CHAPTER IV.

REBELLION OF THE MORISCOES.

Situation of Haben-Humeya--Fate of the Moorish Prisoners--Storming of Guajaras--Escape of Haben-Humeya--Operations of Los Velez--Cabal against Mondejar--Licence of the Soldiers--Massacre in Granada--The Insurrection rekindled.

1569.

Before the marquis of Mondejar quitted Jubíles, he received a visit from seventeen of the principal Moriscoes in that part of the country, who came to tender their submission, exculpating themselves, at the same time, from any share in the insurrection, and humbly suing for the captain-general's protection. This, agreeably to his policy, he promptly accorded, granting them a safe-conduct, with instructions to tell their countrymen what he had done, and persuade them, if possible, to return to their allegiance, as the only way of averting the ruin that else would speedily overtake them. This act of clemency, so repugnant to the feelings of the Spaniards, was a new cause of disgust to his soldiers, who felt that the fair terms thus secured by the rebels were little less than a victory over themselves.[84] Yet the good effects of this policy were soon made visible, when the marquis resumed his march; for, as his favourable dispositions became more generally known, numbers of the Moriscoes, and several places on the route, eagerly tendered their submission, imploring his mercy, and protection against his followers.

Aben-Humeya, meanwhile, who lay at Paterna, with his wives and his warriors gathered around, saw with dismay that his mountain throne was fast sliding away from beneath him. The spirit of distrust and disaffection had crept into his camp. It was divided into two parties; one of these, despairing of further resistance, would have come instantly to terms with the enemy; the other still adhered to a bolder policy; but its leaders, if we may trust the Castilian writers, were less influenced by patriotic than by personal motives, being for the most part men who had borne so conspicuous a part in the insurrection, that they could scarcely hope to be included in any amnesty granted by the Spaniards. Such, in particular, were the African adventurers, who had distinguished themselves above all others by their ferocious persecution of the Christians. They directed, at this time, the counsels of the Moorish prince, filling his mind with suspicions of the loyalty of some of his followers, especially of the father of one of his wives,--a person of much authority among the Moriscoes. To suspect and to slay were words of much the same import with Aben-Humeya. He sent for his relative, and, on his entering the apartment, caused him to be despatched before his eyes.[85] He would have followed this up by the murder of some others of the family, if they had not eluded his grasp; thus establishing his title to a descent from those despots of the East with whom the lives of their kindred were of as little account as the vermin in their path.[86]

He was still at the head of a numerous army; its number, indeed, amounting to six thousand men, constituted its greatest strength; for, without discipline, almost without arms, it was made up of such rude, incongruous materials, that, as he already had experience, it could never abide the shock of battle from the militia of Castile. The Moorish prince had other causes for discouragement in the tidings he was hourly receiving of the defection of his subjects. The clemency shown by the conqueror was doing more for him than his arms,--as the snow which the blasts of winter have only bound more closely to the hill-side loosens its hold and falls away under the soft touch of spring. Notwithstanding his late display of audacity, the unhappy young man now lost all confidence in his own fortunes and in his followers. Sorely perplexed, he knew not where to turn. He had little of the constancy or courage of the patriot who has perilled his life in a great cause; and he now had recourse to the same expedient which he had so lately punished with death in his father-in-law.

He sent a message to the marquis of Mondejar, offering to surrender, and, if time were given, to persuade his people to follow his example. Meanwhile he requested the Spanish commander to stay his march, and thus prevent a collision with his troops. Mondejar, though he would not consent to this, advanced more leisurely, while he opened a negotiation with his enemy. He had already come in sight of the rebel forces, when he consented, at the request of Aben-Humeya, to halt for a night in the neighbouring village of Iniza, in order to give time for a personal interview. This required the troops, some of whom had now advanced within musket-range of the enemy, to fall back, and take up ground in the rear of their present position. In executing this manoeuvre, they came almost in contact with a detachment of the Moorish army, who, in their ignorance of its real object, regarding the movement as a hostile demonstration, sent a shower of arrows and other missiles among the Spaniards, which they returned, with hearty goodwill, by a volley of musketry. The engagement soon became general. Aben-Humeya at the time was reading a letter, which he had just received from one of Mondejar's staff, arranging the place for the interview, when he was startled by the firing, and saw with consternation his own men warmly engaged with the enemy. Supposing he had been deceived by the Spaniards, he flung the letter on the ground, and throwing himself into the saddle, without so much as attempting to rally his forces, which were now flying over the field in all directions, he took the road to the Sierra Nevada, followed by only five or six of his attendants.[87] His horse was fleet, and he soon gained the defiles of the mountains. But he was hotly pursued; and, thinking it safer to trust to himself than to his horse, he dismounted, cut the hamstrings of the animal, to prevent his being of service to his pursuers, and disappeared in the obscure depths of the sierra, where it would have been fruitless to follow him.

[Sidenote: THE FALL OF JUBILES.]

The rout of his army was complete; and the victors might have inflicted an incalculable loss on the fugitives, had not the marquis of Mondejar called off his troops, and put a stop to the work of death. He wished to keep open as widely as possible the door of reconciliation. His conduct, which was not understood, and could not have been appreciated by his men, was stigmatized by them as treachery. They found some amends for their disappointment in the pillage of Paterna, the residence of Aben-Humeya, which well provided with the costly finery so much loved by the Moriscoes, furnished a welcome booty to the conquerors.[88]

Among the Moorish captives were Aben-Humeya's mother, two of his sisters, and one of his wives, to whom, as usual, Mondejar extended his protection.

Yet the disposal of his prisoners was a subject of perplexity to the Spanish commander. His soldiers, as we have seen, would have settled it at once, had their captain consented, by appropriating them all as the spoils of victory. There were many persons, higher in authority than these soldiers, who were of the same way of thinking on the subject with them. The question was one of sufficient importance to come before the government. Philip referred it to the council of state; and, regarding it as a case of conscience, in which the interests of religion were concerned, he asked the opinion of the Royal Audience of Granada, over which Deza presided. The final decision was what might have been expected from tribunals with inquisitors at their head. The Moriscoes, men and women, were declared to have incurred by their rebellion the doom of slavery. What is more remarkable is the precedent cited for this judgment, it being no other than a decision of the Council of Toledo, as far back as the time of the Visigoths, when certain rebellious Jews were held to have forfeited their liberty by an act of rebellion.[89] The Morisco, it was said, should fare no better than the Jew, since he was not only, like him, a rebel and an infidel, but an apostate to boot. The decision, it was understood, was very satisfactory to Philip, who, however, "with the pious moderation that distinguished so just and considerate a prince,"[90] so far mitigated the severity of the sentence, in the pragmatic which he published, as to exempt from its operation boys under ten years of age and girls under eleven. These were to be placed in the care of responsible persons, who would give them the benefits of a Christian education. Unhappily, there is reason to think that the good intentions of the government were not very conscientiously carried out in respect to this provision by those intrusted with the execution of it.[91]

While the question was pending, Jubíles fell into the hands of the victors; and Mondejar, not feeling himself at liberty to release his female captives, of whom more than a thousand, by this event, had come into his possession, delivered them in charge to three of the principal Moriscoes, to whom, it may be remembered, he had given letters of safe-conduct. They were allowed to restore the women to their families, on condition that they should all be surrendered on the demand of the government. Such an act, it must be admitted, implies great confidence in the good faith of the Moslems,--a confidence fully justified by the result. When, in obedience to the pragmatic, they were claimed by the government, they were delivered up by their families,--with the exception of some who had died in the meantime,--and the greater part of them were sold by public auction in Granada.[92]

The only place of any importance which now held out against Mondejar was Las Guájaras, situated in the plains of Salobreña, in the direction of Velez Malaga. This was a rocky, precipitous hill, on the summit of which, nature, with little assistance from art, had constructed a sort of rude fortress. It was held by a fierce band of Moriscoes, who, descending from the heights, swept over the plains, carrying on devastating forays, that made them the terror of the surrounding country. Mondejar, moved by the complaints of the inhabitants, left Ugijar on the fifth of February, at the head of his whole array, now much augmented by the arrival of recent levies, and marched rapidly on Guájaras. He met with a more formidable resistance than he had expected. His first attempt to carry the place was repulsed with a heavy loss on the part of the assailants. The Moorish garrison, from its elevated position, poured a storm of missiles on their heads, and, what was worse, rolled down huge masses of rock, which, ploughing through the Castilian ranks, overthrew men and horses, and did as great execution as would have been done by artillery. Eight hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field: and many a noble house in Andalusia had to go into mourning for that day's disaster.

Mondejar, stung by this repulse,--the first reverse his arms had experienced,--determined to lead the attack in person on the following day. His approaches were made with greater caution than before; and, without much injury, he succeeded in bringing his arquebusiers on a higher level, where their fire swept the enemy's intrenchments and inflicted on him a terrible loss. Still the sun went down, and the place had not surrendered. But El Zamar, its brave defender, without ammunition, almost without arms, felt that there was no longer hope for his little garrison. Silently evacuating the place, therefore, at dead of night, the Moriscoes, among whom were both women and children, scrambled down the precipice with the fearlessness of the mountain goat, and made their escape without attracting the notice of the Spaniards. They left behind only such as, from age or infirmity, were unable to follow them in their perilous descent.

On the next day, when the Spanish general prepared to renew the assault, great was his astonishment to find that the enemy had vanished, except only a few wretched beings incapable of making any resistance. All the evil passions of Mondejar's nature had been roused by the obstinate defence of the place, and the lives it had cost him. In the heat of his wrath, he ordered the helpless garrison to be put to the sword. No prayer for mercy was heeded. No regard was had to age or to sex. All were cut down in the presence of the general, who is even said to have stimulated the faltering soldiers to go through with their bloody work.[93] An act so hard to be reconciled with his previous conduct has been referred by some to the annoyance which he felt at being so frequently taxed with excessive lenity to the Moriscoes, an accusation which was carried, indeed, before the crown, and which the present occasion afforded him the means of effectually disproving. However this may be, the historian must lament the tarnished honour of a brave and generous chief, whose character up to this time had been sullied by none of those acts of cruelty which distinguished this sanguinary war.[94]

[Sidenote: CAPTURE AND DEATH OF EL ZAMAR.]

But even this cruelty was surpassed by that of his son, the count of Tendilla. El Zamar, the gallant defender of the fortress, wandered about among the crags with his little daughter, whom he carried in his arms. Famished and fainting from fatigue, he was at length overtaken by his enemies, and sent off as a prisoner to Granada, where the fierce Tendilla caused the flesh to be torn from his bones with red-hot pincers, and his mangled carcase, yet palpitating with life, to be afterwards quartered. The crime of El Zamar was that he had fought too bravely for the independence of his nation.

Having razed the walls of Guajaras to the ground, Mondejar returned with his blood-stained laurels to his head-quarters at Orgiba. Tower and town had gone down before him. On every side his arms had proved victorious. But one thing was wanting--the capture of Aben-Humeya, the "little king" of the Alpujarras. So long as he lived, the insurrection, now smothered, might be rekindled at any time. He had taken refuge, it was known, in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada, where, as the captain-general wrote, he was wandering from rock to rock with only a handful of followers.[95] Mondejar sent two detachments of soldiers into the sierra, to discover his haunts, if possible, and seize upon his person.

The commander of one of these parties, named Maldonado, ascertained that Aben-Humeya, secreting himself among the fastnesses of the mountains by day, would steal forth at night, and repair, with a few of his followers, to a place called Mecina, on the skirts of the sierra. Here he found shelter in the house of his kinsman, Aben-Aboo, one of those Moriscoes who, after the affair of Jubíles, had obtained a safe-conduct from Mondejar. Having gained this intelligence, and learned the situation of the house, the Spanish captain marched, with his little band of two hundred soldiers, in that direction. He made his approach with the greatest secrecy. Travelling by night, he reached undiscovered the neighbourhood of Aben-Aboo's residence. Advancing under cover of the darkness, he had arrived within gunshot of the dwelling, when, at this critical moment, all his precautions were defeated by the carelessness of one of his company, whose arquebuse was accidentally discharged. The report, reverberating from the hills in the silence of night, roused the inmates of the house, who slept as the wearied mariner sleeps when his ship is in danger of foundering. One of them, El Zaguer, the uncle of Aben-Humeya, and the person who had been mainly instrumental in securing him his crown--a crown of thorns--was the first roused, and, springing to the window, he threw himself down, though the height was considerable, and made his way to the mountains.

His nephew, who lay in another part of the building, was not so fortunate. When he reached the window, he saw with dismay the ground in front occupied by a body of Castilian troops. Hastening to another window, he found it still the same; his enemies were everywhere around the house. Bewildered and sorely distressed, he knew not where to turn. Thus entrapped, and without the means of making any terms with his enemies, he knew he had as little to hope from their mercy as the wolf has from the hunters who have caught him in his lair. The Spaniards, meanwhile, were thundering at the door of the building for admittance. Fortunately it was well secured. A sudden thought occurred to Aben-Humeya, which he instantly put in execution. Hastening down stairs, he took his station behind the door, and gently drew the bolts. The noise was not heard amidst the din made by the assailants, who, finding the door give way, supposed they had forced the fastenings, and pouring in, soon spread themselves in every direction over the house in search of the fugitive. Aben-Humeya, ensconced behind the door, escaped observation; and, when his enemies had disappeared, stole out into the darkness, and, under its friendly mantle, succeeded in finding his way to the mountains.

It was in vain that the Spaniards, enraged at the loss of the quarry, questioned Aben-Aboo as to the haunts of his kinsman, and of El Zaguer, his uncle, in the sierra. Nor could the most excruciating tortures shake his constancy. "I may die," said the brave Morisco, "but my friends will live." Leaving him for dead, the soldiers returned to the camp, taking with them a number of prisoners, his companions. There was no one of them, however, that was not provided with a safe-conduct from the marquis, who accordingly set them at liberty; showing a respect for his engagements, in which unhappily, as we shall see hereafter, he was not too well imitated by his soldiers. The heroic Aben-Aboo, though left for dead, did not die, but lived to head another insurrection, and to take ample vengeance on his enemies.[96]

While the arms of the marquis of Mondejar were thus crowned with success, the war raged yet more fiercely on the eastern slopes of the Alpujarras, where a martial race of mountaineers threatened a descent on Almeria and the neighbouring places, keeping the inhabitants in perpetual alarm. They accordingly implored the government at Granada to take some effectual measures for their relief. The president, Deza, in consequence, desired the marquis of Los Velez, who held the office of adelantado of the adjoining province of Murcia, to muster a force and provide for the defence of the frontier. This proceeding was regarded by Mondejar's friends as an insult to that nobleman, whose military authority extended over the country menaced by the Moriscoes. The act was the more annoying, that the person invited to assume the command was a rival, between whose house and that of the Mendozas there existed an ancient feud. Yet the king sanctioned the proceeding, thinking perhaps that Mondejar was not in sufficient force to protect the whole region of the Alpujarras. However this may be, Philip, by this act, brought two commanders of equal authority on the theatre of action; men who, in their characters and habitual policy, were so opposed to each other, that little concert could 'be expected between them.

Don Luis Fajardo, marquis of Los Velez, was a nobleman somewhat advanced in years, most of which had been passed in the active duties of military life. He had studied the art of war under the great emperor, and had acquired the reputation of a prompt and resolute soldier, bold in action, haughty, indeed overbearing, in his deportment, and with an inflexible will, not to be shaken by friend or foe. The severity of his nature had not been softened under the stern training of the camp; and, as his conduct in the present expedition showed, he was troubled with none of those scruples on the score of humanity which so often turned the edge of Mondejar's sword from the defenceless and the weak. The Moriscoes, who understood his character well, held him in terror, as they proved by the familiar sobriquet which they gave him of the "iron-headed devil."[97]

[Sidenote: OPERATIONS OF LOS VELEZ.]

The marquis, on receiving the invitation of Deza, lost no time in gathering his kindred and numerous vassals around him; and they came with an alacrity which showed how willingly they obeyed the summons to a foray over the border. His own family was a warlike race, reared from the cradle amidst the din of arms. In the present expedition he was attended by three of his sons, the youngest of whom a boy of thirteen, had the proud distinction of carrying his father's banner.[98] With the levies promptly furnished from the neighbouring places, Los Velez soon found himself supported by a force of greater strength than that which followed the standard of Mondejar. At the head of this valiant but ill-disciplined array, he struck into the gloomy gorges of the mountains, resolved on bringing the enemy at once to battle.

Our limits will not allow room for the details of a campaign which in its general features bears so close a resemblance to that already described. Indeed the contest was too unequal to afford a subject of much interest to the general reader, while the details are of still less importance in a military view, from the total ignorance shown by the Moriscoes of the art of war.

The fate of the campaign was decided by three battles, fought successively at Huécija, Filix, and Ohanez, places all lying in the eastern ranges of the Alpujarras. That of Filix was the most sanguinary. A great number of stragglers hung on the skirts of the Morisco army; and besides six thousand--many of them women[99]--left dead upon the field, there were two thousand children, we are told, butchered by the Spaniards.[100] Some fled for refuge to the caves and thickets; but they were speedily dragged from their hiding-places, and massacred by the soldiers in cold blood. Others, to escape death from the hands of their enemies, threw themselves headlong down the precipices,--some of them with their infants in their arms,--and thus miserably perished. "The cruelties committed by the troops," says one of the army, who chronicled its achievements, "were such as the pen refuses to record.[101] I myself," he adds, "saw the corpse of a Morisco woman, covered with wounds, stretched upon the ground, with six of her children lying dead around her. She had succeeded in protecting a seventh, still an infant, with her body, and though the lances which pierced her had passed through its clothes, it had marvellously escaped any injury. It was clinging," he continues, "to its dead mother's bosom, from which it drew milk that was mingled with blood. I carried it away and saved it."[102] For the credit of human nature he records some other instances of the like kind, showing that a spark of humanity might occasionally be struck out from the flinty breasts of these marauders.

The field of battle afforded a rich harvest for the victors, who stripped the dead, and rifled the bodies of the women of collars, bracelets, ornaments of gold and silver, and costly jewels, with which the Moorish female loved to decorate her person. Sated with plunder, the soldiers took the first occasion to leave their colours and return to their homes. Their places were soon supplied, as the display of their riches sharpened the appetites of their countrymen, who eagerly floaked to the banner of a chief that was sure to lead them on to victory and plunder. But that chief, with all his stern authority, was no match for the spirit of insubordination that reigned among his troops; and, when he attempted to punish one of their number for a gross act of disobedience, he was made to understand that there were three thousand in the camp ready to stand by their comrade and protect him from injury.[103]

The wild excesses of the soldiery were strangely mingled with a respect for the forms of religion, that intimated the nature of the war in which they were engaged. Before entering into action the whole army knelt down in prayer, solemnly invoking the protection of Heaven on its champions. After the battle of Ohanez, where the mountain streams were so polluted with the gore that the Spaniards found it difficult to slake their thirst, they proceeded to celebrate the fête of the Purification of the Virgin.[104] A procession was formed to the church, which was headed by the marquis of Los Velez and his chivalry, clad in complete mail, and bearing white tapers in their hands. Then came the Christian women, who had been rescued from captivity, dressed, by the general's command, in robes of blue and white, as the appropriate colours of the Virgin.[105] The rear was brought up by a body of friars and other ecclesiastics, who had taken part in the crusade. The procession passed slowly between the files of the soldiery, who saluted it with volleys of musketry as it entered the church, where Te Deum was chanted, and the whole company prostrated themselves in adoration of the Lord of Hosts, who had given his enemies into their hands.

[Sidenote: CABAL AGAINST MONDEJAR.]

From this solemn act of devotion the troops proceeded to the work of pillage, in which the commander, unlike his rival, the marquis of Mondejar, joined as heartily as the meanest of his followers. The Moorish captives, to the number of sixteen hundred, among whom, we are told, were many young and beautiful maidens, instead of meeting with the protection they had received from the more generous Mondejar, were delivered up to the licentious soldiery; and for a fortnight there reigned throughout the camp a carnival of the wildest riot and debauchery.[106] In this strange confusion of the religious sentiment and of crimes most revolting to humanity, we see the characteristic features of the crusade. Nowhere do we find such a free range given to the worst passions of our nature as in the wars of religion,--where each party considers itself as arrayed against the enemies of God, and where the sanctity of the cause throws a veil over the foulest transgressions that hides their enormity from the eye of the transgressor.

While the Moriscoes were stunned by the fierce blows thus dealt in rapid succession by the iron-hearted marquis, the mild and liberal policy of his rival was still more effectually reducing his enemies to obedience. Disheartened by their reverses, exhausted by fatigue and hunger, as they roved among the mountains, without raiment to clothe or a home to shelter them, the wretched wanderers came in one after another to sue for pardon. Nearly all the towns and villages in the district assigned to Mondejar, oppressed with like feelings of despondency, sent deputations to the Spanish quarters, to tender their submission and to sue for his protection. While these were graciously received, the general provided for the future security of his conquests, by establishing garrisons in the principal places, and by sending small detachments to different parts, to act as a sort of armed police for the maintenance of order. In this way, says a contemporary, the tranquillity of the country was so well established, that small parties of ten or a dozen soldiers wandered unmolested from one end of it to the other.[107]

Mondejar, at the same time, wrote to the king, to acquaint him with the actual state of things. He besought his master to deal mercifully with the conquered people, and thus afford him the means of redeeming the pledges he had given for the favourable dispositions of the government.[108] He made another communication to the marquis of Los Velez, urging that nobleman to co-operate with him in the same humane policy, as the one best suited to the interests of the country. But his rival took a very different view of the matter; and he plainly told the marquis of Mondejar, that it would require more than one pitched battle yet to break the spirit of the Moriscoes; and that, since they thought so differently on the subject, the only way left was for each commander to take the course he judged best.[109]

Unfortunately, there were others--men, too, of influence at the court--who were of the same stern way of thinking as the marquis of Los Velez; men acting under the impulse of religious bigotry, of implacable hatred of the Moslems, and of a keen remembrance of the outrages they had committed. There were others who, more basely, thought only of themselves and of the profit they should derive from the continuance of the war.

Among those of the former class was the president Deza, with the members of the Audience and the civil authorities in Granada. Always viewing the proceedings of the captain-general with an unfriendly eye, they loudly denounced his policy to the king, condemning his ill-timed lenity to a crafty race, who would profit by it to rally from their late disasters and to form new plans of rebellion. It was not right, they said, that outrages like those perpetrated against both divine and human majesty should go unpunished.[110] Mondejar's enemies did not stop here, but accused him of defrauding the exchequer of its dues, the fifth of the spoils of war gained in battle from the infidel. Finally, they charged him with having shown want of respect for the civil authorities of Granada, in omitting to communicate to them his plan of operations.

The marquis, advised by his friends at court of these malicious attempts to ruin his credit with the government, despatched a confidential envoy to Madrid, to present his case before his sovereign and to refute the accusations of his enemies. The charge of peculation seems to have made no impression on the mind of a prince who would not have been slow to suspect, had there been any ground for suspicion. There may have been stronger grounds for the complaint of want of deference to the civil authorities of Granada. The best vindication of his conduct in this particular must be found in the character and conduct of his adversaries. From the first, Deza and the municipality had regarded him with jealousy, and done all in their power to thwart his plans and circumscribe his authority. It is only confidence that begets confidence. Mondejar, early accustomed to command, was probably too impatient of opposition.[111] He chafed under the obstacles and annoyances thrown in his way by his narrow-minded rivals. We have not the means before us of coming to a conclusive judgment on the merits of the controversy, but from what we know of the marquis's accusers, with the wily inquisitor at their head, we shall hardly err by casting our sympathies into the scale of the frank and generous-hearted soldier, who, while those that thus censured him were living at ease in the capital, had been fighting and following up the enemy, amidst the winter's tempests and across mountains covered with snow; and who, in little more than a month, without other aid than the disorderly levies of the cities, had quelled a dangerous revolt, and restored tranquillity to the land.

Philip was greatly perplexed by the different accounts sent to him of the posture of affairs in Granada. Mondejar's agent suggested to the council of state that it would be well if his majesty would do as his father, Charles the Fifth, would have done in the like case--repair himself to the scene of action, and observe the actual state of things with his own eyes. But the suggestion found no favour with the minister, Espinosa, who affected to hold the Moriscoes in such contempt, that a measure of this kind, he declared, would be derogatory to the royal dignity. A better course would be for his majesty to send some one as his representative, clothed with full powers to take charge of the war, and of a rank so manifestly pre-eminent, that neither of the two commanders now in the field could take umbrage at his appointment over their heads.

This suggestion, as the politic minister doubtless had foreseen, was much more to Philip's taste than that of his going in person to the scene of strife; for, however little he might shrink from any amount of labour in the closet, he had, as we have seen, a sluggish temperament, that indisposed him to much bodily exertion. The plan of sending some one to represent the monarch at the seat of war was accordingly approved; and the person selected for this responsible office was Philip's bastard brother, Don John of Austria.[112]

[Sidenote: LICENCE OF THE SOLDIERS.]

Rumours of what was going on in the cabinet at Madrid, reaching Granada from time to time, were followed by the most mischievous consequences. The troops, in particular, had no sooner learned that the marquis of Mondejar was about to be superseded in the command, than they threw off the little restraint he had been hitherto able to impose on them, and abandoned themselves to the violence and rapine to which they were so well disposed, and which seemed now to be countenanced by the president and the authorities in Granada. The very patrols whom Mondejar had commissioned to keep the peace were the first to set the example of violating it. They invaded the hamlets and houses they were sent to protect, plundered them of their contents, and committed the foulest outrages on their inmates. The garrisons in the principal towns imitated their example, carrying on their depredations, indeed, on a still larger scale. Even the capital, under the very eyes of the count of Tendilla, sent out detachments of soldiers, who with ruthless violence trampled down the green plantations in the valleys, sacked the villages, and dragged away the inhabitants from the midst of their blazing dwellings into captivity.[113]

It was with the deepest indignation that the marquis of Mondejar saw the fine web of policy he had been so busily contriving thus wantonly rent asunder by the very hands that should have protected it. He now longed as ardently as any in the province for the coming of some one entrusted with authority to enforce obedience from the turbulent soldiery; a task of still greater difficulty than the conquest of the enemy. While such was the state of things, an event occurred in Granada which, in its general character, may remind one of some of the most atrocious scenes of the French Revolution.

In the beginning of the troubles, the president had caused a number of Moriscoes, amounting to not less than a hundred and fifty, it is said, to be arrested and thrown into the prison of the Chancery. Certain treasonable designs, of which they had been suspected for a long time, furnished the feeble pretext for this violent proceeding. Some few, indeed, were imprisoned for debt. But the greater number were wealthy men, who enjoyed the highest consideration among their countrymen. They had been suffered to remain in confinement during the whole of the campaign; thus serving, in some sort, as hostages for the good behaviour of the people of the Albaicin.

Early in March, a rumour was circulated that the mountaineers, headed by Aben-Humeya, whose father and brother were among the prisoners, were prepared to make a descent on the city by night, and, with the assistance of the inhabitants of the Albaicin, to begin the work of destruction by assaulting the prison of the Chancery and liberating their countrymen. This report, readily believed, caused the greatest alarm among the citizens, boding no good to the unhappy prisoners. On the evening of the seventeenth, Deza received intelligence that lights had been seen on some of the neighbouring mountains, which seemed to be of the nature of signals, as they were answered by corresponding lights in some of the houses in the Albaicin. The assault, it was said, would doubtless be made that very night. The president appears to have taken no measures for the protection of the city, but, on receiving the information, he at once communicated it to the alcayde of the prison, and directed him to provide for the security of his prisoners. The alcayde lost no time in gathering his friends about him, and caused arms to be distributed among a body of Spaniards, of whom there appears to have been a considerable number confined in the place at this time. Thus prepared, they all remained, as in silent expectation of some great event.

At length, some time before midnight, the guard posted in the Campana, one of the towers of the Alhambra, struck the bell with a succession of rapid strokes, such as were used to give an alarm. In a moment every Spaniard in the prison was on his feet; and, the alcayde throwing open the doors and leading the way, they fell at once on their defenceless victims, confined in another quarter of the building. As many of these were old and infirm, and most of them inoffensive citizens, whose quiet way of life had little fitted them for brawl or battle, and who were now destitute of arms of any kind, they seemed to be as easy victims as the sheep into whose fold the famishing wolves have broken in the absence of the shepherd. Yet they did not give up their lives without an effort to save them. Despair lent them strength, and snatching up chairs, benches, or any other article of furniture in their cells, they endeavoured to make good their defence against the assailants. Some, exerting a vigour which despair only could have given, succeeded in wrenching stones from the walls or iron bars from the windows, and thus supplied themselves with the means, not merely of defence, but of doing some mischief to the assailants in their turn. They fought, in short, like men who are fighting for their lives. Some, however, losing all hope of escape, piled together a heap of mats, bedding, and other combustibles, and, kindling them with their torches, threw themselves into the flames, intending in this way to set fire to the building, and to perish in one general conflagration with their murderers.[114] But the flames they had kindled were soon extinguished in their own blood, and their mangled remains were left to blacken among the cinders of their funeral pile.

For two hours the deadly conflict between parties so unequally matched had continued; the one shouting its old war-cry of "Saint Iago," as if fighting on an open field; the other, if we may take the Castilian account, calling on their prophet to come to their assistance. But no power, divine or human, interposed in their behalf; and, notwithstanding the wild uproar caused by men engaged in a mortal struggle, by the sound of heavy blows and falling missiles, by the yells of the victors and the dying moans and agonies of the vanquished, no noise to give token of what was going on--if we are to credit the chroniclers--found its way beyond the walls of the prison. Even the guard stationed in the court-yard, we are assured, were not roused from their slumbers.[115]

At length some rumour of what was passing reached the city, where the story ran that the Moriscoes were in arms against their keepers, and would soon probably get possession of the gaol. This report was enough for the people, who, roused by the alarm-bell, were now in a state of excitement that disposed them to any deed of violence. Snatching up their weapons, they rushed, or rather flew, like vultures snuffing the carrion from afar, to the scene of slaughter. Strengthened by this reinforcement, the assailants in the prison soon completed the work of death; and, when the morning light broke through the grated windows, it disclosed the full extent of the tragedy. Of all the Moriscoes only two had escaped,--the father and brother of Aben-Humeya, over whom a guard had been especially set. Five Spaniards were slain, and seventeen wounded; showing the fierce resistance made by the Moslems, though destitute of arms.[116]

[Sidenote: THE INSURRECTION REKINDLED.]

Such was the massacre in the prison of the Chancery of Granada, which, as already intimated, nowhere finds a more fitting parallel than in the murders perpetrated on a still larger scale during the French Revolution, in the famous massacres of September. But the miscreants who perpetrated these enormities were the tools of a sanguinary faction, that was regarded with horror by every friend of humanity in the country. In Granada, on the other hand, it was the government itself, or at least those of highest authority in it, who were responsible for the deed. For who can doubt that a proceeding, the success of which depended on the concurrence of so many circumstances as to preclude the idea of accident, must have been countenanced, if not contrived, by those who had the direction of affairs?

Another feature, not the least striking in the case, is the apathy shown by contemporary writers,--men who on more than one occasion have been willing to testify their sympathy for the sufferings of the Moriscoes. One of these chroniclers, after telling the piteous tale, coolly remarks that it was a good thing for the alcayde of the prison, who pocketed a large sum of money which had been found on the persons of the wealthy Moors. Another, after noticing the imputation of an intended rising on the part of the prisoners as in the highest degree absurd, dismisses the subject by telling us that "the Moriscoes were a weak, scatter-brained race, with just wit enough to bring on themselves such a mishap,"--as he pleasantly terms the massacre.[117] The government of Madrid received the largest share of the price of blood. For when the wives and families of the deceased claimed the inheritance of their estates, in some cases very large, their claims were rejected--on what grounds we are not told--by the alcaldes of the Court of Audience in Granada, and the estates were confiscated to the use of the crown. Such a decision, remarks a chronicler, may lead one to infer that the prisoners had been guilty of even more heinous offences than those commonly imputed to them.[118] The impartial reader will probably come to a very different conclusion; and since it was the opulent burghers who were thus marked out for destruction, he may naturally infer that the baser passion of avarice mingled with the feelings of fear and hatred in bringing about the massacre.

However this may be, so foul a deed placed an impassable gulf between the Spaniards and the Moriscoes. It taught the latter that they could no longer rely on their perfidious enemy, who, while he was holding out to them one hand in token of reconciliation, was raising the other to smite them to the ground. A cry of vengeance ran through all the borders of the Alpujarras. Again the mountaineers rose in arms. They cut off stragglers, waylaid the patrols whom Mondejar had distributed throughout the country, and even menaced the military posts of the Spaniards. On some occasions, they encountered the latter with success in the open field, and in one instance defeated and slew a large body of Christians, as they were returning from a foray laden with plunder. Finally they invited Aben-Humeya to return and resume the command, promising to stand by him to the last. The chief obeyed the call and, leaving his retreat in the Sierra Nevada, again took possession of his domains, and, planting his blood-red flag on his native hills,[119] soon gathered around him a more formidable host than before. He even affected a greater pomp than he had before displayed. He surrounded himself with a body-guard of four hundred arquebusiers.[120] He divided his army into battalions and companies, and endeavoured to introduce into it something of the organization and tactics of the Spaniards.[121] He sent his brother Abdallah to Constantinople, to represent his condition to the Sultan, and to implore him to make common cause with his Moslem brethren in the Peninsula. In short, rebellion assumed a more audacious front than at any time during the previous campaign; and the Christians of Andalusia and Granada looked with the greatest anxiety for the coming of a commander possessed of sufficient authority to infuse harmony into the counsels of the rival chiefs, to enforce obedience from the turbulent soldiery, and to bring the war to a speedy conclusion.