and sought admission into the cabinet of Doña Beatriz. He now came
forth, clad in the rich apparel of a Spanish cavalier of that day,
which he bore with the habitual grace and ease that showed this, rather
than the humble garb he had worn before, was the appropriate dress
of his rank. The apartment into which he was ushered was simply, and
compared with the usage of our age and country it would have been
called meanly, furnished. An _estera_, or matting of woven sedge, was
spread on the floor, and heavy embroidered hangings covered the walls,
rudely representing the gests and triumphs of Bernardo del Carpio and
my Cid the Campeador; but the chairs and other utensils were coarse in
make, and such only as necessity required. It was in other form that
the grandees of that day displayed their magnificence and squandered
their wealth.
Prominent in the room sat an elderly man in the long ungainly robe and
other attire of an ecclesiastic of rank, who, although advanced in
years, yet evidently retained the vigor of manhood unbroken, and, to
judge from his stately air and the fair glance of his eye, could do
his part in the _mêlée_ as bravely as the best, and would not scruple,
if occasion required, to change his crosier for a lance. It happened
then, as it does now, that the higher benefices of the church were
generally the appanage of the younger members of noble families; but
it was the case then, as it is not now, that to maintain his place a
noble must have been either wise in council, or daring in fight; the
glories of a horsejockey and cockfighter may become a peer in the era
of improvement, but herein did not consist _their_ glories; and the
prelates, who sprung from the blood of men accustomed to command,
naturally partook of the spirit of their sires. They were not rarely
foremost in the civil wars that formed the chief business of mankind in
the Middle Ages; and Don Alonso Carrillo, Archbishop of Toledo, for it
was no less a personage who sat in that presence, had played his part
undauntedly among the boldest knights of Castile.
He was earnestly conversing in a low voice with a lady near, whose face
as she sat was slightly averted from the door; while Doña Beatriz and
a third lady stood in the apartment, who, with the Archbishop and Don
Gutierre, made up the whole party. Doña Beatriz had the full black eye
and the raven tresses which we associate with a southern clime, and
that brown shade of complexion which, but for the healthfulness of her
tint, and the animation of her whole face, would scarcely have escaped
the reproach of tending to sullenness of aspect. But of her, afterwards
so celebrated by the name of Condesa de Moya, time had not yet touched
the beauty. The lady, who stood by her side, Don Gutierre saluted as
Doña Mencia de la Torre; and both of these ladies waited, with all
the subdued respect of tone and deference of deportment due to the
highest rank, upon the youthful incarnation of loveliness with whom the
Archbishop conferred.
A low bodice or corset of black velvet, fitted closely to her waist,
displayed the perfect proportions of a bust that was just blooming into
womanhood. A _brial_ or petticoat of the same rich material depended
over the full, but well-formed and graceful contour of her limbs. This
part of her dress was fastened at the waist by a kind of brocaded belt,
embroidered with jet and brilliants, and a band of similar workmanship
ran from the belt down the middle of the _brial_ or skirt, and was
continued in a border around the bottom of it; a border of the same
general description running around the upper part of the bodice next
to the neckerchief. The tight wristbands of the dress were adorned by
several bands of corresponding make and materials. Above the bodice
she wore a wrought kerchief of the costliest Flanders lace, fastened
at the throat with a gold brooch, and having a border of very peculiar
workmanship. It was narrow, as compared with the belt and bands of her
_brial_, and instead of the wreaths and fanciful figures embroidered
on them, it bore the form alternately of a castle and a lion, wrought
in rich gems of various kinds on a silver ground, forming a splendid
edging to the kerchief, double in front, and passing all around the
neck. A large diamond cross, set in pearls, was suspended over her
bosom from the rich pearl collar, which, as being the princely gift of
him whose coming she awaited, was the fitting ornament of her person
on this occasion. To complete her habiliments, a flowery tabard, as it
was then called, or rich mantle of crimson silk, bordered with damask,
was thrown over her shoulders and arms, hanging down to the floor, and
a white veil of thin delicate lace, gauze-like and transparent as woven
air, covered, without concealing, her dark brown tresses, and, being
fastened in front by the brooch on her bosom, could be dropped over
her face at will, so as to increase the effect of the beauty which it
veiled, like the light fleecy clouds flitting along the moon's orb in a
bright autumnal eve.
It is easy to give a description of garments, but how describe the
surpassing loveliness of form and countenance, which consists, not in
the peculiar shape of each separate feature or limb, but in the perfect
harmony of parts, and heavenly combination of elements in the whole
person? The lady of whom we speak was of middling stature, and rather
fuller in form than might be considered consistent with a faultless
model; but the grace of every movement, and the mingled sweetness and
dignity of her whole manner, would alone have sufficed to mark the
royal daughter of a line of kings. Her face was not of that stamp which
fancy is prone to attribute to the maidens of Spain. We have already
said that her hair was brown; and her complexion was pure blushing red
and white, the unclouded carnation of the fairest youthful beauty. A
broad, open brow, an oval face gently curving off into a rounded chin,
even well-defined lips, expressing a firm character united with a
gentle spirit, and eyes of dark gray deepening into blue; _ojos entre
verdes y azules_, says a good friar of her day, who seems to have
studied the constituents of beauty rather more attentively than became
a monk: such were the separate features of the fair young maiden. Her
general cast and look did not speak her more than eighteen; but a
certain maturity of expression in her face, and a grave and somewhat
devotional air, increased by the appearance of a richly illuminated
missal, which she held in her hand, would have suited a much riper age.
To the low salutation of Don Gutierre, she graciously nodded in
reply, without interrupting her conversation with the Archbishop. So
earnestly, indeed, was it continued, that a young cavalier had entered
the open door unobserved by her, and advanced towards the centre of the
room. He stood with one foot slightly set forward, his short cloak, of
the finest cloth of Segovia, flung back from his shoulders, displaying
the close jacket of Genoese velvet, which covered his manly form, the
gold-hilted sword which hung over his slashed underclothes, and a chain
of massive chased gold links with a cross of Montesa suspended from
his neck, while in his left hand he held a black velvet hat, ornamented
with a plain diamond aigrette and a single tuft of white ostrich
plumes, leaving uncovered a high, noble brow and expressive dignified
features, with sparkling eyes, that gazed on the beautiful vision
before them, entranced, as it were, with love and admiration.
"'Tis he, 'tis he!" cried Don Gutierre, pointing with his finger to the
silent stranger; and as the lady started with a slight exclamation of
surprise, Fernando de Aragon kneeled at her feet, and, seizing her not
unwilling hand, covered it with the kisses of her accepted lover, whom
she now, for the first time, saw, and that in secrecy and disguise.
Need we say that the lady was Isabel of Castile, the lovely and the
loved, the model of queens, of wives, and of mothers; the unaffected
reality of all that her false-hearted namesake of England, Elizabeth,
affected to be, but was not, a woman, namely, with all a woman's
sensibilities, and yet a great and high ruled princess; that Isabel,
whose reign is the golden age of prosperity and glory in the annals of
fallen Spain!
At the time when the events of our story happened, Henry the Imbecile
held the sceptre of Castile and Leon, and the disorders of a sickly
state had reached their acme. Don Henrique ascended the throne under
circumstances the most inauspicious. The kingdom was devastated
and exhausted by the long and bloody civil wars which preceded the
accession of his ancestor, Henrique de Trastamara. The infirm health
and premature death of his grandfather, Henry III., prevented his
applying those remedies to the public relief which a capacious mind and
enterprising spirit might otherwise have devised and undertaken. His
predecessor, Don Juan, destitute of either energy or talents to govern
his turbulent nobles, was equally degraded, in being at all times
either their tool or their victim. Condemned to see them dispute the
possession of his person and his power on the fatal plains of Olmedo,
he resigned all his authority to the constable, Don Alvaro de Luna, and
afterwards with still greater weakness gave up his tried and faithful
minister to the fury of their common enemies. Don Henrique himself
inherited the mean-spirited and servile character of Don Juan.
Wavering and pusillanimous in his purposes, despised by his vassals,
corrupt in his habits, and given up to the pursuit of pleasures of
which nature had denied him the enjoyment, he soon acquired a most
invincible repugnance to business of whatever kind, which he gladly
suffered to pass entirely into the hands of ambitious and unprincipled
favorites. A never-ending succession of troubles in his family, and
of civil war between contending factions of the aristocracy, was the
necessary consequence of the weakness of their common head. So long as
he could enjoy his personal amusement unmolested, no public calumny
moved the impassiveness of his indolence. While the profligate court
spent in tournaments and gallantry, or in the wild distractions of
the chase, that time which belonged to the necessities of the state,
the fierce grandees made civil war upon each other from province to
province, dividing, with impunity, the spoils of the crown and the
substance of the people. Corruption, venality, and violence became
universal; and the whole kingdom, convulsed by every species of
disorder, and infected with all the principles of dissolution, was
hurrying onward towards absolute and irretrievable ruin.
But that we may fully appreciate the condition of unhappy Castile at
this period, it is well to refer to the touching pictures given by the
old chroniclers, not merely of the general aspect of things, but also
of some remarkable incidents in particular.
"All Spain was overwhelmed," says Don Alonzo Ortiz, who spoke of what
he actually saw; "all Spain was overwhelmed by the most terrible storm,
in those days when the flames of civil war raged with the greatest
fury, and total perdition impended over the prostrate commonwealth.
There was no spot exempt from the common misery. There was no man who
enjoyed his patrimony without fear or peril of his life. All classes
of the community were filled with affliction, flying to the cities
for refuge, since robbery and murder stalked unchallenged through the
land. Our barons did not take up arms to defend our borders against
the Infidel, but to strike the thirsty sword into the bowels of their
common country. The domestic enemy banqueted in the blood of his
fellow-citizens. The strongest of arm and deepest in fraud bore the
palm of power and praise among us; so that all things had broken wholly
forth from the check and scope of justice, and the venerable majesty of
the law had quenched its light in the darkness of general corruption."
How true to the life is the general description of the canon Ortiz,
may be seen from a trait of the times recorded by Fernando del Pulgar.
It seems that Don Pedro de Mendaña was alcaide of Castronuño during
the period under review. Seeing the time well disposed for his natural
desires and inclinations, he received in that fortalice many robbers
with the booty which they made, and protected them from pursuit, as
also desperate men of every kind, absconding debtors, murderers, and
other outlaws. And when he found himself accompanied by such followers,
induced by impunity from the laws and by large rewards to do his
bidding, he seized on the castles of Cubillas and Cantalapiedra, and
fortified that of Sieteiglesias, and placed his men in them; from which
strongholds they sallied forth to rob in all the regions round about,
and brought to him the treasure and goods they collected. He also
captured the town of Tordesillas, and augmented his power in such wise,
that the great cities of Burgos, Avila, Salamanca, Segovia, Valladolid,
and Medina, and all the other towns in that country, gave him a
regular tribute of bread, wine, and money, to purchase security. And
thenceforward he continued to make other demands from them, of money
and cattle, all which was yielded to his satisfaction. And by such
oppressions he acquired great riches, so as to maintain constantly in
his pay no less than three hundred mounted banditti. All the grandees
of the kingdom who had estates in these districts held him in fear, and
gave him largesses, that he might not make war against them on their
lands. And from the success of this alcaide, many other alcaides in the
kingdom took example, and set themselves to pillaging and ransoming
the people, and defending the crimes and misdeeds which robbers
perpetrated. Some time elapsed in this wise, when Pedro de Mendaña was
besieged in his castle of Castronuño, and after an obstinate defence
surrendered only upon honorable terms of capitulation; he and his bands
escaping all punishment, as if what he had done was in the mere common
course of war.
We shall give one other incident equally characteristic, but differing
from the foregoing, as it shows how the great nobles and their
immediate followers demeaned themselves in the same reign. Don Henrique
had abandoned the control of affairs to his queen, and to her paramour
Don Beltram de la Cueva, Conde de Ledesma, who was universally believed
to have dishonored the royal bed, and to be the father of the Infanta
Juana, stigmatized from this circumstance by the _sobriquet_ of la
Beltraneja, by which name she is uniformly styled in Spanish history.
The power enjoyed by this ancient Godoy excited a confederation of
the discontented grandees and prelates, having for its object the
deposition of Don Henrique, and the elevation of his brother Don Alonzo
to the throne. The chroniclers Diego Enriquez del Castillo and Alonzo
de Palencia describe the scene which ensued.
The leagued barons, being assembled at Avila, selected an extensive
plain without the city, on which they erected a large scaffold, open
on all sides, so that the citizens of Avila and the multitude who
came from other towns to witness the ceremonial, might plainly see
everything which took place. Here was displayed a royal throne, on
which sat a figure representing Don Henrique with the crown on his
head, a sword before, and the sceptre in his hand, in the usual manner
of arraying the person of kings. Everything being thus arranged, the
barons rode out from the city towards the scaffold, accompanied by Don
Alonzo. When they had arrived, Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis de Villena,
with the master of Alcantara, and the Conde de Medellin, took the
prince a little way aside, while the other lords approached and placed
themselves behind the effigy, ready to perform the act of dethronement.
Having done this, one of them advanced to the front of the scaffold,
and read a paper with a loud voice, setting forth the offences of Don
Henrique, which they divided into four principal heads. For the first,
they alleged that he deserved to lose his royal dignity, whereupon
the Archbishop of Toledo, Don Alonzo Carrillo, advanced, and took the
crown from the brows of the mimic king. For the second, he forfeited
the right of jurisdiction and justice, wherefore Don Alvaro de Zuñiga,
Conde de Plasencia, removed the sword which lay on his lap. For the
third, he ought to lose the government of his kingdom, and so Don
Rodrigo Pimentel, Conde de Benavente, snatched the sceptre which he
held in his hand. Lastly, for the fourth, he deserved to be deprived of
the throne and establishment of a king, wherefore Don Diego Lopez de
Luñiga, approaching and striking the effigy from the chair in which it
was seated, kicked it ignominiously from the scaffold to the ground,
accompanying the act with bitter terms of invective and reproach
against the person and character of Don Henrique.
Immediately upon this, Don Alonzo came up, and being placed on the
throne, received the insignia of royalty, with the homage and fealty of
the banded knights, who kissed his hands as king and right lord of the
realm, ordering the trumpets to sound a loud note of joy and triumph,
amid the shouts of "_viva el rey_" from themselves and their partisans,
and the muttered lamentations of the shocked and terrified multitude,
too conscious that all the extremities of civil war must tread close
on the heels of such high-handed and outrageous misdemeanors. And so
indeed it was to the scandal of all Spain, and to the desolation and
misery of the people, until the sudden death of Don Alonzo deprived
the disaffected lords of a rallying-point, and abated, but did not
extinguish, the fury of embattled factions in wretched Castile.
After the death of Don Alonzo, there remained only Doña Isabel, the
young sister of the king, who could dispute with him the possession of
the crown. She was daughter of Don Juan by a second marriage, being
born at Madrigal, in old Castile, the twenty-second day of April,
in the year 1451. Ere she had completed her fourth year, her father
died, and Don Henrique, on succeeding to the crown, left Isabel and
her mother to languish in poverty and obscurity in the seclusion of
their town and lordship of Arevalo. The queen-mother, Doña Isabel
of Portugal, soon lost her reason from the accumulated burden of
degradation and other sorrows, and her deserted daughter, far from the
luxury of palaces, and stripped of all the flattering incidents of
royal birth, entered upon that childhood and youth of affliction whose
trials were to conduct to so glorious an issue in her after life. Don
Henrique did indeed, after a while, repent him of his abandonment of
the injured Isabel, and received her into his palace, to enjoy the
advantages which belonged to her rank.
But what a scene was there for the pure and ingenuous recluse of the
walls of Arevalo! The implacable foe of the Gothic name strengthened
himself among the hills of Granada, and defied the chivalry of Castile
to the field; but the descendant of Don Pelayo was now a craven knight
and a minion ruled prince, the scorn alike of Christian and of Moor;
and consumed the treasures of his kingdom in revelry and favoritism,
and its blood in civil broils, in the stead of devoting them to the
noble task of driving Muley Hassan, from the golden halls and marble
courts of the Alhambra, back to the native deserts of his race.
The skipping king, he ambled up and down,
With shallow gestures, and rash bavin wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt: carded his state;
Mingled his royalty with carping fools;
Had his great name profaned with their scorn.
And, worst of all, the profligate consort of a shameless monarch, the
guilty Doña Juana, lived in unchecked adultery with Don Beltran, at
once the falsest of friends and most incapable of ministers, and reared
up the offspring of their crime, the unfortunate Beltraneja, to be the
watchword of treason in Castile for many a weary year of bloodshed and
confusion. Fortunately for Isabel, she possessed a native dignity and
purity of character, fortified and refined by the seeming mischances
of her lot, which, however, had but taught her the "sweet uses" of
adversity; and she passed through the fiery ordeal of a dissolute
court unscathed, or rather with her genuine nobility of soul yet more
elevated, by a shrinking repulsion for the foul atmosphere she had been
compelled to breathe.
When the death of Don Alonzo, the victim of poison, administered to him
in his food, left the insurgent nobles without a suitable chief, they
went to Doña Isabel, with the Archbishop of Toledo at their head, and
tendered her the sceptre of Castile. She had taken refuge in a convent
at Avila, anxious to escape from the horrors of civil war, which
everywhere met her eye. If her principles of conduct had been less pure
and upright, the spectacle of her country given up to the reciprocal
rage of hostile partisans, and her beloved brother the early victim of
unregulated ambition, would have come to confirm her resolutions in
such a crisis. But she needed not this; and immovable in her loyalty
to her unworthy lord and brother, Don Henrique, she unhesitatingly
and decidedly refused the proffers of allegiance made her by the
grandees in arms against the crown. A procedure so full of high-toned
generosity, while it won the regards of Don Henrique, was not without
its influence upon his enemies, and greatly furthered the conclusion
of a qualified peace at the congress of Los Toros de Guisando, where
Don Henrique proclaimed Doña Isabel sole heiress of his kingdom, thus
forever sealing the fate of La Beltraneja, whom he declared under oath
not to be his child.
The barons, who had so contumeliously enacted the ceremony of
dethroning the king in effigy at Avila, now returned to his confidence,
and engaged in a new series of intrigues for the disposal of the hand
of Doña Isabel, who, as heiress of Castile and Leon, was sought for
in marriage by many of the great princes of Europe. Don Juan Pacheco
obtained the grand mastership of Santiago, and the Archbishop of Toledo
was again trusted. Of the various alliances which offered, that of the
house of Aragon, as uniting the two great fragments of the Spanish
monarchy, it was the interest of every true patriot to promote; and
thus it was viewed by the Archbishop. But Don Juan had reasons of
personal interest for opposing this, and managed to gain exclusive
control of the movements and purposes of the king. They endeavored
to compel the princess by threats of imprisonment to marry the King
of Portugal, a widower far advanced in years, and wholly unsuitable
as a husband for the fair and youthful Isabel. Failing this hopeful
scheme, they fixed on Charles, Duke of Berri and Guienne, brother of
Louis XI. of France. Don Fadrique Enriquez, Admiral of Castile, and
Don Mosen Pierres de Peralta, Constable of Navarre, were coadjutors
of the Archbishop in furthering the proposals of the young Ferdinand
of Aragon, who had a still more powerful partisan than either in the
growing tenderness of Doña Isabel.