With Rodrigo’s wonderful exploits in other parts of Spain we are not here concerned. When he died at Valencia at a ripe age, he was brought back to his native place, seated upright on his famous steed Babieca, and laid to rest beside his wife at Cardeña. There he was suffered to remain till the year 1842, when his ashes were transported to the town hall of Burgos. A brave soldier, but one of the sorriest of the nation’s heroes! During the lifetime of this worthy and the reign of Alfonso VI., Toledo was captured from the Moors, and Burgos ranked henceforward only as a secondary capital of Spain. It may be remarked that till Philip II. published his decree that ‘_Madrid solo es corte_,’ the kingdom could not be said in the modern sense of the word ever to have had a capital. Burgos, Valladolid, Toledo, and Seville had all equal claims to be considered the seat of government. As the Moorish frontier was pushed farther and farther south, Burgos lost in military importance. But its dignity was enhanced in an ecclesiastical sense, for it was raised in 1073 to an archiepiscopal see. Then followed the stormy days of Queen Urraca, when the city came in for its fair share of turmoil and bloodshed. Order was temporarily restored under the ‘Emperor’ Alfonso VII. An important ecclesiastical council was held here in 1136. Alfonso, at his death in 1157, most unwisely divided his estates, bestowing Castile upon the eldest, Fernando. The events of 1070 were repeated. Leon and Castile waged war against each other, and when the infant, Alfonso VIII., succeeded his father on the Castilian throne in 1158, the Laras and Castros, rivals for the regency, turned their swords against each other. Burgos was once more the capital of an independent kingdom, and witnessed in 1170 the marriage of the young king to Eleanor, daughter of Henry II. of England--the first of the many happy alliances between the royal houses of the two countries. Alfonso’s reign was prosperous and glorious. He was a tolerant monarch, and showed favour to the Moslems. There seems in his time to have been an important mosque at Burgos. To propitiate Heaven, after the terrible defeat of the Christians at Alarcos, Eleanor persuaded her husband to build the monastery of Las Huelgas, to which act of piety no doubt was attributed the ‘crowning mercy’ of las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. During the struggle for the regency, which ensued on the death of Alfonso, Burgos sided with the boy-king’s suitor Berenguela, who soon after became queen in her own right. Without hesitation this high-minded princess abdicated in favour of her son Fernando, the issue of her marriage with Alfonso of Leon, which had been dissolved by the Pope. The new king was attacked by his own father and by the arch-rebel of Spain, Alvar Fanez, but he triumphed over his enemies, and in 1230 succeeded to his unnatural father’s dominions, thus uniting finally and for ever the kingdoms of Leon and Castile.