The End of the Moors
At the end of the Alameda, outside Granada, there is a bridge over the
Xenil, opening from a broad and lofty avenue of elms. How gay it is! The
murmur of the green-tinged river! The soft, warm wind among the trees,
the borders of old-fashioned flowers! How majestic the infinite
whiteness of the range of the Sierra Nevada backing all, a smooth, pure
world lost in a firmament of blue!
Beyond is a road along which carts and coaches roll, a dirty, muddy
country road, leading to Motril, and from that to the sea, passing
through barriers of mountains.
A mile or so on, a little chapel, dedicated to San Sebastian, lies to
the right, close on the road. You might pass it a thousand times without
notice, it is so dark and small. Yet, homely as it looks, there is no
place in all the range of history more sacred than this spot.
It is the 2d of January, 1492, when Boabdil el Chico, King of Granada,
mounted on a powerful war-horse, rides slowly forth from the Alhambra
by the gate of the Siete Suelos. We know his face, from a portrait in
the palace of the Generalife--a sad-expressioned visage, as of one born
to ill-luck, swarthy-complexioned, with coal-black hair under his
turban; and we know too, that at his special request, the gate of the
Siete Suelos has been walled up from that day, and so remains,
encumbered by huge masses of masonry, over which time has cast a
softening hand in trails of vine leaves and low shrubbery.
Slowly he descends the hill by a winding path still existing, cleaving
the steep ravine, very stony now, and difficult to traverse, and passing
by high walls (to be called henceforth the _Cuesta de los Matires_),
crosses the bridge over the Xenil, gallops down the road, and draws rein
before the chapel of San Sebastian, then a mosque.
His very dress is recorded. A dark mantle over an Eastern tunic of
embroidered silk, a regal crown attached to his turban, and in his hand
two keys. (Thus he is represented on a stone carving in the Capilla Real
in the cathedral.)
Before the little mosque, _Los Reyes Catolicos_ await him. They are also
on horseback: Isabel rides a white jennet, richly caparisoned. Her grand
head bound by a jewelled coif, forming a regal coronet, her face
radiant, her queenly form erect.
Ferdinand is beside her, with a sparkle in his cunning eye, which the
rigid canons of courtly reserve cannot master, so triumphant does he
feel.
Beside them is their young daughter, Catalina, to become wife of Henry
the Eighth, and her gallant brother, the delicate Infante, lately
knighted by his father upon the battle-field, and around, a brilliant
group of valiant knights: Ponce de Leon, browned by the long war, the
faultless-featured; Gonsalvo de Cordoba, that king of men, who, young as
he is, has been entrusted with the negotiations with Boabdil; Medina
Sidonia, of the noble race of Guzman; the Marqués de Villena, Fernandez,
Cifuentes Cabra, Tendila, and Monte Mayor.
Behind press in three hundred Christian captives released at the signing
of the treaty, besides bishops, monks, cardinals, statesmen, veterans,
grown grey in war, Asturian arquebusiers, Aragonese sharpshooters,
lances, banners, battle-axes, croziers, crosses, and blood-stained
trophies, all backed by the red walls of the Alhambra towering on the
hills.
Hurriedly dismounting from his horse, the unhappy Boabdil would kneel
and kiss Ferdinand’s hand, but he generously forbids it. Then the poor
humbled monarch offers the same homage to Isabel, who also graciously
declines it, a wan smile breaking over his haggard face, for in her hand
she holds that of his little son--detained as a hostage at Sante
Fé--whom he seizes and embraces.
* * * * *
And now the moment has come when he must deliver up the insignia of
royalty, and, with the natural dignity which so rarely forsakes an
Oriental he tenders the keys of the Alhambra.
“Take them,” he says, “you have conquered. Thus, O King and Queen!
receive our kingdom and our person! Allah is great! Use us with the
clemency you have promised. Be merciful as you are strong!”
At these words, uttered as by a dying man, Isabel’s great heart melts,
and her eyes fill with tears.
Not so the astute Ferdinand. With difficulty he can suppress his joy; he
knows too well the crafty part he meant to play with Boabdil and his
kingdom, and his appealing words grate on his ears.
But, suppressing these feelings, “Doubt not, O King!” is his reply, “the
sanctity of our promise, nor that by a timely submission you should
suffer. I give you our royal word that our Moslem subjects shall find
equal justice with our own.”
Ferdinand then hands the keys to Isabel, who passes them on to her son,
Prince Juan, who in his turn gives them to the Conde de Tendila the new
Alcaide of Granada.
Then, in breathless silence, the glittering group await the signal which
is to make the Alhambra theirs. Isabel, her hands clasped in silent
prayer, Ferdinand, casting anxious glances to the fortress-crowned hill.
Behold! in the clear morning light, the silver cross borne by the Bishop
of Salamanca blazes from the citadel, the red and yellow flag of Spain
beside it, fluttering over the crescent banner, which is slowly
withdrawn. One great shout of triumph rises to the skies; trumpets
sound, artillery booms, and to the voice of the shrill clarions comes
the cry: “Santiago! Santiago! for God and for Spain!” and the pious
queen, hastily dismounting, enters the little chapel beside the road
(that morning become a Christian church), to celebrate a solemn _Te
Deum_ to the warlike music of fifes, flutes, and joy-bells.
* * * * *
Such is the chapel of San Salvador on the road to Motril, the Arab walls
untouched, the altar, a rude Mithrab, under a Saracenic arch, still
standing, an incrusted dome overhead, edged with a coloured border, the
whole a little circular interior of fit proportion, and honeycombed
niches at its sides. On the outer wall an inscription, in old Spanish
letters, sets forth that:
“On this spot King Boabdil met _Los Reyes Catolicos_, and delivered to
them the keys of Granada; who, in memory of their gratitude to God for
overcoming the Moors, converted this mosque into a chapel, in honour of
San Sebastian.”
* * * * *
The sovereigns enter the city towards nightfall (dreary in that season
of January, for Granada is a mountain place), the shadow of tossing
plumes and glancing armour falling on fields of snow, which deaden the
tramp of the war-horses and the passing of arquebusiers. But the bells
ring out
[Illustration:
Photo by Valentine.
TOWER AND HOTEL OF SIETE SUELOS, THE ALHAMBRA, GRANADA.]
triumphant in the dark air, and penetrate into the deepest recesses of
the Moorish _patios_, where every Moslem has shut himself up in black
despair.
“There was a crying in Granada
When the sun was going down;
Some calling on the Trinity,
Some calling on Mahomet.
Thus cried the Moslem while his hands
His own beard did tear:
‘Farewell! farewell, Granada!
Thou city without peer!
Woe! woe! thou pride of Heathendom,
Seven hundred years and more
Have gone, since first the faithful
Thy royal sceptre bore.’”
At the door of the great mosque, the same on which the harebrained
knight of Pulgar with his fifteen companions as wild as himself had
fixed the tablet with the words _Ave Maria_, they halted. Like the
chapel, it had been hastily consecrated. Here the sovereigns offered up
prayer and thanksgiving.
In what part of the present cathedral did this occur? At what is now the
high altar, or within the Capilla Real?
Did any wandering spirit whisper into the ear of the still beautiful
queen, in the swell of the triumphant anthems which rise to celebrate
her fame, that there she would lie entombed with Ferdinand by her side?
The first interview of Columbus with the queen took place in the middle
of the Moorish war, when all available revenues were absorbed.
It was the Andalusian Fray Perez de Marchena, who sent him to Santa Fé,
recommending him to the Bishop of Talavera, a learned prelate, at that
time confessor to the queen and shortly to become Archbishop of Granada.
It was Talavera who presided at the council of Salamanca, before which
Columbus exhibited his charts and detailed his projects.
Like Galileo, he was rejected as a vain dreamer, not altogether free
from suspicion of magic.
A second time he came to Santa Fé, and boldly expostulated with Isabel
on her backwardness.
“Her refusal,” said Columbus, “was not in consonance with the
magnanimous spirit of her reign.”
The great queen was touched at the rough sincerity of his words.
“I will assume the undertaking,” was her reply, “for my own kingdom of
Castile. I will pawn my jewels if the money you raise is not
sufficient.”
The box or casket, with a gold pattern, which she gave him, is still
preserved in the sacristy of the cathedral at Granada. He returned it to
her filled with virgin gold, “As admiral, viceroy, and captain-general
of all islands and continents in the western ocean,” titles which
descended to his son.
The memory of Columbus (or _Colon_, as he is called in Spain, a name
continued in his present descendants, the Duques de Veragua) is
perpetuated at Seville by a large flagstone let into the marble floor
in the centre of the cathedral.
_A Castilia y a Leon_
_Nuovo Mundo dio Colon_,
is the motto. On either side the rude outlines of two small caravels are
cut, models of the vessels in which he started from Palos in Andalusia
in search of the new world.
In shape they resemble Grecian triremes without the bank of oars. A
raised stern bears a square metal lantern as a night signal, and
floating at the prow flies the flag of Spain.
On the deck appears the outline of a giant mariner wearing a broad
sombrero, which _may_ represent Columbus, in a thick coat, and with a
telescope to his eye.
Within the Capitular Library are his books of reference, neatly
annotated in his own clear hand, and a chart drawn by himself on
parchment--a rude sketch of the American seaboard and the surrounding
ocean, with soundings for sunken rocks; the course of winds, tides, and
currents specially noted, the parchment partly blurred, as if by marks
of sea-water.
Gazing at these relics, so neatly precise, and finished with the care of
a man who knows how to wait with the patience of genius, a tall form
rises before the eye, fair-complexioned, thin-faced, blue-eyed, and grey
at thirty, such as Queen Isabel saw him, sitting at the poop of his
little vessel, his eyes fixed on the chart, issuing orders to his
helmsman to steer into unknown seas, while around him a mutinous crew
gathers, calling on him to turn the rudder and sail home.
Time after time this happened. The sailors mutinied and threatened to
throw him overboard. Time after time his dignity and eloquence mastered
them, until that wild cry of “_Tierra! Tierra!_” broke from the
masthead, as the advancing waves gathered on the shore of San Salvador.
On his return from his fourth voyage, his constant friend and
protectress, Isabel, was dead!
This was the last drop in the cup of suffering to a broken-hearted man.
His robust constitution broke down, and he sank into a premature old
age.
At Segovia, where the court was, he presented himself to Ferdinand, but
obtained nothing but empty words. He actually lived on borrowed money
until his death.
His son and heir commuted his claims, which were enormous and
unreasonable, into a large grant of land and the title of Grandee of
Spain.