Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/24

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xii
INTRODUCTION AND

be supposed to be similar in substance to those renunciations which Osorio mentions and reproves.

Among those who disnaturalised themselves may be cited various Condes de Haro of Biscay, and Guzman, who gave his services to Marocco, and who bears the title of El Bueno. With regard to Count Diego de Haro, who in 1216 withdrew from Castile to Navarre, Mariana makes the following observations.

"Several great lords of Castile, irritated against their king, whose avarice they could not endure, had passed into the kingdoms of Navarre and Aragon, after having renounced their right of naturalisation by a public deed, a means formerly in use amongst those nations, in order not to be regarded as traitors and rebels when they quitted the states of their sovereign. . . Among the grandees who came to take refuge in Navarre, the most illustrious beyond dispute was Don Diego de Haro. This lord had excellent qualities: never were seen greater constancy, probity, or zeal for the public service than his; the slightest injustice irritated him. It was in order not to see his country and freedom oppressed, that he abandoned Castile."—Mariana, History of Spain, book xiii.

"In the year 1276, Alfonso the Wise had defeated Yussuf, the Emperor of Marocco, and made peace with him with the assistance of Guzman: a tournament was held in Seville in celebration of it, and King Alfonso having asked who had most distinguished himself, was told D. Alonzo Perez. He asked which of them, and. D. Juan Ramirez de Guzman replied: 'Alonzo Perez de Guzman, my brother of profit.' This answer seemed ill to all, and especially to Guzman, who saw that a slur was cast upon the illegitimacy of his birth, for at that time they named children of profit (gananciu), those who were born of unmarried women, and his mother had not been married. Guzman, irritated at being thus spoken of before the king and the court, then said: