Under Alaric II, who became king upon the death of Euric, the Visigoths lost nearly all their possessions north of the Pyrenees, and became more particularly a Spanish people. Their capital was established at Toledo, that ancient and interesting city on the Tagus, and, as compared with the other invaders, they were cultured and polished. At the same time they were more virile than the Romans, hence had been able to expel the latter and subdue the former. They were not, however, sufficiently civilized to hold sacred human life, and especially they secured a reputation as regicides, so many kings of theirs were murdered. During the three hundred years of their dominion in Spain they had thirty–three kings ruling over them, many of whom fell by the assassin’s knife. By sword and good right arm, the Visigothic kings generally won their thrones, but the time came when they were dominated by the Church. To show how this came about, we must look back to the time when, a menace to Rome and a terror to all southern Europe, the barbarous Goths descended from their northern fastnesses. They were pagans then, enemies of the true faith, until between the years 340 and 380 they were converted to Christianity by one Ulfilas, who invented an alphabet for them and translated much of the New Testament into Gothic. This was about the middle of the fourth century; but even when Alaric was thundering at the gates of Rome, it is said that the Goths held more seriously the tenets of their faith and were of purer morals than those from whom they had received their new religion. Now, the primitive Christianity which the Goths had received from Ulfilas was silent as to the mysteries and the dogmas which had gathered around the religion of Rome during the centuries which had passed. They still held to the primitive faith taught them by Ulfilas and their Gothic Bible. In a word (without pretending to say which might have been right, or which party wrong), the Goths were Arians in their belief, while the Romans of Spain and their converts were Trinitarians. There were other minor differences between them, but so long as this radical discrepancy existed between the two religions, they were always at odds. This trouble was brought to a head in the time of King Leovigild, who reigned from A.D. 567 to 586, and who was such a rigid Arian that he finally beheaded a beloved son for becoming a convert to and publicly professing a belief in the Roman religion. This son, Hermenigild, had married a French wife who was a Roman Catholic and who had been the means of his conversion, and encouraged him to lead a revolt against his father. He received his reward in the sixteenth century, when he was canonized as a saint.