The Tower of Hercules is no longer alive to testify: but an old Moorish ruin down by the water’s edge, under the bridge of San Martin, is still pointed out as the scene of the companion tale. Here the fair Florinda was bathing in the Tagus when her beauty caught the eye of the royal Roderic, and fired the passion which brought unnumbered woes to Spain. It is, indeed, a little hard upon poor Florinda that she should never have been forgiven for her share in the disaster. It was her father, not she, who let loose the Moors to avenge her; and even the legend describes her as more sinned against than sinning. Yet the ballads, which can spare pity for Roderic, have nothing but contumely for her. It is argued, I suppose, that all the trouble arose out of her unbridled passion for bathing. But this is a failing which we northerners regard more leniently. Arletta’s ablutions were under a happier star!
During the palmy days of Moslem dominion, Toledo had to yield pride of place to Córdova. But after the fall of the western Caliphate it disputed the hegemony with Seville; and it was with considerable equanimity that Mohammed, the{202} king of Andalusia, saw his formidable rival grappled by the Christians under Alfonso VI. The author of the Poema del Cid bitterly deplores the fact that there was no “sacred bard” to immortalise the chivalrous incidents of that great two years’ leaguer; but, at least, the result was satisfactory, and three hundred and seventy years after its capture Toledo was won again from the Moor. Its fall was wellnigh fatal to the Spanish Moslems; for Mohammed himself was now unable to resist the conqueror; and willing to live “a camel-driver in the African deserts rather than a swineherd in Castile,” he despairingly summoned the Almoravides from Morocco to his aid. He had sold his kingdom to save it; yet the newcomers beat back Alfonso: and the Cid’s newly-won kingdom of Valéncia went under in the flood. But Toledo, once the stronghold of Paynimry, was now the bulwark of Christendom; and against its iron ramparts the wave of Moslem reaction spent itself in vain.
Now began the second period of Toledo’s greatness. The city became the seat of the Spanish primate and the favourite residence of the Castilian kings. Some of its importance leaked away southward when Córdova and Seville were reconquered by Ferdinand III. in 1248. But the first great{203} blow to its prosperity was the inhuman expulsion of the Jews by Ferdinand and Isabella at the end of the fifteenth century. Toledo had been one of their chief asylums ever since the destruction of Jerusalem; and though Goth and Moor and Christian had all alike persecuted them whenever they became rich enough to make it worth while, yet they were now a numerous colony, wealthy, honoured, and well affected to the crown. But Torquemada’s savage fanaticism overbore the scruples of the queen. The whole nation was ruthlessly exiled at a bare six months’ notice; and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that nearly all of them, beggared and hopeless, perished of hardship by the way.
Toledo was still important enough to play the leading rôle in the great revolt of the Communeros at the beginning of the reign of Charles V. It was indeed the last city to succumb; and that resolute lady, Maria Pacheco, the widow of Padilla, held it for many months against the imperial forces before she finally abandoned the struggle and fled from the realm. The thoroughness with which this rising was suppressed is perhaps a matter for regret. The triumph of the crown was too complete; and Spain, once the most democratic of{204} medieval monarchies, was henceforth an absolute autocracy.
With this last effort Toledo’s prominence upon the stage of history comes practically to an end. Henceforth it retired upon its reputation, and let the busy world go on without it as it chose. It still turns out a few of those famous sword blades, “the ice brook’s temper,” which Othello bore upon his thigh; but, for the rest, it is but a quiet country town, dozing placidly under the ægis of the great cathedral, which now seems to furnish its only raison d’être.
