BÚRGOS
Last but not the least among the merits of Segóvia is to be reckoned the
fact that it pays some attention to its roads, for these are decidedly
the best in all the central provinces. No doubt they owe something to
their proximity to the Sierra de Guadarrama, which supplies them with
their granite metalling, and even vouchsafes them an occasional shower.
Yet there is a balance of credit to be shared among the worthy
_camineros_,--those humble "pawns" who are posted at long intervals
along the roadway (each with his donkey and his dog), diligently
trimming the margins and spreading the tags of herbage over the surface
of the road. The method seems somewhat original, but at least it has the
merit of success; for the scraps of turf serve to catch the dews at
night-time--and moisture is the chief desideratum upon every Spanish
road.
The wide tawny plains which spread themselves northward from Segóvia are
chequered with mighty pine-forests, the homes of solitude and shade.
These rich green masses form a striking contrast to the bare red earth
around them, and the pale blue of the distant mountains which show
faintly upon the horizon beyond. For miles at a stretch the road burrows
through these colonnades of tree-stems,--all plentifully blazed for
resin, and festooned with the little earthenware pipkins in which it is
collected;--and seldom indeed is either man or beast encountered to give
a touch of life to the shadowy depths around. At one point we passed a
venerable _padre_, faithfully conning his breviary as he trudged behind
his mule; at another a small brown damsel lording it over a herd of
gigantic kine. But the only other living creature was a large snake
dusting itself in the roadway, over whom we narrowly escaped riding, for
we were right upon him before we saw what he was.
Once clear of the pine-belt, the country quickly relapses into the
monotony typical of the Duero vale. One may partly avoid it by taking
the road to the eastward, and making straight for Búrgos by Sepúlveda
and Aranda de Duero across a region of wild and lofty moors. But of the
two roads to Valladolid there is little to choose between Olmedo and
Medina del Campo, and we may as well follow the more direct.
It is easy to understand, as we cross these great limitless levels, in
what manner the Moors were so long able to maintain their supremacy
against the hardier races of the North. The whole district is an ideal
battle-field for the light-armed cavalry in which their strength
consisted; and to set a medieval man-at-arms, cased in full panoply, to
do a hard day's fighting under that roasting sun is a conception worthy
of Perillus himself. The battles with which History concerns itself,
however, are of a later age. The disconsolate little walled town of
Olmedo (once one of the keys of Castile) has given its name to two
desperate conflicts in the interminable civil wars which ravaged the
peninsula in the middle of the fifteenth century. Here it was that
Alvaro de Luna[50] gained his great victory over his confederate enemies
in the reign of John II. Here, too, in the following reign, was fought a
bloody fratricidal action between Henrique IV. and Alfonso, the brothers
of Isabella the Catholic.
On the eve of this latter battle, Archbishop Carillo of Toledo[51] (as
usual "agin the government") sent a courteous message to his special
enemy, the king's favourite, apprising him that forty knights had bound
themselves by an oath to fight neither with small nor great, but only
with him, the following day. Don Beltran de la Cueva, however, though he
might not deserve his honours, at least knew how to wear them gallantly.
He countered by remitting a full description of his horse and armour, so
that the forty knights might make no mistake;--rode into battle as
advertised;--and escaped unscathed. His spirit deserved no
less:--perhaps even Carillo thought so. But one would like to know what
became of the forty knights.
Olmedo figures also in fiction, but not in so martial a vein. Hither, in
fear of his life along the road from Valladolid, fled our old friend Gil
Bias--ex-assistant to Dr Sangrado--with more murders on his conscience
than even that seasoned article felt quite easy under, and the avenger
of blood at his heels in the shape of an enraged Biscayan. We followed
the track of his agitated _Hegira_, but, of course, in the reverse
direction, dropping gradually down to the level of the Duero by a bare
and undulating road. The broad river-basin looks comparatively green and
well-wooded when viewed from the heights above Simancas; yet as one
crosses it, it is arid enough; and the steep, flat-topped hills which
bound it seem absolutely Saharan, whether looked at from above or below.
The Duero itself at this point flows in a trench between crumbling
yellow banks; and the village near it, where Gil Blas struck up
acquaintance with the barber and the strolling actor, lingers in our
memory as the scene of our most decisive victory over our enemies the
dogs. Our pockets were fairly bulging with ammunition as we descended
into the _mêlée_, and whatever we missed on the volley seemed fated to
catch the _ricochet_. Our last missile was expended absolutely at random
on the sound of a dog behind us. But to judge from the yell which
followed it, it was none the less effective for that.
Valladolid has the general unfinished air befitting a town that has made
several unsuccessful attempts to establish itself as a Capital; and its
failure to support that dignity is perhaps less surprising than the fact
that it should have been cast for the _rôle_. It stands upon no
important river, on no commanding hill. There is hardly a village in the
plain around it but might equally well have drawn a prize in the lottery
which decreed its eminence.
[Illustration: BÚRGOS
Arco San Martin.]
In strategical position it is inferior to Búrgos--to Toledo in
historical prestige.
Its memories, too (even apart from Dr Sangrado), are none of the most
cheerful; for it was one of the chief seats of the dreaded Inquisition,
and no city save Seville can boast a blacker fame. The wretched Jews and
Moors fill up the roll of the _Quemadero_,[52] but there were many
scholars and nobles among the victims of the _Plaza Mayor_ at
Valladolid. Here died the noble San Roman, the first of the Spanish
reformers. His ashes were collected by the very soldiers that guarded
his pyre and were brought to London by the English Ambassador,--a
foretaste of evil to come. Here it was that Don Carlos de Seso, his
limbs mangled by torture and disfigured by the ghastly _San Benito_,
paused as he passed the royal daïs, and sternly demanded of Philip, "as
one gentleman of another," how he could have the heart to tolerate such
atrocities in his domain. "I would slay mine own son were he as thou
art," was the bigot's answer. And so, to do him justice, he would;--on
even less provocation;--as a certain grave in the Escorial can testify
unto this day. But surely even Philip's conscience can not have been
appeased by such a rejoinder. The memory of that awful indictment must
have haunted him years afterwards in the long terrible days when he was
himself meeting a yet more hideous death with equally resolute
fortitude.
There was one at least of the judges who sickened at his share in that
day's butchery: for when, many years afterwards, Carranza, Archbishop of
Toledo, himself fell under the suspicion of the Holy Office, the remorse
which he felt for de Seso was imputed to him for a crime. And the spirit
which such a man could inspire in his fellows may be judged from young
Julian Sanchez, who suffered the same day. The flames burnt the cords
which bound him, and in his agony he wrenched himself free. The friars
sprang forward to hear his recantation. But Julian's eye fell upon the
heroic figure of his leader, still steadfast amid his sufferings, and
with the cry, "Let me die like de Seso!" he flung himself back into the
flames.
Nowhere in Europe had Protestantism nobler martyrs than the Spaniards:
and numbers of them were men of eminence; for their very judges lamented
that the learned men whom they had sent to confute foreign heretics were
returning to preach the faith which they were commissioned to destroy.
But against such persecutors their cause was hopeless. Philip and Valdez
were men with hands of iron.
Valladolid has many fine monuments, but they are scattered and lost
among newer and less interesting surroundings. Even the old arcaded
_plaza_ is becoming deplorably modernised; and the old-world charm of
Toledo and Segóvia may here be sought in vain. The Pisuerga river (upon
which the city stands) forms the eastern boundary of the _Tierra de
Campos_, as the Esla forms the western.[53] And the scenery of the two
valleys is so nearly identical that a traveller dropped unexpectedly in
either might be puzzled to say which. There are the same wide basin, the
same crumbling yellow cliffs, the same troglodyte villages, the same
Nilotic-looking stream. The only speciality of the Pisuerga is the
extreme dustiness of the roads.
Dueñas is one of the most typical little towns of the district. Perched
in full sunshine on one of the bare hills that flank the valley, it
looks as thoroughly baked as a pie-crust, in spite of the poplared
meadows at its feet. Here Ferdinand and Isabella first started their
housekeeping, on a very modest scale indeed, with scarcely enough
capital to guarantee to-morrow's dinner. "Saving a crown, he had nothing
else beside," sings the Scottish lassie of her suitor in the old ballad.
But the royal lovers' crowns were still in abeyance; and the then wearer
of the Castilian diadem had very different matrimonial plans for his
high-spirited sister. Wherefore he, whom History remembers as the
austere and politic Ferdinand, stole secretly across the hostile
frontier, disguised as groom to his own attendants, at the imminent risk
of a broken head; and the knot was safely tied in the cathedral at
Valladolid, with the connivance of a few of Isabella's staunchest
partisans.
[Illustration: DUEÑAS]
The little cathedral town of Paléncia lies a little off the direct road;
but it is most conveniently situated as a half-way house to Búrgos. The
cathedral is a singularly fine one, though rather ramshackle externally;
and, like a true Spanish cathedral, it is crammed with works of art. The
streets are all quaintly colonnaded; but we were somewhat taken aback
when we were shown the entrance to the _Fonda_, a miserable rat-hole in
a blank and dirty wall. We had expected something better of
Paléncia:--yet nothing quite so good as the delicious shady _patio_
which we found at the end of the passage; for the hotel is really
an excellent one, and its true entrance is from a street at the back. On
the whole, we have nothing but commendation for Paléncia. Only we wish
that the little sisterhood, "_Siervas de Maria, ministras para los
enfermos_,"[54] would mind--not their p's and q's, but their m's and
n's. A little ambiguity in the final syllable is so extremely
compromising!
We quitted Paléncia early on midsummer morning, and soon regained the
Búrgos road. The villages that lay before us were vomiting such volumes
of smoke that we concluded Torquemada must be justifying its title by
the celebration of an _Auto-da-fé_. But it proved to be only lime-kilns;
and Torquemada is pretty enough to deserve a gentler name. Here the
Pisuerga is crossed by a long crooked old bridge; and in the fields near
by occurred the incident which forms the subject of Pradilla's famous
picture, when poor mad Juana, escorting her husband's body from Búrgos
to Grenada, elected to spend the night in the open sooner than shelter
the faithless corpse in a convent of nuns. An incident worthy of Lear!
Now we deserted the Pisuerga to follow the Arlanzon, a greener and
narrower valley, though still somewhat dreary at times. The poppies were
blazing in the brilliant sunshine with a splendour that dazzled the eye.
They grow best where blood has been spilled, if we are to credit old
folklore; and the Arlanzon valley may well bear out the assertion, for
every stage in the journey--Torquemada, Quintana del Puente, Venta del
Pozo--was the scene of some fierce skirmish during Wellington's retreat
from Búrgos in 1812. His army suffered terribly hereabouts; for the
roads were wellnigh impassable in that rainy autumn, and the sulky
troops broke out of all control. At one time there were twelve thousand
of them all drunk together in the wine-vaults at Torquemada! The result
was almost disaster. But fortunately the stock of wine was a large one,
and they left enough for the French. It may be urged in extenuation that
the country vintages are more heady than one would think, especially for
exhausted and starving men.
[Illustration: BÚRGOS
Hospital del Rey.]
Our own difficulties arose not from rain but from sunshine, and the last
few miles over the hilly ground were distinctly exhausting. But at these
high levels even the sultriest sun is tempered by a crisp and bracing
air. The traveller who starts early can generally ride out the
morning, and the leafy avenues of Búrgos were our haven at mid-day.
Búrgos shows itself off at best advantage when seen from the eastern
side, but the approach from the west is not unworthy of the Capital of
Old Castile. First we pass the beautiful _Plateresque_[55] gateway of
the Hospital del Rey. Then the towers of Las Huelgas, the most famous
Nunnery in Spain. The convent was founded by Alfonso VIII.,--a trespass
offering after his great defeat by the _Miramamolin_[56] at Alarcon. And
his atonement was accepted; for twenty years later he was able to hang
up over the High Altar the sacred banner captured at Las Navas de
Tolosa, the great victory which extinguished for ever the long
domination of the Moor.
Under its folds the young Prince Edward of England knelt watching his
arms on the eve of his knighthood in 1254. Here he was married--a boy
bridegroom--to his girl-bride, the Princess Leonora of Castile; and
hence he carried her away with him to his home in his northern island,
where as the "dear Queen" of the Eleanor Crosses her name is held in
honour to this day.
"Laws go as Kings wish," says the Spanish proverb; otherwise it is
difficult to imagine how the nuns could have ever permitted such a
shocking thing as a wedding in their own Conventual Church. When we
peeped into it, the very effigies of the kings on the royal tombs were
jealously shrouded--for propriety's sake! Formerly ten thousand dollars
dowry and sixteen quarterings were indispensable to the lady who wished
to renounce the vanities of the world in this exclusive cloister! But
now the sisterhood is sadly reduced, and takes in "paying guests,"--to
wit, another sisterhood, with whom they live (it is said) in peace and
amity. I mention this because an old French curé, who visited the
convent with us, seemed to regard it as the most astounding miracle that
Búrgos had to boast.
[Illustration: BÚRGOS
Arco Sta Maria.]
The main entrance to the city is formed by the magnificent Arco de Sta
Maria at the head of the bridge over the Arlanzon. It was erected to
propitiate Charles V. after the revolt of the _Communeros_; and that
monarch's effigy consequently occupies the most conspicuous niche. He is
surrounded by all the local heroes of Búrgos;--Diego de Porcelos,
_Fundator noster_, whose German son-in-law erected the _Burg_,--Lain
Calvo, chief of the early "Judges,"--and Fernan Gonzalez, the great
count who founded the kingdom of Castile. But of course the greatest of
all the city demi-gods is their "Champion Chief," my Cid Ruy Diaz of
Bivar. Doubtless he would have been their patron saint if the Pope could
have been induced to canonize him;--a queer type of saint perhaps;--but
there are queer types in the Calendar.
"My Cid" flourished about the time of our Norman Conquest, and from his
youth upward was recognised as the doughtiest warrior in Spain. He was
the sword-arm (according to legend) of three successive Castilian
sovereigns; and his services culminated in the conquest of Toledo, where
(again according to legend) he was commander-in-chief. Afterwards he
fell into disgrace;--chiefly owing to his invincible ignorance of the
dogma that you ought to stop killing Moors as soon as your king has made
peace with them; and Alfonso VI. arranged the difficulty by banishing
him from Castile,--to kill more Moors. "My Cid" now obtained letters of
marque (or their equivalent) from the Moorish King of Zaragoza, and
proceeded to carve out a kingdom for himself by the conquest of
Valéncia. This enterprise required money, and "My Cid" raised it from
the Jews, leaving in pawn a sealed chest full of gravel, which purported
to contain his family gems. Apparently he was indignant with the Hebrews
because they would not accept his bare word; and it never occurred to
either party that they were, in fact, accepting his bare word in the
matter of the sealed chest. As a commercial transaction it seems a
little bewildering; but it all came right in the end; and "My Cid"
loyally redeemed his chest of gravel at full face value when Valéncia
was subdued.
At Valéncia he reigned in great glory, reconciled to the king and
victorious against all assaults of the Moors. There he made an edifying
end, serenely indifferent to the gathering of the mighty host which his
foes were assembling for their final effort. Thence he sallied for the
last time at the head of his comrades,--a ghastly figure, stiff in
death, but clad in full armour, and mounted on Bavieca, as he was wont
to ride of yore; and all the Moors that beleaguered him fled at the
sight of him, so that the spoil that he took at his death was more than
he had ever taken in his life. Ximena, his widow, bore back his body to
Búrgos, as he had bidden her; and his bones are exhibited to
inquisitive strangers in the Town Hall at a _peseta_ a head! How could
the Burgalese have the heart to ravish them from his own monastery of
San Pedro de Cardena, where he slept with Ximena and Bavieca, like the
tough old Berseker that he was?
Of all the cities of Northern Spain, Búrgos is probably the best known
to the average tourist; but though the English language (for which one
acquires a very keen ear after a month's abstinence) may be occasionally
heard in the environs of the cathedral, yet the quaint old _calles_ and
palaces are still much less visited than they deserve. Many of the
latter are particularly fine examples of their class, especially the
stern old _Casa del Cordon_, which takes its name from the great cord of
St Francis, sculptured over the portal,--a common embellishment in the
palaces of that date; and the more graceful _Casa Miranda_, built (as we
may surmise) by some relative of the "prudent" Don Diego, Don Quixote's
hospitable host. This last is a lovely old building of Italian delicacy
of ornament, but, now, alas! sadly mutilated and partitioned off into
squalid tenements, not entirely innocent of fleas.
"It is never hot at Búrgos," we had been told by a friendly mentor: and
I can testify that it is often cold there, for the place stands high,
and the mountains of la Demanda rear their snowy crests at no great
distance away. Yet the local saying, "Nine months of Winter, and three
of H--l"[57] is distinctly a more impartial summary, and this month was
apparently one of the three. The narrow streets blazed white and
scintillating under the flood of sunshine. The wayfarer edged his way
gingerly along the shady margin, and picked out the narrowest point
before he would venture to cross. Then, after a timid pause, he would
draw a deep breath and make a bolt for it. The sun caught him in transit
like the blast from the mouth of a furnace; and he scuttled gasping into
shelter, and cooled off on the further side. The Spanish shade
temperature may perhaps be matched on a hot day in England, but it needs
the _Piazza_ at Venice to rival the fury of the sun.
[Illustration: BÚRGOS
Patio of the Casa de Miranda.]
There are, indeed, some few Salamanders who do not appear to mind it. A
party of tonsured Franciscans were unconcernedly challenging it to do
its worst. But most of the saner inhabitants wisely keep indoors till
the evening; and whoso wishes to see Búrgos Society taking its airing,
let him seat himself after dusk in front of the Café Suizo upon the
Espolon. Then all the beauty and fashion turn out to promenade upon a
regulation hundred yards of pavement, under the eyes of their fathers
and brothers, who sit sipping their coffee and _anis_ beneath the trees.
A very handsome company they are; but, alas! their hats and frocks are
mostly Parisian creations. That most graceful of all head-dresses, the
_mantilla_, is reserved for state occasions, such as High Masses and
Bull-fights. "Nothing is sacred to a sapper,"--nor to a milliner, unless
it is new.
There is a cathedral at Búrgos; and we feel ourselves justified in
mentioning it, because we heard it frankly admitted that it was "a vurry
fine church _for such a small town_." Our Amurrican Ruskin seemed to
think it hardly class enough for Chicago; but in contests of this
description the battle is not to the millionaire. The builder of the
Escorial, for all his great possessions, knew that it was not for his
craftsmen to rival the Cartuja tombs.[58]
Indeed, there is something overwhelming about the magnificence of
Búrgos. It is rather German in character, as Leon is rather French. Yet
though Juan de Colónia was a Rhinelander and Archbishop Maurice an
Englishman, there is too much pure Spanish at Búrgos to assign all the
credit to them. The building ranks as one of the wonders of Europe:--a
cathedral perhaps as large as Canterbury, but finished throughout with
the delicate extravagance of the _bijou_ chapel of Roslin;--which, of
course, is really Spanish also, if Scotchmen will excuse my saying so.
And, moreover, the splendour of the furniture is fully in keeping with
the fabric: particularly the gorgeous metal _rejas_,--for what other
craftsmen in Europe could vie with the Spanish smiths? Riches which
might deck out a whole church among us lovers of bare walls are here
found packed within the compass of a single chapel; and little gems of
carving and inlay are thrust aside like lumber into corners where they
can be scarcely seen. The whole is a dream of magnificence unsurpassable
even in Italy: yet it is the gorgeous gloom of Toledo which still
springs first to the memory when we contrast our own chaste chilly
churches with the opulence of the shrines of Spain.
The cathedral stands upon steeply sloping ground well above the level of
the Arlanzon. A long broad flight of steps leads up from the street to
the south transeptal entrance; and from the pavement of the northern
transept the noble staircase of Diego de Silöe climbs up to another
street level upon the further side. Beyond it and above are piled the
quaint red-roofed houses, clambering tier upon tier up the flanks of the
escarpment; yet for all their aspirations the bare steep mound draws
clear of them, and "Dubreton's thundering citadel" frowns alone upon the
crest.
This castle has rather an unsatisfactory interest for Englishmen, for it
was the obstacle which checked the advance of Wellington in his great
campaign of 1812. It stands at the tip of a long tongue of high ground
which runs up to the river almost at right angles; and this extreme end
is separated from the rest of the ridge by a deep depression, so that it
forms a sort of semi-detached hillock, shaped like a gigantic mole-hill
some three hundred and fifty feet high. The castle is included within
the circuit of the city walls; and the cathedral is so close beneath it
that it is wonderful that it escaped destruction during the bombardment.
Yet even the stained glass which once adorned the clerestory was only
destroyed by the explosion which occurred the following year. The castle
was once the royal residence of Castile: but nothing now remains of it
except a few lines of grass-grown earthworks, which are utilised as
rope-walks by the peaceful Burgalese. The modern fortress is on the hill
of San Miguel, on the other side of the depression.
In Wellington's day San Miguel was merely an outwork. Its capture was a
preliminary operation, and it was stormed early in the siege. With
modern artillery such a _coup_ would have been decisive. The citadel
itself would have been blown over the pinnacles of the cathedral without
more ado. But in those times the old line-of-battle ships fought their
thirty-two pounders muzzle to muzzle, and "three or four feet between
the mouths of your pistols" was considered "as good as a mile."
Wellington was, moreover, miserably provided with artillery, and the
guns of the castle were far superior to his own. His troops were
endeavouring to "tear down the ramparts with their naked hands"; and the
conspicuous pillar which overlooks three counties from the lonely
heights of Malvern, records the fate of the young heir of Eastnor who
was killed while directing the approaches. A month's siege and five
desperate assaults left the castle still unwon when the French
armies had gathered to relieve it: and the besiegers with muffled wheels
stole away over the bridges in the night-time. The campaign which began
so gloriously at Salamanca[59] had ended in another retreat.
[Illustration: BÚRGOS
From the East.]
Yet the labour and carnage were not wasted. Joseph had neither time nor
money to spend upon repairing the battered fortress, and next year the
tide of war rolled back like the surge of the sea. Wellington, riding at
the head of his troops across the hills from the westward, was saluted
by the thunder of a terrific explosion which darkened the heavens above
him and shook the ground beneath his feet. Then first, with stern
elation, he recognised the presage of Vitória. His foes had despaired of
resisting him. The castle of Búrgos was no more.