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

Great was the enthusiasm in Naples over the new honour bestowed on D. John, and all wished to take part in it. It was a point of honour with the ladies to go to the festival with symbolical roses in their head-dresses and at their breasts, and they bombarded everyone, from the Cardinal to the smallest acolyte, with demands for seats. It was, however, impossible to satisfy them all, and on this day noble ladies were seen in the gutter, crowded on the stairs, in the doorways, and even in the recesses of the chapel, anxious to see everything and to be seen.

There were faintings from lack of air, cries of protest, bad-tempered pushing, crumpled ruffs, crooked caps, creased petticoats, unfastened shawls, lost jewels, and heaps of petals from the roses that had occupied such honourable positions. The necklace of the wife of an important Councillor was broken; it was a string of pearls, and only half a dozen could be recovered.

D. John came between the Cardinal Granvelle and the Archbishop of Monreale, and was followed by all the numerous princes, marquises and counts who were in Naples, and by a crowd of gentlemen. A Bishop celebrated the Mass, and the Bishop of Castellamare, who was Chaplain to the King, gave D. John the Pax and presented him with the Gospels to kiss. The Pope's Chamberlain was on the Epistle side, on a seat without a back covered with crimson velvet. He wore a black velvet cassock, and over it a crimson garment. The Golden Rose was displayed on the high altar in a big silver jar. It was of massive gold, with its foliage a foot high; it had diamonds sprinkled over it like drops of dew, and the green leaves were made of emeralds, some of enormous size. Mass over, the Chamberlain took a brief of the Pope and gave it to D. John to kiss, and then to a secretary to read aloud. The reading finished, D. John knelt down on a cushion of crimson velvet before the Bishop who had celebrated the Mass, and who, taking the Golden Rose from the hands of an ecclesiastic, gave it to D. John, saying, "Our Holy Father, Gregory XIII, Very Serene Prince, sends you this consecrated rose, in token of his benevolence and paternal love. By his orders I give it to your Highness."

To which D. John replied, "I kiss the feet of His Holiness for so great a favour, and I receive the rose with the veneration due to something so sacred, sent by the Vicar of Christ, universal Shepherd and head of the Church."

At this time there broke out in Genoa the famous disturbances between the old and the new nobility, called respectively "the Porch of St. Luke" and "the Porch of St. Peter," and Philip II, who held the protectorate of this republic, hastened to send D. John of Austria with a few galleys to pacify the insurgents with skill and cleverness; and if it were not possible to quiet them by any other means, to do so by force of arms. The Pope heard of his passing Gaeta, which was only twenty leagues from Rome, and on the pretext of greeting him, sent his son Jacobo Boncompagni, who carried secret instructions to apprise D. John of those mysterious plans over which the Pope had long been meditating. Marco Antonio Colonna accompanied Jacobo on his own account, as also did the Spanish ambassador in Rome, D. Juan de Zúñiga.

The three illustrious personages came to visit D. John on the 18th of April on board his galley with a numerous and brilliant suite, and the next day D. John landed to give them a royally sumptuous banquet in the house of the Governor of Gaeta. The long, wide table was set in the principal saloon, with two places side by side laid with services of rich plate, D. John giving the place of honour to Jacobo. On the right, but at a respectful distance, was a similar place for Marco Antonio Colonna, and at an equal distance on the left another for D. Juan de Zúñiga. One hundred and twenty-three dishes were served with all the viands and exquisite sauces for which Italian cooking was then so famous, without counting dessert, which covered the table three times, with different conceits of towers, tournaments, castles, and wild beasts, with pastry and delicious sweetmeats; more than forty kinds of wine were passed round. The merriment and good temper of the illustrious guests never flagged for a moment, and the crowd of noble gentlemen, who stood respectfully watching the banquet, snatched a mouthful at the sideboard, and were satisfied with abundant cups of wine.

At the end of dinner Boncompagni asked D. John's permission to present him with the gift that Gregory XIII had sent: some very rich tournament armour, a great black velvet pouch full of gold medals that had been blessed, which D. John divided among those present, and a little chest of red velvet containing a beautiful group of the Crucifixion, of great artistic merit. The Pope kept this chest in his rooms, and it was enriched with numerous indulgences.

In return for these presents D. John gave Boncompagni a horse worth 500 ducats, and its trappings which cost 2500, and a sword ornamented with gold worth 800 ducats.

The next day, on board the galley "Real," under the awning of striped red and white damask which stretched in front of D. John's cabin, Boncompagni confided to him the mysterious enterprise which Gregory XIII proposed to undertake with D. John's help. D. John listened attentively in silence, from time to time his blue eyes flashed with enthusiasm. It was a question of setting at liberty a beautiful captive queen and snatching a kingdom from the heretics.

Meanwhile the capture of Tunis had made patent to all Europe how deep was the wound that the credit and power of the Ottoman Empire had received at Lepanto. This great defeat was no doubt a disaster for the Turks; but a glorious disaster, both on account of the deeds of valour they had performed, and the titanic efforts it cost the victors to gain the triumph. The flight from Tunis without firing a shot, at the mere presence of D. John two years after this rude warning, showed how deeply rooted was the terror in the souls of the infidels, and how the renown of the Christian bravery had been enhanced, especially that of the Spaniards. All this cruelly wounded the overweening pride of Selim, and he was consumed with the desire of avenging himself by reconquering Tunis and Goletta. He was urged, with malicious eagerness, to undertake this enterprise by Aluch Ali and the renegade Mustafa, one of the engineers who built Goletta in the time of Charles V. The name of this traitor was Jacobo Zitolomini. Resenting the treatment he had received from Philip II, he fled to Algiers to Aluch Ali, who took him to Constantinople, where he revealed to Selim a sure and secret way of taking Goletta.

At the beginning of May, 1574, D. John received an urgent message from Gabrio Cervelloni, to say that the Turks were preparing a very powerful fleet; that it was feared that they would fall suddenly upon Tunis, and that, in consequence of this, funds should be sent as quickly as possible to finish the new fort, which was not yet completed. D. John was at Genoa, quieting the disturbances there, and he hastened to send the Commissary of the Fleet Juan de Soto to Madrid, to warn Philip II of the danger which threatened. The King was not much alarmed about this, and, perhaps, saw a prompt and certain opportunity of ridding himself of this care and worry of Tunis. At any rate, his answer makes it clear that this new conquest was the least of his cares, and while writing to Cardinal Granvelle, Viceroy of Naples, and to the Duque de Terranova, Regent of Sicily, that they were to guard the ports and reinforce the garrisons, especially in Messina, Augusta, Syracuse, Trapani and Palermo, he contented himself with adding that they were not to forget to help his brother, and to look after the coast of Barbary. He also ordered D. García de Toledo and the Marqués de Santa Cruz to watch how D. John was garrisoning Goletta, and to the latter the King wrote that he was to do what he judged best in the matter, but that he was to remember that he had said that 2000 foot soldiers were enough to defend Goletta. D. John then sent D. Juan de Cardona with all the galleys under his command to Tunis without loss of time, taking the help for which Gabrio Cervelloni craved. This was not sufficient, and those in Tunis reiterated their request. D. John then exhausted all his resources, and sent D. Bernardino de Velasco with twenty Neapolitan galleys and four companies of Italian infantry. With these comings and goings summer was getting old, and on the 13th of August, at the Cape of Carthage, appeared the dreaded Turkish fleet of 300 ships and 60,000 soldiers, the fleet being commanded by Aluch Ali, and the troops by Selim's son-in-law Sinan Pasha, the renegade.

A great outcry arose at the extreme peril of the Barbary Christians, and by every means in their power they sent to ask help from Granvelle, Terranova, and, above all, from D. John of Austria, in virtue of his office and Christian piety. He wished to fly to their aid, abandoning everything. He wrote first, however, to the Duque de Sesa, "To urge the Cardinal to send people to help Goletta, as that province was in his charge." But the imperturbable Granvelle replied coldly, "That he had much to guard in the Kingdom, and that it did not suit him to divide his forces." "This was," says Vander Hammen, commenting on the fact, "to give colour to the excuse. The real reason was Granvelle's dislike to support D. John, jealous of his favours with Mars and Venus, and because he was a foreigner, and because his brothers conspired in the Flemish rebellion;" and Luis Cabrera de Córdoba expresses himself in similar words, equally severe, not forgetting Mars and Venus. And D. John himself wrote to his sister Donna Margarita: "In short, Lady, everything goes badly; and in truth it is not entirely the fault of His Majesty, except for permitting those who govern his States to forget that those in their vicinity, or those that are not, are as much His Majesty's as those which each minister has charge of."

Meanwhile D. John, tired of waiting for orders, troops and money which did not come, and making it a point of honour to go to Tunis, moved with desperate activity from Genoa to Naples, Messina and Palermo, recruiting soldiers everywhere, chartering ships, and pledging for all this his plate, his jewels, and even his word, until he had collected at Messina a moderate fleet with no lack of fighting men. He was all ready to sail for Africa, when he met with another obstacle, more powerful than the calculated coldness of Philip II, or the jealous hatred of the Cardinal. The sea! The terrible sea which rose in a furious storm which threw him to Trapani, much against his will, and kept him there days and days, giving time for Christians to perish and for the Turks to become victorious. Three times he tried to leave the port, defying the storm, and as often had to retire before the surging waves. Then he sent four galleys without quarter-decks and platforms on the forecastles to take the mere hope of help to Goletta, but the implacable tempest prevented this by destroying two of them. At last the weather improved; but before D. John could put to sea, a French galley, without masts and knocked about by the storm, was driven into the port of Trapani. On board of her was D. Juan Zagonera, with fifty soldiers, all that remained at liberty of the garrison that D. John had left in Barbary. From them he heard of the terrible disaster. The Turks were in possession of Tunis; three thousand soldiers were dead, and the rest wounded or captives; Pagano Doria had been beheaded; Gabrio Cervelloni, D. Pedro Portocarrero and D. Francisco de Avila were the slaves of Sinan; the new fort razed before it was finished; and Goletta, the glorious legacy of Charles V, blown up by mines, and erased from the African soil by Aluch Ali, as the wind of the desert obliterates footprints.

Those who were jealous of D. John blamed him for this catastrophe, with which he had had nothing to do; the sensible public opinion, at times so right and sharp, blamed Granvelle, and songs, which have come down to us, were sung on the subject in the streets. A few, but very few, said in a whisper, as in those days it was necessary to do, that the Cardinal was not responsible, since in refusing aid