Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 07 (of 15), SpanishMorris, Charles
History
Historic Tales: The Romance of Reality. Vol. 07 (of 15), Spanish
Morris, Charles
Spain -- History
Their only hope now was the bridge of Najera, over the Najerilla, which
stream lay behind their line. Some rushed for the bridge, others leaped
into the river, which became instantly red with blood, for the arrows of
the archers were poured into the crowded stream. Only the approach of
night, the fatigue of the victors, and the temptation to plunder the town
and the camp saved the wreck of the Castilian army, which had lost seven
thousand foot-soldiers and some six hundred men-at-arms. Du Guesclin’s
battalion, which alone had made a gallant stand, was half slain. A large
number of prisoners were taken, among them the valorous Du Guesclin
himself.
Edward the Black Prince now first learned the character of the man whom he
had come to aid. Don Pedro galloped excitedly over the plain seeking his
rival, and, chancing to meet Lopez de Orozco, one of his former friends,
now the prisoner of a Gascon knight, he stabbed him to the heart, despite
the efforts of the Gascon in his defence. The report of this murder filled
the Black Prince with indignation, which was heightened when Don Pedro
offered to ransom all the Castilian prisoners, plainly indicating that he
intended to murder them. Prince Edward sternly refused, only consenting to
deliver up certain nobles who had been declared traitors before the
revolution. These Don Pedro immediately had beheaded before his tent.
The breach between the allies rapidly widened, Don Pedro, as soon as he
fairly got possession of the throne, breaking all his engagements with the
Black Prince, while he was unable, from the empty state of his treasury,
to pay the allied troops. Four months Prince Edward waited, with growing
indignation, for redress, while disease was rapidly carrying off his men,
and then marched in anger from Spain with scarcely a fifth of the proud
array with which he had won the battle of Najera.
The restored king soon justified his title of Peter the Cruel by a series
of sanguinary executions, murdering all of the adherents of his rival on
whom he could lay his hands. In this thirst for revenge not even women
escaped, and at length he committed an act which aroused the indignation
of the whole kingdom. Don Alfonso de Guzman had refused to follow the king
into exile. He now kept out of his reach, but his mother, Doña Urraca de
Osorio, fell into the hands of the monster, and was punished for being the
mother of a rebel by being burned alive on the ramparts of Seville.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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