Top of chapter ornamentCHAPTER XIV.Investment of Seville.— All Spain aroused to Arms.— Surrender of Alcala Del Rio.— The Fleet of Admiral Ramon Bonifaz advances up the Guadalquivir.— Don Pelayo Correa, Master of Santiago.— His Valorous Deeds and the Miracles wrought in his Behalf.
Top of chapter ornament
Investment of Seville.— All Spain aroused to Arms.— Surrender of Alcala Del Rio.— The Fleet of Admiral Ramon Bonifaz advances up the Guadalquivir.— Don Pelayo Correa, Master of Santiago.— His Valorous Deeds and the Miracles wrought in his Behalf.
Illustrated W
Whenit was bruited abroad that King Fernando the Saint intended to besiege the great city of Seville, all Spain was roused to arms. The masters of the various military and religious orders, the ricos hombres, the princes, cavaliers, hidalgos, and every one of Castile and Leon capable of bearing arms, prepared to take the field. Many of the nobility of Catalonia and Portugal repaired to the standard of the king, as did other cavaliers of worth and prowess from lands far beyond the Pyrenees.
Prelates, priests, and monks likewise thronged to the army,—some to take care of the souls of those who hazarded their lives in this holy enterprise, others with a zealous determination to grasp buckler and lance, and battle with the arm of flesh against the enemies of God and the Church.
At the opening of spring the assembled host issued forth in shining array from the gates of Cordova. After having gained possession of Carmona, and Lora and Alcolea, and of other neighboring places,—some by voluntary surrender others by force of arms,—the king crossed the Guadalquivir, with great difficulty and peril, and made himself master of several of the most important posts in the neighborhood of Seville. Among these was Alcala del Rio, a place of great consequence, through which passed all the succors from the mountains to the city. This place was bravely defended by Axataf in person, the commander of Seville. He remained in Alcala with three hundred Moorish cavaliers, making frequent sallies upon the Christians, and effecting great slaughter. At length he beheld all the country around laid waste, the grain burnt or trampled down, the vineyards torn up, the cattle driven away and the villages consumed; so that nothing remained to give sustenance to the garrison or the inhabitants. Not daring to linger there any longer, he departed secretly in the night and retired to Seville, and the town surrendered to King Fernando.
While the king was putting Alcala del Rio in a state of defense. Admiral Ramon Bonifaz arrived at the mouth of the Guadalquivir with a fleet of thirteen large ships and several small vessels and galleys. While he was yet hovering about the land, he heard of the approach of a great force of ships from Tangier, Ceuta, and Seville, and of an army to assail him from the shores. In this peril he sent in all speed for succor to the king; when it reached the sea-coast the enemy had not yet appeared; wherefore, thinking it a false alarm, the reinforcement returnedto the camp. Scarcely, however, had it departed when the Africans came swarming over the sea, and fell upon Ramon Bonifaz with a greatly superior force. The admiral, in no way dismayed, defended himself vigorously—sunk several of the enemy, took a few prizes, and put the rest to flight, remaining master of the river. The king had heard of the peril of the fleet, and, crossing the ford of the river, had hastened to its aid; but when he came to the sea-coast, he found it victorious, at which he was greatly rejoiced, and commanded that it should advance higher up the river.
It was on the twentieth of the month of August that King Fernando began formally the siege of Seville, having encamped his troops, small in number, but of stout hearts and valiant hands, near to the city on the banks of the river. From hence Don Pelayo Correa, the valiant Master of Santiago, with two hundred and sixty horsemen, many of whom were warlike friars, attempted to cross the river at the ford below Aznal Farache. Upon this, Aben Amaken, Moorish king of Niebla, sallied forth with a great host to defend the pass, and the cavaliers were exposed to imminent peril, until the king sent one hundred cavaliers to their aid, led on by Rodrigo Flores and Alonzo Tellez and Fernan Diañez.
Thus reinforced, the Master of Santiago scoured the opposite side of the river, and with his little army of scarce four hundred horsemen, mingled monks and soldiers, spread dismay throughoutthe country. They attacked the town of Gelbes, and, after a desperate combat, entered it, sword in hand, slaying or capturing the Moors, and making rich booty. They made repeated assaults upon the castle of Triana, and had bloody combats with its garrison, but could not take the place. This hardy band of cavaliers had pitched their tents and formed their little camp on the banks of the river, below the castle of Aznal Farache. This fortress was situated on an eminence above the river, and its massive ruins, remaining at the present day, attest its formidable strength.
When the Moors from the castle towers looked down upon this little camp of Christian cavaliers, and saw them sallying forth and careering about the country, and returning in the evenings with cavalgadas of sheep and cattle, and mules laden with spoil, and long trains of captives, they were exceedingly wroth, and they kept a watch upon them, and sallied forth every day to fight with them, and to intercept stragglers from their camp, and to carry off their horses. Then the cavaliers concerted together, and they lay in ambush one day in the road by which the Moors were accustomed to sally forth, and when the Moors had partly passed their ambush, they rushed forth and fell upon them, and killed and captured above three hundred, and pursued the remainder to the very gates of the castle. From that time the Moors were so disheartened that they made no further sallies.
Shortly after, the Master of Santiago receivingsecret intelligence that a Moorish sea-captain had passed from Seville to Triana, on his way to succor the castle of Aznal Farache, placed himself, with a number of chosen cavaliers, in ambuscade at a pass by which the Moors were expected to come. After waiting a long time, their scouts brought word that the Moors had taken another road, and were nearly at the foot of the hill on which stood the castle. “Cavaliers,” cried the master, “it is not too late; let us first use our spurs and then our weapons, and if our steeds prove good, the day will yet be ours.” So saying, he put spurs to his horse, and the rest following his example, they soon came in sight of the Moors. The latter, seeing the Christians coming after them full speed, urged their horses up the hill towards the castle, but the Christians overtook them and slew seven of those in the rear. In the skirmish, Garci Perez struck the Moorish captain from his horse with a blow of his lance. The Christians rushed forward to take him prisoner. On seeing this, the Moors turned back, threw themselves between their commander and his assailants, and kept the latter in check while he was conveyed into the castle. Several of them fell, covered with wounds; the residue, seeing their chieftain safe, turned their reins and galloped for the castle, just entering in time to have the gates closed upon their pursuers.
Time and space permit not to recount the many other valorous deeds of Don Pelayo Correa, the good Master of Santiago, and his bandof cavaliers and monks. His little camp became a terror to the neighborhood, and checked the sallies of the Moorish mountaineers from the Sierra Morena. In one of his enterprises he gained a signal advantage over the foe, but the approach of night threatened to defraud him of his victory. Then the pious warrior lifted up his voice and supplicated the Virgin Mary in those celebrated words: “Santa Maria deten tu dia” (Holy Mary, detain thy day), for it was one of the days consecrated to the Virgin. The blessed Virgin listened to the prayer of her valiant votary; the daylight continued in a supernatural manner, until the victory of the good Master of Santiago was completed. In honor of this signal favor, he afterwards erected a temple to the Virgin by the name of Nuestra Señora de Tentudia.[87]
If any one should doubt this miracle, wrought in favor of this pious warrior and his soldiers of the cowl, it may be sufficient to relate another, which immediately succeeded, and which shows how peculiarly he was under the favor of Heaven. After the battle was over, his followers were ready to faint with thirst, and could find no stream or fountain; and when the good master saw the distress of his soldiers, his heart was touched with compassion, and, bethinking himself of the miracle performed by Moses, in an impulse of holy zeal and confidence, and in the name of the blessed Virgin, he struck a dry and barren rock with his lance, and instantly there gushedforth a fountain of water, at which all his Christian soldiery drank and were refreshed.[88]So much at present for the good Master of Santiago, Don Pelayo Correa.
End of chapter ornament