In Ez-Zaghal we see the last great Moorish King of Andalusia. He was a gallant warrior, a firm ruler, and a resolute opponent of the Christians. Had he been untrammelled by his nephew, Granada might have remained in the hands of the Moors during his life, though nothing could have prevented the final triumph of the Christians. Instead of delaying that victory, however, the kings of Granada did their best to further and promote it by their internal disputes. _Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_: when the G.o.ds have decreed that a king must fall, they fill him first with folly. Such a suicidal mania now invaded the minds of the rulers of Granada; at a time when every man they could gather together was needed to repel the invasion of the Christians, they wasted their strength in ruinous struggles with each other, and one would even intercept the other"s army when it was on the march against the common enemy. The people of Granada, divided into various factions, aided and abetted the jealousy of their sovereigns: always fickle and p.r.o.ne to any change, good or bad, the Granadinos loved nothing better than to set up and put down kings. So long as a ruler was fortunate in war, and brought back rich spoils from the territories of the "infidels," they were well pleased to submit to his sway; but the moment he failed, they shut the gates in his face and shouted, Long live the other!--who might be Boabdil or Ez-Zaghal, or any one else who happened for the moment to possess Granada"s changeable affections.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSQUE LAMP FROM GRANADA.]
While Boabdil the Unlucky was doing his best to foil the efforts of his brave uncle Ez-Zaghal, the Christians were gradually narrowing the circle that they had drawn round the doomed kingdom. City after city fell into their hands. Alora and other forts were taken in 1484, with the aid of Ferdinand"s heavy "lombards"--a new and destructive form of artillery. Coin, Cartama, Ronda, followed in the next year, not without some vigorous reprisals on the part of Ez-Zaghal, who caught the knights of Calatrava in an ambush, and effected a terrible slaughter. Still the course of Christian conquest steadily continued. Loxa fell in 1486, when an English Earl, Lord Scales, with a company of English archers, led the attack. Illora and Moclin succ.u.mbed; "the right eye of Granada is extinguished," cried the Moors in consternation; "the Catholic sovereigns have clipped the right wing of the Moorish vulture," was the Christian comment. The western part of the kingdom had, indeed, been absorbed by Ferdinand and his intrepid consort. The pomegranate (_granada_) was being devoured grain by grain. Ez-Zaghal became unpopular with the people, who could not brook disappointment, and they received Boabdil once more into their city. He found it hard work to maintain his foothold there against his uncle; but with the help of some troops furnished by the Christians he contrived to stand awhile at bay.
Just then Ferdinand was laying siege to Velez, near Malaga, and the news roused the strongest feeling of indignation in Granada; for Malaga was the second city of the kingdom. Its site, shut in by mountains and the sea, its vineyards and orchards, gardens and pastures, and its fine defensive works, made it the right hand of the Moslem kingdom. If Malaga fell, then the Alhambra must also pa.s.s into the hands of the "eaters of swineflesh." Moved by the general emotion, and ever ready to break lance with the invader, Ez-Zaghal boldly led his troops to the relief of Velez. He knew that his treacherous nephew was in Granada, ready to take advantage of his absence to recover his old supremacy; but Ez-Zaghal was rightly called the Valiant; he put aside all thoughts of self, and set out to save Malaga. But he had to deal with a shrewd opponent; and while he took his measures for a combined attack from the besieged and the relieving army, Ferdinand intercepted his messages and countermined his plans. One night the people of Velez saw the hosts of Ez-Zaghal gathered in long array upon the neighbouring heights; the next morning not a soul remained; the night attack had failed, and the relieving army had melted like the mist before the resolute onslaught of the Marquess of Cadiz. When the dejected stragglers began to steal sadly into the gates of Granada, the populace easily threw off their old allegiance, and breaking into furious indignation against Ez-Zaghal, denounced him as a traitor, and proclaimed Boabdil king in his stead. As Ez-Zaghal drew near to the gates of Granada with the remnant of his army, he found them closed in his face, and looking up he saw the standard of Boabdil floating above the towers of the Alhambra. His city, always intolerant of failure, had shut its heart against him in his day of trouble, so he turned away and established his court at Guadix.
The siege of Malaga itself was now begun, but the strength of its defences rendered it a formidable obstacle. It was surrounded by mountains, defended by stout walls, overshadowed by the citadel and the still loftier Gibralfaro, or "Hill of the Beacon," whence its garrison could pour down missiles upon the Christians in the plain. Moreover, the defence was led by Ez-Zegry, an heroic Moor, who had been Alcayde of Ronda and could not forgive the Christians for wrenching that famous rocky fortress from him, and who now inspired the citizens and his following of African troops with a spirit of daring and endurance which the Catholic sovereigns in vain tried to subdue. Commanding the Gibralfaro, he was able to defend the city in spite of the peaceful inclinations of its trading cla.s.ses. When the king attempted to bribe him, he dismissed the messenger with courteous disdain; and when the city was summoned to surrender, and the merchants eagerly acquiesced, Ez-Zegry said: "I was set here not to surrender but to defend."
Ferdinand concentrated his attack upon the Gibralfaro; his terrible cannon, known as the "Seven Sisters of Ximenes," wrapped the castle in smoke and flame; night and day the artillery blazed to and fro. The Christians attempted to take the place by a.s.sault, but Ez-Zegry and his undaunted followers poured boiling pitch and rosin upon the a.s.sailants, hurled huge stones upon their heads as they climbed the ladders, and transfixed them with well-aimed arrows from the tower above, till the storming party were compelled to retire with heavy loss. Mines were tried with better success, and some of the fortifications were blown up with gunpowder, for the first time in Spanish history; but still the garrison held out. The chivalry of Spain was now gathered about the walls of Malaga; Queen Isabella herself came, and her presence infused a fresh spirit of enthusiasm into her knights and soldiers. Wooden towers were brought to bear upon the battlements; a _testudo_ of shields was used as cover for the men who undermined the walls; but Ez-Zegry was still unsubdued. At last there appeared a worse enemy than cannon and gunpowder: famine began to distress the people of Malaga, and they were more inclined now to listen to the pacific policy of the traders than to the bold counsels of the commander. Help from without was not to be expected. Ez-Zaghal had, indeed, once more made an effort to save the besieged city. He had gathered together what was left of his army and gone forth from Guadix to succour Malaga; but his ill-starred nephew again proved his t.i.tle to the name "Unlucky," for in a fit of insensate jealousy he ordered out the troops of Granada, intercepted Ez-Zaghal"s small force as it was on its way to Malaga, and dispersed it. Ez-Zegry"s last sally was repulsed with terrible slaughter; the people were starving, and mothers cast their infants before the governor"s horse, lamenting that they had no more food and could not bear to hear their children"s cries. The city at last surrendered, and Ez-Zegry, who still held out in the Gibralfaro, was forced by his soldiers to open the gates, and was rewarded for his heroism by being cast into a dungeon, never to be heard of again.
[Ill.u.s.tration: MALAGA.]
The long siege was over; the famished people fought with one another to buy food from the Christians. The African garrison, who still kept their proud look, though worn and enfeebled with their long struggle and privations, were condemned to slavery; the rest of the inhabitants were permitted to ransom themselves, but on these insidious terms--that all their goods should at once be paid over to the king as part payment, and that if after eight months the rest were not forthcoming, they should all be made slaves. They were numbered and searched, and then sent forth. "Then might be seen old men and helpless women and tender maidens, some of high birth and gentle condition, pa.s.sing through the streets, heavily burdened, towards the Alcazaba. As they left their homes they smote their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and wrung their hands, and raised their weeping eyes to heaven in anguish; and this is recorded as their plaint: O Malaga! city so renowned and beautiful, where now is the strength of thy castle, where the grandeur of thy towers? Of what avail have been thy mighty walls for the protection of thy children?... They will bewail each other in foreign lands; but their lamentations will be the scoff of the stranger." The poor people were sent to Seville, where they were kept in servitude till the eight months had expired, and then, since they had no money to pay the remainder of their ransoms, they were one and all condemned to perpetual slavery, to the number of fifteen thousand souls. Ferdinand"s ungenerous ingenuity was thus rewarded.
The western part of the kingdom of Granada was now entirely in the hands of the Christians. The famous Moorish fortresses of the Serrania de Ronda and the beautiful city of Malaga held Christian garrisons. Granada itself was in the hands of Boabdil, who hastened to congratulate his liege lord and lady upon their triumph over Malaga. But in the east old Ez-Zaghal still turned a bold front to the invader, and gathered around his standard all that remained of patriotism among the disheartened Moors. From Jaen in the north, to Almeria, the chief port of Andalusia on the Mediterranean coast, his sway was undisputed; he held the important cities of Guadix and Baza; and within his dominion the rugged ridges of the Alpuxarras mountains, the cradle of a hardy and warlike race of mountaineers, sheltered countless valleys, fed with cool waters from the Sierra Nevada"s snowy peaks, where flocks and herds, vines, oranges, pomegranates, citrons, and mulberry trees provided wealth for a whole province.
In 1488 Ferdinand turned his victorious arms towards this undisturbed portion of the Moorish dominion. a.s.sembling his troops at Murcia, he marched westwards into Ez-Zaghal"s territory, and attacked Baza. Here his advance was sternly checked; Ez-Zaghal"s hand had not lost its ancient cunning, and he drove the Christians back from the walls of Baza, and began to retaliate by making raids into their own country. In the following year Ferdinand, nothing disheartened, renewed his attack on Baza; but instead of sacrificing his troops in vain a.s.saults, he laid waste the fertile country round about, and so starved the city into submission. It took six months, and the Christians lost twenty thousand men from disease and exposure, joined to the accidents of war; but in December, 1489, Baza finally submitted, and with the loss of this chief city Ez-Zaghal"s power was broken. The castles that dominated the fastnesses of the Alpuxarras yielded one by one to Ferdinand"s prestige or gold. Ez-Zaghal perceived that the rule of the Moors was doomed: reluctantly he gave in his submission to Ferdinand, and surrendered the city of Almeria. He was allotted a small territory in the Alpuxarras, with the t.i.tle of King of Andarax. He did not long remain in the land of his lost glory and present shame; he sold his lands and went to Africa, where he was cruelly blinded by the Sultan of Fez, and pa.s.sed the remainder of his days in misery and dest.i.tution, a wandering outcast,--pitied by those who could recognize the hero in a mendicant"s rags, or read the badge which he wore, whereon was written in the Arabic character, "This is the hapless King of Andalusia."
Granada alone remained to the Moors. Boabdil had been well pleased to see his old rival Ez-Zaghal dethroned by their Catholic Majesties: "Henceforth," he cried to the messenger who brought him the news, "let no man call me Zogoiby, for my luck has turned:" to which the other made answer that the wind which blew in one quarter might soon blow in another, and the king had best reserve his rejoicings for more settled weather. Boabdil, though he heard his name cursed in the streets of his capital as a traitor in league with the infidels, indulged in blind confidence, now that his detested uncle was powerless; as the va.s.sal of Ferdinand and Isabella he believed that he had nothing to fear. He had forgotten that when, in his fatuous hatred of Ez-Zaghal, he incited the Christian sovereigns to subdue his rival"s dominions, he had engaged by treaty that should Ferdinand succeed in reducing Ez-Zaghal"s country, with the cities of Guadix and Almeria, he would on his part surrender Granada. He was not, however, long left without a spur to his memory.
Ferdinand wrote to inform him that the conditions named in the treaty had been fulfilled on his side, and demanded the surrender of Granada in accordance with the terms then laid down. Boabdil in vain implored delay; the king was determined, and threatened to repeat the example of Malaga if the capital were not immediately given up. Boabdil did not know what to reply; but the people of Granada, led by Musa, a brave and gallant knight, took the matter into their own hands, and told his Catholic Majesty that if he wanted their arms he must come and take them!
When these bold words were said, the beautiful Vega of Granada was waving with crops and fruit; it had recovered from the devastations which accompanied the struggle between Ez-Zaghal and Boabdil, and a splendid harvest was awaiting the sickle. Ferdinand saw his opportunity, and, adopting his usual tactics, poured his troops, twenty-five thousand strong, over the Vega, and for thirty days abandoned it to their destroying hands. When he turned back towards Cordova, the Vega was one great expanse of desolation. It was enough for one season; yet once more was the cruel work of destruction carried out in that year of grace 1490.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SWORD OF BOABDIL (_Villaseca Collection, Madrid_).]
Boabdil had at last been roused to a desperate courage. Guided by Musa, whose mettle was of the finest, he girded on his armour, and began to carry the war into the enemy"s quarters. The Moors round about, who had given in their submission to Ferdinand, were heartened by the sight of the King of Granada once more on the war path, and, hastily consigning their promises to the winds, rose up and joined him. It really seemed as if the good old days of Granada were returning; some fortresses were recovered from the Christians, and the Moorish army ravaged the borders.
It was but the last gleam of light before the final setting of the sun.
In April, 1491, Ferdinand and Isabella set forth upon their annual crusade, resolved not to return till Granada was in their power. The king led an army of forty thousand foot and ten thousand horse, with such commanders as the famous Ponce de Leon, Marquess of Cadiz, the Marquess of Santiago, the Counts of Tendilla and Cabra, the Marquess of Villena, and the redoubtable knight, Don Alonzo de Aguilar. Boabdil held a council in the Alhambra, whence the clouds of dust raised by Christian hors.e.m.e.n could be seen on the Vega; some urged the futility of resistance, but Musa got up and bade them be true to their ancestors and never despair while they had strong arms to fight and fleet horses wherewith to foray. The people caught Musa"s enthusiasm, and there was nothing heard in Granada but the sound of the furbishing of arms and the tramp of troops.
Musa was in chief command, and the gates were in his charge. They had been barred when the Christians came in view; but Musa threw them open.
"Our bodies," he said, "will bar the gates." The young men were kindled by such words, and when he told them, "We have nothing to fight for but the ground we stand on; without that we are without home or country,"
they made ready to die with him. With such a leader, the Moorish cavaliers performed prodigious feats of valour in the plain which divided the city from the Christian camp. Single combats were of daily occurrence; the Moors would ride almost among the tents of the Spaniards, and tempt some knight to the duel, from which he too often did not return. Ferdinand found his best warriors were being killed one by one, and he straitly forbade his knights to accept the Moors"
challenge. It was hard for the Spanish chivalry to sit still within their tents, while a bold Moorish horseman would ride within hail and taunt them with cowardice; and when at length one of the Granadinos waxed so venturesome that he cast a spear almost into the royal pavilion, Hernando Perez de Pulgar, surnamed "He of the Exploits," could no longer contain himself, but gathering a small band of followers, rode in the dead of night to a postern gate in the walls of Granada, and, surprising the guards, galloped through the streets till he came to the chief mosque, which he forthwith solemnly dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and in token of its conversion nailed a label on the door inscribed with the words _Ave Maria_. Granada was awake by this time, and soldiers were gathering in every direction; but Pulgar put spurs to his horse, and, amid the amazement of the people, plunged furiously through the crowd, overturning them as he galloped to the gate, and, fighting his way out, rode back in triumph to the camp. The Pulgars ever after held the right to sit in the choir of the mosque-church during the celebration of High Ma.s.s.
Such feats of daring, however, did little to advance the siege, nor were the few engagements conclusive. Ferdinand renewed his old tactics. He sallied forth from his camp, which had accidentally been burnt to the ground, and proceeded to lay waste what remained of the fertility of the Vega. The Moors made a last desperate sally to save their fields and orchards, and Musa and Boabdil fought like heroes at the head of their cavalry; but the foot soldiers, less steadfast, were beaten back to the gates, whither Musa sadly followed them, resolved never again to risk a pitched battle with such men behind him. It was the last fight of the Granadinos. For ten years they had disputed every inch of ground with their invaders; wherever their feet could hold they had stood firm against the enemy. But now there was left to them nothing beyond their capital, and within its walls they shut themselves up in sullen despair.
To starve them out was an agreeable task for the Catholic king; and following the precedent of the third Abd-er-Rahman in the siege of Toledo, he built in eighty days a besieging city over against Granada, and called it Santa Fe, in honour of his "Holy Faith," and there to this day it stands, a monument of Ferdinand"s resolution. Famine did the work that no mere valour could effect. The people of Granada implored Boabdil to spare them further torture and make terms with the besiegers, and at last the unlucky king gave way. Musa would be no party to the surrender.
He armed himself _cap-a-pie_, and mounting his charger rode forth from the city never to return. It is said that as he rode he encountered a party of Christian knights, half a score strong, and, answering their challenge, slew many of them before he was unhorsed, and then, disdaining their offers of mercy, fought stubbornly upon his knees, till he was too weak to continue the struggle: then with a last effort he cast himself into the river Xenil, and, heavy with armour, sank to the bottom.
On the 25th of November, 1491, the act of capitulation was signed, and a term was fixed during which a truce was to be observed, after which, should no aid come from outside, Granada was to be delivered up to their Catholic Majesties. In vain the Moors watched for a sign of the help they had sought from the Sultans of Turkey and Egypt. No aid came, and at the end of December Boabdil sent a message to Ferdinand to come and take possession of the city. The Christian army filed out of Santa Fe, and advanced across the Vega, watched with mournful eyes by the unhappy Moors. The leading detachment entered the Alhambra, and presently the great silver cross was seen shining from the summit of the Torre de la Vela; beside it floated the banner of St. James, while shouts of "Santiago!" rose from the army in the plain beneath; and lastly, the standard of Castile and Aragon was planted by the side of the cross.
Ferdinand and Isabella fell on their knees and gave thanks to G.o.d; the whole army of Spain knelt behind them, and the royal choir sang a solemn _Te Deum_. At the foot of the Hill of Martyrs, Boabdil, attended by a small band of hors.e.m.e.n, met the royal procession. He gave Ferdinand the keys of Granada, and, turning his back upon his beloved city, pa.s.sed on to the mountains. There, at Padul, on a spur of the Alpuxarras, Boabdil stood and gazed back upon the kingdom he had lost: the beautiful Vega, the towers of Alhambra, and the gardens of the Generalife; all the beauty and magnificence of his lost home. "Allahu Akbar," he said, "G.o.d is most great," as he burst into tears. His mother Ayesha stood beside him: "You may well weep like a woman," she said, "for what you could not defend like a man." The spot whence Boabdil took his sad farewell look at his city from which he was banished for ever, bears to this day the name of _el ultimo sospiro del Moro_, "the last sigh of the Moor." He soon crossed over to Africa, where his descendants learned to beg their daily bread.
There was crying in Granada when the sun was going down; Some calling on the Trinity--some calling on Mahoun.
Here pa.s.sed away the Koran--there in the Cross was borne-- And here was heard the Christian bell--and there the Moorish horn:
Te Deum Laudamus! was up the Alcala sung: Down from the Alhambra"s minarets were all the crescents flung; The arms thereon of Aragon they with Castile display; One king comes in in triumph--one weeping goes away.
Thus cried the weeper, while his hands his old white beard did tear, Farewell, farewell, Granada! thou city without peer!
Woe, woe, thou pride of heathendom! seven hundred years and more Have gone since first the faithful thy royal sceptre bore!
Thou wert the happy mother of a high renowned race; Within thee dwelt a haughty line that now go from their place; Within thee fearless knights did dwell, who fought with mickle glee, The enemies of proud Castile, the bane of Christentie.
Here gallants held it little thing for ladies" sake to die, Or for the Prophet"s honour, and pride of Soldanry; For here did valour nourish and deeds of warlike might Enn.o.bled lordly palaces in which was our delight.
The gardens of thy Vega, its fields and blooming bowers-- Woe, woe! I see their beauty gone, and scattered all their flowers!
No reverence can he claim--the king that such a land hath lost-- On charger never can he ride, nor be heard among the host; But in some dark and dismal place, where none his face may see, There weeping and lamenting, alone that king should be.[30]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XIV.
BEARING THE CROSS.
Boabdil"s "last sigh" was but the beginning of a long period of mourning and lamentation for the luckless Moors he had ushered to destruction. At first, indeed, it seemed as if the equitable terms upon which Granada had capitulated would be observed, and freedom of worship and the Mohammedan law would be upheld. The first archbishop, Hernando de Talavera, was a good and liberal-minded man, and forcible conversion formed no part of his policy. He strictly respected the rights of the Moors, and sought to win them over by force of example, by uniform justice and kindness, and by conforming as far as possible to their ways. He made his priests learn Arabic, and said his prayers in the same unG.o.dly tongue, and by such concessions "so wrought on the minds of the populace that in 1499, when Cardinal Ximenes was sent by the queen to aid him in the work, it seemed as if the scenes which occurred at Jerusalem in the infancy of the Faith were about to be reenacted at Granada. In one day no less than 3,000 persons received baptism at the hands of the Primate, who sprinkled them with the hyssop of collective regeneration."[31] Ximenes was little in harmony with the archbishop"s soft ways: he was the apostle of the Church Militant, always most active when militant meant triumphant, and would have the souls of these "infidels" saved from h.e.l.l fire whether they liked it or no. He insinuated in Isabella"s holy mind the pernicious doctrine that to keep faith with infidels was breaking faith with G.o.d; and it is one of the few blots on the good queen"s name that she at length consented to the persecution of the Moors--or "Moriscos," as they now began to be called.
The first attempt to coerce the Granadinos was a failure. Some of the straiter Moslems expressed their repugnance to the new conversions to Christianity, and these malcontents were arrested. A woman being haled to prison on such a pretext roused the people of the Albaycin; they rose in arms and rescued her, and Granada was filled with uproar and barricade-fights. The garrison was hopelessly outnumbered; Ximenes raged with impotent fury; but the peaceful archbishop went forth, followed only by his cross-bearer, and, fearlessly entering the Albaycin, was at once surrounded by the people, who kissed his garments, and laid their wrongs before him in whom they accepted a just and generous mediator.
Talavera composed the disputes, and the Cardinal had to retire.
Ximenes was, however, not a man to be easily deterred from his purpose.
He induced the queen to promulgate a decree by which the Moors were given their choice of baptism or exile. They were reminded that their ancestors had once been Christian, and that by descent they themselves were born in the Church, and must naturally profess her doctrine. The mosques were closed, the countless ma.n.u.scripts that contained the results of ages of Moorish learning were burnt by the ruthless Cardinal, and the unhappy "infidels" were threatened and beaten into the Gospel of Peace and Goodwill after the manner already approved by their Catholic Majesties in respect of the no less miserable Jews. The majority of course yielded, finding it easier to spare their religion than their homes; but a spark of the old Moorish spirit remained burning bright among the hillmen of the Alpuxarras, who for some time held their snowy fastnesses against their persecutors. The first effort to suppress the rebellion ended in disaster. Don Alonzo de Aguilar, whose fame in deeds of derring-do had been growing for forty years of valiant chivalry, was sent into the Sierra Bermeja in 1501, and sustained a terrible defeat at the hands of the Moriscos, who crushed his cavalry with the ma.s.sive rocks which they hurled down upon them.
Beyond the sands, between the rocks, where the old cork trees grow, The path is rough, and mounted men must singly march and slow; There o"er the path the heathen range their ambuscado"s line, High up they wait for Aguilar, as the day begins to shine.
There naught avails the Eagle eye, the guardian of Castile, The eye of wisdom, nor the heart that fear might never feel, The arm of strength that wielded well the strong mace in the fray, Nor the broad plate from whence the edge of falchion glance away.
Not knightly valour there avails, nor skill of horse and spear; For rock on rock comes rumbling down from cliff and cavern drear; Down, down like driving hail they come, and horse and horseman die Like cattle whose despair is dumb when the fierce lightnings fly.
Alonzo with a handful more escapes into the field, There like a lion, stands at bay, in vain besought to yield: A thousand foes around are seen, but none draws near to fight, Afar with bolt and javelin, they pierce the steadfast knight.
A hundred and a hundred darts are hissing round his head; Had Aguilar a thousand hearts, their blood had all been shed; Faint and more faint he staggers upon the slippery sod-- At last his back is to the earth, he gives his soul to G.o.d.
Another and more probable legend, however, tells how Aguilar was killed in fair fight by the commander of the Moors. He was the fifth lord of his line who died in combat with the infidels.
This temporary success, however, only aggravated the reprisals of the now exasperated Christians. The Count of Tendilla stormed Guejar; the Count of Serin "blew up the mosque in which the women and children of a wide district had been placed for safety," and King Ferdinand himself seized the key of the pa.s.ses, the castle of Lanjaron. The remnant of the rebels fled to Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey, where their skill as artificers secured them a living. Thus the first revolt in the Alpuxarras was suppressed.
Half a century of smouldering hatred ensued. The Moriscos grudgingly fulfilled the minimum of the religious duties imposed on them by their outward conversion; but they took care to wash off the holy water with which their children were baptized as soon as they were out of the priest"s sight; they came home from their Christian weddings to be married again after the Mohammedan rite; and they made the Barbary corsair at home in their cities, and helped him to kidnap the children of the Christians. A wise and honest government, respecting its pledges given at the surrender of Granada, would have been spared the dangers of this hidden disaffection; but the rulers of Spain were neither wise nor honest in their dealings with the Moriscos, and as time went on they became more and more cruel and false. The "infidels" were ordered to abandon their native and picturesque costume, and to a.s.sume the hats and breeches of the Christians; to give up bathing, and adopt the dirt of their conquerors; to renounce their language, their customs and ceremonies, even their very names, and to speak Spanish, behave Spanishly, and re-name themselves Spaniards. The great Emperor Charles V. sanctioned this monstrous decree in 1526, but he had the sense not to enforce it; and his agents used it only as a means of extorting bribes from the richer Moors as the price of official blindness. The Inquisition was satisfied for the time with a "traffic in toleration"
which filled the treasury in a highly satisfactory way. It was reserved for Philip II. to carry into practical effect the tyrannical law which his father had prudently left alone. In 1567 he enforced the odious regulations about language, customs, and the like, and, to secure the validity of the prohibition of cleanliness, began by pulling down the beautiful baths of the Alhambra. The wholesale denationalization of the people was more than any folk--much less the descendants of the Almanzors, the Abd-er-Rahmans, and the Abencerrages--could stomach. A fracas with some plundering tax-gatherers set light to the inflammable materials which had long been ready to burn up: some soldiers were murdered by peasants in whose huts they were billeted; a dyer of Granada, Farax Aben Farax, of the blood of the Abencerrages, gathered together a band of the disaffected, and escaped to the mountains before the garrison had made up their minds to pursue him; Hernando de Valor, of the race of the Khalifs of Cordova, a man of note in Granada, but brought to disgrace by his dissolute habits, was chosen King of Andalusia, with the t.i.tle of Muley Mohammed Aben Omeyya; and in a week the whole of the Alpuxarras was in arms, and the second Morisco rebellion had begun (1568).
The district of the Alpuxarras was well fitted to harbour a revolt. The stretch of high land between the Sierra Nevada and the sea, about nineteen miles long and eleven broad, is "so rudely broken into rugged hill and deep ravine, that it would be hard to find in its whole surface a piece of level ground, except in the small valley of Andarax and on the belt of plain which intervenes betwixt the mountains and the sea.
Three princ.i.p.al ranges, spurs of the Sierra Nevada, and themselves spurred with lesser offshoots, intersect it from north to south. Through the glens thus formed a number of streams--torrents in winter but often dry in summer--pour the snows of Muleyhacen and the Pic de Valeta into the Mediterranean. In natural beauty, and in many physical advantages, this mountain land is one of the most lovely and delightful regions of Europe. From the tropical heat and luxuriance, the sugar-canes and the palm-trees, of the lower valleys and of the narrow plain which skirts the sea like a golden zone, it is but a step, through gardens, steep cornfields, and olive groves, to fresh Alpine pastures and woods of pine, above which vegetation expires on the rocks where snow lies long and deep, and is still found in nooks and hollows in the burning days of autumn. When thickly peopled with laborious Moors, the narrow glens, bottomed with rich soil, were terraced and irrigated with a careful industry which compensated for want of s.p.a.ce.[32] The villages, each nestling in its hollow, or perched on a craggy height, were surrounded by vineyards and gardens, orange and almond orchards, and plantations of olive and mulberry, hedged with the cactus and aloe; above, on the rocky uplands, were heard the bells of sheep and kine; and the wine and fruit, the silk and oil, the cheese and the wool of the Alpuxarras, were famous in the markets of Granada and the seaports of Andalusia."[33] It was this beautiful province that the bigotry of the priest was about to deliver over to the sword and brand of the soldier.
The great rebellion in the Alpuxarras lasted for two years, and its repression called forth the utmost energy of the Spaniards. Its records are full of deeds of reckless bloodshed, of torture, a.s.sa.s.sination, treachery, and horrible brutality on both sides; but they are relieved by acts of heroism and endurance which would do honour to any age and any nation. The struggle was fierce and desperate: it was the Moors"
last stand; they felt themselves at bay, and they avenged in their first mad rush of fury a hundred years of insult and persecution.
Village after village rose against its oppressors; churches were desecrated, Our Lady"s picture was made a target, priests were murdered, and too often horrid torture was used against the Christians, who, for their part, took refuge in belfries and towers, and valiantly resisted the sudden a.s.sault of the enemy. We read how two women, left alone in a tower, fastened the door, and armed only with stones which they aimed from the battlements, wounded by arrows, and supported by nothing save their own brave hearts, kept out their a.s.sailants from dawn till noon, when relief fortunately came. Another golden deed is told of the advance of the Christian expedition to put down the revolt. The troops had arrived at the ravine of Tablete, a grim chasm, a hundred feet deep, with a roaring torrent at the bottom. The Moriscos had destroyed the bridge, and only a few tottering planks remained, by which a venturesome scout might cross if needful. On the other side of these planks Moorish archers kept their bows at stretch. It is not surprising that the soldiers recoiled from such a crossing; the dancing plank, the torrent"s roar, and the Moorish arrows, were enough to daunt the bravest. While the army stood irresolute, a friar came to the front, and calmly led the way across the plank over the torrent, to the very arrows of the enemy, who were too much struck with admiration to think of shooting. Two soldiers sprang after the devoted friar--one reached the other side, the other fell into the hissing flood beneath. Then the whole army plucked up heart and crossing as quickly as they could, and mustering on the other side, charged up the slope, and carried the position. It was a Thermopylae reversed, with a friar for its Leonidas; a Balaclava galloped upon quicksands; and it redeems a long catalogue of baseness.
The Marquess of Mondejar, who commanded at Granada, endeavoured by conciliation and generosity to calm the rebellion, which his resolute march into the mountains at the head of four thousand men had to a great extent suppressed; but an accidental ma.s.sacre at Jubiles, and an act of treachery at Laroles, rekindled the flame of revolt which had been partly extinguished; and the ruthless murder of one hundred and ten Moriscos by their Christian fellow-prisoners in the jail of the Albaycin still further exasperated the persecuted race. Mondejar was innocent of any share in this b.l.o.o.d.y work, and was marching with his guard to the prison to quell the disturbance, when the Alcayde met him with the remark: "It is unnecessary; the prison is quiet--_the Moors are all dead_." After this the Moriscos gained daily in strength, and Aben Umeyya became really lord of the whole district of the Alpuxarras. This incapable and profligate sprig of Cordovan n.o.bility enjoyed his power for a very brief period, however; for in October, 1569, private spite and suspicion led to his being strangled in bed by his own followers, when an able and devoted man, the true leader of the rebellion, and one who could even dare to die for his friend, a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of king as Muley Abdallah Aben Abo.