Gratitude is not always the virtue of princes. Scarcely was Ergica in possession of the envied dignity, than he showed his hostility to the memory of his benefactor. Resolving to use the same weapons as had been employed by that king, he convoked the fifteenth council of Toledo to aid his views of vengeance; he represented to the fathers the oath which he had taken to protect the family of Ervigius, and how difficult it was to be observed amidst the general complaints of his people against the rapacity of that family. The supple ecclesiastics, who had long lost sight of the independence of their vocation, and were become the mere ministers of the monarch (in fact, the bishops were, _ex officio_, ministers of the crown, in a state which has been truly called theocratic), immediately declared that an unjust oath was not binding; and that the king might punish or reward any of his subjects, the relatives of Ervigius among the rest, as justice or equity dictated. In consequence of this decree, Ergica is said to have punished with severity the enemies of Wamba and his house--in other words, the partisans of Ervigius; and even to have repudiated his wife, thus dissolving the only remaining bond which connected him with the rival family. [Sidenote: [687-709 A.D.]] In the sixth year of his reign Ergica was afflicted with a rebellion, which spread into Gothic Gaul. He had also engagements with the Franks--probably connected with the conspiracy of Sisebert; but in none did he obtain any advantage. A more formidable conspiracy was discovered the following year. Notwithstanding the severity of the penal laws against their nation, many Jews, though outwardly Christians, were retained in the peninsula by the attractions of a lucrative commerce; but their souls groaned within them under the oppressions they were made to endure; and they were naturally eager to engage in any undertaking which promised them toleration and revenge. On the present occasion they were said to have secretly conspired with their brethren of Africa; perhaps, too, with the Saracens, on whose arms they had long prayed for success. To avert the threatened explosion, the king convened the seventeenth council of Toledo, which decreed severe penalties against the guilty. The eighth canon (_de Judæorum damnatione_) not only reduced to perpetual slavery all the baptised Jews--and Spain had long suffered no other--who relapsed, or who conspired against the state, but ordered that, at seven years of age, their children should be taken from them, and educated under the direction of approved Christians.[16] In 698 this king associated with him his son Witiza, and caused that prince to be recognised as his successor. Witiza, to whom Galicia was confided, established his court at Tuy; and thenceforth, to the death of Ergica, the coins of the kingdom bore two royal heads, with the motto _Concordia Regni_. The father died at Toledo in 702, leaving behind him a doubtful reputation.[17]