Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/551

MILITARY POLICY OF THE SOVEREIGNS. 405 was always carried throughout these campaigns, chapter An ample supply of bells, vases, missals, plate, and ' other sacred furniture, was also borne along with the camp, being provided by the queen for the purified mosques. ^^ The most touching; part of the incidents usually Release of ° ^ ^ •' Christian occurring at the surrender of a Moorish city, was <=ap^es. the liberation of the Christian captives immured in its dungeons. On the capture of Ronda, in 1485, more than four hundred of these unfortunate persons, several of them cavaliers of rank, some of whom had been taken in the fatal expedition of the Axarquia, were restored to the light of heaven. On being brought before Ferdinand, they pros- trated themselves on the ground, bathing his feet with tears, while their wan and wasted figures, their dishevelled locks, their beards reaching down to their girdles, and their limbs loaded with heavy manacles, brought tears into the eye of every spec- tator. They were then commanded to present themselves before the queen at Cordova, who libe- rally relieved their necessities, and, after the cele- bration of public thanksgiving, caused them to be conveyed to their own homes. The fetters of the liberated captives were suspended in the churches, where they continued to be revered by succeeding generations as the trophies of Christian warfare. " Ever since the victory of Lucena, the sovereigns Poiicyiuio- •^ ^ _ ^ " menting the had made it a capital point of their policy to ^°°J' ^^^ 36 L. Marineo, Cosas Memora- 37 Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, cap. bles, fol. 173. — Bernaldez, Reyes 47. — Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, Catolicos, MS., cap. 82, 87. MS., cap. 75. 1