The Mentor: Spain and Gibraltar, Vol. 1, Num. 31, Serial No. 31, September 15, 1913

SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR
Toledo, the Ancient Capital

ONE

Rodrigo, last of the Gothic Kings of Spain, heard in his palace at Toledo that the Moors had crossed from Africa to Gibraltar. A little army led by Tarik landed in 711 and marched northward, conquering as it went. King Rodrigo, with a great force of Spaniards, met them in Andalusia. He commanded the center. The wings were led by King Witiza’s sons, who, hoping to recover the country that Rodrigo had taken from their father, joined the Moors, and pressed with them into battle. Rodrigo was surrounded and cut down. The Moors marched northward, taking city after city in the name of Mohammed, till all Spain was theirs. The last of the Gothic kings had fallen.

From that day to this Toledo has never regained her position as the capital of Spain. In the royal palace Tarik found twenty-five crowns of the old Gothic kings, golden and richly jeweled; the Psalms of David written on goldleaf with dissolved rubies, and the emerald table of Solomon. Those crowns may still be seen; but no one has ever seen the other treasures.

The Moorish kings, though they ruled Toledo mildly, had no end of trouble from the haughty nobility, who, robbed of their high position, were always in revolt against the conquerors. At last Sultan Hakim decided to punish his unruly subjects. He gave them a governor of their own race, who pretended to hate the foreigners, but was secretly in league with Hakim.

Amron soon won the hearts of his people and built a great castle in the middle of the city. There he held a reception for Prince Abd-er-Rahman, to which all the nobles and rich citizens of Toledo were invited. Feeling the honor of royal presence, which their city had not enjoyed for many years, the Toledans went by thousands to the castle. Told to enter one by one, noble and grandee went in – but not to feast. Five thousand lost their heads in the trap. Amron thought, no doubt, that it was a good joke; but he had not much time to enjoy it. When the people realized what he had done a mob gathered and burned his castle, with Amron in it.

Toledo was early freed from Moorish rule, and the greatest of those who helped to maintain her independence was Rodrigo Diaz the Cid, who, next to Napoleon, is held by many to be the foremost heroic figure in European history. He held important court offices under Alfonso, living in the Alcázar at Toledo. Many poems and stories have been written about the Cid. He belonged to a noble family, married the granddaughter of Alfonso V, and later made himself a king. The fate of a battle was never in doubt if the Cid was fighting; for his side was sure of victory. Toward the end of his life, after hundreds of battles and duels, he made his most famous conquest, the taking of Valencia from the Moors, in 1094. He ruled well and justly for the next five years over Valencia and Murcia, and in 1099 died of anger over the defeat of his favorite lieutenant. The Cid is Spain’s hero and saint, familiar to all in legend and in song.

SPAIN AND GIBRALTAR
Madrid, the Capital

TWO

Standing on the grand stairway of the Royal Palace, his hand upon the balustrade, and looking at the splendor about him, Napoleon Bonaparte said to his brother Joseph, to whom he had given the throne of Spain, “You are better housed than I am.” That was the emperor’s opinion of the royal residence in Madrid. To Napoleon the conquest of this ancient and famous land of Spain was one of his greatest victories.

Many people, when they first see the country around Madrid, are surprised at the lack of trees there. It is known that the mountains of that region were once covered with a heavy growth of forest which has since been cut away. The trees were felled to put money into the royal treasury. One reason they were never replanted is that many of the Castilians have a strong dislike for trees. They think only of the birds that nest among the branches and feed in grain fields; they forget that trees are both useful and beautiful in themselves, giving shade and moisture and beautifying the scenery.

In later years a wise government has come to see that the slight loss of farmland is not nearly so important as the effect woodlands have on climate. Groves now dot the landscape with patches of refreshing green, and the climate about Madrid is already improving. It is hoped that the bleak country, which now grows only a spare crop of corn, will become fertile and fruitful again when new forests have influenced a more regular rainfall and a steadier temperature. Scientific forestry can probably redeem the error that was committed centuries ago.

Madrid, though a modern city, has been from the beginning a center of art and literature. Velasquez went there from Seville to spend the greater part of his life. It was there that Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote,” lived and died. More important, perhaps, than any other figure in the Spanish drama was Lope de Vega, a native of the city. He led an eventful life while writing poems and plays with wonderful readiness. According to his own statement, more than a hundred of his plays were written so quickly that it took only twenty-four hours from the time he started to compose each one of them until it had been produced on the stage. He wrote 1,800 plays. He is said to have printed 21,300,000 lines, which, if we can believe his own account, was only a part of all that he wrote. To do this he must have written nearly nine hundred lines a day all through his life.

Many other artists and writers have worked in Madrid, and the Spanish capital is still a well known center of culture.