THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA OR PASSAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 1547-1578 3|llu0trateti toitl) numerous flfliooli BY THE LATE SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL. BART. > ' AUTHOR OF 'THE CLOISTER LIFE OF CHARLES V.' ETC. IN TWO VOLS. VOL. I. LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND .CO. MDCCCLXXXIII. I STIRLING-MAXWELL ARMS. Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 1 all who knew him, either personally or by reputation, it will be a subject of regret that the Author of this Work was not permitted to carry finally through the press a history on which he had spent years of persevering labour. But although his life was prematurely cut short, he had already done for it far more than even careful writers in general do for their productions. Not content with corrections made in his own manuscripts, he had the whole work more than once printed, and for the printed chapters he continued to make additions and changes which he felt to be called for in order to reach the high standard which he had set before himself. These insertions form a considerable portion of the present text ; and there is not one among them which fails to evince the patient striving of the writer to make as nearly as might be possible perfect that which had been to him for nearly a generation a labour of love. Probably even while he was busy with the Cloister Life of C/iarles V., he entertained the design of telling the story of the high-spirited and shortlived Prince, whose brief career is associated with the first serious check given to the power of the Ottoman Turk, and with events which mark the turning-point in the history of the Reformation throughout Northern Europe. vi PREFACE. In the execution of this plan the Author had at his command, in his own library, a treasure-house of Spanish literature second to none in the possession of private persons in Europe ; and he was thus enabled to treat fully, and perhaps exhaustively, many points which have been subjects of debate and controversy. He has left, probably, nothing more to be said on the parentage of Don John himself; on the melancholy history of his nephew and playmate, Don Carlos ; on the tortuous intrigues and hidden motives which determined the course of the Morisco rebellion, and marked the formation of the League which had for its brilliant but comparatively fruitless result the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Lepanto. Nor is the picture less complete which he has drawn of Don John's administration in the Netherlands an administration which does credit both to the heart and the head of the young Prince, who may be said with truth to have fallen under a burden which the short-sightedness, the dilatoriness, the bigotry, and, above all, the deep and deliberate treachery of his brother Philip II., made it impossible for him to bear. During the long series of years spent in the preparation of this Work, the Author spared himself no pains in bringing together a body of illustrations which should enable the reader to form a life-like idea of the age in which Don John for a few years played a prominent part, and of the chief personages who, with him, were actors in the great drama. This collection is especially rich in portraits of the victor of Lepanto ; the many likenesses given of him showing what he was at every stage from early boyhood onwards in his short career, and bearing witness to the high powers which he had inherited from his father, in contrast with the feebler intellect and colder affections of his brother Philip. To these portraits the Author added a large collection of engravings, illustrating the armour, weapons, art-workmanship, medals, the naval and military equipments, the galleys, frigates, and ships of the sixteenth century, together with a multitude of ornamental alphabets obtained from the Works for which they PREFACE. vii were designed and of devices throwing light on the manners, employments, and amusements of the age. Nearly the whole of these illustrations are embodied in this edition of his Work ; and the Work itself is now presented to the public strictly as it was left by the Author. Apart from the com- paratively few verbal corrections which will remain to be made even after a careful revision, nothing has been added, nor have any changes been made in the arrangement of the matter except in one instance, in which such a change seemed unavoidable. The third chapter of the first volume, which, beginning with a few paragraphs of narrative relating to Don John, contained a treatise on the fleets of the sixteenth century, followed by some pages of narrative again relating to Don John, ran to an inordinate length. In this case the narrative with which the chapter began has been added to the preceding chapter, the account of the fleets and the subsequent historical narrative being given in separate chapters. In a Work which is largely concerned with the history of Islam the question of the spelling of Eastern names must present itself. The Author's practice is not always consistent, some names being in different parts of the Work given in two or three different forms. These inconsistencies would probably have been removed by him on a final revision. As it is, one of the forms used by him has in such cases been adopted, his system of spell- ing not being otherwise interfered with. The Spanish names are printed as written by the Author, who in some instances adheres to the French form, and in others admits an interchange of consonants. Some of the notes left for the Work were found to be little more than memoranda to guide the Author to further inquiries on points calling for attention. When these notes explain themselves they are given as the Author left them. A few, which would be unintelligible or useless to the reader, have been omitted. In preparing this work finally for the press, I have felt bound to confine myself strictly to the carrying out of the Author's viii PREFACE. intentions. It was under this expressed condition that the executors of his will placed the whole of the material in my hands ; and throughout I have striven, as far as was possible, to follow his wishes. I may add that some difficulty has been ex- perienced in the distribution of the woodcuts in the text, some of the chapters having few, and one or two having no illustrations. But as it was impossible to doubt that the Author would have desired to place the woodcuts only in those parts of the text which relate to them, a faithful adherence to his plan left me in this matter no option. GEORGE W. COX. CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 1547-1558 PAGE I CHAPTER II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 1559-1566 24 CHAPTER III. YOUTH OF DON JOHN, AND HIS FIRST NAVAL COMMAND, 1566-1568 50 CHAPTER IV. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY . 8; CHAPTER V. OPERATIONS ALONG THE SPANISH COAST 1 06 CHAPTER VI. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; ITS CAUSES AND ITS PROGRESS UP TO THE TIME OF THE APPOINTMENT OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA TO THE COMMAND AT GRANADA, IN MARCH 1569 . . .113 CHAPTER VII. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE IST OF MARCH TO THE i2TH OF JULY 1569 . . . . . . . . .146 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE 1 2TH OF JULY TO THE END E OF OCTOBER 1569 ... .172 CHAPTER IX. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE END OF OCTOBER TO THE END OF DECEMBER 1569 . . 193 CHAPTER X. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE END OF DECEMBER 1 569 TO THE END OF FEBRUARY 1570 . . . .213 CHAPTER XL THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE END OF FEBRUARY TO THE MIDDLE OF MAY 1570 ... . 237 CHAPTER XII. CLOSE OF THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE MIDDLE OF MAY 1570 TO THE SPRING OF 1571 262 CHAPTER XIII. THE WAR OF 1570 BETWEEN THE CHRISTIAN NAVAL POWERS AND THE TURKS ; ITS CAUSES AND ITS PROGRESS UNTIL THE FORMA- TION OF THE HOLY LEAGUE .288 CHAPTER XIV. THE WAR OF THE HOLY LEAGUE ; FROM MAY TO THE END OF AUGUST 1571. ...... . . . . 345 CHAPTER XV. THE WAR OF THE HOLY LEAGUE ; NAVAL CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF LEPANTO, SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER 1571 . . . 384 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XVI. THE WAR OF THE HOLY LEAGUE; FROM OCTOBER 1571 TO THE i3TH OF MAY 1572 442 CHAPTER XVII. THE WAR OF THE HOLY LEAGUE ; FROM MARCH TO NOVEMBER 1572 . ... 478 CHAPTER XVIII. DISSOLUTION OF THE HOLY LEAGUE; FROM NOVEMBER 1572 TO JUNE 1573 503 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From a print probably executed at Venice about the time of the Battle of Lepanto. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Head (full size) from the print in J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEniponti, 1601. Fol. ; within a wreath from Heinrich Vogtherr's Kunstbiichlein ; Strasburg, 1538. 4? Title-page STIRLING -MAXWELL ARMS, within a border from G. Braun and F. Hogenberg ; Civilates Orbis terrarum. Col. Agr. 1579. PAGE 6 vols. Fol. ......... iv HEAD- PIECE. Preface. From Spits-Boeck der Gout en Silver smeden. [Amst.], 1617. 4? . . . . . . . v INITIAL LETTER T. From F. M. Grapaldus; De Partibus ^Edium; Parmae (O. Saladus et T. Ugoletus), 1516. 4? . . . v TAIL-PIECE. From engraving of i6th century in my possession . viii HEAD-PIECE. Contents. From Spits-Boeck der Gout en Silversmeden. [Amst], 1617. 4? . . ix TAIL-PIECE. From engraving of i6th century, in my possession . xi DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From a print probably executed at Venice about the time of the Battle of Lepanto xii HEAD- PIECE. Illustrations. From Spits-Boeck der Gout en Silvers- meden. [Amst.], 1617. 4? . . . . . xiii DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From a print by Jean Rabel . . xx LABEL. From Vita di Carlo Quinto Imp. descritta da M. Lodovico Dolce. In Vinegia, appresso Gab. Giolito de' Ferrarii, 1567. 4? i INITIAL LETTER T. From F. M. Grapaldus ; De Partibus sEdium ; Parmse (O. Saladus et T. Ugoletus), 1516. 4? i DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Medal struck in honour of the Victory at Lepanto, 1571 . .2 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA ; Half length. From a picture (life size) by Alonso Sanchez Coello, in my possession . 3 MEDAL WITH SERPENT. Struck by the Duke of Alba at Utrecht, in 1569 . -4 Luis QUIXADA, Guardian of Don John of Austria. From a picture by Titian in the possession of the Conde de Onate at Madrid . 6 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. From a print by Virgilio Solis . . 8 ANDREA DORIA. Medal ........ 9 THE INFANTA DONA JUANA, Princess of Brazil Medal . . .n THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. From a woodcut 12^ inches high by 9 f inches wide, by Melchior Lorch . . . . .16 DEVICE OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Diamond ring, with motto, Macula Carens. From his portrait by Wolf Kilian; Austria Ducum, archiducum, etc., Genealogia. Aug. Vin. 1623. Fol. . 23 FRIEZE. From Flos Sanctorum, Sevilla, 1580. Fol. . . .24 INITIAL LETTER A. From Xenophons Commentarien . . . durch Hieronym. Boner auss dem Latein inns Theutsch gebracht . . . Getruckt zu Augspurg durch Heinrich Stainer. 1540. Fol. . 24 THE INFANTA DONA JUANA, Princess of Brazil. From the print of Peter Mericinus . . . . . . . . .25 MARGARET OF AUSTRIA, Duchess of Parma, Regent of the Nether- lands. Medal ... ..... 30 BADGE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. From Cl. Paradin ; Devises Heroiques. 1577 . . . . . . . -31 PENNON OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. From A. Jubinal; Armeria Real de Madrid. Vol. ii. pi. 1 8 . . . -31 PHILIP II. KING OF SPAIN. From a picture (life size) by Alonso Sanchez Coello, in my possession ..... 33 ISABELLA OF VALOIS, THIRD QUEEN OF PHILIP II. From a miniature by Felipe de Liafio, in my possession . . . . -35 HONORATO JUAN, Preceptor of Don John of Austria. From Ath. Kircher's Splendor et gloria domus Joannitz. Amstelod. 1672. 4? 40 HELMET OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. In the Armeria Real at Madrid, No. 232 . . . . . . . -49 GALLEY UNDER SAIL. From Joan Stradanus ; Venationes. Antverpise, s- a 50 INITIAL LETTER E. From Lorengo de Niebla ; Summa del Estilo de Escrivanos y herendas y partidones. En Sevilla, en casa de Pedro Martinez de Banares, 1565. Fol 50 THE INFANT DON CARLOS, Prince of Spain. From a print of the time 6 1 FRIGATE 84 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum \Grcecum\ Lutetise, ex. off. Roberti Stephani, 1550. Fol. . . . . . -85 INITIAL LETTER W. From Nicolai Florentini Sermonum Libri Sdentia Medicines. Venetiis. Per Dom. L. A. de Giunta, 1515. Fol. 85 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv PAGE BRIG ... 86 SHIP WITH THREE MASTS . . . . . . . -87 GALLEY FIRING HER FORECASTLE GUNS. From Kurtze Erzeichniss wie Keyser Carolus der V. in Africa dem Konig von Thunis . . . zur hulffe komt, 1535. Plate 3. The attack on the Goletta 89 SHIP STERN VIEW. From Fronsperger's Kriegsbuch, 1571-3. 3 vols. Fol. Vol. iii. ........ 90 GALLEY AND FRIGATE. From Civitates Orbis terrarum. Col. Agr. 1576. Fol. . 105 FRIEZE. yEneas Vicus . . . . . . . .106 INITIAL LETTER D. From Nicolai Florentini Serm. Libri Scientice Medicines. Venetiis. 1515 . . . . . .106 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA ; Full length. From F. Tertius ; Austriactz Gentis Imagines. (Eniponti, 1569. Fol. . . . .107 GALLEY LOWERING SAIL . . . . . . . .112 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum \Gracum\ Lutetiae, ex. off. Robert! Stephani, 1550. Fol. . . . . . -113 INITIAL LETTER W. From Nic. de Cusa; De Concordantia Catholica Libri III. In aedibus Ascensianis, 1514, fol. ; and other books from the press of Jodocus Badius, 1501-1535 . 113 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum \Gracum\, Lutetiae, ex. off. Robert! Stephani, 1550. Fol. . . . . . .146 INITIAL LETTER T. From Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio ridotte da Gio. And. dell' Anguillara in otlava rima. Venetia (presso B. Giunti), 1584 . . . . . . . .146 DON Luis DE REQUESENS, Grand Commander of Castille ; Lieutenant of Don John of Austria in the War of Granada, and at Lepanto ; and afterwards Regent of the Netherlands. From a print by C. V. Sichem . . ... . . . .147 ARMS OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From E Austria de Ferrante Caraffa. Napoli, 1572. 4? . . . . . .171 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum \GrcBcum~\, Lutetiae, ex. off. Roberti Stephani, 1550. Fol. . . . . . .172 INITIAL LETTER A. From F. M. Grapaldus ; De Partibus ALdium ; Parmae (O. Saladus et T. Ugoletus), 1 5 1 6. 4? . . .172 ALONSO DE CESPEDES. From the print by Juan de Noort, in Rod. Mendez Silva ; Compendia de las hazanas del Capitan Alonso de Cespedcs. Madrid, 1647. Sm. 8? . . . 175 xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE BOMBSHELL AND FIRE-BALL. From G. H. Rivius ; Architectur, Niirnberg, 1547. Fol. . .192 FRIEZE. ^Eneas Vicus ... ... 193 IITIAL LETTER T. From P. Virgilii Maronis Opera. Venetiis, apud Juntas, 1544. Fol. ... .... 193 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA ; Full length. From J. Schrenckius : August. Imperatorum Regum atque Archiducum, etc., imagines . . . quorum arma in Ambrasiantz arris armamentaria con- spiciuntur. (Eniponti, 1601. Fol. . . . -197 FRIEZE. German Woodcut. 1 6th century . . . . .212 FRIEZE. ^Eneas Vicus . . . . . . . -213 INITIAL LETTER S. From Guillelmi Caoursin Obsidionis Rhodice urbis Descriptio. Imp. Ulma5 per Joan. Reger, 1496. Fol. . 213 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From a picture, now at Keir, supposed to be an old copy of the portrait by Alonso Sanchez Coello. formerly in the Portrait Room at the Pardo, destroyed by fire in 1604 . . . . . . . . . -215 GUN AND GUNNER . . . . . . . . . 236 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum \_Grcecum], Lutetiae, ex. off. Roberti Stephani, 1550. Fol. . . . . . -237 INITIAL LETTER D. From Lorenzo de Niebla; Summa del Estilo de Escrivanos. Sevilla, 1565 . . . . . ..237 FERNANDO GONZALVO DE CORDOBA, Duke of Sesa. From the print by Nicolo Nelli, 1568 . 239 ARMS OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From Jean Bapt. Maurice ; Blason des Armoiries de tous les Chevaliers de Vordre de la Toison d'or. La Haye, 1667. Fol. p. 272 . . .261 FRIEZE. Fr. Brendel, 1550 . . . . . . .262 INITIAL LETTER A. From G. Braun and F. Hogenberg; Civitates Orbis terrarum, 1579. 6 vols. Fol. . . . .262 VICTORY. From the large portrait of the Emp. Charles V. by ^Eneas Vicus. 1550 287 FRIEZE. yEneas Vicus . . . . . . .288 INITIAL LETTER O. From Ptolomei Alexandrini . . . Johannis de Regiomonte Astronomicon Epitoma. Opera et . . . arte im- pressionis . . . Johannis Haman de Landoia ; dictus Hertzog . . . expletum [Venetiis] 1496. Fol. . . . .288 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xvii PAGE SULTAN SELIM II. From a print by Domenico Zenoi . . .289 MAHOMET SOKOLLI, Grand Vizier of Selim II. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEniponti, 1601. Fol. . 300 THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN II. From a print by Martin Rota . 302 PIETRO LOREDANO, Doge of Venice from October 1568 to May 1570. Reduced from a contemporary print . . . . -307 ASTOR BAGLIONE, Venetian Commander at Famagosta, slain by the Turks after the surrender. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEniponti, 1601. Fol. . . -313 FRANCISCO DUODO, Commander of the Venetian Galeasses at Lepanto. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEni- ponti, 1 60 1. Fol. . . . . . . . .313 MARC ANTONIO COLONNA, Commander-in-Chief of the Papal fleet at Lepanto. From a print bearing the date 1569 . . .316 GIOVANNI ANDREA DORIA, Commander of the Squadron of Sicily at Lepanto. From a print . . . . . . .318 POPE Pius V. From a print by N. Nelli 326 FRIEZE. From Epigrammata urbis Ronue (in aedib. Jacobi Mazochii), 1521. Fol. . 344 FRIEZE 345 INITIAL LETTER P, with portrait of Pius V. From Aldo Manucci ; Vita di Cosimo d Medici primo granduca di Toscana. In Bologna, 1586. Sm. fol. ....... 345 ALVARO BAZAN, Marquess of Santa Cruz, Commander of the Squadron of Naples at Lepanto. From VaL Carderera y Solano ; Icono- grafia Espanola. Madrid, 1855-64. 2 vols. fol. vol. ii. pi. Ixxxii. bis. Copied from the frescos at the Palace of El Viso, built by Santa Cruz himself . . . . . . -348 CATHERINE DE MEDICIS, Queen - Dowager of France. From a print by N. Nelli. 1567 349 FRANCESCO DE MEDICIS, Prince of Tuscany. From a Medal. . 350 ANTOINE DE PERRENOT, Cardinal Granvelle. Medal struck in honour of the presentation of the Holy Banner of the League to Don John of Austria 359 SEBASTIAN VENIERO, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet of Venice at Lepanto, afterwards Doge. From J. Schrenckius; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEniponti, 1 60 1 362 b xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE ASCANIO BELLA CoRGNiA, Chief Engineer in the Spanish service at Lepanto. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. GEniponti, 1601 ......... 378 SFORZA, Count of Santa Fiore, General of the Papal troops at Lepanto. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc.. Imagines. (Eniponti, 1601. . . . . . . . -379 FRIEZE. From Novum Testamentum [Grtzcuni], Lutetiae, ex. off. Roberti Stephani, 1550. Fol 383 FRIEZE 384 INITIAL LETTER A. From Herodoti . . . Libri novem . . . inter- prete Laurent. Valla. [Colonise apud Euchariam Corvicorum, 1562.] Fol 384 SEBASTIAN VENIERO, Commander-in-Chief of the fleet of Venice at Lepanto. From a contemporary woodcut, 15 inches high by lo-J inches wide, by Cesare Vecellio, in the Print Room of the British Museum . . . . . . . 386 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. From a print probably executed at Venice about the time of the Battle of Lepanto 401 MIGUEL DE CERVANTES. From the head of a boatman, supposed to be his portrait, in the picture of the Fathers of the Redemp- tion, by Francisco Pacheco, in the Museum of Seville, No. 19. The very plausible presumption in favour of the authenticity of this portrait is stated by D. Jose Maria Asensio y Toledo, in his Nuevos Documentos para la Vida de Cervantes. Sevilla, 1864. 89 pp. 67-94 . 424 COLLAR AND BADGE OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. From Pirro Ant. Ferrari; Cavallo Frenato. Napoli, 1602. Fol. . . -439 ANNE OF AUSTRIA, FOURTH QUEEN OF PHILIP II. From the print by A. Campi in Cremona . . . rappresentata . . . et illustrata. Cremona, 1502. Fol.. ....... 442 INITIAL LETTER T. From Delitiosam Explicationem de Sensibilibus deliciis Paradisi, a D. Celso Mapheo. [Impressum Verona per me Luca Antoniu Florentinum. Anno D. Mille ccccciiii. die. xxix. lanuarii. I. C. C.] 4? . . . . . . . 442 POPE Pius V. Medal struck in honour of Lepanto . . . 448 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. 1571. From a German woodcut . -452 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Statue by Andrea Calamech, erected at Messina in 1572. Front view . . . . . .458 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xix PAGE DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Statue at Messina. Side view . -459 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. Statue at Messina. Back view . . 460 SHIELD, said to have been presented to Don John of Austria by Pius V., and now preserved in the Armeria Real at Madrid, as imaginatively restored by M. Jubinal ; La Armeria Real de Madrid. Paris, 2 vols. fol., ii. pi. 16 . . . . .462 SHIELD (see p. 462) as it actually exists 463 ALEXANDER FARNESE, Prince of Parma. From a print in Adrian van Meerbeeck; Chroniicke van de gantsche Werelt. Ant- werpen, 1620. Fol. . . . . . . . . 478 INITIAL LETTER I. From Homeri Ilias per Laur. Vallen. in Latinum sermonem traducta. Venetiis (Joan. Tacuinus), 1507. Fol. . 478 JACOPO SORANZO, one of the Venetian Commanders at Lepanto. From J. Schrenckius ; Aug. Imp. Regum, etc., Imagines. CEni- ponti, 1 60 1. Fol. ........ 480 GIACOMO FOSCARINI, Commander-in-Chief of the Venetian fleet, 1572. From the original picture by Dom. Tintoretto, presented by Foscarini himself, on his election as Procurator of St. Mark, 24th Feb. 1580; formerly in the Procuratia di Ultra, and now in the Ducal Palace at Venice . . . . . .487 POPE GREGORY XIII. Medal struck by him in honour of the Massacre of the Huguenots, 1572. . . . . -494 ARMS OF ALVARO DE BAC.AN, Marquess of Santa Cruz. From the title-page of Joan Ochoa de la Salde ; La Carolea. Lisboa, por Marco Borges, Ant. Ribero e Ant. Alvarez, 1585 ; a book dedicated to Santa Cruz . . . . . . .496 FRIEZE. ./Eneas Vicus . . . . . . . -503 INITIAL LETTER D. From Versehung Leib Seel Ehr und Gut. 1489. Without name of place or printer 4? ... 503 LUDOVICO MOCENIGO, Doge of Venice from May 1570 to June 1577. Reduced from the contemporary print by Ferando Bertelli 505 SHIELD with Grotesque Mask, supported by Cherubs. Hans Sebald Behem, 1544 5 J 3 CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 1547-1558. HE 24th of February, the feast of St. Matthias the Apostle, was reckoned by the Emperor Charles V. as the most memorable among the auspicious days of his life. Born on that day in the castle of Ghent, he received on the same day of the same month, from the hands of the Pope at Bologna, the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. On the same day one of his generals, Prosper Colonna, routed the French under Lautrec in the important field of Bicocca; and another, Charles de Lannoy, received the sword of the captive King of France beneath the walls of Pavia. And on the same day, in the year 1547, it is said that there was born to him at Ratisbon the son to whom descended much of his capacity for command, and whose brief career forms the last brilliant page in the history of those princely houses which were united in the person of Charles under the name of Austria. Although Don John of Austria was the acknowledged son of the most famous monarch of the age, the facts of his early life are veiled in much obscurity. Until within the last few years historians have accepted 1545 as the date of his birth, 1 notwith- standing the evidence of the medal struck in honour of his victory at Lepanto, in which his age is given as twenty-four, in 1571. 1 Vanderhammen : D. Juan de Austria, 410, Madrid, 1627, fol. 2. VOL. I. B DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. More conclusive testimony has recently been found l in the records of the Cortes held at Toledo in February 1560, where it appears that Philip II. granted to Don John a verbal dispensation, in virtue of which, although still under the age of fourteen pre- scribed by law, he was permitted to swear allegiance and do homage to his nephew, Don Carlos, as heir-apparent of the Crown of Spain. Considerable doubt still hangs round the name and DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. MEDAL STRUCK IN HONOUR OF THE VICTORY AT LEPANTO, 1571. rank of his mother. History has been accustomed to call her Barbara Blomberg, daughter of a noble family at Ratisbon, and unmarried at the time she became a mother. She owed her introduction to the Emperor to her fine voice, and was brought to play and sing to him during one of his visits to Ratisbon, to divert the melancholy under which he long laboured after the death of his Empress Isabella. The personal charms of the musician are said to have tempted him to a closer intimacy, which resulted in the birth of Don John of Austria. The his- torian Strada, on the other hand, was told by Cardinal de la Cueva that he had himself heard from the lips of the Infanta Arch-Duchess Isabella, the favourite daughter and confidant of Philip II., that her famous uncle was the son, not of his reputed mother, but of a lady of princely degree. 2 There is no doubt, however, that Barbara Blomberg was generally reputed to be the mother of Don John, and that she was treated as such by Charles V. and Philip II. If the boy was born on the 24th of February 1547 the connexion between her and his father must have existed at Ratisbon, where the 1 By Don Modesto Lafuente, and cited in his Ilistoria General de Esfafia, vols. i.-xviii., 8vo, Madrid, 1851-57 ; xiii. p. 437, note. 2 Famiana Strado : De Bella JBelgico, 2 torn. sm. 8vo, Antverpiae, 1640, i. p. 563. CHAR I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. Emperor resided in i 5 46, from the I oth of April to the 4th of August, 1 occupied in preparing his forces for the campaign against the Elector of Saxony and the Protestants, which was closed by the victory at Muhlberg. Whatever its nature, the connexion between Barbara and Charles was not of long duration. The child was removed from her soon after its birth ; and the only subsequent occasion when the Emperor is recorded to have noticed her, was on his deathbed, when he bestowed on her an 1 Itinerary of the Emperor Charles V. 1519-1551, by Vandenesse, translated from the Flemish, and appended to Bradford's Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V., 8vo, London, 1850, p. 555. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. 1. MEDAL WITH SERPENT. STRUCK BYTHE DUKEOF ALBA AT UTRECHT, IN 1569. annuity of two hundred florins. She became the wife of one Jerome Pyramus Kegel, a gentleman of the Imperial Court, who obtained the post of Commissary at Bruxelles and died there in 1569. It is at the commencement of her widowhood that contemporary and authentic records begin to afford us any clear glimpse of the Emperor's mistress. The Duke of Alba, the Governor of the Netherlands, on the 3Oth of June 1569 wrote to Philip II. that he had sent to inquire into her cir- cumstances, and had found her poor and in debt ; that of two children whom she had had by Kegel, one had been lately drowned ; and, he added, that as it was a matter of public notoriety that she was the mother of Don John, it would be necessary to do something to improve her condition. Various later despatches prove that the Duke found her a most troublesome charge. 1 He proposed that she should quit Brux- elles, but she was most unwilling to leave that capital. To Mons, the retreat at first suggested, she refused to go, on the plea that she understood no French, nor any lan- guage but her own, which seems to render it probable that she was Flemish and not German by birth ; and it was not without much difficulty that she was persuaded to retire to Ghent. There she was provided with a house and a liberal establishment, con- sisting of a housekeeper and six women, a steward, two pages, a chaplain, an almoner, and four other men-servants. Alba was, however, much annoyed by her extravagance and her perverseness. She had no sooner received money than it was spent in feasting ; and she was surrounded by suitors, whose attentions sorely per- plexed the Duke, seeing that he was instructed by the King that she was on no account to be allowed to marry again. Philip, who at first wished her to remain in the Netherlands, now thought of transporting her to the seclusion of a Spanish nunnery ; but on being sounded as to a journey to Spain she said she knew how women were immured there, and that she would be cut in pieces rather than go. In September 1571 the baffled Duke was contemplating the possibility of getting her inveigled on board a vessel, on pretence of going to Antwerp, and conveying her by force across the Bay of Biscay. But it was not until J Gachard : Correspondance de Philippe II. sur les Affaires des Pays Bos, torn. i. ii. 4to, Bruxelles, 1848-51 ; ii. Nos. 884, 905, 912, 960, 969, 987, 1025, 1054. CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 5 some years had elapsed, and after the arrival of her son as Governor of the Low Countries, that she could be induced to submit herself to the King's will, and remove to Spain. The precise name bestowed in baptism on Don John has not been recorded ; but the name which he made famous was not the name which he bore in early youth. For some years of his life he was called Jerome, an appellation affording one of many proofs of the Emperor's devotion to the great doctor of Bethlehem, in one of whose religious houses he at last ended his days. While still at the breast, the little John or Jerome was placed under the care of the eminent man who afterwards watched over his youth with all the affection of a father, and all the vigilance which became the trusted counsellor of a great Prince. Luis Mendez Quixada was head of an ancient baronial house of Old Castille, which for five centuries had furnished good knights and true to the courts and camps of the descendants of St. Pelayo. His father, Gutierre Quixada, a gallant soldier, had been a favour- ite of Philip the Handsome during his brief reign in the realm which his Queen had inherited from Isabella the Catholic ; and two of his sons had fallen in battle in the service of Philip's son and successor, the Emperor Charles. Luis himself, who had begun life as the Emperor's page, was also a soldier of reputation; and both in Africa and the Low Countries, in the breach and in the field, he had led the famous infantry of Spain. Rewarded with the rank of Colonel, and with the post of Vice-Chamberlain of the Imperial household under the Duke of Alba, he had long attended the Emperor's person, and enjoyed his entire confidence. In 1549 he had married Dona Magdalena de Ulloa, a lady of birth equal to his own, and of a nature as gentle and lovely as any which ever graced the Court or the story of Castille. Soon after the Vice-Chamberlain's return from being married in Spain, and from settling his bride in his family mansion at Villagarcia, the Emperor informed him of his wish to send the foster-son whom he had given him to be educated in Spain. Quixada proposed that the child should be confided to the care either of his wife at Villagarcia, or of Bautista Vela, a trusty retainer of his house, who was curate of Leganes, a village near Madrid. The Emperor made his election in favour of the priest. Meanwhile a favourite musician of the Emperor, one Francisco or Francisquin Massi, whose violin had for many years solaced his leisure hours, asked leave to retire from the Imperial service. A Fleming by birth, Massi had accompanied his master to Spain, DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. when he first visited the country in 1517, and some twenty years afterwards he had married at Toledo a Castillian wife with some property. This woman, Ana de Medina, being home-sick, they had determined to return to Spain and spend the remainder of LUIS QUIXADA, GUARDIAN OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. their days in a house which she possessed at Leganes. To the care of this couple the Emperor resolved to entrust Don John, that he might travel with them to their village, and live with them there, while the parish priest continued to be his pedagogue. They were told that the boy was the son of Adrian de Bues, or CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 7 Dubois, one of the gentlemen of the Imperial chamber, and they and their son Diego were required to sign the following curious document, of which a copy is preserved among the State papers of Cardinal Granvelle : - 1 I, Francisco Massi, viol player to His Majesty, and Ana de Medina my wife, we acknowledge and confess that we have taken and received a son of the Senor Adrian de Bues, groom of His Majesty's chamber (ayuda de camera), whom we have taken at his request, that we should take, keep, and bring him up as if he were our own son, and that we should not tell any person whoso- ever whose son he is, because the said Senor Adrian desires that neither his wife nor any other person should by any means know of the child, or hear him spoken of. Wherefore I, Francisco Massi, and Ana de Medina my wife, and our son Diego de Medina, we swear and promise to the said Senor Adrian that we will not tell or declare to any living person whose the said child is, but that I shall say he is mine, until the said Senor Adrian shall send me a person with this paper, or the said Senor Adrian come in person. And be- cause the Senor Adrian desires to keep this matter secret, he has asked me, to do him a kindness, to take charge of the said boy, which we do with very good will, I and my wife ; and I acknowledge to have received of the said Senor Adrian for the expense of conveying this boy on horseback, and for his equipment and maintenance for a year, the allowance which he gives me, one hundred crowns. It is also agreed that the said year shall count from the ist of August of this present year 1550. In consideration of which payment I hold myself content and reimbursed for this said year ; and for this reason I hereby sign this paper, I and my wife ; and because my wife cannot sign I ask Oger Bodoarte to sign her name for her. And henceforth the said Senor Adrian is to give me fifty ducats for every year for the boy's maintenance. Done at Bruxelles on the r 3th day of the month of June, One thousand five hundred and fifty years. At the date of this contract the Emperor was at Cologne on his way to the diet about to be held at Augsburg. 2 He had left Bruxelles, however, only a fortnight before, on the 3 1st of May, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that the agreement with Massi had previously received his consideration and approval. As the musician and his wife intended to travel to Spain under the protection of Prince Philip, the heir-apparent, they probably soon followed the Imperial Court to Augsburg. In that city the Emperor passed the autumn and winter of 1550, and the spring of 1551, watching with great anxiety the proceedings of the great council of the empire. Philip, who was also there, had just completed a progress through the northern portion of the vast dominions which he was one day so cruelly 1 A copy of the Spanish original is preserved in the archives at Besa^on, and has been printed by M. W. Weiss, in his Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de Granvelle, torn, i.-ix., Paris, 1841-52 ; iv. pp. 499, 500. 2 Itinerary of the Emperor Charles V. 1519-1551, by Vandenessc ; Bradford's Correspondence of Emperor Charles V., 8vo, London, 1850, p. 572. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. to misgovern. He had received from the various states the oath of allegiance as his father's heir. The Netherlands had received him with peculiar honour. Their rich and flourishing cities had vied with each other in the splendour of the pageants with which they had welcomed him, and the vice-queen, Mary, Queen of Hungary, although fond neither of extravagance nor of her nephew, showed her devotion to her brother by entertaining him CAROLVS -V- ROMAVORXAY RATOR AN : AT- S- XLI X ' THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. and his son at her favourite palace at Binche with festivities which recalled the reckless magnificence of Duke Charles and Kaiser Max. But in Germany Charles failed in securing for Philip the reversion of the Imperial crown, one of the favourite schemes of his life. Neither the King of the Romans, nor his son, nor the electors, could be brought to entertain the proposal ; and after a winter spent in fruitless intrigue and angry expostulation, Philip returned from the field defeated, and confirmed in his dislike to all things German. A pension was bestowed on Massi, and he and his wife received from Quixada their last instructions and a letter for the curate of Leganes, recommending the young Geronimo to his kindness and educational care. As the musician kissed the Emperor's hand in taking leave, Charles said to him : " I hear that Quixada has given you a " commission. Remember that I shall consider the fulfilment of CHAP. I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. " his wishes as good service done to myself." It does not seem that the secret of Don John's birth was as yet entrusted to Philip, or that he was aware that amongst his followers he had a young brother, who was to become one of the chief glories of his reign. The Prince left Augsburg on the 25th of May. Crossing the Alps, he halted for a few days at Trent, where he was entertained with masques and jousting by the grave Prelates and doctors who were entering on their labour of remodelling the Christian faith in ANDREA DORIA. MEDAL. the newly assembled council. Hastening to Genoa, and the squadron of the veteran Andrea Doria, he landed on the I2th of July at Barcelona. 1 Leganes, the village in which Dona Ana de Medina's property and heart lay, is about two leagues south-west of Madrid, and near the road from Madrid to Toledo. As giving the title of Marquess to a branch of the House of Guzman, the name was well known in the reign of Philip IV. The village is situated on that vast undulating plain which lies between the snowy range of Guadarrama and the mountains of Toledo, and is inhabited by a population of peasants who live by the partial cultivation of the fine corn -land round its mud walls. Here Don John passed several years of his boyhood, under the care of Massi and his wife. His education was entrusted to the curate Bautista Vela, as advised by Quixada. But in spite of the Chamberlain's recommendation and injunctions, this priest was little solicitous to prove himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. Never 1 Vanderhammen, D. J. de Austria, f. 8, says 5th of August ; but I have followed Prescott, History of Philip //., vols. i.-iii., 8vo, London, 1855-8, i. p. 59. VOL. I. B 2 10 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. dreaming that his pupil might one day influence the disposal of mitres and red hats, he handed him over for tuition to his sacristan, one Francisco Fernandez. When the boy had learned all that a country sacristan of the sixteenth century might be supposed to know, he was transferred to the school of Getafe, of which the huge brick building looms heavily on the eastern horizon of Leganes. To this place, about a league off, Don John used to trudge daily through the fields with his companions, dressed like the peasant lads, and amusing himself by the way in shooting sparrows with a little crossbow. In such studies and sports nearly three years were passed. During this period Francisquin Massi died, but Don John remained under the care of his widow. The accounts of him which reached his father and Quixada, or the absence of any account, proving unsatisfactory, it was resolved to remove him to tutelage more befitting one born so near a throne. In the spring of 1554 Charles Prevost, one of the grooms of the Emperor's chamber, was sent from the Court of Bruxelles to that of Valla- dolid to summon Philip, the Prince-Regent, to repair to England to receive the crown-matrimonial of that country with the hand of Mary Tudor. This mission accomplished, the envoy was instructed to proceed to Leganes. He performed the journey thither in a coach, an invention which, although coming into use in the Netherlands, was as yet hardly known in Spain, and which, therefore, attracted crowds of gazers in every town and hamlet where it appeared. Great was the astonishment of the people of Leganes when the amazing machine rolled into their dull street, and stopped at the door of Ana de Medina. The astonishment and excitement grew greater still when it was rumoured that the great man from the Court who stepped out of it had come to fetch away the young foster-son of the house. Ana de Medina was in despair at losing the pretty boy who shared her home and cheered her widowhood. Moreover, she and her gossips were surprised to observe that the magnificent stranger who came accredited by Quixada, and was known to the Prince and the Emperor, treated the boy with marked respect ; that he invited him to dine with him ; and that he placed him on his right hand at the table which glittered with his travelling equipage of plate. As the coach containing the courtier and the boy rolled away on the road to Valladolid, it was surrounded and pursued by a crowd of urchins, vociferating farewells to their depart- ing comrade. Dofta Ana herself brought up the rear, weeping CHAP. I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 1 1 bitterly, and calling on the stranger not to bereave her of her darling son. 1 At Valladolid, where the Infanta Juana, Princess-Dowager of Brazil, was now reigning as Regent, Prevost halted to provide his THE INFANTA DONA JUANA, PRINCESS OF BRAZIL. MEDAL. charge with clothing more suited to his rank than the peasant's weeds in which he had found him at Leganes. Don John was not presented to his sister, the Regent, who was still ignorant of his existence, but was conveyed by Prevost, without loss of time, to Villagarcia. This village, now containing about a thousand souls, lies six leagues north-west of Valladolid, beyond the heath of San Pedro de la Espina, in the vale of the Sequillo. Bounded by low hills, this valley produces a good deal of fine corn and inferior wine, on the cultivated land near the dry and dusty channel down which the wintry storms sometimes pour an intermittent stream. In the family mansion of Quixada. Dona Magdalena de Ulloa was now residing. The letter from her husband, which was the credential of Prevost, merely informed her that the boy whom the bearer was to place under her charge was " the son of a great man, the writer's dear friend," and entreated her to watch over him as tenderly as if he had been their own child. Dona Magdalena had now been married for five years without offspring. She therefore at once welcomed to her home and heart the son of her lord's dear friend, and henceforward made him the chief care and solace of her life. The lady of Villagarcia, whose name thus became linked with the name of John of Austria, has claims on her own account to honourable remembrance. 2 The best and bluest blood of Iberia 1 Vanderhammen : D. fiian de Austria, f. II. The name of Prevost is metamor- phosed by this author, and by Sandoval, into Pubest. 2 Her life was written by Juan de Villafane, a Jesuit father, grateful for the benefits which she had heaped upon the company. It bears this title : La Limosnera de Dios ; 12 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. i. ran in her veins. Her father, Juan de Ulloa, Alcayde of Toro, was maternally descended from the royal house of Castille ; her mother, a daughter of the house of Luna, Maria Toledo Ossorio, bore names which pretend to be sprung from the Imperial Palffiologi and the divine Osiris. Born in 1525, Magdalena was in her twenty-fourth year when she married Luis Quixada, who was probably nearly double her own age, but with whom she appears to have lived in great contentment and affection. The marriage took place at Valladolid, the bridegroom appearing at the altar by proxy ; but he soon afterwards obtained leave of absence from his duties in the Low Countries and joined her in Spain. After living for a while at Valladolid, they went to Villagarcia, where they were received with every demonstration of joy by their vassals. These rustics, however, soon afterwards disturbed the complacency of their newly-wedded lord by resisting certain of his signorial exactions, and they eventually cast him in a plea, carried to the Council of Castille, in which he defended what he conceived to be his hereditary rights against their encroachments. 1 His residence among them was brief and interrupted, his time being chiefly spent in attendance on the Emperor in the Netherlands. Dona Magdalena meanwhile remained at Villagarcia, winning the hearts of her people by her kindly deeds and gentle ways, and having Don John for a companion and an occupation. Her first care was to recommence his education, which, neglected by the curate, had not been greatly advanced either by the sacristan of Leganes or the schoolmaster of Getafe. When he had acquired the arts of reading and writing she caused him to be instructed, by competent teachers, in Latin, music, and other branches of what was then esteemed a good education. She reserved to herself the care of his spiritual nurture ; teaching him his duties to God, the Church, and his fellow-men, and inspiring his young mind with her own especial devotion to the Mother of the Redeemer. By making him the channel of her bounties, she inculcated the practice of benevolence, and early made him familiar with the luxury of doing good. On certain days, when the poor came to receive alms at the castle gate, he was sent into the courtyard, or into the gallery above, to watch their coming and to Rdadon historica de la vida y virtudes de Dofia Magdalena de Ulloa Toledo Ossorio y Qutnones, muger de Luis Mcndez Quixada, Fundadora de los colegios de Villagarcia Ovtedo ySantander de la Comfaflia de Jesus, 4 to, Salamanca, 1723. It contains much curious historical information, and is now very scarce. 1 Villafane : Vida de Da. Magd. de Ulloa, pp. 41-2. CHAP. I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 13 report their numbers. When the gathering was complete he ran to announce it to his aunt for by that popular term of Castillian endearment he called Dona Magdalena and received the dole apportioned to the number of the claimants. This he would then dispense, in the style of old Spanish and Christian courtesy prescribed by his foster-mother, beginning with the eldest of the beggars, and giving to each a real, at the same time saluting each by name, and kissing the coin ere he dropped it into the out- stretched hand. 1 Thus time passed on, each day deepening Magdalena's affec- tion for her young charge. One feeling only troubled her tranquil happiness, the suspicion that he owed his birth to some previous possessor of her husband's heart. This suspicion she often confided to her confessor, who wisely advised her to wait with patience until time should reveal the truth. An accident enabled her to guess at least part of the truth. During one of Quixada's visits to Villagarcia their house took fire at night. The Emperor's faithful servant carried Don John to a place of safety before he attended to the preservation of his wife. From that moment Magdalena's mind was relieved of its anxiety. Secure of her husband's love, she felt that the boy's safety had been preferred to her own, because Quixada's honour was engaged in guarding a trust confided to him by another. Her curiosity was allayed, if not satisfied, and she forebore to tease her lord with questions which he might be unable to answer. Jealousy ceased to mingle with her love of Don John, and her interest in his fortunes was perhaps heightened by the glimpse thus accidentally afforded of the possible grandeur of his destiny. 2 In the autumn of 1555, and the early part of 1556, Charles V. resigned his regal functions to his son Philip II. ; and he had since been living a retired life in the Park at Bruxelles. In September his health, and a truce with the French, enabled him to remove to Spain, in order to seek still more perfect retirement at the Jeromite convent of Yuste, in the Vera of Plasencia. Ouixada had been sent forward to Valladolid to prepare for his coming, and having made the necessary arrangements, was awaiting further orders at Villagarcia. The news that the Emperor had landed at Laredo, in Biscay, and instructions to join him there, reached the Chamberlain on the evening of the 1st of October. Mounting his horse at two in the morning of 1 Vanderhammen : D. Juan de Austria, f. 12. 2 Villafane : Vida de Da. M. de Ulloa, p. 43. , 4 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. i. the 2d, he rode into Laredo on the night of the 4th, and took the command of the Imperial progress to the capital. The cavalcade travelled in two divisions, a day's journey apart ; the first division comprising the Emperor and his household, and the second his sisters, the Queens Eleanor of France and Mary of Hungary, and their respective trains. Arriving at Valladolid on the 2ist of October, Charles rested there for a few days in the society of his sisters and of his daughter, the Princess-Regent Juana ; and then proceeded to the Castle of Xarandilla, about a league from the monastery of Yuste. He remained there from the I2th of November until the 3d of February 1557, when his conventual retreat was ready to receive him. He lived at Yuste for a year and nearly eight months. His health, though feeble, was benefited by the change of air and scene, and by a respite from hard work. The gout, his old and inveterate persecutor, attacked him at intervals, but his physicians were never alarmed for his life until the illness of which he died. The retirement which he had planned for himself at Yuste was well worthy of a veteran statesman broken with the cares of empire. Religious reading, converse, and meditation, to prepare himself for the next world, were to be the occupations of his leisure ; his gun, his garden, music, and his mechanical experi- ments, its amusements. At Valladolid he had consented to superintend the completion of certain negotiations which had been begun under his auspices, and these concluded, he resolved to say farewell to the business of the world. But old habits were not to be so easily shaken off, and both the King and the Princess- Regent knew the value of their father's counsels too well to forego them. The consideration of one subject led to dealing with another, and the Emperor's time and thoughts soon returned to their old course, and were given to reading and dictating de- spatches, to conferences with ministers and envoys, and to anxious watching of the progress of public events. These events were not of a nature fitted to soothe anxiety and induce repose. Charles had hardly taken possession of his sunny cabinet and sweet par- terres at Yuste, when a new war, kindled by Pope Paul IV., broke out between France and Spain. Coligny and the Duke of Savoy were already in arms on the frontiers of the Netherlands. Guise and Alba were moving upon the Tronto to contest the Kingdom of Naples, and Albuquerque warned the Regent of Spain that she must prepare for the invasion of Navarre. The English marriage of Philip the Second had produced a coolness with the Court of CHAP. I. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 15 Portugal. Heresy had appeared on the Catholic soil of Spain, not only among the laity, but in the cloisters of royal abbeys, in cathedral states, and in high places of the Church itself. In the mountains of Murcia and Granada a rising was threatened by the numerous descendants of the Moor, still unreclaimed to the religion and allegiance of Castille. Sultan Solyman was assembling in the Egean his last great fleet, disturbing the commerce, and spreading a panic along the shores and among the islands of Mediterranean Christendom. The need of meeting these concurrent emergencies tasked to the utmost the resources of Spain and the energies of her rulers in all the departments of Government, ecclesiastical, military, diplomatic, and financial. No steps of importance were taken at Valladolid, and -very few at Bruxelles, without having been first considered and approved at Yuste. Immersed in the public business which had thus followed him into the forest shades of the Vera, Charles was surprised by the fever which prostrated him on the 3 I st of August, and carried him off on the 2 i st of September 1558. Luis Ouixada had come to Spain with the intention of retir- ing from his post in the Imperial household, after he had seen his master installed at Yuste. He was growing old ; he was some- what weary of his daily duties, and he was still more weary of continued absence from his wife and his estate. Like the rest of the Imperial retainers, accustomed to polished life at Bruxelles, he looked forward with dismay to banishment in the wilds of Estremadura ; and the picture of Yuste, which his graphic pen drew for the Secretary of State, was at first sufficiently cheerless. Hating friars, he found himself surrounded by Jeromites ignorant and stupid beyond the use and wont of their order ; hating Flemings, he was called on to preside over an establishment of Flemish grumblers, ever at war with the friars and each other. But the reasons which made him wish to retire also determined the Emperor not to part with a servant whom it would have been hard to replace. The Chamberlain had leave of absence in the spring of 1557, and remained at Villagarcia until August. But things did not go smoothly in his absence. The friars, especially, required his strong hand to keep them in order ; and at his return the Emperor so urged him to remain with him that Quixada found it impossible to refuse. He had gone away, wishing that he "were not coming back to eat truffles and " asparagus in Estremadura any more ;" and he announced his plan of taking up his permanent abode near the convent, in a 16 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. letter which he dates " from Yuste, evil be to him who built " it here." * In the autumn and winter of 1557-8 the precarious state of the Emperor's health, and the difficulty of finding a house for THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. Dona Magdalena, delayed the step on which Quixada had resolved. In March 1558 he was sent to attend Queen Mary of Hungary, who had been visiting the Emperor, on her journey from Yuste to Valladolid. Early in July he returned with his wife and Don 1 Cloister Life of Emperor Charles V., sm. 8vo, London, 1853, p. 150. CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 17 John, 1 and settled them in a house which he had procured at Quacos, a village lying about a mile from Yuste, at the foot of its chestnut -covered hill. The Emperor gave Doiia Magdalena an audience some days after her arrival, and received her with marked favour. He was much pleased also with the appearance of Don John ; and during the few weeks that remained to him of life, was glad of opportunities of seeing him, which Quixada's daily duties easily afforded. He was likewise gratified to observe the attention and decorum with which the boy performed his devo- tions, the result of the pious lessons of Dona Magdalena.' 2 While living at Quacos, Don John was sometimes tempted to predatory excursions into the village orchards, and was pelted by the peasants when they caught him in their fruit-trees. It is probable, and it is distinctly asserted by the Jeromite historian Siguen^a, 3 that he made one in that group of attendants, nobles, and ecclesiastics, who stood at midnight on the 2 1st of September around the bed of the dying Emperor. Luis de ^apata, in his rimed chronicle of Charles V. printed ere Don John had gathered any of his laurels, asserts that he was sent for and acknowledged by his father shortly before he expired. 4 Another writer, Salazar de Mendo^a, 5 re- lates that Fray Juan de Regla, the Emperor's confessor, used to say that he suggested to his dying master that Don John should be named in the codicil of the Imperial will as heir to the crown failing Philip and his issue ; but that Charles rejected the proposal with indignation. The statement of the poet is not very probable ; that of the prose writer is still less credible, because it would have us believe that a very astute priest not 1 Villafane ( Vida de Doiia Magdalena de Ulloa) says that most probably Don John was left at Villagarcia during the time Dona Magdalena was at Quacos. But this is disproved by the evidence both of the monk of Yuste, who left a journal, and of Philip II., who, in one of his letters, alludes to the fact that Don John had been at Yuste. 2 Vanderhammen (Don Juan de Austria, fol. 19) says that Don John went in and out of the Emperor's chamber when he pleased, being lodged in an anteroom of Quixada's apartment. But Quixada did not live at Yuste, as his letters expressly state, except during the Emperor's last illness. 3 Fr. Jos. de Siguenga : Historia de la Orden de San Geronimo, 3 vols. 1st 4to, 2d and 3d folio, Madrid, 1595, 1600, 1605, iii. p. 205. 4 Carlo que como cisne su fin siente Al nino Don Juan de Austria ante si llama, Y le dice quien es, y de alii ausente Se le encomienda al rey que tanto el ama, Y hecho lo que un rey tan excellente En tal tiempo devia, como una llama Que le falta ya al fin el nutrimiento Se fue a gozar de Dios a su alto assiento. Carlo Famoso de Don Luys (^afata, 4X0, Valencia, 1 566, fol. 287. 5 Origen de las dignidades de Castitta, fol. Toledo, 1618, fol. 161. VOL. I. C i8 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. i. only did a foolish thing, but told the story against himself after- wards. It is, however, certain that one of the last acts of the Emperor was to add to the provision previously made for Barbara Blomberg, the mother of Don John. On the day before he died he ordered Luis Quixada to give to Bodoarte, the usher of his chamber, one hundred crowns in gold, to be expended for her in the purchase of an annuity of two hundred florins. Notice of this confidential commission was given to Philip the Second by Quixada in a letter in which the Chamberlain recommended Bodoarte to the King's favour ; and he also requested His Majesty to refer the usher to some trustworthy person who might bear witness to the fulfilment of the Emperor's wish, suggesting Adrian Dubois as well fitted for the duty, because already cognisant of all the facts of the case. 1 That the Emperor, so considerate in trifles, should have burdened with so large a sum of money a servant who was about to undergo the toil and risk of a journey to Flanders, is a strong proof of his desire to keep the transaction very secret, and to prevent the payment from appearing in his accounts or amongst his legacies. It would be interesting to know whether Don John attended the funeral service performed for the Emperor at his own desire, and in his own presence, on the 3Oth of August, and whether the boy saw the great monarch whom he was afterwards to call his sire, deliver into the hands of the priest the waxen taper which he held, in token of his desire to commit his soul to the keeping of the Creator. 2 Quixada appears to have kept aloof from the 1 Gachard : Retraite et Mart de Charles-Quint, 2 vols. 8vo, Bruxelles, 1854-5, ii. p. 506. The letter is dated Yuste, 1 2th October 1558. See also supra, p. 7. 2 I may here remark that I adhere to my belief in the general correctness of Siguenga's account of these obsequies. Since the publication of the first edition of my Cloister Life of Charles V. the subject has been discussed by several writers of eminent ability. My view of it has been supported by the fresh contemporary evidence of the anonymous monk of Yuste, whose Historia has been printed by M. Gachard, and has been, in the main, adopted by M. Pichot, M. Juste, M. Gachard, and Mr. Prescott. The contrary opinion of M. Mignet (Charles-Quint, son abdication, etc., 8vo, Paris, 1854, pp. 407-8) rests chiefly on the assumption of that able historian that a funeral service for a living man would be considered as a profanation by the Roman Catholic church. M. Gachard has met this assumption by citing various other examples of such services performed with the sanction of zealous churchmen, and passages, defending the practice, from the writings of orthodox theologians. (Retraite et Mart de Charles-Quint, ii. pp. cliii. clxv.) Don Modesto Lafuente (Historia de Espana, xii. p. 485) reposes his disbelief on the absence of any mention of the funeral service in the daily correspond- ence of Yuste for August and September 1558, which he has carefully examined, and which, he says, contains letters not only of the members of the Imperial household, but of the priors and monks. I have already (in The Cloister Life) admitted the difficulty caused by the silence of the Emperor's attendants, and have given my reasons for not allowing that silence to outweigh the positive statements of Siguenfa and the anonymous CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 19 ceremony, and it is therefore not very likely that Don John visited the conventual church on that day. But he was certainly present at the longer funeral rites which were celebrated in the convent church after the Emperor's soul had actually taken its flight ; for it was remarked by the friars that he and Luis Quixada remained standing during the whole of the fatiguing ceremonies, which lasted for three days. 1 He therefore heard that remarkable sermon on the life and death of the Emperor, in which the favour- ite preacher, Villalva, put forth all those powers which were held to be unrivalled within the fold of St. Jerome. While Quixada was engaged in winding up the affairs of the Imperial establishment at Yuste, Dona Magdalena, accompanied by Don John, made a pilgrimage to the great Estremaduran shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, an image venerable for its antiquity and miraculous powers, and lodged in, what was in those days, the noblest religious house in Spain. She then re- turned with her charge to her Castillian home, and her works of charity and mercy at Villagarcia. During her brief sojourn at Yuste she had made the acquaintance of the great Jesuit patriarch, Francis Borja, afterwards general of the company, and saint of the Roman Calendar. The influence of his conversation is said to have confirmed her religious enthusiasm, and to have imbued her with that love for the order of Jesus which she subsequently displayed by unwearied munificence during her life, and by the bequest of all she had to leave at her death. Meanwhile it had been rumoured at Valladolid that the Emperor had left a son who was living under the care of Quixada. The report reached the ears of the Princess - Regent. By her desire Vazquez de Molina, the Secretary of State, wrote to the Chamberlain to know if it were true. Remembering the Emperor's monk. If a discovery has been made of letters written by the prior or any of the monks at the end of August or the beginning of September 1558, and of a kind in which allusion to the imperial obsequies might fairly be expected to occur ; and if so remark- able a transaction is passed over in silence by those who must have been concerned in it, if true, then the case assumes a very different aspect. But where are these letters ? There were none in the Gonzales MS., nor are there any in M. Gachard's volumes. I find no specimen of them in the appendix of Senor Lafuente's admirable history, nor any reference to them in his notes. On a point so vital to the question between us, I cannot be expected to accept even his assertion instead of evidence. 1 " Estuvo Luys Quixada, los tres dias primeros de las honras que il anjobispo " celebro, en pie, asi a las vfsperas y lecciones de los nocturnes, como a las misas, y " sermones, muy enlutado, y cubierta la cabe9a, que, si no era un poco del rostro, no " tenia otra cosa descubierta ; arrimado y pegado a si el nino y ynfante Don Juan de " Austria, que cierto maravillamos como tuvo fue^as para sufrir estar tanto tiempo en pie." Historic, breve e sumario of the retirement of Charles V. by an anonymous monk of Yuste ; printed by M. Gachard, Retraite et Mart de Charles V., ii. p. 55. 20 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. i. desire that the matter should be kept secret, and believing that the same desire was entertained by the King, Quixada replied, on the 1 8th of October, in these cautious words : " As to what " you say of the lad who is in my charge, it is true that he was " entrusted to me, years ago, by a friend of mine ; yet there is " no reason for believing that he is the son of His Majesty, as " you say it has been rumoured at Valladolid, because neither in " His Majesty's will, of which a copy was read to his confessor " and me in his presence and by his order by Gaztelu, nor in the " codicil which he afterwards executed, was there any mention of " the lad ; and the fact being so, I have no other reply to make." 1 In a few words of a letter written six days later, on the 24th of October, the wary Chamberlain seems to parry some other allusion made by Vazquez to the same subject. " You seem " to think what is said about this boy as certain as the fitting up " of the house of Alcala for His Majesty's reception. Ask the " agent the value of a certain rent-charge, and what I said to " him about it, when I wanted to buy it for this child." '" The carefully guarded secret having been thus publicly spoken of, Quixada found it necessary to write to the King about it more frankly than heretofore. Up to this time his extant letters to Philip the Second contain only three passages in which any allusion to Don John can be discovered or suspected. The first of these is found in a letter, dated i 2th July 1558, in which he announces the safe arrival at Quacos, on the ist of the month, of himself, Dona Magdalena, and the rest (los demas). The second appears in a postscript to a long letter, dated i^th September 1558, during and chiefly relating to the Emperor's last illness. " As to the other (en lo demas, which may relate either to a per- " son or a thing) which your Majesty knows to be in my charge, " all the care in the world shall be taken, until the time when " your Majesty may come, or send me some verbal order to give " your Majesty further information on the matter." 3 The third allusion is plainer, because it occurs in the letter of recommenda- tion to the King, already noticed, 4 written on I2th October 1558 1 Gachard : Retraite et Mart, i. p. 435. 2 " For tan cierto me parece que va teniendo lo de este muchacho como el aderezar " S. M tad la casa de Alcala, para irse a ella. Pregunte V. M. al fator cuanto ha, y lo " que yo le dije sobre cierto juro que queria comprar yo para este nino." Gachard : " Retraite et Mart, i. p. 441. 3 " En lo demas que V. M tad sabe que esta a mi cargo, se tendra todo el cuydado " del mundo, hasta en tanto que V. M tad venga, que tambien me mando de palabra " que dije sobrello a V. M ted algun recaudo." Gachard : Retraite et Mart, i. p. 375. 4 Page 1 8. CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 21 by Quixada in favour of Bodoarte, who was in the secret, and had been chosen by the Emperor to buy an annuity for Barbara Blomberg. Even there, however, the cautious Chamberlain speaks of his ward's mother as " the mother of the person whom " your Majesty knows." l But the curiosity of the Princess-Regent at last wrung from the reluctant pen of Quixada the following communication to his master : Twenty days after the death of His Imperial Majesty, Juan Vazquez, on the part of the most serene Princess, wrote to me that I should advise him whether it were true that I had under my charge a child, desiring me also to know that he was said to be the child of His Majesty, and that I should advise him, in a public or private manner, of the fact, in order that, if the thing were true, provision should be made for fulfilling whatever directions had been left on the matter. To which I replied, that it was true that I had the charge of a boy, the son of a gentleman a friend of mine, who had placed him under my care years ago ; and that, as His Majesty had made no men- tion of him either in his will or codicil, the report must be taken for an idle rumour ; which was the only answer I could give, either in a public or a private manner. And although I am aware that your Majesty knows what the state of the case is, and the inconveniences which may result from any such publica- tion of it, yet for the sake of explaining why I have written as aforesaid, and because I knew through other channels that the matter has been talked about, I have thought it right to advise your Majesty of what has passed, in order that it may be evident that I have done my duty. 2 The servants of the late Emperor having been discharged, the gratuities to the poor having been distributed, the accounts paid, and the Imperial effects packed up and sent to Valladolid, Quixada and his family bade adieu to Estremadura, and returned across the mountains to Villagarcia. Early in December he was summoned by the Princess-Regent to Valladolid, to meet with the other executors of her father's will, and arrange the details of its fulfilment. While thus employed he wrote on the 1 3th of December to the King in these terms : I find the affairs of the person, whom your Majesty knows to be in my charge, so publicly spoken of here that I am greatly surprised ; and I am even more surprised by the minute facts which I hear on the subject. I came hither, fearing that the most serene Princess might press me to tell her what I knew about it ; but, not being at liberty to tell the whole truth, I determined to hold my tongue, and say nothing more than I had already said and had advised your Majesty of from Yuste. But Her Highness has had the great goodness, up to this time, not to speak a word to me about the matter ; and so I have no trouble in making answer to those who ask me questions, only this that I know nothing of what people say, and that if there is anything in it, it ought to be known to the Princess. But His Majesty's wish, that your 1 Gachard : Retraite et Mart, ii. p. 506. '- Ibid. i. p. 446. 22 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. I. Majesty may know it, was, that this matter should be kept secret until your Majesty came hither, when your Majesty's pleasure might be done. I do nothing likely to excite observation, or beyond what was done in the life of the Emperor ; but I take great care that the lad should learn and be taught all that is necessary and belonging to his age and quality ; for, on account of the obscure manner in which he was nurtured and has lived since he came into my charge, the greatest pains must be taken with him. And therefore I have thought it right to inform your Majesty of what is passing, and of His late Majesty's intentions, that your Majesty may be aware of it, and instruct me how to proceed. Ten days ago he (Don Juan) had a bad attack of double tertian fever ; but, God be thanked, I came yesterday from home, and left him free from fever and out of danger. 1 The only written declaration of the Emperor with regard to Don John was contained in a paper which may be considered as a codicil to his will, although it did not form part of that docu- ment, and has not hitherto been printed with it. It is in these words : Besides what is contained in my will, I say and declare that, when I was in Germany, and being a widower, I had, by an unmarried woman, a natural son, who is called Jerome, and that my intention has been and is, for certain reasons moving me thereto, that if it can be fairly accomplished, he should, of his free and spontaneous will, take the habit of some order of reformed friars, and that he should be put in the way of so doing, but without any pressure or force being employed towards him. But if it cannot be so arranged, and if he prefers leading a secular life, it is my pleasure and command that he should receive, in the ordinary manner each year, from twenty to thirty thousand ducats from the revenues of the kingdom of Naples ; lands and vassals, with that rent attached, being assigned to him. The whole matter, both as to the assignment of the lands and the amount of the rent, is left to the discretion of my son, to whom I remit it ; or, failing him, to the discre- tion of my grandson, the Infant Don Carlos, or of the person who, in confor- mity with my will, shall at the time it is opened be my heir. If at that time the said Jerome shall not have already embraced the state which I desire for him, he shall enjoy all the days of his life the said rent and lands, which shall pass to his the legitimate heirs and successors descending from his body. And whatever state the said Geronimo shall embrace, I charge the said Prince my son, and my said grandson, and my heir, whosoever it may be, as I have said, at the opening of my will, to do him honour and cause him to be honoured, and that they show him fitting respect, and that they observe, fulfil, and execute in his favour that which is contained in this paper. The which I sign with my name and hand ; and it is sealed and sealed up with my small private seal ; and it is to be observed and executed like a clause of my said will. Done in Bruxelles, on the sixth day of the month of June i 554. Son, grandson, or whoever at the time that this my will and writing is opened, and according to it, may be my heir, if you do not know where this Jerome may be, you can learn it from Adrian, groom of my chamber, or, in case of his death, from Oger, the porter of my chamber, that he may be treated conformably to the said will and writing. 2 1 Gachard : Retraite et Mart, \. pp. 449, 450. 2 Correspondence de Granvelle, iv. pp. 496-8. CHAP. i. CHILDHOOD OF DON JOHN. 23 This paper was one of a parcel of four which seem to have been placed by the Emperor in the hands of Philip the Second be- fore they took leave of each other on the Flemish shore in Sep- tember 1556. Folded up within it was the receipt for Jerome, given by Massi, and already cited. It was sealed up with the Emperor's seal and was endorsed, in his hand, with these words : " This my writing is to be opened only by the Prince, my son, " and failing him by my grandson, Don Carlos ; and failing him " by whosoever shall be my heir, conformably to and at the " opening of my will." The other three papers were unsealed, and related to other matters, the executorship of the will in Spain and the Netherlands, and the rights of the King of Spain and the pretensions of others to the kingdom of Navarre and the lordship of Piombino. 1 The whole parcel bore an inscription in the handwriting of Philip with his signature " If I die before " His Majesty this packet to be delivered to him ; if after him to " my son, or, failing him, to my heir." From these scattered fragments of Don John's early history the following inferences, all of them creditable to the good feel- ing and good sense of Charles the Fifth, may be safely drawn. Believing him to be his son, the Emperor desired that during his own life the boy's paternity should be kept a profound secret from the world ; he wished him to embrace the ecclesiastical profession, but was not disposed to thwart his inclinations for a secular career ; he desired that he should be educated and pro- vided for in a manner befitting his princely origin ; and taking Philip the Second fully into his confidence he committed the destinies of the child of his old age to the affection and the care of his legitimate successor. 1 All will be found in the Corrcspondance de Granvelle, iv. pp. 495, 59- DEVICE OF DON JOHN. CHAPTER II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA, 1559-1566. T Valladolid in I 5 5 9, when the flowers of May bloomed in the gardens of the Pisuerga, the sky was darkened by the smoke which went up from the human sacrifices of the Inquisi- tion. The past year had been marked by a movement towards religious reform, the first and the last that history has yet had to record in Spain. Compared with the mighty revolution of the north, so fruitful of great men and great events, the Spanish move- ment was feeble in its origin, unfortunate in its instruments, and worthless in its results. It was neither called forth by the political necessities of the nation, nor supported by its sym- pathy. Its chiefs were a few clergymen, chosen long before by Charles V. for their learning and worth, and employed by him, or by his son, to watch the progress of heresy in the Netherlands and Germany, and to guard from contamination the Spaniards brought by civil or military service within reach of the pestilence. These divines soon saw that the victories of reform from without were to be met only by reform from within, begun and carried on by the Church itself. In acknowledging that the reformers had some reason on their side, and denouncing the vices and abuses of the ecclesiastical system, they piously appealed to the standards of the Church, to the writings of the fathers, the bulls of popes, the edicts of councils. The question whether all or many of their doctrines were orthodox or heretical affords a wide field for argu- CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. ment to those who think the shadowy frontier between heresy and orthodoxy worth defining. But there is no reason for believing that their aims were schismatic, or that they were less the true and loving children of Mother Church, than those who condemned and massacred them as apostates. However hurtful to the permanent interests of the Church, her abuses were too profitable to many of her ministers to want zealous and powerful defenders. The hierarchy and the dominant party were resolved to resist all change. They were led by 26 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. Valdes, Archbishop of Seville, a man grown gray in civil and ecclesiastical contention and intrigue. Bold, active, and unscrupu- lous, he was not less remarkable for cunning and address than for energy and perseverance. As Inquisitor-General he wielded all the vast irresponsible and ill-defined powers of the Holy Office. Never had the banner of that tribunal, inscribed with the words justice and mercy, been the symbol of so much cruelty and wrong, until it was grasped by the strong hand of this remorseless old priest. In the course of a single year he had so overcrowded his prisons that the auto-da-fe 'of the 2 1st of May 1559 was absolutely required in order to make room for the fresh game daily caught in the toils of his familiars. This anto-da-fi differed greatly, in the rank and condition of the sufferers, from those which the Inquisition was wont to provide for the entertainment of the capital. Usually the unhappy persons paraded in procession before the crowd in their dark robes of penitence and reconciliation, or in the ominous garment painted with flames and devils, belonged to classes inured to oppression and suffering. They were peasants accused of witchcraft, or Moriscos suspected of the practice of some ancient Moslem rite, or Jews not rich enough to buy off the hatred of the Nazarene. But now among the sad company of victims the populace dis- cerned with horror and amazement nobles and gentlemen to whom hats had been reverentially doffed ; ladies of highest lineage, ornaments of society and the Court ; famous divines, whose sermons were wont to fill to overflowing the royal cloisters of St. Benedict, or the spacious aisles of St. Paul. Gentle and tender as she was, Dona Magdalena de Ulloa came from Villagarcia to witness the cruel scene which, her religious guides assured her, was a spectacle well pleasing in the sight of Heaven. She was accompanied by her niece, Dona Mariana de Ulloa, and by Don John of Austria. The Regent, Dona Juana, having often expressed a desire to see Quixada's foster-son, about whom there had been so much talk in the capital, the Chamberlain considered that this auto-da-fe would afford her a good opportunity of gratifying her wish without attracting much public observation. Dona Magdalena and her party took their seats in one of the galleries along which the Princess had to pass in her way to the royal tribune. In passing, the royal widow, in her close-fitting dark weeds and long black veil, stopped to speak to the wife of Quixada, and asked where the " unknown " was. Don John was at the moment hidden by the mantle of his younger CHAP. ii. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 27 companion, Dona Mariana. When its folds were drawn aside and the boy was brought forward and presented to his sister, she embraced him with much tenderness, an act somewhat surprising in a Princess with whom the rigid etiquette of Castille had become second nature. Her nephew, Don Carlos, the heir-apparent, who accompanied her, is said to have been much displeased at this display of fondness for a nameless youth, and at the invitation which followed to the royal tribune. Don John, however, rejected the honour, refusing to be separated from his " Aunt " Magdalena. 1 Meanwhile all the eyes in the expectant assembly were turned upon the royal group, and especially upon the boy who had been the object of the staid Infanta's unwonted caresses. When the Regent had taken her place beneath the canopy of estate, the Inquisitor-General, Valdes, and his black-robed train, ascended the platform which was erected in the middle of the lists round which the multitude were assembled. Then came the long line of prisoners, the black-gowned penitents, who were to be reprimanded and set free ; those in robes painted with downward- pointing flames, who were to suffer fine and imprisonment ; and those whose garbs, hideous with fire and fiends, denoted that their bodies were to be burned for the salvation of their souls. A ser- mon was next delivered, after which the archbishop and two of his inquisitors went up to the royal tribune to administer the oath of faith to the Regent and the Prince. They rose from their seats at his approach, the Prince taking off his cap. They then swore on a crucifix and a missal held up before them to defend with their power and their lives the faith, as held by the Holy Church of Rome, and to aid the Holy Office in the extirpation of heresy at all times and without respect of persons. The terms of the oath were then announced by the secretary from a pulpit in a loud voice to the multitude, the archbishop closing the proclamation with his benediction, " God prosper your Highnesses." A crier now shouted forth the names and crimes of the accused persons and the sentences which had been passed upon them. Of these, fifteen were sentences of death, and were immediately carried into execu- tion. The Princess-Regent of Spain, and the noble knights and dames of Castille looked on as the flames crept and leaped round the tortured limbs of men who had been their familiar friends and spiritual advisers, of fair and delicate women dragged from splen- 1 Vanderhammen (D.Juan de Austria, f. 23) says that the Princess-Regent called him brother and "your Highness," which is rendered improbable by the subsequent pro- ceedings of the King. 28 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. did homes or from the solitude of the cloister to die for opinions of which neither they nor their persecutors have been able to give any intelligible account. The most distinguished of the sufferers was Dr. Augustin Cazalla, an eloquent and favourite chaplain of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The enthusiasm and fervid fancy which had made this divine great in the pulpit were not of sufficient force to sustain him in the fiery furnace of the Inquisition. He was not of the metal of which martyrs are made. The cause which his oratory had upheld and adorned he disgraced and weakened at the stake. In prison, and in presence of the rack, he had already confessed and recanted his errors. At the price of a further humiliation in public he now purchased the favour, according to some of his less noted companions, of strangulation before com- bustion. He had been so prominent among the leaders of reform that his pusillanimity more than outweighed the advantage which the cause derived from the calm and dignified deaths of his brother and sister, who, with the exhumed bones of their mother, were also burned in this auto-da-fe. Among the sufferers who escaped death but were sentenced to confiscation, attainder, and perpetual imprisonment, was one whose appearance there must have wrung the gentle and pious heart of Dona Magdalena de Ulloa. It was her brother, Don Juan de Ulloa, a gallant soldier who had fought for Spain and the Cross at Tunis and Algiers. Degraded from his knightly and military rank, and condemned to prison for life, he at last obtained his release and restoration to the order of St. John only by means of a long and expensive appeal to Rome. 1 With the last agonies of the human victims thus sacrificed to the Saviour of sinners the auto-da-fe was at an end. The Princess- Regent rose to depart, having first invited Don John to accompany her to the palace. As he followed in her train, the crowd, who were now as eager to see the youth reported to be the son of the Emperor as they had lately been intent on the heretic children of perdition, pressed and closed around him, breaking through the lines of pikemen and musketeers who strove to keep the passage open. He narrowly escaped being trampled to death ; but the Count of Osorno came to the rescue, and holding him aloft in his arms, carried him to the royal coach, which the mob followed to the palace. He afterwards returned with Dona Magdalena to Villagarcia. Quixada was at this time absent from home. But the visit to 1 Llorente : Histoire de F Inquisition iVEspagne, ch. xx. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 29 the auto-da-fe had been made by his orders, at the request of the Princess-Regent. He now instructed his wife to treat Don John with more ceremony than she had hitherto been wont to use ; the seat of honour was on all occasions reserved for him ; and .the alms which he was accustomed to dispense were raised to an amount better suited to his rank. 1 But by the order of the King no change was made in his dress ; nor was he informed of the cause which had thus suddenly converted him into an object of private and public consideration and curiosity. A letter from Quixada to the King, dated 8th of July 1559, gives us a glimpse of Don John's habits and disposition. This letter was written in reply to one in which Philip had desired the Chamberlain to give up to any person indicated by the secretary, Gonzalo Perez, a mule belonging to Perez, which the Emperor had taken with him for his own use from Flanders to Yuste. Quixada explains that this she-mule, a blind pony, and a little he-mule had been reserved by him, by the desire of his late master, for the use of " the person " whom your Majesty is aware of." " Some time ago," he con- tinues, " the most serene Princess desired me to give up this " she-mule to Dr. Cornelio ; but I excused myself for not doing " so, for the above reason, which likewise prevented these three " animals from being sold with the rest. And your Majesty may " be sure that if it had not been His Majesty's desire, I would not, " on my own authority, have interfered in the matter. The mule " is very useful, and the more so because she is very gentle, and " the rider somewhat prankish (traviesd). The person in my " charge is in good health and, in my opinion, is growing, and, " for his age, of an excellent disposition. He proceeds with his " studies with much difficulty, and there is nothing which he does " with so much dislike ; but he is learning French, and the few " words that he knows he pronounces very well ; yet to acquire it, " as your Majesty desires, much time and more application is " needed. Riding on horseback both in the military style and in " that of the manege (a la xyneta y a la bridd) is his chief delight, " and when your Majesty sees him you will think that he tilts in " good style (corre su lanza con buena gracid} although his strength " is not great." 2 In the summer of 1559 the affairs of the Netherlands and the peaceful relations which had been established between the 1 "Dona Magdalena desde aora," says Vanderhammen, "en viendole, si estava "en el estrado dexava la almohada, y se sentava en la alfombra." Don Juan dc Ausfria, fol. 25. '-' Gachard : Rclraite et Mart, ii. pp. 513-14- 3 o DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. Houses of Valois and Austria permitted Philip II. to return to Spain. His bold and able sister Margaret, Duchess of Parma, the eldest illegitimate daughter of Charles V., arrived at Bruxelles on the 2d of August to enter upon her duties as Regent of the MARGARET OF AUSTRIA. MEDAL. dominions of Burgundy. The last regal function performed by Philip was to hold a chapter of the Golden Fleece in the good city of Ghent. The knights were summoned to meet on the 2pth August in the great hall of the ancient castle. Fourteen new companions were then added to the noble brotherhood, of whom nine received the Fleece with its collar of flints and steels and fire from the hands of the sovereign. Among these nine were Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino ; Marc Antonio Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples ; and Charles de Lannoy, Prince of Sulmona. The remaining five, to whom these badges were transmitted in their absence, were Francis II., King of France ; his brother Charles, who soon succeeded him on the throne as ninth of his name ; Eric, Duke of Brunswick ; Joachin Baron Neuhaus, Grand Chancellor of Bohemia ; and Don John of Austria. 1 The insignia designed for Don John were conveyed 1 In a letter dated ist August 1566 Tisnacq informs the president, Viglius, that the King had on the 24th July (seven days before) given the Golden Fleece to Don John of Austria. Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II., ii. 465, note I. Vanderhammen tells what is given in the text ; but it always struck me as improbable that the order should have been publicly conferred on Don John, or at least that there should have been a public nomination of him to it, before he had been publicly recognised, and, in fact, before he had any name in the world at all. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. to Spain by the King, to be conferred by himself in person. On the soth Philip gave a grand banquet to the knights, at which he himself presided, sitting on the dais beneath the jewelled canopy of his aunt Mary, Queen of Hungary, who had so long and so BADGE AND PENNON OF THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE. ably swayed the delegated sceptre of Burgundy. He embarked at Flushing for Spain on the 5th of September, and after a pros- perous voyage of nine days landed at Laredo in Biscay. Processions, triumphal arches, thanksgivings in the churches, and all other displays of civic, courtly, and religious joy celebrated the King's arrival at Valladolid. The Regent Dona Juana resigned the reins of Government, and retired, well pleased, to her beads and prayers and scourgings in the pine-shaded cloisters of Abrojo. Philip immediately summoned his Inquisitors about him, and fitly inaugurated his reign of terror and superstition by the butcheries of a new auto-da-ft. He was then at leisure to make the acquaintance of his stranger brother. Luis Quixada was instructed to bring Don John in his ordinary dress on St. 32 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. Luke's Day, to meet him at the convent of San Pedro de la Espina. This convent of Bernardines owed its name to the most famous of the relics venerated in its church, a thorn of the crown worn by Our Lord on Calvary. Its sumptuous buildings, the pious work of Dona Sancha of Castille, were situated about a league from Villagarcia, on the side of a hill abounding in game. Hither the King was to come on a hunting expedition. Quixada therefore summoned his vassals to join the royal sport. Before setting out he went to his wife and unbosomed himself of the secret of which he had been so long the faithful depositary. He told her, what indeed she must long ere now have guessed, that her foster-son was the child of his master the Emperor, and that on the morning of the day when the King was about to proclaim the fact to the world, he wished to assure her that it had been concealed from her thus long not from any doubt of her dis- cretion, but solely from a sense of duty. Don John and he then mounted their horses and rode off to the chase, followed by the vassals and servants on foot and horseback, in their best array. Parties of yeoman-prickers, and the cries of men and hounds in the distance, soon announced the approach of the royal cavalcade. A groom presently met them leading a very handsome horse. Quixada now dismounted, telling Don John to do the same. The ancient soldier then knelt before his pupil and asked leave to kiss his hand, saying : " You will soon learn from the King " himself why I do this." Don John hesitated, but at length held out his hand to be kissed ; and when Quixada desired him to mount the new horse, he said gaily to his old friend : " Then " since you will have it so, you may also hold the stirrup." They rode onward towards the rocky pass of Torozos. Here a group of gentlemen came in sight. As they drew near, Quixada once more halted, and alighting from his horse caused Don John to follow his example. A short spare man in black, with a pale face and sandy beard, advanced towards them alone, and checked his horse when within a few paces. " Kneel down, Don John," said Quixada, " and kiss His Majesty's hand." As the youth obeyed the instruction he found bending over him a pair of cold gray eyes and a pouting under lip, which may well have recalled the features of the august invalid whose gouty fingers he had knelt to kiss at Yuste. " Do you know, youngster," said the King, "who your father was?" The abashed youth made no reply. Philip then dismounted, and embracing him with some show of affection, said : " Charles the Fifth, my lord and father, CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 33 " was also yours. You could not have had a more illustrious " sire, and I am bound to acknowledge you as my brother." He then turned to the gentlemen behind him and said : " Know and " honour this youth as the natural son of the Emperor, and as " brother to the Kincr." At these words a loud shout burst from FHILI1' II. KING OK SPAIN. the crowd of hunters and peasants who had by this time collected round the spot. Don John, by Philip's desire, remounted his horse, and received the salutations and felicitations of the lords and gentlemen. The real object of the hunting party being now accomplished, the King, who was no sportsman, turned his horse's head towards Valladolid, saying that he had never before captured VOL. I. D 34 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. game which had given him so much pleasure. Don John entered the capital riding at his side, amidst the acclamations of the multitude, amongst whom the news of the recognition of the new prince, son of their great Emperor, had already been promulgated. In truth the secret was by this time worn somewhat threadbare. The existence of such a personage had been for some time exten- sively rumoured and believed in Spain. Even before the death of the Emperor, the last Venetian Envoy at his Court at Bruxelles, Federigo Badoer, had mentioned the fact in his report to the Doge and Senate, written probably in the summer of 1557. After sketching the character of Philip II. and Don Carlos, the Venetian remarks that it is not necessary to speak of the Emperor's natural son, " seeing that he is very young, never seen " by His Majesty, and held in little public consideration." 1 To the general belief in the popular rumour the attentions bestowed at the auto-da-fe by the Princess -Regent on the foster -son ot Dona Magdalena de Ulloa had given great strength, and when the veil was at length removed from the lad's paternity, there remained little room for surprise. Why the name of John was now bestowed upon him has never been explained ; it was prob- ably one of his baptismal names ; and it is certain that that of Jerome was from this time dropped. At Valladolid a house had been prepared for Don John, of which he now took possession with his friends the Quixadas. A household was appointed for him according to the Burgundian form established in the Spanish Court from the time of Philip the Handsome, the first of the Austrian kings. Luis Quixada, as ayo or tutor, of course held the chief place in it. The Count of Priego, the King's grand falconer, was Don John's chamberlain, or mayordomo mayor ; Rodrigo de Benavides, sumiller de corps, or steward ; Luis de Cordoba, master of the horse, 2 and Juan de Quiroga, secretary. The eldest son of Priego, Luis de Castrillo, was Captain of the Guard, Rodrigo de Mendoga, Vice-Chamber- lain, and there were besides three gentlemen and two grooms of the chamber. In attendance, service, and privilege, he was treated like an Infant of Castille, except as regarded the style and title, 1 Gachard : Relations des Ambassadeurs Venetiens sur Charles-Quint et Philippe //., 8vo, Bruxelles, 1856, p. 15. 2 In a letter to the King, dated Bruxelles, 22d December 1559, Cardinal Granvelle says he hears His Majesty is about to give a household to the natural son of the Emperor, and he suggests as a proper person to be his Master of the Horse, Martin Alonso de Cordoba y de los Rios, "who having seen Spain, Italy, Germany, Africa, and the " Indies, is likely to assist his colleagues in putting the youth in the way of doing His " Majesty good service hereafter." Correspondance de Granvelle, v. p. 671. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 35 and a few points of precedence. He was addressed as His Excellency instead of His Highness ; the right of lodging in the royal palace was not accorded to him, nor was he permitted to sit within the curtain of the royal tribune in the chapel-royal. At the end of October the Court removed for some months to Toledo. On the 2d of February 1560 Philip the Second met ISABELLA OF VALOIS, THIRD QUEEN OF PHILIP It. at Guadalajara his third bride, the beautiful Elizabeth of Valois, daughter of Henry the Second of France, called in Spain, on account of the political result of her marriage, Isabella of the Peace. The rejoicings which followed her arrival in Spain were abruptly broken off in the middle in consequence of her being seized with smallpox, from which, however, she recovered without damage to her beauty. On the 23d of February the states of Castille met at Toledo 36 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. to take the oath of allegiance to Don Carlos as heir of the mon- archy. This important feudal ceremony was performed in the magnificent cathedral, in the space betwixt the high altar, a masterpiece of Gothic carving enshrined in a chapel which is itself a triumph of pointed architecture, and the choir, where the sculptor Berruguete, the Michael Angelo of Spain, had lately ex- hausted on the new stalls all the skill which he had acquired in the schools of Florence and Rome. The whole pile was hung with the richest tapestry that could be furnished by the treasure- house of the chapter and the looms of Flanders ; each altar was decked with its utmost pomp of drapery and plate ; and the lay and ecclesiastical grandees of the kingdom vied with each other in embellishing and ennobling the spectacle with all their private and personal magnificence of equipment and costume. One important functionary was absent from his post, and that a personage no less important than the Primate himself. Arch- bishop Carranza had worn the mitre of Toledo little more than a year when he was arrested by the familiar of- the Inquisition. He was at this moment in confinement at Valladolid, and his mortal enemy, the Inquisitor-General Valdes, had the triumph of presiding, as Archbishop of Seville, in the fallen prelate's own cathedral over the ceremonies of the day. In the procession which wound through the steep and picturesque streets amongst the palaces and shrines of the old city, down from the rock-built Alcazar and up to the metropolitan church, it was remarked how strangely the figure and mien of Don Carlos contrasted with the splendour which surrounded and awaited him, and with the brilliant destiny of which these solemnities seemed to be the first-fruits. For this heir of so many crowns had a heavy downcast counte- nance, wan with intermittent fever, from which he was seldom free. He was short for his age, and slightly humpbacked, and had one shoulder higher than the other, and the left leg longer than the right. 1 He wore a suit of cloth of gold, embroidered with silver, glittering with gems, and was mounted on a fine white charger. Beside him, on his left, rode his uncle Don John, about his own age, dressed in crimson velvet enriched with gold, his bloom- ing cheek, his gallant bearing, and his graceful horsemanship, making more obvious the want of these advantages in the unfortunate heir-apparent. In the cathedral Carlos was seated between his father, the King, and his aunt, the Princess of Brazil, late Regent of the Kingdom, who appeared in her widow's weeds, 1 Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II., i. pp. 147, 152. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 37 veiled as usual from head to foot, sparingly adorned with pearls, and attended by her black-robed ladies. Don John occupied a lower place outside the canopy, between the throne and the seats of the ambassadors. After the sermon and prayers were over the Princess was first called upon to take the oath, which was admin- istered to her by the Cardinal Bishop of Burgos. The crier next summoned " the most illustrious Don John of Austria, natural son " of the ' Emperor-King.' " After taking the oath Don John knelt before his nephew and kissed his hand. The same ceremony was then gone through by the prelates and grandees according to their several degrees. The last to present himself was the Duke of Alba, who had been officially engaged during the ceremony, and who moved the ire of the punctilious and ill-tempered Prince by forgetting for a moment to kiss his hand. The proceedings closed with an oath taken by Don Carlos to respect and maintain the laws and privileges of the kingdom and the Catholic faith, and received by Don John of Austria as the official representative of the nation. 1 The young Queen, being still unwell, was unable to appear, greatly to the contentment of the sable-garbed dames of the Princess, who were thus saved the mortification of being eclipsed in the procession by a bevy of fair French rivals. In a few days, however, Isabella emerged from her sick chamber, and the old Alcazar of Toledo once more rung with banquets and revels, and the Vega again was gay with the bright banners and pavilions of the tournament. During the Regency of the Infanta Juana so much sickness had prevailed at Valladolid that there had been much discussion of a plan for changing the seat of government. It was one of the last subjects submitted to the Emperor for consideration in his retirement at Yuste. A central situation being deemed advisable, the relative merits of the chief towns of the Castilles had been examined by the Princess. Old Castille had Burgos with its beautiful cathedral and its historical associations as the seat of the early counts of Castille, and Guadalajara, a place of no great importance, but seated in the midst of extensive domains of the Crown. New Castille had Toledo, the venerable metropolis of the Spanish Church and of the Gothic monarchy, and Madrid, a town of considerable size, possessing a fine old castle, a favourite residence much enlarged by Charles V. Philip was in favour of a change. Valladolid had become distasteful to him, no less for the heresy of its people than for the insalubrity of its air. But 1 Vanderhammen : Don Juan de Austria, fol. 30. 38 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. he did not share his sister's predilections for Madrid. He there- fore fixed his residence for a while at Toledo in order to test the capabilities of the ancient city. Here too so much sickness prevailed, and the want of accommodation excited so much discontent among the courtiers, that he was obliged to cast his eyes on some other town. In spite of his dislike to Madrid, it became the ultimate object of his choice. The central position and finely-seated palace were its sole claims to the distinction. Placed as it was in the middle of a peninsula without roads and far from any considerable river, Madrid's advantages of position were rather imaginary than real. Valladolid possessed a far shorter and easier access to the Biscayan shore and the sea-road to the Netherlands. Seville, with its commerce, its colonial archives, and proximity to the coast, was a more commanding point from whence to direct the maritime interests and energies of Spain. But when the choice of a capital was a matter of question and difficulty, a wise choice was little likely to be made by the monarch who afterwards neglected the 'opportunity of fixing the seat of his dominion at Lisbon, when he became master of that noble city, which a fine river, a magnificent harbour, and a genial climate combined to render the natural capital of Iberia, and the position in Western Europe from whence the old world could best govern the new. To the bleak tableland of Madrid the Court accordingly removed in 1560. A house belonging to Don Pedro de Porras, which in aftertimes became the residence of the Duke of Lerma, was assigned to Don John of Austria. He had not been there long when a fire broke out in it at night. A peasant passing by at early morning, observing the smoke, knocked at the door and gave the alarm. Quixada's careful head was soon at the window. The fire was already raging between Don John's room and his own. But he once more succeeded in rescuing him from the flames ; and taking him in his arms he carried him to the steps of the adjacent church of S? Maria. He then returned for his wife and deposited her also in the same place of safety. But he saved nothing else of his property. The fire was not extinguished until mid-day, and the whole contents of the house were consumed except a bronze Christ upon an ebony cross, which hung over Don John's bed, and which was found miraculously unhurt among the ruins. Among other things the Chamberlain especially lamented the destruction of an iron chest containing the charters, title-deeds, and ancient muniments of the long line of Quixadas. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 39 He estimated his loss at one hundred thousand ducats. Philip the Second was not insensible to the courage and devotion of his father's old and faithful servant. He made him master of the horse to Don Carlos, a member of the Councils of State and War, and President of the Council of the Indies ; and in i 564 he gave him the commandery of El Moral in the order of Calatrava. Early in November I56I 1 Don John, then in his sixteenth year, was sent with his nephew Don Carlos, and Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, to complete his education at the University of Alcala. This noble seat of learning, although founded only sixty years before by Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros, was already near the zenith of its reputation. The little country town, six leagues west of Madrid, had become in that time a city of palaces, each year adding some new dome or belfry to the crown of collegiate and conventual towers which rose above its ancient walls by the banks of the Henares. Salamanca had good reason to look with a jealous eye on the progress of her young and vigorous rival. The presses of Alcala were no less busy and prosperous than her colleges. The polyglot of Ximenes, still the most beautiful specimen of biblical typography that four centuries of printing have given us, led the van of a goodly array of tomes in all branches of erudition. The printers Brozas and Angulo were still maintaining the fame of the elder Brocarius, and were making known to Spain the scholarship of Gomez de Castro and Villalpando and the science of Segura. Don Carlos and Don John were lodged in the sumptuous archiepiscopal palace built by Ximenes for his successors in the primacy, but now left untenanted by the unhappy owner during his captivity at Valladolid. The Prince of Parma occupied other quarters in the town. Honorato Juan, the tutor of Don Carlos, superintended the studies of the three royal youths. This learned Valencian had been in his youth a favourite pupil of his celebrated countryman Vives, at the university of Louvain. He then em- braced the career of arms, following the standard of the Emperor, and sharing in 1541 the perils and humiliations of his expedition to Algiers. Charles made him preceptor of his son Philip, under Cardinal Siliceo ; and when the heir-apparent went on his travels through the Netherlands and Germany, Honorato Juan had an honourable place amongst his attendants. Don Carlos was soon afterwards placed under the care of his father's tutor, who probably owed his reputation more to the rank than the proficiency of his 1 Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II. , i. p. 69. DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. II. royal pupils. No Spaniard of his time was more lavishly praised by his contemporaries or has left behind him less to justify such loud laudation. Popes, princes, and men of letters agreed that he HONORATTJS lOANNTUS PBTNTCIPIS MA&ISTETL. was a miracle of genius and learning j 1 yet his writings escaped the diligent search, in the next century, of the historian of Spanish 1 His nephew, Antonio Juan de Centilles, compiled a work entitled Elogios del ilustrissimo Honorato Juan, Gentilhombre del & Emp. Carlos V., Maestro del S' D. Carlos, y Obispo de Osma, sacados de diversas cartas pontifieias y reales, fol., Valencia, 1649. CHAP. ii. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 41 literature, who has nevertheless joined in the universal homage. 1 Towards the end of his life he laid aside the cloak and sword, received the tonsure, and was made Bishop of Osma. 2 For a brief and miserable career in this world fate has rewarded Don Carlos with a bright immortality in the paradise of romance. Sir John Falstaff, possibly as brave and honourable, as spare, and as dull a knight as any that ever couched a spear or mounted a breach in the wars of Henry IV., is nevertheless, for us and for all time, the fat, witty, knavish poltroon which Shake- speare made him. So the passionate lover and martyred hero, portrayed by Schiller and Alfieri under the name of Don Carlos, will ever reflect somewhat of his brightness upon the common- place, ill-conditioned Prince. It is certain that neither his childhood nor his boyhood afforded any promise of those qualities which were ascribed to him later in life. When the retired Emperor and his sisters, the Queens of France and Hungary, came to Valladolid in 155 6, Carlos was the only child of the King, who had just contracted a second marriage with Mary Tudor which gave little hope of further progeny. There was every reason why the young heir-apparent should be petted and caressed, why his kindred should shut their eyes to his faults, why his attendants should hold him up to their admiration as the pattern of boys and princes. Yet all of them looked forward to his future with more anxiety than hope. His aunt, the Infanta Juana, reported him to her relations as a bad boy ; the gentle Queen Eleanor, tenderest of mothers, shook her head at him ; and the Emperor, after a few days of silent observation of his character, recommended that the rod should be freely used in his education. In writing afterwards to Yuste, his tutor, Garcia de Toledo, complained of his ungovernable and choleric temper, and of his backwardness not only at his books, but in the accomplishments of riding and fencing, in which the descendant of a long line of knights and Nimrods might be expected to delight and to excel. Carlos early showed a jealousy of his 1 N. Antonio (Bibliotheca Hispana Nova, 2 vols. folio, Madrid, 1787, ii. p. 389) closes his work with a respectful mention of three Spaniards celebrated for their learning, yet unqualified for a place in the catalogue of national writers, because they had written nothing Cardinal Ximenes, Honorato Juan, and Fr. Nicolas Bautista. V. Ximeno (Escritores de Valencia, 2 vols. folio, Valencia, 1747-9, i. p. 147) ranks Honorato Juan amongst Valencian authors, on the strength of a Catechism, a Limousin Vocabulary, and some Letters. There is a life of him by Athanasius Kircher, in his work entitled Principis Christiani Archetypon politicum, sive Sapientia Regnatrix, quam regiis instruc- tam documentis ex antique numismate Honorati Joannii, symbolicis obvelatam integumentis, reipubliccc litleraria evolutam exponit A. Kircherus, 410, Amstelodami, 1672, pp. 88-222. - He died in Estremadura, whither he had gone for his health, on 3Oth of July 1566. 42 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. 11. position as heir of the monarchy ; and on learning that the Netherlands were settled upon the issue of his father's marriage with the English Queen, he said he would fight any brother that might be born to him, in maintenance of his rights to the undivided succession. As he grew up, his morose and haughty demeanour gave constant offence to those around him, and argued ill for his popularity when it should be his turn to reign. He was now in his seventeenth year. 1 He came to Alcala in a state of great prostration from the effects of a quartan fever, which for upwards of two years had been sapping his strength, and the university town had been chosen for his residence on account of its reputation for salubrity. 2 The Prince of Parma was in all respects the opposite of his cousin of the Asturias. His mother, Duchess Margaret, the eldest child of Charles V., inherited more of her sire's spirit and capacity than any one of his offspring, except the youngest, Don John. To her courage, energy, resolution, and sound intelligence, Alexander added the subtler powers and softer graces which belonged to his father's Italian blood. Few keener intellects were to be found among the students who read Aristotle or Cicero in the schools ; no handsomer youth flung the quoit, or rode at the ring on the banks of the Henares. In his well-knit vigorous person, his discursive mind, and his joyous and generous disposi- tion, he recalled to mind his ancestor Maximilian, when in hot youth, after the French victory at Nancy, he flew to protect the domain and win the heart of the heiress of Burgundy. The royal students had been at college about six months when a serious accident befell the heir-apparent. Don Carlos had taken a fancy to the daughter of the Archbishop's porter, and some observers of this preference hoped that it might develop the more amiable points and the dormant energies of his character. He used to meet the girl in a garden, which he reached by descending a dark and steep staircase, somewhat out of repair. Going down these stairs one day after dinner (ipth April 1562) his foot slipped, and, falling to the bottom, he screamed for assistance. On being carried to his room, he was found to have received on his right temple, near the ear, a severe contusion, which, though not at first deemed dangerous, proved to be an obstinate wound. In spite of remedies applied by no less than six physicians and surgeons, it was followed by fever, violent 1 He was born at Valladolid on the 8th of July 1545. - Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II., i. 66. CHAP. II. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 43 pain and swelling in the head, vomiting, blindness, paralysis of the right leg, and other alarming symptoms. The King himself hastened to Alcala, bringing further medical assistance, and leaving orders that he should be followed by the miraculous image of Our Lady of Atocha. Everything that parental solici- tude could suggest Philip seems to have done. When he was not watching by the sick-bed, or consulting with the doctors, he was on his knees praying for his son's recovery. His prayers were aided by services and processions in every church in Spain, and by the sufferings of long lines of flagellants, scourging themselves through the streets of Madrid and Toledo. The Queen passed hours in her oratory, and the Infanta Juana, in a night of unusual cold, walked barefoot to pray before a famous shrine of Our Lady of Consolation. Quixada and Honorato Juan attended Carlos so closely that their own health suffered, and their fatigues were shared by the Duke of Alba, who sat up with the Prince night after night without changing his clothes. In spite, however, of care and kindness and prayers, the patient grew worse and worse ; every moment he was expected to expire, and the King, having given directions for the funeral, returned to Madrid " the most " woe-begone of princes." 1 Some of the nine doctors were of opinion that trepanning should be tried, and that operation was performed, as it appears, without either necessity or advantage. The corpse of one Fray Diego, who had died a hundred years before in the odour of sanctity, was brought from a neighbouring Franciscan convent and laid on the Prince's bed. As a last resource, a Moorish leech, who had been summoned from Valencia, was allowed to apply an unguent of which he possessed the secret. The Prince began to mend, and the doctors resumed the conduct of the case. By the middle of May Carlos was pronounced out of danger ; and before the end of the month the King, walking bareheaded for an hour beneath a burning sun, appeared in a solemn procession in token of his gratitude for the cure. It is noticeable that the poor lad, who when in comparative health was so peevish and refractory, bore his illness with gentle- ness and patience, following with ready obedience every direction of the King and the physicians. In one of the lucid intervals between his fits of delirium he told his father that his chief regret in dying was to die before he had seen the birth of a child of the 1 "Estant le plus triste et explore prince du monde." Lib. de 1'Aubespiere, Bishop of Limoges, to Charles IX., nth May 1562 ; Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II,, ii. 635. The interesting despatches from which M. Gachard has drawn the materials of his graphic account of the Prince's illness are printed in his Appendix A. 44 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. Queen, a touching speech, in which the French ambassador, a bishop, noted with offensive glee evidence of great jealousy between the two branches of the House of Austria. By the end of June Carlos was able to take the air, and on the 5th of July he attended mass, and had himself weighed, in order to ascertain the cost of a vow, made in his illness, of four times his weight in gold and seven times his weight in silver to certain religious houses. The recovery of the heir-apparent was hailed with great joy throughout Spain. It has, however, been suspected, perhaps with reason, that it was not so complete as it at first appeared, and that an injured brain may have been one cause of the Prince's unhappy end. Meanwhile the merit of the cure was claimed by all parties concerned : the doctors, who had considered the case hopeless ; the Morisco leech, who was nevertheless dismissed as a blockhead ; the votaries of the Virgin of Atocha ; and the Franciscans of Alcala, for their late brother Diego, for whom the grateful Prince obtained from an obliging Pope the first step towards a canonisation which has made him one of the favourites of Castillian hagiology. 1 Don Carlos was soon after removed for change of air to Madrid. He returned to Alcala 2 in the autumn, better but not well. In the following winter and spring he was again attacked by the fever which had been for so long undermining his constitution. One of these attacks was so severe that he made his will, a docu- ment still extant, which was drawn up according to his wishes by a favourite officer of his household Hernan Suarez de Toledo. It was signed and sealed on the iQth of May i$64. 5 The royal youths Don John and Prince Alexander remained at Alcala for nearly two years, learning what Latin and dialectics 1 I have followed, in a great measure, the narrative of Mr. Prescott, History of Philip //., 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1855-8, ii. pp. 468-72, adding a few facts from the unpublished despatches of the Venetian ambassador, Paolo Tiepolo, for a perusal of copies of which I have to thank my friend Mr. Rawdon Brown, so well known for his rich collection of papers belonging to the history of Venice. 2 Don Carlos appears to have been at Alcala de Henares in 1563. On the I5th December 1563 Don Garcia de Toledo writes to Francisco de Etaro from Alcala: En esta casa de S. A. no hay un real ni para pagalla (a sum owing for the allowance of the previous year) ni comer, y cualquiera socorro que se hace en casa de Nicolao de Grimaldo cuesta dineros, y asi de la falta que hubo el afio pasado le hemos pagados en esta feria quinientos mil mas de interes. Vm. lo haga remediar, porque yo le certifico que la necesidad es extrema . . . Todos estamos necesitados de contentar los medicos este afio, que hemos de ser sus procuradores. " Doc Itied., xxvi. 506. Doatmentos relatives al P. D. Carlos. 3 It is printed nearly entire by M. Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe //., Bruxelles, 1863, 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 128-142. CHAP. ii. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 45 their professors could induce them to acquire, and daily improving themselves in the use of their fowling-pieces and the management of their chargers. While Don John was thus preparing himself for a career of arms, his brother the King was endeavouring to carry out his father's wish to place him in the Church. During the sitting of the Cortes of Aragon at Moncon, early in 1564, Philip requested Pope Pius the Fourth to grant his brother a Cardinal's hat The Pontiff promised compliance. But a question of precedence the eternal subject of dispute between the French and Spanish ambassadors at the Holy See being decided by Pius in favour of France, the diplomatic relations between Madrid and the Vatican were interrupted, and the bestowal of the purple was postponed. Don John was soon afterwards recalled to Court to meet his cousins the Archdukes Ernest and Rodolph, who had been sent by their father, Maximilian the Second, to be educated under the eye of the Catholic King, and removed from the atmo- sphere of heresy which pervaded the northern world. The young man's university career was thus brought to a close in the eight- eenth year of his age. In 1565 an opportunity was afforded him of giving evidence not to be mistaken that he preferred the laurels of war to the peaceful splendour of the Roman purple. On the 1 8th of May the fleet of Sultan Solyman, under the command of Mustafa and Piali, the most famous seamen in the Turkish empire, invested Malta. But for the gallantry of John de Valette, the Grand Master, that island would have shared the fate of Rhodes, and the knights of St. John would have been driven back upon aston- ished and humiliated Christendom. The Christian princes had been long too deeply engaged in their own religious wars and intrigues to take note of the advance of their common enemy the Turk. The imminent danger now forced itself upon the attention of Philip the Second. He therefore ordered Don Garcia de Toledo, his Viceroy in Sicily and the commander of his fleet in the Mediterranean, to sail to the relief of Malta with all the forces he could raise. An auxiliary squadron was fitted out at Barcelona. Don John entreated to be allowed to join this ex- pedition. Philip refused his request, saying he was too young, and besides that he intended to fulfil his father's plan of placing him in the Church. Unable to obtain leave, Don John deter- mined to go without leave. On the pth of April 1565 Don Carlos and Don John attended the Queen from Madrid to Guadar- 4 6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. n. rama, a village which gives its name to the mountain range a few leagues north of Madrid. Isabella being on her way to hold a meeting with her mother, Catherine de Medicis, at Bayonne, the population of Madrid turned out to witness her departure. At Guadarrama they overtook the King, who had preceded them hither. Thence the Queen went to the convent of Mejorada, and the King to that of Guisando. They again met at Valladolid, where they remained for some weeks. Magnificent bull-fights and cave-plays, in which the combatants were the young nobles, were held in their honour. The afternoons were often devoted by the Queen to visiting the monasteries, gardens, and country- houses near the city, and in these excursions she was always accompanied by Don Carlos and Don John. Isabella began her northern journey on the i$th of May, and her beautiful eyes were wet with tears as she took leave of her husband at the neighbouring village of Cigales. 1 The Court soon afterwards moved to Segovia. It was here that Don John seems to have determined to execute his plan of escape. Don Carlos and he were on their way to the palace of the Wood of Segovia, when he quietly left the cavalcade at Galpagar, 2 and accompanied by two attendants rode off towards the sea, with the intention of embarking at Barcelona or Bivaroz. At Frasno, a town eleven leagues from Zaragoza, he fell sick of a tertian fever, and was overtaken by Don Juan Manuel, whom the King, on hearing of his flight, sent after him to bring him back. Manuel was the bearer of a letter from Quixada urging him to return, and representing the anxiety which his absence caused him. The Archbishop, Governor, and other dignitaries of Zaragoza came from that city to visit him, and as soon as he was able to move, conveyed him thither to the archiepiscopal palace. They joined Manuel in entreating him to give up his project. The King, they assured him, would be very angry, and they alleged that the galleys in which he intended to have taken his passage had already sailed from Barcelona. They invited him at least to wait until a body of fifteen hundred men should be raised at the ex- pense of the kingdom of Aragon to enable him to appear at the head of a force befitting his rank ; and finally, finding him obsti- 1 Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II., Bruxelles, 1863, pp. 167-8. 2 Galpagar is mentioned by Vanderhammen as the point of Don John's evasion, but the probability of this being true depends on the position of that place. If it lies be- tween Segovia, or Valsain, and the Bosque, Galpagar may have been the place, but not if it lies on the Madrid side of that sitio. Gachard's account is so precise that there is little reason to believe the King returned to Madrid during the Queen's absence. CHAP. ii. YOUTH OF DON JOHN. 47 nate, they offered him a loan of money for the voyage. All these reasons and offers he resisted and rejected, and sent off one of his attendants to Barcelona to inquire after the means of transit. He himself went by way of Belpuche, where he was hospitably received by the Admiral of Naples, and afterwards visited the Benedictines who dwelt among the famous crags of Monserrate. 1 On reaching Barcelona he was entertained by the Viceroy of Catalonia, the Duke of Francavilla, and received with distinction by the bishop and other authorities of the Catalonian capital. The galleys having sailed as had been reported, he found that he would be compelled to proceed on his journey through France. Meanwhile the King had issued injunctions that he was not to be permitted to embark, and now sent him a formal order, addressed to himself, commanding him to return under pain of disgrace. Time was passing ; if evasion were possible the land journey would be difficult and tedious ; and Don John had at least done enough to show the bent and the strength of his will. He therefore reluctantly gave up his enterprise and returned to Court. The Court was still at Segovia, waiting for the Queen's return from Bayonne. When Don John made his appearance the King had already gone to meet her at Sepulveda, a village ten leagues off. On the 3 the pilot and his mates (consiglieri}, and the keeper or driver (agozzind) of the galley-slaves. A chaplain superintended the spiritual concerns of the officers and crew, and a barber-surgeon tended their bodies. Two artillery- men and two assistants served the ordnance ; there was an armourer to attend to the arms ; and a staff of four carpenters looked after the repairs of the vessel. The crew consisted of eight sailors called helmsmen, eight first-class and sixteen second- class seamen ; and the gang (ciurma) of slaves amounted in a galley of fifty oars to one hundred and fifty or two hundred men. 2 The galley slavery of the Mediterranean was a marked and distinctive feature of the social life, of the sixteenth century. For most of the southern States of Europe that branch of the naval 1 A. Tal : Archaeologic Navale, 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1840, ii. p. 203. 2 Uberto Foglietta (Delia Republica di Geneva, Roma, 1559, sm. 8vo) estimates the annual expense of maintaining a fleet of fifty galleys at 142,000 crowns. He supposes the fleet to be in harbour seven months, at a monthly cost each galley of 120 crowns a month, and at sea, five months, at a monthly cost each galley of 400 crowns a month, making 42,000 and 100,000 crowns respectively. Each galley when at sea is supposed to carry from fifty to sixty men. The following list of the officers and men of a ship of war, with their rates of pay, is CHAP. IV. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 93 service was used for purposes which are now attained by prisons, public works, and penal settlements. The benches of the unhappy slaves of the oar brought into close contact men of all countries and conditions, and all varieties of moral character. The Moslem from the Bosphorus, from Tunis, or the slopes of Atlas, here mingled with Greek and Latin Christians of all races and lan- guages. Here, side by side in common misery, sat the brave soldier whom the fate of war had made a captive, and the wretch who was paying the penalty of the most odious crimes ; the gallant gentleman who had shone in the princely tilt-yard or at royal banquets, and the outcast whose home was the street or the pier ; the man of thought and feeling whose conscience refused to receive unquestioned the faith as it was in the Inquisition at Valladolid or Rome, and the ruffian who stabbed for hire in the tortuous lanes of Valencia or beneath the deep-browed palaces of Naples. Turkish officers, wont to ride in the gorgeous train which attended the Sultan to the mosques of Constantinople, were at this moment chained to the oars of Don John of Austria ; and knights of Malta were lending an unwilling impulse to the vessels which Ali Pasha was leading through the channels of the Archipelago to do battle with the fleet of the Holy League. The Turkish galleys being more exclusively rowed by foreign captives, advantage in a naval action was embittered to the Christian combatants by the knowledge that their artillery, which mowed down their turbaned foes, was also dealing agony and death amongst furnished by Pantero Pantera, himself a sea captain, in his Armata Navale, 410, Roma, 1614 : Dai 'y M pa"v" y D Dai 'y M payin y Rations. *% . RaUons. *g Captain (Capitano) ; who, besides, laro), and sometimes a helper was allowed two^iazze morte, (Garzone), each ... 2 4 or the pay and rations of two Eight Helmsmen (Timonieri). men not required to serve . 4 10 Eight Seamen of the first class Chaplain (Capellano) ... 2 4 (Marinari). Gentleman of the poop (Nobile di The first four were called from poppa) none. none. their rations parte e mezzo. ; Master (I'atrotte) .... 2 5 they were under the immedi- Boatswain (Comito) ... 3 5 ate orders of the Boatswain, Second- Boatswain (Sotto-Comito) 2 3 and their place was by the Pilot (filoto) mainmast; they received each ij 2 Pilots' Mates (Consigliert), two or The second four were called more according to the size of Proveri ; they were younger the vessel, each ... 2 4 men, and were under the im- Keeper or Driver of the galley- mediate orders of the second slaves (Agozzino) ... 2 3 Boatswain, near the muzen- Barber - Surgeon (Barbiero or mast ; they received each . i ij Chirurgo) .... 2 4 Sixteen Seamen of the second- Two Artillerymen (Bombardieri), class (Marinari diguardia). i 2 each 2 4 The gang of rowers (Ciurmd) con- Two Assistant-Artillerymen (Aiu- sisted of the three classes (i) tanti di Bombardier!) ii ?\ Captives (Schiavi); (2) Crimi- Four or five Carpenters (Maes- nals (Sforzati) ; and (3) Vol- tranza) ; Master Carpenter unteers (Buonevoglie). The (Maestro d"ascia), Caulker . . two former were of course un- (Calafato), Barrel-maker (Sa- paid ; the latter received each i a rilo.ro), Oarmaker (Re mo- 94 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. fettered friends and brethren, who an hour before had hailed with hope and exultation the approach of the flag of their country and their creed. There is an excellent account of sea life in 1589 in Les Voy- ages du Seigneur de Villawont^ who sailed from Venice to Limisso in Cyprus in a large nave laden with wine. He sailed on the ipth April, and landed at Limisso I2th or 1 3th May. 2 The captain was Candido di Barbaro, a gentleman of Venice, who maintained great discipline on board, and allowed no one to sit down to table till he was seated with his "nocher" and "escrivain." 3 From the hold to the deck of the poop there were " plutost sept etages que " six et du coste de la proue six plutost que cinq." The lowest down of the poop decks seems to have been the " salle " where they dined ; over that the " chambre " of the " escrivain " and that of the pilgrims, of whom Villamont was one, with a great place in front which served for the management of the sails and cordages ; next the " chambre du Patron," and also a place in front where was " la boussolle et le Pilote pour gouverner le nave ;" and next highest the " chambre " of the Pilote, with another place in front ; and over this, in case of necessity, another " chambre " could be made. The day after they sailed the Patron mustered all hands, and standing with his " escrivain " on the poop, and the " nocher " and men below, he (the Patron) asked their names, divided them into four watches, and then made them a speech, in which he exhorted them to be quick and ready in their duty, obedient, honest, and inoffensive to all on board, and likewise to forbear from blasphemy and sodomy under pain of the " bas- " tonnade." Any who might be found guilty of the latter vice should be attached to the " cadene," and not released until they returned to Venice, when they would be tried by law. Drink was then served out, after which the Patron addressed the pass- engers, and admonished them to behave with propriety. Every evening the Ave Maria was sung, and on Saturday the Litanies and Salve regina ; and every morning the " Moressis du vaisseau " chantoyent leur prieres a haute voix, lesquelles finies donnent le " bon jour au Patron." The feeding on board was rough but wholesome, the wine being half watered. However, each pilgrim with any foresight carried a barrel of wine and some provisions of his own, and Villamont had a box of pine-wood, five feet by two feet, to keep them in, which also served him to spread his "matelos" on. He placed it on the poop, and seems to have slept there, 1 Lyon, C. Larist, 1607, 8vo. 2 pp. 179-212. 3 p. 182. CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 95 because, though the wind entered on all sides, he was tolerably protected from rain unless it was blowing in in front, and was at a distance from " les puanteurs de la nave." He mentions particu- larly that a knife, fork, spoon, and glass were set down at table for each guest. The mariners bore an ill name, and were said to be very insolent to pilgrims and passengers, "jusqucs a les poin- " Conner par le derriere ;" but Villamont never experienced any such indignity, and believes it to have been untrue that it was often offered. They were, however, infested with " poux," and stole what they could, and it was better to keep as far from them as possible. From Limisso Villamont went to Jaffa in a Greek bark laden with sand and commanded by a rascally master. The passage was rough, bad, and long, beingfive days. From Veniceto Jaffa they were thirty- five days on shipboard, including four or five spent at Cyprus. 1 " If there be a hell in this world," said a rimer for the people in the sixteenth century, " it is in the galleys where rest is un- " known." 2 Hard work, hard fare, hard usage, exposure to all kinds of weather and to many kinds of danger, the utter absence of any comfort or sympathy in suffering and any protection from wrong, the perpetual presence of cruel tormentors and vile companions, tasked to the utmost man's animal instinct to cling to life. The worst prison on shore seemed preferable to the galley's roofless dungeon, where the wretched inmates were liable always to be flogged, often to be drowned, and sometimes to be shot. When the novelists of those days, therefore, wished to plunge their heroes in the lowest depths of misery, they consigned them to the galleys. 3 The greatest of them all, Cervantes, had himself tasted of that 1 Juan Calnete de Estrella, in his Viaje del Principe D. Phelipe dcsde Espafia a las ticrras de la baxa Alemafia, Anvers, 1552, 4to, f. lo, describes the loss of the galley " Leona" of Naples by striking on a sunken rock close to the " lanterna " at the entrance of the harbour of Genoa, 25th or 26th November 1548. The gentlemen were saved, some by swimming ; but most of the crew seem to have been lost, and a great deal of property, and the "capilla" of the Prince which was on board was greatly damaged. The Christian captive in a Turkish galley in Spanish waters, " with his hands upon the oar " and his eyes upon the land," on approaching the white towers and green palaces of Algiers, was a favourite hero of the ballad poetry of Spain. See Duran : Coleccion de Romances Castellanos, 1828-32, 5 vols. 8vo. ; torn. ii. p. 140, Romances que tratan de canticos. In Southey's Common-Place Book, iv. 636, are some lines from a transla- tion or continuation of Orlando Furioso by Nicolas Espinosa, on which he remarks that " one would think he had been a galley-slave." 2 Vita crudele et spietata chefanno quelli che vengono condannati in galera ; a poetical tract in ottava rinta of four leaves, I2mo, Viterbo et Pistoia, undated, but probably about 1580. 3 An excellent description of galley life is given by Mateo Aleman, in the last chapters of Guzman de Alfarache. When marched across country, as the slaves sometimes were in Spain, they committed all sorts of depredations at which their officers, who shared in the profit, winked, and they were the terror and the locusts of the districts through which they passed. 9 6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. misery ; if he had not tugged a Barbary oar, it was because he was disabled by his hand maimed at Lepanto ; and in his tale of the Captive, he has commemorated some of his sufferings and exploits. At that time the favourite happy ending of a romantic story was the escape from bondage, with its stratagems and hair- breadth risks, and the love which contrived or protected it, the white hand signalling from the lattice, the midnight flight to the beach, the sail furtively spread to the prospering gale, and Fatima or Zara with her jewels and bags of gold carried off to Spain to the font and the altar, and a life of orthodox connubial bliss as Carmen or Dolores. The gang of galley-slaves was seated in close order on benches covered with coarse sacking, rudely stuffed, over which were thrown bullocks' hides. Five or six of them occupied a bench ten or eleven feet long. To a footboard beneath each man was attached by a chain ending in an iron band, riveted round one of his ankles. The benches were so close together that as one row of men pushed forward their oar, the arms and oar of the row behind were projected over their bended backs. The size and weight of the oar were so great that, except at the end where it was tapered to a manageable size, it was necessary to work it by handles fixed to the side. The slave to whom the end was allotted was always the strongest of the oarsmen ; he was captain of the oar, and directed the movements of the others. He was called the strokesman (vogavdnte] ; the next to him was the man of the gunwale (posticcio, posticd} ; the third was called the terzarolo, the third man ; the fourth, quartarolo ; and so on in numerical suc- cession. Of the oars, the pair which were most difficult to work, of which the skilful working was most important to the progress of the galley, and to which the stoutest crews were attached, were the stroke-oars, those which were nearest to the stern of the galley. The captains of these stroke-oars were called the spallieri> or men of the back benches (spalle) ; the best of the two men directed the oar on the right side of the galley. The captains of the pair of oars next the prow were also important rowers, although their benches were contemptuously called the coniglie, the rabbits, being occupied by the weaker men, and they themselves the coniglieri. The captains of the stroke oars were exempt from all labour but rowing, and their crews were employed only in serving on the poop, or in ringing the bells, or in other lighter duties. The care of the cables, anchors, and other apparatus of the forecastle devolved on the captains of the foremost oars. CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 97 The slaves were overlooked by the boatswain (comito or comite). His place was on the gangway, close to the sternmost oars, where he was at all times within hearing of the orders of the captain. Along the gangway, at regular intervals, his mate and the driver were posted, so that the conduct of each slave was under inspection. The oars were put in motion or stopped by the sound of a silver whistle, worn by the boatswain, who, with his mates, was armed with a heavy whip of bull's sinew to stimu- late the exertions of the slaves. When it was necessary to continue the labour for many hours without respite, they would administer, in addition to the lash, morsels of bread steeped in wine, which they put in the mouths of the men as they rowed. If in spite of these precautions a slave sank from fatigue, he was whipped until it was evident that no further work was to be obtained from him, and then thrown either into the hold, where amongst bilge water and filth he had a chance of recovering his consciousness, or, if his case appeared desperate, into the sea. The misery of their position appeared capable of no alleviation beyond that which may have been found in the interest or pride which their captain might be supposed to take in keeping the crew of his galley in good working condition. Yet this life of privation and suffering did not deter some adventurers from selling their liberty for a price, and going of their own free will to wear the chain amongst the outcasts of society. 1 The gang was divided into three classes, the convicts (sforzati), the slaves (schiavi), and the volunteers (buonevoglie}? The convicts were not allowed to leave the galley, and were always either chained to their benches, or wore their chains attached to a manacle. Their heads and beards were wholly shaved. Besides labouring at the oar, they had to make the sails and awnings, and do all the hard work on board. The slaves were generally Moors, Turks, or negroes. Of these the Moors were reckoned the best and stoutest, and the negroes the worst, 1 Archenholtz, writing in the eighteenth century (Tableau de ritalie, trad, de 1'Allemand, Bruxelles, 1788, 2 vols. sm. 8vo. i. 132), says the Genoese have a way of filling their rowing-benches which seems incredible, " for may one not well believe the " life of a galley-slave to be the last degree of human misery?" People are always found, he relates, to sell their liberty, usually for a year, for two sequins. The money is usually spent at once "au cabaret," and the man taken on board, stripped, and chained. There is no difference in the treatment of the greatest criminal and "un " semblable drole." During the year he is often inclined for a debauch ; a little money is again given him, a new contract is made for a further term, and the result is that the poor wretch rarely recovers his liberty at all (p. 133). 2 In Spanish, " forzados," "esclavos," and ''genie de buena boya." Instruction al Conde de Niebla : Doc. Ined. , xxviii. p. 400. VOL. I. H 9 8 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. many of them dying of sheer melancholy. Like the convicts, the slaves were never freed from their chains ; their chins were shaved, but a tuft of hair was left on the crown of each of their heads. When on board they were chiefly engaged at the oar ; but on them devolved the labour of bringing wood and water, and the other hard work on shore. These two classes of rowers were fed on a daily diet of thirty ounces of biscuit, with water, and on alternate days with an added ration of soup composed of three ounces of beans and a quarter of an ounce of oil for each man. At sea, however, the soup was often withheld on account of the difficulty of cooking it, and because that luxury was supposed to make them heavy and dull at work. Miserable as this fare was at the best, its materials, furnished by knavish contractors, were often of the worst quality, and to this cause was attributed much of the sickness which had so weakened the force of the Venetian fleet. Four times a year, on the great festivals of the Church, the convicts and slaves had a ration of meat and wine. The third class, the volunteers, were often convicts who had served their time, and either chose to remain at the oar, or were detained to work out the value of money advanced to them from the ship's chest. They were allowed to go all day about the galley with only a manacle on one wrist or an iron anklet on one leg ; but at night, when the driver went his rounds, he chained them to their benches with the rest. The heads and chins of the volunteers were shaved, but they were marked by the hair left to grow on their upper lips. They received the same rations as the seamen, and the same pay, two crowns a month. The whole gang was clothed alike, the volunteers at their own cost. Each man had, or was supposed to have, two shirts and two pair of linen breeches, a woollen frock, usually red, and a red cap, a pair of socks, a long greatcoat of coarse cloth, a pair of winter socks of the same material, and a pair of shoes for work on shore. Two blankets were also provided for each bench. It must be presumed, that these blankets and each man's spare clothes were stowed away under the benches, for no chests or lockers or any kind of storeroom seem to have been allowed. In a company, therefore, so largely leavened with thieves it is probable that, for many of its members, garments, not actually in wear, had but a brief practical existence. 1 1 In the public picture gallery at Amsterdam there is an interesting picture by H. C. Vroom (Catalogue, No. 351) of the sinking of some Spanish galleys off Gibraltar by the Dutch fleet under Heemskerck in 1607. The two Spanish vessels in the front of the picture give a very clear idea of the arrangements on board a galley of those days. The CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 99 Besides the privileges accorded to physical strength, which have been already noticed, there were a few rewards held out to superior skill and intelligence. Each galley had its band of trumpeters, and vessel vied with vessel in the quality of its music. These musicians, usually eight in number, received each half the daily ration of a volunteer. The long boat was under the care of a keeper ; each cabin had its waiter ; the captain employed a clerk ; the barber -surgeon required an assistant ; some of the officers had servants, and all these petty officials were usually promoted to their slender emoluments from the gang. The middle benches near the cooking-house were generally occupied by the cooks of the various messes. Some of the rowers were also specially licensed to trade in a small way as victuallers ; and the privilege was so profitable that officers of the ship were some- times tempted to share in the venture and wink at gross abuses and extortion. 1 The instructions issued to a Spanish Admiral early in the seventeenth century 2 sufficiently indicate some of the abuses from which the Crown desired to protect itself on the one hand, and its galley-gangs on the other. The officers in immediate charge of the convicts and slaves, if any of these contrived to escape, were to supply others at their own expense ; or if that could not be, were to take their places at the oar. 3 Care was enjoined that the gang should be provided with good and sufficient food and clothing, and that they should not be employed, in port and during the winter, in work unconnected with the naval service. 4 Neither convicts nor volunteers were to be detained beyond the terms for which they were condemned or had engaged to serve. 5 Gentlemen, it was said, were no longer to be punished by sentence to the galleys, on account of the inconveniences which time had shown to arise from the practice ; and if such persons were sent, they were not to be received. Adventurers serving as soldiers at their own charges were to be enrolled according to their capabilities and the necessities of the service, and those of them who were too poor to maintain themselves might receive the King's rations. 6 Each galley was to be furnished with I 1,000 shaven-headed slaves are very closely packed on their benches, the soldiers stand on a narrow platform running round the side of the vessel. The stem is covered with an arched framework, as if to be covered with tarpauling. On the prow are two guns. The unhappy vessels are receiving a plunging fire from the musketeers on board the high Dutch man-of-war. 1 Pantera : L'Armata Navale, p. 135. 2 Instruction al Conde de Niebla para el cargo de Capitan General de los Galeros de Espaila, 1603 : Doc. Ined., xxviii. pp. 393-418. 3 Ibid. p. 400. * Ibid. p. 398. 5 Ibid. pp. 399, 400. 8 Ibid. p. 412. ioo DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. ducats annually for its expenses, and i ooo more for extraordinary charges ; the money to be kept in a chest with four keys, and disbursed under strict rules and close supervision. 1 It was rigidly forbidden to encumber the vessels with merchandise or excessive baggage. 2 The arms were to be kept very neat and clean, and given out to the soldiers only when required for use. Extrava- gance was to be avoided in the wear and tear of flags and pennants, and in gilding and painting poops. 3 The Admiral himself was not to keep more than eight servants, the number allowed to the Marquis of Santa Cruz, and these were to be able- bodied men enrolled amongst the soldiers, of whom forty served on board each galley. 4 Officers and men were ordered to lead good and Christian lives, under the inspection of the chaplain- priest who was attached to each galley, to confess them and preach on fitting occasions, he himself being subject to the chaplain of the Admiral. By this chaplain general cases of heresy were to be dealt with ; but he was warned to see that men did not affect heterodoxy as a method of escaping from the oar. 5 The suggestion that the chances even of the Inquisition might be preferred to further endurance of the lash of the boatswain, throws some light on life in a galley, which may be better illus- trated by a few incidental expressions of the elder nautical writers, than by any detailed description of life on the rowing-benches. Crescendo, in explaining the different call-words which the gang, composed of men of many different tongues, must learn to under- stand and obey, says they soon learn it, " for these wretched " people are governed solely by the laws of Draco, and every " mistake is paid for in life's blood." 6 Pucci, in laying down the rule that none but officers shall beat the rowers, 7 confirms the sketches which poets and novelists have drawn of galley life, and in which the bare backs of the slaves are constantly quivering under the hogshead's hoop or the salt eel's tail. 8 In urging the great advantage and positive necessity of hospital-ships being 1 Instruction al Conde de Niebla para el cargo de Capitan General de los Galeros de Espafta, 1603 : Doc. Ined., xxviii. p. 402. 2 Ibid. p. 408. 3 Ibid. p. 410. ' * Ibid. p. 410. 5 Ibid. p. 403. 6 Crescendo : Nautica Mediterranea, p. 141. 7 Emilio Pucci, quoted by Crescentio : Nautica Mediterranea, p. 150. 8 M. Aleman, in Guzman de Alfarache, part ii., frequently alludes to the hoop, area de pipa, and escandalero, rope's end, which the English translator (James Mabbe, as it is supposed, who writes under the punning pseudonym of Diego Puede-ser) renders "salt " eel's tail," using a metaphor which may have been common in the navies both of Eng- land and Italy, as appears by the use of anguilla in a similar sense in the Vita crudele above quoted (p. 33). Guzman de Alfarache was published, the first part in 1599, the second in 1605, and the English translation in 1630. CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 101 provided in every fleet, Pantera writes with an earnestness which creates a strong suspicion that the provision was seldom made ; and he uses as an argument the forlorn condition of the sick or wounded rower, " who, having no place of repose but the bench to " which he is chained, is, by reason of the narrow space, the per- " petual noise, and the scant pity bestowed on him by his fellows, " in perpetual peril of death, whereby, indeed, many good rowers " are often lost." ] Yet the Knight of the Order of Christ, who advocated the benevolent plan of hospital-ships, also held the opinion that amongst the best methods by which Princes could supply their vessels with hand^ to tug at the oar, was the establishing at all seaports public gaming houses, " where dexterous persons of good " address, should, simply and without connivance at fraud, lend " money to all men who desired it," and when these gamblers lost more than they could pay, transfer them to the galleys as volun- teers, " whence," he gravely adds, " people so entrapped frequently " come out better than they went in." If these old nautical writers all of them officers of the Pope were little scrupulous as to the means of obtaining oarsmen, they were still less inclined to allow ethical obstacles to stand in the way of humbling the common enemy of Christendom. Crescentio has an expedient of beautiful simplicity by which a repentant renegade who happens to command a Turkish fleet in presence of a Christian force can earn restoration to the bosom of the Church by becoming her benefactor. " Let him," he says, " send a secret " and peremptory order, at the same time, to all the captains of " his galleys, commanding each to cut off the heads of his boat- " swain and boatswain's mate on the plea that they have been " detected in intriguing with the enemy. When this shall have " been done, the fleet will be like a troop of horse whose bridle " reins have been suddenly cut ; and a signal may be made to the " Christians to sail in and take possession." 3 The Turks constructed, manned, and officered their vessels after the fashion of the Christians. Like them they had heavy ships, galleys, and the smaller craft generally spoken of as frigates and brigantines. But of heavy ships they had not yet made much use, and there were none of these in this fleet. In weight of metal and in the art of gunnery the Turkish navy was still greatly inferior to the Christian. A Turkish vessel seldom 1 P. Pantera: UArmata Navalc, p. in. 2 Ibid. p. 140. 3 B. Crescentio : Nantica Afediterranea, pp. 485-6. I02 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. carried more than three pieces of artillery, a traversing gun throwing a twenty-five or thirty pound ball being usually placed amidships, and two smaller guns, ten or fifteen pounders, near the bow. Of her fighting men many were still armed with the bow instead of the arquebus or musket. But the skill and celerity with which these archers, many of them Candiotes, used their simple weapon, rendered it very formidable ; and not only did the Turks believe that in the time required to load and discharge a firearm the bow could send thirty arrows against the enemy, 1 but there were Venetians who regretted its disuse in the galleys of St. Mark. 2 The poor wretches who tugged at the oar on board a Turkish ship of war lived a life neither more nor less miserable than the galley-slaves under the sign of the Cross. 1 M. Cavalli, 1560: Relazione, p. 292. He regrets the disuse of the bow as "an " excellent weapon which gives little trouble." " Shootynge is the chefe thinge where - ' with God suffered! the Turke to punysh our noughtie livinge wyth all. The youthe " there is brought up in shotyng ; his privie garde for his own person is bowmen ; the " might of theyr shootynge is wel knowen of the Spanyardes, which at the towne called " Newecastell in Illirica, were quyte slayne up of the Turkes arrowes ; whan the Span- " yardes had no use of theyr gunnes by reason of the rayne. And now, last of all, the " emperour his maiestie himselfe, at the Citie of Argier in Aphricke, had his hooste sore " handeled wyth the Turkes arrowes, when his gonnes were quite dispatched and stode " him in no service, bycause of the raine that fell : where as in suche a chaunce of raine, " yf he had had bowmen, surely there shoote inyghte perad venture have bene a little " hindred, but quite dispatched and marde it could never have bene."- R. Ascham, Toxophihts, 1545, London, I2mo, 1868, p. 82. Captain John Bingham, in the notes to his translations of ^Elian's Tactics, fol., London, 1631, pp. 25-7, expresses the same opinion, and laments the English bow "For us to leave the bow," he says, "being a " weapon of so great efficacy, so ready, so familiar, and as it were so clomesticall to our " nation to which we were wont to be accustomed from our cradle, because other " nations take themselves to the musket, hath not so much as any show of reason." His main arguments in favour of the Brown Bess of the sixteenth century as compared with the musket are these : that it is much more easily carried and managed, is less exposed to harm from weather, can be more quickly discharged, and can be used by a greater number of men in a company at the same moment. "Of the fire-weapons," as he calls them, he says, "their disadvantages are, they are not always certain, sometimes " for want of charging, sometimes through overcharging, sometimes the bullet rowling ' ' out, sometimes for want of good powder, or of dryed powder, sometimes because of " an ill-dried match not fit to cock, or not well cocked. Besides they are somewhat " long in charging, while the musketeer takes down his musket, uncocks the match, " blows, proynes, shuts, casts off the pan, casts about the musket, opens his charges, " chargeth, draws out his skowring stick, rammes in the powder, draws out again and " puts up his skowring stick, lays the musket on the rest, blows of the match, cocks " and tries it, guards the pan, and so makes ready. All which actions must necessarily " be observed if you will not fail of the true use of the musket. In rain, snow, fogs, or " when the enemy hath gained the wind, they have small use. Add that but one rank, " that is the first, can give fire upon the enemy at once. For the rest behind discharg- " ing shall either wound their own companions before, or else shoot at random, and so " nothing endanger the enemy, the force of a musket being only available at point " blank." The Highlanders who crossed the Tweed in August 1640 with the Scottish army in the second Bishops' War seem to have carried bows and arrows as their chief weapons. " The Highlanders with bows and arrows, some have swords and some have " none," occurs in an anonymous letter in States Papers Office quoted by Masson, Life of Milton, vol. ii. 1871, p. 139. -' G. Diedo : Lettere di Principi, f. 263. CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 103 Hard work, hard fare, and hard knocks were the lot of both. Ashore, a Turkish or Algerine prison was, perhaps, more noisome in its filth and darkness than a prison at Naples or Barcelona ; but at sea, if there were degrees in misery, the Christian in Turkish chains probably had the advantage ; for in the Sultan's vessels the oar-gang was often the property of the captain, and the owner's natural tenderness for his own was sometimes sup- posed to interfere with the discharge of his duty. 1 The insecurity of life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, owing to the incursions of the Barbary pirates, is thus described by William Lithgow (1609-1621): "It is dangerous " to travel by the marine of the sea-coast's creeks in the west " ports [of Sicily], especially in the mornings, lest he find a " Moorish frigate lodged all night under colour of a fisher boat " to give him a slavish breakfast ; for so they steal labouring " people off the fields, carrying them away captives to Barbary, " notwithstanding of the strong watch-towers which are every " one in sight of another round about the whole island. Their " arrivals are usually in the night, and if in daytime they are " soon discovered, the towers giving notice to the villages, the " sea-coast is quickly clad with numbers of men on foot and " horseback, and oftentimes they advantageously seize on the " Moors lying in obscure clifts and bays. All the Christian isles " in the Mediterranean Sea, and the coast of Italy and Spain " inclining to Barbary, are thus chargeably guarded with watch- " towers." 2 John Struys was for some time a slave in a Turkish galley in 1656, having been caught at Troy stealing grapes in a vineyard, when ashore with a watering party. " I had thought myself " more happy," he says, " if I had been pilling of turnips or " cucumbers at Durgerdam, than plucking such sour grapes in a " Troyan vineyard." Of his life in the galley he says : " How " inhuman and barbarous our usage was no tongue can utter nor " pen decipher. For the guardian of that galley was reputed the " most severe of any other in the fleet, and although we plied " never so sedulously, were sure to be thrashed on the naked ribs " with a bull's pizzle, when the fit took him ; and one man's hide " must unjustly be made a piaculum for another's remissness or " sloth. Nor was the Tygre cur well but when he heard John 1 M. A. Barbaro, 1573 : Relazione, p. 307. 2 Rare Adventures and painefitll Peregrinations . . . perfited . . . by William Lithgow. London, 1640, 4to, pp. 389-90. I04 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. iv. " a-roaring or yelling out." 1 A Russian fellow -captive, with whom he afterwards made his escape, had "attempted several " times to run away, but was overtaken, and had neither ears nor " nose left." They eventually got off in a dark and rainy night, when ashore at work ; but in the gray of the morning, going too near a Turkish camp, were discovered as they took to the water to swim two miles to the Venetian squadron, and were shot at with long bows. The unfortunate Russian had his buttock pierced by an arrow, which John Struys tried to get out for him, but had to leave to the Venetian surgeons. In the piratical vessels of Barbary the work was doubtless more constant and more severe. They were seldom in port more than two months of the year ; and when at sea the sails were rarely used, in order that they might the better steal unobserved upon their prey. The Christian writers have told frightful stories of the cruelties perpetrated on board Algerine cruisers ; of slaves flogged without cause all day long, and by everybody else in the ship ; of a whole gang ordered to strip to be beaten by the officers in a drunken frolic ; of slaves' eyes torn out and their ears and noses bitten off by ferocious Moors ; and of gangs expected to provide their own water for the voyage, and when unable to procure it, permitted to die, by dozens, of thirst. 2 A cousin of the Pope and Captain of his Guard, who had long tugged at a Barbary oar, was at this very time indeed walking about Rome without his ears, 3 a living proof that the savage punishments of Christendom were sometimes also inflicted by Orientals. But the idea that wanton cruelties could be of frequent occurrence in vessels where the perfect efficiency of the motive power was of the first importance, could find credit only with those who were disposed to believe tales told by the same credulous monks, of Moors and Turks who, having made their escape to their native shores, voluntarily returned to their regretted labours and happier life in- die Christian galleys. 4 That there was any great difference on the score of humanity between Christian and Mahometan task- masters, 5 is rendered improbable by the fact that some of the 1 The Voyages of John Struys through Italy, Greece, Moscovia . . . translated by John Morrison. London, 1682, 4to, p. 80. 2 Fr. Diego de Haedo : Topographia y historia de Areel. Fol. Valladolid, 1612 : ff. 117-18. 3 Paolo Tiepolo : Relazione di Roma in tempo di Pio IV. et Pio V., in Tesori detta Corte di Roma, Bruxelles, 1673, sm - 8vo, p. 53. 4 Fr. Diego de Haedo : Topographia y historia de Argel. Fol. Valladolid, 1612 : f. 102. 5 Compare with Fr. Diego de Haedo the opinions on this point in J. Morgon's CHAP. iv. FLEETS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 105 most cruel of the latter were the renegades. For example, it was Aluch Ali, a Pasha of this class, who, having amongst his slaves a knight of Malta, used, it is said, to amuse himself by calling for " that dog of St. John," and causing him to receive, upon no pretext but his own pleasure, two or three hundred lashes in his presence. 1 Although Solyman had spared no pains or cost upon his navy, he had not succeeded in bringing that arm to the perfection which it had already reached in the hands of the older maritime powers. In his fleets, as in this armament of his son, the best ships and the best sailors were furnished by the pirates of Barbary and Algiers. Too useful to be rejected, such fierce seamen as Dragut, Barbarossa, and their successors, were more feared than trusted, and often disturbed the slumbers of their imperial master. They were therefore used by the Sultan, it was said, as a physician uses poison cautiously, in small quantities, and amongst other ingredients. 2 Complete History of Algiers, 2 vols. 4to, London, 1731, ii. pp. 516-19, and the facts which he relates. 1 Fr. D. de Haedo : Top. y hist, de Argel, f. 118. He tells the story on the authority of the knight himself, whom he calls Lanfre Duche. 2 M. Cavalli, 1560 : Relazione, p. 295. GALLEY AND FRIGATE. CHAPTER V. OPERATIONS ALONG THE SPANISH COAST. ON JOHN of Austria left Madrid toward the end of May, accompanied by his secretary, Juan de Quiroga, and another attendant, Andres de Prada, who afterwards filled the same post. Old Quixada, being no seaman, was obliged to trust his pupil in other hands. Many of the young nobility followed the new admiral to take service in the fleet. He reached Carthagena on the 2d of June, and was received in the house of his lieutenant Requesens, who had already arrived there to meet him. Next day they held a council, which was attended by the famous captain Alvaro Ba^an, Marquess of Santa Cruz, Juan de Cardona, and Gil de Andrade. It was agreed to send some reinforcements to the squadron of Giovanni Andrea Doria, who was watching the Turk off the coasts of Sicily, and that Don John himself should make a cruise along the shores of Spain, and pass the straits of Gibral- tar to meet the fleet which was expected from the Indies. To replace the men sent to Doria, orders were despatched to the governors of Murcia, Granada, and Seville, to send, each of them, two hundred men from his militia force to Carthagena, Malaga, and Gibraltar. On the 3d of June, Don John embarked for the first time on the field of his future fame. He hoisted his flag on board the royal galley with the customary honours, salutes of artillery, marshal music, and congratulations of his officers. The vessel was superbly and freshly decorated within and without, with paintings representing the story of Jason, the ship Argo, and the Golden Fleece, and allegorical figures emblematical of the qualities proper to a naval commander, and illustrated with Latin JOANNES AVJTRIACVS Io8 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. v. mottoes emblazoned in letters of gold. 1 The squadron of thirty- three sail immediately steered northward for Denia, and thence to the island of S 1 : 1 Pola, where Don John reviewed his men. He was recalled hence by a report that the Barbary rovers had made a descent upon the shore of Granada, and had sacked a town. Touching at Carthagena on the way, he put into the open road of Almeria on the 1 2th of June, and thence ran down the iron- bound coast to Malaga and Gibraltar. In passing Marbella he spoke a galleon, and was told that the Indian fleet had already anchored off San Lucar, at the mouth of the Guadalquivir. Contrary winds made his entrance into Gibraltar very tedious and difficult. While there he sent a vessel over to Ceuta to learn from the governor of that fortress whether any corsairs had been seen on the coast. None being reported, he sailed to the bay of Cadiz, and made a fruitless cruise after some pirates which were supposed to have been seen near the Rio de Oro. He then put back to Puerto Santa Maria, and again reviewed his force of fighting men, whom he found to amount to no more than eight hundred and eleven ; upon which he once more urged the Governor of Granada to send him some reinforcements to Malaga. At Puerto Santa Maria he inspected the naval stores of the place, the cannon foundry, and the fortifications, and examined the plans of a new mole drawn by one Captain Florio, which he pronounced good, but costly, and which were probably never executed. In returning through the straits, Don John determined to surprise the Moorish castle of Fagazas. 2 The plan of attack was arranged ; but the current running more swiftly than he had calculated on, and sweeping the vessels down within sight of the place too soon, the attempt was abandoned. The squadron then touched, to take in water, at Pefion de Velez, and Don John 1 Vanderhammen (D. Juan de Austria, fol. 44) has devoted nearly six pages to describing these decorations. Amongst the subjects and mottoes were these The ship Argo . . Fortunam virtute parat. Prometheus with the Jason's battle with the eagle feeding on his bul1 Stolidce ceditnt vires, vitals Corde alenda patria ales. Jason s battle with the Ulysses and Sirens Ne dulcia ladant. dragon . . . Dolum reprimere dolo. Minerva Mars .... Per saxa, per undas. Time . Neptune . . . Caret componerejlnctus. Alexander the Great Mercury . . . Opportune. Cranes ; some ; flying The sea with halcyon's others sleeping, will nests, the sky with one keeping watch stars and winds . Hand secns regnabit SEo- Argus . lus- Elephant and Rhino Dolphins and tortoises. Festina. Lente. ceros whetting their Unicorn purifying a tus k s an salulres. Diana with a hound 9 Vanderhammen (f. 43) calls it Terraza, which is probably a misprint. Nee sine me qnicqnam. Dum instat, Feliciter omnia. Node dieque. Nvsquam ccecittiens. In utrutnque paratns. Instat, revocaf, adsinti. CHAP. v. OPERATIONS ALONG THE SPANISH COAST. 109 visited the castle famous in the wars of Moor and Christian. While he was there, some Arab marauders descended from the hills and showed themselves in the plain. The alcayde of the castle sallied out at the head of thirty men and engaged in a skirmish with them, in which he lost a captain and a soldier. Moving eastward, the squadron gave chase to a couple of Moorish galliots with a merchantman of which they had made prize. The prize was recaptured, but the galliots escaped. Two days of foul weather were spent in the shelter of the creek of Los Trifolques ; and on the gth of July Don John paid a visit of inspection to the fort of Melilla, and redressed some grievances complained of by the garrison. He afterwards fell in with two Moorish cruisers, one of which, in attempting to escape, ran ashore. The crew, however, were assisted by the garrison of a small tower on the adjacent rocks, and succeeded in recovering from the wreck most of their cargo and arms. The vessel was at last taken by a boat attack, covered by the fire of one of the galleys. Little was found in her but a few Christian slaves, worn out with their labours at the oar, and most of them half dead, their cruel taskmasters having stabbed them ere they left them to their deliverers. Don John pursued his voyage to Oran and Mar^a- el-quibir, where there were some new fortifications to be inspected and approved, and then, in twelve hours, ran across to Carthagena. Denia, Iviga, and Mallorca were next touched at, the squadron showing itself on these shores to intimidate pirates, and Don John inspecting the Mallorcan castle and militia of Ciudadilla. By way of Peniscola and the smaller Balearic Islands, he then sailed for Barcelona, whence he wrote to the King a full account of his cruise. Here he learned that a hundred Turkish sail had been seen off the coast of Apulia, and he despatched another squadron to reinforce the fleet of Doria in the Sicilian waters. He then went over the fortifications of the Catalonian capital, and minutely examined the galleys which had been placed on the stocks in the dockyard by the order of the Duke of Francavilla, the Viceroy, who now received as Admiral the youth whom he had formerly met as a truant from college. Don John was thus engaged when he received the news of the fate of his nephew, Don Carlos. He again steered for Carthagena, and, his cruise being accomplished, travelled from thence to Madrid, where he arrived about the end of September. ^ His expedition had been attended with no brilliant success, but neither had he met with any reverse or defeat. He had learned some- 110 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. v. what of nautical affairs, of the maritime defences of Spain, and of the duties and difficulties of command, and his temper and bearing had won the good-will of all those who had served under him. At Court he was received by the King with as much cordiality as his cold nature ever expressed, and by the courtiers, among whom he was a great favourite, with a general welcome. Within a few days of his arrival, Madrid and the whole kingdom were saddened by the unexpected death of the Queen. She died in premature child-bed, on the 3d of October 1568, in the twenty-fourth year of her age. Sincerely mourned by her lord, whose regard for her is one of the redeeming features of his character, Isabella of the Peace, by her beauty and goodness, the auspicious circumstances of her marriage, and her early death, found a high place, which her memory long retained, in the popular affection of Spain. The night after her decease, as the fair corpse lay in state amidst a forest of tapers in the chapel of the palace, the King came at midnight to pray beside the bier. The courtiers whom he had chosen to attend upon him, and who stood motionless behind, as he knelt at the head of his dead wife, were Don John of Austria, Ferdinand de Toledo, and the Prince of Eboli. 1 The Archduke Charles, who had been commissioned to go to Madrid to urge a reconciliation between the King and his son, and the marriage of Carlos with the Archduchess Anne, had been accidentally detained at Vienna until after the arrival there of news of the death of the captive Prince. That event determined the Emperor to give Anne to the King of France, and he destined her sister Elizabeth for the King of Portugal. These two marriage projects, demanding confidential communica- tions with the Court of Spain, were entrusted to the Archduke. Informed on the way of the death of Queen Isabella, he was also overtaken by orders from the Emperor to offer the hand of Anne to her uncle, the widower. Catherine de Medicis also proposed that her daughter Margaret should take the place of her deceased sister. 2 Philip II. therefore at once received the offer of two brides, each of whom, like his late wife, had been proposed as the bride for his unfortunate son. He accepted his niece, the Arch- duchess Anne. In the funeral solemnities which ensued, in the church of the Barefooted Carmelite Nuns, Don John found a place assigned to 1 Despatches of Tourquevaulx, French ambassador ; cited by M. W. Freer : Elizabeth de Valois and the Court of Philip II., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1857, ii. 364. 2 Gachard : Don Carlos et Philippe II., ii. 527. CHAP. v. OPERATIONS ALONG THE SPANISH COAST. in him lower than what he conceived to be his due. In that day and Court of etiquette and ceremonial this was a slight that could not be passed over, although the fault apparently lay merely with some of the ushers or pursuivants. He therefore left Madrid, not, it is said, without the concurrence of the King, and retired to the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria de Scala-coeli at Abrojo, near Valladolid, a house famous for its austere rule, and near the nunnery which was the favourite retreat of his sister, the Infanta Juana. That nunnery was likewise often visited by Dona Mag- dalena de Ulloa, and it may have been to meet his foster-mother that Don John now repaired to Abrojo. He formed a particular friendship with one of the friars, Juan de Calahorra, a man noted for his austerities and for his gift of prayer. At Abrojo, or at Villagarcia, he spent more than two months. The news of the formidable rebellion, which broke out at the close of the year, among the Moriscos of the kingdom of Granada, was the first public intelligence which recalled his mind to the great world of politics and war. His secretary, Quiroga, urged him to volunteer his services for the repression of this rebellion. Don John submitted the matter to Fray Juan de Calahorra, who doubtless hated the unbelieving Moslem as cordially as he loved his young friend, and who strongly supported the views of the secretary. " It will make your name," said he, " famous through " all Europe." Thus persuaded, Don John relinquished his inten- tion of spending his Lent in prayer and penitence in the cloistered gloom of Abrojo, and returned to Madrid late in December 1568. On his arrival he immediately reported himself to the King, and soon afterwards addressed to him the following letter : l S. (ACRED) C. (ATHOLIC) R. (OYAL) M. (AJESTY), My obligation to serve your Majesty, and the natural faith and love to your Majesty, induce me, with the greatest submission, to propose that which appears to me fitting. I informed your Majesty of my arrival in this Court, and of the cause of my coming hither ; and I did not think that there was any occasion to trouble your Majesty with letters of so little worth as mine. I have now heard of the state of the rebellion of the Moriscos of Granada, and of the distress in that city, on suspicion becoming certainty ; and as the reparation of your Majesty's reputation, honour, and grandeur, insulted by the boldness of these malcontents, touches me very nearly, I cannot restrain myself within the obedience and entire submission of myself in all things to your Majesty's will, which I have always evinced, nor help representing my desire, and entreating your Majesty that, as it is the glory of kings to be constant in the bestowal of their favours, and to raise up and. make men by their power, your Majesty will use me, who am of your making, 1 Vanderhammen : D. Juan de Austria, fol. 73. ii2 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. v. in the chastisement of these people, because it is known that I may be trusted beyond most others, and that no one will act more vigorously against these wretches than I. I confess that they are not people who deserve to be made of great account ; but because even vile minds grow proud if they possess any strength, and this is not, as I am advised, wanting to these rebels ; and because this power should be taken from them : and the Marquess of Mondejar not being sufficiently strong for this purpose (he having, as I am told, fallen out with the president, and being but little and unwillingly obeyed) ; and as some person must be sent thither, and my nature leads me to these pursuits, and I am as obedient to your Majesty's royal will as the clay to the hand of the potter, it appeared to me that I should be wanting in love and inclination and duty towards your Majesty, if I did not offer myself for this post. Although I know that those who serve your Majesty are safe in your royal hands, and ought not to ask, yet I trust that what I have done may be considered rather a merit than a fault. If I obtain the position which is the object of my desire, I shall be sufficiently rewarded. To this end I came from Abrojo, which, but for the sake of your Majesty's service, and the importance of the occasion, I should not have ventured to do without the express command of your Majesty. May our Lord preserve, for many years, the sacred and Catholic person of your Majesty. From the lodgings, this 3oth day of December 1568, of your Majesty's creature and most humble servant, who kisses your royal hands, D. JUAN DE AUSTRIA. GALLEY LOWERING SAIL. CHAPTER VI. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; ITS CAUSES AND ITS PROGRESS UP TO THE TIME OF THE APPOINTMENT OF DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA TO THE COMMAND AT GRANADA IN MARCH 1569 HEN the last Moorish king of Granada, halting on the height still called the Last Sigh of the Moor, and looking back on his lost city, saw the cross of Toledo and the banner of Castille glittering and floating on the red towers of the Alhambra, 1 he had at least the comfort of knowing that the Christian conquerors had plighted their royal word to protect their new subjects in the possession of their property and of their civil rights, in the observance of their own laws and customs, and in the free exercise of their religion. By strict adherence to these conditions, and by moderation and gentleness of bearing, Ferdinand and Isabella soon obtained for their Govern- ment the adhesion of the chiefs of the Moorish race, not only in 1 The two principal authorities on the Morisco rebellion of 1568-70 are Diego Hurtado cle Mendoza, who wrote Guerra de Granada que liizo el Rei D. Felipe II, contra los Aloriscos de aquel reino sus rebeldes, 4to, Lisbon, 1610, and 4to, Valencia, 1776, and since several times reprinted ; and Luis del Marmol Carvajal, author of Historia del rebelion y castigo de los Moriscos del reino de Granada, sm. fol., Granada, 1600, and 2 vols. 4to, Madrid, 1797. Mendoza had held high military and diplomatic posts under Charles V. and Philip II. ; he was an able and practised writer, both in prose and verse ; and during the Morisco war, being in disgrace at Court, he was living in his house at Granada amongst his books and manuscripts, of which he was a diligent collector and reader. In point of style he is generally considered as one of the first of Castillian historians. An avowed and successful imitator both of Sallust and Tacitus, his affectation of the terseness of antiquity sometimes renders his narrative somewhat VOL. I. I II4 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. Granada, but in many of those mountain towns which might have resisted their authority, or, at least, have withheld external signs of submission. The Moors had been so long accustomed to misrule that a very small infusion of equity and forbearance maintained in the proceedings of their new governors would have converted them into loyal and contented subjects of the Catholic Crown. Never was honesty more plainly the best policy. But honesty and religious zeal were unfortunately arrayed against each other. The Church, according to her wont, soon whispered into royal ears her favourite doctrine, that to keep faith with the infidel was to break it with the Almighty. She was eager to turn Mahometans into indifferent Christians, although the first step in the process were to turn Christians into knaves. Within four or five years after the conquest, the prelates about the Court began to urge Ferdinand and Isabella to require their Moorish subjects either to receive baptism or to sell their lands in Spain and pass over to Barbary. For a while prudence deterred the sagacious King, and feelings of honour and compassion restrained the good Queen from listening to this advice. They had happily bestowed the new archiepiscopal mitre of Granada upon a man whose sound sense and Christian charity honourably distinguished him from the band of cruel monks, profligate nobles, or unscrupulous politicians, who then, for the most part, wielded the croziers of Spain. Hernando de Talavera not only deprecated the violent and faithless counsels of his brethren, but he founded a system meagre and obscure. But he tells his story with great vigour and spirit, and he had the best opportunities, which he seems to have improved, of knowing the truth of what he wrote. He died at Madrid in 1575, aged seventy-three. Marmol Carvajal began life as a soldier. As a stripling he served under Charles V. in 1535, at Tunis; and he followed the profession of arms for twenty -two years. For seven years he was a captive in Western Barbary, and employed the time in improving his knowledge of the language and history of the Arabs. The result of his studies was his Description General de Africa, 3 vols. folio, Granada, 1573, and (3d vol.) Malaga, 1599. During the rebellion of the Moriscos he served in the royal army as a commissary, and was an eye-witness of many of the events which he relates. His book was not published until many years after the end of the war, and may, therefore, be supposed to be the fruit of long meditation, and of very careful examination of the facts contained in it. Without any of Mendoza's pretension to be an historian of the antique mould, Marmol is a picturesque and agreeable writer, and tells his story with an air of simplicity and candour which conciliates the reader's good -will and confidence. Differing in many of their qualities, Marmol and Mendoza are both of them remarkable amongst writers of their age, country, and religion, for the fairness with which they state the crimes and blunders of the Christian Government, and the cruel wrongs of the Moriscos, and for the moderate view which they take of the proceedings of that unhappy people in their ill-fated efforts towards freedom and revenge. Every statement in my account of the Morisco war, for which other authority is not cited, may be supposed to rest on that of one or other of these two authors. CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 115 which, had it been continued by his successors, might have made the Moors of Granada good subjects and tolerable churchmen. He began by studying their language, and causing his priests to study it ; and in his old age he acquired sufficient Arabic for use in the confessional, and in simple addresses and prayers. He cultivated the acquaintance of the alquifis and learned men, and often discoursed with them on religious topics ; and many of them were at last weaned from the faith of Mahomet by the convincing arguments, the gentle nature, and holy life of the Archbishop, or, as he was called, the great alquifi of the Christians. By these means he had so wrought on the mind of the populace, that in 1499, when Cardinal Ximenes was sent by the Queen to aid him in the work, it seemed as if the scenes which occurred at Jerusalem in the infancy of the faith were about to be re-enacted at Granada. In one day no less than three thousand persons received baptism at the hands of the Primate, who sprinkled them with the hyssop of collective regeneration. While the Christians exulted at this remarkable accession to their ranks, the stricter Moslems naturally took the alarm. Assembling in their mosques, they deplored and denounced the backsliding of their people. Their complaints soon reached the ears of Ximenes, whose fierce zeal for the faith was at least honest and dauntless, the absorbing passion of his life. He was of course highly indignant at a cry which, under similar circumstances, he would have been the first to raise. He caused some of the ringleaders to be arrested, and sent his chaplains to argue with them in prison. This breach of the covenant of the conquest meeting with no violent resistance, he took another step in the path of persecution. Amongst the Moors were a few Christians who had lately embraced the faith of the Prophet. Some of these whom the priests reported to be especially obstinate in their error he ordered to be incarcerated. The indignation of the populace was now thoroughly roused. A woman of this renegade class, who was being dragged to prison, was rescued, and the alguazil who had captured her was slain. The densely inhabited quarter of the Albaycin rose in arms ; its gates were seized, and its streets barricaded. The Cardinal, who scorned to take refuge within the walls of the Alhambra, was besieged in his house for ten days. In vain the mild and popular governor interfered with promises and menaces ; the Moors were all armed and outnumbered the Christians tenfold ; and the force under his command was power- Il6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. less against the revolted city. Peace was at last obtained solely through the mediation of Archbishop Talavera. Finding matters daily growing worse, that good Prelate went forth among the insurgents, attended only by his cross-bearer. The angry and outraged men who had been vowing the death of every Christian in the city were melted by this act of heroism. They flocked around their venerable friend, kissed the hem of his robe, implored his blessing, and left the adjustment of their wrongs in his hands; showing that they were a people of gentle nature and of generous impulses, whose submission would have been easily secured by a Government with any tincture of justice and mercy. A com- promise was effected between the two races ; the alguazil's executioners were given up for punishment, and the Cardinal retired from Granada. But although the fierce Primate withdrew from the field, his policy remained behind him, and prevailed over the better counsels of Talavera. It is one of the few blots on the fair fame of the great Isabella of Castille. By the advice of Ximenes, the Catholic sovereigns offered their Moorish subjects, whose religious freedom they had so lately guaranteed, the alternative of becoming Christians, or of migrating to Barbary. Eight months were allowed them to consider the proposal, and to make their choice. They spent the interval in endeavouring to evade the necessity of choosing. They induced the Sultan of Egypt to send an embassy to Spain, and to declare to Ferdinand and Isabella that if the Moors of Granada were forced to become Christians, he would compel the Christians in his dominions to embrace the law of the Prophet. The embassy was received with perfect courtesy, and the learned Peter Martyr was sent to Cairo in return, to assure the Sultan that although the Spanish sovereigns could not permit the professors of Islamism to remain in their kingdom, no force should be used to compel them to adopt Christianity, and that every facility should be afforded them of selling their lands and retiring to the Barbary shore. Satisfied with these assurances, or with the demonstration which he had already made, the Oriental potentate took no further measures to protect his fellow-infidels. They had therefore to choose between exile and conversion. Most of them preferred a profession of Christianity to leaving their pleasant homes in the fairest region of Europe, and seeking doubtful fortunes on the burning shores of Mauritania. A few of the bolder spirits, hardy mountaineers of the Alpuxarras, took up arms in defence of their rights, and, for the greater part of a CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 117 winter, kept their snowy fastnesses against the old soldiers of the conquest. But although they fought with the utmost valour, and cut to pieces the force which the brave Alonso de Aguilar led into the passes of the Sierra Bermcja, 1 they were overpowered by superior numbers and discipline. The Count of Tendilla stormed the fort of Guejar ; the Count of Lerin, driving the rebels out of Lauxar, blew up the mosque in which the women and children of a large district had been placed for safety, and the King in person reduced the town and strong castle of Lanjaron, the key of the Alpuxarras. The rising was quelled. The sterner Moslems bade a sorrowful farewell to their beloved Damascus of the West, carrying their agricultural skill to the fields of Morocco or Tunis, their manual dexterity to the bazaars of Cairo or Constantinople; 2 and the remaining children of the Saracen learned to bow the knee in unwilling homage to that cross and wafer which their conquering sires had driven before them to the savage glens of Asturias. For the next half-century the relations between the Moors, or the Moriscos as they were now called, and their masters, though full of hatred on the one side and suspicion on the other, were disturbed by no violent or serious outbreak. Legislation meddled little with the matter ; but that little was sufficient to show the impolicy and the nullity of conversion by royal edict. The new Christians, at heart more Moslem than ever, conformed to Christian rites and worship so far as kept them clear of the Inquisition, and no further. If the parish priest were strict in his superintendence, they attended mass on Sundays and holy days, and whispered at due intervals at the confessionals. The more faithful would not learn, or pretended not to understand, the Castillian tongue, that they might avoid the necessity of polluting their lips with the idolatrous prayers of the breviary. Marriages performed in Christian fashion in the churches were again solemnised according to the Mahometan law at home. Infants, after receiving the 1 Our valiant Spaniard D. Alonso de Aguilar in the battle of the Sierra Bermeja, where he died fighting, had with him his son, Don Pedro, a young lad, and seeing him wounded in the face and fallen, and his thigh pierced with a spear, ordered him to retire. ' ' Diziendo que no fuesse toda la came en un assador. " Bernardino de Escalanti : Dialogos Mili tares, Sevilla (Pescioni), 1584, 4to, fol. I. Prescott tells the story much more romantically, and makes him say : "I do not wish to see all the hopes of our house " crushed at a single blow." 2 The anonymous author of the pleasant little volume entitled Delle Cose de Turchi, Libri /re, Vinegia, 1539, says that there were at Constantinople in 1534 many " Marani " scacciati di Spagna ; li quali sono quelli che hanno insegnato et che insegnano ogni " arteficio a Turchi ; et la maggior parte delle boteghe et arti sono tenute et essercitate " da questi Marani." pp. 12, 13. Il8 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. sacrament of baptism and the name of Juan or Fernando, were carefully washed from the stains of holy water and chrism -oil, called Hassan or Ali, and submitted to the Mosaic knife. A close connexion was kept up by the Moriscos with their brethren across the sea. Landing under cloud of night the Barbary rover was as safe and as much at home among the hills of Malaga and Ronda as within the shadow of Atlas. Hardly distinguished in dress or language, he mingled with the crowd on the quay or in the market-place ; watched the movements of the wealthy Christians ; heard the commercial and maritime news ; and when the shades of evening closed there were sure guides to lead him to his prey, to aid in the capture, and to cover his retreat to the swift brigantine riding with bent sails and well -manned oars behind the lonely headland. Such were the natural fruits of falsehood and intolerance. The evils which had sprung from one act of tyranny the Govern- ment sought to cure by the commission of another. In the name of the crazy Queen Juana a decree was issued, requiring the Moriscos to lay aside the robes and turbans of their ancient race, and assume the hated hats and breeches of their oppressors. Six years were allowed for effecting this change of raiment, and for ten years more disobedience was winked at. In I 5 1 8 the decree was again promulgated by order of Charles V., and again sus- pended during pleasure, in consequence of the remonstrances and reasonings of the chiefs of the Morisco population. When Charles himself arrived in Spain he appointed ecclesiastical visitors to examine closely into the Christian orthodoxy of his Andalusian provinces. Their report was laid before a council assembled for that purpose in the chapel-royal of Granada, where the Catholic conquerors repose beneath rich marble sculptured at Genoa and banners won from the infidel. With the Archbishops of Seville, Santiago, and Granada, the Emperor's confessor Bishop Loaysa of Osma, and other divines, there sat in the council several laymen of tried sagacity in affairs, such as Garcia de Padilla, and Francisco de los Cobos, the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, the law which they sketched was of the most priestly and absurd complexion, containing provisions which it was impossible to enforce, and dealing with matters equally beneath the notice and beyond the power of legislation. By this law the Moriscos were commanded to lay aside their ancient language and costume ; to speak Castillian and dress like Spaniards ; to give up bathing, and destroy their baths ; to keep the doors of their houses open on CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 119 Fridays, Saturdays, and feast days ; to renounce their national songs, dances, and marriage ceremonies; to lay down their Arabic names ; and to entertain amongst them no Moors from Barbary, whether slaves or freemen. Although ratified by the Emperor in 1526, this law was not enforced during his reign. It was a mere engine of extortion, and remained a terror only to those of the Moriscos who were wealthy enough to be formidable, and worth prosecuting. When a Turkish fleet appeared to the westward of Malta the Viceroys of the Southern Kingdom of Spain were admonished to keep a vigilant eye on the suspected population. The Inquisition, steering a middle course between the Christian mildness of Talavera and the stern orthodoxy of Ximenes, ceased to tempt or terrify souls into the true fold, and contented itself with a traffic in toleration, which brought a steady stream of crowns into its exchequer. Under this system no outbreak disturbed public tranquillity during the Imperial reign. Under Philip II. the first measure affecting the descendants of the Moors was an edict, .issued on the petition of a Cortes held at Toledo in 1560, which forbade the Moriscos to keep negro slaves. Of these slaves a great number were kept in domestic service, and for the cultivation of the soil. The reason alleged for the suppression of the practice was, that these slaves were brought to Spain as children, and there reared in the faith of Mahomet. The fact was of course denied by their masters, who felt and complained of the edict as a great hardship. Their remonstrances were so far successful that exemptions were granted, by a decree of the royal council, to persons of approved fidelity. But in the working of this law and these exemptions arose a series of disputes between the Captain-General of Mondejar or Granada and the royal audience or supreme civil court of the kingdom, by which the functions of government were paralysed and the administration of justice was brought to a standstill. As usual, the Moriscos were the principal sufferers, and many of them were driven from their houses and lands for refusing obedience to a power which happened to be able to enforce its authority, or for yielding obedience to a power which was not strong enough to afford protection. The Captain-General sought to increase his influence by reviving an old edict, which had never yet been acted on, for the registration of arms. The judges of the audience, on their side, obtained from the royal council of Madrid a decree which enabled them to invade the jurisdictions of feudal estates, and to control the right of sanctuary attached to these jurisdictions. 120 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. In enforcing their new laws, and in vindicating their new rights, each party bore more and more heavily on the liberties of the unfortunate Moriscos. Officers of justice traded for their private gain on magisterial differences and on the public alarm ; and no man was safe from an accusation who had wherewithal to buy off an accuser. The country was therefore soon filled with discontent and disaffection, and overrun with desperate men convicted of new crimes under new and ruinous laws. Peaceful cultivators of the soil, driven from their olives and their vines, became robbers and assassins. In the streets of Granada at morning Christian corpses, shockingly mangled, remained as evidence of their midnight vengeance ; and Christian women and children were carried eff from the very gates of the city to the markets of Tunis and Tetuan. To remedy these disorders Philip II. and his Government assembled a second committee of lawyers and churchmen, amongst whom sat the veteran Duke of Alba. This body could devise no better expedient than to revive and enforce the edict of 1526, which the wiser policy of the Emperor had permitted to slumber, and to add to it several new clauses particularly cruel and oppressive. The original edict proscribed the Arabic language and dress, Arabic proper names, and every Arabic custom and usage. The new clauses declared all contracts and writings drawn up in Arabic null and void at law ; forbade the presence of Bar- bary Moors on the soil of Spain ; and reopened the question of negro slavery by requiring the licensed holders of black slaves to appear before the royal audience that their licenses might be reconsidered by the authorities. Some of the members of the committee were of opinion that the edict should be enforced gradually, and that the Morisco should be allowed some time to accustom themselves to the new laws and manners to which they were commanded to conform. But they were overruled by the powerful President of Castille, Don Diego Espinosa ; and the revised edict, in the form of a royal decree, went forth to the kingdom of Granada. The unhappy Moriscos had been scourged with whips ; they were now to be chastised with scorpions. The decree was published with great solemnity and pomp on the 5th of January 1567. On that day the officers of justice began to pull down the baths, public and private, which were the pride and ornament of Granada, beginning with those which had been attached by the luxurious Sultans to their fairy halls of the Alhambra. The Moriscos were in despair. A deputation of their CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 121 chief men waited on Deza, president of the royal audience, and their leader addressed him in a speech which was a masterpiece of dignified and temperate pleading. Another embassy was sent to Court to appeal to the justice and mercy of the King. The Marquess of Mondejar, Viceroy of Granada, who was at Madrid, himself urged on his master the necessity either of granting some delay in the execution of the decree, or of furnishing him with a strong reinforcement of troops to maintain the peace of the pro- vince. But Philip had neither justice nor mercy, nor foresight, nor common-sense. He haughtily announced that he would do that which God's service and his own required ; and he granted Mondejar no more than three hundred men. Meanwhile discontent, alarm, and a spirit of resistance, were daily gaining ground in Granada. Prophecies, written and oral, foretelling in a strain of Oriental magniloquence the approaching deliverance of the Moorish race and the downfall of its oppressors, were industriously circulated among the Morisco population. The principal men amongst them were far from desiring a general rebellion. Many of them were wealthy landowners and merchants, on whom such an event could not but entail great loss, suffering, and disaster. They would rather have submitted to a certain amount of Christian tyranny than dare the hazard of a civil war for the sake of passing, as they must have passed, from the power of the Spanish king to the yoke of the Great Turk or the Moorish Sultan. But the exasperation and enthusiasm of the lower orders of their countrymen, and of those who inhabited the towns and hamlets of the Sierra, formed a less intelligent estimate of the desperate odds against them, and took a more hopeful view of the issue of a successful struggle. The leading Moriscos therefore were compelled either to head the popular movement, or to stand aloof, strengthening the hand and insuring the victory of the oppressor. Amongst those who adopted the more generous alternative in the city of Granada one of the chief men was Farax Aben Farax, a rich dyer, of the famous blood of the Abencerrages, and a man of great personal strength, energy, and courage. Don Hernando de Valor, or Aben Jouhar el Zaguer, the younger, as he was called in his native language, Alguazil of Cadiar, was one of the principal leaders in the mountains. During the whole of the year 1568 the kingdom of Granada was in a state of disaffection and smouldering disturbance which caused great anxiety to its rulers and its peaceful inhabitants. Early in the year reports were rife of a general rising of the ,22 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. Moriscos. On a Sunday in April the Count of Tendilla, son of the Captain-General, trusting to his popularity among them, went to mass in the chief church of the Albaycin, and after the service was over addressed the crowd from the steps of the high altar. His text was the new decree ; his discourse, a statement of the benefits that would arise from loyal and peaceable submission. A spokesman put forward by the audience replied in a few words full of respect for the Count, but holding out little hope of obedience to the King. Tendilla, dissatisfied with what he heard and saw, proposed to quarter a company of soldiers in the Albaycin, a measure in which he was overruled by the President Deza, who foresaw that it would be followed by an immediate revolt. A few days afterwards four soldiers who kept watch at night in a tower of the Albaycin were on their way to their post, with torches to guide them through the darkness. A sentinel at the Alhambra, more stupid or more vigilant than usual, observing a light, gave the alarm. A body of soldiers hurried down to the spot ; the bells were rung, and the streets were soon filled with half- clad, half -armed citizens, and the Albaycin, where not a Morisco was stirring, was surrounded on all sides by the military and an angry Christian rabble. Happily the mistake was dis- covered before blood had been shed : but a new insult had been added to the insults and injuries for the requital of which the Moorish population were brooding over their schemes of vengeance. The day after this event the Marquess of Mondejar arrived at Granada. He soon afterwards proceeded on a tour of inspection to the coast, and spent some time 'at Adra, Berja, and Almeria, the seaports which give the valleys of the Alpuxarras an access to the Mediterranean. He found the country tranquil ; but some papers, taken in a boat captured as it was setting sail for Barbary, and found to be a statement of the grievances of the Moriscos, and an appeal to the Mahometan powers for aid in their approach- ing struggle with their oppressors, afforded evidence that sedition was not only busy at home, but was also seeking for assistance from abroad. In the autumn the plan of the rebellion was so far matured that the rising was fixed to take place on New Year's Day 1569. From the valley of Lecrin and the district of Orgiba eight thousand men were to march on Granada. They were to be clothed in the Turkish fashion, to embolden the Moriscos of the Albaycin with CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 123 the belief that a Turkish army had landed ; reports of the speedy arrival of such assistance having been industriously spread for several months before. The doubts and fears, however, of some of the Christian Moriscos who were in the secret, revealed it to their confessors, by whom it was of course made known at the Alhambra. At the approach of Christmas the recurrence of an annual cause of complaint exasperated the discontent and the anti-Christian hate of the rural districts. Most of the officers and tax-collectors posted by the Government in the remote villages had left their wives and families in Granada, and were preparing to visit them at that festive season. At such times they were in the habit of levying contributions of fowls and other country produce from the peasantry amongst whom they administered harsh and unequal laws, and from whom they wrung the King's taxes. At Uxixar some of these legal harpies, renewing their customary exactions amongst a people burning with the desire and hope of speedy vengeance, lost their lives in an attempt to improve their Christmas cheer. The spirit of resentment and resistance spread from village to village, and at Cadiar a party of fifty soldiers marching under a knight of Santiago were slain at midnight by the peasants in whose houses they were billeted. The news of this serious disaster reached Granada on Christ- mas Day. Surprised at this proof of audacity, the Marquess of Mondejar concluded that the landing of foreign auxiliaries alone could have so emboldened the Moriscos of the mountains. He therefore ordered a small body of troops, as many as he could spare, to hold themselves in readiness to march. The Christmas solemnities were celebrated as usual in the churches ; but the streets were patrolled by soldiers from the Alhambra, and men's minds were filled with anxiety and alarm. Farax Aben Farax, the Morisco leader, was of opinion that the time for action had now arrived. He left the city alone on the evening of Christmas Day. At Guejar, and other villages, he collected a band of a hundred and eighty of the most daring of the robbers and outlaws of his race. Returning the next night at their head, he entered the Albaycin through a disused postern gate by cutting through the mud wall which closed it up. The night was bitterly cold, and the snow was falling fast. The alarm having partially subsided in the city, the patrol had ventured to shorten their appointed rounds. The invaders, therefore, in red Turkish caps and white turbans, were able to pass into the town unobserved. Posting them at important points, Aben Farax summoned a i2 4 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. midnight meeting of his principal friends. He told them that the people of the Alpuxarras had risen, and that the Albaycin must follow the example. His force, he confessed, was small, but success would soon recruit its numbers ; and it was of moment to strike the first blow while the royal garrison was also feeble, and the attack was unforeseen. This reasoning by no means con- vinced his hearers. They reminded him that he had promised to come to their aid with eight thousand men ; and now, appearing among them with a handful of fugitives, he expected them to rise and take the town. Utterly declining the desperate adventure, they left him to conduct it alone, and retired to their well-walled houses. Aben Farax was stung to the quick by their refusal. Leading his men, without any definite purpose, through the dreary streets, he wreaked his fury upon a small Christian guard dozing round a fire kindled beneath the walls of the church of St. Salvador. After an unsuccessful attempt to break into the Jesuits' house, he sacked a shop and demolished the stock of an obnoxious apothecary, who was also a familiar of the Inquisition. From a height near the Alcazaba gate he then proclaimed the rebellion, inviting all good Moslems to join his standard, with the sound of the Moorish cymbal and horn. The appeal being answered only by an alarm bell ringing from the church of St. Salvador, he repeated the summons from the tower of Aceytuno, adding some parting words to the Moriscos, whom he denounced as dogs and cowards. He then led his band out of the town by the postern at which they had entered. Meanwhile the news had been carried to the palace of the audience, and up to the Alhambra. Mondejar, having at his disposal no more than one hundred and fifty cavalry and as many infantry, would not allow any sally in the dark to be made from his fortress. But at daybreak he repaired with his sons and a friend to the audience, where he found many Christian knights and gentlemen assembled. They showed him a bundle of Turkish red caps and Turbans found near the postern which had been forced open ; and they informed him that two Moorish banners and a company of men had been seen on the Cerro de Sol, a height near the bank of the Xenil, about half a league from the city. Instead of sending out his cavalry to cut off the retreat of his nocturnal assailants, the too cautious governor, fearing to be over- matched in numbers, contented himself with despatching a party of observation to follow and report. He then summoned some of the principal Moriscos, and questioned them about the occurrences CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 125 of the past night. They of course professed themselves utterly ignorant of the causes of the disturbance, greatly alarmed by it, and unalterably peaceable and loyal. As th day advanced intelligence was brought that the force of Aben Farax did not exceed two hundred men, and that it was retiring by way of Dilar to the mountains. About noon therefore Mondejar rode forth to pursue the foe whom he might have crushed at dawn. As the sun went down his foremost horsemen had the satisfaction of exchanging ineffectual shots with the rear-guard of the Moriscos as they disappeared into the rugged glens of the Alpuxarras. Among the Moriscos of the city of Granada there was a young gallant named Hernando de Cordoba y de Valor, who traced his descent from the line of Moslem kings who had reigned in Cordoba, and who had shed so much lustre on the name of Abderahman. Of a wealthy, as well as an illustrious family, he was himself veintiquatro> or one of the twenty-four municipal magis- trates of Granada. But his disorderly life and reckless habits brought him into constant trouble ; and in the eventful December of 1568 he was imprisoned on parole in his own house, for draw- ing his dagger at a meeting of the municipal council. This disgrace, added to the load of debt with which his extravagance had burdened him, led him to the resolution of selling his post and going abroad to seek his fortunes in Flanders or Italy. The purchaser, another Morisco, was also surety for his appearance to answer the charge on which he had been imprisoned. To avoid all chance of loss by his non-appearance, this man contrived that the purchase-money should be arrested in Hernando's hands at the moment that it was paid. The poor spendthrift, finding himself thus at once deprived of his place, and its price which was his last remaining resource, determined to break his parole and join the rebels in the Alpuxarras. Accompanied by his Morisco mistress and a negro slave, he fled from Granada a day or two before Christmas Day, and escaped in safety to Beznar, a village inhabited by many of his kinsfolk. Eager for news from the capital, the whole Valor clan flocked to the house where he took up his abode. The gathering was called by a number of rebels from Orgiba. The propriety and necessity of choosing a chief or King being mooted, the high-born fugitive, much to his own sur- prise, was proposed, approved, and elected. His previous career afforded no evidence that he possessed qualities to justify this sudden elevation. Hitherto he had taken no part in the move- ment ; nor had he evinced much interest in the fortunes of his J26 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. race. As a placeman, and attached to the service of the Captain- General, he had even been mistrusted by the malcontent leaders. His election must therefore be ascribed to the influence of his powerful relatives among their neighbours, and to the effect produced on the ignorant and excited crowd by his handsome person, his royal birth, his misfortunes, and the dangers which he had lately escaped. The new King remained for some days inactive among his lieges at Beznar. He and they were sunning themselves one morning before the door of the church when Aben Farax and his men, returning from their midnight visit to Granada, and their skirmish with Mondejar, marched into the village with banners flying and cymbals playing, in honour of these feats of arms. The precipitation of Beznar in choosing a King was hardly less displeasing to the leader than the backwardness of the Albaycin to enlist under his standard. Aben Farax asserted that he himself had the best right to the crown, not only as the liberator of his race, but as the choice of the capital. The House of Valor and its adherents, on the other hand, maintained that so long as there was a representative of the blood of Abderahman, no Abencerrage or other Moor, however illustriously descended, had any claim to the allegiance of the Spanish Moors. It was finally agreed that Hernando de Valor should reign, and that Aben Farax should serve him as Alguazil-in-Chief, or Constable of the Kingdom, the officer nearest in dignity to the ancient Moorish throne. The new monarch was again proclaimed by his Arabic name of Muley Mahomet Aben Umeya, and received the fealty of his subjects beneath the shadow of an olive-tree. To rid himself of the presence of his formidable minister he immediately ordered Aben Farax to march through the Alpuxarras to collect troops, and to take possession of all the gold and silver which the faithful might contribute, or the pillage of the Christians and their churches might supply, for the purpose of procuring arms and munitions of war. The Alpuxarras, in Arabic Al Bug Scharra, the hill of pasture, is the name of that stretch of mountainous country which fills the eye of the voyager as he lifts it from the purple line of the Medi- terranean to the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada. In breadth, from the Sierra to the sea, about eleven leagues, it extends about nineteen leagues in length from the vega of Salobrefia in the west to its eastern limit at Almeria. So rudely is it broken into rugged hill and deep ravine that it would be hard to find in its CHAP. VI. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 127 whole surface a piece of level ground except in the small valley of Andarax, and on the belt of plain which intervenes betwixt the mountains and the sea. Three principal ranges, spurs of the loftier Sierra Nevada, and themselves spurred with lesser offshoots, intersect it from north to south. Through the glens thus formed, a number of streams torrents in winter but often dry in summer pour the snows of Muleyhacen and the Pic de Veleta into the Mediterranean. The chief of these streams are that of Andarax, which takes a south-easterly course to Almeria, and that which descends in several channels to Orgiba, and thence flows south- west to its estuary at Motril. The valley of Orgiba, forming in its lower part the boundary of the Alpuxarras, receives a part of the waters of a district of similar character, called the valley of Lecrin a valley which stretches northward through the Sierra Nevada to the hill famous as The Last Sigh of tJie Moor, within view of Granada. Beznar, where Aben Umeya was proclaimed, was one of the villages of Lecrin, whose population was no less Moorish in blood and feeling than that of the Alpuxarras. In natural beauty, and in many physical advantages, this mountain land is one of the most lovely and delightful regions of Europe. Possessing a variety of climate elsewhere almost unknown, it might be made to yield to man most of the products of the earth. From the tropical heat and luxuriance, the sugar- canes and the palm-trees, of the lower valleys, and of the narrow plain which skirts the sea like a golden zone, it is but a step through gardens, steep corn-fields and olive-groves, to fresh alpine pastures and woods of pine, above which vegetation expires on the rocks where snow lies long and deep, and is still found in nooks and hollows in the burning days of autumn. When thickly peopled with laborious Moors, the narrow glens, bottomed with rich soil, were terraced and irrigated with a careful industry which compensated for want of space. The villages, each nestling in its hollow, or perched on a craggy height, were surrounded by vine- yards and gardens, orange and almond orchards, and plantations of olive and mulberry hedged with the cactus and the aloe ; above, on the rocky uplands were heard the bells of sheep and kine ; and the wine and fruit, the silk and oil, the cheese and the wool of the Alpuxarras, were famous in the markets of Granada and the seaports of Andalusia. The seashore of this region is in some parts, as between Adra and the Sierra de Gador, a plain once rich with sugar and cotton ; in others, as between Adra and Salobrcfia, a range of vine-covered hills, broken here and there with vegas at I28 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. the mouths of rivers, where the finest products of the South still cover the alluvial soil with an emerald verdure. On the hills, above the vines, the rocks arc dotted with spreading fig-trees or the dark round-headed ash, and higher up, with the palmetto and a few pines : and the white watch-towers of the Moors, placed on headlands about a league apart, sparkle like pearls on the cliffs overhanging the sea. Such was the fair province which, by the toil of a simple and harmless race, had flourished through ages of misrule, which Christian bigotry had condemned to the horrors of a winter campaign, and the superstition of the priest had given over to the soldier's fire and sword. The country was admirably adapted for that petty warfare for which Spain has always been famous. The greater valleys are for the most part of their length extremely narrow, and bounded by precipitous hills, and they branched into glens so numerous and intricate, and so like each other in character, that it was a hopeless task for a stranger to pilot his course through their endless ramifications. Even those parts of the country which seem comparatively open prove on closer inspection to be furrowed with hidden ravines. Thus in passing eastward from the valley of Mecina, one of the chief glens of the southern face of Muleyhacen, the traveller sees before him what appears a vast undulating district, rich with cultivation, and studded with white towers, over which he hopes to find an easy and pleasant track. No sooner, however, has he entered it than he is once more compelled to fathom un- expected gorges, and climb unforeseen ridges ; and the rugged descent of the Sierra is hardly less toilsome than his progress to Valor or Uxixar. If he turns his face southwards, towards Cadiar, he finds himself on what might have been a storm-lashed sea turned to stone, so rugged and arbitrary is the labyrinth of naked ravines through and over which lies his difficult and weari- some path. The winding tracks which traversed the country were at every turn commanded by some beetling crag or tuft of brushwood, from whence a musket or a crossbow could securely dispose of an approaching foe. Each hamlet, embowered in its fruit-trees and fenced with its outworks of aloe and cactus, was a natural stronghold ; and if the inhabitants were driven from it, the Sierra above usually had its cavern where women and children might be sheltered, and household goods and treasure safely concealed. Even in the vegas by the seashore, the trees which, hung with tangled trailers, generally skirted the river's bed, the tall reeds which hedged and overhung the narrow pathways CHAP. VI. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 129 between the fields, afforded a thousand points where a well-armed resolute peasantry might withstand with success the soldiers of the King. Within a week the whole region was in arms, from the valley of Lecrin to the plain of Almeria, from the vega of Granada to the shore of the Mediterranean. Village after village, rising against its civil and religious authorities, destroyed or expelled them. The same bloody drama was acted at once in a hundred scenes, which the bounteous hand of Nature had formed to be abodes of beauty, plenty, and peace. News came to a hamlet that its neighbouring population, down the glen or across the hill, had risen ; that a great army had landed from Africa ; and that Granada and Alhambra once more belonged to the Moors. The Moriscos gathered in the street to hear the tidings and discuss the course to be taken. The Christians, if they were few and timid, fled ; the curate stealing into his sacristy and securing the host from desecration by swallowing it. If they were bold and numer- ous, they assembled in the church and considered their means of defence. Their usual resolution was to shut themselves up with their women, children, and valuables in the belfry, confiding in the strength of its masonry, and trusting that their hastily-collected stock of provisions might hold out until succour should arrive. The Moors were meanwhile proclaiming with cymbal and horn, and shouts of joy, that there was but one God, and that Mahomet was his prophet. The first mark for their vengeance was, very naturally, the church, where they had so long rendered an unwilling homage to the superstition of their oppressors. Its altars were torn down and broken to pieces ; the crucifixes were broken and insulted ; pictures of Our Lady were set up as targets ; the sacred vessels were put to the vilest uses ; the gorgeous vestments covered the rags of the rabble ; and a pig was sometimes slaughtered upon the altar-stone where the real body of the Redeemer was wont to be adored. The desecration of the church was followed by an attack upon the belfry. If the door could not be battered to pieces the assailants kindled in front of it a huge fire, which was fed with the church furniture, and with faggots steeped in oil. Sometimes they attempted to undermine the building, working beneath a strong shed, covered with bundles of wet reeds. The besieged defended themselves with their arquebuses and cross- bows ; with huge stones from their battlement, firebrands, and pots of boiling oil. When the resistance was obstinate, and likely VOL. I. K 13 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. to be protracted, the besiegers often resorted to the treacherous policy hereditary to their Numidian blood. They offered the Christians their lives and liberties, and in one case had sufficient self-command to protect their houses from pillage, as a proof of their sincerity. But whether the fortress were surrendered or stormed, the garrison was, with scarcely an exception, massacred with the most revolting cruelty. The Christian Alguazil was repaid with usury for his exactions and his severities ; and the wretched curate became the victim of tortures like those which his cloth inflicted in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Their feet and legs were roasted over fires of charcoal ; tied by their wrists to the tops of towers, they were let fall time after time on the pavement below until their lower limbs were beaten to a jelly ; their eyes and tongues were torn out ; their ears and noses cut off; their joints were hacked asunder, from their extremities upwards ; their mouths were filled with gunpowder, which was then ignited ; their heads were beaten to pieces with hatchets ; and their mangled corpses were sometimes sewed up in the carcasses of swine and burned, sometimes exposed on the hillside to feed the fox and the wolf. More than one Morisco, fiercer than his fellows, tore out and devoured the quivering heart of his enemy. Nor were such refinements of barbarity reserved for those alone who had officially and specially incurred the hatred of the rebels. Many private Christians were inhumanly tortured ; the Morisco women rivalled their brothers and husbands in ferocity ; and peculiar cruelty was shewed to those who invoked, in their last moments, the aid of the Virgin and the saints. Treasured up by the survivors, many were the pious sentiments and ejaculations recorded as uttered by those whom the Church afterwards honoured as the martyrs of the Alpuxarras. At Guecijas, two lovely girls being reserved from the condemned Christians to be sent to the harem of the Sultan of Morocco, their captors, while they spared their persons, tortured them through their affections by hewing their fathers in pieces before their eyes. The Christians of Xergal were victims of treachery worthy of the Punic sires of their enemies. The Alcayde of the place, a professor of their own faith, invited them to take refuge in the castle, and when he had got them into his power, massacred them all. In the village of Guajaras alone, the Moslems joined the rebellion without com- mitting any injury on the persons or property of their Christian neighbours. In other places the mercy of the local leaders seldom went beyond reserving a certain number of prisoners, to be dealt CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 131 with according to the pleasure of Aben Farax. The arrival 01 that savage chieftain, however, was closely followed by an order for their immediate execution. Bitter wintry weather added to the horrors of the time. Of the Christians who escaped from their pillaged houses, or from the burning towers, many perished in the snows of the Sierras. The events which followed the rising at Uxixar may be taken as an example of those which were happening all over the pro- vince. Hung on the side of a hollow, in the lap of the Sierra Nevada, this town of shepherds and herdsmen was esteemed, from its size and central site, the capital of the Alpuxarras. The chief men of the place, the Alcayde Leon and the Abbot Perez, were persons of superior foresight and sagacity. Reports which had reached them of the storm which was brewing had induced them to warn all their fellow-Christians to take refuge in the church, which had been fortified and provisioned as well as time and circumstances allowed. Their precautions, however, were laughed at by those for whom they had been taken ; and it was only on hearing of the massacre of the soldiers at Cadiar that they would believe in the existence of the danger. The tidings of that disaster were brought by a band of Moorish robbers who marched into the town at midnight, and the church was thereupon soon filled with its terrified congregation, many of them unarmed, and some of them in no clothes but their shirts. Near the church stood two houses belonging to Christians, each built with unusual solidity, and furnished with a small tower. These towers and the church belfry were so placed as to form the angles of a triangle, and to com- mand the streets in the centre of the town. All three were immediately garrisoned under the orders of the Alcayde ; and when day broke the Moriscos found that they could not attack the church, or even show themselves in the streets adjacent, without exposure to the fire of the Christian musketry. They therefore retired to a neighbouring glen where they formed an encampment and considered their plan of operations. Thus in possession of the place, the Christians were still further encouraged by descrying at a distance on the winding mountain road a body of cavalry marching, as it seemed, to their aid. It was a troop of fifty horse on a march of observation, commanded by Pedro de Gasca. On perceiving, however, the state of affairs at Uxixar, the captain turned his rein and beat a retreat from those dangerous mountains. The spirits of the Moriscos in their turn now rose on seeing their enemies thus left 132 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. to their own resources. Entering the town at night, they found their way into one of the garrisoned dwellings and set fire to the tower, which was built of wood. Of its occupants, a few women were let down by ropes and escaped with their lives, but by far the greater number perished in the flames. Intimidated by the fate of their friends, the holders of the other house and tower surrendered their fortress to some of the Moriscos with whom they were connected by family ties, and endeavoured to persuade their brethren in the church to follow their example. Negotia- tions for this purpose were set on foot, but were broken off in consequence of the Alcayde meeting with what he conceived to be an insult from those deputed to treat with him. In resuming his defence, he withdrew with his whole force into the belfry, leaving the body of the church to its fate. It was soon occupied with signal advantage by the Moriscos. They first set fire to the drawbridge connecting the tower with the church, which the Christians had, of course, drawn up behind them, in the hope of the fire communicating itself to the door beyond. Behind this door, however, the besieged had raised a rampart of stone and earth sufficiently strong to prevent the entrance of the flames ; but the fire, constantly fed with the broken woodwork of the altars and the choir, and blazing fiercely, soon made the interior intolerably hot. When the women and children cried out for water, it was found there was none to give them. After a few hours' endurance of this misery, some of the boldest of the fight- ing men determined to make a sally and cut their way through the furious throng below. The Abbot confessed them and gave them his blessing, concluding the ceremony by eating up the consecrated bread to save it from possible desecration. But at the last moment the prayers and tears of their women and children unmanned the leaders of the forlorn hope. Moved by their entreaties, they determined to surrender the tower and trust to the mercy of neighbours with whom, until a day or two before, they had been living in tolerable amity. But the fury of the attack, and the sight of fire and blood, had extinguished the last spark of compassion in the breasts of the Moriscos. After the surrender was resolved on, the fire still raging round the doorway, the besieged were obliged to let each other down by ropes, and nearly twenty-four hours elapsed before the last of the number had descended. On reaching the ground, each, without distinction of age or sex, was greeted with kicks and cuffs ; and all, tied in pairs, were deposited in the ruined shell of the church. Next CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 133 day two hundred and fifty men were massacred in cold blood in the churchyard in the presence of Moriscos who had come from every glen in the Alpuxarras to assist at the butchery. A few artisans, carpenters, blacksmiths, and tailors, spared for a while for public convenience, were aftenvards put to death by order of Aben Farax. The women were dispersed in groups among the neighbouring villages, to be disposed of according to the pleasure of King Aben Umeya. In one place alone, within the bounds of the Alpuxarras, did the Spanish Christians successfully resist the revolt of the Moriscos. This honour belongs to Orgiba. Seated like Uxixar on the southern slope of the Sierra Nevada, but on a lower platform, Orgiba rivals that town in dignity and importance. Its broad valley, watered by two considerable streams, is fertile in the finest corn and silk ; and its gray walls and towers are embosomed, like those of Damascus, in a forest of fruit-trees, amongst which the olive-tree attains to a size hardly exceeded at the foot of Lebanon or of Atlas. Happily for the Christians Orgiba boasted of a small fortress of some strength, commanded by Caspar de Sarabia, a soldier of the old Castillian stamp, worthy to have received knighthood from the fair hands of the great Isabella. Finding that the danger was imminent, the time for preparation short, and speedy relief hopeless, this stout Alcayde hit on an expedient for victualling his stronghold, which showed him to be a man of ready wit and resource. As he retired behind his ramparts he seized all the Moorish women and children he could lay hold of, and shut them up along with those of his own garrison. By means of these hostages he secured not only the forbearance of some of his foes, but a secret supply of provisions from without. He had hardly executed this stroke of policy, and barred his gates, when six red banners, spangled with silver crescents, advancing from different points through the olive-groves, showed the wisdom of his precautions, and the importance which the Moriscos attached to the possession of his fort. From the top of his tower he kept a watchful eye on the proceedings of the enemy. He soon observed the formation of a great heap of faggots and bundles of reeds smeared with oil, a provision of which he well knew the purpose. When the heap seemed sufficiently large, therefore, he sent out a party of twenty men, who not only succeeded in setting fire to this provision of combustibles, but repulsed with loss the Moriscos who endeavoured to protect it. The enemy thereupon wreaked their fury on the church, which they had hitherto spared, I34 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. tearing down the altars and riddling the tabernacle of the cucharist with shot. They next fortified the top of the belfry with cushions and blankets, and placed their best marksmen there to keep up a constant fire upon the Christian fortress. Neither this annoyance, nor a message that the Alhambra had fallen, produced any effect on the castle or on its Alcayde. The Moors therefore resolved on more vigorous and more elaborate measures. They constructed two strong wooden sheds, which they placed upon low wheels, and covered with raw hides and damp wool. Moved from within, these sheds were then rolled close up to the walls of the castle. Thus sheltered, the besiegers proposed to undermine the wall and prop it up with beams, which were afterwards to be set on fire. In spite of the musketry from the castle, the lodgment of the sheds was effected, and the spades and pickaxes were heard at work within them. For some time, great stones, hurled from the battlements, bounded harmlessly from the cushioned roofs. Slates were at length used with happier effect, the sharp edges of these missiles ripping open the sacking which contained the wool. A libation of boiling oil then prepared the way for some well-aimed firebrands. The sheds were soon in a blaze, and the workmen, escaping from the flames, became marks for the bullets of the Christian sharpshooters. After this failure the besiegers relaxed in their efforts ; and an order from Aben Umeya converted the siege into a blockade, which was raised at the end of seventeen days by the force of the Marquess of Mondejar. The village of Istan, hung with its terraced gardens on the rugged banks of the river Verde, so famous in song and story, was the scene of an act of womanly heroism worthy of a land where the women had been always brave. The Christian popula- tion of the place consisted only of the curate, his niece, and their maid. For want of a better abode they inhabited a small Moorish fortalice, dismantled and ruinous, which the rebels now thought worth securing. On the morning of the revolt the priest was out taking the air with a Christian tailor who happened to be employed in the village. Suddenly assaulted by some of the rebels, they took refuge in the house of a friend, and by his aid and connivance, and after climbing over roofs, and lying hid in stables, they succeeded in escaping to the Sierra. Meanwhile a party of Moriscos hastened to occupy the tower. The door having been left open by the curate, nothing seemed to stand in the way of their design. The maid on seeing them ran upstairs to her mistress ; and the intruders proceeded to remove some CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 135 wheat and oil which were stored on the ground-floor. This done, they began to ascend the steep and narrow staircase which led to the upper room. But here it so happened that some repairs were in progress, and a quantity of stones were lying about. These stones the girls had collected at the top of the stairs ; and they now rolled them so suddenly and skilfully upon the approaching assailants, that one was slain, and the rest took flight. The door was immediately made fast behind them ; and the female garrison took up their position on the top of the tower. When the Moriscos returned to the attack, stones from the battlements were rained upon their heads with so much coolness and precision that they found it impossible to force their way in. They replied with missiles from below, and the curate's niece was shot through the shoulder with an arrow. Nevertheless, she and her comrade maintained their post, from early morning until two o'clock in the afternoon, when they were happily relieved by a company of soldiers, and carried off in safety to Marbella, a walled town, some leagues off, on the Mediterranean. There they found the curate, and confirmed his story of the revolt. For, to add to the reverend man's discomfiture, the Christians of Marbella would not believe that their rich and prosperous neighbours at Istan had joined the rebellion, but made sure that the priest must have taken refuge within their walls from the fury of some jealous Morisco husband. The rebellion had broken out so suddenly, and at so many points at once, that it was some days before the authorities at Granada learned the full extent of the danger. As a first step, the Marquess of Mondejar ordered Don Diego de Quesada, who commanded an outpost at Durcal, to move forward to Tablate, a village situated just beyond a deep ravine on the road to the Alpuxarras. Finding the place deserted by its inhabitants, Quesada was not sufficiently careful in posting sentinels and keeping his men together. As they straggled through the streets and among the empty houses, they were suddenly attacked by the Moors, who had been watching their movements from the Sierra. Quesada, who happened to be in the market-place, succeeded in getting a small party together, and in forming it outside the walls to receive and protect the fugitives. But he lost a considerable number both of men and horses ; and he found his force so panic- struck that it was necessary to retreat, harassed as he went along by small parties of the enemy, to Padul at the entrance of the mountains. , 3 6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. Mondejar immediately recalled him from his command, and sent in his place Lorenzo de Avila and Gonzano de Alcantara, with a reinforcement of foot and fifty horse, to occupy Durcal and hold in check the valley of Lecrin. He next despatched couriers to all the towns of Andalucia to demand assistance ; and the treasury of his Government being now drained to its last ducat, he raised what loans he could obtain in money, and munitions towards the equipment of a camp. The municipality of Granada seconded his efforts with considerable spirit. A militia, with a captain for each parish, was organized, in which every able-bodied man was expected to enrol himself. The Royal Audience became the main guard-house and assumed in all respects a military air, the public functionaries performing their civil duties with their swords by their sides. The Genoese merchants formed themselves into a company of volunteers, distinguished by the completeness of its appointment and the beauty of its arms. Ronda, Marbella, and Malaga followed the example of Granada, in presenting a bold front to the rebels. They sent out parties to scour the country beyond their walls, to overawe the Moriscos who were preparing to rise, and to protect those who were well affected to the King's Government. But the avarice of the leaders, or their want of skill and experience, not unfrequently rendered these expeditions hurtful or useless. Sometimes they sacked a peaceable village, carrying off the women and children, and turning the men into bitter foes of the Christian cause ; sometimes they were deceived by friendly professions, and left important posts in the hands of dangerous enemies. Reinforced by the militia of Loxa, Alhama, Jaen, and Antequera, the Marquess of Mondejar committed the custody of the Alhambra to his son Tendilla, and on the 3d of January marched to the Alpuxarras at the head of two thousand foot and four hundred horse. On the evening of the second day he halted at Padul. A league of distance and a deep ravine separate Padul from Durcal, the village garrisoned by Lorenzo de Avila and his men. The Moriscos gave proof of great daring or great rashness, in attacking Avila in the night which followed the arrival of his chief. Avila, however, having received intelligence of their design, was prepared to receive them, and, after some severe fighting, in which he himself was wounded, repulsed them with the loss of two hundred men ; a failure for which Aben Umeya, who was watching the event in the Sierra, wished to cut off the head of El Xaba, the leader of the attack. Next day Mondejar moved CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 137 forward to Durcal, where he remained until the pth, and was joined by the militia of Baeza and Ubeda, amounting to twelve hundred foot and two hundred cavalry. From the village of Las Albuiiuelas his imposing and increasing force obtained a voluntary submission, and an entreaty for pardon, which he gladly and graciously accorded. Early in the morning of the loth of January, he stood, with his four thousand men, on the brink of the great ravine of Tablate. Through this mountain chasm, above one hundred feet deep, one of the principal rivers of the Sierra, swollen with the winter snow and rains, ran raging amongst its rocks to the sea. An ancient bridge which spanned it at this point was the only means of crossing it to be found within eight leagues. This bridge the rebels had destroyed, leaving for the convenience of local traffic only a few timbers so placed that a man with a stout heart and a cool head might find a perilous path to the other side. On the steep bank, opposite the Christian troops, fluttered the white and scarlet pennons of the Moriscos, surrounded by a force of about three thousand men. A sharp fire of musketry having been exchanged, the Moors fell back a few paces, galled by the superior skill of the enemy, or desirous of saving their ammunition. But no Christian soldier was found to lead the way across the dizzy and dangerous bridge. At length a Francisian friar, one Christoval de Molina, stalked forth, it is said, his brown robe tucked up to his cord-girt waist, grasping a crucifix in his left hand, and a naked sword in his right. Calling aloud on the name of the Blessed Redeemer, he descended the bank, and stepped upon the toppling planks. Both armies ceased firing, and watched the progress of the gallant friar across the shattered masonry and the treacherous timber. He reached the other side in safety. T\vo soldiers were instantly on his track. One of them effected the passage ; the other, missing his footing midway, was hurled into the abyss and eternity. Man after man dared what others had achieved. The firing was renewed \vith great warmth, the Morisco marksmen gathering on a rock which overhung and commanded the bridge, and the Christians pouring rapid volleys into the shifting mass, and clearing a landing-place for their adventurous comrades. When a sufficient force had crossed, a vigorous charge up the bank put the rebels to flight, and they were afterwards easily kept in check during the day, until the bridge had been so far repaired as to enable cavalry to pass it. The Moriscos then retired to the Sierra, and the Christians, I3 g DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. marching into Tablate, took possession of quarters out of which some of them had been compelled to make a nocturnal flight. Leaving a guard to defend the road, Mondejar marched next day to Lanjaron, the rebels occasionally firing upon his troops from the hillside, but not daring to dispute his passage. On the following afternoon on the 1 2th of January the Christian lances and banners, glittering among the distant olives, cheered the hearts of the Alcayde Sarabia and of his companions, whom the Moriscos held closely leaguered in the tower of Orgiba. At the approach of the army the siege was immediately raised, and Mondejar, without striking a blow, was able to victual the fortress, and garrison it with four hundred men. While he was thus attacking the central districts of the revolted region, the rebels were threatened on the east by an enemy not less active in his movements, and far more stern in his vengeance. Don Luis Faxardo, Marquess of Los Velez, 1 lord of vast territories around the two towns of that name, Velez el Rubio, and Velez el Blanco, was at this time Viceroy of Murcia. Remarkable for his gigantic stature and great bodily strength, he was also famous for his skill as a horseman and a shot, for his prowess in the tourna- ment and the chase, and for his haughty and imperious disposition. An old and favourite soldier of Charles V., he was the terror of the Turks and Moors who ravaged the Murcian coast. In one battle he was reported to have slain fifty of these invaders with his own hand ; and it was said that the fame of his exploits had caused his picture to be hung in the palace of the Pasha at Algiers, and even in one of the public buildings of Constantinople. He was also noted for the state and ample hospitality which he maintained in his four castles, and was in all respects the type of the splendid and arrogant noble of a feudal age. 2 Anxious at once to display his loyalty, to protect his estates, and to share the glory of the war, the Viceroy of Murcia crossed the frontier of Granada without waiting for the royal order, which in ordinary circumstances would have been necessary to justify that step. His force, consisting at first of two thousand four hundred foot and three hundred horse, was soon raised by the accession of various bodies of volunteers to five thousand men. By way of Oria and Purchena, he marched along the eastern base of the 1 For an account of him see Cascales, Historia de Murcia, fol. Murcia, 1622. Pro- logo, Casa de Fajardos, sheet f7. 2 G. Perez de Hyta : Guerras Civiles de Granada, parte ii., 8vo, Paris, 1847, pp. 222-4. His sketch of Los Velez is extremely life-like, and it is one of the points in which he may be regarded as an authority. CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 139 Sierra de Gata, passing that chain near Tabernas, where he formed a camp. Crossing the river of Almeria, he stormed Guecija, in spite of the obstinate resistance of El Gorri ; and he drove three thousand Moriscos out of Felix, routing them afterwards with great slaughter on the mountains, whither they had retired to a position which they deemed impregnable. At Ohanez he fought a still more bloody battle, in which a thousand rebels remained dead on the field, and where he led his cavalry in person up the craggy hill of the Sierra, in the face of stones, arrows, arid musketry, with a gallantry which justified the Arabic name, given him by the foe, of Devil's Iron-head. Here he released from captivity thirty Christian women, who appeared next day habited in blue and white, the colours of the Immaculate Conception, at a procession in honour of the feast of the Blessed Virgin, in which Los Velez and his captains and knights likewise walked, clad in complete armour, and holding tapers in their mailed hands. The right to pillage which he granted to his soldiers exposed him to the dis- advantage, after each victory, of losing a number of his men who retired with their booty of plate, or silk, or pearls, to secure it at their homes. To avoid this evil he refrained from quartering them in villages, and remained in camp so long as the weather permitted. But in suppressing the rebellion, he scorned to use any weapon but the sword. The atrocities of the Moslems, he conceived, could be fittingly punished only by cruelties yet more shocking. He wished to break their spirit by a succession of rapid and stunning blows ; nor did he conceal his contempt for the more conciliating and merciful policy of Mondejar. Indeed he desired that his campaign should stand out in contrast with that of the less fiery leader, as well as obtain for himself the honour of finish- ing the war. From these causes, as well as from a natural dislike of interference entertained by Mondejar, a jealousy sprung up be- tween the two Marquesses and their officers, which did no service to the cause of the King. Feats of arms were performed, with various success, by the militia of different towns. That of Guadix, under Pedro Arias de Avila, attacked a strong Morisco force in the neighbouring Sierra, killed four hundred of their fighting men, and captured two thousand women and children, with a vast quantity of booty. From Almeria Garcia de Villaroel made a successful expedition against the insurgents who had assembled in the neighbouring Sierra of Benahaduz. The Morisco leader, Ibrahim el Cacis, when summoned to surrender, replied that he would give an answer 140 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP, vi when he planted his banners in the market-place at Almeria. Within a few days their crescent-spangled flags were displayed there ; but his head, fixed on a pike, followed in the rear, and the array was closed by the bishop and his clergy, chanting the Te Deum. Mondejar was meanwhile making a successful progress through the central valleys of the Alpuxarras. He halted at Poqueira, Pitres, Jubiles, Uxixar, Cadiar, Paterna, and Anedrax, meeting with no opposition beyond that offered by a few Morisco skir- mishers in the more difficult passes of the mountains. Many villages made their submission, and received his forgiveness. The places which contained booty he generally gave up to pillage, sparing the lives of the inhabitants. He even entered into nego- tiations with several of the chief leaders of the rebellion, promising them pardon if they would lay down their arms and dismiss their followers. But an unfortunate event nipped in the bud these hopes of peace. At Jubiles, the castle, perched on a tall crag overlooking the town, surrendered at the approach of the royal army. Three hundred men and twelve hundred women thus became prisoners of war. To prevent their escape, they were marched down into the town. The church, the only public building in the place, being too small to contain more than a few, above a thousand persons bivouacked in the little market-place before the church, surrounded by a military guard. About midnight, a sentinel, allured by the beauty of a Moorish maiden, made certain pro- posals to her, which were indignantly rejected. Seizing her by the arm, he then endeavoured to draw her away from her companions. A young man, her lover or brother, who followed her in female attire, immediately sprang forward to the rescue, attacked the soldier with a poniard, and likewise wounded him severely with the sword which he wrested from his hand. Other Christians came to assist their comrade ; the angry Moor fought desperately ; a cry was raised that the crowd of women was mainly composed of men so disguised ; swords clashed and muskets flashed through the darkness ; and in the panic which ensued the battle and the carnage became general. Some servants of the Marquess, who guarded the church, had the presence of mind to lock the doors, or the prisoners within might have shared the fate- of their unhappy companions in the market-place. Of these, hardly one survived that dreadful night. At dawn the ground was heaped with their corpses ; and of the soldiers many had been severely wounded CHAP. VI. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 141 by their panic-stricken comrades. On hearing the disturbance Mondejar sent two captains and some sergeants to quell it ; but it ceased only with the darkness. Greatly shocked at the disaster, he instituted a strict investigation into the cause, and hanged three musketeers, who appeared to have been most to blame. He also sent back to their relations about a thousand women, the survivors of the massacre, and those women who were captured at Paterna, intimating that he should expect them to surrender themselves again, if required. But the suspicion and mistrust which the affair aroused in the minds of the rebels were not to be easily removed. The negotiations for peace languished. Aben Umeya and his generals, amongst whom discords and jealousies were beginning to prevail, forgot their differences, and returned with renewed ardour to their levies, and to the defence of their mountain strongholds. At Guajar-el-alto, the top of a steep and rugged 'hill was crowned by a fortress, accessible, for the last quarter of a league, only by a single path hung on the precipitous face of the rocks. Here therefore had been collected the women and children, and all the valuables of a large district, under the protection of a thousand men commanded by El Zamar, one of the bravest of the insurgent leaders. Baffled in more than one operation by the facilities of retreat and attack afforded to the enemy by this position, Mondejar determined to take it, and advanced against it from Orgiba with his whole force. His officers had of late been so accustomed to easy victories, that some of them here suffered for the contempt with which they had learned to regard the Moriscos. Don Juan de Villareal, having obtained leave to recon- noitre the place with a few friends and fifty musketeers, attempted to surprise it with that small force, and lost his life and the lives of half his little band in the adventure. Next day Mondejar made four separate assaults, all of which were repulsed with considerable slaughter. During the night the victorious garrison, having no hope of succour, deemed it prudent to evacuate the fortress, carrying off as many of their women and children and as much of their goods as they could convey down the rugged face of the hill. At dawn the Christians who led the new attack found the walls unguarded, and occupied the place without a blow. Mon- dejar was so enraged at the loss of his expected glory and booty, that he forgot his usual moderation, and indelibly disgraced his name by ordering the wretched relics of the garrison, old men, and women, and children, to be put to the sword in his presence. He then caused the walls and defences of the fort to be demolished. 142 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. The surrender of Guajar-el-alto was followed by an un- successful attempt to capture Aben Umeya. Lurking during the day in the Sierra of Berchules, the Moorish King and El Zaguer were in the habit of passing the night in Mecina de Bombaron. Their usual place of resort there was the house of Diego Lopez Aben Aboo, a Morisco of wealth and consequence who held a safeguard from Mondejar, which protected all beneath his roof- tree. Informed of these facts by traitors among the rebels who served the royal cause as spies, the Marquess took measures to seize the persons of the insurgent leaders. The enterprise was entrusted to Flores and Maldonaldo, two of his most active captains, with six hundred picked men. Flores, at the head of four hundred of them, was to surround the neighbouring village of Valor, while Maldonaldo with the remainder beset the house of Aben Aboo at Mecina. They marched by night, stealing along with the matches of their muskets carefully covered, and using every precaution to preserve silence. It so happened, that Aben Umeya and El Zaguer were both in the suspected house that night, accompanied by Dalay, another formidable chief, whose head would also have been a prize. But, as Maldonaldo's party approached Mecina, the musket of one of his men unfortunately went off. Dalay's quick ear catching the report in the distance, he aroused El Zaguer, who was sleeping near him, and they instantly sprang from a window at some height from the ground at the back of the house, and escaped to the Sierra. To Aben Umeya, in consideration of his royal rank, a separate chamber had been allotted ; and he was sleeping there with his mistress, unconscious of his danger. Ere he was aware of it, the Christians had surrounded the house. He hurried from window to window, but found every egress guarded. After knocking in vain for admittance, the soldiers began to thunder at the door with a huge beam which they used as a battering ram. No time was to be lost. In his despair the hunted Prince descended to the threshold, and removing the bar which fastened the door, slunk behind it as it was burst open. Eager for their prey, the invaders rushed into the house. There they found Aben Aboo, with a number of women and children, and sixteen or seventeen men, some of them followers of the rebel leaders, others inhabitants of the village. All of them of course asserted that they were peaceable subjects of the King, or at least repentant insurgents who came to take shelter under Aben Aboo's safeguard, and afterwards submit themselves to the Christian Government. In the fury of his CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 143 disappointment, Maldonaldo ordered all of them to be arrested, and menaced the master of the house with death, unless he con- fessed what had become of his guests. Finding the Morisco firm in his denial of any knowledge of their movements, he caused him to be led to the back of the house, and to be tied by a part of his person, which decency must leave unnamed, to the high branch of a mulberry-tree which grew near the wall. In this agonising attitude he remained for a while half suspended, his heels barely resting on the ground, constantly asserting that he had nothing to reveal. At length one of the soldiers, provoked by his endurance of the torture, gave him a blow which knocked his feet from their position, and threw the whole weight of his body on one of the most sensitive of its parts. The unfortunate victim fell heavily to the ground, deprived of his virility but not of his courage and resolution. " May it please God that El Zaguer may live and that I may die," were the only words he uttered ere he swooned in his agony. 1 Whilst this horrible scene was being enacted in the presence of the Christians and their captives, Aben Umeya contrived to steal from his hiding-place behind the unguarded door, plunged down a steep descent in front of the house, and escaped to the hills. Leaving the poor host lying unconscious and alone, Maldonaldo carried off the rest of the inmates prisoners of war. He soon joined the forces under Flores, and together they picked up a few more captives, and swept upwards of three thousand head of cattle from the pastures of several peaceable hamlets, as they marched back to Orgiba. Mondejar was highly displeased at the results of their expedition. Seizing the cattle as contraband booty, he ordered all the prisoners taken under the privileged roof of Aben Aboo to be set at liberty. The Count of Tendilla, governing at Granada during the absence of his father, was happy only in one part of his adminis- tration. The resources of a country rendered fertile by the industry of the race whom the Christians were now seeking to 1 The affair is thus circumstantially related by Luis del Marmol Carvajal ; Historia delrebelion de los Moriscos, i. p. 503. The captain, finding it impossible to obtain any information as to Aben Umeya or El Zaguer, " hizo poner a tormento a Aben Aboo, " mandandolo colgar de los testiculos en la rama de un moral, que estaba a las espaldas " de su casa ; y teniendole colgado, que solamente se sompesaba con los calcanales de " los pies, viendo que negaba, llego a el un ayrado soldado, y como por desden le dio " una coz, que le hizo dar un vayven en vago, y caer de golpe en el suelo, quedando los " testiculos y las vinzas colgadas de la rama del moral. No debio de ser tan pequefio el ' ' dolor, que dexara de hacer perder el sentido a qualquier hombre nacido en otra parte ; " mas este barbara hijo de aspereza y frialdad indomable, y menospreciador de la muerte, ' ' mostrando grand descuido en el semblante, solamente abrio la boca para decir, ' Por " 'Dios que El Zaguer vive, y yo muere,' sin querer jamas declarar otra cosa." 144 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vi. exterminate, enabled him to provide regular and abundant supplies of food for the army of the Alpuxarras. But at Granada he incurred great odium among the Moriscos of the Albaycin by quartering in their houses the Christian militia troops who had mustered there in obedience to the orders of the Captain-General. In vain the chief Moriscos mounted the hill of the Alhambra to entreat the Count to revoke an order which destroyed the privacy and pleasure of their homes. In vain they argued that hitherto the soldiers had been lodged in empty houses, given up to them for that purpose, and that in addition to the repugnance with which the inhabitants of the Albaycin received these martial guests under the roofs which protected their wives and daughters, they were at the mercy of any villain who chose to give a nocturnal alarm which might lead to the massacre of their unoffending families. Tendilla replied that he must obey the King's com- mands, and so provide for the comforts of his soldiers as to avoid the risk of desertion ; that he could avoid this risk only by billeting them in private houses ; and that they were so lodged partly for the purposes of preventing secret meetings for seditious purposes, of deterring the inhabitants from harbouring rebels from the mountains, and of checking at its source the rising which had been threatened in the city. Offended and aggrieved by a policy which Tendilla was perhaps compelled to pursue, the Moriscos found their worst fears realised by the licentious conduct of their inmates. Many of them began to repent of their backwardness to join the standard of Aben Farax when he made his midnight entry into Granada amidst the snows of Christmas. Many of them sent invitations to Aben Umeya to approach the city, promising to join him whenever his host should appear in force without the walls. Tendilla was equally unfortunate in the single military opera- tion for which he made himself responsible. He had sent Bernardino de Villalta, with a company of foot, to garrison the fortress of La Peza. Weary of inaction, and eager for glory and spoil, that officer assured him that he had received secret trust- worthy intelligence which would enable him to capture Aben Umeya, and asked for leave and troops to essay the adventure. Tendilla granted his request, and sent him three companies of infantry, and a score of horse. With these forces Villalta crossed the marquesate of Zenete, pushed on by night through the pass of Ravaha, and before daybreak halted among the mountains near Laroles. This village, having lately submitted to the Government, CHAP. vi. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 145 was full of Morisco families from other parts, who had taken shelter under the safeguard which had been accorded to it. Ignorant, or careless, of its position, the Christians burst upon the unfortunate and defenceless place as if it had been a hostile fortress, sacking the houses, making prize of the women, and slaying upwards of a hundred of the men. They then retreated in all haste, but not soon enough to pass the gorge of Ravaha before the enraged inhabitants of the valley had mustered to take their revenge. Had the pass been preoccupied the Christian marauders would probably have been cut off to a man near the scene of their rapine. As it was, their rear-guard was twice attacked with great fury, eighteen men were killed, and man}' wounded, and Villalta himself narrowly escaped with his life. It happened that two Christians of Guadix had about this time engaged a Morisco of Calahorra to kill or capture Aben Umeya ; promising him, as a reward, the liberty of his wife and two daughters, who were prisoners in the hands of the Government. The Morisco was informing his employers of the progress' of his plans at the moment that Villalta's party marched into Guadix, with their spoil of cattle and captives from Laroles. " Alas, sirs," said he, " I shall never see my wife and children at liberty ; this " expedition will frustrate all my schemes ; every day things will " grow worse ; and no one can be betrayed, as no one will trust " his neighbour." His prediction was in part verified. Mondejar ordered Villalta to be arrested, but found it impossible or incon- venient to bring him to punishment ; and no redress was afforded to Laroles. A royal decree commanded all the rebel captives, male and female, above ten years of age to be sold as slaves, instead of being treated as prisoners of war. Village after village, which had made its peace with the King, resumed its arms. The garrison of Tablate was attacked and massacred, and that import- ant position was again, for a while, in the hands of the rebels. Aben Umeya, instead of being given up, received a great accession of strength. The fate of Laroles, and the tragedy of Jubiles, brought to his standard many new recruits burning for revenge, and induced many of his early partisans to continue the contest, and to lend the force of their rage and despair to a cause which they well knew to be hopeless. Such was the state of the war at the beginning of March I 569. VOL. I CHAPTER VII. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE I ST OF MARCH TO THE I2TH OF JULY 1569. HE progress of the war at Granada caused no little anxiety and debate at Madrid. The King and his ministers had at first fallen into the mistake of treating a very serious rebellion, in which race had risen against race, and which extended over a wide tract of mountainous country bordering the sea-coast, as a provincial out- break, which provincial authority and local force could easily quell. But when they found that the fire which had been kindled at Christ- mas, and which seemed quenched in January, was blazing up with renewed fury in March, they began to comprehend the danger and to change their tone. Various opinions agitated the council. Some advised that the King in person should repair to Granada, to endeavour by his presence to produce such a calm as had on like occasions been produced there by visits of Ferdinand and Isabella. This proposal was resisted by Cardinal Espinosa, who said that the King could not be spared from Madrid, and suggested that Don John of Austria should be sent to the seat of war as representative of the Crown. Philip approved the suggestion ; but he would not entrust Don John with the sole command, nor did he fail to take precautions for ensuring that amount of procrastination which he conceived essential to every enterprise. He therefore formed for his brother a council consisting of Mondejar, the President Deza, the Arch- CHAP. VII. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 147 bishop of Granada, the Duke of Sesa, and Luis Quixada, before whom all affairs were to be laid for discussion and decision. But even when measures had been resolved on by this body, they were not to be taken until they had been reviewed and approved by the supreme council at Madrid. In the meantime Mondejar was advised of the change that was to take place in the administration, and was ordered to leave two thousand foot and three hundred horse in the Alpuxarras, and return with the rest of his forces to Granada. The Mar- quess of Los Velez was instructed to communicate with Don DON LUIS DE REQUFSENS, GRAND COMMANDER OF CASTILLE. John, and to consider himself under his orders. Don Luis de Requesens, Grand Commander of Castille, who had been Don John's lieutenant in the fleet, was recalled from Naples with his squadron, in which a regiment of infantry was to be embarked for Spain, and he was directed to act in concert with Don Sancho de Leyva in protecting the shores of Andalusia from the Turks and the Moors. While these preparations to suppress the rebellion were going on at a distance, affairs at the scene of action were every day assuming a darker aspect. Every day some new act of cruelty and treachery was perpetrated by the Christians. In the prison , 4 8 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. of Granada there had been confined, at the beginning of the troubles, upwards of a hundred of the principal Morisco citizens, who had been arrested on various pretexts, but most of them really on account of suspected disaffection. About the middle of March, signal fires, blazing at night on the mountains, had been observed to be answered by lights in certain windows of the Albaycin, and even by fires on the terraced housetops. The soldiers of the various guards were therefore warned to be on the alert ; and the Alcayde of the prison showed his zeal by collecting a considerable body of friends to keep watch with him, and by distributing arms to his Christian prisoners. Men's minds being thus prepared for surprise, it happened that the bell of the Alhambra, which sounded every day at dawn, was rung somewhat later, and somewhat more quickly than usual. The whole city flew to arms ; and in the prison, the Christian prisoners, with the help of the Alcayde's friends, at once set upon their Morisco companions. These unfortunate men, though more numerous than their assailants, were unarmed, except with a few sticks which they found in their dungeon, and the stones and bricks which they tore up from the pavements. But they defended themselves with great spirit ; the courtyards rung with cries of Christ and Mahomet, and a desperate attempt was made to set the prison on fire. It was not until a party of soldiers rein- forced the Christians, and until the affray had lasted for seven hours, that the struggle was brought to an end. One hundred and ten Moriscos, the whole number engaged, lay dead on the pavement, gashed with frightful wounds. Only two survived, Antonio and Francisco de Valor, relations of Aben Umeya, and they owed their lives to the circumstance that, out of regard to their rank and importance, they had been placed apart under a guard of six men. Five Christians were slain, and seventeen wounded. No official notice of this shocking butchery was taken by the authorities. The Count of Tendilla, hearing of the dis- turbance, was about to head a force to quell it. " It is unneces- ;< sary," said an Alcayde of the audience, who had just -come up to the Alhambra, " the prison is quiet ; the Moors are all dead." The Alcayde of the prison retained the money and jewels found on the persons of the unhappy men who had been murdered under his charge, as if it had been booty won in fair fight. Even the historian of the rebellion, a man neither unfeeling nor generally disposed to approve of Christian cruelty, shared the general apathy, and remarked that the Moriscos must doubtless have been CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 149 more guilty than at first sight appeared, because when their wives and children came to the royal audience to claim their property, it was confiscated to the use of the Crown. 1 Mondejar was now naturally desirous to finish the war, or at least to strike a decisive blow, before Don John should arrive to supersede him in the command. He therefore resolved on one more attempt to seize the persons of Aben Umeya and El Zaguer. Trusting to his spies, he sent Alvaro Flores and Antonio de Avila, with six hundred picked musketeers, to surprise them in the village of Valor. On the road these two captains increased their force by the addition of a body of nearly a hundred men, who agreed to join their standard. They reached Valor in the night, and agreed to approach it on two different sides. The division under Flores being met by some spies who were looking out for them, one of these was unfortunately shot by mistake as he approached. The alarm being thus given, and panic and distrust engendered, the object of the expedition, as well as all order, was forgotten, and the troops rushed into the place and sacked it. The chiefs whom they had come to take escaped, of course, in the confusion. To have captured them, wherever they were found, would have been quite justifiable. But the village of Valor, having submitted to the Government, was not justly liable to pillage merely on the suspicion that rebels had been harboured in one of its houses. Flores and Avila, however, thought other- wise ; and their troops were followed by so many speculators, ready to buy the soldiers' booty, that it must have been generally understood that spoil was at least one of the purposes of the expedition. In spite of the warnings of their scouts, the sun was high next day before the Christians began their march, laden with plunder, and encumbered with twelve hundred captive women in the centre of their line. The Moriscos, gathering from the mountains, were soon on their track. They first sent messengers to the Christian leaders, to say that they were peaceable subjects, and had submitted to the King, as the safeguard granted to their village proved ; that the outrage inflicted on them might have arisen from a mistake, and that they were willing to think so and return home, if their women were given up to them. Avila made answer that they were dogs and traitors, and ordered his men to fire upon them. This insolence provoked a violent attack on the rear-guard of the Christians, in which Avila himself was slain. Signal-fires on the hill-tops had already raised the country, 1 L. de Marmol : Hist, de la Rebelion, lib. v. cap. 38, i. p. 517. 150 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. and the King's troops, cumbered with their spoil, were harassed by perpetual attacks, each turn of the road disclosing a new enemy, and becoming the scene of a new battle. The captives were soon released ; the Christian line was broken through ; and its scattered portions cut off in detail. When advance seemed impossible, Flores led the remains of his force up the mountain- side, where he himself was soon overtaken and slain. Fifty of his men threw themselves into a church-tower, in which they were ere long burned alive by their besiegers. Of the whole band, of upwards of seven hundred men, who had halted at the gate of Valor, there survived but sixty, who effected their escape over the hills to Adra. The party, who had joined Avila and Flores on their march, had themselves already committed a wanton outrage on two villages which had returned to their allegiance. From Turon, which they attacked first, they had been repulsed with the loss of eleven men. At Murtas, which they approached more cautiously, they had been received as friends, were lodged in the church, and fed by the inhabitants : hospitality which they repaid by sacking the village next day at dawn. Surprised by the infuriated peasantry, they were perhaps saved for a few days, by falling in with a stronger force, from the merited fate which ultimately overtook most of them. The loss suffered by the Christians at Turon was made a pretext by Diego de Gasca for marching thither from Adra to demand satisfac- tion. The inhabitants declared themselves loyal and peaceable, and said that they had only defended themselves from lawless violence. Gasca, nevertheless, required that those who had slain, or as he called it, murdered, the Christians, should be given up to him ; but in pursuing his search for them in the village, he himself was stabbed to the heart. His men instantly sacked the place ; but the pillage of a few cottages afforded small compensa- tion for the loss of one of the most gallant and active of the Christian captains, who had thrice beaten off Aben Umeya when threatening Adra with a superior force. Outrages like these were common in all parts of the disturbed Province. The two Christian armies, ill-paid and weary of their rough winter campaign, had become two hordes of spoilers, ranging the country for plunder, and fomenting the rebellion which they had been levied to quell. Mondejar having failed in his attempt to finish the war at one blow, was, perhaps, not very solicitous to smooth the difficulties lying in the way of his suc- cessor. He remained inactive at Orgiba, waiting for the departure CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 151 of Don John from Court. Los Velez was hovering on the eastern border of the Alpuxarras, finding no enemy to meet him in the field, and effecting nothing but ruin and rapine. The armies shared the jealousy of their leaders. Picena, a village which had submitted to Mondejar, and had received two of his soldiers for its protection, was sacked by a company of foot from the camp of Los Velez, the captain refusing to acknowledge any safeguard not signed by his own chief. The marauders, on retiring with their booty, were overtaken by a thick fog and a snowstorm, in which they were attacked by an overwhelming force of houseless and infuriated Moriscos, and cut off to a man, their weapons serving to arm their conquerors. Such events as these strength- ened the hands of Aben Umeya. The bolder and more ardent Moriscos were elated by their successes, and conceived hopes of doing to the whole Christian host what had been done to the plunderers of Picena and Valor. The most timid had learned by bitter experience that neither repentant submission nor unshaken loyalty could insure their safety. If the dusky African com- plexion was seen in the street, or the Arabic language was heard in the market-place, that was a sufficient reason for sacking the village, and selling the inhabitants for slaves. Places which had submitted, therefore, resumed their arms ; those which had before been neutral now took them up ; the whole population rising in rage and despair, a few hoping for liberty, all thirsting for vengeance. Mondejar began his march from Orgiba on the 8th of April, leaving Don Juan Mendoza Sarmiento in that town, with two thousand foot and a hundred horse, and with orders to remain strictly on the defensive. Beyond the walls of Orgiba, and the range of the musketry in its towers, Aben Umeya was therefore virtual master of the Alpuxarras. Every village of importance declared for him, and he considered his power sufficiently secure to put to death several alguazils and regidors, who either had shown reluctance to espouse his cause, or had submitted too tamely to the Christians. He had some time before sent his brother Andalla, with presents, to entreat for aid at Algiers and Constantinople. The envoy from Granada was, however, but coldly received there. Aluch Ali, Pasha of Algiers, was medi- tating an attack upon Tunis ; and Sultan Selim was preparing an expedition against the Venetian realm of Cyprus. The Sultan gave nothing but promises and hopes. The Pasha granted per- mission to some of his corsair captains to lend their aid, and ,52 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. issued a proclamation to his people, inviting every man who possessed two weapons of one kind to bestow one of them upon the faithful of Granada, for the love of God and the service of the Prophet. A small force of Turks and Moors was at last raised, under the command of one Habaqui, and succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the Spanish cruisers, and effecting a landing in Andalusia. Mondejar arrived at Granada on Easter Eve. Some attempt was made to give to his return from a fruitless campaign, leaving a rebellion behind him, the appearance of a triumph. In his entry into the city, the cavalry led the way, displaying the banners which they had taken from the Moriscos, and trailing them in the dust. Next came a long string of sumpter mules, laden with arms taken in the field, or surrendered by the submitted mountain- eers. Around Mondejar himself rode a number of nobles and gentlemen who had met him beyond the gate. The regiments of infantry, in companies, brought up the rear, and the streets were lined with spectators. President Deza, however, and the enemies of the Marquess, had more cause for satisfaction than Tendilla and his friends. The shouts which greeted the return of the army soon died away, while there remained a deep-seated and increasing feeling of discontent, not only among the Moriscos who were forced to lodge, feed, and endure the soldiery, but among the Christians, who had lost sons, brothers, or husbands in the Alpuxarras, and who complained that their enemies had been pardoned by the leader whose duty it was to avenge their fall. Towards the end of March, Don John of Austria accompanied the King from Madrid to Aranjuez, whither it was the custom of the Court to repair in early spring, to enjoy the beauties of the garden and the budding forest. Originally a hunting-seat of the Grand Master of Santiago, Aranjuez, when that dignity merged in the Crown, early attracted the notice of Isabella the Catholic, the great Queen who lives not only in the noblest page of Spanish history, but in some of the finest monuments of mediaeval art. She repaired and embellished the mansion, and planted the delicious garden, zoned by the confluent waters of the Tagus and the Xarama, and long known as the Island of the Queen. Charles V. loved to hunt in the forest, of which he greatly extended the bounds ; but he left the palace as he found it, and added to his grandmother's garden nothing but an avenue of elms, of which the enormous trunks and shattered heads still remain as picturesque ruins among the planes and hornbeams of later times. Philip II. CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 153 made great additions to the palace under Juan de Toledo, architect of the Escorial ; but since the death of the artist, in i 567, the works had been left unfinished. Enough, however, was complete to lodge a large retinue ; and on this occasion the Infanta Juana had accompanied her brothers to Aranjuez. They were hunting in the forest, when the Princess's horse, scared by the report of a gun, threw her, spraining one of her arms. This accident delayed the departure of Don John, until she had nearly recovered from the injury. On the 6th of April he was able to set out, accompanied by the trusty Luis Ouixada and the rest of his household. A journey of six days, over the plains of La Mancha and the mountains of Jaen, brought them to Hiznaleus, a village six leagues distant from Granada. Here the Marquess of Mondejar, escorted by a troop of cavalry and a large staff of officers, was in waiting to receive Don John. They spent the evening together, and set out together the next day for Granada. As they approached the city, however, the superseded commander pleaded the necessity of superintending the preparations there in person, and pushing on alone, retired for the rest of the day to the Alhambra. At Albolote, a league and a half from the gates, Don John was met by the Count of Tendilla, at the head of two hundred chosen cavalry, brilliantly mounted and equipped. A hundred of these horsemen were dressed in Christian attire, with short mantles of crimson velvet ; and a hundred, according to a fashion which long prevailed in Spanish pageants, wore the gay Moorish marlota, or loose tunic, over their armour, and had turbans wreathed round their casques. Without the gates, a gunshot beyond the royal hospital, at the Beyro brook, Don John found the chief functionaries and inhabit- ants of Granada waiting on horseback to receive him. The President Deza was there, with four of the auditors, and the alcaydes of his courts ; the archbishop, with four of the chapter ; and the regidor, or mayor, with four of his veintiquatros, or aldermen ; all in their official robes. The President first offered his compliments and congratulations, and was followed by the prelate and the civic dignitaries. Each of them then presented his subordinates, as well as many of the principal citizens ; and the grace with which Don John, hat in hand, bowed his acknowledgments of their civilities, was the theme of universal commendation. The whole infantry force of the army, nearly ten thousand strong, which was drawn up on the adjacent parade ground of Bcyro, now fired several volleys of musketry ; during I54 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. which the cavalcade slowly moved on towards the gates, Don John riding between the President and the archbishop. A few paces further a new spectacle awaited him, a spectacle prepared, with studious malice, for the mortification of Mondejar. From the gate came pouring a long procession of matrons and maidens, neither wearing holiday costume nor scattering flowers and smiles, but clad in woful weeds, with dishevelled locks, and uttering cries and lamentations. These women, more than four hundred in number, had been, or professed to have been, captives in the Alpuxarras ; and they had been assembled here in order to touch the heart of the young commander, and to prejudice his mind against Mondejar and his policy. "Justice, justice, my lord," cried the leaders of this mourning multitude, "justice is all we " ask for, we who have nothing left us but our woe, and who " heard the clash of the steel which slew our fathers and husbands " and sons with less grief than we hear the news that their " murderers are to be forgiven." In reply to this shrill tempest of complaint and weeping, Don John said a few words of sym- pathy and consolation, and promised that justice should be speedily done. He then entered the city, supported by the representatives of law on the right, and of religion on the left, through the Elvira gate, beneath those antique horse-shoe arches, famous in the romantic story of Granada, through which had passed so many pomps and pageants. Within, he was greeted with other sights and sounds than tearful cheeks and sobs of anguish. Along the lofty streets, from every projecting balcony and latticed window, rich draperies hung in masses of brilliant colour ; and the high-born dames and daughters of Granada, in their brightest smiles, their hair adorned with their finest roses and carnations, leant forward to enjoy and adorn the military pageant. Hailed with shouts and glances of welcome, and bow- ing to right and left, with gallant grace, the young commander, with a heart elated with hope and confidence, rode through the city which he had come to govern and defend. Passing along the street of Elvira, beneath the tall tower of St. Andrew, the lofty wall of the Capuchin convent, and the deep-browed church of St. Peter and St. Paul, the cavalcade traversed the Plaza Nueva to the massive portal and long front of the Palace of the Audience, or, as the Moriscos called it, the House of Misfortune. 1 Here Don John, taking leave of the archbishop, the regidor, and the Count of Tendilla, was conducted by his host, the President, to 1 Mendoza : Guerra civil, lib. ii. fol. 51. CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 155 the apartments which had been prepared for him. The cere- monial of his reception had been exactly prescribed by the King, each principal functionary at Granada having received precise instructions as to the style of his compliments, and the number of his attendants on the occasion. All honour was to be paid to him that was ever conceded to persons not royal ; and he was to be addressed as " His Excellency," a mode of address which flattery or enthusiasm sometimes ventured to elevate to the more princely style of " His Highness." l The first public business transacted by Don John was to receive a deputation from the Morisco inhabitants of the city. " They had looked forward," said their spokesman, "with great " joy and hope to his coming, believing that it would deliver them " from the unjust imputations and galling grievances under which " they laboured. Loyal subjects deserved protection no less than " rebels deserved punishment. They, although they had never " been rebellious or disloyal, suffered great oppression from the " King's servants, both military and civil. Soldiers robbed them " of their goods and polluted their homes ; and hitherto, they had " been able to obtain no redress. They hoped these wrongs " would be checked at their source, by the adoption of a new " plan for quartering the troops ; they humbly entreated His " Excellency not to listen to the slanders against them ; and they " placed their lives, property, and honour under his protection." Don John replied in a few courteous words, which deepened the favourable impression which he had already produced. Assuring the Moriscos of that protection which loyal subjects deserved, he reminded them that he had come for the express purpose of chastising those who were not loyal. As to the grievances com- plained of, he would receive and examine their memorials, and 1 His secretaries soon began to call him by the latter title, as is found by drafts of letters, with suggestions that Sit Alleza should say this or that, in addition to what was set down. Ruy Gomez de Silva, Prince of Eboli, who as a veteran courtier might be supposed to be particular in such matters, addresses him, in the letters which I have seen, always as " Vuestra Excelencia" but the letters begin sometimes " Excelentisimo " Sefior," sometimes " Muy ilustre Sefior," and occasionally simply "Se/lar." In a curious collection of MS. papers belonging to Don Pascual de Gayangos, there is one short letter to Don John, I5th November 1570, in which Ruy Gomez thanks him for taking into his service the son of one Dr. Tores, styling him "Your Excellency," to which the Princess of Eboli the famous Ana de Mendoza adds a postscript of the same purport, in which he is called "Your Highness." In the same volume there is a letter from the experienced courtier and statesman, Don Juan de Ydiaquez, dated Genoa, 1 8th December 1573, in which Don John is styled " Serenisimo Sefior" and " Vnestra " Alteza." In the sixteenth century "Your Highness" was a higher style than it now is : it was frequently applied to crowned heads of kingly rank ; and by it Philip II. sometimes addressed his cousin, the Emperor Maximilian II. ,-6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. endeavour to do justice ; but he cautioned them against making false or exaggerated claims, as likely rather to damage than further their cause. He afterwards appointed Pedro Lopez de Mesa, alcayde of the royal audience, to investigate their com- plaints, and named two of the auditors as commissioners to deal with these complaints in matters touching the Crown revenues. Notwithstanding the critical position of affairs, Don John was obliged to let the week, which followed his arrival, pass away without entering upon the business of the war. He could do nothing without his council ; and the council could do nothing without the Duke of Sesa, who was absent from the city. Don John therefore devoted the week to an inspection of the defences, which he made in the company of Mondejar and Ouixada, going the round of the walls and the guard-houses, and considering the position of the sentinels, and the order of the patrols. These measures were the more necessary and seasonable, since the dis- appearance of the snow from the passes and the return of spring had rendered a sudden attack upon the city less difficult, at the very time that it was rendered more probable by the late suc- cesses of the rebels. A review of the troops was made by Don John, and a meet- ing of the council was held on the 22d of April, the day after the arrival of the Duke of Sesa. This nobleman, Gon^alo Fernandez de Cordoba, heir and representative of the Great Captain, was not only by birth and wealth one of the magnates of Andalusia, but he had himself held high public offices with some reputation. Viceroy of Milan in 1557, during the war which was ended by the peace of Cercamp, he gained at the foot of the Alps consider- able advantages over the French under Brissac, 1 the famous mar- shal with whom, as his countrymen believed, Charles V. used to say he could have conquered the world. Their successes were much vaunted by the Spaniards, but by Italians they were attri- buted to good luck as much as to Sesa's military skill. He was much devoted to pomp and pleasure, and in pageants and tourna- ments he had spent the greater part of his fortune. 2 He was now residing on his estates in Granada. He and Luis Quixada, having both of them seen much service abroad, were the chief military authorities in the council ; Mondejar's experience of arms having been obtained only in the present war, and in militia duty at home in times of peace. The archbishop, Pedro Guerrero, 1 Natale Conti : Historic delle novi Tempi, \. ff. 310-12. - Relaziotte de Paolo Tiepolo, 1563. Alberi, S. I. vol. v. p. 42. CHAP. vil. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 157 once a doctor of Trent, who had enjoyed his present mitre for nineteen years, rivalled Ximenes in his hatred to the Moorish race, and was notable only for the malignant zeal with which he urged the policy of repression, which he had long before preached to the willing ears of the King. 1 The President Deza, likewise a churchman, and afterwards a cardinal, was a man of superior abilities. 2 But he had been only three years at Granada, and had little knowledge of the people among whom he had come to dispense justice. Even had he not been imbued with an orthodox detestation of Moriscos, his desire to foil and mortify Mondejar would have been sufficient to enlist him on all occasions against them. The Admiral Requesens, being at sea with his fleet, rarely sat in the council ; but his place was filled by the licentiate, Bribiesca de Munatones, who w r as added to the body soon after it had assembled. At the first meeting the proceedings were opened by Monde- jar. He said there were three courses which might be taken for the suppression of the rebellion. The first was to encourage the submission of the villages in the Alpuxarras, all of which, he affirmed, were secretly desirous of submitting to the King, although the rebel chiefs and their followers had for the present overawed them into a declaration against him. He would then summon all the inhabitants capable of bearing arms down into the low country about Dalias and Berja, where they might be hemmed in between the troops who would occupy the passes, and the naval force on the coast, and be dealt with according to the King's pleasure. The second plan was to garrison all the important places in the Alpuxarras, many of which had petitioned for a body of Christian soldiers to protect them against their own more turbulent and violent spirits ; and after these garrisons were firmly established, to proceed according to the ordinary forms of law against those who had been guilty of rebellion. The third and last course was to reinforce the army at Orgiba with a thousand foot and two hundred horse, and to employ it in ravaging the country, and destroying the food of the people, who would thus soon be compelled to surrender at discretion. Mondejar having delivered his sentiments, Don John invited the President Deza to state his views. Deza began by disclaiming any pretension to advise on military matters, of which he knew 1 Fr. Pedro Gor^alez de Mendc^a ; Historia del Montecelia de Nuestra Sei'wra de Sakeda ; fol. Granada, 1616, p. 382. 8 See Hubner's Sixte V., Paris, 1870, 3 vols. 8vo, i. 196-7, for a curious anecdote of his mode of showing hatred to the French. , 5 g DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. nothing, especially in the presence of Sesa, Mondejar, and Ouixada. Two things, however, appeared to him essential to the King's service. One was, that the Moriscos of the Albaycin should be forthwith ejected from Granada, and sent to a distance ; they and their houses being, in spite of all their professions of loyalty, the true centre and hotbed of the rebellion. The second thing required, was that a signal example should be made of some place notorious for the outrages upon Christians and their faith, which had marked the outbreak of the rebellion ; and he suggested that the first victim village should be Las Albunuelas, which he asserted was at that moment full of the most desperate of the rebels, who had flocked thither under the pretext of making their submission, but really for the purpose of robbing and murdering unwary Christian travellers in the neighbourhood of Granada. These proposals were debated for several days in the council. The President was supported from the first by Sesa, and after- wards by Bribiesca de Mufiatones ; and he finally overcame the scruples of the archbishop and Ouixada, who, without disapproving of his plan, saw great difficulties in the way of its execution. Mondejar found himself unsupported by a single voice in any one of the three courses which he had pointed out He therefore contented himself with dissenting from the opinion of the majority, on the ground that the loss of its population would be the ruin of the Province, and with sending his second son to Madrid to lay the reasons of his dissent before the King. As Don John and his council could do nothing without the royal sanction, they did nothing for six weeks but talk, write, and despatch couriers. Don John himself wisely devoted his leisure to a careful examination of the state of his army, and of the merits of the various commanders of fortresses in the disturbed districts, many of whom he found necessary to change. He likewise addressed letters to the cities of Andalusia, inviting them to send him men and supplies ; and he issued commissions to veteran captains, Antonio Moreno, Hernando de Orufia, and Francisco de Mendoza, authorising them to raise regiments for the royal service. The Admiral Requesens, with twenty-four galleys, made a prosperous voyage from Naples to Marseilles. But on leaving the French port his fleet was dispersed by a storm, which raged for three days and nights and destroyed four of his ships. In some of those which weathered the gale, it was found necessary to throw overboard the arms and accoutrements of the troops. After CHAP. VII. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 159 hastily refitting his shattered vessels at Palamos, the Grand Commander ran down the coast without further disaster ; and, calling off Adra, cast anchor on the ist of May in the harbour of Velez. The troops were immediately disembarked, to the number of eleven companies ; one of those which had been taken on board having been lost Besides the regular soldiers, there were many adventurers of various degrees, most of whom, having lost their equipments on the voyage, were fitter objects for relief at the door of a convent, than for service in a campaign. Meanwhile the fiery Marquess of Los Velez, at his camp at Terque, was revolving plans by which the war was to be finished at a single blow, to be struck by his sole arm. The licence which he had allowed his troops had recoiled upon his own head. His camp was greatly thinned by desertion ; many of his soldiers having preferred secure enjoyment of their plunder at their own homes to dangerous and toilsome gleaning in a field where they had already reaped an abundant harvest. The jealousy with which Los Velez had hitherto looked upon Mondejar he now transferred to Don John of Austria, in fuller measure perhaps, because the King's brother was a still more formidable rival. On learning that Requesens was bringing reinforcements from Naples, he had entreated the King to place them at his disposal, promising that with them and his own troops he would speedily put an end to the war. After due hesitation, Philip granted this request ; send- ing an order to the admiral to land the troops at Adra, to be used at the discretion of Los Velez. But this order did not reach its destination until the sails of Requesens had already disappeared towards the west, and the men had been disembarked at Velez. Weary of inactivity, Los Velez then determined to invade the Alpuxarras. With a view to his communications with Guadix, he ordered the construction of a fort, or at least of a fortified position, at the pass of Ravaha. But Don John of Austria neither approved of the design, nor was, perhaps, disposed to allow an inferior officer to push on the war, whilst he himself, by the terms of his commission, was compelled to wait for instructions from Madrid. He therefore sent a peremptory order to the impatient Marquess to halt wherever the messenger should find him ; giving him at the same time to understand, that by entering the Alpuxarras, he would drive the tide of the rebel force against the Christian army posted at Orgiba, which had strict orders to remain on the defensive, and which, moreover, was feebler in numbers than the position demanded. Compelled to obey, Los i6o DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. Velez reluctantly retreated to the valley of Andarax, down which he marched, and leaving Almeria on his left, encamped near the sea at Berja. The working party whom he had detached to fortify the pass of Ravaha were attacked during their labours by the Moors, and driven off, with the loss of several officers and a hundred and seventy men. Aben Umeya and his captains made good use of the breathing time afforded by the procrastinating policy of the Catholic King. Within four leagues of Granada, they raised the standard of revolt in the upper valley of Xenil, whence Don John had barely time to withdraw the Christian and peaceable inhabitants to a place of security in the Vega ; and on that side of the city the Christian wayfarer was not safe a league beyond the gates. The Sierra of Benitomiz, the mountain spur which touches the sea at Velez- Malaga, at last declared for the Moorish cause. This region, about eight leagues long and six wide, though rough and difficult of access, was one of the richest and most populous districts bordering on the Alpuxarras. Its alpine pastures were famous for their flocks ; and in its well-watered valleys were cultivated the finest silks woven in the looms of Granada, while the finest fruits were shipped for the Thames and the Scheldt at the sea-tower of Velez. Its people, richer and more intelligent than their inland countrymen, were also more alive to the hopeless nature of the struggle in which the rebels were engaged. But even they were not proof against the outrages of the Christians, the appeals of their fellow-believers, and the tales, with which they were plied, of powerful Turkish aid approaching by sea, and wonderful successes achieved by the Moriscos among the northern hills. Their fathers had furnished to the Moorish Sultans of Granada the flower of their armies ; and now, around the banner of faded crimson, studded with green crosses, which one Francisco Roxas raised at Caniles de Aceytuno, there flocked a brave band determined to maintain the martial fame of their native glens. At one end of the Benitomiz range, a strong force of insurgents seized upon the important fort of Frigiliana ; and from the other, Aben Umeya descended to attack the camp of Los Velez an attack which was indeed repulsed, but which induced Los Velez to retire eastward to cover the seaport of Adra. Still the popular feeling, it must be owned, was not unanimous. If Aben Umeya found bold partisans, King Philip also found some loyal subjects in Benitomiz. The castle of Caniles de Aceytuno was repaired, in the expectation of the revolt, for its Christian commander by his Morisco vassals, some CHAP. vn. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 161 of whom were also willing to incur great hazard in carrying despatches for the Christians, and in spying the movements of the rebels. Repeated remonstrances addressed to the King at last obtained for Don John permission to commence active operations against the enemy. Presuming on his inaction, the Moriscos had every day been becoming more daring in their outrages. Not only were travellers robbed and murdered, but the convoys of provisions were generally attacked on their way to Tablate and Orgiba. On the 1st of June, Don John despatched Antonio de Luna with a strong force of infantry, and Tello Gonzalez de Aguilar with a hundred horse, against Las Albunuelas, a large village, which affecting to be loyal, was, nevertheless, as Deza had stated, the habitual harbour and resort of the rebels of the valley of Lecrin. Halting during the afternoon at Padul, the Christians resumed their march at night, and entering Las Albunuelas at daybreak, put many of the male inhabitants to the sword. The rebel chiefs who happened to be in the place effected their escape to the Sierra. The women, to the number of fifteen hundred, attempted to do the same, but were overtaken by the cavalry, and carried off to Granada, where they were distributed as slaves amongst their captors. Luna, rendered cautious by disaster, would not permit the village to be sacked, although it was full of valuable spoil ; the signal-fires on the surrounding hill-tops warning him that his retreat to Padul, if delayed, would not be accomplished without hard fighting in the defiles. A few days later the Grand Commander of Castille opened the campaign on the Mediterranean shore. Early in May he had cast anchor off the sea-tower of Velez, and mustering his force on the beach found that it amounted to two thousand six hundred Italians, and four hundred soldiers of the galleys. The Corregidor of Velez, Arevalo de Zuazo, who was there to receive him, urged him to march at once against the fort of Frigiliana, the key of the Sierra of Benitomiz, before the Moriscos had completed its defences. But want of provisions, beasts of burden, and tents, and above all, of orders from Madrid, compelled Requesens to remain inactive. For a whole month the martial ardour of his men, cooped up in their ships, was suffered to cool, while each day added strength to the fortifications, the resources, and the confidence of the enemy. It was not until the 7th of June that Requesens was empowered to land his troops at the castle of Torrox. Near the town of that name Arevalo de Zuazo had VOL. I. M !6 2 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. assembled a force of fifteen hundred foot and four hundred horse. The two leaders then marched inland, and encamped beneath the rocky heights of Frigiliana. This natural stronghold terminates a spur of the Sierra of Benitomiz, beneath which two mountain streams, the Chillar and the Lautin, mingle their waters. From the bluff promontory thus formed, a bold crag, accessible only by a few narrow and difficult paths, lifts its head high above the summits of the surrounding hills. The top, being tolerably level and spacious, was capable of sheltering the whole population of the adjacent Sierra ; and a watercourse, led, for purposes of irrigation, from the upper stream of the Chillar, skirted the base of its precipices in a manner so convenient for defence, that there was little fear of the garrison being reduced by thirst. Such was the natural strength of the position, that the Moriscos had hardly taken possession of it, when they repulsed an attack made upon them by an exploring detachment from the force of Arevalo de Zuazo. Since that time they had been labouring, for several weeks, to improve their means of resistance. Approaches, difficult at first, were rendered impracticable by barricades of rock. Some firearms and ammunition, and a plentiful supply of bows and arrows, had been provided ; vast heaps of stones were piled up at the more exposed points, to be rolled down on the advancing foe ; and the platform on the summit of the hill, around the fort, was covered with tents and huts of branches, sheltering no less than seven thousand persons, of whom four thousand were fighting men. The Grand Commander Requesens with his troops, three thousand strong, encamped in the rugged valley of Chillar, near a spot called the Fountain of the Poplar ; while the Corregidor Arevalo posted his nineteen hundred men in a ravine to the north-east of the fortress, beside a spring known as that of the Wild Olives. The latter position was somewhat exposed ; but it was necessary to occupy it, in order to cut off the besieged from communication with the Alpuxarras. The night after their arrival was passed by the Christians under arms, in expectation of a sally, which, however, was not adventured by the Moriscos. The next day, the two leaders made a careful survey of the place, and two skirmishes occurred, in which a few Moors were picked off by the Christian marksmen. On the evening of St. Barnabas's Day, Requesens, having completed his plan, ordered the troops to take up their positions after dark. The place was to be assaulted at four different points ; CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 163 the leaders of the divisions being Pedro de Padilla, Juan de Cardenas, Martin de Padilla, and Arevalo de Zuazo. They were ordered to kindle fires as a signal that each had taken up the ground allotted to him ; and they were expressly forbidden to move forward until a gun was fired at headquarters. Pedro de Padilla, however, at the head of three hundred Italian adventurers eager for the first place in the race of glory, began the ascent before the signal had been given. The Moriscos were no less alert than their assailants. As the leading Christians toiled up the crags, they were received with so galling a discharge of stones and arrows, mingled with musketry, that many of them rolled dead upon their companions, and those behind began to falter and fall back. Requesens, perceiving what had occurred, im- mediately gave the signal of assault. The three other divisions sprang forward, and the rock was soon covered, at all practicable points, with men struggling up its sides, from which the Moriscos had done their best to smooth the inequalities and clear the brushwood which could assist the hand or foot of the climber. The darkness concealed and protected, if it retarded, the efforts of the assailants ; and as the day broke, many of the soldiers found themselves at the foot of the defences which the rebels had drawn around their citadel. It was now that the combat began to rage with full fury ; and the adjacent ravines re-echoed the rattle of musketry, the whistling of arrows and darts, and the thunder of rocks launched from the precipice's edge upon the advancing foe. Here and there the more daring of the besieged, sallying from their defences, fought hand to hand with the foremost of the assailants. For a while the fortune of the day seemed doubtful. But a circumstance, often fatal to mountain fortresses, proved the ruin of Frigiliana. One side of the rock was shaped into a narrow ridge, bearing the name of the Knife (cuchillo) of Conca, affording space for a narrow pathway between two huge crags, which it seemed impossible to scale. The Moriscos, having barred the passage with a huge stone, believed the point so secure from attack as to require a very slender guard. Upon this point the Corregidor of Velez prudently concentrated his whole force. Some of his men, having clambered like cats to the top of the barrier, assisted their comrades to follow, and a sufficient number having mounted, they pushed on and surprised the castle by a vigorous and unexpected assault. Gonzalo de Bozmediano, a soldier of Velez, first reached the top, waving a white handker- chief on the point of his sword, and he was immediately followed l64 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. by the standard-bearers of Velez and of Malaga, who planted the flags of these towns upon the battlements. From the same point the Christian trumpets, sounding a note of victory, proclaimed to the royalists and the rebels, fighting desperately on the more accessible points of the platform, that further attacks were un- necessary and further resistance was unavailing. Flight was the only resource left to the unfortunate Moriscos. They accordingly flung themselves headlong into two ravines which scarred different sides of the hill. At the lower end of one of these issues were posted the horsemen of Velez, and the flying multitude either fell beneath their sabres, or were made prisoners. From the other gorge, of which the mouth was left unguarded, the more fortunate fugitives escaped to the Sierra. Of the four thousand men who had mustered the night before for the defence of Frigiliana, two thousand lay dead upon the rock, and of the remainder many died of their wounds in the neighbouring ravines. During the conflict a number of Morisco women* distinguished themselves by the desperate valour with which they fought by the side of their husbands and brothers ; and in the flight many Morisco mothers were seen leaping like goats from crag to crag, preferring the chances of a horrible death to the prospect of falling into the hands of the Christians. Three thousand prisoners were taken, and an immense quantity of plunder, the gathered wealth of the villages of Benitomiz. Frigiliana did not fall without some effusion of Christian blood. Four hundred men were killed in the assault, and eight hundred were wounded, several officers being amongst the number. The Italian contingent suffered the greater part of the loss. When the action was over, Requesens caused the wounded to be collected and cared for, and the rest of the day was employed in the destruction of the Morisco defences, and of such part of their store of provisions as could not be carried away. The day following, the Grand Commander marched to Torrox, and, embarking there, steered for Malaga to enjoy his triumph. The Corregidor Zuazo returned to Velez, where he and his troops were received with acclamations by their fellow-townsmen. Much dissatisfaction afterwards arose amongst the soldiers of Requesens on account of the delay in the division of the captives, or of their value in money. The Neapolitan regiment, in particular, had left the country before any share of the spoil was allotted to it. The fort of Frigiliana had hardly been taken, when a force of eight hundred men from Loja, Alhama, and other towns, arrived there CHAP. vn. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 165 to join the army of the Grand Commander. For lack of other employment they made a foray into the Sierra of Benitomiz. Driving off the flocks and herds, and digging for concealed treasures in the deserted houses of the unfortunate inhabitants, they returned with a share of plunder little inferior to that which rewarded the conquerors of Frigiliana. While the Christians were thus successful in the south, they met with equivalent reverses in the north-eastern portion of the disturbed Provinces. The rich and populous valley of Almanzora declared in favour of Aben Umeya and the revolt. It had pre- viously been overawed by the vicinity of Mondejar's army in the Alpuxarras, and still more by the camp of the Marquess of Los Velez at Terque. But from the remains of the one force it was now separated by the Sierra Nevada ; and the Murcian Viceroy was also far away, posted in sullen and compelled inaction be- tween the hills and the sea at Adra. Most of the villages along the Almanzora valley possessed strongly situated castles, either in good condition or such as could be easily rendered capable of de- fence. Happily the revolt was unusually free from sanguinary outrages against the Christians. Their houses were pillaged, but their persons were protected, and they were generally permitted to escape. Content to wreak their fury on the churches, the Moriscos desecrated and destroyed the altars and the images, and employed the beams of the buildings in strengthening or repairing the forts. Purchena was deserted by the Christians ; and the castles of Tahali and Cantoria capitulated, their garrisons being allowed to retire to Almeria. The fortress of Seron, a strong position among the high mountains at the head of the valley, was the only place of importance which remained in the hands of the Christians ; and it was soon invested by five thousand Moriscos, led by Mecebe, one of the most skilful and enterprising captains of the rebellion. The aspect of affairs every day becoming worse, and the Moriscos increasing in strength and boldness, the King at length resolved upon measures which some months before had been pro- posed and debated in the council of Granada. Orders were sent to Don John of Austria to remove from the Albaycin all Moriscos between the ages of ten and sixty, and to send them under military escort to various towns beyond the frontiers of Andalusia, there to dwell under the eye of the Christian authorities. To induce them to submit quietly to this sentence of exile, they were to be told that His Majesty was acting in the matter purely for their ,66 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. safety and advantage, and that, so soon as the country was again at peace, their cases would be considered, and any loss which they might have sustained made up by the royal treasury. On the evening of St. John's Day, the 24th of June, the troops in and around Granada having been ordered to hold themselves'in readi- ness, a proclamation was issued, requiring all the Moriscos to repair at a certain hour on that festival night to their respective parish churches. The grief and consternation which followed this order was so great, that Father Albotodo, a benevolent priest who enjoyed the confidence of the Moriscos, went to plead their cause with the President Deza. That dignitary assured him that their lives were in no danger, and gave him a paper to that effect signed and sealed by his own hand. Somewhat relieved by this intimation, they assembled in great numbers at the parish churches. Thither Don John of Austria himself repaired, and there addressed a few words to each congregation, declaring that they were now under the royal protection, and that it was His Majesty's desire to provide for their safety, by removing them for the present from the scene of the rebellion. Don Alonso de Granada-Venegas, a gentleman in whom they reposed great trust, and whom they had formerly sent to state their grievances to the King, also gave them the same assurances. Strong assurances, certainly, were needed to allay the fears of a crowd of persons, most of them peaceful citizens, who had thus been suddenly dragged from the delights of a festival and the cherished seclu- sion of their homes, to pass the night in the temples of an abhorred faith, with Christian musketeers keeping guard at the doors. Next day, at dawn, the troops were mustered on the open space beyond the walls, between the royal hospital and the Elvira gate of the city. Don John of Austria, the Duke of Sesa, Mondejar, Quixada, and Bribiesca de Munatones, each took the command of a separate district, and superintended the removal of the inmates of a certain number of churches. From the various quarters of Albaycin and Alcazaba long lines of captives were marched between files of soldiers towards the Elvira gate. " It " was truly a miserable spectacle," said the historian Marmol, who was himself on duty on the occasion, " to see so many men of all " ages, with streaming eyes and downcast heads and crossed arms, " sadly leaving their homes and families and property, and full of " doubt as to what might betide their lives." Notwithstanding all the precautions taken by Don John of Austria an incident CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 167 occurred in the quarter where he himself commanded, which might have produced a dreadful catastrophe. Avellano, a captain of the Seville infantry, had chosen to distinguish his company by using for an ensign a crucifix carried on a lance and covered with a veil of black crape. As he was escorting the Moriscos of two parishes towards the Elvira gate, this lugubrious standard, carried at the head of the procession, attracted the eyes of the foremost captives. Tearing their hair, they called out in Arabic to their companions : " Oh, wretched race that we are ! led like lambs to " the slaughter ! how much better would it have been for us to " have died in the houses where we were born." As in this excited frame of mind they approached the royal hospital, a Provost-Marshal struck with his wand a half-witted prisoner who had incurred his displeasure. The Morisco had concealed under his arm a brick, which he immediately flung at his assailant's head, inflicting a severe bruise on the man's ear, and knocking him off his horse. The Provost-Marshal happening to wear a coat of the same colour as Don John of Austria, a cry was raised that the Prince was slain, and the soldiers at once turned to take vengeance on the unhappy prisoners. Don John himself, how- ever, was fortunately within hearing ; and forcing his horse through the crowd, he quelled the tumult by showing that he was unhurt, and threatening with the severest punishment the first man who struck a blow. He likewise posted Luis de Marmol, the historian, and another officer, at the gates through which the troops and prisoners were filing, to prevent any of the multitude returning into the city until all had passed out. The Moriscos were at length marched into the spacious courts of the royal hospital, a vast pile in the richest Gothic of the fifteenth century, a monument of the piety of Isabella the Catholic, and of her care for the sick and insane among her Moorish people. Here their names were entered in registers opened for the purpose, and they were divided into companies for removal to their places of exile. Licences to remain in Granada were granted to persons holding certain municipal offices, and to others who had sufficient credit and interest to obtain them. The Mudejares, or descendants of Moors who had submitted to the Christians before the conquest, were likewise exempted from the general sentence. The number of persons actually expelled from the city, including the younger men who, on the promulgation of the order, escaped to the Sierra and the standard of the rebellion, can hardly have been less than ten thousand. Three thousand five hundred men, and ,68 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. a much larger number of women and children, 1 were marched out of the city under military escort to their destinations in Castille and Estremadura. " It was a sad spectacle," said Marmol, writing on the spot and very near the time, " for those who had " beheld the prosperity, the politeness and refinement of the " houses, with their vineyards and gardens, where the Moriscos " held their festivals and pastimes, to see them within a few days " all deserted and forlorn, and hastening to ruin, as if to warn " men that in this world the things most splendid and flourishing " are most exposed to the strokes of fortune." 2 There was a prophecy current among the Moriscos of Granada, that a day was coming when a brook of Moorish blood should flow down the hill of Alcazaba, and cover a great stone which lay at the bottom of it, by the side of the street near the pillar of Our Lady of Mercy. On the morning when the long files of captives were led down the hill, filling the street and concealing the stone, the prophecy was supposed to be accomplished in the first steps of a journey which cost so much misery and so many lives to the unfortunate children of the Moor. " It was a journey," says an eye-witness, "of which the setting forth might well move the " compassion of those who had seen the Moriscos in their " commodious and splendid houses. Many of them died on the " road of grief, of hardship, and of hunger ; and many were " robbed, and sold as slaves, or were slain by the soldiers whose " duty it was to protect them on the way." 3 The castle of Seron was meanwhile closely invested by Mecebe and the insurgents of the valley of Almanzora. The lord of the town, the Marquess of Villena, was happy in having his fortress commanded by a bold and skilful Alcayde, Diego de Mirones. This leader found himself at the head of no more than one hundred and thirty men, including in that number the Christian inhabitants who had taken refuge in the place. They were very poorly provided with the munitions of war ; and the supply of water was very scanty and precarious, the soldiers having spent, in plundering the deserted houses of the Moriscos in the town below, that precious time which ought to have been passed in bringing up water to fill their tank for the siege. Mirones being popular in the district, the Morisco chiefs entreated 1 D. Hurtado de Mendoza : Guerra de Granada, lib. ii. cap 30, p. 147, 4to, Valencia, 1776. 2 L. de Marmol Carvajal : Hist, de la Rebelion, lib. vi. cap. 27, torn. ii. p. 104. D. Hurtado de Mendoza : Guerra de Granada, lib. ii. cap. 30, p. 148. CHAP. vii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 169 him to surrender, promising him a secure retreat for himself and his men to Baza. But he declined the offer, alleging that he could not strike his flag without the permission of his lord. He also despatched a trusty messenger to Granada to inform Don John of Austria of the perils which awaited him. Don John immediately ordered Alonso de Carvajal, Lord of Jodar, whose estates lay at no great distance from Seron, to march to the rescue ; an order which was so promptly obeyed, that within a few days fifteen hundred foot and one hundred and fifty horse, the flower of Baeza and Ubeda, were on the road to Seron. But the King, usually procrastinating, now inflicted a heavy blow on his own cause by an unwonted piece of promptitude and prevision. He, too, had heard of the danger of Seron, and had commanded the Marquess of Los Velez to take measures for its defence. Los Velez, too distant to execute this service, was too jealous of his own powers and rights to leave the execution of it to his rival. He therefore wrote to Don John of Austria, naming three persons at Granada, of whom Carvajal was not one, either of whom he might, at his option, despatch on the duty at the head of fifteen hundred foot and three hundred horse. The council was much divided in opinion as to the course to be pursued. The President Deza and the majority held that Carvajal, having been already employed on the service, ought not to be recalled. Quixada, on the other hand, maintained that His Majesty's orders were in all cases to be obeyed. Don John sided with his old friend and preceptor. An order was therefore sent to Carvajal, requiring him to halt whenever it might reach his hands ; and in spite of the urgency of the case he was compelled to retreat, almost within sight of the fortress where he was so eagerly expected. A second letter from Los Velez soon informed Don John that he had reconsidered his plan, and had committed the relief of Seron to his brother-in-law, Enrique Enriquez, whose residence at Baza, and whose possessions near the head of the valley of Almanzora, enabled him to act with the least possible delay. But Enriquez was unfortunately ill, and he had besides at his disposal no more than five hundred infantry and seventy horse. This force imme- diately marched under his brother Antonio, and approached to within three leagues of Seron. Here the signal-fires, blazing on the surrounding hill-tops, warned them of the danger of a further advance in the face of an overwhelming force prepared to receive them. Overtaken in their retreat by Mecebe, they returned as fugitives to Baza, with the loss of two hundred men. , 70 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vn. Meanwhile Don John, having learned the illness of Enriquez, ordered Luis de Cordoba, one of the officers first named by Los Velez, to march with all speed to Seron. Enriquez, to keep up the spirits of the besieged, sent a squadron of fifty horse to show themselves within sight of the fortress. But the appearance of this body of cavalry, being followed by no efficient aid, rather dismayed than encouraged the garrison. They had observed the rejoicing in the Moorish camp which followed the successful attack on Antonio Enriquez ; and they knew by the subsequent report of their firearms, that the rebels had supplied their powder-horns with Christian powder. They therefore took the appearance and retreat of the handful of horse as evidence of some new disaster. Every day their spirits sank, and the want of water reduced them to the greatest misery. The Alcayde Mirones at last determined to go out in person in quest of aid. At the head of thirty picked musketeers he left the fortress at night, and breaking through the Moorish lines without loss, took the road towards Baza. But, parched with thirst, his men lingered so long drinking at the river that the Moriscos, tracking them by the light of the matches of their firelocks, overtook them, and put fourteen of them to the sword. Fifteen escaped to Baza. Mirones himself, being on horseback and attended by a single follower, lost his way among the ravines and at last threw the reins on the neck of his weary steed. Instinct guided the animal homewards, and when at day- break the rider began to flatter himself that he was approaching Caniles in the valley of Baza, he recognised with dismay the vine-clad slopes of Seron. Descried by the Moorish sentries, pursued and captured, he was led to the tent of Mecebe. That chieftain received him with courtesy, and proposed the surrender of the castle, promising that all the inmates of it should be per- mitted to depart in safety, if they would give up their arms, and all their money but eight reals each ; but if this offer was rejected, the Alcayde was threatened with a cruel death. Knowing the sufferings which his people had already undergone, Mirones accepted the terms proposed. He was accordingly conducted to the castle gate, and calling for his officers and his notary, briefly related to them his mishap, and his determination. The notary then came out, under a safe conduct, and in concert with his chief and the rebel leaders drew out the capitulation in regular form. The castle was then delivered to the Moriscos, on the nth of July. But no sooner was it in their hands, than the conditions were cast to the winds. One hundred and fifty Christians, of CHAP. VII. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 171 whom two were priests and four old women, were immediately butchered in cold blood, and eighty women were distributed as slaves amongst the conquerors. Mecebe justified his cruelty, if not his treachery, by producing a letter from Aben Umeya, com- manding that no quarter should be given at Seron to any male Christian above the age of twelve years. The expulsion from Granada of the Moriscos, of whom the more warlike had found their way to Almanzora, doubtless prompted and aggravated the vengeance taken at Seron ; nor can it be pretended that such retaliation was excessive in amount. Next day, the vanguard of the relieving force, led by Antonio Enriquez and Antonio Moreno, came in sight of the town. Observing the streets encumbered with the bodies of the slaughtered Christians, and the fortress occupied by the rebels, they returned to Baza. Luis de Cordoba, who was also on the march, on learning the fall of Seron, likewise returned to Granada, ARMS OF DON JOHN. CHAPTER VIII. THE MORISCO REBELLION ; FROM THE 1 2TH OF JULY TO THE END OF OCTOBER 1569. GREAT effect was produced on the councils both of Don John of Austria and the wandering rebel king by the fall of Seron. At Granada much alarm prevailed. The President Deza urged the immediate reinforcement of the garrisons of Oria and Velez el Blanco, places feebly manned, al- though the latter contained the daugh- ters of the Marquess of Los Velez, whose peril might recall their father from the Alpuxarras at a time when he could be worst spared. Some infantry and a few troopers being sent thither from Lorca, both fortresses succeeded in holding out against El Malek, who was obliged, therefore, to content himself with compelling the Morisco population of the two towns to declare for the rebellion, and follow him to the mountains. Master of Seron, Aben Umeya was master of the whole valley of Almanzora, with its numerous population and strong places of defence. He considered himself, therefore, in a condition to treat on an equal footing with the provincial Government for the release, or at least the honourable treatment, of his father and brother, who were still prisoners in the chancery of Granada. From his headquarters at Lauxar de Andarax he therefore addressed letters to Don John of Austria and Don Luis de Cordoba, and sent them by a Christian youth, captured at Seron. The bearer was furnished with a passport in Arabic, certifying that he was CHAP. vin. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 173 employed on important business of the King's, and of his suffering people, and countersigned by Aben Umeya himself, in very large characters, and in the form used by the African sovereigns : " This is the truth." A letter to the Marquess of Los Velez likewise obtained for him a free passage through the Christian force encamped at Calahorra. Having reached the Alhambra in safety, he delivered his letters into the hands of the Marquess of Mondejar, saying that he had received his liberty in consideration of performing that service, but that he was ignorant of the contents of his despatches. Mondejar immediately repaired with both the letters and the lad to the quarters of Don John ; and the council was forthwith assembled. Some of the members were for calling the messenger before them ; but it was decided to be more consistent with their dignity not to admit to their presence the emissary of the rebel kingling (i-eyezuelo or reyecillo), as he was contemptuously called, but to depute Bribiesca de Munatones to receive his statement and examine the letters. In the letter to Don John, Aben Umeya said that he knew that his father and brother had been already submitted to torture, a proceeding wholly unjust, as they were in no respect implicated in his rebellion, to which he had been driven by injuries inflicted upon him by the ministers of justice ; that he requested they might be well treated, otherwise he should feel compelled to put to death all the Christians in his hands ; and lastly he offered, in exchange for them, eighty Christian prisoners, promising to produce any that might be asked for, even such of them as had been sent to Barbary or to the Grand Turk. The letter to Don Luis de Cordoba merely asked for his good offices in obtaining Don John's consent to his proposal. To these communications the council resolved that no direct answer should be given. But Don Antonio de Valor himself was entrusted to write to his son, assuring him that neither he nor his other son had suffered torture or ill-treatment of any kind, and advising him to forsake his evil courses, and return to his allegiance. Such a letter having been written by Valor, it was despatched to Aben Umeya, who in a few days sent a reply, which never reached its destination. Written in Castillian, it was enclosed in an Arabic letter to Xoaybi, Alcayde of Guejar, who was required to forward it to Granada in haste and secrecy. But that Morisco, sharing the discontent and suspicion which the rebel king's correspondence with Granada had already caused, thought fit to detain it, and the first intimation of its existence which the Christians obtained was from the Arabic letter before 174 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vin. mentioned, found among the effects of Xoaybi, when, later in the war, Guejar fell into the hands of the royal troops. Meanwhile Aben Umeya received secret information from Moriscos in Almeria, that the garrison there was insufficient for the defence of the place, and that the moment was favourable for the surprise of a seaport which would be of the greatest advan- tage in his future operations. He accordingly collected around him at Andarax all the forces he could muster, and prepared for the enterprise. But though slenderly provided with soldiers, Almeria was fortunate in possessing a watchful and active com- mander in Don Garcia de Villareal. Hearing of Aben Umeya's preparations, this bold captain determined, in spite of the smallness of his own force, to anticipate his attack. On the 23d of July, he marched out at the head of two hundred musketeers and thirty horse, taking the road along the coast to Inox. Halting at night- fall for a few hours' repose, he informed his men, up to this time ignorant of their destination, that he intended to surprise Guejar, a considerable village occupied by a portion of the rebel force, and within four leagues of Andarax, the headquarters of the rebel king. Some of his officers were at first staggered by the boldness of the design, but they were eventually won over by the reasoning of their chief. Resuming their march after dark, by a difficult path over the hills, they reached the unsuspecting village, unper- ceived, at dawn, put many of the Mcriscos to the sword, chased the fugitives for some distance in the direction of Andarax, and finally turned their faces homewards without loss, and with one hundred and twenty captives, and a long train of mules laden with plunder. When the news reached Aben Umeya, he de- spatched a strong body of his swiftest men on the track of the Christians. Anticipating this movement, Villareal halted at a favourable point of the road to receive them, and so intimidated them by the bold front which he presented, that they immediately retreated, on seeing their leader slain by the first shot fired by a royalist musketeer. This expedition produced not only the desired effect of deterring Aben Umeya from his descent upon Almeria, but likewise a breach between him and Moriscos in the place who were well disposed to his cause. Believing that they had purposely deceived him as to the strength of the garrison, in order to lure him upon a desperate enterprise, he treated all of them who fell into his hands as criminals and traitors. If there was evidence to show that they had been seen speaking to Villareal, they were put to the most cruel deaths. Some were CHAP. VIII. THE MORISCO REBELLION. '75 buried to the waist and shot at as a mark, others were quartered, and one was sawn asunder alive. Within a few days, twenty- three Moriscos of Almeria and the vicinity were missing, and it was supposed that they had fallen victims to the vengeance of Aben Umeya. Terrified by his severity, those of the race who before had been ready to give him information, or to act as spies, refused to run the double danger of punishment from both sides ; and strong exasperation against him took the place of secret good-will to his cause. About the same time Don John of Austria sent an expedition, of greater pretension, but with far less result, into the valley of i 7 6 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP, vin Lecrin. Don Antonio dc Luna marched from Granada at the head of three thousand two hundred foot and one hundred and twenty horse ; and at Tablate was joined by the garrison of that place, consisting of three companies of infantry, under the captain, Alonso de Cespedes. This officer was a veteran of the Imperial armies, famous for his personal strength, who in 1546 swam the Elbe with a few followers, and in the face of the enemy seized some boats which secured to the Emperor and his troops a pass- age to their victory at Muhlberg. 1 With their imposing force Luna and Cespedes proceeded to scour the valley. But the revolted villages were all found empty both of the inhabitants and their goods ; and of the skirmishes which took place between the royal troops and parties of the enemy only one was worth record- ing. On a hill near Restaval, on the 25th of July, Cespedes found the Morisco chief, Rendati, strongly posted, in charge of a large number of women, and much cattle and baggage. The Christian captain had with him only two hundred arquebusiers ; but although the enemy greatly outnumbered him, the temptation of booty was irresistible, and he led his men up the height. The rebels were so well prepared to receive them that, after the smoke and dust of the first onslaught had somewhat cleared away, Cespedes found that most of his marksmen had fled, leaving him with some twenty better spirits to finish the adventure. Rallying this little band, he threw himself into the midst of the foes ; and with his famous Valencian sword, three fingers broad, and weighing fourteen pounds, he is said to have cloven a hundred of them, through head or shoulder, to the girdle. 2 A bullet, however, piercing his cuirass, laid him dead on the hillside. There was hardly a Morisco in the combat who did not plunge his weapon into the body of the fallen champion ; and his banner and sword were sent as trophies to the kingling of the Alpuxarras. Don John of Austria heard with great sorrow of the death of 1 Rod. Menclez Silva : Compendia de las hazanas que obro el Capitan Alonso de Ces- pedes, Alcides Castcllano, sm. 8vo, Madrid, 1647, fol. 26. He was born at Orcajo, in La Mancha, in 1518. Among his feats of strength were, riding a very large horse under a gateway, and there grasping an iron bar fixed above his head, and lifting the animal from the ground by the pressure of his legs (fol. 29) ; and tearing from the wall of a church a marble vessel of holy water, and presenting it to a lady whom the crowd had prevented from approaching it (fol. 32). The book has his portrait prefixed, by J. de Noort ; a bust in armour within an oval. He has a bold soldierly face, with a pair of fierce mustachios. Below were his canting arms or, six turfs or sods (Cespedes, fr. Cesped, a sod) vert, surrounded by an orle gules, with eight X-shaped crosses or. 2 Gines Perez de Hyta (Guerras Civiles de Granada, 8vo, Paris, 1847. Parte ii. cap. xiii. p. 321) says he had had it in his own hand, and had seen it weighed. Mendez Silva (Hazanas de Cespedes, fol. 49) says it was preserved in his time by D. Fernando, the nephew of Cespedes, at Ciudad Real. CHAP. vin. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 177 this stout soldier of his sire, whom, but two days before, he had recommended to the King for promotion to the rank of major (inaese de campo) and a commandery of Santiago. The mangled corpse was afterwards found under a heap of stones, and removed to the church of Restaval ; and the spot where he fell, near the road from Granada to Motril, was marked by a large stone cross, inscribed, Here died the great captain Alonso de Cespedes the brave} During the whole summer, the Marquess of Los Velez had remained in a state of unwilling and feverish inactivity in his camp at Adra. Want of employment and plunder had wofully thinned his ranks ; and desertion was now compelled and justified by a dearth of provisions. In despatch after despatch, he had entreated the King to send him supplies, reinforcements, and orders to act, and entreated in vain. It seemed almost as if Philip the Second was in league with the Morisco pretender against his own commanders. The fall of Seron, however, re- minded him that the enemy would not always suspend his opera- tions until he and his council had agreed upon the best mode of resisting them. Towards the end of July, orders had been issued which had brought to Adra, in the galleys of the Grand Com- mander of Castille, the Italian troops ; the garrison of Orgiba, commanded by Don Juan de Mendoza, their place being supplied by Don Francisco de Benavides, with one thousand infantry from Guadix, and fifty horse from Granada ; five companies of Cordobese foot, under the Marquess of Favara ; and a regiment of Catalans from Tortosa, led by Antic Sarriera. The galleys had likewise made three voyages, bringing munitions and pro- visions from Motril. Thus reinforced, and obeying orders which he had been instructed to take from the council at Granada, Los Velez, on the 26th of July, broke up his camp at Adra, and began his march to Uxixar. His force consisted of twelve thousand foot and four hundred horse, each man carrying rations for five days. Halting the first evening at Verja, he remained there for three days, informing himself of the state of the road, and the movements of the enemy. From Verja the road lay through wild hills intersected with difficult gorges, offering every facility to an opposing force. But although El Hoseyn, with five thousand Moriscos, at a pass called the Cow Pass (paso de las Vacas), hovered in front and on the flanks of the army, no serious resistance was made to its advance. 1 Aqui murio el gran capilan Alonso de Ccsptdes el bravo, Mendez Silva : Hazaflas de Cespedes, fol. 50-51. VOL. I. N I7 g DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vm. In the skirmish which there took place, Los Velez, unexpectedly passing a ravine with his cavalry, overtook and slew fifty of the light-footed mountaineers ; and besides a number of baggage- mules which sank under their loads, and were trodden to death in the same ravine, the Christian loss consisted only in a few men and horses who perished of fatigue and thirst. From Lucaynena, the halting-place of the fifth night, they pushed on next day to Uxixar, and occupied the place, the Moriscos retiring to the hills at their approach. They had hardly taken possession, when El Zaguer arrived with a force which he had brought up from the valley of Almanzora to support El Hoseyn. He, too, finding an attack out of the question, retired greatly discouraged, and died a few days afterwards, of disease, at Mecina de Tedel. Los Velez had held Uxixar for two days, when his scouts brought him intelligence that Aben Umeya, with the whole rebel army, was at Valor, anxious to give battle. Desiring no better news, he made a careful personal examination of part of the ground which it was necessary to traverse in order to gratify the desire of the Morisco. Contrary to the opinion of the guides, who recommended a circuitous route, he determined to advance directly up the course of a stream, which flowed, during winter, from the mountains around Valor, but which was now nearly dry. On the 3d of August, the army, having heard mass, began its march. The van was led by Don Pedro de Padilla and his veteran infantry. Next came the cavalry, headed by Los Velez himself. The gallant Marquess wore armour of dark steel, a helmet with an ample plume, and a broad crimson scarf, and carried in his hand a lance rather stout than long. His bay charger, also distinguished by a well-plumed l headpiece, rivalled, in his proud action, " the pride and fiery spirit of the master " whom he bore." The baggage followed the cavalry ; and after the baggage came the regiments of Cordoba and Murcia, led by the Marquess of Favara. The rear-guard consisted of the soldiers from Orgiba, led by Don Juan de Mendoza, and the Catalans under Sarriera. To avoid surprise, each division threw out, right and left, parties of skirmishers along the sides of the valley. In this order they approached within a short distance of Valor. There, at a turn of the valley, on a hill which seemed to bar further progress, Aben Umeya had posted fifteen hundred chosen musketeers to receive them. He himself was conspicuous on a white horse, dressed in a crimson robe and a Turkish turban. 1 Luis de Marmol Carvajal : Hist, de la Rebelion, ii. p. 133. CHAP. viii. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 179 Riding from rank to rank, he exhorted his men not to fear the empty name of the Marquess of Los Velez, but to fight bravely, trusting in God, who never forsook his people. The battle which ensued was obstinately contested, although from the nature of the ground only a small number on each side could engage at once. The undisciplined Moriscos fought, as their enemies confessed, with the order and tenacity of regular troops ; and Padilla and his captains found it necessary to dismount from their horses, and on foot lead their men in the repeated charges which were required to break the stubborn ranks of the rebels. Two hundred Moriscos and thirty Christians lay dead before any ground was gained by the latter. Meanwhile Los Velez remarked a water- course to the left of his position, up which he sent a few troops under his son, Diego Faxardo. Slowly and in single file the horsemen pursued this difficult path unobserved, and, forming in a small vineyard behind the rebels, charged them in the rear to their great astonishment and dismay. The panic spread through the whole army, which immediately betook itself to flight, scatter- ing itself over the hills like a mist before the breeze. Aben Umeya, after vain efforts to rally the fugitives, was himself com- pelled to follow their example. Passing beyond the village of Valor, he dismounted at the mouth of a wild gorge and hamstrung his white horse ; and there he also took a false and cruel revenge upon his conquerors, by hanging two prisoners who were with him, Diego de Mirones, the gallant Alcayde of Seron, and Juan Alguacil, a Christian of Filabres. He then plunged into the Sierra, leaving their bodies to be found by the royalist infantry who were already on his track, and who bivouacked near the spot. Los Velez, followed by fifty of his cavalry, pushed on the same night to Calahorra. There he found none of the supplies upon which he had counted, having addressed repeated memorials to the King on the importance of providing them. The army meanwhile remained in and around Valor, suffering much from want of food, especially the Catalan regiment, which had left behind at Adra for the sake of lightness half of the five days' rations which had been served out, and on which for nine days the troops had been chiefly subsisting. Messengers being sent off in all directions, to Granada, Baza, and Guadix, the bishop of the last-named town, with a promptitude not usual in Spanish affairs, despatched next day two hundred mules laden with bread and biscuit, which afforded some relief. After two days' delay at Valor, during which time the houses of Aben Umeya and his 180 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vin. relatives \vere burned to the ground, the famished army moved on to Calahorra with many sick, victims to hunger and the keen air of the Sierra. The victory of the Christians at Valor, though signal, was by no means decisive. The loss sustained by the rebels was, owing to the difficulty of the ground, but small, and the real advantage gained by the conquerors consisted in the destruction of a favourite rallying-point, and the blow inflicted upon the military reputation of the rebel king. His captains began to lose confidence in him, and the feeling spread rapidly through the mass of his followers. The tide of his fortune had turned, and the efforts which he made to maintain his position became the means of his destruction. On the day of the battle of Valor, he despatched El Habaqui to sue for assistance at Algiers. The emissary reached the coast, crossed the sea in safety, and induced Aluch Ali, the Turkish Pasha, to publish a proclamation, permitting his subjects to enlist under the banner of the Morisco, and fight the battles of the Crescent in Spain. Hope of plunder, and hatred of the Christian name, soon assembled a large and excellent body of volunteers. But no sooner was the number complete, than the treacherous Aluch Ali marched them off on an expedition of his own against Tunis, leaving El Habaqui, instead, a permission to ship for Spain all the criminals, in and out of the Algerine prisons, who chose to earn a pardon by joining his enterprise. From these base materials the Morisco selected a band of four hundred musketeers, whom he placed under the command of Hoseyn, a Turkish felon, and landed safely in Spain. The eight galleys which conveyed them were also laden with arms and ammunition sent on specula- tion by Algerine traders ; and another convoy of stores, shipped by Jews and Moors at Tetuan, about the same time, likewise eluded the vigilance of Requesens and his cruisers, and found its way into the Alpuxarras. During the greater part of August and September there was a cessation of active hostilities, as if by mutual consent. The remissness of the Christians lost to their cause all the advantages which might have been gained from the action at Valor. Their inactivity is to be attributed to the want of concert between Mon- dejar and Los Velez, and the imprudence of the Government at Madrid. The only feat of arms which disturbed the general lull was a night attack, made on the 2 I st of August, by the Moriscos on Padul. They wisely approached the place by the road from Granada, and were at first, therefore, taken for an escort coming CHAP. vin. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 181 with supplies from the city. A sentinel, indeed, discovered them, but his alarm was laughed at by his comrades, who deemed an attack from that side impossible. The result of this security was a conflict which lasted for four hours, and terminated in favour of the assailants. The loss of the latter was considerable ; but they carried off thirty horses and much other booty, slew fifty Christian soldiers, and retired only at the approach of a squadron of cavalry from Otura, followed by a strong force under the Duke of Sesa, to whom timely notice of the affair had been conveyed. Early in September, Juan de Quiroga, the secretary of Don John of Austria, died at Granada. In a letter announcing the event to the King, Don John spoke of him with kindness as having served him well, and suggested, as a desirable successor, one of two persons Arriola, in the office of the secretary Eraso ; and Soto, formerly in the service of Don Garcia de Toledo. The first he represented as a man of ability, with considerable know- ledge of law, but ignorant of maritime affairs, while the second had been much at sea with his former chief, and was therefore well versed in the business of a fleet. But considering that military experience by land was at present of special importance, and holding that an able man trained in that school would easily pick up the knowledge necessary for a secretary at sea, he was disposed, of the two, to prefer Arriola. 1 The choice of the King fell upon Soto, who, though he was not the choice of Don John, gave him great satisfaction. 2 While the Christians were thus inactive in the field, their councils were the scenes of many battles. At Granada, Los Velez was bitterly blamed for retiring upon Calahorra after his victory at Valor, and also after his previous vaunting offer to reduce the Alpuxarras to obedience with half the number of men actually around his standard. He, on his part, considered himself very ill-used by the council at Granada. He alleged that he had no choice but to retire from a country which could not support his troops, when he found that Calahorra, whence he had counted upon drawing his supplies, remained unprovisioned ; that not only had this neglect forced him to quit the Alpuxarras, but had 1 Don John of Austria to the King [Granada], Sept. 6, 1569 ; a letter, of which the draft is in the possession of Don Pascual de Gayangos. Doc. Ined. , xxviii. 20. 2 Don John of Austria to the King [Granada], Oct. 4 [1569]. Beso las manos a V. M. por la merced que fue servido hacerme en enviarme a Soto, persona tan habil de cualidad y suficencia, que cierto conozco que hay todo esto en su persona, y que tenien- dola a par de mi no tengo necesidad de mas para clar bastante recuerdo a los negocios porque muestra entenderlos y estar muy instruido en ellos, y con satisfacion general de todos los que negocian. Doc. fneJ. , xxviii. 30. 182 DON JOHN OF AUSTRIA. CHAP. vin. greatly thinned his ranks by desertion ; that, forty days before he moved from Adra, he had urged the council to collect stores of all kinds at Calahorra, and that his demands had been neglected through the personal ill-will of Mondejar, Sesa, and Luis Quixada. Each party made its complaint to the King, and after further discussion at Madrid, Mondejar was called to Court to give an account of the affair. He did not return to Granada ; but after accompanying the King to the Cortes held at Cordoba in the following spring, he was named Viceroy of Valencia, and after- wards, of Naples. Don John appears to have taken the side of his council, and to have written to the King complaining of the arrogance of Los Velez. Philip, while he admitted that there was justice in the charge, endeavoured to keep the peace between them, assuring Don John that the Marquess had never ventured to cast any blame upon him, and pointing out that the interests of the service required that they should act together in a courteous and amicable spirit. With Don John himself the King remonstrated against his going out with skirmishing parties to harass or surprise the enemy. " I heard with regret," he wrote, " that you had been " out the other day on one of these expeditions, because it does " not befit you, nor is it your duty, which is to watch over the " safety of the city. ... If a large force went with you, the " Moriscos might appear on the other side, and effect something " which might be inconvenient ; so you must do this no more. " Even if the Duke of Sesa and Luis Quixada go with you, that " is not right, for one of them ought to look after such things, " and the other remain with you. I have also heard that you go " and visit the sentinels, and watch the patrols on their rounds : " this should not be done by you too often ; only from time to " time when circumstances require it." 1 Don John promised to treat Los Velez with all courtesy and consideration ; but he was very averse to shutting himself up in Granada if there was anything to be done against the enemy in which he could take a part. " If I had more experience and " practice in my profession," he wrote, " I should have nothing to " reply to your Majesty, but seeing that I am only learning the " service in which I hope to die, it is not right that I should miss " what opportunities there are of improving myself in it, and " besides, I know that it does not suit your Majesty's affairs. I " entreat you to observe how little it befits me, being what I am, 1 Philip II. to Don John of Austria ; Madrid, yth September 1569. CHAP. vin. THE MORISCO REBELLION. 183 " or my age, that I should shut myself up, when I ought to be "showing myself abroad." 1 In vain the King replied: "You " must keep yourself, and I must keep you, for greater things, " and it is from these that you must learn your professional " knowledge." 2 Don John's reasonable and spirited rejoinder was : " I am certainly most desirous to give satisfaction to your " Majesty, and do in all things as you wish ; but at my age, and " in my position, I see that your Majesty's interest requires that " when there is any call to arms or any enterprise, the soldiers " should find me in front of them, or at least with them, ready to " encourage them to do their duty, and that they should know " that I desire to lead them in the name of your Majesty." 3 For some weeks the war was waged but languidly on either side. At Albacete de Orgiba the garrison had some skirmishing with the Moriscos. By order of Don John, Francisco de Molina had repaired and improved the defences of that place, carrying them round the church, and providing, by means of cross-walls and trenches, safe and easy communication between the different works, in spite of certain crags from which the Moorish sharp- shooters were wont to annoy the garrison. Water, however, was wanting, nor was it found after sinking wells to the depth of a hundred and fifty feet. Molina therefore dug a number of deep pits inside his walls, purposing to fill them with the water of an acequia or irrigating stream which passed near the town. As soon as these pits were completed, Aben Umeya, who had been watching the operation, sent eleven companies, or banners as they were called, of Moriscos to cut off the stream, at the point where it was drawn from the river, about half a league above the place. Diego Nunez, with two hundred musketeers, succeeded in protect- ing the stream, but was not strong enough to dislodge the enemy. Reinforcements, at first under Lorenzo de Avila, and next led by Molina in person, finally accomplished this object, and guarded the point of attack until nightfall. After dark the Christians retired, leaving among the shrubs and rocks a number of lighted rope-matches, which, being supposed to belong to a strong party of arquebusiers, not only secured to their reservoirs a free supply of the water during the night, but tempted the Moorish marksmen, who hovered amongst the higher crags, to waste a good deal of powder and ball. In the morning, the reservoirs being full, no 1 Don John of Austria to Philip II., 23d September 1569. Doc. Ined., xxviii. p. 26. 2 Philip II. to Don John of Austria, 3