I want to welcome everyone back to part two of my reading of Warren E Carroll's The Last Crusade.

All right, before we get into this, a reminder about Thomas and my our movie reviews and you go to free man beyond the wall

dot com for slash movies links to them all there and we're're going to do another one real soon.

New one, don't know yet, letting Thomas pick this one out.

And then Antelope Hill, where if you like to read books like I do, you can go over there and if you put Pete Q, all

lowercase in the field when you're checking out, you get 5% off.

All right, let's get this going.

This chapter is going to run in spring and it will run up to

the real kickoff of fighting. So let's see how this leads up. So, all right, spring, April through June,

this is 1936. Spain, the Spanish Civil War.

By an unbroken tradition extending all the way back to the fall of the Roman Empire in the

West, the Archbishop of Toledo is the primate of Spain.

For Toledo is Spain's ancient capital.

Crowning a gigantic crag towering over the Tagus River in the midst of a broad dry

plane, Soledo is virtually impregnable to attack. It has never been stormed against a vigorous

defense in the whole history of war in Spain. After the Moors had held Toledo for more than 350 years to Christians, the Christians regained it by negotiations

in the time of El Sid.

They glorified it with one of Spain's most magnificent cathedrals.

Isabella and Fernando built here their splendid church of St. John of the Kings.

The Banner St. John of Astoria carried into battle against the Turks at LaPanto, hung in Salado's

Church at the Holy Cross.

And one of its humble parish churches glowed the greatest work of Spain's supreme painter El Greco,

...