Alphonso

“ Several eyes were turned towards the slim, tall figure of the Welsh lad leaning against the embrasure of the window. The sunlight fell full upon his face, showing the sharpness of its outlines, the delicate hectic colouring, the tracery of the blue veins beneath the transparent skin. And just the same transparent look was visible in the countenance of the young Prince Alphonso, who was talking with the stranger youth, and more hearts than that of Wendot felt a pang as their owners' eyes were turned upon the pair beside the sunny window. ”

“ This was beyond Alphonso’s most sanguine hopes. To be invited to visit a foreign nobleman at his chateau was an unlooked-for honor.
“You overwhelm me with your kindness, my lord count,” said Alphonso, in a flutter of delight. “I hope some day to accept your honorable invitation.”
“I think you will have zer good time. My sister, the Countess Marie de Montmorency, will be charmed to see you. She adores Americans.” ”

“ Make yourself easy, Gil Blas. Besides my entire ignorance of what you have just told me, I must own that I considered Don Alphonso as the cardinal's creature. Only put yourself in my place: was not the visit to his eminence a most suspicious circumstance? Yet I am willing to believe that, owing his preferment to that minister, he might have remembered him in his adversity from a motive of pure gratitude. I am sorry for having displaced a man who owed his elevation to you; but if I have pulled down your handiwork I can build it up again. I mean to do still more than the Duke of Lerma for you. ”

“ It is not with me as of old, when her father spoke to me of troth plight. I am a beggar, an outcast, a prisoner. She is rich, honoured, courted. She is the brightest star of the court --"
"And she loveth thee, Wendot," interposed Alphonso firmly. "She has loved thee from childhood with a faithful and true love which merits better things than to be cast aside as if it were but dross. What are lands and gold to a woman if her lover share them not? Is it meet that she should suffer so cruelly simply because her father has left her well endowed? ”

“ Courteous stranger, pursued the pretended hermit, speaking to Don Alphonso, we extend the proposal of partnership to you, and it may be a question whether you will better yourself by rejecting it, in the lamentable condition of your affairs; for, to say nothing of the chance medley for which you are at hide and seek, your fortune is probably a little out at elbows. Most lamentably so, said Don Alphonso; and hence, since the truth must out, are my forebodings more dark than even my present evils. That is the very thing! replied Don Raphael. You were sent by our better genius to join the party. ”

“ He paus'd—now Zamor's moan Alphonso hears,
Now sees the cheek of age bedew'd with tears:
Palid, and motionless, Aciloe stands, 295
Fix'd was her mournful eye, and clasp'd her hands;
Her heart was chill'd—her trembling heart, for there
Hope slowly sinks in cold, and dark despair.
Alphonso's soul was mov'd—"No more, he cried,
"My hapless flame shall hearts like yours divide. 300
"Live, tender spirit, soft Aciloe, live,
"And all the wrongs of mad'ning rage forgive. ”

“ To my Alphonso's Soul. O Joy too great!
O Extasie of Thought! Help me, Anselmo;
Help me, Alphonso; take me, reach thy Hand;
To thee, to thee I call, to thee, Alphonso:
O Alphonso.
[OSMYN ascending from the Tomb.]
OSM. Who calls that wretched thing, that was Alphonso?
ALM. Angels, and all the Host of heaven, support me!
OSM. Whence is that Voice, whose Shrilness, from the Grave,
And growing to his dead Father's Shrowd, roots up Alphonso?
ALM. Mercy and Providence! O speak to it,
Speak to it quickly, quickly ”

“ A word in your ear—you must be shyer of priests' company if you would be a philosopher."
So saying, the dwarf hirpled off; and Antonio turning to his friend. the young Spaniard Alphonso, who had that moment joined him, said, "I never know, when conversing with that abortion, whether he is in jest or earnest, he appears to make such scornful sport of himself and all other creatures."
"That," answered Alphonso, "is by way of comforting and compensating himself for his own ungainliness. In his scornful imagination he conceives all other people to be like himself. ”

“ The conference between the queen and Procida was not limited to one audience. Day after day he sought her presence, under various pretexts—some unimportant business, some message from Alphonso—and each time he lingered as if anxious to prolong the interview; till at length his strange manner convinced Eleanora that something more momentous than philosophical researches detained him in Castile.
When the mind is agitated upon any particular subject, fancy connects every mysterious appearance with the prevailing thought ”

“ The globe moved around the lamp because thou didst bear it in thine hand. By what power is our Earth carried around the Sun?”
“There is some invisible influence which retains it with its sister-orbs in the eternal round, but the subtle essence has thus far eluded my investigations,” replied Alphonso.
“Thou believest then, my brother,” said Eleanora, in her gentlest tone, “in a power whose existence thou canst not demonstrate by thy ‘Tables’ or diograms?”
“Verily, such a power is a matter of necessity,” returned the monarch. ”

“ Yet the poor were his upholders. One night a week, at his own board, they were his guests, and he was seen sitting down with them. This man ambitious? The people’s friend Alphonso! That means so little and so much, just as in the days of our own French Revolution.
But now the night had come, and everything was a buzz of simmering excitement.
Thanks to tickets sent from Mr. Barringcourt, probably through Golden Priest Alphonso, Sir John, Miss Crokerly, and Rosalie were enabled to go. ”

“ Alphon'so, an irascible old lord in The Pilgrim, a comedy by Beaumont and Fletcher (1621) .
Alphon'so, king of Naples, deposed by his brother Frederick. Sora'no tried to poison him, but did not succeed. Ultimately he recovered his crown, and Frederick and Sorano were sent to a monastery for the rest of their lives.—Beaumont and Fletcher, A Wife for a Month (1624) .
Alphonso, son of count Pedro of Cantabria, afterwards king of Spain. He was plighted to Hermesind, daughter of lord Pelayo.
The young Alphonso was in truth an heir
Of nature's largest patrimony ”

“ Then another spectre, that Peter had not before seen, and which he now observed distinctly by the light of the moon, seated in the recess of the window, said to him—"Do not ask him for news of King Alphonso; he has not been with us long enough to know anything about him. I, who have been dead five years, can give you news of him. Alphonso was with us for some time, but the monks of Clugni extricated him from thence. I know not where he is now." Then, addressing himself to his companion, Sancho, "Come," said he, "let us follow our companions; it is time to set off." ”

“ They played chess for an extremely beautiful table and set of men, belonging to Ibn Ammar. Table and men were to go to the king if he won. If Ibn Ammar gained he was to name the stake. The latter did win and demanded that the Christian king should spare Seville. Alphonso kept his word. Whatever truth may lie behind the romantic tales of Christian and Mahommedan, we know that Alphonso represented in a remarkable way the two great influences then shaping the character and civilization of Spain. ”

“ Alphonso VIII. (1158—1214) , king of Castile only, and grandson of Alphonso VII., is a great name in Spanish history, for he led the coalition of Christian princes and foreign crusaders who broke the power of the Almohades at the battle of the Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The events of his reign are dealt with under Spain. His personal history is that of many medieval kings. He succeeded to the throne on the death of his father, Sancho, at the age of a year and a half. Though proclaimed king, he was regarded as a mere name by the unruly nobles to whom a minority was convenient. ”

“ But possibly you are not separated forever; fortune may some day bring you together again. I could not hear such an idea started without being moved by it. My sighs would find vent; and I felt at that moment so strong an affection for Don Alphonso, that I could willingly have turned my back on the archbishop and all the fine prospects that were opening to me, and have gone back to the castle of Leyva, had but a mortification taken place in the back of the scarecrow which had frightened me away. ”

“ Alphonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he gained victories at Sepalveda and Fuente de la Culebra, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep down Castile and Leon. The marriage of Alphonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were third cousins. The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. ”

“ A correspondence was now settled between the two lovers; but Don Alphonso was desirous to be still more intimate. He had long solicited permission to converse with Marina through her lattices. Such is the custom in Spain, where the windows are of much more use during the night than in the day. They are the places of rendezvous. When the street is vacant and still, the lover wraps himself up in his cloak, and, taking his sword, invokes love and night to favour him, and proceeds to some low lattice, grated on the side next the street, and secured on the inside by shutters. ”

“ Thus, a mere knight did not incur penalty of treason by taking arms against the king by order of the rich-man to whom he paid homage."—Mérimée, p. 29. Some curious illustrations are subjoined. In 1334, Alphonso took the field against an insubordinate vassal, and besieged him in his town of Lerma. Garcia de Padilla, a knight attached to the rebel, seeing an amicable arrangement impossible, boldly demanded of Don Alphonso a horse and armour, to go and fight under the banner of his liege lord. ”

“ As he beat her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and expelled the monks of Sahagun. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and Leon to his stepson Alphonso, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II. brought about an arrangement between the old man and the young. Alphonso the Battler won his great successes in the middle Ebro, where he expelled the Moors from Saragossa; in the great raid of 1125, when he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, where he had rights as king of Navarre. ”

“ Neither Alphonso nor his father was anxious for this union, but Papa Alexander, Pope of Rome, has set his heart on it. By bribes and threats he brings about a proxy marriage—Alphonso not being present—celebrated with great pomp at St. Peter’s. January, 1502, Lucrezia arrives in the presence of her new husband who falls seriously in love with her. Her fate is now to settle down, and no further tragedies befall on account of her, except one. A certain Ercole Strozzi, an Italian noble, appears on the scene and falls violently in love with her. She is only twenty-three or four even now. ”

“ Second Kaiser is Alphonso King of Castille, Alphonso the Wise, whose saying about Ptolemy's Astronomy, "That it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice!" ”

“ Alphonso I., king of Aragon, “the Battler,” who married Urraca, daughter of Alphonso VI. (1104–1134) , is sometimes counted the VIIth in the line of the kings of Leon and Castile. A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor) , he was married to Urraca, widow of Raymond of Burgundy, a very dissolute and passionate woman. The marriage had been arranged by Alphonso VI. in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravides, and to supply them with a capable military leader. ”

“ There is not a corner in all Spain which we have not ferreted out; those who are always on the scamper see a great deal of the country. We are perfect connoisseurs in landscape, and affect Salvator Rosa's rugged scenery. There we graze in peace and freedom, secure from the brutality of justice. Don Alphonso expressed himself very much obliged to them for their kind invitation; and finding neither money in his purse, nor contrivance to procure it in his pericranium, made up his mind at once not to stand upon punctilio with morality. ”

“ Alphonso flew here and there, attempting to rally their broken ranks, "Archbishop," said he to the prelate who everywhere accompanied him, preceded by the grand standard of the Cross, "Archbishop, here are we destined to die!" "Not {106} so, sire," replied the ecclesiastic; "we are destined here to live and conquer!" At that moment the brave canon who carried the chief ensign threw himself with it into the midst of the infidels; the prelate and the king followed him, and the Castilian soldiers rushed forward to protect their sovereign and their sacred standard. ”

“ Alphonso, a better king than husband, left behind him one legitimate son, Don Pedro—who at his father's death was fifteen years old, and whose mother, Doña Maria, was a Portuguese princess—and ten bastards, a daughter and nine sons, children of his mistress Leonora de Guzman. In 1350, the first-born of this illegitimate progeny, Don Henry, was eighteen years of age; he had the establishment of a prince of the blood, the magnificent domain of Trastamare, and the title of count. His twin-brother, Don Fadrique, was grand-master of the Knights of Santiago. ”