On the other hand, the dark King of Navarre, hard pressed by the Moors, executing forays into the north, as the safety of his daughter was at stake, refused to use his troops for her capture; thus the King of Leon was left alone to bear the brunt of the attack, pillaging, demolishing, and burning in true mediæval style. But Queen Doña Teresa still held good. “Keep her close. She shall not go, without the ransom of half his kingdom,” were her words. “Now, by Santiago!” exclaims the exasperated king, “ransom or no ransom, she _shall_ go. You ruined the kingdom in my father’s time, but, by heaven! you shall not play the same game with me!” For once the fat king insists. The Condesa de Castila is to be restored to her husband, on condition of the withdrawal of his troops. All seems accommodated when an unexpected difficulty arises. That little account for the horse and the hawk, which had so pleased the King of Leon on his cousin’s first visit, accepted on the condition of making payment in a year or of doubling the price, had never been settled, and it had grown so enormous that King Sancho found himself at a loss to find the money. Convenient Jews did not exist in those days as we read of later in the time of the Cid. Now, even a royal debtor looks round in vain for help. It was in vain that King Sancho cursed the horse and cursed the hawk, then cursed them both together; that did no good, the debt remained unpaid. In this world from little causes spring great events. That horse and hawk, so innocently purchased from the bright-faced Conde, were finally the cause of the independence of Castile. Not able to discharge the debt, King Don Sancho agreed to free Castile from all vassalage to Leon. And the Conde and the Infanta rode back in triumph to Burgos, as the founders of that dynasty which became the most powerful and glorious of the Peninsula, to merge at last in the royal crown of Spain. CHAPTER XXVI The Cid--1037 Now we come upon a larger view, a more extended horizon of Old Court Life, hitherto shut up in the pastoral city of Leon. Don Fernando el Magno is king. He has transferred the Christian capital to Burgos on succeeding to the states of Leon, Castile, and Galicia by the death of his brother-in-law, Bernardo the Third, in right of his wife, Doña Sancha. _Succeeded_ is hardly the fit word, for Fernando actually slew Bernardo in the battle of Tamara, clearing thus for himself the way; for Bernardo’s sister Sancha was the last of the second line of the Gothic kings descended from Pelayo.