rity of their history, their
necessary origin, and their necessary decadence.

Nevertheless, Toro appears in history somewhat later than Zamora, having
been erected either on virgin soil, or upon the ruins of a destroyed
Arab fortress as late as in the tenth century, by Garcia, son of
Alfonso III. At any rate, it was not until a century later, in 1065,
that the city attained any importance, when Fernando I. bequeathed it to
his daughter Elvira, who, seeing her elder brother's impetuous
ambitions, handed over the town and the citadel to him.

Throughout the middle ages the name of Toro is foremost among the
important fortresses of Castile, and many an event--generally tragic and
bloody--took place behind its walls. Here Alfonso XI. murdered his uncle
in cold blood, and Don Pedro el Cruel, after besieging the town and the
citadel held in opposition to him by his mother, allowed her a free exit
with the gentlemen defenders of the place, but broke his word when they
were on the bridge, and murdered all excepting his widowed mother!

In the days of Isabel the Catholic, Toro was taken by the kings of
Portugal, who upheld the claims of Enrique IV's illegitimate daughter,
Juana la Beltranaja. In the vicinity of the town, the great battle of
Pelea Gonzalo was fought, which gave the western part of Castile to the
rightful sovereigns. This battle is famous for the many prelates and
curates who, armed,--and wearing trousers and not frocks!--fought like
Christians (!) in the ranks.

In Toro, Cortes was assembled in 1505 to open Queen Isabel's testament,
and to promulgate those laws which have gone down in Spanish history as
the Leyes de Toro; this was the last spark of Toro's fame, for since
then its fate has been identical with that of Zamora, forty miles away.

Strictly speaking, it is doubtful if Toro ever was a city; at one time
it seems to have possessed an ephemeral bishop,--at least such is the
popular belief,--who must have reigned in his see but a short time, as
at an early date the city was submitted to the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction of Astorga. Later, when the see was reestablished in
Zamora, the latter's twin sister, Toro, was definitely included in the
new episcopal diocese.

Be that as it may, the Catholic kings raised the church at Toro to a
collegiate in the sixteenth century (1500?) because they were anxious to
gain the good-will of the inhabitants after the Portuguese invasion.

Built either toward the end