IV
MADRID-ALCALÁ
Though Madrid was proclaimed the capital of Spain in the sixteenth century, it was not until 1850 that its collegiate church of San Isidro was raised to an episcopal see.
The appointment met with a storm of disapproval in the neighbouring town of Alcalá de Henares, the citizens claiming the erection of the ecclesiastical throne in their own collegiate, instead of in Madrid. Their reasons were purely historical, as will be seen later on, whereas the capital lacked both history and ecclesiastical significance.
To pacify the inhabitants of Alcalá, and at the same time to raise Madrid to the rank of a city, the following arrangement was made: the newly created see was to be called Madrid-Alcalá; the bishop was to possess two cathedral churches, and both towns were to be cities.
Such is the state of affairs at present. The[{322}] recent governmental closure of the old cathedral in Alcalá has deprived the partisans of the double see of one of their chief arguments, namely, the possession of a worthy temple, unique in the world as regards its organization. Consequently, it is generally stated that the title of Madrid-Alcalá will die out with the present bishop, and that the next will simply be the Bishop of Madrid.
Madrid
The city of Madrid is new and uninteresting; it is an overgrown village, with no buildings worthy of the capital of a kingdom. From an architectural point of view, the royal palace, majestic and imposing, though decidedly poor in style, is about the only edifice that can be admired.
In history, Madrid plays a most unimportant part until the times of Philip II., the black-browed monarch who, intent upon erecting his mausoleum in the Escorial, proclaimed Madrid to be the only capital. That was in 1560; previously Magerit had been an Arab fortress to the north of Toledo, and the first in the region now called Castilla la Nueva (New Castile), to distinguish[{323}] it from Old Castile, which lies to the north of the mountain chain.