Alhama was known as the “Key of Granada,” and was not many miles distant from the capital itself; it also was the richest town of the kingdom, and the Marquis of Cadiz and his soldiers secured a vast amount of booty, besides taking many captives. But their position was now perilous in the extreme, for when Muley Hassan learned the news he raged like a tiger and immediately set forth to retake Alhama with an army of fiercest warriors. The sufferings of the Spanish soldiers were intense, for they were cut off from water, attacked on every side, and allowed no rest; but succour came to them from an unexpected source. The Duke of Medina Sidonia—like the Marquis of Cadiz, owner of vast possessions and lord over an army of dependants, although an hereditary foe of the latter—collected a large force and hastened to the assistance of his beleaguered brethren. King Ferdinand also turned toward the scene of war; but, outstripped by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, halted on the way at Antiquera, and there began the assembling of an army, to follow up the advantage so unexpectedly gained by his ardent knights and soldiers. Thus the immediate effect of this daring assault and reprisal was the joining together in friendly rivalry of two powerful lords who had hitherto been at enmity, and the union of many other rivals in arms, so that Ferdinand soon found himself in command of forces sufficient for the accomplishment of his long–cherished designs against the Moors. Meanwhile there were strife and dissension in the capital city of Granada. The ill–timed assault upon Zahara was deprecated by the Moors, even before their loss of Alhama, and eventually King Muley was driven from the city during a revolt headed by his own son, Boabdil el Chico. The grief and indignation of the Moorish populace of Granada are depicted in a popular Spanish poem, with its sad refrain, “_Ay de mí, Alhama!_” and which Lord Byron rendered into English verse, beginning: “The Moorish king rides up and down Through Granada’s royal town; From Elvira’s gates to those Of Vivarambla on he goes. Woe is me, Alhama! “Letters to the monarch tell How Alhama’s city fell; In the fire the scroll he threw, And the messenger he slew. Woe is me, Alhama!” The aged Muley Hassan was expelled, but he returned a few weeks later, and, gaining the Alhambra, made the fountains and corridors run with human blood in his endeavours to regain his crown. But in vain: Boabdil el Chico was then King of Granada, and it was foreordained that his weakness should be the cause of its downfall; for, in an assault he later made upon a Christian castle, he was taken prisoner and only released after promising to hold himself a vassal to King Ferdinand. Meanwhile the contest spread over a widening territory, until all the kingdom was aflame with war.