Part 15

The Cid was now at a height of power never reached by any subject; and his wealth attracted the admiration of men of nobler birth. The Infantes of Carrion solicited the hands of his daughters: the alliance was favoured by the King; and the Cid and Ximena, though they liked not the character of the young nobles, yielded to his importunities, and the marriages were solemnized. These marriages were an abundant source of infelicity; and he whose good fortune had generally warranted his popular title,--he that was born in a happy hour,--repented of having yielded to the King's suggestions. The Infantes were men of base and cowardly minds, and totally unable to maintain a noble port in the house of the Cid, where courage and martial exercises gave the tone to manners. Mortified personal pride took refuge in the pride of birth; and the Infantes chose to imagine that they had sullied their nobility by allying themselves with the family of the Cid: but they did not consider that they had violated the chivalry of their rank when they insulted, and even beat their wives, leaving them in a wood, apparently dead. The ladies were found by a relation, and the Cid became acquainted with the story. He appealed to the King, who appointed a cortez at Toledo, to judge the matter; and weighty indeed must it have been thought, for the present was but the third cortez which had been held during the reign of Alfonso.

[Sidenote: Cortez at Toledo to decide the cause.]

To Toledo, accordingly, all parties repaired. The Cid had with him the best and bravest knights, a gallant array, whose tents on the hills round the city were so numerous that the Cid's attendants seemed like a host, rather than a common guard of honour. The hall of the palace of Galiana, the place of assemblage of the cortez, had its walls hung with cloths of gold, and estrados, with carpets, were placed on the ground. At the upper end was the King's chair, the ancient seat of the kings of Toledo; and round it were rich and noble estrados for the chief lords of the cortez. Near the chair of the King the Cid caused, the day before the meeting, an ivory seat to be placed, which he had won in Valencia, it having belonged to the kings of that city. A number of his esquires, with their swords hanging from their necks, guarded the seat, till their lord should come and take possession of it.

[Sidenote: Picture of ancient manners.]

The next morning the King, after hearing mass, repaired to the palace of Galiana, with the Infantes of Carrion, and the counts and ricos-omes of the cortez. The ivory seat excited the envy of Count Garcia, the ancient rival of the Cid; and the chief esquire was ready by arms to repel his sneers and sarcasms, till the King prevented the progress of the contest, by declaring that his campeador had won the seat right honourably; that never had any vassal sent to his lord such gifts as he had done; and that if any one were envious, let him achieve equal feats of honour, and the King would seat him next the throne.

The Cid now entered the hall, accompanied by a hundred of his choicest knights. They were apparelled both for courtesy and war. To the eye of the court their garments were only fine skins of ermine, and the usual cloak of the nation; but underneath they wore hauberks of well-tempered mail, and swords sweet and sharp in the edge. The dress of the campeador himself would have surprised Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and his mocking Frenchmen. His hose was of fine cloth, his shoes were richly worked: his body was clad in the finest linen, and a red skin, all curiously worked with gold and silver. His coif was of scarlet and gold; but the beard, of which he was so conscious, was bound by a cord, in sign of mourning and woe.

Most of the assembly rose to greet him; and the King offered him a share of his own seat. But the Cid replied, that it would better become him to be at his feet, for he owed his fame and fortune to the goodness of the King and his brother and father; and it was not fit for him that received bounty to sit with him who dispensed it. The King then commanded him to place himself on the ivory seat, for that he had won it like a good man. This he did, and the hundred knights surrounded their lord.

The purpose of the cortez was declared by the King, and two noble counts were sworn alcaldes, to judge rightly and truly between the campeador and the Infantes of Carrion, according to the law of Castile and Leon. The Cid then demanded that his two good swords, Colada and Tizona, should be restored to him. He had given them into the keeping of the Infantes of Carrion, that they might honour his daughters with them, and serve their king. But when they left his daughters in the oak-forest of Corpes, they renounced his love, and as they were no longer his sons-in-law, they ought to render him back the swords. The alcaldes deliberated upon this demand, and decreed that the swords should be restored. The Infantes delivered them to the King, pleased with the moderation of the Cid's demand. Alfonso drew the swords, and the whole court shone with their brightness. Their hilts were made of solid gold, and all the knights present marvelled. The Cid received them from the King; and, smiling, even from the strongest of his heart's affections, he laid them upon his knees, and called them the best swords in Spain, and grieved that the Infantes of Carrion had kept them hungry, and had not fed them with flesh as they had been wont to be fed with. He delivered them to the care of Alvar Fañez, and Pero Bermuez, who solicited the honourable charge.

The Cid then demanded a restoration of the treasure which he had given to the Infantes on occasion of his daughters' marriages. This demand was faintly resisted by the argument, that it had been spent in the King's service. The Cid judiciously took advantage of the admission, that the treasure had been received, and then fairly enough contended that it touched not him, if the Infantes had expended money for the King; and so Alfonso himself judged the matter; and the alcaldes decreed the restitution of the treasure.

To carry this ordinance into effect the court was adjourned; and when it re-assembled the Cid rose from his ivory seat, and recapitulating the circumstances of the marriages, and not sparing the King for his share in them, he demanded of the Infantes the reasons of their conduct: he declared he would not let them depart without mortal defiance. He added, laying his hand upon his beard, (his usual sign of wrath,) that if the King and the cortez would not right him he would do justice to himself; he would follow them to Carrion; he would take them by the throat, and carry them prisoners to his daughters at Valencia, where they should do penance for their offences, and be fed with the food which they deserved.

The King mildly remarked, that in promoting the marriages he had acted according to the request of the Infantes themselves, and he saw that much of the dishonour touched himself. To the storm of passion with which the Cid had concluded his address, the King firmly replied that the cause was before the cortez, and that the alcaldes would pass a righteous sentence.

The Cid recovered his serenity, and kissing the King's hand, returned to his ivory seat.

After a brief pause he rose, and thanking the King for his compassion for his and his daughters' dishonour, he defied the Infantes to mortal combat.

The King called upon them to reply; and they boldly excused their leaving their wives: for the daughters of Ruy Diaz of Bivar were not worthy of alliance with men who were the best hidalgos in all Castile. Regarding the acts of personal cruelty and unchivalric deportment, they said nothing. They denied the necessity of doing battle upon such a matter with any one. Count Don Garcia then began to lead the Infantes from the court, and exclaimed, as he passed the Cid, "Let us leave him, sitting like a bridegroom in his ivory chair, and thinking that his beard will frighten us."

The campeador stroked his chin, and sternly demanded what the Count had to do with his beard. "Thanks be to God," he added, "never son of woman hath taken me by it; never son of Moor or of Christian hath plucked it as I did yours in your castle of Cabra, Count, when I took your castle of Cabra, and took you by the beard: there was not a boy of the host who did not pull it."--"The hair which I plucked has not, methinks, grown again," he added with a look of bitterest scorn.

To this cruel sarcasm Garcia could only answer by the low scurrility of desiring the Cid to go back to his own country, and take toll for his mills as he used to do.

This insult was scarcely to be tolerated. The knights of the Cid grasped their swords, and looked at each other with fierce countenances; but their respect for the command of their lord, not to act till he bade them, kept them silent. The Cid himself forgot his own injunctions, and reproached his former standard-bearer, Pero Bermuez, for not taking up his cause. That valiant knight, dashing aside some personal insults with which the Cid had mingled his censure, folded his cloak round his arm, and fiercely striding to the Count Garcia, felled him to the ground.

Immediately the court was a scene of wild uproar; swords were drawn, and no respect for the presence of the King could quell the fray. At length the passions exhausted themselves, and the court resumed its sittings. Alfonso declared that he would defend the rights of all parties, and advised Garcia and his friends to support their cause by courtesy and reason, and not to revile the Cid. The cause was proceeded with; and the King with the alcaldes finally decreed that the Infantes, and their uncle Count Suero Gonzales, who had abetted them in their dishonour to the ladies, should do battle with three of the Cid's people, and acquit themselves if it were in their power.

The battle accordingly was fought, and the champions of the Cid were victors, agreeably to the decision of the twelve true men appointed as judges, and the consenting voice of the King and people. The Infantes of Carrion and their uncle were declared traitors. The family itself sunk into disgrace; a worthy punishment, as the Spanish writers declare, of them who dishonour and desert fair lady.[199]

These circumstances were considered of equal force with a canonical dissolution of marriage; and the daughters of the Cid were shortly afterwards united to the Infantes of Navarre and Arragon, men of far more power and rank than their former lords. Valencia witnessed the present, as it had the former nuptials. Bull-fights, throwing at the target, and throwing the cane, were some of the amusements of the Christians, and the joculars were right nobly rewarded. The Moors, also, were animated and sincere in their rejoicings; and the spectators were pleasingly distracted between the Christian and the Moorish games. For eight days the rejoicings lasted: each day the people were feasted, and each day they all ate out of silver.

[Sidenote: Death of the Cid.]

These were the last circumstances of importance in the life of the Cid. Five years afterwards, on the 29th of May, 1099, he died at Valencia. Romance writers have endeavoured to adorn his closing scene; but I cannot select from their works any thing that is either beautiful or probable.

[Sidenote: His character.]

In one of those historical works which have done honour to the literature of our age, much praise is bestowed upon the Cid, Ruy Diaz, for his frankness, honour, and magnanimity.[200] But, in truth, to very little of this commendation is our hero's fame entitled. His conduct to the poor Jews of Burgos will not be urged as a proof of his free and noble dealing, of that frank sincerity which interests us in contemplating the worthies of chivalric times; and as for his honour, that sacred possession of a knight, he pledged it often to the Moors of Valencia, and violated it to gratify his objects as a conqueror. Look at him in the cortez: observe his coolness, his deliberation, his gradual statement of his demands. Here was the calculating man of vengeance, not the gay, the wild cavalier throwing down his gauntlet, and displaying his whole soul in one burst of generous passion. There is a sternness about the Cid which repels our gaze. His mind was not enriched by Arabic learning, and grateful to his teachers; nor was it softened by recollections of Arabian loves: and when I see him pitying his sword that it had not received the food it deserved, I can scarcely allow him a station among the heroes of chivalry, those brilliant spirits; for I recognise nothing but the barbarism of the Goth, infuriated by the vengeful spirit of the Moor. Let the Cid, however, have his due praise. Several instances of his generosity to prisoners have been given. His treatment of the Moors of Valencia, after he had once settled the government, was noble. He suffered no difference of religion to affect his paternal regards to his people; and thence it happened that Moors and Christians dwelt together under his mild sway with such accord that the union seemed the long result of ages. One of those Moors gave him the following praise, with which I shall conclude my remarks on his character: "The Cid, Ruy Diaz," said he, "was the man in the world who had the bravest heart, and he was the best knight at arms, and the man who best maintained his law; and in the word which he hath promised he never fails; and he is the man in the world who is the best friend to his friend, and to his enemy he is the mortalest foe among all Christians; and to the vanquished he is full of mercy and compassion; and full thoughtful and wise in whatever thing he doeth; and his countenance is such that no man seeth him for the first time without conceiving great fear."

[Sidenote: Fate of his good horse.]

As a horse was part and parcel of a knight, I cannot take leave of the Cid without saying a few words regarding his steed Bavieca. After the death of his master no one was permitted to bestride that good horse. Gil Diaz, a valiant knight, and companion of the Cid, took him in charge, feeding him and leading him to water with his own hand. Bavieca lived two years and a half after the death of his master the Cid; and when he died Gil Diaz buried him before the gate of the monastery at Valencia, in the public place, and planted two elms upon the grave, the one at his head, and the other at his feet.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Spanish chivalry after his death.]

[Sidenote: The merits of missals decided by battle.]

I have already alluded to the mighty influence of the Cid on the political history of Spain,--his decision of the great question of Christian or Mohammedan superiority. After his death the impulse which he had given to the Spanish power was kept alive; the Moors never recovered themselves from the prowess of his knighthood, and, finally, they were driven from the Peninsula. It was only when the general Christian cause was the weakest, that the Spanish government, and people, who were occasionally conquerors, extended the humanities of chivalry to the Moors. But when the Crescent waned, this mild aspect was changed; for revenge and all the baleful passions of victory swept away the gentle graces of the cavalier, and intolerance and cruelty rose with the increasing power of the Christians. Concessions of liberty of conscience were made to the Moors, but the treaties were broken, apparently that mockery might embitter pain. The Moors and Christians did not deport themselves to each other with chivalric courtesy; and history gives no warrant to the romantic stories of any magnanimity or grandeur of soul illuminating the last years of the Arabs in Spain.[201] Among the Christians themselves, indeed, the chivalric character was sustained in all its vigour and gracefulness. Ecclesiastical history furnishes us with a very amusing instance of its influence. When Alphonso IX., about the year 1214, had expelled the Moors from Toledo, he endeavoured to establish the Roman missal in the place of St. Isidore's. But the people clung to their old ideas, and resisted the innovation. Those were not the days of theological argument; but the sword was the only means of deciding disputes and of determining truth. Each party chose a doughty knight, and commended to his chivalry the cause of a missal. The two champions met in the lists; the two parties ranged themselves in the surrounding galleries, and to the joy of the Spaniards the champion of St. Isidore was victorious.[202]

[Sidenote: Gallantry of a knight.]

But the gallantry of the Spaniards is the most interesting subject of regard. James II., King of Arragon, decreed that every man, whether a knight or another, who should be in company with a noble lady, might pass safe and unmolested, unless he were guilty of murder.[203] In the minds of Spanish knights, religion and love were ever blended; and he who, thinking of his mistress, took for his motto the words, "Sin vos, y sin Dios y mi," (without thee, I am without God, and without myself,) was not thought guilty of impiety. In romantic gallantry the Spaniard was a very perfect knight. Garcia Perez de Vargas, who lived in the thirteenth century, was a splendid exemplar of Spanish chivalry. His valour excited the envy of men of nobler birth, who displayed the meanness of their spirit in questioning his title to bear arms. He once withstood the Moors, while those of more ancient heraldry quailed. When he had discomfited the foe, he returned to his host, and striking his battered shield, remarked to his envious rival, in a tone of justifiable sarcasm, "You are right in wishing to deprive me of my coat of arms, for I expose it to too great dangers. It would be far safer in your hands; for so prudent a knight as yourself would take very excellent care of it."[204] Garcia was such a doughty knight, that his very presence terrified the Moors. He and a companion were once suddenly met by a party of seven of their turbaned foes. His friend took flight, but Perez closed his vizor, and couched his lance. The Moors declined a battle. Perez reached the camp: his conduct met with its guerdon; but he had too much chivalric kindness warming his heart to answer the demand, who it was that had forsaken him in so perilous a moment. There was another circumstance in this affair which marks the gallantry of our knight. While his martial demeanour was keeping the Moors at bay he found that his scarf had fallen from his shoulder. He calmly turned his horse's head, recovered his mistress's favour, and then pursued his course to the camp, the Moors being still afraid to attack him.[205]

[Sidenote: Passage of arms at Orbigo.]

On the first day of the year 1434, while the Spanish court was holding its festivities at Medina del Campo, a noble knight, named Sueno de Quinones, presented himself before the King (John II.) with a train of nine cavaliers gallantly arrayed, whose lofty demeanour and armorial ensigns showed that they prided themselves on the perfect purity of their Christian descent. The King smiled graciously on the strangers; and learning from his attendants that they had come to court in order to address his power, he waved his hand in sign of permission for them to speak. A herald, whom they had brought with them, stepped in front, and in the name of Sueno de Quinones spoke thus: "It is just and reasonable that any one who has been so long in imprisonment as I have been should desire his liberty; and, as your vassal and subject, I appear before you to state, that I have been long bound in service to a noble lady; and, as is well known, through heralds, not only in this country but through foreign lands, every Thursday I am obliged to wear a chain of iron round my neck. But, with the aid of the Apostle James, I have discovered a means of liberation. I and my nine noble friends propose, during the fifteen days that precede and the fifteen days that follow the festival of that Saint, to break three hundred lances, with Milan points[206], in the following manner: Three lances with every knight who shall pass this way on his road to the shrine of the Saint. Armour and weapons will be provided in ample store for such cavaliers as shall travel only in palmer's weeds. All noble ladies who shall be on their pilgrimage unattended by a chivalric escort must be contented to lose their right-hand glove till a knight shall recover it by the valour of his arm."

When the herald concluded, the King and his council conferred together, and they soon agreed that the laws of chivalry obliged them to consent to the accomplishing of this emprise of arms. When the royal permission was proclaimed by the heralds, Sueno got a noble knight to take off his helmet, and thus, bareheaded, approached the throne, and humbly thanked the King. He afterwards retired with his nine friends; and having exchanged their heavy armour for silken dresses of festivity, they returned to the hall and joined the dance.

Six months were to elapse before the valiant and amorous Sueno de Quinones could be delivered from his shackle; and all that time was spent by him and his friends in exercising themselves to the use of the lance, and in providing stores of harness and lances for such knights as would joust with them. The place that was arranged for the contest was the bridge Orbigo, six hours' ride from Leon, and three from Astorga. The marble effigies of a herald was set-up in the road; and by the label in its right hand travellers were acquainted that they had reached the passage of arms. The lists were erected in a beautiful plain formed by nature in a neighbouring wood. Tents for banqueting and repose were raised, and amply furnished by the liberality of Sueno. One tent was admirable for the beauty of its decorations, and more so for its purpose. It contained seven noble ladies, who, at the request of the mother of Sueno, devoted themselves to attend upon such of the knights as should be wounded in the joust. At the time appointed, Sueno de Quinones appeared in the lists with his nine companions, all arrayed in the most splendid tourneying harness, the enamoured knight himself bearing round his neck the chain of his mistress, with the motto, which his friends also wore on some part of their armour, "Il faut délibérer." Many stranger knights jousted with him, and his success was generally distinguished.