Top of chapter ornamentCHAPTER VI.Expedition of the Prince Alonzo against the Moors.— Encamps on the Banks of the Guadalete.— Aben Hud marches out from Xerez and gives Battle.— Prowess of Garcia Perez de Vargas.— Flight and Pursuit of the Moors.— Miracle of the Blessed Santiago.
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Expedition of the Prince Alonzo against the Moors.— Encamps on the Banks of the Guadalete.— Aben Hud marches out from Xerez and gives Battle.— Prowess of Garcia Perez de Vargas.— Flight and Pursuit of the Moors.— Miracle of the Blessed Santiago.
Illustrated K
King Fernando III.having, through the sage counsel and judicious management of his mother, made this amicable arrangement with his step-sisters, by which he gained possession of their inheritance, now found his territories to extend from the Bay of Biscay to the vicinity of the Guadalquivir, and from the borders of Portugal to those of Aragon and Valencia; and in addition to his titles of King of Castile and Leon, called himself King of Spain by seigniorial right. Being at peace with all his Christian neighbors, he now prepared to carry on with more zeal and vigor than ever his holy wars against the infidels. While making a progress, however, through his dominions, administering justice, he sent his brother, the Prince Alonzo, to make an expedition into the country of the Moors, and to attack the newly-risen power of Aben Hud.
As the Prince Alonzo was young and of little experience, the king sent Don Alvar Perez deCastro, the Castilian, with him as captain, he being stout of heart, strong of hand, and skilled in war. The prince and his captain went from Salamanca to Toledo, where they recruited their force with a troop of cavalry. Thence they proceeded to Andujar, where they sent out corredores, or light foraging troops, who laid waste the country, plundering and destroying and bringing off great booty. Thence they directed their ravaging course toward Cordova, assaulted and carried Palma, and put all its inhabitants to the sword. Following the fertile valley of the Guadalquivir, they scoured the vicinity of Seville, and continued onward for Xerez, sweeping off cattle and sheep from the pastures of Andalusia; driving on long cavalgadas of horses and mules laden with spoil; until the earth shook with the tramping of their feet, and their course was marked by clouds of dust and the smoke of burning villages.
In this desolating foray they were joined by two hundred horse and three hundred foot, Moorish allies, or rather vassals, being led by the son of Aben Mohamed, the king of Baeza.
Arrived within sight of Xerez, they pitched their tents on the banks of the Guadalete—that fatal river, sadly renowned in the annals of Spain for the overthrow of Roderick and the perdition of the kingdom.
Here a good watch was set over the captured flocks and herds which covered the adjacent meadows, while the soldiers, fatigued with ravage, gave themselves up to repose on the banks ofthe river, or indulged in feasting and revelry, or gambled with each other for their booty.
In the mean time Aben Hud, hearing of this inroad, summoned all his chivalry of the seaboard of Andalusia to meet him in Xerez. They hastened to obey his call; every leader spurred for Xerez with his band of vassals. Thither came also the king of the Azules, with seven hundred horsemen, Moors of Africa, light, vigorous and active; and the city was full of troops.
The camp of Don Alonzo had a formidable appearance at a distance, from the flocks and herds which surrounded it, the vast number of sumpter mules, and the numerous captives; but when Aben Hud came to reconnoitre it, he found that its aggregate force did not exceed three thousand five hundred men—a mere handful in comparison to his army, and those encumbered with cattle and booty. He anticipated, therefore, an easy victory. He now sallied forth from the city, and took his position in the olive-fields between the Christians and the city; while the African horsemen were stationed on each wing, with instructions to hem in the Christians on either side, for he was only apprehensive of their escaping. It is even said that he ordered great quantities of cords to be brought from the city, and osier bands to be made by the soldiery, wherewith to bind the multitude of prisoners about to fall into their hands. His whole force he divided into seven battalions, each containing from fifteen hundred to two thousand cavalry. With these he prepared to give battle.
When the Christians thus saw an overwhelmingforce in front, cavalry hovering on either flank, and the deep waters of the Guadalete behind them, they felt the perils of their situation.
In this emergency Alvar Perez de Castro showed himself the able captain that he had been represented. Though apparently deferring to the prince in council, he virtually took the command, riding among the troops lightly armed, with truncheon in hand, encouraging every one by word and look and fearless demeanor. To give the most formidable appearance to their little host, he ordered that as many as possible of the foot-soldiers should mount upon the mules and beasts of burden, and form a troop to be kept in reserve. Before the battle he conferred the honor of knighthood on Garcia Perez de Vargas, a cavalier destined to gain renown for hardy deeds of arms.
When the troops were all ready for the field, the prince exhorted them as good Christians to confess their sins and obtain absolution. There was a goodly number of priests and friars with the army, as there generally was with all the plundering expeditions of this holy war, but there were not enough to confess all the army; those, therefore, who could not have a priest or monk for the purpose, confessed to each other.
Among the cavaliers were two noted for their valor; but who, though brothers-in-law, lived in mortal feud. One was Diego Perez, vassal to Alvar Perez and brother to him who had just been armed knight; the other was Pero Miguel, both natives of Toledo. Diego Perez was theone who had given cause of offense. He now approached his adversary and asked his pardon for that day only; that, in a time of such mortal peril there might not be enmity and malice in their hearts. The priests added their exhortations to this request, but Pero Miguel sternly refused to pardon. When this was told to the prince and Don Alvar, they likewise entreated Don Miguel to pardon his brother-in-law. “I will,” replied he, “if he will come to my arms and embrace me as a brother.” But Diego Perez declined the fraternal embrace, for he saw danger in the eye of Pero Miguel, and he knew his savage strength and savage nature, and suspected that he meant to strangle him. So Pero Miguel went into battle without pardoning his enemy who had implored forgiveness.
At this time, say the old chroniclers, the shouts and yells of the Moorish army, the sound of their cymbals, kettle-drums, and other instruments of warlike music, were so great that heaven and earth seemed commingled and confounded. In regarding the battle about to overwhelm him, Alvar Perez saw that the only chance was to form the whole army into one mass, and by a headlong assault to break the centre of the enemy. In this emergency he sent word to the prince, who was in the rear with the reserve and had five hundred captives in charge, to strike off the heads of the captives and join him with the whole reserve. This bloody order was obeyed. The prince came to the front, all formed together in one dense column, and then, with the war-cry“Santiago! Santiago! Castile! Castile!” charged upon the centre of the enemy. The Moors’ line was broken by the shock, squadron after squadron was thrown into confusion, Moors and Christians were intermingled, until the field became one scene of desperate, chance-medley fighting. Every Christian cavalier fought as if the salvation of the field depended upon his single arm. Garcia Perez de Vargas, who had been knighted just before the battle, proved himself worthy of the honor. He had three horses killed under him, and engaged in a desperate combat with the King of the Azules, whom at length he struck dead from his horse. This king had crossed from Africa on a devout expedition in the cause of the Prophet Mahomet. “Verily,” says Antonio Agapida, “he had his reward.”
Diego Perez was not behind his brother in prowess; and Heaven favored him in that deadly fight, notwithstanding that he had not been pardoned by his enemy. In the heat of the battle he had broken both sword and lance; whereupon, tearing off a great knotted limb from an olive-tree, he laid about him with such vigor and manhood that he who got one blow in the head from that war-club never needed another. Don Alvar Perez, who witnessed his feats, was seized with delight. At each fresh blow that cracked a Moslem skull he would cry out, “Assi! Assi! Diego, Machacha! Machacha!” (So! So! Diego, smash them! smash them!) and from that day forward that strong-handed cavalier went by the name of Diego Machacha, or Diego theSmasher, and it remained the surname of several of his lineage.
At length the Moors gave way and fled for the gates of Xerez; being hotly pursued they stumbled over the bodies of the slain, and thus many were taken prisoners. At the gates the press was so great that they killed each other in striving to enter; and the Christian sword made slaughter under the walls.
The Christians gathered spoils of the field, after this victory, until they were fatigued with collecting them, and the precious articles found in the Moorish tents were beyond calculation. Their camp-fires were supplied with the shafts of broken lances, and they found ample use for the cords and osier bands which the Moors had provided to bind their expected captives.
It was a theme of much marvel and solemn meditation that of all the distinguished cavaliers who entered into this battle, not one was lost, excepting the same Pero Miguel who refused to pardon his adversary. What became of him no one could tell. The last that was seen of him he was in the midst of the enemy, cutting down and overturning, for he was a valiant warrior and of prodigious strength. When the battle and pursuit were at an end, and the troops were recalled by sound of trumpet, he did not appear. His tent remained empty. The field of battle was searched, but he was nowhere to be found. Some supposed that, in his fierce eagerness to make havoc among the Moors, he had entered the gates of the city and there been slain; but his fate remained amere matter of conjecture, and the whole was considered an awful warning that no Christian should go into battle without pardoning those who asked forgiveness.
“On this day,” says the worthy Agapida, “it pleased Heaven to work one of its miracles in favor of the Christian host; for the blessed Santiago appeared in the air on a white horse, with a white banner in one hand and a sword in the other, accompanied by a band of cavaliers in white. This miracle,” he adds, “was beheld by many men of verity and worth,” probably the monks and priests who accompanied the army; “as well as by numbers of the Moors, who declared that the greatest slaughter was effected by those sainted warriors.”
It may be as well to add that Fray Antonio Agapida is supported in this marvelous fact by Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, one of the most learned and pious men of the age, who lived at the time and records it in his chronicle. It is a matter, therefore, placed beyond the doubts of the profane.
Note by the Editor.—A memorandum at the foot of this page of the author’s manuscript, reminds him to “notice death of Queen Beatrix about this time,” but the text continues silent on the subject. According to Mariana, she died in the city of Toro in 1235, before the siege of Cordova. Another authority gives the 5th of November, 1236, as the date of the decease, which would be some months after the downfall of that renowned city. Her body was interred in the nunnery of Las Huelgas at Burgos, and many years afterwards removed to Seville, where reposed the remains of her husband.
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