All mortal and all equal,
All shapen out of clay;
For God recked not of nations,
Of white and black and brown,
But on His human children
Impartially looked down."
It is not then so strange as it appears at first hearing that a Piers Plowman should be patron of Madrid.
From Alfonso VIII to Alfonso XIII, a matter of some seven centuries, Isidro has been in high repute with royalty. The "Catholic Kings" made him rich gifts; Philip II, bigot of bigots, cherished an especial veneration for the ghostly protector who had brought his delicate childhood safely through smallpox and epileptic seizures; the passion-wasted Philip IV did him public homage; Charles the Bewitched made a solemn progress to his shrine to thank him for recovery from illness; even the bright young Bourbon, Philip V, had scarcely arrived in Madrid before he hastened to worship the efficacious body of San Isidro. The urn has been opened at intervals to give their successive Majesties of Spain the grewsome joy of gazing on the bones, and it has been the peculiar privilege of Spanish queens, on such occasions, to renew the costly cerements. The devotion of the present regent to these relics keeps pace with that of her predecessors.
Where royalty leads, aristocracy is swift to follow, and Isidro has a gorgeous wardrobe of embroidered standards, palls, canopies, burial cloths, and everything that a skeleton could require, but "for a' that and a' that" the laboring people of Castile never forget that the Canonized Farmer especially belongs to them. His fortnight-long fiesta is the May outing of the rustic population all about Madrid.
We will start on this pilgrimage from the Puerta del Sol, because everything in Madrid starts from the Puerta del Sol. From this great open parallelogram in the centre of the city, surrounded by lofty hotels and Government buildings, bordered with shops and cafés, brightened with fountains, thronged with trams, carriages, people, always humming with voices, always surging with movement, run ten of the principal streets of the capital. The Alcalá, most fashionable of promenades, and San Jerónimo, beloved of wealthy shoppers, conduct to the noble reaches of parks and paseos in the east; the handsome Arenal and historic Calle Mayor lead west to the royal palace, with its extensive gardens known as the Campo del Moro; Montera, with two less elegant avenues, points to the north, where one may find the university, the Protestant churches, and the tragic site of the Quemadero; and three corresponding streets open the way to the south, with its factories, hospitals, old churches, and world-famed Rastro, or rag fair.