Patrañas: Spanish Stories, Legendary and Traditional

The Sun of Wittenburg

Among the engagements fought by the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, no victory was more hotly contested and more hardly won than the battle of Wittenburg, in 1548. Some who were present at it, when they came back to Spain, magnified, as old soldiers are wont, the wonders of the day; and among other extravagant exaggerations, it was reported that the sun had stood still to give the victorious Spaniards time to pursue their enemies.

When the Duke of Alva returned, Charles Quint inquired of him his account of the event. The Duke, who did not wish either to compromise his veracity or diminish the honours of the day, replied, “Sire, I had too much occupation on earth for my thoughts to have leisure to observe what took place in the heavens.”