Walter M. Gallichan

'In her own interior Spain had an arduous problem to solve—she had to overcome the old energetic resistance of a whole people—the tolerably numerous descendants of the former lords and conquerors of the country who still adhered to the Arabian manners and language, and even in part professed the doctrines of the Mohammedan.'—Schlegel, Philosophy of History.

SEVILLE in the sixteenth century was at the height of its prosperity. We have seen how the discoveries of Columbus, Magellan, and the brothers Pizarro enriched the city, brought vessels to the port with costly store, and opened a vast foreign trade. In every quarter of the town the hum of industry was heard. The Morisco artisans, who had become 'reconciled' to the Christian creed, laboured in stone and metal, and there were silk weavers, leather workers, potters, and gold and silver smiths. One hundred and thirty thousand persons worked at the looms, which were numbered at sixteen thousand.

Learning and the arts benefited by the increase of the city's wealth. The university, founded by Alfonso the Learned, was extended; the cathedral library was enlarged, and Seville became famous for its poets, historians, romance writers, and playwrights. Pacheco, painter and poet, had his circle of gifted artists and men of letters; and the doors of the Casa Pilatos, the beautiful mansion of the Dukes of AlcalÁ, were open to all the lovers of learning and the students of art. Sculptors and painters were constantly employed upon works of art for the royal palace, the cathedral, and the churches. The MudÉjar architects and builders were engaged by rich dons, who had prospered by the discovery of the New World, to design and erect sumptuous residences in the Morisco style. Charitable institutions, such as the Hospital de la Caridad, were founded and liberally endowed, and an asylum for foundling children was built in the Calle de la Cuna. The highly ornate Casa de Ayuntamiento, or City Hall, was designed by Diego de RiaÑo, and Hernan Ruiz built the upper part of the Giralda.

The Emperor Charles V., one of the wisest rulers of Spain, occasionally made his residence at the AlcÁzar during the palmy days of Seville, though he favoured Segovia and Valladolid. The marriage of the monarch with Isabella, daughter of Emanuel, King of Portugal, was celebrated in the AlcÁzar of Seville with much splendour, and the ceremony was followed by feasts and diversions. Isabella of Portugal was a gifted woman, and extremely beautiful, and the union proved very happy. Charles was at this time highly admired in the city; but at a later date even the loyal Sevillians showed their displeasure with the Emperor. Certain of the merchants of the town disregarded the royal command that all the bullion brought in by the India fleet should be stored in the warehouse of the Board of Trade, and kept there in case the Government required to raise funds quickly for war expenses. The owners of the gold naturally preferred their shipments to the Government bonds promising repayment. They therefore secretly removed the bullion to their own houses. This action angered Charles, as the same practice enraged Philip at a later date, and the Emperor ordered the culprits to be put in chains, sent to prison, and to be deprived of their possessions. The command was heeded at once; and the merchants, and the officials who had connived at the misdemeanour of removing the bullion, were conveyed under a strong guard to Simancas. One of the offenders was put on the rack and died under torture. The gold was, however, never recovered by the State.

The gorgeous SalÓn de Carlos V. was constructed in the royal palace during the reign of the Emperor, who also laid out the gardens on a new plan, and built the handsome pavilion in the grounds.

Philip II. had been on the throne for many years before he paid his first visit to the southern metropolis. The King loved his mountain palace, the Escorial, where he passed his days in writing records of his reign, sending dispatches, and shooting with the gun and crossbow. Prescott says: 'It was a matter of complaint in the Cortes that he thus withdrew himself from the eyes of his subjects.' Even in his visits to Madrid, Segovia and Seville, Philip avoided society, and shut himself up in his closet with a great heap of papers on his table. When he travelled, the King rode in a close carriage, and tried to avoid the gaze of his subjects. As he grew older he developed a still stronger aversion to being seen abroad.

In 1570, at the time of the preparations for the great war with the Turks, the recluse-King came to Seville. His entry was made the occasion of a splendid ceremonial and a demonstration of loyalty on the part of the inhabitants. Philip came from CÓrdova, and was met on the outskirts of the city by the officials and soldiery. Taking his oath to respect the privileges of the city, the Sovereign rode through the crowded streets in pomp, accompanied by knights and guards. A splendid canopy was held by the chief justices over the King's head as he proceeded to the Cathedral to take part in a solemn service. The monarch then took up quarters in the AlcÁzar, which he occupied for a fortnight. During his stay in Seville, Philip appeared at the fÊtes which had been arranged for his entertainment. To show their homage to the King, the people of the city subscribed a hundred thousand ducats as a donation towards the cost of Philip's marriage with his fourth wife, Anne of Austria.

The heavy expenses of the war in the Netherlands and with Turkey led to a despotic method of obtaining pecuniary supplies. Philip needed money, and to secure it as quickly as possible, he ordered that the officials of the Casa de la ContrataciÓn at Seville should seize the cargoes of gold and silver that had just arrived in the port. This action aroused much indignation in the city, and the people grew incensed when the command was again given to confiscate the bullion consigned to merchants of Seville. When a number of treasure ships were on their homeward journey, the King sent Admiral Alvaro de BazÁn to the Azores to intercept the vessels; and immediately upon the arrival of the fleet at San Lucar, the whole of the shipment was sent to Santander, and from that port to Flanders.

Under Philip II. the Church in Seville rose to great power, and increased in wealth. The Archbishop of the city received an income of eighty thousand ducats a year, and the minor clergy profited by the King's patronage of the Church. It is not surprising that many of the sons of families of rank and position crowded into the profession of priest, and that the number of persons in holy orders soon swelled enormously. Arts and handicrafts were not considered gentlemanlike pursuits; the industry of the city was relegated to Spaniards of low birth, to the MudÉjares, and to aliens. The caballero of Seville aspired to join the Church Militant, or to enter the army. When Philip III., the Good, came to the throne there were no less than fourteen thousand chaplains in the diocese, while a hundred clerics were on the staff of the Cathedral alone.

FOUNTAIN IN BATH, ALCÁZAR.
FOUNTAIN IN BATH, ALCÁZAR.

The oppression of the Moriscoes in the city became severer in the days of Philip II. Doubt was cast upon the genuineness of belief among the 'reconciled' Moors, and they were bidden to cease reading books in the Arabic language, to abandon their ceremonies, to change their mode of dress, and to speak in Spanish. The public baths, built by the cleanly Moriscoes, were destroyed in every city, and the MudÉjares were even forbidden to bathe in their own houses. These mandates exasperated the Moriscoes throughout Andalusia. They rebelled and fought desperately; but after frightful bloodshed and suffering, they were quelled and broken down, never to regain their ancient sway. The suppression of the heretics was complete by the time of Philip III. And at this time began the decline of Seville's prosperity.

When Philip V. reigned, the sixteen thousand looms of the city had been reduced to less than three hundred, and the population was thinned to 'a quarter of its former number of inhabitants.' In the fruitful district around Seville the vineyards and olive gardens were in a state of neglect, and fields once fertile became wastes. Trade declined rapidly with the extirpation of heresy. The industrial population was deprived of its most skilful and industrious members when the last band of Moriscoes quitted the city. In the seventeenth century Andalusia suffered fearful poverty. Whole villages were deserted, the land was going out of cultivation, and the tax-collectors were enjoined to seize the beds and such wretched furniture as the indigent peasants possessed in their cheerless houses.

When Philip II. died, loyal Seville honoured the departed King by a magnificent funeral service in the Cathedral. A monument, forty-four feet square, and forty-one feet in height, was designed by Oviedo, at a cost of fifteen thousand ducats. MontaÑes, the famous sculptor, whose work is to be seen in several of the Seville churches, produced some of the statuary to adorn the monument, and the young Pacheco, then unknown, assisted in the decoration. On November 25, 1598, the mourning multitude flocked to the dim Cathedral. While the people knelt upon the stones, and the solemn music floated through the long aisles, there was a disturbance among a part of the congregation. A man was charged with deriding the imposing monument, and creating a disorder in the holy edifice. He was a tax-gatherer and ex-soldier of the city, named Don Miguel de Servantes Saavedra. Some of the citizens took his side, for there was a feud between the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of Seville, and the tax-gatherer had merely shown public spirit. The brawler, whom we know as Cervantes, was expelled from the Cathedral with his companions, and order was restored. But he had his revenge. He went to his room and composed a satirical poem upon the tomb of the King, which was soon published and read everywhere in the city. Here is one of the English translations of the poem:—

TO THE MONUMENT OF THE KING AT SEVILLE.

The discovery of the New World, with its opulence of treasure, and the expulsion of the Moriscoes, did not yield a permanent prosperity to Seville. Even before the death of Philip II., the few far-sighted and reflective men doubted whether a great influx of gold and silver, and the annihilation of freedom of thought, were likely to benefit Spain, either in the material or spiritual sense. The gold fever seized like a frenzy upon the avaricious, and the early colonisers turned their backs upon any country that lacked precious minerals. Nothing save gold and silver was considered valuable. As a consequence these minerals became redundant, and in the meantime the cultivation of the land at home and abroad, and the development of manufactures, were neglected. No one had the enterprise to prevent the silting up of the tidal waters of the Guadalquivir, and so Seville lost its importance as a busy port.

While nobles were fighting for gold, and harrying heretics, briars and weeds were spreading over the fields that the patient Moors had tilled and made marvellously fertile. The establishment of the alcavala tax upon farming produce and manufactured articles hastened the decline of agriculture and of crafts in Andalusia. Finally, under the Bourbons, Cadiz became the rival of Seville, and the Council of the Two Indies was removed to the southern port in 1720. In good or ill fortune Seville remained loyal, winning for itself the title of: Muy noble, muy leal, muy heroica É invicta, i.e., 'Very noble, very loyal, very brave and invincible.'

Some interesting pictures of Seville at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries are to be found in the Letters from Spain, by D. Leucadio Doblado, written in 1824. Doblado is the pseudonym of Blanco White, son of the British Vice-Consul at Seville in those days. White was born in the city in 1775, brought up as a Spaniard, and sent to the University. His parents were very austere Catholics, but reading and study developed a sceptical tendency in young White's mind, and he subsequently came to England and was well-known in Unitarian circles.

In his Life, Blanco White describes the quaint ceremony of entrance into the University of Seville. 'Every day of the week preceding the admission, the candidate was obliged to walk an hour in the principal quadrangle of the college, attended by one of the servitors, and his own servant or page—a needy student who, for the sake of board, lodgings and the cast-off clothes of his master, was glad in that humble capacity to go through the course of studies necessary for the profession—Divinity, Law or Medicine—which he intended to follow.' The custom of the caravanas was a trying ordeal for the student. He was compelled to run the gauntlet of the gibes of a mob of spectators, as a trial of his patience. No physical violence was permitted, except when a candidate lost his temper. An irascible victim was speedily ducked in the basin of the fountain of the quadrangle. Ladies came to see the sport. When White passed through this ordeal, he was dressed in fantastic garments, and led by his tormentors by a rope.

In 1800, Blanco White saw the outbreak of yellow fever that ravaged the city. The plague began in Triana, and the infection was said to have been brought from Cadiz by seamen. As in previous instances of pestilence, there was no enforced isolation of the diseased, and no relief of the suffering poor. Prayers were offered for succour in the Cathedral and the churches, and a special service of the Rogativas, used in the times of severe affliction, was performed on nine days after sunset. One of the choicest relics of the Cathedral, a piece of the True Cross, or Lignum Crucis, was exhibited as a charm on the Giralda Tower. Many persons advised that a wooden crucifix, in one of the chapels of the suburbs, should be also employed. It had been of great service in the plague of 1649, staying the epidemic after half of the inhabitants had been destroyed. A day was fixed for the solemn ceremony of blessing the four winds of heaven with the True Cross from the Cathedral treasury. The great fane was crowded with supplicants. As the priest made the sign of the Cross, with the golden casket containing the Lignum Crucis, a frightful clap of thunder made the Cathedral tremble. In forty-eight hours the deaths increased tenfold. The heat, the polluted air of the Cathedral, the infection that spread among the worshippers, and the fatigue of the service caused a great spread of the fever in the city. Eighteen thousand persons perished from the pestilence.

During the Peninsular War, Soult's troops did considerable damage to parts of Seville. The church that contained the bones of Murillo was pillaged by the soldiers, and the tomb of the great painter was destroyed. On February 1, 1810, the city surrendered with all its stores and arsenal, and Joseph marched in. The French force had appeared before Seville in January 1810. 'In Seville all was anarchy,' writes Sir W. F. P. Napier, in his History of the War in the Peninsula; 'Palafox and Montijo's partisans were secretly ready to strike, the ancient Junta openly prepared to resume their former power.' It was a time of revolt in the city; mobs went through the streets, calling for the deposition of the Junta, and vowing violence against the members. Seville was besieged for the last time in 1843, at the time of Espartero's regency. An account of the siege is given in Revelations of Spain, by an English Resident, who writes: 'I saw full twenty houses in different parts of the city—this was about the entire number—which Van Halen's shells had entirely gutted. The balls did limited damage—a mere crack against the wall, for the most part a few stones dashed out, and there an end. But the bombs—that was indeed a different matter! Wherever they fell, unless they struck the streets, and were buried in the ground, they carried destruction. Lighting on the roof of a house, they invariably pierced through its four or five floors, and bursting below, laid the building in ruins.' Probably not more than twenty lives were lost through the bursting of the shells. Most of the men of the city were defending the walls, and the women took refuge in the churches. The Cathedral sheltered a large number of women and children, who slept and cooked there. The Junta of Seville occupied the Convent of San Paolo during the siege.

Edward VII. of England, when Prince of Wales, paid a visit to Seville, and spent several days in the city, in 1876.

We have now briefly surveyed the more interesting events in the history of the city and noted incidents in the lives of eminent Sevillians from the time of the Goths until the present century.