King Leovigild was succeeded by another son, Recared, who, though he had stood by and seen his brother executed for opinion’s sake, and whom his father thought to be a good Arian, yet became a Catholic soon after his coronation. With the zeal peculiar to all new converts, he insisted that all his subjects should become Catholics also, and rooted out the “Arian heresy” wherever he could find it. Recared was the first Catholic king of Spain, but not the last bigot, for he lighted the fires of religious persecution, which burned so brightly and balefully through many succeeding centuries. Not content with causing all the Goths to renounce their Arianism, he—or the priests, at his suggestion—turned upon the Jews of the kingdom and threatened them with expulsion unless they also recanted. Thus in the last years of the sixth century the Church acquired a voice in royal affairs, and the Gothic monarchy became elective and dependent very much upon the choice of the bishops. During the next seventy years twelve kings occupied the throne, each king seated at the pleasure of the bishops, and sometimes unseated—not without violence—at their dictation. Of all the Gothic monarchs who reigned in the capital city of Toledo, perhaps none has been held in more sacred remembrance than King Wamba, who, a simple shepherd, was made a king against his will, and then, after he had acquired a liking for the throne, was deposed, also against his will, even after he had performed prodigies of valour for his country. It seems that the clerical party wanted him for king because they thought he might be a pliant instrument in their hands, like his predecessors. But Wamba had a will of his own, so a person of his court, one Ervigius by name, was persuaded to administer a cup of poison to the obstinate old man, which plunged him into a sleep so deep that his attendants thought him about to die. Now it was a tradition of the Church that no king, no matter what his previous life had been, could receive the blessings of the future life unless he died garbed in the habit of a monk. So his servants dressed Wamba in a monk’s cowl and cloak, and when he recovered his senses—for he did not die just then—he was almost insane with rage; for, according to the same unwritten law of the Church, once in the cowl, never more could one reign a king; and so poor old Wamba made the best of it, though protesting that it was a very scurvy trick, and retired to a cloister, where he passed the remainder of his days. All this occurred about the year 680, and it is averred that then began the dissensions, caused by the desire for ecclesiastical supremacy, which divided the Gothic kingdom against itself, and caused its downfall about thirty years later.