his subjects from the horrors that
threatened them, delivered himself up, together with his family of a
hundred children, to the disposal of the Almoravide.

The barbarous African, dreading the influence of a monarch whose
virtues had rendered him so justly dear to his people, sent him to end
his days in an African prison, where his daughters were obliged to
support their father and brothers by the labour of their hands.

The unfortunate Benabad lived six years after the commencement of his
imprisonment, regretting his lost throne only for the sake of his {94}
people, and beguiling the period of his protracted leisure by the
composition of several poems which are still in existence. In them he
attempts to console his daughters under their heavy afflictions,
recalls the remembrance of his vanished greatness, and offers himself
as a warning and example to kings who shall presume to trust too
confidently to the unchanging continuance of the favours of fortune.

Joseph-ben-Tessefin, after he had thus become master of Seville and
Cordova, soon succeeded in subjugating the other petty Mussulman
states; and the Moors, united under a single monarch as powerful as
Joseph, threatened again to occupy the important position they had
sustained during the supremacy of their caliphs. The Spanish princes,
alarmed at this prospect, suspended their individual quarrels, and
joined Alphonso in resisting the Africans.

At this particular juncture, a fanatical love of religion and glory
induced many European warriors to take up arms against the infidels.
Raymond of Bourgogne, and his kinsman Henry, both French princes of the
blood, Raymond of Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse, with some other
cavaliers from among their vassals, crossed the {95} Pyrenees with
their retainers, and fought under the banners of the King of Castile.
Thus assisted, that sovereign put the Egyptian commander to flight, and
compelled him, soon afterward, to recross the Mediterranean.

The grateful Alphonso gave his daughters as a recompense to the
distinguished Frenchmen who had lent him the aid of their arms. The
eldest, Urraca, espoused Raymond of Bourgogne, and their son afterward
inherited the kingdom of Castile. Theresa became the wife of Henry,
and brought him as a dowry all the land he had thus far conquered or
should hereafter conquer in Portugal: from thence originated that
kingdom. Elvira was given to Raymond, count of Toulouse, who carried
her with