only to secure his rise but also to determine Philip’s fall. Almost the moment
the rumor of Philip’s bastardy hits the Castilian streets, his standing is at least
as much in question Eleazar’s, with action challenging blood as the means and
measure of right. As Eleazar’s cronies, Friars Crab and Cole, circulate in the
Spanish marketplace, they instruct the public to “set that bastard and Eleazar
together” and “compare them” ( 3. 5. 2015 – 16 , 2018 ), producing Philip as not
just a “bastard” but also a “dastard,” a man “that kill’d your King,” “onely to
make himself King” ( 3. 5. 1979 – 82 ), and Eleazar as “a valiant Gentleman,” “a
Noble Gentleman,” even “a fair black Gentleman,” as well as “a Champion
for Castilians” who is “fit to be King” ( 3. 5. 1996 – 99, 2001–2). Eleazar’s hired
Moorish guns shoot the friars, and the scene breaks into riot, leaving “every
man” to “shift for himself ” ( 3. 5. 2024 – 25 ). Still, the confusion of standards re-
sults in a telling confusion of response—the citizens of Spain running “up and
down,” “some crying kill the bastard, some the Moor; / Some cry[ing], God
save King Philip; and some cry[ing], / God save the Moor; some others, he
shall die” ( 3. 6. 2050 – 55 ). Philip himself takes the challenge seriously, acting on
the battlefield to clear his name by exchanging blood for blood, behavior for
birthright. Since lineage does guarantee legitimacy under Eleazar’s regime, the
prince’s only hope is to “let out blood enough” to “quench” his “Fathers
wrongs, [his] brothers wounds, / [His] mothers infamie, [and] Spains miserie”
( 4. 3. 2329 , 2325 – 27 ).
Blood for blood. Philip will defeat and kill Eleazar, and regain the crown,
but not before the Moor has compromised the very “purity of blood” that has
served as the linchpin of Spanish nationalism. After promoting his new Spain
as a place of glorious light, where “vice Roys” “Shine about our bright Castil-
ian crown, / As stars about the Sun” ( 3. 4. 1877 – 81 ), Eleazar puts Spain’s white-
ness on trial, implicating it as an unreliable measure of national or cultural
purity and turning the line between Spaniard and Moor into a matter for de-
bate. In a remarkable deception, he sets his own newly gained crown up for
grabs and heads a fallacious public attempt to identify, and either punish or
redeem, the bastardizing father of the bastard prince. He first argues that, if
the offender is “noble & a Spaniard born,” “the white hand of marriage” will
hide “the apparent scarrs of their infamies,” and he urges the court not to let
that cover “eat the blemish off ” ( 5. 1. 2919 – 23 ). Mendoza, unfortunately, takes
the bait, insisting that justice (or revenge) must be done, that “Spaniard or
Moor, the saucy slave shall dye” ( 5. 1. 2925 – 26 ). Eleazar seizes this refrain, reit-
erating “Spaniard or Moor, the saucy slave shall dye” ( 5. 1. 2928 – 29 ), “Spaniard
orMoor, that saucy slave shall dye” ( 5. 1. 2986 – 87 ), keeping Spaniard and Moor
Banishing “all the Moors” 133