214 TOMBS OF THE KINGS OF AUAGON. 



470. the province fell into the power of the Moors, in 71 4, and was one 

 of the last which was freed from them ; the inhabitants only escaping by 

 parties, and at different times. A small district within it was the first 

 place where the Christians re-established their power. The people are 

 characterized as hardy mountaineers, but we know little of them in the 

 dark period which elapsed under the Gothic dynasty. Charlemagne, in 

 his conquest of Spain, the first war in which he engaged with the sole 

 view to conquest, met with stout resistance here, for we find these people 

 cutting off the rear-guard of the emperor, at Roncesvalles, and subse- 

 quently maintaining their independence. " The Tower of Jaca," says 

 Mr. Hallam, " situated among long narrow ridges of the Pyrennees, was 

 the capital of a little free-state, which afterwards expanded into the 

 monarchy of Aragon ; such was the germe of this afterwards important 

 kingdom. 



Twenty names figure in the historian's list of the Kings of Aragon, from 

 Ramires, 1035, to Ferdinand II, 1481, by whose marriage with Isabella, 

 and death of John II, in 1479, the two ancient and rival kingdoms of 

 Castile and Aragon were for ever consolidated in the monarchy of Spain ; 

 of which Aragon then only became, as it continues to this day, a province. 

 The natures of the Aragonese rulers were as various as their fortunes ; 

 and we find among their titles, the Chaste, the Conqueror, the Beneficent, 

 the Just, the Great. Some of them played " fantastic tricks," for James I 

 was made prisoner in his own palace without any communication, 

 and kept in sight during every twenty days. These kings were buried 

 at Saragossa ; where, in the convent of Jeronomytes, called Sancta 

 Engracia, are to be seen their escutcheons, or tombs. They occupy one 

 side of a cloister, amidst a mixture of ancient and modern ornaments, in 

 freestone, marble-stones, and plaster, and decorated with small marble 

 columns, plain and twisted. It is a desolate building of great irregularity, 

 which arose from Charles 1st (1516) having ordered this cloister to be 

 built pursuant to the particular request of Ferdinand, his grandfather; 

 but the money falling short, the ruins of an old cloister were used. Here 

 also is buried Jerome Blancas, the highly esteemed historiographer of 

 Aragon, who has not even a stone or inscription to indicate his resting 

 place : although he wrote volumes to commemorate the glories of ancient 

 Aragon. What is this but ingratitude ; in short, what is the whole scene 

 in its crumbling decay, but a lesson upon the vanity of power and wealth ; 

 and as the wind sighs through the prison-like windows and beneath the 

 cracking arches of this desolate place, we may meditate a motto for each 

 of the regal escutcheons. " How can you say to me, then, I am a king !' 



