Top of chapter ornamentCHAPTER V.Aben Hud.— Abullale purchases another Year’s Truce.— Fernando hears of the Death of his Father, the King of Leon, while pressing the Siege of Jaen.— He becomes Sovereign of the Two Kingdoms of Leon and Castile.
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Aben Hud.— Abullale purchases another Year’s Truce.— Fernando hears of the Death of his Father, the King of Leon, while pressing the Siege of Jaen.— He becomes Sovereign of the Two Kingdoms of Leon and Castile.
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Aboutthis time a valiant sheik, named Aben Abdallah Mohammed ben Hud, but commonly called Aben Hud, was effecting a great revolution in Moorish affairs. He was of the lineage of Aben Alfange, and bitterly opposed to the sect of Almohades, who for a long time had exercised a tyrannical sway. Stirring up the Moors of Murcia to rise upon their oppressors, he put himself at their head, massacred all the Almohades that fell into his hands, and made himself sheik or king of that region. He purified the mosques with water, after the manner in which Christians purify their churches, as though they had been defiled by the Almohades. Aben Hud acquired a name among those of his religion for justice and good faith as well as valor; and after some opposition, gained sway over all Andalusia. This brought him in collision with King Fernando...
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laying waste fields of grain. The Moorish sovereign of Seville purchased another year’s truce of him for three hundred thousand maravedis of silver. Aben Hud, on the other hand, collected a great force and marched to oppose him, but did not dare to give him battle. He went, therefore, upon Merida, and fought with King Alfonso of Leon, father of King Fernando, where, however, he met with complete discomfiture.
On the following year King Fernando repeated his invasion of Andalusia, and was pressing the siege of the city of Jaen, which he assailed by means of engines discharging stones, when a courier arrived in all speed from his mother, informing him that his father Alfonso was dead, and urging him to proceed instantly to Leon, to enforce his pretensions to the crown. King Fernando accordingly raised the siege of Jaen, sending his engines to Martos, and repaired to Castile, to consult with his mother, who was his counselor on all occasions.
It appeared that in his last will King Alfonso had named his two daughters joint heirs to thecrown. Some of the Leonese and Gallegos were disposed to place the Prince Alonzo, brother to King Fernando, on the throne; but he had listened to the commands of his mother, and had resisted all suggestions of the kind; the larger part of the kingdom, including the most important cities, had declared for Fernando.
Accompanied by his mother, King Fernando proceeded instantly into the kingdom of Leon with a powerful force. Wherever they went the cities threw open their gates to them. The princesses Doña Sancha and Doña Dulce, with their mother Theresa, would have assembled a force to oppose them, but the prelates were all in favor of King Fernando. On his approach to Leon, the bishops and clergy and all the principal inhabitants came forth to receive him, and conducted him to the cathedral, where he received their homage, and was proclaimed king, with theTe Deumsof the choir and the shouts of the people.
Doña Theresa, who, with her daughters, was in Galicia, finding the kingdom thus disposed of, sent to demand provision for herself and the two princesses, who in fact were step-sisters of King Fernando. Queen Berenguela, though she had some reason not to feel kindly disposed towards Doña Theresa, who she might think had been exercising a secret influence over her late husband, yet suppressed all such feelings, and undertook to repair in person to Galicia, and negotiate this singular family question. She had an interview with Queen Theresa at Valencia de Merlioin Galicia, and arranged a noble dower for her, and an annual revenue to each of her daughters of thirty thousand maravedis of gold. The king then had a meeting with his sisters at Benevente, where they resigned all pretensions to the throne. All the fortified places which held for them were given up, and thus Fernando became undisputed sovereign of the two kingdoms of Castile and Leon.
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