CHAPTER IV

_The Last Period of Toledo's Story_

The start of Spanish rule in Toledo was clouded and stormy. The Cid was named the first Alcalde, and the Castillians expressed their dissatisfaction with Mozarabe law, which was the Gothic law of Toledo. They clamoured for Castillian Judges and the Castillian _fueros_ or privileges. The King granted their request in all civil cases, but in criminal cases decided that every citizen should be subject to the Mozarabe Alcalde, and in case of death the first application for burial had to be made to the Mozarabe authorities, who gave permission to the Castillians to consult their own. But slowly the word Castillian came to be employed in Toledo in place of the more picturesque designation Mozarabe.

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

[Illustration: 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--

"La mora mas celebrada De toda la moreria."

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:

_Mater Navarra, metrix Castilla Tolatum_ _Sedes Parisius studium, mons Rhodams Horta,_ _Mausoleum, coelum requies, nomen Rodericus._

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.

[Illustration: PUENTO S. MARTINO]

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:

"El gran rey, Don Pedro, que el vulgo reprueva, Pos serle enemigo quien hizo su historia, Fue digno de clara y muy digna memoria."

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:

"Aquel que te ves estar contemplando En el movimiento de tantas estrellas, La fuerza, la bra, el orden de aquellas, Que mide los cursos de cómo y de cuando, Y ovo noticia filosofando Del movedos, y de los comovidos De fuego, de razos, de son de tronidos, Y supo las causas del mundo velando: Aquel claro padre, aquel dulce fuente, Aquel que en el Cástalo monte resuena. Es Don Enrique, Señor de Villena, Honra de España y del siglo presente. O inclito sabio, autor muy sciente! Otra y aun otra vegado te lloro, Porque Castillo perdio tal tesoro No conveido delante la gente Perdio los tus libros sin sea conveidos Y como en exequias te fueron ya luego Unos metidos al avido fuego, Y otros sin orden no bien repartidos. Cierto en Atenas los libros fingidos Que de Protagoras se reprobaron Con armenia mejor se quemaron Cuando al senado le fueron leidos."

Here as elsewhere the nobles and people of Toledo were constantly at loggerheads, though it would be difficult to say on which side reason preponderated. Now it was the Silvas who sided with the rebels, then the Ayalas who opened the city gates to them. One Ayala, mayor of the town, rode to meet an invading infante; the infante reproached him insolently, on which Ayala flung back his words, and turning rode into Toledo to shut the gates in his face. They were not to be trifled with, these haughty Toledans. In a measure their prince was their valet, and was subject to insult upon provocation.

The same may be said of the artisans. There exists a Toledan proverb: "Soplaré el odrero alborazarse ha Toledo." Let the ironmonger (or pot-maker) blow and Toledo will rise up. This proverb dates from the time of John II., who begged the Toledans to supply him with a certain amount of maravedis towards the expenses of his wars with Aragon and Navarre. The people indignantly refused, and the first to hiss the Toledan note of revolt was a maker of iron pots. Previously someone had discovered a Gothic inscription which proved that the ironmongers of Gothic days were the centre of urban revolution, hence the proverb proving their traditional contumelious disposition.

King John's love of poetry produced two Toledan poets, praised by Dr Pisa, Antonio de Heredia, a poet who "added rare glory to the Castillian muse" (probably an ancestor of the French academician, Jose Maria de Heredia) and a woman, Aloysia de Sigea, whose portrait may be seen in the Biblioteca provincial de Toledo. The fame of her erudition travelled to Portugal, and she is said to have written fluently in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabian, though with so inconceivable a lack of decency that her muse to-day is not translateable in modern tongue. Doña Luisa Sigea of Toledo, and her witty daughter Doña Angela, were called "women philosophers," and their depraved works are supposed to be founded on the traditions of a mysterious association discovered under John II. at Sevilla, "a bizarre school whose immorality is understood by the terms of the law that prescribes it."[11]

Alvaro de Luna found the Toledans no easy subjects to deal with. Pedro Sarmiento constituted himself chief of the revolution against the mighty Constable, and instead of a great lord the people had to do with a mean and avaricious hound. Don Alvaro appointed captains his sons, Pedro de Luna and Fernando de Rivadeneira, and ordered them to cross the river and besiege the town by the Puente de Alcantara. Sarmiento sent 50 horses and 500 foot out by the Puerta del Cambron under his son to surprise the Constable's forces near the river. A fierce battle ensued, and the King himself had to make conditions for the Constable with the violent and haughty citizens. Sarmiento demanded that the Constable should be given up or the King resign, and roundly accused his sovereign of weakness and favouritism. The King demurred, upon which Sarmiento invited his son to come and reign, but Henry soon found that he was only a tool in Sarmiento's hands, and left the city in dudgeon, to return speedily at the head of an army to crush the too powerful Sarmiento. Ordered to leave Toledo, Sarmiento loaded two hundred beasts with gold, silver, jewels, carpets, brocade, silk, and linen he had robbed of the citizens he oppressed, and to the prince's shame the impudent thief was permitted to carry off his treasure unmolested. The execution of the great Constable, infamously abandoned by his friend and sovereign, did not secure peace and content to rebel Toledo.

The state of the town in the succeeding years was so terrible that the citizens sent the Bachelor Fernan Sanchez Calderon to supplicate the king's interference, and enable them to possess in security their goods and products of those who had beaten, robbed, and ruined the town. The King declined to interfere himself, and expressed surprise that a man of such marvellous learning and science as the bachelor should come on such an errand. To the King's rebuke, the bachelor replied: "God forfend, illustrious lord, that I should hold as worthy of your majesty's attention such things, but I accepted this embassy to make manifest to your excellency the evil things that are being done." The King retorted: "It is my duty to punish evil, not to reward it."

Temporary peace came with the union of the two powerful houses of Ayala and Silva, in the marriage of Doña Maria de Silva and Pero Lopez de Ayala. But King Henry's entry into Toledo aroused the old lion. The alarm bells rung, and the citizens rushed armed to the bishop's palace, where the King was. Fearing bloodshed, a squadron of cavaliers rode hot haste to the palace and begged the King to leave the city, and he went forth surrounded by the reconciled Ayalas and Silvas. To all the troubles that followed between Isabel and Henry, Toledo added more than her share. One moment the nobles held the town, and then the people, both parties ever opposed in interests, allegiance, and both in reality caring greatly more for their own archbishop, their real sovereign, than the throned king who ruled all Castille. With two parties contending for the crown of Castille, Isabel and the _Beltranaje_, Henry's acknowledged heiress, his wife's but not his own daughter, sympathy ran high in Toledo on both sides. The Marquis of Villena attempted to capture the Princess Isabel, but was defeated by the vigilant archbishop, who collected a body of horse, and carried her off to Valladolid. Never were betrothal and marriage solemnised under more romantic and thrilling circumstances than were those of Isabel, Shakespeare's "queen of earthly queens," the sole majestic and perfect sovereign of Spain, and Ferdinand her unworthy husband, whose single virtue lay in the admirable way during her lifetime in which he seconded her rule. In gratitude for Toledo's sympathy, the great queen visited the town immediately after her marriage, but the scenes of her triumphs and glory lie elsewhere. There is but one blot on them, due to her husband and the terrible Torquemado, the introduction of the Inquisition into Castille. This was shortly before the great Cortes held at Toledo, 1480, where the salutary measures of reform instituted by her were such to leave her subjects awestruck in admiration of her genius. But there were the Portuguese and the Moors calling her attention, with blare of trumpet and shock of steel, while Toledo's true sovereign was the great Cardinal, the Cardinal of Spain, Mendoza. Gallant, learned and liberal, a _grand seigneur_, he was in every way in contrast with his austere successor, Cisneros. He was not unfamiliar with illicit love and its complications, and acknowledged two sons, Iñigo de Mendoza, and Diego, Count of Melito. His gifts to various cities in the shape of palaces, churches, colleges, jewels and rich church ornaments, were incredible, while Toledo possesses his most beautiful Hospital of Santa Cruz. He left all his wealth to this hospital, appointing Queen Isabel his executor. He it was who waved the royal standard from the highest tower of the Alhambra after the taking of Granada, and, better still, counselled Isabel to lend a friendly and helpful hearing to Columbus. His library was the most magnificent of mediæval Spain. Philip II. was in treaty to purchase this rare collection for the Escorial, and a correspondence exists between his secretary and the vicar of Toledo, Maese Alvar Gomez. It afterwards fell into the hands of Cardinal Loaysa, and was valued at twenty thousand ducats. Mendoza employed a staff of writers in copying and transcribing rare MSS., the chief of whom was a Greek, Calosynas, a pupil of Darmarius.

We approach the last hours of Toledan history. The great queen's death revealed the worthlessness of her husband, and the unfortunate Juana became the victim of the vilest conspiracy between the three men to whom she should have been most sacred. First her father, not willing to step down from the throne of Castille to make way for his daughter, decided to proclaim her mad. Then her husband, won over by promises of Fernando, consented to accept the situation, but was cut off suddenly, after the agreement, poisoned it is said, by Fernando's orders. Then the heartless young prince, her son, resolved to carry on the infamous persecution, in order to reign in her stead, and kept the poor woman nearly fifty years in a dark comfortless chamber, ill-treated by her keepers, the Marquis and Marchioness of Denia, with no communication with the outer world. The story of Juana _la Loca_, to whose perfect sanity Cisneros and her confessor, Juan de Avila, testify, is one of the saddest of history.

In 1505, the Marquis of Villena received orders to place Toledo under Flemish rule. The town murmured rebelliously, and as soon as Philip died at Burgos, declared itself independent. The nobles, headed by Silva and Ayala, met and swore that under no consideration should the sword or any artillery be employed to keep the peace. The Silvas held the gates and bridges, but the Ayalas, exasperated by the dominance of their old rivals, talked the townspeople into a rising, and bloodshed ensued. The Silvas conquered, flung the magistrate and his party out of the city, and the streets were strewn with wounded and dead. On Fernando's death, Cisneros became the regent of Castille, with Adriano of Utrecht and Armestoff. Cisneros filled the town with militia, and the ramparts glittered with steel. Now Toledo's pet aversion was a uniform. She liked to fight, but in her own rough, free-lance style. So she rose up against the cardinals, and after a futile rebellion, in which neighbouring towns engaged, was speedily quelled. But the insurgents within her gates kept muttering of treachery on Charles' side and of his unhappy mother. So Toledo, "the crown of Spain and light of the whole world, ever free since the high reign of the Goths," decided to fight for the queen, and depose the tyrannical young Charles. Insolent verses rang round the town, jeering at Xebres the favourite:--

"Doblon de à dos horabuena estedes, Que con vos no topó Xebres."

"Señor ducado de à dos No topó Xebres con vos."

"Salveos Dios, ducado de à dos Que Monsieur de Xebres no topó con vos."

The favourite had to fly from the city, and when his nephew, William of Croy, was appointed to the great see of Toledo, there was a frantic explosion. Everything combined to excite indignation. Austrian fashions were adopted to please Charles, goods were imported from every foreign port to the detriment of home productions, and Toledo, that employed over ten thousand workmen in silk factories, was nearly ruined by the royal decree limiting the use of silk, and forbidding the use of Spanish embroideries of gold, and silver, and rich brocade. This tyranny brought about the famous rising of the _Comuneros_, under Juan de Padilla. Padilla is the greatest figure of mediæval Toledo. Historians delight in him as a true hero, brave, gallant, honourable, wise, a perfect hidalgo, as romance paints him, punctillious, unaffected and pious. The worst his bitterest enemies ever said of him was, that he played second fiddle to his heroic wife, Maria de Pacheco, and coveted the mantle of Master of Santiago. His influence over the citizens and people was immense. For a single word of his, 20,000 workmen armed themselves, and stood round him. They named him captain-general of the combined forces of the _Comuneros_, with Francisco Maldonado in command at Salamanca, and Juan Bravo in command at Segovia. Toledo seized all the outlying towns and villages, and her voice of command reached to the Portuguese frontier and as far north as Valladolid. The cruelty and treachery practised by the Imperial army, with the prince of perfidy at its head, were such to send all Castille vigorously marching behind the heroic Padilla. War once set a-going, Padilla went down to Tordesillas to see the queen. Toledo remembered that the outraged sovereign had been born within her walls, and despatched her gallantest son with words of sympathy and allegiance. At a sign from Juana, he was ready to translate the junta from Toledo to Tordesillas, and make a rampart of his men for her protection. He forced the gates, and learnt the miserable tale of the queen's compulsory detention and sufferings, and found that "she was in her right senses, and quite as capable of governing as her mother, Isabel." To every urgent prayer to sign the decree proclaiming her inviolable rights, and her son's base usurpation, she answered "that all that she has is her son's." "The queen," wrote Hurtado de Mendoza to Charles, "spoke nobly to the rebels," and adds that he regards her as "perfectly sane."

While Padilla was being worshipped as a popular idol at Valladolid, jealousy and disunion were working against him at Toledo. Great men had joined the people and Padilla, the Duke of Infantado, the Marquis of Villena, Juan de Avila, and many prelates and knights. They had imprisoned the King's messengers and ministers in the Chapel of St Blas, and forced the governor to swear fealty to the _Commindad_. The mayor defending the Bridge of St Martin had fallen, and the Silvas, guarding the Alcázar against 4000 men, were forced to evacuate when the insurgents burnt down the gates and walls, and were masters of all the fortifications. They made canons of the church bells, stopped up every entrance by the river, and defied the Imperial army. Such a proud and congenial hour for Toledo. All the citizens went about puffed up with glory and addressed one another as "Brutus," swaggering abroad, and ready to ring the bells as soon as word came from Tordesillas that the queen had signed.[12] Padilla hurried back, hearing his wife was ill, and in his absence the Imperial army sacked Tordesillas. Jealousy as usual had weakened the force of the Comuneros, though Padilla's gallant presence impelled them to some brilliant skirmishing. But their fate was sealed at Villalar, where the Conde de Haro defeated them, and took prisoners to the Castle of Villalar, the infamous Ulloa's property, three noble gentlemen of old Castille, Padilla, Maldonado and Bravo, whose names are writ upon the walls of the parliament house of Madrid, and printed large upon the hideous page of Charles Quint's early reign. Padilla's noble letters of farewell to his wife, Maria de Pacheco, and to Toledo, may be seen in the archives of Simancas, letters full of stately sentiment, of dignified tenderness and virile pathos. History proudly records his rebuke to Bravo's last lament as they walked to the gallows: "Señor Juan Bravo, yesterday it befitted us to fight like cavaliers; to-day it befits us to die like Christians." Their heads were exposed over the gates of Toledo, and then flung into the river.

Maria de Pacheco, "the great widow," as a Spanish poet calls her, still held the town against the Imperial army. She was found praying at the foot of the cross when her servants brought her the news of Padilla's defeat and death. She rose, robed herself in black, and walked to the Alcázar between her husband's lieutenants, Davalos and Acuña, who bore a standard representing Padilla's execution. They named her captain of the insurgents, and found her implacable and violent, but still a sovereign commander. She took gold from the churches without any compunction, ordered the massacre of her enemies and their bodies to be flung over the castle walls, but could liberally admire gallantry in an enemy too. Pedro de Guzman, wounded, was carried into her presence. He had fought magnificently, and she ordered him to be treated well. When cured, she offered him the command of the _Comuneros_ which he indignantly refused, whereupon she gave him freedom and paid for his carriage, only asking him to free any Toledan who should fall into his hands. A generous if a ruthless enemy! Her influence over the town was extraordinary. The Imperialists and _Comuneros_ met in a violent clash upon the Zocodover. On one side shouts of _Viva el rey_; on the other, _Padilla y Commindad_. Too ill to walk, Maria was carried out in a chair into the midst of the conflict, and cried out loudly, "Peace! Peace!" Her cry was enough. There was no need of eloquence, of menace, of adjuration. One single word and a look, and swords were sheathed as by magic, and both parties, in pacific rivalry, enthusiastically escorted her back to the Alcázar where she was throned a queen. She it was who interposed between Charles and Toledo, and obtained the town's pardon. But the dead remained unforgiven, and Padilla's palace, by royal decree, was levelled to the ground, and the place is now an ugly little square planted with acacias, without even the tablet that used to mark the spot where the house stood. The great widow died in exile in Portugal. Her flight from Toledo was worthy of her romantic career. Dressed as a villager, by dead of night, she stole out of the town to join her knights in the silent Vega. Here a horse awaited her, and the little band, gallantly guarding a brave woman and the baby son she clasped in her arms, Padilla's proscribed heir, made for the Portuguese frontier. With this heroic figure vanishes the last gleam of Toledo's greatness.

Charles V. came here, and had some liking for the town, since he rebuilt the Alcázar with its magnificent staircase, but did not live to enjoy it, and his wife, Doña Isabel, died here. To him Toledo owed the great water works of Juanelo Turriano, the wonder of the times, a machine composed of tin cases pinned together and rising in file from the river to the castle. The water entering the first case was pushed into the second by wheels, and thus up to the castle, where it fell into a reservoir. This _artificio_ is written of in Paris in 1615 in "L'Inventaire général des plus curieuses recherches des Royaumes d'Espayne": "Là tu verras le grand, fort et mémorable Alcázar, où l'eau monte en grande abondance par un artifice admirable, qui rejaillit de la rivière du Tage. A ceste invention est semblable celle que fit faire Henry le Grand d'heureu mémoire sur le Pont Neuf de cette bonne ville de Paris où il y a deux belles figures de bronze, l'une de Jésus Christ, et l'autre de la Samaritáine. Il n'y a que cette différence que l'eau de Tolède monte deux fois plus haut que l'autre, et jette aussi gros que le corps d'un boeuf."

But henceforth Toledo is an effaced figure among Spanish towns. She is no longer the Imperial city or the Royal town, and is only a great historic memory.