Spanish Papers and other Miscellanies Author:Washington Irving, Pierre Munroe Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. OF COUNT JULIAN. For a time Don Roderick lived happily with his young and beautiful queen, and Toledo was the seat of festivity and splendor. T... more »he. principal nobles throughout the kingdom repaired to his court to pay him homage, and to receive his commands; and none were more devoted in their reverence than those who were obnoxious to suspicion from their connection with the late king. Among the foremost of these was Count Julian, a man destined to be infamously renowned in the dark story of his country's woes. He was of one of the proudest Gothic families, lord of Consuegra and Algeziras, and connected by marriage with Witiza and the Bishop Oppas, — his wife, the Countess Frandina, being their sister. In consequence of this connection, and of his own merits, he had enjoyed the highest dignities and commands, being one of the Espatorios, or royal sword-bearers, — an office of the greatest confidence about the person of the sovereign. He had, moreover, been entrusted with the military government of the Spanish possessions on the African coast of the strait, which at that time were threatened by the Arabs of the East, the followers ofMahomet, who were advancing their victorious standard to the extremity of Western Africa. Count Julian established his seat of government at Ceuta, the frontier bulwark and one of the far-famed gates of the Mediterranean Sea. Here he holdly faced, and held in check, the torrent of Moslem invasion. Condes Espatorioa ; so called from the drawn swords of ample size and breadth with which they kept gnnrd in the antechambers of the Gothic king?. Comes Spathariomm, custodum corporis Regis Profectus. Hunc et Propo- s]wthariuin appellatum existimo. — Pair. Pant, de Offic. Goth. Don Julian was a man of an active, but irregular genius, ...« less