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Stirling tells us that the Franciscan friars of Valladolid possessed two pictures of the Virgin by Mateo de Cerezo "in one of which she was represented sitting in a cherry-tree and adored by St. Francis. This unusual throne may perhaps have been introduced by Cerezo as a symbol of his own devout feelings, his patronymic being the Castilian word for cherry-tree."

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.

He was a leading man amongst the national guards of Valladolid, and delighted in parading about the city on a clumsy steed, which he kept in a subterranean stable. Our next quarters were at the Trojan Horse, an ancient posada, kept by a native of the Basque provinces, who at least was not above his business.

The greater part of these princes, it is true, lived at court rather than in their episcopal see, which is, perhaps, one of the reasons why Palencia failed to emulate with Burgos and Valladolid, though at one time it was the residence of some of the kings of Castile.

A life had ended whose results were more stupendous than those of any other human life ever lived. Yet Valladolid took no notice of Columbus's death; neither did Spain. The nation was too busy watching the men who had practical plans for colonizing the new lands, and turning them into profit, to concern itself with the death of the one brave soul who had found the path.

In the spring of the previous year Wolf had again been summoned from Valladolid, where in the winter he directed the church singing as prinnen of the religious music, to Cuacos, near San Yuste, where Quijada's wife lived with her foster-son Geronimo. From there he had often gone with Dona Magdalena and the boy to the Emperor's residence, and frequently saw him.

On the 7th October following, the licentiate Don Alonzo de Avellano, alcalde of Valladolid, was furnished with an order addressed by the King to Don Eugenio de Peralta, requiring him to place the prisoner in the hands of the said licentiate, who was charged with the execution of Alva's sentence.

Valladolid was the retreat of this wretched Court, which in the most terrible trouble it had yet experienced, lost neither judgment nor courage. Meanwhile the grandest and rarest example of attachment and of courage that had ever been heard of or seen was seen in Spain.

The war of words waxed fast and furious, and the controversy attracted so much attention that the Emperor ordered the India Council to assemble at Valladolid, to decide whether a war of conquest might justly be carried on against the Indians. The Emperor himself presided, and Las Casas and Sepulveda argued the question before them all.

The city of Valladolid, in which Columbus died, was one of those fussy little towns in which everybody knew what was happening next door, and talked and argued about whatever happened upon its streets and in its homes; and yet even Valladolid hardly seemed to know of the presence within its gates of the sick "Viceroy of the Indies."