CHAPTER XXXV

Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

by Washington Irving

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

DEATH OF MULEY ABUL HASSAN.


Muley Abdallah el Zagal had been received with great acclamations
at Granada on his return from defeating the count de Cabra. He had
endeavored to turn his victory to the greatest advantage with his
subjects, giving tilts and tournaments and other public festivities
in which the Moors delighted. The loss of the castles of Cambil and
Albahar and of the fortress of Zalea, however, checked this sudden
tide of popularity, and some of the fickle populace began to doubt
whether they had not been rather precipitate in deposing his
brother, Muley Abul Hassan.

That superannuated monarch remained in his faithful town of
Almunecar, on the border of the Mediterranean, surrounded by
a few adherents, together with his wife Zoraya and his children,
and he had all his treasures safe in his possession. The fiery
heart of the old king was almost burnt out, and all his powers of
doing either harm or good seemed at an end.

While in this passive and helpless state his brother, El Zagal,
manifested a sudden anxiety for his health. He had him removed,
with all tenderness and care, to Salobrena, another fortress on the
Mediterranean coast, famous for its pure and salubrious air; and the
alcayde, who was a devoted adherent to El Zagal, was charged to
have especial care that nothing was wanting to the comfort and
solace of his brother.

Salobrena was a small town, situated on a lofty and rocky hill in
the midst of a beautiful and fertile vega shut up on three sides by
mountains and opening on the fourth to the Mediterranean. It was
protected by strong walls and a powerful castle, and, being deemed
impregnable, was often used by the Moorish kings as a place of
deposit for their treasures. They were accustomed also to assign
it as a residence for such of their sons and brothers as might
endanger the security of their reign. Here the princes lived in
luxurious repose: they had delicious gardens, perfumed baths, a
harem of beauties at their command--nothing was denied them but
the liberty to depart: that alone was wanting to render this abode
an earthly paradise.

Such was the delightful place appointed by El Zagal for the
residence of his brother, but, notwithstanding its wonderful
salubrity, the old monarch had not been removed thither many days
before he expired. There was nothing extraordinary in his death:
life with him had long been glimmering in the socket, and for some
time past he might rather have been numbered with the dead than
with the living. The public, however, are fond of seeing things in a
sinister and mysterious point of view, and there were many dark
surmises as to the cause of this event. El Zagal acted in a manner
to heighten these suspicions: he caused the treasures of his
deceased brother to be packed on mules and brought to Granada,
where he took possession of them, to the exclusion of the children
of Abul Hassan. The sultana Zoraya and her two sons were lodged
in the Alhambra, in the Tower of Comares. This was a residence in
a palace, but it had proved a royal prison to the sultana Ayxa la
Horra and her youthful son Boabdil. There the unhappy Zoraya had
time to meditate upon the disappointment of all those ambitious
schemes for herself and children for which she had stained her
conscience with so many crimes.

The corpse of old Muley was also brought to Granada--not in state
becoming the remains of a once-powerful sovereign, but transported
on a mule, like the corpse of the poorest peasant. It received no
honor or ceremonial from El Zagal, and appears to have been interred
obscurely to prevent any popular sensation; and it is recorded by an
ancient and faithful chronicler of the time that the body of the old
monarch was deposited by two Christian captives in his osario or
charnel-house.* Such was the end of the turbulent Muley Abul
Hassan, who, after passing his life in constant contests for empire,
could scarce gain quiet admission into the corner of a sepulchre.

*Cura de los Palacios, c. 77.


No sooner were the populace well assured that old Muley Abul
Hassan was dead and beyond recovery than they all began to
extol his memory and deplore his loss. They admitted that he
had been fierce and cruel, but then he had been brave; he had,
to be sure, pulled this war upon their heads, but he had likewise
been crushed by it. In a word, he was dead, and his death atoned
or every fault; for a king recently dead is generally either a hero or
a saint.

In proportion as they ceased to hate old Muley they began to
hate his brother. The circumstances of the old king's death, the
eagerness to appropriate his treasures, the scandalous neglect
of his corpse, and the imprisonment of his sultana and children,
--all filled the public mind with gloomy suspicions, and the epithet
of Fratricide was sometimes substituted for that of El Zagal in the
low murmurings of the people.

As the public must always have some object to like as well as to
hate, there began once more to be an inquiry after their fugitive
king, Boabdil el Chico. That unfortunate monarch was still at
Cordova, existing on the cool courtesy and meagre friendship of
Ferdinand, which had waned exceedingly ever since Boabdil had
ceased to have any influence in his late dominions. The reviving
interest expressed in his fate by the Moorish public, and certain
secret overtures made to him, once more aroused the sympathy
of Ferdinand: he advised Boabdil again to set up his standard
within the frontiers of Granada, and furnished him with money
and means for the purpose. Boabdil advanced but a little way into
his late territories; he took up his post at Velez el Blanco, a strong
town on the confines of Murcia: there he established the shadow of
a court, and stood, as it were, with one foot over the border, and
ready to draw that back upon the least alarm. His presence in the
kingdom, however, and his assumption of royal state gave life to his
faction in Granada. The inhabitants of the Albaycin, the poorest but
most warlike part of the populace, were generally in his favor: the
more rich, courtly, and aristocratical inhabitants of the quarter of
the Alhambra rallied round what appeared to be the most stable
authority and supported the throne of El Zagal. So it is in the
admirable order of sublunary affairs: everything seeks its kind;
the rich befriend the rich, the powerful stand by the powerful,
the poor enjoy the patronage of the poor, and thus a universal
harmony prevails.