city near Nisibis) by the Arabs. Although the historical allusions
are far from clear, we gather that Bēth-Ḥūr, which in zealous
paganism had been a successor to Ḥaran, had been in earlier days
devastated by the Persians:[1] but for the last 34 years the Persians
had themselves suffered subjection.[2] And now had come a flood of
Arab invaders, “sons of Hagar,” who had swept away the city and
carried all its inhabitants captive. From these two poems, and from
the 2nd homily on Fasting (Bickell 14=Bedjan 17) we gain a vivid
picture of the miseries borne by the inhabitants of that frontier region
during the wars between Persia and the Romano-Greek empire.
There are also instructive references to the heathen practices and
the worship of pagan deities (such as Baalti, Uzzi, Gedlath and the
planet Venus) prevalent in Mesopotamia. Two other poems (Bickell
35, 36=Bedjan 66, 67), written probably at Antioch,[3] describe the
prevalence of sorcery and the extraordinary influence possessed by
“Chaldeans” and enchanters over women who were nominally
Christians.
The metre of all the published homilies is heptasyllabic. (N. M.)
ISABELLA (1451–1504), surnamed la Catolica, “the Catholic,”
queen of Castile, was the second child and only daughter
of John II. of Castile by his second wife Isabella, granddaughter
of John I. of Portugal (thus being through both parents a
descendant of John of Gaunt), and was born at Madrigal on
the 22nd of April 1451. On the death of her father, who was
succeeded by her brother Henry IV. (1454), she was withdrawn
by her mother to Arevalo, where her early education was conducted
in the deepest seclusion; in 1462, however, along with
her uterine brother Alphonso, she was removed by Henry to the
court, where she showed a remarkable example of staidness
and sobriety. Already more than one suitor had made application
for her hand, Ferdinand of Aragon, who ultimately became her
husband, being among the number; for some little time she
was engaged to his elder brother Charles, who died in 1461.
In her thirteenth year her brother promised her in marriage
to Alphonso of Portugal, but she firmly refused to consent;
her resistance seemed less likely to be effectual in the case
of Pedro Giron, grand master of the order of Calatrava and
brother of the marquis of Villena, to whom she was next affianced,
when she was delivered from her fears by the sudden death of the
bridegroom while on his way to the nuptials in 1466. After an
offer of the crown of Castile, made by the revolutionary leaders
in the civil war, had been declined by her, she was in 1468
formally recognized by her brother as lawful heir, after himself,
to the united crowns of Castile and Leon. New candidates for
her hand now appeared in the persons of a brother of Edward IV.
of England (probably Richard, duke of Gloucester), and the
duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI., and heir presumptive
of the French monarchy. Finally however, in face of very
great difficulties, she was married to Ferdinand of Aragon at
Valladolid on the 19th of October 1469. Thence forward the
fortunes of Ferdinand and Isabella were inseparably blended.
For some time they held a humble court at Dueñas, and afterwards
they resided at Segovia, where, on the death of Henry, she
was proclaimed queen of Castile and Leon (December 13, 1474).
Spain undoubtedly owed to Isabella’s clear intellect, resolute
energy and unselfish patriotism much of that greatness which
for the first time it acquired under “the Catholic sovereigns.”
The moral influence of the queen’s personal character over the
Castilian court was incalculably great; from the debasement
and degradation of the preceding reign she raised it to being
“the nursery of virtue and of generous ambition.” She did
much for letters in Spain by founding the palace school and by
her protection of Peter Martyr d’Anghiera. The very sincerity
of her piety and strength of her religious convictions led her
more than once, however, into great errors of state policy, and into
more than one act which offends the moral sense of a more
refined age: her efforts for the introduction of the Inquisition into
Castile, and for the proscription of the Jews, are outstanding
evidences of what can only be called her bigotry. But not even
the briefest sketch of her life can omit to notice that happy instinct
or intuition which led her, when all others had heard with incredulity
the scheme of Columbus, to recall the wanderer to her
presence with the words, “I will assume the undertaking for my
own crown of Castile, and am ready to pawn my jewels to defray
the expenses of it, if the funds in the treasury should be found
inadequate.” She died at Medina del Campo on the 24th of
November 1504, and was succeeded by her daughter Joanna
“la loca” (the “Crazy”) and her husband, Philip of Habsburg.
See W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1837), where the original authorities are exhaustively enumerated; and for later researches, Baron de Nervo, Isabella the Catholic, translated by Lieut.-Col. Temple-West (1897).
ISABELLA II. (1830–1904), queen of Spain, was born in
Madrid on the 10th of October 1830. She was the eldest daughter
of Ferdinand VII., king of Spain, and of his fourth wife, Maria
Christina, a Neapolitan Bourbon, who became queen-regent
on 29th September 1833, when her daughter, at the age of three
years, was proclaimed on the death of the king. Queen Isabella
succeeded to the throne because Ferdinand VII. induced the
Cortes to assist him in setting aside the Salic law, which the
Bourbons had introduced since the beginning of the 18th century,
and to re-establish the older succession law of Spain. The
brother of Ferdinand, Don Carlos, the first pretender, fought
seven years, during the minority of Isabella, to dispute her
title, and her rights were only maintained through the gallant
support of the army, the Cortes and the Liberals and Progressists,
who at the same time established constitutional and parliamentary
government, dissolved the religious orders, confiscated the
property of the orders and of the Jesuits, disestablished the
Church property, and attempted to restore order in finances.
After the Carlist war the queen-regent, Christina, resigned to
make way for Espartero, the most successful and most popular
general of the Isabelline armies, who only remained regent two
years. He was turned out in 1843 by a military and political
pronunciamiento, led by Generals O’Donnell and Narvaez, who
formed a cabinet, presided over by Joaquin Maria Lopez, and
this government induced the Cortes to declare Isabella of age
at thirteen. Three years later the Moderado party or Castilian
Conservatives made their queen marry, at sixteen, her cousin,
Prince Francisco de Assisi de Bourbon (1822–1902), on the same
day (10th October 1846) on which her younger sister married
the duke of Montpensier. These marriages suited the views of
France and Louis Philippe, who nearly quarrelled in consequence
with Great Britain; but both matches were anything but happy.
Queen Isabella reigned from 1843 to 1868, and that period was
one long succession of palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber
influences, barrack conspiracies, military pronunciamientos
to further the ends of the political parties—Moderados,
who ruled from 1846 to 1854, Progressists from 1854 to 1856,
Union Liberal from 1856 to 1863; Moderados and Union Liberal
quickly succeeding each other and keeping out the Progressists
so steadily that the seeds were sown which budded into the
revolution of 1868. Queen Isabella II. often interfered in
politics in a wayward, unscrupulous manner that made her
very unpopular. She showed most favour to her reactionary
generals and statesmen, to the Church and religious orders, and
was constantly the tool of corrupt and profligate courtiers and
favourites who gave her court a deservedly bad name. She
went into exile at the end of September 1868, after her Moderado
generals had made a slight show of resistance that was crushed at
the battle of Alcolea by Marshals Serrano and Prim. The only
redeeming traits of Queen Isabella’s reign were a war against
Morocco, which ended in an advantageous treaty and some cession
of territory; some progress in public works, especially railways;
a slight improvement in commerce and finance. Isabella was
induced to abdicate in Paris on 25th June 1870 in favour of her
son, Alphonso XII., and the cause of the restoration was thus
much furthered. She had separated from her husband in the
previous March. She continued to live in France after the
restoration in 1874. On the occasion of one of her visits to Madrid
during Alphonso XII.’s reign she began to intrigue with the
- ↑ Possibly in the war at the beginning of the reign of Bahrām V.: but on the uncertainty see Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Perser und Araber, 117.
- ↑ Probably at the hands of the Hephthalites or White Huns of Kūshan: cf. Isaac’s mention of the Huns in 1. 420 of the 1st poem.
- ↑ The author refers to the weeping for Tammuz (1. 125 of the 1st poem), and speaks of his city as illustrious throughout the world (ib. 1. 132).
