Pedro Arias de Ávila

“ You are a liar, Pedro Pedrarias, and were I but free, with my good sword in hand, fain would I render you unable to utter more false statements against me and those who were once true to me!"
"Ha! Would you, then? Here, jailer, double this fellow's irons, and if he protest, weight him to the floor with them! My throat you would slit, eh? Old as I am, you will find that when it comes to the cutting of throats, Don Pedrarias de Avila needs not rely upon his own unaided sword. There is one in my employ who wields a more potent weapon—mark you—and that is Gomez, the headsman. ”

“ He has never had service so arduous as here, for the grand prior, Don Luis de Avila, is nothing to his Majesty except a dear old brother in arms, with whom he is fond of talking about the past. Everything rests on my poor husband. He said, a short time ago, that he would no longer endure playing the host to everybody who comes to San Yuste, being agent for everybody in Spain who desires anything from the Emperor Charles, and at the same time constantly caring for the person of the sick sovereign. ”

“ In the disputed succession that ensued Avila sided with Queen Isabel. Possibly as an expression of royal gratitude, the convent of Santo Tomás was chosen for the first seat of the Tribunal of the Inquisition; and in 1491 three Jews, professing the faith of their fathers to the last, were roasted to death in the Mercado Grande.
Avila was the seat of the Supreme Junta of the Comunidad from July to September 1520. The rebellious temper of her citizens found expression in Philip II.’s reign in some anonymous placards, posted in the streets, reflecting on the king’s policy. ”

“ They had really only proceeded a few miles into the mountains beyond Avila, but already their sturdy little legs were tired, and their stout little backs were sore. Pedro thought crusading not such very great fun after all; he was always hungry and thirsty, and Theresa would only let him take a bite once in a while.
“Don’t you suppose there is a Moorish castle somewhere around here that we could capture, and so get plenty to eat?” he inquired of his sister. “That is what the Cid was always finding. ”

“ The appointment in 1514 of Pedrarias Dávila (see Arias de Avila) as governor of the regions discovered and partly occupied by Balboa, and his appearance on the coast of Darien with a large armament, at once gave rise to trouble. Arias was an aged man of mediocre attainments, jealous, deceitful, and vindictive. Balboa was generous, careless, and over-confident in the merits of his achievements, and was no match for the intrigues that forthwith began against him. To mask his sinister designs Arias gave one of his daughters to Balboa in marriage. ”

“ Perhaps the most notable of the many monasteries and churches of Ávila is the Convent of San Tomas at the foot of the hill to the south. As in many important Spanish churches, the choir is placed in a great stone gallery at the west end, and in this instance the arrangement is balanced by a similar gallery for the High Altar at the east. The floor is occupied by the beautiful marble monument of Prince Juan, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Catholic kings, fortunate in all else, desired in vain that greatest blessing of all, the happiness of their children. ”

“ Everything speaks of a bygone age, an age of conflict and chivalrous deeds, when the city must have been far more wealthy and powerful than now, to have erected such solid edifices. We are not in the least surprised to hear it was originally founded by Hercules himself, or one of the forty of that name to whom so many of the cities of Spain are attributed. Avila is worthy of being counted among his labors. ”

“ And, happily, the woman’s fame has far outshone the man’s.
We may assume that no one who visits Avila is ignorant of the leading events in her career, or needs to be told what manner of woman she was. What we have to do is to follow her footsteps through her native city. The house in which she was born on March 28, 1515, has been converted into an ugly church (Nuestra Seráfica{132} Madre Santa Teresa de Jesus) . The exterior is in the baroque style. The room in which she first saw the light is now a chapel in the worst taste, and contains her rosary, sandals, and even one of her fingers. ”

“ It was for the advantage of all to gain the troops of Narvaez by fair words, presents, and promises; their numbers were too great in comparison to ours; and if they were once to rise up in anger, they might easily put us all to the sword.
To this Avila replied in a very haughty manner, which obliged Cortes to exclaim, "Those who do not feel inclined to obey are at liberty to leave my standard; Spanish women bring forth sufficient children into the world, and every son is a soldier in Spain!" ”

“ There are beggars, of course, in all countries; but such degraded, miserable beings as we meet in beautiful Italy and brilliant Spain, are to be seen in no other part of the world.
After this purposeless stoppage, our express train [Pg 111] moves on again at a good six miles per hour, and there is no further halt till we reach the ancient city of Avila, founded by Hercules, and the birth-place of St. Theresa. Its decaying old streets, its high mouldering castle, its Gothic houses, and its large churches, have all a very forsaken aspect. ”

“ The large windows have been walled up to darken the interior, for Spain, the hardy, the all-enduring, ignores the frosts of eight months of the year to provide against the summer heats. The details of Avila Cathedral are truly lovely; a double-aisled ambulatory round the warm space of the High Altar, a retablo of ancient pictures, isolated marble shrines between chancel and choir near which kneel groups of black-veiled worshipers, gleaming brass rejas, a carved coro where the canons chant and where are massive illuminated hymnals on the lectern, all make up one's ideal of a house of God. ”

“ It is true that the country was a wilderness; but Spain still asserted her dominion, though no beneficial use had been made of the neglected forest and tangled swamp. At this epoch, a certain Pedro Melendez de Aviles—a coarse, bold, bloody man, who signalized himself in the wars in Holland against the Protestants, and was renowned in Spanish America for deeds which, even in the loose law of that realm, had brought him to justice, was then hanging about the Court of Philip II. in search of plunder or employment. ”

“ Narvaez was referred for redress to France, where Avila was still a prisoner. The pilots Umbria and Cardenas obtained royal grants of property in New Spain, to the extent of a thousand crowns in annual rent. And it was ordained that all the veterans of Cortes should have immediate and ample gratifications in lands and Indians, with such precedency in rank as their valour and services had deserved. This sentence was confirmed by the emperor at Valladolid, who was then on his road to Flanders ”

“ An easy afternoon walk can be taken to Son Soles, a hermitage on the lower slope of the mountains, whither the saint must have gone in the summer evenings when the sunset glorified the plain and hills, for the customs of Avila to-day are those of Avila in the sixteenth century. A path led us across the aromatic fields, and country men in wide-brimmed velvet hats gazed at us with clear, fearless eyes, grave yet courteous, like true Castilians. ”

“ Drunkenness such as yours lets fall words for which there is no remedy,—words more murderous than the dagger. It is not the master, it is the friend who speaks to you. Can I count on you both?"
"You can."
"I leave this place for a few days; you will remain in the neighbourhood. At a short distance from the pueblo is the Hacienda de las Norias de San Antonio; do you know it?"
"Who does not know Don Pedro de Luna?"
"Watch that hacienda carefully, both without and within. If anything extraordinary befalls Don Pedro or his daughter, Doña Hermosa, one of you will come and acquaint me with it. ”

“ Avila ‘of the Knights’ was, before all else, a fortress. When the walls were built, churches and suburbs were left outside the enclosure, that the military advantages of the height on which the old town stands might not be lost. These walls of dark-red granite girdle Avila to-day, unbroken, formidable, intact. They rise so high that they shut out from view all that they enclose, except the towers of the cathedral. Near San Vicente the masonry is fourteen feet thick, and forty-two feet in height. ”

“ Avila (ä'vē-la ̇) , a town of Spain, capital of province of Avila, a modern division of Old Castile. It is the see of the Bishop suffragan of Santiago, with fine cathedral. Once one of the richest towns of Spain. Principal employment in the town, spinning; in the province, breeding sheep and cattle. Pop., town, 12,060; province, 214,008.
Avila, Gil Gonzalez d', a Spanish antiquary and biographer, 1577-1658; made historiographer of Castile in 1612, and of the Indies in 1641. Most valuable works: Teatro de las Grandezas de Madrid, 1623, and Teatro Ecclesiastico, 1645-53. ”

“ His preaching gifts were developed by the orator Juan de Avila, and he became one of the most famous of Spanish preachers. He was invited to Portugal in 1555 and became provincial of his order, declining the offer of the archbishopric of Braga but accepting the position of confessor and counsellor to Catherine, the queen regent. At the expiration of his tenure of the provincialship, he retired to the Dominican convent at Lisbon, where he lived till his death on the last day of 1588. ”

“ Don Fernando rose.
"Where are you going?" asked the colonel.
"Back to the Hacienda del Cormillo."
"At once! Without finishing your breakfast?"
"This instant. I am torn by indescribable anxiety. The Indians may attack the hacienda; and God knows what may happen."
"El Cormillo is fortified, and cannot be taken by a coup-de-main. However, I think Doña Hermosa would be safer here. Try, if there is time, to induce Don Pedro to return: no one can foresee the issue of an invasion undertaken on such a scale; and one cannot take too many precautions. ”

“ Nor were persons of the holiest lives and the most ascetic tempers beyond the reach of its mistrust, if they but showed a tendency to inquiry. Thus, Juan de Avila, known under the title of the Apostle of Andalusia, and Luis de Granada, the devout mystic, with Teresa de Jesus and Juan de la Cruz, both of whom were afterwards canonized by the Church of Rome, all passed through its cells, or in some shape underwent its discipline. ”

“ The merit of this, and many other books of the same order, lies less in any beauty of style they possess than in the interest which attaches to the evidence of capable men who saw great events. Luis de Ávila is also valuable because he gives expression to that pride and ambition of the emperor’s Spanish followers, who really dreamt that they were helping towards the establishment of a universal empire. Another writer of the same stamp, who lived when the fortune of Spain had reached its height and was beginning to turn, was Don Bernardino de Mendoza, a most typical Spaniard of his time. ”

“ Could we be emperors, too, sister, if we were martyrs, and had each a crown? But we must be crusaders first, I suppose. Come, let us go at once."
The road from granite-walled Avila to the south is across a wild and desolate waste, frowned down upon on either hand by the savage crests of the grim sierras of the Guadarrama. It winds along gorges and ravines and rocky river-beds, and has always been, even in the days of Spanish power and glory, about as untamed and savagely picturesque a road as one could well imagine. ”

“ The country bounding on the river Chipin was at that time inhabited by a very warlike people; and as by far the greater part of Gil Gonsalez's troops were suffering from ill health, the latter had only been able to throw a feeble garrison into the town of Buena Vista. Christobal de Oli had been duly apprized of this, and ordered the town to be attacked; but his troops could not so easily get possession of the place as they expected. Avila's small body of men defended themselves most vigorously, and eight of the soldiers, with a cousin of his, were killed. ”

“ Her heart, pierced by the angel, is in a reliquary below.
We left Avila with regret. Few places take such hold on the heart. For those to whom life has nothing left to offer but long sufferance it seems the very place to live in. The last thing we did was to go to the brow of the hill by San Vicente, and take a farewell look at the convent of the Incarnation, where still so many ”

“ His aristocratic officers also frequented our house, among them Don Luis d'Avila, a nobleman of ancient family, who was one of the duke's favorites. Like the Marquis d'Avennes, he was no longer in his early youth, but was a man of totally different stamp; tall, strong as if hammered from steel, a soldier of invincible strength and skill, a most dreaded seeker of quarrels, but a man whose glowing eyes and wonderful gift of song must have exerted a mysterious, bewitching power over women. ”

“ It will be felt, I think, that Avila is a city which ought on no account to be left unseen in an architectural tour in Spain. Fortunately it is now as easy of access as it was once difficult, for the railway from Valladolid to Madrid, in order to cross the Sierra de Guadarrama, makes a great détour by Avila, and thence on to the Escorial is carried on through the mountain ranges with considerable exhibition of engineering skill, and with great advantage to the traveller, as the views throughout the whole distance are almost always extremely beautiful. ”