Ximenes was of a very different cast from Talavera. He was sufficiently powerful to have contested the establishment of the tribunal, but he was, on the contrary, responsible for many of its worst excesses of persecution.
The Moors in Granada, after the reconquest by Fernando, were commanded to wear the garb of Christians, to speak the Castilian language, and to abandon their ritual of cleanliness. Philip II. even destroyed the baths of the Alhambra, to prevent the ablutions of the "infidels." The beautiful Morisco painting and decorative work were plastered over with whitewash. Christian vandalism ran riot in the fair city of the art-loving sultans.
The Moors who sought refuge in the glens of the mountains soon began to till the land, and to transform the wilderness into a garden. After a spell of peace, and a recovery of some measure of wealth, the community of refugees rebelled. Terrible is the tale of reprisal. Christians were driven to bay and slaughtered ruthlessly. The Moors gained sway over the district until their leader was slain by one of his own race. Then came the final routing by the Christian soldiery by means of the sword and firebrand, and Moorish might was for ever crushed in Andalusia.
For what counted all this bloodshed? The answer is written in the history of Spain after the expulsion of the intelligent, industrious Moriscoes. The lesson is plain. The fall of Granada was the beginning of the decline of Spain, and not, as the Spaniards thought, the dawn of a golden epoch. With the Moors went their culture, the arts and industry; and only traditions in craftsmanship remained among the Spanish artisans. The half million inhabitants at the time of the surrender of Granada very quickly dwindled under the Catholic kings. To-day there is scarcely a sign of industrial and commercial energy in this city of the past. The population seem to subsist principally upon providing for the continual influx of visitors, while there are hundreds of beggars in the place.
The Alhambra was considerably marred by Charles V., who used it as a residence. Philip V. and his consort were the last of the sovereigns of Spain who sojourned in Granada. In the wars of 1810-1812, the French troops were quartered in the Alhambra, and they are responsible for the destruction of the mosque built in the fourteenth century.