Iberia (119 page)

 

Estella is so rich in such monuments that one could spend days
here, tracing the secrets which have come down to us from the
Middle Ages, but at lunch a stray question of mine catapulted us
out of the pilgrim days and into the present. The lunch itself was
commendable: savory snails in garlic sauce, followed by lima
beans cooked with quail. The latter was so good that I would have
been content to accept it as hors d’oeuvres, main dish and dessert
in one; the squab was flavored with strong country herbs and the
beans were so tasty and mellow that they seemed a different breed
from the unsavory ones I had known elsewhere, but the meal
ended with trout Navarrese, a large firm fish sautéed with bits of
very salty ham. When I had finished I asked, ‘Am I confused about
this? I seem to remember that Primo de Rivera, the dictator of
the 1920s, bore the title Marqués de Estella. Did he come from
this town?’

 

I had asked the right question. ‘How astonishing!’ Señor Beruete
cried, his eyes alight with excitement. ‘It was my grandfather,
defending the city of Estella in 1876, who had the ugly task of
confronting General Primo de Rivera. Same name but uncle of
the dictator. The government forces were bent upon destroying
Estella, which had given Madrid much trouble, but my
grandfather worked out a plan whereby the city was surrendered
without too much destruction. Because of his victory Primo de
Rivera was made Marqués de Estella, a title which passed on to
his nephew. José Antonio inherited the title and was Marqués de
Estella when he was executed by the Republicans.’

 

‘What was the war about?’

 

‘Carlists,’ Señor Beruete said, and that was all.

 

It was a touchy subject, for Estella had been the capital of Carlist
agitations in Spain and on several occasions had led in civil wars
against Madrid. The trouble was deep-rooted and began in this
way. In 1700, when the Habsburg line died out in the person of
Carlos the Bewitched, Europe agreed to the installation of the
Borbón, in the person of Felipe V, but only if it was understood
that the Spanish and French thrones must never be united under
one ruler. To give effect to this undertaking, Felipe V in 1813, as
part of the Treaty of Utrecht, which we met earlier when
discussing Gibraltar, took public steps to abrogate ancient Spanish
custom whereby women like the great Isabel had ruled, and to
substitute therefor the French Salic law, which excluded females
from the inheritance. So that his intentions could not later be
misconstrued, Felipe announced, ‘I ask the formation of a new
law to govern the inheritance of this monarchy by the male line
rather than the female, preferring that the most remote male
descendant of a male, be always put before the closest female and
her descendants.’ As an additional safeguard against the French
it was decreed that to be eligible, any heir must have been born
in Spain.

 

In 1788, when the danger of French meddling had receded,
Carlos IV was allowed to take the throne, even though he had
been born in Naples, but to be on the safe side he asked the Cortes
to annul the Salic law without announcing this fact to the general
public, and this was done by the step known as the Pragmatic
Sanction of 1789. Spain, although not aware of it at the time, was
once more governed by its own ancient customs and a female
could inherit the throne.

 

So things continued until 1808, when Carlos IV abdicated,
leaving behind two sons, Fernando, who became king, and Carlos,
who had to be content with the insignificant role usually accorded
royal younger sons. Fernando married three times without
producing an heir, so it was understood that when he died his
brother Carlos would become king; but Fernando, although
decrepit and debauched, took a fourth wife who astonished Spain
by quickly producing a daughter. Now who was entitled to the
throne when Fernando died, his brother Carlos in conformity to
Salic law, or his daughter Isabel in accordance with old Spanish
custom?

 

Fernando had compounded the confusion by first announcing,
when it seemed likely that he would have no heir, that the
inheritance should be governed by Salic law; but when his young
wife became pregnant with her unborn child, who might well
turn out to be a daughter, he changed his mind and informed the
public of the existence of the secret Pragmatic Sanction of 1789,
which restored the old Spanish tradition and thus legalized the
succession of his daughter. Before his death he changed his mind
several more times, back and forth until no one could say where
the law rested, and a real uncertainty gripped Spain; but at his
death the partisans of his three-year-old daughter were in
positions of command and were able to install the child as Queen
Isabel II, with effective control resting in a regency. Such a theft
of the throne the followers of Carlos could not tolerate, so the
fuse of the Carlist rebellion was lighted.

 

I have dealt in some detail with this matter of the technical
succession to the throne as a cause of Carlism, and of course the
rebellion was legally rooted there, but many historians feel that
this was merely a cover for what was in fact a revolution to the
right in Spanish politics. Fernando VII was about as absolutist as
a king could be—one British historian calls him ‘the most
contemptible monarch ever to occupy the throne of Spain’—but
even he was not reactionary enough to satisfy the social and
religious fanatics of the north, who had developed a four-pronged
mystique: dedication to the principle of legitimacy as interpreted
by the Salic law; a profound commitment to Catholicism as the
one basic principle on which Spain existed; a preference for an
absolutist and theocratic form of government (when Fernando
assumed the throne they had shouted, ‘Death to liberty and long
live the absolutist Fernando’); and a determination to force the
reinstitution of the Inquisition, which they described as ‘that most
august tribune, brought down by angels from heaven to earth.’

 

By a curious accident of history, this religious movement
coincided with the separatist movements of regions like Cataluña,
Navarra and the Basque lands, so that many strands were tangled
in the Carlist flag and no one could be sure of what a given group
stood for. The bulk of Spain was moving along lines directly
opposed to the Carlists, except for the plank of fidelity to the
Catholic Church, so it is not surprising that the Carlists lost their
wars. But during the progress of the fight they did create a
northern militia, the Requetés, who wore red berets and who were
probably the best troops Spain had produced since the 1500s.

 

The outnumbered Requetés lost their uprisings in 1833-1840
and 1870-1876, but in 1936, when they found that General Franco
and his rebellious generals had views close to theirs, it was the
Requetés who stormed to Franco’s aid, defeating the Republicans
in one crucial battle after another. Indeed, without these shock
troops trained originally as Carlists, Franco might not have won,
so in a real sense Carlist ideals did eventually triumph. Ironically,
they seem to have helped their bitter enemies, the non-Carlist
side of the royal family, back to the throne, for it is the legitimate
descendants of Fernando VII and Isabel II, the daughter whom
the Carlists opposed, who appear to be in line for the crown,
although which of the descendants will get it no one knows. Prince
Juan de Borbón, born in 1913 as the son of Alfonso XIII, now
lives, as we have seen, in exile in Estoril, near Lisboa. During
World War II, while Franco inclined toward the
Germany-Italy-Japan Axis, Juan openly backed the Allies, thus
surrendering much of the support he could have had in the
present regime. His handsome but weak-willed son, Prince Juan
Carlos, was born in 1938 and has since been a virtual prisoner of
Franco in Madrid. He is generally understood to be Franco’s
choice for the throne, although a secret vote among top army
officers showed that they preferred the young man’s father, Prince
Juan. The Carlists seem further removed from the throne than
they were in 1833. The direct descendants of the original Carlos
lived in exile in France and Austria until 1936, when the last of
the line was struck by a police van while crossing a street in
Vienna. He died childless, but a few months before, he had issued
a document which designated a nephew, Xavier de Bourbon
Parma, as his legitimate heir, and this man’s son, Hugo Carlos,
who recently made news by marrying Princess Irene of Holland,
is now the Carlist claimant. Thus Juan Carlos and his Greek wife
Sophia have the inside track for the throne, but the hopes of Hugo
Carlos and his Dutch bride are kept tenuously alive.

 

Each year on the mountains back of Estella, the Carlists of
northern Spain convene in almost Druidic rites of dedication to
the cause of placing their contender on the throne, and it has
perplexed many as to why Franco has allowed these
demonstrations. Some claim that like a canny emperor he allows
first one potential successor and then another to grow strong. As
we saw in Madrid, he appears to prefer Juan Carlos and Sophia
of Greece but is said to be impressed by the Carlist plank:
‘Old-fashioned respect for established principles rather than
adherence to so-called new legislation.’ But he must be alienated
by the Carlists’ final plank: ‘The various distinct regions with their
traditional laws and liberties to exist in a federation.’ This is
northern separatism under a new name, and Franco will have
none of it.

 

This is the kind of anachronism that flourishes in Estella, and
normally I would be opposed, but I found that I liked Estella
precisely because it had always been such an ornery little town.
If you read the history of this part of Spain, it becomes a
repetitious account of how people who were against the
government holed up in Estella and fought it out when all others
had surrendered. When Fernando and Isabel decreed the
expulsion of Jews from Spain, Estella refused to abide by the edict
and gave them refuge. When Navarra was subordinated to central
authority, it was Estella that led the banner of revolt. King after
king broke his front teeth on this stubborn principality, and not
even the Moors were able to destroy it. ‘For two hundred years
the Muslims occupied that mountain over there,’ Señor Beruete
says proudly, ‘and we remained Christian in this valley, and never
were they able to cross the river and subdue us.’ How many sieges
did the walls of Estella repulse? It must have been in the dozens.
How many times did it resist overwhelming moral pressures? Ten
at least. How many times did it go down to defeat still fighting?
A good many. One king hauled his cannon right to the top of a
nearby hill and fired point-blank into the city for a week, knocking
down churches and cloisters, but still the people of Estella defied
him. I can admire such a city, even if I do not share its chauvinism.

 

Of Logroño, I have only the vaguest recollections, but they are
most amiable. My ignorance can be blamed only on my friend,
Don Luis Morenés, Marqués de Bassecourt, whom we have already
seen hunting in Las Marismas and working in the government at
Madrid. On my first pilgrimage to Compostela I had been
accompanied by Don Luis, and to travel through Spain with him
is an experience for anyone who might have believed that
Spaniards were indolent.

 

Don Luis had us up at seven, offered us a standard Spanish
breakfast of one roll and tea, then started us off to the next halting
place on the pilgrims’ route. All morning we explored the secrets
of this dusty and historic path; rarely did we hold to paved roads
and rarely have I worked so hard. Since I took no breakfast, I
preferred to lunch, but then we were usually in the midst of work,
which would continue till about three in the afternoon.

 

At this time we would head for the nearest large town, where
a deputation of scholars would be awaiting us, and for an hour
or so we would discuss what we had seen that morning. At four
we would sit down to lunch, but the first hour would be occupied
with drinks and further talk about the Way of St. James. At five
we would eat, remaining at the table till seven, when Don Luis
would shepherd us to a further series of towns whose scholars
waited in the dark. At eleven we would reach our halting place
for the night, and our dinner would be served about midnight,
with more drinks and more fine conversation. At two we would
retire, and at seven Don Luis would be waiting in the breakfast
room with that cold roll and lukewarm tea. I doubt if any of the
twelfth-century pilgrims worked as hard as I did under the lash
of the marqués, and I am sure none could have seen so much of
the road.

 

Well, at Logroño, which I am told is a fine-looking city, the
lunch was long delayed but the wait was worth it, for in the
interim I was introduced to one of the glories of Spain, the red
wine of Rioja. It takes its name from a geographical district
bordering a river, but of only one thing am I sure: the grapes that
grow in this district have received a special dispensation which
enables them to produce as fine an ordinary wine as any I have
ever tasted. I liked it as much as the great Châteauneuf du Pape,
which I came upon years ago in Avignon and which I have
cherished ever since, discovering bottles in strange and
out-of-the-way places, for Châteauneuf is widely valued by those
who have encountered it.

 

It was now past five in the afternoon and I had eaten nothing
for seventeen hours, when the alcalde of Logroño said, ‘You must
try our Rioja. We’re very proud of it.’ It was good.

 

One of the alcalde’s assistants said, ‘That bottle came from
central Rioja. Have you ever tasted one from lower Rioja?’ I
hadn’t, but it too was good.

 

A patriot from upper Rioja now proposed, ‘Our wine is the
one that travels well, and when you’re in a foreign country and
want a breath of Spain, order a bottle from our region.’ I found
it to be extremely good.