Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  Alhama was a great feat of arms, but it was also a problem. Isabella’s counsellors warned her that the town could become a liability, as supplying and holding it required a huge effort, with a vast mule train of some 5,000 animals obliged to wend its way through enemy territory every two to three months. It was as if they were trying to conquer the kingdom of Granada from its centre, rather than from frontiers backed by an infinite stretch of Christian land. ‘It is difficult to begin the task in the middle of the kingdom as this makes it both laborious and expensive to sustain what has been won,’ Diego de Valera wrote, urging the monarchs to start by capturing the Mediterranean ports, which could receive reinforcements of mercenaries and ‘holy warriors’ from north Africa. The best thing she could do would be to order that Alhama be razed to the ground and left as a pile of useless rubble. Isabella was not happy. ‘She knew only too well how in all wars the amount of spending and work grew, but said that she and the king had decided to go ahead with the conquest of Granada with the budget that they had,’ reported Pulgar. ‘Given that this town [Alhama] was the first that had been won, she felt that abandoning it would see them accused of weakness.’14 And so she and Ferdinand set about not only resupplying Alhama but also attacking the Moors elsewhere.

  Ferdinand proposed they target Loja – a strongly fortified town in the Genil Valley that was a key post on the way to Alhama and, ultimately, to the city of Granada. Isabella was heavily pregnant with twins, but must also have taken part in the war councils in Córdoba that agreed on the Loja plan. Soon she was writing to distant corners of her realms, as far away as the Basque country, for troops to take part in the expedition. There was little more that she could do. The day before her husband was due to depart, she gave birth to her fourth child, a baby girl called María. In what may have been Isabella’s most painful birthing experience yet, the little girl’s twin was stillborn a day and a half later. And then her husband left, on his way to a new and different kind of war while, according to Pulgar, Isabella continued to oversee it all from a safe distance.15

  Isabella and Ferdinand had already discovered in Alhama that defence was far easier than attack. If they had captured the town, it was due to the surprise nature of that attack. But now the Moors were waiting for them. The building and defence of thick, high-walled towns, castles, forts and other buildings had been one of the main – and most effective – military strategies for centuries. In the absence of surprise, the effort required by the attackers in men, arms, supplies and rations was many times greater than that of the defenders, who would stock up with supplies and drive their cattle inside. The frontiersmen who manned Loja were seasoned fighters and Muley Hasan had already spread the word to north Africa, seeking volunteers to defend Islam against the Christian infidel. Ferdinand had no great experience as a field commander in this kind of warfare and neither he nor Isabella had the strategic or logistical know-how to mount a major siege in enemy territory. Ferdinand misjudged his positions, his supplies and the fighting prowess of his opponents. He squeezed his troops into a camp that was both too small and too exposed, lying in a dip between olive groves and open country that was within range of Loja’s guns. He also failed to prevent reinforcements entering the town, doubling its garrison. In an error directly attributable to Isabella as the person in charge of supplies, bread ran out in the besiegers’ camp after two days and there were no ovens to cook more. The skilled Moorish commander in Loja struck repeatedly at Ferdinand’s troops, riding out daily to harry them before retreating back behind the solid city walls. One of the most prominent victims was the young master of the Calatrava order, Rodrigo Téllez Girón, who died after two javelins pierced his armour. Chaos grew and morale plummeted. After just five days Ferdinand ordered his men to abandon camp (some, seeing the chaos, already had) and a disordered retreat saw many of the supplies left behind.16

  Loja was a lesson in failure and Isabella, whose main task was to oversee the supplies, shared the blame. ‘She was deeply upset, both because of the hugely diligent work she had put into provisioning that camp and because of the boost in morale for the Moors at seeing themselves so quickly relieved of a task that they had not looked forward to,’ reported Pulgar.17 But Isabella had learned much since she publicly castigated Ferdinand and his troops for returning empty-handed from Toro seven years earlier and now ‘no one could know from her words or her actions the great sorrow that she felt’. Instead, she immediately vowed to keep working in order to send her husband back to Loja with an even stronger and better-organised army.

  Isabella could not know that, while she was angrily digesting the defeat at Loja, the seeds of future success were being sown in the Alhambra palace. The growing tension between Muley Hasan and Fatima’s sons, led by Boabdil, had exploded. ‘The same day of the victory news reached the ears of those in Loja that two of emir Muley Hasan’s sons, Mohammed [Boabdil] and Yusuf, had fled from fear of their father,’ the anonymous Arabic chronicler said. Fatima had been won over by Muley Hasan’s enemies, led by the Abencerrajes – a once-powerful clan that had fallen from favour. Legend has it that they were seeking revenge because thirty-six of the clan’s leading members had had their throats cut after Hasan tricked them into meeting him in a room by the Patio of the Lions, which later became known as the Salón de los Abencerrajes.18

  There had been omens that Muley Hasan’s luck might change. The people of Granada recalled with horror how a military parade he had ordered in 1478 had been washed out by rain accompanied by lightning and thunder. The storms had washed tree trunks into the River Darro and these had jammed against a bridge to form a dam that, in turn, provoked a terrible flood. The city’s leather artisans, silk traders, tailors and other merchants had seen their goods and livelihoods float away. The sight of a comet upset those given to superstition even more. It was not, however, Isabella and her husband who were to prove Muley’s downfall. Boabdil and his brother Yusuf had scaled down the walls of the Alhambra at night – throwing a thin cord down to a group of waiting Abencerrajes knights who attached a rope to it that was hauled up and tied around a column. They fled to the towns of Guadix and Almería, respectively, where the people rebelled in their favour. Six months later the people of Granada and of the walled Albaicín district – which lay just across the steep valley of the River Darro – also rose for Boabdil, and after a failed attempt to win the city back Hasan had to withdraw to Málaga with his own brother, Zagal.19 The infighting was a relief to Isabella and Ferdinand, whose campaign had got off to such a poor start. They now concentrated on maintaining their only new possession, Alhama. As Isabella had said, its loss would have made the Christian army look weak – even more so after it had been so thoroughly shamed at Loja.

  As Isabella and her husband and their nobles thought of ways to press forward again the following year, the example of Alhama – with its elements of daring and surprise – remained high in their minds. It was quickly transformed into a legendary feat of arms, not least because many who took part returned rich with pillaged goods. Perhaps that is why the campaign against Granada in 1483 started off with an attempt to sneak through the treacherous, rugged hills of the Axarquía of Málaga – a region of broken, arduous terrain, steep hillsides, jagged outcrops and deep ravines. It was an improbable route to take and some experienced local guides warned strongly against it, but that may have made the plan seem even more like the adventurous march on Alhama. Whatever the reasons, a group of nobles led by the Marquess of Cadiz and the Master of the Santiago order, Alfonso de Cárdenas, set out with some 3,000 mostly mounted men into the steep, silk-producing valleys north of Málaga. With Ferdinand off dealing with the last few rebels in Galicia and Isabella several days’ ride away in Madrid, the queen either could not, or did not want to, stop them.20

  They rode for a day and night through the tricky terrain only to find the hamlets and villages they wanted to attack ready and waiting for them, with the villagers ensconced in fortified towers or hidden away in the harsh, craggy si
erras. Small groups launched surprise guerrilla-style attacks, their knowledge of the terrain allowing them to pick the best ambush spots. The exhausted riders were outwitted and quickly forced to turn back. They began a chaotic retreat via an alternative route close to Málaga – the most important of Granada’s port cities, which most had never set eyes on before. But that allowed Muley Hasan’s brother Zagal to join the rout with his men and, as night fell, the Christian troops became lost in the steep valleys and dried-up riverbeds. The anonymous Muslim chronicler celebrated what was, initially, the victory of a few poorly armed farmers over what was meant to be a well-organised force led by some of Castile’s most senior nobles.21 ‘They had barely arrived in that part of the countryside when the local people began to call out [to one another] and a group of men came together and, on foot and without the aid of cavalry, closed the route forward and fought the Christians along the gullies, gorges and through the rough terrain, inflicting a terrible massacre,’ he wrote.22 The Christians ‘ran into dangerous mountain passes like fools, just as flies and moths fly into fire’. Spears and rocks rained down on them as they lay trapped in ravines or on narrow valley floors in single file – unable even to turn their horses around. The fleet-footed Moors skipped along above them, hurling down their rustic weapons, howling, lighting fires and made more terrifying by the fact that they were largely invisible and seemed far more numerous than they really were.

  Cadiz eventually abandoned his men and was led out of the dangerous countryside by his personal guides. Some 2,000 or more men were lost, more than half as captives. Among those left behind were two of his brothers and three nephews.23 Ferdinand later concluded it had taken fewer than a hundred mounted Moorish soldiers, with the help of the local country folk, to destroy the expedition. Bernáldez blamed greed. ‘It seems that our Lord allowed this to happen because most of them went with the intention of looting and pillaging rather than serving God,’ he wrote.24 Instead they found themselves locked up in Málaga’s alcázar, known as the Alcazaba, where those without wealthy relatives to pay ransoms could expect to remain for years. Isabella was upset, but that did not stop her from also refusing to allow richer families to buy their relatives’ freedom. That went against tradition and must have shocked some people, but she argued that it would simply provide Granada with resources to use against her. Pulgar wrote to the Count of Cifuentes, one of those captured, telling him to be patient. ‘News about what the queen is doing, or wants to do, you will hear just as accurately from the Moors there as from the Christians here, which is why I won’t write them down here,’ he said.25

  Isabella herself remained remarkably dispassionate. The expedition had been put together by the nobles, not by the monarchs, and those who died had done so in the service of God. ‘I have heard at great length about what happened with the Moors; about which I am greatly displeased,’ she said. ‘Yet as this is nothing new in warfare, and such events lie in the hands of Our Lord, we cannot do more than thank him for it.’ But many senior officials had been lost and she ordered the city authorities in Seville to allow sons or other relatives automatically to take over the positions held by those who were dead or captive. The task of filling the more important jobs would have to wait for Ferdinand’s return from Galicia, ‘because the presence of his highness is necessary so that we can together decide with the authority and proper consultation required by law’.26

  The Nasrid royal family, once more, quickly proved its talent for turning dramatic success into disaster. The victory near Málaga had belonged to his father’s faction, so now Boabdil felt obliged to seek his own triumph, riding out of the Alhambra at the head of a raiding force in April 1483. One of his pennants snapped as it hit the arch above the gate of Elvira, sending shivers down the spines of those inclined to suspicion. When a loose arrow shot from the city walls killed a fox as it darted through his troops, it was seen as a second bad omen. Boabdil now committed the same mistake as the Christians, riding ill-prepared across the border in an attempt to seize the town of Lucena – which was commanded by the inexperienced but clever nineteen-year-old noble Diego Fernándezde Córdoba. The latter was able to keep Boabdil’s force of up to 10,000 men busy long enough for reinforcements to arrive. These surprised Boabdil’s men as they sat down to eat.27 The Moors were quickly scattered, with almost half of them captured or killed. ‘It was, in truth, a shameful defeat,’ the anonymous Arab chronicler wrote. ‘But the most shameful thing was that the emir [Boabdil] himself was captured.’28 He was wearing a patterned red silk coat and a central-European-style helmet engraved with intricate latticed motifs. Fortune had come to Isabella’s aid.

  With Boabdil in Christian hands, the Moors turned once more to his father as king, while his mother fled to distant Almería, which remained loyal to her son. But Isabella and Ferdinand knew they had been handed a gift. They handled Boabdil with exquisite care, making sure his captors treated him as royally as possible, though Isabella could not help gloating over the victory after she received three of Boabdil’s pennants as a present.29 ‘Our lady the queen was very pleased with the three pennants and Moorish trumpets that you sent and, even more, with the description of the battle,’ Cardinal Mendoza wrote to the wife of one of the victorious commanders at Lucena.30 Tales of military triumph, as ever, pleased her greatly. When a smaller Moorish raid went wrong at Lopera later in 1483 Isabella showed her joy with an annual gift to the victor’s wife of the clothes that she herself wore on the date of the battle. Negotiations with Boabdil’s mother produced a peace deal in which Boabdil exchanged his freedom for the status of vassal and ally. A two-year peace treaty was signed, but he had to promise to make war on his own father. He also agreed to leave his small son, Ahmed, in Isabella’s hands as surety. Ahmed, believed to be aged around two years old and known by the diminutive infantico – or little prince – may have been a captive, but it was he who captured Isabella’s heart whenever she visited him at his castle lodgings.31

  Boabdil was now their ally, but he controlled only a small part of the kingdom. Isabella and Ferdinand realised that the derring-do spirit of Alhama would no longer work. The division within the kingdom of Granada weakened their enemy and Alhama was a valuable outpost from which to disrupt Moorish movements, but there was no substitute for the methodical process of medieval warfare – the patient besieging of walled towns, forts and castles. Open, battlefield warfare was – just as it had been in the civil war – an unlikely event, but the kingdom of Granada could perhaps be slowly shrunk by picking off the castles and towns along its fringes, while burning crops and destroying orchards. Technology, in the form of improved artillery, was making that easier and – in Burgos and elsewhere during the civil war – the Spanish monarchs had some experience of siege warfare. But the civil war had also shown that the process could be painfully slow. Sieges in enemy territory required a huge logistical effort and Isabella began to make herself an expert in exactly that. With the disaster of Axarquía now compensated for by the capture of Boabdil, Ferdinand embarked on a classic raid into Granada territory. His aim was to resupply Alhama, raze as much farmland as possible, burning crops and chopping down orchards to reduce the Moor’s own supplies of food and, along the way, take the modest town and fortress at Tájara. The success of Ferdinand’s army would depend as much on logistical prowess and the building of siege contraptions as on the hand-to-hand combat or archery of fighting men. Carpenters built huge shields and screens that were pushed up close to the fortress’s walls. The defenders reacted by hurling down burning wads of flax and hemp soaked in oil and tar. The weight of the relatively large attacking force, which now included Swiss mercenaries, was such that the Tájara fortress was taken relatively quickly – and Ferdinand ordered it be razed to the ground.32

  Although Zahara was also retaken, Isabella and Ferdinand were left with an unimpressive booty from the costly season’s fighting in 1483. They had held on to Alhama and taken Tájara, but had little more to show in terms of conquered territory. Tha
t reduced their ability to reward those who had fought with gifts of new lands and, in turn, to bind closer to them the potentially rebellious aristocrats with promises of future wealth to be gained in Granada. Boabdil’s capture had been due to luck and his own rashness. At one stage Granada’s rulers had thought they might now sign the usual kind of peace deal, offering to pay ‘great quantities of gold’ in annual tributes. Ferdinand wrote to Isabella, who had travelled north to Vitoria, to ask her opinion. She was firm. Not only would she not condone a ceasefire, but she also wanted to prevent Granada from receiving money or provisions from those trying to buy back the freedom of relatives caught in the foolhardy Axarquía raid. ‘She wrote saying that, were it up to her, the Moors would not get their ceasefire,’ said Pulgar.33 She also ordered that the frontiers be closely watched to stem the flow of cattle, cloth or oil being sent as ransom payments. ‘The queen did not allow provisions, great or small, to be taken to the Moors to pay the ransom of any Christians,’ Pulgar added. On the Christian side of the only loosely demarcated frontier the so-called alfaqueques, whose profession was to negotiate the payment of ransoms on both sides, found their task much harder.34 Isabella’s crusade had started, and she was not going to stop – even if that meant Christian captives would have to suffer in the stockades of Málaga’s thick-walled Alcazaba.