ly brought him low might as rapidly restore him to prosperity,
since in this world nothing is stable, and sorrow, like joy, has its
allotted term.

The action here recorded was called by some the battle of Lucena,
by others the battle of the Moorish king, because of the capture of
Boabdil. Twenty-two banners, taken on the occasion, were borne in
triumph into Vaena on the 23d of April, St. George's Day, and hung up in
the church. There they remain (says a historian of after times) to this
day. Once a year, on the festival of St. George, they are borne about in
procession by the inhabitants, who at the same time give thanks to God
for this signal victory granted to their forefathers.*

* Several circumstances relative to the capture of Boabdil vary in
this from the first edition, in consequence of later light thrown on the
subject by Don Miguel Lafuente Alcantara in his History of Granada. He
has availed himself much of various ancient documents relative to the
battle, especially the History of the House of Cordova by the abbot of
Rute, a descendant of that family--a rare manuscript of which few copies
exist.

The question as to the person entitled to the honor and reward for
having captured the king long continued a matter of dispute between
the people of Lucena and Vaena. On the 20th of October, 1520, about
thirty-seven years after the event, an examination of several witnesses
to the fact took place before the chief justice of the fortress of
Lucena, at the instance of Bartolomy Hurtado, the son of Martin, when
the claim of his father was established by Dona Leonora Hernandez, lady
in attendant on the mother of the alcayde of los Donceles, who testified
being present when Boabdil signalized Martin Hurtado as his captor.

The chief honor of the day, and of course of the defeat and capture of
the Moorish monarch, was given by the sovereign to the count de Cabra;
the second to his nephew, Don Diego Fernandez de Cordova.

Among the curious papers cited by Alcantara is one existing in the
archives of the House of Medina Celi, giving the account of the
treasurer of Don Diego Fernandez as to the sums expended by his lord
in the capture of the king, the reward given to some soldiers for a
standard of the king's which they had taken, to others for the wounds
they had received, etc.

Another paper speaks of an auction at Lucena on the 28th of April
of horses and mules taken in the battle. Another paper states the