Ciudad Rodrigo

Ciudad Rodrigo stands above the Águeda near the Portuguese frontier. King Ferdinand II of León walled the town in the twelfth century and founded its bishopric and cathedral, and Enrique II of Castile built its castle in 1372. It was, with Tuy and Badajoz, one of the three main fortresses of the Castilian crown facing Portugal, and in 1384 a Castilian army set out from here for Portugal, to meet defeat at Aljubarrota the next year. The town's Jewish community kept its synagogue until July 1492, and the town was a crossing point for Jewish exiles from Castile bound for Portugal.

After the wars of the seventeenth century the defences were strengthened with ditches, bastions and outworks. In the Peninsular War Marshal Ney took Ciudad Rodrigo on 10 July 1810 after a siege of more than two months. On the night of 19 January 1812 Wellington's army stormed the town through two breaches in the walls, at the cost of the lives of the generals Mackinnon and Craufurd. The Spanish crown gave Wellington the title of Duke of Ciudad Rodrigo, but the sieges left the walls and the old town badly damaged.