Ferdinand conducted the siege all the while with his usual vigour, and spared no exposure of his person to peril or fatigue. On one occasion, seeing a party of Christians retreating in disorder before a squadron of the enemy, who had surprised them while fortifying an eminence near the city, the king, who was at dinner in his tent, rushed out with no other defensive armour than his cuirass, and, leaping on his horse, charged briskly into the midst of the enemy, and succeeded in rallying his own men. In the midst of the rencounter, however, when he had discharged his lance, he found himself unable to extricate his sword from the scabbard which hung from the saddle-bow. At this moment he was assaulted by several Moors, and must have been either slain or taken but for the timely rescue of the marquis of Cadiz, and a brave cavalier, Garcilasso de la Vega, who, galloping up to the spot with their attendants, succeeded, after a sharp skirmish, in beating off the enemy. Ferdinand’s nobles remonstrated with him on this wanton exposure of his person, representing that he could serve them more effectually with his head than his hand. But he answered that he could not stop to calculate chances when his subjects were perilling their lives for his sake—a reply, says Pulgar,c which endeared him to the whole army. At length the inhabitants of Velez consented to capitulate. The capitulation of this place (April 27th, 1487) was followed by that of more than twenty places of inferior note lying between it and Malaga, so that the approaches to this latter city were now left open to the victorious Spaniards.

THE SIEGE OF MALAGA

The old chronicler Bernáldezh warms at the aspect of the fair city of Malaga, encompassed by Christian legions, whose deep lines, stretching far over hill and valley, reached quite round from one arm of the sea to the other. In the midst of this brilliant encampment was seen the royal pavilion, proudly displaying the united banners of Castile and Aragon, and forming so conspicuous a mark for the enemy’s artillery that Ferdinand, after imminent hazard, was at length compelled to shift his quarters.

The Moors were not unmindful of the importance of Malaga, or the gallantry with which it was defended. They made several attempts to relieve it, the failure of which was owing less to the Christians than to treachery and their own miserable feuds. A body of cavalry, which El Zagal despatched from Guadix to throw succours into the beleaguered city, was encountered and cut to pieces by a superior force of the young king Abdallah, who consummated his baseness by sending an embassy to the Christian camp, charged with a present of Arabian horses sumptuously caparisoned to Ferdinand, and of costly silks and oriental perfumes to the queen; at the same time complimenting them on their successes, and soliciting the continuance of their friendly dispositions towards himself. Ferdinand and Isabella requited this act of humiliation by securing to Abdallah’s subjects the right of cultivating their fields in quiet, and of trafficking with the Spaniards in every commodity save military stores. At this paltry price did the dastard prince consent to stay his arm at the only moment when it could be used effectually for his country.

More serious consequences were like to have resulted from an attempt made by another party of Moors from Guadix to penetrate the Christian lines. Part of them succeeded, and threw themselves into the besieged city. The remainder were cut in pieces. There was one, however, who, making no show of resistance, was taken prisoner without harm to his person. Being brought before the marquis of Cadiz, he informed that nobleman that he could make some important disclosures to the sovereigns. He was accordingly conducted to the royal tent; but, as Ferdinand was taking his siesta, in the sultry hour of the day, the queen, moved by divine inspiration, according to the Castilian historian, deferred the audience till her husband should awake, and commanded the prisoner to be detained in the adjoining tent. This was occupied by Doña Beatrice de Bobadilla, marchioness of Moya, Isabella’s early friend, who happened to be at that time engaged in discourse with a Portuguese nobleman, Don Alvaro, son of the duke of Braganza.

The Moor did not understand the Castilian language, and, deceived by the rich attire and courtly bearing of these personages, he mistook them for the king and queen. He suddenly drew a dagger, and darting on the Portuguese prince, gave him a deep wound on the head, and then, turning like lightning on the marchioness, aimed a stroke at her, which fortunately glanced without injury, the point of the weapon being turned by the heavy embroidery of her robes. Before he could repeat his blow, the Moorish Scævola, with a fate very different from that of his Roman prototype, was pierced with a hundred wounds by the attendants, who rushed to the spot, alarmed by the cries of the marchioness, and his mangled remains were soon after discharged from a catapult into the city; a foolish bravado, which the besieged requited by slaying a Galician gentleman and sending his corpse astride upon a mule through the gates of the town into the Christian camp.

The Castilian army, swelled by daily augmentations, varied in its amount, according to different estimates, from sixty to ninety thousand men. Throughout this immense host the most perfect discipline was maintained. Gaming was restrained by ordinances interdicting the use of dice and cards, of which the lower orders were passionately fond. Blasphemy was severely punished. Prostitutes, the common pest of a camp, were excluded; and so entire was the subordination, that not a knife was drawn, and scarcely a brawl occurred, says the historian, among the motley multitude.

The battle raged with fire and sword, above and under ground, along the ramparts, the ocean, and the land, at the same time. But no virtue or valour could avail the unfortunate Malagans against the overwhelming force of their enemies, who, driving them back from every point, compelled them to shelter themselves within the defences of the town. The Christians followed up their success. A mine was sprung near a tower connected by a bridge of four arches with the main works of the place. The Moors, scattered and intimidated by the explosion, retreated across the bridge; and the Spaniards, carrying the tower, whose guns completely enfiladed it, obtained possession of this important pass into the beleaguered city. The citizens of Malaga, dismayed at beholding the enemy established in their defences, and fainting under exhaustion from a siege which had already lasted more than three months, now began to murmur at the obstinacy of the garrison, and to demand a capitulation.

A deputation was despatched to the Christian quarters, with the offer of the city to capitulate, on the same liberal conditions which had been uniformly granted by the Spaniards. The king refused to admit the embassy into his presence, and haughtily answered, through the commander of Leon, that these terms had been twice offered to the people of Malaga, and rejected; that it was too late for them to stipulate conditions, and nothing now remained but to abide by those which he, as their conqueror, should vouchsafe to them. After a tumultuous debate, the deputies were despatched a second time to the Christian camp, charged with propositions in which concession was mingled with menace. They were willing to resign to him their fortifications, their city, on his assurance of their personal security and freedom: if he refused this, they would take their Christian captives, amounting to five or six hundred, from the dungeons in which they lay, and hang them like dogs over the battlements; and then, placing their old men, women, and children in the fortress, they would set fire to the town, and cut a way for themselves through their enemies, or fall in the attempt. Ferdinand, unmoved by these menaces, coolly replied that he saw no occasion to change his former determination, but they might rest assured, if they harmed a single hair of a Christian, he would put every soul in the place, man, woman, and child, to the sword.

On the eighteenth day of August, being somewhat more than three months from the date of opening trenches, Ferdinand and Isabella made their entrance into the conquered city, attended by the court, the clergy, and the whole of their military array. The procession moved in solemn state up the principal streets, now deserted and hushed in ominous silence, to the new cathedral of St. Mary, where mass was performed. At length, the whole population of the city, comprehending every age and sex, was commanded to repair to the great courtyard of the Alcazaba. The dreadful doom of slavery was denounced on the assembled multitude.[53] One-third was to be transported into Africa in exchange for an equal number of Christian captives detained there; and all who had relatives or friends in this predicament were required to furnish a specification of them. Another third was appropriated to reimburse the state for the expenses of the war. The remainder were to be distributed as presents at home and abroad. Thus, one hundred of the flower of the African warriors were sent to the pope, who incorporated them into his guard, and converted them all in the course of the year, says the curate of Los Palacios, into very good Christians. Fifty of the most beautiful Moorish girls were presented by Isabella to the queen of Naples, thirty to the queen of Portugal, others to the ladies of her court; and the residue of both sexes were apportioned among the nobles, cavaliers, and inferior members of the army, according to their respective rank and services.

Malaga was computed to contain from eleven to fifteen thousand inhabitants, exclusive of several thousand foreign auxiliaries, within its gates at the time of surrender. One cannot, at this day, read the melancholy details of its story without feelings of horror and indignation. It is impossible to vindicate the dreadful sentence passed on this unfortunate people for a display of heroism which should have excited admiration in every generous bosom. It was obviously most repugnant to Isabella’s natural disposition, and must be admitted to leave a stain on her memory which no colouring of history can conceal. The fate of Malaga may be said to have decided that of Granada.g

THE CAPTURE OF GRANADA

The western fortresses of the kingdom being in the power of the Christians, Ferdinand had now two plans before him for attaining his great object: he could either at once fall on the capital, or begin with the reduction of the eastern strongholds. He chose the latter; he knew that, if he triumphed over Abdallah el Zagal, who possessed Guadix, Baza, Almeria, Vera, etc., he should have little difficulty in dethroning the fallen Abu Abdallah. Velez el Rubio, Vera, Mujacar, etc., opened their gates on the first summons. But the Christians failed before Huescar, Baza, and Tabernas; and had the worst in more than one skirmish.

Ferdinand again hastened to the field at the head of fifty thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, resolved with this formidable force to deprive the Moors of all hopes of a successful resistance. Under the pretence that his arms were to be directed against only the enemy of his ally, he hoped to divide still further the Moorish power. He succeeded in his purpose: the people of Granada looked on, not indeed with indifference, but certainly without much anxiety for themselves, while their ally marched against the places which still held for El Zagal. Abu Abdallah, however, was aware of the result: he even purchased a temporary security, by consenting not only to abandon his uncle, but to receive into Granada itself a Christian garrison; in other words, to deliver that capital, after the destruction of El Zagal, into the hands of Ferdinand. In return, he was to receive ample domain, under the title of vassalage, from his feudal superior. Though the conditions of the alliance were secret, El Zagal, convinced that he should now have to encounter the whole power of the Castilians, prepared for a vigorous defence. His kinsman, the cid Yahya, with ten thousand men, he sent to Baza, which he rightly judged would be one of the first places to be invested by Ferdinand.

Having reduced Xucar, the Christian monarch, as had been foreseen, laid siege to Baza. This place made a brave resistance during several months: but in the end, seeing that the provisions were exhausted, and many of the soldiers cut off in the frequent sorties; that the Christians had entrenched their camp, and were even encouraged to persevere by the arrival of queen Isabella—Yahya wrote to El Zagal to say that the place must inevitably be surrendered unless speedily succoured. The latter, who was busily occupied in the defence of Guadix, could not spare a single soldier for the relief of Baza; it was therefore constrained to capitulate; but conditions highly advantageous to the people were obtained from the two sovereigns. Yahya, who had several interviews with these sovereigns in their own camp, received signal proofs of their favour. He vowed not only never again to take up arms against his liege superior, but to prevail on his kinsman El Zagal to discontinue a fruitless resistance, and submit as he had done.

Like a true Mussulman, El Zagal coincided in his kinsman’s doctrine of predestination; he acknowledged that Allah in his eternal decrees had resolved the destruction of Granada; and he consented to throw himself on the generosity of Ferdinand. He too hastened to the Christian camp; and if personal kindness, or even regal liberality, could have atoned for the loss of a throne, he might have been satisfied. Like Yahya, he received ample domains, to be forever possessed by his descendants—-the jurisdiction of Andaraz; the valley of Alhaman, containing two thousand vassals (between Malaga and Marbella); and half the produce of some salt mines: the annual return was four millions of maravedis—on his consenting to receive Christian garrisons into Almeria and Guadix, the inhabitants of which were guaranteed in all their privileges as subjects. The following year Abdallah el Zagal, tired, perhaps, of living privately where he had ruled as a king, sold most of these possessions, and retired to Africa. Purchena, Tabernas, Almuñecar, Salobrena, and some other towns of the Alpujarras were eager to follow the example of Baza; so that the once proud kingdom of the Moors was almost literally confined to the walls of the capital.

Nothing now remained but to complete the overthrow of the Moorish power by the conquest of Granada. In virtue of the preceding convention, Ferdinand summoned Abu Abdallah to receive a Castilian garrison. The poor shadow of a king in vain appealed to the magnanimity of his ally, whom he besought to remain satisfied with the rich spoils already acquired. The bare mention of such a proposal would have cost him his head in the then excited state of feeling. The disastrous position of Mohammedan affairs, which they imputed, not without some justice, to his ambition and his subsequent inactivity, roused their wrath so much, that they rose against him, and would doubtless have been satisfied with nothing less than his blood, had he not fled precipitately into the Alhambra. Erelong, however, the violence of the commotion ceased, as everyone perceived the necessity of combining to save the capital. Its fate was for a time suspended by the arrival of numerous volunteers from the neighbouring towns, especially from the villages of the Alpujarras, which had not yet acknowledged the Christian sway; and from several other places, which now openly revolted. Abu Abdallah endeavoured to regain the good will of his people by vigorously preparing for their defence, and even by making incursions on the new possessions of the Christians. But neither the revolt nor his own efforts were of much avail. The inhabitants of Adra were signally punished for their want of faith; the king was compelled to seek shelter within his walls, from the summit of which he soon perceived the advancing cross of his enemies.

In the spring of 1491 Ferdinand invested this great city with fifty thousand foot and ten thousand horse. That the siege would be long and bloody was to be expected from the strength of the fortifications and the fanaticism of the people. Some time, indeed, elapsed before the place could be effectually invested; convoys of provisions were frequently received, in spite of Ferdinand’s vigilance; and in the sorties which from time to time took place, the advantage was not always on the side of the assailants. These partial actions so thinned the Christian host, that the king at length forbade them; and to protect his camp against the daring irruptions of the Moors, he surrounded it with thick walls and deep ditches. The enemy now saw that he was resolute in the reduction of the place, however tardy that reduction might prove. His own soldiers, whether in the camp or in the newly erected city of Santa Fé,[54] which he built and fortified both as a security against the possible despair of the Moors, and for the greater comfort of his army and court, were abundantly supplied with every necessary. The privations to which they were now subject, caused the besieged inhabitants first to murmur, and next to threaten their imbecile ruler with destruction. In this emergency, Abu Abdallah hastily summoned a council, to hear the sentiments of his chief subjects on the deplorable posture of affairs. All agreed that the camp, the city, and policy of Ferdinand were but too indicative of his unalterable determination, and of the fate which ultimately, nay soon, awaited them; that the people were worn out by abstinence and fatigue; and that, as the necessity was imperative, an attempt should be made to procure favourable terms of capitulation from the Castilian.

It was on the fourth day of the moon Rabia I [January 2nd, 1492], at the dawn of day, that Abu Abdallah sent his family and treasures into the Alpujarras, while he himself, accompanied by fifty horsemen, rode out to meet Ferdinand, whom he saluted as his liege lord. The keys of the city were delivered to the latter by Abul-Kassim: the Christians entered, and their standards were speedily hoisted on the towers of the Alhambra, and all the fortresses in the place. The fourth day following, Ferdinand and his royal consort made a solemn entry into the city, which they made the seat of an archbishopric, and in which they abode several months. As for the feeble Abu Abdallah, he had not courage to re-enter it. As he disconsolately took the road to the Alpujarras, and from time to time cast back his weeping eyes on the magnificent towers behind him, his mother, the sultana Zoraya, is said to have observed, “Thy womanly tears for the loss of thy kingdom become one who had not courage to defend it like a man!”j “Alas!” exclaimed the unhappy exile, “when were woes ever equal to mine!” The scene of this event is still pointed out to the traveller by the people of the district; and the rocky height from which the Moorish chief took his sad farewell of the princely abodes of his youth is commemorated by the poetical title of El ultimo Sospiro del Moro—“the last sigh of the Moor.”

The sequel of Abdallah’s history is soon told. Like his uncle, El Zagal, he pined away in his barren domain of the Alpujarras, under the shadow, as it were, of his ancient palaces. In the following year he passed over to Fez with his family, having commuted his petty sovereignty for a considerable sum of money paid him by Ferdinand and Isabella, and soon after fell in battle in the service of an African prince, his kinsman. “Wretched man,” exclaims a caustic chronicler of his nation, “who could lose his life in another’s cause, though he did not dare to die in his own!”

END OF MOSLEM SWAY IN SPAIN

The fall of Granada excited a general sensation throughout Christendom, where it was received as counterbalancing, in a manner, the loss of Constantinople nearly half a century before. The war of Granada is often compared by the Castilian chroniclers to that of Troy in its duration, and certainly fully equalled the latter in variety of picturesque and romantic incidents, and in circumstances of poetical interest. With the surrender of its capital terminated the Arabian empire in the peninsula, after an existence of seven hundred and forty-one years from the date of the original conquest. The consequences of this closing war were of the highest moment to Spain. The most obvious was the recovery of an extensive territory, hitherto held by a people whose difference of religion, language, and general habits made them not only incapable of assimilating with their Christian neighbours, but almost their natural enemies; while their local position was a matter of just concern, as interposed between the great divisions of the Spanish monarchy, and opening an obvious avenue to invasion from Africa.

By the new conquest, moreover, the Spaniards gained a large extent of country, possessing the highest capacities for production, in its natural fruitfulness of soil, the temperature of climate, and the state of cultivation to which it had been brought by its ancient occupants; while its shores were lined with commodious havens that afforded every facility for commerce. The scattered fragments of the ancient Visigothic empire were now again, with the exception of the little state of Navarre, combined into one great monarchy, as originally destined by nature; and Christian Spain gradually rose, by means of her new acquisitions, from a subordinate situation to the level of a first-rate European power.

The moral influence of the Moorish war, its influence on the Spanish character, was highly important. The inhabitants of the great divisions of the country, as in most countries during the feudal ages, had been brought too frequently into collision with each other to allow the existence of a pervading national feeling. The war of Granada subjected all the various sections of the country to one common action, under the influence of common motives of the most exciting interest; while it brought them in conflict with a race the extreme repugnance of whose institutions and character to their own served greatly to nourish the nationality of sentiment. In this way the spark of patriotism was kindled throughout the whole nation, and the most distant provinces of the peninsula were knit together by a bond of union which has remained indissoluble.

The consequences of these wars in a military aspect are also worthy of notice. Up to this period, war had been carried on by irregular levies, extremely limited in numerical amount and in period of service, under little subordination, except to their own immediate chiefs, and wholly unprovided with the apparatus required for extended operations. The Spaniards were even lower than most of the European nations in military science, as is apparent from the infinite pains of Isabella to avail herself of all foreign resources for their improvement. In the war of Granada, masses of men were brought together far greater than had hitherto been known in modern warfare. They were kept in the field not only through long campaigns, but far into the winter; a thing altogether unprecedented. They were made to act in concert, and the numerous petty chiefs brought into complete subjection to one common head, whose personal character enforced the authority of station. Lastly, they were supplied with all the requisite munitions through the providence of Isabella, who introduced into the service the most skilful engineers from other countries, and kept in pay bodies of mercenaries—as the Swiss, for example, reputed the best disciplined troops of that day. In this admirable school the Spanish soldier was gradually trained to patient endurance, fortitude, and thorough subordination; and those celebrated captains were formed, with that invincible infantry, which in the beginning of the sixteenth century spread the military fame of their country over all Christendom.

But, with all our sympathy for the conquerors, it is impossible without a deep feeling of regret to contemplate the decay and final extinction of a race who had made such high advances in civilisation as the Spanish Arabs; to see them driven from the stately palaces reared by their own hands, wandering as exiles over the lands which still blossomed with the fruits of their industry, and wasting away under persecution, until their very name as a nation was blotted out from the map of history.

SPANISH EXPLORERS, AND CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa Fé, the capitulation was signed that opened the way to an extent of empire compared with which their recent conquests, and indeed all their present dominions, were insignificant. The extraordinary intellectual activity of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, after the torpor of ages, carried them forward to high advancement in almost every department of science, but especially nautical, whose surprising results have acquired for the age the glory of being designated as peculiarly that of maritime discovery.

The Portuguese were the first to enter on the brilliant path of nautical discovery, which they pursued under the infante Dom Henry with such activity that before the middle of the fifteenth century they had penetrated as far as Cape Verd, doubling many a fearful headland which had shut in the timid navigator of former days; until at length, in 1486, they descried the lofty promontory which terminates Africa on the south, and which received the cheering appellation of the Cape of Good Hope.

The Spaniards, in the meanwhile, did not languish in the career of maritime enterprise. Certain adventurers from the northern provinces of Biscay and Guipuzcoa, in 1393, had made themselves masters of one of the smallest of the group of islands since known as the Canaries. Other private adventurers from Seville extended their conquests over these islands in the beginning of the following century. These were completed in behalf of the crown under Ferdinand and Isabella, who equipped several fleets for their reduction, which at length terminated in 1495 with that of Teneriffe. From the commencement of their reign, Ferdinand and Isabella had shown an earnest solicitude for the encouragement of commerce and nautical science. Under them, and indeed under their predecessors as far back as Henry III, a considerable traffic had been carried on with the western coast of Africa, from which gold-dust and slaves were imported into the city of Seville. The annalist of that city notices the repeated interference of Isabella in behalf of these unfortunate beings, by ordinances tending to secure them a more equal protection of the laws, or opening such social indulgences as might mitigate the hardships of their condition.

A misunderstanding gradually arose between the subjects of Castile and Portugal, in relation to their respective rights of discovery and commerce on the African coast, which promised a fruitful source of collision between the two crowns, but which was happily adjusted by an article in the treaty of 1479, that terminated the war of the Succession. By this it was settled that the right of traffic and of discovery on the western coast of Africa should be exclusively reserved to the Portuguese, who in their turn should resign all claims on the Canaries to the crown of Castile. The Spaniards, thus excluded from further progress to the south, seemed to have no other opening left for naval adventure than the hitherto untravelled regions of the great western ocean. Fortunately, at this juncture an individual appeared among them, in the person of Christopher Columbus, endowed with capacity for stimulating them to this heroic enterprise and conducting it to a glorious issue.g

The great story of the discovery of America and the new crusade it began against ignorance and also, unfortunately, against innocent savages, has a vital bearing, it is true, upon the fortunes, the glory, and the wars of Spain. But since almost every country in Europe was soon involved in the same cry of “Westward, ho!” and since the general outlines are familiar to everybody, it will be permissible to defer the account until the volume on America, where the details can be given with fullness, consecution, and a proper sense of proportionate value.

None the less, the reader must not forget that the period of discovery and the encouragement given it by Isabella and her consort form one of the most important as one of the most beautiful major features of their reign.

Leaving it to the reader’s imagination to give this better element its due brilliance and its right significance as a partial atonement to history, we must turn to the evil side of the reign, an evil so tremendous and loathsome that it seems incredible when associated with the noble deeds of the sovereigns. This is the persecution of the non-orthodox in the name of religion and without a shadow of that gentleness and mercy which one associates with that name, little as history may have to substantiate that association.

The Inquisition we shall leave to a separate chapter in the appendix in which its origin in other countries will be taken up and its history traced in entirety until its end in the last century. A few words of allusion will not, however, be amiss in this place.a

THE EXPULSION OF THE JEWS

While the Spanish sovereigns were detained before Granada, they published their memorable and most disastrous edict against the Jews; inscribing it, as it were, with the same pen which drew up the glorious capitulation of Granada and the treaty with Columbus. The envy raised by their prosperity, combined with the high religious excitement kindled in the long war with the infidel, directed the terrible arm of the Inquisition against this unfortunate people; but the result showed the failure of the experiment, since comparatively few conversions, and those frequently of a suspicious character, were effected, while the great mass still maintained a pertinacious attachment to ancient errors. The inquisitors asserted that the only mode left for the extirpation of the Jewish heresy was to eradicate the seed; and they boldly demanded the immediate and total banishment of every unbaptised Israelite from the land.

The Jews tendered a donative of 30,000 ducats towards the expense of the Moorish war. The negotiations, however, were interrupted by the inquisitor-general who held up a crucifix, exclaiming: “Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. Your highnesses would sell him anew for thirty thousand. Here he is; take him and barter him away!” So saying, the frantic priest threw the crucifix on the table, and left the apartment. The sovereigns, instead of chastising this presumption, or despising it as a mere freak of insanity, were overawed by it.

The edict for the expulsion of the Jews was signed by the Spanish sovereigns at Granada, March 30th, 1492. It decreed that all the unbaptised Jews, of whatever age, sex, or condition, should depart from the realm by the end of July next ensuing; prohibiting them from revisiting it, on any pretext whatever, under penalty of death and confiscation of property. It was, moreover, interdicted to every subject to harbour, succour, or minister to the necessities of any Jew, after the expiration of the term limited for his departure. The persons and property of the Jews, in the meantime, were taken under the royal protection. They were allowed to dispose of their effects of every kind on their own account, and to carry the proceeds along with them, in bills of exchange, or merchandise not prohibited, but neither in gold nor silver.

The doom of exile fell like a thunderbolt on the heads of the Israelites. A large proportion of them had hitherto succeeded in shielding themselves from the searching eye of the Inquisition, by an affectation of reverence for the forms of Catholic worship, and a discreet forbearance of whatever might offend the prejudices of their Christian brethren. They had even hoped that their steady loyalty and a quiet and orderly discharge of their social duties would in time secure them higher immunities. Many had risen to a degree of opulence by means of the thrift and dexterity peculiar to the race, which gave them a still deeper interest in the land of their residence. Their families were reared in all the elegant refinements of life; and their wealth and education often disposed them to turn their attention to liberal pursuits, which ennobled the character, indeed, but rendered them personally more sensible to physical annoyance and less fitted to encounter the perils and privations of their dreary pilgrimage. They were to go forth as exiles from the land of their birth—the land where all whom they ever loved had lived or died; the land not so much of their adoption as of their inheritance; which had been the home of their ancestors for centuries, and with whose prosperity and glory they were of course as intimately associated as was any ancient Spaniard. They were to be cast out helpless and defenceless, with a brand of infamy set on them, among nations who had always held them in derision and hatred.

Those provisions of the edict which affected a show of kindness to the Jews were contrived so artfully as to be nearly nugatory. As they were excluded from the use of gold and silver, the only medium for representing their property was bills of exchange. But commerce was too limited and imperfect to allow of these being promptly obtained to any very considerable, much less to the enormous amount required in the present instance. It was impossible, moreover, to negotiate a sale of their effects under existing circumstances, since the market was soon glutted with commodities; and few would be found willing to give anything like an equivalent for what, if not disposed of within the prescribed term, the proprietors must relinquish at any rate. So deplorable, indeed, was the sacrifice of property that a chronicler of the day mentions that he had seen a house exchanged for an ass, and a vineyard for a suit of clothes! Yet there were found but very few, when the day of departure arrived, who were not prepared to abandon their country rather than their religion. This extraordinary act of self-devotion by a whole people for conscience’ sake may be thought to merit other epithets than those of “perfidy, incredulity, and stiff-necked obstinacy,” with which the worthy curate of Los Palacios,h in the charitable feeling of that day, has seen fit to stigmatise it.

When the period of departure arrived, all the principal routes through the country might be seen swarming with emigrants, old and young, the sick and the helpless, men, women, and children, mingled promiscuously together, some mounted on horses or mules, but far the greater part undertaking their painful pilgrimage on foot. The sight of so much misery touched even the Spaniards with pity, though none might succour them; for the grand inquisitor, Torquemada, enforced the ordinance to that effect by denouncing heavy ecclesiastical censures on all who should presume to violate it. Much the largest division, amounting according to some estimates to eighty thousand souls, passed into Portugal; whose monarch, João [John] II, dispensed with his scruples of conscience so far as to give them a free passage through his dominions on their way to Africa, in consideration of a tax of a cruzado a head. He is even said to have silenced his scruples so far as to allow certain ingenious artisans to establish themselves permanently in the kingdom.

A considerable number found their way to the ports of Santa Maria and Cadiz, where, after lingering some time in the vain hope of seeing the waters open for their egress, according to the promises of the rabbis, they embarked on board a Spanish fleet for the Barbary coast. Having crossed over to Ercilla, a Christian settlement in Africa, whence they proceeded by land towards Fez, where a considerable body of their countrymen resided, they were assaulted on their route by the roving tribes of the desert, in quest of plunder. Notwithstanding the interdict, the Jews had contrived to secrete small sums of money, sewed up in their garments or the linings of their saddles. These did not escape the avaricious eyes of their spoilers, who are even said to have ripped open the bodies of their victims in search of gold which they were supposed to have swallowed. The lawless barbarians, mingling lust with avarice, abandoned themselves to still more frightful excesses, violating the wives and daughters of the unresisting Jews, or massacring in cold blood such as offered resistance.

But, without pursuing these loathsome details further, it need only be added that the miserable exiles endured such extremity of famine that they were glad to force a nourishment from the grass which grew scantily among the sands of the desert; until at length great numbers of them, wasted by disease and broken in spirit, retraced their steps to Ercilla, and consented to be baptised, in the hope of being permitted to revisit their native land. The number, indeed, was so considerable that the priest who officiated was obliged to make use of the mop, or hyssop, with which the Roman Catholic missionaries were wont to scatter the holy drops whose mystic virtue could cleanse the soul in a moment from the foulest stains of infidelity. “Thus,” says the Castilian historian, Ferreras,k “the calamities of these poor blind creatures proved in the end an excellent remedy, that God made use of to unseal their eyes, which they now opened to the vain promises of the rabbis; so that, renouncing their ancient heresies, they became faithful followers of the cross!”

Many of the emigrants took the direction of Italy. Those who landed at Naples brought with them an infectious disorder, contracted by long confinement in small, crowded, and ill-provided vessels. The disorder was so malignant, and spread with such frightful celerity, as to sweep off more than twenty thousand inhabitants of the city in the course of the year, whence it extended its devastation over the whole Italian peninsula. Many of the exiles passed into Turkey, and to different parts of the Levant, where their descendants continued to speak the Castilian language far into the following century. Others found their way to France, and even England. Part of their religious services is recited to this day in Spanish, in one or more of the London synagogues.

The whole number of Jews expelled from Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella is variously computed at from 160,000 to 800,000 souls; a discrepancy sufficiently indicating the paucity of authentic data. Most modern writers, with the usual predilection for startling results, have assumed the latter estimate; and Llorentel has made it the basis of some important calculations in his History of the Inquisition. A view of all the circumstances will lead us without much hesitation to adopt the most moderate computation. This, moreover, is placed beyond reasonable doubt by the direct testimony of Bernáldez.h He reports that a Jewish rabbi, one of the exiles, subsequently returned to Spain, where he was baptised by him. This person estimated the whole number of his unbaptised countrymen, at the publication of the edict, at thirty-six thousand families. Another Jewish authority, quoted by the curate, reckoned them at thirty-five thousand. This, assuming an average of four and a half to a family, gives the sum total of about 160,000 individuals.[55]

The detriment incurred by the state, however, is not founded so much on any numerical estimate as on the subtraction of the mechanical skill, intelligence, and general resources of an orderly, industrious population. In this view, the mischief was incalculably greater than that inferred by the mere number of the exiled; and although even this might have been gradually repaired in a country allowed the free and healthful development of its energies, yet in Spain this was so effectually counteracted by the Inquisition, and other causes in the following century, that the loss may be deemed irretrievable.

The expulsion of so numerous a class of subjects by an independent act of the sovereign might well be regarded as an enormous stretch of prerogative, altogether incompatible with anything like a free government. But, to judge the matter rightly, we must take into view the actual position of the Jews at that time. Far from forming an integral part of the commonwealth, they were regarded as alien to it, as a mere excrescence, which, so far from contributing to the healthful action of the body politic, was nourished by its vicious humours, and might be lopped off at any time when the health of the system demanded it. Far from being protected by the laws, the only aim of the laws in reference to them was to define more precisely their civil incapacities, and to draw the line of division more broadly between them and the Christians. Even this humiliation by no means satisfied the national prejudices, as is evinced by the great number of tumults and massacres of which they were the victims. In these circumstances, it seemed to be no great assumption of authority to pronounce sentence of exile against those whom public opinion had so long proscribed as enemies to the state.

It has been common with modern historians to detect a principal motive in the avarice of the government. It is, however, incredible that persons possessing the political sagacity of Ferdinand and Isabella could indulge a temporary cupidity at the sacrifice of the most important and permanent interests, converting by a measure so manifestly unsound, their wealthiest districts into a wilderness and dispeopling them of a class of citizens who contributed beyond all others not only to the general resources but to the direct revenues of the crown.

We need look no further for the principle of action, in this case, than the spirit of religious bigotry which led to a similar expulsion of the Jews from England, France, and other parts of Europe, as well as from Portugal, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, a few years later.[56] Indeed, the spirit of persecution did not expire with the fifteenth century, but extends even into our own more luminous days. How far the banishment of the Jews was conformable to the opinions of the most enlightened contemporaries, may be gathered from the encomiums lavished on its authors from more than one quarter. Spanish writers, without exception, celebrate it as a sublime sacrifice of all temporal interests to religious principle.g

PERSECUTION AND REVOLT OF THE MOORS (1499-1502 A.D.)

The establishment of the Inquisition led to the banishment of the Jews; the latter, in its turn, to the persecution of the Mohammedans. These soon found that their religious toleration, so solemnly guaranteed by the articles of capitulation, would be little respected by a prince who did not always hesitate to break his royal word—nor even his oath—when his interests or his bigotry was concerned. It is certain that, from the very year in which Granada submitted, the resolution was taken to convert or expel the Moors; but their number, the assistance they might receive from Africa, and the unsettled state of the new conquests, delayed its execution.

In 1499, however, Ferdinand, being at Granada, seriously entered on what he doubtless considered a path of stern but necessary duty. Having assembled some of his counsellors and prelates to deliberate on the proper means of attaining an object so momentous, it was agreed that both end and means should be left to two eminent prelates—to Francisco Ximenes [or Jimenes] de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo, and to Ferdinand de Talavera, metropolitan of Granada. In selecting two such opposite instruments, it was doubtless intended that the gentleness of Don Ferdinand should be fortified by the decision of his colleague: through his influence it doubtless was that the first steps in the great work were of a mild and rational nature. The alfaquis were assiduously courted; were persuaded to dispute on the merits of their respective faiths; and were severally dismissed with presents.

Whether through conviction or fear, through persuasion or interest, these men forsook their old religion, and consented not only to be baptised, but to become the instruments of converting their countrymen. Their example had great effect: thousands applied for admission into the church; and thousands more would have joined them at the same time, but for the fiery zeal of Cardinal Ximenes,[57] which occasioned a serious disturbance. Seeing that some of their body, who protested against the prelate’s violence, were by his order conducted to prison, they arose, murdered an obnoxious alguazil, and hastened to Ximenes’ hotel, which they assailed. He fought with great spirit. The commotion continued for several days: the whole Albaycin was in arms; and the insurrection would have spread further, but for the metropolitan of Granada. Though a messenger of peace had been stoned to death the preceding day by the Moors of that quarter, he resolved to go among them, and finally persuaded them to lay down their arms.

But the mischief was not yet ended. Those especially who abode in the mountains of the Alpujarras were filled with fury at the forcible attempts made to seduce their brethren from the faith of the prophet; and they flew to arms. The king himself marched to reduce them; pursued them into the heart of their hills; forced or persuaded them to submit, and to surrender both their fortified places and their arms. His success emboldened him to more decisive measures: missionaries were despatched, wherever there was a Mohammedan village, to preach the necessity of immediate conversion; and the efficacy of their labours was not a little owing to the armed bodies of soldiers who accompanied them. Terrified by the recent fate of the Jews, whole towns submitted to baptism—the more willingly, perhaps, as no previous instruction was forced upon them; there was no time for catechism or preaching: hundreds were sprinkled with holy water at the same time; the same prayers were repeated over them, and then they stood cleansed in the laver of regeneration! That such conversions could not be very durable need not surprise us.