RETURN OF BOABDIL FROM CAPTIVITY.
In the month of August a noble Moor, of the race of the Abencerrages,
arrived with a splendid retinue at the city of Cordova, bringing with
him the son of Boabdil el Chico and other of the noble youth of Granada
as hostages for the fulfilment of the terms of ransom. When the Moorish
king beheld his son, his only child, who was to remain in his stead a
sort of captive in a hostile land, he folded him in his arms and wept
over him. “Woe the day that I was born!” exclaimed he, “and evil the
stars that presided at my birth! Well was I called El Zogoybi, or the
Unlucky, for sorrow is heaped upon me by my father, and sorrow do
I transmit to my son!” The afflicted heart of Boabdil, however, was
soothed by the kindness of the Christian sovereigns, who received the
hostage prince with a tenderness suited to his age and a distinction
worthy of his rank. They delivered him in charge to the worthy alcayde
Martin de Alarcon, who had treated his father with such courtesy during
his confinement in the castle of Porcuna, giving orders that after the
departure of the latter his son should be entertained with great honor
and princely attention in the same fortress.
On the 2d of September a guard of honor assembled at the gate of the
mansion of Boabdil to escort him to the frontiers of his kingdom. He
pressed his child to his heart at parting, but he uttered not a word,
for there were many Christian eyes to behold his emotion. He mounted his
steed, and never turned his head to look again upon the youth, but those
who were near him observed the vehement struggle that shook his frame,
wherein the anguish of the father had wellnigh subdued the studied
equanimity of the king.
Boabdil el Chico and King Ferdinand sallied forth side by side from
Cordova, amidst the acclamations of a prodigious multitude. When they
were a short distance from the city they separated, with many gracious
expressions on the part of the Castilian monarch, and many thankful
acknowledgments from his late captive, whose heart had been humbled by
adversity. Ferdinand departed for Guadalupe, and Boabdil for Granada.
The latter was accompanied by a guard of honor, and the viceroys of
Andalusia and the generals on the frontier were ordered to furnish him
with escorts and to show him all possible honor on his journey. In this
way he was conducted in royal state through the country he had entered
to ravage, and was placed in safety in his own dominions.
He was met on the frontier by the principal nobles and cavaliers of his
court, who had been secretly sent by his mother, the sultana Ayxa, to
escort him to the capital. The heart of Boabdil was lifted up for a
moment when he found himself on his own territories, surrounded by
Moslem knights, with his own banners waving over his head, and he
began to doubt the predictions of the astrologers: he soon found cause,
however, to moderate his exultation. The royal train which had come to
welcome him was but scanty in number, and he missed many of his most
zealous and obsequious courtiers. He had returned, indeed, to his
kingdom, but it was no longer the devoted kingdom he had left. The story
of his vassalage to the Christian sovereigns had been made use of by his
father to ruin him with the people. He had been represented as a traitor
to his country, a renegado to his faith, and as leagued with the enemies
of both to subdue the Moslems of Spain to the yoke of Christian bondage.
In this way the mind of the public had been turned from him; the greater
part of the nobility had thronged round the throne of his father in the
Alhambra; and his mother, the resolute sultana Ayxa, with difficulty
maintained her faction in the opposite towers of the Alcazaba.
Such was the melancholy picture of affairs given to Boabdil by the
courtiers who had come forth to meet him. They even informed him that it
would be an enterprise of difficulty and danger to make his way back to
the capital and regain the little court which still remained faithful
to him in the heart of the city. The old tiger, Muley Abul Hassan, lay
couched within the Alhambra, and the walls and gates of the city were
strongly guarded by his troops. Boabdil shook his head at these tidings.
He called to mind the ill omen of his breaking his lance against the
gate of Elvira when issuing forth so vaingloriously with his army, which
he now saw clearly had foreboded the destruction of that army on which
he had so confidently relied. “Henceforth,” said he, “let no man have
the impiety to scoff at omens.”
Boabdil approached his capital by stealth and in the night, prowling
about its walls like an enemy seeking to destroy rather than a monarch
returning to his throne. At length he seized upon a postern-gate of the
Albaycin, that part of the city which had always been in his favor; he
passed rapidly through the streets before the populace were aroused from
their sleep, and reached in safety the fortress of the Alcazaba. Here he
was received into the embraces of his intrepid mother and his favorite
wife Morayma. The transports of the latter on the safe return of her
husband were mingled with tears, for she thought of her father, Ali
Atar, who had fallen in his cause, and of her only son, who was left a
hostage in the hand of the Christians.
The heart of Boabdil, softened by his misfortunes, was moved by the
changes in everything round him; but his mother called up his spirit.
“This,” said she, “is no time for tears and fondness. A king must think
of his sceptre and his throne, and not yield to softness like common
men. Thou hast done well, my son, in throwing thyself resolutely into
Granada: it must depend upon thyself whether thou remain here a king or
a captive.”
The old king, Muley Abul Hassan, had retired to his couch that night in
one of the strongest towers of the Alhambra, but his restless anxiety
kept him from repose. In the first watch of the night he heard a
shout faintly rising from the quarter of the Albaycin, which is on
the opposite side of the deep valley of the Darro. Shortly afterward
horsemen came galloping up the hill that leads to the main gate of the
Alhambra, spreading the alarm that Boabdil had entered the city and
possessed himself of the Alcazaba.
In the first transports of his rage the old king would have struck the
messenger to earth. He hastily summoned his counsellors and commanders,
exhorting them to stand by him in this critical moment, and during the
night made every preparation to enter the Albaycin sword in hand in the
morning.
In the mean time the sultana Ayxa had taken prompt and vigorous measures
to strengthen her party. The Albaycin was the part of the city filled
by the lower orders. The return of Boabdil was proclaimed throughout the
streets, and large sums of money were distributed among the populace.
The nobles assembled in the Alcazaba were promised honors and rewards
by Boabdil as soon as he should be firmly seated on the throne. These
well-timed measures had the customary effect, and by daybreak all the
motley populace of the Albaycin were in arms.
A doleful day succeeded. All Granada was a scene of tumult and
horror. Drums and trumpets resounded in every part; all business was
interrupted; the shops were shut, the doors barricadoed. Armed bands
paraded the streets, some shouting for Boabdil, and some for Muley
Abul Hassan. When they encountered each other they fought furiously and
without mercy; every public square became a scene of battle. The great
mass of the lower orders was in favor of Boabdil, but it was a multitude
without discipline or lofty spirit: part of the people were regularly
armed, but the greater number had sallied forth with the implements of
their trade. The troops of the old king, among whom were many cavaliers
of pride and valor, soon drove the populace from the squares. They
fortified themselves, however, in the streets and lanes, which
they barricadoed. They made fortresses of their houses, and fought
desperately from the windows and the roofs, and many a warrior of the
highest blood of Granada was laid low by plebeian hands and plebeian
weapons in this civic brawl.*
* Conde, Domin. de los Arabes, p. 4, c. 37.
It was impossible that such violent convulsions should last long in the
heart of the city. The people soon longed for repose and a return to
their peaceful occupations, and the cavaliers detested these conflicts
with the multitude, in which were all the horrors of war without its
laurels. By the interference of the alfaquis an armistice was at length
effected. Boabdil was persuaded that there was no dependence upon the
inconstant favor of the multitude, and was prevailed upon to quit a
capital where he could only maintain a precarious seat upon his throne
by a perpetual and bloody struggle. He fixed his court at the city of
Almeria, which was entirely devoted to him, and which at that time vied
with Granada in splendor and importance. This compromise of grandeur
for tranquillity, however, was sorely against the counsels of his
proud-spirited mother, the sultana Ayxa. Granada appeared, in her eyes,
the only legitimate seat of dominion, and she observed, with a smile of
disdain, that he was not worthy of being called a monarch who was not
master of his capital.