[Transcriber's Note: Original spellings have been retained, includingthose that are inconsistent within the document. An error in the Tableof Contents has been corrected from page 154 to page 156. ]

 A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN

 BY

 MARY PLATT PARMELE

 ILLUSTRATED

 NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1906

 COPYRIGHT, 1898, BY MARY PLATT PARMELE

 COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1906, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

[Illustration: From the portrait by Titian. Charles V. ]

PREFACE. 

In presenting this book to the public the author can only reiteratewhat she has already said in works of a similar kind: that she hastried to exclude the mass of confusing details which often make thereading of history a dreary task; and to keep closely to those factswhich are vital to the unfolding of the narrative. This is done undera strong conviction that the essential facts in history are thosewhich reveal and explain the development of a nation, rather thanthe incidents, more or less entertaining, which have attended suchdevelopment. And also under another conviction: that a little, thoroughly comprehended, is better than much imperfectly rememberedand understood. 

M. P. P

NEW YORK. _June 15, 1898. _

CONTENTS. 

 CHAPTER I. Ancient Iberia--The Basques--The Keltberians--The Phenicians--Cadiz Founded, 1

 CHAPTER II. Struggle between Phenicians and Assyrians--Founding of Carthage--Decline of Phenicia--Rise of Roman Power--First Punic War, 9

 CHAPTER III. Hamilcar--Hannibal--Siege and Fall of Saguntum--Rome Invades Spain--Scipio's Policy--Cadiz, (Gades) Surrendered to the Romans--By What Steps IBERIA Became SPAIN--Fall of Carthaginian Power--How Spain Became a Roman Province, 15

 CHAPTER IV. Sertorius--Story of the White Hind--Rome Fights Her Own Battles on Spanish Soil--Battle of Munda--Cæsar Declared Dictator--The Ides of March--Octavius Augustus--Spain Latinized--Four Hundred Years of Peace, 24

 CHAPTER V. Northern Races in the History of Civilization--Roman Empire Expiring--Ataulfus--Attila and the Huns--Theodoric--Evaric Completes Conquest of Spanish Peninsula--Europe Teutonized--Difference between Anglo-Saxon and Latin Races, 30

 CHAPTER VI. Ulfilas--Arianism--The Spanish Language--Brunhilde--Leovigild--His Son's Apostasy--Arianism Ceases to be the Established Religion of Spain, 39

 CHAPTER VII. Toledo--Church of Santa Maria--Wamba, 45

 CHAPTER VIII. Decline of Visigoths--Roderick--Count Julian's Treachery--Mahommedanism--Tarif--Prophecy Found in the Enchanted Tower--Tarik--Roderick's Defeat and Death--Moslem Empire Established in Spain, 50

 CHAPTER IX. Musa's Dream of European Conquest--Charles Martel--Characteristics of Mahommedan Rule--Mission of the Saracen in Europe--The Germ of a Christian Kingdom in the North of Spain, 58

 CHAPTER X. Pelayo and the Cave of Covadonga--Alfonso I. --Berbers and Arabs at War on African Coast--War Extends to Spain--The Omeyyad Khalifs Superseded by the Abbasides--Abd-er-Rahman--Omeyyad Dynasty Established at Cordova--Ineffectual Attempt of the Abbasides to Overthrow Abd-er-Rahman--Character of This Conqueror, 64

 CHAPTER XI. Charlemagne--Battle of Roncesvalles, 69

 CHAPTER XII. Conditions after Death of Abd-er-Rahman--Abd-er-Rahman II. --Arab Refinements--Eulogius and the Christian Martyrs--Abd-er-Rahman III. --A Khalifate at Cordova--The Great Mosque--The City of "The Fairest"--Death of Abd-er-Rahman III. , 72

 CHAPTER XIII. Rough Cradle of a Spanish Nationality in the Asturias--Alfonso III. And His Hidalgos and Dons--Guerrilla Warfare with Moors--Jealousies and Strife between Christian Kingdoms--Civil War--Almanzor--Ruin of Christian State Seemed Imminent--Death of Almanzor--Berber Revolt--Anarchy in Moorish State--A Khalif Begging a Crust of Bread--Berbers Destroy Cordova--Library Burned--City of "The Fairest" a Ruin--Asturias--Leon and Castile United--Alfonso VI. --The Cid--Triumph of Christians--Moors Ask Aid of the Almoravides--Christians Driven Back--Death of the Cid--A Dynasty of the Almoravides--The Alhomades--The Great Mahdi--Moorish People Become Subject to Emperor of Morocco--His Designs upon Europe--The Pope Proclaims a Crusade--Alhomades Driven Out of Spain by Christians--Moorish Kingdom Reduced to Province of Granada, 78

 CHAPTER XIV. European Conditions in Thirteenth Century--Visigoth Kings Recover Their Land--Its Changed Conditions--Effect of Arab Civilization upon Spanish Nation--Fernando III. --Spain Draws into Closer Companionship with European States--Alfonso X. --Spain Becoming Picturesque--The Bull-Fight--Beautiful Granada--The Alhambra, 87

 CHAPTER XV. Perpetual Civil War between Spanish States--Castile and Aragon Absorb the Others and in Conflict for Supremacy--Pedro the Cruel--The "Black Prince" His Champion against Aragon--John of Gaunt--His Claim upon the Throne of Castile--His Final Compromise--Political Conditions Contrasted with Those of Other States, 94

 CHAPTER XVI. Death of Juan II. --Enrique IV. --Isabella--Her Marriage with Ferdinand of Aragon--Isabella Crowned Queen of Castile--Ferdinand, King of Aragon--The Two Crowns United--Characteristics of the Two Sovereigns--The Inquisition Created--Jews Driven out of the Kingdom--Abdul-Hassan's Defiance--Zahara--Family Troubles at the Alhambra--Ayesha and Boabdil--Alhama Captured by Ferdinand--Boabdil Supplants His Father--Massacre of the Abencerrages--Granada Besieged--Its Capitulation--Moorish Rule Ended in Spain, 100

 CHAPTER XVII. Columbus and Isabella--Isabella's Private Griefs--Her Death--Charles, King under a Regency--Charles Elected Emperor of Germany--Spain during His Reign--Cruelties in the East and in the West--Vain Struggle with Protestantism--Abdication and Death of Charles, 108

 CHAPTER XVIII. Philip II. --Union of Spain and Portugal--The Duke of Alva in the Netherlands--War with England--Spanish Armada Destroyed--Death of Philip II. --Spain's Decline--Glory of the Name "Castilian, " 117

 CHAPTER XIX. Philip III. --Rebellion of the Moriscos--Last of the Moors Conveyed to African Coast--Don Quixote--Philip IV. --Louis XIV. Marries Spanish Infanta--A Diminishing Kingdom--Carlos II. --First Collision between Anglo-Saxon and Spaniard in America--Close of Hapsburg Dynasty in Spain, 125

 CHAPTER XX. New European Conditions--Louis XIV. --War of the "Spanish Succession"--Marlborough Checks Louis at Blenheim--Archduke Abandons Sovereignty in Spain--Peace of Utrecht--Further Dismemberment of Spain--Gibraltar Passes to England--Bourbon Dynasty--Commences with Philip V. --Ferdinand VI. --Carlos III. --Expulsion of the Jesuits, 131

 CHAPTER XXI. A Dismantled Kingdom--Spanish-American Colonies--England and France at War over American Boundaries--Spain the Ally of France--Loss of Some of Her West India Islands, and Capture of Havana and Manila by British--Florida Given in Exchange for Return of Conquered Territory--Growing Irritation against England--France Aids American Colonies in War with England--Spain's Satisfaction at Their Success--Its Effect in Peru--Revolution in France--Rapid Rise of Napoleon--Carlos IV. Removed and Joseph Bonaparte King--Spain Joins Napoleon in War against England--Trafalgar--Arthur Wellesley--Joseph Flees from His Kingdom, 137

 CHAPTER XXII. Liberal Sentiment Developing--Constitution of 1812--Ferdinand VI. And Reactionary Measures--Revolt of all the Spanish-American Colonies--The Holy Alliance--The Monroe Doctrine--Revolution in Spain--Spain under the Protectorate of the Holy Alliance--Ferdinand Reinstated--Two Political Parties--Six Spanish-American Colonies Freed, 144

 CHAPTER XXIII. The Salic Law and the Princess Isabella--The Carlists--Regency of Christine--Isabella II. --Her Expulsion from Spain--Amadeo--An Era of Republicanism--Castelar--Alfonso XII. Recalled--His Brief Reign and Death--Alfonso XIII. , 150

 CHAPTER XXIV. Birth of an Insurgent Party in Cuba--Ten Years' War--Impossible Reforms Promised--Revolution Started by José Marti, 1895--Attitude of the American Government--General Weyler's Methods--Effect upon Sentiment in America--Destruction of the Battle-Ship _Maine_--Verdict of Court of Inquiry--War Declared between Spain and America--Victories of Manila and in Cuba--Terms of Peace--Marriage of Alfonso XIII. And the Princess Ena, 154

ILLUSTRATIONS. 

 Charles V. _Frontispiece_

 FACING PAGE

 Columbus at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella 108

 The Surrender of Breda 118

 Philip IV. Of Spain 126

 Heroic Combat in the Pulpit of the Church of St. Augustine, Saragossa, 1809 144

 The Duke de la Torre sworn in as Regent before the Cortes of 1869 152

A SHORT HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

CHAPTER I. 

No name is more fraught with picturesque and romantic interest thanthat of the "Spanish Peninsula. "

After finishing this rare bit of handiwork nature seems to have thrownup a great ragged wall, stretching from sea to sea, to protect it; andthe Pyrenees have stood for ages a frowning barrier, descending towardFrance on the northern side from gradually decreasing heights--but onthe Spanish side in wild disorder, plunging down through steep chasms, ravines, and precipices--with sharp cliffs towering thousands of feetskyward, which better than standing armies protect the sunny plainsbelow. 

But the "Spanish Peninsula, " at the time we are about to consider, was neither "Spanish" nor was it a "peninsula. " At the dawn of historythis sunny corner of Europe was known as _Iberia_, and its people as_Iberians_. 

Time has effaced all positive knowledge of this aboriginal race; butthey are believed to have come from the south, and to have been alliedto the Libyans, who inhabited the northern coast of Africa. In fact, _Iberi_ in the Libyan tongue meant _freeman_; and _Berber_, apparentlyderived from that word, was the term by which all of these westernpeoples were known to the Ancient Egyptians. 

But it is suspected that the Iberians found it an easy matter to flowinto the land south of the Pyrenees, and that they needed no boats forthe transit. There has always existed a tradition of the joiningof the two continents, and now it is believed by geologists thatan isthmus once really stretched across to the African coast atthe narrowest point of the Straits, at a time when the waters of aMediterranean gulf, and the waters flowing over the sands of Sahara, together found their outlet in the Indian Ocean. 

There is also a tradition that the adventurous Phenicians, who areknown to have been in Iberia as early as 1300 B. C. , cut a canalthrough the narrow strip of land, and then built a bridge acrossthe canal. But a bridge was a frail link by which to hold the mightycontinents together. The Atlantic, glad of such an entrance to thegreat gulf beyond, must have rushed impetuously through, graduallywidening the opening, and (may have) thus permanently severed Europeand Africa; drained the Sahara dry; transformed the Mediterranean gulfinto a Mediterranean Sea; and created a "Spanish Peninsula. "

How long this fair Peninsula was the undisturbed home of the Iberiansno one knows. Behind the rocky ramparts of the Pyrenees they may haveremained for centuries unconscious of the Aryan torrent which wasflooding Western Europe as far as the British Isles. Nothing has beendiscovered by which we may reconstruct this prehistoric people and(perhaps) civilization. But their physical characteristics we areenabled to guess; for just as we find in Cornwall, England, lingeringtraces of the ancient Britons, so in the mountain fastnesses ofnorthern Spain linger the _Basques_, who are by many supposed to bethe last survivors of that mysterious primitive race. 

The language of the Basques bears no resemblance to any of theIndo-European, nor indeed to any known tongue. It is so difficult, sointricate in construction, that only those who learn it in infancy canever master it. It is said that, in Basque, "you spell Solomon, andpronounce it Nebuchadnezzar. " Its antiquity is so great that onelegend calls it the "language of the angels, " and another says that_Tubal_ brought it to Spain before the lingual disaster at Babel! Andstill another relates that the devil once tried to learn it, but that, after studying it for seven years and learning only three words, hegave it up in despair. 

A language which, without literature, can so resist change, can sopersist unmodified by another tongue spoken all around and about it, must have great antiquity; and there is every reason to believethat the Basque is a survival of the tongue spoken by the primitiveIberians, before the Kelts began to flow over and around thePyrennees; and also that the physical characteristics of this peopleare the same as those of their ancient progenitors; small-framed, dark, with a faint suggestion of the Semitic in their swarthy faces. 

We cannot say when it occurred, but at last the powerful, warlikeKelts had surmounted the barrier and were mingled with this non-Aryanpeople, and the resulting race thus formed was known to antiquity asthe _Keltiberians_. 

It is probable that the rugged Kelt easily absorbed the race of moredelicate type, and made it, in religion and customs, not unlike theKeltic Aryan in Gaul. But the physical characteristics of the otherand primitive race are indelibly stamped upon the Spanish people; andit is probably to the Iberian strain in the blood that may be tracedthe small, dark type of men which largely prevails in Spain, and tosome extent also in central and southern France. 

But the Keltiberians were Keltic in their religion. There are now inSpain the usual monuments found wherever Druid worship prevailed. Hugeblocks of stone, especially in Cantabria and Lusitania (Portugal), standing alone or in circles, tell the story of Druidical rites, andof the worship of the ocean, the wind, and the thunder, and of theplacating of the powers of nature by human sacrifices. 

The mingling of the Kelts and the Iberians in varying proportions indifferent parts of Spain, and in some places (as among the Basques)their mingling not at all, produced that diversity of traits whichdistinguished the _Asturians_ in the mountain gorges from theirneighbors the _Cantabrians_, and both these from the _Catalonians_ inthe northeast and the _Gallicians_ on the northwest coast, and fromthe _Lusitanians_, where now is Portugal; and still more distinguishedthe _Basques_, in the rocky ravines of the Pyrenees, from each andall of the others. And yet these unlike members of one family werecollectively known as Keltiberians. 

While this race--hardy, temperate, brave, and superstitious--wasleading its primitive life upon the Iberian peninsula, while theywere shooting arrows at the sky to threaten the thunder, drawing theirswords against the rising tide, and prizing iron more dearly thantheir abundant gold and silver, because they could hammer it intohooks, and swords, and spears--there had long existed in the East agroup of wonderful civilizations: the Egyptian, hoary with age andsteeped in wisdom and in wickedness; the _Chaldeans_, who, with"looks commercing with the skies, " were the fathers of astronomy;the _Assyrians_ and _Babylonians_, with their wonderful cities of_Nineveh_ and _Babylon_, and the Phenicians, with their no less famouscities of _Sidon_ and _Tyre_. Sidon, which was the more ancient ofthese two, is said to have been founded by Sidon, the son of Canaan, who was the great-grandson of Noah. 

Of all these nations it was the Phenicians who were the mostadventurous. They were a Semitic people, Syrian in blood, and theirhome was a narrow strip of coast on the east of the Mediterranean, where a group of free cities was joined into a confederacy heldtogether by a strong national spirit. 

Of these cities Sidon was once the head, but in time Tyre eclipsed itin splendor, and writers, sacred and profane, have sung her glories. 

These Phenicians had a genius for commerce and trade. They scented abargain from afar, and knew how to exchange "their broidered work, andfine linen, and coral, and agate" (I Kings xxvii. 16), their glasswareand their wonderful cloths dyed in Tyrian scarlet and purple, for thespices and jewels of the East, and for the gold and silver and theivory and the ebony of the south and west. 

Their ships were coursing the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf andbringing back treasures from India and searching every inlet in theMediterranean, and finally, either through the canal they are saidto have cut, or the straits it had made, they sailed as far as theBritish Isles and brought back tin. 

But the gold and silver of the Iberian Peninsula were more alluringthan the spices of India or the tin of Britain. So upon the Spanishcoast they made permanent settlements and built cities. As early as1100 B. C. They had founded beyond the "Pillars of Hercules, " the Cityof _Gades_ (Cadiz), a walled and fortified town, and had taughtthe Keltiberians how to open and work their gold and silver minessystematically; and in exchange they brought an old civilization, with new luxuries, new ideas and customs into the lives of the simplepeople. 

But they bestowed something far beyond this--something more enrichingthan silver and gold, --an alphabet, --and it is to the Phenicians thatwe are indebted for the alphabet now in use throughout the civilizedworld. 

CHAPTER II. 

Such an extension of power, and the acquisition of sources of wealthso boundless, excited the envy of other nations. 

The Greeks are said to have been in the Iberian peninsula long beforethe fall of Troy, where they came with a fleet from Zante, in theIonian Sea, and in memory of that place, called the city they foundedZacynthus, which name in time became _Saguntum_. Now they sent moreexpeditions and founded more cities on the Spanish coast; and theBabylonians, and the Assyrians, and, at a later time, the Persians andthe Greeks, all took up arms against these insatiate traders. 

Phenician supremacy was not easily maintained with so many jealousrivals in the field, and it was rudely shaken in 850 B. C. , when

 "The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. "

and the Phenician power was partially broken at its source in theEast. 

It is with thrilling interest that we read Isaiah's prophecy of thedestruction of Tyre, which was written at this very time. For thePhenicians were the _Canaanites_ of Bible history, and "Hiram King ofTyre" was their king; and his "navy, " which, together with Solomon's"came once in three years from _Tarshish_, " was their navy; and_Tarshish_ was none other than _Tartessus_, their own province, justbeyond Gibraltar on the Spanish coast. Nor is it at all improbablethat Spanish gold was used to adorn the temple which the great Solomonwas building. (I Kings ix. , x. ) Shakspere, who says all thingsbetter than anyone else, makes Othello find in the fatal handkerchief"confirmation strong as proofs from holy writ. " Where can be found"confirmation" stronger than these "proofs from holy writ"? And wherea more magnificent picture of the luxury, the sumptuous Orientalsplendor of this nation at that period, than in Ezekiel, chaptersxxvii. , xxviii. ? What an eloquent apostrophe to Tyre--"thou that artsituate at the entry of the sea, a merchant of the people, for _manyisles_. "--"With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hastgotten thee riches, " and, "by thy great wisdom and by thy _traffick_hast thou increased, and thine heart is lifted up. " And then followsthe terrible arraignment--"because of the iniquity of thy _traffick_. "And then the final prediction of ruin--"I will bring thee to ashesupon the earth"; "thou shalt be a terror, and _never_ shalt thou beany more. " Where in any literature can we find such lurid splendorof description, and such a powerful appeal to the imagination of thereader! And where could the student of history find a more graphic andaccurate picture of a vanished civilization!

In 850 B. C. , the same year in which the Assyrians partly subjugatedthe Phenicians in the East, the city of Carthage was founded upon thenorth coast of Africa, and there commenced a movement, with that cityas its center, which drew together all their scattered possessionsinto a Punic confederacy. This was composed of the islands ofSardinia, Corsica, part of Sicily, the Balearic Isles, and the citiesand colonies upon the Spanish Peninsula and African coast. As thepower of this confederacy expands, the name Phenician passes away andthat of _Carthaginian_ takes its place in history. 

Carthage became a mighty city, and controlled with a strong handthe scattered empire which had been planted by the Syrian tradesmen. Carthaginian merchants and miners were in Tartessus, and were plantingcities and colonies throughout the peninsula, and a torrent ofCarthaginian life was thus pouring into Spain for many hundred years, and the blood of the two races must have freely mingled. 

There are memorials of this time now existing, not only in Pheniciancoins, medals, and ruins, but in the names of the cities. _Barcelona_, named after the powerful family of Barca in Carthage, to whichHannibal belonged. _Carthagena_, a memorial of Carthage, whichmeant "the city"; and even _Cordova_ is traced to its primitiveform, --Kartah-duba, --meaning "an important city. " While _Isabella_, the name most famous in Spanish annals, has a still greater antiquity;and was none other than Jezebel--after the beautiful daughter of theKing of Sidon (the "_Zidoneans_"), who married Ahab, and lured him tohis downfall. And we are told that this wicked siren whose dreadfulfate Elijah foretold, was cousin to Dido, she who Virgil tells us"wept in silence" for the faithless Æneas. With what a strange thrilldo we find these threads of association between history sacred andprofane, and both mingled with the modern history of Spain. 

But Phenicia, for the "iniquity of her traffick, " was doomed. Theroots of this old Asiatic tree had been slowly and surely perishing, while her branches in the West were expanding. In the year 332 B. C. The siege and destruction of Tyre, predicted five hundred years beforeby Isaiah, was accomplished by Alexander the Great, and the wordsof the prophet found their complete fulfillment--that the people ofTarshish should find no city, no port, no welcome, when they came backto Syria!

But on the northern coast of the Mediterranean there was another powerwhich was waxing, while the Carthaginian was waning. The occupation ofthe young Roman Republic was not trade, but conquest. A bitter enmityexisted between the two nations. Rome was determined to break thisgrasping old Asiatic confederacy and to drive it out of Europe. TheSpanish Peninsula she knew little about, but the rich islands near herown coast--they must be hers. 

When, after the first Punic war (264-241 B. C. ), the Carthaginians sawSardinia and Sicily torn from them, Hamilcar, their great general, determined upon a plan of vengeance which should make of Italy a Punicprovince. His people were strong upon the sea, but for this war ofinvasion they must have an army, too. So he conceived the idea ofmaking Spain the basis of his military operations, and recruiting animmense army from the Iberian Peninsula. 

CHAPTER III. 

The Carthaginian occupation of Spain had not extended much beyond thecoast, and had been rather in the nature of a commercial alliance witha few cities. Now Hamilcar determined, by placating, and by bribes, and if necessary by force, to take possession of the Peninsula forhis own purposes, and to make of the people a Punic nation under thecomplete dominion of Carthage. So his first task was to win, or tosubdue, the Keltiberians. He built the city of New Carthage (nowCarthagena), he showed the people how to develop their immenseresources, and by promises of increased prosperity won the confidenceand sympathy of the nation, and soon had a population of millions fromwhich to recruit its army. 

When his son Hannibal was nine years old, at his father's bidding heplaced his hand upon the altar and swore eternal enmity to Rome. Thefidelity of the boy to his oath made a great deal of history. He tookup the task when his father laid it down, inaugurated the second Punicwar (218-201 B. C. ); and for forty years carried on one of the mostdesperate struggles the world has ever seen; the hoary East instruggle with the young West. 

Saguntum was that ancient city in Valencia which was said to havebeen founded by the Greeks long before Homer sang of Troy, or, indeed, before Helen brought ruin upon that city. At all events its antiquitywas greater even than that of the Phenician cities in Spain, andafter being long forgotten by the Greeks it had drifted underRoman protection. It was the only spot in Spain which acknowledgedallegiance to Rome; and for that reason was marked for destruction asan act of defiance. 

The Saguntines sent an embassy to Rome. These men made a pitiful andpassionate appeal in the Senate Chamber: "Romans, allies, friends!help! help! Hannibal is at the gates of our city. Hannibal, the swornenemy of Rome. Hannibal the terrible. Hannibal who fears not the gods, neither keeps faith with men. ["Punic faith" was a byword. ] O Romans, fathers, friends! help while there is yet time. "

But they found they had a "protector" who did not protect. Thesenators sent an embassy to treat with Hannibal, but no soldiers. So, with desperate courage, the Saguntines defended their beleaguered cityfor weeks, hurling javelins, thrusting their lances, and beatingdown the besiegers from the walls. They had no repeating rifles nordynamite guns, but they had the terrible _falaric_, a shaft of firwith an iron head a yard long, at the point of which was a mass ofburning tow, which had been dipped in pitch. When a breach was madein the walls, the inflowing army would be met by a rain of this deadlyfalaric, which was hurled with telling power and precision. Then, inthe short interval of rest this gave them, men, women, and childrenswiftly repaired the broken walls before the next assault. 

But at last the resourceful Hannibal abandoned his battering rams, andwith pickaxes undermined the wall, which fell with a crash. When askedto surrender, the chief men of the city kindled a great fire in themarket-place, into which they then threw all the silver and gold inthe treasury, their own gold and silver and garments and furniture, and then cast themselves headlong into the flames. This was theiranswer. 

Saguntum, which for more than a thousand years had looked from itselevation out upon the sea, was no more, and its destruction wasone of the thrilling tragedies of ancient history. On its site thereexists to-day a town called _Mur Viedro_ (old walls), and these oldwalls are the last vestige of ancient Saguntum. 

In order to understand the indifference of Rome to the SpanishPeninsula at this time, it must be remembered that Spain was thenthe uttermost verge of the known world, beyond which was only a dreadwaste of waters and of mystery. To the people of Tyre and of Greece, the twin "Pillars of Hercules" had marked the limit beyond which therewas nothing; and those two columns, Gibraltar and Ceuta, with thelegend _ne plus ultra_ entwined about them, still survive, as asymbol, in the arms of Spain and upon the Spanish coins; and what isstill more interesting to Americans, in the familiar mark ($) whichrepresents a dollar. (The English name for the Spanish _peso_ is_pillar-dollar_. )

Now Rome was aroused from its apathy. It sent an army into Spain, ledby Scipio the Elder, known as Scipio Africanus. When he fell, his son, only twenty-four years old, stood up in the Roman Forum and offered tofill the undesired post; and, in 210 B. C. , Scipio "the Younger"--andthe greater--took the command--as Livy eloquently says--"between thetombs of his father and his uncle", who had both perished in Spainwithin a month. 

The chief feature of Scipio's policy was, while he was defeatingHannibal in battles, to be undermining him with his native allies; andto make that people realize to what hard taskmasters they had boundthemselves; and by his own manliness and courtesy and justice to winthem to his side. 

He marched his army swiftly and unexpectedly upon New Carthage, thecapital and center of the whole Carthaginian movement, sent his fleetto blockade the city, and planned his moves with such precision thatthe fleet for the blockade and the army for the siege arrived beforethe city on the same day. 

Taken entirely by surprise. New Carthage was captured without a siege. Not one of the inhabitants was spared, and spoil of fabulous amountsfell to the victors. 

It seems like a fairy tale--or like the story of Mexico and Peru1800 years later--to read of 276 golden bowls which were brought toScipio's tent, countless vessels of silver, and 18 tons of coined andwrought silver. 

But the richest part of the prize was the 750 Spanish hostages--highin rank of course--whom the various tribes had given in pledge oftheir fidelity to Carthage. Now Scipio held these pledges, and theywere a menace and a promise. They were Roman slaves, but he could bykindness, and by holding out the hope of emancipation, placate andfurther bind to him the native people. 

By an exercise of tact and clemency Scipio gained such an ascendancyover the inhabitants, and so moved were they by this unexpectedgenerosity and kindness, that many would gladly have made him theirking. 

But he seems to have been the "noblest Roman of them all, " and whensaluted as king on one occasion he said: "Never call me king. Othernations may revere that name, but no Roman can endure it. My soldiershave given me a more honorable title--that of general. "

Such nobility, such a display of Roman virtue, was a revelation tothese barbarians; and they felt the grandeur of the words, though theycould not quite understand them. They were won to the cause of Rome, and formed loyal alliances with Scipio which they never broke. 

In the year 206 B. C. Gades (Cadiz), the last stronghold, wassurrendered to the Romans, and the entire Spanish Peninsula had beenwrenched from the Carthaginians. 

_Iberia_ was changed to _Hispania_, and fifteen years later the wholeof the Peninsula was organized into a Roman province, thenceforthknown in history, not as _Iberia_, nor yet _Hispania_; but _Spain_, and its people as _Spaniards_. 

At the end of the third Punic war (149-146 B. C. ), the ruin of theCarthaginians was complete. Hannibal had died a fugitive and asuicide. His nation had not a single ship upon the seas, nor a footof territory upon the earth, and the great city of Carthage was plowedand sowed with salt. Rome had been used by Fate to fulfill her sterndecree--"_Delenda est Carthago_. "

It was really only a limited portion of the Peninsula; a fringeof provinces upon the south and east coast, which had been underCarthaginian and now acknowledged Roman dominion. Beyond these theKeltiberian tribes in the center formed a sort of confederation, andconsented to certain alliances with the Romans; while beyond them, intrenched in their own impregnable mountain fastnesses, were brave, warlike, independent tribes, which had never known anything butfreedom, whose names even, Rome had not yet heard. The stern virtueand nobility of Scipio proved a delusive promise. Rome had not an easytask, and other and brutal methods were to be employed in subduingstubborn tribes and making of the whole a Latin nation. In one ofthe defiles of the Pyrenees there may now be seen the ruins offortifications built by Cato the Elder, not long after Scipio, whichshow how early those free people in the north were made to feel theiron heel of the master and to learn their lesson of submission. 

The century which followed Scipio's conquest was one of direexperience for Spain. A Roman army was trampling out every vestige offreedom in provinces which had known nothing else; and more than that, Roman diplomacy was making of their new possession a fighting groundfor the civil war which was then raging at Rome; and partisans ofMarius and of Sylla were using and slaughtering the native tribes intheir own desperate struggle. Roman rule was arrogant and oppressive, Roman governors cruel, arbitrary, and rapacious, and the boasted"Roman virtue" seemed to have been left in Rome, when treaties weremade only to be violated at pleasure. 

CHAPTER IV. 

As nature delights in adorning the crevices of crumbling ruins withmosses and graceful lichens, so literature has busied itself withthese historic ruins; and Cervantes has made the siege of Numantia(134 B. C. )--more terrible even than that of Saguntum--the subject of apoem, in which he depicts the horrors of the famine. 

Lira, the heroine, answers her ardent lover Mirando in high-flownSpanish phrase, which, when summed up in plain English prose, meansthat she cannot listen to his wooing, because she is so hungry--which, in view of the fact that she has not tasted food for weeks, seems tous not surprising!

Sertorius, whose story is told by Plutarch, affords anotherpicturesque subject for Corneille in one of his most famous tragedies. This Roman was an adherent of Marius in the long struggle with Sylla, and while upholding his cause in Spain he won to his side the peopleof Lusitania (Portugal), who made him their ruler, and helped him tofight the great army of the opposing Roman faction, part of which wasled by Pompey. 

Mithridates, in Asia Minor, was also in conflict with Sylla, and sentan embassy to Sertorius which led to a league between the two formutual aid, and for the defense of the cause of Marius. But senatorsof his own party became jealous of the great elevation of Sertorius, and conspired to assassinate him at a feast to which he was invited. So ended (72 B. C. ) one of the most picturesque characters andinteresting episodes in the difficult march of barbarous Spain towardenlightenment and civilization. 

Sertorius seems to have been a great administrator as well as fighter, and must also be counted one of the civilizers of Spain. He founded aschool at Osca, --now Huesca, --where he had Roman and Greek masters forthe Spanish youth. And it is interesting to learn that there isto-day at that city a university which bears the title "University ofSertorius. "

But it is not the valor nor the sagacity of Sertorius which made himthe favorite of poets; but the story of the White Hind, which he madeto serve him so ingeniously in establishing his authority with theLusitanians. 

A milk-white fawn, on account of its rarity, was given him bya peasant. He tamed her, and she became his constant companion, unaffrighted even in the tumult of battle. He saw that the peoplebegan to invest the little animal with supernatural qualities; so, finally, he confided to them that she was sent to him by the GoddessDiana, who spoke to him through her, and revealed important secrets. 

Such is the story which Corneille and writers in other lands havefound so fascinating, and which an English author has made the subjectof his poem "The White Hind of Sertorius. "

Another Roman civil war, more pregnant of great results, was to befought out in Spain. Julius Cæsar's conspiracy against the RomanRepublic, and his desperate fight with Pompey for the dictatorship, long drenched Spanish soil with blood, and had its final culmination(after Pompey's tragic death in Egypt) in Cæsar's victory overPompey's sons at Munda, in Spain, 45 B. C. 

With this event, the military triumphs and the intrigues of Cæsarhad accomplished his purpose. He was declared _Imperator_, perpetualDictator of Rome, and religious sacrifices were decreed to him as ifhe were a god. Unconscious of the chasm which was yawning at his feethe haughtily accepted the honors and adulation of men who were at thatvery moment conspiring for his death. On the fatal "Ides of March"(44 B. C. ) he was stricken in the Senate Chamber by the hands of hisfriends, and the great Cæsar lay dead at the feet of Pompey's statue. 

The world had reached a supreme crisis in its existence. Twoevents--the most momentous it has ever known--were at hand: the birthof a Roman Empire, which was to perish in a few centuries, after alife of amazing splendor; and the birth of a spiritual kingdom, whichwould never die!

Cæsar's nephew, Octavius Augustus, by gradual approaches reachedthe goal toward which no doubt his greater uncle was moving. Afterdefeating Brutus and Cassius at Philippi (42 B. C. ) and then afterdestroying his only competitor, Antony, at Actium (31 B. C. ) he assumedthe imperial purple under the name of Augustus. The title soundedharmless, but its wearer had founded the "Roman Empire. "

At last there was peace. Spain was pacified, and only here and theredid she struggle in the grasp of the Romans. Augustus, to make sure ofthe permanence of this pacification, himself went to the Peninsula. He built cities in the plains, where he compelled the stubbornmountaineers to reside, and established military colonies in theplaces they had occupied. 

Saragossa was one of these cities in the plains, and its name was"Cæsar Augusta, " and many others have wandered quite as far from theiroriginal names, which may, however, still be traced. 

It is said that "the annals of the happy are brief. " Let us hopethat poor Spain, so long harried by fate, was happy in the next fourhundred years, for her story can be briefly told. She seemed to havesettled into a state of eternal peace. It was a period not of externalevents, but of a process--an internal process of assimilation. Spain, in every department of its life, was becoming Latinized. 

A people of rare intellectual activity had been united to the lifeof Rome at the moment of her greatest intellectual elevation. Wasit strange that no Roman province ever produced so long a list ofhistorians, poets, philosophers, as did Southern Spain after theAugustan conquest? When we read the list of great Roman authors whowere born in Spain--the three Senecas, one of whom, the author andwit, opened his veins at the command of Nero (65 A. D. ), and another, the Gallio of the book of Acts; also Lucan, Martial, and Quintilian, when we read these names native to Spain, it seems as if the sourceof inspiration had removed from the banks of the Tiber to the banks ofthe Guadalquivir. 

Nowhere can the student of Roman antiquities find a richer fieldthan in Spain. And not only that, there is to-day in the manners andcustoms, and in the habits of the peasantry, a pervading atmosphere ofthe classic land which adopted them, which all that has occurred sincehas been powerless to efface, while the language of Spain is Latinto its core. Nor is this strange when we reflect that they were underthis powerful influence for a period as long as from ChristopherColumbus to the Spanish-American War!

CHAPTER V. 

In the history of nations there is one fact which again and again withstartling uniformity repeats itself. The rough, strong races from thenorth menace, and at last rudely dominate more highly civilizedbut less hardy races at the South, to the ultimate benefit of both, although with much present discomfort to the conquered race!

In Greece it was first the rude Hellenes who overran the Pelasgians. And again, long after that, there was another descent of fiercenorthern barbarians, --the Dorians from Epirus, --who, when they tookpossession of the Peloponnesus and became the _Spartans_, infused thatvigorous strain without which the history of Greece might have been avery tame affair. In the British Isles it was the Picts and Scots, whowould have done the same thing with England, perhaps, if the Anglesand Saxons had not come to the rescue, while Spain had her own Pictsand Scots in the mountain tribes of the Pyrenees. But in the fifthcentury there was the most stupendous illustration of this tendency, when all of Southern Europe was at last inundated by that northerndeluge, and the effete Roman Empire was effaced. 

The process had been a gradual one; had commenced, in fact, twocenturies before the overthrow of the Roman Republic. But notuntil the fourth century, after the wicked old empire had espousedChristianity, did it become obvious that its foundations wereundermined by this flood of barbarians. In 410 A. D. , when theWest-Goths, under Alaric, entered and sacked Rome, her power wasbroken. The roots no longer nourished the distant extremities inBritain and Gaul, and it was only a question of time when these, too, should succumb to the inflowing tide. 

The Ostro-Goths--or East-Goths--in Northern Italy, and theVisigoths--or West-Goths--in Gaul, were setting up kingdoms of theirown, under a Roman protectorate. The long period of peace in Spain wasbroken. The Pyrenees, with their warlike tribes, defended her for atime; but the Suevi and the Vandals--the latter a companion tribe ofthe Goths--had found an easier entrance by the sea on the east. Theyflowed down toward the south, and from thence across to the northerncoast of Africa, which they colonized, leaving a memorial in Spain, in the lovely province of Andalusia, which was named afterthem--_Vandalusia_. But before the sacking of Rome a wave of theGothic invasion had overflowed the Pyrenees, and Northern Spain hadbecome a part of the Gothic kingdom in Gaul, with the city of Toulouseas its head. 

A century of contact with Roman civilization had wrought great changesin this conquering race. They were untamed in strength, but realizedthe value of the civilities of life, and of intellectual superiority;and even strove to acquire some of the arts and accomplishments of therace they were invading. They were not yet acknowledged entire mastersof Gaul and northern Spain. On condition of military service they hadundisputed possession of their territory, with their own king, laws, and customs, but were nominally subjects of the Roman Emperor, Honorius. 

Their attitude toward the Romans at this period cannot better be toldthan in the words of Ataulf himself (or Ataulfus, or Adolphus), whoseinteresting story will be briefly related. He says:

"It was my first wish to destroy the Roman name and erect in its placea Gothic Empire, taking to myself the place and the powers of CæsarAugustus. But when experience taught me that the untamable barbarismof the Goths would not suffer them to live under the sway of law, andthat the abolition of the institutions on which the state rested wouldinvolve the ruin of the state itself, I chose instead the gloryof renewing and maintaining by Gothic strength the fame of Rome;preferring to go down to posterity as the restorer of that Roman powerwhich it was beyond my power to replace. "

These are not the words of a barbarian; although by the corrupt andcourtly nobles in Rome he was considered one; but no doubt he toweredfar above the barbarous host whom he helped to lead into Rome in theyear 410 A. D. 

Ataulf was the brother-in-law of Alaric, and succeeded that greatleader in authority after his death (410 A. D. ). 

At the time of the sacking of Rome this Gothic prince fell in lovewith Placidia, the sister of the Emperor Honorius; and after thefashion of his people, carried her away as his captive; not anunwilling one, we suspect, for we learn of her great devotion to herbrave, strong wooer, with blond hair and blue eyes. Ataulf took hisfair prize to the city of Narbonne in southern France, and madeher his Queen. But when Constantius, a disappointed Roman lover ofPlacidia's, instigated Honorius to send an army against him and hisGoths, he withdrew into Spain, and established his court with its rudesplendor in the ancient city of Barcelona. 

He seems to have had not an easy task between the desire to please hishaughty Roman bride and, at the same time, to repel the charge of hispeople that he was becoming effeminate and Romanized; and, finally, sojealous did they become of her influence that Ataulf was assassinatedin the presence of his wife, all his children butchered, and the proudPlacidia compelled to walk barefoot through the streets of Barcelona. 

Constantius, the faithful Roman lover, came with an army and carriedback to Rome the royal widow, who married him and became the mother ofValentinian III. , who succeeded his uncle Honorius as Emperor of Romein 425 A. D. , under the regency of Placidia during his infancy. 

This romance, lying at the very root of a Gothic dynasty in Spain, marks the earliest beginnings of a line of Visigoth kings. Ataulf'ssuccessor removed his court to Toulouse in France, and Spain for manyyears remained only an outlying province of the Gothic kingdom; herturbulent northern tribes refusing to accept or to mingle with thestrange intruders. When driven by the Romans from their mountainfastnesses the Basques, many of them, were at that time dispersedthrough southern and central France; which accounts for the presenceof that race in France, before alluded to. 

In the second half of the fifth century Attila, "the Scourge of God, "swept down upon Europe with his Huns, --mysterious, terrible, as a fireout of heaven, and more like an army of demons than men, --destroyingcity after city, and driving the people before them, until they cameto Orléans. There they met the combined Roman and Gothic armies. Theodoric, the Visigoth king, was killed on the battlefield. But tohim, and to the Roman general Ætius, belongs the glory of the defeatof the Huns (451 A. D. ). 

It was Evaric, the son of this Theodoric, who finally completed theconquest of the Spanish Peninsula, and with him really commences theline of Visigoth kings in Spain, and the conversion of that countryinto a Gothic empire, [A] entirely independent of Rome. 

The German _Franks_, under Clovis, established their kingdom inGaul 481 A. D. The _Angles_ and _Saxons_ in 446 A. D. Did the same inBritain. The _Ostrogoths_ had their own kingdom in northern Italy andsouthern Gaul (Burgundy). So, with the _Visigoths_ ruling in Spain, the "northern deluge" had in the fifth century practically submergedthe whole of Europe, and above its dark waters showed only the somberwreck of a Roman empire. 

From this fusing of Roman and Teutonic races there were to arise twotypes of civilization, utterly different in kind, the _Anglo-Saxon_and the _Latin_. In one the prevailing element, after the fusing wascomplete, was to be the Teutonic; in the other, the Roman. Herein liesthe difference between these two great divisions of the human family, and this is the germinal fact in the war raging to-day between Spainand the United States. It is a difference created not by the masteryof arms, but by the more efficient mastery of ideas. 

When the Angles and Saxons conquered Britain, after a Roman occupationof over three hundred years, they swept it clean of Roman laws, literature, and civilization. Untamed pagan barbarians though theywere, they had fine instincts and simple ideals of society andgovernment, and they cast out the corrupt old empire, root and branch. 

The Visigoths in Spain, more enlightened than they, alreadyChristianized, and, perhaps, even superior in intelligence, werecontent in the words of Ataulf--"to renew and maintain by Gothicstrength the fame of Rome. " So they built upon the ruins of decayinginstitutions of a corrupt civilization, a kingdom which flourishedwith the enormous vitality drawn from the conquering race, which racewas in turn conquered by Roman ideals. 

So, in the conflict now existing between Spain and the United States, we see the Spaniard, the child of the Romans; valorous, picturesque, cruel, versed in strategic arts, and with a savor of archaicwickedness which belongs to a corrupt old age. In the American we seethe child of the simple Angles and Saxons, no less brave, but just, and with an enthusiasm and confiding integrity which seems to endowhim with an imperishable youth. 

[Footnote A: The famous Gothic code established by him still linger inmuch of Spanish jurisprudence. ]

CHAPTER VI. 

The story of Ulfilas, who Christianized the pagan Goths in the lasthalf of the fourth century, is really the first chapter not alonein the history of Gothic civilization but in that of the German andEnglish literatures; which, with their vast riches, had their originin the strange achievement of Ulfilas. He had, while a boy, beencaptured by some Goths off the coast of Asia Minor, and was called bythem "_Wulf-ilas_" (little wolf). In his desire to translate the Bibleto his captors Wulf-ilas reduced the Gothic language to writing. Hehad first to create an alphabet; taking twenty-two Roman letters, andinventing two more: the letter _w_, and still another for _th_. Sowhile, after Constantine, the Christian religion was being adopted bythe Roman Empire, and while its simple dogmas were being discussed andrefined into a complicated and intricate system by men versed inGreek philosophy, and then formulated by minds trained in logic andrhetoric, the same religion was being spelled out in simple fashionby the Goths in central Europe from the book translated for them byUlfilas. 

All they found was that Jesus Christ was the beloved son of God andthe Saviour of the world; that he was the long-promised Messiah, andto believe in him and to follow his teachings was salvation. They knewnothing of the Trinity nor of any theologic subtleties, and this wasthe simple faith which the Goths carried with them into the lands theyconquered. 

The Romans, who had spent three centuries in burning Christians andtrying to obliterate the religion of Christ, were now its jealousguardians. They considered this "Arianism, " as it was called, a blasphemous heresy, so shocking that they refused to call itChristianity at all. The history of the first century of the Gothickingdom in Spain was therefore mainly that of the deadly strifebetween Arianism and Catholicism, or orthodoxy. The Goths could notdiscuss, for they were utterly unable to understand even the termsunder discussion; but they could fight and lay down their lives forthe faith which had done so much for them; and this they did freelyand fiercely. 

So the simple Gothic people were bewildered by finding themselvesin the presence of a Christianity incomprehensible to them; acomplicated, highly organized social order, equally incomprehensible;and a science and a literature of which they knew nothing. They mightstruggle for a while against this tide of superiority, but one by onethey entered the fascinating portals of learning and of art, acceptedthe dogmas of learned prelates, and a few generations were sufficientto make them meek disciples of the older civilization. 

The Spanish language fairly illustrates the result from thisincongruous mingling of Roman and Gothic. It is said to be a languageof Latin roots with a Teutonic grammar. 

The Goths laid rough hands on the speech they consented to use, andthe smooth, sonorous Latin was strangely broken and mixed with Gothicwords and idioms; yet it became one of the most copious, flexible, and picturesque of languages, with a literature marvelously rich andbeautiful. 

In precisely the same way was the classic old ruin of a Roman statere-enforced with a rough Gothic framework, and after centuries havehidden the joints and the scars with mosses and verdure, we have apicturesque and beautiful Spain!

But barbarous kings were fighting other things besides heresy. Therewere rebellions to put down; there were remnants of Sueves and ofRoman power to drive out, and there were always the fierce mountaintribes who never mingled with any conquerors, nor had ever surrenderedto anything but the Catholic faith. 

There were intermarriages between the three Gothic kingdoms, inBurgundy, Gaul, and Spain, and the history of some of these royalfamilies shows what wild passions still raged among the Goths, andwhat atrocities were strangely mingled with ambitious projects andreligion. 

Athanagild, one of the Visigoth kings, gave his daughter Brunhilde inmarriage to the King of the Franks in Gaul. The story of this terribleQueen, stained with every crime, and accused of the death of no lessthan ten kings, comes to a fitting end when, we are told, that inher wicked old age she was tied to the tail of an unbroken horse anddragged over the stones of Paris (600 A. D. ). 

At this time Leovigild (570-587), the Visigoth King, was ruling Spainwith a strong hand. He had assumed more splendor than any of hispredecessors. He had erected a magnificent throne in his palace atToledo, and his head, wearing the royal diadem, was placed on Spanishcoins, which may still be seen. A daughter of the terrible Brunhilde, the Princess Ingunda, came over from France to become the wife ofErmingild, the son of the great King Leovigild, and heir to histhrone. 

All went smoothly until it was discovered that this fair Princess wasa Catholic, and was artfully plotting to win her husband over to herfaith from the faith of his fathers--Arianism. 

Although Catholicism had made great inroads among their people, neverbefore had it invaded the royal household. And when his son declaredhis intention to desert their ancient creed there commenced a terribleconflict between father and son, which finally led to Ermingild's openrebellion, and at last to his being beheaded by his father's order. But this crime against nature was in vain. Arianism had reached thelimit of its life in Spain. Upon the death of Leovigild, his secondson, Recared (587-601), succeeded to the throne, and one of his firstacts was to abjure the old faith of the Gothic people, and Catholicismbecame the established religion of Spain. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Toledo, the capital of the Visigoth Kings, is the city about whichcluster the richest memories of Spain in her heroic age. WhenLeovigild removed his capital there from Seville in the sixth century, it was already an ancient Jewish city, about which tradition had longbusied itself. To-day, as it sits on the summit of a barren hill, onelooks in vain for traces of its ancient Gothic splendor. But the spotwhere now stands a beautiful cathedral is hallowed by a wonderfullegend, which Murillo made the subject of one of his great paintings. It is said that the Apostle St. James founded on that very spot theChurch of _Santa Maria_; and that the Virgin, in recognition ofthe dedication to her, descended from heaven to present its Bishop, Ildofonso, with a marvelous chasuble. In proof of this miracle, doubting visitors are still shown the marks of Mary's footprint upon astair in the chapel! However this may be, it is on this very spot thatKing Recared formally abjured Arianism; and preserved in a cloister ofthe cathedral may still be seen the "Consecration Stone" which reads:that the Church of Santa Maria, --built probably on the foundation ofthe older church, --was consecrated under "King Recared the Catholic, 587 A. D. " It also tells of the councils of the Spanish Church heldthere--at one of which councils was the famous canon which decreedthat all future Kings must swear they would show no mercy to "thataccursed people"--meaning the Jews. It was these very Jews who hadbrought commercial success and created the enormous wealth of thecity, from which it was now the duty of the pious Visigoth Kings toharry and hunt them as if they were frightened deer. 

The Visigoth monarchy, although in many cases hereditary, was in factelective. And the student of Spanish history will not find an orderlyroyal succession as in England and France. Disputes regarding thesuccession were not infrequent, and sometimes there will occur aninterval with apparently no king at all, followed by another periodwhen there are two--one ruling in the north and another in the south. "The King is dead--long live the King!" might do for France, but notfor Spain. 

During one of these periods of uncertainty, in the latter half of theseventh century, it is said that Leo, a holy man (afterward Pope), was told in a dream that the man who must wear the crown was thena laborer, living in the west, and that his name was Wamba. Theytraveled in search of this man almost to the borders of Portugal, andthere they found the future candidate for the throne plowing in thefield. The messengers, bowing before the plowman, informed him that hehad been selected as King of Spain. 

Wamba laughed, and said, "Yes, I shall be King of Spain when my poleputs forth leaves. "

Instantly the bare pole began to bud, and in a few moments was coveredwith verdure!

In vain did Wamba protest. What could a poor man do in the face ofsuch a miracle, and with a Spanish Duke pressing a poniard against hisbreast, and telling him to choose on the instant between a throne anda tomb!

The unhappy Wamba suffered himself to be borne in triumph to Toledo, and there to be crowned. And a very wise and excellent King didhe make. He seemed fully equal to the difficult demands of hisnew position. A rebellion, fomented by an ambitious Duke Paul, who gathered about his standard all the banished Jews, was a veryformidable affair. But Wamba put it down with a firm hand, and then, when it was over, treated the conspirators and rebels with marvelousclemency. When his reign was concluded he left a record of wisdom andsagacity rare in those days, in any land. 

His taking off the stage was as remarkable as his coming on. He fellinto a trance (October 14, 680), and after long insensibility it wasconcluded that the King was dying. According to a custom of the periodWamba's head was shaved, and he was clothed in the habit of a monk. The meaning of this was that if he died, he would, as was fitting, pass into the Divine presence in penitential garb. But if, peradventure, the patient survived, he was pledged to spend the restof his life in that holy vocation, renouncing every worldly advantage. 

So when, after a few hours, Wamba, in perfect health, opened his eyes, he found that instead of a King he was transformed into a Monk!

Whether this was a cunning device of this philosophic King to laydown the burdens which wearied him, and spend the rest of his daysin tranquility; or whether it was the work of the Royal Prince, whojoyfully assumed the diadem which he had so unwillingly worn, nobodyknows. But Wamba passed the remainder of his days in a monastery nearBurgos, and the ambitious Ervigius reigned as his successor. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Visigoth kingdom, which had stood for three centuries, had passedits meridian. It had created a magnificent background for historicSpain, and a heritage which would be the pride and glory of theproudest nation in Europe. The Goths had come as only rude intrudersinto that country; but to be descended from the Visigoth Kings washereafter to be the proudest boast of the Spaniard. And the man whocould make good such claim to distinction was a _Hidalgo_; or in itsoriginal form, _hijo-de-algo_--son of somebody. 

But many generations of peace had impaired the rugged strength andsoftened the sinews of the nation. It was the beginning of the endwhen, at the close of the seventh century, there were two rivalclaimants to the throne; and while the vicious and cruel Witizareigned at Toledo, Roderick, the son of Theodofred, also reigned inAndalusia. There had been a long struggle, during which it is saidthat Theodofred's eyes had been put out by his victorious rival, andhis son Roderick had obtained assistance from the Greek Emperor atByzantium in asserting his own claims. He succeeded in driving Witizaout of the country; and in 709, --"the last of the Goths, "--was crownedat Toledo, King of all Spain. 

But the struggle was not over; and it was about to lead to a resultwhich is one of the most momentous in the history, not alone ofSpain, --nor yet of Europe, --but of _Christendom_. Witiza was dead, buthis two sons, with a formidable following, were still trying to workthe ruin of Roderick. A certain Count Julian, who, on account ofhis daughter Florinda, had his own wrongs to avenge, accepted theleadership of these rebels. The power of the Visigoths had extendedacross the narrow strait (cut by the Phenicians) over to the oppositeshore, where Morocco seems to be reaching out in vain endeavor totouch the land from which she was long ago severed; and there, atTangiers, this arch-traitor laid his plans and matured the scheme ofrevenge and treachery which had such tremendous results for Europe. With an appearance of perfect loyalty he parted from Roderick, whounsuspectingly asked him to bring him some hawks from Africa when hereturned. Bowing, he said: "Sire, I will bring you such hawks as neverwere seen in Spain before. "

For one hundred years an unprecedented wave of conquest had beenmoving from Asia toward the west. Mahommedanism, which was destined tobecome the scourge of Christendom, had subjected Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and northern Africa, until it reached Ceuta--the companionPillar to Gibraltar on the African coast. 

At this point the Goths had stood, as a protecting wall beyond whichthe Asiatic deluge could not flow. 

Count Julian was the trusted military commander of the Gothicgarrisons in Morocco, as _Musa_, the oft-defeated Saracen leader, knew to his cost. As this Musa was one day looking with covetous eyesacross at the Spanish Peninsula, he was suddenly surprised by a visitfrom Count Julian; and still more astonished when that commanderoffered to surrender to him the Gothic strongholds _Tangier_, _Arsilla_, and _Ceuta_ in return for the assistance of the Saracenarmy in the cause of Witiza's sons against Roderick. 

Amazed at such colossal treason, Musa referred Count Julian to hismaster the Khalif, at Damascus, who at once accepted his infamousproposition. In Spanish legend and history this man is alwaysdesignated as _The Traitor_, as if standing alone and on a pinnacleamong the men who have betrayed their countries. 

Musa, half doubting, sent a preliminary force of about five hundredMoors under a chief named _Tarif_, to the opposite coast; and theMoors found, as was promised, that they might range at their own willand pleasure in that earthly paradise of Andalusia. The name of thisMussulman chief, Tarif, was given to the spot first touched by thefeet of the Mahommedan, which was called _Tarifa_; and as Tarifa wasafterward the place where customs were collected, the word _tariff_ isan imperishable memorial of that event. In like manner Gibraltar wasnamed _Gebel-al-Tarik_, (Mountain of Tarik) after the leader bearingthat name, who was sent later by Musa with a larger force; which namehas been gradually changed to its present form--Gibraltar. 

Poor King Roderick, while still fighting to maintain his own right tothe crown he wore, learned with dismay that his country was invaded bya horde of people from the African coast. Theodemir wrote to him: "Sostrange is their appearance that we might take them for inhabitants ofthe sky. Send me all the troops you can collect, without delay. " Thehawks promised by Count Julian had arrived!

The hour of doom had sounded for the last King of the Visigoths, andfor his kingdom. There is a legend that a mysterious tower existednear Toledo, which was built by Hercules, soon after Adam, with thecommand that no king or lord of Spain should ever seek to know what itcontained; instead of that it was the duty of each King to put a newlock upon its mysterious portal. 

It is said that Roderick, perhaps in his extremity, resolved todisobey the command, and to discover the secret hidden in theEnchanted Tower. In a jeweled shrine in the very heart of thestructure he came at last to a coffer of silver, "right subtlywrought, " and far inside of that he reached the final mystery, --onlythis, --a white cloth folded between two pieces of copper. Withtrembling eagerness Roderick opened and found painted thereon men withturbans, carrying banners, with swords strung around their necks, and bows behind them, slung at the saddle-bow. Over these figures waswritten: "When this cloth shall be opened, men appareled like theseshall conquer Spain, and be the lords thereof. "

Such is the picturesque legend. Men with "turbans and banners andswords slung about their necks, " were assuredly now in Andalusia, ledby Tarik, who had literally burned his ships behind him, and then toldhis followers to choose between victory or death. 

The two armies faced each other at a spot near Cadiz. It is said thatRoderick, the degenerate successor of Alaric, went into battle in arobe of white silk embroidered with gold, sitting on a car of ivory, drawn by white mules. Tarik's men, who were fighting for victory orParadise, overwhelmed the Goths; Roderick, in his flight, was drownedin the Guadalquivir, and his diadem of pearls and his embroidered robewere sent to Damascus as trophies. 

Count Julian urged that the victory be immediately followed up by Musabefore there was time for the Spaniards to rally. One after anotherthe cities of Toledo, Cordova, and Granada capitulated, the persecutedJews flocking to the new standard and aiding in the conquest of theiroppressors. 

As well might one have held back the Atlantic from rushing throughthat canal upon the isthmus, as to have stayed the inflowing of theSaracens through the breach made by "the Traitor, " Count Julian!In less than two years Spain was a conquered province, renderingallegiance to the Khalif at Damascus, and the _Moor_, --as thefollowers of the Prophet in Morocco were called, --reigned in Toledo. 

It was in the year 412 that Ataulfus, with his haughty bride Placidia, had established his Court at Barcelona, and Romanized Spain becameGothic Spain. In 711--just three centuries later--the Visigoth kingdomhad disappeared as utterly beneath the Saracen flood as had itsill-fated King Roderick under the waters of the Guadalquivir; andfastened upon Christian Europe was a Mahommedan empire; an empirewhich all the combined powers of that continent have never since beenable entirely to dislodge. From that ill-omened day in 709, when Tarifset foot on the Spanish coast, to this June of 1898, the Mahommedanhas been in Europe; and remains to-day, a scourge and a blight in theterritory upon which his cruel grasp still lingers. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Tarik and his twelve thousand Berbers, [A] or Moors, had at one strokewon the Spanish Peninsula. The banner of the Prophet waved over everyone of the ancient and famous cities in Andalusia, and the turbanedarmy had marched through the stubborn north as far as the Spanishborder. As Musa, intoxicated with success, stood at last upon thePyrenees, he saw before him a vision of a subjugated Europe. Thebanner of the Prophet should wave from the Pyrenees to the Baltic! Amosque should stand where St. Peter's now stands in Rome! So, stepby step, the Moslems pressed up into Gaul, and in 732 their army hadreached Tours. 

It was a moment of supreme peril for Christendom. But, happily, the Franks had what the Goths had not--a great leader. CharlesMartel, --then _Maire du Palais_, and virtually King of France, insteadof the feeble Lothair, --led his Franks into what was to be one of themost decisive of the world's battles; a battle which would determinewhether Europe should be Christian or Mahommedan. 

The tide of infidel invasion had reached its limits. The strong rightarm of Charles dealt such ponderous blows that the Moslems broke inconfusion, and this savior of Christendom was thenceforth known asCharles Martel: "Karl of the Hammer. "

After this crushing disaster at Tours the Moors realized that theywere not invincible. Their vaulting ambition did not again try tooverleap the Pyrenees; and they addressed themselves to settlingaffairs in their new territory. 

It has been wisely said that if the Mahommedan state had been confinedwithin the borders of Arabia, it would speedily have collapsed. Islambecame a world-wide religion when it clothed itself with armor, andbecame a church militant. It was _conquest_ which saved the faith ofthe Prophet. In its home in Asia the Empire of Mahommed was composedof hostile tribes and clans, and as it moved westward it gathered upSyrians, Egyptians, and the Berbers on the African coast, who, whenMorocco was reached, were known as Moors. This strange, heterogeneousmass of humanity, all nourished from Arabia, was held together by twothings: the _Koran_ and the _sword_. 

When conquest was exchanged for peaceful possession, all theinternecine jealousies, the tribal feuds, and old hatreds burst forth, and the first fifty years of Moorish rule in Spain was a period ofinternal strife and disorder--Arabs and Moors were jealously trying toundermine each other; while the Arabs themselves were torn by factionsrepresenting rival clans in Damascus. 

But a singular clemency was shown toward the conquered Spaniards. They were permitted to retain their own law and judges, and their owngovernors administered the affairs of the districts and collected thetaxes. The rule of the conquering race bore upon the people actuallyless heavily than had the old Gothic rule. Jews and Christians alikewere free to worship whom or what they pleased; but, at the same time, great benefits were bestowed upon those who would accept the religionof the Prophet. The slave class, which was very large and had sufferedterrible cruelties under its old masters, was treated with especialmildness and humanity. There was a simple road to freedom opened toevery man. He had only to say, "There is one God, and Mahommed is hisProphet, " and on the instant he became a freeman!

Such gentle proselytizing as this speedily won converts, not aloneamong slaves but from all classes. The pacification of Spain by theRomans had required centuries; while only a few years sufficed to makeof the vanquished in the southern provinces, a contented and almosthappy people; not only reconciled, but even glad of the change ofmasters. Never was Andalusia so mildly, justly, and wisely governed asby her Arab conquerors. 

The most delicate of all problems is that of dealing with a conqueredrace in its own land. That this should have been so wisely and soskillfully handled would be incomprehensible if this had been really, what it is always called, a Moorish conquest. But to be accurate, itwas a Moorish invasion and a Saracen conquest!

The fierce Berber Moor contributed the brute force, which was wieldedby Saracen intelligence. 

The Saracens were the leaven which penetrated the whole sodden massof Mahommedanism. With a civilization which had been ripening forcenturies under Oriental skies, --rich in wisdom, learning, culture, science, and in art, --they had come into Europe, infidels though theywere, to build up and not to destroy. 

The Roman conquest of Spain had civilized a barbarous race. The Gothicconquest of Romanized Spain had converted an effete civilization intoa strong semi-barbarism. Now again the Saracen had come from the Eastto convert a semi-barbarism into a civilization richer than any Spainhad yet known, and, more than that, to hold up a torch of learningand enlightenment which should illumine Europe in the days of darknesswhich were at hand. Although this difference between Arab and Moorprimarily existed, they became fused, and we shall speak of them onlyas Moors. But we should not lose sight of the fact that the superiorintelligence which made the Moorish kingdom magnificent was from theland of the Prophet. 

The Saracen dealt gently with the conquered Spaniard, not because hisheart was tender and kind, but because he was crafty and wise, andknew when not to use force, in order to accomplish his ends. Forthe same reason he refrained from trying to break the spirit of theindependent northern provinces, where the descendants of the oldVisigoths--the Hidalgos ("sons-of-somebody")--proudly intrenchedthemselves in an attitude of defiance, making in time a clearlydefined Christian north and Moslem south, with a mountain range (theSierra Guadarrama) and a river (the Ebro) as the natural boundaryline of the two territories. The Moor was a child of the sun. If thestubborn Goth chose to sulk, up among the chilly heights and on thebleak plains of the north, he might do so, and it was little matterif one Alfonso called himself "King of the Asturians, " in thatmountain-defended and sea-girt province. The fertile plains ofAndalusia, and the banks of the Tagus and Guadalquivir, were all ofSpain the Moor wanted for the wonderful kingdom which was to be themarvel of the Middle Ages. 

[Footnote A: The old Phenician name for the North African tribes, derived from the word Iberi. ]

CHAPTER X. 

But, at the early period we are considering, the "Christian kingdom"was composed of a handful of men and women who had fled from theMoslems to the mountains of the Asturias. Its one stronghold was thecave of Covadonga, where Pelagius, or Pelayo, had gathered thirty menand ten women. Here, in the dark recesses of this cave, --which wasapproached through a long and narrow mountain pass, and entered bya ladder of ninety steps, --was the germ of the future kingdoms ofCastile and Aragon, and also of the downfall of the Moor. An Arabhistorian said later: "Would to God the Moslems had extinguishedthat spark which was destined to consume the dominion of Islam in thenorth" and, he might have added, "_in Spain. _"

When Alfonso of Cantabria married the daughter of Pelayo in 751, thecave of Covadonga no longer held the insurgent band. He roused all thenorthern provinces against the Moors and gathered an army which drovethem step by step further south, until he had pushed the Christianfrontier as far as the great Sierra, so that the one-time Visigothcapital of Toledo marked the line of the Moslem border fortresses. Too scanty in numbers and too poor in purse to occupy the territory, Alfonso and his army then retreated to their mountains, there to enjoythe empty satisfaction of their conquest. 

But the Moors in Andalusia had too many troubles of their own at thattime to give much heed to Alfonso I. And his rebellious band hidingin the mountains. The Berbers and the Arabs on the African coastwere jealous and antagonistic; the one was devout, credulous, andemotional; the other cool, crafty, and diplomatic. Suddenly thelong-slumbering hatred burst into open revolt, and the Khalif sentthirty thousand Syrians to put down a formidable revolution in hisAfrican dominions. 

In full sympathy with their kinsmen across the sea, the Moors in Spainbegan to realize that while that land had been won by twelve thousandBerbers, led by one Berber general, that the lion's share of thespoils had gone to the Arabs, who were carrying things with a highhand! There were signs of a general uprising, in concert with therevolution in Africa; and it looked as if the new territory was to begiven up to anarchy; when suddenly all was changed. 

The Khalif, who was the head of all the Mahommedan empire, wassupposed to be the supreme ruler in spiritual and temporal affairs. But as his empire extended to such vast dimensions, he was obliged todelegate much of his temporal authority to others; so gradually it hadbecome somewhat like that of the Pope. He was the supreme spiritualhead, and only nominally supreme in affairs of state. 

The family of _Omeyyad_ had given fourteen Khalifs to the Mahommedanempire from 661 to 750; at which time the then reigning Omeyyadwas deposed, and the second dynasty of Khalifs commenced, called_Abbaside_, after Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet. 

Abd-er-Rahman was a Prince belonging to the deposed family ofthe Omeyyads. He was the only one of his family who escaped theexterminating fury of the Abbasides. There was no future for himin the east, so the thoughts of the ambitious youth turned to thewest--to the newly won territory of Spain. 

The coming of this last survivor of the Omeyyads to Andalusia is oneof the romances of history, and was not unlike the coming of anotheryoung Pretender to Scotland, one thousand years later. It aroused thesame wild enthusiasm, and as if by magic an army gathered about him, to meet the army of the Governor, Yusuf, which would resist him. Victory declared itself for the Prince, and he entered Cordovain triumph. Before the year had expired the dynasty of theOmeyyads--which was to stand for three centuries--was finallyestablished, and its first king--Abd-er-Rahman--reigned at Cordova. 

His hereditary enemies the Abbasides followed him to Spain, and foundsupporters among the disaffected. But it was in vain. The Abbasidearmy of invasion was utterly annihilated; and the qualities slumberingin this son of the Khalifs may be judged when we relate that the headsof the Abbaside leaders were put into a bag with descriptive labelsattached to their ears, and sent to the reigning Khalif as a present. 

This little incident does not seem to have injured him in theestimation of Mansur, the new Khalif, who said of him: "Wonderfulis this man! Such daring, wisdom, prudence! To throw himself into adistant land; to profit by the jealousies of the people; to turn theirarms against one another instead of against himself; to win homage andobedience through such difficulties; and to rule supreme--lord of all!Of a truth there is not such another man!" Abd-er-Rahman (the Sultan, as he was called) merited this praise. He knew when to be cruel andwhen to show mercy; and how to hold scheming Arab chiefs, fierce, jealous Berbers, and vanquished Christians, and could placate orcrucify as the conditions required. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Charlemagne was at this time building up his colossal empire. HisChristian soul was mightily stirred by seeing an infidel kingdom setup in Andalusia; and when, in 777, the Saracen governor and two otherArab chiefs appealed to him for aid against the Omeyyad usurper, Abd-er-Rahman, he eagerly responded. His grandfather Charles Martelhad driven these infidels back over the Pyrenees; now he would drivethem out of Spain, and reclaim that land for Christianity!

His army never reached farther than Saragossa. He was recalled toFrance by a revolt of the recently conquered Saxons, and the "Battleof Roncesvalles" is the historic monument of the ill-starred attempt. The battle in itself was insignificant. No action of such smallimportance has ever been invested with such a glamour of romance, nor the theme of so much legend and poetry. It has been called theThermopylæ of the Pyrenees, because of the personal valor displayed, and the tragic death of the two great Paladins (as the twelve Peers ofCharlemagne were called) Roland and Olivier. The _Chanson de Roland_was one of the famous ballads in the early literature of Europe, andRoland and Olivier were to French and Spanish minstrelsy what theknights of King Arthur were to the English. 

The simple story about which so much has been written and sung isthis: As the retreating army of Charlemagne was crossing the Pyrenees, the rear of the army under Roland and Olivier was ambuscaded in thenarrow pass of Roncesvalles by the Basques and exterminated to a man. 

These Basques were the unconquerable mountain tribe of which we heardso much in the early history of Spain. They had been on guard forcenturies, keeping the Franks back from the Pyrenees. They may havebeen acting under Saracenic influence when they exterminated therear-guard of Charlemagne's army. But it was done, not because theyloved the Saracen, but because they had a hereditary hatred for theFranks. 

Mediæval Europe never tired of hearing of the Great Charles' lamentover his Roland: "O thou right arm of my kingdom, --defender of theChristians, --scourge of the Saracens! How can I behold thee dead, andnot die myself! Thou art exalted to the heavenly kingdom, --and I amleft alone, a poor miserable King!"

CHAPTER XII. 

The tide which had flowed over southern Spain was a singular mixtureof religious fervor, of brutish humanity, and refinements of wisdomand wickedness. No stranger and more composite elements were everthrown together. Permanence and peace were impossible. Nothing butforce could hold together elements so incongruous and antagonistic. Assoon as the hand of Abd-er-Rahman I. Was removed disintegration began. Clashing races, clans, and political parties had in a few years madesuch havoc that it seemed as if the Omeyyad dynasty was crumbling. 

It might have been an Arab who said "he cared not who made the lawsof his country, so he could write its songs. " Learning, literature, refinements of luxury and of art had taken possession of the land, which seemed given up to the muses. When in 822 Abd-er-Rahman II. Reigned, he did not trouble himself about the laws of his crumblingempire. The one man in whom he delighted was _Ziryab_. What Petroniuswas to Nero, [A] and Beau Brummel to George IV. , that was Ziryab tothe Sultan Abd-er-Rahman II. , the elegant arbiter in matters of taste. From the dishes which should be eaten to the clothes which shouldbe worn, he was the supreme judge; while at the same time he knew byheart and could "like an angel sing" one thousand songs to his adoringSultan. 

Even the Gothic Christians were seduced by these alluring refinements. They felt contempt for their old Latin speech and for theirliterature, with the tiresome asceticism it eternally preached. TheChristian ideal had grown to be one of penance and mortification ofthe flesh, and to a few ardent souls these sensuous delights were anopen highway to death eternal. _Eulogius_ became the leader of thisband of zealots. In lamenting the decadence of his people, he wrote, "hardly one in a thousand can write a decent Latin letter, and yetthey indite excellent Arabic verse!" Filled with despairing ardor thisman aroused a few kindred spirits to join him in a desperate attemptto awaken the benumbed conscience of the Christians. They could notget the Moslems to persecute them, but they might attain martyrdom bycursing the Prophet; then the infidels, however reluctant, would becompelled to behead them. This they did, and one by one perished, to no purpose. The Gothic Christians were not conscience-stricken asEulogius supposed they would be, and there was no general uprising forthe Christian faith. 

In 912 the threatened ruin of the dynasty was arrested by the comingof another Abd-er-Rahman, third Sultan of that name. Rebellion was putdown, and fifty years of wise and just administration gave solidity tothe kingdom, which also then became a _Khalifate_. 

The Abbaside Khalifs, after the deposition of the Omeyyads, hadremoved the Khalifate from Damascus to Baghdad. But the empirehad extended too far west to revolve about that distant pivot. Abd-er-Rahman--perhaps remembering the old feud between his familyand the Abbasides--determined to assume the spiritual headship ofthe western part of the empire. And thereafter, the Mahommedanempire--like the Roman--had two heads, an Eastern Khalif at Baghdad, and a Western Khalif at Cordova. 

While thus extending his own power the Khalif was extinguishing everyspark of rebellion in the south and driving the rebellious Christiansback in the north, and at the same time he was clothing Cordova with asplendor which amazed and dazzled even the Eastern Princes who cameto pay court to the great Khalif. His emissaries were everywherecollecting books for his library and treasure for his palaces. Cordovabecame the abode of learning, and the nursery for science, philosophy, and art, transplanted from Asia. The imagination and the pen ofan arab poet could not have overdrawn this wonderful city on theGuadalquivir, --with its palaces, its gardens, and fountains, --its50, 000 houses of the aristocracy, --its 700 mosques, --and 900 publicbaths, --all adorned with color and carvings and tracery beautiful as adream of Paradise. One hears with amazement of the great mosque, with its 19 arcades, its pavings of silver and rich mosaics, its 1293clustered columns, inlaid with gold and lapis-lazuli, the clustersreaching up to the slender arches which supported the roof; the wholeof this marvelous scene lighted by countless brazen lamps made fromChristian bells, while hundreds of attendants swung censers, fillingthe air with perfume. 

After the ravages of a thousand years travelers stand amazed to-daybefore the forest of columns which open out in endless vistas in thesplendid ruin, calling up visions of the vanished glories of Cordovaand the Great Khalif. 

There is not time to tell of the city this Spanish Khalif built forhis favorite wife, "The Fairest, " and which he called "Hill of theBride, " upon which for fifteen years ten thousand men worked daily;nor of the four thousand columns which adorned its palaces, presentsfrom emperors and potentates in Constantinople, Rome, and far-offEastern states; nor of the ivory and ebony doors, studded with jewels, through which shone the sun, the light then falling on the lake ofquick-silver, which sent back blinding, quivering flashes into dazzledeyes. And we are told of the thirteen thousand male servants whoministered in this palace of delight. All this, too, at a time whenour Saxon ancestors were living in dwellings without chimneys, andcasting the bones from the table at which they feasted into the foulstraw which covered their floors; when a Gothic night had settled uponEurope, and blotted out civilization so completely that only in a partof Italy, and around Constantinople, did there remain a vestige ofrefinement!

It is said that when the embassy from Constantinople came bearing aletter to the Khalif, the courtier whose duty it was to read it was soawed by all this splendor that he fainted!

And yet the owner and creator of this fabulous luxury, --Sultan andKhalif of a dominion the greatest of his time, and with "The Fairest"for his adored wife, --when he came to die, left a paper upon which hehad written that he could only recall fourteen days in which he hadbeen happy. 

[Footnote A: See "Quo Vadis?"]

CHAPTER XIII. 

In the north there was developing another and very different power. The descendants of the Visigoth Kings, making common cause with therough mountaineers, had shared all their hardships and rigors in themountains of the Asturias. Inured to privation and suffering, entirelyunacquainted with luxury or even with the comforts of living, they hadgrown strong, and in a century after Alfonso I. Had emerged from theirmountain shelter and removed their court and capital from Oviedo toLeon, where Alfonso III. Held sway over a group of barren kingdoms, poor, proud, but with _Hidalgos_ and _Dons_, who were keeping alivethe sacred fires of patriotism and of religion. This was the roughcradle of a Spanish nationality. 

They had their own jealousies and fierce conflicts, but all united ina common hatred of the Moor. Though they did not yet dream of drivinghim out of their land, their brave leaders, Ramiro I. And Ordoño I. Had been for years steadily defying and tormenting him with the kindof warfare to which they gave its name--_guerrilla_--meaning "littlewars. "

While the Great Khalif was consolidating his Moorish kingdom anddriving the Christians back into their mountains, the power of thatpeople was being weakened by internal strifes existing between thethree adjacent kingdoms--Leon, Castile, and Navarre. The headshipof Leon was for years disputed by her ambitious neighbor Castile (socalled because of the numerous fortified castles with which it wasstudded), under the leadership of one Fernando, Count of Castile. 

There had been the usual lapse into anarchy and weakness after theGreat Khalif's death. Andalusia always needed a master, and this shefound in _Almanzor_, who was Prime Minister to one of the Khalif'sfeeble descendants. It was a sad day for the struggling kingdom in thenorth when this all-subduing man took the reins in his own hands, andleft his young master to amuse himself in collecting rare manuscriptsand making Cordova more beautiful. 

This Almanzor, the mightiest of the soldiers of the Crescent sinceTarik and Musa, proclaimed a war of faith against the Christians, whowere obliged to forget their local dissensions and to try with theircombined strength to save their kingdom from extermination. These werethe darkest days to which they had yet been subjected. But for thedeath of Almanzor the ruin of the Christian state would have beencomplete. A monkish historian thus records this welcome event: "In1002 died Almanzor, and was buried in hell. "

The death of Almanzor was the turning point in the fortunes of the twokingdoms--that of the Moors and of the Christians. 

The magnificence and the glory of the kingdom faded like the mistbefore the morning sun. Never again would Cordova be called the "Brideof Andalusia. " Eight years after the death of Almanzor anarchy andruin reigned in that city. The gentle, studious youth who was Khalif, was dragged with his only child to a dismal vault attached to thegreat mosque; and here, in darkness and cold and damp, sat thegrandson of the first Great Khalif, his child clinging to his breastand begging in vain for food, his wretched father patheticallypleading with his jailers for just a crust of bread, and a candle torelieve the awful darkness. 

The brutal Berbers now had their turn. The priceless library, with itssix hundred thousand volumes, was in ashes. They were in the "City ofthe Fairest. " Palace after palace was ransacked, and in a few daysall that remained of its exquisite treasures of art was a heap ofblackened stones (1010). The Christians drew their broken state closertogether, and gathered themselves for a more aggressive warfare thanany yet undertaken. The time when the Moors were in the throes ofcivil war was favorable. The three kingdoms of Asturias, Leon, andCastile were in 1073 united into one "kingdom of Castile, " underAlfonso VI. , who had already made great inroads upon the Moslemterritory and laid many cities under tribute. With this event, thename _Castilian_ comes into Spanish history, and from thenceforth thatname represents all that is proudest, bravest, and most characteristicof the part of the race which traces a direct lineage from the ancientVisigoth Kings. 

Alfonso had not misjudged his opportunity. He had traversed Spainwith his army, and bathed in the ocean in sight of the "Pillars ofHercules. " His great general Rodrigo Diaz, known as "My Cid, theChallenger, " had cut another path all the way to Valencia, where hereigned as a sort of uncrowned king; and he will forever reignas crowned king in the realm of romance and poetry; the perfectembodiment of the knightly idea--the "Challenger, " who, in defenseof the faith, would stand before great armies and defy them to singlecombat! Whether "My Cid" ever did such mighty deeds as are ascribed tohim, no one knows. But he stands for the highest ideal of his time. He was the "King Arthur" of Spanish history; and so valiantly didhe serve the Christian cause that the Moors were driven to a mostdisastrous step. With the Cid in Valencia, with Alfonso VI. Marchinga victorious army through the Moslem territory, and with Toledo, thecity of the ancient Visigoth Kings, repossessed, it looked as if, after almost four hundred years, the Christians were about to recovertheir land. 

The Moors, thoroughly frightened, realizing how helpless they hadgrown, resolved upon a desperate measure. 

There was, on the opposite African coast, a sect of Berber fanatics, fierce and devout, known as "saints, " but which the Moors called_Almoravides_. Fighting for the faith was their occupation. What morefitting than to use them as a means of driving the infidel Christiansout of Moslem territory!

They came, like a cloud of locusts, and settled upon the land. Yusuf, their general, led his men against Alfonso's Castilians October 23, 1086. Near Badajos the attack was made simultaneously in front andrear, crushing them utterly; Alfonso barely escaping with five hundredmen. This was only the first of many other crushing defeats; the mostdisheartening of which was the one in 1099, when the Cid, fighting inalliance with Pedro, King of Aragon, was defeated near Gardia, on theseacoast. Then the great warrior's heart broke, and he died; and weare told he was clothed cap-à-pie in shining armor and placed uprighton his good steed Bavieca, his trusty sword in his hand--and so hepassed to his burial; his banner borne and guarded by five hundredknights. And we are also told the Moors wonderingly watched hisdeparture with his knights, not suspecting that he was dead. 

The object of the Moors in inviting the odious Almoravides had beenaccomplished; the Christians had been driven out of Andalusia backinto their own territory; but their African auxiliaries were too wellpleased with their new abode to think of leaving it. One by one theMoorish Princes were subdued by the men whose aid they had invoked, until a dynasty of the Almoravides was fastened upon Spain. To therefined Spanish Arabs contact with these savages from the desert wasa terrible scourge, and so far as they were able they withdrew intocommunities by themselves, leaving these African locusts to devourtheir substance and dim their glory. 

But luxury was not favorable to the invaders. In another generationtheir martial spirit was gone and they had become only ignorant, sodden voluptuaries; and when the Christians once more renewed theirattacks, they failed to repel them as Yusuf had done thirty yearsbefore. 

There was another fanatical sect, beyond the Atlas range in Africa, which had long been looking for a coming Messiah, whom they called the_Mahdi_. They were known as the _Alhomades_. A son of a lamp-lighterin the Mosque of Cordova one day presented himself before theAlhomades, and announced that he was the great _Mahdi_, who wasdivinely appointed to lead them, and to bring happiness to all theearth. 

The path this _Mahdi_ desired to lead them was first to Morocco, thereto subdue the Almoravides in their own land, and thence to Spain. Ina short time this entire plan was realized. The Mahdi's successor wasEmperor of Morocco, and by the year 1150 included in his dominion wasall of Mahommedan Spain! The Spanish Arabs, when they were fightingAlfonso VI. And the "Cid, " did not anticipate this disgracefuldownfall from people of their own faith. They abhorred theseMahommedan savages, and drew together still closer for a century morein and about their chosen refuge of Granada. 

In the early part of the thirteenth century the Emperor of Moroccomade such enormous preparations for the occupation of Spain that alarger design upon Europe became manifest. Once more Christendom wasalarmed; not since Charles Martel had the danger appeared so great. The Pope proclaimed a Crusade, this time not into Palestine, butSpain. 

An army of volunteers from the kingdom of Portugal and from southernFrance re-enforced the great armies of the Kings of Castile, Aragon, and Navarre. The Crusaders, as they called themselves, assembledat Toledo July 12, 1212, under the command of Alfonso IX. , King ofCastile. The power of the Alhomades was broken, and they were drivenout of Spain. The once great Mahommedan Empire in that country wasreduced to the single province of Granada, where the Moors intrenchedthemselves in their last stronghold. For nearly three centuries theCrescent was yet to wave over the kingdom of Granada; but it was toshine in only the pale light of a waning crescent, until its finalextinction in the full light of a Christian day. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

A great change had been wrought in Europe. The Crusades had opened achannel through which flowed from the East reviving streams of ancientknowledge and culture over the arid waste of mediævalism. France andEngland had awakened from their long mental torpor, Paris was becomethe center of an intellectual revival. In England, Roger Bacon, in his"Opus Majus, " was systematizing all existing knowledge and laying afoundation for a more advanced science and philosophy for the people, who had only recently extorted from their wicked King John the greatcharter of their liberties. 

It was just at this period, when the door had suddenly opened usheringEurope into a new life, that the Christian cause in Spain triumphed;and, excepting in the little kingdom of Granada, the Cross waved fromthe Pyrenees to the sea. After more than four centuries of steadfastdevotion to that object, the descendants of the Visigoth Kings hadcome once more into their inheritance. 

They found it enriched, and clothed with a beauty of which theirancestors could never have dreamed. These Spaniards had learned theirlesson of valor in the north, and they had learned it well. Now in theland of the Moor, dwelling in the palaces they had built, and gazingupon masterpieces of Arabic art and architecture which they hadleft, they were to learn the subtle charm of form and color, and thefascination which music and poetry and beauty and knowledge maylend to life. As they drank from these Moorish fountains the ruggedwarriors found them very sweet; and they discovered that there wereother pleasures in life beside fighting the Moors and nursing memoriesof the Cid and their vanished heroes. 

The territory of Fernando III. , King of Castile (1230-52), extendednow from the Bay of Biscay to the Guadalquivir. The ancient city ofSeville was chosen as his capital. It was a far cry from the "Caveof Covadonga" to the Moorish palace of the "Alcazar, " where dweltthe pious descendant of Pelayo! The first act of Fernando III. Wasto convert the Mosque at Seville into a cathedral, which still standswith its Moorish bell-tower, the beautiful "Giralda. " There may alsobe seen to-day over one of its portals a stuffed crocodile, which wassent alive to King Ferdinand by the Sultan of Egypt. And within thecathedral, in a silver urn with glass sides, the traveler may alsogaze to-day upon the remains of this "Saint Ferdinand" clothed inroyal robes, and with a crown upon his head. 

Spain had begun to lift up her head among the other nations of Europe. To defeat the Crescent was the highest ideal of that chivalric age. Spain, longer than any other nation, had fought the Mahommedan. Ithad been her sole occupation for four centuries, and now she hadvanquished him, and driven him into the mountains of one of hersmallest provinces, there to hide from the Spaniards as they had oncehidden from the Moors in the North. This was a passport to thehonor and respect of other Christian nations. She was Spain "theCatholic"--the loved and favorite child of the Church--and greatmonarchs in England, France, and Germany bestowed their sons anddaughters upon her kings and princes. Poor though she was in purse, and somewhat rude yet in manners, she held up her head high inproud consciousness of her aristocratic lineage, and her unmatchedchampionship of Christianity. 

We realize how close had become the tie binding her to other nationswhen we learn that King Fernando III. Was the grandson of QueenEleanor of England (daughter of Henry II. ), and that Louis IX. OfFrance, that other royal saint, was his own cousin; and also that hiswife Beatrix, whom he brought with him to Seville, was daughter ofFrederick II. , Emperor of Germany. 

The deep hold which Arabic life and thought had taken upon theirconquerors was shown when Alfonso X. , son of Ferdinand, came to thethrone. So in love was he with learning and science that he let hiskingdom fall into utter confusion while he busied himself with a setof astronomical tables upon which his heart was set and in holding upto ridicule the Ptolemaic theory. If he had given less thought tothe stars, and more to the humble question as to who was to be hissuccessor, it would have saved much strife and suffering to those whocame after him. 

While the Moslems were building up their kingdom and making of theircapital city a second and even more beautiful Cordova, there was apartial truce with the Moors in Granada. Moors and Christians wereenemies still; the hereditary hatreds were only lulled into temporaryrepose. But Christian knights who were handsome and gallant mightlove and woo Moorish maidens who were beautiful; and, as a writerhas intimated, love became the business and war the pastime of theSpaniard in Andalusia. Spain was unconsciously inbibing the soft, sensuous charm of the civilization she was exterminating; and thepeculiar rhythm of Spanish music, and the subtle picturesquenesswhich makes the Spanish people unique among the other Latin nationsof Europe, came, not from her Gothic, nor her Roman, nor her Phenicianancestry, but from the plains of Arabia; and the guitar and the danceand the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, areechoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. Not so thebull-fight! Would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, youmust not go to the East; the Oriental was cruel to man, but not tobeast. He would have abhorred such a form of amusement, for the originof which we must look to the barbarous Kelt; or perhaps, as is moreprobable, to the mysterious Iberians, since among the Latin peoplesof Europe bull-fighting is found in Spain alone. Well was it for Spainthat her rough, untutored ancestors were kept hiding in the mountainsfor centuries, while that brilliant Oriental race planted theirPeninsula thick with the germs of high thinking and beautiful living. 

As the spider, after his glistening habitation has been destroyed bysome ruthless footstep, goes patiently to work to rebuild it, so theMoor in Granada, with his imperishable instinct for beauty, was makingof his little kingdom the most beautiful spot in Europe. The city ofGranada was lovelier than Cordova; its Alhambra more enchanting thanhad been the palaces in the "City of the Fairest. " This citadel, which is fortress and palace in one, still stands like the Acropolis, looking out upon the plain from its lofty elevation. Volumes have beenwritten about its labyrinthine halls and corridors and courts, and theamazing richness of decoration, which still survives--an inexhaustiblemine for artists and a shrine for lovers of the beautiful. But Granadacultivated other things besides the art of beauty. Nowhere in Europewas there in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries such advancedthinking, and a knowledge so akin to our own to-day, as within theborders of that Moorish kingdom. 

CHAPTER XV. 

There were other reasons beside the growing peacefulness of theSpaniards why Granada was left to develop in comparative security fortwo centuries. It was impossible that adjacent ambitious kingdoms, such as Navarre, Castile, Aragon, Leon, and Portugal, with indefiniteand disputed boundaries, and, on account of intermarriages between thekingdoms, with indefinite and disputed successions, should ever be atpeace. In the perpetual strife and warfare which prevailed onaccount of royal European alliances, the fate of foreign princes andprincesses were often involved, and hence European states stood readyto take a hand. 

Castile and Aragon had gradually absorbed the smaller states, excepting Portugal on the one side and Navarre on the other. Thehistory of Spain at this time is a history of the struggles of thesetwo states for supremacy. The most eventful as well as the most luridperiod of this prolonged civil war was while Pedro the Cruel wasking of Castile, 1350-69. This Spanish Nero, when sixteen years old, commenced his reign by the murder of his mother. A catalogue of hiscrimes is impossible. Enough to say that assassination was his remedy, and means of escape, from every entanglement in which his treacheriesinvolved him. It was the unhappy fate of Blanche de Bourbon, sister ofCharles V. , King of France, to marry this King of Castile, and whenhe refused to live with her and had her removed from his palace theAlcazar to a fortress, and finally poisoned her, the French Kingdetermined to avenge the insult to his royal house. He allied himselfwith the King of Aragon to destroy Pedro, with whom the King of Aragonwas of course at war. 

Edward, the "Black Prince, " was then brilliantly invading France andextending the kingdom of his father Edward III. He was the kinsman ofPedro, and when appealed to by his cousin for aid in protectinghis kingdom from the King of Aragon and his French allies, Edwardgallantly consented to help him; and in the spring of 1367, forthe second time, a splendid army advanced through the Pass atRoncesvalles, and a great battle, worthy of a better cause, was foughtand won. 

So this most atrocious king--perhaps excepting Richard III. OfEngland, whom he resembled--had for his champion the victor of Cressyand Poictiers. He was restored to his throne, which had been usurpedby his brother Enrique (or Henry), but in a personal encounter withEnrique soon after (which was artfully brought about by the famousBreton knight, Bertrand du Guesclin), he met a deserved fate (1369). 

Constanza, the daughter of Pedro the Cruel, had been married to Johnof Gaunt (Duke of Lancester), brother of the Black Prince and son ofEdward III. As Constanza was the great-grandmother of Isabella I. OfSpain, so in the veins of that revered Queen there flowed the blood ofthe Plantagenets, as well as that of Pedro the Cruel!

Because of the number of doubtful pretenders always existing inSpain, disputes about the royal succession also always existed. Sucha dispute now led to a long war with Portugal, where King Fernando hadreally the most valid hereditary claim to the throne made vacant byPedro's death. If his right had been acknowledged, Portugal and Spainwould now be united; Isabella would have remained only a poor anddevout princess, and would never have had the power to win a continentfor the world. So impossible is it to remove one of the links forgedby fate, that we dare not regret even so monstrous a reign as that ofPedro the Cruel!

Enrique's right to the vacant throne of his brother had twodisputants. Besides the King of Portugal, John of Gaunt, who hadmarried the lady Constanza, --by virtue of her rights as daughter ofPedro, --claimed the crown of Castile. This Plantagenet was actuallyproclaimed King of Castile and Leon (1386). For twenty-five yearshe vainly strove to come into his kingdom as sovereign; but finallycompromised by giving his young daughter Catherine to the boy "Princeof Asturias, " the heir to the throne. He was obliged to contenthimself by thus securing to his child the long-coveted prize. And itwas this Catherine, who at fourteen was betrothed to a boy of nine, who was the grandmother of Isabella, Queen of Castile. 

When such was the private history of those highest in the land we canonly imagine what must have been that of the rest. Feudalism, whichwas a part of Spain's Gothic inheritance, had always made thatcountry one of its strongholds, and chivalry had nowhere else foundso congenial a soil. There was no great artisan class, as in France, creating a powerful "bourgeoisie"; no "guilds, " or simple "burghers, "as in Germany, stubbornly standing for their rights; no "boroughs"and "town meetings, " where the people were sternly guarding theirliberties, as in England. 

The history of other nations is that of the struggles of the commonpeople against the tyranny of kings and rulers. If there were any"common people" in Spain, they were so effaced that history makes nomention of them. We hear only of kings and great barons andglorious knights; and their wonderful deeds and their valor andprowess--excepting in the wars with the Moors--were always overboundary-lines and successions, or personal quarrels more or lessdisgraceful, with never a single high purpose or a principle involved. It was all a gay, ambitious pageant, adorned by a mantle of chivalry, and made sacred by the banner of the Cross. In the history of no otherEuropean country do we see a great state develop under despotism sounredeemed by wholesome ideals, and so unmitigated and unrestrained bygentle human impulses. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Juan II. , the son of the young Catherine and the boy prince of theAsturias, died in 1454, and his son Enrique (or Henry) IV. Was King ofCastile. When, after some years, Henry was without children, andwith health very infirm, his young sister Isabella unexpectedly foundherself the acknowledged heir to the throne of Castile. She suddenlybecame a very important young person. The old King of Portugal was asuitor for her hand, and a brother of the King of England, and also abrother of the King of France, were striving for the same honor. ButIsabella had very decided views of her own. Her hero was the youngFerdinand of Aragon, and heir to that throne. She resisted all herbrother's efforts to coerce her, and finally took the matter into herown hands by sending an envoy to her handsome young lover to cometo her at Valladolid, with a letter telling him they had better bemarried at once. 

Accompanied by a few knights disguised as merchants, Ferdinand, pretending to be their servant, during the entire journey waited onthem at table and took care of their mules. He entered Valladolid, where he was received by the Archbishop of Toledo, who was in theconspiracy, and was by him conveyed to Isabella's apartments. We aretold that when he entered someone exclaimed: _Ese-es, Ese-es_ (thatis he); and the escutcheon of the descendants of that knight has eversince borne a double _S. S. _, which sounds like this exclamation. 

The marriage was arranged to take place in four days. An embarrassmentthen occurred of which no one had before thought. Neither of them hadany money. But someone was found who would lend them enough forthe wedding expenses, and so on the 19th of October, 1469, themost important marriage ever yet consummated in Spain took place--amarriage which would forever set at rest the rivalries between Castileand Aragon, and bring honors undreamed of to a united Spain. 

Isabella was fair, intelligent, accomplished, and lovely. She waseighteen and her boy husband was a year younger. Of course her royalbrother stormed and raged. But, of course, it did no good. In fiveyears from that time (1474) he died, and Isabella, royally attired, and seated on a white palfrey, proceeded to the throne preparedfor her, and was there proclaimed "Queen of Castile. " At the endof another five years, Ferdinand came into his inheritance. Hisold father, Juan II. , King of Aragon and Navarre, died in 1479, and Castile, Aragon, and Navarre--all of Spain except Portugal andGranada--had come under the double crown of Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The war with Portugal still existed, and their reign began in themidst of confusion and trouble, but it was brilliant from the outset. Ferdinand had great abilities and an ambition which matched hisabilities. Isabella, no less ambitious than he, was more far-reachingin her plans, and always saw more clearly than Ferdinand what wasfor the true glory of Spain. With infinite tact she softened hisasperities, and disarmed his jealousy, and ruled her "dear lord, " bymaking him believe he ruled her. 

A joint sovereignty, with a man so grasping of power and so jealous ofhis own rights, required self-control and tact in no ordinary measure. It was agreed at last that in all public acts Ferdinand's name shouldprecede hers; and although her sanction was necessary, his indignationat this was abated by her promise of submission to his will. The courtof the new sovereigns was established at Seville, and they took uptheir abode in that palace so filled with associations both Moorishand Castilian--the Alcazar. From the very first Isabella's powerfulmind grappled every public question, and she gave herself heart andsoul to what she believed was her divine mission--the building up ofa great Catholic state. Isabella's devout soul was sorely troubled bythe prevalence of Judaism in her kingdom. She took counsel with herconfessor, and also with the Pope, and by their advice a religioustribunal was established at Seville in 1483, the object of which wasto inquire of heretics whether they were willing to renounce theirfaith and accept Christianity. The head of this tribunal, which wassoon followed by others in all the large cites, was a Dominicanfriar called _Torquemada_. He was known as the "Inquisitor General. "Inaccessible to pity, mild in manners, humble in demeanor, yet swayedonly by a sense of duty, this strange being was so cruel that he seemslike an incarnation of the evil principle. At the tribunal in Sevillealone it is said that in thirty-six years four thousand victims wereconsigned to the flames, besides the thousands more who endured livingdeaths by torture, mutilation, and nameless sufferings. 

Humanity shudders at the recital! And yet this monstrous tribunal wasthe creation of one of the wisest and gentlest of women, who believedno rigors could be too great to save people from eternal death! And, in her misguided zeal, she emptied her kingdom of a people who hadhelped to create its prosperity, and drove the most valuable part ofher population into France, Italy, and England, there to disseminatethe seeds of a higher culture and intelligence which they had imbibedfrom contact with the Moors, who had treated them with such uniformtolerance and gentleness. 

The kingdom of Granada was now at the height of its splendor. Itscapital city was larger and richer than any city in Spain. Its armywas the best equipped of any in Europe. The Moorish king, a man offiery temper, thought the time had come when he might defy his enemyby refusing to pay an annual tribute to which his father had ten yearsbefore consented. When Ferdinand's messenger, in 1476, came to demandthe accustomed tribute, he said, "Go tell your master the kingswho pay tribute in Granada are all dead. Our mints coin nothing butsword-blades now. "

The cool and crafty Ferdinand prepared his own answer to thischallenge. The infatuated King Abdul-Hassan followed up his insult bycapturing the Christian fortress of Zahara. His temper was not at thebest at this time on account of a war raging in his own household. Hiswife Ayesha was fiercely jealous of a Christian captive whom he hadalso made his wife. She had become his favorite Sultana, and wasconspiring to have her own son supplant Boabdil, the son of Ayesha, the heir to the throne. In his championship of Zoraya and her son, Abdul-Hassan imprisoned Ayesha and Boabdil, whom he threatened todisinherit. We are shown to-day the window in the Alhambra from whichAyesha lowered Boabdil in a basket, telling him to come back with anarmy and assert his rights. Suddenly, while absorbed by this smallerwar, news came that Alhama, their most impregnable fortress, only sixleagues from the city of Granada, had been captured by Ferdinand'sarmy. It was the key to Granada. Despair was in every soul. The airwas filled with wailing and lamentation. "Woe, woe is me, Alhama!""Ay de mi, Alhama!" Indignant with their old king, who had broughtdestruction upon them, when Boabdil came with his army of followers, they flocked about him--"El Rey Chico!" (the boy king) as they calledhim. Abdul Hassan was forced to fly, and Boabdil reigned over theexpiring kingdom. It was a brief and troubled reign. 

In the famous "Court of the Lions" in the Alhambra, visitors areshown to-day the blood-stains left by the celebrated massacre of the"Abencerrages. " The Abencerrages had supported the claim of Ayesha'srival, Zoraya; and it is said that Boabdil invited the Princes of thisclan, some thirty in number, to a friendly conference in the Alhambra, and there had them treacherously beheaded at the fountain. 

But whether this blood-stain upon his memory is as doubtful as thoseupon the stones at the fountain, seems an open question. 

[Illustration: From the painting by V. Brozik. Columbus at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella. ]

So stubborn was the defense, it appeared sometimes as if the reductionof Granada would have to be abandoned. Isabella's courage and faithwere sorely tried. But the brave Queen infused her own courage intothe flagging spirits of her husband, and kept alive the enthusiasm ofthe people; and at last, --on the 2d of January, 1402, --the proudcity capitulated. Boabdil surrendered the keys of the Alhambra toFerdinand--the silver cross which had preceded the King throughout thewar gleamed from a high tower; and from the loftiest pinnacle of theAlhambra waved the banners of Castile and Aragon. 

The conflict which had lasted for 781 years was over. The death ofRoderick and the fall of the Goths was avenged, and Christendom, stillweeping for the loss of Constantinople, was consoled and took heartagain. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The reduction of Granada had required eleven years, and had drainedthe kingdom of all its resources. It is not strange that Isabellashould have had no time to listen seriously to a threadbare enthusiastasking for money and ships for a strange adventure! To have grown oldand haggard in pressing an unsuccessful project is not a passportto the confidence of Princes. But the gracious Queen had promisedto listen to him when the war with the Moors was concluded. So nowColumbus sought her out at Granada; and it is a strange scene whichthe imagination pictures--a shabby old man pleading with a Queen inthe halls of the Alhambra for permission to lift the veil from anunsuspected Hemisphere; artfully dwelling upon the glory of plantingthe Cross in the dominions of the Great Khan! The cool, unimaginativeFerdinand listened contemptuously; but Isabella, for once opposing thewill of her "dear lord, " arose and said, "The enterprise is mine. Iundertake it for Castile. " And on the 3d of August, 1492, the littlefleet of caravels sailed from the mouth of the same river whence hadonce sailed the "ships of Tarshish, " laden with treasure for KingSolomon and "Hiram, King of Tyre. " A union with Portugal--the landof the Lusitanians and of Sertorius--was all that was now required tomake of the Spanish Peninsula one kingdom. This Isabella planned toaccomplish by the marriage of her oldest daughter, Isabella, with theKing of Portugal. Her son John, heir to the Spanish throne, had diedsuddenly just after his marriage with the daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany. 

This terrible blow was swiftly followed by another, the death of herdaughter Isabella, and also that of the infant which was expected tounite the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain. The succession of Castileand Aragon now passed to Joanna, her second daughter, who had marriedPhilip, Archduke of Austria and son of Maximilian, an unfortunatechild who seemed on the verge of madness. 

Isabella's youngest daughter, Catherine, became the wife of HenryVIII. Of England. Happily the mother did not live to witness thischild's unhappiness; but her heart-breaking losses and domestic griefswere greater than she could bear. The unbalanced condition of Joanna, upon whom rested all her hopes, was undermining her health. Theresults of the expedition of Columbus had exceeded the wildest dreamsof romance. Gold was pouring in from the West enough to pay for thewar with the Moors many times over, and for all wars to come. Spain, from being the poorest, had suddenly become the richest country inEurope; richest in wealth, in territory, and in the imperishable gloryof its discovery. But Isabella, --who had been the instrument in thistransformation, --who had built up a firm united kingdom and swept itclean of heretics, Jews, and Moors, --was still a sad and disappointedwoman, thwarted in her dearest hopes; and on the 26th of November, 1504, she died leaving the fruits of her triumphs to a grandson sixyears old. 

This infant Charles was proclaimed King of Castile under the regencyof his ambitious father, the Archduke of Austria, and his insanemother. The death of the Archduke and the incapacity of Joanna in afew years gave to Ferdinand the control of the two kingdoms for whichhe had contended and schemed, until his own death in 1516, whenthe crowns of Castile and Aragon passed to his grandson, who wasproclaimed Charles I. , King of Spain. 

A plain, sedate youth of sixteen was called from his home in Flandersto assume the crowns of Castile and Aragon. Silent, reserved, andspeaking the Spanish language very imperfectly, the impressionproduced by the young King was very unpromising. No one suspected thedesigns which were maturing under that mask; nor that this boy wasplanning to grasp all the threads of diplomacy in Europe, and to bethe master of kings. 

In 1517 Maximilian died, leaving a vacant throne in Germany to becontended for by the ambitious Francis I. Of France and Maximilian'sgrandson, Charles. 

It was a question of supremacy in Europe. So the successful aspirantmust win to himself Leo X. , Henry VIII. And his great minister Wolsey, and after that the Electors of Germany. It required consummate skill. Francis I. Was an able player. The astute Wolsey made the moves forhis master Henry VIII. , keeping a watchful eye on Charles, "that youngman who looks so modest, and soars so high"; while Leo X. , unconsciousof the coming Reformation, was craftily aiding this side or that asbenefit to the Church seemed to be promised. 

But that "modest young man" played the strongest game. Charles was, bythe unanimous vote of the Electors, raised to the imperial throne;and the grandson of Isabella, as Charles I. Of Spain and Charles V. OfGermany, possessed more power than had been exercised by any one mansince the reign of Augustus. The territory over which he had dominionin the New World was practically without limit. Mexico surrendered toCortez (1521) and Peru to Pizarro (1532); Ponce de Leon was in Floridaand de Soto on the banks of the Mississippi; while wealth, fabulous inamount, was pouring into Spain, and from thence into Flanders. 

The history of Charles belongs, in fact, more to Europe than to Spain. No slightest tenderness seems to have existed in his cold heart forthe land of Isabella, which he seemed to regard simply as a treasuryfrom which to draw money for the objects to which he was reallydevoted. So, in fact, Spain was governed by an absolute despot who wasEmperor of Germany, where he resided, and she visibly declined fromthe strength and prosperity which had been created by the wise andpersonal administration of Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The Cortes, where the deputies had never been allowed the privilegeof debate, had been at its best a very imperfect expression of popularsentiment; and now was reduced to a mere empty form. Abuses which hadbeen corrected under the vigilant personal administration of two ableand patriotic sovereigns returned in aggravated form. Misrule anddisorder prevailed, while their King was absorbed in the larger fieldof European politics and diplomacy. 

The light in which Spain shines in this, which is always accountedher most glorious period, was that of Discovery and Conquest and theenormous wealth coming therefrom; all of which was bestowed by thatshabby adventurer and suppliant at the Alhambra, in whom Isabellaalone believed, and who, after enriching Spain beyond its wildestexpectations, was permitted to die in poverty and neglect atValladolid in 1506! History has written its verdict: imperishablerenown to Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, and the navigators who daredsuch perils and won so much; and eternal infamy to the men who planteda bloodstained Cross in those distant lands. The history of the WestIndies, of Mexico, and Peru is unmatched for cruelty in the annals ofthe world; and Isabella's is the only voice that was ever raised indefense of the gentle, helpless race which was found in those lands. 

The Reformation, which had commenced in Germany with the reign ofCharles V. , had assumed enormous proportions. Charles, who was a bigotwith "heart as hard as hammered iron, " was using with unsparing handthe Inquisition, that engine of cruelty created by his grandmother. And while his captains, the "conquistadors, " were burning andtorturing in the West, he was burning and torturing in the East. His entire reign was occupied in a struggle with his ambitious rivalFrancis I. , and another and vain struggle with the followers ofLuther. 

He had married Isabel, the daughter of the King of Portugal. Philip, his son and heir, was born in 1527. The desire of his heart was tosecure for this son the succession to the imperial throne of Germany. To this the electors would not consent. He was defeated in the twoobjects dearest to his heart: the power to bequeath this imperialpossession to Philip, and the destruction of Protestantism. So thismost powerful sovereign since the day of Charlemagne felt himselfill-used by Fate. Weary and sick at heart, in the year 1556 heabdicated in favor of Philip. The Netherlands was his own to bestowupon his son, as that was an inheritance from his father, theArchduke of Austria. So the fate of Philip does not seem to us so veryheart-breaking, as, upon the abdication of his father, he was Kingof Spain, of Naples, and of Sicily; Duke of Milan; Lord of theNetherlands and of the Indies, and of a vast portion of the Americancontinent stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific!

Such was the inheritance left to his son by the disappointed manwho carried his sorrows to the monastery at St. Yuste, where theausterities and severities he practiced finally cost him his life(1558). But let no one suppose that these penances were on account ofcruelties practiced upon his Protestant subjects! From his cloisterhe wrote to the inquisitors adjuring them to show no mercy; to deliverall to the flames, even if they should recant; and the only regret ofthe dying penitent was that he had not executed Luther!

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Philip established his capital at Madrid, and commenced the Palaceof the Escurial, nineteen miles distant, which stands to-day ashis monument. His coronation was celebrated by an _auto-da-fé_ atValladolid, which it is said "he attended with much devotion. " One ofthe victims, an officer of distinction, while awaiting his turn saidto him: "Sire, how can you witness such tortures?" "Were my own son inyour place I should witness it, " was the reply; which was a key to thecharacter of the man. 

[Illustration: From the painting by Velasquez. The Surrender of Breda. ]

He asserted his claim through his mother, the Princess Isabel ofPortugal, to the throne of that country, and after a stubborn contestwith the Lusitanians, the long-desired union of Spain and Portugal wasaccomplished. This event was celebrated by Cervantes in a poem whichextravagantly lauds his sovereign. Henry VIII. Had been succeeded inEngland by Mary, daughter of his unhappy Queen, Catherine of Aragon, who, it will be remembered, was the daughter of Ferdinand andIsabella. Mary had inherited the intense religious fervor and perhapsthe cruel instincts of her mother's family, and she quickly set aboutrestoring Protestant England to the Catholic faith. Philip saw in aunion with Mary and a joint sovereignty over England, such as he hopedwould follow, an immense opportunity for Spain. The marriage tookplace with great splendor, and in the desire to please her handsomehusband, of whom she was very fond, she commenced the work which hasgiven her the title, "Bloody Mary. " In vain were human torches lightedto lure Philip from Spain, where he lingered. She did not win hislove, nor did Philip reign conjointly with his royal consort inEngland. Mary died in 1558, and her Protestant sister Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, was Queen of England. 

Philip had made up his mind that Protestantism should be exterminatedin his kingdom of the Netherlands. He could not go there himself, sohe looked about for a suitable instrument for his purpose. The Duke ofAlva was the man chosen. He was appointed Viceroy, with full authorityto carry out the pious design. Heresy must cease to exist in theNetherlands. The arrival of Alva, clothed with such despotic powers, and the atrocities committed by him, caused the greatest indignationin the Netherlands. The Prince of Orange, aided by the Counts Egmontand Horn, organized a party to resist him, and a revolution wascommenced which lasted for forty years, affording one of the blackestchapters in the history of Europe. The name of Alva stands at the headof the list of men who have wrought desolation and suffering in thename of religion. The other European states protested, and Elizabeth, in hot indignation, gave aid to the persecuted states. 

Philip had contracted a marriage, after Mary's death, with thedaughter of that terrible woman Catherine de Medici, widow of HenryII. Of France, and there is much reason to believe that it was thisDuke of Alva who planned the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. There weresinister conferences between Catherine, Philip, and Alva, and littledoubt exists that the hideous tragedy which occurred in Paris on thenight of August 24, 1572, was arranged in Madrid, and had its firstinception in the cruel breast of Alva. 

There had not been much love existing before between Philip andElizabeth, who it is said had refused the hand of her Spanishbrother-in-law. But after her interference in the Netherlands, andwhen her ships were intercepting and waylaying Spanish ships returningwith treasure from the West, and when at last the one was the acceptedchampion of the Protestant, and the other of the Catholic cause, theybecame avowed enemies. Philip resolved to prepare a mighty armamentfor the invasion of England. 

In 1587 Elizabeth sent Sir Francis Drake to reconnoiter and find outwhat Philip was doing. He appeared with twenty-five vessels beforeCadiz. Having learned all he wanted, and burned a fleet of merchantvessels, he returned to his Queen. 

In May, 1588, a fleet of one hundred and thirty ships, some "thelargest that ever plowed the deep, " sailed from Lisbon for the Englishcoast. We may form some idea to-day of what must have been the feelingin England when this Armada, unparalleled in size, appeared in theEnglish Channel! If Sir Francis Drake's ships were fewer and smaller, he could match the Spaniards in audacity. He sent eight fireshipsright in among the close-lying vessels. Then, in the confusion whichfollowed, while they were obstructed and entangled with their ownfleet, he swiftly attacked them with such vigor that ten ships weresunk or disabled, and the entire fleet was demoralized. Then a stormovertook the fleeing vessels, and the winds and the waves completedthe victory. As in the Spanish report of the disaster thirty-five isthe number of ships acknowledged to be lost, we may imagine how greatwas the destruction. So ended Philip's invasion of England, and thegreat Spanish "Armada. "

Philip II. Died, 1598, in the Palace of the Escurial which he hadbuilt, and with that event ends the story of Spain's greatness. Theperiod of one hundred and twenty-five years, including the reigns ofFerdinand and Isabella, of Charles V. , and of Philip II. , is, in away, one of unmatched splendor. Spain had not like England by slowdegrees expanded into great proportions, but through strange andperfectly fortuitous circumstances, she had, from a proud obscurity, suddenly leaped into a position of commanding power and magnificence. Fortune threw into her lap the greatest prize she ever had to bestow, and at the same time gave her two sovereigns of exceptional qualitiesand abilities. The story of this double reign is the romance, thefairy tale of history. Then came the magnificent reign of Charles V. With more gifts from fortune--the imperial crown, if not a substantialbenefit to Spain, still bringing dignity and éclat. But under thisglittering surface there had commenced even then a decline. UnderPhilip II. She was still magnificent, Europe was bowing down to her, but the decline was growing more manifest; and with the accession ofhis puny son, Philip III. , there was little left but a brilliant past, which a proud and retrospective nation was going to feed upon for overthree centuries. But it takes some time for such dazzling effulgenceto disappear. The glamour of the Spanish name was going to last along time and picturesquely veil her decay. The memory of such anascendancy in Europe nourished the intense national pride of herpeople. The name Castilian took on a new significance. 

Nor can we wonder at their pride in the name "Castilian. " Its glorywas not the capricious gift of fortune, but won by a devotion, aconstancy, and a fidelity of purpose which are unique in the historyof the world. For seven hundred years the race for which that namestands had kept alive the national spirit, while their land wasoccupied by an alien civilization. These were centuries of privationand suffering and hardship; but never wavering in their purpose, andby brave deeds which have filled volumes, they reclaimed their landand drove out the Moors. 

This is what gives to the name "Castilian, " its proud significance. But when degenerate Hidalgos and Grandees, debauched by wealthand luxury, gloried in the name; when by rapacity and cruelty theydestroyed the lands their valor had won; and when the Inquisitionbecame their pastime and the rack and the wheel their toys--thenthe name Castilian began to take on a sinister meaning. Spain's mostglorious period was not when she was converting the Indies and Mexicoand Peru into a hell, not when Charles V. Was playing his great gameof diplomacy in Europe, but in that pre-Columbian era when a brave andrugged people were keeping alive their national life in the mountainsof the Asturias. Well may Spain do honor to that time by calling theheir to her throne the "Prince of the Asturias!"

CHAPTER XIX. 

The history of the century after the death of Philip II. Is one ofrapid decline; with no longer a powerful master-mind to hold the statetogether. Every year saw the court at Madrid more splendid, and thepeople, --that insignificant factor, --more wretched, and sinking deeperand deeper into poverty. In fact, in spite of the fabulous wealthwhich fortune had poured upon her, Spain was becoming poor. Butnowhere in Europe was royalty invested with such dignity and splendorof ceremonial, and the ambitious Marie de Medici, widow of Henry IV. , was glad to form alliances for her children with those of PhilipIII. The "Prince of the Asturias, " who was soon to become PhilipIV. , married her daughter, Isabella de Bourbon, and the Infanta, hissister, was at the same time married to the young Louis XIII. , King ofFrance. 

[Illustration: Philip IV. Of Spain. From the portrait by Velasquez. ]

The remnant of the Moors who still lingered in the land were called_Moriscos_; and under a very thin surface of submission to ChristianSpain, they nursed bitter memories and even hopes that some miraclewould some day restore them to what was really the land of theirfathers. A very severe edict, promulgated by Philip II. , compellingconformity in all respects with Christian living, and--as if thatwere not a part of Christian living--forbidding _ablutions_, led to aserious revolt. And this again led to the forcible expulsion of everyMorisco in Spain. 

In 1609, by order of Philip III. , the last of the Moors were conveyedin galleys to the African coast whence they had come just nine hundredyears before. 

In a narrative so drenched with tears, it is pleasant to hear oflight-hearted laughter. We are told that when the young King PhilipIII. Saw from his window a man striking his forehead and laughingimmoderately he said: "That man is either mad, or he is reading'Don Quixote'"--which latter was the case. But the story writtenby Cervantes did more than entertain. Chivalry had lingered in thecongenial soil of Spain long after it had disappeared in every otherpart of Europe; but when in the person of Don Quixote it was made toappear so utterly ridiculous, it was heard of no more. 

Philip III. , who died in 1621, was succeeded by his son Philip IV. As in the reign of his father worthless favorites ruled, whilea profligate king squandered the money of the people in lavishentertainments and luxuries. Much has been written about the visit ofCharles, Prince of Wales (afterward Charles I. ), accompanied by theDuke of Buckingham, at his court; whither the young Prince had comedisguised, to see the Infanta, Philip's sister, whom he thought ofmaking his queen. Probably she did not please him, or perhaps thealliance with Protestant England was not acceptable to the piousCatholic family of Philip. At all events, Henrietta, sister ofLouis XIII. Of France, was his final choice; and shared his terriblemisfortunes a few years later. 

A revolt of the Catalonians on the French frontier led to a difficultywith France, which was finally adjusted by the celebrated "treaty ofthe Pyrenees. " In this treaty was included the marriage of the youngKing Louis XIV. And Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV. , the Kingof Spain. The European Powers would only consent to this union uponcondition that Louis should solemnly renounce all claim to the Spanishcrown for himself and his heirs; which promise had later a somewhateventful history. 

Seven of the United Provinces had achieved their independence duringthe reign of the third Philip, who had also driven out of his kingdomsix hundred thousand Moriscos; by far the most skilled and industriousportion of the community. And now, at the close of the reign of PhilipIV. , the kingdom was further diminished by the loss of Portugal;which, in 1664, the Lusitanians recovered, and proclaimed the Dukeof Braganza King. When we add to this the loss of much of theNetherlands, and of the island of Jamaica, and concessions here andthere to France and to Italy, it will be obvious that a process ofcontraction had soon followed that of Spain's phenomenal expansion!

During the reign of Carlos II. , who succeeded his father (1665), Spainwas still further diminished by the cession to Louis XIV. , in 1678, ofmore provinces in the Low Countries and also of the region now knownas Alsace and Lorraine; which, it will be remembered, have in our owntime passed from the keeping of France to that of victorious Germany. 

In the year 1655 the island of Jamaica was captured by an expeditionsent out by Cromwell. It was between the years 1670 and 1686 that theSpaniard and the Anglo-Saxon had their first collision in America. St. Augustine had been founded in 1565, and the old Spanish colony wasmuch disturbed in 1663, when Charles II. Of England planted an Englishcolony in their near neighborhood (the Carolinas). During the warbetween Spain and England at the time above mentioned, feeling ranhigh between Florida and the Carolinas, and houses were burned andblood was shed. Spain had felt no concern about the little Englishcolony planted on the bleak New England coast in 1620. Death byexposure and starvation promised speedily to remove that. But thesettlement on the Carolinas was more serious, and at the same timethe French were planting a colony of their own at the mouth of theMississippi. The "lords of America" began to feel anxious about theircontrol of the Gulf of Mexico. The cloud was a very small one, but itwas not to be the last which would dim their skies in the West. 

The one thing which gives historic importance to the reign of CarlosII. Is that it marks the close--the ignominious close--of the greatHapsburg dynasty in Spain. And if the death of Carlos, in 1700, was amelancholy event, it is because with it the scepter so magnificentlywielded by Ferdinand and Isabella passed to the keeping of the Houseof Bourbon, whose Spanish descendants have, excepting for two briefintervals, ruled Spain ever since. 

CHAPTER XX. 

The last century had wrought great changes in European conditions. "The Holy Roman Empire, " after a thirty-years' war with Protestantism, was shattered, and the Emperor of Germany was no longer the head ofEurope. Protestant England had sternly executed Charles I. , and thenin the person of James II. Had swept the last of the Catholic Houseof Stuart out of her kingdom. France, on the foundation laid byRichelieu, had developed into a powerful despotism, which her King, Louis XIV. , was making magnificent at home and feared abroad. 

For Spain it had been a century of steady decline, with loss ofterritory, power, and prestige. No longer great in herself, she wasregarded by her ambitious neighbor, Louis XIV. , as only a make-weightin the supremacy in Europe upon which he was determined. He had beenravaging the enfeebled German Empire, and now a friendly fate openeda peaceful door through which he might make Spain contribute to hisgreatness. 

Carlos II. Died (1700) without an heir. There was a vacant throne inSpain to which--on account of Louis' marriage, years before, with theSpanish Princess Maria Theresa--his grandson Philip had now themost valid claim. The other claimant, Archduke Karl, son of Leopold, Emperor of Germany, in addition to having a less direct hereditarydescent, was unacceptable to the Spanish people, who had no desire tobe ruled again by an occupant of the Imperial throne of Germany. 

So, as Louis wished it, and the Spanish people also wished it, therewas only one obstacle to his design; that was a promise made at thetime of his marriage that he would never claim that throne for himselfor his heirs. But when the Pope, after "prayerful deliberation, "absolved him from that promise the way was clear. This grandson, justseventeen years old, was proclaimed Philip V. , King of Spain, andLouis in the fullness of his heart exclaimed, "The Pyrenees haveceased to exist!"

Perhaps it would have been better for the King if he had not made thatdramatic exclamation. A man who could remove mountains to make a pathfor his ambitions might also drain seas! England took warning. She hadbeen quietly bearing his insults for a long time, and not till he hadimpertinently threatened to place upon her throne the Pretender, theexiled son of James II. , had she joined the coalition against theFrench King. But now she sent more armies, and a great captainto re-enforce Prince Eugene, who was fighting this battle for theArchduke Karl and for Europe. 

But Louis had reached the summit. He was to go no higher than he hadclimbed when he uttered that vain boast. Philip V. Was acknowledgedKing in 1702, and in 1704 _Blenheim_ had been fought and won byMarlborough, and the decline of the _Grand Monarque_ had commenced. 

The war against him by a combined Europe now became the war of the"Spanish Succession. " England and Holland united with Emperor Leopoldto curb his limitless ambition. The purpose of the war of the "SpanishSuccession" was, ostensibly, to place the Austrian Archduke upon thethrone of Spain; its real purpose was to check the alarming ascendancyof Louis XIV. In Europe. 

It lasted for years, the poor young King and Queen being drivenfrom one city to another, while the Austrian Archduke was at Madridstriving to reign over a people who would not recognize him. 

Spain was being made the sport of three nations in pursuance of theirown ambitious ends. Her land was being ravaged by foreign armies, recruited from three of her own disaffected provinces; while a youngKing with whom she was well satisfied was peremptorily ordered tomake way for one Austria, England, and Holland preferred. It wasa humiliating proof of the decline in national spirit, and the oldCastilian pride must have sorely degenerated for such things to bepossible. 

Finally, after Louis XIV. Had once more given solemn oath that thecrowns of France and Spain should never be united, the "Peace ofUtrecht" was signed (1713). But the provisions of the treaty weremomentous for Spain. She was at one stroke of the pen stripped of halfher possessions in Europe. Philip V. Was acknowledged King of Spainand the Indies. But Sicily, with its regal title, was ceded to theDuke of Savoy; Milan, Naples, Sardinia, and the Netherlands went toKarl, now Emperor Charles VI. Of Germany; while Minorca and Gibraltarpassed to the keeping of England. 

No one felt unmixed satisfaction, except perhaps England. The Archdukehad failed to get his throne, and to wear the double crown likeCharles V. Louis had carried his point. He had succeeded in keepingthe kingdom for his grandson. But that kingdom was dismembered, andhad shrunk to insignificant proportions in Europe, while England, mostfortunate of all, had carried off the key to the Mediterranean. Thatlittle rocky promontory of Gibraltar was potentially of more valuethan all the rest!

Such was the beginning of the dynasty of the Bourbon in Spain. Philipwas succeeded, upon his death in 1746, by his son Ferdinand VI. , whoalso died, in 1759, and was succeeded by his brother, Philip's secondson, who was known as Carlos III. When we try to praise these princesof the wretched Bourbon line, it is by mention of the evil they haverefrained from doing rather than the good they have done. So CarlosIII. Is said to have done less harm to Spain than his predecessors. Heestablished libraries and academies of science and of arts, andruled like a kind-hearted gentleman, without the vices of his recentpredecessors. His severity toward the Jesuits and their forcibleexpulsion from Spain, in 1767, are said to have been caused bypersonal resentment on account of some slanderous rumors regarding hisbirth, which were traced to them. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

But the fate of Spain was not now in the hands of her Kings. Were theygood or evil she was destined henceforth to drift in the currents of_circumstance_, that sternest of masters, to whom her Kings as wellas her people would be obliged helplessly to bow. All that she nowpossessed outside the borders of her own kingdom was the West Indies, her colonies in America, North and South, and the Philippines, that archipelago of a thousand isles in the southern Pacific, whereMagellan was slain by the savage inhabitants after he had discoveredit (1520). 

Mexico and Peru had proved to be inexhaustible sources of wealth, andwhen the gold and silver diminished, the Viceroys in these and theother colonies could compel the people to wring rich products out ofthe soil, enough to supply Spain's necessities. The inhabitants ofthese colonies, composed of the aboriginal races with an admixture ofSpanish, had been treated as slaves and drudges for so many centuriesthat they never dreamed of resistance, nor questioned the justice of afate which condemned them always to toil for Spain. 

In the North the feeble colony planted in 1620 had expanded intothirteen vigorous English colonies. France, too, had been colonizingin America, and had drawn her frontier line from the mouth of theMississippi to Canada. In 1755 a collision occurred between Englandand France over their American boundaries. By the year 1759, Francehad lost Quebec and every one of her strongholds, and she formed analliance with Spain in a last effort to save her vanishing possessionsin America. 

Spain's punishment for this interference was swift. England promptlydispatched ships to Havana and to the Philippines; and when we read ofthe Anglo-Saxon capturing Havana and the adjacent islands on one sideof the globe, and the City of Manila and fourteen of the Philippineson the other, in the midsummer of 1762, it has a slightly familiarsound. And when the old record further says, the "conquest in the WestIndies cost many precious lives, more of whom were destroyed by theclimate than by the enemy, " and still again, "the capture of Manilawas conducted with marvelous celerity and judgment, " we begin towonder whether we are reading the dispatches of the Associated Pressin 1898, or history!

In the treaty which followed these victories, upon condition ofEngland's returning Havana, and all the conquered territory exceptinga portion of the West India Islands, Spain ceded to her the peninsulaof Florida; while France, who was obliged to give to England all herterritory east of the Mississippi, gave to Spain in return for herservices the city of New Orleans, and all her territory west of thegreat river. This territory was retroceded to France by Spain in theyear 1800, by the "Treaty of Madrid, " and in 1803 was purchased byAmerica from Napoleon, under the title of "Louisiana. "

There was a growing irritation in the Spanish heart against England. She was crowding Spain out of North America, had insinuated herselfinto the West India Islands, and she was mistress of Gibraltar. Soit was with no little satisfaction that they saw her involved in aserious quarrel with her American colonies, at a time when a stubbornand incompetent Hanoverian King was doing his best to destroy her. The hour seemed auspicious for recovering Gibraltar, and also to driveEngland out of the West Indies. The alliance with France had become apermanent one, and was known as a _family compact_ between the Bourboncousins Louis XV. And Carlos III. France had at this time ratherdistracting conditions at home; but she was thirsting for revenge atthe loss of her rich American possessions, and besides, a sentimentalinterest in the brave people who had proclaimed their independencefrom the mother country, and were fighting to maintain it, began tomanifest itself. It was fanned, no doubt, by a desire for England'shumiliation; but it assumed a form too chivalric and too generous forAmericans ever to discredit by unfriendly analysis of motive. Spaincared little for the cause of the colonies; but she was quite willingto help them by worrying and diverting the energies of England. Soshe invested Gibraltar. A garrison of only a handful of men astonishedEurope by the bravery of its defense. Gibraltar was not taken bythe Bourbon allies, neither were the English driven out of the WestIndies. But it was a satisfaction to Spain to see her humbled by hervictorious colonies!

So Carlos III. Had indirectly assisted in the establishment of arepublic on the confines of his Mexican Empire; apparently unconsciousof the contagion in the word _independence_. But he quickly learnedthis to his sorrow. The story of the revolted and freed colonies spedon the wings of the wind. And in Peru a brave descendant of the Incasarose as a Deliverer. He led sixty thousand men into a vain fight forliberty. Of course the effort failed, but a spirit had been awakenedwhich might be smothered, but never extinguished. 

Carlos III. Died in 1788 and was succeeded by his son Carlos IV. 

During the miserable reign of this miserable King, France caught theinfection from the free institutions in America. The Republic she hadhelped to create was fatal to monarchy in her own land. A revolutionaccompanied by unparalleled horrors swept away the whole tyrannoussystem of centuries and left the country a trembling wreck--but free. The dream of a republic was brief. Napoleon gathered the imperfectlyorganized government into his own hands, then by successive and rapidsteps arose to Imperial power. France was an Empire, and adoringlysubmitted to the man who swiftly made her great and feared in Europe. She had another Charlemagne, who was bringing to his feet Kings andPrinces, and annexing half of Europe to his empire!

Spain, all unconscious of his designs, and perhaps thinking thisinvincible man might help her to get back Gibraltar and to drive theEnglish out of the West Indies, joined him in 1804 in a war againstGreat Britain; and the following year the combined fleets of Franceand Spain were annihilated by Lord Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Familydissensions in the Spanish royal household at this time were opportunefor Napoleon's designs. Carlos and his son Ferdinand were engagedin an unseemly quarrel. Carlos appealed to Napoleon regarding thetreasonable conduct and threats of his son. Nothing could have bettersuited the purposes of the Emperor. The fox had been invited tobe umpire! French troops poured into Spain. Carlos, under protest, resigned in favor of his son, who was proclaimed Ferdinand VII. (1807). The young King was then invited to meet the Emperor forconsultation at Bayonne. He found himself a prisoner in France, and toJoseph Bonaparte, brother of the Emperor, was transferred the Crown ofSpain. 

The nation seemed paralyzed by the swiftness and the audacity of theseoverturnings. But soon popular indignation found expression. Juntaswere formed. The one at Seville, calling itself the Supreme Junta, proclaimed an alliance with Great Britain; its purpose being theexpulsion of the French from their kingdom. 

Spain was in a state of chaos. Joseph was not without Spanishadherents, and there was no leader, no legitimate head to giveconstitutional stamp to the acts of the protesting people, who withoutthe usual formalities convoked the Cortes. But while they were gropingafter reforms, and while Lord Wellington was driving back the French, Napoleon had met his reverse at Moscow, and a "War of Liberation" hadcommenced in Germany. 

The grasp upon the Spanish throne relaxed. The captive King hadpermission to return, and the reign of Joseph was ended by hisignominious flight from the kingdom, with one gold-piece in his pocket(1814). 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The decade between 1804 and 1814 had been very barren in externalbenefits to Spain, with her King held in "honorable captivity" inFrance, and the obscure Joseph abjectly striving to please not hissubjects, but his august brother Napoleon. But in this time of chaos, when there was no Bourbon King, no long-established despotism tostifle popular sentiment, the unsuspected fact developed that Spainhad caught the infection of freedom. 

[Illustration: From the painting by C. Alvarez Dumont. Heroic Combat in the Pulpit of the Church of St. Augustine, Saragossa, 1809. ]

When, as we have seen, the Cortes assumed all the functions of agovernment, that body (in 1812) drew up a new Constitution for Spain. So completely did this remodel the whole administration, that the mostdespotic monarchy in Europe was transformed into the one most severelylimited. 

Great was the surprise of Ferdinand VII. When, in 1814, he came to thethrone of his ejected father Carlos IV. , to find himself called uponto reign under a Constitution which made Spain almost as free as arepublic. He promulgated a decree declaring the Cortes illegal andrescinding all its acts, the Constitution of 1812 included. Then whenhe had re-established the Inquisition, which had been abolished by theCortes, when he had publicly burned the impertinent Constitution, and quenched conspiracies here and there, he settled himself for acomfortable reign after the good old arbitrary fashion. 

The Napoleonic empire having been effaced by a combined Europe, Ferdinand's Bourbon cousins were in the same way restoring theexcellent methods of their fathers in France. 

But there was a spirit in the air which was not favorable to the peaceof Kings. On the American coast there stood "Liberty Enlightening theWorld!" A growing, prosperous republic was a shining example of whatmight be done by a brave resistance to oppression and a determinedspirit of independence. 

The pestilential leaven of freedom had been at work while monarchiesslept in security. Ferdinand discovered that not only was there aseditious sentiment in his own kingdom, but every one of his Americancolonies was in open rebellion, and some were even daring to set upfree governments in imitation of the United States. 

Not only was Ferdinand's sovereignty threatened, but the veryprinciple of monarchy itself was endangered. 

Russia, Austria, and Prussia formed themselves into a league for thepreservation of what they were pleased to call "The Divine Right ofKings. " It was the attack upon this sacred principle, which was thegerm of all this mischievous talk about freedom. They called theirleague "The Holy Alliance, " and what they proposed to do was to _stampout free institutions in the germ_. 

In pursuance of this purpose, in 1819 there appeared at Cadiz a largefleet, assembled for the subjugation of Spanish America. 

But there was an Anglo-Saxon America, which had a preponderatinginfluence in that land now; and there was also an Anglo-Saxon race inEurope which had its own views about the "Divine Right of Kings, " andalso concerning the mission of the "Holy Alliance. "

The right of three European Powers to restore to Spain her revoltedcolonies in America was denied by President Monroe; not upon theground of Spain's inhumanity, and the inherent right of the coloniesto an independence which they might achieve. Such was the natureof England's protest, through her Minister Canning. But PresidentMonroe's contention rested on a much broader ground. In a messagedelivered in 1823 he uttered these words: "European Powers mustnot extend their political systems to any portion of the Americancontinent. " The meaning of this was that _America has been won forfreedom_; and no European Power will be permitted to establish amonarchy, nor to coerce in any way, nor to suppress inclinationstoward freedom, in any part of the Western Hemisphere. This is the"Monroe Doctrine"; a doctrine which, although so startling in 1832, had in 1896 become so firmly imbedded in the minds of the people, thatCongress decided it to be a vital principle of American policy. 

But there was another and more serious obstacle in the way of theproposed plan for subjugating the Spanish-American colonies. The armyassembled by the Holy Alliance at Cadiz was an offense to the peoplewho had seen their Constitution burned and their hopes of a freergovernment destroyed. Officers and troops refused to embark, andjoined a concourse of disaffected people at Cadiz. A smothered popularsentiment burst forth into a series of insurrections throughout Spain, and the astonished Ferdinand was compelled, in 1820, to acknowledgethe Constitution of 1812. This was not upholding the principle of the"Divine Right of Kings"! So, under the direction of the Holy Alliance, a French army of one hundred thousand men moved into Spain, tookpossession of her capital, and for two years administered her affairsunder a regency, and then reinstated Ferdinand, leaving a French armyof occupation. 

In this contest two distinct political parties had developed--theLiberal party and the party of Absolutism. As Ferdinand VII. Becamethe choice of the Liberals, and his brother Don Carlos of the partyof Absolutism, we must infer either that it was a Liberalism of a verymild type, or that Ferdinand's views had been modified since the"Holy Alliance" took his kingdom into its own keeping. But his brotherCarlos was the adored of the Absolutists, and a plot was made tocompel Ferdinand to abdicate in his favor. This was the first of theCarlist plots, which, with little intermission, and always in theinterest of despotism and bigotry, have menaced the safety andwell-being of Spain ever since. From the year 1825 to 1898 there hasbeen always a Don Carlos to trouble the political waters in that land. 

So the mission of the "Holy Alliance" had failed. Instead ofrehabilitating the sacred principle of the "Divine Right of Kings, "they saw a powerful liberal party established in a kingdom which wasthe very stronghold of despotism. And instead of stamping out freeinstitutions, six Spanish-American colonies had been recognized asfree and independent states (1826). Spain had for three centuriesruled the richest and the fairest land on the earth. She had shownherself utterly undeserving of the opportunity, and unfit for theresponsibilities imposed by a great colonial empire. She had sownthe wind and now she reaped the whirlwind. She did not own a foot ofterritory on the continent she had discovered!

CHAPTER XXIII. 

In 1833 King Ferdinand VII. Died, leaving one child, the PrincessIsabella, who was three years old. Here was the opportunity for theadherents of Don Carlos. 

The "Salic law" had been one of the Gothic traditions of ancientSpain, and had with few exceptions been in force until 1789; whenCarlos IV. Issued a "Pragmatic Sanction, " establishing the successionthrough the female as well as the male line; and on April 6, 1830, King Ferdinand confirmed this decree; so, when Isabella was born, October 10, 1830, she was heiress to the throne, _unless_ herambitious uncle, Don Carlos, could set aside the decree abrogating theold Salic law, and reign as Carlos IV. 

In the three years before his brother's death he had laid his plansfor the coming crisis. Isabella was proclaimed Queen under the regencyof her depraved mother Christina. The extreme of the Catholic party, and of the reactionary or absolutist party, flocked about the Carliststandard; while the party of the infant Queen was the rallying pointfor the liberal and progressive sentiment in the kingdom; and hercause had the support of the new reform government of Louis Philippein France, and of lovers of freedom elsewhere. 

The party of the Queen triumphed. But the Carlists survived; and, likethe Bourbons in France, have ever since in times of political perilbeen a serious element to be reckoned with. 

During the infancy of the Queen, Spain was the prey of unceasingparty dissensions; Don Carlos again and again trying to overthrowher government, and again and again being driven a fugitive over thePyrenees; while the Queen Regent, who was secretly married to herChamberlain, the son of a tobacconist in Madrid, was bringing disgraceand odium upon the Liberal party which she was supposed to lead. 

In 1843 the Cortes declared that the Queen had attained her majority. Her disgraced mother was driven out of the country and Isabella II. Ascended her throne. Isabella had a younger sister, Maria Louisa, andin 1846 the double marriage of these two children was celebrated withgreat splendor at Madrid. The Queen was married to her cousin DonFrancisco d'Assisi, and her sister to the Duke de Montpensier, fifthson of Louis Philippe. 

[Illustration: From the painting by J. Siguenza y Chavarrieta. The Duke de la Torre sworn in as Regent before the Cortes of 1869. ]

If, upon the birth of Liberalism in Spain, that kingdom could havebeen governed by a wise and competent sovereign, the concludingchapters of this narrative might have been very different. No timecould have been less favorable for a radical change in policy than theperiod during which Isabella II. Was Queen of Spain. Personally shewas all that a woman and a Queen should not be. With apparently not anexalted desire or ambition for her country, this depraved daughterof a depraved mother pursued her downward course until 1868, when thenation would bear no more. A revolution broke out. Isabella, with herthree children, fled to France and there was once more a vacant thronein Spain. 

The hopes of the Carlists ran high. But the Cortes came to anunexpected decision. They would have no Spanish Bourbon, be he Carlistor Liberal. The reigning dynasty in Italy was at this moment theadored of the Liberals in Europe. So they offered the Crown to Amadeo, second son of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy. Three years were quitesufficient for this experiment. The young Amadeo was as glad to takeoff his crown and to leave his kingdom, as the people were to have himdo so. He abdicated in 1873. 

The Liberal party had been regretting their loss of opportunity in1870. France had passed through many political phases in the last fewyears, and the present French Republic had just come into existence. Again Spain caught the contagion from her neighbor, and SpanishLiberalism became _Spanish Republicanism_. 

When Castelar, that patriotic and sagacious statesman, friend ofGaribaldi, of Mazzini, and of Kossuth, led this movement, manyhopefully believed the political millennium was at hand, when Spainwas about to join the brotherhood of Republics! But something morethan a great leader is needed to create a Republic. The magic ofCastelar's eloquence, the purity of his character, and the force ofhis convictions were powerless to hold in stable union the conflictingelements with which he had to deal. The Carlists were scheming, andthe Cortes was driven to an immediate decision. 

The fugitive Queen Isabella had with her in exile a young son Alfonso, seventeen years of age. Alfonso was invited to return upon the solecondition that his mother should be excluded from his kingdom. Aninsurrection which was being fomented by Don Carlos II. Led to thisaction of the Cortes, which was perhaps the wisest possible under thecircumstances. The young Prince of the legitimate Bourbon line wasproclaimed King Alfonso XII. In 1874. 

A romantic marriage with his cousin Mercedes, daughter of the Duke deMontpensier, to whom he was deeply attached, speedily took place. Onlyfive months later Mercedes died and was laid in the gloomy Escurial. A marriage was then arranged with Christina, an Austrian Archduchess, who was brought to Madrid, and there was another marriage celebratedwith much splendor. The infant daughter, who was born a few yearslater, was named Mercedes; a loving tribute to the adored young Queenhe had lost, which did credit as much to Christina as to Alfonso. 

The hard school of exile had, no doubt, been an advantage to Alfonso;and at the outset of his reign he won the confidence of the Liberalsby saying "he wished them to understand he was the first Republican inEurope; and when they were tired of him they had only to tell him so, and he would leave as quickly as Amadeo had done. " There was not timeto test the sincerity of these assurances. Alfonso XII. Died in 1885, and joined Mercedes and his long line of predecessors in the Escurial. Five months later his son was born, and the throne which had beenfilled by the little Mercedes passed to the boy who was proclaimedAlfonso XIII. Of Spain, under the Regency of his mother QueenChristina. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the foreign dominions ofSpain, although reduced, were still a vast and imperial possession. The colonial territory over which Alfonso XIII. Was to havesovereignty at the close of that century, consisted of thePhilippines, the richest of the East Indies; Cuba, the richest of theWest Indies; Porto Rico, and a few outlying groups of islands of nogreat value. 

Nowhere had the Constitution of 1812 awakened more hope than in Cuba;and from the setting aside of that instrument by Ferdinand VI. Datesthe existence of an insurgent party in that beautiful but most unhappyisland. Ages of spoliation and cruelty and wrong had done their work. The iron of oppression had entered into the soul of the Cuban. Therewas a deep exasperation which refused to be calmed. From thenceforthannexation to the United States, or else a "_Cuba Libre_, " was thedetermined, and even desperate aim. 

After a ten-years' war, 1868-78, the people yielded to what proved adelusive promise of home-rule. How could Spain bestow upon her colonywhat she did not possess herself? When in 1881 she tried to pacifyCuba by permitting that island to send six Senators to sit in theSpanish Cortes, it was a phantom of a phantom. There was no outletfor the national will in Spain itself. Her Cortes was _not_ a nationalassembly, and its members were _not_ the choice of the people. Howmuch less must they be so then in Cuba, where they were only menof straw selected by the home government, for the purpose ofdefeating--not expressing--the popular will? The emptiness of thisgift was soon discovered. Then came a shorter conflict, which was onlya prelude to the last. 

A handful of ragged revolutionists, ignorant of the arts of war, commenced the final struggle for liberty on February 24, 1895, underthe leadership of José Marti. At the end of two years a poorly armedband of guerrilla soldiers had waged a successful contest against235, 000 well-equipped troops, supported by a militia and a navy, andmaintained by supplies from Spain; had adopted a Constitution, andwere asking for recognition as a free Republic. The Spanish commanderMartinez Campos was superseded by General Weyler (1895), and a newand severer method was inaugurated in dealing with the stubbornrevolutionists, but with no better success than before. In August, 1897, an insurrection broke out anew in the Philippines, and Spain wasin despair. 

America calmly resisted all appeals for annexation or for interventionin Cuba. Sympathy for Cuban patriots was strong in the hearts of thepeople, but the American Government steadfastly maintained an attitudeof strict neutrality and impartiality, and with unexampled patiencesaw a commerce amounting annually to one hundred millions ofdollars wiped out of existence, her citizens reduced to want by thedestruction of their property, --some of them lying in Spanish dungeonssubjected to barbarities which were worthy of the Turkish Janizaries;our fleets used as a coastguard and a police, in the protection ofSpanish interests, and more intolerable than all else, our heartswrung by cries of anguish at our very doors!

But when General Weyler inaugurated a system for the deliberatestarvation of thirty thousand "Reconcentrados, " an innocent peasantrydriven from their homes and herded in cities, there to perish, thelimit of patience was reached. It was this touch of human pity--thislast and intolerable strain upon our sympathies--which turned thescale. 

While a profound feeling of indignation was prevailing on account ofthese revolting crimes against humanity, the battleship _Maine_ was, by request of Consul General Lee at that place, dispatched to theharbor of Havana to guard American citizens and interests. The sullenreception of the _Maine_ was followed on February 15, 1898, by atragedy which shocked the world. Whether the destruction of that shipand the death of 266 brave men was from internal or external causeswas a very critical question. It was submitted to a court of inquirywhich, after long deliberation, rendered the decision that the causewas--_external_. 

It looked dark for lovers of peace! President McKinley exhausted allthe resources of diplomacy before he abandoned hope of a peacefuladjustment which would at the same time compel justice to the Cubanpeople. But on April 25, 1898, it was declared that war existedbetween Spain and America. 

Less than a week after this declaration, in the early morning ofMay 1, a victory over the Spanish fleet at Manila was achieved byCommodore Dewey, which made him virtual master of the Philippines;and just two months later, July 1 and 2 were made memorable by twoengagements in the West Indies, resulting, the one in the defeat ofthe Spanish land forces at San Juan, and the other in the completeannihilation of Admiral Cervera's fleet in the Bay of Santiago deCuba--misfortunes so overwhelming that overtures for peace werequickly received at Washington from Madrid; and the Spanish-AmericanWar was over. 

The colonial empire of Spain was at an end. The kingdom over whichAlfonso XIII. Was soon to reign had at a stroke lost the SpanishIndies in the West, and the Philippines in the far East. To Americawas confided the destiny of these widely separated possessions, PortoRico being permanently ceded to the United States; while, according tothe avowed purpose at the outset of the war, Cuba and the islands inthe Pacific, as soon as fitted for self-government, were to be giveninto their own keeping; a promise which in the case of Cuba hasalready been redeemed, all possible haste being made to prepare thePhilippines for a similar responsibility and destiny. 

The quickness with which cordial relations have been re-establishedbetween Spain and the United States is most gratifying; and too muchpraise cannot be bestowed upon that proud, high-spirited people, whohave accepted the results of the war in a spirit so admirable. In theloss of her American colonies, Spain has been paying a debt contractedin the days of her dazzling splendor--the time of the great Charlesand of Philip II. , --a kind of indebtedness which in the case ofnations is never forgiven, but must be paid to the uttermost farthing. If history teaches anything, it is that the nations which have beencruel and unjust sooner or later must "drink the cup of the Lord'sfury, " just as surely as did the Assyrians of old. Another thingwhich is quite as obvious is that the nations of the earth to-day mustaccept the ideals of the advancing tide of modern civilization, orperish! A people whose national festival is a bull-fight, has stillsomething to learn. Much of mediævalism still lingers in the methodsand ideals of Spain. In the time of her opulence and splendor thesemethods and ideals were hers. So she believes in them and clings tothem still. She has been the victim of a vicious political system, towhich an intensely proud, patriotic, and brave people have believedthey must be loyal. 

In no other land--as we have seen--is the national spirit so strong. Certainly nowhere else has it ever been subjected to such strain andsurvived. And this intense loyalty, this overwhelming pride of race, this magnificent valor, have all been summoned to uphold a poor, perishing, vicious political system. 

But the _Zeitgeist_ is contagious. And at no time has its influencein this conservative kingdom been so apparent as since theSpanish-American War; soon after this was over, Alfonso ascended thethrone of his fathers. The important question of his marriage afterlong consideration was decided by himself, when he selected an EnglishPrincess, niece of Edward VII. , for his future Queen. The PrincessEna is the daughter of Princess Beatrice, --youngest child of QueenVictoria, --and Prince Henry of Battenberg, who was killed some yearsago during one of the Kaffir wars in South Africa. A royal marriageuniting Protestant England and Catholic Spain would at one timehave cost a throne and perhaps a head; and the cordiality, and evenenthusiasm, with which this union has been greeted in England showswhat seas of prejudice have been sailed through and what continentsof sectarian differences have been left behind; proving that the_Zeitgeist_ has been busy in England as well as in Spain. 

The royal marriage of these two children--(the King having just passedhis twentieth birthday)--attended by the traditional formalities, anda revival of almost mediæval splendor, took place at Madrid, June 1, 1906. The many romantic features attending the courtship of theboy King and his English girl-bride invested the occasion with apicturesque interest for the whole world. And yet--impossible as itwould have seemed--there existed some one degenerate enough to convertit into a ghastly tragedy. While returning to the royal palace overflower-strewn streets, after the conclusion of the marriage ceremony, a bomb concealed in a bouquet was thrown from an upper window, hittingthe royal coach at which it was directly aimed. The young King andQueen escaped as if by a miracle from the wreck; and the destructionintended for them bore death and mutilation to scores of innocentpeople in no wise connected with the Government; and Madrid, at themoment of her supreme rejoicing, was converted into a blood-stained, mourning city. 

Never did anarchistic methods seem so utterly divorced fromintelligence as in this last attempt at regicide. If it had succeeded, an infant-nephew would have been King of Spain, with a long regency, perhaps, of some well-seasoned Castilian of the old school!

There was an incident in connection with this marriage which deeplytouches the American heart. The special envoy, bearing a letter ofcongratulation to the King from President Roosevelt, was receivedwith a warmth and consideration far exceeding what was required bydiplomatic usage, and the stars and stripes helping to adorn Madridfor the great festival gave assurance that Spain and the United Statesare really friends again. 

 LIST OF VISIGOTH KINGS. 

 A. D. Ataulfus, 411-415 Wallia, 415-420 Theodored, 420-451 Thorismund, 451-452 Theodoric I. (Defeated Attila), 452-466 Evaric (Completed Gothic Conquest in Spain), 466-483 Alaric, 483-506 Gesaleic, 506-511 Theodoric II. , 511-522 Amalaric, 522-531 Theudis, 531-548 Theudisel, 548-549 Agilan, 549-554 Athanagild I. , 554-567 Liuva I. , 567-570 Leovigild, 570-587 Recared I. , 587-601 Liuva II. , 601-603 Witteric, 603-610 Gundemar, 610-612 Sisebert, 612-621 Recared II. (3 months). Swintila, 621-631 Sisenand, 631-636 Chintila, 636-640 Tulga, 640-642 Chindaswind, 642-649 Receswind, 649-672 Wamba, 672-680 Ervigius, 680-687 Egica (son of Wamba), 687-701 Witiza, 701-709 Roderick, 700-711 Theodomir, } Kings without a kingdom { 711-743 Athanagild II. , } { 743-755

 KINGS OF THE ASTURIAS AND LEON. 

 A. D. Pelayo (of Royal Gothic birth), 718 Favila (son of above), 737 Alfonso I. (son-in-law of Pelayo), 739 Fruela I. (son of Alfonso), 757 Aurelio, 768 Mauregato, 774 Bermudo I. , 788 Alfonso II. , 791 Ramiro I. , 842 Ordoño I. , 850 Alfonso III. , 866 Garcia, 910 Ordoño II. , 914 Fruela II. , 923 Alfonso IV. , 925 Ramiro II. , 930 Ordoño III. , 950 Sancho I. , 955 Ramiro III. , 967 Bermudo II. , 982 Alfonso V. , 999 Bermudo III. , 1027 Fernando I. (also King of Castile), 1037 Alfonso VI. , 1065 Urraca, 1109 Alfonso VII. (also King of Castile), 1126 Fernando II. , 1157 Alfonso IX. (Aided Conquest of Moors), 1188 Fernando III. , 1230

 LEON AND CASTILE UNITED. 

 Alfonso X. (_el sabio_), 1252 Sancho IV. , 1284 Fernando IV. , 1295 Alfonso XI. , 1312 Pedro I. (_el cruel_), 1350 Enrique II. , 1369 Juan I. , 1379 Enrique IV. , 1454 Isabel I. (married to Fernando II. Of Aragon), 1474

 CASTILE AND ARAGON UNITED. 

 Carlos I. (Charles I. Elected Charles V. Of Germany, 1519), 1516 Philip II. , 1556 Philip III. , 1593 Philip IV. , 1621 Carlos II. , 1665

 HOUSE OF BOURBON. 

 Philip V. , 1700 Fernando VI. , 1746 Carlos III. , 1759 Carlos IV. , 1788 Ferdinand VII. , 1799 Joseph Bonaparte, 1806 Ferdinand VII. (reinstated), 1814 Isabella II. (dethroned, 1868), 1843 Alfonso XII. , 1874 Alfonso XIII. , 1885

INDEX

 Abbasides, 66, 67

 Abd-el-Rahman I, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72

 Abd-el-Rahman II, 72, 73, 74

 Abd-el-Rahman III, 74

 Abdul Hassan, 105, 106

 Acropolis, 92

 Actium, 27

 Æneas, 12

 Ætius, 36

 Ahab, 12

 Alaric, 31

 Alcázar, 89

 Alexander, 13

 Alfonso I, 63, 64, 65, 78

 Alfonso III, 78

 Alfonso VI, 81, 82

 Alfonso IX, 86

 Alfonso X, 90

 Alfonso XII, 154, 155, 156, 160

 Alfonso XIII, 144, 148, 150, 155, 162

 Alhambra, 92, 106, 107

 Alhama, 106

 Almanzor, 79, 80, 86

 Almoravides, 83, 84

 Alsace, 129

 Andalusian, 32, 61, 67, 79, 80

 Antony, 27

 Arabia, 91

 Aragon, 64

 Arianism, 40, 46

 Armada, 121

 Arthur, 70, 82

 Assyrian, 7

 Asturias, 6, 63, 64, 78, 81, 125

 Ataulf, 32

 Austria, Archduke of, 110

 Ayasha, 105

 Babel, 4

 Babylonian, 7

 Bacon, Roger, 87

 Badajos, 83

 Baghdad, 74, 75

 Balboa, 114

 Balearic, 11

 Barcelona, 12

 Basques, 36, 70

 Battenberg, 162

 Beatrice, 162

 Berber, 2, 58, 65, 81, 83

 Bertrand du Guesclin, 96

 Black Prince, 95

 Blanche de Bourbon, 95

 Blenheim, 133

 Boabdil, 105, 106, 107

 Bourbon, 130

 Braganza, Duke de, 128

 Brummel, 73

 Brunhilde, 42

 Brutus, 27

 Cadiz, 8, 21, 55, 120

 Cæsar, 26, 27

 Canaan, 7

 Canada, 138, 139

 Canning, 147

 Cantabrian, 56, 64, 127

 Carlists, 149

 Carlos II, 128, 130, 131, 132

 Carlos III, 135, 136, 141

 Carlos IV, 142

 Carolinas, 129

 Carthage, 10, 12

 Carthagena, 15

 Castelar, 153

 Castile, 64, 79, 81, 94, 100, 101, 109

 Castilian, 81, 123

 Catalonian, 6

 Catherine, 109, 118

 Catherine de' Medici, 119

 Cato, the Elder, 22

 Cervantes, 24, 126

 Cervera, 160

 Ceuta, 18

 Chaldean Civilization, 6

 Chanson de Roland, 70

 Charlemagne, 69, 70, 142

 Charles Martel, 58, 69, 86

 Charles I, 131

 Charles II, 129

 Charles V, 95, 110, 112, 122, 123

 Chivalry, 126

 Christina, 150

 Christina, Hapsburg, 154

 Cid, 82, 83, 85, 88

 Clovis, 36

 Columbus, 29, 109, 114

 Constantinople, 107

 Constantius, 34

 Constanza, 96

 Constitution, 144, 145, 148, 149

 Corneille, 24, 26

 Cortes, 112, 113, 144, 145, 147

 Cortez, 112

 Count Julian, 52-56

 Court of the Lions, 106

 Covadonga, 64, 88

 Crusade, 86, 87

 Damascus, 60, 74

 Delenda est Carthago, 21

 De Soto, 112

 Dictator, 27

 Dido, 12

 Don Quixote, 126

 Don Carlos, 159

 Drake, Sir Francis, 120

 Edward III, 96

 Egmont, 119

 Egyptian Civilization, 6

 Eleanor, Queen, 90

 Elizabeth, 120

 Ena, Princess, 162

 Enrique III, 96, 97

 Enrique IV, 97

 Errigius, 73, 74

 Escurial, 117, 121, 154, 155

 Eugene, Prince, 133

 Eulogius, 73, 74

 Evaric, 36

 Ezekiel, 10

 Ferdinand I, 100, 101, 105, 107, 111, 130

 Ferdinand VI, 135

 Ferdinand VII, 142

 Fernando I, 79

 Flanders, 112

 Florida, 121, 129

 Francis I, 111, 114

 Francis d'Assisi, 152

 Frederick II, 90

 Gallicians, 6

 Garibaldi, 153

 George IV, 73

 Gibraltar, 18, 135, 139, 141, 142

 Granada, 85, 86, 92, 100, 101, 104

 Guadalquivir, 73

 Hamilcar, 14, 15

 Hannibal, 12

 Hapsburg, 130

 Havana, 138

 Henrietta, 127

 Henry II, 119

 Henry VIII, 109, 111, 117

 Hidalgo, 50, 63, 78, 123

 Hiram, 10, 109

 Hispania, 21

 Holy Alliance, 146, 147, 148, 149

 Honorius, 34

 Horn, 119

 Huesca, 25

 Huns, 36

 Iberia, 2, 6

 Ides of March, 27

 Ionian, 9

 Isabella I, 12, 96, 100, 102, 108, 109, 110, 130

 Isabella II, 150, 151, 152

 Isabella de Bourbon, 125

 Isabel of Portugal, 114

 Isaiah, 13

 Islam, 59, 64

 Jamaica, 128, 129

 James II, 131, 132

 Janizaries, 158

 Jesuits, 136

 Jezebel, 12

 Joanna, 109, 110

 John of Gaunt, 96, 97

 José Marti, 157

 Joseph Bonaparte, 143

 Juan II, 100, 102

 Juntas, 143

 Karl, Archduke of Austria, 132, 133

 Kelts, 4

 Keltiberians, 5, 15, 22

 Khalif, 65, 66, 75-77

 Koran, 60

 Kossuth, 151

 Lee, 159

 Leo X, 111

 Leon, 79, 81, 94

 Leopold, 132

 Leovigild, 43

 Lira, 24

 Lorraine, 129

 Louis IX, 90

 Louis XIII, 125

 Louis XIV, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134

 Louis XV, 140

 Louisiana, 139

 Lucan, 29

 Luther, 114, 116

 Madrid, Treaty of, 139

 Magellan, 114

 Mahdi, 85

 Maine, 159

 Manila, 138, 160

 Maria Theresa, 127, 132

 Marie de' Medici, 125

 Marius, 23, 24

 Marlborough, 133

 Martian, 29

 Martinez Campos, 158

 Mary Tudor, 117, 118

 Maximilian, 109, 111

 Mazzini, 153

 Mercedes, 154

 Mexico, 20, 112, 137

 Milan, 135

 Minorca, 135

 Mississippi, 138

 Mithridates, 25

 Monroe, 147

 Moor, 56

 Moriscos, 126, 128

 Moscow, 143

 Montpensier, Duke de, 152, 154

 Munda, 26

 Murillo, 52

 Mur-Viedo, 16

 Musa, 52

 Naples, 135

 Napoleon, 139, 142

 Navarre, 79, 94

 Nelson, 142

 Ne plus ultra, 18

 Nero, 29, 73

 Netherlands, 115, 119, 120, 128, 135

 New Orleans, 139

 Nineveh, 7

 Noah, 7

 Numantia, 24

 Octavius Augustus, 23

 Olivier, 70

 Omeyads, 66, 67, 72, 74

 Opus Majus, 87

 Ordoño I, 79

 Osca, 25

 Ostrogoths, 36

 Paladins, 70

 Pedro, 83, 95

 Pelagius, 64

 Pelasgians, 30, 88

 Peru, 20, 112, 137

 Petronius, 73

 Phenicia, 91

 Philip II, 161

 Philip III, 125, 126, 127

 Philip IV, 127, 128

 Philip V, 33, 134, 133

 Philippi, 27

 Philippines, 137, 138, 156, 158, 160

 Pillars of Hercules, 18, 82

 Pizzarro, 112

 Placidia, 33

 Plutarch, 24

 Pompey, 25, 26

 Ponce de Leon, 112

 Portugal, 94, 102, 109

 Pragmatic Sanction, 151

 Pretender, 132

 Protestantism, 115, 118, 119

 Punic, 11, 14, 16

 Quebec, 138

 Quintilian, 29

 Ramiro I, 79

 Recared, 46

 Reconcentrados, 159

 Reformation, 114

 Richelieu, 131

 Roderick, 51, 54, 56, 107

 Roland, 70, 71

 Rome, 13

 Roncesvalles, 13

 Saguntum, 9, 16

 Sahara, 2

 Salic Law, 150

 Saracen, 61, 62, 63

 Santiago de Cuba, 160

 Sardinia, 11, 14, 135

 Scipio, 19, 22

 Seneca, 29

 Seville, 88, 89

 Sidon, 7, 12

 Spanish Succession, War of, 33

 Spartans, 30

 St. Augustine, 129

 St. Bartholomew, 119

 Stuart, House of, 131

 Suevi, 31

 Sylla, 23, 24

 Syrian, 7

 Tarif, 53

 Tarshish, 10, 13

 Toledo, 45, 65

 Torquemada, 103

 Trafalgar, 142

 Troy, 9

 Tubal, 4

 Tyre, 7, 13

 Ulfilas, 39

 Utrecht, Peace of, 134

 Valladolid, 100, 101, 104, 117

 Vandals, 30

 Visigoths, 36

 Wamba, 47

 Wellington, 143

 Weyler, 158

 White Hind, 26

 Witiza, 50, 51

 Yusuf, 67

 Zante, 9

 Zarynthus, 9

 Zeitgeist, 162, 163

 Ziryab, 73