Taking of Toledo by Don Pedro--Death of Queen Blanche
Within an incredibly short time Don Pedro marched from Seville with a
well-disciplined army and gained possession of Toledo, principally by
the connivance of the Jews, Father Isaac himself with his own hands
opening the postern of the Gate of San Martino. Many of the citizens who
had believed the king to be dead or dying, at the news of his approach
joined themselves with the Jews in a close conspiracy in his favour,
greatly strengthening his cause.
The siege was short and rapid. Don Enrique had only time to escape by
night from the Alcazar in disguise, with his most faithful adherents;
his showy but inefficient army, comprised, as Albuquerque had reminded
him, of so many heterogeneous elements, ill-paid and ill-fed, melted
away before the disciplined troops of his brother, and Blanche, poor
Blanche, was seized in the Alcazar and sent far away from all hope of
succour into Andalusia to the castle of Xeres.
But this is not enough for Don Pedro. After the most solemn promises of
pardon to those citizens of Toledo who had acknowledged his brother, no
sooner had he manned the walls and floated the “Castle and the Lion” at
the four towers of the Alcazar, than every one of his brother’s
adherents was denounced.
In this, Father Isaac did cruel service, gratifying the private
vengeance of his nation under the pretext of treachery to the king. A
terrible massacre followed; head after head was struck off in the
presence of Don Pedro, until the executioners rested from sheer fatigue.
“I am _El Rey Justiciar_,” are his cruel words, “let my enemies feel
there is no mercy for traitors.” One of the accused, an old _caballero_,
who had refused to pay an exorbitant interest to a Jew, a friend of
Father Isaac’s, was a venerable citizen of good repute, who had taken no
part in the insurrection. His son rushed forward and implored the king
to spare him. “Take my life, my lord!” cried he, “not his!” and he flung
himself upon his knees before him in an agony of supplication.
“Not a whit, not a whit!” answered Don Pedro commanding his guards to
drive him back. “If you so love death, share it together,” and the
father and son both fell under the axe.
The barbarous death of Doña Urraca de Osorrio at this time has become
historical. When Don Pedro learned that her husband, Alvarez de Guzman
(the son of Guzman el Bueno, who saved Spain from the Moors at the
siege of Tarifa), had gone over to his brother in the siege of Toledo,
he caused her to be seized and burnt alive in the public square of
Seville before the Ayuntamiento. Her maid, Leonora Davilo, was with her.
As the wind was high at the time, Doña Urraca’s clothes were displaced,
and her body exposed to the jeers of the brutal Sevillianos, when the
faithful Leonora leaped into the flames, and casting herself as a veil
on her mistress was burned with her. Thus they are both represented on
Doña Urraca’s monument in the church of San Isidoro at Santa Ponce, a
short distance from Seville, built by Guzman el Bueno, with little idea
that his own daughter-in-law would be interred there under circumstances
of such horror.
And now the great name of Albuquerque is heard for the last time.
Faithful to the cause of Don Enrique as he had been to that of Don
Pedro, he met his former master, at his particular request, at the
ancient town of Toro, lying in the open expanse of plains between
Salamanca and Zamora, in order to endeavour to negotiate better terms
for his new master.
Of what passed between Don Pedro and his great minister there is no
record, but the sudden death of Albuquerque immediately after the
interview is not without suspicion of foul play.
* * * * *
The southern district of Spain, within the bounds of Andalusia,
extending from Seville to Cadiz, is still a mystery as in days of yore.
Great open alluvial plains, utterly treeless, stretch into boundless
perspectives, the home of the wild bull in its pristine ferocity. The
Guadalquivir flows onwards in a torpid tide among canals and open
trenches down to the sea, a most unpoetic river in all but the name. All
is grey, misty, and desolate, a “no man’s land,” to which even the waves
of the Mediterranean bring no delight, for the shallow beach sends back
the water so far it barely covers the sandy shore.
On these shores the old Continent of Europe seems to die out, to make
place for the youthful splendour of Africa opposite, visible in the line
of the picturesque Atlas range rising across the straits; old Europe
worn out, and melting into the sea before the defiance of its stalwart
rival.
Xeres de la Frontiera is the only town on this low marshy coast. The
Xeres of that day--not famed for wine and commerce as in our time--was a
small fortified place taken from the Moors, enclosed by walls; and
precisely because the Xeres of that day was desolate and lonely, it was
selected for the place of the queen’s imprisonment.
Blanche--oh! so changed! her young face drawn, her delicate cheeks
marked with fine lines, her childlike eyes dim, her slight figure bowed
as if by age, her flaxen curls streaked with grey, although she has
scarcely reached the years of womanhood--is indeed an object of
compassion! All hope gone, knowing that she must die. And so living day
by day as the months roll on and she measures the dull routine of
sunrise and sunset across those cruel plains, which cut her off from all
humanity.
One image haunts her, the gallant young Infante who dared to love her.
And from him her thoughts wander to his brother, El Caballero, who was
about to send her to Navarre with an escort when he was surprised at
Toledo, and is now almost as helpless as herself; in her enfeebled brain
the lineaments of the two brothers become mingled, and the gentle
Fadique seems to live again in the gracious Enrique, whom all men love.
What matter? She is doomed. Incapable of hate or love; no passion is
left within her. Even the craving for liberty is gone. She feels she
could not use it, were it hers; and thus she sits, day after day, on the
summit of a castellated tower, under a low wall, hand in hand with
Claire.
That she has loved or been loved seems so impossible, a feeble smile
rises on her lips as she thinks of it. That she has been born to pomp
and greatness is equally incredible in her abject condition. To hold a
flower in her hand, to scent the perfume of herbs borne by the breeze,
to watch the flight of sea-gulls which skim across the plain, to note
the accidents of the seasons, golden autumn breaking into grey winter,
then passing to the glad garments of the spring, on the shadowy outlines
of the mountains of La Mancha, is to her mind as a never-ending wonder
that the world should thus go on. It is _she_ alone who is dead, while
all nature lives triumphant!
The entrance of the old crone who performs such menial offices as she
requires is a boon as something human, yet even she scowls at her with
envy because she is a queen.
“What devil’s deed have you in your mind?” she mutters, as she sweeps
the floor, casting malignant glances at Blanche, seated beside Claire.
“Are you expecting a saviour, mistress? Ha! ha! None will come to Xeres.
You do not answer? You can weep, therefore you can speak.”
“We are French,” answers Claire, speaking for Blanche. “We mean you no
offence by our silence. But, for the sake of mercy, tell us, good
mother, is there really no means of escape from this prison?”
“None,” answers the woman, pursing up her thin lips as if it gave her a
certain satisfaction. “Think not of it. From hence you go to the gates
of death. I can tell you that. Misfortune is the road to a better world.
It comforts me to think you are as wretched as I am myself. Fare you
well, ladies, till to-morrow. There is not a chamber in the castle nor a
step on the stairs that is not slippery with human blood. They die,
every soul of them, who come here.”
As she speaks she turns her back to go, when Blanche rushes after her.
Roused from her torpor by these horrible words, she seizes the old hag
by the shoulders and looks wildly into her eyes.
“Richly, richly would my father requite you, did you save me.”
“Your father?” retorts the woman. “Where is he? Meanwhile they would
wring my old neck, and you be no better. No! no!”
“Stay! stay!” cries Blanche, keeping hold on her. “It consoles me to
hear another voice and not always to listen to the owls hooting outside,
or the ticking of the death-watch in the walls.”
“Let go,” answers the old woman, extricating herself rudely from her
weak grasp, “or you shall serve yourselves, mistresses. I cannot help
you. When I was young I could not protect myself. Here, not the Holy
Virgin herself can save you.” As she speaks she bars the door and
disappears, a sneering smile upon her face, furrowed with wrinkles.
Except this woman, no one but the governor enters. He is a stern, morose
Castilian, eliminating all expression from his face as he looks at
Blanche, yet with a certain kindliness of expression and gesture he
cannot altogether disguise, which pains her, for she would gladly think
that the world is as dead and buried as she is herself. Not even Claire
can comfort her now--Claire, her whole soul in her eyes, watching her
every movement, while her own thoughts turn to the fate of the lover
who, at her command, risked his life to liberate the queen.
One evening, sitting together at sunset on the tower, the sound of
horses’ feet galloping rapidly on the grass rouses them. A white terror
is in Blanche’s eyes as she fixes them on Claire, who, leaning over, can
perceive a little company of men-at-arms rapidly approaching, bearing a
flag with the king’s badge.
_No word is said_, but when the governor enters, as is his custom, to
serve their evening meal, Claire, standing behind her chair, observes
his eyes, at moments when he thinks Blanche’s attention is distracted,
fixed on Blanche with a glance full of pity.
_No word is said_, but below, in the courtyard, comes the sound of a
loud harsh voice; the step of sentinels louder and quicker, and around
an unwonted stir.
Blanche, sitting listless, pays no heed, but Claire goes and comes in
the narrow tower, peering through the small arched slits which serve for
light, listening to every sound. Then all dies away as night closes.
“For to-night we are safe,” is her thought; but suddenly in the
darkness, to her sharp ears comes that same harsh voice with which she
seems familiar. She has heard it at Valladolid. Can it be the king? One
purpose only could bring him here, the death of Blanche. Ah! how can she
save her? If to give her life, how gladly she would be the sacrifice! A
thousand wild schemes whirl in her brain; but she says nothing, and
Blanche,
[Illustration: THE AQUEDUCT NEAR GRANADA.]
save that she has turned deadly pale, has not spoken.
But when the moonlight comes, and Claire is unbinding the long tresses
of her hair and combing out those childish curls, now half grey, which
lent so sweet an expression to her innocent young face when she came to
Valladolid, a knock is heard at the door, and lo! a priest enters.
Now as, from time to time, Blanche has been allowed to confess, this
does not startle Claire as much as it might seem; but when the priest
says, entering the vaulted chamber and addressing Blanche, “My daughter,
have you prayed?” she knows that her hour has come.
A piercing scream escapes from Claire as she falls on her knees beside
her mistress, but Blanche rises up with the aspect of a queen.
“My father,” she answers, “I pray always, for I have died out of the
world.”
“It is well, my daughter,” and the priest raises his hand over her in
benediction as she kneels before him; but there is a tremor in his voice
he cannot suppress, and old as he is and practised in the ways of death,
tears stand in his eyes as he looks at her young face.
A solemn silence follows neither cares to break.
It is the priest, who speaks first in a voice which trembles spite of
himself.
“It is not without reason, my daughter, that we are enjoined to pray. We
know not when God may see fit to call our souls to him.”
“I understand,” answers Blanche in a voice so low it can only be heard
by reason of the great silence, “you mean I am to die.”
“My daughter,” and now, unable to command his grief, sobs shake his
words, and poor Claire, clinging wildly to her mistress, as if by her
loving arms she could keep her in life, utters the most piercing cries.
“My sister,” and Blanche turns to her, “for such you are in love,
disturb not my last hour with your grief, but rather rejoice with me
that I am leaving a world in which I have suffered so much. I wonder I
have been allowed to live so long. But, my father,” addressing the
priest, “listen to me before I die: I am innocent of the crime imputed
to me. I was condemned unheard. But there is a tribunal above, before
the living God, to absolve me. There I summon my husband, the King of
Castile, to appear. We shall meet shortly. By the sword he has lived;
and by the sword he shall die. It has been revealed to me.”
“My daughter,” replies the priest, taking her hand in his, “such
invocations are wicked. Leave vengeance to God.”
Blanche bows her head in obedience. But the prophecy is uttered, and the
dark spirits which keep watch over human life have heard and noted it.
Then calling for paper, which Claire, gathering herself up from the
floor, gave her with trembling hands, hanging over her the while as if
each breath she drew was precious beyond life, Blanche wrote some words
addressed to Don Pedro, and bound the paper with a black ribbon from her
neck.
“I pray you, my father, to hold what is here written as sacred. Deliver
it in person to the king. Tell him you saw me die.”
So calm is Blanche and her voice so clear, as she fixes her large eyes
steadfastly on the priest, as if looking beyond him into another world,
that neither he nor Claire dare trouble her with words.
Then she confesses, kneeling on the stones, and at the conclusion,
taking the priest’s hand in hers, she meekly kisses it, and begs to be
interred at Xeres.
“For else,” she says, “they may dispute the possession of my body in
death as they have done in life, and the king’s mistress, Maria de
Padilla, might do some dishonour to it, which is not meet, seeing that I
am of royal blood, and the rightful Queen of Castile.”
And even in the agony of her grief Claire wondered to hear Blanche speak
with such dignity and judgment, for, up to that time since they had left
Toledo, her senses had seemed dulled, and she had said nothing of all
that was in her mind.
Anon the low door creaks on its hinges and a figure appears, completely
shrouded in black. The head is covered by a cowl with slits for eyes; in
one hand is a torch, which throws a glare in the chamber like blood;
the other lies concealed in the mantle.
At this horrible sight Blanche loses all her composure. She shrieks
aloud, and burying herself in the arms of Claire clings closely to the
stone walls.
But the priest exhorting her with holy words, she speedily regains her
courage, and turning to the executioner speaks with a gentle voice.
“Friend, I pardon you. You must obey the king, who sends you, as I do in
dying here.” And rising to her feet, a kind of glory gathers on her
face; all her young beauty comes back to her again, such as she was
when, as a happy girl, she left Narbonne a bride.
“I am but eighteen years old, and I am about to die, a virgin, as I have
lived. The crown which was put on my head was one of sorrow; I hope to
find a better in another world. My father,” turning to the priest, who
is bowed down with grief, “if it be possible, commend me to my sister,
the Queen of France, and to my father, and tell them I have not
disgraced them by any act.”
And with these words upon her lips, she kneels down, the executioner
seizes her, and passes the fatal bowstring round her throat.
* * * * *
According to a legend of the time, Blanche of Bourbon was interred in
the old cathedral at Xeres, but as an entirely new building was erected
in 1695, no record of her burying-place remains.