Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1

Frances Elliot

Frances Elliot

Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1/2

PREFACE

IN no boastful spirit I gratefully acknowledge the flattering success of Old Court Life in France, written twenty years ago. It is precisely owing to the favour with which the public in England, America, and on the Continent still honour this work that I have endeavoured to reproduce on the same plan some pictures of early Spanish history comparatively little known to the general public.

Nothing can possibly be more thrilling and more romantic.

It is with the earlier and less known passages of old Court life I have dealt down to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabel, from which period the history of Spain loses its peculiar identity and becomes merged into that of Europe.

If I have loved the courtly history I also love the country. A great part of this work was written in Spain, in the very places where the events occurred. May the reader share the same enthusiasm I felt in describing them!

AUTHORITIES

Dozy – Histories.

Mrs. Humphry Ward in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Biography on Gothic Ecclesiastical History.

Biographie Universelle.

Bradley – Story of the Nations.

Lane Poole – The Moors.

Romanceros, Ballads of the Cid, Ballads of Bernardo del Carpio.

Lockhart – Spanish Ballads.

Cid Campeador, by Prince Odescalchi.

Storia de Don Pedro Abogado da los Tribunales Nacionales.

Chronicles of King Alfonso El Sabio.

Washington Irving’s Works.

Murray’s Guide for Spain.

Diary of an Idle Woman in Spain.

Prescott’s History of Ferdinand and Isabel.

CHAPTER I

Introduction

HOW great is Spain! How mighty! From the rugged mountains of the Asturias, their base washed by stormy waves, and the giddy heights of the Pyrenean precipices – an eternal barrier between rival peoples – to the balmy plains of the South, where summer ever reigns! A world within itself, with a world’s variety! Quien dice España dice todo!

And its history is as varied as the land. First, according to the legend, Hercules set his pillars, or “keys” – the ne plus ultra of land and sea – on the rock of Calpe (Gibraltar) in Europe, and on Abyla (Ceuta) in Africa. And, that no one should doubt it, he placed his temple on the water-logged flats, half-sea, half-land, behind Cadiz, long remembered by the Moors as the “district of Idols,” near the city of Gades, where Geryon dwelt, from whom Hercules “lifted” that troop of fat oxen which he was destined so long to drive wearily about the earth. In memory of all which Charles the Fifth, the great Emperor, carried Hercules’ pillars on his shield, with the proud motto, Ne plus ultra, and the city of Cadiz (Gades) still bears them as its arms.

Then, tradition past, came invaders from the earliest times, Celts, PhЕ“nicians, and Greeks, driving the Iberians from their rightful lands. The Carthaginians, too, crossed from Africa along the southern coast, and settled at Cartagena, which still bears their name.

The Romans next appeared, victorious under Pompey and Cæsar, spreading over Spain, but especially powerful at Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Segovia, and Tarragona, where they have left their mark in mighty monuments.

A race of uncivilised warriors followed from the North, so powerful that two Roman emperors perished in battle with them. Of the precise seat of the Gothic nation it is hard to speak with certainty. It is, however, known that they came from the extreme north, spreading to the borders of the Black Sea, into Asia Minor in the east, and to the south of Spain in the west. They are mentioned by Pliny, about sixty years before Christ, and later by Tacitus, who twice refers to them as “Gothones.” There were so many tribes, Visigoths, Astrogoths, Gepidæ, and even Vandals, that their story is as a tangled web, mixed with that of all nations, but it is clear that those who concern our present purpose came down into Spain from Narbonne and Toulouse.

It is strange how soon these savage northmen discarded their wooden idols, Woden, Thor, and Balder, the g