Expedition of the Prince Alonzo against the Moors.—Encamps on the
Banks of the Guadalete.—Aben Hud marches out from Xerez and gives
Battle.—Prowess of Garcia Perez de Vargas.—Flight and Pursuit of the
Moors.—Miracle of the Blessed Santiago.
King Fernando III. having, through the sage counsel and judicious
management of his mother, made this amicable arrangement with his
step-sisters, by which he gained possession of their inheritance,
now found his territories to extend from the Bay of Biscay to the
vicinity of the Guadalquivir, and from the borders of Portugal to
those of Aragon and Valencia; and in addition to his titles of King
of Castile and Leon, called himself King of Spain by seigniorial
right. Being at peace with all his Christian neighbors, he now
prepared to carry on with more zeal and vigor than ever his holy wars
against the infidels. While making a progress, however, through his
dominions, administering justice, he sent his brother, the Prince
Alonzo, to make an expedition into the country of the Moors, and to
attack the newly-risen power of Aben Hud.
As the Prince Alonzo was young and of little experience, the king
sent Don Alvar Perez de Castro, the Castilian, with him as captain,
he being stout of heart, strong of hand, and skilled in war. The
prince and his captain went from Salamanca to Toledo, where they
recruited their force with a troop of cavalry. Thence they proceeded
to Andujar, where they sent out corredores, or light foraging troops,
who laid waste the country, plundering and destroying and bringing
off great booty. Thence they directed their ravaging course toward
Cordova, assaulted and carried Palma, and put all its inhabitants to
the sword. Following the fertile valley of the Guadalquivir, they
scoured the vicinity of Seville, and continued onward for Xerez,
sweeping off cattle and sheep from the pastures of Andalusia; driving
on long cavalgadas of horses and mules laden with spoil; until the
earth shook with the tramping of their feet, and their course was
marked by clouds of dust and the smoke of burning villages.
In this desolating foray they were joined by two hundred horse and
three hundred foot, Moorish allies, or rather vassals, being led by
the son of Aben Mohamed, the king of Baeza.
Arrived within sight of Xerez, they pitched their tents on the banks
of the Guadalete—that fatal river, sadly renowned in the annals of
Spain for the overthrow of Roderick and the perdition of the kingdom.
Here a good watch was set over the captured flocks and herds which
covered the adjacent meadows, while the soldiers, fatigued with
ravage, gave themselves up to repose on the banks of the river, or
indulged in feasting and revelry, or gambled with each other for
their booty.
In the mean time Aben Hud, hearing of this inroad, summoned all his
chivalry of the seaboard of Andalusia to meet him in Xerez. They
hastened to obey his call; every leader spurred for Xerez with his
band of vassals. Thither came also the king of the Azules, with seven
hundred horsemen, Moors of Africa, light, vigorous and active; and
the city was full of troops.
The camp of Don Alonzo had a formidable appearance at a distance,
from the flocks and herds which surrounded it, the vast number of
sumpter mules, and the numerous captives; but when Aben Hud came to
reconnoitre it, he found that its aggregate force did not exceed
three thousand five hundred men—a mere handful in comparison to his
army, and those encumbered with cattle and booty. He anticipated,
therefore, an easy victory. He now sallied forth from the city, and
took his position in the olive-fields between the Christians and the
city; while the African horsemen were stationed on each wing, with
instructions to hem in the Christians on either side, for he was only
apprehensive of their escaping. It is even said that he ordered great
quantities of cords to be brought from the city, and osier bands to
be made by the soldiery, wherewith to bind the multitude of prisoners
about to fall into their hands. His whole force he divided into seven
battalions, each containing from fifteen hundred to two thousand
cavalry. With these he prepared to give battle.
When the Christians thus saw an overwhelming force in front, cavalry
hovering on either flank, and the deep waters of the Guadalete behind
them, they felt the perils of their situation.
In this emergency Alvar Perez de Castro showed himself the able
captain that he had been represented. Though apparently deferring
to the prince in council, he virtually took the command, riding
among the troops lightly armed, with truncheon in hand, encouraging
every one by word and look and fearless demeanor. To give the most
formidable appearance to their little host, he ordered that as many
as possible of the foot-soldiers should mount upon the mules and
beasts of burden, and form a troop to be kept in reserve. Before
the battle he conferred the honor of knighthood on Garcia Perez de
Vargas, a cavalier destined to gain renown for hardy deeds of arms.
When the troops were all ready for the field, the prince exhorted
them as good Christians to confess their sins and obtain absolution.
There was a goodly number of priests and friars with the army, as
there generally was with all the plundering expeditions of this
holy war, but there were not enough to confess all the army; those,
therefore, who could not have a priest or monk for the purpose,
confessed to each other.
Among the cavaliers were two noted for their valor; but who, though
brothers-in-law, lived in mortal feud. One was Diego Perez, vassal
to Alvar Perez and brother to him who had just been armed knight;
the other was Pero Miguel, both natives of Toledo. Diego Perez was
the one who had given cause of offense. He now approached his
adversary and asked his pardon for that day only; that, in a time
of such mortal peril there might not be enmity and malice in their
hearts. The priests added their exhortations to this request, but
Pero Miguel sternly refused to pardon. When this was told to the
prince and Don Alvar, they likewise entreated Don Miguel to pardon
his brother-in-law. “I will,” replied he, “if he will come to my arms
and embrace me as a brother.” But Diego Perez declined the fraternal
embrace, for he saw danger in the eye of Pero Miguel, and he knew his
savage strength and savage nature, and suspected that he meant to
strangle him. So Pero Miguel went into battle without pardoning his
enemy who had implored forgiveness.
At this time, say the old chroniclers, the shouts and yells of the
Moorish army, the sound of their cymbals, kettle-drums, and other
instruments of warlike music, were so great that heaven and earth
seemed commingled and confounded. In regarding the battle about to
overwhelm him, Alvar Perez saw that the only chance was to form the
whole army into one mass, and by a headlong assault to break the
centre of the enemy. In this emergency he sent word to the prince,
who was in the rear with the reserve and had five hundred captives
in charge, to strike off the heads of the captives and join him with
the whole reserve. This bloody order was obeyed. The prince came
to the front, all formed together in one dense column, and then,
with the war-cry “Santiago! Santiago! Castile! Castile!” charged
upon the centre of the enemy. The Moors’ line was broken by the
shock, squadron after squadron was thrown into confusion, Moors and
Christians were intermingled, until the field became one scene of
desperate, chance-medley fighting. Every Christian cavalier fought as
if the salvation of the field depended upon his single arm. Garcia
Perez de Vargas, who had been knighted just before the battle, proved
himself worthy of the honor. He had three horses killed under him,
and engaged in a desperate combat with the King of the Azules, whom
at length he struck dead from his horse. This king had crossed from
Africa on a devout expedition in the cause of the Prophet Mahomet.
“Verily,” says Antonio Agapida, “he had his reward.”
Diego Perez was not behind his brother in prowess; and Heaven favored
him in that deadly fight, notwithstanding that he had not been
pardoned by his enemy. In the heat of the battle he had broken both
sword and lance; whereupon, tearing off a great knotted limb from an
olive-tree, he laid about him with such vigor and manhood that he who
got one blow in the head from that war-club never needed another. Don
Alvar Perez, who witnessed his feats, was seized with delight. At
each fresh blow that cracked a Moslem skull he would cry out, “Assi!
Assi! Diego, Machacha! Machacha!” (So! So! Diego, smash them! smash
them!) and from that day forward that strong-handed cavalier went by
the name of Diego Machacha, or Diego the Smasher, and it remained
the surname of several of his lineage.
At length the Moors gave way and fled for the gates of Xerez; being
hotly pursued they stumbled over the bodies of the slain, and thus
many were taken prisoners. At the gates the press was so great that
they killed each other in striving to enter; and the Christian sword
made slaughter under the walls.
The Christians gathered spoils of the field, after this victory,
until they were fatigued with collecting them, and the precious
articles found in the Moorish tents were beyond calculation. Their
camp-fires were supplied with the shafts of broken lances, and they
found ample use for the cords and osier bands which the Moors had
provided to bind their expected captives.
It was a theme of much marvel and solemn meditation that of all
the distinguished cavaliers who entered into this battle, not one
was lost, excepting the same Pero Miguel who refused to pardon his
adversary. What became of him no one could tell. The last that was
seen of him he was in the midst of the enemy, cutting down and
overturning, for he was a valiant warrior and of prodigious strength.
When the battle and pursuit were at an end, and the troops were
recalled by sound of trumpet, he did not appear. His tent remained
empty. The field of battle was searched, but he was nowhere to be
found. Some supposed that, in his fierce eagerness to make havoc
among the Moors, he had entered the gates of the city and there been
slain; but his fate remained a mere matter of conjecture, and the
whole was considered an awful warning that no Christian should go
into battle without pardoning those who asked forgiveness.
“On this day,” says the worthy Agapida, “it pleased Heaven to work
one of its miracles in favor of the Christian host; for the blessed
Santiago appeared in the air on a white horse, with a white banner in
one hand and a sword in the other, accompanied by a band of cavaliers
in white. This miracle,” he adds, “was beheld by many men of verity
and worth,” probably the monks and priests who accompanied the army;
“as well as by numbers of the Moors, who declared that the greatest
slaughter was effected by those sainted warriors.”
It may be as well to add that Fray Antonio Agapida is supported in
this marvelous fact by Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, one of the most
learned and pious men of the age, who lived at the time and records
it in his chronicle. It is a matter, therefore, placed beyond the
doubts of the profane.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR.—A memorandum at the foot of this page of the
author’s manuscript, reminds him to “notice death of Queen Beatrix
about this time,” but the text continues silent on the subject.
According to Mariana, she died in the city of Toro in 1235, before
the siege of Cordova. Another authority gives the 5th of November,
1236, as the date of the decease, which would be some months after
the downfall of that renowned city. Her body was interred in the
nunnery of Las Huelgas at Burgos, and many years afterwards removed
to Seville, where reposed the remains of her husband.
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