Witiza had been deposed by Roderick, a prince who seems to have begun his reign well, but who presently succumbed to the temptations of wealth and power. His selfish pleasure-loving disposition set fire to the combustible materials that surrounded him and that needed but a spark to explode and destroy his kingdom. It was then the custom among the princes of the State to send their children to the court, to be trained in whatever appertained to good breeding and polite conduct. Among others, Count Julian, the governor of Ceuta, sent his daughter Florinda to Roderick's court at Toledo to be educated among the queen's waiting women. The maiden was very beautiful, and the king, forgetful of his honour, which bound him to protect her as he would his own daughter, put her to shame.[2] The dishonour was the greater, since Julian's wife was a daughter of Witiza, and the royal blood of the Goths had thus been insulted in the person of Florinda. In her distress the young girl wrote to her father, and, summoning a trusty page, bade him, if he hoped for knightly honour or lady's favour, to speed with all haste, night and day, over land and sea, till he placed the letter in Count Julian's hand. Julian had no reason to love King Roderick; his own connection with the deposed and probably murdered King Witiza forbade fellowship with the usurper; and his daughter's dishonour fanned his smouldering rancour to a blaze of vengeful fury. He had so far successfully resisted the attacks of the Arabs; but now he resolved no longer to defend the kingdom of his daughter's destroyer. The Saracens should have Spain if they would, and he was ready to show them the way. Full of a passion for revenge, Julian hastened to the Court of Roderick, where he so skilfully disguised his mind that the king, who felt some remorse and trusted that Florinda had kept the secret, heaped honours upon him, took his counsel in everything relating to the defence of the kingdom, and even by his treacherous advice sent the best horses and arms in Spain to the south under Julian's command, to be ready against the infidel invaders. Count Julian departed from Toledo in the highest favour of the king, taking his daughter with him. Roderick's parting request was that the Count would send him some special kind of hawks, which he needed for hunting; Julian made answer, that he would bring him such hawks as he had never in his life seen before, and with this covert hint of the coming of the Arabs he went back to Ceuta.