MIGUEL DE CERVANTES ^^'r -womm Miguel de Cervantes HIS LIFE &> WORKS BY HENRY EDWARD WATTS ^ NEW EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH A COMPLETE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND INDEX LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1895 PREFACE In my first edition of Don ^ixote^ the Life of Cervantes, forming volume i., was written as an introduction to my translation, and specially with the object of marking the close connexion of the author with his work. It having been deemed advisable to issue the biography as a separate book, I have availed myself of the opportunity to amplify the life of Cervantes, adding much especially in the way of illustration of his character and of his relations with his contemporaries, with a larger survey of the condition of Spain and her literature, which, if not out of place in an introduction to Don ^uixote^ would have disturbed the harmony of my original scheme of publication. In the present work, which has been entirely recast and almost wholly re-written, a far larger space has been devoted to Cervantes as the man of letters, whose many and various achievements as poet, pastoralist, playwright, and story- teller have been somewhat unduly be-clouded by the exceeding lustre of his one great masterpiece. A fuller account is given of those minor works, which, though not all worthy of the author of Don fixate, are all deserving of study if we would understand his character and trace the development of his genius. Lastly, there has been added to this life of Cervantes, with a fuller notice of the condition of letters under the two Philips, a special chapter on the relations of the author of Don fixate to his great rival and V 203380*? Cervantes preface contemporary, Lope de Vega. It is only in this direction that any new Hght can be expected on that which was the last mystery of Cervantes' life. But Lope de Vega's correspondence is jealously kept from curious eyes, and the patriotism if not the piety of the Spanish Academy of Letters may be expected to endure for a generation or two longer. Meanwhile the story of Cervantes' life — a life, beyond any lived by man of letters, stirring, changeful, and adventurous, is complete in every circumstance. We know more about the author of Don Quixote perhaps than about any great writer. Nothing can increase or diminish his interest. Whatever record may leap to light, the readers of Don fixate are not likely to be disturbed by any fear that its author will be shamed. I have nothing more to say than to thank those who have generously helped me in the attempt to make this book and my translation worthy of its object and my hero. VI THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES FOR THE LIFE OF CERVANTES Nicolas Antonio (1617-84). Bibliotheca Hispana Nova. Rome, 1672. A CATALOGUE of the Spanish writers from 1500 to 1684, in continuation of the Bibliotheca Hispana Fetus, of the same learned and painstaking author, who is the chief authority in early Spanish literature and bibliography. Nicolas Antonio was the first who admitted Cervantes to a place among the classical writers of his country. The space devoted to an account of the life of the author of Don fixate occupies barely one quarto page of the dictionary, and the details given of Cervantes' career are very meagre. Antonio makes him a native of Seville (Hispalensis). Gregorio Mayans y Siscar (1699-1781). Fida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Londres : J. R. Tonson, 1737. (vi. 103 pp.) The first complete biography of Cervantes, written for the edition of Don fixate, published at the cost of Lord Carteret, and printed at the beginning of Tonson's first volume. Mayans makes Cervantes to have been born in 1549, ^^^ ^^^ birthplace Madrid — not having had access to documents which testify to the year and place of Cervantes' birth. Martin Sarmicnto (i 691-1770). Noticia de la verdadera patria de Cervantes. (MS.) 1761 (?). Sarmicnto, who was a most voluminous and versatile writer, of whose 3000 works {Revista Contemporanea, 1878) only one, vii Cervantes AUTHORITIES a History of Spanish Poetry, has been yet printed, was the first to make known, out of Ha;do's Topografia de Argel and other printed works, the true birthplace of Cervantes. His correspond- ence with Yriarte, the King's librarian, and others, led to the investigation of the parish registers of Alcala de Henares in 1752, and the discovery of the baptismal certificate of Cervantes, and also the record of his marriage. Sarmiento was one of the earliest to stir up his countrymen to a proper regard for Don ^lixote and its author. Juan Antonio Pellicer (1738-1806). Nottcias Literarias para la Vida de Cervantes. Madrid, 1778. Pellicer brought out an edition of Don ^ixote in five volumes, 1798, to which was appended a Life incorporating the above work, with the results of fresh researches. Following up the clues given by Sarmiento, Pellicer was able to discover many details of Cervantes' early life, as well as of his residence at Seville and at Valladolid, with notices of his family and literary connexions. He was the first to broach the delicate question of the relations between Cervantes and Lope de Vega, and was able to unearth some curious facts bearing on their rivalry, with notices of the contemporary men of letters. Vicente Gutierrez de Los Rios (1732-79). Memorias de la vida y de los escritos de Cervantes (appended to the three first editions of the Academy's Don ^lixote). Los Rios was a Colonel of Engineers, who gained more reputation in his profession than he did in letters. He worked with great zeal and abundant enthusiasm in the cause of Cervantes, taking him too seriously, and patriotically striving to make out Don fixate to be an epic Iliad for the heroic style, and an jEneid for symmetry of construction, beauty of language, and a well-balanced fable. The Academy dropped the Life by Rios in its fourth edition of 18 19, retaining only the ponderous Juicio Critico, Analisis, and chronological scheme. viii AUTHORITIES Cervantes Martin Fernandez de Navarrete (176 5- 1844). ^^^'^ ^^ Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Madrid, 18 19. Published to correspond with the four volumes of the fourth and last edition of Don fixate, edited by the Academy, Navarrete's biography is by far the fullest and best up to that date, and distinguished by much good sense, judgment, and acumen. The arrangement of the book, however, is awkward. The narrative occupies barely one-third of the volume, the remainder being filled with the Ilustraciones y Documentos. Navarrete gives for the first time the details of Cervantes' service in the Levant, with all the documents relating to his captivity in Algiers, together with the petition of Cervantes for employment in the King's service, in which is contained his own account of the leading passages in his life. These papers were discovered in 1808 by Cean Bermudez in the archives of the Indies at Seville, and are now at Simancas. At the end of Navarrete's Life are several genealogical tables of the family of Cervantes, with their relations to the royal house of Castile. Buenaventura Carlos Aribau, Fida de Cervantes, appended to the collected edition of Cervantes' works, which forms the first volume of Rivadeneyra's Bibltoteca de Autores Espanoles. Madrid, 1846. Aribau's Biography, though a mere compilation from previous sources, is one of the best for style and arrangement. It is a concise summary of the leading incidents of Cervantes' career, with a judicious and thoughtful appreciation of his works. The Life by Aribau was reproduced in the splendid Argamasilla edition of the complete works of Cervantes in twelve volumes, imperial 8vo, (1563-64), which was published under the direc- tion of Rosell and Hartzcnbusch, with some hundred and ten pages of Nuevas Ilustraciones and Notas, by Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera. In vol. vii., among the Poesias Sueltas, is printed the rhymed letter of Cervantes to Mateo Vasquez, one of Philip II.'s Secretaries, discovered in 1864, among the archives of the Condc dc Altamira. In this are contained some curious details ix Cervantes AUTHORITIES of Cervantes' early life and service, nowhere else to be found. The fourth canto of the Fiaje del Parnaso is also mainly autobiographical, while scattered throughout his works are many hints and references to his adventures and experiences, some of which have scarcely attracted sufficient attention, even among the Spanish biographers of Cervantes. The later biographers of Cervantes, such as Moran and Mainez, do not need much consideration. They add nothing to our knowledge of Cervantes, devoting themselves mainly to the glorification of the man and the writer from the patriotic side. The labours of Asensio, especially in the matter of the portrait of Cervantes, and in the investigation of some minor points connected with Cervantes' various places of residence, are worthy of all acknowledgment. And during the last thirty years there have appeared innumerable articles in reviews, magazines, and newspapers, which it would be tedious to specify, containing a few new aspects and illustrations of incidents in the life of Cervantes. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Birth and Early Tears ..... Piige i CHAPTER n ji Soldier at Lepanto . . . . . .16 CHAPTER m Service Afloat and Ashore . . . . . .31 CHAPTER IV The Captivity in Algiers . . . . . • 4^ CHAPTER V The Return to Spain ...... 60 CHAPTER VI The Author of Galatea' 76 xi Cervantes CONTENTS CHAPTER VII Literary Life in Madrid ..... P(^ige 93 CHAPTER VIII Cervantes a Playwright . . . . . .102 CHAPTER IX Commissary and Tax-Collector . . . . .112 CHAPTER X Experiences in La Mancha . . . . .123 CHAPTER XI ^ Don fixate' ....... 130 CHAPTER XII The Romances of Chivalry . . . . .141 CHAPTER XIII In Falladolid 157 CHAPTER XIV Novelist and Poet 169 CHAPTER XV The False ' Don ^ixote ' 1 80 xii CONTENTS Cervantes CHAPTER XVI Cervafites and Lope de Vega .... Page 192 CHAPTER XVn The Second Part of ' Don Quixote ' . . . . 206 CHAPTER XVni Last Tears and Death . . . . . .214 CHAPTER XIX The Man and the Book ...... 225 APPENDICES A. — Genealogy of Miguel de Cervantes . . 243 B. — Enquiry into Cervantes' Conduct in Algiers 245 C. — Cervantes' Memorial of his Services . . 253 D. — Letter of Miguel de Cervantes to the Archbishop of Toledo .... 255 The Bibliography of the Works of Cervantes 256 INDEX 285 Miguel de Cervantes CHAPTER I Birth and Early Tears On Sunday, the 9th day of October, in the year 1547, was baptized, in the parish church of Saint Mary the Greater, at Alcala de Henares, Miguel, son of Rodrigo de Cervantes and his wife Leonor de Cortinas.^ It was the custom in Spain for the infant to be christened by the name of the Saint on whose day he was born, and hence, without any direct evidence of the fact, it has been decided that Miguel de Cervantes was born on the 29th of September, 1547. His father, Rodrigo de Cervantes, of whom nothing is recorded in history, was a native of Alcala de Henares, which is an ancient town of New Castile. His mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was a native of the neighbouring village of Barajas. Both Rodrigo and his wife were of good old Castilian strain, and, though poor, entitled to be ranked among the hidalgos. They were married in 1 540, and had four children — two sons and two daughters, of whom Miguel was the youngest. Rodrigo, the elder brother, was a soldier, who 1 The registry of the baptism is still extant. The name is spelt Car-vantes in the entry, though in the record of the baptism of the other members of the family it is correctly given as Cer-vantes, Miguel himself generally spelt his name Ceriantes — sometimes Cerbante and Cer-vante. The 1/ and b in Castilian are inter- changeable and have practically the same sound, which is softer than in English. I I Cervantes CHAP. served in the Levant, in the Azores — where he greatly dis- tinguished himself and got his promotion — and in the Low Countries, dying in Flanders, at a date unknown, some years before Miguel. Of the two sisters, the elder, Andrea, was twice married, and as a widow for the second time lived with her brother till the end of his life. The younger sister, Luisa, became a Carmelite nun in 1565. The father of Rodrigo de Cervantes was Juan, who seems to have been of higher station than his immediate descendants, for he filled the office of Corregidor (answering to mayor or stipendiary magistrate) of the cityof Osuna. He is mentioned as a friend and associate of the Conde de Urena, of the great family of the Girons — the father of the illustrious Don Pedro Giron, the statesman and diplomatist, who filled various high places at home and abroad under Philip IL The family of Cervantes is said to have sprung originally from Galicia. The name is vulgarly supposed to be drawn from the ruined tower which stands near the end of the Alcantara bridge over the Tagus, opposite to Toledo, called the castle of San Cervantes — still a conspicuous object in the approach to the old Gothic capital. I agree with Ford in believing this to be an error. It is rather tjie family which gave name to the castle than the castle to the family. The name San Cervantes is admitted to be a corruption of San Servan, or Servando, a martyr of the early Spanish Church —a corruption which becomes more natural from the circumstance that this castle was once the property of an old member of the Cervantes family.^ According to the genealogist Mendez de Silva, the first who took the name ^ The ruin was called San Cervantes long before the time of Miguel. That there was an old connexion between the castle and his family is certain. The grandfather of Gonzalo de Cervantes assisted in the building of what was then the tower of San Servando in 1089, when Alfonso VI. toolc Toledo. Covarrubias makes the foundation still earlier, even of the time of the Goths {Tesoro de la lengua Caitellana, art. Castillejo). The existing ruin is of the building erected by Archbishop Tenorio, who died in 1399. 2 Early Years of Cervantes was Gonzalo, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, to distinguish himself from his elder brother, Pedro Alfonso, who was called Cervatos. Both these names clearly sprang from the same root [cervus\ and the arms of the two brothers were alike ; their chief blazon being, of the one, two stags [ciervos) or^ and of the other, two hinds or, in a field azure — in punning allusion to their surname. Cervatos is said to have been the name of the place in Galicia whence the founder of the family first took his appellative, so called probably because it was a haunt of stags. Juan de Mena, the chronicler of the King Juan II., is the earliest who speaks of the family of Cervantes, deriving their lineage from the ancient ricos-hombres of Leon and Castile, whose root was in Galicia.^ In the genealogy of the famous Nufio Alfonso [temp. Alfonso VI.), the first Alcaide or Governor of Toledo, written by Rodrigo Mendez Silva in 1648, the pedigree of the Cervantes family is traced up to the early Gothic kings of Leon.^ One of the five sons of the Alcaide was Alfonso Nuno, who is said to have taken the surname of Cervatos from the estate which he in- herited from his father. His second son was Gonzalo de Cervantes, the first of that name, of whom we have before spoken. Both brothers figured conspicuously in the wars against the Moors and shared largely in the spoils of battle. The elder was present at the crowning victory of Las Navas de Tolosa, won over the Almohades in 121 2, which drove the Moors for ever from the interior upland and confirmed Castile to the Christians. Gonzalo de Cervantes accom- panied the Saint-King Fernando in the campaign which ended in the conquest of Seville, and got a rich share in ^ See Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, who cites the Mcmorias de algunos linajes antiguo: y nobles de Casii/la, by Juan Mena, as existing in manuscript in the Royal Library (p. 559). ^ See the genealogical tree of the Cervantes family, as taken from Mendez Silva's Ascendenc'ia i/ustre, g/oriosos Aec/ios, etc., del famoso Nuno Alfonso (Madrid, 1648), in Appendix A. Cervantes chap. the repartim'iento — the apportionment of the lands recovered from the Moor. From him, if we are to beHeve the genealo- gists and chroniclers, there came in a direct line Juan de Cervantes, v\^ho, in the reign of Juan II. (1407-54), was a ve'int'icuatro^ or one of the Council of Twenty-four of Seville. Thence, the descent to Miguel de Cervantes, our hero, is clear and uninterrupted. The family spread throughout Spain, and among the bearers of the name Cervantes were many of distinction in the Middle Ages. The first who was seated in Andalucia, in which kingdom the stock ramified and afterwards became most fruitful, was Diego Gomez de Cervantes, who is buried in the church of Lorca. One of his sons was the Grand Prior of the Order of San Juan, while another married the daughter of the Admiral of Castile, Ambrosio de Bocanegra. Their son was Juan de Cervantes, who was Archbishop of Seville and a Cardinal, dying in 1453, whose handsome tomb is in the chapel of San Hermenegildo in the Cathedral. His nephew Juan was the veinticuatro of Seville, and guarda mayor of the King Juan II., whose son Gonzalo was commissary-general of the royal fleet in 1501, and the first to pass over to America, where in Mexico, in Peru and in Chile, the name has spread, giving presidents and generals down to our own time. The patriotic sentiment which slumbered for a hundred and fifty years — permitting the author of Don Quixote to fall into oblivion and his very birthplace to be forgotten, even while his name was ever green in the popular memory and his book a perennial delight — has found much solace and refreshment in these genealogical exercises. They may be regarded as a tardy atonement for the neglect with which the man was treated — rude offerings at the shrine of the genius whom, in his lifetime, not all the blood derived from the old kings nor the writing of Don Quixote could save from hunger and distress. Cervantes himself, though proud 4 Early Years of his pure Castilian stock and his untainted blood, was not one to boast of natural privileges which availed him so little — which were so common a pretension in that age. When taunted by his enemy Avellaneda in other years with being " as old as the Castle of San Cervantes " — a clumsy sarcasm directed doubtless at his high birth as well as his infirmities - — he cared only to reply that "poverty might cloud but could not wholly obscure nobility." All allowance being made for the enthusiasm of genealogists, the fact remains that the family of Cervantes had undoubted claims to be ranked among the gentry or hidalgos of Alcala de Henares, though, as the ruins of their house seem to indicate, they were poor in worldly possessions and made but a mean show among their neighbours.^ Alcala de Henares, so called to distinguish it from other Alcalas — the name is simply the Arabic al-kaPat^ "the castle" — is a dull, decayed town of New Castile, about twenty miles to the east of Madrid — in a dreary wind- tossed region, with nothing to attract the visitor but the great names with which it is linked. The Henares is a sullen, listless stream, with which it is difficult to associate the pastoral legends of which Cervantes fondly made it the centre. It feeds a more considerable river, the Jarama — famous for the bulls which are reared on its banks — which runs into the Tagus. The Henares, once beloved of shepherdesses, whose banks rang to the melody of the tuneful rebeck and lute — the classic stream of Galatea — is now suggestive of nothing more poetical than sheep-washing. The city by which it flows is but a shell, too roomy for its sparse population ; yet it was once a place of great importance, which made a figure in the world. The walls and towers, colleges and chapels, still present an imposing appearance from outside, and bear witness to its former greatness. In the ^ The local tradition points to an old wall and gateway of tapia, or beaten mud after the country fashion, as part of the house in which Cervantes was born. Cervantes chap. CoUgio Mayor de San Ildefonso is seen what survives of the famous university, w^hich w^as second only to that of Salamanca in splendour and celebrity. The old city was called Complutum [quasi conjiuvium^ Ford suggests), whence Cervantes' la gran Cornpluto^ in the only mention he makes of his birthplace in Don fixate. The University, founded in 1510, by Cardinal Ximenes, the famous Minister of Ferdinand and Isabella, once contained nineteen colleges and twice as many chapels, and was so amply endowed that Erasmus dubbed it Panplouton?- Cardinal Ximenes, who retired hither when he had lost the favour of the Catholic Kings, devoted all his great wealth, the plunder of Moordom, to its adornment and enrichment. Hither came, in the early half of the sixteenth century, most of the golden youth of Spain to be educated ; here was printed, at the Cardinal's instigation and expense, the famous Complutensian Polyglott ; here Francis the First, when Charles V.'s prisoner, was royally entertained ; here Ximenes himself is buried in the Colegio Mayor, under a gorgeous monument with an arrogant epitaph. The once famous University has been removed to Madrid, and Alcala is now, as Ford describes it, a shadow of the past, the echoes of whose- deserted streets are scarce ever awakened but by the tread of pilgrims, chiefly English and American, to the birthplace of Miguel de Cer- vantes. A flaming inscription on a wall-plate distinguishes what remains of the house where the author of Don Quixote was born, though the house does not correspond with the description of the wall and the gateway of tapia which, according to Lardizabal, was all that remained of the house of Cervantes in 1804.^ ^ Also the cumplimiento of all learning. There are said to have been ii,ooo students here in the reign of Charles V., the French King Francis remarking, when a visitor here in 1525, that "one Spanish monk had done what it would have taken a line of kings in France to accomplish." ^ See Navarrete, Vtda de Cervantes, p. 213. 6 Early Years A signal proof of the carelessness and indifference with which Spaniards regarded their greatest countryman, is afforded by the fact that it was more than a century and a half after his death before they began to investigate a detail so considerable as the place of his birth. Although Fr. Diego de Hasdo, in his Topografia de Argel (written before Don fixate appeared, though not published till 1 612), had given a long account of Cervantes as un hidalgo principal of Alcala de Henares ; and although Mendez de Silva, a leading genealogist of the seventeenth century, in one of his works ^ had repeated this statement, confirming it by particulars of Cervantes' lineage, no one in Spain seems to have taken any notice of these informations for a hundred and fifty years after Cervantes' death. The mystery in which Cervantes had deliberately wrapped the birthplace of his hero — cuyo nomhre no quiso acordarse — to the end that "all the towns and villages of La Mancha might contend among themselves for the honour of giving him birth and adopting him for their own, as the Seven Cities of Greece contended for Homer," by a singular freak of destiny involved his own place of birth. The prediction was fulfilled to the letter, for Don Quixote as well as for his author. The contention among the towns of La Mancha for the honour of being Don Quixote's birthplace v/as no fiercer than the dispute which has raged among the towns of Spain for the glory of producing the most illustrious of her children. Seven cities have actually contended for the honour of being the cradle of Miguel de Cervantes — Madrid, Seville, Toledo, Lucena, Esquivias, Alcazar de San Juan, and Consuegra. Don Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, Cervantes' first biographer, in the Life prefixed to the London edition of 1738, maintains that Cervantes was born at Madrid, which was also, appar- ently, Lope de Vega's opinion. Don Nicolas Antonio, in the scanty article on Cervantes in his Bibliotheca Hispana Nova^ ^ In his Aicende'ncla del Famoso Nutio Jilfjnio, 1648. Cervantes CHAP. makes him a native of Seville. The claims of Alcazar de San Juan are hotly advanced to this day, on the strength of a certain entry in the parish register recording the baptism of a certain " Miguel," son of Bias Cervantes Saavedra and Catalina Lopez, on the 9th of November, 1558. Opposite to the entry, in a comparatively m.odern hand, is written, Este fue el autor de la historia de Don Quixote (this was the author of the history of Don Quixote). That such the said Miguel could not be is clearly proved by the date of his birth, a date which would make him take a conspicuous part in the battle of Lepanto before the age of thirteen. That there was another Miguel de Cervantes, who, strangely enough, had for a second surname Saavedra,^ is certain, and I cannot help thinking that some of the incidents of his Hfe (he seems to have been somewhat of a scapegrace) have got mixed up with the history of the true Miguel de Cervantes. He might have been some cousin, for the name is by no means uncommon in Spain, then as now ; and the author of Don Quixote is known to have had an uncle and other relatives in La Mancha. The credit of having settled this controversy is shared between the learned and most in- dustrious Benedictine Fr. Martin Sarmiento^ and Don Juan de Iriarte, the King's Librarian at Madrid, temp. Charles IIL Iriarte discovered among the manuscripts of the Royal Library a document, dated 1581, giving a list of certain captives who had been redeemed from Algiers the year before, among whom is included " Miguel de Cervantes, of the age of thirty years, a native of Alcala de Henares." Following up this clue, Father Sarmiento consulted Haedo's Topography of Algiers^ and found there the notice of Cervantes to which ^ The additional surname of Saavedra was assumed by Cervantes after his return from Algiers in 1580. It came into the family of Cervantes from his great-grandmother Doiia Juana, daughter of Don Juan Arias de Saavedra, who became the mother of Juan de Cervantes, the corregidor of Osuna, That the other Miguel de Cervantes was also a Saavedra proves him to be a near relation of our hero. 8 Early Years I have referred above. Sarmiento seems to have hesitated for some time, strangely enough, between these evidences in favour of Alcala and the entry in the parish register of Alcazar de San Juan. Finally he made up his mind, and wrote the tract, Noticia sobre la Verdadera Patria de Cervantes^ in 1761, which has settled the question. That there should have been so long a doubt on the subject, with the abundant material, printed and in manuscript, extant for resolving it, is a striking proof of the indifference with which the Spanish men of letters and learning regarded Cervantes and Don ^uixote^ until foreign opinion had stirred them to an effusion of patriotism.^ Even to this day, the authors of the once flaming dispute between Alcala and Alcazar have not lost their heat,^ in spite of the testimony afforded in Cervantes' own hand, in the papers discovered in 1804 by Cean Bermudez, in the archives of the Indies at Seville. Among these, which are printed in full length by Navarrete, is a memorial in Cervantes' own writing, demand- ing of Father Juan Gil, the official redeemer of captives in Algiers, an investigation into his life and conduct in captivity, in which he styles himself " Miguel de Cervantes^ natural de la villa de Alcala de Henares.^^ ^ Of Cervantes' youth and early life at Alcala we have no details, and only such slight traces as are to be found in his works. In one of those delightful bits of autobiography which he now and then (alas ! too rarely) indulges us with in his prologues and dedications, he tells us of one of the favourite amusements of his early years. This was to ^ See for further details of the story of how Cervantes' birthplace came to be discovered, Navarrete, p. 206, and following. ^ One of the stoutest champions on the side of Alcazar is a respectable gentleman of that city, Don Juan Alvarez Guerra, who tried to impress me with his views by word of mouth in 1884, and who gave me his book, entitled So! de Cer-vantes Sda-vedra, su Verdadera Patria Aka-zar de San 'Juan — a quarto of 240 pages, of a credulity and unreason stupendous. * See Navarrete, I/ustraciones y Documcntos, pp. 311-49. Cervantes CHAP. attend the representations given by the strolling company of players organised by Lope de Rueda, the first who gave form and order to the Spanish Drama. The passage occurs at the beginning of the Prologue to the collection of Cer- vantes' Comedies and Farces, published in September, 1615, a few^ months before his death : " In past days I once found myself in a conversation among friends in vv^hich vi^e discussed Comedies and matters relating thereto. . . . And the ques- tion vv^as raised : Who was the first who brought them out of their swaddling-clothes and gave them habitation, and attired them decently and handsomely ? Said I, who was the oldest of them there, I remembered well seeing the great Lope de Rueda act, a man distinguished for his acting and for his intelligence. He was a native of Seville, and by trade a gold-beater, that is, one of those who make gold-leaf. He was admirable in Pastoral Poetry, and in that department neither then nor since till now has any one excelled him ; and though from being then a boy I could not form any right judgment as to the goodness of his verses, from some which cling to my memory, examined now in mature age, I find that what I have said is true. ... In the time of this celebrated Spaniard the whole apparatus of a manager of plays was contained in a sack, and consisted of four white sheep -skin dresses trimmed with gilt leather, and four beards, wigs, and crooks, more or less." As to the stage and the properties, they consisted, Cervantes says, the first, of " four benches arranged in a square, with five or six planks on top of them, raised but four hands'-breadth from the ground." The only decoration of the theatre was "an old blanket drawn aside by two ropes, which made what they call the green-room, behind which were the musicians sing- ing some old ballad without a guitar." ^ The performances used to take place in some public square, as now with ^ See Prologue in Ocho Comedtas y Ocho Entremeses nuevos nunca representados. Madrid, 1615 : reprinted by Bias Nasarre, in 1749. 10 Early Years strollers at a country fair, and were given twice a day, in the forenoon and the afternoon. Lope de Rueda is known to have been present at Segovia with his company of players on the occasion of the festivities held in that city when the new Cathedral was consecrated in August, 1558,^ and it is most likely that he proceeded thence to Madrid and perhaps to Alcala. Cervantes was then in his eleventh year. Of any other pursuit or recreation than theatre - going in those early days we have no record. Grammar and the humanities Cervantes learnt under Lopez de Hoyos, a teacher of some celebrity in that age, a poet and a man of letters, who seems to have kept a school at Madrid,- From Lopez de Hoyos, who is praised by Nicolas Antonio as a man of " vast erudition," Cervantes probably acquired all the learning he ever possessed, which, though sneered at in after life by some of his contemporaries, was such as befitted a youth of his station at that period. There would have been no point in the sarcasm, launched at him by some of the envious wits of the Court when Doyi Quixote appeared, of ingenio lego — the lay or unlearned genius — had he received a regular university education. His early works show a large and varied acquaintance with the Latin classics. Though never a ripe or an exact scholar, he knew at least as much as a writer, who was not an ecclesiastic, was bound to know. In after life, amidst the turmoil and troubles of his adventurous and distressful career — without books and the means to buy them — he forgot much of what his good master had taught him, dropping much of the humanities while increasing his stock of humanity. He attributes to ^ Navarrete, p. 257, who quotes from Diego de Colmenarcs, the historian of Segovia. ^ The site of this school is said, in a book entitled El Anttguo Madrid, to be No. 2, in the Calle de la Villa, now occupied by a house inhabited by the Countess de la Vega del Pozo, which bears on its gate a marble slab with a commemorative inscription. (Mesonero Romanes, in the Iluitracion, 15th April, 1872.) II Cervantes CHAP. Cato a distich of Ovid's. He does not remember the names of the horses of the Sun. On the other hand, he will be found to surpass his stay-at-home contemporaries in general knowledge, both of books and of men. His books show a general acquaintance with foreign countries, especially of the East, which was unusual in a Spanish author. Like many other great writers, he is to be claimed as one of the condemned band of " desultory readers." According to his own account he read everything, even to the pieces of torn paper to be picked up in the streets.^ Of romances and the romantic poetry, both of Spain and of Italy, he must have acquired a knowledge as profound as did Alonzo Ouijano himself; nor did any one ever study with greater enthusiasm and relish those pernicious books of chivalries than he who lived to give them the death-stroke. With the literature of his own country he shows in all his works that he was well acquainted ; and all that was romantic in the poetry of Italy must have been as familiar to him as Amadis or Palmer in. Of any other education than that which Cervantes received from Lopez de Hoyos and gave himself, there exists no evidence. The tradition that he spent two years at the University of Salamanca, which is accepted by Navarrete and by Ticknor, rests upon no basis of fact. Considering the circumstances of his family, and that they had a Uni- versity at their doors as celebrated as any in Spain, it is most unlikely that they should send him to Salamanca. Navarrete, indeed, quotes the statement of a certain ex-professor of rhetoric at Salamanca, to the effect that he had seen the name of Miguel de Cervantes in the University Registers as having matriculated and gone through a two years' course of philosophy ; but this seems to have been an idle rumour, which no one has since been able to confirm.^ Of the class ^ See Don fixate, Part I. ch. ix. ^ The tradition that Cervantes studied at Salamanca is thought to be 12 Early Years to which Cervantes belonged very few w^ent to the Uni- versity, unless intended for the priestly profession. Cervantes, indeed, seems in various passages of his writings to ridicule the student life and system of training at Salamanca ; and such familiarity as he shows with it might easily have been acquired by his residence at Alcala. There was not much in that age which the Universities of Spain could teach beyond grammar and what was called philosophy — a philo- sophy which knew no science but that of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and rejected as false and immoral all that was contrary to the Catholic Faith and the teaching of the Church. The relations between the young Cervantes and his tutor, Lopez de Hoyos, seem to have been most intimate and cordial. Hoyos may, indeed, claim the honour not only of having given a bent to the genius of the youth, but of being the first to detect in his literary productions the promise of greatness. When Isabel of Valois, the beautiful third wife of Philip IL, died suddenly, as did so many of Philip's family and kin, her obsequies were celebrated at Madrid with great pomp and splendour, on the 24th of October, 1568. Among other offerings laid on her tomb were a number of encomiastic sonnets and elegies, composed by the pupils of Lopez de Hoyos. Cervantes could hardly be now reckoned a pupil, being nearly twenty-one years of age, yet some half-a-dozen of the poems were contributed by him "in the name of the whole establishment" (de todo strengthened by the local belief that he lodged in the Calle de Moros, in which a house is shown as that of Cervantes. It is said also that in the novel La Tia F'wgida, the author shows much familiarity with Salamanca, in which city the scene is laid, the story being taken from a real occurrence in 1575. But La Tia Fingida was never acknowledged by Cervantes, nor did he include it in the edition of the No^elas published in his lifetime. From internal evidence I do not believe it to be his work, nor could he have had any personal knowledge of what happened at Salamanca in 1575, being in that year either at sea in the Mediterranean or a captive at Algiers. 13 Cervantes CHAP. el estudio)} Of these Hoyos, in his introduction and notes, makes special mention, as of " elegant style," " rhetorical colours," and " delicate conceits," speaking of their author, with fond partiality, as his " dear and beloved pupil." These early pieces are still extant ; - but, though interesting as the first-fruits of that intense love of poetry of which, in a well-known passage in his Voyage to Parnassus^ he speaks,^ they are of small merit. Besides these early poems, written under the auspices of his tutor and under the influence of ceremonial woe, Cer- vantes seems at this early period to have written a pastoral poem called Filena^ for so we must read the passage in the V'laje del Parnaso : — Tambien al par de Filis mi Filena Resono por las selvas, que escucharon Mas de una y otra alegre cantilena; which Mr. J. Y. Gibson, in his elegant version of the Voyage to Parnassus^ has Englished thus : — To rival Phyllis my Phylena gay Hath carolled through the woods, whose leafy land Gave back the sound of many a merry lay. Filena has been overtaken in the wave which has swept away to oblivion so many of Cervantes' early productions : ballads innumerable, sonnets, elegies, and plays, of whose fate he speaks, with a gay good-humour, as not undeserved. What survived was a certain reputation as a maker of poetry, ^ I cannot help believing that Cervantes must have assisted Hoyos in the Madrid school. ^ They are to be found in Aribau's edition of the vv^orks of Cervantes in Rivadeneyra's series of the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles ; also in the sumptuous Argamasilla edition of Rosell and Hartzenbusch. 2 Desde mis tiernos anos ame el arte Dulce de la agradable poesia Y en ella procure siempre agradarte. — Viaje del Parnaso, canto iv. 14 Early Years which he had acquired even at this early period of his manhood,^ and before he had entered upon the next stage of his busy and troubled life. ^ Navarrete, with what seems to be a confidence scarcely warrantable, speaks of Cervantes as being already, at this early period, reckoned among " the most celebrated poets of the nation," IS CHAPTER II A Soldier at Lepanto In the autumn of 1568, when Miguel de Cervantes was en- tering his twenty-second year, there came to Madrid a legate from the Pope Pius V., charged with a message of con- dolence to King Philip on the death of his son Don Carlos, whose sudden and mysterious decease a few months before had deprived the throne of an heir and plunged the Court in gloom. Julio Acquaviva, the youthful nuncio, was a man of high birth and graced with many endowments — muy virtuoso y de muchas letras — as his letter of credit from the King's ambassador at Rome described him. He had need of all his grace and all his tact for the mission with which he was charged, which is said to have been particularly disagreeable to Philip — all the more as the visit of condolence was used to cover a complaint from the Pope against the King's officers, for interfering with the Papal jurisdiction in the Milanese. The King is reported to have received Acquaviva with scant courtesy, rejecting the condolence and resenting the complaint. With all his zeal for the Church, Philip was most tenacious of his temporal rights even when they encroached, as they did in his Italian provinces, on the Pope's claims to ecclesiastical supremacy. Acquaviva stayed but a few months at the Court. He was made to feel that his visit was inopportune and unwelcome by the terms of the passport delivered to him, from Aranjuez, on the 2nd of December, 1568, in which he is ordered, under Philip's 16 CHAP. 2 Soldier at Lepanto own hand, to return to Italy by way of Aragon and Valencia " within the space of sixty days." During the time spent by Acquaviva at Madrid the Pontifical envoy made himself very agreeable, we are told, to the men of letters and of learning at the Court — seeking their society with eagerness, receiving them at his table, driving them about in his carriage in public, and taking pleasure in discussing with them " divers curious questions of politics, the sciences, learning, and literature." ^ Among the other young men of genius whose society was sought by Acquaviva (himself but twenty-four years of age at this period) was Miguel de Cervantes, who was probably intro- duced to his Excellency by Cardinal Espinosa, then President of the Council and Inquisitor-General, to whom had been dedicated some of the poems written by Cervantes on the death of Queen Isabel. The introduction led to the engage- ment of Miguel de Cervantes as camarero — page or chamber- lain — in the train of Acquaviva. In that age the office was reckoned no menial one, but was sought by young men of good birth as an apprenticeship to courtly life. The great Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a scion of the proudest noble house in Spain, who rose to fill the highest offices in the State, began his career in the same humble capacity as cama- rero to a Cardinal. Cervantes' motive in taking service with Acquaviva has been represented by some of his biographers as springing from his singular affection and fidelity to the Church at this early period of his life ; but it is more probable that he was actuated chiefly by a desire to see the great world. The service of the young Acquaviva, a scion of the noble Italian house of Atri, scarcely promised to be one of religious severity. A Cardinal of twenty-five (Acquaviva did not attain the capelo till after his return to Rome, in 1570) might fairly be expected to offer to a youth ^ So writes Mateo Aleman, the author of Gu-z.man de Alfarache^ who saw his Excellency at MaiJrid. See Navarrete, pp. 285, 286. 17 2 VA. Cervantes of Cervantes' temperament a sphere of life in which the genial current of his soul might flow unchecked. Society at Rome in the train of one of the great princes of the Church was not in those days distinguished by the rigour of its asceticism. To the adventurous it offered adventures " up to the elbows." Journeying by way of Valencia and Barcelona, according to the King's prescript, Acquaviva took the road to Rome in the last days of December, 1568, with Cervantes in his train. They travelled along the south coast of France, as we may fairly presume from Cervantes' description of the cities and scenes on this road in his Galatea^ which was composed before he could have re-visited this part of Europe. Cervantes must have arrived at Rome in the early spring of 1569. Of his stay in the Imperial city we have no record beyond the passing allusions he makes in his works to this period of his life. Rome, in 1569, was scarcely a foreign city to a Spaniard. The close of the long and obstinate duel with France had left Spain supreme in the Italian Peninsula. She was absolutely mistress of Lombardy and of Naples. The Tuscan states were her dependants. Spanish garrisons were in all the large cities. Sicily and Sardinia were subject islands. Even the Pope, in all his secular affairs, followed the counsel and direction of the Spanish King. The proud republic of Venice maintained a sullen partnership, soon to be exchanged for active rivalry, in the power of the sea. The age was one fertile of enterprise ; and it is scarcely a wonder that Cervantes found the service of the Cardinal- elect not much to his taste. To a soul inflamed by visions of romance and of knight-errantry, to be chamberlain to a high ecclesiastic was hardly a congenial employment. Early in the spring of 1570 we find Cervantes, now in his twenty- fourth year, giving up his pageship to enlist as a soldier in the Spanish service, entering the regiment of Moncada in the company commanded by the famous captain Diego de 18 2 Soldier at Lepanto Urbina.^ In those days it was not thought derogatory in a young man of good family to serve in the ranks, and many a youth of even higher birth than Cervantes had begun his military career as a common soldier. There has been much controversy on the question w^hether the military service which our hero first entered was that of the Pope or of his natural sovereign the King of Spain, some doubts being raised by certain words of Cervantes in the dedication of his Galatea^ to Ascanio Colonna, to the effect that he had " followed for some years the conquering banners " of that celebrated Papal general (his father), Marco Antonio Colonna. Those solicitous to claim Cervantes in every act of his life as a true son of the Church triumphantly quote this passage as indicating his preference of the Pope's to the King's service. The question is one of small importance, and is very easily settled. The truth appears to be that a Spanish contingent was placed at the service of his Holiness by Philip II. at this time, which for a short period was under the command of Marco Antonio Colonna.^ At this period the fame of that redoubtable Spanish infantry, who " made the earth tremble with their firelocks,"^ was at the very ^ In the Captive's Story in Don Quixote (Part I. ch. xxxix.) Diego de Urbina is called " a famous captain of Guadalajara," under whom Perez de Viedma (the Captive) served as alfere'z or ensign. According to the register of the men serving in the King's armada in 1571, which is preserved at Simancas, the total complement of the tercio de Moncada in Sicily and Italy was 1578 men. ^ The words in the dedication of the Galatea are for haber seguido algunos anos hi "vencedorai handeras de aquel iol de la mUlc'ia que ayer nos quito el c'lelo delante de lot cjos. In the prologue to his Novels Cervantes says, speaking of himself, that he " fought under the victorious banners of the son of that thunderbolt of war, Charles "V. of happy memory " {militando debajo de las muy -vencedoras handeras del hijo del rayo de la guerra, Carlos Sluinto de felice memorid). 2 As Colonna was afterward second in command of the allied fleets at Lepanto and elsewhere, Cervantes might well speak of having followed his conquering banners without being guilty of inconsistency in saying, some thirty years after- wards, that he had fought under Don Juan. * So Lorenzo Vanderhammen — the first biographer of Don Juan of Austria, and also historian of Philip II. 19 Cervantes chap. highest, A succession of skilful masters of war, from Gonsalvo de Cordova to the Duke of Alva, had brought the Spanish foot-soldier to a perfect state as a man-at-arms. As a fighting instrument, the tercio^ was without an equal in the armies of Europe ; and perhaps for solidity, for discipline, for the confidence bred by a long course of victory, was unsurpassed by the Macedonian Phalanx, the Roman Legion, or the unreformed British Regiment. None but picked men, of good character and decent birth, were eligible to the ranks ; and to be a common soldier under so distinguished a captain as he who led the tercio de Moncada was in itself no mean distinction for a youth of good family. Under the Papal general Colonna the Spanish contingent in Rome was ordered, in the summer of 1570, to Naples, there to be amalgamated with the other forces of the King of Spain, and re-organised for the great enterprise which was then in contemplation, by the heads of the Church, for the advancement of Christendom. The Holy League against the Turks, inspired and devised by Pope Pius V., a man whose zeal, energy, and sincerity of character did so much to re-kindle the fine old rage of Christendom against Islam, is an adventure which need not occupy us any more than as it is connected with the life and fortunes of Miguel de Cervantes. While Philip, with characteristic caution, was still hesitating whether or not to involve his forces in a struggle which he suspected to be less for the benefit of himself than of his maritime rivals the Venetians, the winter of 1570 saw the power of the Turk advanced to its very zenith. All Christendom had been alarmed and scandalised by the easy conquest of ^ The normal strength of the /frao was 3000 men, divided into companies of from one hundred to a hundred and fifty each. In the case of such regiments as those of Moncada and Figueroa, the number of men serving in the ranks (or as iisonos, supernumeraries waiting for vacancies) would be considerably higher, from the greater attraction which those names had for recruits of good family, and the greater demand for their services in the extensive dominions of Spain. 20 2 Soldier at Lepanto Cyprus ; though every Power thought the particular scandal and the first peril to belong to its neighbour. The Turkish fleet had no rival in the Mediterranean. The Turks, though of a race which belonged rather to the desert and the moun- tain than the sea, trained and led by those renegade Christians of whose abilities they have always been known to make good use, had come to be reckoned as the best of sailors in the narrow seas. In number, in strength, and in the per- fectness of their equipment, the Turkish ships constituted a force such as no single Christian Power could then encounter with any hope of success. The siege and conquest of Cyprus by Selim II. proved that Venice, single-handed, was unequal to the task of resisting the Ottoman. The Pope might well begin to fear for his own temporal dominions. But Pius V. was a Pontiff of the antique mould, who looked beyond the aggrandisement of the Papal See, the strengthen- ing of his own power, or the enrichment of his own family — the usual concerns of the successors of the Apostle. He invoked all Christendom to the aid of Venice, in language such as for centuries had not been heard from the chair of St. Peter. And though the Christian States could hardly have doubted the sincerity of a spiritual head who had declared his readiness to give his last shirt in aid of the good work of the assassination of Protestant Elizabeth, yet Christendom did not respond so cordially as might have been expected. The Powers, as in every age before and since, were jealous of each other. Some of them were not sorry at heart that the maritime pride of Venice had been lowered. The Most Christian King could not be got to hate the Sultan so much as he did the House of Austria. Charles IX. of France had hereditary friendly relations with the Turk, and was even suspected of giving secret aid to the Porte. The Emperor Maximilian had but lately made a treaty of peace with Turkey, and was not likely to be turned from it by any tender feeling for his kinsman of Spain, any more than for 21 Cervantes chap. his old rival the Pope. Only Spain could be got to give a reluctant and hesitating response to the prayer for aid to Christendom in its great fight with Islam. It was not, however, until after the year had passed which had witnessed the fall of Cyprus, and until late in the summer of 1571, that any active steps were taken to give effect to the Holy League, of which the three members were the Pope, Spain, and Venice, The treaty between these three Powers was signed on the 20th of May, 1571. The combined fleet, of which the primary object was the recovery of Cyprus, assembled in the harbour of Otranto on the 2ist of August. The Spanish contingent was under the command of the Genoese admiral, Giovanni Andrea Doria — a seaman almost equal in reputation already, though only in his thirty-first year, to his uncle the famous Andrea Doria. The Venetians were led by the veteran Sebastian Veniero, and the Papal squadron by Marco Antonio Colonna, who v/as appointed Commander-in-Chief until the arrival of Don Juan of Austria. The very names of the leaders of the allied fleet seem to indicate the insincerity of the alliance, and were no good augury of its stability. The three admirals, though all Italians and all good Catholics, 'were known to be in mortal enmity one with another, — the Genoese and the Venetian, hereditary foes of many generations, being only prevented from flying at each other's throats by the presence and predominant influence of the Roman-Spaniard, who in his turn hated and distrusted his two associates. During the winter of 1570 and until the arrival of the Spanish reinforcements, with the regiment of Lope de Figueroa and the main body of Moncada's, Miguel de Cervantes was at Naples, where he tells us that he " trod the streets for more than a year." ^ Don Juan of ^ Napoles la ilustre, Que yo pise sus ruas mas de un ano. — Viaje del Parnaso, canto viii. 22 2 Soldier at Lepanto Austria,^ who had been appointed Generalissimo of the allied forces, arrived at Naples on the 9th of August ; and on the 20th of that month, — the valuable interval being spent in high festivities, — put to sea again with thirty-five galleys. Of these the Marquesa was one, a private ship of Doria's, commanded by Francisco Sancto Pietro, on board of which was Miguel de Cervantes, with a detachment of the Mon- cada regiment. On the 23rd of August, Don Juan arrived at Messina, the appointed final rendezvous of the allied fleets, and took over the supreme command from Marco Antonio Colonna. A council was summoned of the chief naval and military commanders, in order to settle the plan of operations. Much time was spent in discussing various schemes and in arranging the disputes between the several commanders. The Venetians were all for immediate attack, though they are described by Don Juan himself, in a private letter, as being the worst provided and the least orderly of all his ships. The strength of the Spaniards consisted in their trained soldiers ; that of their allies chiefly in seamen. Don Juan himself, who seems to have exercised very little authority over the Venetians, was at first for delaying the sailing of the fleet, but at last became enthusiastic for an immediate attack. The allied squadrons put to sea on the 1 6th of September, numbering, according to a letter of Don Juan himself, 208 galleys, 7 galleasses, and 24 sailing vessels. The war galley of this period in build and appearance was not unlike those of the Romans except that it had only one tier of oars, and was from a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty feet in length, with a beam of from fourteen to twenty feet. It was propelled by from twenty to twenty-six ^ He was the natural son of the Emperor Charles V. by Barbara Blomberg, a singer of Ratisbon. That is the accepted story of his birth, but there is much reason to doubt whether Barbara Blomberg was his mother. The historian Strada believes, on the authority of the Archduchess Isabella, the favourite daughter of Philip II., that Don Juan's mother was a high lady of the Court. 23 Cervantes chap pairs of oars, each worked by from three to six men, sitting close together on benches set athwart or at a right angle to the side — the strongest rower taking the inside place. The oars were thirty to forty feet long, worked through thwart- holes, one-third within and two-thirds without, the rowers being protected while at work by a row of iron shields running along the outside, as well as by the high bulwarks. There was a high poop and a forecastle where the guns were placed, on traversing platforms, which could only be fired fore and aft. From stem to stern there ran a gangway, on a level with the shoulders of the rowers, on which the officers walked to give their orders and to direct the oarsmen. The galley carried sometimes two, sometimes three masts, according to its size, with fore and aft sails, — the masts low and the yards high-peaked, in the Mediterranean fashion. The galleass was a larger and more powerful galley, with longer oars, set wider apart, requiring seven men to each. Besides the forecastle and poop guns, the galleass carried smaller broadside pieces, placed on platforms between the benches of oarsmen, with loop-holed bulwarks for the musketeers. Sailing ships were rarely used in the Medi- terranean in the sixteenth century except, for trade, and of their employment in battle in the narrow seas this, I think, is the first instance. The oarsmen in the galleys, it is perhaps needless to say, were all criminals under sentence. In the Turkish galleys they were Christian slaves — prisoners of war. The total number of soldiers on board the fleet was 26,000. The line of battle, as arranged on the advice of the most expert captains, was in three divisions. The first division or right wing, consisting of the Spanish vessels and those in the immediate service of Spain, 54 in number, was under the command of Doria. The centre was com- \ posed of 64 galleys, Spanish and Roman, under Don Juan himself. The left wing, of 53 galleys, comprising the 24 2 Soldier at Lepanto Venetian ships, was under the command of Agostino Barbarigo. There was a rear or reserve squadron of 30 galleys, under the Marquess of Santa Cruz ; while the six galleasses were distributed in pairs among the three divisions of the line. Besides the galleys and galleasses were the 24 sailing ships, chiefly used as transports and as depots of the soldiery, under the command of Gutierre de Arguello, whose orders were to employ them wherever he could inflict most damage on the enemy. The allied fleet, which was the largest up to this time ever seen under the Christian flag, sailed at once in search of the enemy, who was not found till the 7th of October, — the interval being chiefly passed in quarrels between the Spaniards and the Venetians, which at one time rose to such a pitch that Don Juan threatened to put the Venetian admiral under arrest, who had hanged some Spanish soldiers for disobedience of orders almost in his sight. The sight of the enemy at length brought the Christian commanders to reason if not to harmony. The Turkish fleet was discovered in order of battle within the Gulf of Lepanto, at the entrance of the Gulf of Corinth, in waters which have been reddened with the blood of more than one great sea-fight.^ The Turks were commanded by Ali Pasha, who had under him the most skilful corsair of the time, Aluch Ali — a Cala- brian renegade.^ Their galleys, though more numerous, ^ The promontory of Actium, where just sixteen hundred years before had been decided the fate of the Roman world, was within a short distance to the north-west, and nearer still was the scene of Navarino, the " untoward event " which for ever closed the record of the Turks as a great naval power. - Aluch Ali, variously called Uluch Ali, Ouloudg Ali, L'Ochiali, Luchali, and in tl^e English State papers of the time Ochali, was a very conspicuous figure in the chronicles of that period — the most famous commander at sea, perhaps, whom the Turks ever possessed. He was given the name of Kh'didg, or the Sword, by the grateful Sultan, for his good conduct at Lepanto. He died of poison in 1580, at a good old age. In the Story of the Captive, in chapters xxxix, and xl. of Don Sluixote, Part I., this eminent naval hero is spoken of with respect for his bravery and comparative clemency — a kind of magnanimitv 25 Cervantes were smaller than those of the Christians ; inferior in the number and calibre of their guns, and rowed by Christian slaves, who could have had no great stomach for the fight under such masters. The two fleets advanced towards each other both animated by the desire of battle, the Turks at first having the weather-gauge, though the wind shifted suddenly to the west, by a special interposition of Pro- vidence, at the very crisis of the shock, with a smooth sea — and so the allies had the advantage. The battle of Lepanto, the greatest of sea-actions in modern history up to that date, and perhaps, for the number of men engaged and the issues at stake, the greatest ever fought in any age, has been so often described, and recently with such elaborate minuteness in the animated pages of the biographer^ of Don Juan of Austria, that it will scarcely be expected of me to tell the story afresh. Suffice it to say, that the allied fleets won a victory which, if not so decisive as it should have been, was very creditable to their Commander-in-Chief, and especially to the soldiers who fought on board his ships. But of all who distinguished themselves in that memorable fight — though the names of the leaders of the Christian host included half the Golden Books of Venice and of Genoa and the most famous of the proud nobility of Spain, with Don Juan himself, who fought on that day like a hero of romance — the one who is best remembered by posterity for his share in the battle is Miguel de Cervantes, the private soldier of the regiment of Moncada. And as a common soldier, his which, alone among the writers of the period, Cervantes was wont to show to all his enemies. ^ The late Sir William Stirling Maxwell, whose Life of Don John of Austria, in two beautiful volumes, is, whether in the larger or in the smaller edition, so splendid a monument to that perhaps a little over-praised hero. I have followed Sir William Stirling Maxwell generally as my guide in the account of the battle of Lepanto. The best Spanish history of the battle is Don Cayetano Rosell's Historia de la Combate Nwoal de Lepanto. Madrid, 1853. 26 2 Soldier at Lepanto conduct would have made him famous, had he not survived that glorious day to be the author of Don fixate. Cervantes' ship, the Marquesa, though belonging to Doria, vfzs placed in the left wing, which was under the immediate command of the Venetian provedditore general^ Agostino Barbarigo. There has been fortunately preserved for posterity a minute and exact account of Cervantes' behaviour in the battle. Being ill and weak through a fever he had contracted at Naples, he was entreated by his captain and his comrades to remain below in the cabin. But he replied that he pre- ferred to die fighting for his God and for his King to betaking himself to cover and preserving his health ; and he besought the captain to station him in the post of greatest danger. ^ In accordance with his desire, he was placed in command of twelve soldiers on the quarter-deck, by the side of the long-boat [esquife] — a station where he was necessarily exposed to the hottest fire from the enemy's arquebusiers and bowmen.2 The Marquesa^ judging by the loss she suffered and the trophies she secured, must have been in the very thick of the fight, and contributed at least her full share to the signal victory achieved by the left division. Our hero was among the foremost who boarded the galley ^ See the sworn testimony given by Mateo de Santisteban before the Alcalde, in support of Rodrigo de Cervantes' (the father's) petition for aid in raising the money for Cervantes' ransom, on the 17th of March, 1578 (Navarrete, p. 317). Santisteban was one of Cervantes' fellow-soldiers in Diego de Urbina's company, who fought by his side on the deck of the Marqueia. After quoting the words of Cervantes as I have given them above, Santisteban declares that he saw him fight as a valiant soldier at the post to which he was appointed by the captain. Gabriel de Castafieda, an alfere% or ensign in the same company, gives the same testimony, repeating Cervantes' words, adding that he knew that Don Juan had raised his pay by five or six escudos. Others of his comrades speak in equal high terms of Cervantes' conduct in the battle. ^ Bows and arrows were used by the Turks at Lepanto, and apparently with great effect when at close quarters — perhaps for the last time in a sea-battle, though we hear of them being among the furniture of the English ships which fought the Armada seventeen years afterwards. The inferior quality of the Turks* artillery was doubtless one of the chief causes of their defeat. 27 Cervantes chap. of the Pasha of Alexandria, which was captured with the roval standard of Egypt, more than five hundred Turks being slain, with the Pasha himself. Cervantes suffered severely in his own person for the active part he took in the fight. He received three gun-shot wounds, two in the breast and one in the left hand, which maimed it for ever. Yet were these hurts cherished by him in after-life as the most glorious of his honours, having been got, as he says himself, on " the greatest occasion that past or present ages have witnessed, or that the future can hope to witness," — preferring to have endured his losses and his sufferings to be whole and taking no share in the glory of that day. That the conduct of Cervantes in the battle of Lepanto earned the applause of all his comrades and won for him, as a private soldier, the especial notice of his leaders, we have ample evidence to prove — evidence which is beyond the suspicion of having been manufactured after he had become celebrated as a writer. The honour of the victory must be said to be due, in an unusual measure, to the skill, intrepidity, and moral influ- ence of the Generalissimo himself — a youth of the same age as Miguel de Cervantes — who gave promise in this brilliant achievement of a future which fate and the envious Philip did not permit him to reach. Beginning the day by dancing a galliard on the poop of the flagship, with some of his noble companions, to the music of the kettle-drums and recorders,^ Don Juan performed his part throughout with admirable coolness and judgment, distinguishing himself no less by his modesty in speaking of his brilliant exploit, his clemency to the vanquished, and his magnanimity to the sulky and stubborn Venetians ; on whom, however, to ^ See the curious account of Don Juan's behaviour, quoted in Stirling Maxweirs book (vol. i. p. 411) from Caracciolo's Commentaries. Mass had been celebrated on board of every ship on the morning of the day of battle, which was a Sunday. 28 2 Soldier at Lepanto judge by the tale of the killed and wounded, the hardest part of the fighting had fallen. But though the centre and the left wing had been signally victorious, the right wing, under Doria, which was opposed to the Turkish left, under the astute and daring Aluch Ali, came out of the battle with less honour. Doria made the mistake, so common in naval warfare, of extending his line with a view to envelop his adversary. After much manoeuvring between the rival leaders, both renowned in that age for seamanship, Aluch Ali found an opening in Doria's line through which he bore down with 30 of his swiftest galleys ; and, getting in the rear of the main body of the allies, was able to inflict much damage and rescue several of his own captured vessels, finally making his escape to sea in good order with the remnant of the Ottoman fleet. The battle of Lepanto, though it did not tend greatly to Christian unity and did not destroy the Ottoman power at sea, "arrested," as Bacon said, " the power of the Turk." The victory of the Holy League, though dearly purchased, was, in a material sense, more decisive than naval engagements are wont to be. Over 20,000 of the Turks were calculated to have perished, including all the principal commanders ; 5000 were taken prisoners, including Ali Pasha's two youthful sons; 170 galleys were captured, most of them useless from the wear of battle, and more than 100 were supposed to be sunk or wrecked. The Holy Standard of Mecca, the Sultan's Imperial flag, and the sword of the Turkish Admiral- in- Chief, were among the trophies of the victors. From 12,000 to 15,000 Christian captives obtained their freedom from slavery. The loss of the allies is reckoned at between 5000 and 7000 killed, and 8 or 10 galleys sunk or burnt.^ All Christendom rang with the fame of the victory. Pope ^ These figures make out the total number engaged on both sides to be no less than 70,000 men, — soldiers, seamen, and oarsmen, — a host more numerous perhaps than any that ever fought in a naval battle in modern history. 29 Cervantes chap, a Pius, to whom the news had been already revealed by- special miracle,^ burst out when the actual message came from the young conqueror, in the Evangelist's words : — Futt homo missus a Deo cui nomen erat yohannes? To Marco Antonio Colonna, when he entered his native city, there was given an ovation after the antique pattern. The Blessed Virgin received a new title from the grateful Pope. Painters, sculptors, poets vied with each other in com- memorating the deeds of that glorious day. Philip II., the Spanish King and half-brother of the victor, was, of all, the least moved by the event, receiving the joyful news at vespers "without a change of countenance." When Christians slew Christians two years afterwards, at the Feast of St. Bartholomew, the grim monarch was able to smile.3 ^ The legend, as preserved in Rome to this day, is that the Pope was on his knees in prayer before the image of the Madonna, painted by Fra Angelico da Fiesole, in the afternoon of yth October, which was a Sunday, when the Virgin revealed to him, in the usual manner, that the Christians had beaten the Turks. This image, which now belongs to the Church of the Magdalen near the Pantheon, is still held in special honour by the Romans ; and on the ter- centenary of Lepanto was carried in procession through the streets, clad in a new frock and enriched with a new garniture of gold and gems. 2 The same words are said to have been uttered by the Emperor Leopold I., when the news came to him of the defeat of the Turks at Vienna by the Polish King John Sobieski, in 16S3. ^ It must in fairness be acknowledged that Philip afterwards wrote a tolerably gracious letter to Don Juan, and received his messenger, Don Lope de Figueroa, who brought him the formal news of the victory, with the captured sacred standard of the Prophet, very cordially, bestowing honours on him and on some of his chief captains, with a liberality unwonted. 30 CHAPTER III Service JJloat and Ashore The victory of Lepanto was a supreme effort of the new Christian unity and Allied enterprise, which could not be repeated. The season of the year, with the condition of the fleet, rendered it imperative on Don Juan to seek the shelter of a friendly port. The day of the battle had been followed by a severe storm, which had damaged many of the ships. There were about 14,000 wounded to be cared for, and provisions were running short. So after dividing the booty, which was immense, and making a half-hearted attempt on Santa Maura, where there was a Turkish garrison, Don Juan sailed away for Messina, arriving there on the last day of October. Here the sick and wounded were landed. The Commander-in-Chief showed what in that age was most unusual interest in his invalids, appoint- ing his own household physician, Gregorio Lopez, to the duty of attending the wounded, devoting a sum of 30,000 crowns which had been presented to him by the municipality to their use, and personally visiting the hospital and seeing that his orders were carried out. Among those under treatment was Cervantes, with two wounds in the breast and one through the hand. That these wounds must have been severe is shown by his long detention in the hospital, and by the fact that when, two years afterwards, he shared in the expedition against Tunis, they were still unhealed. 3^ Cervantes chap. "My wound yet dripping with blood" [vertiendo sangre aun la herida)^ he says, in his epistle to Mateo Vasquez. The arquebuse ball which pierced his left hand rendered it useless for the rest of his life.^ Yet never was any token of valour or prize of victory more dearly cherished by a soldier than were his wounds by Cervantes ; who ever esteemed them, though they added to his infirmities and contributed to render severer for him the struggle of life, as among the most fortunate accidents of his career. When, many years afterwards, he was taunted by his enemy Avella- neda, bv a thrust not more malicious than maladroit, with this among other personal defects that he had " more tongue than hands " [mas lengua que manos)^ Cervantes' retort was, that to charge him with the loss of his hand was to impute to him the greatest honour to which a soldier could aspire. In several of his works he speaks with a simple yet proud complacency of his wounds, holding them as his chief titles to honour, the left hand being maimed " for the greater glory of the right." That his services and suffering in the battle attracted an unusual degree of notice, we know from contemporary records and from official documents.'^ In the ^ Of this wound in the hand the popular belief — fostered by the forged and lying portraits and effigies of Cervantes — that it led to the loss, that is, the amputation, of the hand at the wrist, appears to be contrary to all that Cervantes himself says of the matter. In the epistle to Mateo Vasquez he says : — —la siniestra mano Estava por mil partes ya rompida — •' the left hand was shattered in a thousand places." In the Viaje del Parnaso, he says that he lost el mcmimlento de la mano i^uierda, meaning the use of it, the hand remaining manca y estropeada, "maimed and mangled." There is much reason to doubt that he lost his hand altogether, by a shot or a surgical operation ; and the fact that he was able to serve as an infantry soldier for four years afterwards, and was employed actively in more than one campaign, seems to be a conclusive proof that he must have retained some power in the wounded member. 2 See the Ilustracio/ies and Documentoi collected by the faithful and judicious Navarrete and appended to his Life of Cert-antes. 32 3 Afloat and Ashore archives of Simancas are preserved the accounts, secret and extraordinary, of Don Juan's expenditure in the campaign of the Levant. Among these is an entry by the Treasurer of the Fleet to the effect that, on the 23rd of January, 1572, at Messina, various sums were distributed among those who had been wounded at Lepanto, the name of Miguel de Cervantes being down in the list for 20 ducats. There is another entry on 17th March of the same year, of payments made to those who had deserved well in the battle of the 7th of October, and among these is Miguel de Cervantes, who receives 22 ducats. On the 29th of April of the same year an addition was made to the pay of Miguel de Cervantes, by a special order, of three escudos a month — these being, we may conclude, silver escudos or crowns, of the value of ten reals apiece. On the 29th of April, 1572, being convalescent, though, as we learn from himself, not yet cured of his wounds, Cervantes left the hospital of Messina, being a soldado aventajado^ to join, by command of Don Juan, the regiment of Lope de Figueroa. As a soldado aventajado or select soldier, to whom a special gratuity had been given for dis- tinguished service, he was now an officer elect, on the list for promotion.^ The company in which Cervantes was enrolled was that which was soon afterwards commanded by Don Manuel Ponce de Leon, and was regarded as the leading company of what then was a corps d'elite. The tercio de Figueroa^ of which we hear so much in the wars of that period, both by sea and land, was the most famous of all the regiments of Spanish infantry. In 1567 it was composed of 40 companies and 6446 men. From its designation of tercio de la armada del mar Oceano it seems to have been specially reserved for expeditions beyond the sea, resembling in its ^ To be a captain in the tercio de Figueroa it was necessary to have been at least six years a soldier and three an ensign {alfereTi), or ten years a soldado aventajado, 33 3 Cervantes constitution the French Infanterie de la Marine. Under the name of the Regiment of Cordova it survived to a late date, fighting at Trafalgar under Admiral Gravina against the English. Don Lope de Figueroa, who gave his name to this distinguished regiment, w^as himself one of the most illustrious of the Spanish captains of the age. He had been Don Juan's right-hand man in the suppression of the in- surgent Moriscoes, in the year before Lepanto. In the great naval battle he had his place, v^^ith others of the elite of Don Juan's captains, on the forecastle of the Spanish flagship. He vi^as sent with the news of the victory to the King, bearing the captured standard of Ali Pasha, the Turkish Admiral. After a long life of service in many parts of the world, in the Levant, in Italy, in Flanders, in Portugal, Don Lope, — the pattern of a Spanish man-at-arms of the sixteenth century, — closed his career in 1585, worn out by his much toil and many wounds.^ The allied fleets had by this time completed their re- fitting ; and though the enthusiasm of the Leaguers had considerably abated, through internal dissensions fomented by the outside Christian states and by Turkey, it was resolved that Don Juan should lead another armament against the Turks in the Levant. The death of the energetic old Pope, in April, was a great blow to the cause ; for although his successor, Gregory XIII., began his ponti- ficate by urging the Confederates to action, there was much difficulty in getting them to move. The truth is that from this time the allies began to perceive that their objects were by no means identical. Each, as in every Christian alliance since, had his own policy to serve in the East. The Venetians were intent solely upon recovering their lost 1 He was a favourite hero with the playwrights, and frequent glimpses of him appear in the comedies, — one of the most vivid of which is in Calderon's Alcalde de Zalamea, where the war-worn veteran appears as a grumbling valetudinarian. 34 3 Afloat and Ashore colonies in the Levant. The King of Spain was jealous of his victorious and popular half-brother ; and, though bent upon schemes of African conquest, was not over eager to entrust them to the execution of Don Juan, who was himself suspected of visions of an independent empire in Africa. Meanwhile, the Turks were busily employed in recruiting their shattered forces and in building a new fleet. By June Aluch Ali was at sea again with 170 galleys, laying waste the shores of Greece and re-conquering many of the fortresses which had been lost in the year before. In July the Turkish fleet, relatively as strong as it had been before Lepanto, was once more threatening the Adriatic. Don Juan being still delayed at Messina through the difliculties placed in his way by the King, the allied fleet, reduced by many individual secessions, was under the com- mand of Colonna, who had joined with the Venetians at Corfu. Some skirmishing ensued between the two fleets on the western coast of the Morea, but to no effect — Colonna's endeavours to force on a battle, of which he might have all the glory, before the arrival of the Commander-in- Chief, being frustrated by Aluch Ali. At length Don Juan was enabled to take command of the fleet, which was now, by the accession of the Spanish ships, increased to a total of nearly 200 galleys, besides 40 large sailing ships and 8 galleasses, — a force actually larger than that which had won at Lepanto, and perhaps more highly organised and in better discipline. Nothing, however, came of this grand expedition, which, partly through the unaccountable hesitation of the leaders, but more perhaps through their divisions and mutual jealousies, utterly failed of its object ; though at one time the entire Turkish fleet was blockaded within the narrow port of Modon, and might have been easily destroyed. Every attempt to bring on a general engagement was foiled by the superior skill and seamanship of the Turks, and at last the allied fleet had to retire, 35 Cervantes chap. through stress of weather, to Corfu, — abandoning all the fruits of the victorious campaign of Lepanto, and leaving Aluch Ali master of the sea. On the 25th of October, Don Juan re-entered the harbour of Messina, this time not as a conqueror ; u^hile the Turks hailed with acclaim their own admiral, who, without hazarding a battle, had restored to them all their old power and prestige at sea. That Cervantes was on board the fleet during this inglorious second campaign in the Levant is clear, if only from the minute and accurate account of the futile opera- tions in the Bay of Navarino which he gives in the Story of the Captive in Don Quixote} The winter and spring following, the regiment of Figueroa was quartered mainly in Sicily, though from an entry in the Treasurer's account- books Cervantes seems to have been left with his company at Naples. On the nth of February, 1573, there is an order on the officials of the fleet, dated from Naples, to pay Miguel de Cervantes, "a soldier in the company of Don Manuel Ponce de Leon," ten escudos of what is due to him ; another sum of twenty escudos being paid him in the month following. The beginning of March saw the Holy League dissolved, through the secession of the Venetians, who had been enabled, by the good oflices of France, to make a separate peace with the Sultan. The Pope urging King Philip to a war of conquest on his own account against the Turks, an expedition was resolved upon, under the conduct of Don Juan, against Tunis. Nothing, however, was done until the autumn. On the 8th of October the expedition appeared ofF the Goletta, the harbour of Tunis, in the fort at the entrance of which, since the time of its conquest by Charles V. in 1535, there had been a Spanish garrison. Driving the Turks out of Tunis, Don Juan took possession of the city, and an attempt was made, by setting up a Moorish prince of the old reigning family as ruler, to create ^ Don fixate, Part I. ch. xxxix. 36 3 Afloat and Ashore a division between the natives and the Turks. Leaving a small reinforcement w^ith the Spanish garrison at the Goletta, Don Juan returned to Naples. That Cervantes served in the Tunisian campaign w^e know^ from his ow^n w^ords.i From the end of 1573 ^^ ^^^ beginning of May of 1574, Cervantes w^as in garrison v/ith his regiment in the island of Sardinia. In that month he was sent to Genoa in the galleys of Marcelo Doria in order to be stationed in Lombardy, under the orders of Don Juan. On the 27th of July there was held at Piacenza, with all antique pomp and ceremony, a grand tournament under the auspices of the Farnese, in honour of their illustrious kinsman, "the most valiant of Knights Errant," " the only hope of an oppressed and afflicted religion," the puissant conqueror of the Turk. Cervantes might have been present as a spectator. At least he would have heard news of these chivalric doings, and many things of " tilting furniture and emblazoned shields," such as could not but be stored up in the memory of one by nature already well inclined to dream of — Le donne, i cavallier, I'arme, gli amori, Le cortesie, I'audaci impresi — the singing of which by the great romantic poet of Italy was then fresh in the minds of men. There were gallant ^ In the rhymed epistle to Mateo Vasquez, the King's secretary, he says : — Y al reino antiguo y celebrado, A do la hermosa Dido fue vendida Al querer del Troyano desterrado, Tambien, vertiendo sangre aun la herida, Mayor con otras dos, quise ir y hallarme, Por ver ir la Morisma de vencida. (Then to the kingdom, ancient and renowned, Where beauteous Dido, by love betrayed, Her doom in Troy's illustrious exile found, Though yet my stricken hand distilled its gore, With other hurts still green, I fain would go To sec the unbelievers trounced once more.) 37 Cervantes chap. doings at Piacenza on this occasion — pageants, processions, defiances — such as recalled the proud days of the old chivalry. The circumstantial, matter-of-fact way in which the business is recorded, as though it were a fitting and necessary end to the sterner work to which it was to do homage, proves how deeply the minds of the noble youths of the period were still impressed with the spirit of the extinct chivalry, — how green were its memories and recent its glories. A challenge was sent by the Count Alberto Scotti, in due knightly form, to all the world, inviting the entire universe to testify to the superior loveliness and virtue of the lady whom the said Knight, defender of the lists, had made mistress of his aff^ections, and declaring that he is prepared, with sword and lance and other necessary furniture, to do battle against any Knight so daring as to decline to comply with that simple proposal, and to "make him feel how greatly he has deceived himself."^ The hero in whose honour the tournament was held was one to whom on every account such an offering was most fitting and congenial. There was much of the Errant about Don Juan, in his character and in his genius, as in his career j much that was calculated to arouse the golden youth of Spain and of Italy to the eniulation of the deeds of "fabled knights in battles feigned." ^ On the 7th of August, Don Juan, sated as he must have been with the incense offered him by the best blood of Italy, embarked at Spezzia, taking with him the regiment of Figueroa, in which, doubtless, Cervantes was still serving. ^ See the account of this quaint proceeding, with all the ceremonial of the tournament, in Sir W. Stirling Maxwell's Life of Don John of Austria. The gravity and the business-like air with which the proceedings were conducted are curious, as affording evidence that up to this date at least (1574) the practices, the language, and the apparatus of knight-errantry had by no means become extinct. "^ At the tournament which took place in connexion with Count Alberto Scotti's challenge, Don Juan himself, " being the honourable and unconquered Knight for which the world knows him, could not restrain himself from appearing," says the chronicler. And to Don Juan was awarded the prize of the lance, as having been the most expert in the use of that weapon. 38 3 Afloat and Ashore He was called to the affairs of Tunis, now, throuo-h the weakness of the Spanish garrison and the increasing audacity of the Moors and their Turkish allies, growing daily more desperate. A shifty and equivocal letter from Philip had thrown upon Don Juan the whole responsibility of deciding upon the fate of Tunis, while refusing the material aid he required in order to restore the Spanish dominion in Africa. There were reasons, independent of his jealousy of his brilliant half-brother, which at that time might well make the Spanish monarch hesitate to support Don Juan in any vigorous attempt to stave off the coming disaster at Tunis. The Low Countries were in open rebellion, encouraged both by France and by England. The war with Turkey was still raging, and a powerful Ottoman fleet had sailed for the African coast. Italy itself was in a troubled state, with the Pope irritated at the continued occupation of his territory by Spanish troops. In the midst of the conflicting instruc- tions which he received from Madrid, whose real purpose seems to have been to spare the King any further expense in Africa, while involving Don Juan personally in the dis- honour of retreating before the Turks, there came a series of furious storms which detained the Spanish fleet, with the troops intended for the succour of Tunis, in the Sicilian ports. Before the fleet could sail, news came of the fall of Tunis and of the Goletta, after a desperate resistance to an overwhelming military and naval Turkish armament. This ignoble end to the chapter of warlike enterprise and glorious adventure which had seemed to open for Spanish manhood by the great day of Lepanto, must have filled the bosom of the ardent young soldier of Figueroa's regiment with a sense of deep disappointment and disgust, which, in his Don ^ixote^ in the chapters referring to this shameful Tunis episode, he does not care to conceal. The vision of chivalry was dissolved. The age of knightly deeds, which seemed to have come again to this eager student of romance, he must 39 Cervantes CHAP. 3 have felt to be a mockery of the past. The glimmer of Lepanto was but the departing light of a day which was gone for ever. And now the sick and maimed soldier, fretting out his heart for want of action, must have felt that the true old times were dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. In August, 1575, when there appeared to be no further prospect of active work with the army, Cervantes, being then at Naples, besought and obtained leave to visit Spain, having been absent from home nearly six years. Don Juan himself gave him letters to the King, strongly recommending him, as "a man of valour, of merit, and of many signal services " done to his Majesty, for the command of a company of the troops being raised for Italy .^ The Duke of Sessa and Viceroy of Sicily also wrote to the King and to his Council, in very flattering terms, in favour of "a soldier as deserving as he was unfortunate, who, by his noble virtue and gentle disposition, had won the esteem of his comrades and chiefs." Furnished with these, — which proved, alas ! to be " letters of Bellerophon " to him,- tending, as we shall see, rather to the aggravation of his state than the bettering of his fortunes, — Cervantes embarked at Naples for Spain on board the galley El Sol^ in company with his brother Rodrigo — who had also served in the campaigns of the previous years — of Don Pero Diaz Carillo de Quesada, ex- Governor of the Goletta, and several other distinguished gentlemen, chiefly soldiers on leave returning to their native country. ^ See the memorial presented by Cervantes to the King in 1590 (Appendix C). 40 CHAPTER IVi The Captivity in Algiers On the voyage to Spain there befell Cervantes that great and cruel calamity which, while it altered the whole current of his fortunes and spoilt his career, brought out into stronger relief the nobility of his character, and perhaps determined the course of his genius. The vessel in which he had taken his passage home — the galley El Sol — when almost in sight of the Spanish coast, was met, on the 26th of September, 1575, by a squadron of Algerine corsairs under the command of the redoubtable Arnaut Mami, one of those renegade sea- captains who were then the terror of the Mediterranean.^ ^ The chief authority for the facts of Cervantes' captivity in Algiers is Haedo's Tofograjia e Historia General de Argel, published at Valladolid in 1612. Fray Diego Haedo, a Benedictine monk, was Abbot of Fromesta, and nephew of a prelate of the same name, Archbishop of Palermo, who died in 1608. The book seems to have been the joint composition of uncle and nephew, and bears internal evidence of truthfulness in its minuteness, elaboration, and candour. The latter part, giving an account of the sufferings of the captives in Algiers, is based on the information of certain well-known persons who had been released from slavery, especially of Dr. Antonio de Sosa, the Captain Geronimo Ramirez, and Don Antonio Gonzalez de Torres, Knight of the Order of Saint John, who are introduced as interlocutors in the story, and evidently speak of their personal knowledge of Cervantes. Although the book was not published till 16 12, the licence for printing it is dated 1604. Father Haedo, therefore, must have written before the publication of the First Part of Don Quixote ,• nor is there any evidence in his book to show that he had any other knowledge of Cervantes through his informants except as un hidalgo principal de Ahala de Henares. ^ Arnaut Mami, as his name indicates, was an Albanian renegade, chief of the Algerine corsairs, and a very celebrated sea-rover of that age. He is mentioned 41 Cervantes chap. After a fruitless attempt at escape, there ensued a desperate fight between the El Sol and three of the foremost of the pirate galleys, in which Cervantes is reported to have borne a conspicuous part. The unequal combat ended in the surrender of the Spaniards, who were divided among the corsairs, according to their custom, — the captives being prized according to their supposed rank and ransom-yielding capacity. Cervantes himself fell to the lot of one Deli Mami, a renegade Greek, a man noted even amongst that ungodly brood for his wild ferocity — a raez^ or corsair captain.^ The letters of Don Juan of Austria and of the Duke of Sessa, found upon Cervantes, led his captor to be- lieve that he was a prize of exceptional value, upon whom a large ransom might be set. He was, therefore, brought to Algiers, loaded with chains and treated with especial severity, in accordance with the corsair policy, in order that he might be the more solicitous of freedom. The kingdom and city of Algiers were then a dependency of the Turkish Empire, having been conquered from the Moors by Aruch Barbarossa, the elder brother of the more celebrated Khayreddin Barbarossa, in 151 6. The govern- ment was administered by a Viceroy from Constantinople, frequently changed, who was usually a successful soldier or seaman, Turk or renegade. In 1575 the Viceroy, or Dey, who was the twenty-first in succession from Barbarossa, according to Father Haedo, was Rabadan Pasha, a Sardinian renegade — a pupil, like his successor, of the famous Aluch Ali, who had then exchanged Algiers for Tunis.^ The whole business and ra'ison d'etre of Algiers was piracy. The corsair captains were the rulers of the State, and their in several of Cervantes' works, and figures in two of the ballads in Duran's Romancero General (vol. i. p. 147). ■• Deli Mami, Cervantes' first master, should not be confounded, as sometimes he has been, with Amaut Mami. The one was but a raez, or owner and captain of a corsair galley ; the other held the supreme command of the corsair fleet. 2 Haedo, p. 84. Rabadan was succeeded in June, 1577, by Hassan. 42 4 Captivity in Algiers prizes at sea the whole public revenue. The Dey was but the chief of the corsairs, who administered the affairs of his truculent little kingdom upon a system the most methodically ruthless and regularly savage perhaps ever known within so short a distance of civilisation. The barbarities practised upon the unfortunate Christians who fell within their power have been the theme of innumerable pens ; nor can we refrain from a feeling of wonder how so insignificant a band of adventurers was able for so long a period to defy all the naval powers of Christendom. The total population of the city of Algiers, which really contained the whole Algerine State and strength, according to the careful estimate of Father Hasdo, did not amount to 100,000, about the year 1575.^ Of these the Turks proper, — the ruling caste, — were in an insignificant minority. The renegades,^ who were of every Christian nation in the world, including English, Scotch, Irish, Russian, must have numbered nearly one -third of the entire people, and seem to have done more than a proportionate share of the pirating and plundering. The captives who still retained their name of Christian are reckoned at nearly 25,000, among whom were noblemen and officers of the highest quality, especially Spaniards and Italians. Except when they gave offence to their masters by attempting to escape, and thus trying to rob them of what was supposed to be their lawful perquisites, namely, their ransoms, — the captives who were in the ransomable class seem to have been treated with tolerable liberality. They ^ There were 12,200 houses within the city walls in Hsedo's time, which, giving a larger allowance than usual to each house, in consideration of the poly- gamous establishments of the great, would still bring the total number within 100,000. ^ Of the 35 corsair captains whose names are given in Haedo (p. i8), 24 were renegades or sons of renegades, 10 Turks, and one a Jew. Though dubbed corsairs and pirates by their Christian neighbours, these gentlemen rovers probably no more deserved the epithet than did the privateers in the last great war, and not so much as the buccaneers of the New World in that and subsequent ages. 43 Cervantes chap. were not debarred from commerce among themselves. They led their own life, were allowed (as Mahomedans in Spain or in Italy certainly were not) the free exercise of their religion, and were even permitted their own recreations.^ The number of renegades of every race and tongue among them was, perhaps, regarded by their masters as sufficient security for their slaves' good behaviour. Among all those in the power of Hassan Pasha no captive earned so much distinction as Cervantes, by the courage and fortitude with which he bore his terrible ordeal as well as by the daring and ingenuity of his unceasing attempts to break away from his chains. He had not been long at Algiers before he began to plot schemes of escape. In company with several other of his fellow-captives, he made an attempt to reach Oran by land, — Oran being then in Spanish hands ; but the party was deserted by the Moor whom they had engaged as their guide after the first day's march, and were compelled to return to Algiers, there to be loaded with heavier chains and kept in stricter confinement. Two or three other ineffectual attempts were made by him to recover his freedom, as he mentions himself in his comedy of El Trato de Argel; but in every case, though, he displayed extraordinary courage and craft in planning what could not have been other than a very desperate enterprise, and was invariably the first to take the blame when the attempt miscarried, he met with his usual bad luck, being foiled by the timidity or the treachery of some one amongst his companions. 1 Plays were allowed to be acted and poems to be recited, — the authorities, with that scornful tolerance ever characteristic of the Turk, refraining from interfering with these amusements ; see Cervantes' comedy of hos Bami de Argel. Cervantes himself is said to have composed poems and dramas, profane and religious, to keep up the spirits and to cheer the faith of his brethren in captivity. La Virgen de Guadelupe, supposed to be one of these, has been printed by the Seville Society of Bibliophiles ; but it is of a quality such as would scarcely amuse even an Algerine slave, and bears no trace of Cervantes' hand. 44 4 Captivity in Algiers In the second year of his captivity, some of his personal friends having been rescued, Cervantes wrote home by one of them — Gabriel Castafieda^ — to his parents, describing his own and his brother's deplorable state. The father, Rodrigo Cervantes, responded to this appeal by remitting to Algiers a certain sum, being all that he was able to raise by the pledging of his estate and the dowries of his two daughters. The money was rejected by Deli Mami as not enough for the redemption of so illustrious a captive as he deemed Miguel de Cervantes to be. It was a common trick for the corsairs, says Haedo, to pretend, out of malice or cupidity, that their slaves were of exalted condition, though pleading poverty, as doubtless such was a common plea. Of some poor fisherman or shepherd they would say that he was a man of quality, that it was useless for him to deny it, they being informed that he was a cousin or a nephew of the Duke of Alva. So the poor wretch would be loaded with a heavier chain to make him confess. Should any slave, out of his charity, give his cloak, or his cap, or a pair of good shoes to another Christian, he would be immediately accused by some miscreant Moor or malicious Christian (and there were some of the latter class in Algiers, as Cervantes' history shows) of being a great man in disguise, who concealed his rank for the sake of reducing his ransom. Then the corsair would assert with many oaths, and call upon Allah to confirm him, that the slave was a great man, the son of a Count, the cousin of a Marquess, or a Duke, or a Prince. If he was an ecclesiastic, and had a good appearance, they would at once proclaim him for a Cardinal, or at the least an Arch- bishop or a Patriarch. So testifies the good Doctor Sosa, ^ Gabriel de Castafieda was with Cervantes in the attempt to escape to Oran. He was an alf/rez, or ensign, in Cervantes' regiment, and had fought in the Marquaa at Lepanto. He was one of those who bore witness to Cervantes' behaviour in that battle, and testified, in his deposition in support of Rodrigo Cervantes' petition (to be mentioned hereafter), that he had read the com- mendatory letters which Cervantes was bearing when taken captive. 45 Cervantes chap. who was a captive himself for four years, and knew Cervantes in Algiers, — doubtless from painful experience of over-appraisement in his own person.^ Miguel de Cervantes, who was of a free and open dis- position, ready to share all he possessed with his brothers in affliction, was sure to be an object of suspicion to his masters as one of more worth in piastres than he claimed to be. The corsairs knew a good man's value, if his country- men did not. Therefore they set him at a high figure. The ransom sent by the father, however, was sufficient to obtain the release of his elder brother, Rodrigo, with whom Cervantes concerted a scheme for the deliverance of himself and certain of his friends through the agency of an armed Spanish ship, which was to appear off the shore on a stipulated day. Rodrigo Cervantes returned to Spain in August, 1577, furnished with letters from two captives of high rank — Don Antonio de Toledo, of the family of Alva, and Don Francisco de Valencia — directed to the Viceroys of Valencia and the Balearic Islands, praying them to help this design by the despatch of a war-vessel, as agreed upon between Cervantes and his brother. In preparation for this, the most daring of his attempts at escape, Cervantes had already taken the preliminary steps. About six miles from the town of Algiers, to the eastward, a certain Greek regenade Hassan, one of the alcaldes of the city, had a country-house, with a garden, by the sea-shore, under charge of a slave called Juan, a native of Navarre. In this garden was a cavern in which Cervantes, with the connivance of Juan, had concealed several Christian captives. Others were from time to time introduced, until, at the date of Rodrigo's departure, there were hidden away in this place of refuge, in anticipation of the relief to come from seaward, forty or fifty escaped slaves, most of them Spaniards and gentlemen of quality. It is a proof at once of Cervantes' 1 See Hsedo, pp. 227, 228. 46 4 Captivity in Algiers resources of invention and dexterity, as well as of the ascendency acquired by him over all with whom he came into contact, — a proof also, perhaps, of the comparative liberty enjoyed by the Christian captives, in certain cases, — that he was able to support the members of this subterraneous republic with food for more than six months without in- curring the suspicions of his jealous master. Deli Mami. His plans being completed at last, and the day drawing near which had been arranged for the coming of the Spanish vessel in aid, Cervantes himself took refuge in the cavern, about the 20th of September. Everything seemed to promise well for the success of his hardy enterprise. A frigate was despatched from Majorca, under the command of a tried and expert seaman acquainted with the coast, which came off Hassan's garden on the night of the 28th of September, and was able to communicate with the inmates of the cavern. Some Moorish fishermen, however, having given the alarm, the vessel was obliged to put out to sea again. Meanwhile, treachery was at work among those who knew of the secret of the cave. A certain renegade called El Dorador (" the Gilder "), who had been entrusted by Cervantes with the duty of conveying provisions to the people in the cavern, repented of his resolution to return to the land and the faith of his fathers, and went before the Viceroy, Hassan Pasha,^ to reveal the scheme of Cervantes. The Viceroy, who appears to have had an extraordinary and inexplicable dread, mingled with no less strange a respect, for Cervantes, was all the more eager to profit by El Dorador's disclosure as it would give him the property in all these would-be fugitive slaves, according to the law and custom of Algiers. A strong force of armed Turks was sent ^ So I have Englished, according to my rule in such cases, the name which appears in all the Spanish histories as Azan or Asan Baxa or Baji. There is no sound of j/5 in modern Spanish — the harsh, guttural aspirate x or j being used to express it in all words of Eastern origin. 47 Cervantes chap. to the Alcalde's garden to search for the captives in the cavern. Cervantes, perceiving the failure of his scheme, was the first to come forward, and, presenting himself at the entrance of the cavern, to declare before the Viceroy's soldiers that none of his companions had any part or blame in that business ; that he alone had persuaded them to fly and to conceal themselves there, and that he had arranged and managed the whole affair. The Turks, surprised at a confession so extraordinary and magnanimous, sent off one of their number to the Viceroy to inform him of what Cervantes had said, with the result that Hassan Pasha ordered all the other captives to be incarcerated in his bagnio, but Cervantes to be conducted to his presence. In this crisis of his fate, Miguel de Cervantes owed his escape from a cruel death to his undaunted bearing, — with some aid, perhaps, from the Viceroy's cupidity and jealousy.^ Of all those who had held rule in Algiers under the Turk, Hassan Pasha, the renegade Venetian, was the most noted for his extravagant and inhuman cruelty. Father Haedo's testi- mony, which is based on that of eye-witnesses, describes his reign as one of the bloodiest in the annals of Algiers. Cer- vantes himself, who is rarely betrayed into speaking ill of an enemy, has drawn a graphic picture of this monster whom, by a pardonable pleonasm, he styles "the homicide of all human kind." ^ Speaking through the mouth of the captive Captain Viedma, in the fortieth chapter of the First Part of Don ^ixote^ — " nothing distressed me so much," he says, " as to hear and see at every turn the till then unheard-of and unseen cruelties which my master practised on the Christians. Every day he hanged a slave ; impaled one ; cut off the ears of another ; and this upon so little occasion, or so entirely without cause, that the Turks would own he did it merely for the sake of doing it, and because it was his nature." Over this tyrant Cervantes seems to have exercised ^ See Don S^uixote, Part I. ch. xl. 48 4 Captivity in Algiers some extraordinary influence, which can be attributed only to his undaunted spirit and the singular respect in which he was held by his companions, many of whom were superior to him in rank and in condition. According to the remark- able testimony of Father Hasdo, Hassan Pasha was wont to say that, " if he had this maimed Spaniard in safe keeping, he would reckon as secure his Christians, his ships, and his city." ^ Threatened with torture and instant death, with the spectacle of many of his companions hanged or mutilated before his eyes, Cervantes refused to implicate any one in his scheme of flight. The Viceroy, who was as greedy as he was cruel, was eager to find some pretext for laying hold of the Redemptorist Father Jorge Olivar, who, in the character of ofiicial ransomer for the kingdom of Aragon, was protected by Algerine custom. Could Olivar be proved to have been cognisant of the cavern scheme, there would be a tangible pretext for squeezing out of him a large ransom. But nothing could be got from Cervantes, whom the Viceroy, — whether for greater safety or in the belief that so resolute a slave must be a man of great mark in his own country, and therefore likely to be redeemed at a high price, — purchased from his master, Deli Mami, for 500 gold crowns. About this period it must have been, in the autumn of 1577, that Cervantes wrote his rhymed epistle to Mateo Vasquez, the Secretary to Philip II. It consists of 81 tercets, beginning with a biographical sketch of the author, in which his acts and services by sea and land are recited, and concluding with a proposal for a general rising of the Christian slaves in Algiers, to be seconded by an armament from Spain. King Philip was entreated to conclude the work begun with so much daring and valour by his beloved father ; to quell the pride of that pirates' ^ De%ia A%an Baxa, Rey de -Argel, que como el Iwvlesse guardado al europeado Eipanol tenia seguros sus Chriuianos, baxela, y aun toda la ciudad. Hasdo, p. 185, 49 4 Cervantes chap. nest ; to take pity on the Christians who, with straining eyes, watch for the coming of the Spanish fleet to unlock their prison doors. Nor does the poet doubt that the " benign Royal bosom " feels the misery of the poor wretches who pine in chains, almost within sight of the sacred invincible shores of their native land. The adventure, though bold and romantic, was by no means impracticable, and, had there been any chivalry extant in Spain, would have been attempted. The captives in Algiers were strong in numbers. The land was weak ; the city ill-fortified ; and its defenders, divided by blood and race, united only by a common faith and lust of gain. The enterprise was far easier than that which, at this time, tempted the madcap Dom Sebastian, last of the Portugal Knights Errant, into the neighbouring realm of Morocco. But Philip the Prudent had other designs in view. That benign bosom was occupied just then with his Christian neighbour's heritage, and in weaving his nets for the entanglement of his brother Don Juan in Flanders. The epistle of Cervantes to Mateo Vasquez probably never got beyond the desk of the Secretary.^ Never weary of seeking for a means of, breaking out of his abhorred prison, Cervantes, about the end of 1577, made another attempt at evasion. He sent a secret message by a Moor to Don Martin de Cordova, the Governor of Oran, praying him to send some safe Christian men to the frontier to meet himself and some other captives. The unfortunate messenger was intercepted and taken before the Viceroy, with his letters, which bore Cervantes' seal and signature. ^ The epistle to Mateo Vasquez, of surpassing interest for its details of Cervantes' life as well as a sample of his early poetry, was unknown to his biographers before 1863. In that year it was found among the archives of the family of Altamira by Don Tomas Munoz y Romero, and has been reprinted in the two editions of Argamasilla edited by Hartzenbusch. The last sixty-seven lines of the poem are repeated almost verbatim in Cervantes' play of El Trato de Argel. It has been translated into English by Mr. Gibson. 50 4 Captivity in Algiers The Moor was ordered to be impaled, and Cervantes to receive two thousand blows with the stick. The captives and others interceded for him, and once more he gave an opportunity to Hassan Pasha to exercise the unfamiliar virtue of clemency. But neither the terrible risks he had run, nor the persistent misfortune which seemed to dog his steps, could keep Cervantes from meditating fresh schemes of escape. In September, 1579, there was a Spanish renegade, known when in grace as the Licentiate Giron of Granada, but, since his backsliding, as Abderrahman. This renegade, pining to return to his faith and his country, sought out Cervantes and plotted with him a plan of escape. Two Valencian merchants resident in Algiers — Onofre Exarque and Baltasar de Torres — were to provide an armed vessel at their cost, in which sixty of the principal captives were to embark at some favourable moment, under the secret direction of Cervantes. Once again the scheme was frustrated by treachery. One Blanco de Paz, an Aragonese and Dominican monk, who had conceived a bitter enmity against Cervantes, revealed the plot to the Viceroy. Cervantes, we are told, might have escaped himself had he accepted the offer of one of the Valencian merchants to fly with him at once and abandon his companions. But he refused his liberty on these conditions. Meanwhile, the Viceroy, having learnt of the scheme through the informa- tion of Blanco de Paz, made public proclamation through the city that any one harbouring Cervantes (who had fled from his house and sought refuge with one of his friends) should be punished with death. In order that no Christian might suffer on his behalf, Cervantes came forward voluntarily and presented himself before the Viceroy. He was seized and bound hands and feet, with a rope round his neck, and threatened with instant death. Cervantes, pre- serving the utmost serenity, not only refused to inculpate any one in this design, but, by his ingenious and witty 51 Cervantes chap. answers, so tempered the wrath of Hassan that for his only punishment he was ordered to be confined in the Moors' prison, which was in the Viceroy's palace, where he was kept for five months, laden with chains and fetters and guarded with the utmost rigour, acquiring, as one of the witnesses of his conduct — Luis de Pedrosa — says, " great fame, praise, honour, and glory among the Christians." ^ Not less wonderful than the constancy and the fortitude displayed by Cervantes through all these trials, was the singular forbearance displayed towards him by those to whom generosity to a Christian slave must have been a virtue very little practised. In recalling the memory of this cruel time afterwards in Don Quixote, Cervantes speaks with a certain complacency of the immunities which his character among the Algerines had won for him. Captain de Viedma, the captive whose story forms an episode in the First Part of Don ^ixotgj after reciting some of Hassan Pasha's cruelties, says : — " The only one who held his own with him was a Spanish soldier, called De Saavedra,^ to whom, though he did things which will dwell in the memory of those people for many years, and all for the recovery of his freedom, his master never gave a blow, nor bade any one to do so, nor even spoke to him an ill word, though for the least of the many things he did we all feared he would be impaled, as he himself feared more than once." ^ There is a mystery about this treatment of Cervantes in Algiers which is not explained by the fact that his captors took him ^ Navarrete, pp. 41 and 358. It seems, by the deposition of some of the witnesses at the enquiry afterwards held on Cervantes' conduct, that he was befriended in this, perhaps his worst strait, by one Morato (Murad), called Maltrapillo (the Sloven), a Murcian renegade and corsair captain, who was one of Hassan's principal favourites. This man is mentioned by Hasdo as one of the thirty-five owners and masters of galleys. There is a Hadji Murad who figures conspicuously in the Captive's Story in Don Siuixcte (Part I, ch. xl.) j but he can hardly be the same as the above, ^ i.e. Cervantes. ^ Don S^uixote, Part I. ch. xl. 52 4 Captivity in Algiers to be a person of more importance than he really was. Christian noblemen and gentlemen of high rank and condition were almost daily the victims of Hassan Pasha's inordinate lust for blood ; it being one of the favourite amusements of the tyrant to cut ofF the noses and ears of those who offended him, especially those who were caught trying to escape. What was the nature of the spell which Cervantes only, of all who fell into his power, was able to exercise over this monster ? That Cervantes was known to be the ringleader of the malcontent slaves and suspected of plotting a general rising of the Christian captives, were but reasons the more why the Algerines, having him in their power, should do to him as they had done to thousands of his companions. But though they loaded him with irons, and kept him in a duress so strict that Father Haedo says of his captivity it was "one of the worst ever known in Algiers,"^ he was never beaten or hurt or abused in his person. Fear alone could hardly account for this immunity ; still less can we believe, after the emphatic testimony borne by his comrades to his unswerving loyalty to creed and country, that his captors treated him with indulgence through any hope of his turning renegade. May we not suppose that there was really more of human nature among those wild corsairs, — that collection of adventurers from all parts of the earth who held their own so boldly in their pirates' den against all maritime Christendom, — than the Spanish annalists and monkish chroniclers have been willing to allow ; that the mingled genius and greatness of Miguel de Cervantes were enough to account for even that miracle, the clemency of Hassan Pasha ? Towards the end of 1579 this cruel episode in the life 1 C'/W ser de los peorei que en Argcl a-via. Haedo says, moreover, that " had his fortune corresponded to his intrepidity, his industry, and his projects, this day Algiers would belong to the Christians j for to no other end did his intents aspire." Haedo, p. 185. 53 Cervantes chap. of Cervantes was drawing to its term. In that year the great preparations made by Philip 11. for the conquest of Portugal, the throne of which country was left vacant by the tragic end made by the King Sebastian at Alcazarquivir, in the year preceding,^ spread terror along all the coasts of Barbary ; it being supposed that Philip's object was to make a descent on Algiers. The strenuous efforts made by the Algerines to add to the defences of their port were the occasion of fresh suffering and hardship to their captives, who were worked day and night on the fortifications. It may be also that the prospect of danger from without made the masters more eager to realise their property in slaves. A ransom had been placed upon Cervantes, as we have said, far larger than his friends could afford to pay. Meanwhile, his father and mother, with other relatives, had never ceased in their efforts to raise sufficient funds for the redemption of their younger son. Among the documents found by Cean Bermudez, in 1808, in the archives of the Indies at Seville, is the petition presented to the Royal Council, on the 17th of March, 1578, by Rodrigo Cervantes, the father, reciting his son's services and praying for assistance to free him from his captivity.^ The Duke of Sessa backed up this petition, writing strongly in Cervantes' favour, — speak- ing of him as a good soldier who had fought for his Majesty ; whom he had himself recommended for promotion ; who was deserving of all favour and aid to free him from captivity .3 It does not appear that this appeal met with any direct response. The father, Rodrigo Cervantes, died in 1579, ^ The battle of Alcazarquivir, where Sebastian, King of Portugal, and all his army were overthrown and destroyed by the Moors under their dying Sultan Muley Muloch, was fought on the 4th of August, 1578. ^ Navarrete, p. 315. 2 Navarrete, p. 314, The Duke of Sessa and Terranova, grandson and heir of the Great Captain, and lately Viceroy of Sicily, had already borne flattering testimony to Cervantes' services at the battle of Lepanto. His son was after- wards the great friend and patron of Lope de Vega. 54 4 Captivity in Algiers leaving the burden of Miguel's liberation to fall upon the mother, Leonor de Cortinas, and the widowed sister, Andrea de Cervantes. These two women managed to raise between them a sum of 300 ducats, equivalent to 3300 reals?- A sum about equal to this was got from various other sources, chiefly by way of loan ; and the money was entrusted to Father Juan Gil — stet nomen in ceternum ! — of the holy order of the Redemptorists, and official Redeemer of Castile.^ Father Gil arrived at Algiers on his mission of mercy on the 29th of May, 1580. The offer of 600 ducats was refused by Hassan, who demanded 1 000 — that being double the sum he had paid for this slave to Deli Mami. Hassan Pasha had now been recalled from his government, and was on the point of giving up the Viceroyalty to his successor, Jaffier. He had completed his arrangements for the voyage ■'■ There is so much confusion in the Spanish coinage of this period, through the same denominations serving for gold and for silver pieces, that it is difficult to arrive at an exact estimate of the value of the sums raised for Cervantes' ransom in our money. The ducado, or ducat, used throughout Italy, Spain, and the Mediterranean, was fixed by a decree of Philip II., in 1566, to be of the value of 400 mara-uedis. As 34 mara-vedh w^ent to a real, the ducat (of gold) was worth a little less than 12 reals, which would be about equal to our half-a- crown. The escudo, so called from bearing the royal escutcheon, was always half a dohlon, though what a dohlon was, — the familiar doubloon of our buccaneers, 80 called from bearing the two effigies of Ferdinand and Isabella, — is not so certain. The escudo of gold was worth 10 reals, — a little less than the ducat. The coinage of Spain, especially the gold, was in that age at a premium through- out the Mahomedan countries ; and in all bargains about ransom in Algiers, says Haedo, it was stipulated that the price should be paid in Spanish gold. The sum contributed by the widow Cervantes for the release of her son would be equal to about ,^35 in English money, without allowing for the difference of value in money between that time and this. ^ To the character and services of this eminent servant of God Cervantes bears grateful and emphatic testimony in his Trato de Argcl, calling him "a most Christian man, known to be friendly to the doing of good, who set an example of great Christianity and great wisdom " (Act v.). In the novel of La Espanola Inglesa, there is also a graceful tribute to the zeal, courage, and humanity of this most useful and blessed order of Reciemptorists, who devoted their lives to the rescuing of poor Christian captives from slavery, and often were known to give their own persons in pledge to redeem poor captives unable to raise a ransom. 55 Cervantes chap. to Constantinople, and Cervantes, with the rest of his slaves, was already on board one of his galleys, chained and fettered. At the last moment, moved by compassion and fearing to let slip the opportunity. Father Gil, by his earnest supplica- tions and efforts among the local merchants and others, was enabled to raise a further sum of 500 escudos in Spanish gold, with which Hassan was satisfied.^ Cervantes disembarked from the slave galley on the 19th of September, once more a free man — having completed just five years of captivity. There took place a delay of a few weeks longer before he was enabled once more to set foot on his native soil, through an incident highly characteristic of our hero. His malignant enemy, the Dominican Blanco de Paz, the same who had denounced him to Hassan for his last attempt at escape, had circulated certain calumnies in Spain respecting Cervantes' behaviour at Algiers during his captivity. In order to obtain greater credit for these inventions, Blanco de Paz had given himself out to be a familiar of the Holy Office, with a mandate and commission from the King to exercise his functions in Algiers. Whether Blanco de Paz really possessed this character or whether he was an im- postor, is not very clear from the scanty lights we have on this, not the least mysterious passage in Cervantes' history. Considering the malevolence with which he pursued Cer- vantes, and the strange, inexplicable rancour with which he followed up the feud, apparently for some time after the Algerine episode, — a rancour totally irreconcilable with his being a charlatan or having only a personal quarrel with Cervantes, — I cannot help thinking that there was something more than a private grudge at the bottom of Blanco de Paz ^ Thus the total sum paid for Cervantes to his captors, after five years of incessant striving among his relatives and friends, supplemented largely by the charity of the Redemptorists and of those who knew him in Algiers, was a little more than jQioo of English money — which would be equal in these days, at the usual reckoning, to about /CS°°- 56 4 Captivity in Algiers and his enmity. That he was a Dominican is certain ; and the Dominicans were but slaves of the Holy Office. In after years it was a Dominican who tried to do Cervantes a mortal injury by disfiguring Don fixate, and robbing him of the credit and the fruit of his genius.^ Why should Cervantes have taken such pains formally to combat Blanco de Paz, and to contradict his calumnies ? That he did so we may be thankful ; for it is through the investigation held before Father Juan Gil, for want of any judge or commissary qualified to administer justice in Algiers, that we obtain a most minute, vivid, and pathetic picture of Cervantes' life during his Algerine captivity. Had there survived no other record than this of the life of Cervantes, — had he not written a line of the books which have made him famous — the proofs we have here of his greatness of soul, constancy, and cheerfulness under the severest of trials which a man could endure, would be sufficient to ensure him lasting fame. The enthusiasm, the alacrity, and the unanimity with which all the witnesses, — including the captives of the highest rank and character in Algiers, — give their testimony in favour of their beloved comrade, are quite remarkable and without precedent. They speak of him in terms such as no Knight of romance ever deserved ; of his courage in danger ; his resolution under suffering ; his patience in trouble ; his daring and fertility of resource in action. He seems to have won the hearts of all the captives, both laymen and clerics, by his good humour, unselfish devotion, and kindliness of heart. Finally, the elaborate process, with its twenty- five articles and the individual depositions to each, which lasted over twelve days, was concluded on the 22nd of October, by an affirma- ^ The so-called Fernandez Avellaneda, author of the spurious Second Part of Don Quixote, is demonstrated to have been of the religious profession and a Dominican. Some have supposed that he was Blanco de Paz himself; but more of this hereafter. 57 Cervantes tion under the hand of Father Juan Gil himself, that he knew the parties to the process and all the deponents of personal knowledge ; that Blanco de Paz was a notorious liar and calumniator, hated of all ; and that Miguel de Cervantes was deserving, for his conduct in captivity, of all the praises which he had received.^ Cervantes' acquittal was complete. The process which he had challenged seems, in that age, to have been regarded as unusual, and there have not been wanting in recent times critics who have deduced from it theories reflecting on his conduct, or at least on his orthodoxy. But looking to the unexampled persecution of which he had been the object at the hands of those pretending to be the official representatives of the Faith in Algiers, Cervantes showed equal boldness and sagacity in courting an enquiry. He had every reason to believe himself still in the King's service. He had every right to hope for advancement in his profession. It was necessary to him, therefore, to return to Spain with a clean bill of good conduct and orthodoxy. And we shall be able to see in his subsequent career, that this triumph over Blanco de Paz, though it did not blunt the edge of his enemy's rancour nor lead to our hero's material betterment, was of some value to him as a man of letters. This affair ended, Cervantes left Algiers, landing in Spain with some of his ransomed companions on one of the last days of 1 580.2 ^ See Appendix C, at the end of this volume, for an abstract of all the pro- ceedings at this curious and interesting enquiry, with the depositions of the principal witnesses, taken from Navarrete, who quotes the documents in full, from the copy made by Senor Cean Bermudez of the papers found in the archives of the Indies at Seville. ^ Cervantes made frequent mention and great use of his Algerian experiences in all his works. The story of the Captive in D^n S^uixote is evidently a real passage in the life of one of his fellow - prisoners, in which allusion is made to himself and to some of his own adventures. In several of the novels, as El Amante Liberal and La Espanola Ingksa, are introduced Algerine corsairs and their captives. In the comedy of El Trato de Argel (Life in Algiers), which 58 4 Captivity in Algiers was thirty years afterwards incorporated in another called Los Banos de Argel, the scene is laid in Algiers, and Hassan Pasha and other real personages are brought upon the scene. In El Gallardo Espanol, the hero, Saavedra, turns renegade for love, but returns to the true faith and retrieves his honour. In La Gran Sultana, the heroine is a Spanish lady captured by the Algerines, who is taken to Constantinople and captivates the Grand Senor, — founded on the real story of one Dona Catalina de Oviedo. In Persiks and Sigismunda, there are also captives and corsairs. In all his works Cervantes shows what, for that age, was an unusual familiarity with the Moors, the Mahomedan faith and customs and the language and idioms of the East, having probably acquired a competent knowledge of colloquial Arabic, as well as of the Lingua Franca, a mixed language then commonly spoken throughout the Levant and the courts of Barbary, — making use of his knowledge in Don ^luixote, in which words of Eastern origin and Eastern ideas are of frequent occurrence. 59 CHAPTER V The Return to Spain Cervantes returned to Spain to experience that which he has declared to be the greatest pleasure which can be enjoyed in this life, which is "to arrive, after a long captivity, safe and sound to one's native country." Little other cause had he for joy on the termination of his long and cruel slavery. He was now in his thirty -third year, with a courage unbroken and a heart and temper over which fortune seemed to have no power. Yet his condition was desperate enough, in a worldly sense, to need all the resources of his gay and sanguine nature to preserve him from despair. He had come back to Spain, after ten years' absence, disappointed in the promise of his life, without a profession, without a career, neither a soldier nor a civilian, not knowing whether he was in the King's service or out of it. To begin the world afresh he was even less favourably equipped than he had been as a young man before Lepanto. His wounds must have been a serious impediment to him in the pro- fession of arms which he had adopted. His chief patron, Don Juan, was now dead ; and such interest as his past services and good character had won him could scarcely avail him much among the multitude of competitors for preferment. That which was his chief title to fame, his conduct and service at Lepanto, was precisely that which recommended him the least to his King, who hated the 60 CHAP. 5 Return to Spam memory as he had grudged the glory of his brother's victory. The family of Cervantes were reduced to poverty through their efforts for his release. He himself was encumbered with a portion of the debt which had been incurred for the raising of his ransom, which, small as it was, took him four years to discharge.^ What was there to do in the Spain of Philip II. for the poor maimed soldier, who had not yet discovered the treasure of his own genius ? Spain in 1580, to all outward seeming, was at the very height of her power and greatness. During the hundred years preceding she had risen, amidst the wonder and envy of her neighbours, from a cluster of petty states to the foremost place among the nations of the earth. The extinction of the Moorish dominion in the Peninsula ; the conquests of her valiant soldiers, under a succession of able native generals, in Italy and in Flanders ; the distracted con- dition of France through internal religious wars ; and the lucky marriage with the House of Austria, had contributed to advance a State hitherto almost a stranger — a quantite negligeable — in the policy of Europe, to be the greatest, the strongest, and the wealthiest empire on earth. The heir of the Emperor Charles V., although he succeeded to but a portion of his father's dominion, was the master of two continents. No monarch since Charlemagne had exer- cised so wide a rule. In 1580 he had acquired, by the easy conquest of Portugal, the sovereignty of the entire Peninsula. He was lord of more than half of Italy, including Lombardy and Naples, with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. ^ By a document found among the archives of the Indies in Valencia, being a cedula or deed in the name of the King Philip II., dated the nth of August, 1584, extending the time during which a certain privilege was granted to Dona Leonor de Cortinas (the mother of Cervantes) for sending merchandise for sale from Valencia to Algiers, it appears that up to this date some of Cervantes' ransom-money was still unpaid to those who had helpeo his family to raise it ; nor was it until the December following that the debt was finally discharged, out of the profits of the cargo for which the King's licence was given. 61 Cervantes The states of Tuscany and of Genoa were his vassals. The Duke of Savoy was his son-in-law and dependent. The Low Countries he still held military possession of, in spite of all the genius and craft of Orange and all the valour and obstinacy of the Dutch. Of the new world Spain held the fairest portion. From Chile to Florida, three-fourths of the known continent was hers. All the wealth of the Indies, then not merely a figure of speech but a substantial yearly tribute, of which the Spanish King was the sole dispenser, was poured into the Spanish ports. Seville had been raised to be the rival of Venice as the emporium of commerce, the mart of the world. By sea and by land Spain was predominant. Her navy was by far the greatest ever seen in Europe, and, in spite of the EngHsh adven- turers, still held the command of the seas. Her soldiers were acknowledged to be the best, for trained valour and skill, in the world. She was the mingled envy, admiration, and terror of her neighbours. She was at the head of European civilisation, and aspired to give law and fashion to all Christendom. Her native art was still in its infancy ; but in literature her golden age had dawned with extraordinary splendour. No nation seemed to exhibit the promise of a more exuberant harvest in poetry and in the drama. The age was pregnant with greatness — the soil bursting with the long pent-up life of centuries. Never before had there been such a prospect opened to the national genius. Never had Spain filled so large a space in the eyes of the world. At this epoch, when all her greatness was at the highest, the decay of Spain had already begun. The fruit was rotting before it was ripe. Under the rule of Philip II. it was impossible but that the true health and strength of the nation should decline. This puny Atlas had, in 1580, borne the burden of the two worlds now for five-and-twenty years. The patriotic historians trace the decadence of Spain from the degenerate successors of " Philip the Prudent," 62 5 Return to Spain who himself is always spared from criticism by reason of his orthodoxy, his very Spanish character, and his active repression of heresy, abroad and at home. But there can be no doubt that the mortification in this overgrown carcase of empire had commenced with Philip II. At heart a monk rather than a king, a meaner creature never held dominion over the sons of men. With none of the impulses which contribute to a nation's greatness had Philip the smallest sympathy. He had no taste either for war or for letters. He was splendid only in autos de fe. He preferred burning his subjects to any other pastime or exercise. In him the national tendency to intolerance, begotten of the long duel with the Moslem, during which to be a Christian was to be a patriot and a good Spaniard, reached its culmination and found its purest expression. He hated poetry, and tried to put down the drama. He was jealous of all intellectual eminence. He had no idea but to strengthen the Church, and conceived of no duty higher than of extirpating freedom of thought throughout his dominions. Under this sour and gloomy despot, who boasted of governing two worlds from his solitary desk, what could ensure the health and prosperity of a great empire ? Nothing is more certain than that the decay of Spain had begun even from the very moment when she was crowned arbitress of the destinies of Europe. There was no real life in the members of this giant body, which lay like a huge polype across two hemispheres. The heart fulfilled none of its functions. The energy which had sustained the people against the Moors seemed to die out suddenly, as a national force, after the conquest of Granada. The discovery of America rather precipitated than retarded the ruin of Spain. All the enterprise, all the chivalry, all the enthusiasm inherited from her Gothic blood seemed to flow in one ceaseless stream across the Atlantic. Cortez and Pizarro — the last of the true Knights Errant — sought their adventures in the New World ; and their companions 63 Cervantes practised in Mexico and in Peru the lessons they had learnt in their romances. There is ample testimony, even in the pages of the native writers, to prove that the discovery of America, instead of being a source of riches, was really a cause of impoverishment to the mother-country. The best blood of Castile was poured out into Mexico and Peru. The lust for gold — the rage for dominion — absorbed every other wholesome passion, drained every other feeling. There is much reason to doubt whether Spain derived even any material benefit from her American colonies. The ten or twelve millions of gold which were computed, in the most prosperous period, barring accidents and the English buccaneers, to come in every year, were more than counter- balanced by what went out in the shape of men, their industry, and their enterprise. It is certain that Philip's revenue, never estimated at more than sixteen or seventeen millions of dollars, was never equal to his wants. In his correspondence with Don Juan in Flanders, and with his Viceroys in Italy, the one constant burden of the King is the inadequacy of the Royal income to supply their demands ; and yet Philip had the one virtue of frugality. The foreign wars had exhausted his treasury. Flanders was an ever open sore — the support of the Catholic League a running issue — the garrisons in Italy a perpetual drain. Of the total revenue of Spain, nearly two- thirds were unavailable for the current expenses of the State, being already pledged to the bankers of Venice or of Genoa. Indeed, the whole realm of Spain was "leased out, Like to a tenement or a pelting-farm." Every great office was sold for the benefit of the King. The few rich were becoming richer, while the mass of the people were steeped in poverty — a poverty year by year becoming straiter through the increase of the cost of living, caused by the influx of American gold. There was much splendour at Court, and much show of wealth among the grandees and the great 64 5 Return to Spain ecclesiastics, but we have ample evidence to prove that the nation at large was poor. There was a certain activity of commerce, and a movement in industry, greater, perhaps, than there has been since ; but the country, as then administered, was a losing business. All public life under Philip II. had been extinguished. Aragon still claimed, indeed, to exercise her fueros^ and sometimes, as in the affair of Antonio Perez, used them to thwart the King's humour.^ But there was very little left of the old provincial constitutions and privileges. All power was centred in the Sovereign, — more completely, perhaps, than in any state in Christendom. Philip was absolute master, in fact if not in name, of the lives and liberties of his people. The Cortes still met occasionally, indeed, and it was a part of the tyrant's policy to pretend to consult them when he desired to divide his responsibilities ; but, except to vote supplies or to pass resolutions in restraint of vice or luxury, the Cortes had ceased to be a living power in the State. There may be another side to the picture, as it is inevitable that there should be. This does not claim to be the last word on Philip II. I am writing, not the history of Philip, but the life of Cervantes — treating of Philip only as he had to do with my hero. There are apologists for Philip II., of course. Henry VIII. has been shown to be a gentle and noble prince, zealous for his country's good. Charles II. was no worse than he should be — even too good for his dull and over-virtuous country. Pedro the Cruel was remarkable for his love of justice. Ivan of Russia was a stern represser of evil-doers. Nero's amiable character brought him to ruin ; and of Tiberius the worst to be said, it has been proved, is that he was too fond of seclu- ' Aragon had, from a remote date, her own especial laws and privileges, fueros, to which she clung with great tenacity, and always possessed a greater share of individual liberty than any of the kingdoms which, under Ferdinand and Isabella, became provinces. 65 5 Cervantes chap. sion. It is enough for me, here, to say that the rule of Phihp II. was out of harmony with the spirit and un- favourable to the genius of at least one good Spaniard, who is more to the world than he who governed Spain for nearly half a century. That Philip was steadfast in his devotion to his own conception of duty, nor without a certain dignity in his kingly office, it is impossible to deny. He was free from some of the commoner vices of kings. He was frugal, temperate, and fairly continent. He had a pride in him- self and in his cause. The prudence for which his country- men give him chief praise was rather caution — a caution which sprang rather from a general suspicion of men's motives than from confidence in his own. He trusted no one. His own agents he was always trying to deceive to their ruin or to circumvent for their confusion. His frugality was practised at the expense of his officers. He was as penu- rious as Elizabeth herself, and starved the soldiers who bled for him. His caution was often rashness, and his economy extravagance. What is there more to say which is pertinent to this history, which proposes to tell of a romance and its begetter ? Amidst the general decay of all the natural forces of the country one power only throve and grew, with a vigour and vitality which were the sure forerunners, as they were among the chief causes, of the fast-hastening decrepitude of Spain. Under Philip II., if nothing else flourished, the Church was in rude and rampant health. To quote the words of the English Ambassador, Sir Charles Cornwallis (written in the next reign, but as true of the state of things under Philip II.), "the riches of the Temporall hath in a manner all fallen into the mouthes and devouring throates of the Spirituall." Under Philip commenced that rage for religion, — at least, that enthusiasm for the idle and luxurious life led by the monks and nuns, — which attained to such prodigious and almost incredible lengths within the next 66 5 Return to Spain generation. While everything else withered, the Church alone remained green and luxuriant. So vast an establish- ment for the service of God was, perhaps, never maintained in any other country on earth, with so beggarly a return in the shape of good morals. All virtue, all enthusiasm, all intellect — whatever was spared from America — went in the direction of the Church. There is something appalling in the rush which was made towards the religious life and the religious endowments in that age and in the succeeding one. The Spanish writers, in their pious exultation, help us to ample evidence. In a petition to the King, only a few years after Philip II. 's death, the Cortes — even the Cortes — express their alarm at the multiplication of churches and convents. They say that there were in Spain 9088 monas- teries, not reckoning the nunneries, which "little by little, with dotations, confraternities, chapelries, or purchases, are getting the whole kingdom into their power." ^ In the beginning of the reign of Philip's son, the two orders of Dominicans and Franciscans alone numbered 32,000 mem- bers. In two bishoprics, Calahorra and Pamplona, Davila reckons that there were 24,000 of clergy. In the diocese of Seville there were 14,000 ministers of religion, the cathedral alone engaging the services of a hundred priests.^ Within the whole dominions of Philip, with a population, excluding the wild Indians of South America, which could not have ex- ceeded 50,000,000,^ there were 58 archbishops, 684 bishops, ^ See the authorities quoted by Buckle in his famous chapter on the history of the Spanish intellect, in his History of Ci-vi/isation, vol. ii. p. 476. I have never found Buckle wrong in his citations, though often hasty in his con- clusions. ^ See Davila and Yanez, in their histories of Philip III., Geronimo dc Cevallos, D'ncurso de los Razcnes, etc., and a cloud of other witnesses, lay and ecclesiastic. * Ticknor and others make it 100,000,000 ; but this is surely an exaggeration, unless we include all the unreclaimed Indians of Mexico and South America. In Spain, the population, which under the Romans used to be reckoned at 14,000,000 (probably an exaggeration), and in the time of Ferdinand and 67 Cervantes chap. 11,400 abbeys, 936 chapters, 127,000 parishes, 7000 religious hospitals, 23,000 religious orders and confraternities, 46,000 monasteries, 13,500 nunneries, 312,000 secular priests, 400,000 monks, 200,000 friars and other ecclesiastics.^ About 1,000,000 human beings cut off from natural and wholesome life, and dedicated to a life of idleness, whether in mortification or in luxury ! To crown all, there hung over the land the black shadow of the Inquisition. The age of most abundance and fruitfulness in Spain, — the seed-time, if not the harvest, of the national genius, — was also unhappily the age of the greatest oppression. The crop, debarred from free growth, shut out from wholesome light and air,, chilled and stunted by the cold breath of the Holy Office, produced little but sickly and distorted weeds. The period of activity in art and in letters coincided with the renewed vigour of the Church against heresy and free thought. What Bossuet called "the holy severity of the Church of Rome, which will not tolerate error," was never more conspicuous than in the reign of Philip II. The Inquisi- tion, which had been comparatively idle during the tolerant age of Charles, had broken out into new heat under his son. From 1556 to 1597 the tale of heretics roasted gives a total of 3990, or about 140 a year. Besides, there were 18,450' imprisoned for various terms and sent to the galleys. Not Isabella at 15,000,000, had declined at the end of Philip's reign to 12,000,000. The Milanese, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and the other Italian dominions of Spain might have contained a third more. The Low Countries could not have numbered more than 4,000,000. This leaves 18,000,000 for America and the colonies. 1 The Rev. Dr. Dunham, in his History of Spain, on the whole an honest piece of work, though with a strong bent towards absolutism and ecclesiasticism, quotes these figures not only without wonder but actually with a certain complacency, defending them as "not so outrageous," and as evidencing a state of things over which good Churchmen should rejoice, following up this glorious list of good things belonging to the Church with the remark that " at this time the state of the Peninsular population was one of comparative comfort." 68 5 Return to Spain even the Primate of all Spain was spared, for Archbishop Carranza of Toledo suffered seventeen years of torture in prison for maintaining in print that " works done without charity are sins and offend God." ^ With the fear of this dread tribunal, with its secret purposes, its mysterious agents, and its invisible spies, darkening every act of life, invading every home and shadowing all communion of man with man — what nation, however powerful and wealthy, vigor- ous of spirit and ripe of genius, could hope to retain greatness ? Such a world as this it was into which Miguel de Cervantes, with his gifts, his experiences, and his yearnings, was launched at the close of the year 1580. The records of his life are extremely scanty, and such as are furnished chiefly out of his own works. Despairing of other employ- ment and waiting for the preferment he believed to be his due, Cervantes was driven to take service again as a soldier, resuming his place in the ranks of his old regiment of Figueroa, which was now on the frontier, forming part of the army destined for the subjugation of Portugal. In this regiment was also carrying a musket (if we can believe his own story) a youth called Lope de Vega, destined to be a lifelong competitor with Cervantes. ^ The Tercio de Figueroa^ ^ Opera quacunque sine carhate facta sunt pcccata et Deutn offendunt — which is precisely the sentiment put by Cervantes in the Duchess' mouth in respect of Sancho's penance [Don S^uixote, Part 11. ch. xxxvi.), in the passage which was expurgated by the Holy Office, ^ We have only Lope's own authority for it in rhyme, which, though accepted by all the biographers, I hold to be worthless. The dates do not square with each other, or with the known facts of Lope's life. He says, or sings, that ^t fifteen he was brandishing " a naked sword " against the Portuguese in Terceira. But the first expedition to the Azores was not until 1582, and Lope was born in 1562. It follows that, either he did not go to Terceira, or that he was not fifteen but twenty when he went there. But in 1582 Lope was in the service of the young Duke of Alva as secretary, having just left the University of Alcala. Lope was much given to lying, and it may be that this particular invention about wielding the naked sword in Terceira was needed to cover some less heroic passage in his stormy youth — which was sufficiently rich in 69 Cervantes since last Cervantes served in it, had become famous by its exploits in the Low^ Countries under Don Juan and his successors, and was now^ generally known as the tercio de Flandes. It was still commanded by the veteran Lope de Figueroa, who at this date, — according to Calderon's play of the Alcalde de Zalamea^ the scene of which is laid on the road to Portugal, — was old and gouty. The regiment itself, though retaining its ancient renown in arms, seems not to have improved, if we are to believe Calderon, in discip- Hne or in morals since its service abroad. The soldiers, ill paid and worse cared for, had acquired an evil name throughout the country-side for their misdeeds, and are said to have been more dreaded by the people than any enemy. In the beginning of 1580 King Philip's preparations for the invasion of Portugal had been suspended through his illness, caused as it was said through fever brought on by grief for the loss of his fourth wife, Anne of Austria. His claims on Portugal were founded on his being the son of the Infanta Isabel, sister of Joam III., who left no legitimate male issue — the last of the old line of Portuguese kings. But there was another claimant in the person pf Antonio, who figures in history as the Prior of Ocrato. He was the bastard son of Luis, the brother of Joam III. France supported his claim out of jealousy of the aggrandisement of Spain. Elizabeth gave him fair words but poor succour in her usual fashion, not caring to risk much in his enterprise, yet willing to hurt Philip, in accordance with her policy of war with Spain at all points. On land there was very little opposition to the march of the Spanish army. By the spring of 158 1 the Duke of Alva had completed the conquest of Portugal. But Don Antonio, aided by France, continued to maintain the contest at sea, scandalous episodes, if we may trust what is believed to be the story of his own life in Dorothea. 70 5 Return to Spain having his centre in the Azores, the inhabitants of which were in his favour. Contrary to w^hat the Spanish historians assert, England gave the Prior of Ocrato no help, though Elizabeth would not — perhaps could not — prevent some of her ardent sea-adventurers from sharing in the enter- prise, through the eternal hatred of Spain and probably the hope of plunder. A fleet of 60 French ships, under the command of Philippo Strozzi, a distinguished military captain, of much experience on land though unversed in affairs of the sea, was despatched to the Azores in support of Don Antonio's cause. They were joined by 6 English privateers from Plymouth. An expedition was organised at Lisbon against him, under the veteran admiral Alvaro de Bazan, Marquess of Santa Cruz, in which Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo took part. The headquarters of the regiment of Figueroa were at Lisbon. Some disputes between the naval and the military commanders frustrated the first expedition prepared against Don Antonio, and it was not until the summer of 1582 that the Spanish fleet under Santa Cruz appeared off the island of Terceira, the largest of the Azores. Serving on board of the ships were 3000 infantry of the Figueroa regiment, " chosen men," says the chronicler, "well-trained old veterans, able and well- disciplined."^ The Spanish fleet was to have been reinforced by a squadron from Cadiz under Aguirre, but Aguirre did not join in time to take part in the operations. According to Herrera^ the Spaniards had 27 ships, with 3000 soldiers on board. Opposed to them, under the command of Strozzi and Le Brissac, were 60 French vessels, smaller in size, but with 6000 soldiers, including those on shore. A fierce battle was fought off Angra, which ended in a complete victory for Santa Cruz. Miguel de Cervantes ^ Mosqucra de Figueroa, Comentdrio de la Jornada de las Islas de lot ^xores (1596). ' Antonio de Herrera, Hittoria de Portugal, 1591. 71 Cervantes chap. and liis brother Rodrigo were on board the galleon San Mateo^ one of the two flagships, which bore the brunt of the hn;htino; and suffered very heavily, having been surrounded and assailed by three of the enemy. The Marquess of Santa Cruz is charged by the French writers who treat of this battle with a deed of savage brutality. He is said to have ordered Philippe Strozzi, when brought before him, bleeding of his wounds, to be flung into the sea. But Herrera, from the Spanish side, — a contemporary historian of these events, — says that Strozzi was dead of his wounds when taken on board the Spanish flagship. Of the prisoners taken the officers and gentlemen were beheaded, and the common men hanged to the number of over 300.^ But it was a cruel age, when war had lost much of its civility. The old chivalry was dead ; the new humanity was not yet born. The Spaniards excuse Santa Cruz, who in other passages of his life had not been wanting in generosity, on the ground that the French partisans of Don Antonio were pirates, there being at that time peace between Spain and France. The Marquess of Santa Cruz returned to Lisbon on the 25th of September. His work, however, was not yet done, for a third expedition was despatched in the following year against the refractory Don Antonio, whose adherents had made head again, leaving Lisbon on the 23rd of June. Terceira was again the scene of an obstinate struggle, in which Rodrigo Cervantes so greatly distinguished 1 The historians have taken very little note of this sea-fight, in which England is generally made to play a part. Mr. Froude has a page about it in his great history, but it is, as usual, full of blunders. Strozzi is called "a veteran" and " the old admiral," — but he was neither an admiral nor old. He was only in his forty-second year, and had never been at sea before. It was Santa Cruz, born in 1510, who was the old admiral. Mr. Froude gives the Spanish force as double that of the French, but the Spaniards quote the figures, showing the French were superior in numbers of ships and men, though their ships were smaller. Mr. Froude's story about Santa Cruz intending to have had Strozzi, if taken alive, pulled to piece« between four boats, is beyond credence as past proof. 72 5 Return to Spain himself by his personal valour as to obtain the notice of his commander and promotion to the rank of an alferez^ or subaltern officer.^ Whether Miguel also was in this expedition is not certain. We know from his own memorial to the King, some years afterwards, petitioning for employment, that he served under the Marquess of Santa Cruz in the Azores, but it was probably in no very active or prominent capacity. In a contemporary record of the campaign in the Azores appears an eulogistic sonnet by Miguel de Cervantes, in which "the great Marquess" (the same whose beard was singed by Drake at the entrance of the Tagus in 1585) is exalted for his great deeds in the usual hyperbolical style of the period.^ After the completion of the work in the Azores and the suppression of Don Antonio, the Spanish fleet returned to port, — on this occasion to Cadiz, there to receive, says the historian, the applause of all good Spaniards. With this ended the military career of Miguel de Cervantes. The precise date of his leaving the regiment of Figueroa is not recorded. During his stay in Lisbon, he conceived a favourable opinion of the Portuguese and of their city, lavishing on them much praise for their agreeable, courteous, and liberal manners ; commending their language as sweet and pleasant, and especially admiring the beauty and lovable qualities of their women ^ — praise rarely earned by ^ Rodrigo de Cervantes was one of three who jumped into the surf at the attack on the forts which defended the Puerto de las Muelas near the city of Angra in Terceira, and led the party of soldiers against the French under Bourguignon, by whom the place was defended ; Comentario de la Jornada de las lilas de lot Azorei. It does not appear that on either this or the former occasion the English took any part in the fighting. ^ This was he whose deeds "neither oblivion, nor time, nor death can consume," — the greatest of Spain's sea-captains, who was nominated to the command of the Invincible Armada, but died suddenly just before it sailed, and was succeeded by the incapable Duke of Medina Sidonia, — a change very much to the benefit of England. ' How deeply imprinted on the heart of Cervantes was the memory of this 73 Cervantes chap. the Portuguese from their neighbours, and in that age especially most uncommon, Cervantes had room in his large heart for every one — Moors, Portuguese, even English- men — in days when the English Queen was looked upon by Spanish patriots as a monster outside of humanity, and when Lope de Vega could write his Dragontea^ foaming with wrath and spite, over the dead Sir Francis Drake. Of the Portuguese ladies Cervantes' good opinion was not without return. He had an amour with one unknown, by tradition a lady of high quality, the fruit of which was a daughter, Isabel, his only child,— her father's constant companion till his death. ^ At some period which his biographers have not been able to fix with any certainty, but probably subsequent to his return from the last expedition under the Marquess of Santa Cruz, Cervantes was at Mostagan, on the coast of Barbary, then a Spanish possession, — whence he was sent to Spain by the Governor with despatches for the King, by whom he was ordered on some service, most likely in connexion with the provisioning of the troops, to Oran, where also was a Spanish garrison.- This employment, which may have flattered Cervantes' hopes of civil preferment, seems to have led to no immediate results. Meanwhile Cervantes was engaged in preparing for the press his first acknowledged book, a mixed prose and poetical romance, upon the model of the pastorals then in fashion, entitled Galatea. He had also in contemplation pleasant time in Portugal, is proved by the singular enthusiasm with which he speaks of the country and of the people thirty years afterwards in his Persiksy Sighmunda (bk. iii. ch. vii.). This was in an age when, as Byron says in Childe Harold— Well did the Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. ^ Called Dona Isabel de Saavedra, who after her father's death took the veil, and entered a convent of bare-footed Trinitarian nuns at Madrid. ^ The sole authority for these facts is Cervantes' memorial to the King in 1590, in which they are recited. See Appendix C, 74 5 Return to Spain about this time another important step in his life, which was his marriage,^ 1 Sir Richard Burton, in one of his notes to the translation of the LusiaJs (vol. iii. p. 67), remarks that, " seeing they must often have heard of one another, curious to say, Camoens never mentions Cervantes." It would have been curious if he had. Camoens was born in 1524, — twenty-three years before Cervantes, TAe Lusiads wzs ^uhlished in 1572. Its author died in 1579, — six years before Cervantes published his first book. Cervantes mentions Camoens once in Don Sluixote (Part II. ch. Iviii.). 75 CHAPTER VI The Author of ' Galatea ' A NEW epoch in the life of Cervantes opens in 1584. In that year he printed his first book, and married a wife — these two momentous steps being, in more than one way, connected. He was now in his thirty-seventh year ; and perhaps there could be no more fitting time to describe his personal appearance. There is no curiosity so natural or reasonable as that which seeks to know how the great men of the past, vv^hose names are eternal, looked to the world when alive. Few men there are vv^hose features we should more gladly call up than that of the author of Don ^ixote. Unhappily, the creations of his fancy havp a more real presence than is retained by their creator. The images of Don Ouixote and of Sancho Panza we can recall with a sufficient distinctness, in spite of all that several generations of painters and engravers have done to distort and disfigure Cervantes' ideals. But of Cervantes himself we have not, alas ! any pictured memorial. The Stratford bust and the Droeshout portrait have done something, if not very much, to enable us to realise the features of Shakspeare. But the country of Cervantes has preserved no true effigy or picture which can be safely accepted as the portrait of the author of Don ^ixote. Spain, ever incuriosa suorum — careless in every point and circumstance of her greatest genius, neglectful of him when he lived, not knowing where he was born, and 76 ^6 Author of 'Galatea' still indifferent to where he was buried, — by a supreme and almost incredible piece of apathy has allowed all trace of at least two portraits of Cervantes, which were painted in his lifetime by well-known artists, to be lost, or, if extant, to be past identification. More fortunate than his contemporary, Shakspeare, Cervantes lived in an age when art was in the full vigour of its spring. He is known to have been intimate with two of the best of the early Spanish painters — Francisco Pacheco, the master and father-in-law of Velasquez, and Juan Jaureguy, poet as well as artist, whom our author extols in several of his writings. There is no reason for doubting the statement, — in itself most credible and confirmed by what Cervantes himself says, at least in regard to one of them,^ — that by both Cervantes' portrait was painted. Pacheco is known to have made a collection of a hundred and seventy portraits, in black and red chalk, of all the most eminent men of his time ; and that Cervantes' portrait was among them cannot be doubted.'^ That a portrait by Jaureguy ^ See the opening sentences of the address to the reader in the Prologue to Ncmdas Exemplares. Cervantes is apologising for some friend who, like many others in the course of his life, has dealt with him rather according to his worldly state than his genius, "which friend might well have engraved and sculpt me on the first leaf, since the famous D. Juan de Jaureguy gave him my portrait." I cannot understand any one reading the words and concluding, as a recent English translator has done (who seems to think that Cervantes got no more than his deserts in his treatment by his countrymen), that " they imply nothing more than that Jaureguy could or would paint a portrait of him if asked to do so." Surely they imply that there was such a picture, but that the friend who might have engraved it for the book failed to do so, as Cervantes hints, because he was not sure of being paid for his work. It is not the picture but the print from it, the absence of which Cervantes so good-humouredly bewails, in the reader's interest. ^ See Navarrete, pp. 92, 196, and 537, Navarrete, who in matters of fact may be entirely trusted, quotes from the Grandezas de Espana of Pedro de Medina, published in 1590, in which, speaking of Seville, the author says it was the centre of men of learning and letters. In that year Cervantes was residing at Seville, now well known by his poems and plays ; and Pacheco, a great lover ot literary company and a poet himself, was one of his friends. It is Pacheco himself who tells us, in his Arte de la P'mtura (bk. iii. ch. viii.), th.it he had 77 Cervantes chap. existed, from which an engraving was to have been made, to be affixed to the first edition of the Novelas Exemplares^ we know by the opening words of the author's preface, apologis- ing to his readers for its non-appearance. What has become of these two portraits ? For more than a hundred years, — since Spain awoke to discover the merit of the author of Don ^dxote^ — they have been lost. If they exist at all, they are hidden away in some old museum or private gallery, doing duty, perhaps, for ancestors of the family or kinsmen. But what, then, it will be said, of that stately and ultra -Spanish face, which looks out upon us in all the modern editions of Don ^uixote^ — that "portrait of a gentleman," in a dress of surprising splendour and newness such as Cervantes never wore in his life — he who had not even a cloak in his old age to clothe him before Apollo^ — all starched and frilled, in a collar of the period, in a close- drawn more than a hundred and seventy portraits in black and red chalk. Rodrigo Care, in his Claros Varona de Sc-vtlla, confirms Pacheco's statement, adding that to every portrait was appended an eulogy, and that of the whole collection a volume was made which Pacheco sent to the Conde-Duque de Olivares, the celebrated favourite of Philip IV. Pacheco, born in 1568, lived to 1654. After his death his collection of portraits was broken up, some of them being engraved in various books of that and the following century. In 1830 the book, with a reduced number of drawings, was in the possession of one Don Vicente Aviles. From him or his successors it passed, in 1864, after various fortunes, into the hands of Sefior Asensio, one of the most devoted, persevering, and enlightened of all modern Cervantists, who has done so much by his own labours to atone for the past ill-treatment of Cervantes by his countrymen. The precious volume, which has been carefully reproduced by photo- lithography (Seville, 1869), now contains only fifty-six portraits, among which, unhappily, that of Cervantes is not to be found. See for a very full account of Pacheco's work and its history Asensio's Francisco Pac/ieco, sus Obras Artistlcas y Literarias, Seville, 1886. ^ See his reply when advised by Apollo to show no resentment at unkind Fortune, but to "fold up his cloak and sit thereon" : — — Bien parece, senor, que no se advierte, Le respondi, que yo no tengo capa. (" It seems, my Lord, then that you have not noted," I answered him, " that I possess no cloak.") 78 6 Author of 'Galatea' buttoned doublet of the fashionable cut, who so long has decorated our frontispieces, to the confusion of all physio- gnomy ? Unhappily for those who insist upon a portrait of the real man, — perhaps happily for Cervantes and his character, — this is an impostor, who is easily exposed. The story of how this head came to delude the world as the vera effigies of the great Spaniard is a singular one. When, in 1738, Lord Carteret, to please Queen Caroline, brought out his fine edition of Don Quixote in four large quarto volumes — the first in which the text received due honour as a classic and still one of the handsomest which has ever appeared, printed in all the luxury of Tonson's type and adorned with gorgeous and ghastly sculptures by Vanderbank and Vander- gutch — all possible efforts were made, through the British Ambassador in Spain, to discover a portrait of Cervantes, to be engraved in the frontispiece. According to the opening sentence in Dr. Oldfield's preface, no portrait of Miguel de Cervantes could be found, in spite of all the enquiries made at Lord Carteret's instance through the British Ambassador at Madrid.^ In this extremity William Kent, the well-known English artist, was set to make a figure of the author of Don Quixote which should be appropriate to his great design in writing that book. This task William Kent executed in all good faith and with perfect honesty, taking for his guidance the minute and particular account of his person and features which Cervantes himself drew in the prologue to the Novelas Exemplares^ in lieu of the print, after Jaureguy, of which he was disappointed — which, perhaps, he could not afford to have engraved. That there was no attempt at deception, by palming off an imaginary for a true portrait, is proved by 1 No aviendo hallado (for mas solic'ttud que se aya fuesto) retrato alguno de Miguel de Cervantes Sao'uedra, ha farecido comieniente foner en el Jront'ispicto de su Historia de Don Sluixote de la Mancha una representacion que figure el gran designio que twvo tan ingenioso Autor — says Dr. Olcifield. (Ad-vertenaas sohre las estamfas desta Historia, in the first page of vol, i. of the Don fixate of 1738.) 79 Cervantes chap. the lettering — Retrato de Miguel de Cervantes per el Mismo (Portrait of Miguel de Cervantes by Himself). The figure is a three-quarter length, representing a man in the prime of life, elegantly attired, with the well-known rufF and frills, seated on a chair, with a pen in his hand. The left arm ends at the wrist in a stump. In the background is a picture of Don Ouixote on horseback, fully armed, with Sancho on his ass behind. In the margin is the painter's name and legend — " G. Kent inven'. et delin'." The design is wholly conventional, precisely such as any foreign artist might have drawn out of his own imagination after reading Cervantes' description of himself and hearing a little about Don fixate. That this could be no true portrait, and that the print could not have been copied out of any contemporary picture or engraving, is proved by the left hand being represented as mutilated, and by the introduction of Don Ouixote and Sancho Panza. Cervantes' left hand, as we have shown in a previous chapter, had not been lopped off but only disabled ; nor is he known to have been painted by any one after the publication of Don fixate, when he was nearly sixty years of age. This fanciful picture drawn by the English artist, William Kent, to decorate the first great English edition of Don ^uixote^ has served as the basis of all the existing portraits of Cervantes. The invention proved an entire success — that highly -typical Spaniard, with the hooked nose, the large moustache, the round eyes, and the baby mouth, in the portentous collar, having achieved a triumph such as few works of English art ever won outside of England. The after-history of this child of William Kent's fancy is very curious. When, some forty years afterwards, the Spanish Academy, shamed by the homage paid to Cervantes by foreigners, brought out their own first classical edition of Don ^uixote^ more fortunate than the English editors they were able to give what claimed to be a true portrait of the 80 6 Author of 'Galatea' author. The narrative of its discovery, as told by the Spanish editors in their preface, is as romantic as the story told by the author himself of the finding of the missing portion of Don ^uixote^ — fitting into its place, at the head of the first Spanish edition, with a neatness and felicity none the less admirable for being vi^holly undesigned. The editors begin by ingenuously confessing that all trace of the two portraits of Cervantes knovi^n to have been painted in his lifetime w^ere at that date (1780) lost beyond recovery. But by great good luck, precisely when they most wanted a portrait with which to deck their edition, the Conde del Aguila, a patriotic nobleman of Seville, was found to possess one. The Conde del Aguila had purchased it some years before of a picture-dealer in Madrid, who sold it as the work of Alonso del Arco. But here was a little difficulty, as the Academy naively suggest. Alonso del Arco, the deaf and dumb painter, was born in 1625, nine years after the death of Cervantes, so that he could not have painted his picture from the life. The Academy, however, wanted a portrait of Cervantes badly, in order to be on a level with their English rivals. They seem to have pursued their investiga- tions in a spirit of thrifty research resembling that in which Don Quixote tested his helmet, which, on the first trial, we learn that he demolished with ease ; " and so, without caring to make a fresh trial of it, he constituted and accepted it for a very perfect good helmet." The Academy, fearing to prove too much and to lose their prize if they persevered with their enquiries, pronounced the Conde del Aguila's picture a very good and proper portrait — if not an original, probably the copy of some original by Jaureguy, or Pacheco, or some one else, executed in Cervantes' lifetime.^ It was 1 Sec Don ^ixote. Part I. ch. ix. * There is a portrait, said to be by Velasquez, several times engraved — last In Paris, 1853, by Leissncr, with a dedication to the Empress — of which little need be said, as it is on the face of it apocryphal. It represents a man of between 81 6 Cervantes chap. accordingly engraved and prefixed to the great edition of Don fixate printed by Ibarra in 1780, with copper-plates by native artists, which were at least as grotesque and even worse drawn than the rival Dutch embellishments. But now a strange thing appeared. The portrait in the Academy's edition, which was a bust only, was found to be identical in feature, in look, and in pose with Kent's ideal portrait of 1738. It was in an oval frame, bordered with appropriate emblematical devices, showing only the face and the upper part of the body, but with the same dress, the same starched and enormous ruff, the same pronounced aquiline nose, and smug, well-contented expression, with the eyes a size larger and rounder, — the mouth even smaller, and the moustache more trim and pointed. The Academy's own explanation of this mystery (of which the true solution is, of course, that the Conde del Aguila, or the dealer who sold him the picture, had copied the English print) can scarcely be said to be satisfactory, as, indeed, it has not satisfied even Spaniards themselves. They submitted, they say, Conde del Aguila's picture to two professional painters, who, comparing it with Kent's print, came to the conclusion that it was the older of the two ; that the style was of the schools of Vincenzo Carducho and Eugenio Cajes, who flourished in the reign of Philip IV. ; and that, though not a contemporary portrait, it must have been copied from an older picture, probably of the time of Cervantes. These conclusions, which to an unprejudiced judgment appear to be self-contradictory and mutually destructive, were accepted by the Academy as decisive. While admitting that the one portrait must have forty and fifty years, with a dull repulsive countenance, habited in a costume certainly not of a fashion earlier than 1640. This could not have been painted from the life by Velasquez, for, born in June, 1599, the painter was only in his seventeenth year when Cervantes died. Nor is Velasquez known to have left any picture painted from a life-sketch of Cervantes. Had such existed, we may be sure that it would have been discovered by the Academy when in quest of a genuine portrait to adorn their first e