The Historical Nights Entertainment | Page 5

my face, and tell me this?" he roared,
infuriated by their cold resistance. He flung out an arm in a gesture of
terrible dismissal. "Out of my sight, you proud and evil men! Back to
your cells, to await my pleasure. Since in your arrogant, stiff-necked
pride you refuse to do my will, you shall receive the bishop I shall
myself select."
He was so terrific in his rage that they dared not tell him that he had no
power, prince though he might be, to make such an election, bowed to
him, ever impassively, and with their hands still folded, unhurried as
they had come, they now turned and filed past him in departure.
He watched them with scowling brows and tightened lips, Moniz and
Nunes silent behind him. Suddenly those dark, watchful eyes of his

were held by the last figure of all in that austere procession--a tall,
gaunt young man, whose copper-coloured skin and hawk-featured face
proclaimed his Moorish blood. Instantly, maliciously, it flashed
through the prince's boyish mind how he might make of this man an
instrument to humble the pride of that insolent clergy. He raised his
hand, and beckoned the cleric to him.
"What is your name?" he asked him.
"I am called Zuleyman, lord," he was answered, and the name
confirmed--where, indeed, no confirmation was necessary--the fellow's
Moorish origin.
Affonso Henriques laughed. It would be an excellent jest to thrust upon
these arrogant priests, who refused to appoint a bishop of their choice, a
bishop who was little better than a blackamoor.
"Don Zuleyman," said the prince, "I name you Bishop of Coimbra in
the room of the rebel who has fled. You will prepare to celebrate High
Mass this morning, and to pronounce my absolution."
The Christianized Moor fell back a step, his face paling under its
copper skin to a sickly grey. In the background, the hindmost members
of the retreating clerical procession turned and stood at gaze, angered
and scandalized by what they heard, which was indeed a thing beyond
belief.
"Ah no, my lord! Ah no!" Don Zuleyman was faltering. "Not that!"
The prospect terrified him, and in his agitation he had recourse to Latin.
"Domine, non sum dignus," he cried, and beat his breast.
But the uncompromising Affonso Henriques gave him back Latin for
Latin.
"Dixi--I have spoken!" he answered sternly. "Do not fail me in
obedience, on your life." And on that he clanked out again with his
attendants, well-pleased with his morning's work.

As he had disposed with boyish, almost irresponsible rashness, and in
flagrant contravention of all canon law, so it fell out. Don Zuleyman,
wearing the bishop's robes and the bishop's mitre, intoned the Kyrie
Eleison before noon that day in the Cathedral of Coimbra, and
pronounced the absolution of the Infante of Portugal, who knelt so
submissively and devoutly before him.
Affonso Henriques was very pleased with himself. He made a jest of
the affair, and invited his intimates to laugh with him. But Emigio
Moniz and the elder members of his council refused to laugh. They
looked with awe upon a deed that went perilously near to sacrilege, and
implored him to take their own sober view of the thing he had done.
"By the bones of St. James!" he cried. "A prince is not to be
brow-beaten by a priest."
Such a view in the twelfth century was little short of revolutionary. The
chapter of the Cathedral of Coimbra held the converse opinion that
priests were not to be browbeaten by a prince, and set themselves to
make Affonso Henriques realize this to his bitter cost. They dispatched
to Rome an account of his unconscionable, high-handed, incredible
sacrilege, and invited Rome to administer condign spiritual flagellation
upon this errant child of Mother Church. Rome made haste to vindicate
her authority, and dispatched a legate to the recalcitrant, audacious boy
who ruled in Portugal. But the distance being considerable, and means
of travel inadequate and slow, it was not until Don Zuleyman had
presided in the See of Coimbra for a full two months that the Papal
Legate made his appearance in Affonso Henriques' capital.
A very splendid Prince of the Church was Cardinal Corrado, the envoy
dispatched by Pope Honorius II., full armed with apostolic weapons to
reduce the rebellious Infante of Portugal into proper subjection.
His approach was heralded by the voice of rumour. Affonso Henriques
heard of it without perturbation. His conscience at ease in the
absolution which he had wrung from Mother Church after his own
fashion, he was entirely absorbed in preparations for a campaign
against the Moors which was to widen his dominions. Therefore when

at length the thunderbolt descended, it fell--so far as he was
concerned--from a sky entirely clear.
It was towards dusk of a summer evening