CHAPTER XVI.
List! hear ye, through the still and lonely night, The distant hymn of mournful voices roll Solemn and low? It is the burial rite; How deep its sadness sinks into the soul, As slow the passing bell wakes its far ling'ring knoll.
CHARLES SWAIN.
Spain has often been regarded as an absolute monarchy; an opinion,no doubt, founded on the absolute measures of her later sovereigns.Ferdinand and Isabella certainly laid the foundation of the royalprerogative by the firmness and ability with which they decreased thepower of the nobles, who, until their reign, had been like so manypetty sovereigns, each with his independent state, and preserving hisauthority by the sword alone. When Ferdinand and Isabella, however,united their separate kingdoms under one denomination, neither Castilenor Arragon could be considered as an absolute monarchy. In Castile,the people, as representatives of the cities, had, from, early ages,obtained seats in the Cortes, and so in some measure balanced thepower of the aristocracy. The Cortes, similar to our houses ofparliament, could enact laws, impose taxes, and redress grievances,often making the condition of granting pecuniary aid to the Sovereign,his consent to the regulations they had laid down, and refusing thegrant if he demurred. In addition to these privileges of the Cortesof Castile, the Junta of Arragon could coin money, declare war, andconclude peace; and what was still more remarkable, they could beneither prorogued nor dissolved by their Sovereign without their ownconsent. Alluding to the Castilians, a few years after the period ofour tale, Robertson says--
"The principles of liberty seem to have been better understood, by the Castilians than by any other people in Europe. They had acquired more liberal notions with respect to their own rights and privileges. They had formed more bold and generous sentiments concerning government, and discovered an extent of political knowledge to which the English themselves did not attain till nearly a century afterwards."
When we compare this state of things with the misery and anarchypervading Castile before the accession of Isabella, we may havesome idea of the influence of her vigorous measures, and personalcharacter, on the happiness and freedom of her subjects. The lawsindeed existed before, but they wanted the wisdom and moderation of anenlightened Sovereign, to give them force and power to act.
In the kingdom of Arragon, besides the Junta, or National Assemblage,there was always a Justizia, or supreme judge, whose power, in somerespects, was even greater than the King's; his person was sacred; hecould remove any of the royal ministers whom he deemed unworthy of thetrust, and was himself responsible to none but the Cortes or Junta bywhom he had been elected. The personal as well as the national rightsof the Arragonese, were also more accurately defined than was usualin that age: no native of Arragon could be convicted, imprisoned, ortortured, without fair and legal evidence.[A]
[Footnote A: See History of Spain, by John Bigland.]
Such being the customs of the kingdom of Arragon, the power of thecrown was more limited than Ferdinand's capacious mind and desireof dominion chose to endure: the Cortes, or nobles, there werepre-eminent; the people, as the Sovereign, ciphers, save that therights of the former were more cared for than the authority of thelatter. But Ferdinand was not merely ambitious; he had ability andenergy, and so gradually were his plans achieved that he encounteredneither rebellion nor dislike. The Cortes found that he frequently andboldly transacted business of importance without their interference;intrusted offices of state to men of inferior rank, but whoseabilities were the proof of his discernment; took upon himself theoffice of Justizia, and, in conjunction with Isabella, re-establishedan institution which had fallen into disuse through the civil wars,but which was admirably suited for the internal security of theirkingdom by the protection of the peasantry and lower classes: it wasan association of all the cities of Castile and Arragon, known as theSainta Hermandad, or Holy Brotherhood, to maintain a strong body oftroops for the protection of travellers, and the seizure of criminals,who were brought before judges nominated by the confederated cities,and condemned according to their crime, without any regard to feudallaws. Against this institution the nobles of both kingdoms were mostviolently opposed, regarding it as the complete destroyer, which inreality it was, of all their feudal privileges, and taking fromthem the long possessed right of trying their own fiefs, and themischievous facility of concealing their own criminals.
Thus much of history--a digression absolutely necessary for the clearelucidation of Ferdinand and Isabella's conduct with regard to theevents just narrated. The trial of Arthur Stanley they had resolvedshould be conducted with all the formula of justice, the moreespecially that the fact of his being a foreigner had prejudiced manyminds against him. Ferdinand himself intended to preside at the trial,with a select number of peers, to assist in the examination, andpronounce sentence, or confirm the royal mandate, as he should thinkfit. Nor was this an extraordinary resolution. Neither the victim,nor the supposed criminal, was of a rank which allowed a jury ofan inferior grade. Morales had been fief to Isabella alone; and onFerdinand, as Isabella's representative, fell the duty of his avenger.Arthur Stanley owned no feudal lord in Spain, save, as a matter ofcourtesy, the King, whose arms he bore. He was accountable, then,according to the feudal system, which was not yet entirely extinct,to Ferdinand alone for his actions, and before him must plead hisinnocence, or receive sentence for his crime. As his feudal lord, orsuzerain, Ferdinand might at once have condemned him to death; butthis summary proceeding was effectually prevented by the laws ofArragon and the office of the Holy Brotherhood; and therefore, incompliance with their mandates, royal orders were issued that everyevidence for or against the prisoner should be carefully collectedpreparatory to the trial. More effectually to do this, the trial waspostponed from seven to fourteen days after the discovery of themurder.
The excitement which this foul assassination excited in Segovia was soextreme, that the nobles were compelled to solicit Isabella's personalinterference, in quieting the populace, and permitting the even courseof justice: they had thronged in tumultuary masses round the prisonwhere Stanley was confined, with wild shouts and imprecations,demanding his instant surrender to their rage, mingling groans andlamentations with yells and curses, in the most fearful medley. OldPedro, who had been Arthur's host, unwittingly added fuel to theflame, by exulting in his prophecy that evil would come of Ferdinand'spartiality for the white-faced foreigner; that he had seen it long,but guessed not how terribly his mutterings would end. By the Queen'spermission, the chamber of state in which the body lay was thrown opento the eager citizens, who thronged in such crowds to behold the soleremains of one they had well nigh idolized, that the guards werecompelled to permit the entrance of only a certain number everyday. Here was neither state nor pomp to arrest the attention of thesight-loving populace: nought of royalty or gorgeous symbols. No; mencame to pay the last tribute of admiring love and sorrow to one whohad ever, noble as he was by birth, made himself one with them,cheering their sorrows, sharing their joys; treating age, however pooror lowly, with the reverence springing from the heart, inspiringyouth to deeds of worth and honor, and by his own example, far moreeloquently than by his words, teaching all and every age the dutiesdemanded by their country and their homes, to their families andthemselves. And this man was snatched from them, not alone by theruthless hand of death, but by midnight murder. Was it marvel, thevery grief his loss occasioned should rouse to wildest fury men'spassions against his murderer?
It was the evening of the fifth day after the murder, that with adegree of splendor and of universal mourning, unrivalled before in theinterment of any subject, the body of Ferdinand Morales was committedto the tomb. The King himself, divested of all insignia of royalty,bareheaded, and in a long mourning cloak, headed the train of chiefmourners, which, though they counted no immediate kindred, numberedtwenty or thirty of the highest nobles, both of Arragon and Castile.The gentlemen, squires, and pages of Morales' own household followed:and then came on horse and on foot, with arms
reversed, and loweredheads, the gallant troops who had so often followed Morales tovictory, and under him had so ably aided in placing Isabella on herthrone; an immense body of citizens, all in mourning, closed theprocession. Every shop had been closed, every flag half-masted;and every balcony, by which the body passed, hung with black. Thecathedral church was thronged, and holy and thrilling the servicewhich consigned dust to dust, and hid for ever from the eyes of hisfellow men, the last decaying remains of one so universally beloved.The coffin of ebony and silver, partly open, so as to disclose theface of the corpse, as was customary with Catholic burials of those ofhigh or priestly rank, and the lower part covered with a superb velvetpall, rested before the high altar during the chanted service; at theconclusion of which the coffin was closed, the lid screwed down, andlowered with slow solemnity into the vault beneath. A requiem, chantedby above a hundred of the sweetest and richest voices, sounding inthrilling unison with the deep bass and swelling notes of the organ,had concluded the solemn rites, and the procession departed asit came; but for some days the gloom in the city continued; therealization of the public loss seemed only beginning to be fully felt,as excitement subsided.
Masses for the soul of the Catholic warrior, were of course sung formany succeeding days. It was at midnight, a very short time afterthis public interment, that a strange group were assembled within thecathedral vaults, at the very hour that mass for the departed wasbeing chanted in the church above their heads; it consisted of monksand travelling friars, accompanied by five or six of the highestnobility; their persons concealed in coarse mantles and shroudinghoods; they had borne with them, through the subterranean passagesof the crypt, leading to the vaults, a coffin so exactly similar inworkmanship and inscription to that which contained the remains oftheir late companion, that to distinguish the one from the other wasimpossible. The real one, moved with awe and solemnity, was conveyedto a secret recess close to the entrance of the crypt, and replacedin the vault by the one they had brought with them. As silently, asvoicelessly as they had entered and done their work, so they departed.The following night, at the same hour, the coffin of Morales, overwhich had been nailed a thick black pall, so that neither name,inscription, nor ornament could be perceived, was conveyed fromSegovia in a covered cart, belonging, it appeared, to the monastery ofSt. Francis, situated some leagues southward, and attended by one ortwo monks and friars of the same order. The party proceeded leisurely,travelling more by night than by day, diminishing gradually in numbertill, at the entrance of a broad and desolate plain, only fourremained with the cart. Over this plain they hastened, then woundthrough a circuitous path concealed in prickly brushwood, and pausedbefore a huge, misshapen crag, seemingly half buried in the earth: inthis a door, formed of one solid stone, flew back at their touch;the coffin, taken with reverence from the cart, was borne on theirshoulders through the dark and narrow passage, and down the windingstair, till they stood in safety in the vale; in the secret entranceby which they entered, the lock closed as they passed, and wasapparently lost in the solid wall. Three or four awaited them--nobles,who had craved leave of absence for a brief interval from the court,and who had come by different paths to the secret retreat (no doubtalready recognized by our readers as the Vale of Cedars), to layMorales with his fathers, with the simple form, yet solemn servicepeculiar to the burials of their darkly hidden race. The grave wasalready dug beside that of Manuel Henriquez; the coffin, restingduring the continuance of a brief prayer and psalm in the littletemple, was then borne to the ground marked out, which, concealed bya thick hedge of cypress and cedar, lay some little distance from thetemple; for, in their secret race, it was not permitted for the housedestined to the worship of the Most High, to be surrounded by thehomes of the dead. A slow and solemn hymn accompanied the lowering ofthe coffin; a prayer in the same unknown language; a brief address,and the grave was filled up; the noble dead left with his kindred,kindred alike in blood as faith; and ere the morning rose, the livinghad all departed, save the few retainers of the house of Henriquez andMorales, to whose faithful charge the retreat had been intrusted. Noproud effigy marked those simple graves; the monuments of the deadwere in the hearts of the living. But in the cathedral of Segovia alordly monument arose to the memory of Ferdinand Morales, erected,not indeed for idle pomp, but as a tribute from the gratitude of aSovereign--and a nation's love.