BOOK VI

SECTION V

NEW MISSION INTO ABYSSINIA

 

S. Ignatius Loyola, then at Rome, hearing of the ill success of Bermudez, was seized with an ardent desire of himself undertaking the Abyssinian mission. This, however, was forbidden by the Pope; who, to console Ignatius, appointed Nuno Barreto Patriarch, and two Bishops in partibus his coadjutors. These ecclesiastics sailed to Goa : but the news which they there received induced them to alter their intended course, and not hazard all upon one attempt. Oviedo and Carneiro, the Suffragan Bishops, sailed to Masnah; Barreto remained behind in India. The missionaries were honourably received by Claudius; who, however, protested that he owed no obedience except to the Chair of S. Mark, and is said to have distinguished himself greatly in a dispute on the subject of the Two Natures. Barreto died in India; and, as it had been arranged, Oviedo succeeded him as Patriarch.

But a fearful catastrophe, and that from a totally unexpected quarter, was awaiting Claudius. Del Wumbarea, the widow of Gragne, had never ceased to long for revenge; she had however been restrained from declaring war with Abyssinia, because her son was in the power of the Christians. But, about this time, that Prince was exchanged for a son of the late King David; and this difficulty was therefore removed. And the greatest hopes of succeeding in her wishes were at the same moment held out to her. She was passionately loved by Nur, governor of Zeyla, and a son of that Mudgid who had filled the Abyssinians, as we before related, with terror. But she constantly refused to give her hand to any man, except to him who should bring to her the head of Claudius, the vanquisher of her late husband. Nur gladly undertook the condition.

Claudius was occupying himself in rebuilding and restoring the churches which had been destroyed by the Infidels, and particularly in the completion of one which was, from its magnificence, called the Mountain of gold. Having received a challenge from Nur, he resolved to march against Adel. Claudius had never yet been defeated : but now prophecies were circulated through the army that the present campaign would terminate in his ruin and death; and he himself was heard to declare his desire of perishing in battle against the Infidels. At the moment the army was advancing against the Moors, a Priest warned Claudius that he would be unsuccessful but the King paid no attention to the monition, and continued to march forward. At the first fire, the Abyssinians fled; Claudius, supported by twenty horse, and eighteen Portuguese musqueteers, was surrounded by the foe; and, after defending themselves gallantly, and selling their lives as dearly as they could, they were to a man cut to pieces. Claudius, in particular, was pierced with twenty wounds : his head was cut off by Nur, and presented to Del Wumbarea, who tied it to a tree in front of her door, that it might be a constant gratification to her unsated revenge. She then gave her hand to Nur, who had returned from the field of battle without any show of triumph, and in the meanest attire which he could assume : declaring that he owed his victory not to human valor, but to God alone. The head of Claudius was, three years afterwards, ransomed by an Armenian merchant, and buried at Antioch, in a church bearing the name of the Emperor's Patron Saint; and that Prince is, by the Ethiopians, himself reckoned among the Blessed.