This is the incongruous legend of Witiza. During his father's life-time, he ruled at Tuy in Galicia, and proved himself pious, mild, just and generous. His morals were unimpeachable, and while humane to all, he was indulgent to his personal enemies, and freely granted pardon and favours to malcontents. Such a man seems a fitter subject for canonisation than San Hermengildo. Then this excellent monarch, in middle life, with character and habits formed, comes down to Toledo, and without rhyme or reason, we hear of him suddenly as a blind and bloody-minded scoundrel. From sage and saint he turns into an historic ogre, not content with libertinage in himself but constraining his subjects to follow his example, and for sheer viciousness' sake, commanding an austere and chaste clergy to marry. No villany, no crime seems too base and preposterous for the archbishops to lay to his account. For the benevolence of Tuy we have rank injustice, for the mildness envenomed cruelty, and every anterior virtue is replaced by its pendant vice. Yet Witiza's power at Tuy was no less than his power at Toledo. He had his court and his throne in both towns, and there was no reason on earth why he should act the wise man in the north, and the unreasoning reprobate in the south. We suspect his first act of clemency on reaching Toledo, in annulling Sisebuth's edict against the Jews, had much to do with the joint vituperation of the archbishops and the subsequent historians. Not only did he recall them, but, misplaced generosity in mediæval eyes, he restored to the unfortunates their appropriated property and wealth, and permitted them to live and earn unmolested in his kingdom.