The cathedral--for so we must now call the mosque--was endowed and richly embellished by St Ferdinand’s son and successor, the bookish monarch Alfonso el Sabio. He also bestowed upon Seville its existing coat-of-arms, consisting of the device NO8DO, which frequently appears, to the bewilderment of strangers, on public buildings, uniforms, and documents. The knot is in the vernacular _madeja_; the device thus reads _no madeja do_, or, with an excusable pun, _no me ha dejado_--“it has not deserted me.” This honourable motto the city won by its loyalty to Alfonso during the civil wars which distracted the kingdom during his reign. Seville bears the splendid title of “Most noble, most loyal, most heroic, and unconquered city” (_muy noble_, _muy leal_, _muy heroica_, _y invicta_). The surname “most noble” was bestowed upon it by St Ferdinand; the style “most faithful” it received from Juan II. in remembrance of its resistance to the Infante Don Enrique; “most heroic” from Fernando VII. in recognition of its devotion to the national cause during the War of Independence; and “unconquered” from Isabel II. to commemorate its defence against the army of Espartero in July 1843.
The successors of the sainted king made their home in the Alcazar, and adapted themselves to an environment created by their traditional foes. The personality which looms largest in the history of the city is that of Don Pedro I., surnamed the Cruel, or, by his few admirers, ‘the Justiciary.’ What Harun-al-Rashid is in the story of Bagdad is this ferocious monarch in the annals of Seville. Countless are the tales, the ballads, and traditions of which he is the subject. Curiously enough, Pedro enjoyed a certain measure of popularity in the country he misgoverned. He was undoubtedly a vigilant protector of the humbler classes of his subjects against the tyranny of the aristocracy, and officials, and appears to have combined a grim humour and a strain of what we should now call Bohemianism, with a tiger-like ferocity. He was fond of rambling _incognito_ through the poorer quarters of the city; and no account of Seville can be considered complete without a relation of one of his most notable adventures in the street called Calle de la Cabeza de Don Pedro.