[19] [Compare what the Arab historian Al Lagi[j] said of Alfonso the Catholic: “The terrible Alfonso, the manslayer, son of the sword, killed tens of thousands of Moslems. He burned houses and dwellings, and no treaty could be made with him.” Christian historians equal this. The archbishop Rodrigo[c] draws a worse view of the desolation of Spain than even Isidore[d]: “Children are dashed on the ground, young men beheaded; their fathers fall in battle; the old men massacred, the women reserved for greater misfortune.” He tells us that “every cathedral in Spain was burned or destroyed”; that “the national substance, etc., was plundered, except what the bishops could save in the Asturias”; that “the cities which were too strong to be stormed immediately, were deluded into a surrender”; that “oaths and treaties were uniformly broken by the Arabs,” etc. Both he and Isidore may exaggerate, but the exaggeration only proves the fact.] [20] The monk of Albelda[e] calls Pelayo the son of Bermudo, and nephew of king Roderic. His origin is wrapped in much obscurity. [Burke[g] says “Pelayo, no doubt, was but a robber chieftain, a petty mountain prince, and the legends of his royal descent are of later date and of obviously spurious manufacture; but Pelayo needs no tinsel to adorn his crown. He was the founder of the Spanish monarchy. The Arabs called him ‘Belay.’”] [21] Mariana[i] says, that Alfonso inherited in virtue of Pelayo’s will. This is one of the assertions so common in this writer, without the shadow of a foundation. Equally unfounded is the assertion that he inherited in right of his wife, Hermesinda, though that circumstance would doubtless have some weight with the electors. His best claim was, that “_in tempore Egicani et Witizani regum, princeps militiæ fuit_,” according to Sebastian.[f] [22] [“Dunham,[h] quoting Sebastian of Salamanca,[f] _omnes Arabes occupatores civitatum interficiens_, says placidly, ‘Such an extermination of the Mohammedan inhabitants to make room for his Christian colonists was a just retribution on the heads of the followers of a sanguinary faith.’ A strange nineteenth century Christian gloss! If such things can be written in 1832, it is hardly surprising that the retributive justice practised in the mountains should have been somewhat one-sided in 750.”--BURKE.[g]] [23] [Isaiah lvii, 1-2. In a note upon this Dunham[h] says, “Not a single historian of Spain, from Bishop Sebastian[f] to Masdeu[l] and Ortiz,[m] has ventured to express his disbelief in this miracle.”] [24] _Ipsi Agareni herbam attulerunt, et crassitudinem ejus abstulerunt à ventre ejus, et ad pristinam levitatis astutiam reductus_, etc.--SAMPIRO.[n] It is a pity the Mohammedan doctors did not leave the prescription behind them.