Standing high above the yellow Tagus, which, confined in a deep gorge, rushes and swirls far below between precipitous granite cliffs, Toledo was always an ideal position for a fortress before modern firearms rendered Nature's defences of little avail. Its name is associated with the great Cardinals of the Rodrigo, Tenorio, and Foncesca families, as well as scions of the houses of Ximenes, Mendoza, Tavera, and Lorenzana. The wealth of these Prelates was immense, and their power, Ecclesiastical and Temporal, proportionate. They practically had no rivals, they certainly feared none, they ruled kings as well as countries, and their allegiance to Rome was purely nominal. They made wars and fought in them. For their patronage of art and literature future generations have had good cause to be grateful. They built schools and improved the means of communication throughout the land. Under their influence the Church was omnipotent, and they have written their names deep in the pages of Spanish history. In fact, so great was the power of Toledo's clergy that it grew to be the cause of the foundation of the Capital at Madrid. Philip II., who removed the Court from Valladolid to Toledo, found it better, after a short residence here, to take himself and his Court to a town where he no longer encountered the arrogance of Ecclesiastical rule. Under the Romans, who captured it in 193 B.C., "Toletum" became the capital of Hispania. Leovigild removed hither from Seville, and his successor, Reccared, who embraced the orthodox form of Christianity, made it the ecclesiastical as well as political capital of his dominions. For nearly four centuries, from 712, when the Moors took Toledo, it was under their rule; but divided counsels and the treachery of the down-trodden Hebrew enabled Alfonso VI. to enter in triumph with the Cid. The King then styled himself Emperor, and promoted the Archbishop to the Primacy of Spain. Under Alfonso's rule the city grew rapidly in every way. Churches and convents were built, defences strengthened, and Toledo knew no rival. With far-seeing wisdom, Moor and Christian were allowed to intermarry, and lived together in peace for wellnigh one hundred and fifty years. The advent in 1227 of that ecclesiastical firebrand, St. Ferdinand, however, altered this. One of his first acts was to pull down the Mosque, wherein the Moors of the city, by Alfonso's royal prerogative, had been allowed to worship, and commence the building on its site of the great Cathedral. [Illustration: TOLEDO. THE CATHEDRAL] For two hundred years and more did the architects who followed Pedro Perez add bit by bit, leaving their mark on its stones. Partly constructed of granite it is immensely strong. A softer stone has been used with great discretion in the decorative portions of the building.