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For a time Don Roderick lived happily with
his young and beautiful queen, and Toledo was
the seat of festivity and splendour. The 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 connexion 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 connexion, 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 confi

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dence about the person of the sovereign.[8] 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 of Mahomet, 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 boldly faced, and held in check,
the torrent of moslem invasion.

Don Julian was a man of an active, but irregular
genius, and a grasping ambition; he had a
love for power and grandeur, in which he was
joined by his haughty countess; and they could
ill brook the downfall of their house as threatened
by the fate of Witiza. They had hastened, therefore,
to pay their court to the newly elevated
monarch, and to assure him of their fidelity to
his interests.

Roderick was readily persuaded of the sincerity
of Count Julian; he was aware of his merits
as a soldier and a governor and continued him

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in his important command: honouring him with
many other marks of implicit confidence. Count
Julian sought to confirm this confidence by every
proof of devotion. It was a custom among the
Goths to rear many of the children of the most
illustrious families in the royal household. They
served as pages to the king, and handmaids and
ladies of honour to the queen, and were instructed
in all manner of accomplishments befitting their
gentle blood. When about to depart for Ceuta,
to resume his command, Don Julian brought his
daughter Florinda to present her to the sovereigns.
She was a beautiful virgin that had not
as yet attained to womanhood. “I confide her to
your protection,” said he to the king, “to be unto
her as a father; and to have her trained in the
paths of virtue. I can leave with you no dearer
pledge of my loyalty.”

King Roderick received the timid and blushing
maiden into his paternal care; promising to
watch over her happiness with a parent's eye,
and that she should be enrolled among the most
cherished attendants of the queen. With this
assurance of the welfare of his child, Count Julian
departed, well pleased, for his government at
Ceuta.

eaf221v3.n8

[8] Condes Espatorios; so called from the drawn swords of
ample size and breadth, with which they kept guard in the
anti-chambers of the Gothic Kings. Comes Spathariorum,
custodum corporis Regis Profectus. Hune et Propospatharium
appellatum existimo.—Patr. Pant. de Offic. Goth.

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