 The empire of, the Almoravides had but a brief 
 duration in Spain. It was never agreeable to the 
 Spanish Arabs, whose manners, from their contact 
 with the Christians were refined and superior to 
 those of the Africans, while the savages from the 
 desert looked with contempt upon the effeminate 
 citizens of the Peninsula. The excesses of Ali's 
 barbarian guard, which consisted in laying waste 
 the gardens, forcibly entering the houses, and seizing 
 the property of the people of Cordova, were unre- 
 strained .by the local authorities, and an open revolt 
 was the consequence. Ali was obliged to listen to 
 their demands, and to restrain the insubordination 
 of his guards, but ill feeling continued to prevail. 
 
ALMORAVIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 95 
 
 The Christians were always in arms, and increasing 
 in power, for Saragossa had by this time fallen into 
 their hands, and the north of Spain was already free 
 from Moslem domination. 
 
 The cause, however, which was destined to over- 
 throw the dynasty of the Almoravides, at the same 
 time that it changed the whole face of Western 
 Africa and Southern Spain, originated, like the pow- 
 er of Yussef ben Taxfin, in the deserts bordering on 
 Mount Atlas. 
 
 Mohammed ben Abdallah (another Mohammed !) 
 was the son of a lamp-lighter in the Mosque of Cor- 
 dova. He had great curiosity, and an insatiable 
 thirst for knowledge. After studying for some years 
 in the schools of his native city, he persuaded the 
 lamp-lighter to let him journey to Bagdad, where he 
 continued his studies under the celebrated doctors 
 of that capital of the Moslem world. 
 
 Of these doctors, none was more famous than Abu 
 Hamid Algazali, and none more free in the expres- 
 sion of his sentiments, which were bold and radical, 
 and, in the opinion of conservatives, dangerous to the 
 faith of Islam. He had written a book on the resur- 
 rection of science and natural law, which the Cadi 
 of Cordova had been the first to condemn. Ali 
 himself approved the condemnation, all the copies 
 of the book which could be found were seized and 
 burnt in the public square. 
 
 When Mohammed ben Abdallah had reached Bag- 
 dad, and taken his seat in the school of Algazali, the 
 first question asked him, very naturally, was not 
 exactly, 
 
lg6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 " What on earth tempted you to come here ? " but 
 " Had you heard of my writings in your native 
 city? " And when he said he had done so, still 
 more naturally he was asked how they were received 
 there, and he was obliged to confess that they had 
 been all burned in the public square by the orders 
 of the cadi, and the approval of the king. 
 
 Algazali turned pale, not perceiving that this was 
 as good a form of advertising as he could have 
 desired for his work. He demanded the vengeance 
 of Heaven upon his impious judges, and on the 
 monarch who had sanctioned the deed. 
 
 " Pray Allah, also," said Mohammed, the son of 
 the lamp-lighter, " that I may be the instrument of 
 thy vengeance." Algazali added this prayer to the 
 other. 
 
 Mohammed acquired, with ardor and diligence, all 
 the views of his master Algazali, and after he had 
 fully learned them wandered from place to place 
 zealously preaching these doctrines. He fell in with 
 a youth named Abdelmumen, who decided to share 
 his fortunes, and together they arrived in Morocco. 
 
 One day they entered the grand mosque, and 
 Mohammed immediately possessed himself of the 
 most prominent place. He was informed that those 
 seats were reserved for the Prince of the Faithful. 
 "The temples of Allah belong to Allah, and to Allah 
 alone ! " was the reply of the bold intruder, who then, 
 to the surprise of the audience, repeated the whole 
 chapter of the Koran, of which this is the opening 
 sentence. 
 
 A few minutes after, Ali himself entered, and all 
 
ALMORAVIDES.—ALMOHADES. 1 97 
 
 as usual rose to salute him, but Mohammed did not 
 deign even to cast a glance on this dreaded chief of 
 a great empire. When the service was over he ap- 
 proached the sovereign and said in a loud voice : 
 
 " Provide a remedy for the afflictions of thy peo- 
 ple ! One day Allah will require of thee an ac- 
 count ! " 
 
 The prince, who regarded him as a santon or re- 
 ligiously inspired person, a class much indulged in 
 Moslem states, and privileged to utter disagreeable 
 truths, instead of ordering his head off at once, 
 merely asked what he could do for him. 
 
 " Nothing which this world can give," he gravely 
 replied ; " my mission is to preach reformation and 
 to correct abuses." 
 
 Ali was struck by these words, and allowed him to 
 follow his vocation, not expecting any serious re- 
 results," and trusting in the good sense of the peo- 
 ple. But his fanatic discourses so much excited the 
 populace, that he was ordered to leave Morocco, and, 
 building a hut for himself among the graves just out- 
 side the city, he preached vehemently to crowds who 
 came out to listen to him, denouncing the impiety of 
 the Almoravides, and the coming of the great Mahdi, 
 who shall teach all men the right way and cause vir- 
 tue and happiness to reign over the whole earth. At 
 first he carefully refrained from acknowledging 
 himself to be this mighty prophet, but afterwards 
 accepted it, assumed the high title of MAHDI, and 
 proclaimed himself the founder of a new people. 
 Followers flocked to his standard, and Ali was 
 forced to march against the prophet, who en- 
 
198 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 trenched himself with a powerful army among the 
 strongholds of the Atlas mountains. The followers 
 of Mohammed called themselves Almohades — that 
 is to say, followers of one God. They were, in fact 
 Unitarians ; for their principal pretence was to extir- 
 pate alike idolaters who recognized several gods and 
 those Christians who worship Three Persons in one 
 God. 
 
 Mohammed entrenched himself in a stronghold 
 among the mountains, where his people maintained 
 themselves by plundering the neighborhood. The 
 suffering people complained to Ali, who intercepted 
 as well as he could by troops, the inroads of these 
 holy banditti, but he had to sustain a siege in Mo- 
 rocco, which was soon invested with vigor by the 
 Almohades. 
 
 The affairs of the Almoravides were meantime 
 growing daily worse in Spain, where the Christians 
 openly defied their force, so that, overcome by grief 
 and anxiety, Ali died at Morocco, leaving his son, 
 Taxfin ben Ali, to fight it out with all his enemies. 
 
 Meanwhile the great Mahdi died, too, in the 
 midst of his successes, before the walls of Morocco. 
 He conferred all his powers upon his faithful Abdel- 
 mumen, and, as a last gift, presented him with the 
 book containing the tenets of his faith, a volume 
 which he had received from Algazali. 
 
 Abdelmumen, who now combined the offices of 
 general of the troops and Grand Mahdi, made a 
 vigorous attack upon the new emperor. Taxfin 
 saw that his only hope of safety lay in escaping 
 to Spain. One night he resolved to make a des- 
 
ALMORA VIBES.— ALMOHADES. 1 99 
 
 perate effort to gain the port where his vessels 
 were riding at anchor. Unfortunately he missed 
 his way. The mule, on which he was riding, ter- 
 rified by the sound of the waves, plunged head- 
 long over a precipice, where, the next morning, the 
 mangled corpse of the emperor was found upon the 
 beach. 
 
 Morocco still remained in the power of the Almo- 
 ravides, though the siege was prosecuted with vigor. 
 It was now under the command of Ibrahim, the 
 young son of the late emperor, who assumed the 
 title. The city had to surrender, and Abdelmumen 
 when he saw the youth of the captured monarch, 
 showed signs of pity for him as he knelt and beg- 
 ged for his life. 
 
 " Wretch ! " cried one of the captured sheiks of the 
 Almoravides to the boy, " why add shame to misfor- 
 tune? Art thou kneeling, as if to a father, before 
 a wild beast, who lives only on blood ! " 
 
 This irritated the prophet, and, at the same time, 
 one of his own generals exclaimed : 
 
 " Wilt thou spare the cub of the lion, who one day 
 may devour us all ? " 
 
 Ibrahim's fate was sealed. Not only was he exe- 
 cuted, but a general massacre of all the inhabitants 
 of Morocco was ordered. The few who remained 
 were sold as slaves, the mosques were destroyed, and 
 the tribes of the desert were called to repeople the 
 solitary streets of the splendid capital of the Almora- 
 vides. 
 
 The Almohades, now victorious in Africa, pro- 
 claimed their emperor Abdelmumen as sovereign of 
 
200 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 all Mohammedan Spain, which they retained with 
 various fortunes in their wars against the Christians 
 under several successive emperors, until the begin- 
 ning of the thirteenth century, when they in turn 
 suffered a defeat at the great battle of Navas de 
 Tolosa, which gave a permanent ascendancy to the 
 Christian arms. 
 
 The reigning emperor had collected for a whole year 
 such an immense army that two months were neces- 
 sary to convey it across the straits from Africa into 
 Spain. All Christian Europe was filled with alarm. 
 The Pope proclaimed a crusade to Spain. The dif- 
 ferent kings of Christian Spain, Arragon, Castile, and 
 Navarre, united to repel the common danger, and 
 great numbers of volunteers from Portugal and 
 Southern France hastened to Toledo, where was 
 held a fast, with prayers and processions, to avert 
 from Christendom the greatest danger that had 
 threatened it since the famous victory of Charles 
 Martel on the plains "of Poictiers. 
 
 On July 12, 12 12, the crusaders reached the 
 mountain chain which divides New Castile from 
 Andalusia. Their king was Alfonso IX. of Castile, 
 who commanded the immense Christian army in 
 person. They found the passes and summits of the 
 mountains occupied by the Almohades, and were at 
 a loss how to proceed. Just then a shepherd entered 
 the camp of Alfonso, and proposed to conduct the 
 army, by a path unknown and invisible to the out- 
 posts of the enemy, to the summit of the chain. 
 They silently ascended, and entrenched themselves 
 on a level plain large enough to contain all the 
 
A LMORA VIDE S. —A LMOHA DES. 201 
 
 troops. Below them was stretched the army of the 
 Moslems, whose surprise was great to perceive the 
 heights above them occupied by the crusaders. 
 
 On the third day the Christians descended to the 
 plains of Tolosa. The struggle was terrific, but the 
 Moslems at last fled. 
 
 Seeing the total destruction or flight of his vast 
 host, Mohammed, the African emperor, sorrowfully 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Allah alone is just and powerful; the devil is 
 false and wicked ! " 
 
 Just then came up to him Alarab, leading by the 
 head a strong but nimble mule. 
 
 " Prince of the Faithful," said the African, " how 
 long wilt thou remain here ? Dost thou not perceive 
 that thy Moslems flee ? The will of Allah be done. 
 Mount this mule, which is fleeter than the wind of 
 heaven, or even the arrow which strikes it ; never 
 yet did she fail her rider. Away ! away ! for on thy 
 safety depends that of us all ! " 
 
 Mohammed mounted the beast, and soon out- 
 stripped not only the pursuers but the fugitives. 
 
 Alfonso's report of this battle was that one hun- 
 dred and eighty-five thousand infidels perished, and 
 only five-and-twenty Spaniards. Without literally 
 accepting this, it may be admitted as a glorious 
 victory for the Christian arms. 
 
 This was the last attempt of any magnitude which 
 the Moslems made to preserve Andalusia. The 
 Christians all over Spain were growing more and 
 more powerful as they united their several small 
 kingdoms, and combined on the common ground of 
 
202 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ejecting the misbelievers from the Peninsula. Help 
 from Africa could no longer be expected, even were 
 it to be desired, for the empire of the Almohades 
 was at its last gasp. 
 
 In this deplorable situation the followers of the 
 prophet turned to Mohammed ben Alhamar, who, of 
 all the aspirants to power, had shown himself the 
 most able to rule. He fixed his court in Granada, and 
 there established the only state which survived the 
 wreck of the African empire. Here, for more than 
 two centuries and a half, the Moslems withstood the 
 hostile attacks of their Christian neighbors. 
 

 
 
 
 
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 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 
 
 The Moors, though as a whole making a nation, 
 preserved the patriarchal customs of their ancestors, 
 the Arabs. Each family formed a large tribe, not 
 confounded with any other, more or less power- 
 ful in numbers, wealth, and possession of slaves, 
 within which the united members regarded each 
 other as brothers, marched together to battle, taking 
 always the same side in combat, mutually supporting 
 each other, and never separating their fortunes, their 
 interests, or their prejudices, whether for love or 
 hate. 
 
 Among these tribes, the most celebrated in tra- 
 dition and romance was the family of the Abencer- 
 rages, descended from ancient kings in Arabia. The 
 very existence of this tribe is now doubted by his- 
 torians, and the legends concerning their prowess 
 are set down as idle tales, but they form so import- 
 ant, and, at least, so picturesque, a part of the story, 
 of Granada, that they cannot well be left out here. 
 Some foundation must have existed for the legends 
 of their splendor and daring which remain floating 
 about the ruins of the Alhambra. 
 
 The qualities of the princes of the Abencerrages 
 
 203 
 
204 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 were of the highest sort. Invincible in battle, they 
 were mild and merciful after victory, while their 
 graces and gifts made them the ornament of the 
 Moorish court. They were respected by the Spaniards, 
 whose esteem they won by the kindness they showed 
 to the Christian captives. Their immense wealth 
 was used for the benefit of the poor and suffering. 
 In the tournaments of the Moorish court, in games 
 of skill and chance, the prizes fell to the chiefs of 
 the Abencerrages. It was the boast of the race that 
 it had never been disgraced by a coward, a faithless 
 friend, an inconstant husband, or a perfidious lover. 
 
 The rivals of this glorious family were the Zegris, 
 descendants of the kings of Fez. They also were of 
 great distinction. Their valor had time and again 
 carried fire and the sword into the dominions of 
 Castile, hundreds of times their victorious hands 
 had decorated the mosques with banners snatched 
 from the enemy. But these heroic exploits were 
 dishonored by the prevailing trait of the Zegris, 
 a savage thirst for blood. A Zegri was never known 
 to make a captive; every victim perished on the 
 spot by sabre ; neither friendship nor love soft- 
 ened their ferocity. They regarded all sensibility as 
 weakness, and looked with contempt on the graces 
 of the court, exchanges of civility, or encounters of 
 repartee. They were fierce and proud, and loved 
 only the field of battle ; all they knew was how to 
 fight and conquer, and they despised all other arts. 
 
 An intense jealousy existed through generations 
 between the rival Zegris and Abencerrages, and 
 towards the end of the Moorish kingdom of Granada 
 
THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 20$ 
 
 this had increased so much that only the personal 
 authority of the sovereign could restrain an outburst. 
 The principal families of Granada joined either the 
 
 ----- "c~-£SS^.~-;->~.~"-- 
 
 THE GATE OF JUSTICE. ALHAMBRA. 
 
 one side or the other; and other tribes, more ob- 
 scure, had followed this example, so that the whole 
 country was divided into two opposing parties. 
 The last king of Granada, according to the legend, 
 
2o6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 inclined towards the noble Abencerrages, with whose 
 fine qualities he was able to sympathize ; but in 
 order to appease the discontent of the Zegris, he 
 had married a maiden of their tribe. This was Aixa, 
 a princess beautiful, but hardened by the want of 
 sensibility and the inexorable pride of her race. So 
 little did her society satisfy the mind and heart of 
 the king, that he fell in love with a Spanish captive ; 
 and the tenets of his religion did not prevent him 
 from making her also his wife. 
 
 This caused intense jealousy at the court. The 
 Zegri swore upon the side of the princess who 
 belonged to their tribe ; and her son, the young 
 prince, and heir to the throne, espoused their cause 
 in their quarrels with the Abencerrages, while this 
 large family ranged themselves on the side of the 
 Spanish princess. 
 
 To divert the minds of his people from this dis- 
 sension and bitterness, the king encouraged the 
 games and exhibitions of skill, for which the Moors, 
 in all time, had been distinguished. 
 
 A romance writer has given a fanciful description 
 of the celebration of a wedding in the Moorish court: 
 
 " All the warriors, of whatever tribe, prepared 
 themselves for the occasion by lavishing their treas- 
 ure on the richness of their armor and the mag- 
 nificence of their coursers. The beauties of the 
 court sent ribbons, scarfs, devices to their lovers to 
 stimulate them to exertion, and decked themselves 
 in their fairest costumes and richest jewels. 
 
 "As soon as the sun had gilded the summit of the 
 palace of Granada, all the people began to gather in 
 
THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 2QJ 
 
 the great plaza of the city, the Vivarambla, which 
 was provided with rows of seats like an amphitheatre, 
 to contain the vast assemblage. 
 
 " In the middle of the great enclosure, which could 
 easily contain twenty thousand warriors in battle 
 array, was a palm-tree, whose trunk was of bronze, 
 and whose leaves were all of gold. Upon one of the 
 long palm leaves a silver dove was suspended, which 
 pulled down the branch by its weight. This dove 
 held in its beak a ring, which was the object of the 
 contest ; and the bird was so constructed by the skill 
 of the Moorish workman, that as soon as a ring was 
 won by the prowess of a knight, another ring im- 
 mediately came out of the beak of the dove to take 
 its place. 
 
 " Below the palm-tree was an enclosure reserved 
 for the judges, and there were also placed musical 
 instruments to announce victory. 
 
 " Balconies, covered with precious stuffs, and in 
 the middle a magnificent dais, were destined for the 
 king, with his family and the court ; while every 
 window of the immense square, ornamented with 
 garlands, was crowded with the fairest of Moorish 
 maidens. 
 
 " When the judges were all in their places, the 
 king arrived in all pomp and splendor, leading the 
 bride, in whose honor the occasion was made, re- 
 splendent in diamonds. The court followed and 
 surrounded him, and filled the balconies ; trumpets 
 sounded from the four barriers to announce the com- 
 batants. 
 
 " First entered the Abencerrages, dressed in blue 
 
208 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 tunics embroidered with silver and pearls, mounted 
 on white coursers, whose harness was covered with 
 sapphires. Blue was the favorite color of the 
 Abencerrages, and in their turbans they wore aigrettes 
 of that color. Upon their shields was a lion led by 
 a shepherdess, with an Arabic motto, the celebrated 
 device of their tribe, which means ' Gentleness and 
 Force.' All these warriors were in their first bloom 
 of youth, handsome, brilliant, radiant with hope. 
 They advanced proudly, but with gracious mien, to 
 take their places in their quadrille. 
 
 *' Next came the Zegris. These wore green tunics 
 embroidered with gold. Their turbans were decked 
 with aigrettes of black, the color of their family. 
 Their horses were almost covered with broad trap- 
 pings studded with emeralds. They followed, with 
 haughty glances and heads thrown back, their re- 
 doubtable leader Ali, who bore upon his shield, as 
 did they all, the device of a scimetar dripping with 
 blood, and the motto ' This is my Law.' 
 
 '' The two other quadrilles were occupied by two 
 important tribes. One of them, the Alabez, dressed 
 in red, embroidered with silver, and mounted upon 
 fsabe//e-colored horses, wore in their turbans the blue 
 aigrette of the Abencerrages. The Gomeles, allies of 
 the Zegris, wore their black aigrette in the turban. 
 Their dress was a tunic of purple and gold. These 
 four troops, one after the other, came first to salute 
 the king, and then took their respective places. 
 
 " Each one of these quadrilles could choose twelve 
 cavaliers to ride for the ring. One failure alone took 
 away the right to try again. A serpent aigrette of 
 
THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 200, 
 
 diamonds was destined for the conqueror. Other 
 gifts, less magnificent, were prepared to comfort the 
 vanquished. 
 
 " The signal given, the first rider to advance was 
 from the blue ranks of the Abencerrages ; he sprang 
 forward like an arrow from a bow, and caught upon 
 the point of his lance the first ring and bore it back 
 in triumph. Next came one of the Zegris, who, 
 blinded by his rage against his skilful rival, missed 
 the ring. He snapped his lance in two in his anger, 
 and hid himself behind the cavaliers. Another 
 Zegri wins the second ring ; for several courses 
 success alternates between the two tribes. The place 
 resounds with applause. Once, as a knight, by 
 striking the silver dove, made the ring fly up in the 
 air, another one, his rival, caught it before it reached 
 the ground, upon the point of his lance. In the end, 
 a young prince of the Abencerrages had won twenty 
 rings, while no other single combatant had more 
 than five. 
 
 " After this came the game of wands. All the cava- 
 liers, armed with light reeds instead of lances, rode 
 against each other, breaking their fragile weapons 
 against the shields, throwing them lightly in the air 
 and catching them with wonderful skill, while their 
 swift coursers turned, attacked, returned, with 
 wonderful evolutions, under the control of their skil- 
 ful riders. 
 
 " The spectators watched the performance with 
 keen enjoyment ; but the Zegris had planned a 
 treachery. Under their glittering dress they wore 
 coats of mail, and in the midst of the sport several 
 
2IO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of them exchanged their light reeds for lances of 
 iron. Several Abencerrages were wounded, a melee 
 ensued. The place ran with blood, and the frightened 
 witnesses fled." 
 
 According to the same romance, Abenhamet, the 
 flower of the youths of the Abencerrages, loved the 
 fair Zoraide, who returned his love. But the prince 
 royal saw her, admired her, and chose her for his 
 own, and she was compelled to marry him, by threats 
 against the life of her lover, if she refused. Aben- 
 hamet was driven from the court. Disguised as a 
 slave, with an Asiatic turban round his head, he re- 
 turned to see, if possible, his beloved Zoraide. 
 
 He arrives in Granada, climbs the steep ascent 
 of the Alhambra, and wanders through the vast 
 courts of the palace. 
 
 Night had begun to cast its shadows on the earth. 
 Zoraide, alone in the garden appropriated to her, 
 was weeping for her love under a rose-tree. She 
 knew nothing of his fate. She had not pronounced 
 his name since her fatal marriage with the prince, but 
 every evening she went to sit under this rose-tree, 
 where, in happier times, she had passed many de- 
 lightful moments with Abenhamet. 
 
 Suddenly, in the midst of her weeping, the queen 
 saw a slave approaching. Looking closely at him 
 she recognized the Abencerrage ; she was about to 
 scream, but the danger which threatened them both 
 gave her prudence. 
 
 The interview was brief and painful. Abenhamet 
 seized the hand of the princess, then dropped it; she 
 cried : ' Fly, fly, do not stay here to risk your life in 
 
THE STORY OF THE ABENCERRAGES. 211 
 
 this terrible place ; go, yet remember that every even- 
 ing Zoraide weeps beneath this rose-tree. 
 
 Even as she said these words, she thought she 
 heard a noise behind the bush. She started up, 
 forced Abenhamet to leave her, and herself hastened 
 to her apartment, and stepped out upon the balcony 
 overlooking the deep ravines of the Darro. There, 
 in the pale moonlight, she listened, trembling. Silence 
 reigned in the gardens, and she became calm. 
 
 But the noise she had heard was no creation of 
 her frightened fancy. Four Zegris had passed behind 
 the rose-tree, and had seen and recognized the form 
 of Abenhamet. Instantly they reported to the prince 
 their discovery. In his rage, he was easily led by 
 the perfidious Zegris to plan a terrible revenge upon 
 all the family of the Abencerrages. 
 
 Guards were sent everywhere throughout the Al- 
 hambra to search for Abenhamet, and messengers 
 of the king carried to every Abencerrage an order to 
 come at once to the palace. 
 
 One by one as they arrived, they were introduced 
 into the Court of Lions ; as soon as they appeared 
 they were seized, dragged to the alabaster basin of 
 the fountain, and their heads cut off. Abenhamet 
 was the first. He fell by the sword of the prince 
 himself. 
 
 Thirty-six young heroes were thus sacrificed, the 
 whole of the noble family which had lavished its 
 blood to protect the kingdom, and save its capital 
 from the attacks of the Christians. One child alone 
 who had accompanied its guardian to the Court of 
 Lions, fled and reported the carnage to a troop of 
 
212 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Abencerrages who were coming to obey the order of 
 the king. The alarm spread. The retainers of the 
 tribe hastened, armed, to the palace. A fierce en- 
 counter ensued. The Zegris, supported by the royal 
 guard, overwhelmed the smaller number of their 
 foes ; in spite of their reckless courage, these were 
 forced, after a long contest, to retire. The small 
 remnant who were not slain were driven out of the 
 city, and these few, embittered against the ungrate- 
 ful country which could thus abuse its defenders, 
 withdrew from Granada, under oaths never to 
 return to it. 
 
 Such is one version of the destruction the Abencer- 
 rages. The legend has so much credence that every 
 visitor of the Alhambra is shown, in the lovely Court 
 of Lions, the stains of the blood of the Abencerrages 
 upon the edge of the alabaster basin. Yet the 
 guide-book warns us that these marks are not those 
 of blood, but ferruginous veins in the marble, and at 
 the same time asserts that no Abencerrages ever ex- 
 isted. 
 
 In the historical account of the fall of Granada it 
 is evident that internal dissension among the Moor- 
 ish families made it easy for their enemies to effect 
 their destruction, and the story of the Abencerrages 
 illustrates these quarrels by its grains of truth mixed 
 up with fable. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE FALL OF GRANADA. 
 
 MOHAMMED BEN Alhamar became the founder of 
 a celebrated kingdom. His qualities were of a high 
 order, he was intrepid in Avar, but more inclined to 
 peace, vigorous in pursuing justice, but mild and 
 conciliating, possessing foresight and prudence, yet 
 magnificent in his habits, fond of power, still more 
 fond of popularity. These were all qualities likely to 
 please the Andalusians ; they enabled him to piece 
 together the fragments of the several shattered 
 "kingdoms" of the Arabs there, and to make his 
 own firm enough to last. 
 
 The Moorish territory of Granada contained within 
 its circuit, narrowed though it were from the broad 
 extent once held by the powerful Arabs, all the 
 physical resources of a great empire. Fertile valleys 
 were intersected by mountains rich in minerals. Its 
 fields, well watered, afforded pasturage to countless 
 cattle, and its coasts commanded the commerce of 
 the world. 
 
 The beautiful city of Granada, its capital, over- 
 looked the country from its lofty situation, upon 
 four hills rising from a broad plain. In the days of 
 the Moors it was surrounded by a wall flanked by a 
 
 2:3 
 
214 TTTE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 thousand towers, and held a vast population. At 
 the summit of the loftiest hill was erected the royal 
 fortress of the Alhambra, including the palace of the 
 Caliphs, begun by Mohammed, who determined that 
 it should surpass in magnificence all the royal palaces 
 that had ever existed. It still stands, the delight and 
 admiration of travellers ; its graceful porticos and 
 colonnades, its walls and ceilings worked in delicate 
 arabesque, and glowing with soft tints and rich gold, 
 make us think well of the taste and refinement of 
 the king who designed such a beautiful place to live in. 
 Its airy halls were built around gardens, full of roses, 
 pomegranate, and jasmine, and courts, with foun- 
 tains playing, and broad pools of water, in which were 
 reflected the deep blue and floating clouds of the 
 southern heaven. 
 
 King Mohammed ben Alhamar saw that the best 
 foundation for thrones is the prosperity of the 
 people. He applied himself to building hospitals 
 for the sick, house's of entertainment for travellers, 
 and of refuge for the poor: schools for children, and 
 colleges for youth, not only in his capital but in 
 many other towns throughout his kingdom ; he had 
 aqueducts laid for supplying the towns with plenty 
 of water, always a matter of highest importance to 
 the Moors, canals, baths, fountains were built in 
 profusion. He fortified the kingdom with strong- 
 holds, both on the frontier and the interior, and 
 although this was done by imposing heavy burdens 
 on the people, in taxatfcn, they did not complain, as 
 they saw the national resources laid out for the good 
 of the community. For the Moors were, as always, 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 21 5 
 
 an industrious and sober people, devoted to agricul- 
 ture, which they pursued with an intelligence which 
 produced the best results. From the vega, or broad 
 plain which stretches far away in sight of the seat of ' 
 the capitol, the Arabs obtained a constant succession 
 of fruits and crops throughout the year, by cov- 
 ering it with a network of channels through which 
 flowed water to keep the soil constantly irrigated. 
 They led happy, industrious lives, applying the 
 wealth they so honestly gained, with an Oriental 
 sense of beauty and color, to the adornment and 
 luxury of living. 
 
 When the Christians and Moors were not actually 
 at war, there was unhampered intercourse between 
 them ; they exchanged visits, formed acquaintances 
 and friendships. The Spanish knight fell in love 
 with the dark-eyed Zegri maiden, and in her honor 
 contended for the prize of valor. The Moslem was 
 not regarded as the " accursed misbeliever," to be 
 shunned and maltreated as the Jews had always been, 
 but as the brave and courtly knight with the same 
 accomplishments and manners as the Christian 
 gentleman. 
 
 This state of things might have remained, with 
 continued improvement in the progress of time, each 
 race learning something of the other, — the Moors 
 learning from the Christians the elements of their 
 purer faith, while the Christians would acquire much 
 from them in the way of industry and thrift, — had it 
 not been for the internal dissensions which broke up 
 the empire of Granada, and the desire of the Chris- 
 tian kings to root out the Moslem belief. As the 
 
 r 
 
2l6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Moors became more and more divided by petty 
 quarrels, the Christians were becoming more closely 
 united, and were ready to take advantage of every 
 'crack thus disclosed in the armor of their antagonists. 
 ■ Still, there were twenty-three kings of Granada who 
 managed to reign in succession, and to conduct their 
 affairs in a certain prosperity, interrupted at times 
 by contests with their Christian neighbors, or jealous 
 rivalries among themselves. 
 
 Most of these monarchs, or more than half of them, 
 were named Mohammed. The fifth of the name had 
 virtues, it is said, worthy of any throne, but, like 
 the rest, he was not exempted from the curse of 
 rebellion. He had a brother Ismail, of whom he was 
 so fond, that he presented to him, for his own, a 
 magnificent palace. But the mother of Ismail, who 
 was not the mother of the king, was ambitious for 
 her son and had long planned making him king. 
 Such was one great source of the quarrels among the 
 Moslems. Their laws allowed them at least three 
 wives, so it often happened that the royal princes 
 had different mothers, and each mother desired that 
 her own son should reign, without regarding the 
 question whether he were the eldest, or the most 
 deserving. The mother of Ismail formed a party 
 favorable to her son's interests, and they waited for 
 some opportune chance to depose the king, and put 
 the prince, his half-brother, on the throne. 
 
 At last, on the 28th day of the moon, Ramadan, 
 one hundred of the most resolute of them scaled, 
 by night, the palace of Mohammed, descended 
 through the roof and lay hid till midnight. Then, 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 217 
 
 at a given signal, they rushed down the staircase, 
 and along the passages of the beautiful Alhambra, 
 a sword in one hand, a torch in the other, raising 
 loud cries, and putting everybody they met to death. 
 At the same moment, a more numerous body of 
 them overwhelmed and massacred the guard from 
 the outside, and then rushing into the palace, laid 
 hand on every thing they could carry away. These 
 conspirators were so delighted with the riches and 
 treasures they found lying about them, that they for- 
 got the original purpose of the expedition, while 
 they were filling their pockets, and this gave to Mo- 
 hammed the opportunity of escape. He was clothed 
 by his mother's women in the disguise of a female 
 slave, and succeeded in escaping through the gardens 
 to the open country. Ismail was put upon the throne, 
 to the joy of his manoeuvring mother, but her pleas- 
 ure was of short duration, for the very chief she had 
 employed to elevate her son to the throne, having 
 learned the art of dethroning kings, persuaded the 
 public to proclaim himself as monarch. The head 
 of the unlucky Ismail was cut off and dragged through 
 the mire, to the applause of the people. The con- 
 spiring usurper afterwards fell into the hands of the 
 Christians, and was condemned to death for dethron- 
 ing his lawful sovereign. Mohammed the Fifth, 
 then returned to his throne. 
 
 Such instances of the sympathy of the Christains 
 for the Moors were not uncommon. We may repeat 
 the pretty story of a governor of Antiqueia, a frontier 
 town constantly in warfare with the Moors in the 
 neighborhood. 
 
2l8 . THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 On the eve of an expedition, Narvaez, the gov- 
 ernor, despatched some horsemen to reconnoitre the 
 county. The men, perceiving no enemy, were re- 
 turning, when they suddenly fell in with a Moorish 
 horseman, and made him prisoner. He was a young 
 man, about twenty-three years of age, handsome and 
 attractive, and richly clothed. His arms were of ex- 
 quisite workmanship, and he rode a splendid horse. 
 Evidently he belonged to the very first families. 
 
 He was brought before the governor, who asked 
 who he was, and whither he was going. The youth 
 replied that he was the son of the Alcalde of Reuda ; 
 as he endeavored to go on he showed much emotion, 
 in fact his voice was nearly choked with tears. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the governor, " the son of 
 the Alcalde ! I know him well to be a brave warrior, 
 but you are nothing better than a woman, for you weep 
 like one. Are you such a coward as to fret for your 
 capture, which is nothing but the fortune of war?" 
 
 " It is not the loss of my liberty that I lament, but 
 a misfortune far greater," replied the Moor. 
 
 " Ah ! " replied the kind-hearted governor, " let 
 us hear your case, perhaps we can relieve it." 
 
 " I have long loved," the youth replied, " the 
 daughter of an alcalde in our neighborhood. She 
 loves me, and this very night is the one of our wed- 
 ding. All is ready, she is awaiting me, and your 
 soldiers have detained me! What will she think? 
 She will doubtless die of anxiety and despair ! " 
 
 " Noble cavalier ! " replied the compassionate gov- 
 ernor, " go and see your mistress ; I will trust your 
 return." 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 219 
 
 So the Moor departed, and in spite of the long 
 distance and so much delay he reached the dwelling of 
 his mistress before daylight. He relieved her fears 
 of his constancy, but had to tell her he had come 
 only to say farewell, as he was pledged to return to 
 his captors. 
 
 " Generous man ! " she said, " My fate must be 
 united with yours ; free or slave, you shall find me 
 always at your side. Besides, in this casket are jewels 
 enough to pay your ransom." 
 
 The two lovers set forth together, and toward 
 evening they arrived at Antiqueia. They were 
 nobly received by Narvaez, who heaped praises on 
 the fidelity of the cavalier, and the devotion of the 
 maiden. The contents of the casket he refused to 
 touch, and dismissed them loaded with presents, and 
 accompanied by an escort to conduct therirsafely to 
 Reuda. The news spread through the kingdom of 
 Granada, and became the subject of many a ro- 
 mance. 
 
 And now the end was approaching of what may be 
 called the most romantic and picturesque period of 
 modern history. For years two races of different 
 religions had been living close to each other, in the 
 loveliest climate in the world, in the midst of re- 
 sources which gave them every opportunity for 
 wealth and luxurious living. The age bent itself to 
 romance. People were just wise enough to use their 
 brains to write ballads and dream dreams, not so 
 deeply intellectual as to pierce every mystery with 
 the sword of science. The quarrel between the two 
 kingdoms was an abstract one, based upon their dif- 
 
220 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ferent religious beliefs. Though they might call 
 each other " misbeliever," and " Christian dog," 
 there was no bitter underlying cause to prevent the 
 young people from falling in love with each other. 
 In fact, to judge from the ballads, we may fancy that 
 their business was love-making, and their pastime 
 going to war. Making all allowance for the glamor 
 thrown by distance and poetry over the period, it was 
 still a wonderful time of chivalric splendor and senti- 
 mental heroism. 
 
 But Ferdinand of Arragon had married Isabella of 
 Castile, and the royal pair, calling themselves the 
 Catholic kings of all Spain, were inspired with a fer- 
 vid determination to root out of the country the 
 enemies of the Christian religion. The queen her- 
 self was especially ardent, assembling troops, conse- 
 crating banners, and inspiring her favored knights. 
 All the chivalry of Spain was enlisted in the cause, 
 and the country ran^ with the promise of victory. 
 
 The time was favorable, for Granada was even 
 more divided than usual into quarrelling factions. 
 Muley Ali Abul Hassan was upon the throne, and 
 he perhaps might have been able to keep his politi- 
 cal enemies at a distance, but discord at home was 
 too much for him. One of his wives, it is said, was 
 a vSpanish lady, whom he greatly loved, as well as 
 her two sons, princes whom he favored with much of 
 his time and affection. This made Zoraya, also his 
 wife, and the mother of his oldest son, very jealous, 
 and much afraid that her darling would be set aside 
 in the succession. Abu Abdalla was the name of 
 this prince ; romantic history has given the abbrevi- 
 ated name of Boabdil. ^ 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 
 
 221 
 
 The beautiful enclosure of the Alhambra was at 
 that time the scene of many stormy interviews and 
 many secret consultations. 
 
 It stood, and its ruins stand, on the top of a steep, 
 cone-shaped hill, approached by a long drive-way, 
 from the lower town of Granada. This avenue was 
 irrigated by trickling water flowing down the hill, 
 
 VIEW OF THE ALHAMBRA. 
 
 and shaded by lofty trees and the thickest verdure. 
 There roses blossomed, and jasmine and all " sweet 
 things " ; the nightingale's voice was ever sounding its 
 strange, sad note ; and fountains flashed a pleasant 
 welcome to those who, winding up the steep, ap- 
 proached the lofty gates of the citadel. 
 
222 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 The enclosure was fortified by a strong wall run- 
 ning round it with towers at intervals, some of 
 which were for its defence, others for the pleasure of 
 the fair ladies who lived there. These little palaces 
 were adorned with all the rich taste of the Oriental 
 monarchs. Within the walls was space enough for 
 something like a small town, its occupants subservi- 
 ent to the needs of the monarchs. It contained 
 streets, gardens, plazas, while the Alcazaba, or for- 
 tress, occupied one end, looking down a precipice to 
 the town. Two rivers in the valley flowed about the 
 eminence on which the Alhambra was built, and on 
 one side the walls of the palace itself rose in perpen- 
 dicular continuation of the steep ascent, so that the 
 windows on that side overlooked the tops of tall 
 trees reaching up from the valley far below. The 
 material of which the Alhambra is built is of a rich 
 yellow-red color, given it by the nature of the soil 
 of which it is made. This gives the name of Torres 
 Bamejas [Vermillion Tower] to an ancient castle 
 without the enclosure ; the term would answer as 
 well to almost all the other buildings on the spot. 
 
 The palace itself of the Alhambra occupies a large 
 part of the fortified enclosure, one side of it incorpor- 
 ated on the outer wall. The Arabs did not waste 
 much time or money in outside ornamentation, and 
 besides, a great deal of the original palace has been 
 destroyed. The entrance is through a plain, low 
 gateway, but once within, all the beauty of Arabic 
 architecture shows itself. 
 
 There was room within the ample confines of the 
 palace for half-a-dozen rival sultanas to keep their 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 22$ 
 
 court, without interfering with each other. They had 
 baths, and courts, and gardens, and miradors, and to- 
 cadors innumerable, all adorned with the graceful or- 
 nament of Moorish architecture, and filled with every 
 luxury. Those halls were already rich with legends 
 of departed sultanas, immured captive maidens ; the 
 floors of the courtyards were already stained with 
 the blood of treacherous assassinations, and the sub- 
 terranean depths of the mountain may bave even then 
 contained the hidden treasures of vanished kings. 
 v The Moors had taken Zahara, a stronghold of the 
 Christians, and Muley Ali Abul Hassan returned to 
 Grenada full of rejoicing, which was of short dura- 
 tion, for there he soon learned that the Christians in 
 revenge had seized upon Alhama, one of the bul- 
 warks of his capital, and not far from it. 
 
 When the news was brought to the king, the 
 ballad says he would not believe it, but 
 
 threw the lines in the fire 
 
 And slew the messenger. 
 
 He summoned his army, and hastened to recover 
 this important post ; but was recalled on account of 
 domestic troubles in the Alhambra. 
 
 Zoraya, the mother of Boabdil, had thought this 
 a good opportunity to incite the inhabitants of 
 Granada to rebellion, from which she hoped to ob- 
 tain advantages for her son. 
 
 The king, by this time, was well acquainted with 
 the uncomfortable temper of his early wife. He was 
 not surprised to find that she was the prime mover 
 of the rebellion, and thought that he could put an 
 
224 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 end to it by confining her and her son in one of the 
 strong places which abound in the Alhambra. Then 
 he went away again. 
 
 Zoraya worked upon the feelings of her keepers 
 and persuaded them to let her women come to her. 
 The tower where they were confined was one of 
 these overlooking the steep precipice. The women 
 among them, by tying all their ample mantles to- 
 gether, made a rope long enough and strong enough to 
 lower the young prince in a basket to the foot of the 
 hill, where trusty horsemen were ready to receive him. 
 
 The prince was free. The anxious mother, from 
 the battlement saw him off and away, and not long 
 after, from the watch-tower of the turret where 
 she was confined, there came up to her from the 
 city, not far distant, shouts and cries which she 
 knew must be : 
 
 " Long live the king, Abu Abdalla ! " 
 
 A struggle followed between the adherents of 
 father and son, in "which the latter triumphed. 
 Aided by his mother within the palace, the prince 
 seized upon the Alhambra, and was recognized by 
 the whole population of the foolish capital as their 
 sovereign. Muley retired to Malaga, which adhered 
 to him, and other towns declared in his favor. 
 
 Thus the time, blood, energy, and money which 
 should have been all concentrated upon the expul- 
 sion of the Christian host which had sate down 
 before the city, was wasted in internal discord. The 
 short-sighted mother of Boabdil was so eager to place 
 her son upon the throne, that she failed to see there 
 soon would be no throne to place him upon. 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 225 
 
 In the spring- of 1491, Ferdinand and Isabella in- 
 vested the city of Granada, by establishing their 
 camp upon the Vega, close under its walls. The 
 queen herself was greatly interested in the city of 
 Santa Fe, which was built just then for the comfort 
 of the army and court. 
 
 The space between the camp and the city walls 
 became the scene of a desperate struggle, which 
 brought out the bravery and daring of the flower 
 of both armies. Many a single combat took place 
 between Moslem and Christian knight, each splen- 
 didly armed, and riding on steeds richly caparisoned. 
 Moorish maiden and Spanish lady alike watched the 
 combatants, and encouraged them by their applause, 
 rewarding the victor with a ribbon or a smile. 
 
 But while the defence was maintained with so 
 much bravery, the young monarch, Abdalla, el re 
 chico, the little king, as he is called in the ballads, 
 was in great secrecy negotiating a surrender with the 
 Christian monarchs. 
 
 It was indeed impossible for the Moslems to hold 
 out, and however the proud Zoraya, in one sense 
 the cause of the ruin, might resist, the hour for her 
 fall was come. Gonzaloo de Cordova, a Spaniard 
 who was to become a great general, negotiated the 
 terms of capitulation in the greatest secrecy with the 
 Arab chiefs. A day was appointed for the surrender, 
 but as the news of the agreement spread abroad, the 
 agitation was so great in the city that the time was 
 hastened, and on the 2d day of January, 1492, the 
 last act in the drama was performed. 
 
 In spite of the prayers and tears of Zoraya, 
 
226 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Boabdil prepared himself to relinquish the crown he 
 had so foolishly snatched from the head of his fath er 
 Perhaps the two princes, his half-brothers, with their 
 Spanish mother, silently exulted at the downfall of 
 their rival, while they themselves were joined in the 
 ruin. 
 
 The prince left the fortress accompanied by fifty 
 of his chosen cavaliers, and sadly descended the hill 
 from the Alhambra to the plain, and rode up to the 
 position occupied by the Christian monarch, who was 
 surrounded by his court, all splendidly dressed, with 
 banners fluttering, and arms sparkling in the sun. 
 As the Moor approached the Spaniard, he meant to 
 throw himself from his horse and kneel upon the 
 ground in token of homage ; but Ferdinand would 
 not allow this ; on the contrary, he embraced him 
 with every sign of kindness and compassion. 
 
 Boabdil held the great keys of the Alhambra in his 
 hand. He extended them to the conqueror, saying : 
 
 " These keys are thine, O king, since Allah has 
 decreed it ; use thy success with clemency and 
 moderation." 
 
 The Moorish monarch had still to signify his abdi- 
 cation to the Queen Isabella, who with all her reti- 
 nue was stationed at some distance. 
 
 Then leaving the Christian sovereigns and their 
 retinue to enter his city and celebrate their triumph 
 with the solemn ceremonies of their religion and all 
 the signs of exultant rejoicing, the Moorish king 
 turned away, and joining his mother, the ambitious 
 princess Zoraya, withdrew to the Alpuxarias, where 
 he was allowed a barren retreat. 
 
THE FALL OF GRANADA. 227 
 
 When the little party reached a rocky point among 
 the hills which commanded a last view of Granada, 
 Boabdil checked his horse,, and burst into tears as he 
 looked back upon the home of his childhood, the 
 proud citadel and fortress of the Alhambra, over 
 which already waved the Christian standard. His 
 mother bitterly remarked, it is said : 
 
 " You do well to weep like a woman for what you 
 could not defend like a man ! " 
 
 Her son might have retorted : " Because you, like 
 a woman, have deprived me of a kingdom which, 
 not being a man, you could not defend ! " 
 
 The spot is still pointed out where the Moorish 
 king paused to look back upon his lost kingdom. It 
 is called " El ultimo sospiro del moro." 
 
 Abu Abdalla, or Boabdil, did not long remain in 
 Spain. He sold the little dominion which had been 
 allowed him to Ferdinand, and then passed over to 
 Fez with his family, where his kinsmen were princes. 
 It was not long before he died there, slain in battle, 
 defending the throne of the king of Fez. 
 
 Thus ended the war of Granada, and with the sur- 
 render of its capital the Arabian Empire in the < 
 Peninsula was terminated, after seven hundred and 
 forty-one years from the date of" the original con- 
 quest. Some Moors yet remained in Spain as 
 late as the time of Philip III., but they had no 
 further existence as a nation, and from this time 
 dates the final extinction of a race which had made 
 high advances in civilization, and brought the coun- 
 try they adopted to a state of cultivation and pros- 
 perity which it has not since surpassed. Their towns 
 
228 
 
 THE STOR Y OF SPAIN. 
 
 are in ruins, their palaces are deserted. The schemes 
 for irrigation, by which they made the plains fertile 
 and productive, have fallen away by neglect, and in 
 consequence these fields often lie barren. 
 
 It is said that in Morocco there still exist those who 
 regard themselves as the descendants of the Moors 
 of Spain. It is a sort of proverb, when such a one 
 sighs in his sleep, to say, " See ! he is dreaming of 
 Granada ! " 
 
 FOUNTAIN OP THE LIONS, 
 
PART IV, 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 PELAYO. 
 
 We must now go back to see what became of the 
 small remnant of the Goths after they were con- 
 quered by the Moorish invasion, when Roderick was 
 defeated. For it is evident that in the course of 
 the centuries which followed, while the courts of 
 Cordova and Granada flourished, the Christians must 
 have been recovering their elasticity and strength, 
 to be able at last to overthrow their enemies, and to 
 drive out the invaders from their ancient soil. 
 
 The accounts are but shadowy of the early deeds 
 of the Christians, after the defeat of Roderick. 
 Some of the historians are Arabic, some Spanish, 
 and they frequently contradict each other. The 
 legends and ballads are more entertaining, and if not 
 so accurate, still reliable enough to give an impres- 
 sion of the tendency of the times. 
 
 The Goths were not all dead upon the field of 
 that fatal battle on the banks of the Gaudalquivir ; 
 they fled this way and that, seeking safety where 
 best they could find it, and being driven into the 
 northwest corner of Spain, they gradually found a 
 sufficient body assembled to form a sort of colony, 
 and later on a kingdom. They found there people 
 
 231 
 
232 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 that in the days of their greatness the Goths had 
 endeavored to subdue, but now, before the terror of 
 the Moslem horde which was sweeping all before it, 
 old quarrels were forgotten and the various races 
 united in a common cause. Thus, the modern 
 Spaniard has in him something of the early inhab- 
 itants of those mountain fastnesses, — something, 
 perhaps, of the Roman combined with the Goth in 
 his blood. The discipline of endurance and priva- 
 tion which these refugees had to endure was good 
 for them. The fierce old nature of the Visigoths 
 had been weakened and lowered by years of luxury 
 and success ; it had now again to submit to hard 
 work and rough living. 
 
 Among the refugees were some of the prelates 
 who, it is said, had carefully carried the sacred relics 
 to the mountains with them, so that they kept up 
 the ceremonies of the Church, though far away from 
 their grand cathedrals. Many of the Goths were of 
 the noblest blood and of great bravery. Among 
 these was Pelayo, descended, perhaps from the 
 royal house of Chindaswind. Perhaps he was a 
 nephew of King Roderick. His origin is wrapped in 
 much obscurity. Let us believe him to be of the 
 bluest blood. 
 
 The exiles chose him for their leader and crowned 
 him king with such ceremonies as they could lay their 
 hands upon. The new monarch soon had a chance 
 to prove his kingship in an encounter with the Arabs, 
 who had penetrated to their hiding-place. Pelayo 
 concealed a small but resolute band of his troops in 
 a cavern on the steep, rocky side of some mountain 
 
PELA YO. 233 
 
 heights. The Arabs, knowing nothing of the cave, 
 came plunging up the ascent to reach their enemy 
 and were much surprised to find great stones and 
 bits of rock tumbling down among them, knocking 
 them over, and sweeping back their dense ranks into 
 the valley below. Thousands were crushed by the 
 great fragments, and so would all the rest have 
 been, except that they ran away in great confu- 
 sion. The small band of Christians came out of 
 their hiding-place and pursued them, and the 
 Arabs were so terrified by the proceeding, that 
 they stayed away and molested the Christians no 
 longer. 
 
 This and other successes fixed the little kingdom 
 upon a firm foundation. The Asturias were left in 
 the undisturbed possession of the new king. The 
 crown, if there was a crown, at all events, the re- 
 gal office, descended to the son of Pelayo, and af- 
 terwards remained in the family. Leon was cap- 
 tured from the Infidel, and gave its name to the 
 kingdom, which steadily increased in numbers and 
 power, for, towards the end of the eighth century, Al- 
 fonso II. was able to establish himself in Oviedowith 
 all the ceremonies of a court. He made it the capital 
 of his kingdom, and erected churches, founded pub- 
 lic schools and hospitals, built baths, and decorated 
 his palace with silver and gold vases and richly orna- 
 mented furniture. All this had come to pass in less 
 than a hundred years from the time when Pelayo is 
 supposed to have been living in a cave. Alfonso 
 had become strong enough to make war upon the 
 Arabs, in which he was often successful. 
 
234 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 To his time belong the famous exploits of Ber- 
 nardo del Carpio. He, the historians cruelly tell us, 
 with his parents, are only creations of the imagina- 
 tion. But this is the story: 
 
 Alfonso el Casto, as he was called, was never mar- 
 ried, and had no children. Apparently he wished no 
 one else to marry, for he strongly opposed the mar- 
 riage of his sister, the fair infanta Ximena. But she 
 was beloved by the Count of Saldana, and, as she 
 loved him in return, they were secretly married and 
 lived happily together, without letting any one know 
 of thei'r marriage, least of all the king. When he 
 found it out, which he did in a year or two, he was 
 terribly angry ; he seized his sister and shut her up 
 in a convent ; he put her husband in prison for life, 
 and sent their little son, who had been born in the 
 meantime, into the Asturias. 
 
 People there imagined him to be the son of the 
 king, and everybody treated him as if he were. He 
 was brought up among the mountains to lead a 
 healthy, out - door life, and became strong and 
 brave, and handsome as the day. As soon as he 
 was old enough he put on armor, and became a 
 knight of the greatest prowess, the terror alike of 
 Frank and Moor — all the time supposing he was 
 the son of King Alfonso, although the king never 
 said so, or treated him as such, except to furnish 
 him with armor and all the accoutrements required 
 for a knight of noble birth. 
 
 Now, the unfortunate Count Sancho Diaz was all 
 this time in prison, where accounts were brought 
 him, by his keepers, of the wonderful exploits of the 
 
PELAYO. 235 
 
 young prince Bernardo del Carpio, as he was called. 
 Sancho knew very well that this was his son — his 
 only son. Some accounts say that the cruel king 
 had caused Sancho's eyes to be put out. Blind 
 and in prison he complained bitterly of the in- 
 gratitude of a child who could leave his father 
 languishing in chains, while he rode about joy- 
 ously on a fine horse, fighting in battle, and win- 
 ning victory and praise wherever he went. But 
 Bernardo knew nothing about it. 
 
 This was the time, according to the Spanish 
 chronicles, when Charlemagne invaded Spain ; and 
 some of them say that it was by the invitation of 
 Alfonso, who proposed to him to come and destroy 
 the Moors, promising him in reward the inheritance 
 of his own throne of the Asturias. There is nothing 
 of this in history, nor, as we have seen, in the Song 
 of Roland. 
 
 Bernardo del Carpio and all the other nobles of 
 King Alfonso's court resented the plan of giving up 
 the ancient kingdom of the Goths to a stranger, and 
 Alfonso himself repented of his promise, so that when 
 Charlemagne arrived, he found the king who had in- 
 vited him allied with the infidels against him. Ac- 
 cording to this account, it was the troops of Alfonso 
 who attacked the rear of the Franks in the pass of 
 Rencesvalles; it was they who gained the victory in 
 the fearful attack when Roland was slain, and their 
 success was ascribed to the prowess of Bernardo del 
 Carpio : 
 
 As through the glen his spears did gleam, the soldiers from the 
 hills, 
 
236 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 They swelled his host, as mountain-stream receives the roaring 
 
 rills ; 
 They round his banner flocked in scorn of haughty Charlemagne, 
 And thus upon their swords are sworn the faithful sons of Spain. 
 
 When he was returning from this stupendous tri- 
 umph, in the greatest state, with everybody at his 
 feet, Bernardo learned — some say from the lips of 
 his old nurse, who had kept the story to herself till 
 then — the true story of his birth: how the king was 
 his uncle ; how his mother, whom, as a little boy, 
 he dimly remembered, a fair and gentle lady who 
 stroked his long curls, the king's sister, who was 
 shut up in a cloister, not dead as he supposed ; and 
 how his father, blind and in chains, was languishing 
 in a dungeon. 
 
 Full of wrath, and relying on his recent services to 
 receive whatever he asked, he demanded of the king 
 the release of his father. It was denied. Then 
 Bernardo refused to come to the rejoicings which 
 followed the victory. He shut himself up in his 
 castle and remained there, still pressing the king with 
 importunities for his father's release. 
 
 " Sir King and Uncle," said he, " is it fitting that I 
 should be abroad and fighting thy battles, when my 
 father is in fetters ? Release him, and I shall think 
 myself well rewarded." 
 
 As the king did nothing of the kind, Bernardo 
 went over to the side of his enemies, the Moors. 
 He fortified his castle, and made continual incursions 
 into the king's country, pillaging and plundering 
 wherever he came, and encouraging the inroads of 
 the king's enemies. 
 
PELA YO. 237 
 
 At last the counsellors of the king urged him to 
 offer Bernardo immediate possession of his father's 
 person if he would surrender his castle. Bernardo 
 accepted without hesitation. He gave up the keys, 
 joined the king, and with him rode out to meet his 
 long lost parent. 
 
 When he saw him coming, clothed in splendid 
 attire, and mounted on horseback, Bernardo ex- 
 claimed : " O God ! is that indeed the Count of 
 Saldafia ? " " Look where he is," replied the king, 
 " and go and greet him whom you so long have 
 desired to see." 
 
 Bernardo advanced and took his father's hand to 
 kiss it. The body fell forward heavily ; it was only 
 a corpse. The king had caused him to be slain. 
 Bernardo del Carpio swore a fearful vengeance upon 
 the king, and from that moment his sword was lost 
 to the Christians. But we are left entirely in the 
 dark as to the rest of his story. 
 
 The historians say that no such person ever existed 
 as Bernardo del Carpio, as they assert that the whole 
 story of Roland and his wonderful horn is a pure 
 fiction. Bernardo's name, they say, was never men- 
 tioned until five hundred years afterwards. This is 
 sad, but we may comfort ourselves with thinking 
 that the ballads would never have been sung, the 
 stories told from mouth to mouth, had there not 
 been some foundation for them. The spirit of high 
 renown and bravery was in existence which prompted 
 heroic deeds. The tender friendship between Ro- 
 land and Olivier was real, or it would not have been 
 made the subject of a song. The deeds themselves 
 
238 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and the motives which prompted them, and, besides, 
 the manners and customs of the time in which they 
 are described as happening, are what we care to know 
 about, and these we gather from ballad and tale, and 
 only wish there were more of the same sort to light 
 up the solemnity of historical records. 
 
 The early Catholics believed faithfully in their 
 saints, and the best saint for them of all was James 
 the Elder, the brother of John the Evangelist. 
 
 James was stoned to death in Jerusalem, but the 
 Spaniards firmly believe that his body was transferred 
 to their country, where the Bishop Theodemir, in 
 835, found it in Galicia, being led to the place by a 
 star which pointed it out to him, where it lay in a 
 forest. A chapel was erected on the spot, but the 
 body was moved a short distance later to the place 
 now called Santiago or Saint Jago de Campostella, 
 on account of the star having led to the discovery. 
 A cathedral was erected there, and under it, in a 
 subterranean chapel, was placed the tomb of the 
 saint. Pilgrims flocked to Campostella to worship 
 the shrine, which became one of the most famous in 
 the world ; and Santiago, from his choice of Spain 
 as a final resting-place, became the patron of the 
 land. 
 
 Ramiro, the successor of Alfonso el Casto, had 
 reason to worship the saint. It was not very long 
 after his body had been discovered in the neighbor- 
 hood, that he showed his watchfulness over the 
 Spanish arms. The occasion was a battle with the 
 Saracens at Clavigo. It had already waged through 
 the whole of one day, and the fortune of war had 
 
PELA YO. 239 
 
 been against the Christians. An old writer describes 
 it: 
 
 Night arrived, and brought safety to ours, since 
 there is nothing, however small, in war, which may 
 not be turned to good account. 
 
 Ramiro drew his troops, alike diminished in num- 
 ber and weakened by fear, to a neighboring hill ; 
 there he confessed himself vanquished. The place 
 was fortified, the wounded attended ; yet such were 
 the despair and lamentation that all were engaged 
 in prayer or drowned in tears. 
 
 As the king was thus oppressed by grief, and 
 anxious for the result, sleep fell upon him. As he 
 slept, the apparition of Santiago, more majestic than 
 any human figure, bade him be of good courage, 
 since, with the aid of heaven, he might indulge 
 assured hope of victory on the following day. 
 
 Cheered by these words of the apostle, and de- 
 lighted with the tidings, he arose from his couch, 
 commanding his prelates and chiefs to be summoned 
 before him, and then addressed them at length, 
 urging them to battle, and filling them with joy 
 by acquainting them with the celestial vision and 
 promise of victory. 
 
 Having thus spoken, he commanded the lines to 
 be drawn out, and the trumpets to sound. With 
 great eagerness ours rushed on the enemy, calling 
 loudly on the name of Saint James, which from this 
 time forward became the common invocation of the 
 Spanish soldiers. The barbarians, astonished at the 
 boldness of ours, whom they considered vanquished 
 beyond redemption, and overcome with fear from 
 heaven, could not bear the onset. 
 
240 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Santiago, as he had promised the king, was seen 
 on a white horse, bearing aloft a white standard, on 
 which was inscribed in red the form of a cross. The 
 courage of ours was increased, that of the barbarian 
 vanished at the sight. The flight was dishonorable, 
 not less the destruction ; sixty thousand Moors were 
 slain. 
 
 " At this day," says the old writer, " the bones and 
 arms which are dug up sufficiently show us Clavigo 
 where the battle was fought." 
 
 The victorious army, in gratitude for divine aid, 
 bowed to the saint under whose guidance the battle 
 had been won, that all Spain should thenceforth be 
 tributary to the church of Campostella, and that 
 every acre of ploughed and vine land should pay 
 every year a bushel of corn or wine to that church. 
 
 That Santiago did assist Ramiro is proved by a 
 perpetual miracle. In all the vicinity of Clavigo, 
 where the battle was fought, scallop-shells are found 
 in the stones, so exact and perfect that art could not 
 form a more accurate resemblance. Some say they 
 have been there since the apostle preached there in 
 his lifetime, others refer them to the time of this 
 battle. 
 
 The scallop was the mark of a pilgrim to Campos- 
 tella, as the palm was of those who had visited the 
 Holy Land. The words palmer and pilgrim are 
 therefore not exactly the same. 
 
 Perhaps it was this king, perhaps another, who can 
 tell, who had promised to furnish every year, as 
 tribute to Abderahman, one hundred beautiful dam- 
 sels. He failed this time to keep his promise, and 
 
PEL A YO. 24I 
 
 hence the battle. It is hinted that his failure was 
 because so many beautiful women could not be found 
 in the Asturias ; the ballad gives a better reason. It 
 tells how a maiden sought audience of King Ramiro, 
 and set before him the folly of sending women to the 
 enemy's camp, as well as the want of gallantry of it. 
 She even threatened him with the displeasure of her 
 sex. 
 
 I pray you, sire, take warning, — You '11 have as good a fight 
 If e'er the Spanish damsels arise themselves to right. 
 
 Then uprose King Ramiro, and his nobles every 
 one, and went forth to battle, swearing to put an end 
 to the maiden tribute. 
 
 A cry went through the mountains, when the proud Moor came near, 
 And trooping to Ramiro came every Christian spear ; 
 
 The blessed Santiago, they called upon his name — 
 
 That day began our freedom, and wiped away our shame. 
 
 Legends of the apparition of Saint Jago on the 
 battle-field are many. He is sometimes accompanied 
 by another ghostly warrior and saint. 
 
 FROM THE VIDA DE SAN MILAN. 
 
 BY GONSALO DE BERCEO. 
 
 And when the kings were in the field, their squadrons in array, 
 With lance in rest they onward pressed to mingle in the fray ; 
 But soon upon the Christians fell a terror of their foes, — 
 These were a numerous army, a little handful those. 
 
 And while the Christian people stood in this uncertainty, 
 
 Upward toward heaven they turned their eyes and fixed their 
 
 thoughts on high, 
 And there two persons they beheld, all beautiful and bright, 
 Even than the pure new-fallen snow their garments were more white. 
 
242 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 They rode upon two horses more white than crystal sheen, 
 And arms they bore such as before no mortal man had seen ; 
 The one he held a'crosier, a pontiffs mitre wore ; 
 The other held a crucifix, — such man ne'er saw before. 
 
 Their faces were angelical, celestial forms had they, — 
 And downward through the fields of air they urged their rapid way ; 
 They looked upon the Moorish host with fierce and angry look 
 And in their hands, with dire portent, their naked sabres shook. 
 
 The Christian host, beholding this straightway take heart again, 
 They fall upon their bended knees, all resting on the plain, 
 And each one with his clenched fist to smite his breast begins, 
 And promises to God on high he will forsake his sins. 
 
 And when the heavenly knights drew near unto the battle ground ; 
 They dashed among the Moors and delt unerring blows around. 
 Such deadly havoc there they made the foremost ranks along, 
 A panic terror spread into the hindmost of the throng. 
 
 Together with these two good knights, the champions of the sky, 
 The Christians rallied and began to smite full sore and high : 
 The Moors raised up their voices, and by the Koran swore 
 That in their lives such deldly fray they ne'er had seen before. 
 
 Down went the misbelievers : fast sped the bloody fight, 
 
 Some ghastly and dismembered lay, and some half dead with fright : 
 
 Full sorely they repented that to the field they came, 
 
 For they saw that from that battle they should retreat with shame, 
 
 Another thing befell them, — they dreamed not of such woes, — 
 The very arrow that the Moors shot from their twanging bows 
 Turned back against them in their flight and wounded them full sore, 
 And every blow they dealt the foe was paid in drops of gore. 
 
 Now he that bore the crosier, and the papal crown had on 
 Was the glorified Apostle, tbe brother of Saint John ; 
 And he that held the crucifix, and wore the monkish hood, 
 Was the holy San Milano of Cogalla's neighborhood. 
 
PELA YO. 243 
 
 There is a story of one of these kings about this 
 time, named Sancho the Fat. He was so very fat 
 that he could not get about comfortably, and as no 
 Christian leech could prescribe for the difficulty, he 
 wrote to the Moorish king, Abderahman III., and 
 asked permission to visit the capital, in order to see 
 what the Arabic physicians of Cordova could do for 
 him, as they were very famous. A cordial invitation 
 was the response of the Caliph. 
 
 The king went as a guest to the palace at Cordova, 
 and was received and entertained with magnificence, 
 while the royal physicians were put at his disposi- 
 tion. They brought him a herb which took away 
 all his fatness, and reduced Him to his pristine light 
 weight. Moreover, he became so friendly with the 
 Moslems, that they agreed to lend a hand in restor- 
 ing him to his throne which had been taken from 
 him. The light and agile king, to the amazement of 
 his enemies, returned from Andalusia with an army, 
 drove the intruder from his throne, and prepared to 
 reign comfortably himself. Unluckily he was poison- 
 ed not long afterward by one of his Christian allies. 
 
 Little states were springing up everywhere, and 
 claiming to be great ones. Navarre, close by the 
 Asturias was a kingdom by this time. Its earlier his- 
 tory is obscure. Wedged in between France and 
 Spain, it has always been a sort of fighting ground 
 for both countries. Pampeluna, its chief city, was the 
 one laid waste by Charlemagne according to the Song 
 of Roland ; and its rulers were sometimes of French 
 descent, and, later on, Navarre furnished to France 
 one of the greatest of her kings. 
 
244 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 In the early times, the connection was close, often 
 by blood, with the kings of Asturia and Leon, some- 
 times it was peaceful, sometimes warlike. In fact, it 
 was a question of who was the stronger and who 
 could get and hold the upper hand. No broad 
 underlying rule of policy could be expected of the 
 early kings of the Spanish states. To keep the 
 Moslem from the door was their chief aim, and, 
 in times of great danger, they united upon this. A 
 powerful king, with a talent for ruling, could 
 compel the adherence of those around him, and 
 make himself the leader of them, to invade the 
 region of the Arabs, or to protect his own from 
 them. At his death, his kingdom fell off again, 
 broken up into little states. Yet with all this the 
 Christian territory was spreading over more and 
 more of Spain, while, as we have seen, the Moslems 
 were forced to recede into ever narrower limits. 
 
 The courts of Castile, up to this time, had been 
 regarded as dependent upon the kings of Asturia, or 
 Leon. One of them, Fernan Gonzalez, has a story 
 so romantic that the historians can hardly bear to 
 believe that he was a real character. But there is 
 ample proof that he was really alive, somewhere near 
 the middle of the tenth century, in the reign of King 
 Ramiro II., of Leon. Fernan Gonzalez with another 
 Count of Castile, revolted against their sovereign, 
 alleging as a reason that they did not want to fight 
 any more just then against the Arabs. He was on 
 his way to Navarre, to marry SaUcha, a princess of 
 that court, when he was seized and thrown into 
 prison by the King of Leon. The ballads say that 
 
PELA YO. 245 
 
 he was thus imprisoned to please the Queen of Leon, 
 who was also a princess of Navarre, and an enemy of 
 Fernan. The ballads tell, that while he was in prison, 
 a Norman pilgrim, on his way back from Campos- 
 tella, where he had been to visit the tomb of Saint 
 James, heard something of his story, as he passed 
 near the place where Count Fernan was confined. 
 As this Norman was in no great hurry, he bribed the 
 alcalde of the place, to let him see the illustrious 
 captive. 
 
 The alcalde was so joyful, — he took the gold full soon, 
 
 He brought him to the dungeon, ere the rising of the moon. 
 
 They had a long talk, and Fernan told him the 
 story, and how he was pining for love of the Princess 
 Sancha, whom now he might never see. 
 
 The Norman passing through Navarre, hastened to 
 the palace, sought an interview with the princess, 
 and told her his tale. 
 
 " May God and St. Mary forgive you, infanta ! " 
 said the stranger. "You are causing the death of 
 the best man alive. Count Fernan Gonzalez, the 
 hero of Castile, is dying for love of you, but he lies 
 in a dungeon. Unless you help him, you will be the 
 scorn of the world ; but if you will aid him to escape, 
 you will be Queen of Castile ! " 
 
 Sancha hastened to the prison, bringing her jewels 
 to bribe the alcalde. Again he must have thought 
 he was in luck. He allowed her to carry off his 
 prisoner, and they hastened off together through 
 the forest. 
 
 Towards evening they were alarmed by the ap- 
 
246 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 pearance of a troop of horsemen. The infanta ran 
 to conceal herself behind some bushes, when she was 
 recalled by the voice of her lover, who had recog- 
 nized among the approaching band the pennon of 
 Castile. They were his own vassals, who had left 
 Burgos, his native place, in a body, swearing a great 
 oath never to return without their beloved chief. 
 
 There was great rejoicing, and Fernan and the 
 princess were married at the first opportunity. 
 
 The count was fond of hunting, and once, although 
 on the eve of a battle with the Moors, he pursued a 
 wild boar into the mountains. He was eagerly fol- 
 lowing the animal, when suddenly it disappeared in 
 a mysterious manner, and the count, to his surprise, 
 found himself in a grotto converted into an oratory, 
 with an humble altar in it, dedicated to Saint Peter. 
 Moved with reverence at so unexpected a sight, the 
 huntsman fell upon his knees and began his devotions. 
 A hermit then appeared, who, it seems, abode in that 
 place for the sake of a holy life. He received the 
 count with great courtesy, kept him over night as 
 his guest, and when he left him in the morning, gave 
 him the assurance that he would triumph over the 
 misbelievers. The event justified the prediction, and 
 Gonzalez was convinced that the boar had led him 
 by a miracle to the holy grotto. 
 
 Later on, during an irruption of the fierce Al- 
 manzor into Castile, Count Fernan on the eve of 
 battle sought again the cell of his friend, the hermit, 
 hoping for his prayers and perhaps a sign concerning 
 the fate of battle. The holy man was there no 
 longer; dead, perhaps. But while the count slept 
 
PELA YO. 247 
 
 again in the cell, now solitary, he saw Pelayo, the 
 hermit, in his dreams, who again promised victory. 
 And next day, in the midst of the battle, Santiago, 
 the martial patron of Spain, was once more seen 
 upon his white horse, with cross and banner un- 
 furled. The grateful count founded a monastery on 
 the site of the grotto dedicated to Saint Peter. 
 
 Burgos, the native town of this hero of romance, 
 as well as of the Cid, even more celebrated, has a 
 statue of Fernan Gonzalez, and an arch erected to 
 his memory by Philip II. 
 
 History admits that Fernan Gonzalez not only 
 lived, but died (in 970), and that he was the founder 
 of the sovereignty of Castile, of which he made a 
 kingdom. Not long after Castile, as well as Leon, 
 came into the hands of a king of Navarre, for there 
 was much intermarrying between the royal houses of 
 these small states. After this, for two centuries they 
 were sometimes divided, sometimes united, — some- 
 times one king bore the titles of the three provinces. 
 When this was the case, the successes of the Chris- 
 tians over the Moslems extended their domain more 
 and more toward the south. In 1085 Alfonso VI. 
 regained Toledo from the Moslems, after it had re- 
 mained in their power for more than three centuries. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE CID. 
 
 THE Moorish dominion over southern Spain lasted 
 for seven centuries. At the beginning there was 
 perpetual war on the frontier which parted Mussul- 
 mans and Christians. Of this daily fighting there is, 
 fortunately, and, of course, no record. Ballads and 
 legends preserve the memory of this and that inci- 
 dent, which has a special interest for romance ; but 
 it would be hard to make out even a dry calendar of 
 the names of the different princes who wore the 
 different Spanish crowns, such as they were. The 
 peaceful habits of the Goths, as we describe them in 
 the period before Roderick's fall, were wholly for- 
 gotten. " It was in war that the chiefs found their 
 sport and their spoil : that the king at once employed 
 and gratified a turbulent nobility; that the people 
 indulged their worst passions, and believed that they 
 were at the same time atoning for their sins. And 
 what a warfare ! It was to burn the standing corn, 
 to root up the vine and the olive, to hang the heads 
 of their enemies from the saddle-bow, and to drive 
 mothers and children before them with the lance, 
 to massacre the men of a town in the fury of assault, 
 to select the chiefs that they might be murdered in 
 
 248 
 
the cid. 249 
 
 cold blood, to reserve the women and the children 
 for slavery ; and this warfare lasted year after year 
 till they rested from mere exhaustion. At one time 
 knights, nobles, and kings never slept unless the 
 war-horse were standing ready saddled in the bed- 
 chamber." This is Mr. Southey's description of the 
 generations into which Rodrigo del Bivar, better 
 known as the Cid or Campeador, was born. Cid or 
 Sid is an Arabic word, signifying chief. Campeador 
 has a derivation similar to our word champion, and 
 has a similar meaning. 
 
 % Among the many sceptics of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, there have risen critics who coolly doubt the 
 very existence of the Cid. They set him on one 
 side coolly, as a being as imaginary as Lancelot or as 
 Amadis. What is to be remarked especially is the 
 curious fact that the poem which bears his name is 
 much more to be relied upon, — or, on its face, appears 
 more probable than what is called the " chronicle." 
 For once poetry indicates a claim to be closer to the 
 fact than prose. 
 
 The question regarding the credence to be given 
 to the legends is, as the reader knows, not a peculiar 
 one in the case of the Cid. It is almost exactly like 
 the question regarding the myths of our own King 
 Arthur. Was there, or was there not, a real Arthur, 
 around whom clustered the stories of the Round 
 Table. The reader of " The Story of Spain " has 
 already had a like question in regard to Roland and 
 Olivier, — and the extraordinary " Song of Roland," 
 and his defeat in Roncesvalles. 
 
 The politics or intrigues in the midst of which the 
 
250 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Cid fought his first battles and won his first victories, 
 can be written out in detail more than sufficient. 
 More than sufficient, for no reader would remember 
 them for an hour after he had read them, nor would 
 it profit him to remember them a minute after. It 
 is quite enough to say that Don Sancho, the king of 
 Navarre and Leon and Castile, died, leaving three 
 sons, and to each son, as if it were a fairy tale, he 
 left one of these kingdoms, so called. As he might 
 have foreseen, or as even the least experienced reader 
 of fairy tales could have taught him, these sons fell 
 to fighting with each other. " For it was by no 
 means in wars against the Saracen alone that the 
 blood of Christian men was spent." 
 
 This is the language of the poet Southey, in the 
 introduction to his translation in the chronicle of the 
 Cid. For our purpose the absolute veracity of the 
 chronicle is not important. We do not read it for 
 the stubborn facts, .which are not, after all, of so 
 much importance, as the light which it throws on 
 the manner and customs of the time, on its sentiment 
 and on its faith. The Cid may be roughly remem- 
 bered as being about the contemporary of William 
 the Conqueror, and his sons. The chronicle of the 
 Cid was written, rather more than a century after, a 
 little later than the time of Richard Cceur-de-Lion. 
 This is to say that it is written in the time when 
 romances began to take the form which they held 
 until the time when Cervantes laughed them out of 
 existence, and, as has been said, the Cid and his af- 
 fairs belong almost precisely to that mythic or mys- 
 terious period to which Amadis of Gaul, Palmerin, 
 
THE CID. 251 
 
 and Esplandian, were made to belong by their 
 authors. These are entirely creatures of the imagina- 
 tion, while, as we suppose, Rodrigo del Bivar and his 
 exploits, were as real as Arthur and the Emperor 
 Justinian. After-ages of Spanish chivalry read all 
 the stories with equal confidence. To Cortes and his 
 companions the prowess of Amadis was something 
 as certain as that of the Cid, and when he came to 
 give a name to the peninsula of California, he took 
 it from the romance of Esplandian, where it is given 
 to the farthest island of the east, the island of a 
 Amazon queen or califa, whose home was rich in dia- 
 monds and gold. 
 
 It will be better for the reader that we shall copy 
 a single story of the life of the Cid, than that we 
 shall attempt to condense the narrative of his vari- 
 ous exploits in my abridgement. Enough that he 
 served Fernando, the king of Castile, and considered 
 himself always bound to sustain the honor of Castile. 
 In such duty he fought now against Arragon, now 
 against Leon, now against Navarre, now against Va- 
 lencia. Sometimes he was against the Moors, some- 
 times he fought with them. King Alfonso banished 
 him once and again. But the Cid was more than a 
 match for King Alfonso. The Cid's daughters, ac- 
 cording to the romance, married the Counts of 
 Carrion, but the Cid and his sons-in-law did not fare 
 well together, and the last years of his life were made 
 wretched by these worse than Paynim hounds. 
 
 Here is Mr. Southey's rendering of the scene 
 where the Cid proclaims his unwillingness to serve 
 any king as a vassal. 
 
252 THE STORY OF SPA IX. 
 
 " My Cid and his company alighted at the gate of 
 the palaces of Galiana, and he and his people went 
 in gravely, he in the midst and his hundred knights 
 round about him. When he who was born in happy 
 hour entered, the good king, Don Alfonso, rose up, 
 and the counts, Don Aurrich and Don Remond, did 
 the like, and so did all the others, save the eurly- 
 headed one of Granon, and they who were on the 
 side of the Infantes of Carrion. All the others 
 received him with great honor, and he said unto 
 the king : ' Sir, where do you bid me sit with these 
 my kinsmen and friends who are come with me ? ' 
 And the king made answer : ' Cid, you are such a 
 one, and have passed your time so well to this day, 
 that if you would listen to me and be commanded by 
 me, I should hold it good that you took your seat 
 with me ; for he who hath conquered kings, ought to 
 be seated with kings/ But the Cid answered : ' That, 
 Sir, would not please God, but I will be at your feet ; 
 for by the favor of the king, your father^ Don Fer- 
 nando, was I made his creature and the creature of 
 your brother, King Don Sancho, am I, and it be- 
 hooveth not that he who receiveth bounty should sit 
 with him who dispenseth it.' And the king an- 
 swered : ' Since you will not sit with me, sit on your 
 ivory seat, for you won it like a good man ; and from 
 this day I order that none except king or prelate sit 
 with you, for you have conquered so many high-born 
 men, and so many kings, both Christians and Moors, 
 that for this reason there is none who is your peer, 
 or ought to be seated with you. Sit, therefore, like 
 a king and lord upon your ivory seat/ Then the 
 
PUERTA DI SANTA MARIA, BURGOS. 
 253 
 
254 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Cid kissed the king's hand, and thanked him for 
 what he had said, and for the honor which he had 
 done him ; and he took his seat, and his hundred 
 knights seated themselves round about him. All 
 who were in the Cortes sat looking at my Cid and 
 at his long beard which he had bound with a cord ; 
 but the Infantes of Carrion could not look upon him 
 for shame." 
 
 Like most knights of chivalry or of romance who 
 were confident in their own lances and their own 
 valor, " our Cid " was very indifferent to the orders 
 of the king in whose dominions he happened to live. 
 In a fashion he was respectful to him, as has been seen, 
 but absolute obedience was quite another affair. At 
 one time when he had made a raid into the domin- 
 ions of the Moorish king of Toledo, Alfonso, his 
 own sovereign, who was bound by a treaty with that 
 prince, remonstrated. In the end the Cid was ban- 
 ished from Leon and Castile. His followers, how- 
 ever, refused to leave him. 
 
 As he was about to depart, he looked back upon 
 his own home. And, when he saw his hall deserted, 
 the household chests unfastened, the doors open, no 
 cloaks hanging up, no seats in the porch, no hawks 
 upon the perches, the tears came into his eyes, and 
 he said : ' My enemies have done this. God be 
 praised for all things.' So he and his cavalcade 
 came to Burgos. But the people would not receive 
 him there, and he had to take up his lodging on the 
 sands near the town. He escaped from immediate 
 need by pawning to two Jews two chests of treasure, 
 which he told them were full of gold. The Jews ad- 
 
STREET IN VALENCIA. 
 255 
 
256 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 vanced him six hundred marks on security so good. 
 But alas, when he failed to pay, as he did, it proved 
 that the chests were filled with sand. Such a story as 
 that is told as if it were a good joke, so completely 
 does hatred of the Jews overshadow any gleams of 
 the moral sense in their chivalrous chronicles. 
 
 At last, King Alfonso attacks Toledo and takes 
 it from the Moors. As always in the chronicle, the 
 Cid leads the way. His was the first banner to enter, 
 and he is made the first Alcalde of the place. But 
 this does not mean that he accepts permanent ser- 
 vice under Alfonso. He always appears as a free 
 lance, serving as he will against some chosen enemy 
 of the hour. 
 
 In the course of such fighting, he becomes gov- 
 ernor of Valencia and commander, of course, of its 
 garrison. But such a command was challenged by 
 the Moors, of whom thirty thousand, as we are told, 
 invested the city. The Cid never counted the enemy. 
 He sallied forth, and beat them in the field, drove 
 them to the river Xucat, and killed fifteen thousand 
 as he did so. 
 
 " Be it known." says the chronicle, " that this was 
 a profitable day's work. Every foot-soldier shared a 
 hundred marks of silver that day.; and the Cid re- 
 turned full honorably to Valencia. Great was the 
 joy of the Christians in the Cid Ruy Dias, who was 
 born in a happy hour. His beard was grown, and 
 continued to grow, a great length. My Cid said of 
 his chin : ' For the love of King Don Alfonso, who 
 hath banished me from his land, no scissors shall 
 come upon it, nor shall a hair be cut away, and 
 
THE CID. 257 
 
 Moors and Christians shall talk of it.' ' And this 
 one he kept until he died. He made a count of his 
 own followers. " There are found one thousand 
 knights of lineage, and five hundred and fifty other 
 horsemen. There were four thousand foot-soldiers, 
 besides boys and others. Thus many were the peo- 
 ple of my Cid, him of Bivar. And his heart rejoiced, 
 and he smiled, and said: 'Thanks be to God, and 
 to Holy Mother Mary. We had a smaller company 
 when he left the house of Bivar.' ' : 
 
 In the next year King Yussef * invested Valencia 
 again. And this time the Saracens had fifty thousand 
 men. The Cid went out to meet them with four 
 thousand. His bishop, Hieronymo, "a full learned 
 man and wise, and one who was mighty on horse- 
 back and on foot," absolved the little company. 
 " He who shall die," said he, " fighting full forward, 
 I will take his sins and God shall have his soul." 
 Then said he : " A boon, Cid don Rodrigo ; I have 
 sung mass to you this morning. Let me have the 
 giving of the first wounds in this battle." And the 
 Cid gave him leave in the name of God. And 
 indeed the bishop had fighting enough that day. He 
 fought with both hands, and no man knew how 
 many he slew. Of course, as a sceptic historian 
 writes, the horde of Yussef was destroyed — only 
 fifteen thousand of the misbelievers escaped. The 
 Cid secured the famous sword Tizona, which be- 
 longed to Yussef, and he scarcely escaped, sorely 
 wounded. 
 
 * Of these invasions of Yussef the reader has seen the calmer ac- 
 count, in history, in a previous chapter. 
 
258 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Bucar, Yussef's brother, comes to avenge him. 
 The Cid arrays his army with the bishop on the 
 right wing. " The bishop pricked forward. Two 
 Moors he slew with the two first thrusts of his lance, 
 the haft broke, and he laid hold on his sword. God ! 
 how well the bishop fought. He slew two with the 
 lance and five with the sword. The Moors fled. 
 The Cid pursued Bucar," and made at him to strike 
 him with his sword. And the Moorish king knew 
 him. " Turn this way, Bucar," cried the Cid — " you 
 who came from behind sea to see the Cid with the 
 long beard. We must greet each other and cut out 
 a friendship." " God confound such friendships," 
 cried King Bucar, and turned his bridle and began to 
 fly toward the sea, and the Cid after him, having 
 great desire to reach him. But King Bucar had a 
 good horse and a fresh, while the Cid went spurring 
 Buvieca, who had had hard work that day, and he 
 came near his back. And when they were nigh to 
 the ships the Cid saw that he could not reach him, 
 and he darted his sword at him and struck him 
 between the shoulders ; and King Bucar, being badly 
 wounded, rode into the sea and got into a boat, and 
 the Cid alighted and picked up his sword. And his 
 people came up, hewing down the Moors before 
 them, and the Moors in their fear of death ran into 
 the sea, so that twice as many died in the water as 
 in the battle ; nevertheless, so many were they that 
 were slain in the battle that they were thought to be 
 seventeen thousand persons, and upward. And so 
 many were they who were taken prisoners that it 
 was a wonder ; and of the twenty-nine kings who 
 came with Bucar seventeen were slain. 
 
THE CID. 259 
 
 The reader now has reason for understanding why 
 the narration of the chronicle is dismissed from the 
 domain of stern history. A passage from the poem 
 which has been called the noblest poem in Spanish 
 literature, will give him an idea of the Cid's courage 
 before lions. 
 
 " Peter Bermuez arose ; somewhat he had to say ; 
 The words were strangled in his throat, they could not find their 
 
 way ; 
 Till forth they came at once, without a stop or stay ; 
 ' Cid, I '11 tell you what, this always is your way ; 
 You have always served me thus ; whenever we have come 
 To meet here in the Cortes, you call me Peter the Dumb. 
 I cannot help my nature ; I never talk nor rail ; 
 But when a thing is to be done, you know I never fail. 
 Fernando, you have lied, you have lied in every word ; 
 You have been honored by the Cid, and favored and preferred. 
 I know of all your tricks, and can tell them to your face : 
 Do you remember in Valencia the skirmish and the chase ? 
 You asked leave of the Cid to make the first attack ; 
 You went to meet a Moor, but you soon came running back. 
 I met the Moor and killed him, or he would have killed you ; 
 I gave you up his arms, and all that was my due. 
 Up to this very hour, I never said a word ; 
 You praised yourself before the Cid, and I stood by and heard 
 How you had killed the Moor, and done a valiant act ; 
 And they believed you all, but they never knew the fact. 
 You are tall enough and handsome, but cowardly and weak, 
 Thou tongue without a hand, how can you dare to speak ? 
 There 's the story of the lions should never be forgot ; 
 Now let us hear, Fernando, what answer have you got ? 
 The Cid was sleeping in his chair, with all his knights around ; 
 The cry went forth along the hall, that the lion was unbound. 
 What did you do, Fernando ? like a coward as you were, 
 You slunk behind the Cid, and crouched beneath his chair. 
 We pressed around the throne, to shield our loved from harm, 
 Till the good Cid awoke ; he rose without alarm ; 
 He went to meet the lion with his mantle on his arm ; 
 
260 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 The lion was abashed the noble Cid to meet ; 
 
 He bound his mane to the earth, his muzzle at his feet 
 
 The Cid by the neck and mane drew him to his den, 
 
 He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again ; 
 
 He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men ; 
 
 He asked for his sons-in-law, they were neither of them there. 
 
 I defy you for a coward and a traitor as you are.' " 
 
 Such victories cannot last forever, even under the 
 pen of a romancer of the twelfth century. At last 
 the Cid comes to his death. 
 
 He took to his bed. Saint Lazarus had told him 
 forty years before, that in his bed he should die. 
 And for seven nights he saw visions. He saw his 
 father, Diego Laynez, and Diego Rodriguez, his son. 
 And every time they said to him : " You have tarried 
 long here, let us go now among the people who en 
 dure forever." And after the seven nights, Saint 
 Peter appeared to him in the night when he was 
 awake and not sleeping, and told him that when 
 thirty days were over he should pass away from this 
 world. And so it was. When the thirtieth day 
 came he bade the bishop, Don Hieronymo, give 
 him the body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 And he received it with great devotion. And he 
 called upon God and St. Peter, and prayed, and said : 
 " I beseech thee pardon me my sins and let my soul 
 enter into the light which hath no end." And so 
 this noble baron yielded up his soul, which was pure 
 and without spot, to God. 
 
 Whether there have been many other such heroes 
 as the Cid, it would be hard to say. What is cer- 
 tain is that there have been few heroes who have 
 been so fortunate in their biography. The poem of 
 
THE cm. 
 
 161 
 
 the Cid, as has been said, may be more relied upon 
 than the chronicle for historical accuracy. The 
 chronicle is one of the most charming of the ro- 
 mances, having that flavor which no imagination can 
 rival, which greets us where the foundation is true. 
 English readers have the pleasure of reading the 
 chronicle in a translation by Robert Southey, and 
 the poem, as it has been rendered by Hookham 
 Frere and by Mr. Ormsby. 
 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ' ALFONSO X. 
 
 Quien no ha visto Sevilla 
 No ha visto maravilla. 
 
 SEVILLE was a prosperous port under the Phoeni- 
 cians ; and was singularly favored by the Scipios. 
 In 45 B.C., Julius Caesar entered the city ; he en- 
 larged it, strengthened and fortified it, and thus 
 made it a favorite residence with the patricians of 
 Rome, several of whom came to live there ; no 
 wonder, with its perfect climate and brilliant skies. 
 It was then called Hispalis. 
 
 There are still vestiges of its magnificence during 
 Roman rule, — an amphitheatre and an aqueduct, — 
 and Roman coins are still found by those who dig 
 beneath the soil. 
 
 The Vandals, driven from Septimania and the 
 north of Spain, made their court in Seville. Anda- 
 lusia, we saw, means Vandalicia. They remained 
 there until they passed off into Africa to the num- 
 ber of eighty thousand, leaving nothing more than a 
 name behind them. 
 
 The Goths held Seville for their capital until 
 Leovigild established his court at Toledo, and left 
 Seville to his rebel son. 
 
 262 
 
264 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 A year after the defeat of Roderick it resisted for 
 a month the attacks of the Moors, under whom, in 
 time, it became most prosperous. The capital of the 
 Omeyyades was Cordova, but Seville grew in wealth 
 and splendor until it became the second city of all 
 the brilliant Caliphate. Thousands of industrious 
 Moslems were engaged in manufacturing silks and 
 other fabrics; its schools and universities rivalled 
 those of Cordova. 
 
 This city shared the fate of the rest of Moorish 
 Spain, and surrendered to the Christians on the 22d 
 of December, 1248. 
 
 This was the achievement of King Ferdinand III., 
 under whom the Crowns of castile and Leon had 
 become united. His territory extended from the 
 Bay of Biscay to the Guadalquivir, and from the 
 borders of Portugal as far as Arragon and Valencia. 
 His glory was great in the estimation of his country- 
 men for his conquests over the Moors, and four 
 centuries afterwards he was canonized by the Pope, 
 and is now knows as Saint Ferdinand. He was just 
 and pious, an able ruler, and a valiant soldier. He 
 persecuted heretics with vigor, and was incessant in 
 prayers, fasting, and frequent use of the discipline, for 
 which virtues he was found worthy of canonization. 
 
 Ferdinand converted the mosque he found in 
 Seville into a cathedral, of which, however, little now 
 remains of his time. The beautiful Giralda, a bell- 
 tower of the present cathedral, is Moorish, and is 
 said to have been devised by an Arabic architect 
 named Geber, of whom many tales are told. One of 
 the portals of the cathedral has on it a great stuffed 
 
ALFONSO X. 26$ 
 
 crocodile, said to have been sent to Saint Ferdinand 
 by the Sultan of Egypt, alive, as a present. 
 
 In the royal chapel of the present cathedral is a 
 silver urn with glass sides, which contains the body 
 of the saint, carefully preserved. The king is draped 
 in his royal robes, with the crown on his head ; his 
 hands are crossed upon his breast. On his right lies 
 the baston de mando, his sceptre ; on the left, his 
 sword. The precious stones, which once adorned the 
 handle of the sword, were picked out and taken away 
 by order of one of Ferdinand's successors, lest, as he 
 said, they might be carried off by somebody else. 
 
 The sepulchre of the saint bears inscriptions in 
 Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic, written by the learned 
 son of the saint. The body is displayed on certain 
 days with a mass and other ceremonies. 
 
 Ferdinand lived at the same time with another 
 king who was also canonized — Louis IX. of France, 
 who became Saint Louis. He was the true hero of 
 his time, a prince as pious as brave, who deserved, if 
 ever did earthly sovereign, to be called a saint. The 
 two kings, in fact, were cousins, and the grand- 
 mother of both of them was Eleanor, daughter of 
 Henry II. of England. 
 
 Spain was now taking such an important place 
 among the kingdoms of the civilized world, that her 
 princes and princesses often made marriages with 
 the other royal houses. It may be that the solid 
 qualities of the Anglo-Saxon race gave vigor to the 
 Southern stock on which these were grafted, to 
 produce the admirable combination which after- 
 wards, in its most brilliant period, distinguished the 
 true Spaniard. 
 
266 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 The son of Saint Ferdinand was Alfonso X., called 
 El Sabio, the learned, and not, as it is sometimes 
 translated, " the wise." He certainly was not very- 
 wise, for he did an immense number of foolish 
 things ; but he was such a strange man, that it 
 would be interesting to know more about him than 
 it is easy to do. 
 
 It was a period when not only commerce and in- 
 dustry but literature and art were taking a new start 
 in Europe — the time of Roger Bacon and Dante. 
 Alfonso loved his books, and dabbled in science, and 
 was really one of the learned men of his time. It 
 was a pity that he was born to be a king, and had to 
 pass his life amid the cares of state, for he made 
 constant and singular mistakes of policy in his gov- 
 ernment, while he had to give up to it most of his 
 time, which, if he had been a private individual, he 
 could have spent in intellectual pursuits more to his 
 taste. He laid the foundation of Spanish prose by 
 causing a translation of the Bible to be made in that 
 language, and by writing excellent Spanish himself. 
 His prose is said to be admirable, and his verses to 
 have considerable merit, for a king's. He drew up 
 a Code of Laws which is celebrated for its wisdom 
 and its literary merit ; and wrote a Chronicle of 
 Spain, beginning with the creation of the world and 
 coming down to the death of Saint Ferdinand, his 
 father. It gives many of the romantic traditions of 
 his country in a simple and poetic manner. Alfonso 
 was learned in mathematics and astronomy. His 
 " astronomical tables," for a long time celebrated, 
 were probably constructed for him by Moorish as- 
 tronomers whom he invited to his court. 
 
..s i 
 
 DIE GIRALDA. 
 267 
 
268 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 All these things give a delightful idea of Alfonso 
 "the Wise," but, unfortunately, he managed the 
 affairs of his kingdom so unwisely as to irritate his 
 subjects at the time and bring trouble upon his 
 descendants. 
 
 His mind was very naturally disturbed by a 
 glimpse he had of being emperor of Germany, a 
 position which had been the most glorious one to 
 be attained in Europe. The dignity was elective, 
 and at that time the electors, for reasons they con- 
 sidered good, had resolved to make choice of a 
 foreign prince. The mother of Alfonso was the 
 daughter of a German emperor ; this led some of 
 the electors to turn their thoughts upon Alfonso as 
 a candidate. He aspired to the dignity, and was 
 willing to lavish wealth upon obtaining it. He was, 
 i indeed, chosen by one party, but another, and more 
 powerful one, preferred to name Richard, the brother 
 of the English King Henry III. The contest lasted 
 a long time until another emperor was elected, when, 
 having wasted much time and money, having tired 
 out everybody with his persistence, and after the 
 Pope, losing all patience, had excommunicated his 
 few adherents, King Alfonso returned to his boojks. 
 -), Ferdinand de la Cerda, the son and heir of Alfonso, 
 died during the lifetime of his father, and a difficulty 
 arose about the succession which extended over a 
 longtime. A Cortes was assembled to decide the 
 question, and it was agreed that Sancho, brother to 
 Ferdinand de la Cerda should be heir to the crown, 
 to the exclusion of the children of Ferdinand, grand- 
 children of Alfonso. This decision displeased the 
 
ALFONSO X. 269 
 
 king of France, for the mother of these children thus , 
 left out of the succession was his sister Blanche, a 
 French princess, and he considered that one of them, 
 his eldest nephew, ought to have the crown. Al- 
 fonso, who had written a book full of laws, ought to 
 have known the rights of the question. He declared 
 in favor of his son Sancho, and came near having a 
 war with France in consequence. Alfonso, whose 
 only wish seemed to be to please everybody, now 
 proposed to divide his kingdom in favor of the young 
 princes ; he made himself also very unpopular by 
 debasing the coin of the realm, and Sancho was per- 
 suaded to rebel against his father. The king in vain 
 tried to pacify the rebels by promising to satisfy all 
 his demands ; then he applied for aid and sympathy 
 to all the kings in the neighborhood, in vain, for 
 they had agreed to remain neutral, except the king 
 of Morocco, who was willing to be on his side. 
 
 At last the goaded king assembled his few remain- 
 ing adherents in Seville, and, in a solemn act, not 
 only disinherited his rebel son Sancho, but called 
 down maledictions on his head. In the same act he 
 instituted his grandsons, the infantes de la Cerda, 
 as his heirs, and after them, in default of issue, ./the 
 kings of France. 
 
 Luckily the Pope now interfered on the side of 
 the king, although he must have been worn out with 
 the trouble he had with him, first and last. He 
 threatened to excommunicate Sancho and all the 
 rebels if they did not return to their duty. This put 
 matters on a better footing ; even Sancho was in the 
 way of asking for a reconciliation, when he fell ill, 
 
2/0 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 which moved his old father so much that he forgot 
 all about his displeasure and his malediction, and 
 could do nothing but weep and lament over the sad 
 state of his son. He was, in fact, so much affected 
 that his anxiety threw him into a worse state than 
 that of the rebellious prince. Sancho recovered and 
 was soon as well as ever ; but the king grew worse, 
 and soon died, full of grief and affection for his son. 
 He had not, however, revoked his will. 
 
 Nobody minded the will, and Sancho was pro- 
 claimed king. He reigned, and his son and grand- 
 son reigned after him. In the next generation it 
 happened that the succession to the crown came 
 back to the descendants of the La Cerdas, about 
 whom so much trouble had been made. 
 
 A saying has been quoted against King Alfonso 
 that " if he had been consulted at the creation of 
 the world, he could have advised some things for the 
 better." If this saying were really uttered, which 
 there are strong reasons to doubt, it is probable that 
 the king had no blasphemous intention in view, but 
 that he was merely ridiculing the system, then re- 
 ceived, of Ptolemy. 
 
 Alfonso reigned from 1252 to 1284. 
 
 The picture of the dreaming king, so absorbed in 
 his books, so pleased with the society of his Arabic 
 astronomers, that he let his kingdom slip through 
 his hands, is pleasanter than that furnished a century 
 later by another king of Castile, Pedro the Cruel, as 
 he was very justly called, unless he has been greatly 
 misrepresented. 
 
 The beautiful Alcazar at Seville was his favorite 
 
ALFONSO X. 271 
 
 palace. It is Moorish, and ornamented with the 
 graceful horseshoe arch and lace-like arabesque work 
 the Moors employed. Saint Ferdinand found it a 
 pleasant place to establish himself in when he captured 
 the city, and there his son Alfonso may have studied 
 the stars in the large gardens which surrounded the 
 palace, or pacing the arched gallery running along 
 the enclosure. 
 
 Don Pedro enlarged the alcazar, rebuilt and em- 
 bellished it, but he left the records of a crime in 
 almost every room in the palace. 
 
 He came to the throne when he was but sixteen 
 years old, on the death of his father, who left behind 
 him, besides the prince Pedro, his rightful heir, a 
 whole family of children, both sons and daughters, 
 who were half-brothers and sisters of Pedro. For the 
 Christian kings, as well as the Moslem ones, often 
 made the question of succession a cause of quarrel- 
 ling by having two or more families of children 
 whose mothers were different. The Moslem law 
 allows two wives at least ; the Christian furnishes no 
 such excuse. 
 
 In this case there was no love lost between the 
 half-brothers, children of Alfonso XL Pedro hated 
 Fadrique and Enrique, or Henry, as it is easier to 
 call him, and they, it may be supposed, returned the 
 hatred with the added bitterness of those who are 
 oppressed. But Pedro seems to have had a passion 
 for killing and murdering, even when he had no 
 excuse, if there ever is any. 
 
 The catalogue of those who died by his orders is 
 too long and dreary to repeat. 
 
272 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Pedro loved, in his violent and cruel way, a very- 
 beautiful lady of the court, named Maria de Padilla ; 
 but in compliance with the request of his Cortes, he 
 agreed that an embassy should be sent to the French 
 king asking for his wife a princess of his royal house 
 
 DOOR IN THE ALCAZAR. 
 
 This alliance, to confirm harmonious relations be- 
 tween the two countries, was approved of by the 
 French, and Blanche of Bourbon was sent to Spain, 
 poor thing. Her father was Peter of Bourbon, and 
 from that house afterwards sprang the royal line of 
 the French Bourbons, 
 
ALFONSO X. 273 
 
 The ceremony of marriage took place with due 
 splendor, but only two days afterwards, Don Pedro, 
 the king, left his youthful bride, nor did she see 
 much of her husband ever afterwards. 
 
 According to the legends of the time Pedro con- 
 ceived a hatred for his French bride, which was 
 brought about by enchantment, attributed to Maria 
 de Padilla, who was afraid of losing her influence on «**<•* 
 the king, if his young wife should prove attractive. 
 
 " The young queen had given to her new spouse 
 the most beautiful girdle of gold, ornamented with 
 many gems and precious stones, and this girdle 
 Pedro was pleased to wear out of his new love for 
 Blanche, the giver. But Maria, jealous of the queen, 
 managed to put the girdle into the hands of a Jew, 
 who was a magician, and he so affected it for the 
 worse that on a certain feast day, when the king 
 went to put it on, in the sight of every one present, 
 instead of a belt he was girded about by a horrible j^jr-jj 
 serpent. From that moment Pedro held the queen 
 in abhorrence." v ^t v^J «, 
 
 However this may be, the unfortunate Queen 
 Blanche was shut up in prison, where no one was 
 allowed to see her, and afterwards taken to Toledo, 
 where, also, she was kept in strict confinement. Her 
 guards there allowed her to go to service in the 
 cathedral, where her appearance so interested the 
 congregation in her favor that they all resolved to 
 protect her at the risk of their lives and fortunes, 
 and she was at once rescued from her keepers. 
 Pedro marched on Toledo as soon as he heard the 
 news, to seize the princess but she was no longer 
 
 $\<u fa 
 
274 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 a prisoner ; the whole city had taken her part, and 
 placed her under a strong guard in the palace of 
 their kings. 
 
 The half-brothers of the king, and the defenders of 
 Blanche, formed so strong a league against the king, 
 that Pedro had to pretend that he had softened tow- 
 ards his wife and meant to live with her, but he had 
 not the faintest intention of so doing. The unfor- 
 tunate Blanche was transferred, not to his palace 
 to be queen, but to a strong fortress, where she long 
 remained a prisoner, and in 1 361, was there killed 
 by the order of her husband, whether by poison or 
 steel is still unknown. 
 
 Pedro caused his half-brother, Fadrique, to be 
 killed in the very palace of the alcazar, in a patio 
 where still are shown the marks of his blood, upon 
 the pavement, if marks of blood they may be. 
 
 The ballad that describes the death of Fadrique 
 is one of the best in Lockhart's rather poor collec- 
 tion. It begins as* if told by the murdered man 
 himself : 
 
 
 I sat alone in Corinbra, the town myself had ta'en, 
 When came into my chamber, a messenger from Spain ; 
 There was no treason in his look, an honest look he wore ; 
 I from his hand the letter took ; my brother's seal it bore. 
 
 Then it tells how the letter was a friendly invi- 
 tation for him to come to the tournament at Seville, 
 and how Fadrique, with joyful heart, started to 
 accept the invitation, not heeding " a man of God," 
 who stood in the gateway at Seville to warn him not 
 to enter ; how he came to the palace, and greeted 
 his brother, who spurned him from him ; and then, — 
 
AVIGORNAGNA, BILBAO. 
 275 
 
2J6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 the story as told by Fadrique himself suddenly stops 
 short ; and another voice, as it were, relates how the 
 head of the master was brought before the eyes 
 of Maria de Padilla, who had demanded it of the 
 king. 
 
 To complete the occasion, the tyrant sent orders 
 for the execution of several knights in various cities 
 of the kingdom, and, it is said, insisted that day in 
 dining in the very room in which lay the bleeding 
 corpse of his murdered brother. 
 
 Such deeds roused the hostility of the French. 
 Arragon also, now a powerful state, was already in 
 arms against him ; and Pedro in defence sought the 
 alliance of the English king, Edward III., and the 
 Black Prince, who were his relatives ; for the sister 
 of Alfonso X. married Edward I. of England. 
 
 Edward III., as every English or American boy 
 should know, had large possessions in France. He 
 had even the French king shut up in a prison in Lon- 
 don ; but besides that, much territory, the best half of 
 France in fact, belonged to him, either by inheritance 
 or the triumph of his arms. He owed these triumphs 
 in a great measure to his noble son, the Black Prince, 
 so called on account of the color of his favorite armor, 
 who fought with such prowess at the battle of Poic- 
 tiers and afterwards, that he was the hero of the 
 day. 
 
 The Black Prince spent most of his time in his 
 French possessions, where he had a large army to 
 guard them. He was, in fact, born in Bordeaux, and 
 this was his favorite city. He maintaind his court 
 there with aU the splendor of a monarch. Scattered 
 
ALFONSO X. 27} 
 
 about in the Pyrenees, there are still standing castles 
 built by the English at that time, and inhabited by 
 the followers of the Black Prince. 
 
 This redoubtable hero accepted the cause of his 
 distant cousin, Pedro ; on the other hand, Charles V., 
 of France, took sides against the tyrant, with Henry, 
 his half-brother, called Henry of Trastamara. Charles 
 had just come to the throne, through the death of his 
 father in London, and longed to avenge the death of 
 the French Princess in Spain. The famous Bertrand 
 du Guesclin was on this side of the contest, and also 
 the king of Navarre. 
 
 Henry was joyfully received at Seville, and ac- 
 knowledged as king by the whole of Andalusia. His 
 direct claim to the throne was but feeble, for Pedro 
 was the undoubted heir to their father's kingdom, 
 but he had married a granddaughter of one of the 
 Infantes de la Cerda, whose fate had made so much 
 discussion in their day. This recommended him to 
 the favor of the French court. 
 
 With treasure found in Seville, from which Pedro 
 had fled, and with powerful allies, the cause of 
 Henry seemed to prosper, but nothing could resist 
 the mighty prowess of the Black Prince. Pedro, for 
 whom he was arming, went about stabbing and poi- 
 soning as usual, without looking deep into his affairs, 
 but early in the spring of 1367, Prince Edward crossed 
 the Pyrenees, at Roncesvalles, with an army of Nor- 
 mans and Gascons, and some of the flower of Eng- 
 lish chivalry. 
 
 The great battle of Navarrete was fought on the 
 3d of April, 1367. The struggle was desperate ; the 
 
2j8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 war-cry of " Guienne and St. George ! " on the one 
 side, and on the other that of " Castile and San- 
 tiago ! " were drowned by the clash of arms, the 
 shouts of the victors, and the groans of the dying. 
 
 Both the brothers fought bravely ; Henry was 
 dauntless, and Pedro was as daring as he was 
 cruel. The victory was with the cause of the 
 rightful sovereign of Castile. 
 
 Such a splendid success has not often been found 
 in history ; it restored Pedro at one to the Castilian 
 throne ; and this he owed to the assistance of the 
 English prince. But this victorious ally met with 
 little gratitude ; it was with great difficulty that he 
 induced Pedro to pay any of the money due to the 
 troops. The humane English prince, moreover, was 
 disgusted at the desire the restored king showed to 
 shed the blood of their prisoners. 
 
 He refused to do so, and reproached the tyrant 
 for the wish. 
 
 " What was the use of your helping me, then ? " 
 asked Pedro, with apparent simplicity. " If I do not 
 kill these rebels, they will go back to Henry, and it 
 will be all to do over again." 
 
 Edward did not stay long with this bloodthirsty 
 cousin-Spanish. He made peace between the kings 
 of Castile and Arragon, admonished Pedro to obtain 
 the love of his people, and went back to his life 
 in Guienne. 
 
 Pedro proceeded to Toledo, where he put to death 
 obnoxious individuals, and far from following the ad- 
 vice of Edward, made himself more and more un- 
 popular. The Black Prince, ever after, let him alone, 
 and the arms of Henry were everywhere successful. 
 
ALFONSO X. 279 
 
 It was by treachery, however, that the king fell 
 into the hands of the enemy. Pedro was persuaded 
 to come into the tent of du Guesclin, who was fight- 
 ing for Henry, and there the half-brothers met. 
 
 It is said that when Henry entered, he did not 
 at first recognize his brother, so much had he altered 
 in a few years. 
 
 " There is your enemy," said an attendant. 
 
 "I am! I am!" cried Pedro, seeing that he was 
 betrayed. The brothers grappled like lions, and 
 Pedro was slain. 
 
 " Henry and King Pedro clasping 
 
 Hold in straining arms each other ; 
 Tugging hard, and closely grasping, 
 
 Brother proves his strength with brother, 
 
 " Thus with mortal gasp and quiver, 
 While the blood in bubbles welled, 
 Fled the fiercest soul that ever 
 In a Christian bosom dwelled." 
 
 This was the end of the bloody reign of Don 
 Pedro the Cruel. If he was not the violent and sav- 
 age character generally represented, he has been 
 much maligned by his chroniclers. 
 
 Henry of Trastamara now reigned. In this house 
 a century later, the crown of Arragon became united 
 with that of Castile, making the whole of Spain, 
 with the exception of Granada, into one kingdom. 
 To tell why Portugal, occupying the rest of the 
 Peninsula, has always been a separate country, with 
 a different language, belongs to some other story. 
 
28o THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 A daughter of Pedro the Cruel, named Con- 
 stance, married John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lan- 
 caster, a brother of the Black Prince. This duke 
 assumed, after the death of Henry of Trastamara, the 
 title of king of Castile, and prepared to invade the 
 kingdom. In 1 386, the duke actually left England with 
 about fifteen hundred knights, accompanied by his 
 wife, the Princess Constance of Castile, as a visible 
 witness to his claim to the crown. He was solemnly 
 proclaimed king of Castile and Leon at Santiago. 
 
 The progress of his arms met with little success, 
 and was stayed by the plague, which made ravages 
 in their ranks. The duke became discouraged and 
 retired. The matter was compounded by agree- 
 ments of marriage, by which Catharine, the little 
 daughter of the Plantagenet, and granddaughter of 
 Pedro the Cruel, was united to the son of the king 
 of Castile. 
 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ARRAGON. 
 
 WITHOUT going into detail as to the precise boun- 
 daries of the petty Spanish kingdoms at different 
 periods, it will be enough if the reader will remem- 
 ber that, roughly speaking, the kingdom of Castile, 
 at the beginning of the fifteenth century, embraced 
 the northwestern part of Spain, including the long 
 coast which borders on the 'Bay of Biscay, and bor- 
 dering on the kingdom of Portugal. The kingdom 
 of Arragon, in the same way, had absorbed into itself 
 all the petty states of the northeast of Spain, with 
 the exception of Navarre. That little kingdom, 
 brave to audacity, quite self-sufficient, but none the 
 less aggressive, made itself an uncomfortable neigh- 
 bor to the French upon the north, and to the 
 province of what we may call Spaniards proper, on 
 the south. The ports of Arragon were those of the 
 Mediterranean, by which, as we saw, Spain had made 
 her early acquaintance with the civilization of Rome, 
 Greece, and the further East. From the seaports of 
 Catalonia and Valencia, there sailed a race of brave 
 seamen, not over scrupulous perhaps, who traded 
 with all the ports of the Mediterranean, and even 
 pushed their conquests, as enterprising merchants 
 
 281 
 
282 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 will, wherever adventure or profit required. By the 
 achievements of such navigators, the monarchs of 
 Arragon became the lords of Majorca, Minorca, and 
 Ivica, which are still dependencies of the Spanish 
 crown. They also acquired a sovereignty over Sar- 
 dinia and Sicily, islands which, in the decay of 
 Spain's power, have fallen from her wasted hand. 
 In the farther East, some of the achievements of the 
 Catalonian fleets were to the last degree daring and 
 chivalrous. Roger de Flor, in the year 1303, in a 
 well-equipped fleet of twenty-two vessels, came to 
 the relief of the hard-pressed Greek emperor in Con- 
 stantinople. The grateful emperor gave him his 
 niece in marriage, and made him admiral of Rou- 
 mania. He led his Catalans across the Propontis 
 into Asia ; they slew thirty thousand Moslems in two 
 battles. He raised the siege of Philadelphia, and 
 was called the deliverer of Asia. In a series of in- 
 trigues which followed, in which the Catalans as- 
 sumed every thing, Roger received the title of 
 Caesar, the highest title under the emperors. But 
 he now had awakened such terror that the Imperial 
 guard revenged themselves by his assassination. By 
 a similar dash, an army of Catalans, amounting to 
 eight thousand men, took possession of Athens, and 
 till the close of the fourteenth century, Athens was 
 an appanage of the kings of Sicily. 
 
 But, as often happens in greater and in less con- 
 cerns than these, the ruler whose sway was so grand 
 at a distance, found himself strictly hampered at 
 home. An old writer said of Arragon, at that time, 
 that there were as many kings there as there were 
 
ARRAGON. 283 
 
 rich men. There was no moment in all this history 
 the gentry or nobility of Arragon did not maintain 
 their haughty independence, and the twelve peers of 
 Arragon call themselves " great men, ur rich men, by 
 nature," implying that they did not receive their no- 
 bility from any sovereign. 
 
 In 1410, the throne of Arragon became vacant by 
 the death of King Martin, without direct heirs. 
 The nation referred the question of succession to a 
 committee of judges, and they gave it to Ferdinand 
 of Castile, not as king, but as regent for his little 
 nephew. 
 
 This brought the sceptre of Arragon, which, for 
 more than two centuries had descended in the family 
 of Barcelona, into the same Trastamara family which 
 was ruling over the Castilian monarchy. 
 
 The son of this Ferdinand was Alfonso V., who 
 was very little at home in his kingdom of Arragon, 
 because he had acquired for himself another king- 
 dom, that of Naples. He went there at the request 
 of Joanna, then Queen of Naples, to defend her from 
 her enemies. She adopted him, and bequeathed to 
 him her kingdom, which he kept, although she after- 
 wards changed her mind about the succession. These 
 matters entirely absorbed King Alfonso, who, like 
 many another, was carried away by the lovely cli- 
 mate of Naples, and the intellectual cultivation which 
 prevailed at that court. He left the affairs of Arra- 
 gon in the hands of his brother, John, with whom we 
 have now to do. It is confusing that his name 
 should be John, for the little king at Castile was also 
 John, having, indeed, been named for him. 
 
284 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 John of Arragon was married to Blanche, a princess 
 of Navarre, by whom he had three children, destined 
 to cause much trouble to their father, themselves, 
 and the world in general. 
 
 Carlos, the son, by right inherited the crown of 
 Navarre from his mother, the princess Blanche. It 
 was a little kingdom, as we have seen, a bone of con- 
 tention for the greater powers which surrounded it. 
 France at the north and the united provinces of Spain 
 on the other side of it could never let it alone. Its 
 princes were sometimes most closely connected with 
 the one kingdom, sometimes with the other, without 
 the possibility of any thing like independence. Never- 
 theless, the kings of Navarre held on to their posses- 
 sions with as much tenacity as if they had been 
 larger ; and Carlos, as was natural, enjoyed to the 
 full his titles and lands. This was all very well, until 
 John, the father, married a second time, thus in- 
 troducing a step-rrjother into the family. His new 
 wife was Joan Henriques, of the blood royal of Castile, 
 a woman much younger than himself, of high spirit 
 and unprincipled ambition. She soon obtained great 
 influence over her husband, and when, in due time, 
 on the 10th of March, 1452, her son Ferdinand was 
 born, the interests of the other children were worse 
 than neglected, for they were encroached upon. This 
 infant was to grow to be Ferdinand, the husband of 
 Isabella. He was born in the little town of Sos. One 
 of the flatterers of the next generation says that " the 
 sun, which had been obscured with clouds during the 
 whole day, suddenly broke forth with unwonted splen- 
 dor, A crown was also beheld in the sky, composed 
 
ARRAGON. 285 
 
 of various brilliant colors, like those of a rainbow." 
 Yet, at his birth, as a younger brother of the heir, 
 there was no visible crown waiting for his head. 
 
 Not long after, Joan, the step-mother, went to Na- 
 varre to set things to rights there, as she regarded 
 them. She made herself very disagreeable to the 
 young king, as step-mothers do in story books, and 
 irritated or aggravated him to such an extent, that 
 she left the palace of her step-children, and retired to 
 another. 
 
 Navarre, at that time, was divided by two power- 
 ful families, who were always at discord — the Beau- 
 monts and the Agramonts. The Beaumonts were 
 the partisans of the Prince of Viana, for this was the 
 title of Carlos, the young king of Navarre. They 
 worked upon his naturally gentle temper, and urged 
 him to assume the sovereignty which was his by 
 right. The Agramonts, partly, doubtless, in order to 
 disagree with the Beaumonts, vehemently espoused 
 the cause of the queen. Thus, the two factions, in 
 the enjoyment of their own time-honored quarrel, 
 fostered and encouraged the differences in the royal 
 family. 
 
 Carlos had two young sisters, Blanche and Eleanor, 
 who shared his resentment at the intrusion of Joanna, 
 and who made things as unpleasant as two young 
 ladies can under such circumstances. 
 
 Carlos even besieged his step-mother in the castle 
 of Estella, to which she had withdrawn. His father 
 was forced to send a small body of troops to suppress 
 the revolt. The two angry factions of Navarre joined 
 the opposing sides, according to their prejudices ; the 
 
286 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 young prince found himself a prisoner, after a well- 
 contested action. 
 
 Carlos was released after many months of cap- 
 tivity, and after a little while decided to seek an 
 asylum with his uncle, Alfonso the V., at Naples, 
 in order to refer to him his difficulties with his 
 father. 
 
 On his passage through France, and the various 
 courts of Italy, the Prince of Viana was received 
 with the greatest attention, which was due to his 
 rank, and which his attractive personal appearance, 
 his youth, and his misfortune ensured to him. His 
 uncle in Naples received him warmly, and showed 
 him all the sympathy and affection which he had 
 anticipated. As Alfonso was really king of Arragon, 
 and had a right to say how the affairs of that king- 
 dom should be conducted, his influence with his 
 brother would be great in reference to Navarre, 
 therefore his protection might reasonably encourage 
 Carlos to hope for the best issue to his anxieties 
 about his crown. Just then, unfortunately, Alfonso 
 died, of a fever, in Naples, destroying the hopes of 
 the young prince. The dying Alfonso bequeathed 
 his dominions in Spain to his brother John, who had 
 so long been ruling there in his stead. Naples he 
 left to his son Ferdinand. 
 
 This prince was of a dark, gloomy character, in 
 contrast to the frank and courteous bearing of Car- 
 los, who in his short stay at Naples had so won the 
 affections of the nobles there, that a large party of them 
 eagerly pressed the latter to assert his title to the va- 
 cant throne. Carlos had the good sense to resist this 
 
ARRAGOM. 287 
 
 proposal. He passed over into Sicily, where his 
 welcome was of the warmest, for his mother Blanche 
 had once lived there, as queen, and the recollection 
 of her kindly rule was still fresh in the memory of 
 the people. He was, it is said, urged to assume the 
 sovereignty of that island, but Carlos rejected this 
 temptation ; passing his time in the society of 
 learned men, with the facilities of an extensive 
 library, belonging to a convent near Messina, for- 
 getting the cares and annoyances of his late years in 
 the study of philosophy and history. 
 
 In the meantime, John and Joanna had full control 
 in Arragon and Navarre, but reports of the popularity 
 of Carlos in Sicily came to them in due time, and 
 they began to be alarmed lest he should accept the 
 offers of sovereignty which had been made to him 
 there. They wrote him, therefore, urging him to 
 return, with promise of full reconciliation. Carlos 
 decided to return, contrary to the advice of his 
 wisest counsellors in Sicily. 
 
 Barcelona, which had been very indignant at the 
 persecution of a prince whom every one loved, made 
 the most brilliant preparations for his reception, but 
 the prince, fearing that such an ovation would irritate 
 his father, avoided going there until after his first in- 
 terview with the king and queen, in which he con- 
 ducted himself with unfeigned humility and peni- 
 tence. They, on their part, received him with a 
 cordiality which, if not genuine, was the result of 
 consummate dissimulation. 
 
 It was now confidently expected by every one that 
 John would hasten to acknowledge his son's title as 
 
288 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 heir-apparent to the crown of Arragon. But nothing 
 was further from the monarch's intention. He in- 
 deed summoned the Cortes for the purpose of re- 
 ceiving their homage himself, but he expressly refused 
 their request to perform the same ceremony to the 
 Prince of Viana, or to allow him to be addressed as 
 successor to the crown. 
 
 Such conduct on the part of John was evidently 
 due to the counsels of Queen Joanna. Not only 
 had Carlos deeply offended her, but she regarded 
 him with hatred as the insuperable obstacle to the 
 advancement of her own child Ferdinand. As her 
 influence over her husband was unbounded, she had 
 succeeded in alienating him entirely from all the 
 children of his first marriage. His affections were 
 now all centred upon the little Ferdinand, and he 
 was willing to believe all the artful suggestions of 
 the queen likely to shut his heart wholly against 
 his oldest son. 
 
 Convinced at length that there was no use in ex- 
 pecting consideration from his father, Carlos looked 
 about for aid in other quarters, to restore him to his 
 rights in Navarre, at least, without present consider- 
 ation of the succession to the throne of Arragon. 
 He was offered the hand of Isabella, the sister of 
 Henry of Castile, an alliance in every respect most 
 desirable for him, as it would ensure him the protec- 
 tion of this house. But this scheme suited not at 
 all his parents, for they wanted Isabella for their 
 darling Ferdinand. Their plan was more suitable as 
 to the age of the young people, and it had long been 
 the object of their policy. That Carlos should thus 
 
ARRAGON. 
 
 289 
 
 cross their wishes was a new offence. He was ar- 
 rested and placed in strict confinement, with no ex- 
 planation whatever. 
 
 All classes received this intelligence with surprise 
 and consternation. Deputations were sent to the 
 king requesting to know the nature of the crimes 
 imputed to his son. The answers of John were 
 
 SARAGOSSA. 
 
 vague, darkly hinting a suspicion of conspiracy by 
 his son against his life. 
 
 The whole kingdom was thrown into a ferment. 
 The Catalans rose almost to a man, and marched so 
 promptly on Frega, where John and his queen had 
 taken refuge, that they had barely time to make 
 their escape. The insurrection spread over the 
 country. The king of Castile, aided by the Beau- 
 monts, supported the cause of Carlos in Navarre. 
 
 John, alarmed at the tempest, saw the necessity 
 
290 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 of releasing Carlos from the inaccessible fortress in 
 which he was secured, and he affected to do this at 
 the urgent request of the queen, hoping thus to les- 
 sen her unpopularity. She therefore accompanied 
 the prince on his way from his prison to Barcelona. 
 He was everywhere greeted with enthusiasm by the 
 people of the villages thronging out to meet him. 
 He entered the capital with a welcome such as 
 might be given to a conqueror ; but the queen, 
 having been informed that her presence in the city 
 would not be tolerated, thought it more prudent f&t 
 i%r to remain at a distance. 
 
 The Catalans insisted that Carlos should be pub- 
 licly acknowledged as the heir and successor to the 
 crown, and John accepted these conditions with ap- 
 parent cheerfulness. Carlos, happy in the enthusi- 
 astic attachment of a brave and powerful people, 
 seemed now to have reached the end of his troubles. 
 
 At this very clo^e of his trials, he fell ill of a fever, 
 and soon died, on the 23d of September, 1461, in the 
 forty-first year of his age. So opportune a death, 
 for the wishes of Joanna, led to plentiful suspicions 
 of poisoning, but there is no sort of proof of it. 
 
 Carlos, in his will, bequeathed the crown of Navarre, 
 in conformity with the original marriage contract of 
 his parents, to his sister Blanche and her posterity. 
 
 Thus, in the prime of life, died the Prince of 
 Viana, just at the moment when the tide of his 
 fortunes seemed to have turned in his favor. His 
 early act of rebellion had been requited by the mis- 
 fortunes which followed it, and the harsh conduct of 
 his father gave him the sympathy of all. 
 
ARRAGOiV. 29I 
 
 He is described as " somewhat above the middle 
 stature, having a thin visage, with a serene and 
 modest expression of countenance, and withal some- 
 what inclined to melancholy." Another description 
 says : " Such were his temperance and moderation, 
 such the excellence of his breeding, and such the 
 sweetness of his demeanor, that no one thing 
 seemed to be wanting in him which belongs to a 
 true and perfect prince." He was fairly skilful in 
 music and painting, wrote poetry, and was the friend 
 of some of the eminent bards of his time. 
 
 Carlos dead, Joanna the step-mother transferred 
 her ill-will to Blanche, who, as heiress to the crown 
 of Navarre, became the object of her jealousy. 
 Blanche had been long married to Henry IV. of 
 Castile, but was separated from him, and lived by 
 herself in Navarre. Her father, instigated by his 
 wife, thought to get rid of Blanche by taking her 
 into France, on the pretext of making a new mar- 
 riage for her. Blanche feared to be taken away 
 from her friends, and besought the king not to de- 
 liver her into the hands of her enemies, but in vain • 
 she was forcibly conveyed across the mountains. At 
 a little town on the French side of the Pyrenees, 
 being convinced that she had nothing further to hope 
 from human aid, she formally renounced her rights to 
 Navarre in favor of her former husband, Henry of 
 Castile, also her cousin. She wrote him a touching 
 letter, reminding him of their mutual happiness in 
 earlier days, and of her subsequent misfortunes, and 
 then, predicting the gloomy destiny which awaited 
 her, she settled on him her inheritance of Navarre. 
 
292 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 The reason she feared so much was that she was 
 on her way to the keeping of the Count of Foix, up 
 among the mountains. The Countess of Foix was 
 Eleanor, her only sister, and the last remaining mem- 
 ber of her mother's family ; but Eleanor was her 
 enemy, for if Blanche was out of the way she herself 
 expected to be the queen of Navarre, having received 
 the promise of it from her father, John of Arragon. 
 Blanche feared, with too good reason, to be deliv- 
 ered into the power of her heartless sister, for on 
 the very day she wrote the sad little letter to her 
 former husband, she was taken to the gloomy cha- 
 teau of Orthez, in Beam, on a plateau above deep 
 ravines, surrounded by a triple wall. 
 
 Here the counts of Foix used to live in great 
 splendor, as Froissart says, " getting up at noon, and 
 supping at midnight ; when the count left his cham- 
 ber to go to table, before him were twelve lighted 
 torches borne by Jwelve vajlets, and these twelve 
 torches were held by the varlets before his table, 
 which gave a great light to the hall, which was full 
 of knights and squires, and the tables were always 
 dressed with supper for whoever wished to sup." 
 
 Poor Blanche saw nothing of such revelry, being 
 immured in a dungeon, where she languished for two 
 years, poisoned in the end by the command of her sister. 
 
 This cruel Countess of Foix reigned in Navarre, 
 after the death of her father. She had her wish, but 
 she died herself after three weeks of royalty, and 
 the crown was taken from her family by Ferdinand, 
 for whose sake his father sacrificed so much, and 
 stained his own memory with so many crimes. 
 
CHATEAU DE BELLEGARDE. 
 
 293 
 
294 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 In the end, however, we come to pity the King of 
 Arragon, w r hose unkindness to his children, after 
 all, was his chief fault, and this was caused by the 
 malign influence of Joanna, and his exceeding love 
 for her son Ferdinand. 
 
 His Catalans turned against him and found power- 
 ful support among outside allies, to one and another 
 of whom they offered the crown of Arragon, among 
 others to Rene the Good, of Anjou. This king is 
 best known to modern readers, perhaps, from Scott's 
 amusing picture of him in Anne of Geierstein. Rene 
 intrusted his claims to his son, the Duke of Lorraine, 
 who, with a spirited army, crossed the Pyrenees and 
 pushed King John hard in Arragon. In two cam- 
 paigns the French duke held his own. 
 
 The exchequer of King John ran low. The King 
 of France who had promised to be on his side, was 
 Louis XL, a monarch by no means sure to be as 
 good as his word. ( John found himself unable to 
 raise money for his troops. His daughter Eleanor, 
 the Countess of Foix, now demanded the crown of 
 Navarre, which he had promised her only at his death; 
 and worst of all, since it is personal suffering which 
 makes it hard to bear the misfortunes of our state, 
 his eyesight, long impaired by exposure, now failed 
 him altogether. He was no longer young ; he 
 had lived an emotional, adventurous life, and now 
 when he would have liked repose, repose was far 
 from him, for on every hand there was difficulty to 
 encounter. 
 
 It might be that in those hours of darkness he 
 should sigh for the gentle presence of Carlos, always 
 
ARRAGON. 295 
 
 as a little boy, sweet and amiable, and recall the 
 prattle of Blanche and Eleanor, children at his knee. 
 All gone — all dead before him, and not by the natural 
 course of events, but through the violence of his will. 
 
 His intrepid wife in this extremity put herself at 
 the head of their armies to check the operations of 
 the enemy, and his only remaining son Ferdinand 
 fought bravely against the insurgents. His ardor 
 nearly proved fatal to the young prince, for he was 
 once almost in the hands of the enemy, but he was 
 saved by the devotion of his own officers who threw 
 themselves between him and the pursuing party, so 
 that he escaped at the sacrifice of their liberty. 
 
 In the winter of 1468" the queen, Joanna Hen- 
 riques, died by a painful disorder from which she had 
 suffered for years. In many respects she was the 
 most remarkable woman of her time. She took an 
 active part in the politics of her husband, and, in- 
 deed, directed them. She conducted some important 
 diplomatic negotiations to a happy issue, and dis- 
 played even capacity for military affairs. Her perse- 
 cution of her step-son Carlos is the worst stain resting 
 upon her memory. It was, indeed, the cause of all 
 her husband's subsequent misfortunes. 
 
 Still, her great spirit and the resources of her 
 genius supplied him with courage and means of sur- 
 mounting the difficulties in which she had involved 
 him, so that her loss at this crisis left him at once 
 without solace or support. 
 
 A physician of the Hebrew race persuaded the 
 king to submit to the then universal operation of 
 couching, and succeeded in restoring sight to one of 
 
296 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 his eyes. The Jew, who like the Arabs, was a firm 
 believer in astrology, refused to operate upon the 
 other eye, because, he said, the planets wore a malig- 
 nant aspect. But John, who was above the super- 
 stitions of his age, compelled the physician to repeat 
 his experiment, which proved completely successful. 
 Thus, although now nearly eighty years old, the 
 brave king regained his energy and good spirits, and 
 resumed operations against the enemy with his 
 ancient vigor. 
 
 The Duke of Lorraine, John of Calabria, died 
 of a fell disease while at the head of his troops. 
 The old king, Rene, wore garlands and wrote poetry, 
 while his daughter, the unfortunate Margaret of 
 Anjou, followed the falling fortunes of the Red 
 Rose of Lancaster. 
 
 By extraordinary efforts John assembled a compe- 
 tent force, and besides other vigorous measures, he 
 instituted a close blockade of Barcelona, by sea and 
 land. 
 
 The inhabitants made one desperate effort in a 
 sally against the royal forces, but the civic militia 
 were soon broken, and the loss of four thousand 
 men, killed and prisoners, warned the insurgents to 
 desist. 
 
 At length, reduced to the last extremity, they 
 consented to enter into negotiations, which were 
 concluded by a treaty equally honorable to both par- 
 ties. A general amnesty was granted for all offences. 
 Those citizens who should refuse to renew their al- 
 legiance to their ancient sovereign within a year, 
 might have the liberty of removing with their effects 
 
ARRA GON. 297 
 
 wherever they pleased. It was agreed, in spite of 
 all that had passed, that the king should cause the 
 inhabitants of Barcelona to be proclaimed through- 
 out all his dominions, good, faithful, and loyal sub- 
 jects, which was accordingly done. 
 
 The king, after these preliminaries had been ad- 
 justed to general satisfaction, declining the triumphal 
 car which had been prepared for him, made his en- 
 trance into the city by the gate of St. Anthony, 
 mounted upon a white charger. As he rode along 
 the principal streets, the sight of so many pallid 
 countenances and wasted figures, bespeaking the ex- 
 tremity of famine, "smote his heart with sorrow," 
 says a contemporary. He then proceeded to the 
 hall of the great palace, and solemnly swore there to 
 respect the constitution and laws of Catalonia. 
 
 Thus ended this long disastrous civil war, which 
 nearly cost the King of Arragon the fairest portion of 
 his dominions. Its result in the end was to estab- 
 lish the succession of Ferdinand over the whole of 
 the realms of his ancestors ; thus, by his marriage 
 with Isabella of Castile, bringing the whole of Chris- 
 tian Spain under one sceptre. 
 
 °CCJ©^^S|<?>^>©?>»» 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 In the union of the two crowns of Castile and Arra- 
 gon by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
 in the extinction of the old rivalries and civil wars 
 for the moment, it was for the first time for genera- 
 tions possible for the nation to make any head 
 against the Moors. The result, in the famous reign 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella, gave to the nation the 
 most brilliant period of its history. The marriage 
 had been proposed when the Prince of Arragon and 
 the Princess of Castile were both very young. But 
 many an intrigue and misadventure had made it im- 
 probable after it was proposed, and it was not until 
 the year 1469, when Ferdinand was seventeen years 
 old, and Isabella a year older, that they were mar- 
 ried. 
 
 As we have seen, Ferdinand of Arragon was re- 
 garded from his birth as a very important personage, 
 and his father and mother sacrificed every thing to 
 his future greatness. Isabella of Castile, on the 
 other hand, began life with no pretensions to royalty. 
 On the death of her father her brother Henry came 
 to the throne, and Isabella retired with her mother 
 into seclusion, where she was carefully instructed in 
 
 298 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 299 
 
 those lessons of practical piety and in the deep rev- 
 erence for "religion"which distinguished her maturer 
 years. 
 
 Many offers of marriage were made for her ; she 
 
 » ISABELLA. 
 
 was betrothed to Carlos, the Prince of Viana, when 
 she was but a child ; when she was only thirteen, 
 her brother, the king, promised her to the old king 
 of Portugal, but Isabella absolutely refused the mar- 
 riage. 
 
300 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 A brother of the English king, a brother of the 
 French king, and other suitors were proposed to the 
 young princess, after it was pretty clear that she 
 would inherit the throne from her brother, on ac- 
 count of his having no legitimate heir. The person 
 among all these aspirants on whom she turned a 
 favorable eye, was her kinsman, Ferdinand of Arra- 
 gon. Every argument of policy was in favor of a 
 union between two houses so near each other, speak- 
 ing the same language, of the same religion, and the 
 same ambitions and objects. Arguments of a more 
 tender nature influenced Isabella. Ferdinand was 
 then in the bloom of life, and distinguished for his 
 good looks. From his boyhood he had displayed a 
 chivalrous valor, combined with a maturity of judg- 
 ment beyond his years. He had been trained in 
 hardships and in war. He delighted in physical 
 exercises, was fond of field sports, excelled in horse- 
 manship, was temperate and active in his habits of 
 life. Isabella was called by one of her household, 
 " the handsomest lady whom I ever beheld." Her 
 portraits show a symmetry of feature which has been 
 supposed to indicate that harmony of qualities which 
 distinguished her. 
 
 But Henry IV. although he had consented to ac- 
 knowledge his sister as his successor, objected to her 
 marriage with Ferdinand of Arragon, and a large party 
 openly opposed it. Spies were set upon her actions, 
 and every measure taken to hinder the progress of 
 her marriage negotiations. Her enemies even formed 
 a scheme of seeking her person, and many of her 
 friends betrayed and deserted her, but Isabella with 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 301 
 
 great courage sent envoys to her affianced, Ferd- 
 inand, to tell him, in effect, that it was best they 
 should be married at once. 
 
 The old king, John of Arragon, was then in his 
 worst extremity, sore pressed by insurgent Catalans ; 
 but Ferdinand resolved to hasten to his bride. with- 
 out delay. 
 
 He received the message at Saragossa ; the dis- 
 tance is not great to Valladolid, where he would find 
 Isabella was, but the country was full of watchful 
 enemies. Ferdinand, accompanied by half a dozen 
 attendants, disguised as merchants, journeyed chiefly 
 in the night. Ferdinand himself pretended to be a 
 servant, took care of the mules when they halted 
 upon the road, and waited upon the others at table. 
 They made the journey all one day with no disaster 
 except that they forgot the purse which contained 
 all the money they had, and left it at the inn where 
 they spent the night. Late on the second night, 
 they arrived at a little place occupied by a body of 
 Isabella's partisans. 
 
 As they knocked at the gate, they were saluted 
 by a large stone shoved off the battlements by a 
 sentinel, which came dangerously near the head of 
 the prince. 
 
 "What are you about ? " he shouted, with a voice 
 as vigorous as he could make it, cold and tired as he 
 was, after travelling two days with but little rest at 
 night. 
 
 His voice was recognized, and he was received 
 with great joy and festivity by those within. They 
 escorted him, well-armed through the rest of his 
 
302 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 journey, and reaching Leon, the Castilian nobles of 
 his party eagerly thronged to render him homage. 
 
 On the 15th of October Ferdinand entered Valla- 
 dolid, where he was received by the Archbishop of 
 Toledo, and conducted to the apartments of Isabella. 
 
 When he entered her presence, Gutierrez de 
 Cardenas, the first who pointed him out to the 
 princess said, " Ese es, ese cs" — that 's the one, that \s 
 the one ! In reward for this, his family bears on 
 their escutcheon the double SS, which sounds like 
 his exclamation. 
 
 Ferdinand was at that time seventeen. His com- 
 plexion was fair, though somewhat bronzed with ex- 
 posure to the sun, his eye quick and cheerful, his 
 forehead ample, and approaching baldness. His 
 frame was muscular and well proportioned, for he 
 was one of the best horsemen of his court, and ex- 
 celled in field-sports of every kind. His health was 
 ensured by his extrejne temperance in diet, and by 
 such habits of activity that it was said he seemed to 
 find repose in being busy. 
 
 Isabella was a year older than her suitor. In 
 stature she was somewhat above the middle size. 
 Her complexion was fair, her hair of a bright chest- 
 nut color, inclining to red, and her mild blue eyes 
 beamed with intelligence and sensibility. 
 
 She was dignified, modest, and reserved. She 
 spoke the Castilian language with unusual elegance, 
 and her intellectual cultivation was superior to that 
 of Ferdinand, whose early education had been ne- 
 glected. 
 
 The interview lasted more than two hours, and 
 
^ •: ' Br 
 
 \ ' ^Si' ' i \ ) • I' 
 
 • .-■■; ? > \* I 
 
304 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 was perfectly satisfactory to both parties. Among 
 other things, the preliminaries of the marriage were 
 adjusted. When the awkward question of expense 
 came up, it turned out that both parties were so 
 poor, they would have to borrow money for the 
 wedding. On so small a basis did this young couple 
 begin housekeeping. 
 
 The marriage took place four days afterwards, on 
 the 19th of October, 1469, in the presence of about 
 two thousand persons. A papal bull of dispensation 
 was forthcoming to justify the union of cousins, as 
 the bride and bridegroom were within the forbidden 
 degrees. This document was forged by the old king 
 of Arragon, aided by Ferdinand and the archbishop, 
 because they knew Isabella would never consent to 
 be married without it. The people knew nothing of 
 it at the time, but, some years later, the dispensation 
 was easily obtained from Sixtus the Fourth. Isa- 
 bella was seriously pffended when she heard about 
 the deception. 
 
 When the marriage was fairly accomplished, mes- 
 sengers were sent to the king, Henry IV., to inform 
 him of it. For the rest of his life he opposed the 
 interests of his sister, but he was pining under an in- 
 curable malady, and died in 1474. Isabella was then 
 twenty-three years old. 
 
 A numerous assembly of the nobles, clergy, and 
 the public magistrates of the city of Segovia, where 
 Isabella was at the time, then waited upon her, at 
 the Alcazar, and, receiving her under a canopy of 
 rich brocade, escorted her in solemn procession to 
 the principal square of the city, where a broad scaf- 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 305 
 
 folding had been erected for the ceremony of proc- 
 lamation. Isabella, royally attired, rode on a Span- 
 ish jennet, an officer preceding her on horseback, 
 bearing aloft a naked sword, the symbol of sover- 
 eignty. 
 
 On arriving at the plaza, she alighted from her 
 horse, and, ascending the platform, seated herself 
 upon a throne which had been prepared for her. A 
 herald, in a loud voice, proclaimed : " Castile ! Castile 
 for the king, Don Ferdinand, and his consort, Dona 
 Isabella, queen proprietor of these kingdoms ! " The 
 royal standards were unfurled, bells pealed, and 
 canons were fired from the castle. 
 
 Ferdinand was in Arragon, at the time of Henry's 
 death, and had no share in these ceremonies. On his 
 return, there was a little disagreeable discussion 
 about the crown of Castile, which Isabella's friends 
 regarded as hers exclusively, while Ferdinand's rela- 
 tives, and especially the Henriquez, who had all the 
 pugnacious qualities of his mother, one of their 
 family, claimed his right to a share of it, as the near- 
 est male representative of the House of Trastamara. 
 The question was not easy ; it had, of course, been 
 expected, between the partisans of Isabella and the 
 courtiers of Ferdinand. Could she, a woman, inherit 
 the crown of Castile? It is the very question which 
 has disturbed all Spain for the greater part of this 
 nineteenth century. If she could not, her husband, 
 Ferdinand, was the nearest male representative of 
 the House of Henry the IV. The Cardinal of Spain 
 and the Archbishop of Toledo determined that 
 females could inherit the crown in Castile and Leon, 
 
306 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 though it was granted they could not in Arragon. 
 Whatever authority Ferdinand might possess could 
 be derived only through her. It is said that Ferdi- 
 nand was so displeased with this arrangement, that 
 he threatened to go back to Arragon ; but Isabella 
 soothed him, and persuaded him the distinction was 
 only nominal. The images of both were stamped on 
 the public coin, and the united arms of Castile and 
 Arragon were emblazoned on the same seal, and she 
 promised that his will should always be hers. All 
 municipal and ecclesiastical appointments in Castile 
 were, from that time, made in the single name of the 
 queen. She ordered the issues from the treasury, 
 and received the homage of commanders in the 
 army. The king and queen both signed proclama- 
 tions, the images of both were stamped on the coin, 
 and from that day to this day the arms of both have 
 been quartered together on the escutcheon. 
 
 Thanks to the good sense of Isabella, more than 
 to any shown by her husband, the united kingdoms 
 gradually gained in strength. But the young pair 
 were not suffered to repose, for a war arose with Por- 
 tugal about the succession, and they found it hard 
 work, with their small purses, to maintain an army. 
 Peace was effected in 1479, an d, in the same year, 
 Ferdinand received his own crown by the death of his 
 father. Arragon, with its extensive dependencies, de- 
 scended to him. Thus, the crowns of Arragon and 
 Castile, after a separation of more than four centu- 
 ries, became united, and the foundations were laid of 
 the magnificent empire, destined to overshadow, in 
 its time, every other European monarchy. 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 307 
 
 Isabella established her head-quarters in Seville, 
 where she received the most loyal and magnificent 
 reception. She held her court in the great hall of the 
 Alcazar, still beautiful with the arabesque ornamen- 
 tation of its Moorish architect, and devoted her time 
 to the reformation of abuses licensed by her prede- 
 cessors. Every Friday she took her seat in her 
 chair of state, on an elevated platform covered with 
 cloth of gold, and surrounded by her council. The 
 queen herself examined the. suits ; and by extraor- 
 dinary despatch, in the two months that she stayed 
 in the city, a vast amount of plundered property was 
 restored to its rightful owners, and so many offen- 
 ders brought to prompt punishment, that it is said 
 that no less than four thousand persons, with guilty 
 consciences, fled from the place. 
 
 Such energetic conduct on the part of the queen, 
 and the able assistance of her royal spouse, brought 
 tranquillity into the country, such as had long been 
 absent. When prosperity was thus restored, Ferdi- 
 nand and Isabella, secure upon their thrones, with 
 always increasing wealth and a good army, turned 
 their eyes to that region of the Peninsula which was 
 not theirs, although it should by natural position 
 and ancient possession belong to the crown of Spain. 
 It was then in 148 1 that the war began which ended 
 in the fall of Granada in 1492. All this time there 
 was constant fighting going on, and deeds of the 
 greatest prowess were performed on the Christian 
 side as well as by the Moors. 
 
 Ferdinand was at the head of the Spanish troops, 
 and fought with the greatest bravery on every occa- 
 
308 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 sion, while his coolness and excellent judgment per- 
 vaded every detail. Isabella threw herself into-the 
 contest with the greatest ardor, visiting the camp 
 in person, encouraging the soldiers with gifts of 
 clothes and money. She caused large tents, known 
 as the " queen's hospitals," to be kept for the sick 
 and wounded, and furnished them herself with medi- 
 cines and attendants, thus herself originating the 
 idea of camp-hospitals. 
 
 Isabella may be regarded as the soul of the war. She 
 engaged in it with the exalted purpose of restoring 
 the empire of the Cross over the ancient domain of 
 Christendom. She never suffered her powerful mind 
 to be diverted from this great and glorious object. 
 
 At the beginning of the long contest, the Spaniards 
 were lower than most of the European nations in 
 military science. Isabella took pains to avail herself 
 of all foreign resources for their improvement. The 
 soldiers were trainee^ to act in concert and to obey 
 authority, to patient endurance, fortitude, and subor- 
 dination. It was in this school that were formed 
 those celebrated captains who, in the beginning of 
 the sixteenth century, spread the military fame of 
 their country all over Christendom and the newly 
 discovered world. It was in the war with Granada 
 that the great Captain Gonsalvo de Cordova earned 
 his first laurels, and it is said that Fernando Cortes, 
 as a boy, thought of going to join his banner, but, in- 
 stead, it happened when he was nineteen that he 
 sailed for the West, and afterwards became the con- 
 queror of Mexico. 
 
 While Ferdinand and Isabella were in their camp 
 
s- 
 
 3°9 .XpOffKEN^y Portrait of Columns. 
 
3 TO THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 before Granada, the capitulation was signed that 
 opened the way to an extent of empire compared 
 to which the conquest of country on their own 
 peninsula was insignificant. 
 
 Christopher Columbus, filled with faith in 'the ex- 
 istence of a new world, left Lisbon in disgust, where 
 he had been trying to interest the king of Portugal 
 in his plans of discovery, and came to submit his 
 proposals to the Spanish sovereigns. 
 
 He arrived in the latter part of 1484, when the 
 minds of the king and queen, and the heart of the 
 whole nation were absorbed in the conquest of 
 Granada, and it was long before he received the 
 slightest notice. At last, however, he received an 
 invitation to repair to Santa Fe, with money enough 
 accompanying it to provide for his equipment and 
 his expenses on the road. 
 
 Columbus arrived at the camp in season to witness 
 the surrender of Granada, when every heart was swell- 
 ing with triumph £nd exultation. Such success dis- 
 posed the sovereigns to listen with favor to proposi- 
 tions leading to more glorious adventure. Columbus 
 described to them the splendors of the Easterrfldng- 
 doms, which he fully expected to reach by sailing 
 towards the setting sun ; he held out to them the 
 prospect of extending the empire of the Cross over 
 these heathen lands, proposing to devote his own 
 profits in the enterprise to the recovery of the Holy 
 Sepulchre. 
 
 Ferdinand, from the first, regarded the scheme with 
 cold distrust. It was Isabella who, won to it at last, 
 said, in answer to his opposition : 
 
FERNLNAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 311 
 
 " I will assume the undertaking, for my own crown 
 of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray 
 the expenses of it." 
 
 This was no idle offer, for the treasury had been 
 reduced to its lowest ebb by the Moorish Avars. 
 Funds were found, however, without the sacrifice 
 of the royal gems. Arragon was not considered as 
 
 DEPARTURE OF COLUMBUS. 
 
 mixing in the scheme, the expense and the glory of 
 which rested with Castile. As everybody knows, on 
 the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus bade farewell to 
 the Old World on his wonderful voyage of discovery. 
 The confidence of Isabella in Columbus was fully 
 justified when, in the spring of 1493, letters were re- 
 ceived from him announcing his return to Spain, 
 
312 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 after successfully achieving his great enterprise by 
 the discovery of land beyond the Western Ocean. 
 
 The delight and astonishment raised by this news 
 were in proportion to the scepticism with which his 
 project had been looked upon at first. 
 
 The court was in Barcelona, when Columbus ar- 
 rived — Admiral Columbus as he was now called. He 
 at once hastened to present himself before the sov- 
 ereigns ; people thronged to meet him as he passed 
 through the country, accompanied by several dark 
 natives of the islands he had discovered, arrayed in 
 their simple costumes, and decorated with collars 
 and bracelets rudely fashioned of gold. He had 
 with him several kinds of strange quadrupeds, and 
 birds of gaudy plumage, unknown in Spain. 
 
 It was a proud moment for the discoverer, when 
 the king and queen advanced from their throne, ex- 
 tending their hands for him to salute, and causing 
 him to be seated before them. After a while the sov- 
 ereigns requested him to tell his story, and then 
 heard from his own lips the wonderful narrative of 
 his adventures. 
 
 Immense wealth flowed into the coffers of the 
 Spanish kings through the discovery of a new 
 world ; and Isabella might look back from the 
 summit of her power and splendor with a smile 
 upon the time when she had to borrow money for 
 her marriage. The royal house of Spain had come 
 to be one of the great powers of Europe, and its sub- 
 jects, living in prosperity and harmony, were well 
 governed and happy. 
 
 Ferdinand became involved in a long war in Italy, 
 
COLUMBUS ON THE DECK OF HIS SHIP WITH AN ASTROLABE IN HIS 
 
 HAND. 
 
 313 
 
3H THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 through his connection with the cause of Naples. 
 He conducted his share in it with great sagacity and 
 prudence, and aided by the genius of his chief com- 
 mander, Gonsalvo de Cordova, the Great Captain, he 
 accomplished brilliant results. 
 
 Queen Isabella had one son and four daughters, 
 for all of whom she was careful to make good mar- 
 riages. All her daughters lived to reign, but with 
 little happiness added to their brilliant positions. 
 
 Prince John, the only son, and the heir to the 
 kingdom, was married when he was not quite twenty 
 years old, to the Princess Margaret, daughter of the 
 Emperor Maximilian of Germany. The bride came 
 by water from Flanders, escorted by a fleet of over 
 one hundred vessels, large and small. She was met 
 on her arrival on the coast, by the young Prince of 
 the Asturias, for such was the title already given 
 to the heir of the Spanish crown, and by his father, 
 King Ferdinand. 
 
 They were married with great splendor ; but in the 
 midst of all the rejoicing, the young bridegroom was 
 seized with a fever, of which he soon died, to the 
 great grief of the country, by all the people of which 
 he was greatly beloved. 
 
 The Infanta Isabella, the oldest child of the sov- 
 ereigns, had married, one after the other, two princes 
 I of Portugal, for her first husband died soon after the 
 wedding. 
 
 Not long'after the death of Prince John, the young 
 Isabella, Queen of Portugal, gave birth to a son, an 
 event which would have occasioned great joy, for he 
 would, as heir to Spain and Portugal at once, unite 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 3 I 5 
 
 the two countries, which by their close connection 
 ought naturally to be one. 
 
 But the rejoicing was brief, for scarcely an hour 
 after the birth of the little prince his mother died. 
 
 The blow was heavy for Isabella, whose spirits 
 had not had time to rally since the death of her 
 only son. 
 
 The child, who was named Prince Miguel, was 
 early confirmed in his rights to the three monarchies 
 of Castile, Arragon, and Portugal, an act which was 
 the culmination of all the grandeur of the reign of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. But this little prince also i 
 died — before he had completed his second year, — 
 defeating the only chance which had ever occurred 
 of bringing the three nations under one rule. 
 
 At his death the succession of Castile and Arragon 
 came to the Princess Joanna, who married Philip, ■ 
 son of the Emperor Maximilian, at the same time 
 that her brother married his sister. 
 
 The Princess Joanna survived her mother and all 
 her immediate family. She became mad and in- 
 capable of government, and her father and husband 
 settled between them, not always in the greatest 
 harmony, the affairs of state. Her son Charles, as 
 Charles V. of Germany, and Charles I. of Spain, in- 
 herited her kingdom and also attained the title of 
 Emperor of Germany. 
 
 Catalina, the youngest daughter of the Castilian 
 sovereigns, married Henry VIII. of England, known 
 in English history as Catharine of Arragon. She was 
 the second Spanish princess who married a prince of 
 the royal house of England. The other was Con- 
 
3l6 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 stance, the daughter of Pedro the Cruel, from whom 
 Queen Isabella was lineally descended. 
 
 So many domestic calamities, as well as the inces- 
 sant fatigue and exposure of her life, had impaired 
 the health of Queen Isabella. It was visibly de- 
 clining in 1503, so that the Court of Castile begged 
 her to make some provision for the government of 
 her kingdom after her decease, for Joanna her daugh- 
 ter had already shown symptoms of insanity. 
 
 Ferdinand fell ill with a fever, and the queen was 
 seized with the same disorder, increased by her 
 anxiety for her husband, who, however, gradually 
 threw off the attack, while she sank under it. 
 
 In her suffering the queen did not lose her care for 
 the welfare of her people or the concerns of her 
 government. Though she had to lie upon her couch 
 a great part of the day, she there listened to the 
 reading of what was taking place at home or abroad. 
 
 The deepest glopm overspread the nation. The 
 superstitious Spaniards recalled ominous circum- 
 stances, an earthquake and a hurricane, which they 
 were sure announced the great calamity of her death. 
 Isabella herself felt the decay of her bodily strength, 
 
 Cand resolved to perform what duties remained to her 
 while her faculties were still vigorous. 
 
 She executed her will, which is a celebrated proof 
 of the peculiar qualities of her mind and character. 
 She appointed King Ferdinand, her husband, sole 
 regent of Castile until the majority of her grandson 
 Charles, being led to this, she says, " by the consid- 
 eration of the magnanimity and illustrious qualities 
 of the king, my lord, as well as his large experience 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 317 
 
 and the great profit which will redound to the state 
 from his wise and beneficent rule." 
 
 Three days after signing the last codicil to her will 
 the queen died, surrounded by the friends of her 
 childhood. As she saw them bathed in tears around 
 
 HALL OF THE TWO SISTERS (ALHAMBRAK 
 
 her bed, she said gently : " Do not weep for me, nor 
 waste your tears in fruitless prayers for my recovery, / 
 but pray rather for the salvation of my soul.'^e She 
 was fifty-four years old, and had reigned thirty years. 
 She died on the 26th of November, 1504. 
 
 * 
 
 
 n 
 
 i "0 
 
 
 i 
 
3l8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 One of the last requests of the queen was that 
 she might be buried in Granada, the brightest pearl 
 of her crown. Her body was transported there from 
 a great distance, escorted by large numbers of cava- 
 liers and priests. Scarcely had they set out when a 
 tremendous tempest began, which continued during 
 the whole journey ; roads were made nearly impas- 
 sable, bridges swept away, and the level land buried 
 under a deluge of water. Horses and mules were 
 borne down by the torrents, and their riders once or 
 twice perished with them. The melancholy escort 
 reached its destination on the 18th of December, 
 and the remains of Isabella were laid in the Francis- 
 can monastery of the Alhambra. Here, in the heart 
 of the capital, which her determination had redeemed 
 from the heretic, they reposed until after the death 
 of Ferdinand, when they were removed to be laid 
 by his side in the cathedral at Granada, built upon 
 the ruins of the mc^sque which they destroyed after 
 the conquest. 
 
 Charles V. called upon the best artists in the world 
 to make designs for the royal sepulchres of his 
 family. They lie in state in the chapel built for the 
 purpose. Ferdinand and Isabella, Joanna, their 
 daughter, and Philip her husband. Over the altar 
 is a bas-relief representing the surrender of Granada, 
 Isabella on a white palfrey between King Ferdinand 
 and the great Cardinal Mendoza, who is riding on 
 a mule, as is the fashion for dignitaries of the church 
 in Spain. Boabdil presents the keys, behind are 
 ladies, knights, and soldiers, and in the distance cap- 
 tives are seen coming out of the gates. 
 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 319 
 
 At each end of the altar, the Catholic sovereigns 
 kneel in effigy, their faces, costumes, and forms ex- 
 actly represented ; behind the king is the banner of 
 Castile. 
 
 TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 
 
 In the centre cf the chapel are two alabaster 
 sepulchres, superby wrought by Italian artists, and 
 decorated with delicate carving. Upon one are 
 stretched the effigies of Ferdinand and Isabella ; on 
 the other, Philip and his wife, Joanna. Isabella lies, 
 
320 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 sleeping in marble, placid and beautiful, and, by her 
 side, as she would have wished, lies Ferdinand, 
 in marble as well. Here, also, is the royal standard, 
 which flaunted on the hill when the Moorish flag 
 went down before it. Here is what Isabella would 
 have liked to call her talisman — the very mass-book 
 which Francisco Florez made for her, that she might 
 read her prayers. Here is a chasuble wrought by 
 her own hand, and not far away is the portrait of 
 Hernan Perez, who, in the heat of the siege, rode 
 into Granada, and fixed an Ave Maria on the very 
 wall of the Mosque, and retired safely. The mauso- 
 leum is one of the most interesting memorials in 
 Spain. 
 
 SiQS)l 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CHARLES I. OF SPAIN, — CHARLES V. OF GERMANY. 
 
 WITH the extraordinary reign of Charles, the 
 grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, begins a more 
 intimate relation of Spain with the politics of Eu- 
 rope. Strange to say, and sad to say, in the same 
 reign begins the visible decline of Spain from the 
 prosperity and the strength which she had won and 
 deserved, under the prudent and wise administration 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella, and Cardinal Ximenes. 
 It has been said that Charles had more power for 
 good or ill in Europe than has been exercised by any 
 man since the reign of Augustus ; and that, on the 
 whole, he probably did as much harm with it as 
 could possibly be done. This is probably true, 
 though it is hard to say how much harm a selfish 
 bigot can do ; and any one who has studied the his- 
 tory of Philip the Second, Charles' successor, will 
 feel that Charles himself did not exhaust the re- 
 sources of bigotry and selfishness. 
 
 There is preserved, in the Royal Library at Mad- 
 rid, an exquisite missal-book, such as was made and 
 adorned in those times for the personal use of princes. 
 Nothing can be finer than are its paintings and other 
 
 321 
 
322 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 decorations. By a curious felicity of compliment, a 
 series of royal contemporary portraits is introduced 
 among the pictures of the illuminations, so that 
 David, Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba are repre- 
 sented with the lineaments of the sovereigns who 
 reigned in Europe in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. But the highest value of this matchless book 
 is not in its decorations or its art, though its covers 
 blaze with gems and its pages display these beauti- 
 ful paintings. An inscription in the beginning says 
 that the gold used for the decoration, within and 
 without, is absolutely the same gold which was 
 brought by Columbus from the islands on his first 
 voyage as the first fruits of his new discovery. 
 Those very grains of gold were consecrated by Isa- 
 bella, after the birth of her grandson, for the illumi- 
 nation of the most costly book which the art of her 
 time could make — a book which was to be his book 
 for use in worship, and with which, doubtless, she 
 lavished her prayers that his administration of the 
 wealth of the Indies might be worthy of the hopes 
 with which all men welcomed the great discovery. 
 But such hopes of hers were never fulfilled. 
 
 No ! Spain and Charles were tried by prosperity, 
 and they were not equal to the test. Indeed, that 
 extension of empire which took Charles away 
 from Spain for much of his life, and gave to him 
 important duties elsewhere, may be said to have 
 weaned him from the country in which he was 
 born, and of which he was the absolute ruler. 
 The excuse, rendered again and again, for some act 
 of atrocious maladministration in Spain, is that 
 
Progenies 
 hi 
 
 AET 
 
 QYJNTVS < SIC < CARGLVS 
 
 EVMINA" ET'ORA-TT 
 SVAE XXXI 
 
 M D - XXXI 
 
 XLLEJ 
 T.. S 
 
 , 
 
 323 
 
 CHARLES THE FIFTH IN HIS 3IST YEAR. 
 
324 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Charles was absent when the thing was done. The 
 land was governed, or it was not governed. It obeyed 
 an absolute despot ; and that despot was so en- 
 gaged sometimes, as to think of it only as the treas- 
 ury from which he should draw his revenue. The 
 careful system of administration introduced by 
 Ferdinand and Isabella would be, on the one side, 
 stereotyped in hard forms, and on the other reck- 
 lessly abandoned. From the end of the reign of 
 Charles to the beginning of constitutional govern- 
 ment in our own time, it may be said that Spain has 
 been the worst-governed country in the world. Of 
 such failures the beginnings are to be sought in 
 Charles' absence from Spain, in his duties as Em- 
 peror of Germany, and arbiter of the destinies of 
 Europe. Indeed, while Charles still reigned, the 
 endless wars which he maintained in Europe, Africa, 
 Asia, and America, drained from Spain the treasure 
 which the newly discovered land poured in, and 
 steadily exhausted the resources of the nation. 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella had been unhappy and un- 
 fortunate in the death of their only son, Don John, 
 and their eldest daughter, the queen of Portugal, 
 neither of whom, as the reader knows, left any issue. 
 Their only remaining child was Joanna, the princess 
 whose after-career was so unfortunate, and who has 
 given so many sad subjects to painters and poets. 
 The daughter of the lords of the newly-discovered 
 Indies would not lack for suitors whatever her per- 
 sonal attractions or deficiencies. Ferdinand and 
 Isabella chose for the husband of Joanna, not un- 
 naturally, the young Archduke of Austria, " Philip 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 325 
 
 the Handsome," who was the son of the Emperor 
 Maximilian, and of Mary of Burgundy, the only , 
 child of Charles the Bold. When, therefore, the 
 baby was born, who was to be Charles the First of 
 Spain, and Charles the Fifth of Germany, he was 
 the grandson and heir apparent, on his mother's 
 side, of the king and queen of Spain, and, on his 
 father's side, of the princess to whom all Burgundy 
 had descended, and also of the Emperor Maximilian. 
 Although the title of the emperor was not trans- 
 mitted by descent, still the claims of family were natu- 
 rally considered in elections, and, in point of fact, 
 when this baby prince had grown to be twenty years 
 old he was elected emperor. We read of prospects 
 like these surrounding a cradle, almost as we read 
 the stories of the promises in a fairy tale. After the 
 event we trace the misfortunes of Spain back to the 
 very contingencies which, at the moment, seemed 
 to promise so much for the glory of the child then 
 born. 
 
 It will be a convenient aid to memory for the 
 reader to recollect that Charles, who was to have so 
 much to do with the drift of the sixteenth century, 
 was born in the "even year" 1500, the year before / 
 that century began. His father, the Duke of Bur- 
 gundy, resided at Brussels, which was his court and 
 though he paid formal homage for these provinces to 
 the French king, he reigned virtually as the sover- 
 eign. The reader must remember that Burgundy 
 took in the districts which are more generally known 
 now as Belgium, Burgundy, Dauphiny, part of Pro- 
 vence, and parts of what has made Languedoc, 
 
326 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Savoy, and Holland. His father died when he was 
 but six years old, and he then inherited the crown 
 of the Low Countries. He became king of Spain 
 in 1 5 16, and when his grandfather died, in 15 19, 
 Grand Duke of Austria. 
 
 The young prince Charles was born at Ghent, and 
 brought up at his father's court in Brussels. Spain's 
 first misfortune was that her sovereign for near forty 
 years was not to be a Spainard. The boy showed 
 an early interest in military exercises and the sports 
 of the open air. While he was reputed to be some- 
 what dull of study, it was his pride to excel in the 
 exercises of arms. The most interesting anecdote 
 told of his life, is that in his first appearance at a 
 public tournament, before a great assembly curious 
 to see the young prince, and not prepossessed in his 
 favor, he rode into the lists with a banner which bore 
 the inscription, " non demiun " " not yet." Even then, 
 however, he had assumed the government of Flan- 
 ders. When he was only fifteen years old, Chievres, 
 his tutor, trained him to read public papers, to be 
 present at his councils, and to propose himself the 
 matters on which he needed its opinion. His grand- 
 father, Ferdinand, died when he was sixteen years 
 old. A voyage or a journey from Spain to Brussels 
 was then a matter of many weeks, and by his will, 
 Ferdinand left the Cardinal Ximenes regent until 
 Charles could arrive in person in Spain. 
 
 This provision was the more necessary, because 
 the old king had at times flattered his younger 
 grandson, whose name also was Ferdinand, with the 
 hope that the crown of Spain might be left to him. 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. $2? 
 
 But Ximenes boldly proclaimed Charles king of Cas- 
 tile in his absence, and, notwithstanding secret dis- 
 contents, his title was recognized. From this time 
 till Charles arrived, the administration of Spain was 
 substantially in the hands of Ximenes. But the 
 young king's Flemish ministers interfered, as far as 
 they could, with his administration, and by their ad- 
 vice Charles sent associate councillors to his Spanish 
 court, as if to assist the great cardinal. The Span- 
 iard treated them with distinction, but maintained 
 his own authority. He even carried on a war in 
 Navarre from which he drove out John d' Albrecht. 
 He dismantled all the fortresses except Pampeluna, 
 and to this precaution Spain owes the possession of 
 her part of Navarre to-day. He was constantly urg- 
 ing the new king to come to his kingdom, and, after 
 a year, he succeeded. The voyage was dangerous, 
 but Charles landed safely on the 13th of September, 
 1 5 17, and was received with great magnificence and 
 enthusiasm. But his first act was an insult to Xim- 
 enes. He took care not to meet his great minister. 
 His abrupt message to that effect proved fatal, and, 
 after a regency of twenty months, distinguished for 
 sagacity, prudence, and boldness, Ximenes died. 
 Thus did Charles begin on a false policy towards 
 Spain, suggested by his Flemish courtiers, which 
 alienated from him the nobility and the people of 
 his kingdom. The Spainards thought, and thought 
 justly, that the Flemings only cared for Spain so far 
 as it supplied them with money. Peter Martyr de- 
 clares that in ten months only they sent 1,100,000 
 ducats into Flanders, 
 
328 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 So soon as Charles left them, therefore, each of 
 the principal provinces rose in rebellion, not always 
 against Charles' dignity, but against the govern- 
 ment of the viceroys, whom he had left behind. In 
 Castile, Padilla, a popular leader of great ability suc- 
 ceeded, at the head of an armed force, in obtaining 
 possession of Joanna, the emperor's mother. She 
 had been shut up as insane, as doubtless she was. 
 But a sudden return of intelligence enabled this un- 
 fortunate lady to assure the people that she had 
 been ignorant of their sufferings. She nominally 
 held an equal share in the sovereignty with Charles, 
 and in his absence, her co-operation with the insur- 
 gents was, of course, of the greatest importance. 
 
 Had the malcontents in the different provinces 
 maintained any system of intelligent co-operation 
 with each other, things would have gone hardly with 
 the emperor's viceroys. But, in truth, the leaders of 
 the several insurrections knew little and cared little 
 in any case for what was going on in other provinces 
 than their own. The viceroys, on the other hand, 
 had at least the consciousness of imperial sympathy, 
 they had the imperial finances to rely upon, and, to 
 a considerable extent, they were sustained by the 
 nobility in their respective provinces. For these 
 reasons, they were able to act more promptly and 
 with more decision than the insurgents, who were 
 recruited, generally speaking, from the oppressed 
 and discontented populace. To these causes, more 
 than to any distant orders given by himself, Charles 
 owed it that when he returned to Spain in 1522 he 
 found the insurrections all suppressed. The people 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 329 
 
 of the several provinces were dreading the punish- 
 ment which might be meted out by an indignant 
 master. The viceroy, in Castile, had punished 
 twenty persons capitally. So cruel were those 
 times, that this was considered, even by Dr. Robert- 
 son a hundred years ago, to be a very small number, 
 in a province of which the population cannot have 
 been two millions. It was supposed that on the 
 emperor's arrival, his vengeance would sweep much 
 more widely. But Charles showed his statesman- 
 ship, and we ought to say his generosity, by refusing 
 to shed any more blood. He published a general 
 order giving amnesty to all persons concerned in the 
 insurrections, — an amnesty from which only eighty 
 persons were exempted, and these, as it would ap- 
 pear, for a limited time. 
 
 At the time when Charles landed in Spain, with 
 such cares before him, Adrian, who had been in his 
 youth his preceptor, and afterward regent of Spain 
 in his absence, was chosen Pope of Rome. The 
 people of Rome were amazed by the austerity and 
 humility of an old man, who showed none of the mag- 
 nificence and splendor which, as they supposed, be- 
 longed to the head of the Church. The Pasquinades 
 of the time, which took the privileges of Punch to- 
 day, represented him as a schoolmaster with a bunch 
 of rods, flogging the cardinals. Adrian did not for- 
 get to whom he owed his elevation. Still he tried 
 to unite the warring princes of Christendom, — and 
 proposed for them, as a common object, what might 
 be called a crusade against Solyman the Magnificent 
 who had conquered Rhodes. But here he did not sue- 
 
33° THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ceed. ' Venice broke with Francis I. king of France, 
 and joined Charles against him. The Pope, naturally 
 enough, fell into the same alliance with his old pu- 
 pil and master. At this time, the faithless Constable, 
 Charles Duke of Bourbon, rebelled against Francis. 
 Charles V. offered to this prince his sister in mar- 
 riage, — the title of king of a kingdom to be made 
 for him from Provence and Dauphiny. Henry VIII. 
 of England was the third party in the treaty. The 
 king of Spain was to invade France from the Pyre- 
 nees, — Henry on the side of Picardy, — and 12,000 
 German allies to attack the very heart of the king- 
 dom with the forces of the treacherous Bourbon. 
 This plot was detected by Francis before it could 
 be executed. He prepared himself against it as well 
 as he could, and then made his fatal push into 
 Italy, — hoping that the success which in another 
 generation Napoleon won, might relieve him from his 
 complications. Alas for him ! — when he might 
 have had Bayard for his general he appointed a 
 court favorite named Bonnivet, for no better reason 
 than that he was the most accomplished gentleman 
 at court, and an implacable enemy of the Constable, 
 Duke of Bourbon. 
 
 Fortunately for his own reputation Pope Adrian 
 died at this moment. So overjoyed were the people 
 of Rome at this event, that they hung garlands on 
 the door of his physician the night after it took 
 place, with the inscription : " To the Deliverer of 
 his Country." With his successor, Clement, Charles 
 was not so closely bound. 
 
 The history of Charles' reign from this time to his 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 33 1 
 
 abdication is the history of the rest of Europe, rather 
 than of Spain. At the end of his life, he said, as if 
 with a certain self-approval, that he had visited Spain 
 at six different times. So far did he refuse to regard 
 it as his permanent home, or more indeed than a 
 point to stand upon when he prepared for this or 
 that enterprise for moving the world. But it was to 
 the bravery of Spanish soldiers and the skill of 
 Spanish officers that Charles owed his successes, and 
 never have the noblest qualities of the Spanish 
 nation stood out in a more distinguished way before 
 the world than in Charles' reign. 
 
 It is difficult to believe in our time, that 
 the suppression, for the moment, of the wretched 
 business of Moorish piracy in the Mediter- 
 ranean should have been one of the successes 
 which reflected most personal credit upon Charles. 
 But so long had the risk of piracy been accep- 
 ted as a matter of course, and so arrogant were 
 the Moors in maintaining it, that when Charles 
 opened the business of punishing Barbarossa, the 
 ruler of Tunis, he appeared in some sort as the 
 champion of Christendom. When he succeeded, by 
 the capture of Tunis, in dethroning Barbarossa, and 
 establishing his rival on the throne, he liberated no 
 less than twenty thousand Christian slaves, who had 
 been captured in different piracies by the Moors. 
 These men returned to their homes, eagerly sound- 
 ing Charles' praises. Many of them — most of them 
 probably — belonged to nations over which he did not 
 rule. And thus, in a certain magnificence of his, in 
 which he 'was apt to assert the position of ruler of 
 
33 2 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Europe, he had done for these unfortunates what 
 their own sovereigns had failed to do. Charles de- 
 served much credit. He had himself taken the 
 charge of the expedition, and its motions by sea and 
 by land were under his immediate direction. Another 
 expedition, in which he attempted a similar success 
 in Algiers, was an utter failure. He scarcely landed 
 his men when his fleet, which was under Doria's 
 command, was broken to pieces by a tempest, and 
 Charles was glad to withdraw without even attack- 
 ing his enemy. Of this unsuccessful foray the most 
 interesting memory to-day is that Fernando Cortes, 
 who knew how to lead men so well, was serving here 
 as a volunteer in disgrace, after he had been recalled 
 from Mexico. He had a horse wounded under him. 
 He begged permission to stay, and offered to storm 
 the city, but his proposal was ridiculed. Of Charles' 
 military movements in other parts of Europe, by 
 which he fairly earned the credit of a brave soldier 
 and a far-seeing officer, we need not speak in a history 
 of Spain. 
 
 Curiously enough it is the siege of Pampeluna in 
 the year 1521, an event which to military historians 
 is of no sort of importance, and which we have not 
 even alluded to in our sketch of his reign, which has 
 proved in the history of the world to have results more 
 important than can be traced to any of the larger 
 battles in which Charles had a share. Five years 
 after Charles came to the crown, Francis, king of 
 France, wishing at least to insult him, commissioned 
 a young nobleman, named Henri d'Albrecht, to in- 
 vade Spain. Henri's general took the Spanish fron- 
 
CHARLES L— CHARLES V. 
 
 333 
 
 tier by surprise, and succeeded in taking the fortress 
 of Pampeluna. The Castilians were at this time 
 convulsed by those internal dissensions, which have 
 been described. But so soon as news came to them 
 of a French invasion, they turned the French out 
 faster than they came in. The incident has not, 
 therefore, the slightest military importance. But it 
 
 BATTLE UT PAVIA. 
 
 was in that siege of Pampeluna that Inigo Lopez de 
 Recalde de Loyola, a Spanish gentleman of rank, 
 was wounded and taken prisoner by the French. He 
 had been a page of King Ferdinand's, and had served 
 gallantly in his wars. With equal gallantry he was 
 defending Spain, in defending Pampeluna, when he 
 received the wound which has been so important in 
 history. To while away his slow recovery, he read 
 
334 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 a book of Lives of the Saints, and in the contem- 
 plations to which it led him, he determined on what 
 men called a " religious life." As soon as his health 
 was restored he made a pilgrimage to the monastery 
 of Montserrat, near Barcelona, and here remained 
 nearly a year, concealing his. name and rank. The 
 next year he went to Jerusalem, travelling much of 
 the way on foot. He had already formed the idea 
 of an order of friends who should labor for the good 
 of religion. Strange to say, Spain did not favor his 
 earliest enterprises, and it was in the University of 
 Paris that he found those companions, whose names 
 have since been distinguished as the first members 
 of the " Society of Jesus," founded by him. The 
 new order was finally established in the year 1 540. 
 Loyola took for his " religious name " the name of 
 Ignatius, and it was by that name that he was canon- 
 ized a hundred years after he was wounded, and by 
 this name he is generally known. He was born nine 
 years before the Emperor Charles. He died two 
 years before Charles, in the year 1556. This great 
 leader, therefore, who has exercised an empire so 
 wide over the minds and souls and society of men, 
 now for more than two centuries, is almost exactly 
 the contemporary of that king of Spain, who was 
 born to empire, who thought his star never failed 
 him, whose soldiers conquered, and whose banners 
 flew in triumph in every quarter of the globe. The 
 name and the work of Loyola are remembered to- 
 day by hundreds of thousands who have never heard 
 of the great sovereign in whose army he once 
 served. 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 33$ 
 
 Even before Loyola died, Charles had ceased 
 to reign. He seems to have seen the folly of his 
 own life. It has been well said of him that he was 
 too cunning to rule a world. Disgusted with his 
 own intrigues, perhaps conscious of his own failures, 
 he assembled a splendid company in Brussels on the 
 25th of October, 1555, and surrendered all his terri- 
 tories and authority in the Netherlands to his son, 
 and abdicated his title to all his thrones. He retired 
 to the monastery of Yuste and dragged along three 
 more years of life there. They were spent in political 
 complaints and gluttonous indulgence. The expo- 
 sure made within this century of the pettiness of the 
 interests of this prince, who was born to the empire 
 of the world, has made men forget even what there 
 was of courage and conduct in a life, which did so 
 much to hold back civilization. 
 
 By the unfortunate result of the insurrections 
 which had accompanied the beginning of Charles' 
 reign, the people of Spain had lost the proud privi- 
 leges which they had maintained ever since the 
 times, when kings needed every day the arms and 
 the lives of their subjects. Charles still maintained 
 the Cortes in form, in one province or another. But 
 it existed in form only, and in each case became 
 little more than a Court of Registry, where the de- 
 crees of the emperor could be proclaimed and con- 
 firmed. The nobility may have supposed, at the 
 outset, that they were to triumph by this subjugation 
 of the commons. But in truth, as the people lost 
 their power, the aristocracy, though somewhat more 
 slowly, lost theirs. And, as Dr. Robertson implies, 
 
33^ THE STORY OF SPA TV. 
 
 they found too late, when they had no power in 
 council and were only a force to be used at arbitrary 
 pleasure by their prince, that it was but a poor com- 
 pensation for their old authority, that they might 
 stand covered when they were in the presence of 
 the king. 
 
 Meanwhile, through this reign, the soldiers of 
 Spain, in those strange wars in which the customs 
 of chivalry gave way before the arts of modern 
 Europe, shed their blood and gave away their lives 
 in every continent of the world. The reader has 
 seen something of Charles' wars in Africa and in 
 Europe. On Asiatic islands and in American dis- 
 coveries his soldiers went in both directions round 
 the world ; they joined hands at the antipodes with 
 their companions from whom they parted when they 
 left Spain. For Charles' conquests at home he 
 drew upon the treasury, matchless till now even in 
 the Eastern romances, which his officers in America 
 sent to him. And whatever may be thought or said 
 of his failures at home, in his great charge of Europe, 
 which was given so largely into his hands, it must 
 be owned that he and his viceroys showed, on the 
 whole, courage, skill, and address, in the enterprise, 
 new to the world, which led to the immense Spanish 
 empire in America and in Asia. 
 
 At the time when he became king of Spain, Cabot, 
 Columbus, and Vespucius had discovered the con- 
 tinent of America. Not long after his accession to 
 the crown, Fernando Cortes, with a handful of men, 
 marched from the Gulf of Mexico upon the city of 
 the same name, and, after terrible struggles, de- 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES J\ 337 
 
 throned its sovereign, and reigned in his stead, as 
 Charles' viceroy. He discovered the Pacific and 
 California. Before Charles' death, Spanish officers 
 pushed northward, and as early as the year 1540, 
 Spanish establishments were made in what is now the 
 State of New Mexico. Southward Charles' lieuten- 
 ants established a regular line of communication 
 from ocean to ocean across the Isthmus of Panama, 
 not far from the very line at which M. de Lesseps 
 hopes to cut the isthmus to-day. This line of com- 
 munication was needed, indeed, for no less a purpose 
 than to carry across the ingots of Peruvian silver to 
 the Atlantic side on their way to Charles' treasury, 
 and from the Atlantic to carry the stores for the 
 arsenals and garrisons which Spain was establishing on 
 the Pacific. Indeed, Spain regarded the Pacific Ocean 
 as her own closed sea. And if, when Drake appeared 
 there in 1574, he chose to think that he was at war 
 with Spain because he was in the Pacific, he had this 
 excuse, that Spain, at peace with England though she 
 were, would have seized and imprisoned him, perhaps 
 would have killed him, merely because she found 
 him a trespasser on her waters. Meanwhile the is- 
 lands of the West Indies calmly and peacefully be- 
 came provinces of Spain, under her control as com- 
 pletely as were Valencia and Andalusia. Before the 
 death of Charles V., Spain had taken possession of 
 Florida, and her flag floated over New Mexico, Mex- 
 ico, Guatemala, Peru, Chili, Paraguay, and Buenos 
 Ayres, upon the continent, as over every large 
 island of the Caribbean Sea. On the maps, indeed, 
 Spain claimed wider dominion yet in America. 
 
33 8 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 A Portuguese ship, on its way to the East Indies, had 
 stumbled on the projecting Cape of Brazil. Before 
 this, the Pope Alexander VI. had, in 1493, adjusted 
 the claims of Portugal and of Spain to the extra- 
 European world, by giving to Spain all which was 
 west of an ideal meridian, and Portugal all which 
 was east. No man then knew how wide the Pacific 
 was. A generation after, even the eighteen men did 
 not know who had crossed it, under Magellan at first, 
 and afterwards under Sebastian Cano. 
 
 Well down in the sixteenth century, navigators of 
 the American shores supposed that they were still 
 feeling their way along the shores of Asia. In- 
 deed it is quite probable that the first appearance of 
 the coast of the United States on the map is due 
 not to the' observation of any adventurer who had 
 really seen it, but to the certainty which Marco 
 Polo had given two centuries before, that the coast 
 of Asia trended in t that direction. For the earliest 
 coast maps of America had no Cape Cod, no Long 
 Island, and no Chesapeake Bay. And in the fictions 
 of those who pretend to be the discoverers, the na- 
 tives pick lilies and roses in New Jersey, in the open 
 air in May, and dry grapes for raisins in Block Island 
 a month after. With the supposition that the Pa- 
 cific was so narrow, the Philippines were brought 
 twenty or thirty degrees nearer to America than they 
 are. Really they belonged within the Portuguese 
 half of the undiscovered world. But Magellan put 
 them into the Spanish part, and there they have re- 
 mained to this day. It was not till Anson's voyage 
 of 1743 that this great error was exposed to Europe. 
 
CHARLES I.— CHARLES V. 339 
 
 Government so extensive — more than imperial, — 
 or any definition of empire which the world had 
 known until nowy-was administered by Charles, — 
 while he was in the field perhaps, perhaps in fight, 
 perhaps in his Mediterranean adventures, perhaps 
 engaged in those perplexing diplomacies in which 
 theology bore so large a part, and where, as it has 
 proved, Charles bore himself so unwisely. No won- 
 der, then, if in the details of the administration 
 much went wrong. In that eventful half century 
 between the reign of Ferdinand and the end of that 
 of Philip, Spain had won, through most of the world, 
 the reputation of the blackest cruelty. Her iron 
 hand was on the inferior races. Arbitrary power did 
 what it always does, and debased the men who used 
 it. The people of our own race — such men, for in- 
 stance, as Drake and Cavendish, and afterward 
 such men as Essex and Hawkins and Raleigh and 
 Sydney — regarded " Spaniard " as only another word 
 for " child of hell," and the living Spaniard himself 
 as the visible ally of the Devil. In their fierce war- 
 fare with him, — in such fighting as is described in 
 Tennyson's ballad of " The Revenge," a deep reli- 
 gious horror of the author of lies and of his children 
 gives dignity and strength to an Englishman's loyalty 
 to his nation, his sovereign, and his Saviour. But, 
 after granting this cruelty, yet making allowance for 
 it, in memory of its sources, none the less is it true, 
 that in discovery, in adventure, in colonization, in all 
 that part of her work which fell outside of Europe, 
 Spain showed the noblest courage, patience, and 
 foresight. She illustrated some of the grandest 
 
340 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 qualities of man. It is |iot by cruelty and treachery 
 that the people of a poor peninsula, just emerging 
 from a long war of races, obtain possession of half 
 the world. It is rather by such faith as led Colum- 
 bus, by such manhood as gave Magalhaens his su- 
 premacy over discontented rivals. It is by that 
 proud hospitality, in which Spain welcomed such 
 leaders, and gave places of command to these two 
 men, and to Cabot and Vespucius, who were only 
 not their peers. It was by such prompt decision or 
 heroic audacity as once and again saved Cortes,— it 
 was by the wisdom of Ximenes, by the humanity of 
 Las Casas, by the chivalric courage of thousands of 
 unnamed soldiers, and the Christian constancy of thou- 
 sands of unnamed confessors, that Spanish names 
 were placed on half the headlands of the world. 
 Everywhere the modern world, tracing back its recent 
 history, looks with mysterious curiosity to that land 
 which sent ojjt such, men as Columbus, and Balboa, 
 and Cortes, and Magalhaens, in the age of Charles 
 V., of Leo, of Michel Angelo, of Leonardo, of Loyola, 
 and of Luther. 
 
PART V. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THREE PHILIPS. 
 
 After the abdication of Charles V., Spain was 
 ruled for a century by his direct successors, Philip 
 II., III., and IV. This period is marked as the de- 
 cline of the splendid fortunes of the country. 
 
 No doubt Philip II. at one time had more power 
 in his hand than had ever been held by a purely 
 Spanish king. He was king of all the Spanish king- 
 
 343 
 
344 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 doms and of both the Sicilies. He was titular king 
 of England, France, and Jerusalem. He was Abso- 
 lute Dominator in Asia, Africa, and America. He 
 was Duke of Milan and both the Burgundies, and 
 Hereditary Sovereign of the Seventeen Netherlands. 
 These were his inheritance, and to them he himself 
 added the crown of Portugal. 
 
 Cervantes, who lived in the time of Philip II., in 
 his " Numantia," from which we have already quoted, 
 makes the river Douro, coming upon the scene, 
 " attired as a river," with several boys representing 
 tributary streams, recite the prophetic tale of Spain's 
 successes, culminating with the glories of his own 
 sovereign. 
 
 O Spain, my mother dear, thy piercing cries 
 Have struck upon mine ears for many an hour, 
 
 And if I did not haste me to arise, 
 
 It was that succor lay beyond my power. 
 
 That fatal day, that day of miseries, 
 
 Which seals Numantia's doom, begins to lower ; 
 
 The stars have willed it so, and well I fear 
 
 No means remain to change a fate so dear. 
 
 Minuesa, Tera, Orvion as well, 
 
 Whose floods increase the volume of mine own, 
 Have caused my bosom so to rise and swell, 
 
 That all its ancient banks are overflown. 
 But my swift current will not break their spell 
 
 As if I were a brook, their pride has grown 
 To do what thou, O Spain, didst never dream, 
 To plant their dams and towers athwart my stream. 
 
 But since the course of stern, relentless fate 
 
 Brings round the final fall, without avail, 
 Of this, thy well-beloved Numantian State, 
 
 And closes up its sad and wondrous tale, 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 345 
 
 One comfort still its sorrows may abate, 
 
 That never shall oblivion's sombre veil 
 Obscure the bright sun of its splendid deeds, 
 Admired by all, while age to age succeeds. 
 
 But though this day the cruel Romans wave 
 Their banners o'er thy wide and fertile land, 
 
 Here beat thee down, there treat thee as a slave, 
 Wilh pride ambitious, and a haughty hand, 
 
 The time will come (if I the knowledge grave 
 Which Heaven to Proteus taught to understand) 
 
 When these said Romans shall receive their fall 
 
 From those whom presently they hold in thrall. 
 
 I see them come, the peoples from afar, 
 
 Who on thy gentle breast will seek to dwell, 
 
 When to thy heart's content, they have made war 
 Against the Romans, and have curbed them well. 
 
 Goths shall they be ; who, bright with glory's star, 
 Leaving their fame through all the world to swell, 
 
 Will in thy bosom seek repose from strife, 
 
 And give their sturdy powers a higher life. 
 
 In coming years will Attila, that man 
 
 Of wrath, avenge thy wrongs with bloody hands ; 
 
 Will place the hordes of Rome beneath the ban, 
 And make them subject to his stern commands : 
 
 And when the rightful Lord of heaven and earth 
 Is recognized as such on every hand, 
 
 He, who shall then be 'stablished and set forth 
 As God's vicegerent over every land, 
 
 Will on thy kings bestow a style of worth 
 As fitting to thy zeal as it is grand ; 
 
 They all shall be of Catholic the name, 
 
 In true succession to the Goths of fame. 
 
 But he, whose hand of vigor best shall bind 
 In one thine honor, and thy realms content, 
 
346 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 And make the Spanish name, too long confined, 
 
 Hold place supreme, by general assent, 
 A king shall be, whose sound and thoughtful mind 
 
 On grand affairs is well and wisely bent ; 
 His name through all the world he rules shall run, 
 The second Philip, second yet to none. 
 
 Beneath his fortunate imperial hand 
 
 Three kingdoms once divided under stress, 
 Again beneath one single crown shall stand, 
 
 For common welfare, and thy happiness. 
 The Lusitanian banner, famed and grand, 
 
 Which once was severed from the flowing dress 
 Of fair Castile, will now be knit anew, 
 And in its ancient place have honor due. 
 
 What fear and envy, O beloved Spain, 
 
 Shall bear to thee the nations strange and brave ; 
 
 Whose blood shall serve thy flashing sword to stain, 
 O'er whom thy banners shall triumphal wave. 
 
 Cervantes himself took a part in the conquest that 
 "knit anew" the Lusitanian banner to the stately 
 robes of Castile. He had not cause for personal 
 gratitude to Philip II., who allowed him to live in 
 obscurity, without recognizng his services. Don 
 Quixote was not published till 1603, after the death of 
 this Philip, and it is his successor of whom the anec- 
 dote is told that, looking out of the palace window 
 one day, he saw a man reading a book in the street, 
 who had to keep stopping to strike his forehead, 
 overcome with laughter. 
 
 "That student," remarked Philip III., "is either 
 out of his mind, or he is reading Don Quixote." 
 
 And, indeed, it proved that this was the book in 
 his hand. 
 
 The events of Philip the Second's reign relate in 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 347 
 
 great measure to his possessions outside of Spain, 
 and are therefore not strictly matters belonging to 
 this history. Philip was of a gloomy, stern character, 
 bigoted in his zeal for his own religion. He not only 
 allowed, but may be said to have enjoyed, the auto- 
 da-fe, which was the burning of heretics who refused 
 to abandon their religious creed. On his return to 
 Spain, immediately after his father's abdication, at 
 an auto-da-fe, in Valladolid, at which he was present, 
 one of those condemned, who was an officer of dis- 
 tinction, asked the king how he could have the heart 
 to behold the exquisite torments of his people. 
 " Were my own son," replied the king, " such a 
 wretch as thou, he should bear the same fate." 
 
 Philip was four times married, first to his cousin 
 the Infanta, Mary of Portugal. He was then but 
 sixteen years old, and she was nearly the same age, 
 only five months younger. The princess came from 
 Lisbon to Castile for the ceremony, and a splendid 
 embassy was sent to meet her on the border. She 
 was received at Salamanca, at the palace of the Duke 
 of Alva, with all honors, by the duchess and a bril- 
 liant company of cavaliers and ladies. 
 
 But the young prince had already seen his destined 
 bride, for he was so impatient that he sallied out 
 with a few attendants, disguised like himself as hunts- 
 man, for five or six miles from the city, in order to 
 see the Infanta unknown to herself. Philip wore a 
 slouched velvet hat, and hid his face under a gauze 
 mask, so that he could mingle in the crowd, and thus 
 he accompanied the procession through the day, and 
 after dark, when the blaze of ten thousand torches 
 shed a light stronger than daylight. 
 
348 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 It is pleasant to think of him as an impetuous 
 youth, before he had become stern and moody. His 
 young wife lived but two years, and her only child, 
 Don Carlos, grew up to be a strange young man, a 
 cause of trouble and anxiety, who died before his 
 father. 
 
 We know how Philip looked as a young man from 
 the wonderful portraits of Titian, who was painting 
 at that time. At twenty-one, the king had a fair and 
 even delicate complexion. His hair and beard were 
 of a light yellow. His eyes were blue, with the eye- 
 brows somewhat too close together. His nose was 
 thin and aquiline. The bad feature in his face, con- 
 spicuous also in the portraits of all his family, was 
 the heavy lower jaw. He was somewhat below the 
 middle height, with a slight, graceful figure, and 
 well-made limbs. His dress was rich and elegant, 
 and his manners were a type of the old Castilian 
 ceremonious dignity. His tastes were reserved and 
 quiet, and he cared nothing for the chivalrous dis- 
 plays and athletic exercises of the time. 
 
 Philip's second marriage was with Mary Queen of 
 England, commonly called " Bloody Mary." The 
 match, on his side, was a matter of expediency, and 
 on hers as well ; yet it is said, that after the negotia- 
 tions had begun, the queen became greatly enamoured 
 of the prince, through a portrait of him, painted but 
 two years before by Titian, sent her by Philip's aunt, 
 regent of the Netherlands, which Mary was to return 
 as soon as she had possession of the original. 
 
 The marriage was not a very happy one, for 
 Philip spent but little time in England. He was 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 349 
 
 drawn into resuming his father's quarrel with France, 
 and invaded it with the help of Mary's army. The 
 result to the English was the loss of their last posses- 
 sions in France, including Calais, which the queen 
 bitterly regretted. 
 
 She died before the end of the war, having said 
 that "Calais" would be found stamped upon her 
 heart. Little comfort did the English receive from 
 their Spanish ally, for four months after her death 
 Philip had made peace with France, and confirmed 
 it with a new marriage with the daughter of the 
 French king, Henry II. 
 
 This occasion, also, was a brilliant one with a sad 
 ending. Henry II., tired of fighting, arranged a 
 double marriage to take place at the same time ; 
 that of his sister, Marguerite, with Philibert Emanuel, 
 and his daughter, Elizabeth, or Isabella, with the 
 king of Spain. Another Spanish marriage had been 
 talked of for this princess, with Carlos, the son of 
 Philip, for the bridegroom, a match more suitable in 
 the age of the parties, for Philip was now thirty and 
 the bride only sixteen ; Philip had already been twice 
 married, and had lost the romantic spirit which led 
 him disguised into the train of his first queen. But 
 these considerations do not count in royal marriages. 
 
 The weddings were celebrated with the greatest 
 splendor at the French court. Tournaments were 
 then the fashion, and Henry II. displayed much skill 
 at this sport, of which he was very fond. After 
 several brilliant passages at arms, and when it was 
 time to leave off, the king urged one more course. 
 His opponent was his own captain of the guards, the 
 
350 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Count of Montgomery. Their two lances struck and 
 flew into splinters, one of which entered the king's 
 eye. He fell mortally wounded from his horse, and 
 died eleven days afterwards. The wedding rejoicing 
 was turned into mourning, and Philip of Spain silently 
 withdrew from France with his young bride. 
 
 Much romance has been built upon the possible 
 love between this French princess, and Carlos, the 
 Spanish prince for whom she was at first intended. 
 But he at this time was but fourteen ; and there is 
 no foundation for the tales of persecution and ill- 
 treatment • of his son by Philip. Carlos was of a 
 moody, unhappy disposition, and died early. Jus- 
 tice must acquit his father of any thing more than 
 extreme severity towards him. 
 
 The long struggle of Philip II. with his revolted 
 subjects in the Netherlands, scarcely belongs here. 
 The revolt of the Moriscos occupies for us a more 
 important place. 
 
 The Moors who cnose to become Christians, had 
 been allowed to remain in the country ; they were 
 called Moriscos. Philip II. decreed that they should 
 frequent the Christian Church, that they should give 
 up the use of Arabic in writing, that both men and 
 woman should wear the Spanish costume, that they 
 should discontinue their ablutions, and no longer 
 receive Mohammedan names. 
 
 In fact, however, the greater part of these Moors 
 conformed only externally to the practices of the 
 Christian religion. They went to mass only to es- 
 cape the penalty of omitting it ■ they presented their 
 children for baptism, but washed them afterwards 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 
 
 351 
 
 with warm water, to show their contempt of the 
 sacrament. They went to church to be married, but 
 coming home after the service, with closed doors 
 they celebrated the wedding with their own songs, 
 dances, and ceremonies. 
 
 Communication was kept up with Turks and the 
 Moors in Africa, always with the hope of deliver- 
 ance. The Algerians, while they pillaged the sea- 
 
 BULL AND MATADOR, MADRID. 
 
 board towns, and carried off to slavery those Chris- 
 tians who fell into their hands, left untouched the 
 villages and persons of the Moriscos. The restric- 
 tions of Philip exasperated them. Their enjoy- 
 ments, their pleasures were taken from them ; above 
 all they resented the interdict of their use of the 
 bath, which was a part of their religion, as well as a 
 source of enjoyment. 
 
 The Moriscos took up arms in the mountains of 
 
352 THE STORY OE SPAIN. 
 
 the Alpuj arras, and were resisted by the flower of 
 the Spanish army, led by Don John of Austria, 
 brother of the king. Much blood was shed on both 
 sides, before the insurrection was put down. 
 
 Philip was married for a fourth time, to Anne, the 
 daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II. He died 
 in 1598, in the palace of the Escorial, of which he 
 was the founder. Philip III. succeeded him, his son 
 by the last wife. It has been said that his father, 
 fearing lest his heir should assert himself too much, 
 had carefully trained him to be imbecile. If this was 
 the case, he was only too successful. His son and 
 heir allowed himself to be guided by worthless favor- 
 ites, and exercised no force in the government of 
 the kingdom. Its greatness ends with Philip II. 
 
 In the reign of Philip III. the Mohammedans were 
 expelled from Valencia, Andalusia, and Granada. 
 We have seen how, at this time, the beginning of 
 the seventeenth century, this people, for eight hun- 
 dred years the sovereigns of Spain, had successively 
 lost their independence, their religion, and their 
 manners and customs. 
 
 They had brought into Spain the cultivation of 
 the sugar-cane, of cotton, and rice, and the mulberry, 
 on which feeds the silkworm. Commerce owed 
 them no less. The blades of Toledo, the silks of 
 Granada, the leather of Cordova, the spices and 
 sweets of Valencia, were renowned throughout 
 Europe. At this period, the Moriscos had ac- 
 customed themselves to forget the past, and to 
 seek no other successes than those of industry. 
 They had made up their minds to pay the enor- 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 353 
 
 mous taxes demanded of them, for the sake of 
 mere peace and protection for their families and 
 their industries. 
 
 It was decided by the councillors of the king 
 that these good qualities were overbalanced by 
 their heresy, and the dangers to be feared from 
 insurrection. The king observed that he would 
 rather be without subjects than rule over infidels; 
 the foolish saying was applauded by his courtiers ; 
 and orders, dated September, 1609, were despatched 
 to the captains-general to force the Moriscos on 
 board the galleys prepared for them, and land 
 them on the African coast. 
 
 Romance has found in the enforced departure 
 of these poor exiles ample ground for tale and 
 poem. Especially, stories of treasures hidden by 
 them, which they could not carry with them, are 
 still generally believed throughout Spain. 
 
 It is said that even in the time of Ferdinand 
 and Isabella the Moors of Granada were persuaded 
 that sooner or later they should return to the 
 fair land which they had rightfully conquered, and 
 which was, as they believed, unjustly wrested 
 from them. So, many of them, before their de- 
 parture, buried in secret places their most precious 
 possessions. 
 
 Much of this treasure was discovered later by 
 Spanish peasants, but other hidden places may 
 have even yet escaped their greedy search. Le- 
 gend says that the riches of one family of the Aben- 
 cerrages, that brilliant race whose very name is 
 regarded now as fabulous, were, and may per- 
 
354 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 haps still be, concealed in a cave reached by a 
 subterranean passage, leading to a vast hall lighted 
 by several lamps of silver. The ceiling of this 
 excavated room was supported by eight columns 
 of black marble, sparkling with gold and precious 
 stones, like the scene of one of the Arabian Nights. 
 Marble basins, placed between the columns, were 
 heaped with gold pieces, stamped with the effigies 
 of the first caliphs of Cordova or the kings of 
 Granada ; in coffers of cedar were masses of arms 
 and ornaments incrusted with precious stones. 
 Other vases held lumps of gold and silver, as they 
 came from the mine. In cups of" rock crystal, 
 diamonds and topazes flashed with light, emeralds 
 and rubies glowed. 
 
 Such retreats the Moriscos left behind them 
 when they sailed for the shores of Africa. Those 
 who had disembarked there were treated with in- 
 humanity and underwent every suffering. Some, 
 assuming the disguise of Christians, spread over 
 Catalonia and Southern France, but as a nation 
 they vanished. 
 
 In 1612, the double marriage was made, which was 
 to strengthen the bonds of peace between France 
 and Spain. The Prince of the Asturias, soon to be- 
 come Philip IV., married Isabella of Bourbon, daugh- 
 ter of the late Henry IV. of France, and the young 
 king of France, not twelve years old, Louis XIII., 
 married Anna, the eldest daughter of the Spanish 
 king, and then called Anne of Austria. This was 
 the work of Marie de Medicis, after the death of her 
 husband, and contrary to the advice of his wise 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 355 
 
 counsellor, Sully, who had always disapproved of 
 the scheme. 
 
 Philip III. died in 1621. He was the king who 
 owed his death to the rigid etiquette of the Spanish 
 court, because, being uncomfortably warm as he sat 
 too near the fire, it took so long to send a messenger 
 to tell a messenger to inform a gentleman in waiting 
 to instruct a chamberlain to take the necessary steps 
 to remove his majesty to a cooler distance, that he 
 fell ill and expired. 
 
 Philip IV. was only seventeen when he began to 
 reign on the death of his father. Like him, he sur- 
 rendered the reins of government to worthless favor- 
 ites. The first was the Count of Olivares, who had 
 been his gentleman of the bedchamber. 
 
 Under such administration, Spain was steadily de- 
 clining. The mass of the people were sinking into 
 poverty, yet the court exhibited the greatest splen- 
 dor ; plays, pantomimes, and costly entertainments 
 succeeded each other in the capital. Charles, Prince 
 of Wales, afterwards Charles I. of England, visited 
 the court of Spain, accompanied by the Duke of 
 Buckingham, in disguise, though every one knew 
 who he was, — with a view of obtaining the hand 
 of Philip's sister, the Infanta Maria. He was re- 
 ceived with the greatest splendor, but the project 
 fell through, and Charles married later a French 
 princess. 
 
 An insurrection of the Catalans gave the king and 
 his minister something serious to think of. The reb- 
 els implored the aid of the French king, and Louis 
 XIII. was proclaimed Count of Barcelona, and ad- 
 
356 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 vanced himself to the frontier to direct his army. 
 Philip intended to conduct the war in person, but 
 his minister, Olivares, had not courage enough to 
 meet the enemy ; he was, instead, aiding, in the very 
 heart of France, a conspiracy to assassinate the 
 French minister, Cardinal Richelieu, and even to 
 dethrone the French king. It was to this plot 
 that the young Cinq-Mars, a favorite of the king 
 of France, lent himself, and to which he was sacri- 
 ficed, at the age of twenty-two. 
 
 The war lingered for years, with no decided suc- 
 cess to either party ; until the Catalans themselves 
 grew tired of the French yoke. They were in the 
 end pardoned, and their privileges, of which they 
 had been always tenacious, recognized as inviolable. 
 
 The treaty which settled this and other things, 
 was the celebrated treaty of the Pyrenees, by which 
 was arranged the marriage of the Infanta, Maria 
 Theresa, the daughter of Philip, with the youthful 
 Louis XIV. On this occasion, to allay the opposi- 
 tion of Europe to the union of two powerful king- 
 doms, Louis solemnly renounced all claim to the 
 Spanish crown, either for himself or for his suces- 
 sors ; which renunciation, however, did not prevent, 
 in the lifetime of Louis, the accession of his grand- 
 son, Philip V., to the Spanish throne. 
 
 From studying such a decline from the brilliant 
 fortunes of the fifteenth century in Spain, it is pleas- 
 ant to turn to the successes of the painter Velasquez, 
 who was busy during the life of Philip IV. in paint- 
 ing those masterpieces which now make the picture 
 gallery at Madrid so interesting. His portraits of 
 
THREE PHILIPS. 357 
 
 Philip and of the Duke of Olivares, as well as of 
 other personages of the time, make us know how 
 they looked, and give a reality to their lives, as 
 books and dates fail to do. 
 
 Philip IV. died in 1665. He was married a second 
 time, after the death of the French princess, to Ma- 
 ria Anna, the daughter of the emperor, Ferdinand 
 III. She was his niece, for Ferdinand had married 
 the sister of Philip. He left three children, Charles, 
 Prince of the Asturias, who became, at the death of 
 his father, Charles II. For Charles, the fifth em- 
 peror of the name, who was in his time king of 
 Spain, was Charles I. of Spain, as there had been 
 no other Charles on that throne before him. Philip's 
 daughters were Maria Theresa, married to Louis 
 XIV., and Margaret, Queen of Hungary. 
 
 With these descendants of Charles V. the line of real 
 Spanish sovereigns may be said to end, for the next 
 Philip was a pure Bourbon. With all their faults the 
 Philips of this chapter displayed the virtues belong- 
 ing to the Spanish character — devotion to their reli- 
 gion, due regard to the state of sovereigns, and grave 
 dignity befitting royal birth. In them we have the 
 type of the Spanish hidalgo, — hijo de algo, or " son 
 of somebody." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE BOURBONS. 
 
 Charles the Second of Spain is the last of that 
 House of Hapsburg of which we saw the first Spanish 
 king, born at Ghent, in the convenient year 1500. 
 In the equally convenient year 1700, Charles II. 
 died. School-boys and school-girls will have little 
 else to thank him for. But they may be grateful 
 for that care by which he provided for flagging 
 memories, that the Hapsburg rule of Spain should 
 be measured exactly by two centuries. 
 
 The " Biographical Dictionary " dismisses him 
 curtly with this sharp and brief biography : " He 
 was the son of Philip IV. He was born in 1661, was 
 proclaimed king in 1665, joined the coalition formed 
 against Louis XIV., and in 1678 surrendered to this 
 king Franche Comte and other provinces in the Low 
 Countries. His last act was the leaving his crown 
 to Philip, Duke of Anjou, the grandson of the same 
 king." 
 
 The region thus surrendered to Louis XIV. by 
 this weak descendant of the Emperor Charles, is the 
 same region which, as Alsace and Lorraine, has been, 
 in our own time, ceded by conquered France to the 
 new-born German empire, of which the constitution 
 
 353 
 
THE BOURBONS. 
 
 359 
 
 was completed in Versailles, when a German army 
 and a German emperor were encamped there. Such 
 are the compensations of history. 
 
 , Readers of our race will find it convenient to re- 
 member that the Spanish King Charles II. and the 
 English King Charles II. were nearly contemporary. 
 Charles II. of Spain was born in the year 1660, the 
 same year in which England called her Charles II. 
 
 aW^fafC 
 
 MALAGA. 
 
 to the throne. It is in the reigns of these two kings 
 that England and Spain, always in contest with each 
 other, if there were a European war, met in conflict 
 in America. St. Augustine had been established by 
 the Spaniards as early as the year 1565. It is there- 
 fore the oldest European establishment on the At- 
 lantic seaboard of the United States. But in 1647 
 there were but three hundred families in St. Augus- 
 
360 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 tine. Living with them were fifty Franciscan friars. 
 This was almost the whole Spanish population of 
 Florida. In 1663 Charles II. of England gave a 
 charter for the settlement of Carolina, which bears* 
 his name. The limits of the patent ran so near St. 
 Augustine, that Catholic and heretic felt the natural 
 jealousy of each other, and in 1665 Captain John 
 Davis, a buccaneer, landed at St. Augustine and 
 destroyed the little town. But, in 1667, the two 
 Charleses agreed by treaty to suppress buccaneering, 
 and, indeed, from that time its decline as an institu- 
 tion may be said to begin. No English settlement 
 was made in Carolina until 1670, and it was even- 
 tually agreed that the St. Mary's River should be 
 the line of separation between the English and 
 Spanish colonies. This river, therefore, to this day, 
 divides Georgia and Florida, which in their English 
 and Spanish names still bear the token of their 
 origin. 
 
 In 1670 and 1686 the Spaniards attacked the 
 
 \ English and burnt some of their houses. In 1687 
 negroes were first introduced as slaves into Florida. 
 
 1 In 1696, still in the reign of Charles II. of Spain, the 
 Spanish government established a fort at Pensacola, 
 on the western side of the peninsula. They were 
 induced to take this step by the establishment of 
 the little French colony at the mouth of the Missis- 
 sippi. For Spain, worsted in Europe, was unwilling, 
 without some struggle, to surrender the control of 
 the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Europe, Charles II. of Spain was 
 engaged in the wretched series of falsehoods and in- 
 
THE BOURBONS. 36 1 
 
 trigues, which led to what is known as the war of 
 the Spanish Succession. Indeed, he is now remem- 
 bered chiefly from his connection with these in- 
 trigues. The oldest sister of Charles, Maria Theresa, 
 had married Louis XIV. of France. Charles himself 
 had no children and no living brothers. His sister 
 was his heir, and after her death her descendants 
 were the heirs to the Spanish throne. But Louis 
 and the Infanta had both solemnly renounced all 
 claim to the succession at the time of their espousals. 
 This renunciation had been confirmed by the Cortes. 
 A younger sister of Charles had been the wife of 
 Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She also had re- 
 nounced her claims to the Spanish crown. But the 
 Cortes had not sanctioned that renunciation. She 
 had a daughter who married the Elector of Bavaria, 
 and the Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her 
 claim to the throne. A third claimant was Charles' 
 first cousin, the Emperor Leopold. He was a son of 
 a daughter of Philip III. No renunciation had been 
 exacted from his mother when she was married. "The 
 question," says Lord Macaulay, " was certainly very 
 complicated. That claim which, according to the 
 ordinary rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had 
 been barred by a contract executed in the most 
 binding form. The claim of the Electoral Prince of 
 Bavaria was weaker. But so also was the contract 
 which bound him not to prosecute his claim. The 
 only party against whom no instrument of renuncia- 
 tion could be produced was the party who, in respect 
 of blood, had the weakest claim of all." 
 
 The experience of Charles V. was enough to warn 
 
362 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Europe against the danger of giving the crown of 
 Spain to any other monarch The emperor, out of 
 deference to the opinion of Europe, waived his claim 
 in favor of the Archduke Charles. The dauphin 
 waived his claim in favor of Philip, Duke of Anjou. 
 But, without consulting the king of Spain or the 
 emperor, William of England, Louis of France, and 
 the States of Holland made a treaty which stipulated 
 that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the second of 
 the claimants named above, should succeed to Spain, 
 the Indies, and the Netherlands. Even the king of 
 Spain agreed to this and made a will leaving the 
 crown to the Bavarian prince. Hardly had this been 
 done when the prince himself died and the question 
 was again unsettled. 
 
 The same parties then agreed that Spain, the 
 Indies, and the Netherlands should descend to the 
 Archduke Charles. But to this treaty the Spaniards 
 gave no consent. t A quarrel ensued between the 
 Spanish court and the English court. The king of 
 France was utterly faithless to his share in the trans- 
 action and used his commanding influence to secure 
 the crown for his own grandson Philip, the Duke of 
 Anjou. As the reader sees, this was wholly in face 
 of his own renunciation of the throne for any 
 descendants of his, and the other renunciation made 
 by his wife at the same time. 
 
 Whatever was the right or wrong between the two 
 claimants to the throne, it is clear that the people of 
 Madrid and, indeed, the people of Spain favored the 
 French claimant. Charles died on the 3d of No- 
 vember, 1700. The Duke of Abrantes announced 
 
CLOISTERS, TOLEDO. 
 363 
 
364 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 that the king was dead, and proclaimed Philip his 
 successor. The great news was sent to Paris as 
 quickly as was possible. The new king hastened to 
 Spain. "The Pyrenees," said his grandfather, Louis 
 XIV., " have ceased to exist." Louis, indeed, knew 
 that he should have to fight before the Pyrenees 
 were made into a valley, but he was not unwilling to 
 do so. Within a year he insulted the English in the 
 keenest way by recognizing the son of James II. as 
 king of England. King William of England still 
 lived and was quite willing to measure swords again 
 against Louis. War was proclaimed on the 15th of 
 May, 1702. William had died meanwhile, but not 
 before he had formed the great alliance of the 
 European princes against the Bourbons, and the 
 proclamation was made simultaneously at Vienna, at 
 London, and at The Hague. 
 
 The young Philip was utterly incompetent for 
 such a position. He was but nineteen years old, and 
 his education had not at all fitted him for command. 
 " He sat eating and drinking all night, lay in bed all 
 day, yawned at the council table, and suffered the 
 most important papers to lie unopened for weeks." 
 Louis XIV., indeed, had so educated all the members 
 of his family that they were unable, as they were 
 unaccustomed, to act for themselves. Philip of 
 Anjou, scarcely more than a boy, indeed, was little 
 more than a puppet in the complications which fol- 
 lowed. All he wanted was to have a wife, and Maria 
 Louisa of Savoy, a beautiful girl of thirteen, was 
 selected. From that time she ruled her husband, 
 the Princess Orsini ruled her, and Louis, who had 
 
THE BOURBONS. 365 
 
 selected the Princess Orsini for this duty, found to 
 his surprise that he could not rule her. 
 
 William III. of England died before hostilities 
 began. But the English Government despatched the 
 Duke of Ormond with a fleet, which seized the Span- 
 ish galleons at Vigo, where it had put in to escape 
 him. Ormond took seven millions of dollars of 
 treasure. Fourteen millions, or goods to that value, 
 were sunk in six galleons that were lost. This was 
 the beginning of a series of assaults which the Eng- 
 lish, Dutch, and Portuguese made upon Spain from 
 one or another of its frontiers during the next six 
 years. It is in this war that Lord Peterborough won 
 those remarkable victories of which the story is 
 almost like the stories of romance. It recalls mem- 
 ories of the Cid and of the conquest of the Moors. 
 Poor Philip and his wife were driven hither and 
 thither with no will of their own. Charles, the Aus- 
 trian claimant, who was with Peterborough, seemed 
 at one moment to be sure of success. But his inac- 
 tion at one time and his quarrels with the great Eng- 
 lish leader at another, put an end to all such hopes. 
 The Duke of Vendome took command of the French 
 king's forces and drove the adherents of Charles into 
 Barcelona, which was the only place remaining to 
 him after so many years of war. Of a sudden a 
 change of parties in England brought about the 
 Treaty of Utrecht, and with the Treaty of Utrecht 
 the Bourbon dynasty w T as confirmed on the throne 
 of Spain, with that hold which it has had, now with 
 a strong grasp, and now with very feeble fingers, 
 until this time. 
 
366 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Philip hated the cares of royalty, and in 1724 
 abdicated in favor of his son. But this boy died in 
 the same year, and his name is not generally men- 
 tioned among the kings of Spain, for his father was 
 obliged, however unwillingly, to resume the crown, 
 which he held until his death in 1746. Ferdinand 
 VI., his son, succeeded him, and died without chil- 
 dren in 1759. His brother Charles, known as Charles 
 III., succeeded him and reigned until 1788. His 
 reign brought more good-fortune to Spain and less 
 evil than that of any other prince of this wretched 
 line of Bourbon. 
 
 It was in this reign that the Jesuits received that 
 sudden blow from which this order has never recov- 
 ered, either in America or in Europe. u A little 
 before the break of day the decree for the expulsion 
 of the Jesuits went forth, with the Great Seal itself, 
 from the council-chamber of Charles III." This was 
 on the morning of, the 25th of June, 1767. The 
 Jesuit writers and their enemies alike agree that the 
 king was brought up to this point by proof which 
 satisfied him that the Jesuits had circulated slanders 
 regarding his birth. At that time Spain and Charles 
 had the good-fortune that Aranda was his prime- 
 minister. The decree against the Jesuits was the 
 joint work of Aranda and Choiseul, who, fortunately 
 for France, was the minister of Louis XV. Besides 
 Aranda, Florida Bianca was one of the ministers of 
 Charles III., who seems to have had either great 
 good-fortune or good-sense in selecting his servants. 
 
 For a part of the time when these great statesmen 
 administered his government for him, Vergennes. 
 
: ~"" : "'" I^K; 
 
368 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 another great statesman, was the prime-minister of 
 France. In the same period there come in the event- 
 ful six years between 1776 and 1782, when the United 
 States of America, an infant nation in its first strug- 
 gles, needed the assistance of France and Spain 
 against England. Spain moved very slowly in such 
 things. Indeed it is one of the traditions of Spanish 
 administration in these later times to move slowly. 
 John Jay, who was the minister of the young repub- 
 lic to Spain, was sadly annoyed that he could not 
 persuade them to move faster and to do more. But, 
 if it were only that American vessels cruising in the 
 Eastern Atlantic, and every now and then picking 
 up an English prize, could run into the Spanish 
 ports, that advantage was a very great one. There 
 was, on our own side of the ocean, another way in 
 which Spain gave great help to the new-born nation. 
 It happened that from the year 1762 to the year 
 1803, the whole of the great region called " Louisi- 
 ana," which included all the western half of the Mis- 
 sissippi Valley, beside that part to the east of it 
 which is in the State of Louisiana to-day, was in the 
 possession of Spain. To the great indignation of 
 the French settlers there, their French king had 
 abandoned them and ceded the whole magnificent 
 province to Spain. 
 
 With the news of the battle of Lexington, the 
 American traders in New Orleans went to the Spanish 
 viceroy and urged him to come to the relief of their 
 country. The American, Oliver Pollock, is always to 
 be remembered as a friend in need at a time when 
 America needed such friends. He persuaded the 
 
THE PASS OF PANCORBO. 
 3 6 9 
 
370 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 viceroy to let him have gunpowder from the stores 
 of the king of Spain, which he might send up the 
 Mississippi River to Pittsburg. Spain was nominally 
 at peace with England, but the governor did not for- 
 get that England had snatched Florida from his 
 king, and found this a good time for revenge. In 
 the terrible stress of the first years of the Revolu- 
 tionary war, the supply of powder thus received 
 from an unexpected quarter proved to be of the 
 greatest value. In the treaties of 1783, France and 
 Spain repaid themselves for the losses which they 
 had sustained in 1763. Spain then had lost Florida, 
 and she now gained it again. The present posses- 
 sion of it by the United States dates back only to 
 the year 1 821, when the United States received it 
 from Spain, having purchased it by a treaty which 
 was made two years before. 
 
 Charles III., the best sovereign whom Spain has 
 had till the present, generation since the death of 
 Ferdinand, died in 1788, in the fifty-seventh year of 
 his reign. He was succeeded by his son, Charles IV., 
 then a man of forty-eight years old. The wife of 
 Charles, a woman who assumed an unfortunate pre- 
 eminence in affairs was the Princess Maria Louisa of 
 Parma. Unfortunately for Spain, a handsome guards- 
 man appeared at court just before the king was 
 crowned, who became a favorite both of king and 
 queen. His name was Manuel Godoy, but he was after- 
 wards known as the Duke of Alcudia, and the Prince 
 of Peace. Four years were enough to advance him 
 through all the stages of rank, from that of a private 
 in the Life Guard up to prime-minister of Spain, 
 
THE BOURBONS. 
 
 371 
 
 and Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. He 
 had obtained these dignities when he was twenty- 
 five years old, in 1792. In 1795, when he had suc- 
 ceeded in making peace with France, he was made a 
 grandee of the first class, and received a great grant 
 of land with a very large income. In 1796 he con- 
 cluded the offensive and defensive treaty with the 
 French Republic, and the next year married Maria 
 Theresa of Bourbon. This man was the evil genius 
 of Spain. He handled both king and queen as he 
 chose, and to the miserable intrigues of a miserable 
 court we must look for such explanation as we need 
 of the fall of Spain into the hands of Napoleon. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 NAPOLEON. 
 
 FERDINAND, the son of Charles, in despair at 
 some phase which'these intrigues had taken, opened 
 a secret correspondence with the French emperor. 
 Napoleon, false to him as he was to almost every 
 one, betrayed the son to the father, and took the 
 occasion of the family quarrel, to begin that series 
 of negotiations and assumptions which ended in his 
 holding father and son both in captivity in France, 
 while he established his brother Joseph at Madrid as 
 king of Spain. All |his was done so promptly and 
 with such authority of force that the Spanish people 
 had, at first, hardly any opportunity of resistance. 
 Indeed, at that moment Spain was nominally in 
 alliance with France, thanks to Godoy ; and a large 
 contingent from the Spanish army was holding Na- 
 poleon's fortresses in the north of Europe. Of this 
 period of transition the critical event, so far as the 
 fortunes of Spain were concerned, was the battle of 
 Trafalgar. 
 
 By the treaty made by Godoy the French had 
 gained the use of the Spanish fleet. In the battle 
 of Cape St. Vincent of 1797 the English Admiral, 
 Jervis, defeated them and took four line-of-battle 
 
 372 
 
LEANING TOWER, SARAGOSSA. 
 
 373 
 
374 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 ships. Peace was restored to Europe in 1802 by 
 the short-lived treaty of Amiens, but on the 12th of 
 December, 1804, Napoleon compelled Spain to join 
 him in an alliance against England, and the Span- 
 ish court declared war. Napoleon was thus able 
 to unite the fleets of France and Spain, and they 
 took the sea under Villeneuve with some prospect of 
 success. Nelson was the English admiral, quite as 
 eager to find them as they were to find him. The 
 French fleet had slipped the English blockade of 
 Toulon on the 18th of January, 1805, and formed a 
 junction with the Spanish fleet at Cadiz. Before 
 Nelson was made sure of the junction, the combined 
 French and Spanish fleets had sailed for the West 
 Indies. Nelson followed. Again and again he missed 
 them. On the 9th of June, he learned that they had 
 taken under convoy a fleet of merchant vessels, and 
 were on their way home. Nelson followed again. 
 But this extraordinary pursuit, of one squadron by 
 another, in which both parties crossed the Atlantic 
 Ocean twice, ended in Nelson's failure. The French 
 and Spaniards had passed through Sir Robert Calder's 
 squadron, had proceeded to Ferrol, on the northwest 
 of Spain, where a smaller squadron awaited them, 
 and all returned to Cadiz in safety. Nelson landed 
 for the first time, it is said, in two years, at Gibraltar, 
 and then returned to England, almost inconsolable. 
 It proved that he had passed his enemies on his 
 way home from the West Indies, outsailing them. 
 
 So soon as he learned where they were, he offered 
 his services again to the English Government, and 
 was permitted by them to choose his officers from 
 
NAPOLEON. 375 
 
 the whole list of the English navy. He set sail in 
 the Victory, his old flag-ship, which had been refitted, 
 and with the largest fleet which could be got to- 
 gether. He arrived off Cadiz again on the 29th of 
 September, which was the very day when Ville- 
 neuve, the French admiral, had received peremptory 
 orders to put to sea. Nelson was so afraid that 
 Villeneuve would know his force, that he kept his 
 station fifty or sixty miles west of Cadiz. Ville- 
 neuve, on his side, saw an American captain in 
 Cadiz, who had left London but a few days before 
 and had seen Nelson there. So that Villeneuve 
 supposed he was not to meet his great antagonist. 
 He sailed promptly, as ordered. On the 21st the 
 French and Spanish fleets could be distinctly seen 
 from the deck of the Victory. A little after daylight 
 Nelson came on deck and made signal to attack the 
 enemy in two lines. He led one, and Collingwood 
 the other. They had twenty-seven ships of the line 
 and four frigates. The French and Spanish fleet 
 had six more ships of the line and three more frig- 
 ates. They did not avoid the conflict, and were 
 formed judiciously to meet his attack in a double line. 
 In the battle which followed Nelson was killed. 
 The Victory was engaged on both sides, working 
 both her batteries. Twice he gave orders to cease 
 firing on the Redoubtable, because her great guns 
 were silent, and he supposed she had struck. A 
 musket ball from the mizzen-top of that ship struck 
 his left shoulder, and he fell upon his face on the 
 spot covered with the blood of his secretary, who 
 had been killed a little before. Nelson died three 
 
376 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 hours after, but not before Hardy, his captain, an- 
 nounced to him a complete victory. His last words 
 were : " I thank God I have done my duty." 
 
 Meanwhile Napoleon had been raging while wait- 
 ing for the fleet at Boulogne to cover his invasion 
 into England. But Villeneuve did not arrive. 
 Greatly to Napoleon's mortification and annoyance, 
 he was obliged to break up his camp at Boulogne and 
 move eastward upon Vienna. The great battle was 
 fought at Austerlitz, and not at Hastings on the Eng- 
 lish shore. When Napoleon heard of Trafalgar, he is 
 said to have remarked : " I cannot be everywhere." 
 On which remark of his, Sir Walter Scott grimly 
 comments that it was quite as well for him that he 
 was not under the guns of the Victory. The defeat- 
 of the allied fleet put an end to all projects of Eng- 
 lish invasion. Villeneuve was made a prisoner when 
 his own ship surrendered, and remained a prisoner 
 in England for several months. He knew the anger of 
 his master so well that he dared not face it. After he 
 was released and returned to France, he stabbed him- 
 self. It was said that the dagger entered his heart at 
 the place indicated on an anatomical drawing, which 
 was on the table before him, which he had pierced 
 with a pin in studying for his successful suicide. 
 
 With the usurpation of the Spanish crown by 
 Joseph, the pride and indignation of the Spanish 
 people were aroused. It was one thing to march a 
 French army to Madrid. It was quite another 
 thing to keep a great and proud nation satisfied 
 under a foreign rule. In each province the people 
 rose in rebellion. There was even an insurrection 
 
NAPOLEON. 377 
 
 in Madrid. At Baylen, Castafios, an old Spanish 
 general, defeated Dupont, who was compelled to sur- 
 render with seventeen thousand men. This event 
 was, as Napoleon afterward said, " his Caudine 
 Forks." In truth it was the first serious reverse his 
 arms had met with. The English writers say, and 
 probably with truth, that it was due to Dupont's 
 utter carelessness and the lack of discipline among 
 his troops, more than to any military skill of Cas- 
 tafios. The battle, indeed, was a tangle of conflict- 
 ing forces, arriving from one point and another, of 
 which the result, probably fortunate in the end to 
 Spain, was the surrender of an army corps. 
 
 " Probably fortunate ! " One cannot speak too 
 definitely. For the same English authors insist that 
 the victory was in the end a great misfortune. They 
 say that it gave a false confidence to the Spanish 
 generals and to their guerilla bands, which, in the 
 end, led them to their ruin. 
 
 The success had a more favorable influence on the 
 national cause of Spain, by confirming the resolution 
 of the English Government to maintain a large force 
 in the Peninsula. Portugal had been for many gen- 
 erations the firm ally of England. England was 
 now maintaining a strong force in Portugal, which 
 was at last placed under the command of Sir Arthur 
 Wellesley, who won for himself before long the title 
 of Lord Wellington. Massena, one of Napoleon's 
 marshals, with a force larger than Wellesley 's 
 threatened Lisbon. But Wellesley's combinations 
 were so good, and his men fought so well, that he 
 compelled Massena to withdraw, and even followed 
 him into Spanish territory. In two terrible attacks 
 
378 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 he took by storm Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, the 
 fortified places which the French held on the Spanish 
 frontier. In the battle of Salamanca he proved his 
 superior generalship, and where the forces were fair- 
 ly equal, he drove the French from the field. All 
 this gave courage to the Spanish guerilla forces, and 
 in some instances they achieved considerable suc- 
 cesses. Whoever reads a modern Spanish history 
 might imagine that the Spaniards themselves drove 
 the invaders out of Spain, and that a few English 
 soldiers were there looking on. Whoever reads an 
 English history might suppose that " Lord Welling- 
 ton," as he then was, marched serene from victory 
 to victory, only now and then varying the course of 
 conquest by a masterly retreat, to show the world 
 how a retreat should be carried on, but with the final 
 result of the evacuation of Spain. The last great 
 battle was fought at Victoria, a place so named in 
 honor of a victory won five centuries before, of 
 which " Ingles mundi " (the English mound) is a 
 memorial of the Englishmen who then beat the 
 French there. In the battle under Wellington's 
 orders the French were completely broken, and fled. 
 The losses of the allied nations show fairly enough, 
 to whom belongs the honor of the victory. Of the 
 English 3,308 fell, of the Portuguese 1,049, anc ^ °f 
 the Spaniards only 553. The English could not fol- 
 low their victory as promptly as Wellington wished, 
 because they were fairly demoralized by the extent of 
 their plunder. King Joseph fled with only one Na- 
 poleon in his pocket. His carriage and his " loot " 
 from the galleries of Madrid fell into English hands. 
 Now came the fall of Napoleon, 
 
PART VI. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 AN ODE. 
 
 WRITTEN, OCTOBER, 1819, BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED 
 
 THEIR LIBERTY. 
 
 Arise, arise, arise ! 
 There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread ; 
 
 Be your wounds like eyes 
 To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead. 
 What other grief were it just to pay ? 
 Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they : 
 Who said they were slain on the battle day ? 
 
 Awaken, awaken, awaken ! 
 The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes ; 
 
 Be the cold chains shaken 
 To the dust where your kindred repose, repose ! 
 Their bones in the grave will start and move, 
 When they hear the voices of those they love, 
 Most loud in the holy combat above. 
 
 Wave, wave high the banner ! 
 When freedom is riding to conquest by ; 
 
 Though the slaves that fan her, 
 Be famine and toil, giving sigh for sigh. 
 And ye who attend her imperial car, 
 Lift not your hands in the banded war, 
 But in her defence whose children ye are. 
 
 381 
 
382 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Glory, glory, glory, 
 To those who have greatly suffered and done ; 
 
 Never name in story 
 Was greater than that which ye shall have won. 
 Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, 
 Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown : 
 Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. 
 
 Bind, bind every brow 
 With coronals of violets, ivy, and pine ; 
 
 Hide the blood-stains now 
 With hues which sweet nature has made divine ; 
 Green strength, azure hope, and eternity ; 
 But let not the pansy among them be ; 
 Ye were injured, and that means memory. 
 
 — Shelley. 
 
 Ferdinand VII., who had been in theory king of 
 Spain ever since the abdication of Charles in his favor 
 in 1808, returned to his capital to assume his crown. 
 He had been living meanwhile in an honorable cap- 
 tivity in France. He now took up his residence in 
 Spain in 18 14. 
 
 Two years before, a constitution had been drawn 
 for Spain in the king's absence. It was the work of 
 the Cortes on which all the real government of Spain 
 had depended in the absence of its kings. It re- 
 modelled the whole administration, so that Spain, 
 which had been the most absolute monarchy in 
 Europe, would become, under this constitution, the 
 monarchy most severely limited. But Ferdinand 
 returned on the wave of absolutism, and he took ad- 
 vantage of it, as sovereigns did, who had more sense 
 than he. It was not long before he promulgated a 
 decree, by which the Cortes were declared illegal, 
 and all their acts rescinded, the constitution among 
 
384 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 the rest. The Inquisition had been abolished since 
 the king's departure, but it was now restored, and 
 the most arbitrary bigotry reigned triumphant. The 
 constitution was publicly burnt. The king promised, 
 indeed, to grant one with liberal principles, but did 
 nothing to fulfil his promise in six years. The gov- 
 ernment, which one would have said was as bad as it 
 could be, passed from worse to worse. Numerous 
 conspiracies were quenched in blood, and the re- 
 bellion of all the American colonies made the condi- 
 tion of things desperate. 
 
 In the autumn of 1819, a considerable army had 
 been brought together at Cadiz, for the subjugation 
 of America. But officers and troops refused to em- 
 bark. They joined the disaffected people of Cadiz, 
 and proclaimed the constitution of 18 12. Soon after, 
 Mina, a patriot who had been exiled, proclaimed it 
 in Spanish Navarre, and a series of insurrections 
 through the whole country, compelled the king to 
 acknowledge the constitution in March of 1820. A 
 short interval of liberal government ensued. But, in 
 1822, other conspiracies broke out in the interests of 
 absolute government, which were generally sustained 
 by the Catholic clergy. Under the direction of the 
 Holy Alliance, a French army of 100,000 men moved 
 into Spain, took possession of the capital, and ap- 
 pointed a regency. Ferdinand, with the Spanish 
 army, maintained a separate government for some 
 months, but in October, 1823, without resistance 
 from them, the Duke d' Angouleme took possession 
 of Spain and reinstated Ferdinand with absolute 
 power. From this time forward for five years, a 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 385 
 
 French army of occupation was in Spain. All credit 
 was destroyed at home and abroad. The contests 
 between the two parties were of the bitterest de- 
 scription, and the government oppressed the liberals 
 with the hardest hand. Ferdinand, himself, was more 
 moderate than the most bitter of his supporters. 
 They made a plot to compel him to abdicate in 
 favor of his brother Charles. This is the beginning 
 of the Carlist plots, always in the interest of ab- 
 solutism, and of the most extreme bigotry, which 
 have desolated Spain, with but little intermission 
 from that time to this. 
 
 Don Carlos, as this brother is always called, was 
 presumptive heir to the throne. As long back, 
 however, as 1789, Charles IV., his grandfather, had 
 issued a " Pragmatic Sanction," establishing the suc- 
 cession to the crown of Spain in females as well as 
 males. On the 6th of April, 1830, King Ferdinand 
 confirmed this decree. On this decree and his con- 
 firmation depend the rights to the throne of the king 
 who has so lately died, and, of course, of his infant 
 daughter, and infant son, who since his death have 
 been proclaimed queen and king of Spain. 
 
 Ferdinand had no children by either of his first 
 three wives. His fourth wife, Christina, was a Nea- 
 politan princess, as was Carlotta, the wife of Don 
 Francisco, a younger brother of the queen. The 
 wife of Don Carlos was a Portuguese princess, and 
 between the Neapolitan princesses and their Portu- 
 guese sister-in-law there was a constant palace war. 
 The Neapolitan ladies persuaded Calomarde to sug- 
 gest the abrogation of the Salic law to the king, 
 
386 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and the decree was executed without the knowledge 
 of the other ministers. 
 
 When, therefore, the princess Dona Isabella was 
 born to the king, on the ioth of October, 1830, 
 she was the heiress to the throne, if only Spain rec- 
 ognized the authority which had made a change so 
 radical in the succession. It was a coincidence 
 curious and interesting, especially to those who 
 were children in those days, that there were then 
 three princesses awaiting the death of old men be- 
 fore they should mount three of the oldest thrones 
 in Europe — Victoria in England, who was then 
 eleven years old ; Doiia Maria in Portugal ; and 
 Dona Isabella in Spain. In Spain, the change in 
 the Salic law was not made without a protest. 
 Ferdinand's brother, Carlos, vehemently denied the 
 right of the king or the Cortes to take from him the 
 succession. Ferdinand himself was weak, and in a 
 fit of illness on September 18, 1832, he instituted 
 again the Salic law. But as soon as he began to 
 recover, he revoked this decision. He then banished 
 his brother, Don Carlos, to Portugal, and soon after- 
 wards ordered him to reside in the Papal States. 
 But before the younger brother could sail for Italy, 
 Ferdinand died on the 29th of September, 1833. 
 Isabella the Second was proclaimed queen when she 
 was not two years old, her mother, Maria Christina, 
 of the two Sicilies, being appointed regent. Don 
 Carlos, the child's uncle, with such assistance as he 
 could receive from Dom Miguel, the uncle of the 
 queen of Portugal, whose position was not very 
 different from that of Don Carlos, led an insurrection 
 
388 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 against her in the northeastern provinces. The 
 most extreme of the Catholic party and the most 
 conservative of the mountaineers sustained him. 
 It can hardly be said that the fires of that insurrec- 
 tion are extinct at the end of half a century. But 
 the little queen, all unconscious as she was of wars 
 and rumors of wars, had stout allies. For her cause 
 was regarded almost by common consent as the 
 cause of liberalism. So the new government of 
 Louis Philippe in France and the reform adminis- 
 tration in England, with Dom Pedro, the liberal 
 regent in Portugal, who had to maintain another 
 niece against another uncle, all made a quadruple 
 alliance with the Queen Regent of Spain. A force 
 so strong as theirs, in the field and in reserve, over- 
 powered Don Carlos, and he was obliged to flee his 
 country. But he returned once and again. And 
 when he died, his son, who bore the same name, re- 
 newed the attempt, always supported by the more 
 rigid Catholics, by the mountaineers on the southern 
 slopes of the Pyrenees, and always affecting to have 
 the support of the priesthood of the Roman Church. 
 To this hour, in any overthrow of parties or in any 
 attempt at a revolution in Spain, there will be a 
 rumor of " Carlist " influence among the insurgents. 
 But the last military movement of the Carlists was 
 crushed when Amadeo was king of Spain in 1876. 
 It must be understood that these Carlist movements 
 have been headed by three different princes named 
 Carlos. The first of these was Don Carlos, the 
 brother of Ferdinand VII. He died in 1855. The 
 second was his son, the Count of Montemolin, who 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 389 
 
 died in 1861. Before his death, he signed a re- 
 nunciation of all his claims to the throne of Spain. 
 The Carlist cause is now represented by his 
 nephew, also named Don Carlos, who is the son 
 of his brother Juan, and was born in 1849. ^ n 
 1868 Don Juan renounced all his rights to his 
 son, Alfonso Carlos Ferdinando Juan Pio, who 
 was born on the 12th of September, 1849. His 
 wife is Maria, the daughter of the late Dom Miguel 
 of Portugal, whose life, as has been said, has run 
 somewhat on parallel lines with that of the first 
 Don Carlos. 
 
 The little princess came to the throne with the 
 title thus seriously challenged before she was two 
 years old. Her mother, Christina of Naples, was 
 appointed regent, and when one remembers the 
 wretched failure of the daughter's life it is but 
 fair to reflect that she was the child of such a 
 mother. There were two children, the young 
 queen, Isabella, and Maria Louisa, who has since 
 been known as the Duchess Montpensier. By Ferdi- 
 nand's will, Christina was made both guardian of 
 the children and regent of the kingdom ; and regent 
 she was in a fashion for seven years. For those 
 seven years, Spain was desolated by civil war. As 
 for the regent, all that people knew of her was her 
 shameless passion for her chamberlain, Hernando 
 Mufioz, an officer of the body-guard, whom she 
 made her chamberlain. Mufioz was of insignificant 
 rank, his father having kept a tobacco shop in Ta- 
 roncon. She contracted with him a Morganatic mar- 
 riage in December, 1833, but this was kept a secret, 
 
390 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 and by him she had ten children. A conspiracy of 
 men determined to give Spain liberal institutions, 
 compelled her in 1836 to give a new constitution to 
 the kingdom and to concede some of the rights of 
 constitutional government. But in 1840, the scan- 
 dals of her administration had become so odious, 
 that she was compelled to resign her office of 
 regent. 
 
 To the great good-fortune of Spain, Espartero, a 
 military officer of great ability, was high in command 
 when Ferdinand died, and pronounced unequivo- 
 cally for Isabella. Among the wretched intrigues of 
 the court, and the constant changes of ministers, Es- 
 partero retained the favor of the army and of what 
 may be called the Spanish people. Twice he saved 
 the capital when it was imperilled by the Carlists. His 
 campaign of 1839, drove the Don Carlos of the day 
 from Spain, and he w T as honored by the title of 
 Grandee of Spain and Duke of Victory. In 1841, 
 after Christina had Been compelled to give up the 
 regency, he was named regent until the princess 
 should have reached the age of eighteen, and in this 
 capacity, which was really that of a sovereign, he 
 administered the affairs of poor Spain with dignity 
 and ability. 
 
 But the student of modern Spanish history must 
 remember all along that Spain is the prey of unceas- 
 ing partisan dissension. By a combination of parties, 
 which had nothing in common but their hatred of Es- 
 partero, he was dethroned, in 1843. He lived in Eng- 
 land for four years, then returned to Spain, and lived 
 there in private until 1854. The miserable despot- 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 39 1 
 
 ism of which Christina had been the moving spirit, 
 whether she were nominally in power or no, then 
 roused an insurrection which drove her from the 
 kingdom, and Espartero was again called to the 
 head of the government. Isabella was by this 
 time queen, and he served as her prime-minister. 
 The queen had been declared by the Cortes to 
 have attained her majority in 1843, when she was 
 but thirteen years old, and in 1846 she married her 
 cousin Don Francisco d' Assisi, the son of the Don 
 Francis, Ferdinand's brother, whose wife's intrigues 
 in 1833 have been spoken of. At the same time her 
 sister married the Duke of Montpensier, Louis 
 Philippe's fifth son. These marriages were to a 
 considerable extent the fruit of Louis Philippe's 
 personal and selfish policy, and they did much to 
 make him unpopular among the powers of Europe, 
 when the French people ejected him in 1848. But 
 whatever might have been the dictates of public 
 politics or of family intrigue, Queen Isabella's his- 
 tory was apt to be a wretched story of personal 
 passion, in which she followed the example of her 
 mother. In all changes of party, in the pendulum 
 swings of administrations from pure absolutism to 
 constitutional freedom and back again, personal in- 
 trigue and personal passion were always intervening. 
 At last, in 1868, the nation would bear no more. A 
 revolution broke out in September. The people of 
 Madrid turned against her. Isabella fled to France, 
 and a provisional government was appointed. In No- 
 vember, 1870, the Cortes, finding the impossibility 
 of agreeing upon any candidate from the family of 
 
392 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 their rulers at home, attempted as a measure of com- 
 promise to introduce a wholly new dynasty. They 
 offered the crown to Amadeo, the second son of 
 King Humbert of Italy. They thus avoided all de- 
 cision between the Carlist candidates and their 
 cousins. They secured a king from an old house, 
 and from a dynasty that was popular at that mo- 
 ment among the Liberals of Europe. 
 
 Amadeo Ferdinand Marie, Duke of Aosta, was 
 born on the 30th of May, 1845. He was married on 
 his twenty-second birthday, three years before he 
 was called to the Spanish throne, to Marie, daughter 
 of Charles Emmanuel, Prince of Pozzo della Cisterna. 
 He brought to his new position a certain popularity; 
 but the problem was too hard a one to be solved by 
 his ingenuity, and early in 1873 he abdicated in his 
 turn. 
 
 His reign had been long enough to show wriat 
 had been, indeed, well enough known before, that 
 the people of the t\$o peninsulas do not like each 
 other. This short reign is likely to be remembered 
 in history, for a visit which Amicis, the brilliant 
 Italian traveller, made in Spain at that time, and 
 the entertaining book of travels which he wrote then 
 and afterwards. 
 
 When Amadeo returned, the Republican party, 
 who were responsible for his fall, attempted to or- 
 ganize Spain as a republic. The present French 
 Republic was then just born, and the Spaniards had 
 the sympathy of France. Castelar, a pure and in- 
 telligent statesman, the friend of Garibaldi, Maz- 
 zini, Kossuth, and other leading Republicans of 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 393 
 
 Southern Europe, led this movement. Castelar 
 showed dignity and resource, which received, as 
 they deserved, the admiration of the intelligent 
 world. 
 
 But the problem was not to be solved by him, 
 and at the end of 1874 a new combination brought 
 back the legitimate Bourbon line. 
 
 The younger Don Carlos, the Count of Montemo- 
 lin, had led an insurrection-in the northern provinces 
 from the moment of the abdication of Amadeo. 
 
 The friends of constitutional government would 
 not trust him and did not trust the republic. They 
 now proclaimed Alfonso the son of Isabella, a young 
 man seventeen years old. He was the prince 
 whose recent death seems so unfortunate for Spain, 
 and has called forth the general regret of Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Alfonso XII., Francis d' Assise Ferdinand Pius 
 John Marie-de-la-Concepcion Gregory, etc., etc., was 
 born November 28, 1857. His education in early 
 life is said to have been entrusted, as was that of his 
 sisters, to Madam Calderon de la Barca, a lady of 
 English birth, long resident in America, who had 
 married one of the more distinguished Spanish 
 diplomatists. Her entertaining book on Mexico is 
 well remembered. In later years the young prince 
 had the great advantage, for a prince, of the school 
 of exile. For in the fall of his mother, he also was 
 banished from Madrid, and when, at seventeen years 
 of age, he came back to that city, he had been away 
 from it more than half his life. It was familiarly 
 said in Spain, that when his partisans offered him 
 
394 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 the crown and he accepted it, he did so saying that 
 he wished them to understand that he was the first 
 Republican in Europe, and that when they were 
 tired of him, he hoped they would tell him so, and 
 that he would leave as Amadeo had done. 
 
 Whether he said this or not, the speech was 
 well invented by any one who wished to earn for 
 him popularity among Spaniards. Their loyalty 
 is certain ; but it is loyalty which, as the reader 
 has seen, is accompanied with a decided self-respect. 
 Alfonso's throne was all the more secure, that it 
 was at least supposed that he had not intrigued 
 for it. From that moment until he died, eleven 
 years after, the Spanish people were generally dis- 
 posed to think good things of their young prince. 
 It was freely said, while he was on the throne, that 
 while there were but sixteen million people in Spain 
 there were sixteen million and one political par- 
 ties. And there is but little exaggeration in the 
 epigram. 
 
 King Alfonso seemed to show courage and dis- 
 cretion. He, at least, maintained the forms of 
 constitutional government. As soon as a new min- 
 istry came into power, all other factions have, al- 
 most of course, united against it. Such terms as 
 the " Democratic Monarchic " combination have 
 been usual phrases in Spanish politics. The king 
 changed his ministers when he was compelled to. 
 But he has been fortunate in some of them. And 
 Sagasta, who is at the moment when we write at the 
 head of the government, has approved himself to the 
 world looking on, and to at least a considerable part 
 of Spain, as a prudent, brave, and wise man. 
 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 395 
 
 The young king won popular enthusiasm more 
 than once. When the cholera attacked Eastern 
 Spain in 1885, he insisted on visiting the places 
 stricken by the disease, to encourage those who were 
 contending against it. But his constitution was not 
 so strong as his friends tried to believe. He died on 
 the 25th of November, 1885. His oldest child. 
 Marie de la Mercedes, succeeded him. She was five 
 years old when she came to the throne. Her mother 
 is regent. 
 
 But, as these sheets pass the press, the telegraph 
 announces the birth of a boy, brother to Marie de la 
 Mercedes, — who inherits, as the son of the late king, 
 the throne which for five months has been filled by 
 his sister. 
 
 THE DIRGE OF LARRA. 
 
 (Imitated from the Spanish of Zorilla.} 
 
 On the breeze I hear the knell 
 Of the solemn, funeral bell, 
 Marshalling another guest 
 To the grave's unbroken rest. 
 
 He has done his earthly toil, 
 And cast off his mortal coil, 
 As a maid, in beauty's bloom, 
 Seeks the cloister's living tomb. 
 
 When he saw the future rise 
 To his disenchanted eyes, 
 Void of love's celestial light, 
 It was worthless in his sight ; 
 And he hurried, without warning, 
 To the night that knows no morning. 
 
396 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 He has perished in his pride, 
 
 Like a fountain, summer-dried ; 
 
 Like a flower of odorous breath, 
 
 Which the tempest scattereth ; 
 
 But the rich aroma left us, 
 
 Shows the sweets that have been reft us, 
 
 And the meadow, fresh and green, 
 
 "What the fountain would have been. 
 
 Ah ! the poet's mystic measure 
 Is a rich but fatal treasure : 
 Bliss to others, to the master 
 Full of bitterest disaster. 
 
 Poet ! sleep within the tomb, 
 Where no other voice shall come 
 O'er the silence to prevail, 
 Save a brother poet's wail ; 
 That, if parted spirits know 
 Aught that passes here below, — 
 Falling on thy pensive ear 
 Softly as an infant's tear, 
 Shall relate a sweeter story 
 Than the pealing trump of glory. 
 
 If, beyond 01ft- mortal sight, 
 In some glorious realm of light, 
 Poets pass their happy hours, 
 Far from this cold world of ours. 
 Oh, how sweet to throw away 
 This frail tenement of clay, 
 And in spirit soar above 
 To the home of endless love. 
 
 And if in that world of bliss 
 Thou rememberest aught of this, — 
 If not Being's higher scene 
 Have a glimpse of what has been, — 
 Poet ! from the seats divine, 
 Let thy spirit answer mine. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abbasides, 157 ; governor of , 158 ; 
 
 in Damascus, 163 
 Abdallah ben Yassim, 189 
 Abdelmumen, 196 
 Abderahman I. at Tours, 156 
 Abderahman II., the Omeyyad, 
 
 157-162 
 Abderahman III., 65; tribute to, 
 
 240; cures Sancho, 243 
 Abencerrages, 203; quarrels of, 
 
 206; at the lists, 208; riches of, 
 
 353 
 Abenhamet, prince of the Moors, 
 
 210 
 Abjuration of Arianism by Goths, 
 
 123 
 
 Abrantes, Duke of, 362 
 
 Abu Abdalla (Boabdil), 220-227, 
 
 318 
 Abu Bekir, Emir, 189-192 
 Adrian VI., Pope, 329 
 Aduba, birthplace of Lucan, 62 
 ./Emillius Paulus, 38 
 ^Etius, 86 
 
 Agmat, Fortress of 193 
 Agramonts and Beaumonts, 285 
 Aixa, Moorish princess, 206 
 Alabez, Moorish tribe, 208 
 Alans, 76; disappear from Spain, 84 
 Alarab, the African, 201 
 Alaric, the Goth, 76; wife of, 77; 
 
 court at Toulouse, 94 
 Albrecht, John of, 327 
 Alcazar of Seville, 270, 307 
 Alcudia, Duke of, 370 
 Alexander VI., 338 
 
 Alfaqui of Fez, 188 
 
 Alfonso II., el Casto, 233 
 
 Alfonso V., 283, 286 
 
 Alfonso VI., 187-192, 247 
 
 Alfonso IX., 200 
 
 Alfonso X., el Sabio, 262-266; 
 
 sister of, 276 
 Alfonso XL, children of, 271 
 Alfonso XII., 393 
 Algalif, 182 
 
 Algazali, Abu Hamed, 195 
 Alhama, taken by Christians, 223 
 Alhambra, The, 203, 214, 221 ; 
 
 keys of, 226 
 Almanzor, regent at Cordova, 168, 
 
 246 
 Almohades, 187, 199 
 Almoravides, 187, 195 
 Alorcus, 25 
 
 Alphabet, Phoenician, 17 
 Alpujarras, 226, 352 
 Alsace, 358 
 
 Amadeo, King, 388, 392 
 Amadis of Gaul, 249 
 American colonies, Rebellion of, 
 
 384 
 Amiens, Treaty of, 374 
 Amphitheatre at Nismes, 130 
 Andalusia, name, 74; fertile fields 
 
 of, 90; subdued, 193 ; accepts 
 
 Henry of, 
 Angodleme, Duke of, 3S4 
 Anjou, Philip, Duke of, 356, 362 
 Anjou, Margaret of, 296 
 Anjou, Rene, King of, 294, 296 
 Anne of Austria, 354 
 Anne, daughter of Maximilian II., 
 
 352 
 
 397 
 
398 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Antaeus, grave of, 46 
 
 Antiquera, Governor of, 217 
 
 Arabs, Spanish, 164, 166 
 
 Aranda, Duke of, 366 
 
 Arianism, gift to Spain, 100; re- 
 ligion of Leovigild, 106; faith of 
 Goswinda, in; abjured by their 
 sons, 112, 121; by Goths, 123 
 
 Arians, 92; simple creed, 95; bat- 
 tle with Catholics, 98 
 
 Aries, Goths at, 75 
 
 Arragon, Blanche of, 285; Cathar- 
 ine of, 315 
 
 Arragon, kingdom of, under St. 
 Ferdinand, 264; in arms against 
 Pedro, 276; united to Castile, 
 279; story of, 281-297 
 
 Arsilla, 140 
 
 Arthur, King, Myths of, 249 
 
 Ascalis, 46 
 
 Assisi, Don Francisco de, 391 
 
 Astronomical tables of Alfonso, 
 266 
 
 Asturias, 8 ; possessed by Goths, 
 233 ; at war with Leon, 244 
 
 Asturias, Prince of, 314, 354, 357 
 
 Ataulphus, King of the Goths, 
 73-80 
 
 Athens, 282 
 
 Atlas, Mountain chain of, iSS 
 
 Attila, King of the Huns, 85 ; 
 death, 86 
 
 Augustus Caesar in Spain, 58 
 
 Aurrich, Don, 252 
 
 Austerlitz, 376 
 
 Austria, Anne of, 354 
 
 Austria, Don John of, 352 
 
 Austria, Grand Duke of, 326 
 
 Azhera, palace of, 165 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, Roger, time of, 266 
 
 Badajoz, 378 
 
 Baetis, river, 44 
 
 Barbarossa, Emperor of Germany, 
 
 Frederick I., 33 
 Barca, Governor of, 158 
 Barca, Hamilcar, 28 
 Barcelona, 79, 283, 287, 290, 296, 
 
 312 
 
 Barcelona, Louis XIII., Count of, 
 
 355 
 Basques, 9 ; language of, 10 ; at 
 
 Roncesvalles, 172 
 Bavaria, Elector of, 361 
 Bavieca, horse of the Cid, 258 
 Bayard, Chevalier, 330 
 Baylen, Battle of, 377 
 Beaumonts and Agramonts, 285 
 Bedouins, wandering tribes, 158 
 Belgium, 325 
 Bermuez, Peter, 259. 
 Bernardo del Carpio, 234 
 Bilbilis. birthplace of Martial, 62 
 Bivar, Rodrigo del, 249 
 Blanche of Arragon, 285 
 Blanche, princess of France, 285 
 Blanche of Navarre, 284, 291 
 Boabdil, 220, 225, 227, 318 
 Bonaparte, Joseph, 372 
 Bonnivet, General, 330 
 Bordeaux, burned by Goths, 79 ; 
 
 birthplace of Black Prince, 276 
 Boulogne, French fleet at, 376 
 Bourbon, Blanche of, 272 
 Bourbon, Constable of, 330 
 Bourbon, Isabella of, 354 
 Bourbon, Peter of, 272 
 Bourbons, 358 
 
 Braga (Bracata-Augusta), 60 
 Brazil, Cape of, 338 
 Brunhilda, the wicked princess, n I 
 Bucar, brother of Yussef, 256 
 Buckingham, Duke of, 355 
 Buenos Ayres, 337 
 Bull-fights, 8 
 Burgos, birthplace of Cid, 247 ; 
 
 Cid at, 254 
 Burgundy, Mary of, 325 
 Burgundians, Vandal tribe, 93 
 
 C 
 
 Cabot, Sebastian, 336 
 Cadiz, 15, 37, 374, 384 
 Caecias, northerly wind, 50 
 Caesar-Augusta (now Saragossa) 
 
 60 
 Caesar, Augustus, in Spain, 58-61 
 Caesar, Julius, in Spain, 54-58 ; in 
 
 Seville, 262 
 
INDEX. 
 
 399 
 
 Calabria, John of, 296 
 
 Calais lost to the English, 349 
 
 Calderon, Plays of, 104 
 
 Calder, Sir Robert, Squadron of. 
 
 374 
 
 California, 251, 337 
 
 Caliphate of Cordova, Story of, 
 
 I55-I70 
 Callagurris, now Callahorra, 62 
 Calomarde, 385 
 Campeador, the Cid, 249 
 Carlists, 385, 389 
 Carlos, Prince of Viana, 2S4, 285, 
 
 290, 299 
 Carlos, son of Philip II., 348 
 Carlos, Don, head of Carlists, 385, 
 
 338 
 Carlotta, wife of Don Francisco, 
 
 3 8 .5 
 Carrion, Count of, 251 
 
 Carthagena, New Carthage, 
 founded by Hamilcar, 21 ; 
 seized by Scipio, 34 
 
 Carthaginians in Spain, 19 ; mer- 
 chants, 20 ; under Hannibal, 
 22 ; at Saguntum, 24, 26 ; 
 possess Southern Spain, 33 ; 
 expelled, 37 
 
 Castanos, General, 377 
 
 Castelar, 392 
 
 Castile, Catalonia of, Counts of, 
 244; kingdom of, extent, 281 ; 
 Ferdinand of, 283 ; Henry of, 
 28S, 291 ; Isabella of, 298 ; de- 
 frays expenses of Columbus, 311 
 
 Catalans, 282, 289, 301, 355 
 
 Catalaunian plains, 85 
 
 Catalina of Castile, 315 
 
 Catalonia subdued, 38 
 
 Catalonians, 14, 2S1, 294 
 
 Catharine of Arragon, 315 
 
 Catharine, daughter of John of 
 Gaunt, 280 
 
 Catholic, faith declared, 123 ; sov- 
 ereigns, 319 ; party , 388 
 
 Cato the Elder in Spain, 3S 
 
 Celts in Spain, 5 ; habits of, 6 ; 
 religion, 12 
 
 Cerda de la Ferdinand, 26S ; In- 
 fantas, 277 
 
 Cervantes, tragedy of Numantia, 
 
 40 ; writings of, 104, 250, 344 
 Ceuta, Gothic garrison, 140 ; pillar 
 
 of Hercules, 142 
 Chalons, Battle of, 85 
 Characitanians, 49 
 Charlemagne, at Paderborn, Le- 
 gend of, 171 ; at Saragossa, 177; 
 invasion of, 235 
 Charles, Arch-Duke, 362 
 Charles the Bold, 325 
 Charles, Prince of Wales, 355 
 Charles II. of England, 359 
 Charles V. of France, 277 
 Charles V., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 315, 321 
 
 Charles I. of Spain, 315, 321 ; 
 Charles II., 358 ; Charles III., 
 365 ; Charles IV., 370 
 
 Chievres, tutor of Charles V., 320 
 
 Chili, 337 
 
 Chilperic of France, 107 
 
 Choiseul, Duke of, 366 
 
 Christendom, domain of, 308 
 
 Christianity, conversion of Goths 
 to, 94 
 
 Christians, captives, 204 ; friendly 
 with Moors 215, 217 ; before 
 Grenada, 224 ; after defeat of 
 Goths, 231 ; at Clavigo, 239 ; 
 spreading in Spain, 244 ; take 
 Seville, 264 ; formerly Moors, 
 350 
 
 Christina, Queen, 385 
 
 Christina of Naples, 389 
 
 Chronicle of the Cid, 250, 261 
 
 Chronicle of Spain, 266 
 
 Cid, the birth-place of, 247 ; story 
 of, 248-261 
 
 Cinq Mars, Plot of, 356 
 
 Ciudad Rodrigo, 378 
 
 Clavigo, Battle of, 238 
 
 Code of Alfonso, 266 
 
 Coimbra, 274 
 
 Collingwood, Admiral, 375 
 
 Columbus, at Granada, 310 ; voy- 
 age of, 311 ; discovery of Amer- 
 ica, 336 
 
 Campostella, St. Jago de, 238 
 
 Constance, daughter of Peter the 
 
400 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Cruel, 2S0 ; ancestress of Isa- 
 bella, 316 
 
 Constantinople, 282 
 
 Constantius, lover of Placidia, 81 
 
 Cordova, taken by Tarik, 148 ; 
 caliphate of, 155 ; academy of, 
 164 ; mosque, 165 ; centre of 
 Arabic learning, 167 ; palace at, 
 243 ; rivalled by Seville, 264 
 
 Cordova, Gonsalvo de, 225, 314 
 
 Corduba (Cordova), 60 
 
 Corneille's Sertorius, 53 
 
 Cortes, Fernando, 251, 322, 326 
 
 Cortes, Spanish, 382 
 
 Cotta, beaten by Sertorius, 47 
 
 Couching eyes of John of Arragon, 
 296 
 
 Cross, Empire of, 308 
 
 Crowns, united, of Castile and 
 Leon, 264 ; of Castile and Ar- 
 ragon, 279, 306 
 
 D 
 
 Damascus, Caliphate of, 157, 163 
 Damascus, sovereigns of, 163 ; 
 
 rivalled by Cordova, 170 
 Dante, Time of, 266 
 Darro, river, 21 1 
 Dauphiny, 325 
 Davis, Captain John, 360 
 Diaz, Sancho, Count of Soldafia, 
 
 234 
 Dido, 27 
 Dominic, 75 
 Doria, Fleet of, 332 
 Druids, 11, 12 
 
 Dupont, Carelessness of, 377 
 Durindana, sword of Roland, 178 
 Dwarf assassinates Ataulphus, 80 
 
 E 
 
 Early tribes, I ; coast trade of, 6 ; 
 different names of, 8 
 
 Edward III. of England, 276 
 
 Egypt, Sultan of, 265 
 
 Eleanor of Arragon, 285 ; Coun- 
 tess of Foix, 292 ; daughter of 
 Henry II., 265 
 
 Elections of Visigoth chiefs, 90 
 
 Elizabeth of France, 349 
 
 Emerita-Augusta, 60 
 
 England, William the Conqueror 
 of, 250; Henry II. of, 265 ; Henry 
 III. of, 268 ; Henry VIII. of, 
 330 ; William III. of, 362, 365 ; 
 Victoria of, 386 
 
 Enrique, Prince, 271, 277 
 
 Ervigius, successor of Wamba, 135 
 
 Espartero, 389, 390 
 
 Esplandian, 251 
 
 Esquera, or Basque language, 10 
 
 Erminigild, Story of, 106— 119 
 
 Evaric, founder of the Gothic king- 
 dom in Spain, 87 ; death of, 89 
 
 Fadrique, Prince, 271, 274 
 Ferdinand of Arragon, Story of, 
 
 298-320 
 Ferdinand of Castile, 283 
 Ferdinand de la Cerda, 268 
 Ferdinand of Naples, 286 
 Ferdinand III. (Saint) of Spain, 
 
 264 ; tomb, 265 ; VI., 265 ; VII., 
 
 382 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, marriage 
 
 of, 298 ; invest Grenada, 225, 
 
 307; receive Columbus, 310; 
 
 grandeur of, 315 ; tombs, 318 
 Fernando, King of Castile, 251, 
 
 252 
 Ferrol, port of Spain, 374 
 Fez, Kings of, 204 
 Flanders, Government of, 326 
 Flor, Roger de, 282 
 Florez, Francisco, 320 
 Florida, Bianca, 366 
 Florida, Spanish population of, 360 
 Foix, Count and Countess of, 292 
 France, losses of England in, 349 ; 
 
 marriage of Isabella of, 354 ; 
 
 conspiracy of Cinq Mars, 356 ; 
 
 assistance to United States, 
 Francis I., 330, 332 
 Francisco, Don, 385 
 Frega, Insurrection at, 289 
 
 368 
 
INDEX. 
 
 40I 
 
 Frere, Hookham, translation of 
 
 the Cid, 261 
 Froissart, 292 
 Fuero Juzgo, Foundation of, 87 
 
 G 
 
 Galiana, Palaces of, 252 
 
 Galicians, 1 1 
 
 Gallio, 62 
 
 Ganelon, 175 
 
 Garibaldi, 392 
 
 Geber, Arabic architect, 264 
 
 Geierstein, Anne of, 294 
 
 Georgia, 360 
 
 German empire, 358 
 
 Germany, Emperor of, 268, 314, 
 
 331, 352, 361 
 Ghent, 326, 358 
 Gibraltar, Straits of, I, 4, 142, 
 
 .374 
 
 Giralda of Seville, 264 
 
 Godoy, Manuel, 370, 372 
 
 Gold and silver mines of Spain, 
 16 
 
 Gomelez, Moorish tribe, 208 
 
 Gonsalvo de Cordova, 225, 314 
 
 Gonzalez, Fernan, 244 
 
 Goswinda, queen of Leovigild, 
 in 
 
 Gothic architecture, 137 
 
 Goths, at Narbonne, 75; burn 
 Bordeaux, 79; elect Wallia, 81; 
 resist Attila, 85; civilized, 87; 
 triumphant, S9; origin, 92; chris- 
 tianized, 95; Arians, 97; Catho- 
 lics, 123; in Toledo, 126; be- 
 trayed, 141; conquered, 147; af- 
 ter Guadalete, 231 ; in Seville, 
 262 
 
 Grandee of Spain, 389 
 
 Greek, explorers 16; emperor, 282 
 
 Granada, Moorish kingdom, 203; 
 divided, 220; fall of, 307; Isa- 
 bella's tomb at, 318; wealth of 
 Moors of, 353 
 
 Granada, city of, 213; invested, 
 225; surrender, 226 
 
 Guadalete, Battle of the, 146 
 
 Guadalquivir, 264 
 
 Guatemala, possessed by Spain, 
 
 337 
 Guesclin, Bertrand du, 277 
 Guienne, War-cry of, 278 
 Gutierrez de Cardenas, 302 
 
 H 
 
 Hamilcar in Spain, 21 ; builds new 
 
 Carthage, 21 
 Hannibal, a boy in Spain, 21; at 
 
 Saguntum, m, 24; terror of 
 
 Rome, 27 
 Hapsburg, House of, 38 
 Hardy, Captain, 375 
 Hauteclerc, sword of Olivier, 182 
 Henriquez, Joan, 284 
 Henry of England, II., 265; VIII., 
 
 330 
 Henry of France, II. 349; IV.; 
 
 354 
 Hercules, Cave of, 142 
 Heruli, Vandal tribe, 93 
 Hieronymo, 257, 260 
 Hilderic, Count of Nismes, 128 
 Hispalis (Seville), 262 
 Hixem, III., 169, 170 
 Holland, States of, 362 
 Honorius, Roman emperor, 77 
 Horn of Roland, 181 
 Hostages in ancient warfare, 35 
 Huesca, University of, 47 
 Huns, invasion of, 84; resisted at 
 
 Chalons, 85; vanquished, 86 
 
 Iberians, I, 4 
 Ibn-el-Arabi, 171 
 Ildefonso, Legend of 126 
 Ingunda, French princess, 107 
 Isabella, queen of Spain, marriage 
 of, 220; suitors, 299; at Val- 
 ladolid, 301; good sense of, 306; 
 in camp, 308; confidence in 
 Columbus, 311, children of, 314; 
 death, 317; tomb at Granada, 
 
 318 
 
 Islands of the Blest, 34 
 Ismail of Granada, 216 
 
4-02 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Jaca, walls built by Cato, 38 
 
 James, Saint, 126 
 
 Janus, Gates of, 58 
 
 Jay, John, 368 
 
 Jerusalem, in possession of the 
 
 Mohammedans, 156; visited by 
 
 Charles V., 334 
 Jervis, Admiral, 372 
 Jesuits, Expulsion of, 366 
 Jesus, Society of, 334 
 Jewish physician restores the sight 
 
 of John of Arragon, 295 
 Jews in Toledo, 126 ; bargain with 
 
 Cid, 254 
 Jezebel, 27 
 
 Joanna, Queen of Naples, 283 
 Joanna, Princess, 315, 324 
 John of Arragon, 283-297 
 John of Castile, 283 
 John, Prince, son of Isabella, 
 
 314 
 Joseph, King, 378 
 Julian, Count, 140—147 
 Julius Csesar, 54-58, 262 
 
 K 
 
 Kartah-tuba (Cordova), 28 
 Koran, 196 
 Kossuth, 392 
 
 L 
 
 Lamp-lighter, Son of the, 195 
 Lancaster, Duke of, 280 
 Lancaster, Red-rose of, 296 
 Lancelot, 249 
 Language, Gothic, 93 
 Language, Spanish, 30, 38, 68, 88, 
 
 100, 302 
 Languedoc, 325 
 Larra, Dirge of, 395 
 Las Casas, 340 
 Latin customs and language in 
 
 Spain, 38 
 Laynez, Diego, 260 
 Leander, Saint, 113, 124 
 Leo, Pope, 127 
 
 Leon, captured by Christians, 233; 
 at war with Asturias, 244 ; Fer- 
 dinand at, 302 
 
 Leopold, Emperor of Germany, 
 361 
 
 Leovigild, 106, 120 
 
 Lexington, Battle of, 368 
 
 Library of Cordova, 167 
 
 Licianus, 62 
 
 Lions, Court of, 211 
 
 Lisbon, 377 
 
 Literature of Spain, 28, iot, 104 
 
 Lorraine, Duke of, 296, 358 
 
 Louis IX., of France, 265 
 
 Louis XL, 294 
 
 Louis XIII. , 354 
 
 Louis XIV., 356 
 
 Louis Philippe, 388 
 
 Louisiana, 368 
 
 Low Countries, Crown of, 326 
 
 Loyola, Inigo Lopez de, 333 ; 
 canonized, 334 
 
 Lucan, 62 
 
 Lusitanians, 1 1 ; capital of, 60 ; 
 summon Sertorius, 46 ; banner 
 of, 346 
 
 M 
 
 Madrid, 362 ; insurrection in, 377 ; 
 
 galleries of, 378 
 Magellan, 338 
 
 Mago, Carthaginian general, 34 
 Mahdi, Title of, 197 
 Mahomet, see Mohammed 
 Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, 281 
 Malaga, 224 
 
 Marcella, wife of Martial, 62 
 Margaret, Princess of Germany, 
 
 3H 
 Margaret, Queen of Hungary, 357 
 Marguerite of France, 349 
 Maria de las Mercedes, 395 
 Maria, daughter of Charles Em- 
 manuel, 392 
 Maria, Princess of Portugal, 386 
 Maria de Medicis, 354 
 Maria de Padilla, 272, 328 
 Maria Anna, daughter of Em- 
 peror Ferdinand III., 357 
 
INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Maria Christina, 386 
 
 Maria, Infanta, 355 
 
 Maria Louisa of Savoy, 364 
 
 Maria Louisa, Duchess of Mont- 
 
 pensier, 389 
 Maria Louisa of Parma, 370 
 Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip 
 
 IV., 356 
 
 Marius against Sylla, 44 
 
 Marsillius, King of Saragossa, 173 
 
 Martial, born at Bilbilis, 62 
 
 Martel, Charles, 156 
 
 Martin, King of Arragon, 283 
 
 Martyr, Peter, 327 
 
 Mary, " Bloody," of England, 348 
 
 Massena, Marshal, 377 
 
 Mauritania, Sertorius in, 46 ; Mo- 
 rocco, part of, 140; town in, 160 
 
 Maximilian, Emperor of Ger- 
 many, 314 
 
 Mazzini, 292 
 
 Medicis, Maria of, 354 
 
 Mendoza, Cardinal, 318 
 
 Merida, capital of Lusitania, 60 
 
 Metellus, 47 
 
 Mexico, 337 ; Gulf of, 360 
 
 Miguel, Dom, 386 
 
 Miguel, Prince, 315 
 
 Mina, General, 384 
 
 Mir, King of Sueves, 115 
 
 Miramolin Almancor, 141 
 
 Mithridates, treaty with Sertorius, 
 52 
 
 Missal-book of Charles V. , 321 
 
 Mississippi, 360 ; river, 370 
 
 Mistletoe, 12 
 
 Mohammed, the prophet, 140, 155 
 
 Mohammed V. of Granada, 216 
 
 Mohammed ben Abdallah, 195 
 
 Mohammed ben Alhamar, 213 
 
 Mohammed, ruler of Almohades, 
 201 
 
 Mohammedans in Spain, 157 ; Al- 
 mohades sovereigns of, 200 ; 
 driven from Andalusia, 201 ; 
 finally expelled, 352 
 
 Monkeys at Gibraltar, 4 
 
 Montemolin, Count of, 388 
 
 Montgomery, Count of, 350 
 
 Montpensier, Duke of, 391 
 
 Montserrat, 334 
 
 Moorish, court, 204 ; maidens, 
 207 ; king, retreat of, 226 
 
 Moors, in Spain, 206 ; baths of, 
 214 ; friendly with Christians, 
 215, 217 ; take Zahara, 223 ; 
 against Cid, 258 ; win Seville, 
 264 ; arabesques of, 271 ; prowess 
 of, 307 ; piracy of, 331 ; Chris- 
 tianized, 350 ; in Africa, 351 
 
 Morocco, capital of Yussef, 193 ; 
 besieged, 188 ; king of, 269 
 
 Moriscos, 350 
 
 Moslem, belief, 215 ; quarrels, 
 216 ; power dwindling, 244 
 
 Munda, Battle of, 54 
 
 Munificence of Omeyyades, 165 
 
 Muley Ali Abul Hassan, 220 
 
 Munoz, Hernando, 389 
 
 Murabitins, or Almoravides, 189 
 
 Murcia, 38 
 
 Murillo, 126 
 
 Mur-viedro, 22 ; siege of, 24 ; 
 surrender of, 26 
 
 Muse, Saracen leader, 141 
 
 Mustapha, general of Almanzor, 
 168 
 
 N 
 
 Naples, Kingdom of, 283, 314 
 
 Napoleon, 372 
 
 Narbonne, Goths at, 75 
 
 Narvaez, governor of Antiquera, 
 217 
 
 Navarre, 291 ; kingdom of, 243 ; 
 aggressive, 281 ; bone of conten- 
 tion, 284 ; renounced by Blanche, 
 291 ; taken by Ferdinand, 292 ; 
 attacked by Charles V., 200. 
 
 Navarrete, Battle of, 277 
 
 Navas de Tolosa, Battle of, 200 
 
 Nelson, Admiral, 374 
 
 New Testament in Gothic, 94 
 
 Netherlands, 335 
 
 New Carthage, 21 ; blockaded, 34 
 
 New Mexico, possessed by Spain, 
 
 337 
 Nismes, Rebellion of, 128 
 Northern invaders, 73 
 Numantia, Siege of. 40, 344 
 
404 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 O 
 
 Ode, Shelley's, to Spaniards, 381 
 Omeyyades, House of, 157, 163, 
 
 284 
 Oppas, bishop of Toledo, 140 
 Olivares, Count of, 355 
 Orleans, resists Huns, 85 
 Ormond, Duke of, 365 
 Orosius, Spanish historian, 88 
 Orthes, Chateau of, 292 
 Orthodoxy of Recared, 121 
 Orsini, Princess, 364 
 Osca (Huesca), 47 
 Ostro-Goths, 92 
 Oviedo, capital of Goths, 233 
 
 Pacific Ocean discovered, 337 
 Padilla, Maria de, 272, 328 
 Palm, transplanted to Spain, 163 ; 
 
 sign of palma, 340 
 Pampeluna, 243, 327, 332 
 Panama, Isthmus of, 337 
 Paraguay, 327 
 
 Parma, Maria Louisa of, 370 
 Paul, Duke, letter of, 128 ; at 
 
 Nismes, 129 ; seized, 131 ; life 
 
 spared, 132 
 Pax Augusta (Badajos), 60 
 Peace, Prince of, 370 
 Pedro the Cruel, 270 ; rightful 
 
 heir, 271 ; marriage, 273 ; crimes 
 
 of, 276 ; daring, 278 ; slain, 279 
 Pedro, Dom, regent of Portugal, 
 
 388 
 Pelayo, 1 50 ; leader of the Goths, 
 
 231 
 Pensacola, 360 
 Perez Hernan, 320 
 Peru, 337 
 Peter, Saint, 246 
 Peterborough, Lord, 365 
 Philadelphia, Siege of, 283 
 Philibert Emmanuel, 349 
 Philip the L, of Spain, 315, 319, 
 
 325 ; II., 247, 321, 343 ; III., 
 
 346, 352, 355 I IV., 355 ; v., 
 
 356 
 
 Phoenicians, I, 14, 262 
 Piracy, Moorish, 331 
 Pittsburg, 370 
 
 Placidia, sister of Honorius, 77 
 Plutarch, story of Sertorius, 44-48 
 Pollock, Oliver, 368 
 Pompey, 47-57 
 
 Pope, Adrian VI., 329 ; Alexander 
 VI., 338 ; Leo, 127 ; Sixtus IV., 
 
 304 
 
 Portugal, 11 ; ruler of, 51 ; borders 
 of, 264 ; story separate from that 
 of Spain, 279 ; king of, 310 ; 
 princess of, 314 ; crown pos- 
 sessed by Philip II., 343 ; Mary 
 of, 347 ; ally of England, 377 ; 
 regent of, 388 
 
 Portuguese, Losses of, 378 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, 385 
 
 Prince, Black, 276 
 
 Provence, 74, 75, 325 
 
 Prudentius, Poem of, 62 
 
 Ptolemy, System of, 270 
 
 Publius Scipio, 37 
 
 Punic war, 20 
 
 Pyrenees, 1 ; spurs of, 5 ; Jaca in, 
 38 ; northern site of, 75 ; crossed 
 by Gothic princess, no; by 
 Charlemagne, 171 ; by Black 
 Prince, 277 ; " ceased to exist," 
 364 
 
 Q 
 
 Quintilian, 63 
 Quixote, Don, 104, 346 
 
 R 
 
 Ramiro, 238 ; II., 244 
 Rebellion of Nismes, 129 
 Recared, 106 ; died, 124 
 Redoubtable, 275 
 Regeb (October), 192 
 Remond, 252 
 Rene, king of Anjou, 294 
 Republic, French, 370 
 Republic in Spain, 292 
 Rhodes, 329 
 Rhodians, 16 
 
 Richard, Cceur de Lion, 250 ; 
 brother of Henry III.,. 268 
 
INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 356 
 Roderick, last of the Goths, 139 ; 
 
 legend of, 142 ; courage, 146 ; 
 
 drowned, 147 
 Rodriguez Diego, 260 
 Roland, Song of, 171 
 Romans, in Spain, 30 ; customs, 
 
 32 ; routed by Sertorius, 47 ; 
 
 language of, 88 ; monuments of, 
 
 in Seville, 262 
 Rome, opposed by Hannibal, 22, 
 
 2 7> 3° ! Sylla master of, 44 ; 
 
 dark period of, 51 ; subjugates 
 
 Spain, 61 ; domination of, 67 ; 
 
 end of power in Spain, 87 
 Roncesvalles, 171, 277 
 Ronda, Alcalde of, 218 
 Roumania, Admiral of, 282 
 Ruy Diaz, the Cid Campeador, 
 
 256 
 
 Sabio el, Alfonso, 266 
 
 Saguntum, 22, 24 
 
 Saint Aignan, 85 
 
 Saint Augustine, 359 
 
 Saint Ferdinand, 264 
 
 Saint Jago de Campostella, 238 
 
 Saint Lazarus, 260 
 
 Saint Louis of France, 265 
 
 Saint Mary's river, 360 
 
 Saint Peter, 246, 260 
 
 Saint Vincent, Cape, Battle of, 372 
 
 Salamanca, 347 
 
 Saldafia, Count of, 234 
 
 Sancha of Navarre, 244 
 
 Sancho, 26S ; the Fat, 243 ; Don, 
 
 249, 252 
 San Martin, Bridge of, 125 
 San Milan, vida de, 241 
 Santa Maria, Church of, 125 
 Santiago, 238, 247, 280 
 Saracens, 140, 155, 180, 238 
 Saragossa (Caesar Augusta), 60, 
 
 177 . 
 Sardinia, 281 
 Savoy, 326 
 
 Scallop, mark of pilgrim, 240 
 Scandinavia, 92 
 
 Scipio Africanus, 32 ; Publius, 32 
 
 Scipios, The, 30 ; in Seville, 262 
 
 Scourge of God, Attila, 85 
 
 Segovia, 304 
 
 Seneca, Lucius, 62 
 
 Senecas, The two, 62 
 
 Sermon on the mount, in four 
 languages, 10 1 
 
 Sertorius, Quintus, 44 ; civilizer of 
 Spain, 48 ; resources of, 49 ; in 
 Portugal, 51 ; assassinated, 52 
 
 Seville, 149, 262, 307 ; surrenders 
 to Musa, 149 ; prosperity of, 
 262 
 
 Shelley, ode to the Spaniards, 381 
 
 Sicily, 281, 287 ; Isabella at, 307 
 
 Sigeric, 80 
 
 Sixtus IV., Pope, 304 
 
 Soleyman the Magnificent, 329 
 
 Sos, birthplace of Ferdinand, 284 
 
 Southey's Roderick, 150, 250 
 
 Spain, subjugated by Rome, 61 ; 
 Roman domination of, 67 ; re- 
 duced to province, 149 ; Arabs 
 in, 164; invaded by Almoravides, 
 192 ; under Almohades, 200 ; 
 importance of, 265 ; cardinal of, 
 305 ; prosperity of, 312 ; domin- 
 ions in America, 337 ; occupied 
 by French, 385 ; civil war, 389 
 
 Spaniard, The true, 265 
 
 Spanish language, 30, 38, 68, 88, 
 100, 302 
 
 Spanish war of succession, 361, 
 
 304 
 Stilicho, 75 
 Sueves in Galicia, 76 
 Sully, 355 
 
 Sylla against Marius, 44 
 Sword, of Olivier, 1S2 ; of Roland, 
 
 178 ; of Yussef, 257 
 
 Tagus, river, 49, 125 
 
 Tangier, Gothic garrison of, 140 
 
 Tarifa, 1, 4 
 
 Tarik, 142 ; attack of, 146 ; at 
 
 Toledo, 148 ; reviled by Musa, 
 
 149 
 
4o6 
 
 THE STORY OF SPAIN. 
 
 Tarraco (Tarragona), 58, 61, 117 
 Tarshish, Ships of, 19 
 Tartessus, 19 
 Taxfin ben Ali, 198 
 Theodemir, Bishop, 238 
 Theodofred, father of Roderick, 
 
 139 
 Theodoric the Visigoth, 84 
 Theodosia, first wife of Leovigild, 
 
 113 
 
 Ticinus, Battle of, 32 
 
 Tingis, City of, 46 
 
 Titian, Portraits by, 348 
 
 Tizona, sword of Yussef, 257 
 
 Toledo, schools of, 100 ; Goths at, 
 107-137 ; taken by Tarik, 148 ; 
 fast at, 200 ; regained by Chris- 
 tians, 247 
 
 Toledo, Archbishop of, 302 
 
 Torres Bamejas, 222 
 
 Toulon, Blocade of, 374 
 
 Toulouse, 75, 77 
 
 Tours, Battle of, 156 
 
 Trance of King Wamba, 134 
 
 Trastamara, Henry of, 277, 279, 
 283 
 
 Trastamara, House of, 283, 305 
 
 Treachery of Ganelon, 176 
 
 Treasures of Moors, 354 
 
 Triumvirate, Civil wars Sf, 58 
 
 Tubal, in Spain, 10 
 
 Tunis Capture of, 331 
 
 Turpin, Archbishop, 179 
 
 U 
 
 Ulfilas, 93-95 
 
 Unitarians, the Almohades, 198 
 United States, 338, 359, 370 
 Utrecht, Treaty of, 365 
 
 V 
 
 Valdabrun the Saracen, 180 
 
 Valencia, 38 ; attacked by Cid, 
 251 ; governed by Cid, 256; 
 possessed by Ferdinand III., 
 264 ; Moors expelled from, 352 
 
 Valentinian, son of Placidia, 81 
 
 Valladolid, 301, 347 
 
 Vandals, in Boetica, 76 ; at war 
 with Goths, 78-84 ; court at Se- 
 ville, 262 ; Heruli, tribe of, 93 
 
 Vascones (Basques), 9 
 
 Veillantif, the horse of Roland, 183 
 
 Velasquez, 356 
 
 Vendome, Duke of, 365 
 
 Venice, joined to Charles V., 330 
 
 Vergennes, 366 
 
 Versailles, 359 
 
 Vespucius, 336 
 
 Viana, Carlos, Prince of, 285 
 
 Viceroys in Castile, 328 
 
 Victoria, Battle of, 378 
 
 Victoria, Princess, of England, 386 
 
 Victory, Nelson's flag-ship, 375 
 
 Vigo, 365 
 
 Villeneuve, Admiral, 374 
 
 Visigoths, king of, 77 ; princes, 
 84 ; monarchs, 89 ; government, 
 90 ; name, 92 ; deteriorated, 232 
 
 Vincae, 24 
 
 Vivarambla, 207 
 
 W 
 
 Wahit, sheik of the Arabs, 160 
 Wallia, King of the Goths, 80 
 Wamba, -Story of, 125-135 
 Wellington, Lord, 378 
 West Indies, 337 
 Wellesley, Sir Arthur, 377 
 White hind of Sertorius, 46, 53 
 William the Conqtferor, 250 
 William III. of England, 362 
 Witiza, 139, 146 
 World, History of, by Orosius, 8S 
 
 X 
 
 Xanas, 9 
 
 Xeres, Battle of, 146 
 
 Ximena, sister of Alfonso el Casfo, 
 
 234 
 Ximenes, Cardinal, 326 
 Xucat, river, 256 
 
 Y 
 
 Yahia ben Ibrahim, 188 
 Yussef, Emir of Abbasides, 161 
 
INDEX. 
 
 40; 
 
 Yussef ben Taxfin, 188 190, 257 
 Yuste, Monastery of, 335 
 
 Zagat, governor of Malaga, 18S 
 
 Zahani, El, 141 
 
 Zahara, taken by 'Moors, 223 
 
 Zaineb, sister of Abu Bekir, 190 
 Zama, Battle of, 32 
 Zamora, Lorenzo de, 28 
 Zante currants, 24 
 Zegris, Moorish tribe, 204 ; quar- 
 rels of, 207 ; at the lists, 208 
 Zorai'de, Moorish princess, 210 
 Zoraya, 222, 223 
 
The Story of the Nations. 
 
 MESSRS. G. F. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
 announcing that they have in course of publication a 
 series of historical studies, intended to present in a 
 graphic manner the stories of the different nations that 
 have attained prominence in history. 
 
 In the story form the current of each national life will 
 be distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy 
 periods and episodes will be presented for the reader in 
 their philosophical relation to each other as well as to 
 universal history. 
 
 It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes 
 to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring 
 them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and 
 struggled — as they studied and wrote, and as they amused 
 themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with 
 which the history of all lands begins, will not be over- 
 looked, though these will be carefully distinguished from 
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 historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. 
 
 The subjects of the different volumes will be planned 
 to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive 
 epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will 
 present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in 
 the great STORY OF THE NATIONS ; but it will, of course, 
 not always prove practicable to issue the several volumes 
 in their chronological order. 
 
 The " Stories " are printed in good readable type, and 
 in handsome 121110 form. They are adequately illustrated 
 and furnished with maps and indexes. They are sold 
 separately at a price of $1.50 each. 
 
The following is a partial list of the subjects thus far 
 determined upon : 
 
 THE STORY OF EARLY EGYPT. Prof. Gkorgk Rawlinsox. 
 
 " *CHALDEA. Z. Ragozin. 
 <■' " -GREECE. Prof. James A. Harrison, 
 
 Washington and Lee University. 
 " " *ROME. Arthur Oilman. 
 
 " --"THE JEWS. Prof. James K. PIosmer, 
 
 Washington University of St. Louis. 
 
 "-CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church, 
 
 University College, London. 
 
 " BYZANTIUM. 
 
 " THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 
 
 " *THE NORMANS. Sarah O. Jewett. 
 
 " *PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 
 
 " '-SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 
 
 " -GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
 
 " THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. 
 
 " HOLLAND. Prof. C. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 
 " ^NORWAY. Hjalmar PL Boyesen. 
 
 " *THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
 
 " *HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 
 
 " THE ITALIAN KINGDOM. W. L. Alden. 
 
 " EARLY FRANCE. Prof. Gu stave Masson. 
 ' " ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffv. 
 
 " THE HANSE TOWNS. Helen Zimmern. 
 
 " ASSYRIA. Z. Ragozin. 
 
 " - ;f THE SARACENS. Arthur Oilman. 
 
 " TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
 
 " PORTUGAL. II. Morse Stephens. 
 
 " MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
 
 " IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
 
 " PHOENICIA. 
 
 " SWITZERLAND. 
 
 " RUSSIA. 
 
 " WALES. 
 
 " SCOTLAND. 
 
 * (The volumes starred are now ready, January, 1887.) 
 
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