Spanish Papers

“Beauteous palm! thou also wert hither brought a stranger; but thy roots have found a kindly soil, thy head is lifted to the skies, and the sweet airs of Algarve fondle and kiss thy branches.

“Thou hast known, like me, the storms of adverse fortune. Bitter tears wouldst thou shed, couldst thou feel my woes. Repeated griefs have overwhelmed me. With early tears I bedewed the palms on the banks of the Euphrates; but neither tree nor river heeded my sorrows, when driven by cruel fate and the ferocious Abu al Abbas, from the scenes of my childhood and the sweet objects of my affection.

“To thee no remembrance remains of my beloved country; I, unhappy! can never recall it without tears!”

The generosity of Abderahman to his vanquished foe was destined to be abused. The veteran Yusuf, in visiting certain of the cities which he had surrendered, found himself surrounded by zealous partisans, ready to peril life in his service. The love of command revived in his bosom, and he repented the facility with which he had suffered himself to be persuaded to submission. Flushed with new hopes of success, he caused arms to be secretly collected and deposited in various villages, most zealous in their professions of devotion, and raising a considerable body of troops, seized upon the castle of Almodovar. The rash rebellion was short-lived. At the first appearance of an army sent by Abderahman, and commanded by Abdelmelee, governor of Seville, the villages which had so recently professed loyalty to Yusuf, hastened to declare their attachment to the monarch, and to give up the concealed arms. Almodovar was soon retaken, and Yusuf, driven to the environs of Lorea, was surrounded by the cavalry of Abdelmelee. The veteran endeavored to cut a passage through the enemy, but after fighting with desperate fury, and with a force of arm incredible in one of his age, he fell beneath blows from weapons of all kinds, so that after the battle his body could scarcely be recognized, so numerous were the wounds. His head was cut off and sent to Cordova, where it was placed in an iron cage, over the gate of the city.

The old lion was dead, but his whelps survived. Yusuf had left three sons, who inherited his warlike spirit, and were eager to revenge his death. Collecting a number of the scattered adherents of their house, they surprised and seized upon Toledo during the absence of Temam, its wali or commander. In this old warrior city, built upon a rock, and almost surrounded by the Tagus, they set up a kind of robber hold, scouring the surrounding country, levying tribute, seizing upon horses, and compelling the peasantry to join their standard. Every day cavalcades of horses and mules, laden with spoil, with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle, came pouring over the bridges on either side of the city, and thronging in at the gates, – the plunder of the surrounding country. Those of the inhabitants who were still loyal to Abderahman dared not lift up their voices, for men of the sword bore sway. At length one day, when the sons of Yusuf, with their choicest troops, were out on a maraud, the watchmen on the towers gave the alarm. A troop of scattered horsemen were spurring wildly toward the gates. The banners of the sons of Yusuf were descried. Two of them spurred into the city, followed by a handful of warriors, covered with confusion and dismay. They had been encountered and defeated by the Wali Temam, and one of the brothers had been slain.

The gates were secured in all haste, and the walls were scarcely manned when Temam appeared before them with his troops, and summoned the city to surrender. A great internal commotion ensued between the loyalists and the insurgents; the latter, however, had weapons in their hands, and prevailed; and for several days, trusting to the strength of their rock-built fortress, they set the wali at defiance. At length some of the loyal inhabitants of Toledo, who knew all its secret and subterraneous passages, some of which, if chroniclers may be believed, have existed since the days of Hercules, if not of Tubal Cain, introduced Temam, and a chosen band of his warriors, into the very centre of the city, where they suddenly appeared as if by magic. A panic seized upon the insurgents. Some sought safety in submission, some in concealment, some in flight. Casim, one of the sons of Yusuf, escaped in disguise; the youngest, unharmed, was taken, and was sent captive to the king, accompanied by the head of his brother, who had been slain in battle.

When Abderahman beheld the youth laden with chains, he remembered his own sufferings in his early days, and had compassion on him; but, to prevent him from doing further mischief, he imprisoned him in a tower of the wall of Cordova.

In the mean time, Casim, who had escaped, managed to raise another band of warriors. Spain, in all ages a guerilla country, prone to partisan warfare and petty maraud, was at that time infested by bands of licentious troops, who had sprung up in the civil contests; their only object pillage, their only dependence the sword, and ready to flock to any new and desperate standard that promised the greatest license. With a ruffian force thus levied, Casim scoured the country, took Sidonia by storm, and surprised Seville while in a state of unsuspecting security.

Abderahman put himself at the head of his faithful Zenetes, and took the field in person. By the rapidity of his movements the rebels were defeated, Sidonia and Seville speedily retaken, and Casim was made prisoner. The generosity of Abderahman was again exhibited toward this unfortunate son of Yusuf. He spared his life, and sent him to be confined in a tower at Toledo.

The veteran Samael had taken no part in these insurrections, but had attended faithfully to the affairs intrusted to him by Abderahman. The death of his old friend and colleague Yusuf, however, and the subsequent disasters of his family, filled him with despondency. Fearing the inconstancy of fortune, and the dangers incident to public employ, he entreated the king to be permitted to retire to his house in Seguenza, and indulge a privacy and repose suited to his advanced age. His prayer was granted. The veteran laid by his arms, battered in a thousand conflicts; hung his sword and lance against the wall, and, surrounded by a few friends, gave himself up apparently to the sweets of quiet and unambitious leisure.

Who can count, however, upon the tranquil content of a heart nurtured amid the storms of war and ambition? Under the ashes of this outward humility were glowing the coals of faction. In his seemingly philosophical retirement, Samael was concerting with his friends new treason against Abderahman. His plot was discovered; his house was suddenly surrounded by troops; and he was conveyed to a tower at Toledo, where, in the course of a few months, he died in captivity.

The magnanimity of Abderahman was again put to the proof by a new insurrection at Toledo. Hixem ben Adra, a relation of Yusuf, seized upon the Alcazar, or citadel, slew several of the royal adherents of the king, liberated Casim from his tower, and, summoning all the banditti of the country, soon mustered a force of ten thousand men. Abderahman was quickly before the walls of Toledo, with the troops of Cordova and his devoted Zenetes. The rebels were brought to terms, and surrendered the city on promise of general pardon, which was extended even to Hixem and Casim. When the chieftains saw Hixem and his principal confederates in the power of Abderahman, they advised him to put them all to death. “A promise given to traitors and rebels,” said they, “is not binding when it is to the interest of the state that it should be broken.”

“No!” replied Abderahman, “if the safety of my throne were at stake, I would not break my word.” So saying, he confirmed the amnesty, and granted Hixem ben Adra a worthless life, to be employed in further treason.

Scarcely had Abderahman returned from this expedition, when a powerful army, sent by the caliph, landed from Africa on the coast of the Algarves. The commander, Aly ben Mogueth, Emir of Cairvan, elevated a rich banner which he had received from the hands of the caliph. Wherever he went, he ordered the caliph of the East to be proclaimed by sound of trumpet, denouncing Abderahman as a usurper, the vagrant member of a family proscribed and execrated in all the mosques of the East.

One of the first to join his standard was Hixem ben Adra, so recently pardoned by Abderahman. He seized upon the citadel of Toledo, and repairing to the camp of Aly, offered to deliver the city into his hands.

Abderahman, as bold in war as he was gentle in peace, took the field with his wonted promptness; overthrew his enemies with great slaughter; drove some to the sea-coast to regain their ships, and others to the mountains. The body of Aly was found on the field of battle. Abderahman caused the head to be struck off, and conveyed to Cairvan, where it was affixed at night to a column in the public square, with this inscription, – “Thus Abderahman, the descendant of the Omeyas, punishes the rash and arrogant.”

Hixem ben Adra escaped from the field of battle, and excited further troubles, but was eventually captured by Abdelmelee, who ordered his head to be struck off on the spot, lest he should again be spared through the wonted clemency of Abderahman.

Notwithstanding these signal triumphs, the reign of Abderahman was disturbed by further insurrections, and by another descent from Africa, but he was victorious over them all; striking the roots of his power deeper and deeper into the land. Under his sway, the government of Spain became more regular and consolidated, and acquired an independence of the empire of the East. The caliph continued to be considered as first pontiff and chief of the religion, but he ceased to have any temporal power over Spain.

Having again an interval of peace, Abderahman devoted himself to the education of his children. Suleiman, the eldest, he appointed wali, or governor, of Toledo; Abdallah, the second, was intrusted with the command of Merida; but the third son, Hixem, was the delight of his heart, the son of Howara, his favorite sultana whom he loved throughout life with the utmost tenderness. With this youth, who was full of promise, he relaxed from the fatigues of government; joining in his youthful sports amidst the delightful gardens of Cordova, and teaching him the gentle art of falconry, of which the king was so fond that he received the name of the Falcon of Coraixi.

While Abderahman was thus indulging in the gentle propensities of his nature, mischief was secretly at work. Muhamad, the youngest son of Yusuf, had been for many years a prisoner in the tower of Cordova. Being passive and resigned, his keepers relaxed their vigilance, and brought him forth from his dungeon. He went groping about, however, in broad daylight, as if still in the darkness of his tower. His guards watched him narrowly, lest this should be a deception, but were at length convinced that the long absence of light had rendered him blind. They now permitted him to descend frequently to the lower chambers of the tower, and to sleep there occasionally during the heats of summer. They even allowed him to grope his way to the cistern, in quest of water for his ablutions.

A year passed in this way, without anything to excite suspicion. During all this time, however, the blindness of Muhamad was entirely a deception; and he was concerting a plan of escape, through the aid of some friends of his father, who found means to visit him occasionally. One sultry evening in midsummer the guards had gone to bathe in the Guadalquivir, leaving Muhamad alone, in the lower chambers of the tower. No sooner were they out of sight and hearing, than he hastened to a window of the staircase, leading down to the cistern, lowered himself as far as his arms would reach, and dropped without injury to the ground. Plunging into the Guadalquivir, he swam across to a thick grove on the opposite side, where his friends were waiting to receive him. Here, mounting a horse which they had provided for an event of the kind, he fled across the country, by solitary roads, and made good his escape to the mountains of Jaen.

The guardians of the tower dreaded for some time to make known his flight to Abderahman. When at length it was told to him, he exclaimed, – “All is the work of eternal wisdom; it is intended to teach us that we cannot benefit the wicked without injuring the good. The flight of that blind man will cause much trouble and bloodshed.”

His predictions were verified. Muhamad reared the standard of rebellion in the mountains; the seditious and discontented of all kinds hastened to join it, together with soldiers of fortune, or rather wandering banditti, and he had soon six thousand men, well armed, hardy in habits, and desperate in character. His brother Casim also reappeared about the same time, in the mountains of Ronda, at the head of a daring band, that laid all the neighboring valleys under contribution.

Abderahman summoned his alcaids from their various military posts, to assist in driving the rebels from their mountain fastnesses into the plains. It was a dangerous and protracted toil, for the mountains were frightfully wild and rugged. He entered them with a powerful host, driving the rebels from height to height, and valley to valley, and harassing them by a galling fire from thousands of cross-bows. At length a decisive battle took place near the river Guadalemar. The rebels were signally defeated; four thousand fell in action; many were drowned in the river, and Muhamad, with a few horsemen, escaped to the mountains of the Algarves. Here he was hunted by the alcaids from one desolate retreat to another; his few followers grew tired of sharing the disastrous fortunes of a fated man, one by one deserted him, and he himself deserted the remainder, fearing they might give him up, to purchase their own pardon.

Lonely and disguised, he plunged into the depths of the forests, or lurked in dens and caverns like a famished wolf, often casting back his thoughts with regret to the time of his captivity in the gloomy tower of Cordova. Hunger at length drove him to Alarcon, at the risk of being discovered. Famine and misery, however, had so wasted and changed him, that he was not recognized. He remained nearly a year in Alarcon, unnoticed and unknown, yet constantly tormenting himself with the dread of discovery, and with groundless fears of the vengeance of Abderahman. Death at length put an end to his wretchedness.

A milder fate attended his brother Casim. Being defeated in the mountains of Murcia, he was conducted in chains to Cordova. On coming into the presence of Abderahman, his once fierce and haughty spirit, broken by distress, gave way; he threw himself on the earth, kissed the dust beneath the feet of the king, and implored his clemency. The benignant heart of Abderahman was filled with melancholy, rather than exultation, at beholding this wreck of the once haughty family of Yusuf a suppliant at his feet, and suing for mere existence. He thought upon the mutability of Fortune, and felt how insecure are all her favors. He raised the unhappy Casim from the earth, ordered his irons to be taken off, and, not content with mere forgiveness, treated him with honor, and gave him possessions in Seville, where he might live in state conformable to the ancient dignity of his family. Won by this great and persevering magnanimity, Casim ever after remained one of the most devoted of his subjects.

All the enemies of Abderahman were at length subdued; he reigned undisputed sovereign of the Moslems of Spain; and so benign was his government, that every one blessed the revival of the illustrious line of Omeya. He was at all times accessible to the humblest of his subjects; the poor man ever found in him a friend, and the oppressed a protector. He improved the administration of justice, established schools for public instruction, encouraged poets and men of letters, and cultivated the sciences. He built mosques in every city that he visited; inculcated religion by example as well as by precept; and celebrated all the festivals prescribed by the Koran with the utmost magnificence.

As a monument of gratitude to God for the prosperity with which he had been favored, he undertook to erect a mosque in his favorite city of Cordova that should rival in splendor the great mosque of Damascus, and excel the one recently erected in Bagdad by the Abbassides, the supplanters of his family.

It is said that he himself furnished the plan for this famous edifice, and even worked on it, with his own hands, one hour in each day, to testify his zeal and humility in the service of God, and to animate his workmen. He did not live to see it completed, but it was finished according to his plans by his son Hixem. When finished, it surpassed the most splendid mosques of the East. It was six hundred feet in length, and two hundred and fifty in breadth. Within were twenty-eight aisles, crossed by nineteen, supported by a thousand and ninety-three columns of marble. There were nineteen portals, covered with plates of bronze, of rare workmanship. The principal portal was covered with plates of gold. On the summit of the grand cupola were three gilt balls, surmounted by a golden pomegranate. At night the mosque was illuminated with four thousand seven hundred lamps, and great sums were expended in amber and aloes, which were burnt as perfumes. The mosque remains to this day shorn of its ancient splendor, yet still one of the grandest Moslem monuments in Spain.

Finding himself advancing in years, Abderahman assembled in his capital of Cordova the principal governors and commanders of his kingdom, and in presence of them all, with great solemnity, nominated his son Hixem as the successor to the throne. All present made an oath of fealty to Abderahman during his life, and to Hixem after his death. The prince was younger than his brothers, Suleiman and Abdallah; but he was the son of Howara, the tenderly beloved sultana of Abderahman, and her influence, it is said, gained him this preference.

Within a few months afterward Abderahman fell grievously sick at Merida. Finding his end approaching, he summoned Hixem to his bedside. “My son,” said he, “the angel of death is hovering over me; treasure up, therefore, in thy heart this dying counsel, which I give through the great love I bear thee. Remember that all empire is from God, who gives and takes it away, according to his pleasure. Since God, through his divine goodness, has given us regal power and authority, let us do his holy will, which is nothing else than to do good to all men, and especially to those committed to our protection. Render equal justice, my son, to the rich and the poor, and never suffer injustice to be done within thy dominion, for it is the road to perdition. Be merciful and benignant to those dependent upon thee. Confide the government of thy cities and provinces to men of worth and experience; punish without compassion those ministers who oppress thy people with exorbitant exactions. Pay thy troops punctually; teach them to feel a certainty in thy promises; command them with gentleness but firmness, and make them in truth the defenders of the state, not its destroyers. Cultivate unceasingly the affections of thy people; for in their good-will consists the security of the state, in their distrust its peril, in their hatred its certain ruin. Protect the husbandmen, who cultivate the earth and yield us necessary sustenance; never permit their fields and groves and gardens to be disturbed. In a word, act in such wise that thy people may bless thee, and may enjoy, under the shadow of thy wing, a secure and tranquil life. In this consists good government; if thou dost practice it, thou wilt be happy among thy people, and renowned throughout the world.”

Having given this excellent counsel, the good King Abderahman blessed his son Hixem, and shortly after died, being but in the sixtieth year of age. He was interred with great pomp; but the highest honors that distinguished his funeral were the tears of real sorrow shed upon his grave. He left behind him a name for valor, justice, and magnanimity, and forever famous as being the founder of the glorious line of the Ommiades in Spain.

CHRONICLE OF FERNAN GONZALEZ, COUNT OF CASTILE

INTRODUCTION

At the time of the general wreck of Spain by the sudden tempest of Arab invasion, many of the inhabitants took refuge in the mountains of the Asturias, burying themselves in narrow valleys difficult of access, wherever a constant stream of water afforded a green bosom of pasture-land and scanty fields for cultivation. For mutual protection they gathered together in small villages called castros, or castrellos, with watch-towers and fortresses on impending cliffs, in which they might shelter and defend themselves in case of sudden inroad. Thus arose the kingdom of the Asturias, subject to Pelayo and the kings his successors, who gradually extended their dominions, built towns and cities, and after a time fixed their seat of government at the city of Leon.

An important part of the region over which they bore sway was ancient Cantabria, extending from the Bay of Biscay to the Duero, and called Castile from the number of castles with which it was studded. They divided it into seigniories, over which they placed civil and military governors called counts – a title said to be derived from the Latin comes, a companion, the person enjoying it being admitted to the familiar companionship of the king, entering into his councils in time of peace, and accompanying him to the field in time of war. The title of count was therefore more dignified than that of duke in the time of the Gothic kings.

The power of these counts increased to such a degree that four of them formed a league to declare themselves independent of the crown of Leon. Ordoño II., who was then king, received notice of it, and got them into his power by force, as some assert, but as others maintain, by perfidious artifice. At any rate, they were brought to court, convicted of treason, and publicly beheaded. The Castilians flew to arms to revenge their deaths. Ordoño took the field with a powerful army, but his own death defeated all his plans.

The Castilians now threw off allegiance to the kingdom of Leon, and elected two judges to rule over them – one in a civil, the other in a military capacity. The first who filled those stations were Nuño Rasura and Lain Calvo, two powerful nobles, the former descended from Diego Porcello, a count of Lara; the latter, ancestor of the renowned Cid Campeador.

Nuño Rasura, the civil and political judge, was succeeded by his son Gonzalez Nuño, who married Doña Ximena, a daughter of one of the counts of Castile put to death by Ordoño II. From this marriage came Fernan Gonzalez, the subject of the following chronicle.

CHAPTER I

Installation of Fernan Gonzalez as Count of Castile. His First Campaign against the Moors. – Victory of San Quirce. – How the Count disposed of the Spoils.

The renowned Fernan Gonzalez, the most complete hero of his time, was born about the year 887. Historians trace his descent to Nuño Belchidez, nephew of the Emperor Charlemagne, and Doña Sula Bella, granddaughter to the Prince Don Sancho, rightful sovereign of Spain, but superseded by Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings.

Fernan Gonzalez was hardily educated among the mountains in a strong place called Maron, in the house of Martin Gonzalez, a gallant and veteran cavalier. From his earliest years he was inured to all kinds of toils and perils, taught to hunt, to hawk, to ride the great horse, to manage sword, lance, and buckler; in a word, he was accomplished in all the noble exercises befitting a cavalier.

His father Gonzalvo Nuñez died in 903, and his elder brother Rodrigo in 904, without issue; and such was the admiration already entertained of Fernan Gonzalez by the hardy mountaineers and old Castilian warriors, that though scarce seventeen years of age he was unanimously elected to rule over them. His title is said to have been Count, Duke, and Consul, under the seigniory of Alonzo the Great, King of Leon. A cortes, or assemblage of the nobility and chivalry of Castile and of the mountains, met together at the recently built city of Burgos to do honor to his installation. Sebastian, the renowned Bishop of Oca, officiated.

In those stern days of Spain, the situation of a sovereign was not that of silken ease and idle ceremonial. When he put the rich crown upon his head, he encircled it likewise with shining steel. With the sceptre were united the lance and shield, emblems of perpetual war against the enemies of the faith. The cortes took this occasion to pass the following laws for the government of the realm: —

1. Above all things the people should observe the law of God, the canons and statutes of the holy fathers, the liberty and privileges of the Church, and the respect due to its ministers.

2. No person should prosecute another out of Castile at any tribunal of justice or of arms, under pain of being considered a stranger.

3. All Jews and Moors who refused to acknowledge the Christian faith should depart from Castile within two months.

4. That cavaliers of noble blood should treat their tenants and vassals with love and gentleness.

5. That he who slew another, or committed any other grave offense, should make equal measure of atonement.