ary orders of
Alcantara, Calatrava, and Santiago, black-robed Dominican inquisitors,
executioners, royal chaplains and major-domos, the Councils of the
Indies, Castilian grandees, Roman princes and cardinals, brawling
Flemish and Burgundian nobles, German landsknechts, and great Catholic
ambassadors.

Toledo received her death-blow when Philip II, unable to brook the
haughty claims of the Toledan archbishops, and feeling his power second
to theirs, finally, in 1560, moved the capital of his realm to Madrid.
Toledo's annals grew dark. So merciless was the Tribunal of the
Inquisition that under its vigilant eye 3327 processes were disposed of
in little more than a year. So Toledo fell from her former greatness.

The site of the Cathedral in the very heart of the city is by no means
dominant. The church lies so low that even the spire is inconspicuous in
the landscape. On three sides adjacent buildings completely bar all
view or approach. The only free perspective is on the fourth side, from
the steps of the Ayuntamiento across the square.

The inscription above the door of the city hall, with its trenchant
advice to the magistrates, is well worth notice:--

Nobles discretos varones,
Qui gobernais a Toledo
En aquatos escalones
Codicia, temor y miedo.
Por los comunes provechos
Deschad los particulares
Puez vos hezo Dios pilares
De tan requisimos lechos
Estat vermes y derechos.[9]

In the streets, the _alcazerias_ which wind around the sides of the
Cathedral, the rich silk guild traded. Here were shipped the goods that
freighted vessels sailing for the American colonies.

During the Visigothic reign in Toledo, the Cathedral site was occupied
by a Christian temple. It was transformed by the Moors after their
occupancy of the city into their principal mosque; there they were still
permitted to carry on their worship, according to the terms of the
treaty made on their surrender of the city to King Alfonso IV in 1085. A
year afterwards King Alfonso went off on a campaign, leaving the
capital in charge of his French queen, Constance, and the Archbishop
Bernard, recently sent to Toledo at the King's request by the Abbot of
Cluny. No sooner was King Alfonso outside the city walls than the
regents turned the Moors out of the church. The Archbishop arrived with
a throng of Christian citizens, battered down the main entrance, threw
the Moslem objects of worship into the gutters, and set i