also two hundred yeomen, armed cap-a-pie, who fought with pike and battle-axe,-men robust of frame, and of prodigious strength. The worthy padre Fray Antonio Agapida describes this stranger knight and his followers, with his accustomed accuracy and minuteness.

the spring of 1486, the fair valley of the Guadalquivir ous with the long-bow and the cloth-yard arrow; resounded with the shrill blast of trumpet, and the impatient neighing of the war-horse. In this splendid era of Spanish chivalry, there was a rivalship among the nobles who most should distinguish himself by the splendor of his appearance, and the number and equipments of his feudal followers. Every day beheld some cavalier of note, the representative of some proud and powerful house, entering the gates of Cordova with sound of trumpet, and displaying his banner and device, renowned in many a contest. He would appear in sumptuous array, surrounded by pages and lackeys no less gorgeously attired, and followed by a host of vassals and retainers, horse and foot, all admirably equipped in burnished armor.

This cavalier," he observes, "was from the far island of England, and brought with him a train of his vassals; men who had been hardened in certain civil wars which raged in their country. They were a comely race of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not having the sun-burnt warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. They were huge feeders also, and deep carousers, and could not accommodate Such was the state of Don Inigo Lopez de Men- themselves to the sober diet of our troops, but must doza, duke of Infantado; who may be cited as a pic-fain eat and drink after the manner of their own ture of a warlike noble of those times. He brought country. They were often noisy and unruly, also, in with him five hundred men-at-arms of his house- their wassail; and their quarter of the camp was hold, armed and mounted à la gineta and à la guisa.prone to be a scene of loud revel and sudden brawl. The cavaliers who attended him were magnificently They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was not like armed and dressed. The housings of fifty of his our inflammable Spanish pride; they stood not much horses were of rich cloth, embroidered with gold; upon the pundonor, the high punctilio, and rarely and others were of brocade. The sumpter mules drew the stiletto in their disputes; but their pride had housings of the same, with halters of silk; while was silent and contumelious. Though from a rethe bridles, head-pieces, and all the harnessing, glit-mote and somewhat barbarous island, they believed tered with silver. themselves the most perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the lord Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it must be said of them that they were marvellous good men in the field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In their great pride and self-will, they always sought to press in the advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish troops, but they went into the fight deliberately and persisted obstinately, and were slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal they were much esteemed, yet little liked by our soldiery, who considered them staunch companions in the field, yet coveted but little fellowship with them in the camp.

The camp equipage of these noble and luxurious warriors was equally magnificent. Their tents were gay pavilions, of various colors, fitted up with silken hangings and decorated with fluttering pennons. They had vessels of gold and silver for the service of their tables, as if they were about to engage in a course of stately feasts and courtly revels, instead of the stern encounters of rugged and mountainous warfare. Sometimes they passed through the streets of Cordova at night, in splendid cavalcade, with great numbers of lighted torches, the rays of which falling upon polished armor and nodding plumes, and silken scarfs, and trappings of golden embroidery, filled all beholders with admiration.*

But it was not the chivalry of Spain alone which thronged the streets of Cordova. The fame of this war had spread throughout christendom: it was Considered a kind of crusade; and Catholic knights from all parts hastened to signalize themselves in so holy a cause. There were several valiant chevaliers from France, among whom the most distinguished was Gaston du Leon, Seneschal of Toulouse. With him came a gallant train, well armed and mounted, and decorated with rich surcoats and panaches of feathers. These cavaliers, it is said, eclipsed all others in the light festivities of the court: they were devoted to the fair, but not after the solemn and passionate manner of the Spanish lovers; they were gay, gallant and joyous in their amours, and captivated by the vivacity of their attacks. They were at first held in light estimation by the grave and stately Spanish knights, until they made themselves to be respected by their wonderful prowess in the field.

"Their commander, the lord Scales, was an accomplished cavalier, of gracious and noble presence and fair speech; it was a marvel to see so much courtesy in a knight brought up so far from our Castilian court. He was much honored by the king and queen, and found great favor with the fair dames about the court, who indeed are rather prone to be pleased with foreign cavaliers. He went always in costly state, attended by pages and esquires, and accompanied by noble young cavaliers of his country, who had enrolled themselves under his banner, to learn the gentle exercise of arms. In all pageants and festivals, the eyes of the populace were attracted by the singular bearing and rich array of the English earl and his train, who prided themselves in always appearing in the garb and manner of their countryand were indeed something very magnificent, delectable, and strange to behold."

The most conspicuous of the volunteers, however, The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in his who appeared in Cordova on this occasion, was an description of the Masters of Santiago, Calatrava, English knight of royal connexion. This was the and Alcantara, and their valiant knights, armed at lord Scales, earl of Rivers, brother to the queen of all points, and decorated with the badges of their England, wife of Henry VII. He had distinguished orders. These, he affirms, were the flower of chrishimself in the preceding year, at the battle of Bos- tian chivalry: being constantly in service, they beworth field, where Henry Tudor, then earl of Rich-came more stedfast and accomplished in discipline, mond, overcame Richard III. That decisive battle having left the country at peace, the earl of Rivers, having conceived a passion for warlike scenes, repaired to the Castilian court, to keep his arms in exercise, in a campaign against the Moors. He brought with him a hundred archers, all dexter

Pulgar, part 3. cap. 41. 56.

than the irregular and temporary levies of the feudal nobles. Calm, solemn, and stately, they sat like towers upon their powerful chargers. On parades, they manifested none of the show and ostentation of the other troops: neither, in battle, did they endeavor to signalize themselves by any fiery vivacity, or desperate and vain-glorious exploit-every thing, with them, was measured and sedate; yet it was

A CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA.

observed, that none were more warlike in their appearance in the camp, or more terrible for their achievements in the field.

"

voted kingdom of Granada continued a prey to inhad declined ever since the death of his brother, and ternal feuds. The transient popularity of El Zagal The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles the party of Boabdil el Chico was daily gaining found but little favor in the eyes of the sovereigns. strength: the Albaycin and the Alhambra were In the midst of these They saw that it caused a competition in expense, again arrayed against each other in deadly strife, ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune; and they and the streets of unhappy Granada were daily dyed feared that a softness and effeminacy might thus be in the blood of her children. introduced, incompatible with the stern nature of the dissensions, tidings arrived of the formidable army war. They signified their disapprobation to several assembling at Cordova. The rival factions paused of the principal noblemen, and recommended a more in their infatuated brawls, and were roused to a sober and soldierlike display while in actual service. temporary sense of the common danger. They forthThese are rare troops for a tourney, my lord," with resorted to their old expedient of new-modelsaid Ferdinand to the duke of Infantado, as he be-ling their government, or rather of making and unheld his retainers glittering in gold and embroidery; making kings. The elevation of El Zagal to the then was to be done? Recall Boabdil el Chico, and "but gold, though gorgeous, is soft and yielding: throne had not produced the desired effect-what iron is the metal for the field." acknowledge him again as sovereign? While they were in a popular tumult of deliberation, Hamet them. This was the same wild, melancholy man, Aben Zarrax, surnamed El Santo, arose among who had predicted the woes of Granada. He issued from one of the caverns of the adjacent height which overhangs the Darro, and has since been called the Holy Mountain. His appearance was more haggard than ever; for the unheeded spirit of prophecy Beware, oh Moslems," exclaimed ́he, seemed to have turned inwardly, and preyed upon his vitals.

66

Sire," replied the duke, "if my men parade in gold, your majesty will find they fight with steel." The king smiled, but shook his head, and the duke treasured up his speech in his heart.

66

It remains now to reveal the immediate object of this mighty and chivalrous preparation; which had, in fact, the gratification of a royal pique at bottom. The severe lesson which Ferdinand had received from the veteran Ali Atar, before the walls of Loxa, though it had been of great service in rendering him wary in his attacks upon fortified places, yet rankled sorely in his mind; and he had ever since held Loxa" of men who are eager to govern, yet are unable to in peculiar odium. It was, in truth, one of the most protect. Why slaughter each other for El Chico or El belligerent and troublesome cities on the borders; Zagal? Let your kings renounce their contests, unite Hamet Aben Zarrax had long been revered as a incessantly harassing Andalusia by its incursions. It for the salvation of Granada, or let them be deposed." also intervened between the christian territories and Alhama, and other important places gained in the saint-he was now considered an oracle. The old For all these reasons, king men and the nobles immediately consulted together, kingdom of Granada. Ferdinand had determined to make another grand how the two rival kings might be brought to accord. attempt upon this warrior city; and for this purpose, he They had tried most expedients: it was now deterhad summoned to the field his most powerful chivalry.mined to divide the kingdom between them; giving It was in the month of May, that the king sallied Granada, Malaga, Velež Malaga, Almeria, Almunefrom Cordova, at the head of his army. He had car, and their dependencies, to El Zagal-and the twelve thousand cavalry and forty thousand foot- residue to Boabdil el Chico. soldiers, armed with cross-bows, lances, and arquebusses. There were six thousand pioneers, with hatchets, pickaxes, and crowbars, for levelling roads. He took with him, also, a great train of lombards and other heavy artillery, with a body of Germans skilied in the service of ordnance and the art of battering walls.

Among the cities granted to the latter, Loxa was particularly specified, with a condition that he should immediately take command of it in person; for the council thought the favor he enjoyed with the Castilian monarchs might avert the threatened attack.

El Zagal readily accorded to this arrangement; he had been hastily elevated to the throne by an ebulIt was a glorious spectacle (says Fray Antonio lition of the people, and might be as hastily cast Agapida) to behold this pompous pageant issuing down again. It secured him one-half of a kingdom forth from Cordova, the pennons and devices of the to which he had no hereditary right, and he trusted proudest houses of Spain, with those of gallant to force or fraud to gain the other half hereafter. stranger knights, fluttering above a sea of crests The wily old monarch even sent a deputation to his and plumes; to see it slowly moving, with flash of nephew, making a merit of offering him cheerfully helm, and cuirass, and buckler, across the ancient the half which he had thus been compelled to relinbridge, and reflected in the waters of the Guadal-quish, and inviting him to enter into an amicable quivir, while the neigh of steed and blast of trumpet coalition for the good of the country. vibrated in the air, and resounded to the distant mountains.

66

The heart of Boabdil shrunk from all connexion But, above all," concludes the good with a man who had sought his life, and whom he father, with his accustomed zeal," it was triumphant regarded as the murderer of his kindred. He acto behold the standard of the faith every where dis- cepted one-half of the kingdom as an offer from the played, and to reflect that this was no worldly-nation, not to be rejected by a prince who scarcely ininded army, intent upon some temporal scheme held possession of the ground he stood on. of ambition or revenge; but a christian host, bound on a crusade to extirpate the vile seed of Mahomet from the land, and to extend the pure dominion of the church."

HOW

CHAPTER XXXVII.

FRESH COMMOTIONS BROKE OUT IN GRA-
NADA, AND HOW THE PEOPLE UNDERTOOK TO
ALLAY THEM.

H: as

"Be true

serted, nevertheless, his absolute right to the wnole,
and only submitted to the partition out of anxiety for
handful of adherents, and prepared to hasten to
the present good of his people. He assembled his
Loxa. As he mounted his horse to depart, Hamet
Aben Zarrax stood suddenly before him.
to thy country and thy faith," cried he: "hold no
further communication with these christian dogs.
Trust not the hollow-hearted friendship of the Cas-
tilian king; he is mining the earth beneath thy feet.
Choose one of two things; be a sovereign or a slave

WHILE perfect unity of object and harmony of
operation gave power to the christian arms, the de--thou canst not be both."

commanders of the army, having been summoned by Ferdinand to a council of war, on receiving tidings that Boabdil had thrown himself into Loxa with a considerable reinforcement. After some consultation, it was determined to invest Loxa on both sides: one part of the army should seize upon the dangerous but commanding height of Santo Albohacen, in front of the city; while the remainder, making a circuit, should encamp on the opposite side.

Boabdil ruminated on these words; he made many before it. In this tent were assembled the principal wise resolutions, but he was prone always to act from the impulse of the moment, and was unfortunately given to temporize in his policy. He wrote to Ferdinand, informing him that Loxa and certain other cities had returned to their allegiance, and that he held them as vassal to the Castilian crown, according to their convention. He conjured him, therefore, to refrain from any meditated attack, offering free passage to the Spanish army to Malaga, or any other place under the dominion of his uncle.* No sooner was this resolved upon, than the marFerdinand turned a deaf ear to the entreaty, and ques of Cadiz stood forth and claimed the post of to all professions of friendship and vassalage. Boab- danger in behalf of himself and those cavaliers, his dil was nothing to him, but as an instrument for companions in arms, who had been compelled to restirring up the flames of civil war. He now insisted linquish it by the general retreat of the army on the that he had entered into a hostile league with his former siege. The enemy had exulted over them, uncle, and had consequently forfeited all claims to as if driven from it in disgrace. To regain that his indulgence; and he prosecuted, with the greater perilous height, to pitch their tents upon it, and to earnestness, his campaign against the city of Loxa. avenge the blood of their valiant compeer, the Master "Thus," observes the worthy Fray Antonio Agap- of Calatrava, who had fallen upon it, was due to their ida, “thus did this most sagacious sovereign act fame; the marques demanded therefore that they upon the text in the eleventh chapter of the Evan- might lead the advance and secure that height, engelist St. Luke, that 'a kingdom divided against it-gaging to hold the enemy employed until the main self cannot stand.' He had induced these infidels army should take its position on the opposite side of to waste and destroy themselves by internal dissen- the city. sions, and finally cast forth the survivor; while the King Ferdinand readily granted his permission; Moorish monarchs, by their ruinous contests, made upon which the count de Cabra entreated to be adgood the old Castilian proverb in cases of civil war,mitted to a share of the enterprise. He had always El vencido vencido, y el vencidor perdido,' (the conquered conquered, and the conqueror undone)"

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

been accustomed to serve in the advance; and now that Boabdil was in the field, and a king was to be taken, he could not content himself with remaining in the rear. Ferdinand yielded his consent, for he was disposed to give the good count every opportunity to retrieve his late disaster.

The English earl, when he heard there was an enterprise of danger in question, was hot to be admitted

HOW KING FERDINAND HELD A COUNCIL OF WAR, to the party; but the king restrained his ardor.

AT THE ROCK OF THE LOVERS.

These cavaliers," said he, "conceive that they have an account to settle with their pride; let them have the enterprise to themselves, my lord; if you follow these Moorish wars long, you will find no lack of perilous service."

THE royal army, on its march against Loxa, lay encamped, one pleasant evening in May, in a meadow on the banks of the river Yeguas, around the foot of a lofty cliff called the Rock of the Lovers. The The marques of Cadiz, and his companions in quarters of each nobleman formed as it were a arms, struck their tents before daybreak; they were separate little encampment; his stately pavilion, sur-five thousand horse and twelve thousand foot, and mounted by his fluttering pennon, rising above the marched rapidly along the defiles of the mountains; surrounding tents of his vassals and retainers. A the cavaliers being anxious to strike the blow, and little apart from the others, as it were in proud re-get possession of the height of Albohacen, before the serve, was the encampment of the English earl. It king with the main army should arrive to their aswas sumptuous in its furniture, and complete in all sistance. its munitions. Archers, and soldiers armed with battle-axes, kept guard around it; while above, the standard of England rolled out its ample folds, and flapped in the evening breeze.

The mingled sounds of various tongues and nations were heard from the soldiery, as they watered their horses in the stream, or busied themselves round the fires which began to glow, here and there, in the twilight: the gay chanson of the Frenchman, singing of his amours on the pleasant banks of the Loire, or the sunny regions of the Garonne; the broad guttural tones of the German, chanting some doughty krieger lied, or extolling the vintage of the Rhine; the wild romance of the Spaniard, reciting the achievements of the Cid, and many a famous passage of the Moorish wars; and the long and melancholy ditty of the Englishman, treating of some feudal hero or redoubtable outlaw of his distant island.

On a rising ground, commanding a view of the whole encampment, stood the ample and magnificent pavilion of the king, with the banner of Castile and Arragon, and the holy standard of the cross, erected

The city of Loxa stands on a high hill, between two mountains, on the banks of the Xenel. To attain the height of Albohacen, the troops had to pass over a tract of rugged and broken country, and a deep valley, intersected by those canals and watercourses with which the Moors irrigated their lands: they were extremely embarrassed in this part of their march, and in imminent risk of being cut up in detail before they could reach the height.

The count de Cabra, with his usual eagerness, endeavored to push across this valley, in defiance of every obstacle: he, in consequence, soon became entangled with his cavalry among the canals; but his impatience would not permit him to retrace his steps and choose a more practicable but circuitous route. Others slowly crossed another part of the valley, by the aid of pontoons; while the inarques of Cadiz, Don Alonzo de Aguilar, and the count de Ureña, being more experienced in the ground from their former campaign, made a circuit round the bottom of the height, and, winding up it, began to display their squadrons and elevate their banners on the redoubtable post, which, in the former siege, they had been compelled so reluctantly to abandon.