CHAPTER X

Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

by Washington Irving

CHAPTER X, CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA by Washington Irving

ROYAL EXPEDITION AGAINST LOXA.


King Ferdinand held a council of war at Cordova, where it was
deliberated what was to be done with Alhama. Most of the council
advised that it should be demolished, inasmuch as, being in the
centre of the Moorish kingdom, it would be at all times liable to
attack, and could only be maintained by a powerful garrison and
at a vast expense. Queen Isabella arrived at Cordova in the midst
of these deliberations, and listened to them with surprise and
impatience. "What!" said she, "destroy the first fruits of our
victories? Abandon the first place we have wrested from the Moors?
Never let us suffer such an idea to occupy our minds. It would argue
fear or feebleness, and give new courage to the enemy. You talk of
the toil and expense of maintaining Alhama. Did we doubt on
undertaking this war that it was to be one of infinite cost, labor,
and bloodshed? And shall we shrink from the cost the moment a
victory is obtained and the question is merely to guard or abandon
its glorious trophy? Let us hear no more about the destruction of
Alhama; let us maintain its walls sacred, as a stronghold granted
us by Heaven in the centre of this hostile land; and let our only
consideration be how to extend our conquest and capture the
surrounding cities."

The language of the queen infused a more lofty and chivalrous spirit
into the royal council. Preparations were made to maintain Alhama at
all risk and expense, and King Ferdinand appointed as alcayde Luis
Fernandez Puerto Carrero, senior of the house of Palma, supported
by Diego Lopez de Ayala, Pero Ruiz de Alarcon, and Alonso Ortis,
captains of four hundred lances and a body of one thousand foot,
supplied with provisions for three months.

Ferdinand resolved also to lay siege to Loxa, or Loja, a city of
great strength at no great distance from Alhama, and all-important
to its protection. It was, in fact, a military point situated in a pass
of the mountains between the kingdoms of Granada and Castile,
and commanded a main entrance to the Vega. The Xenil flowed by
its walls, and it had a strong castle or citadel built on a rock. In
preparing for the siege of this formidable place Ferdinand called
upon all the cities and towns of Andalusia and Estramadura, and the
domains of the orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara, and of
the priory of San Juan, and the kingdom of Toledo, and beyond to
the cities of Salamanca, Toro, and Valladolid, to furnish, according
to their repartimientos or allotments, a certain quantity of bread,
wine, and cattle to be delivered at the royal camp before Loxa, one
half at the end of June and one half in July. These lands, also,
together with Biscay and Guipuscoa, were ordered to send
reinforcements of horse and foot, each town furnishing its quota,
and great diligence was used in providing lombards, powder, and
other warlike munitions.

The Moors were no less active in their preparations, and sent
missives into Africa entreating supplies and calling upon the
Barbary princes to aid them in this war of the faith. To intercept
all succor, the Castilian sovereigns stationed an armada of ships
and galleys in the Straits of Gibraltar under the command of Martin
Diaz de Mina and Carlos de Valera, with orders to scour the Barbary
coast and sweep every Moorish sail from the sea.

While these preparations were making, Ferdinand made an incursion
at the head of his army into the kingdom of Granada, and laid waste
the Vega, destroying its hamlets and villages, ravaging its fields of
grain, and driving away the cattle.

It was about the end of June that King Ferdinand departed from
Cordova to sit down before the walls of Loxa. So confident was he of
success that he left a great part of the army at Ecija, and advanced
with but five thousand cavalry and eight thousand infantry. The
marques of Cadiz, a warrior as wise as he was valiant, remonstrated
against employing so small a force, and indeed was opposed to the
measure altogether, as being undertaken precipitately and without
sufficient preparation. King Ferdinand, however, was influenced by
the counsel of Don Diego de Merlo, and was eager to strike a
brilliant and decided blow. A vainglorious confidence prevailed
about this time among the Spanish cavaliers; they overrated their
own prowess, or rather they undervalued and despised their enemy.
Many of them believed that the Moors would scarcely remain in their
city when they saw the Christian troops advancing to assail it. The
Spanish chivalry, therefore, marched gallantly and fearlessly, and
almost carelessly, over the border, scantily supplied with the things
needful for a besieging army in the heart of an enemy's country. In
the same negligent and confident spirit they took up their station
before Loxa.

The country around was broken and hilly, so that it was extremely
difficult to form a combined camp. The river Xenil, which runs by
the town, was compressed between high banks, and so deep as to
be fordable with extreme difficulty; and the Moors had possession
of the bridge. The king pitched his tents in a plantation of olives
on the banks of the river; the troops were distributed in different
encampments on the heights, but separated from each other by deep
rocky ravines, so as to be incapable of yielding each other prompt
assistance. There was no room for the operations of the cavalry.
The artillery also was so injudiciously placed as to be almost
entirely useless. Alonso of Aragon, duke of Villahermosa and
illegitimate brother of the king, was present at the siege, and
disapproved of the whole arrangement. He was one of the most
able generals of his time, and especially renowned for his skill in
battering fortified places. He recommended that the whole disposition
of the camp should be changed, and that several bridges should be
thrown across the river. His advice was adopted, but slowly and
negligently followed, so that it was rendered of no avail. Among
other oversights in this hasty and negligent expedition, the army
had no supply of baked bread, and in the hurry of encampment there
was no time to erect furnaces. Cakes were therefore hastily made
and baked on the coals, and for two days the troops were supplied
in this irregular way.

King Ferdinand felt, too late, the insecurity of his position, and
endeavored to provide a temporary remedy. There was a height near
the city, called by the Moors Santo Albohacen, which was in front of
the bridge. He ordered several of his most valiant cavaliers to take
possession of this height and to hold it as a check upon the enemy
and a protection to the camp. The cavaliers chosen for this
distinguished and perilous post were the marques of Cadiz, the
marques of Villena, Don Roderigo Tellez Giron, master of Calatrava,
his brother the count of Urena, and Don Alonso de Aguilar. These
valiant warriors and tried companions-in-arms led their troops with
alacrity to the height, which soon glittered with the array of arms,
and was graced by several of the most redoubtable pennons of
warlike Spain.

Loxa was commanded at this time by an old Moorish alcayde whose
daughter was the favorite wife of Boabdil. The name of this Moor
was Ibrahim Ali Atar, but he was generally known among the Spaniards
as Alatar. He had grown gray in border warfare, was an implacable
enemy of the Christians, and his name had long been the terror of
the frontier. Lord of Zagra and in the receipt of rich revenues, he
expended them all in paying scouts and spies and maintaining a small
but chosen force with which to foray into the Christian territories;
and so straitened was he at times by these warlike expenses that
when his daughter married Boabdil her bridal dress and jewels had
to be borrowed. He was now in the ninetieth year of his age, yet
indomitable in spirit, fiery in his passions, sinewy and powerful in
frame, deeply versed in warlike stratagem, and accounted the best
lance in all Mauritania. He had three thousand horsemen under his
command, veteran troops with whom he had often scoured the borders,
and he daily expected the old Moorish king with reinforcements.

Old Ali Atar had watched from his fortress every movement of the
Christian army, and had exulted in all the errors of its commanders:
when he beheld the flower of Spanish chivalry glittering about the
height of Albohacen, his eye flashed with exultation. "By the aid of
Allah," said he, "I will give those pranking cavaliers a rouse."

Ali Atar privately and by night sent forth a large body of his chosen
troops to lie in ambush near one of the skirts of Albohacen. On the
fourth day of the siege he sallied across the bridge and made a
feint attack upon the height. The cavaliers rushed impetuously
forth to meet him, leaving their encampment almost unprotected. Ali
Atar wheeled and fled, and was hotly pursued. When the Christian
cavaliers had been drawn a considerable distance from their
encampment, they heard a vast shout behind them, and, looking round,
beheld their encampment assailed by the Moorish force which had been
placed in ambush, and which had ascended a different side of the
hill. The cavaliers desisted from the pursuit, and hastened to prevent
the plunder of their tents. Ali Atar, in his turn, wheeled and pursued
them, and they were attacked in front and rear on the summit of the
hill. The contest lasted for an hour; the height of Albohacen was red
with blood; many brave cavaliers fell, expiring among heaps of the
enemy. The fierce Ali Atar fought with the fury of a demon until the
arrival of more Christian forces compelled him to retreat into the city.
The severest loss to the Christians in this skirmish was that of
Roderigo Tellez Giron, grand master of Calatrava, whose burnished
armor, emblazoned with the red cross of his order, made him a mark
for the missiles of the enemy. As he was raising his arm to make a
blow an arrow pierced him just beneath the shoulder, at the open
part of the[1]corselet. The lance and bridle fell from his hands, he
faltered in his saddle, and would have fallen to the ground, but was
caught by Pedro Gasca, a cavalier of Avila, who conveyed him to his
tent, where he died. The king and queen and the whole kingdom
mourned his death, for he was in the freshness of his youth, being
but twenty-four years of age, and had proved himself a gallant and
high-minded cavalier. A melancholy group collected about his[2]corpse
on the bloody height of Albohacen: the knights of Calatrava mourned
him as a commander; the cavaliers who were encamped on the height
lamented him as their companion-in-arms in a service of peril; while
the count de Urena grieved over him with the tender affection of a
brother.

King Ferdinand now perceived the wisdom of the opinion of the
marques of Cadiz, and that his force was quite insufficient for
the enterprise. To continue his camp in its present unfortunate
position would cost him the lives of his bravest cavaliers, if not
a total defeat in case of reinforcements to the enemy. He called
a council of war late in the evening of Saturday, and it was
determined to withdraw the army early the next morning to Rio
Frio, a short distance from the city, and there wait for additional
troops from Cordova.

The next morning early the cavaliers on the height of Albohacen
began to strike their tents. No sooner did Ali Atar behold this than
he sallied forth to attack them. Many of the Christian troops, who
had not heard of the intention to change the camp, seeing the tents
struck and the Moors sallying forth, supposed that the enemy had
been reinforced in the night, and that the army was on the point of
retreating. Without stopping to ascertain the truth or to receive
orders they fled in dismay, spreading confusion through the camp,
nor did they halt until they had reached the Rock of the Lovers,
about seven leagues from Loxa.*

*Pulgar, Cronica.


The king and his commanders saw the imminent peril of the
moment, and made face to the Moors, each commander guarding
his quarter and repelling all assaults while the tents were struck
and the artillery and ammunition conveyed away. The king, with a
handful of cavaliers, galloped to a rising ground, exposed to the
fire of the enemy, calling upon the flying troops and endeavoring
in vain to rally them. Setting upon the Moors, he and his cavaliers
charged them so vigorously, that they put a squadron to flight,
slaying many with their swords and lances and driving others into
the river, where they were drowned. The Moors, however, were
soon reinforced, and returned in great numbers. The king was in
danger of being surrounded, and twice owed his safety to the valor
of Don Juan de Ribera, senior of Montemayor.

The marques of Cadiz beheld from a distance the peril of his
sovereign. Summoning about seventy horsemen to follow him, he
galloped to the spot, threw himself between the king and the enemy,
and, hurling his lance, transpierced one of the most daring of the
Moors. For some time he remained with no other weapon than his
sword; his horse was wounded by an arrow and many of his followers
were slain; but he succeeded in beating off the Moors and rescuing
the king from imminent jeopardy, whom he then prevailed upon to
retire to less dangerous ground.

The marques continued throughout the day to expose himself to the
repeated assaults of the enemy: he was ever found in the place of
the greatest danger, and through his bravery a great part of the
army and camp was preserved from destruction.*

*Cura de los Palacios, c. 58.


It was a perilous day for the commanders, for in a retreat of the
kind it is the noblest cavaliers who most expose themselves to save
their people. The duke of Medina Celi was struck to the ground, but
rescued by his troops. The count de Tendilla, whose tents were
nearest to the city, received several wounds, and various other
cavaliers of the most distinguished note were exposed to fearful
jeopardy. The whole day was passed in bloody skirmishings, in which
the hidalgos and cavaliers of the royal household distinguished
themselves by their bravery: at length, the encampments being all
broken up and most of the artillery and baggage removed, the bloody
height of Albohacen was abandoned and the neighborhood of Loxa
evacuated. Several tents, a quantity of provisions, and a few pieces
of artillery were left upon the spot from the want of horses and
mules to carry them off.

Ali Atar hung upon the rear of the retiring army, and harassed it
until it reached Rio Frio; Ferdinand returned thence to Cordova,
deeply mortified, though greatly benefited, by the severe lesson
he had received, which served to render him more cautious in his
campaigns and more diffident of fortune. He sent letters to all
parts excusing his retreat, imputing it to the small number of his
forces, and the circumstance that many of them were quotas sent
from various cities, and not in royal pay; in the mean time, to
console his troops for their disappointment and to keep up their
spirits, he led them upon another inroad to lay waste the Vega of
Granada.