Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 2

They know it, these hard-visaged Moslems sitting round on ancient seats, hiding their eyes under their vast turbans, swarthy warriors grizzled with toil, and silken, effeminate courtiers, and the imperious queen standing erect, her arms folded on her breast, yet resolute to the last.

Meanwhile, Boabdil, calm but ashen, eagerly scans each face, but speaks not. Then the fierce Mousa, the most valiant of all the Moorish knights and they are many, starts to his feet.

“Surrender!” he shouts, in a voice like a clarion. “Who dares say that word is a traitor. Surrender to whom? To Ferdinand, the Christian king? to Isabel, his slave? They are liars, invaders, giaours! Death is the least evil we have to fear from them. Surrender means plunder, sacking, the profanation of our mosques, the violation of our women, whips, chains, dungeons, the fagot, and the stake. This is surrender! Let him that has a man’s heart follow me to the Christian camp. There let us die!”

But the words of Mousa brought no response. Boabdil el Chico yielded to the general voice, and the venerable dervish, Aval-Cazem, was sent out to Santa Fé to treat for terms with the Catholic sovereigns.

Alas! Then came a night of mourning and of wailing, as the sun went down over the Alhambra in clouds of blood.

Within the walls where they had been born and lived, there they would linger! Among those enchanting courts, beside gushing fountains, the song of birds, the scent of flowers. The soft shadows of pale groves, and those painted halls, the very picture books of history and of song.

Now, all is to be abandoned. The royal treasure packed, the inlaid walls stripped of their hangings, the gold vessels set with pearls, the carved platters for perfumed water, the turbaned crown and royal robes and garments woven in Persian looms, the accumulated treasures of centuries, unknown to the outer world, unspeakable, garnered in the lace-walled recesses of the harem.

At break of day all must depart into a cold and arid world – the stately Sultana, La Horra, and Boabdil’s large-eyed queen, in robes of death and mourning, bearing ashes on their heads, followed by all the pomp of an Eastern court. Guards, slaves, mutes, and eunuchs, passed out of the gate of the Siete Suelos, the conquered city sleeping at their feet, while on the opposite side, by the Gate of Justice with the mystic hand, rode in a dazzling company of Christian knights, lighted up by the rising sun – Aragonese and Castilian horsemen with round casques, knights in chain-armour rattling their spears, gold-tabarded trumpeters, men-at-arms and arquebusiers with hedges of lances and bucklers, led by the primate of Spain, bearing in his hand the silver cross to be planted on the signal tower of the Vega.

CHAPTER XXVI

The End of the Moors

AT the end of the Alameda, outside Granada, there is a bridge over the Xenil, opening from a broad and lofty avenue of elms. How gay it is! The murmur of the green-tinged river! The soft, warm wind among the trees, the borders of old-fashioned flowers! How majestic the infinite whiteness of the range of the Sierra Nevada backing all, a smooth, pure world lost in a firmament of blue!

Beyond is a road along which carts and coaches roll, a dirty, muddy country road, leading to Motril, and from that to the sea, passing through barriers of mountains.

A mile or so on, a little chapel, dedicated to San Sebastian, lies to the right, close on the road. You might pass it a thousand times without notice, it is so dark and small. Yet, homely as it looks, there is no place in all the range of history more sacred than this spot.

It is the 2d of January, 1492, when Boabdil el Chico, King of Granada, mounted on a powerful war-horse, rides slowly forth from the Alhambra by the gate of the Siete Suelos. We know his face, from a portrait in the palace of the Generalife – a sad-expressioned visage, as of one born to ill-luck, swarthy-complexioned, with coal-black hair under his turban; and we know too, that at his special request, the gate of the Siete Suelos has been walled up from that day, and so remains, encumbered by huge masses of masonry, over which time has cast a softening hand in trails of vine leaves and low shrubbery.

Slowly he descends the hill by a winding path still existing, cleaving the steep ravine, very stony now, and difficult to traverse, and passing by high walls (to be called henceforth the Cuesta de los Matires), crosses the bridge over the Xenil, gallops down the road, and draws rein before the chapel of San Sebastian, then a mosque.

His very dress is recorded. A dark mantle over an Eastern tunic of embroidered silk, a regal crown attached to his turban, and in his hand two keys. (Thus he is represented on a stone carving in the Capilla Real in the cathedral.)

Before the little mosque, Los Reyes Catolicos await him. They are also on horseback: Isabel rides a white jennet, richly caparisoned. Her grand head bound by a jewelled coif, forming a regal coronet, her face radiant, her queenly form erect.

Ferdinand is beside her, with a sparkle in his cunning eye, which the rigid canons of courtly reserve cannot master, so triumphant does he feel.

Beside them is their young daughter, Catalina, to become wife of Henry the Eighth, and her gallant brother, the delicate Infante, lately knighted by his father upon the battle-field, and around, a brilliant group of valiant knights: Ponce de Leon, browned by the long war, the faultless-featured; Gonsalvo de Cordoba, that king of men, who, young as he is, has been entrusted with the negotiations with Boabdil; Medina Sidonia, of the noble race of Guzman; the Marqués de Villena, Fernandez, Cifuentes Cabra, Tendila, and Monte Mayor.

Behind press in three hundred Christian captives released at the signing of the treaty, besides bishops, monks, cardinals, statesmen, veterans, grown grey in war, Asturian arquebusiers, Aragonese sharpshooters, lances, banners, battle-axes, croziers, crosses, and blood-stained trophies, all backed by the red walls of the Alhambra towering on the hills.

Hurriedly dismounting from his horse, the unhappy Boabdil would kneel and kiss Ferdinand’s hand, but he generously forbids it. Then the poor humbled monarch offers the same homage to Isabel, who also graciously declines it, a wan smile breaking over his haggard face, for in her hand she holds that of his little son – detained as a hostage at Sante Fé – whom he seizes and embraces.

And now the moment has come when he must deliver up the insignia of royalty, and, with the natural dignity which so rarely forsakes an Oriental he tenders the keys of the Alhambra.

“Take them,” he says, “you have conquered. Thus, O King and Queen! receive our kingdom and our person! Allah is great! Use us with the clemency you have promised. Be merciful as you are strong!”

At these words, uttered as by a dying man, Isabel’s great heart melts, and her eyes fill with tears.

Not so the astute Ferdinand. With difficulty he can suppress his joy; he knows too well the crafty part he meant to play with Boabdil and his kingdom, and his appealing words grate on his ears.

But, suppressing these feelings, “Doubt not, O King!” is his reply, “the sanctity of our promise, nor that by a timely submission you should suffer. I give you our royal word that our Moslem subjects shall find equal justice with our own.”

Ferdinand then hands the keys to Isabel, who passes them on to her son, Prince Juan, who in his turn gives them to the Conde de Tendila the new Alcaide of Granada.

Then, in breathless silence, the glittering group await the signal which is to make the Alhambra theirs. Isabel, her hands clasped in silent prayer, Ferdinand, casting anxious glances to the fortress-crowned hill. Behold! in the clear morning light, the silver cross borne by the Bishop of Salamanca blazes from the citadel, the red and yellow flag of Spain beside it, fluttering over the crescent banner, which is slowly withdrawn. One great shout of triumph rises to the skies; trumpets sound, artillery booms, and to the voice of the shrill clarions comes the cry: “Santiago! Santiago! for God and for Spain!” and the pious queen, hastily dismounting, enters the little chapel beside the road (that morning become a Christian church), to celebrate a solemn Te Deum to the warlike music of fifes, flutes, and joy-bells.

Such is the chapel of San Salvador on the road to Motril, the Arab walls untouched, the altar, a rude Mithrab, under a Saracenic arch, still standing, an incrusted dome overhead, edged with a coloured border, the whole a little circular interior of fit proportion, and honeycombed niches at its sides. On the outer wall an inscription, in old Spanish letters, sets forth that:

“On this spot King Boabdil met Los Reyes Catolicos, and delivered to them the keys of Granada; who, in memory of their gratitude to God for overcoming the Moors, converted this mosque into a chapel, in honour of San Sebastian.”

The sovereigns enter the city towards nightfall (dreary in that season of January, for Granada is a mountain place), the shadow of tossing plumes and glancing armour falling on fields of snow, which deaden the tramp of the war-horses and the passing of arquebusiers. But the bells ring out triumphant in the dark air, and penetrate into the deepest recesses of the Moorish patios, where every Moslem has shut himself up in black despair.

“There was a crying in Granada
When the sun was going down;
Some calling on the Trinity,
Some calling on Mahomet.
Thus cried the Moslem while his hands
His own 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.’ ”

At the door of the great mosque, the same on which the harebrained knight of Pulgar with his fifteen companions as wild as himself had fixed the tablet with the words Ave Maria, they halted. Like the chapel, it had been hastily consecrated. Here the sovereigns offered up prayer and thanksgiving.

In what part of the present cathedral did this occur? At what is now the high altar, or within the Capilla Real?

Did any wandering spirit whisper into the ear of the still beautiful queen, in the swell of the triumphant anthems which rise to celebrate her fame, that there she would lie entombed with Ferdinand by her side?

The first interview of Columbus with the queen took place in the middle of the Moorish war, when all available revenues were absorbed.

It was the Andalusian Fray Perez de Marchena, who sent him to Santa Fé, recommending him to the Bishop of Talavera, a learned prelate, at that time confessor to the queen and shortly to become Archbishop of Granada.

It was Talavera who presided at the council of Salamanca, before which Columbus exhibited his charts and detailed his projects.

Like Galileo, he was rejected as a vain dreamer, not altogether free from suspicion of magic.

A second time he came to Santa Fé, and boldly expostulated with Isabel on her backwardness.

“Her refusal,” said Columbus, “was not in consonance with the magnanimous spirit of her reign.”

The great queen was touched at the rough sincerity of his words.

“I will assume the undertaking,” was her reply, “for my own kingdom of Castile. I will pawn my jewels if the money you raise is not sufficient.”

The box or casket, with a gold pattern, which she gave him, is still preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral at Granada. He returned it to her filled with virgin gold, “As admiral, viceroy, and captain-general of all islands and continents in the western ocean,” titles which descended to his son.