THE CITY OF THE MOOR 13 



did Uriah, left him at the mercy of the enemy. 

 Yusuf, however, treated the captured prince with 

 generosity, and showed him a letter which he 

 shortly after received from the Sultan of Fez, 

 requesting that he might be poisoned. Thirsting 

 for vengeance, Abu Said procured arms and 

 soldiers at Granada, and, invading Morocco, 

 drove his perfidious brother from the throne. 

 Thereafter he was the sworn ally of the Sultan 

 of Granada, whom Castile and Aragon no longer 

 ventured to trouble. Yusuf III. passed away 

 in 1417. 



The history of Granada is henceforward one 

 of almost continuous revolution and tumult. 

 Mohammed VIII. was driven into exile by a name- 

 sake reckoned as the ninth of his name, and then 

 restored by a counter-revolution. A Castilian 

 army ravaged the Vega up to the walls of the 

 capital. Granada itself would have fallen, had 

 not Juan II. and the great Constable, Alvaro 

 de Luna, been recalled to Castile by the dis- 

 orders which resulted in the latter's overthrow. 

 An earthquake desolated the distracted kingdom ; 

 and we may suppose that Mohammed VIII. 

 was not altogether sorry when he abandoned 

 his throne to a pretender and fled to Malaga. 



The new sultan, Yusuf IV., held his throne as 

 a fief of Castile, the support of which he had 

 to purchase with humiliating concessions. He 



