‘From the time of St. Ferdinand,’ remarks a recent historian of Spain (Mr. Ulick Burke), ‘Moors in Castile became as scarce as foxes in Middlesex.’ An era of prosperity seemed about to dawn for Burgos--_caput Castellae camera regia_, as she proudly styled herself. There were great doings within her walls when the son of the king of England (afterwards Edward I.) came here in October 1254 to espouse Leonor, sister of King Alfonso the Learned. The English prince was made a knight by his prospective brother-in-law in the church of Santa Maria, where the marriage later on took place. In 1269 Edward came again to Burgos to assist at the nuptials of the Infante Fernando and the Princess Blanche of France. Among the guests were also the king of Aragon, the sultan of Granada, the Infantes of Aragon and Castile, ‘and other great _ricoshombres_ and knights of the kingdom of Castile and Leon, and counts and dukes of France, and other hidalgos of that country; and the Marquis of Montferrat, who was wedded to Doña Beatriz, daughter of King Alfonso.’ The learned king did much to organise and to purify the administration, and as a natural consequence a sedition was fomented by his brother Don Felipe and the chiefs of the Lara, Haro, and Castro families. The rebels appeared in force before Burgos, and the king invited the leader to the Cortes then in session (1271). This invitation was refused, but a meeting was arranged at the Hospital del Rey outside the walls. Alfonso was in a most conciliatory mood, and as the rebels wanted only a colourable pretext to continue their campaign of rapine and lawlessness, the more he granted the more they wanted. Finally the ringleaders retired in utter disgust to Granada. Burgos was the scene of one of Alfonso’s worst deeds. Suspecting his brother Don Fadrique of intriguing with his grandchildren, the disinherited Infantes de la Cerda, he ordered him to be confined in the castle, where the unfortunate prince was put to death by his ferocious nephew, the Infante Sancho. After the marriage of the Infantes Don Pedro and Don Juan with Margaret of Narbonne and Joanna of Montferrat, at Burgos in 1281, Sancho himself revolted against his father and caused himself to be proclaimed king. He obtained possession of the city, and, strangely enough, reinterred with great ceremony in the monastery of La Trinidad the very uncle he had killed. Señor Amador de los Rios attributes the rivalry of the two cities of Valladolid and Burgos to the preference shown the former city by the wife of Sancho IV., Doña Maria Molina. For all that, it was the old capital of Castile where Sancho caused his son Fernando to be publicly declared heir to the throne.