Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

“What noble sentiments!” exclaimed the singer, clasping his hands. “Happy is the king to possess such servants! I leave my appeal with you, my lords, confident that you will see me righted.”

But what he said, though spoken low and in an altered voice, had such a familiar ring in it as to make the archbishop again look sharply at him; then, as if satisfied, he turned away.

Now the festival had continued far into the night, and, as the fumes of the generous wine mounted to their brains, the guests spoke more and more openly to each other.

Again had the voice of the minstrel been raised, during a momentary pause, as he intoned with extraordinary power and skill The March of Bernardo del Carpio:

With three thousand men of Leon, from the city Bernardo goes
To preserve the name and glory of old Pelayo’s woes.

And as his notes rang out in the great hall, the enthusiasm he excited so mastered the stately company that they rose en masse to drink to the health of Castile.

“And of the Regents!” cried Mendoza, “our capable leaders! Don Enrique must be put aside. He is sick and unfit to reign. What say you, Caballeros? Methinks the race of Trastamare is played out.”

“Agreed! agreed!” came from all sides.

“And who can better replace him than the Regents?” cried the Conde de Lerma, who had good reason to tremble lest, when the young king came to reign, he should discover the villainies of which he had been guilty.

“And I! and I!” shouted Velasco and Peralta, tossing high their goblets.

Indeed, the whole company was in a state of violent excitement, to which not only the wine, but the patriotic ballads of the minstrel had much contributed.

“My lords! my lords!” cried the archbishop, rising from his seat, seriously alarmed at the imprudent vehemence of his partisans, “these are matters not to be lightly mentioned. Such words are treason if they get abroad. To-morrow is the fiesta of the young king. His Grace has invited us to a special tertulia in honour of the event. I drink to his health, and better capacity to fill the high place he inherits!”

A palpable sneer was in his voice as he added these words in a low tone.

“Yes, the fiesta of our king,” added the Marqués de Villena, amid a general chorus of mocking laughter. He was no more loyal than the prelate, but less hypocritical, and, like him, fully aware of the dangerous consequences, should any premature knowledge of a conspiracy get abroad. “I pray you, Grandezas, to disperse quietly. Whatever be in your minds, this is no place to discuss it.”

And so they parted, each one to his abode, attended by bands of armed followers with torches.

The singer was left alone, but he was met at the portal by a friend, attired like himself as an estudiante, and thus together they passed unheeded into the night.

Great curiosity was felt, especially by Don Pedro de Mendoza, the treasurer, as to how the king had obtained money to defray the expenses of the tertulia which had been announced. Mendoza knew that the coffers were empty. Had he borrowed money from the King of Aragon, or some powerful northern noble? Had he unearthed a treasure, or contracted with the Jews? If so, how could it happen that he was ignorant of it?

Again all the great nobles assembled, and many more, from south and north, who had not been present at the entertainment in the Casa del Cordon, composed especially of the supporters of the Regents.

Most of those who came from afar had never seen the king (so purposely was he secluded), and looked on him as a sickly youth, destined soon to follow his father to the tomb. It was this idea, indeed, sedulously spread abroad, which added so much to the prestige of the Regents. If the king died, who was to succeed him?

When the cedar doors are thrown open, a huge undecorated gallery is disclosed, devoid of any furniture except bare wooden tables and benches placed on either side.

At the head the young king is seated in a chair of state, surmounted by the arms of Spain. On one side the hereditary Constable of Castile (Condestable) supports him, clad in complete armour; on the other the chamberlain, Don Martinez de Velases, who introduces the company. As each feudatory advances, Don Enrique inclines his head. His manner is courteous but very cold, as he raises his hand to signify the special place assigned to each at the table, where a piece of bread and a cup of water are placed.

Not even the rigid rules of formal etiquette imposed on the Spanish Court can conceal the amazement of each grandee as he takes his place on the hard bench, but the presence of the young king checks all outward expression.

As the Regents enter and sit down with the rest (no special seat having been assigned them) a momentary flush passes over the king’s face.

“I fear the food provided does not suit your palates,” he says, at last, unable any longer to affect to misunderstand the astonished glances each one exchanges with the other, specially the Archbishop of Toledo, who, with a highly offended air, places himself before his portion of bread and water; “but I myself am frugally fed. I hope this may reconcile you to it.”

“Is the young king mad?” is whispered round the room, as each guest endeavours to swallow the unpalatable food; “or is it the caprice of a silly boy, soon to be deposed?” Indeed, in this sense, the eccentricities of this so-called banquet are very agreeable to the greater number present, as plainly displaying his incapacity for reigning.

Meanwhile, Don Enrique, seated at the head of the board, has partaken of his portion of bread and water with apparent relish.

“If your Graces,” he says, breaking an icy silence, “are not contented with the first course I have offered you, I hope the second will be more to your taste. Will you follow me, Grandezas?” rising from his chair.

“A second course!” There was, then, something prepared to eat, and a buzz of satisfaction passed round, as each caballero left his hard bench to follow the young king.

A vast hall lay beyond, of interminable extent, dimly lighted, and hung with black. A coffin, covered with a pall, lay beside an altar in the midst, surmounted with a crucifix. Shrouds lay beside it, with implements to dig a grave, and all the other ghastly paraphernalia of the dead.

“Close the doors, jefe,” said the king, in a voice of command never heard from his lips before, as he placed himself like a young judge in front of the altar. “You see, my lords, the second course I serve to you. But before you partake of it, I would address some questions to those who have up to this time governed in my name. Stand forth, Archbishop of Toledo, joint Regent of the kingdom, and tell me how many kings you have known in Castile?”

“Excellency,” answered the bewildered prelate, growing cold under the apprehension that not only the king was mad, but was about to murder him, “I have known three: your grandsire of glorious memory, your father, Don Juan, and yourself.”

“For shame, your Grace!” exclaimed Enrique, in an austere tone. “What! A prelate lie? How dare you, at your age, assert that you have known only three kings, when I, who have barely reached man’s estate, can reckon at least double the number? Yes, my assembled nobles, barons, princes, prelates, knights, and ricoshombres, who know me so little as to think, because I am young and inexperienced, I can be deceived. Six sovereigns reign in Castile besides the lawful heir, carefully excluded from all power, to the damage of the state. Now I call upon the usurpers of my rights, especially the most venerable archbishop,” launching at him a look of bitter reproach, “his Grace the Marqués de Villena, Master of Santiago, also the treasurer, bearing the high name of Don Pedro de Mendoza, and the other ‘kings’ to lay their submission at my feet!”

Words cannot paint the consternation of the noble company at these words and at the commanding aspect of the young king as he stood forth, the awful emblems of death behind him.

What doom was he about to pronounce? What judgment would he pass on the guilty? And it need not be said how many of those present felt themselves to be such, and with the superstitious horror of the age at anything unusual, trembled lest by some occult knowledge he had read their treacherous thoughts.

Then came denials, vehement asseverations, protestations, and recriminations; loudest of all, because most in danger, sounded the sonorous voice of the archbishop and the mellifluous tones of Villena.

“If we have erred,” cried the marquess, “it is only by excess of zeal to spare your Highness from the burden of public affairs.”

But Don Enrique, far from being pacified by these protestations, grew more and more indignant as one after another of the Regents invoked every saint in the calendar in protest of their innocence.

“There is yet another pledge to be fulfilled,” said the king, addressing the archbishop, who, bold as he was, literally trembled under the clear gaze fixed on him, as though he read his inmost thoughts. “At the banquet with which you regaled the court so lavishly, while I was kept without a maravedi, you remember a young singer, whose wrongs at the hands of his guardians you promised to redress. I am that unhappy youth, and by the wounds of Christ, I swear that you shall keep your word!”

A dead silence followed. No one dared to speak, lest he might hasten the catastrophe all felt was impending.

At a sign from the king, the curtains before the doors were withdrawn, and in a blaze of light the Alcaide of Burgos appeared in his furred cap and gown, on one side of him a priest arrayed as for a funeral mass, and on the other the headsman in a red robe, a gleaming axe resting on his shoulder.

“Nothing now remains, my lords,” continued the king, “but to carry out the sentence you have passed on yourselves. Prepare for death, Regents of Castile; and you, executioner, stand forth! See that your instrument is in good order. We desire not to cause needless pain, nor that these guilty souls should go unshriven; therefore, holy father,” turning to the priest, “such respite as is required for confession shall be granted.”

No sooner had these awful words passed the king’s lips, spoken with the air and bearing of a sovereign determined to be obeyed than the archbishop and the Marqués de Villena cast themselves before him on their knees.

“Grant us but life, son of the noble Trastamare,” pleaded the archbishop, suddenly seizing the king’s hand, as, gazing earnestly into his face, he became aware of a certain yielding in his bearing as he contemplated the humiliation of those two great statesmen, for so many years masters of Castile. “Give us life at least to repent of our misdeeds.”

“I will,” answered Don Enrique, “upon certain conditions,” the sweet smile natural to him lighting up his face as he graciously raised them from their knees; “but it must be true repentance and no falling back into mortal sin. You are my witnesses, hidalgos,” turning to the assembled nobles standing closely pressed together, in a common fear of some general accusation, “of their own sentence against themselves, and now of my generous pardon. Now listen, my Lord Archbishop,” addressing the prelate who had so often tyrannised over his childhood, standing with his hands clasped in humble attitude before him, “and you, Villena, Master of Santiago, and Mendoza; on this day sixteen years ago I was born. Never, while I live, shall my birthday be darkened by deeds of blood, but you shall remain in strict imprisonment until a full restitution is made to the State of your shameful spoliation. Those of my guests whom I have summoned here as spectators to profit by the lesson may depart in peace, but those of the Regency, ‘the Kings,’ as they are called, shall be conducted to prison by my faithful balasterdos, there to remain till justice is satisfied. Guards, remove the prisoners!”

“It will all come out well,” whispered Don Pedro de Mendoza, a gay and rollicking cavalier, not easily intimidated, to the Marqués de Villena, much more cast down at his fall, as they passed up the horrible apartment out amid sheaves of glittering lances. “He has never found out we meant to depose him. Lucky for us, or our heads might really have been cut off!”

That the charming young king did not live to verify the promise of his youth (A.D. 1407) is one of the misfortunes of history. The delicate scabbard was not stout enough to hold the noble blade. In other words, his feeble health gave way under the cares of sovereignty. He died prematurely at the early age of twenty-eight, leaving an infant son, Don Juan II., to succeed him. Doña Catalina, his wife, or, as we know her, Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of Costanza (the daughter of Pedro the Cruel), married to John of Gaunt, was appointed regent for her son – a placid, good-tempered princess, by reason of her English blood, and a great favourite with the Castilians.

CHAPTER XXI

Juan II. and Doña Isabel of Portugal – Execution of the Conde de Luna

BURGOS and Valladolid never were capitals in the modern acceptation of the word, but they were at this time the centre of court life.

The short lives of the illegitimate branch of the House of Castile, and their personal insignificance, intensified rather than detracted from the dramatic vicissitudes of their reigns.