The reason for their presence here stems from having been
commissioned by King Liberator of Scotland, Robert I (who had achieved
independence from England
before dying of leprosy), to bring his embalmed heart to the Holy
Land.
Scottish legends tell Sir James launched his king of hearts
to the Muslims, who had ambushed, thus fulfilling the wish of the king of
fighting infidels. In memory of this event, a monument has been erected in the Square of Spain,
which was twinned for several years with the Scottish town of Melrose.
In what is known as the Battle of Teba, the fact that war is
the main consequence of the making of the Star Castle by Alfonso XI (August
1330), was one of the most astonishing facts and anecdotes from the Middle Ages
in Europe: Count Scots Sir James Douglas was killed, along with a group of
Scots, while trying to help the king in the Castilian conquest of the fortress.
Almost a century after the capture of the Castle of the
Star, the genesis of the County began after Juan Ramirez de Guzman, the first
patriarch of Guzmanes and future count of the tebenas land, was appointed
warden of the fortress.
The county would cover much of the current Shire of
Guadalteba during the Modern Age, a time very well documented in the Municipal
Archives of Teba and also by landmarks such as the current parish church of Santa Cruz Real.
