Wamba was succeeded by the usurper Ervigius, or Erwic—the same who had sent the old king to a cell—who reigned seven years, and after him came Egica and Witica, who between them carried Gothic domination up to the year 710, when the portents were strong for some unknown disaster. Church and state had been in the main united hitherto, or since the advent of Recared; but now there were signs of dissolution, and the final severance came with the elevation of King Roderick. Around King Roderick, “the last of the Goths,” cluster legends and traditions so thickly that it is difficult to separate fiction from truth. If you would know to what extent fable and fiction have enmeshed him, read Washington Irving’s fascinating Legend of Don Roderick. He was a son of a brave Goth, Duke Theodifred, who was blinded and imprisoned by orders of King Witica; but he succeeded in hurling the tyrant from his throne and inflicting upon him the same punishment. He banished the sons of Witica and set himself to work reforms; but the kingdom had been so weakened by the foolish and evil deeds of his late predecessors, and he found himself so surrounded by enemies (friends and relations of the former king), that he could not save it from ruin. He was to be known to history as the last reigning sovereign before the kingdom was overthrown by that mighty Moslem host from Africa. Some Spanish chroniclers have sought to account for this overthrow by ascribing to Don Roderick a foul deed done to a daughter of a certain Count Julian, commander of the Gothic forces in Africa, and the name of fair Florinda has come down to us coupled in infamy with that of the king. But the truth probably is that, while Count Julian’s defection did assist the African invasion, yet the real reason for it runs further back, to the time when the ecclesiastics began to meddle in royal affairs, and especially when their bigotry led to the expulsion of the Jews, who, settling along the North African coast, conspired with the Moors to obtain a foothold in that fair land across the straits. The sad truth is that the Gothic reign was near its end; it was to perish from the earth, leaving few memorials of its existence save a lasting impress upon the speech of Spain, which has been called “a Gothic language handled in a Latin grammar.” Another race was to occupy the land successively won by Roman and Visigoth; and to obtain a clear conception of the manner in which the conquest was effected we must review the previous century. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. THE INVASION FROM AFRICA.