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Updated: July 20, 2025
He had been sent out to command expeditions that be might fail and be disgraced; but he had shown deeper wisdom than his elders, and had come back covered with honour; and now he had been commanded to fight out the final battle of Spain with the Moriscoes, in the hope that he might die in the fight, since he could not be dishonoured, and instead he had returned in triumph, having utterly subdued the fiercest warriors in Europe, to reap the ripe harvest of his military glory at an age when other men were in the leading-strings of war's school, and to be acclaimed a hero as well as a favourite by a court that could hardly raise a voice to cheer for its own King.
Ground to powder beneath the iron heel of their ruthless conquerors, the Moriscoes of Southern Spain were ever waiting the chance to rise and shake off the yoke by which they were so sore oppressed; from far and near reports were coming to hand of the continued successes of the corsairs, and all Andalusia seethed with passionate hope that the day of deliverance was at hand.
He was alone there, for Philip was again childless at his fourth marriage, and it was not until long afterwards that a son was born who lived to succeed him; and there were no royal princesses in Madrid, so that Don John was his brother's only near blood relation at the court, and since he had been acknowledged he would have had his place by right, even if he had not beaten the Moriscoes in the south and won back Granada.
But this little cloud soon vanished, and how brilliantly the blue sky arched above her the next year, when she learned that Don John of Austria had received the honourable commission of crushing the rebellion of the infidel Moriscoes in Andalusia!
I remained with him more than a month, not that the life I led with him was much to my liking, but because it gave me opportunities of observing that of my master, which was like that of all the other Moriscoes in Spain. O what curious things I could tell you, friend Scipio, about that half Paynim rabble, if I were not afraid that I should not get to the end of my story in a fortnight!
He even went farther than this, and when a number of Moriscoes, who were settled at Algiers, embarked a quantity of arms for transportation to the coast of Andalusia, he put an embargo on the vessels and would not allow them to sail, saying "he would never suffer the exportation of what was so necessary for the defence of his own dominions."
Spain was filled with Jews, who had settled unmolested under the Moslem rule, and there were also many Moriscoes, or people of mixed Spanish and Moorish origin; and these unfortunates were now to be submitted to the tortures of that diabolical institution known as the Inquisition, because they were not enthusiastic in their support of the Catholic religion.
But Luther extended his severity to the Jews themselves; so that, according to his doctrines, no reproach can be made against the sovereigns who expelled the Jews from their dominions. The Moors and the Moriscoes no less occupied the attention of the Inquisition at that time; and all that has been said on the subject of the Jews may be applied to them with some modifications.
Moreover, it was not the Spanish monarch alone who thought so; it is related that Francis I, when a prisoner at Madrid, one day conversing with Charles V, told him that tranquillity would never be established in Spain if the Moors and Moriscoes were not expelled.
He joined company with the Moriscoes who were going forth from other villages, for he knew their language very well, and on the voyage he struck up a friendship with my two uncles who were carrying me with them; for my father, like a wise and far-sighted man, as soon as he heard the first edict for our expulsion, quitted the village and departed in quest of some refuge for us abroad.
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