OF THE CHRISTIAN ARMY WHICH ASSEMBLED AT THE CITY OF CORDOVA.
Great and glorious was the style with which the Catholic sovereigns
opened another year’s campaign of this eventful war. It was like
commencing another act of a stately and heroic drama, where the curtain
rises to the inspiring sound of martial melody and the whole stage
glitters with the array of warriors and the pomp of arms. The ancient
city of Cordova was the place appointed by the sovereigns for the
assemblage of the troops; and early in the spring of 1486 the fair
valley of the Guadalquivir resounded with the shrill blast of trumpet
and the impatient neighing of the war-horse. In this splendid era of
Spanish chivalry there was a rivalship among the nobles who most should
distinguish himself by the splendor of his appearance and the number and
equipments of his feudal followers. Every day beheld some cavalier of
note, the representative of some proud and powerful house, entering the
gates of Cordova with sound of trumpet, and displaying his banner and
device renowned in many a contest. He would appear in sumptuous array,
surrounded by pages and lackeys no less gorgeously attired, and followed
by a host of vassals and retainers, horse and foot, all admirably
equipped in burnished armor.
Such was the state of Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, duke of Infantado, who
may be cited as a picture of a warlike noble of those times. He brought
with him five hundred men-at-arms of his household armed and mounted
“a la gineta” and “a la guisa.” The cavaliers who attended him were
magnificently armed and dressed. The housings of fifty of his horses
were of rich cloth embroidered with gold, and others were of brocade.
The sumpter mules had housings of the same, with halters of silk, while
the bridles, head-pieces, and all the harnessing glittered with silver.
The camp equipage of these noble and luxurious warriors was equally
magnificent. Their tents were gay pavilions of various colors, fitted
up with silken hangings and decorated with fluttering pennons. They had
vessels of gold and silver for the service of their tables, as if they
were about to engage in a course of stately feasts and courtly revels,
instead of the stern encounters of rugged and mountainous warfare.
Sometimes they passed through the streets of Cordova at night in
splendid cavalcade, with great numbers of lighted torches, the rays of
which, falling upon polished armor and nodding plumes and silken
scarfs and trappings of golden embroidery, filled all beholders with
admiration.*
* Pulgar, part 3, cap. 41, 56.
But it was not the chivalry of Spain alone which thronged the streets of
Cordova. The fame of this war had spread throughout Christendom: it
was considered a kind of crusade, and Catholic knights from all parts
hastened to signalize themselves in so holy a cause. There were several
valiant chevaliers from France, among whom the most distinguished was
Gaston du Leon, seneschal of Toulouse. With him came a gallant train,
well armed and mounted and decorated with rich surcoats and panaches of
feathers. These cavaliers, it is said, eclipsed all others in the light
festivities of the court: they were devoted to the fair, but not after
the solemn and passionate manner of the Spanish lovers; they were gay,
gallant, and joyous in their amours, and captivated by the vivacity of
their attacks. They were at first held in light estimation by the grave
and stately Spanish knights until they made themselves to be respected
by their wonderful prowess in the field.
The most conspicuous of the volunteers, however, who appeared in Cordova
on this occasion was an English knight of royal connection. This was the
Lord Scales, earl of Rivers, brother to the queen of England, wife of
Henry VII. He had distinguished himself in the preceding year at the
battle of Bosworth Field, where Henry Tudor, then earl of Richmond,
overcame Richard III. That decisive battle having left the country
at peace, the earl of Rivers, having conceived a passion for warlike
scenes, repaired to the Castilian court to keep his arms in exercise in
a campaign against the Moors. He brought with him a hundred archers,
all dextrous with the longbow and the cloth-yard arrow; also two hundred
yeomen, armed cap-a-pie, who fought with pike and battle-axe--men robust
of frame and of prodigious strength. The worthy padre Fray Antonio
Agapida describes this stranger knight and his followers with his
accustomed accuracy and minuteness.
“This cavalier,” he observes, “was from the far island of England, and
brought with him a train of his vassals, men who had been hardened in
certain civil wars which raged in their country. They were a comely race
of men, but too fair and fresh for warriors, not having the sunburnt,
warlike hue of our old Castilian soldiery. They were huge feeders also
and deep carousers, and could not accommodate themselves to the sober
diet of our troops, but must fain eat and drink after the manner of
their own country. They were often noisy and unruly also in their
wassail, and their quarter of the camp was prone to be a scene of loud
revel and sudden brawl. They were, withal, of great pride, yet it was
not like our inflammable Spanish pride: they stood not much upon the
“pundonor,” the high punctilio, and rarely drew the stiletto in their
disputes, but their pride was silent and contumelious. Though from a
remote and somewhat barbarous island, they believed themselves the most
perfect men upon earth, and magnified their chieftain, the Lord Scales,
beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it must be said of
them that they were marvellous good men in the field, dextrous archers
and powerful with the battle-axe. In their great pride and self-will
they always sought to press in the advance and take the post of danger,
trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely
to the fight, nor make a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish
troops, but they went into the fight deliberately and persisted
obstinately and were slow to find out when they were beaten. Withal,
they were much esteemed, yet little liked, by our soldiery, who
considered them stanch companions in the field, yet coveted but little
fellowship with them in the camp.
“Their commander, Lord Scales, was an accomplished cavalier, of gracious
and noble presence and fair speech: it was a marvel to see so much
courtesy in a knight brought up so far from our Castilian court. He was
much honored by the king and queen, and found great favor with the fair
dames about the court, who, indeed, are rather prone to be pleased with
foreign cavaliers. He went always in costly state, attended by pages and
esquires, and accompanied by noble young cavaliers of his country, who
had enrolled themselves under his banner to learn the gentle exercise
of arms. In all pageants and festivals the eyes of the populace were
attracted by the singular bearing and rich array of the English earl
and his train, who prided themselves in always appearing in the garb and
manner of their country, and were, indeed, something very magnificent,
delectable, and strange to behold.”
The worthy chronicler is no less elaborate in his description of the
masters of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara and their valiant knights,
armed at all points and decorated with the badges of their orders.
These, he affirms, were the flower of Christian chivalry: being
constantly in service, they became more steadfast and accomplished in
discipline than the irregular and temporary levies of the feudal nobles.
Calm, solemn, and stately, they sat like towers upon their powerful
chargers. On parades they manifested none of the show and ostentation
of the other troops; neither in battle did they endeavor to signalize
themselves by any fiery vivacity or desperate and vainglorious exploit:
everything with them was measured and sedate, yet it was observed that
none were more warlike in their appearance in the camp or more terrible
for their achievements in the field.
The gorgeous magnificence of the Spanish nobles found but little favor
in the eyes of the sovereigns. They saw that it caused a competition in
expense ruinous to cavaliers of moderate fortune, and they feared that
a softness and effeminacy might thus be introduced incompatible with the
stern nature of the war. They signified their disapprobation to several
of the principal noblemen, and recommended a more sober and soldier-like
display while in actual service.
“These are rare troops for a tourney, my lord,” said Ferdinand to the
duke of Infantado as he beheld his retainers glittering in gold and
embroidery, “but gold, though gorgeous, is soft and yielding: iron is
the metal for the field.”
“Sire,” replied the duke, “if my men parade in gold, Your Majesty will
find they fight with steel.” The king smiled, but shook his head, and
the duke treasured up his speech in his heart.
It remains now to reveal the immediate object of this mighty and
chivalrous preparation, which had, in fact, the gratification of a royal
pique at bottom. The severe lesson which Ferdinand had received from the
veteran Ali Atar before the walls of Loxa, though it had been of great
service in rendering him wary in his attacks upon fortified places, yet
rankled sorely in his mind, and he had ever since held Loxa in peculiar
odium. It was, in truth, one of the most belligerent and troublesome
cities on the borders, incessantly harassing Andalusia by its
incursions. It also intervened between the Christian territories and
Alhama and other important places gained in the kingdom of Granada. For
all these reasons King Ferdinand had determined to make another grand
attempt upon this warrior city, and for this purpose had summoned to the
field his most powerful chivalry.
It was in the month of May that the king sallied from Cordova at the
head of his army. He had twelve thousand cavalry and forty thousand
foot-soldiers armed with crossbows, lances, and arquebuses. There
were six thousand pioneers with hatchets, pickaxes, and crowbars for
levelling roads. He took with him also a great train of lombards and
other heavy artillery, with a body of Germans skilled in the service of
ordnance and the art of battering walls.
It was a glorious spectacle (says Fray Antonio Agapida) to behold this
pompous pageant issuing forth from Cordova, the pennons and devices of
the proudest houses of Spain, with those of gallant stranger knights,
fluttering above a sea of crests and plumes--to see it slowly moving,
with flash of helm and cuirass and buckler, across the ancient bridge
and reflected in the waters of the Guadalquivir, while the neigh of
steed and blast of trumpet vibrated in the air and resounded to the
distant mountains. “But, above all,” concludes the good father, with his
accustomed zeal, “it was triumphant to behold the standard of the faith
everywhere displayed, and to reflect that this was no worldly-minded
army, intent upon some temporal scheme of ambition or revenge, but a
Christian host bound on a crusade to extirpate the vile seed of Mahomet
from the land and to extend the pure dominion of the Church.”