But a people that could shake off the nightmare stun of the day of the Foss could rise above this blow. Toledo had resisted for twenty years, and she was not yet conquered. Leon was at her back, and its king was her proclaimed knight. In 873 she forced from the Sultan a treaty acknowledging her as an independent Republic under annual tribute, and concluded an alliance with the famous Beni Casi of Aragon, a great Visigoth family converted to Islamism, who sent Lope, the chief’s son, to Toledo as consul.

Then came to the throne of Cordova the great Khalif, Abd-ar-Rahman III., and Toledo was to discover that here was a very different enemy from the incapable generals that had hitherto striven in vain to subdue her. Here was a mighty commander who was not to be daunted by her frowns and her wild spirit, and whose patience and dogged determination she was to find the match of her own. Genius alone could quell her, and genius came in the handsome and valiant young monarch who would win her or die. First he sent a royal order, commanding her to surrender to him her rights as a free and independent Republic, and humbly acknowledge him as liege lord. This Toledo roughly and proudly declined to do. Her reply was couched in terms of evasive menace, for eighty-four years of freedom, under the protection of the Beni Casi of Aragon and the King of Leon, had taught her to regard herself as an enemy to be duly reckoned with. Then the Sultan sent his general vizier, Said-ibn-Moudhir in May 930 to open the siege, and in June he joined him with the flower of his army, and encamped on the banks of Algodor near the Castle of Mora. Here he forced the commander to evacuate, and placed his own garrison in the fortress before advancing on Toledo. He began by camping in the cemetery and burning the outlying villages, and then, in order to show the Toledans the kind of man they had to deal with, he proceeded to build a town on the opposite bank of the Tagus, exactly fronting the royal city, on a mountain side as high as hers. Here he and his troops dwelt for eight years, persistent and unswerving, calling the town he built “Victory” in anticipation of the inevitable result. A siege of eight years! what a tale of magnificent determination and stupendous force of will and endurance on both sides. Which to praise most, wonder most at, the Toledans or Abd-ar-Rahman? What a town, what a Sultan! With such a watchful power outside the walls, the marvel is that famine so long delayed its fatal presence; but it came at last, and stalked the gaunt dim streets and humbled the city of the Goths as no other force or persuasion could have done, and after years of accumulated sufferings and privations, bereft of pride and strength and dignity, she yielded her haggard front to the Sultan’s swift assault, as soon as he knew her power undermined, her patience at bay, and by nightfall the heads of her insurgent chiefs were grinning lividly over the Puerta de Visagra.

After the great Khalif’s death, the town recovered a partial independence, and remained, until the Christian Conquest, a kingdom apart under the rule of tolerated Arabian princes, independent of Cordova. Successive feeble efforts to win her prove ever unavailing, and she continues to glower above the river in unquiet and mutinous temper, while the princes make believe to rule and do but obey, proud but fearful of so uneasy a charge. Her rulers during the unsatisfactory eleventh century were: Yaîch-ibn-Mohammed-ibn Yaîch, till 1036; Ismail Dhafir, till 1038; Abou-I-Hassan Yah[^y]r Mamon, till 1075; and Yah[^y]a ibn Ismaïl ibn Yah[^y]a Câdir, till the conquest.

The most picturesque episode is that which leads to the downfall of the demoralised Moslems. Alphonso of Leon, escaping from the monastery of Sagahun, fled to Toledo and besought the hospitality and protection of the Moorish King Almamon. The generous and courteous Moor gave him considerably more than shelter; affection and all the outward show of his rank. Persecuted by a Christian brother, he was nobly befriended by a loyal enemy, whose generosity he ill repaid by treachery and ingratitude. Almamon gave him the Castle of Brihuega, and constituted him the chief of the Mozarabes, that is the Christians of Toledo under Moorish rule. Furthermore, he bestowed on him farms and orchards outside the town on the bank of the Tagus, and a residence within the walls near his own Alcazar. At the Moorish court of Tolaitola, as the Arabs called Toledo, the proscribed prince was granted all the honours of his rank. Alcocer tells us that in return Alphonso swore to be loyal, not to leave Toledo without permission, and to fight all men of the world for the Moorish king. Almamon, on his side, swore to treat Alfonso well and faithfully; to pay him and all his people. Alcocer, with quaint garrulity, describes the king’s fondness for hunting, and his delight in fresh green places and luxuriant foliage, and his great sadness in looking across from Brihuega to Toledo, and contemplating the possibility of such a strong and beautiful town falling once more into the hands of the Christians. The story runs that one day Almamon visited his guest at Brihuega, and in the gardens the courtiers began to discuss the marvels and attractions of Tolaitola, “that pearl placed in the middle of the necklace, that highest tower of the empire.”[10] From this the talk fell upon the probabilities of its being attacked, and at this point Alphonso, lounging beneath a tree, feigned sleep. The Moorish prince described at length the only way of taking the town, and his plan of siege was well remembered by his treacherous guest. The courtiers glancing anxiously at the sleeping prince asked themselves if his sleep were real, and to try him began to pierce one of his hands with shot. Still unconvinced, they begged the king to order him to be killed, but, says Alcocer naively: “Our lord kept him for his greater good, and would not hear of this.” When Sancho was murdered by Bellido Dolphos at the foot of the walls of Zamora, Alphonso left this friendly court with the blessings of its sovereign, who offered him money, arms, and horses, and escorted him part of the way as far as Monuela, separating with embraces and vows of eternal friendship on both sides. Both swore never under any circumstances to war on opposite sides, but each to assist the other in all difficulties with hostile powers. Alfonso returned to Toledo, and sent messengers to invite his former host to dinner. The king came, and found himself surrounded by armed men. Demanding the reason of such a strange reception, Alfonso replied, “When you held me in your power you made me swear to assist you against all men, and be your loyal friend.” The Moorish king assented, whereupon Alfonso sent for the gospels, and swore upon them again, with Almanon in his power, never to fight against him or his son, and to assist him against all the world. Alfonso’s word, it will be seen, was strangely flexible. This spontaneous and solemn promise to a friend and ally could, with honour, be broken, while elsewhere his word, compromised by wife and friend, demanded their instant death by fire. Shortly after Almamon died, and Toledo returned to its normal condition of disquiet. Flying kings, invading powers, rivalries and skirmishes, overtures between Moor and Moor, and between Moor and Christian, all terminated by Alphonso’s deliberate baseness in laying siege to the town ruled incapably by the incapable son, Yahya, of his late friend and guest, who should have been sacred to him. He followed the plan of siege so unguardedly suggested by Almanon in the gardens of Brihuega, and took the town on the 20th May 1085. Yahya and his court left Toledo, their hardly won and deeply loved Tolaitola, with their treasure, and went towards Cuenca, mournful and silent, eaten by regrets and humiliation.

So Toledo, after three and a half centuries of roughly and persistently disputed Moslem sovereignty, returned to Christian rule. True, she was always less of a Moorish centre than Cordova, Sevilla, Valencia and Granada, and glowed less than these in the bloom of its brilliant civilisation. Her temper was too obstinate and harsh for such flowery development. But she had so far profited as to gather charm to her austere beauty. The aspect of her walls had suffered modification and improvement, and the Moors had built handsome bridges, which alas! have since disappeared, both the bridge near Santa Leocadia, and that across the old Roman waterway. In Dozy, a quotation from the Arabian chronicle, Abou-l-Hasan, tells us how “Alphonso, the tyrant of the Galicians, that infidel people (that God may cut it in pieces!), seized the town of Toledo, that pearl of the necklace, that highest tower of the Empire in this peninsula.” He describes Toledo as “a softbed” for Alphonso, and the people “henceforth resembling docile camels.” For docility the people were not more remarkable than before, and as for the softness of Toledo as a royal bed, its quality of ease and security never wavered, whoever wore the crown and wielded the sceptre. Alphonso residing “up among her high walls,” had his own troubles to face, just as had Cadir, Yahya ibn-Dzin, who gave her up to him. “May God renew her past splendour,” cries the Arabian chronicler, “and write her name again on the register of Mussulman towns!”

The weak and unfortunate Yahya accepted Valencia in exchange, which he was not destined long to keep, thanks to that magnificent hero, el mio Cid, the Campeador.

CHAPTER IV

The Last Period of Toledo’s Story

After the conquest, Alfonso left his French wife, Constance and the French archbishop, Bernard of Cluny, as regents in Toledo, and hurried off on the usual business of war to Leon. Now one of the conditions on Yahya’s surrender of the city was that the Mezquita, formerly the Christian Cathedral, should remain in the hands of the Moors, as their place of worship. But neither the queen nor the archbishop approved of this clause, and could not conceive that a promise given to the reprobate Moslem should be held as binding. So the King once gone, the queen gave orders, and the archbishop headed his followers, and took the mosque by force. Great, naturally, were Moorish outcries against Christian perfidy, and word of the atrocious deed was instantly conveyed to Alfonso, who hurried back from Leon, sending word before him that his intention was nothing less than to burn alive the queen and the archbishop. For a King who had scandalously broken the laws of hospitality, and who had no intention of helping to maintain Yahya on his throne in Valencia, according to his solemn engagement, this was making a mighty mountain of a smaller offence, and placing a disproportionate price on so fragile and fugitive a thing as his honour. The Moors were so dismayed by this assurance, that their indignation evaporated and gave way to pity and terror for the delinquents. The Alfaqui went out beyond the city walls to meet the irate monarch, and plead their cause. Seeing him from afar, Alfonso, misinterpreting his purpose, cried out: “Friends, this injury is not done to you but to me, since my word is compromised, which I have ever guarded with all my power. But I will so act that neither she nor others will again dare to commit such audacities.” The Alfaqui, kneeling to the Spaniard, exclaimed in the name of his co-religionists: “My lord, we well know that the queen is your wife, and if she should die for our cause, we should be abhorred of all men. And the same should the archbishop die, who is the prince of your law. We of our will beseech you to forgive them both, and we freely relieve you of the oath by which we hold you, so that in all things else you are true to it.” Thanks to Moorish generosity, neither the queen nor the French archbishop was burnt alive, and the Mezquita became the Christian Cathedral we may see to-day. As a mark of gratitude, “the good Alfaqui’s” statue was ordered to be placed in the Capilla Major, an honour

THE CATHEDRAL
THE CATHEDRAL

shared with the mysterious pastor de las Navas, a shepherd, supposed to be the instrument of that victory. The Church was solemnly consecrated in 1087, and then it was that Toledo had the misfortune to fall completely under French influence. To Bernard of Cluny’s ill-judged introduction of the Roman liturgy may be traced the Inquisition. The quaint old Gothic rite was ordered to be abolished in favour of the Roman Breviary. Aragon and Navarre yielded at once, but Castille held out for the Isidorian ritual, and excitement ran high in Toledo, the very heart and head of the Gothic rite. Nothing could make her willingly faithless to the severe and simple Mozarabe service, inherited from the early Christians. Hers was the primitive form of worship of Christians when Christianity was still fresh and unformed, before Rome had introduced its dazzling magnificences of ceremony. Both the clergy and the people ignored the decree forbidding the Mozarabe ritual, and steadily rejected the Latin. Then the French archbishop resolved to put the matter to the test of the sword, and if that did not settle it, to that of fire. He called these tests “the Judgment of God.” A duel was fought consequently, under the eyes of all Toledo, which left the Judgment of God on the side of the Mozarabe ritual. This did not satisfy the archbishop, who found that the Almighty had erred, so he lit a big fire on the public place, the precursor of the terrible fires that were to follow, in which Spain was to burn out all her glory and greatness. The historians do not agree in their reports. The Archbishop Rodrigo says, “exustus ibi fuit liber Gallicus; rumansitque ibi toletanus illæsus.” Alfonso the learned says: “both books were cast into the flames, and the French office struggled with the fire that endeavoured to devour it, and then gave a leap over all the flames, and jumped out of the bonfire, seeing which, all gave praise to God for the great miracle He had deigned to work; and the Toledan office fell into the flames without any harm, so that no part of it was touched by the flames, and no injury was done to any part of it.” This appears to have settled the dispute: the Toledans were allowed to preserve their ritual in six parishes reduced now to two. Cisneros, a century later, founded the Mozarabe Chapel of the Cathedral, and ordered the printing of the ancient office with its queer primitive chaunt, and in the eighteenth century, Cardinal Lorenzana had another edition of the text printed. The traveller curious to know how the old Goths prayed in the days of Recesvinthus and Wamba, of St Isidor and St Ildefonso, may hear the old service any morning in the Mozarabe Chapel. The rite was probably more impressive in the days of the great councils of Toledo than in ours.

Though first Castillian Alcalde of Toledo, the Cid is not associated with the town by any picturesque or splendid deed. His great achievements belong to the story of other towns. Here is only recorded of him a sordid domestic quarrel. Alfonso convened the Cortes to consider the Challenger’s differences with his miserable sons-in-law, the infantes of Carrion, and the meeting took place in the beautiful palace of Galiana—

The Cid came with his kinsmen, Alvar Fañez, and twelve hundred cavaliers. The king rode two leagues beyond the city gates to meet him, and when the Cid had kissed his hand, embraced him. When informed that he was to dwell in the royal palace, the Cid protested against the excessive honour, and asked for himself and his suite the castle of San Servando. The king and the Cid together rested at the posada, and then rode on to the palace. Here carpets and gold brocade lay along the walls, and in the middle of the great chamber the splendid and richly-wrought throne; close by it was the Cid’s celebrated marble bench brought from Valencia, and round it a hundred shields of hidalgos. Day and night, while the case lasted, this bench was guarded, and in the Cronica del Cid, it is described as “a very noble and subtle work.” It was covered with the richest of gold cloth. When the king, followed by the Infantes of Carrion, and all the court, entered the palace chamber, the uncle of the Infantes began to cast ridicule upon the Cid’s famous bench, whereupon the king sternly rebuked him: “You who are jeering, when have you ever sent me such a present?” Instead of wasting their time in jealousy of the Challenger, why did not the rest of his subjects accomplish such noble deeds as his, he wondered. The Cid was then called, and when he entered the chamber, the king rose up and welcomed him. Amidst profound attention, the Cid solemnly pleaded his case. He demanded that the Infantes should give up to him their dishonoured swords, Tolada and Tizona. This the Infantas haughtily refused to do, upon which the king ordered the swords to be taken from them, and given to the Cid. The Cid kissed the king’s hand, and both sat down, the king on his throne, and the Cid on his marble bench. The Cid then, a passionate father, eloquently told the roll of his wrongs and his daughters’ injuries. He reminded the king that he it was who had made these lamentable marriages. “It was you, señor, who married my daughters, and not I, because I could not say you nay. But you did it for their good, not for their doom.” He demanded the return of his money from the Infantes and an explanation of their evil conduct to his daughters. He became so violent from grief and indignation that the king thought fit to interfere, and while recognising the justice of his most bitter complaints, urged him to respect his children in their husbands, and, in a word, be less personal in public. He then commanded the Infantes to salute their father-in-law, and the court to pronounce sentence. The Infantes, worthless scamps, stood and insolently proclaimed themselves the social superiors of their wives, whom the choice of princes had inordinately honoured. “Then why,” sensibly asks the king, “did you press me to obtain for you their hands in marriage?” and proceeds to give the ladies’ pedigree to the affronted Cid’s delight. The wretched Infantes were very properly disgraced, when their discomfort was accentuated by the appropriate arrival of hot messengers from the kings of Aragon and Navarre, begging in marriage Doña Elvira and Doña Sol for their sons, Don Sancho and Don Ramiro. In those odd and delightful times, divorce seems to have been a matter of royal judgment or caprice. Spanish sovereigns, unlike Henry VIII., never had any difficulty in arranging those little affairs without scandal, or war, or revolution, either in their own case or in that of their vassals. Alfonso stoutly advised the Cid to accept proposals that gave his outraged and forsaken daughters kingdoms instead of obscure retreats, and bestowed the last affront on the miscreants who had offended him and them. So the scandal terminated, and the chronicler tells us that “the Infantes left the palace very sorrowful, and hastened with all speed back to Carrion.”

Alfonso’s reign was no quiet one. He had to contend with the fierce Yussuf and his son, and grief pierced him through his young son, Sancho, whom he sent to war with Count Garcia of Cabra, when only eleven. Twenty thousand Christians, along with the brave little prince, lay dead on the battlefield, and the king’s anguish, when the news reached Toledo, was overpowering. He died soon afterwards, and his body was exposed for twenty days, for the towns-people to come and gaze upon the remains of the Christian monarch.

Toledo still remained the centre of Castillian rule. Here the Cortes was held; here was each Christian monarch proclaimed in a quaint ceremony that merits description, said to have been transmitted to the Castillians by the Goths. As soon as the municipality received the new king’s letter, they announced that the royal standard would be raised, and opened all the rooms of the town hall. Soon the building was crowded with magistrates, jurors, pleaders, cavaliers and citizens. The streets and the plazas overflowed with the people in holiday array, all laughing and excited. The buildings were decorated, hung with beautiful silks and stuffs, and illuminated pretty much as in our own days. Balconies were covered with brocade, and from each window fell pieces of rare tapestry. At eight o’clock in the morning the town was gathered near the Ayuntamiento to hear the chief scriviner read the deposition, and watch the lifting of the royal Standard and the new king’s banner. The city then named four commissioners, two officers and two juries, and despatched them to the Ensign’s house, telling him to bring instantly the royal standard to the town hall. The Ensign took the standard and went forth, followed by a large crowd of cavaliers, of archers and of troops, all in full uniform, while the bells rang, and music played, and the populace shouted. A joyous moment hugely enjoyed by this fierce, excitable race of Toledans. At the town hall the standard was placed on an altar, and the commissioners and jurors took their places. Then the order of the day was read, and all swore allegiance to the new king as loyal and faithful vassals, and in the kingdom’s name the banners were lifted. The magistrate then kissed the paper and put it on his head, likewise the rest present, and all shouted response in a single voice. The bells rang anew, the trumpets blew, and deafening roars of applause rent the air. Then the chief magistrate thus addressed the citizens: “Imperial and most illustrious city, kingdom of Toledo, seated at the head of the monarchy of Spain, would that my brief eloquence could match my desire—not to repeat your obligations to the king, our lord, since you are better aware of them than I, which compels us to recognise in him his most high father and grandfather, of eternal memory, most worthy kings and our lords, whom your highness always canonised with your tongue, and forced the remotest nations to obey, fearing your sword of iron, which is the head of this spotless city, whose arts and letters are of the first class, and whose cathedral is above all others. But to be able to weigh and tell your highness on this occasion, that as thus, by direct succession come to and remain with the king our lord, these kingdoms and seigneuries, so by the same are due to him, and constitute part of his heritage, obedience for being as he is, a prince of the best promise any kingdom has ever had; affable, benign, generous, upright, Catholic, and gifted with many other virtues. That all this your highness deserves, and that you may enjoy much happiness, with all prosperity. Such a king deserves such a kingdom, and such a city deserves such a king. May his majesty live a thousand years and may your highness live them with exceeding multiplication.” When one remembers such amiable sovereigns of Castille as Pedro the Cruel, who happily died in the thirties, this hope of Toledo’s chief magistrate seems a peculiarly grim one. A thousand years of Pedro’s reign would have decimated the entire Spanish kingdom, and left none to-day to tell the tale. The Alferez (ensign) then replied in the name of Toledo, and the standard was lifted and carried to the Alferez, who received it standing, while every head was uncovered. Then the Alferez carried the standard, followed by a group of officers, and swung it flying from the balcony, crying in a loud voice: “Hear, hear, hear! Know, know, know; that this pendant and royal is raised for the king, Don ——, whom God preserve many and happy years. Amen. Spain, Spain, Spain; Toledo, Toledo, Toledo, for the king, Don ——, our lord, whom God keep many and happy years. Amen.” The populace shouted ‘Amen’; the trumpets blew, and shrill rough music rent the air. Three times was this address repeated, the citizens each time shrieking ‘Amen’ with intervals of triumphant music, and the banners remained waving until sunset, the Alferez and the municipality all those long hours mounted guard over the royal and civic colours. At sunset the standard was solemnly carried to the cathedral to be blessed, and the entire city walked behind the Alferez and the magistrates. Trumpeters, minstrels and archers went before, and awaited the colours at the gate of Pardon, where all the dignitaries of the church were gathered to receive them. The archbishop, the canons, the dean, the chaplains and priests, in their richest brocades and lace surplices, and all the representatives of the town parishes, were there in state. The dean advanced outside the cathedral gates, surrounded by deacons, and in a circle behind stood the chaplains and canons with precious relics. After ceremonious salutations exchanged, the Alferez followed the dean into the church, and then began the procession of the chapter and the parishes up the immense central nave to the chapel of Our Lady of the Star, while the organs rolled their thunderous sound and the choir solemnly chanted. At the High Altar the dignitaries passed inside, and Toledo, with the chief magistrate, remained in the wide space between the altar and the choir, only the standard-bearer entering the choir with the prelates. Here a chaplain offered him a brocaded cushion, on which he knelt, while the choir chanted the psalm Deus Judicium tuum Regi da. The standard was blessed, and then the Te Deum was sung. With the same brilliancy and impressiveness of ceremony, the standard was afterwards borne down to the brightly hung and festive Zocodover, and then up the narrow hilly street to the imposing Alcazar. All the balconies and windows were filled with lace-wreathed women’s heads, and the excitement and enthusiasm were intense. At the gates of the Alcazar the standard-bearer knocked thrice loudly, and called out: “Alcalde, Alcalde, Alcalde! are you there? Hear, hear, hear!” Within a voice as loudly demanded: “Who calls without the gates of the royal Alcazar?” To which the standard-bearer haughtily replied: “The king.” The gates were opened, revealing an immense and picturesque concourse of splendidly apparelled knights and men in gleaming armour, a blaze of brocade and damascene. The standard-bearer cried again: “Alcalde, Alcalde, Alcalde; hear, hear, hear; Toledo to-day has lifted this royal pennon for the king, Don ——, our lord, whom God preserve for many and happy years. And, accompanied by its municipality, it has sent me, its standard-bearer, to bring it to you as the Alcalde of those royal palaces, that you may receive it in his majesty’s name, and place it in the tower, which is called the tower of the Atambor.” The palace doors were then closed, and as soon as the pennon floated above the high tower wall, the Alcalde shouted thrice the same formula as that of the standard-bearer when he raised the standard above the balcony of the town hall, and the people below each time responded ‘Amen.’ The procession returned to the town hall, and this ended the picturesque ceremony.

The greatest Toledan figure of this period is the mitred figure of the conqueror of the battle that virtually demolished the Moor in Spain, Las Navas de la Tolosa. Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada was more than an illustrious archbishop at a time when archbishops were rulers of men, and when the archbishop of Toledo might be said to be the practical sovereign of Spain. He was a valiant soldier, a commander of genius on the battlefield, a zealous prelate and an erudite man of letters and historian. Conqueror of Las Navas de Tolosa, no mean victory, since the Moors were in tremendous excess, conqueror of Quezada, of Cazuola and Cordova, the honoured friend and adviser of two kings, first of his day in all things by right of genius, industry and merit, Toledo owes him something more than Christian victory over the Moor, something far more immortal and magnificent than that dull and prejudiced monument his history, so often quoted—La Historia de España—which he wrote in 1215. It owes him her great, her unique, her matchless cathedral. To have won the most glorious of Spanish battles—a victory so stupendous, considering the odds and the results that the great archbishop himself insisted it was nothing less than due to the intervention of heaven—and to have built the cathedral of Toledo! What epitaph needs a man who accomplished two such deeds in a single life? His epitaph, as befits so illustrious a personage, is simplicity itself:

What a dazzling achievement the lives of these Toledan archbishops, martial, learned, literary, eloquent, and artistic; every facet of multiple genius. Now they build ships, then cathedrals, colleges or palaces. They print rare editions, collect rare MSS., debate in councils, rule the land, vociferate magnificently from the pulpit, decide on all questions of education and civil law, advise their sovereign, guide foreign politics, voyage in foreign lands, win glorious battles, and write histories and verse! What modern life can match theirs? Even Mr Gladstone has neither built a great cathedral nor won a great battle! This Archbishop of Toledo, a mighty chancellor of Castille, was as charitable a pastor as Victor Hugo’s bishop. Indeed, nothing remains to his discredit as a great and simple nature, but the unavoidable bigotry and injustice of his history. He died on his last voyage back from Rome, and was buried, as his quoted epitaph indicates, in the monastery of Huesta, June 10th, 1247.

Alfonso’s crusade against the Moors was followed by dreadful dearth, by famine and sickness, and the entire ruin of villages and farms. Public misfortune habitually forges fresh unexpected miseries for man, and bands of armed robbers and assassins, called golfines, descended in hordes from the mountains of Toledo, of Ciudad Real and Talavera. They pitched their tents in the outlying woods, and in self-defence the Toledans formed their celebrated Hermandad, a brotherhood of citizens sworn to persecute robbers and assassins. This brotherhood was so successful that in 1223 it was qualified as “holy,” and was conceded as a right one head of every flock and cattle that crossed the mountains. The Society held its feast on St Pedro Advinada’s day, 1st August, and consisted of sixty Toledan proprietors and hidalgoes, whose sons inherited their office; two governors, a squadron, archers and minor subalterns elected by the two alcaldes. The uniform was green, with collar and cuffs of vivid scarlet trimmed with gold, and pointed caps. The inferior officers wore a loose green garment suitable for the road, and capes and bonnets of green, without the bright touch of scarlet and gold, and their uniform may still be seen on a stone station above a sixteenth century porch in a laneway opposite the Calle de la Tripería, where the ancient prison of the Hermandad is. They rode in procession, preceded by timbrals and clarinets, and carried a green banner with the arms of Castille. It was this brotherhood that Philip II. presented with a magnificent camp of green cloth which to-day may be seen in the Museum of Artillery in Madrid, and here the Hermandad received their sovereigns when they visited Toledo. The success of this brotherhood provoked the creation of minor fraternities and another Toledan order was started against robbers, San Martin de la Montiña, with similar privileges granted by royal decree as those of the more famous Hermandad. Later, the Catholic kings instituted the Hermandad nueva, of disastrous memory, formed of one thousand horse and foot with a captain, general, and a supreme council, whose duties and functions were multiplied and extended beyond the province all over the unhappy Peninsula. This brotherhood we know, alas! played a terrible part in the terrible Inquisition, and hunted down bigger and more historic game than mere robbers and assassins.

The hum of the Moorish wars ever accompanied the interior war of discord and turbulent dissensions. When St Fernando entered Toledo as the new sovereign, he found the town groaning under the tyranny of the wicked governor, Fernandez Gonzalo. Two girls, one a young lady and the other a girl of the people, flung themselves before the saintly young monarch to complain of seduction under promise of marriage. San Fernando, who did not trifle in these matters, expressed his horror and demanded the name of the seducer. The instant the governor, Fernandez Gonzalo, was mentioned, he turned furiously to his men and cried, “Cut me off that rascal’s head this very moment.” Within an hour the gallant governor’s livid features were fixed above the Puerta del Sol. Here was a man without any of the freemasonry of his sex. Death itself was the penalty he unhesitatingly meted out without debate for wrong done to women. Not a word of blame for the girls, no compliance to the conventional theory of gallantry. The man who betrays a woman is a blackguard; then off with his head, and space for cleaner souls. A little drastic, perhaps, but conceive our civilised world in the eyes of a San Fernando. Conceive him presiding over one of our Courts of Justice for the settlement of breaches of promises! So wise his judgment in the esteem of Toledo that to-day the historic scene is in relief on the glorious Puerta del Sol.

Under Castillian rule Toledo’s supremacy could not continue without rivalry. First, Santiago had disputed her right to hold her celebrated councils, and a furious quarrel raged between the Pope, Calixtus, and the King, Alfonso, as to whether the councils should be held at Toledo or at Santiago in the north. The pope took the part of Diego the Galician archbishop, and, for a while, Santiago was regarded as the primacy of Spain. But, under Honorius, Toledo and her archbishop, Raymond, recovered their prestige with this time the king against them. In 1129 a council was held at Palencia. Here Toledo sat at the feet of Compostella. Charlemagne, himself, is said to have broken a lance in favour of Santiago which, one knows not by what right, he proclaimed the head of Spain. Beside the question of the primacy, Burgos put in her claim for the Cortes, which she held should meet within her walls, and not on the banks of the Tagus. Here the king was the stout defender of Toledo. At the great meeting convened to discuss this rivalry, the king entered the Council Chamber, and haughtily cried: “Let Burgos speak, I will reply for Toledo.” The rivalry of the great families of the Castros and Laras nearly became a civil war, Toledo fighting on the side of the Laras, whose chief, Don Manrique, was a character after her heart: intrepid, dominating and fierce, unequalled in war, untameable in peace. The little king’s uncle settled the dispute by killing Don Manrique de Lara, and to avenge him Toledo violently conspired through her great citizen, Stephen Illan, a descendant of the illustrious Byzantine family, the Paleologos. These animosities were quieted for a while by the terrible plague and famine that followed quick upon the heels of victory, and avenged the defeated Moors of Las Navas de Tolosa. Misery implacably stalked Castille. Seeds bore no fruit for one entire year; trees were dead and leafless, the land was sterile and the people, wild with hunger, forsook their dead, their orchards and meadowland.

Of Toledo’s private story we get no glimpse. The thunder of battle and strife roars ever down the pages of her history in the succeeding centuries, and we continually hear of new breaches in her magnificent walls, while the trumpets blow their noisy defiance from her mutinous ramparts. That Toledo was no comfortable place to dwell in then (or now) we gather from the acrid description of the streets, rivers of mud in winter, and in summer, waves of dust, full of filth, evil odours, foul sights and breathing mortal disease. Alfonso the Learned in 1278 ordered the streets to be cleansed and the plazas to be kept free of dead beasts. The chapter gave ten thousand ducats for paving the street, but this was not done until Fernando the Catholic ordered the work in 1502. Alas! these sanitary improvements heralded the hour of her decline. She bartered her prestige for improved paths down to the river, and lost the greater part of her greatness along with her rugged incivility. And for all her progress she never shook off the old sway of Goth and Moor. She built churches, but persistently gave them a quaint Moorish aspect, and when she adopted printing, it was to print the Isidorian office. True, she exhaled her martial contempt of women in her first profane print, El Tratado contra las mujeres, by Alfonso Martinez de Toledo in 1499.

Nobody contributed more than the magnificent Cardinal Tenorio, Commendador and Master of Santiago, to beautify the town. He built the cathedral cloisters, and the chapel of St Blas, liberally endowed the church, built the bridge of St Martin and the castle of San Servando as well as several convents, the archbishop’s bridge, the Hospital of St Catherine, and a splendid palace at Talavera, which he gave to the monks of St Hieronymo. He constructed several fortresses along the Moorish frontiers. Of him is told the legend that once at Burgos he gave such a princely feast to the nobles of that town, that when the king returned from the chase there was nothing to be had to eat but a few quail and bread and wine. The great Tenorio had cleared Burgos of all its provisions for his banquet.

Toledan laws, which were stringent, were based upon the fueros, a Castillian modification of the Gothic code. Nothing could be more precise, more minute, more searching in detail of offence and punishment of all that relates to private and civic life. The very dress of women, Mozarabe and Castillian, was regulated according to their social status, the expenses of marriages, baptisms, and funerals regulated; the expenses of fathers and husbands limited by their income to prevent injury to the family. The Moors and Jews had their own judges unless Christian interests were at stake, when they were judged before Mozarabe tribunals. The Mayor’s jury consisted of five nobles and five citizens. Each court had its magistrate and official staff, and the municipality met twice a week, Tuesday and Friday, to judge the decisions in block. The people might assist, but could not vote or question. The magistrates were salaried, and could not leave the city unless sent for by royal command. The municipal constitution was composed of two bodies: cabildo de regidores, cavaliers and citizens, to deliberate; the other, cabildo de jurados, sworn to observe the fueros, and to administer justice. The privileges of nobles and plebeians were distinctly defined and maintained. The regidores were paid annually 1000 maravedis, and the jurados 1500. Assistance at the councils was voluntary for the former, obligatory for the latter; a fine of 20 maravedis being imposed in case of absence, which fines were at the end of the year divided between the rest of the jurados who had not once been fined. A juror could not be imprisoned for debt, nor forced to lend his mules for public service, and his widow and children partook of his privileges if he died in office. Toledo was always strongly garrisoned, but its military decline began with the reign of Pedro the Cruel.

The inexplicable and monstrous tale of Pedro’s cruelties need not be told here. He has become one of the legends of universal history, one of the nursery terrors of civilisation. That such a monster ever lived out of a fairy tale, where giants for pure pleasure spend their days consuming human flesh and marrying wives for the gratification of decorating secret chambers with hanging corpses, seems incredible. His palace at Toledo is now a miserable ruin, near the ruin of the Trastamare palace, of which now only remains the door with the huge Toledan iron nails, so charming and distinctive a feature along the city streets. Here was the theatre of many of his stupefying iniquities, as well as of the single redeeming sentiment of a senseless life, his love for the unfortunate and beautiful Maria de Padilla, the one pale flower of romance in a stony and stormy period. Kings’ mistresses are not usually admirable or sympathetic figures, and their mission is not infrequently fraught with direst results. But this pale little Maria, with lovely hands and large sad eyes, is the one ray of light and sweetness amidst violence, cruelty, and perfidy. Such good as love could work amidst such elements she wrought. When she could she interposed between Pedro and his victims, and even the outraged wife reveals no traces of vindictiveness towards her. At the other side of the town, in the big Alcázar, was imprisoned Blanche of Bourbon, under the care of Maria’s uncle, Juan Fernandez de Hinestrosa, and all that now remains of her high chamber is the window overlooking a superb landscape. It is to the credit of Toledo that the citizens were the first to rise up against Pedro’s iniquities. The queen, accompanied by Hinestrosa, entered the cathedral to pray, and to the dismay of everyone called out “Sanctuary,” and refused to leave it. Word flew round the town, and all the ladies and women of the people gathered round the unhappy woman. The knights and hidalgoes could do no less than follow the lead of their courageous women folk. They drew their swords, made a circle round her, and walking thus escorted the queen to the palace gates. The flag of revolt was instantly raised, and the people called the infante, Don Fadique, to come and take command. He came with 700 men, and Doña Blanca was proclaimed free and sovereign. Toledo then sent a commission to the king, bearing the town’s orders: that Maria de Padilla and her relatives should be banished, and the queen occupy her rightful place. The king made short work of the commission, and laughed in the face of his rebellious town. His morals were his own affair, and if they did not suit his people they must hold their tongues until he had time to cut off their heads. Meanwhile Henry of Trastamare and Don Fadique had taken the town by the bridge of St Martin. They sacked and pillaged, robbed Samuel Levi, Pedro’s great and wealthy treasurer, and murdered 1200 Jews. Then came Pedro, and the Trastamares fled, leaving what remained of the town to the mercies of the ruthless royal troops. Toledo paid a heavy price for her chivalrous defence of the discarded queen. The unhappy woman was again locked up in the Alcázar, and like the wicked ogre of story, Pedro, entertained himself by hacking off the heads of those around him. Twenty men were decapitated in a single day by this mild monarch, whom Philip II. called El justiciero, and of whom the Cronica writes:

These verses quotes the prelate of Jaen, Juan of Castro, who rehabilitated Pedro, by asserting that he only “wrought justice upon rebels,” and who laments the baseness of his assassination at the hand of the worthless Trastamare, a vile termination of a vile life, in which one regrets to see as accomplice one of the old heroes of our youth, Du Guesclin. The list of Pedro’s cruelties and assassinations is stupendous. He married women and cast them aside at will, without even the troubles of our English Henry. Shortly after his marriage with the unfortunate Blanche of France, he married Juana de Castro, sister of the Portuguese King, yet neither France nor Portugal went to war, and the Church did not interfere. He instantly abandoned Juana, and returned to Maria de Padilla, whom he always acknowledged as his sole wife, and whose children he named his heirs. There can be no doubt that he passionately loved these little girls of Maria, taking them with him as his most precious treasure when he travelled, and leaving in their behalf a will, so tender and precise, so burthened with anxiety for their welfare, that his life becomes a greater enigma than ever after reading it. Beatrice he named queen, to the detriment of his legitimate son by Juana de Castro. His love for Maria de Padilla was no less deep and lasting. She was buried with royal honours, and at the Cortes convened after her death, he publicly, and it must be admitted with a manly devotion and courage that does him credit, acknowledged her as his wife. Here his wilfulness becomes a virtue, and we are touched by his unswerving love for the woman, of whom the churchman, Lozano, writes, “in her little body heaven had placed great qualities and merits of the highest order.” His real love for Maria is all the more extraordinary, since he was one of the vilest libertines, who burnt women alive for refusing his addresses, and in his conduct to his unfortunate French wife, he showed himself nothing less than insane. The hero of Mr Meredith’s modern novel, “The Amazing Marriage,” is a model of conventional behaviour to a bride beside Don Pedro the Cruel. After torturing her he murdered her, which explains the attitude of France towards him, and the sorry figure of the great Du Guesclin at the tragedy of Montiel.

Toledo only roused herself out of stupor in the first gaieties of Juan II.’s reign. This prince preferred song and dance to bloodshed. He heard of the people of Toledo as insupportable, haughty and rebellious, and came to conquer them by luth and feast. Never was Toledo so gay before. The great Alvaro de Luna, the Constable of Castille, was beside him, and the city danced and sang, and feasted itself into oblivion of terror and disaster. Even a war with the Moors was an added and pleasurable excitement. King John prayed and watched in the cathedral all night like a knight, and there was a solemn ceremony next day, when Vasco de Guzman, before the magnificently apparelled king and constable, kissed the royal standard and banners. Still grander feasts on their return fresh from conquests at Granada and Cordova; there was the great Te Deum in the cathedral, and the bullfights by torchlight on the Zocodover, and by day feasts and tourneys in the brilliant Vega. Here begins the rivalry of the celebrated Toledan families, the Ayalas and the Silvas, and the quarrels of the Constable of Castille and Pedro Sarmiento, in which the meaner figure wins. The Jews, too, were persecuted in a monstrous crusade provoked by the bigoted and atrociously unchristian eloquence of that most unsympathetic of saints, Vicente Ferrer. Under his lead, the Christians seized the beautiful little synagogue, Santa Maria La Blanca, an act of injustice it would be difficult to explain by any pronouncement of Christ, himself a Jew. But all was not black at this period, despite perfidy, cowardice, betrayal and persecution. Juan II. was fond of rivalry and bright apparel, and his splendid victim, Alvaro de Luna, remains one of the finest figures of Castillian history. John himself dabbled in poetry, and patronised letters. He instituted a kind of Provençal Court, and one of his contemporaries was the celebrated Marquis of Villena, Henry, the man in advance of his time, man of science and scholar, mathematician and reader of the stars. Later, alas, his valuable library and his writings, treasures of erudition and memory, were publicly burnt at Madrid, by order of Fray Lope Barriento, a Dominican, who accused him of witchcraft, and Juan de Mena wrote his famous “Coplas” to the memory of the great and learned marquis: