DEATH OF MULEY ABUL HASSAN.
Muley Abdallah el Zagal had been received with great acclamations
at Granada on his return from defeating the count de Cabra. He had
endeavored to turn his victory to the greatest advantage with his
subjects, giving tilts and tournaments and other public festivities in
which the Moors delighted. The loss of the castles of Cambil and Albahar
and of the fortress of Zalea, however, checked this sudden tide of
popularity, and some of the fickle populace began to doubt whether they
had not been rather precipitate in deposing his brother, Muley Abul
Hassan.
That superannuated monarch remained in his faithful town of Almunecar,
on the border of the Mediterranean, surrounded by a few adherents,
together with his wife Zoraya and his children, and he had all his
treasures safe in his possession. The fiery heart of the old king was
almost burnt out, and all his powers of doing either harm or good seemed
at an end.
While in this passive and helpless state his brother, El Zagal,
manifested a sudden anxiety for his health. He had him removed, with all
tenderness and care, to Salobrena, another fortress on the Mediterranean
coast, famous for its pure and salubrious air; and the alcayde, who was
a devoted adherent to El Zagal, was charged to have especial care that
nothing was wanting to the comfort and solace of his brother.
Salobrena was a small town, situated on a lofty and rocky hill in
the midst of a beautiful and fertile vega shut up on three sides
by mountains and opening on the fourth to the Mediterranean. It was
protected by strong walls and a powerful castle, and, being deemed
impregnable, was often used by the Moorish kings as a place of deposit
for their treasures. They were accustomed also to assign it as a
residence for such of their sons and brothers as might endanger the
security of their reign. Here the princes lived in luxurious repose:
they had delicious gardens, perfumed baths, a harem of beauties at their
command--nothing was denied them but the liberty to depart: that alone
was wanting to render this abode an earthly paradise.
Such was the delightful place appointed by El Zagal for the residence
of his brother, but, notwithstanding its wonderful salubrity, the old
monarch had not been removed thither many days before he expired. There
was nothing extraordinary in his death: life with him had long been
glimmering in the socket, and for some time past he might rather have
been numbered with the dead than with the living. The public, however,
are fond of seeing things in a sinister and mysterious point of view,
and there were many dark surmises as to the cause of this event. El
Zagal acted in a manner to heighten these suspicions: he caused the
treasures of his deceased brother to be packed on mules and brought
to Granada, where he took possession of them, to the exclusion of the
children of Abul Hassan. The sultana Zoraya and her two sons were lodged
in the Alhambra, in the Tower of Comares. This was a residence in a
palace, but it had proved a royal prison to the sultana Ayxa la Horra
and her youthful son Boabdil. There the unhappy Zoraya had time to
meditate upon the disappointment of all those ambitious schemes for
herself and children for which she had stained her conscience with so
many crimes.
The corpse of old Muley was also brought to Granada--not in state
becoming the remains of a once-powerful sovereign, but transported on
a mule, like the corpse of the poorest peasant. It received no honor or
ceremonial from El Zagal, and appears to have been interred obscurely
to prevent any popular sensation; and it is recorded by an ancient and
faithful chronicler of the time that the body of the old monarch was
deposited by two Christian captives in his osario or charnel-house.*
Such was the end of the turbulent Muley Abul Hassan, who, after passing
his life in constant contests for empire, could scarce gain quiet
admission into the corner of a sepulchre.
* Cura de los Palacios, c. 77.
No sooner were the populace well assured that old Muley Abul Hassan was
dead and beyond recovery than they all began to extol his memory and
deplore his loss. They admitted that he had been fierce and cruel, but
then he had been brave; he had, to be sure, pulled this war upon their
heads, but he had likewise been crushed by it. In a word, he was
dead, and his death atoned or every fault; for a king recently dead is
generally either a hero or a saint.
In proportion as they ceased to hate old Muley they began to hate his
brother. The circumstances of the old king’s death, the eagerness to
appropriate his treasures, the scandalous neglect of his corpse, and the
imprisonment of his sultana and children,--all filled the public mind
with gloomy suspicions, and the epithet of Fratricide was sometimes
substituted for that of El Zagal in the low murmurings of the people.
As the public must always have some object to like as well as to hate,
there began once more to be an inquiry after their fugitive king,
Boabdil el Chico. That unfortunate monarch was still at Cordova,
existing on the cool courtesy and meagre friendship of Ferdinand,
which had waned exceedingly ever since Boabdil had ceased to have any
influence in his late dominions. The reviving interest expressed in his
fate by the Moorish public, and certain secret overtures made to him,
once more aroused the sympathy of Ferdinand: he advised Boabdil again to
set up his standard within the frontiers of Granada, and furnished him
with money and means for the purpose. Boabdil advanced but a little way
into his late territories; he took up his post at Velez el Blanco, a
strong town on the confines of Murcia: there he established the shadow
of a court, and stood, as it were, with one foot over the border,
and ready to draw that back upon the least alarm. His presence in the
kingdom, however, and his assumption of royal state gave life to his
faction in Granada. The inhabitants of the Albaycin, the poorest but
most warlike part of the populace, were generally in his favor: the
more rich, courtly, and aristocratical inhabitants of the quarter of the
Alhambra rallied round what appeared to be the most stable authority
and supported the throne of El Zagal. So it is in the admirable order
of sublunary affairs: everything seeks its kind; the rich befriend the
rich, the powerful stand by the powerful, the poor enjoy the patronage
of the poor, and thus a universal harmony prevails.