Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

The Comte de la Marche, cousin of Blanche, and also of the House of Bourbon, represents the King of France, and stands on his right hand on the steps of the high altar, under that glorious window which floods the space with light, along with marshals and generals, Castilian and French, condes and great lords of Aragon, and a lordly show of knights and caballeros from Leon and Andalusia.

The troops are, as usual in such levies, mixed in nationalities and wanting in unity and discipline, but commanded by Du Guesclin who dares contemplate defeat?

“Remember, most valiant constable,” had said to him his master Charles, the King of France, son of the unfortunate John, prisoner in England, “I shall owe you more than if you gained me a province, if you destroy the murderer of Blanche.”

Nor should this command be forgotten in Du Guesclin’s justification later on; Charles was his liege lord; he had issued his orders, and in the feudal spirit of the age, at any price Du Guesclin is bound to obey.

Open and generous, Enrique makes gifts to all, forgetting he has as yet nothing to bestow. Condes and princedoms drop from his hand on all around (real châteaux en Espagne). There is no end to his largesse, and so successful is this method that in twenty-five days he holds the south and marches on Toledo, where he is received with cries of “Long live Enrique the merciful, who comes to save us from our enemy, Don Pedro.”

Again Enrique is at the lordly Alcazar overlooking the everlasting plains, from whence he was so ignominiously driven by Don Pedro and the Jews. Again behold him, the very picture of a young king whom fortune favours, as he descends the stately flights of stairs and moves once more among the magnificent ranges of colonnades which hold up the great patio, to receive the salutations of long lines of knights and nobles who have flocked from all parts to his standard.

What a tossing of feathers and flash of arms around! True lovers’ knots on shields and shoulders, helmets shaded with waving plumes, lances bound with gaily-embroidered scarves, the inlaid handles of swords and falchions sparkling with gems, and corselets and breastplates bound in with glittering girdles.

Enrique comes in war but he wears the dress of peace, as one at ease, certain of success. Let Pedro flaunt the morions, casques, shields, bucklers, and weapons of conflict, Enrique has already assumed the débonnaire air of a well-established monarch sure of his subjects’ love. (That he is a bastard with no legal right to the throne is forgotten in the general triumph.)

Graceful and polished in his manners as becomes El Rey Caballero, the personal charm he exercises over all who approach him is unbounded, especially when compared to the morose cynicism of Don Pedro, who mocks ere he destroys.

Sir Hugh Calverley and many English knights and esquires of the free companies which have overrun France in the late wars are with him during the present inactivity of the Black Prince at Bordeaux, and his old friend and loyal supporter, the Asturian noble, Don Jaime Alvarez, rules his counsels as heretofore. Pope Urban V., incensed at the blasphemies and profligacy of Don Pedro, subsidises and blesses him. Even the rough warrior Du Guesclin yields to the fascination of his address, an influence destined soon to lead him to the commission of a crime by which his good name is for ever tarnished.

No female element fills in the frame of this chivalrous court. He has a wife, her name casually occurs, but there all information ends. At all events, no woman takes a prominent part in his career, as with his brother Don Pedro.

Meanwhile the king, warned by his ministers that he is no longer safe in Seville, rides out of the gates guarded by a small troop of men-at-arms, commanded by the faithful Emanuel, and accompanied by his chancellor, Fernando de Castro, Don Martino Lopez de Cordova, Grand Master of Alcantara, Don Diego Gomez, Don Mem Rodrigues, a warlike captain who has taken the place of Don Juan de Mañara in his confidence, and some others.

You may count his adherents on your fingers they are so few. Even that pampered villain Garcia de Padilla has forsaken him since his sister’s death, and gone over to the winning side, and along with him are Orosco, Mendoza, and La Vega.

The three daughters of Maria de Padilla accompany him, young girls whose names leave no record on the page of history – Costanza married John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of Edward III., and thus established a claim, often asserted but never seriously entertained, to the throne of Castile; and Isabel, the younger, espoused his brother Edmund of Cambridge.

But, dearer than child or friend, Don Pedro carries with him his treasure and the famous ruby (Balax) of the Moors hid in his bosom.

The outlook is not cheerful. Spite of his constant boast of close alliance with the English, the Black Prince at Bordeaux as yet has made no sign. It is true that his daughter Costanza is at this time affianced to her cousin, the Infante of Portugal, and Don Pedro rides straight over the Sierra Morena to the frontier, certain of the protection of his uncle the king.

Don Diego Gomez is sent forward from Talavera, where he waits, to hasten the marriage. The Infanta is ready; with her she brings the crown of Castile, the jewels of her mother, Maria de Padilla, and such dower as is required; anything he has, even the Balax, so that Costanza is wedded!

It is a matter of life or death. All depends on Portugal. An uncle, an ally, a natural protector – it is impossible he can fail.

Don Diego returns. The King of Portugal will not receive him. He declines the marriage with Costanza for his son, the visionary crown, treasure, all – and warns Don Pedro sternly from crossing the borders of his kingdom upon peril of his life.

Many of his followers now forsake him in his need. But the chancellor, Don Fernando de Castro, is faithful, and Mem Rodrigues and Emanuel are ready to offer up their lives.

An absolute fugitive, Don Pedro craves from his uncle a safe conduct into Galicia, the only province in Spain, except Murcia, which still acknowledges him as sovereign.

In this miserable plight he arrives in the fruitful valley of beautiful Monterey in a most disconsolate condition, at the very moment that Don Enrique and Du Guesclin enter the city of Seville.

Yet even now the track of blood follows Don Pedro. As he passes through Santiago, the holy city of pilgrimage, where lie the relics of the Protector of Spain, after dining in company with the Archbishop, he calls him to the gate and has him murdered before his eyes, as well as the Decano or Dean, within the precincts of the cathedral.

Express after express flies in swift-rigged boat across the Bay of Biscay to Bayonne, addressed to the Black Prince and to his ally, that arrant traitor, the King of Navarre, who is with him at Bordeaux.

No answer comes. At last, driven to despair, Don Pedro himself rides forward to the coast, fits out a galley at La Groyne, and sets sail for Bayonne, escorted by all the vessels he can find, to plead his cause in person before the Prince of Wales.

CHAPTER XVIII

Don Pedro Appeals to Edward the Black Prince to Replace Him on the Throne

THE Black Prince – so named from the dark colour of his armour, and only fifteen years old when he was made a knight on the victorious field of Crécy by his father Edward III., and named by him Duke of Guienne and Seneschal of Aquitaine, – is the most notable figure of his day. Fabulously brave and romantically merciful, his modesty and generosity are only equalled by his military skill. Bearing in the field the device of the King of Bohemia, killed in the battle of Crécy, three plumes erect, with the motto “Ich dien,” his sword has never known defeat.

Three years have now elapsed in peace, during which time he has resided in royal state at Bordeaux with his wife, “the fair maid of Kent,” a period of inaction as irksome to himself as to those stormy spirits about him.

Nothing therefore could be more welcome to him than the news that Don Pedro had actually disembarked at Bayonne to solicit his help to regain his crown. As yet the policy of England had been undecided; now his father must take a side, and the prospect of war fills him with joy.

Promptly he despatches the Lord of Payme and other nobles to welcome him when he lands, and to bring him with all honour to Bordeaux.

The sumptuous pavilion prepared for their meeting lies outside the city, among pleasant meadows by the banks of the wide Garonne, that noble estuary which cuts into the land with the importance of an inland sea.

It is shaped in three compartments, the central one occupied by the Black Prince, that to the right assigned to Don Pedro, and that to the left to the King of Navarre, at the present moment paying his court to Prince Edward as holding the winning hand.

The interior is lined with rich tissues and brocaded silks, the draperies of cloth of gold held up by swords and lances, battle-axes and steel helmets – giving a warlike aspect to what would otherwise have been simply a luxurious and splendid bower.

Skins of animals killed in the chase cover the floor and are also attached to the lower portion of the pillars which support the light roof, adorned with flags and banners, the standard of St. George conspicuous in the front. Beneath, on a table, lies a glancing axe, ready, if needful, for all emergencies.

Outside, the building is covered with silken curtains under ranges of feathers, tassels, and streamers flaunting in the light breeze, and at the tented entrance are placed two large shields, one bearing the cognisance of the Black Prince, the other the arms of England quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France.

Around gathers a brilliant court. Seneschals bedecked with chains of gold, chamberlains in rich robes, worked with the escutcheons of England and of Aquitaine, pages, warriors, the captains of companies who have followed Edward in all his wars, hoary soldiers grown grey in many battles, nobles arrayed in historic armour come down from generations of warlike ancestors, bearing great names, Gallic and English, illustrious in themselves and enhancing the greatness of their master. The two younger brothers of the Prince of Wales, John of Gaunt, as brilliant as a popinjay, to be ever known in history as “Time-honoured Lancaster,” his younger brother, Edmund, Duke of York and Cambridge, a gallant young prince – both wearing the blue badge of the new Order of the Garter at their knee, and emulous of attracting the notice of Don Pedro’s young daughters, of whose beauty report says much. The two Marshals of Aquitaine, Sir Guiscard of Angoulême and Sir Stephen Coffington; Beauchamp, Lord of Abergavenny, Lord Ralph Neville of Warwick, Clayton, Sir John Tyrrell, Sir Hugh Hastings, the trusted ally of England Jean de Montfort, and, though last, not least, the manly figure of Chandos, of whom in these wars one hears so much – politician, tactician, and constable of all the provinces of France. Others may assume various modes and fantastic changes in dress and accoutrement, but Chandos never changes and always appears in armour of proof, arrayed to take the field.

In the centre, backed by the fanciful outline of the gay pavilion, stands the Black Prince, ready at the first imitation of Don Pedro’s arrival to advance and welcome him to his domains.

To suit the occasion, he is attired in a costume equally recalling the court and the camp. A loose surcoat of blue velvet, heavily embroidered with the arms of England, partly conceals the light suit of chain armour which clings to his form; at his waist is a girdle to which an axe and sword are attached, and on his head a cap edged by a jewelled coronet, from which rise the three heron’s feathers of his device.

Lofty in nature is the prince, square and solid in limb and chest, his hair cut short as convenient for his helmet, his upper lip, after the Norman fashion, covered with a thick moustache which mingled with his beard, light brown in colour, and long and luxuriant. Somewhat prominent large hazel eyes look out of a well-moulded face remarkable for mildness of expression, his whole personality singularly engaging, an impression only heightened as the fine curves of his lips open with the candour of a natural smile.

“Our ally tarries on the way,” he says, scanning the bare expanse of the sandy track before him, bordering the Garonne, broken by the lines of vineyards in the more cultivated lands. “Perhaps he would make us feel that we have been remiss in replying to his various messages. Nothing but absolute obedience to my father’s order would have kept me so long silent, in face of the news of his great need.”

The prince addresses himself to Chandos, who stands immediately behind him, his wrinkled countenance already showing marks of the hard life he has led in camps and battles, but, as he speaks, he lays his hand lightly on the shoulder of his brother Lancaster, looking out with eager eyes in the same direction as himself.

“How now, my young gallant, are you impatient to behold the Spanish beauties? Who knows if you do not lose your fickle heart to one? These señoritas of Andalusia must surely inherit some of their mother, Maria de Padilla’s boasted charms.”

The downy cheeks of young Lancaster turn to a rosy red at general attention being thus openly called to him. He turns aside, somewhat annoyed that his curiosity has been detected by his brother, and mutters something about a leveret of a certain breed which he expects from Spain. The excuse is received by the prince with a light laugh, and in a lower voice he continues his conversation with Chandos.

“I confess that nothing but the king’s actual presence on English soil would have decided me to look with favour on the expedition he comes to propose.”

“I agree with you, my lord,” is the answer of Chandos. “A campaign in the centre of Spain is a dangerous venture with a nation of enemies at our back.”

“Yet,” adds the Black Prince, and a serious expression comes into his eyes, “the personal appeal of an allied prince is difficult to refuse, especially under the present circumstances of his arrival. But much as I should rejoice once more to draw the sword, I can bind myself to nothing but an interchange of courtesies at present.”

“Right, my lord,” answers Chandos, “I am of the same mind as your Grace. Besides, it appears to my humble judgment that a sovereign rejected by the whole nation cannot have an altogether clean chronicle to show. Report, at least, is not favourable to Don Pedro, who has gained the nickname of El Cruel.”

“Tut, tut,” answers the prince impatiently, “subjects must obey their masters. I myself have no patience with these Castilian nobles who call in a bastard in place of their lawful king. Until I see cause to change, my sympathies are all with Don Pedro.”

“But your Highness will promise nothing, I trust, without direct permission of the king, your father?”