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Updated: June 27, 2025
To the east of Toledo, and to the north of the plains of La Mancha, Cuenca sits on its steep hill surrounded by mountains; a high stone bridge, spanning a green valley and the rushing river, joined the city to a mountain plateau; to-day the mediæval bridge has been replaced by an iron one, which contrasts harshly with the somnolent aspect of the landscape.
But it must in candour be admitted that the point is not wholly clear from doubt. It is now established that Luis de Leon was born at Belmonte in the province of Cuenca: 'Belmonte de la Mancha de Aragon' as he calls it. When was he born? On his tombstone, he was stated to be sixty-four years old when he died on August 23, 1591.
The lands most productive, and the estates in the most choice situations, certainly belonged to the Spanish clergy; and there were cities, such, for example, as Toledo, Cuenca, Leon, and Santiago, in which nearly the whole territory belonged to their respective cathedrals. Several other circumstances tended to strengthen the imperium of the church.
The narrow belt of land, running from east to west, from Cuenca to Coria, to the south of the Sierra de Guaderrama, and constituting the archbishopric of Toledo, has been added to the region lying to the north and to the northwest of Madrid.
Those 1800 square leagues, the centre of agriculture, are twice as numerously peopled as Finland, but still a third less than the province of Cuenca, which is the least populous of all Spain. We cannot dwell on this result without a painful feeling.
These basins, as well as those of Jauja, Cuenca and Almaguer, which lose their waters only by a lateral and narrow issue, owe their origin to a cause more instantaneous, more closely linked with the upheaving of the whole chain.
In the words of an authority, "Cuenca is national, it is Spanish, it is a typical rural town." Yet, it is so typical, that no other city resembles it.
After incessant labor in organizing his force, the earl sent two thousand men, under the command of Lieutenant General Wyndham, to besiege the towns of Requena and Cuenca two places of some strength which blocked the road between Valencia and Madrid.
Meantime the sky kept on weeping through its countless eyes; the river, roaring more wrathful every moment, was now licking at the ends of the low-lying streets near the bank, creeping up into the gardens on the shore, stealing in between the orange-trees, opening holes in the hedges and the mudwalls. The main concern of the populace was whether it were raining also in the mountains of Cuenca.
In a popular commotion which occurred in Cuenca in consequence of an invasion by the French, all prisoners were set at liberty, and this execrable miscreant disappeared. The true motive of this murder could never be satisfactorily ascertained. But the friar having been taken in flagrante, the judges could not hesitate for a moment in passing sentence of death upon him.
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