Top of chapter ornamentCHAPTER XVII.King Sancho the Fat.— Of the Homage he exacted from Count Fernan Gonzalez, and of the strange Bargain that he made with him for the purchase of his Horse and Falcon.
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King Sancho the Fat.— Of the Homage he exacted from Count Fernan Gonzalez, and of the strange Bargain that he made with him for the purchase of his Horse and Falcon.
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King Sancho I., on ascending the throne, held a cortes at Leon, where all the great men of the kingdom and the princes who owed allegiance to him were expected to attend and pay homage. As the court of Leon was excessively tenacious of its claim to sovereignty over Castile, the absence of Count Fernan Gonzalez was noticed with great displeasure by the king, who sent missives to him commanding his attendance. The count being proud of heart, and standing much upon the independence of Castile, was unwilling to kiss the hand of any one in token of vassalage. He was at length induced to stifle his repugnance and repair to the court, but he went in almost regal style and with a splendid retinue, more like a sovereign making a progress through his dominions.
As he approached the city of Leon, King Sancho came forth in great state to receive him, and they met apparently as friends, but there was enmity against each other in their hearts.
The rich and gallant array with which Count Fernan made his entry in Leon was the theme of every tongue; but nothing attracted more notice than a falcon, thoroughly trained, which he carried on his hand, and an Arabian horse of wonderful beauty, which he had gained in his wars with the Moors. King Sancho was seized with a vehement desire to possess this horse and falcon, and offered to purchase them of the count. Don Fernan haughtily declined to enter into traffic; but offered them to the monarch as a gift. The king was equally punctilious in refusing to accept a favor; but as monarchs do not easily forego anything on which they have set their hearts, it became evident to Count Fernan that it was necessary, for the sake of peace, to part with his horse and falcon. To save his dignity, however, he asked a price corresponding to his rank; for it was beneath a cavalier, he said, to sell his things cheap, like a mean man. He demanded, therefore, one thousand marks of silver for the horse and falcon,—to be paid on a stipulated day; if not paid on that day the price to be doubled on the next, and on each day’s further delay the price should in like manner be doubled. To these terms the king gladly consented, and the terms were specified in a written agreement, which was duly signed and witnessed. The king thus gained the horse and falcon, but it will be hereinafter shown that this indulgence of his fancy cost him dear.
This eager desire for an Arabian steed appears the more singular in Sancho the First, fromhis being so corpulent that he could not sit on horseback. Hence he is commonly known in history by the appellation of King Sancho the Fat. His unwieldy bulk, also, may be one reason why he soon lost the favor of his warrior subjects, who looked upon him as a mere trencherman and bed-presser, and not fitted to command men who lived in the saddle, and had rather fight than either eat or sleep.
King Sancho saw that he might soon have hard fighting to maintain his throne; and how could he figure as a warrior who could not mount on horseback. In his anxiety he repaired to his uncle Garcia, king of Navarre, surnamed the Trembler, who was an exceeding meagre man, and asked counsel of him what he should do to cure himself of this troublesome corpulency. Garcia the Trembler was totally at a loss for a recipe, his own leanness being a gift of Nature; he advised him, however, to repair to Abderahman, the Miramamolin of Spain and King of Cordova, with whom he was happily at peace, and consult with him, and seek advice of the Arabian physicians resident at Cordova—the Moors being generally a spare and active people, and the Arabian physicians skillful above all others in the treatment of diseases.
King Sancho the Fat, therefore, sent amicable messages beforehand to the Moorish miramamolin, and followed them as fast as his corpulency would permit; and he was well received by the Moorish sovereign, and remained for a long timeat Cordova, diligently employed in decreasing his rotundity.
While the corpulent king was thus growing leaner, discontent broke out among his subjects at home; and, Count Fernan Gonzalez taking advantage of it, stirred up an insurrection, and placed upon the throne of Leon Ordoño the Fourth, surnamed the Bad, who was a kinsman of the late King Ordoño III., and he moreover gave him his daughter for wife—his daughter Urraca, the repudiated wife of the late king.
If the good Count Fernan Gonzalez supposed he had fortified himself by this alliance, and that his daughter was now fixed for the second time, and more firmly than ever, on the throne of Leon, he was grievously deceived; for Sancho I. returned from Cordova at the head of a powerful host of Moors, and was no longer to be called the Fat, for he had so well succeeded under the regimen prescribed by the miramamolin and his Arabian physicians, that he could vault into the saddle with merely putting his hand upon the pommel.
Ordoño IV. was a man of puny heart; no sooner did he hear of the approach of King Sancho, and of his marvelous leanness and agility, than he was seized with terror, and, abandoning his throne and his twice-repudiated spouse Urraca, he made for the mountains of Asturias, or, as others assert, was overtaken by the Moors and killed with lances.
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