The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1576-77 | Page 3

that seems highly apocryphal, that he had never brought home such

precious game from any hunt before.
This theatrical recognition of imperial descent was one among the
many romantic incidents of Don John's picturesque career, for his life
was never destined to know the commonplace. He now commenced his
education, in company with his two nephews, the Duchess Margaret's
son, and Don Carlos, Prince-royal of Spain. They were all of the same
age, but the superiority of Don John was soon recognized. It was not
difficult to surpass the limping, malicious, Carlos, either in physical
graces or intellectual accomplishments; but the graceful; urbane, and
chivalrous Alexander, destined afterwards to such wide celebrity, was a
more formidable rival, yet even the professed panegyrist of the Farnese
family, exalts the son of Barbara Blomberg over the grandson of
Margaret Van Geest.
Still destined for the clerical profession, Don John, at the age of
eighteen, to avoid compliance with Philip's commands, made his
escape to Barcelona. It was his intention to join the Maltese expedition.
Recalled peremptorily by Philip, he was for a short time in disgrace;
but afterwards made his peace with the monarch by denouncing some
of the mischievous schemes of Don Carlos. Between the Prince-royal
and the imperial bastard, there had always been a deep animosity, the
Infante having on one occasion saluted him with the most vigorous and
offensive appellation which his illegitimate birth could suggest.
"Base-born or not," returned Don John, "at any rate I had a better father
than yours." The words were probably reported to Philip and doubtless
rankled in his breast, but nothing appeared on the surface, and the
youth rose rapidly in favor. In his twenty-third year, he was appointed
to the command of the famous campaign against the insurgent Moors
of Granada. Here he reaped his first laurels, and acquired great military
celebrity. It is difficult to be dazzled by such glory. He commenced his
operations by the expulsion of nearly all the Moorish inhabitants of
Granada, bed- ridden men, women, and children, together, and the
cruelty inflicted, the sufferings patiently endured in that memorable
deportation, were enormous. But few of the many thousand exiles
survived the horrid march, those who were so unfortunate as to do so
being sold into slavery by their captors. Still a few Moors held out in
their mountain fastnesses, and two years long the rebellion of this
handful made head against the, power of Spain. Had their envoys to the

Porte succeeded in their negotiation, the throne of Philip might have
trembled; but Selim hated the Republic of Venice as much as he loved
the wine of Cyprus. While the Moors were gasping out their last breath
in Granada and Ronda, the Turks had wrested the island of Venus from
the grasp of the haughty Republic Fainagosta had fallen; thousands of
Venetians had been butchered with a ferocity which even Christians
could not have surpassed; the famous General Bragadino had been
flayed; stuffed, and sent hanging on the yard- arm of a frigate; to
Constantinople, as a present to the Commander of the Faithful; and the
mortgage of Catherine Cornaro, to the exclusion of her husband's
bastards, had been thus definitely cancelled. With such practical
enjoyments, Selim was indifferent to the splendid but shadowy vision
of the Occidental caliphate--yet the revolt of the Moors was only
terminated, after the departure of Don John, by the Duke of Arcos.
The war which the Sultan had avoided in the West, came to seek him in
the East. To lift the Crucifix against the Crescent, at the head of the
powerful but quarrelsome alliance between Venice, Spain, and Rome,
Don John arrived at Naples. He brought with him more than a hundred
ships and twenty-three thousand men, as the Spanish
contingent:--Three months long the hostile fleets had been cruising in
the same waters without an encounter; three more were wasted in
barren manoeuvres. Neither Mussulman nor Christian had much
inclination for the conflict, the Turk fearing the consequences of a
defeat, by which gains already secured might be forfeited; the allies
being appalled at the possibility of their own triumph. Nevertheless, the
Ottomans manoeuvred themselves at last into the gulf of Lepanto, the
Christians manoeuvred themselves towards its mouth as the foe was
coming forth again. The conflict thus rendered inevitable, both Turk
and Christian became equally eager for the fray, equally confident of,
victory. Six hundred vessels of war met face to face. Rarely in history
had so gorgeous a scene of martial array been witnessed. An October
sun gilded the thousand beauties of an Ionian landscape. Athens and
Corinth were behind the combatants, the mountains of Alexander's
Macedon rose in the distance; the rock of Sappho and the heights of
Actium, were before their eyes. Since the day when the