Boabdilla still held Granada, oblivious of his engagement to surrender
that city when his rival, El Zagal, should be conquered.[1] We need
not here digress to rehearse the oft-told story of the siege of
Granada, during which Moslem rivalled Christian in deeds of chivalry.
Peter Martyr's letters in the _Opus Epistolarum_ recount these events.
He shared to the full the exultation of the victors, but was not
oblivious of the grief and humiliation of the vanquished whom
he describes as weeping and lamenting upon the graves of their
forefathers, with a choice between captivity and exile before their
despairing eyes. He portrays his impressions upon entering with the
victorious Christian host into the stately city. _Alhambrum, proh dii
immortales! Qualem regiam, romane purpurate, unicam in orbe terrarum,
crede_, he exclaims in his letter to Cardinal Arcimboldo of Milan.

[Note 1: The Moorish power was at this time weakened by an
internal dissension. El Zagal had succeeded his brother, Muley Abdul
Hassan, who, at the time of his death ruled over Baza, Guadiz,
Almeria, and other strongholds in the south-east, while his son
Boabdil was proclaimed in Granada, thus dividing the kingdom against
itself, at a moment when union was most essential to its preservation.
Boabdil had accepted the protection of King Ferdinand and had even
stipulated the surrender of Granada as the reward for his uncle's
defeat. Consult Prescott's _Ferdinand and Isabella_.]

Divers are the appreciations of the precise part played by Peter
Martyr in the course of this war. He spent quite as much time with
the Queen's court as he did at the front, and he himself advances but
modest claims to war's laurels, writing rather as one who had missed
his vocation amongst men whose profession was fighting. The career he