Fernando el Santo
After the death of Alfonso el Valiente, which followed close upon that
of the Cid, our Old Court Life brings us to the reign of Fernando el
Santo, third of that name--1217--brother of that well-beloved Eleanor,
Queen of Edward the First, destined to conquer Seville after five
hundred years of Moslem rule, the first Christian king who inhabited the
Alcazar.
With Fernando the shadow of a great king rises before us. He wears a
high pointed crown surrounded by a glory, his face is set and stern,
with the prominent far-seeing eyes of a prophet, his features aquiline
and pure; his hair fair and curly, thrown back as if in an ecstasy, and
a full beard covers his closely shut mouth and finely modelled chin. It
is an essentially modern countenance for the time in which he lived,
full of life and expression, only the stiff ruff round the long neck is
old Castilian, and the heavy armour in which the tall, stalwart body is
encased very different from the elegance in wrought steel and gold which
was manufactured by the Moors.
Around him hang the ample folds of a royal mantle, a deep ermine collar
descending to his waist. In one hand he carries a drawn sword, in the
other the globe of empire and the keys of Seville.
Thus he is to be seen in a statue in the Cathedral of Seville, and in a
curious painting by Murillo in the Library, the reproduction of some
earlier likeness.
When not bearing arms against the Moors he occupied himself in burning
them, for in religious zeal he was the precursor of Torquemada, the
parent of the Inquisition. Indeed the malicious chroniclers insist that
he was “_sainted_” for carrying fagots to the stake with his own hands.
Not an attractive monarch, though cousin to St. Louis of France, whom he
somewhat resembles in person, and his emulator in crusades against the
heathen. With this difference: no crime was ever imputed to the French
king, who died tending plague-stricken Africans, while the record of
much cruelty attaches to the memory of Fernando.
Not to be too severe on him, however, it must be remembered that from
his time the Castilian Spaniards assumed the grave and dignified
demeanour that characterises them to this day, and marks them as a race
at once loyal, valiant and sincere.
Fernando first conquered Cordoba, occupied the palace of the great
Abdurraman, and actually endeavoured to turn the inimitable mosque into
a church. Happily the Moorish architecture was too much for him; a
_mezquita_ it is, and _mezquita_ it will remain, as long as horseshoe
arch and pillar hold together.
Cordoba conquered, Fernando turned his victorious arms against the
capital of Andalusia, for call it as you please, Boetica or Italica,
Seville was and ever will be the chief city of the south--still
encircled by portions of the Roman walls, untouched since the days of
Cæsar and Pompey.
There were seven suburbs and as many gates, and 166 castellated towers.
Azataff was the Moorish caliph who held it, as brave a knight and
chivalric a prince as ever drew blade.
At the mouth of the Guadalquivir, by the white shores of Cadiz, he held
his fleet, and his vassals and troops were with him in the Alcazar. From
the Patio de las Banderas floated his flag, a black crescent and a star
on a yellow ground, and his turbaned body-guard thronged the walls.
Fernando fixed his camp on the low hills over Sancti Ponce. In such a
world of flats as surround Seville any height is valuable, and he seized
it. As the eye ranges afar, these olive-planted hills appear paltry and
monotonous, but they command the city. At their base winds the
Guadalquivir in many a graceful bend, otherwise the land is unprotected
to the sea.
Not only did Fernando fix his camp scientifically, but he was expert
enough to understand that to succeed he must block the river. A fleet
of Castilian boats intercepted the Moorish vessels at the mouth of the
Guadalquivir at Cadiz, and stopped all supplies.
Such were the dispositions of the Castilian king; and as the siege drew
on, and the Christian host gazed down upon the walls, great
encouragement came to them from the visible interposition of the Virgin
in many notable visions and miracles.
* * * * *
One day as Don Fernando stands at the entrance of the royal tent,
casting those prominent eyes of his across the plains, and counting by
the number of outposts in how many days he may hope to plant the flag of
Castile upon the Giralda tower, rising so tall and graceful before him,
he beholds a Christian knight with a companion and an esquire riding by
the bank of the river below, carelessly as a man who takes the air on a
fine summer’s day, and loiters on the way the better to enjoy it.
Lightly the knight carries his lance in rest upon his thigh. His vizor
is raised over a bright young face. At his side hangs his sword, held by
a golden chain; on his arm flutters a scarf striped red and blue, and
the same colours shine radiant in the sunshine on the plume which nods
from his helmet.
“Now, who is this young fool,” cries Fernando in a rage, “who dares ride
forth into the enemy’s camp as if he were the herald of a tournament?
Does he think that I allow my knights thus to sacrifice their lives? or
that he has a right to risk it?” Then, as he watches his progress,
always farther and farther into the outworks of the Moor, “Who is he?”
he cries again. “Will no one tell me his name? Methinks it were well for
him he had shriven himself before he started, or his soul will be the
worse for it very briefly.”
Before the king could be answered, a loud voice shouted at his ear:
“Ride, ride for your life, Garcia Perez of Varga. I see the gleam of
Moorish lances near at hand. Ride on, or you are lost.”
The voice that shouted was that of the Conde Lorenzo, the king’s Jefe,
who, coming up behind the king at that moment, and having longer sight
than his, recognised Don Garcia’s cognisance, a red cross and a green
tree, and called out to warn him of his danger.
“Sire,” says he, in a lower tone, bowing before Fernando, “pardon me, I
see seven Moors on horseback. They are in ambuscade in that wood yonder.
They have sighted Don Garcia, and are waiting to break out upon him as
he passes. Therefore I warned him.”
“Don Garcia Perez is it?” quoth the king, his eyes following those of
Count Lorenzo upon the plain. “I could lose no better man. For die he
will, as surely as Christ suffered on the cross. Blow for blow he will
give them, but seven to one is too great odds.”
As to Don Garcia, he is too far off to hear any voice, let them shout
ever so loudly. On he rides tranquilly, as a lover to his mistress; but
as
[Illustration: Photo Levy et Fils.
A VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL AT BURGOS.]
if some instinct suddenly struck him, at the same moment that the Conde
Lorenzo calls out to him from the hill, he lowers the vizor of his
helmet, crested by the wing of a black eagle, grasps the hilt of his
lance firmly in his hand, and turning back to his companion, by no means
so well armed as himself, and secretly recommending himself to every
saint in the calendar, “The Moors are sure to be on us,” he says, “it
were well to make ready for them. Buckle your girths tightly and take
care they do not shake you from the saddle.”
Instead of answering, Don Juan Attiz (for that was his name) set spurs
to his horse, riding furiously towards the back camp, leaving Don Garcia
alone with his esquire.
“Ha! ha! is it so?” laughs he, watching his companion as his horse’s
hoofs tear up the turf. “Better to be alone with me, Baldo” (to his
esquire), “than to have such a coward at my heels. Hey! for Castile and
Leon!”
Now softly, one by one, the Moors come creeping out from their ambush in
the wood (there is no mistaking them now, the sun shone upon their round
steel caps and their smooth shields), one by one, like Agag,
“delicately,” until seven Moslem knights place themselves across the
path by which Don Garcia rides, the last one carrying a flag bearing the
mystic symbol of an open hand, the same as is still to be seen carved
over the principal gateway of the Alhambra.
“By Santiago!” cries King Fernando, anxiously watching from the hill.
“Observe Don Garcia. The seven Moors are ranging themselves on the
grass. Yet, to look at them, one would say it is they who are afraid,
not he, he rides on so boldly.”
“And so it is, sire,” answers the chamberlain, his eye fixed on the
plain; “I warrant their hearts beat louder than his. The Moors stand
back in line, while Garcia advances. See, now he pauses, as though he
did not see them--pauses and speaks to his esquire. My lord, you will
soon sing a _Te Deum_ in the Seville mosque, if all your army be as
brave as Don Garcia.”
“Did ever man behold the like?” replies King Fernando, shading his eyes
the better to observe him. “Now Garcia is taking off his casque. He is
wiping his head. He is calling his esquire up beside him. God be thanked
we have such Christian knights! May the Blessed Virgin guard him, and
bring him safe back.”
* * * * *
“Come hither,” Don Garcia is saying to his esquire, taking no more
notice of the seven Moors than if they were seven statues; while they,
in their turn, mark with dismay the red cross and the green tree
emblazoned on his shield. Too well they know that device, and when they
see whom they have waylaid they wish themselves elsewhere.
“Come hither, the sun is hot upon my head. Take my casque from me and
hold it for awhile; there is no need why I should heat myself with such
a weight.”
As he speaks, he lifts his arm to remove his casque, and behold, his
striped scarf has vanished. “Alas! how have I lost it?” he cries in much
distress. “I must have dropped it but a moment ago. Now, I would rather
fight ten battles than lose that scarf. My liege lady worked it for me
and bound it on my arm long ago, and there I have worn it ever since.
Find it I will, or I will die for it.”
As he speaks Don Garcia turns himself round in his saddle unhelmeted as
he is, his hair flying in the breeze, and gazes eagerly upon the path by
which he has come, a track upon the greensward.
Then for the first time he raises his eyes upon the Moors, seven knights
ranged in a line, wearing green turbans on their helmets and carrying
lances in their hands; and there, suspended upon the point of a spear,
is his scarf striped white and red--a Moslem has picked it up and looped
it there.
“Now, by my faith!” says Garcia, considering them with a frown, “these
are uncourteous enemies. Folks say the unbelievers exceed us in that
quality, but it is not so. They have come out to steal, these Moslem
dogs. They shall pay for it. No Moor that ever lived shall ride back
into Seville and call that scarf his own! Come on, ye thieves and
robbers! give me my lady’s token!”
As he speaks, Don Garcia falls upon them and hacks and hews them with
such deadly blows right and left, that ere much time is passed such as
are not dead are scouring the plain to Seville.
Fernando, watching anxiously from the hill, still sees Don Garcia on the
plain. Again he is alone, now he is fastening the scarf, which his
esquire has unloosed from the Moorish spear, securely upon his arm.
Then, humming a roundelay, he girds his sword, streaming with blood,
upon his thigh, and turning his horse’s head towards the Christian camp,
rides gaily up the hill, four green-turbaned heads dangling from his
saddle-bow.
Meanwhile the jefe is telling the king a pleasant tale of Don Garcia’s
brother, Don Diego de Varga, who, having snapped his sword in the heat
of an engagement outside Xerez, tore up by the roots a wild olive-tree,
and laid about him with such fury among the Moors, that to this day he
is known by the name of _El Machuca_ (the Pounder).
* * * * *
For sixteen months the Caliph Azataff gallantly defended the walls of
Seville, but before an army of such chivalric knights and a king
prepared for canonisation, what city could hope to stand?
On the 23d November (_el dia de San Clemente_) the strong fortress of
the Alcazar is stormed and Azataff capitulates. Then, amid an inaudible
blare of trumpets and fifes, ringing of bells and beating of drums, King
Fernando, in a suit of fine steel armour, a royal crown of wrought gold
encircling his casque, and mounted on a graceful Andalusian charger
caparisoned with silver housings, enters the gate nearest to the river
on the north, from henceforth to be known as “La Puerta del Trionfo.”
By his side rides Don Garcia de Varga and his brother Don Diego (whom it
is said the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha chose as his model for
tearing up the wild oak-tree, and which act of valour he proposed to
perform equally), the Conde Lorenzo, the Lord of Haro, Pelayo Correa,
the Master of Santiago, and many other champions of the times.
Over Fernando’s head waves the banner of Castile, the Golden Castle, and
the Lion of Leon, his hand resting upon the hilt of that same iron
sword, still to be seen in the sacristy at Seville, and fixed on his
saddle-bow is a small ivory statue of the Virgen de los Reyes, which
accompanies him everywhere.
The procession is superb. First, men-at-arms bearing the escutcheons of
the twin kingdoms he rules and the black standards and flags captured
from the Moors, a long string of swarthy prisoners following
bare-headed--the greatest humiliation an Arab can endure; other banners
floating in the sun, heralds in golden tabards proclaiming with a loud
voice the feats of arms accomplished during the siege; bowmen,
_pursuivants_, knights and esquires in squadrons behind, with gleaming
spears and glistening targets, mounted on proudly prancing war-horses, a
sheet of mail.
As Fernando passes the drawbridge, marked now by a sensible depression
in the road (for the Puerta del Trionfo disappeared in the last
revolution, and the fosse is filled up), a cup of rock-crystal is
presented to him under an Arab arch by the Christian citizens, filled to
the brim with golden Xerez wine. This he quaffs to the health of his
victorious army, turning himself around in his saddle-bow so that all
may see.
“Castile! Castile! Leon to the rescue! Viva el Rey Fernando! Viva el
Cristo Deo!” come ringing through the air from every Christian throat of
mailed warriors and tried men-at-arms. Their arms and hands are weary
from the toil, but their hearts make merry at the pageant and the booty
in store for all.
Then two men, a Jew and a Moor, advance from the crowd, one an aged
Rabbi, with a long white beard, habited in a Hebrew gabardine reaching
to the ground, the other a young Arab of stately presence, fully
equipped for battle, the nephew of Caliph Azataff, but without casque or
scimitar--both bearing offerings to the King. The Jewish gift is an iron
key, bearing on the wards the words in Hebrew: “The King of kings shall
open; the King of all the earth shall enter.” The Moor also bears a key,
but it is of silver, inscribed in Arabic characters with the motto: “May
Allah render the dominion of Islam eternal;” and as the young knight
offers it to Fernando, kneeling in the dust beside his stirrup, he
raises his other hand to put back the bitter tears that blind his eyes.
* * * * *
At the moment King Fernando entered Seville, the caliph fled by the
side where is now the _Hospital del Sangre_, near to the Convent of San
Jeronima in the fields, on the spot where the lepers had their ancient
refuge.
Whither the caliph went no one knew, or if he died by his own hand or
that of another, Fernando little heeding his fate as he passed into the
city to take possession of the castle of the Alcazar.
And there he lived till he died, and was buried in the Capilla Real of
the great mosque he turned into a cathedral.
Over the altar, placed on a silver throne embossed with the double knout
of Castile and Leon, sits the little ivory image of the Virgen de los
Reyes, given him by St. Louis--the same mediæval figure, with a
glistening gown, hair spun in gold, and shoes worked with Gallic lillies
and the word Amor, he always carried on his saddle-bow in battle.
The Capilla Real is a church within a church, entered by golden gates
behind the altar, where, under a richly incrusted dome, in a
shell-shaped vault, lies Saint Fernando in a crystal coffin. The body is
wonderfully preserved. On his head is the pointed crown he wore in life,
and his royal mantle is wrapped about his loins. On one side lies the
sword with which he fought his way into Toledo and Seville, on the other
the baton of command. Beside him rest his son, Alonso the Wise, and his
Queen Beatrice, and on a wall near at hand are the medallions of the
chivalric brothers Don Garcia and Don Diego de Varga.
* * * * *
The hour to enter the cathedral is at the _Ave Maria_, when the sun is
low and its rays tremble on the burnished walls in irises of gold, and
the great painted windows stand out in a pale light, alive with
venerable forms of law-givers, prophets, and kings; the delicate curves
of the arches melt into dim lines, and rays of yellow light pierce like
arrows across the floor.
Then the sculptured saints seem to take form and live, the flying pipes
of the twin organs to glitter like angels’ wings, the statues in the
choir to murmur in strange tongues, the many famous pictures which line
the walls to grow terrible in the half-light, with dark forms of
archbishops and priests, monks and canons long laid to rest in the
repose of painted shrines, beside which deacons keep watch with silver
croziers; and from the boundless gloom a burst of sound rolls forth like
the thunder of an earthquake from the deep-mouthed pipes of the two
organs, replying to each other as in a voice of Titans--the rattle of
conquering drums, the shrill bray of trumpets, the crying voice of
pipes, and all the clash and clamour as of a battle-field.
On the anniversary of St. Fernando’s death the troops still march in to
hear the military mass and to lower the standard of Spain before his
body, each soldier bearing a lighted torch. Once it was a company of a
hundred Moors, bareheaded, who carried the torches to the royal bier,
sent in token of submission by the Caliph of Granada. Could any
conqueror wish for more?