Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1

“Yes,” said the Jew to himself, recalling all the cruelties of which he had been guilty towards his race, “you are the great Cid, low enough now, and that is your fine black beard, grey and thin, of which you were so proud. I should like to see what you will do to me if I pluck it.” At which he stretched forth his hand, but drew it back sharp enough when, with a hollow sound, the dead hand seized the hilt of Tizona and drew forth the blade more than half a palm. Down fell the Jew in a fit, and in rushed the priests, and lo! the dead hand still grasped Tizona, and the fierce eyes seemed to roll. Who, after such an experience, would dare to trifle with the remains of the Cid?

At the present time these remains are said to be deposited at the Ayuntamiento at Burgos, in a case of walnut wood, in the centre of a large hall, along with the skeleton of poor Ximena, still faithful to him in death.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Fernando el Santo

AFTER the death of Alfonso el Valiente, which followed close upon that of the Cid, our Old Court Life brings us to the reign of Fernando el Santo, third of that name – 1217 – brother of that well-beloved Eleanor, Queen of Edward the First, destined to conquer Seville after five hundred years of Moslem rule, the first Christian king who inhabited the Alcazar.

With Fernando the shadow of a great king rises before us. He wears a high pointed crown surrounded by a glory, his face is set and stern, with the prominent far-seeing eyes of a prophet, his features aquiline and pure; his hair fair and curly, thrown back as if in an ecstasy, and a full beard covers his closely shut mouth and finely modelled chin. It is an essentially modern countenance for the time in which he lived, full of life and expression, only the stiff ruff round the long neck is old Castilian, and the heavy armour in which the tall, stalwart body is encased very different from the elegance in wrought steel and gold which was manufactured by the Moors.

Around him hang the ample folds of a royal mantle, a deep ermine collar descending to his waist. In one hand he carries a drawn sword, in the other the globe of empire and the keys of Seville.

Thus he is to be seen in a statue in the Cathedral of Seville, and in a curious painting by Murillo in the Library, the reproduction of some earlier likeness.

When not bearing arms against the Moors he occupied himself in burning them, for in religious zeal he was the precursor of Torquemada, the parent of the Inquisition. Indeed the malicious chroniclers insist that he was “sainted” for carrying fagots to the stake with his own hands.

Not an attractive monarch, though cousin to St. Louis of France, whom he somewhat resembles in person, and his emulator in crusades against the heathen. With this difference: no crime was ever imputed to the French king, who died tending plague-stricken Africans, while the record of much cruelty attaches to the memory of Fernando.

Not to be too severe on him, however, it must be remembered that from his time the Castilian Spaniards assumed the grave and dignified demeanour that characterises them to this day, and marks them as a race at once loyal, valiant and sincere.

Fernando first conquered Cordoba, occupied the palace of the great Abdurraman, and actually endeavoured to turn the inimitable mosque into a church. Happily the Moorish architecture was too much for him; a mezquita it is, and mezquita it will remain, as long as horseshoe arch and pillar hold together.

Cordoba conquered, Fernando turned his victorious arms against the capital of Andalusia, for call it as you please, Boetica or Italica, Seville was and ever will be the chief city of the south – still encircled by portions of the Roman walls, untouched since the days of Cæsar and Pompey.

There were seven suburbs and as many gates, and 166 castellated towers. Azataff was the Moorish caliph who held it, as brave a knight and chivalric a prince as ever drew blade.

At the mouth of the Guadalquivir, by the white shores of Cadiz, he held his fleet, and his vassals and troops were with him in the Alcazar. From the Patio de las Banderas floated his flag, a black crescent and a star on a yellow ground, and his turbaned body-guard thronged the walls.

Fernando fixed his camp on the low hills over Sancti Ponce. In such a world of flats as surround Seville any height is valuable, and he seized it. As the eye ranges afar, these olive-planted hills appear paltry and monotonous, but they command the city. At their base winds the Guadalquivir in many a graceful bend, otherwise the land is unprotected to the sea.

Not only did Fernando fix his camp scientifically, but he was expert enough to understand that to succeed he must block the river. A fleet of Castilian boats intercepted the Moorish vessels at the mouth of the Guadalquivir at Cadiz, and stopped all supplies.

Such were the dispositions of the Castilian king; and as the siege drew on, and the Christian host gazed down upon the walls, great encouragement came to them from the visible interposition of the Virgin in many notable visions and miracles.

One day as Don Fernando stands at the entrance of the royal tent, casting those prominent eyes of his across the plains, and counting by the number of outposts in how many days he may hope to plant the flag of Castile upon the Giralda tower, rising so tall and graceful before him, he beholds a Christian knight with a companion and an esquire riding by the bank of the river below, carelessly as a man who takes the air on a fine summer’s day, and loiters on the way the better to enjoy it. Lightly the knight carries his lance in rest upon his thigh. His vizor is raised over a bright young face. At his side hangs his sword, held by a golden chain; on his arm flutters a scarf striped red and blue, and the same colours shine radiant in the sunshine on the plume which nods from his helmet.

“Now, who is this young fool,” cries Fernando in a rage, “who dares ride forth into the enemy’s camp as if he were the herald of a tournament? Does he think that I allow my knights thus to sacrifice their lives? or that he has a right to risk it?” Then, as he watches his progress, always farther and farther into the outworks of the Moor, “Who is he?” he cries again. “Will no one tell me his name? Methinks it were well for him he had shriven himself before he started, or his soul will be the worse for it very briefly.”

Before the king could be answered, a loud voice shouted at his ear: “Ride, ride for your life, Garcia Perez of Varga. I see the gleam of Moorish lances near at hand. Ride on, or you are lost.”

The voice that shouted was that of the Conde Lorenzo, the king’s Jefe, who, coming up behind the king at that moment, and having longer sight than his, recognised Don Garcia’s cognisance, a red cross and a green tree, and called out to warn him of his danger.

“Sire,” says he, in a lower tone, bowing before Fernando, “pardon me, I see seven Moors on horseback. They are in ambuscade in that wood yonder. They have sighted Don Garcia, and are waiting to break out upon him as he passes. Therefore I warned him.”

“Don Garcia Perez is it?” quoth the king, his eyes following those of Count Lorenzo upon the plain. “I could lose no better man. For die he will, as surely as Christ suffered on the cross. Blow for blow he will give them, but seven to one is too great odds.”

As to Don Garcia, he is too far off to hear any voice, let them shout ever so loudly. On he rides tranquilly, as a lover to his mistress; but as if some instinct suddenly struck him, at the same moment that the Conde Lorenzo calls out to him from the hill, he lowers the vizor of his helmet, crested by the wing of a black eagle, grasps the hilt of his lance firmly in his hand, and turning back to his companion, by no means so well armed as himself, and secretly recommending himself to every saint in the calendar, “The Moors are sure to be on us,” he says, “it were well to make ready for them. Buckle your girths tightly and take care they do not shake you from the saddle.”

Instead of answering, Don Juan Attiz (for that was his name) set spurs to his horse, riding furiously towards the back camp, leaving Don Garcia alone with his esquire.

“Ha! ha! is it so?” laughs he, watching his companion as his horse’s hoofs tear up the turf. “Better to be alone with me, Baldo” (to his esquire), “than to have such a coward at my heels. Hey! for Castile and Leon!”

Now softly, one by one, the Moors come creeping out from their ambush in the wood (there is no mistaking them now, the sun shone upon their round steel caps and their smooth shields), one by one, like Agag, “delicately,” until seven Moslem knights place themselves across the path by which Don Garcia rides, the last one carrying a flag bearing the mystic symbol of an open hand, the same as is still to be seen carved over the principal gateway of the Alhambra.

“By Santiago!” cries King Fernando, anxiously watching from the hill. “Observe Don Garcia. The seven Moors are ranging themselves on the grass. Yet, to look at them, one would say it is they who are afraid, not he, he rides on so boldly.”

“And so it is, sire,” answers the chamberlain, his eye fixed on the plain; “I warrant their hearts beat louder than his. The Moors stand back in line, while Garcia advances. See, now he pauses, as though he did not see them – pauses and speaks to his esquire. My lord, you will soon sing a Te Deum in the Seville mosque, if all your army be as brave as Don Garcia.”

“Did ever man behold the like?” replies King Fernando, shading his eyes the better to observe him. “Now Garcia is taking off his casque. He is wiping his head. He is calling his esquire up beside him. God be thanked we have such Christian knights! May the Blessed Virgin guard him, and bring him safe back.”

“Come hither,” Don Garcia is saying to his esquire, taking no more notice of the seven Moors than if they were seven statues; while they, in their turn, mark with dismay the red cross and the green tree emblazoned on his shield. Too well they know that device, and when they see whom they have waylaid they wish themselves elsewhere.

“Come hither, the sun is hot upon my head. Take my casque from me and hold it for awhile; there is no need why I should heat myself with such a weight.”

As he speaks, he lifts his arm to remove his casque, and behold, his striped scarf has vanished. “Alas! how have I lost it?” he cries in much distress. “I must have dropped it but a moment ago. Now, I would rather fight ten battles than lose that scarf. My liege lady worked it for me and bound it on my arm long ago, and there I have worn it ever since. Find it I will, or I will die for it.”

As he speaks Don Garcia turns himself round in his saddle unhelmeted as he is, his hair flying in the breeze, and gazes eagerly upon the path by which he has come, a track upon the greensward.

Then for the first time he raises his eyes upon the Moors, seven knights ranged in a line, wearing green turbans on their helmets and carrying lances in their hands; and there, suspended upon the point of a spear, is his scarf striped white and red – a Moslem has picked it up and looped it there.

“Now, by my faith!” says Garcia, considering them with a frown, “these are uncourteous enemies. Folks say the unbelievers exceed us in that quality, but it is not so. They have come out to steal, these Moslem dogs. They shall pay for it. No Moor that ever lived shall ride back into Seville and call that scarf his own! Come on, ye thieves and robbers! give me my lady’s token!”

As he speaks, Don Garcia falls upon them and hacks and hews them with such deadly blows right and left, that ere much time is passed such as are not dead are scouring the plain to Seville.

Fernando, watching anxiously from the hill, still sees Don Garcia on the plain. Again he is alone, now he is fastening the scarf, which his esquire has unloosed from the Moorish spear, securely upon his arm. Then, humming a roundelay, he girds his sword, streaming with blood, upon his thigh, and turning his horse’s head towards the Christian camp, rides gaily up the hill, four green-turbaned heads dangling from his saddle-bow.

Meanwhile the jefe is telling the king a pleasant tale of Don Garcia’s brother, Don Diego de Varga, who, having snapped his sword in the heat of an engagement outside Xerez, tore up by the roots a wild olive-tree, and laid about him with such fury among the Moors, that to this day he is known by the name of El Machuca (the Pounder).

For sixteen months the Caliph Azataff gallantly defended the walls of Seville, but before an army of such chivalric knights and a king prepared for canonisation, what city could hope to stand?

On the 23d November (el dia de San Clemente) the strong fortress of the Alcazar is stormed and Azataff capitulates. Then, amid an inaudible blare of trumpets and fifes, ringing of bells and beating of drums, King Fernando, in a suit of fine steel armour, a royal crown of wrought gold encircling his casque, and mounted on a graceful Andalusian charger caparisoned with silver housings, enters the gate nearest to the river on the north, from henceforth to be known as “La Puerta del Trionfo.” By his side rides Don Garcia de Varga and his brother Don Diego (whom it is said the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha chose as his model for tearing up the wild oak-tree, and which act of valour he proposed to perform equally), the Conde Lorenzo, the Lord of Haro, Pelayo Correa, the Master of Santiago, and many other champions of the times.

Over Fernando’s head waves the banner of Castile, the Golden Castle, and the Lion of Leon, his hand resting upon the hilt of that same iron sword, still to be seen in the sacristy at Seville, and fixed on his saddle-bow is a small ivory statue of the Virgen de los Reyes, which accompanies him everywhere.

The procession is superb. First, men-at-arms bearing the escutcheons of the twin kingdoms he rules and the black standards and flags captured from the Moors, a long string of swarthy prisoners following bare-headed – the greatest humiliation an Arab can endure; other banners floating in the sun, heralds in golden tabards proclaiming with a loud voice the feats of arms accomplished during the siege; bowmen, pursuivants, knights and esquires in squadrons behind, with gleaming spears and glistening targets, mounted on proudly prancing war-horses, a sheet of mail.

As Fernando passes the drawbridge, marked now by a sensible depression in the road (for the Puerta del Trionfo disappeared in the last revolution, and the fosse is filled up), a cup of rock-crystal is presented to him under an Arab arch by the Christian citizens, filled to the brim with golden Xerez wine. This he quaffs to the health of his victorious army, turning himself around in his saddle-bow so that all may see.

“Castile! Castile! Leon to the rescue! Viva el Rey Fernando! Viva el Cristo Deo!” come ringing through the air from every Christian throat of mailed warriors and tried men-at-arms. Their arms and hands are weary from the toil, but their hearts make merry at the pageant and the booty in store for all.

Then two men, a Jew and a Moor, advance from the crowd, one an aged Rabbi, with a long white beard, habited in a Hebrew gabardine reaching to the ground, the other a young Arab of stately presence, fully equipped for battle, the nephew of Caliph Azataff, but without casque or scimitar – both bearing offerings to the King. The Jewish gift is an iron key, bearing on the wards the words in Hebrew: “The King of kings shall open; the King of all the earth shall enter.” The Moor also bears a key, but it is of silver, inscribed in Arabic characters with the motto: “May Allah render the dominion of Islam eternal;” and as the young knight offers it to Fernando, kneeling in the dust beside his stirrup, he raises his other hand to put back the bitter tears that blind his eyes.

At the moment King Fernando entered Seville, the caliph fled by the side where is now the Hospital del Sangre, near to the Convent of San Jeronima in the fields, on the spot where the lepers had their ancient refuge.

Whither the caliph went no one knew, or if he died by his own hand or that of another, Fernando little heeding his fate as he passed into the city to take possession of the castle of the Alcazar.

And there he lived till he died, and was buried in the Capilla Real of the great mosque he turned into a cathedral.

Over the altar, placed on a silver throne embossed with the double knout of Castile and Leon, sits the little ivory image of the Virgen de los Reyes, given him by St. Louis – the same mediæval figure, with a glistening gown, hair spun in gold, and shoes worked with Gallic lillies and the word Amor, he always carried on his saddle-bow in battle.

The Capilla Real is a church within a church, entered by golden gates behind the altar, where, under a richly incrusted dome, in a shell-shaped vault, lies Saint Fernando in a crystal coffin. The body is wonderfully preserved. On his head is the pointed crown he wore in life, and his royal mantle is wrapped about his loins. On one side lies the sword with which he fought his way into Toledo and Seville, on the other the baton of command. Beside him rest his son, Alonso the Wise, and his Queen Beatrice, and on a wall near at hand are the medallions of the chivalric brothers Don Garcia and Don Diego de Varga.

The hour to enter the cathedral is at the Ave Maria, when the sun is low and its rays tremble on the burnished walls in irises of gold, and the great painted windows stand out in a pale light, alive with venerable forms of law-givers, prophets, and kings; the delicate curves of the arches melt into dim lines, and rays of yellow light pierce like arrows across the floor.

Then the sculptured saints seem to take form and live, the flying pipes of the twin organs to glitter like angels’ wings, the statues in the choir to murmur in strange tongues, the many famous pictures which line the walls to grow terrible in the half-light, with dark forms of archbishops and priests, monks and canons long laid to rest in the repose of painted shrines, beside which deacons keep watch with silver croziers; and from the boundless gloom a burst of sound rolls forth like the thunder of an earthquake from the deep-mouthed pipes of the two organs, replying to each other as in a voice of Titans – the rattle of conquering drums, the shrill bray of trumpets, the crying voice of pipes, and all the clash and clamour as of a battle-field.

On the anniversary of St. Fernando’s death the troops still march in to hear the military mass and to lower the standard of Spain before his body, each soldier bearing a lighted torch. Once it was a company of a hundred Moors, bareheaded, who carried the torches to the royal bier, sent in token of submission by the Caliph of Granada. Could any conqueror wish for more?

CHAPTER XXXV

Don Pedro

OH! the beautiful south it is at Seville! Nothing can shut it out! With its glamour of all strange things in nature, story, and song; Moslem and Christian knights and lovely sultanas hung with priceless pearls, dead caliphs haunting blood-stained towers, shades of Christian conquerors and swarthy slaves, the curse of a murderous past, the glitter of a glorious present, the clash, the confusion, Arab palaces, marble-paved, heavy with far-off tales, and gates, walls, and castles of nations long died out, yet with a poetic life still speaking!

The narrow streets, across which lovers still whisper to each other under the moon, the unshuttered windows, iron-bound, where Inez may creep down and warble to Alonso, concealed in a dark mantle behind the shadow of a wall, where roses fling curtains of perfumed blossom, orange petals scent the air, and southern sunsets spread sudden splendours in the afterglow, as the earth lies black under a sky palpitating like a furnace, till night falls and countless stars come forth to light a paler day!

Two things are most notable at Seville; the great mosque, now the cathedral, and the Alcazar. The Alcazar, inhabited by long generations of Arab caliphs up to the time of St. Fernando, is still untouched, a Moorish fortress in the centre of the city, girt by tapia walls and castellated towers. Not a poetic ruin like the Alhambra, but a real substantial castle, reached through the Plaza del Trionfo by which Fernando passed.

It was again rebuilt and redecorated by Don Pedro el Cruel, 1350, King of Castile and Leon, at the same period as the Alhambra, Yussuf, Caliph of Granada, being on such friendly terms with Don Pedro that the same Moorish architect wrought for both.

Passing an outer barbican with two low towers the Patio de las Banderas, where floats the flag of Spain, a dark corridor leads to the inner Patio de la Monteria, where the portal of Don Pedro blazes in the sun, a glittering blending of red, blue, and gold, set on snowy surfaces of finest fretwork; painted roofs casting rich shadows, arabesques formed into Cufic letters, diapered borders parting into groups of horseshoe arches, and a Gothic inscription setting forth “that the most high and powerful Don Pedro, by the Grace of God King of Castile and Leon, ordered these castles and fortresses to be re-erected.” The magic of it all is wonderful, coming into sight as it does, rising tier above tier, parapet on parapet, in a glow of Oriental colour, to a central dome cutting against the azure sky; the door a curious mosaic of dark wood, and on either side low marble benches, sunk into the arcaded carvings of the wall, where the young King Don Pedro sat to administer justice to all who came, while his dark-haired mistress, Maria de Padilla, watched from above, leaning out of the central mirador (window) of her chamber, still used as a retiring room for the queens of Spain.

One morning Don Pedro, taking his place as usual, surrounded by his alguazils, commanded that certain men should be brought before him whose arrest he had ordered as they were drifting down the Guadalquivir with the tide to Cadiz upon a wooden raft. His knitted brows and sinister aspect boded ill to the rough-looking countrymen brought trembling into the court.

“How comes it, fellows,” asks the king, his steely-blue eyes fixed on the foremost man, “that you dare to come to Seville to cheat me of the dues on the timber that floats down the stream? Think you you will escape unpunished?”

“O King,” one of the men answers, falling on his knees, “in what have we offended? We are four poor men from Puerta Santa Maria, incapable of deceiving any one – much less your royal Grace.”

“Liar!” roars the young king, starting from his seat. “Look at me. Do you not know me?”

“No, my lord, I have never to my knowledge set eyes on you before.”

“You did not meet me last night upon the quay?”

“No, my liege.”

“Come now,” and a cynical smile spreads over his fair young face, “remember! Did not a stranger help you to unload a raft? A fellow you found sleeping under a boat wrapped in a cloak? Did you not wake him and promise to pay him well, if he would aid you to land certain timber so that you might start before sunrise?”

“O King, it is true; we spoke with such a fellow – mean, almost in rags – and he did help us after sunset to land some wood. We paid him and let him go, and the king’s dues on it were lodged at the Torre d’Oro before we left.”

“Villains!” cries the king, his features darkening. “A pretty example! This is how my subjects rob and cheat and lie. I should like to cut off your heads with my own hand. Know you that I was that fellow who helped you, ‘that mean person in rags.’ Did you not say the night was dark, and that no man would see you land the timber and you would escape the dues? And did you not add that those dues were wrung unjustly from poor men? and that the king who slept in the golden chambers would be none the worse if he lost them? And did I not tell you that my name was Pedro—Pedro?” Here the cruel boy broke into a mocking laugh, more terrible than threats. “Now I am that Pedro, King of Castile and Leon and Caliph of Cordoba and Seville!”

Then turning to the mutes, who stood with drawn swords behind: “Cut off the heads of these carrion and set them on the wharf, that all men may know me as I am, El Rey Justiciero.”

Looking at Don Pedro, son of Alonso XI. – 1312 – (who was cruel also and made away with his enemies remorselessly) – he is not such a remote personage after all. He was contemporary with the Black Prince, son of Eleanor of Castile, daughter of Alfonso el Sabio, and four short reigns bring him almost into modern times with Fernando and Isabel, the parents of Caterina of Aragon, wife of Henry VIII.