Practical Christianity

From the SPCK’s Saturday magazine in 1823:

During the siege of Barcelona by the Spaniards and English, in the war of the succession, in 1705, an affecting incident occurred, which is thus related by Captain Carleton, in his memoirs. “I remember I saw an old officer, having his only son with him, (a fine man about twenty years of age) going into the tent to dine. Whilst they were at dinner, a shot from the Bastion of St. Antonio took off the head of the son. The father immediately rose up, first looking down upon his headless child, and then lifting up his eyes to heaven, whilst the tears ran down his cheeks, only said, Thy will be done. It was a sad spectacle, and truly it affects me even now whilst I am writing.”

My favourite Barcelona decapitation myth is the one about Abd al-Mansur or whoever firing the head of whichever count over the ramparts and it landing on the lap of his (ex-)wife.

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