pieces, and all the harnessing glittered with silver.

The camp equipage of these noble and luxurious warriors was equally
magnificent. Their tents were gay pavilions of various colors, fitted
up with silken hangings and decorated with fluttering pennons. They had
vessels of gold and silver for the service of their tables, as if they
were about to engage in a course of stately feasts and courtly revels,
instead of the stern encounters of rugged and mountainous warfare.
Sometimes they passed through the streets of Cordova at night in
splendid cavalcade, with great numbers of lighted torches, the rays of
which, falling upon polished armor and nodding plumes and silken
scarfs and trappings of golden embroidery, filled all beholders with
admiration.*

* Pulgar, part 3, cap. 41, 56.

But it was not the chivalry of Spain alone which thronged the streets of
Cordova. The fame of this war had spread throughout Christendom: it
was considered a kind of crusade, and Catholic knights from all parts
hastened to signalize themselves in so holy a cause. There were several
valiant chevaliers from France, among whom the most distinguished was
Gaston du Leon, seneschal of Toulouse. With him came a gallant train,
well armed and mounted and decorated with rich surcoats and panaches of
feathers. These cavaliers, it is said, eclipsed all others in the light
festivities of the court: they were devoted to the fair, but not after
the solemn and passionate manner of the Spanish lovers; they were gay,
gallant, and joyous in their amours, and captivated by the vivacity of
their attacks. They were at first held in light estimation by the grave
and stately Spanish knights until they made themselves to be respected
by their wonderful prowess in the field.

The most conspicuous of the volunteers, however, who appeared in Cordova
on this occasion was an English knight of royal connection. This was the
Lord Scales, earl of Rivers, brother to the queen of England, wife of
Henry VII. He had distinguished himself in the preceding year at the
battle of Bosworth Field, where Henry Tudor, then earl of Richmond,
overcame Richard III. That decisive battle having left the country
at peace, the earl of Rivers, having conceived a passion for warlike
scenes, repaired to the Castilian court to keep his arms in exercise in
a campaign against the Moors. He brought with him a hundred archers,
all dextrous with the longbow and the cloth-yard arrow; also two h