At or near the close of the twelfth century we find three Alfonsos on as many thrones: Alfonso VIII, surnamed the Noble, in Castile; Alfonso IX in Leon and Oviedo; and Alfonso II ruling in Portugal, which had become separated from Spain in 1095. Navarre was under Sancho VII, while Aragon and the greater portion of Catalonia acknowledged Pedro II. At the same time the Moslems were governed by Mohammed abu Abdallah, the son of Yacoub, who had won the great battle of Alarcos. These are names merely, some of which have hardly survived, in connection with great deeds, the lives of those who bore them. But it was permitted Alfonso VIII, in the year 1212, to inflict a defeat upon the Moors from which they never recovered. This was at the great battle of Navas de Tolosa, when, according to the statements of the victors, at least one hundred thousand Moslems fell, victims to Christian prowess, and, sad to relate, after the victory was assured, objects of Christian bigotry; for they treated with shameful barbarity those who survived. The battlefield of Tolosa was the turning point of Moslem fortunes, for from the date of that great event the followers of Mahommed lost steadily in Spain, retreating ever nearer the southern coast, whence their ancestors had invaded the peninsula five hundred years before. Alfonso the Noble survived this achievement but two years, and died in 1214, leaving a reputation not only as a great warrior, but as a lover of learning, having established, it is said, the first university in Spain in the year 1209. He left his throne to his son Henry I, and under the regency of his daughter Berenguela, who, when Henry was accidentally killed, secured the kingdom for her own son Ferdinand. Two momentous events came to pass at this time—the battle of Tolosa, which drove back the Moslems, and the union of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon under one ruler; for at the death of Alfonso IX of Leon the kingdom passed to Ferdinand III, who was thus placed in possession of resources and armies which he could unite toward the expulsion of the Moors. He was later canonized for his great services to Christendom, and is known to history as St. Ferdinand. It is a curious fact that his cousin, Louis of France, son of his mother’s sister, and likewise a grandson of Alfonso VIII of Castile, was also canonized; and the grandmother of both was Eleanor of England, daughter of Henry II. Well, St. Ferdinand, to call him by the title bestowed upon him three hundred years after his death, was a flaming sword as toward the Moors. He captured their capital, Cordova, in 1236, the city of Jaen in 1246, and at last the “Queen of the Guadalquivir,” beautiful Seville (ancient port of the Phœnicians, the Roman Hispalis), where he died in 1252, and where his tomb and many precious relics of his time may be seen in the great cathedral there.