Old Court Life in Spain; vol. 1. Elliot Frances Minto Dickinson

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СКАЧАТЬ thank him not,” replies Wamba. “I am old, and my time in this world is short. I would far rather have sunk into eternal sleep, than lead the life to which you have condemned me.”

      So deeply moved was Ervig, despite the dignity which awaited him, that he did not reply. He was a weak, unworthy nature, bad, but not wholly depraved. He had been worked upon and warped by the sophistries of the unscrupulous archbishop, which now, in the presence of his benefactor, seemed to lose all their weight. Even his ambition to reign wavered for the moment before his remorse, as one who having braced himself to commit a crime, yet lacks the courage to carry out the measure of his iniquity.

      So evident was this, that, full of the fear of what his affection for Wamba might prompt him to do, Julianus brought the interview to an abrupt end. Without another word he passed out of the cell followed by Ervig, and the army of tonsured monks, who had borne Wamba in, now returned to watch his gradual return to active life.

      The “Farmer King” had, however, many friends. The Goths loved him, and the Jews (a powerful contingent, richer than all the rest) respected him. So humble was he in peace, so brilliant in war, and under that calm exterior gifted with such energy that he had inspired the State with a new life, as the last great spirit of the old Dacian stock, that Julianus became seriously alarmed, and hastened to call a Council of Bishops to ratify the accession of Ervig to the throne.

      The sentence which was passed upon Wamba was thus worded: “As there are some who, being clothed in the garments of penitence when in peril of death, after having recovered, claim that the vow is not binding – let all such remember that they are baptised without will or knowledge, and yet no man can remove baptism without damnation; as it is with baptism, so with monastic vows, and we [the Council] declare that all who violate this law are worthy of the severest punishment, and are incapable of holding any office or civil dignity during their natural lives.”

      By this it would seem that, however the nation clung to the memory of the good old king, yet these once brave and manly warriors had sunk into an incredibly superstitious and priest-ridden nation, fit only to be crushed in the hands of the first bold invader, and that all this internal strife was but as an invitation to the Moors across the Straits, and the Basques in the mountains of the north, to take advantage of their weakness.

      Of Ervig it is said that, after a few years passed in vassalage to Julianus, remorse overcame him, and he took to his bed and died.

      Under Witica the Court of Toledo was stained with blood. He was an ignorant, arrogant tyrant, who only understood present advantage to himself. To prevent possible rebellion – and hostile parties were many and ran high, as in preceding reigns – he dismantled the city walls and fortresses, and in his mad eagerness for the security of the throne murdered every kinsman whose life lay within his hand. Particularly was his insane jealousy directed against his cousin Favila, Dux of Cantabria, who was executed, and Witica had prepared the same fate for his son Pelayo, but he escaped to become later on the saviour of his country in driving out the Moors from the north of Spain.

      Then his suspicions spent themselves on another kinsman, the Gothic chief Theodofredo. His eyes were put out, and he was imprisoned in the damp vault under the castle of Cordoba.

      Half Mussulman, and wholly brutal, Witica ingeniously united the vices of both nations – the Iberians and the Goths – and indulged in such a numerous harem as put even the Moors to shame. In vain did the Church thunder against this very peccant son. Julianus was long dead. He laughed at the threats of the Pope, and, like his Gothic ancestor, Alaric, threatened to lay siege to Rome.

      “Why,” cried he, when presiding in the Chapter at Toledo, clothed in his royal robes, the crown and sceptre beside him, in the midst of the trembling canons, who knew it was at their life’s peril to venture to contradict him – “why shall not our Gothic damsels adorn themselves with the jewels of the Vatican, and our coffers be replenished with the treasury of St. Peter’s?”

      Incensed at the opposition of the Archbishop Sindaredo, who dared to expostulate with him, he appointed his own brother Opas, at heart as profligate as himself, Archbishop of Seville, to take his seat along with Sindaredo in the episcopal chair of Toledo. (Opas was the most unscrupulous prelate that ever wore the mitre. Even Julianus was his inferior in secular power, for Opas was a prince, born of the old Gothic stock.)

      “Since the Church of Toledo will not yield to me, her lawful spouse,” said Witica, with savage sarcasm, “she shall, like a harlot, have two husbands – Sindaredo and Opas. No foreign potentate with a triple crown shall preach to me.”

      Witica, bad as he was, is yet entitled to be considered as the first reformer. He promulgated a law freeing the clergy from the vow of celibacy. No threats or anathemas of any mitred Julianus stopped him. No obedience to monkish precepts governed his mind. He revelled in lawless licentiousness, and in outraging the pietism of the time. Of Witica it was said that “he taught all Spain to sin.” Naturally the monkish chronicles have unmercifully vilified him. Yet there is much of the humoristic coarseness of the Middle Ages in his character; a grotesque setting at naught of all law and convenance, which the fashion of politer times – not a whit less vile – softened and refined into a quasi-elegance perhaps more repulsive.

      While the churches are closed under an interdict, the altars bare, the people disarmed, the castles and fortresses dismantled lest they might harbour enemies, and disorder and sensuality reign unchecked throughout the land, a youthful avenger is growing up in the person of Roderich, son of Theodofredo, now dead, some say murdered, in the gloomy dungeons of Cordoba.

      Of royal birth, reared and educated among the cultivated Romans, Roderich is not only a brilliant knight, but a master of all the civilisation of the age, prompt at all martial exercise, of graceful and polished manners, and eager to avenge the wrongs of his father and of the Goths. Like a meteor, this young hero flashes upon Spain, defeats Witica “the Wicked,” in a pitched battle, and imprisons him in the same castle of Cordoba, where his father has lately died. Not a dissentient voice is heard on the battle-field when Roderich, raised on a shield by the soldiers, as was the custom of his ancestors, and standing erect to face the four quarters of the world, is proclaimed King of the Western Goths, in place of the sons of Witica.

      And now we come to the history of the beautiful Moor, Egilona, daughter of the King of Algiers, who was at this time shipwrecked on the coast of Spain at Denia. As the royal vessel grounded on the sand (says the chronicle), the rabble of Denia – and what a rabble, in all ages, is that of Spain, how greedy, how rapacious – rushed into the surf, to capture and make spoil. But the grandeur of the illustrious company assembled on the deck somewhat awed them as they paused with greedy eyes, – men and women, sumptuously attired, facing them with all the haughtiness of Oriental dignity. In the stern, closely pressed within a circle of her Moslem guards, stood a lovely princess, lightly veiled, her turban ablaze with jewels, and as the vessel heaved in upon the swell, and the mob found themselves close upon the strangers, scimitars flashed and jewelled daggers gleamed. Then some of the older Moors, understanding the helplessness of their position, leaped on shore, and falling on their knees before the alcaide, who stood by, unable to understand the meaning of what he saw, implored his mercy towards a royal princess.

      “She whom you behold,” said one sumptuously robed African, who seemed to lead the expedition, his brow covered by a green turban, on which glittered an aigrette of inestimable worth, “is the only daughter of the King of Algiers, whom we are conducting to her affianced husband, the King of Tunis. Foul winds, as you see, have driven us on your coast. We were compelled to make for land, or imperil the life of our inimitable mistress. Allah has preserved her. Do you, Señor Alcaide, not prove more cruel than the waves.”

      The alcaide, a worthy man, much overcome by the magnificence of these sea-borne guests, bowed his head in acquiescence, and called on his alguazils to keep off the crowd. “I will myself СКАЧАТЬ