"Fair Margaret"
It is the year 1491. Henry VII is on the throne of England. "Fair Margaret" is the young daughter of London merchant Master John Castell, of Holborn. She lives with her father, who is ostensibly a convert, but secretry a practising Jew, her cousin and companion Betty Dene, and her distant cousin Peter Brome. Peter's father, a knight, was killed at Bosworth and Peter lost his inheritance. Margaret and Peter secretry love each other, but Peter does not declare his love, or even hint at in, in accordance with a promise to the father.
The party meet Senior Carlos d'Aqualar, Marquis de Morella, in the suite of the Spanish ambassador. He is devout but debauched, and falls for Margaret. But to get close to her he makes overtures to Betty, who is vain. Master Castell (who trades largely with Spain, having come from there as a child) discovers that he is a spy for Ferdinand of Castille, and in league with the Spanish Inquisition.
Unfortunately Peter kills a soldier of the Ambassador's guard, the Scotsman Andrew Pherson, after the latter manhandled Margaret and then insulted Peter. To avoid arrest for murder they must rely on the good offices of Morella.
Castell, fearing the long-postponed exposure coming fast, has started to liquidate his assets. He allows Peter to propose to Margaret, and he is accepted. He also admits that he is a Jew, to their surprise and distress - "In those days it was a very terrible thing to be a Jew".
Castell reveals that he has bought the old Brome estate, Old Hall, Dedham, Essex, and will leave it to Peter. He wishes them to move there as quickly as possible, with himself as lodger. Peter goes to the old house to get it ready.
Meanwhile, using Betty as unwitting dupe, Morella snares them both and carries them away on his ship, the "San Antonio". Castell and Peter follow in the "Margaret", Castell's ship, under her captain, Jaconb Smith. The two ships meet in high seas off Spain. Castell, Peter and a couple of sailors manage to board the "San Antonio" before they ships are swept apart. Castell is wounded, and Peter fights Morella. He might have prevailed except that the ship is fast breaking up, and he is crushed by a falling mast. The two are left to drown. But they recover and manage to get to shore, where they take shelter in the small town of Motril. The local priest, Father Henriques, is in the pay of Morella, and tries to stop them continuing their journey - the destination of which is Granada, where Morella lives like a princeling. Indeed he is a prince, being the bastard son of a brother of the King and a Moorish princess.
The barber surgeon who attended to Peter's wounds arranged for a guide and two miserable mules to carry them to Granada. Henriques fails to stop them. The guide leads them to the outskirts of Granada, where they arrive at a run-down inn, full of cutthroats and desperadoes. The tired Castell accidentally drops his gold coins on the floor, and the innkeeper determines to get it. He tries to poison them, but the guide and another guest are the victims instead. They retire to bed but not to rest. In the night Peter cuts off an arm which tries to stab Castell through the wall, and several men who try to rush them. The escape out of the garret window, and hide in the countryside, where they are found by a Moorish party searching for them on orders of Morella, who expects them.
They become guests at Morella's palace near the Alhambra. Castell is suffered to escape, and takes refuge with fellow Jews in the city. Peter, who is ill for a month, is nursed by Inez, a Spanish woman captured by the Moors as a child, and a former paramoor of Morella. She hates him and wants revenge. She acts as a go-between for Peter, Castell, and Margaret and Betty. The latter are also prisoners of a sort. Morella, who is devout to a degree when his personal interests will allow, does not wish to murder Peter, or to force Margaret to marry him, but tries to deceive her into doing so. He arranges for Inez and Peter to walk in the garden observed unseen by Margaret. Inez is ordered, on pain of some unspecified punishment, to make love to Peter (in the nineteenth century and earlier sense, not the modern). But the plot fails, as Inez tells Margaret the whole story.
Inez devises a plan. Margaret will agree to marry the marquis, in return for Peter, Castell and Betty being allowed to leave the city. But Margaret's place will be taken by Betty in disquise. They are not dissimilar in appearance and Inez will ensure the marriage cup is suitably doctored to dull Morella's sight. Betty is pleased because not only can she get revenge on Morella, she can actually become his wife as he promised her. The plan works. Morella is bewildered and then furious when he discovers, but Betty proves the stronger personality, and soon has him in hand.
Unfortunately, still dressed in Moorish clothes, the party are set upon by Spanish troops and Peter (again) kills a man. He is tried in Seville by the Queen, Isabel herself. But the whole story is revealed, and Morella is disgraced. Worse, Betty arrives in state and claims her rights. Peter is made her champion in combat against her own husband. Peter prevails, but doesn't kill Morella as Betty comes to his rescue - thereby doubly degrading him (who had ambitions to gain the throne by fair means or foul).
However Castell is in trouble, for, as a declared Jew, he is handed to the Holy Inquisition. Henriques, now a secretary of the Inquisition - part of his payment for services rendered - agrees under pressure to help arrange his rescue. This is affected by a dozen sailors from the "Margaret". They made to sea, ramming and sinking two Spanish galleys in the process, and all live happily after - except Morella, who is disgraced and in the hands of a loving but strong wife, and Henriques, who is incarcerated for betraying the Inquisition.
Ten years later, as the elderly Captain Smith and Master Castell talk in the lane outside the former's cottage at Dedham (in the company of Peter and Margaret's children), the marchioness Betty comes, with her son. The marquis died quietly the year before, a broken man. Inez - who has not married - is her companion and head of her household.
This is an interesting tale. Surprisingly perhaps it doesn't deal with the Conquest of Granada - indeed the Moors themselves are rarely seen and largely irrelevant to the story. The strong female lead is Betty, who starts as a humble, indeed flighty and vain companion, and becomes a great lady. Peter and Margaret are mere cyphers, Castell a more interesting character. He knows that he runs a fearful risk, yet for years he has worshipped in secret as his fathers had done. Although he might do so openly, to be overtly a Christian and overtly a Jew would be too much for the authorities even in tolerant England. In Spain it would consign him to the fires of the Inquisition speedily enough.
The historical background is rather undeveloped. The most forceful elements are the tortured emotions of the marquis, and the lonely abandon of Inez, who loves, or almost loves, Peter, and yet will not tempt him from his bethrouthed. Henriques is merely a money-loving hypercrit.