Top of chapter ornamentCHAPTER XIX.The Last Campaign of Count Fernan.— His Death.
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The Last Campaign of Count Fernan.— His Death.
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Thegood Count Fernan Gonzalez was now well stricken in years. The fire of youth was extinct, the pride and ambition of manhood were over; instead of erecting palaces and lofty castles, he began now to turn his thoughts upon the grave and to build his last earthly habitation, the sepulchre.
Before erecting his own, he had one built of rich and stately workmanship for his first wife, the object of his early love, and had her remains conveyed to it and interred with great solemnity. His own sepulchre, according to ancient promise, was prepared at the chapel and hermitage of San Pedro at Arlanza, where he had first communed with the holy Friar Pelayo. When it was completed, he merely inscribed upon it the word “Obijt,” leaving the rest to be supplied by others after his death.
When the Moors perceived that Count Fernan Gonzalez, once so redoubtable in arms, was old and infirm, and given to build tombs instead of castles, they thought it a favorable time to make an inroad into Castile. They passed the border,therefore, in great numbers, laying everything waste and bearding the old lion in his very den.
The veteran had laid by sword and buckler, and had almost given up the world; but the sound of Moorish drum and trumpet called him back even from the threshold of the sepulchre. Buckling on once more his armor and bestriding his war-steed, he summoned around him his Castilian cavaliers, seasoned like him in a thousand battles, and accompanied by his son Garcia Fernandez, who inherited all the valor of his father, issued forth to meet the foe; followed by the shouts and blessings of the populace, who joyed to see him once more in arms and glowing with his ancient fire.
The Moors were retiring from an extensive ravage, laden with booty and driving before them an immense cavalgada, when they descried a squadron of cavaliers, armed all in steel, emerging from a great cloud of dust, and bearing aloft the silver cross, the well-known standard of Count Fernan Gonzalez. That veteran warrior came on, as usual, leading the way, sword in hand. The very sight of his standard had struck dismay into the enemy; they soon gave way before one of his vigorous charges, nor did he cease to pursue them until they took shelter within the very walls of Cordova. Here he wasted the surrounding country with fire and sword, and after thus braving the Moor in his very capital, returned triumphant to Burgos.
“Such,” says Fray Antonio Agapida, “was the last campaign in this life of this most valorouscavalier;” and now, abandoning all further deeds of mortal enterprise in arms to his son Garcia Fernandez, he addressed all his thoughts, as he said, to prepare for his campaign in the skies. He still talked as a veteran warrior, whose whole life had been passed in arms, but his talk was not of earthly warfare nor of earthly kingdoms. He spoke only of the kingdom of heaven, and what he must do to make a successful inroad and gain an eternal inheritance in that blessed country.
He was equally indefatigable in preparing for his spiritual as for his mortal campaign. Instead, however, of mailed warriors tramping through his courts, and the shrill neigh of steed or clang of trumpet echoing among their walls, there were seen holy priests and barefoot monks passing to and fro, and the halls resounded with the sacred melody of litany and psalm. So pleased was Heaven with the good works of this pious cavalier, and especially with rich donations to churches and monasteries which he made under the guidance of his spiritual counselors, that we are told it was given to him to foresee in vision the day and hour when he should pass from this weary life and enter the mansions of eternal rest.
Knowing that the time approached, he prepared for his end like a good Christian. He wrote to the kings of Leon and Navarre in terms of great humility, craving their pardon for all past injuries and offenses, and entreating them, for the good of Christendom, to live in peace and amity, and make common cause for the defense of the faith.
Ten days before the time which Heaven hadappointed for his death he sent for the abbot of the chapel and convent of Arlanza, and bending his aged knees before him, confessed all his sins. This done, as in former times he had shown great state and ceremony in his worldly pageants, so now he arranged his last cavalgada to the grave. He prayed the abbot to return to his monastery and have his sepulchre prepared for his reception, and that the abbots of St. Sebastian and Silos and Quirce, with a train of holy friars, might come at the appointed day for his body; that thus, as he commended his soul to Heaven through the hands of his confessor, he might, through the hands of these pious men, resign his body to the earth.
When the abbot had departed, the count desired to be left alone; and clothing himself in a coarse friar’s garb, he remained in fervent prayer for the forgiveness of his sins. As he had been a valiant captain all his life against the enemies of the faith, so was he in death against the enemies of the soul. He died in the full command of all his faculties, making no groans nor contortions, but rendering up his spirit with the calmness of a heroic cavalier.
We are told that when he died voices were heard from heaven in testimony of his sanctity while the tears and lamentations of all Spain proved how much he was valued and beloved on earth. His remains were conveyed, according to his request, to the monastery of St. Pedro de Arlanza by a procession of holy friars with solemn chant and dirge. In the church of that convent they still repose; and two paintings are to beseen in the convent,—one representing the count valiantly fighting with the Moors, the other conversing with St. Pelayo and St. Millan, as they appeared to him in vision before the battle of Hazinas.
The cross which he used as his standard is still treasured up in the sacristy of the convent. It is of massive silver, two ells in length, with our Saviour sculptured upon it, and above the head, in Gothic letters, I. N. R. I. Below is Adam awaking from the grave, with the words of St. Paul, “Awake, thou who sleepest, and arise from the tomb, for Christ shall give thee life.”
This holy cross still has the form at the lower end by which the standard-bearer rested it in the pommel of his saddle.
“Inestimable,” adds Fray Antonio Agapida, “are the relics and remains of saints and sainted warriors.” In after times, when Fernando the Third, surnamed the Saint, went to the conquest of Seville, he took with him a bone of this thrice-blessed and utterly renowned cavalier, together with his sword and pennon, hoping through their efficacy to succeed in his enterprise,—nor was he disappointed; but what is marvelous to hear, but which we have on the authority of the good Bishop Sandoval, on the day on which King Fernando the Saint entered Seville in triumph, great blows were heard to resound within the sepulchre of the count at Arlanza, as if veritably his bones which remained behind exulted in the victory gained by those which had been carried to the wars. Thus were marvelously fulfilled thewords of the holy psalm,—“Exaltabant ossa humilitata.”[72]
Here ends the chronicle of the most valorous and renowned Don Fernan Gonzalez, Count of Castile.Laus Deo.
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