The Story of Don John of Austria by Luis Coloma (e books for reading txt) 📖

It is certainly extraordinary that a king, so well informed and cautious as Philip II, did not foresee at once the terrible consequences which the rebellion of the Moors of Granada in 1568 might have for Spain and for all Christendom. And it is the more surprising considering that all nations, alarmed from the beginning, never removed their eyes off that corner of the Alpujarras and took precautions according as the defeat or triumph of the rebels suited their interests. The rebels triumphant and the shores of Andalucia open to the "Berberiscos," Moors and Turks who favoured and encouraged them, would make realisable the treasured dream of Selim II of subjugating Spain, a not impossible task for the formidable power of the Turk at that time.

The rebellion had been well prepared beforehand, but it broke out suddenly, as flames fanned by the gentlest wind may burst out from a heap of dry wood which has long lain on embers.

It was whispered in Granada that the Moors of the Albaicin had joined with those of the Vega and the Alpujarras to invade the town and behead the old Christians, and it was held for certain that they were in treaty with the Kings of Algiers and Tunis and Selim's Turks to raise their standards and make over the kingdom to them. All in Granada was consequently suspicion, want of confidence and of trust: houses shut up, shops deserted, commerce with the neighbouring places interrupted and the people always nervous and cautious, taking refuge every moment in the Alhambra and the churches, as being the strongest places.

Things were in this state on the 16th of April, 1568, Easter Eve; the night was closing in, dark and rainy, when between eight and nine o'clock suddenly the bell of the fortress of the Alhambra began to ring the alarm furiously. Fear was everywhere, which was even more increased by hearing the sentinel who rang cry, terrified, "Christians, save yourselves. Look out for yourselves, Christians! This night you are to be beheaded."

The confusion was dreadful; half-dressed women threw themselves even from the windows; men came out buttoning their jackets and clothes and trooped to charge the arquebuses and get ready the crossbows. The brothers of St. Francis arrived at the square all armed with arquebuses, and other friars formed up before the "Audiencia Real" in a company with pikes and halberds.

There also hurried up, each one as he could, the Corregidor, the President of the Chancellery, D. Pedro Deza, and the Conde de Tendella, Captain-General in the absence of his father the Marqués de Mondejar, and then it was known to be a false alarm.

The alguacil Bartolme de Santa Maria, who was on guard, had sent four soldiers at nightfall to the tower of the Aceituno on the top of the hill on which the suburb of the Albaicin was situated; the night was extremely dark; the soldiers had torches of esparto grass to light them, and arriving at the foot of the tower, the ascent to which was open and difficult, those who first gained the summit waved their torches to give light to those who were climbing up, and when they had arrived, threw the torches down. The watchman on the Vela tower, seeing this movement of lights and thinking that the Moors of the Albaicin were making "almenares," that is signals to those of the Vega from the tower of the Aceituno, hastened to ring the tocsin; which showed the state of excitement of those souls and how much they certainly feared from one moment to another that the Moors intended to slay the Christians.

This simple explanation did not quiet the frightened people, and the crowd began to attack the Albaicin and to be beforehand with the Moors by killing them. So the Corregidor, with gentlemen and other trustworthy persons, then guarded the lanes which mounted up to the Albaicin to impede the passage of the crowd. But nothing would have stopped the pillage and bloodshed, if a violent storm of thunder and lightning had not come at that moment to clear the streets and damp the fury of the citizens.

Meanwhile all seemed to sleep in the Albaicin; but behind the barred doors and shut windows the Moors were watching in ambush, prepared for defence, and, knowing that night the risk they ran if they let the Christians be beforehand, resolved to hasten the atrocious undertaking that they were meditating. They met in the house of a wax chandler of the Albaicin named Adelet, and there discussed their doubts and laid their plans.

They decided to strike the blow on New Year's Day and not at Christmas as they had intended, because there existed a prophecy that the Moors would regain Granada on the same day as that on which the Christians took it, which was the 1st of January, 1492. It was determined to make a register among the farms of the Vega and the villages of Decrin and Orgiba of 8000 men, who were to be ready, at a signal made to them from the Albaicin, to attack the town by the gate of the Vega, wearing coloured caps and Turkish head-dresses so as to inspire confidence in some and terror in others, passing themselves off as Turks or Berbers who had come to help the Moors.

This register was well filled by two saddle-makers, who, making a pretext of their trade, went through all these places without awaking anyone's suspicions. They also enrolled among the mountains another 2000 picked men, who, hidden in a bed of reeds, should wait the signal of the Albaicin to scale the wall of the Alhambra, which looks towards the Generalife, with seventeen ladders which were being made in Quejar and Quentan; they were ladders of hempen rope with rungs of wood so wide that three men could easily mount at the same time. The attack which was to be made on Granada from outside being arranged, they then settled that which the Moors of the Albaicin were to make from within. They divided themselves into three parties each with a head. Miguel Acis with the inhabitants of the parishes of St. Gregory, St. Christopher and St. Nicholas and a flag of crimson silk with a silver half-moon and a fringe of gold were to take the gate of Frax el Leuz on the top of the Albaicin; Diego Miqueli with the dwellers of St. Salvador, St. Elizabeth and St. Luis and a yellow silk flag the square of Bib-el-Bonut; and Miguel Moragas with the people of St. Michael, San Juan de los Reyes, and St. Peter and St. Paul and a flag of turquoise-blue damask the gate of Guadix.

When united all were to fall first on the Christians who lived on the Albaicin, beheading them without truce or pity. Then the first group would descend to the town to the prisons of the Holy Office to release the Moorish prisoners, killing and burning all in their path. The second group was to go to the town prisons to liberate the prisoners, then to murder the Archbishop and burn his palace. The third group was to attack the Royal Courts, murder the President, and set free the Chancery prisoners, all reuniting in the square of Bibarrambla, whither the 8000 Moors of the Vega were also to repair. From there they would go all over the city, as it seemed best, to put everything to fire and sword. The principal instigator of these plans was the sanguinary Farax Abenfarax, an African renegade, of the house of the Abencerrajes, a bandit of the kind the Moors call "monfies." To this fierce and brutal man the Moorish conspirators entrusted the work of making known this decree in the Alpujarras, and the summoning of a numerous assembly to elect a king, assuring them that from that moment the choice of the Alpujarras should be confirmed in the Albaicin.

This chosen man was D. Hernando de Valor, a very rich Moor of the Alpujarras, a descendant of Mahomet through the families of Aben-Humeyas and Almanzores, Kings of Córdoba and Andalucia. D. Hernando's ancestors, as they lived in a place in the mountains called Valor, had taken the name. He was a youth of twenty-four, swarthy, with scanty beard, big black eyes, eyebrows that joined, and a very fine figure; sensual, vindictive, sly and false, and, as he showed himself later, extremely wicked.

He was elected according to the ancient ceremony of the Kings of Andalucia, widowers at one end, those going to be married at the other, the married on one side, the women on the other: in the midst the priest, an "alfaqui," who read an ancient Arab prophecy, that a youth of royal lineage who was baptized and a heretic to his law, because in public he professed that of the Christians, should liberate his people.

They all shouted that these signs were found united in D. Hernando; the alfaqui assured them that according to his observations the courses of the stars testified to the same thing and hastened to clothe him in rich purple, and to put round his neck and shoulders a coloured badge, like a sash, and on his head a crown with a cap also of purple. They spread four flags on the ground, for the four quarters of the world, and D. Hernando prayed, leaning over them, with his face to the east, and swearing to die in his law and his kingdom, defending them and his vassals. Then he lifted one foot and, as a sign of general obedience, Farax Abenfarax prostrated himself in the name of all and kissed the ground where the new king had stood. Then he was lifted up on their shoulders and