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And now seeing that the kingdom of Ferrando was divided, he asked help of his uncle Don Ramiro, King of Aragon; and the men of Aragon and of Navarre entered Castille together.
To one line of the house of Austria, that of Charles the Fifth, had fallen not only the Imperial Crown but the great heritage of Burgundy, Aragon, Naples, Castille, and the Castillian dependencies in the New World. To a second, that of the Emperor's brother Ferdinand, had fallen the Austrian duchies, Bohemia and Hungary.
And as he was returning from the spoil he said, Now am I well pleased, for good tidings will go to Castille, how my Cid has won a battle in the field. My Cid also turned back; his coif was wrinkled, and you might see his full beard; the hood of his mail hung down upon his shoulders, and the sword was still in his hand.
I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they huddled together and moved away from the wood. I was looking about to see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep in his mouth. My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled plaintively.
At first, indeed, the queen-mother, Blanche of Castille, naturally anxious for her son's release, favoured the enterprise. But the priests, aware it might be that the leaders of the movement had ulterior objects in view, set their faces decidedly against it, and the leaders of the shepherds retaliated by stirring up the populace against the priests, and by the massacre of several ecclesiastics.
When Louis was in his nineteenth year, Blanche of Castille recognised the expediency of uniting him to a princess worthy of sharing the French throne, and bethought her of the family of Raymond Berenger, Count of Provence, one of the most accomplished men in Europe, and whose countess, Beatrice of Savoy, was even more accomplished than her husband; Raymond and Beatrice had four daughters, all remarkable for their wit and beauty, and all destined to be queens.
And in the year 1037 Ferrando slew Bermudo the King of Leon in battle, who was his wife's brother, and conquered his kingdom, and succeeded to it in right of his wife Dona Sancha. So he was the first person who united the states of Castille and Leon, and the first who was called King of Castille; for till this time the lords of that country had been called Counts.
When, in 1474, Isabella inherited the crown of Castille, and, in 1479, her husband, Ferdinand, became king of Aragon, they united, by close personal and political bonds, what had formerly been near a score of domains, variously joined or detached.
Furthermore the conquest of the Canaries at the end of the fourteenth century and of Teneriffe and other islands in the fifteenth led to the bringing of many of their natives as slaves to Castille and the neighboring kingdoms.
My Cid returned to Zaragoza with this great honour, taking his prisoners with him; and he set them all freely at liberty, and having tarried in Zaragoza a few days, set forth for Castille, with great riches and full of honours.
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