Don Enrique

“ What is the name of the best matador you have for to-morrow’s show?”
“Pepito de Malaga,” said Don Enrique, “one of the greatest names, one of the bravest men, in all Spain.”
“Very well,” said the Doctor, “I have a proposal to make to you. I have never fought a bull in my life. Now supposing I were to go into the ring to-morrow with Pepito de Malaga and any other matadors you choose; and if I can do more tricks with a bull than they can, would you promise to do something for me?”
Don Enrique threw back his head and laughed.
“Man,” he said, “you must be mad! You would be killed at once. ”

“ And when they returned, Don Enrique would come riding at the head of the long line, grave and composed as ever, while the huntsmen were loaded down with a beautiful great buck or a boar, killed by a single thrust of which any matador in Madrid need not have been ashamed. Then, after the huge hunt breakfast, would come the welcome torpor of the siesta, and in the evening a mighty game, malilla or monte or billiards, for Don Enrique played as he worked and rode, with a carelessness of consequences not at all pleasant to a man with a decent regard for his purse. ”

“ Little by little, as time goes on, a sense of wrong and injustice rankles in his heart which neither the marquess nor the archbishop understands, but they continue assiduously to divide between them the power and the revenues of Castile.
Don Enrique is now sixteen; yet, as the years pass, the strength of his young life does not come to him in robustness of frame or sinew. Music is his passion—the old ballads which we hear as dance tunes in modern Spain, gallardas and seguidillas set to words—and the chase, a strange taste in one so weak. ”

“ Always the valley and the river and tobacco, and Don Enrique. For Don Enrique was their lord. The Company back in Barcelona and Madrid might own everything—the lean, silent, white men, and the brown, toiling thousands in the fields, and the boats on the river, and the great white fortresses of warehouses—but in the valley Don Enrique was Company and King. For him they toiled and died forgotten, from him they thankfully received their meagre wage, and when an order came signed in his heavy hand, "Valdez y de las Vegas," all men hurried to do his will. Any one would be proud to serve such a man. ”

“ The painter and Don Enrique bent low to the Majesty of Castile. In the background Juan Lepe made squire’s obeisance. I was bearded and my face stained with a Moorish stain, and I was in shadow; it was idle to fear recognition that might never come. The Queen seated herself, and her daughter beside her, and with her good smile motioned the Archbishop to a chair. The two ecclesiastics, both venerable men, were given seats. The rest of the company stood. The Queen’s blue eyes rested on Don Enrique. ”

“ Some women shrieked softly. Don Enrique, oblivious to all mundane affairs, his swarthy, handsome countenance set in a far off frown, swung from the saddle with one magnificent motion, threw the reins over his horse's head with another, and stalked clanking and unseeing across the veranda and into the office. The horse, trained to stand "tied to the ground," rolled his bit musically and stared straight ahead with a lofty air of conscious virtue.
Colonel Peyton watched this lively scene, his hands beneath his coat tails. Daphne appeared and stood beside him. ”

“ Don Enrique led John along the line, and presented him solemnly to each in turn. The caballeros protested eternal friendship with vehement insincerity, and the girls flashed their eyes and teeth at the blue-eyed young American without descending from their unconscious pride of sex and race. They had the best blood of Spain in them, and an American was an American, be he never so agreeable to contemplate. ”

“ All Spain is divided by civil war. Seville, his own Seville, is full of conspirators, awaiting the arrival of Don Enrique to declare for him; and the Black Prince, on whom he so confidently reckoned, remains absolutely deaf to his appeals.
Even were he willing to repent, he is for ever shut out from salvation in this world and the next. No church is open to him; no priest, however base, dare shrive him for his sins. He is as one accursed.
What those words were, traced by the dying hand of Blanche, no man yet knows—not his closest friends, and they are few ”

“ Only she will not keep her feet dry; and oh! Don Enrique, if you knew how I have to work to make her take care of her complexion—" I suppose old servants are the same all the world over.
So Don Enrique received his little girl, the very finest little girl in all the world, which is not surprising when you consider what a very great man her father was.
While the two were getting acquainted, as Don Enrique put it, he condescended to share Doña Mercedes with the little world of Manila. ”

“ The Marqués de Villena, a grandee with the privilege of wearing his hat in the royal presence, and irritable and sarcastic when he dares, turns the royal boy’s blood cold when he rivets upon him his keen black eyes. Under the guise of devotion to his person he exercises over him every species of petty tyranny, and when, driven beyond his patience, the gentle Don Enrique pouts his lip and knits his young brow, he calls in the archbishop to help him, who, in his turn, exhorts the unhappy young king to conform in all things to the will of “the Regents” placed over him under God. ”

“ The stone colonnade which still surrounds the Plaza was crammed; in every window, terrace, mirador, and balcony, the eager countenances of massed-up spectators seemed to clothe the walls.
Raising his plumed hat for a moment from his head, he scanned the multitude come to see him die. In front of the scaffold stood his enemy, Don Enrique, Infante of Aragon, whose efforts to depose Don Juan he had for years successfully combated. Around him gathered a group of nobles of the queen’s party. ”

“ Nothing answers like diversion. You have dealt wisely in setting up one brother against the other. In making Fadique Grand Master of Santiago the jealous spleen of Don Enrique is fed and nourished. He has no position in Castile. But about that prophecy, my lord,” continues Albuquerque—seeking to return to the important matter on which his mind is set, which Don Pedro is obviously seeking to avoid—“of which I spoke to your Grace. Do you intend to verify it by the lack of rightful heirs? Pardon me, my lord, I speak in the interest of Castile. ”

“ Don Enrique had only time to escape by night from the Alcazar in disguise, with his most faithful adherents; his showy but inefficient army, comprised, as Albuquerque had reminded him, of so many heterogeneous elements, ill-paid and ill-fed, melted away before the disciplined troops of his brother, and Blanche, poor Blanche, was seized in the Alcazar and sent far away from all hope of succour into Andalusia to the castle of Xeres. ”

“ Don Enrique insists on her succession, to exclude his brother and sister. Why this imposture has been tolerated so long I cannot understand.”
“Such vice is disgusting; the palace is nothing but a brothel!” exclaims the fiery Pimentel, Lord of Benevente, ever impatient and outspoken, one of the most powerful lords in the kingdom, with broad lands in the north and an ancient castle within the confines of Leon. “Where is our national honour? The king has forfeited our allegiance. For the sake of a miserable bastard he keeps his sister, Doña Isabel, shut up in the fortress here.” ”

“ Don Fadique,” he adds, reading the breathless interest expressed in both the fair ladies’ eyes, now riveted upon him, “is of a temper to attach all who approach him. Even the queen, with so many causes of displeasure against the children of Doña Eleanor de Guzman, who led away the fancy of her consort, always cherished him.”
“Tell me,” says Claire, in her eagerness placing her hand upon his arm, “does Don Fadique ride with his brother, Don Enrique, against the king? Will he join in the siege of Toledo?” ”

“ It was during the intrigues put in practice to force the Trapani alliance upon Spain, that the Spanish people turned their eyes to Don Francisco de Paulo's second son, who lived away from the court, following with much zeal his profession of a sailor. Not only the Progresistas, but that section of the Moderados whose principles were most assimilated to theirs, looked upon Don Enrique as the candidate to be preferred before all others. For this there were many reasons. As a Spaniard he was naturally more pleasing to them than a foreigner ”

“ Below, in the Campo de Montiel, beside the bare shores of a chain of lakes bordering the course of the river Guadiana, Don Enrique and Du Guesclin are watching in their tents. How can they seize the king? ”

“ I speak in my own name and in that of the Archbishop of Toledo; we old ministers of the throne and councillors of state are agreed. Never was a nation sunk to so low an ebb. The rule of Don Alvarez de Luna was glory to it. The proclamation of the Beltraneja as heir has brought matters to a crisis. It is rumoured among those about him that Don Enrique was so anxious for the birth of a child, that, knowing his{277} own incapacity, he has himself connived at this dishonour. ”

“ Is she alone?”
“As far as we know,” is the reply, “one female attendant only is with her. The Lady Blanche is invaluable as a hostage.”
“In what sense?”
“Your Highness may at once dictate peace to Don Pedro by giving her up.”
“Never!” cries Don Enrique. “Even to speak of it is a crime. My lord,” rising and turning sharply on Albuquerque, “you forget whom you now serve. The perfidious policy of my brother never shall be mine.” ”

“ The chancellor, disgraced by his master, retired to his fortress near Portugal, whither he was shortly followed by Don Enrique and Don Fadrique, the half-brothers of the king. The three, fully aware of the energy and resolution of Pedro, not only made good preparation for defense, but organized a formidable rebellion, which had for its object the enthronement of Don Enrique.
——
CHAPTER III. For a time Pedro’s movements were as erratic as his stormy temper. Insurrection here, robbers there, required his attention; but at last he sought a season of repose at the Alcazar of Seville. ”

“ The youth said he was the son of Don Enrique de Cardenas. Don Rafael replied that he was well acquainted with Don Enrique, and knew for certain that he had no son; but that if he had given that answer because he did not choose to make known his family, it was of no consequence, and he should not be questioned again on that subject.
"It is true," said the youth, "that Don Enrique has no children, but his brother Don Sancho has."
"He has no son either," replied Don Rafael, "but an only daughter, who, by the bye, they say is one of the handsomest damsels in Andalusia ”

“ He was much more successful in the serranilla and vagueira-highland pastorals after the Provengal manner. His rhymed collection of Proverbios de gloriosa doctrina é fructuosa ensenanza was prepared for the use of Don Enrique, the heir-apparent. ”

“ The stout prior of the hospital, being once aroused, was full of ardor and enterprise. Concerting with the Prince Don Enrique, and the Masters of Calatrava and Alcantara, and the valiant Lorenzo Xuarez, they made a sudden assault by night on the suburb of Seville called Benaljofar, and broke their way into it with fire and sword. The Moors were roused from their sleep by the flames of their dwellings and the shouts of the Christians. There was hard and bloody fighting. The prior of the hospital, with his valiant friars, was in the fiercest of the action, and their war-cry of “San Juan! ”

“ According to these two (there are other nobles in the Council of Regency, such as Don Pedro de Mendoza, the treasurer who disposes of the revenue, but the archbishop and Villena chiefly rule Castile) {209} Enrique is to have no eyes, ears, or senses, but at their bidding. If he asks a question as to the matters of his kingdom, commands a largess to be disbursed, or expresses a wish for liberty to hunt or exercise himself in arms, or to entertain his friends, he is at once treated like a troublesome child and silenced. ”

“ Yet these slender, wiry countrymen, carrying themselves like self-reliant freemen, with a natural ease of bearing and a courtesy in which simplicity and punctilio are nicely blended, take the stranger entirely on his merits and give and expect the same courtesy as the wealthy estanciero. If the newcomer shows a friendly spirit, his title soon advances from “Señor”—or “Mister,” in honor of his foreign origin, be he French, Spanish, Italian, English, or American—to the use of his first name, and he will be known as “Don Carlos,” “Don Enrique,” or whatever it may be, to the end of his stay. ”

“ To tell the truth, I thought first of Castell. You don't mind, do you? Enrique is more than a friend and brother to me. It would be the natural thing. But I will tell you privately, Cristina opposed it. Religious scruples, do you see? Enrique professes such upsetting ideas and declares them with such excessive frankness, the ladies cannot forgive him. It is all because he is not a practical man. He might hold all the notions he liked if he would keep them a little more to himself when he is among women. ”

“ Don Enrique de Castro”; in which known facts and fanciful adventures are mingled in the wildest confusion. The scene is carried back, by means of the story of the hero’s uncle, who has become a hermit in his old age, to the Italian wars of Charles the Eighth of France, and forward, in the person of the hero himself, to the conquest of Chili by the Spaniards; covering meanwhile any intermediate space that seems convenient to its author’s purposes. As an historical novel, it is an entire failure. ”