Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/193

MINORITY OF FERDINAND. 49 II. To oppose this, a wooden fortress of the same chapter height was constructed by the assailants, and plant- ed with lombards and other pieces of artillery then in use, which kept up an unintermitting discharge of stone bullets on the little garrison. ^^ The Cata- lans also succeeded in running a mine beneath the fortress, through which a considerable body of troops penetrated into it, when, their premature cries of exultation having discovered them to the besieged, they were repulsed, after a desperate struggle, with great slaughter. The queen dis- played the most intrepid spirit in the midst of these alarming scenes ; unappalled by the sense of her own danger and that of her child, and by the dismal lamentations of the females by whom she was surrounded, she visited every part of the works in person, cheering her defenders by her presence and dauntless resolution. Such were the stormy and disastrous scenes in which the youthful Ferdi- nand commenced a career, whose subsequent pros- perity was destined to be checkered by scarcely a reverse of fortune. ^^ 34 L. Marineo, Cosas Memora- riod, and indeed later, that it was bles, fol. 116. — Alonso de Palen- usual for a field-piece not to be cia, Coronica, MS., part. 2, cap. 51. discharged more than twice in the — Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. fol. 113. course of an action, if we may The Spaniards, deriving the credit MachiavelU, who, indeed, re- knowledge of artillery from the commends dispensing with the use Arabs, had become familiar with of artillery altogether. Arte della it before the other nations of Chris- Guerra, lib. 3. (Opere, Genova, tendom. The affirmation of Zuri- 1798.) ta, however, that 5000 balls were 35 Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, fired from the battery of the be- MS., part. 2jC. 51. — L. Marineo, siegers at Gerona in one day, is Cosas Memorables, fol. 116. — Zu- perfectly absurd. So little was the rita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 113. — science of gunnery advanced in Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. other parts of Europe at this pe- fol. 259. VOL. 1. 7