, and returned to the arms of his mistress
Maria; several years later he committed most of his terrible crimes
within the limits of the town. Here Maria de Molina upheld her son's
right to the throne during his minority, and in Valladolid also, after
her son's death, the same widow fought for her grandson against the
intrigues of uncles and cousins.

Isabel and Alfonso fought in Valladolid against the proclamation of
their niece, Juana, the illegitimate daughter of Henry IV., as heiress
to the throne; the citizens upheld the Catholic princess's claims, and
it is not surprising that when the princess became queen--the greatest
Spain ever had--she made Valladolid her capital, in gratitude to the
loyalty of its inhabitants.

In Valladolid, Columbus obtained the royal permission to sail westwards
in 1492, and, upon his last return from America, he died in the selfsame
city in 1506; here also Berruguete, the sculptor, created many of his
_chefs-d'oeuvres_ and the immortal Cervantes appeared before the law
courts and wrote the second part of his "Quixote."

Unlucky Juana _la Loca_ (Jane the Mad) and her husband Felipe _el
Hermoso_ (Philip the Handsome) reigned here after the death of Isabel
the Catholic, and fifty years later, when Philip II. returned from
England to ascend the Spanish throne, he settled in Valladolid, until
his religious fanaticism or craze obliged him to move to a city nearer
the Escorial. Then he fixed upon Madrid as his court. Being a religious
man, nevertheless, and conscious of a certain love for Valladolid, his
natal town, he had the suffragan church erected to a cathedral in 1595,
appointing Don Bartolome de la Plaza to be its first bishop. At the same
time, he ordered Juan de Herrero, the severe architect of the Escorial,
to draw the plans and commence the building of the new edifice.

The growing importance of Madrid, and the final establishment in the
last named city of all the honours which belonged to Valladolid, threw
the city seated on the Pisuerga into the shade, and its star of fortune
slowly waned. But not to such a degree as that of Salamanca or Burgos,
for to-day, of all the old cities of Castile, the only one which has a
life of its own, and a commercial and industrial personality, is
Valladolid, the one-time capital of all the Spains, and now the seat of
an archbishopric. It began by usurping the dignity of Burgos; then it
rose to greater heights of fame than its rival, thanks to the