The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 21

says one of the statutes enacted at Toledo, "is the spur to just and honorable actions, when men perceive that offices of trust are not to descend by inheritance, but to be conferred on merit, they will strive to excel in virtue, that they may attain its reward." [22] The sovereigns, instead of confining themselves to the grandees, frequently advanced persons of humble origin, and especially those learned in the law, to the most responsible stations, consulting them, and paying great deference to their opinions, on all matters of importance. The n.o.bles, finding that rank was no longer the sole, or indeed the necessary avenue to promotion, sought to secure it by attention to more liberal studies, in which they were greatly encouraged by Isabella, who admitted their children into her palace, where they were reared under her own eye. [23]

But the boldest a.s.saults on the power of the aristocracy were made in the famous cortes of Toledo, in 1480, which Carbajal enthusiastically styles "cosa divina para reformacion y remedio de las desordenes pasadas." [24]

The first object of its attention was the condition of the exchequer, which Henry the Fourth had so exhausted by his reckless prodigality, that the clear annual revenue amounted to no more than thirty thousand ducats, a sum much inferior to that enjoyed by many private individuals; so that, stripped of his patrimony, it at last came to be said, he was "king only of the highways." Such had been the royal necessities, that blank certificates of annuities a.s.signed on the public rents were hawked about the market, and sold at such a depreciated rate, that the price of an annuity did not exceed the amount of one year's income. The commons saw with alarm the weight of the burdens which must devolve on them for the maintenance of the crown thus impoverished in its resources; and they resolved to meet the difficulty by advising at once a resumption of the grants unconst.i.tutionally made during the latter half of Henry the Fourth's reign, and the commencement of the present. [25] This measure, however violent, and repugnant to good faith, it may appear at the present time, seems then to have admitted of justification, as far as the nation was concerned; since such alienation of the public revenue was in itself illegal, and contrary to the coronation oath of the sovereign; and those who accepted his obligations, held them subject to the liability of their revocation, which had frequently occurred under the preceding reigns.

As the intended measure involved the interests of most of the considerable proprietors in the kingdom, who had thriven on the necessities of the crown, it was deemed proper to require the attendance of the n.o.bility and great ecclesiastics in cortes by a special summons, which it seems had been previously omitted. Thus convened, the legislature appears, with great unanimity, and much to the credit of those most deeply affected by it, to have acquiesced in the proposed resumption of the grants, as a measure of absolute necessity. The only difficulty was to settle the principles on which the retrenchment might be most equitably made, with reference to creditors, whose claims rested on a great variety of grounds.

The plan suggested by Cardinal Mendoza seems to have been partially adopted. It was decided, that all, whose pensions had been conferred without any corresponding services on their part, should forfeit them entirely; that those, who had purchased annuities, should return their certificates on a reimburs.e.m.e.nt of the price paid for them; and that the remaining creditors, who composed the largest cla.s.s, should retain such a proportion only of their pensions, as might be judged commensurate with their services to the state. [26]

By this important reduction, the final adjustment and execution of which were intrusted to Fernando de Talavera, the queen's confessor, a man of austere probity, the gross amount of thirty millions of maravedies, a sum equal to three-fourths of the whole revenue on Isabella's accession, was annually saved to the crown. The retrenchment was conducted with such strict impartiality, that the most confidential servants of the queen, and the relatives of her husband, were among those who suffered the most severely. [27] It is worthy of remark that no diminution whatever was made of the stipends settled on literary and charitable establishments. It may be also added, that Isabella appropriated the first fruits of this measure, by distributing the sum of twenty millions of maravedies among the widows and orphans of those loyalists who had fallen in the War of the Succession. [28] This resumption of the grants may be considered as the basis of those economical reforms, which, without oppression to the subject, augmented the public revenue more than twelve fold during this auspicious reign. [29]

Several other acts were pa.s.sed by the same cortes, which had a more exclusive bearing on the n.o.bility. They were prohibited from quartering the royal arms on their escutcheons, from being attended by a mace-bearer and a bodyguard, from imitating the regal style of address in their written correspondence, and other insignia of royalty which they had arrogantly a.s.sumed. They were forbidden to erect new fortresses, and we have already seen the activity of the queen in procuring the demolition or rest.i.tution of the old. They were expressly restrained from duels, an inveterate source of mischief, for engaging in which the parties, both princ.i.p.als and seconds, were subjected to the penalties of treason.

Isabella evinced her determination of enforcing this law on the highest offenders, by imprisoning, soon after its enactment, the counts of Luna and Valencia for exchanging a cartel of defiance, until the point at issue should be settled by the regular course of justice. [30]

It is true the haughty n.o.bility of Castile winced more than once at finding themselves so tightly curbed by their new masters. On one occasion, a number of the princ.i.p.al grandees, with the duke of Infantado at their head, addressed a letter of remonstrance to the king and queen, requiring them to abolish the hermandad, as an inst.i.tution burdensome on the nation, deprecating the slight degree of confidence which their highnesses reposed in their order, and requesting that four of their number might be selected to form a council for the general direction of affairs of state, by whose advice the king and queen should be governed in all matters of importance, as in the time of Henry the Fourth.

Ferdinand and Isabella received this unseasonable remonstrance with great indignation, and returned an answer couched in the haughtiest terms. "The hermandad," they said, "is an inst.i.tution most salutary to the nation, and is approved by it as such. It is our province to determine who are best ent.i.tled to preferment, and to make merit the standard of it. You may follow the court, or retire to your estates, as you think best; but, so long as Heaven permits us to retain the rank with which we have been intrusted, we shall take care not to imitate the example of Henry the Fourth, in becoming a tool in the hands of our n.o.bility." The discontented lords, who had carried so high a hand under the preceding imbecile reign, feeling the weight of an authority which rested on the affections of the people, were so disconcerted by the rebuke, that they made no attempt to rally, but condescended to make their peace separately as they could, by the most ample acknowledgments. [31]

An example of the impartiality as well as spirit, with which Isabella a.s.serted the dignity of the crown, is worth recording. During her husband's absence in Aragon in the spring of 1481, a quarrel occurred, in the ante-chamber of the palace at Valladolid, between two young n.o.blemen, Ramiro Nunez de Guzman, lord of Toral, and Frederic Henriquez, son of the admiral of Castile, king Ferdinand's uncle. The queen, on receiving intelligence of it, granted a safe-conduct to the lord of Toral, as the weaker party, until the affair should be adjusted between them. Don Frederic, however, disregarding this protection, caused his enemy to be waylaid by three of his followers, armed with bludgeons, and sorely beaten one evening in the streets of Valladolid.

Isabella was no sooner informed of this outrage on one whom she had taken under the royal protection, than, burning with indignation, she immediately mounted her horse, though in the midst of a heavy storm of rain, and proceeded alone towards the castle of Simancas, then in possession of the admiral, the father of the offender, where she supposed him to have taken refuge, travelling all the while with such rapidity, that she was not overtaken by the officers of her guard, until she had gained the fortress. She instantly summoned the admiral to deliver up his son to justice; and, on his replying that "Don Frederic was not there, and that he was ignorant where He was," she commanded him to surrender the keys of the castle, and, after a fruitless search, again returned to Valladolid. The next day Isabella was confined to her bed by an illness occasioned as much by chagrin, as by the excessive fatigue which she had undergone. "My body is lame," said she, "with the blows given by Don Frederic in contempt of my safe-conduct."

The admiral, perceiving how deeply he and his family had incurred the displeasure of the queen, took counsel with his friends, who were led by their knowledge of Isabella's character to believe that he would have more to hope from the surrender of his son, than from further attempts at concealment. The young man was accordingly conducted to the palace by his uncle, the constable de Haro, who deprecated the queen's resentment by representing the age of his nephew, scarcely amounting to twenty years.

Isabella, however, thought proper to punish the youthful delinquent, by ordering him to be publicly conducted as a prisoner, by one of the alcaldes of her court, through the great square of Valladolid to the fortress of Arevalo, where he was detained in strict confinement, all privilege of access being denied to him; and when, at length, moved by the consideration of his consanguinity with the king, she consented to his release, she banished him to Sicily, until he should receive the royal permission to return to his own country. [32]

Notwithstanding the strict impartiality as well as vigor of the administration, it could never have maintained itself by its own resources alone, in its offensive operations against the high-spirited aristocracy of Castile. Its most direct approaches, however, were made, as we have seen, under cover of the cortes. The sovereigns showed great deference, especially in this early period of their reign, to the popular branch of this body; and, so far from pursuing the odious policy of preceding princes in diminis.h.i.+ng the amount of represented cities, they never failed to direct their writs to all those which, at their accession, retained the right of representation, and subsequently enlarged the number by the conquest of Granada; while they exercised the anomalous privilege, noticed in the Introduction to this History, of omitting altogether, or issuing only a partial summons to the n.o.bility. [33] By making merit the standard of preferment, they opened the path of honor to every cla.s.s of the community. They uniformly manifested the greatest tenderness for the rights of the commons in reference to taxation; and, as their patriotic policy was obviously directed to secure the personal rights and general prosperity of the people, it insured the co-operation of an ally, whose weight, combined with that of the crown, enabled them eventually to restore the equilibrium which had been disturbed by the undue preponderance of the aristocracy.

It may be well to state here the policy pursued by Ferdinand and Isabella in reference to the Military Orders of Castile, since, although not fully developed until a much later period, it was first conceived, and indeed partly executed, in that now under discussion.

The uninterrupted warfare, which the Spaniards were compelled to maintain for the recovery of their native land from the infidel, nourished in their bosoms a flame of enthusiasm, similar to that kindled by the crusades for the recovery of Palestine, partaking in an almost equal degree of a religious and a military character. This similarity of sentiment gave birth also to similar inst.i.tutions of chivalry. Whether the military orders of Castile were suggested by those of Palestine, or whether they go back to a remoter period, as is contended by their chroniclers, or whether, in fine, as Conde intimates, they were imitated from corresponding a.s.sociations, known to have existed among the Spanish Arabs, [34] there can be no doubt that the forms under which they were permanently organized, were derived, in the latter part of the twelfth century, from the monastic orders established for the protection of the Holy Land. The Hospitallers, and especially the Templars, obtained more extensive acquisitions in Spain, than in any, perhaps every other country in Christendom; and it was partly from the ruins of their empire, that were constructed the magnificent fortunes of the Spanish orders. [35]

The most eminent of these was the order of St. Jago, or St. James, of Compostella. The miraculous revelation of the body of the Apostle, after the lapse of eight centuries from the date of his interment, and his frequent apparition in the ranks of the Christian armies, in their desperate struggles with the infidel, had given so wide a celebrity to the obscure town of Compostella in Galicia, which contained the sainted relics, [36] that it became the resort of pilgrims from every part of Christendom, during the Middle Ages; and the escalop sh.e.l.l, the device of St. James, was adopted as the universal badge of the palmer. Inns for the refreshment and security of the pious itinerants were scattered along the whole line of the route from France; but, as they were exposed to perpetual annoyance from the predatory incursions of the Arabs, a number of knights and gentlemen a.s.sociated themselves, for their protection, with the monks of St. Lojo, or Eloy, adopting the rule of St. Augustine, and thus laid the foundation of the chivalric order of St. James, about the middle of the twelfth century. The cavaliers of the fraternity, which received its papal bull of approbation five years later, in 1175, were distinguished by a white mantle embroidered with a red cross, in fas.h.i.+on of a sword, with the escallop sh.e.l.l below the guard, in imitation of the device which glittered on the banner of their tutelar saint, when, he condescended to take part in their engagements with the Moors. The red color denoted, according to an ancient commentator, "that it was stained with the blood of the infidel." The rules of the new order imposed on its members the usual obligations of obedience, community of property, and of conjugal chast.i.ty, instead of celibacy. They were, moreover, required to relieve the poor, defend the traveler, and maintain perpetual war upon the Mussulman. [37]

The inst.i.tution of the knights of Calatrava was somewhat more romantic in its origin. That town, from its situation on the frontiers of the Moorish territory of Andalusia, where it commanded the pa.s.ses into Castile, became of vital importance to the latter kingdom. Its defense had accordingly been entrusted to the valiant order of the Templars, who, unable to keep their ground against the pertinacious a.s.saults of the Moslems, abandoned it, at the expiration of eight years, as untenable. This occurred about the middle of the twelfth century; and the Castilian monarch, Sancho the Beloved, as the last resort, offered it to whatever good knights would undertake its defense.

The emprise was eagerly sought by a monk of a distant convent in Navarre, who had once been a soldier, and whose military ardor seems to have been exalted, instead of being extinguished, in the solitude of the cloister.

The monk, supported by his conventual brethren, and a throng of cavaliers and more humble followers, who sought redemption under the banner of the church, was enabled to make good his word. From the confederation of these knights and ecclesiastics sprung the military fraternity of Calatrava, which received the confirmation of the pontiff, Alexander the Third, in 1164. The rules which it adopted were those of St. Benedict, and its discipline was in the highest degree austere.

The cavaliers were sworn to perpetual celibacy, from which they were not released till so late as the sixteenth century. Their diet was of the plainest kind. They were allowed meat only thrice a week, and then only one dish. They were to maintain unbroken silence at the table, in the chapel, and the dormitory; and they were enjoined both to sleep and to wors.h.i.+p with the sword girt on their side, in token of readiness for action. In the earlier days of the inst.i.tution, the spiritual, as well as the military brethren, were allowed to make part of the martial array against the infidel, until this was prohibited, as indecorous, by the Holy See. From this order branched off that of Montesa, in Valencia, which was inst.i.tuted at the commencement of the fourteenth century, and continued dependent on the parent stock. [38]

The third great order of religious chivalry in Castile was that of Alcantara, which also received its confirmation from Pope Alexander the Third, in 1177. It was long held in nominal subordination to the knights of Calatrava, from which it was relieved by Julius the Second, and eventually rose to an importance little inferior to that of its rival.

[39]

The internal economy of these three fraternities was regulated by the same general principles. The direction of affairs was entrusted to a council, consisting of the grand master and a number of the commanders (_comendadores_), among whom the extensive territories of the order were distributed. This council, conjointly with the grand master, or the latter exclusively, as in the fraternity of Calatrava, supplied the vacancies. The master himself was elected by a general chapter of these military functionaries alone, or combined with the conventual clergy, as in the order of Calatrava, which seems to have recognized the supremacy of the military over the spiritual division of the community, more unreservedly than that of St. James.

These inst.i.tutions appear to have completely answered the objects of their creation. In the earlier history of the Peninsula, we find the Christian chivalry always ready to bear the brunt of battle against the Moors. Set apart for this peculiar duty, their services in the sanctuary only tended to prepare them for their sterner duties in the field of battle, where the zeal of the Christian soldier may be supposed to have been somewhat sharpened by the prospect of the rich temporal acquisitions, which the success of his arms was sure to secure to his fraternity. For the superst.i.tious princes of those times, in addition to the wealth lavished so liberally on all monastic inst.i.tutions, granted the military orders almost unlimited rights over the conquests achieved by their own valor. In the sixteenth century, we find the order of St. James, which had shot up to a pre-eminence above the rest, possessed of eighty-four commanderies, and two hundred inferior benefices. This same order could bring into the field, according to Garibay, four hundred belted knights, and one thousand lances, which, with the usual complement of a lance in that day, formed a very considerable force. The rents of the masters.h.i.+p of St. James amounted, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, to sixty thousand ducats, those of Alcantara to forty-five thousand, and those of Calatrava to forty thousand. There was scarcely a district of the Peninsula which was not covered with their castles, towns, and convents. Their rich commanderies gradually became objects of cupidity to men of the highest rank, and more especially the grand-masters.h.i.+ps, which, from their extensive patronage, and the authority they conferred over an organized militia pledged to implicit obedience, and knit together by the strong tie of common interest, raised their possessors almost to the level of royalty itself.

Hence the elections to these important dignities came to be a fruitful source of intrigue, and frequently of violent collision. The monarchs, who had anciently reserved the right of testifying their approbation of an election by presenting the standard of the order to the new dignitary, began personally to interfere in the deliberations of the chapter. While the pope, to whom a contested point was not unfrequently referred, a.s.sumed at length the prerogative of granting the masters.h.i.+ps in administration on a vacancy, and even that of nomination itself, which, if disputed, he enforced by his spiritual thunders. [40]

Owing to these circ.u.mstances, there was probably no one cause, among the many which occurred in Castile during the fifteenth century, more prolific of intestine discord, than the election to these posts, far too important to be intrusted to any subject, and the succession to which was sure to be contested by a host of compet.i.tors. Isabella seems to have settled in her mind the course of policy to be adopted in this matter, at a very early period of her reign. On occasion of a vacancy in the grand-masters.h.i.+p of St. James, by the death of the inc.u.mbent, in 1476, she made a rapid journey on horseback, her usual mode of travelling, from Valladolid to the town of Ucles, where a chapter of the order was deliberating on the election of a new princ.i.p.al. The queen, presenting herself before this body, represented with so much energy the inconvenience of devolving powers of such magnitude on any private individual, and its utter incompatibility with public order, that she prevailed on them, smarting, as they were, under the evils of a disputed succession, to solicit the administration for the king, her husband. That monarch, indeed, consented to waive this privilege in favor of Alonso de Cardenas, one of the compet.i.tors for the office, and a loyal servant of the crown; but, at his decease in 1499, the sovereigns retained the possession of the vacant masters.h.i.+p, conformably to a papal decree, which granted them its administration for life, in the same manner as had been done with that of Calatrava in 1487, and of Alcantara in 1494. [41]

The sovereigns were no sooner vested with the control of the military orders, than they began with their characteristic promptness to reform the various corruptions, which had impaired their ancient discipline. They erected a council for the general superintendence of affairs relating to the orders, and invested it with extensive powers both of civil and criminal jurisdiction. They supplied the vacant benefices with persons of acknowledged worth, exercising an impartiality, which could never be maintained by any private individual, necessarily exposed to the influence of personal interests and affections. By this harmonious distribution, the honors, which had before been held up to the highest bidder, or made the subject of a furious canva.s.s, became the incentive and sure recompense of desert. [42]

In the following reign, the grand-masters.h.i.+ps of these fraternities were annexed in perpetuity to the crown of Castile by a bull of Pope Adrian the Sixth; while their subordinate dignities, having survived the object of their original creation, the subjugation of the Moors, degenerated into the empty decorations, the stars and garters, of an order of n.o.bility.

[43]

IV. Vindication of ecclesiastical rights belonging to the crown from papal usurpation. In the earlier stages of the Castilian monarchy, the sovereigns appear to have held a supremacy in spiritual, very similar to that exercised by them in temporal matters. It was comparatively late that the nation submitted its neck to the papal yoke, so closely riveted at a subsequent period; and even the Romish ritual was not admitted into its churches till long after it had been adopted in the rest of Europe.

[44] But, when the code of the Partidas was promulgated in the thirteenth century, the maxims of the canon law came to be permanently established.

The ecclesiastical encroached on the lay tribunals. Appeals were perpetually carried up to the Roman court; and the popes, pretending to regulate the minutest details of church economy, not only disposed of inferior benefices, but gradually converted the right of confirming elections to the episcopal and higher ecclesiastical dignities, into that of appointment. [45]

These usurpations of the church had been repeatedly the subject of grave remonstrance in cortes. Several remedial enactments had pa.s.sed that body, during the present reign, especially in relation to the papal provision of foreigners to benefices; an evil of much greater magnitude in Spain than in other countries of Europe, since the episcopal demesnes, frequently covering the Moorish frontier, became an important line of national defence, obviously improper to be intrusted to the keeping of foreigners and absentees. Notwithstanding the efforts of cortes, no effectual remedy was devised for this latter grievance, until it became the subject of actual collision between the crown and the pontiff, in reference to the see of Taracona, and afterwards of Cuenca. [46]

Sixtus the Fourth had conferred the latter benefice, on its becoming vacant in 1482, on his nephew, Cardinal San Giorgio, a Genoese, in direct opposition to the wishes of the queen, who would have bestowed it on her chaplain, Alfonso de Burgos, in exchange for the bishopric of Cordova. An amba.s.sador was accordingly despatched by the Castilian sovereigns to Rome, to remonstrate on the papal appointment; but without effect, as Sixtus replied, with a degree of presumption, which might better have become his predecessors of the twelfth century, that "he was head of the church, and, as such, possessed of unlimited power in the distribution of benefices, and that he was not bound to consult the inclination of any potentate on earth, any farther than might subserve the interests of religion."

The sovereigns, highly dissatisfied with this response, ordered their subjects, ecclesiastical as well as lay, to quit the papal dominions; an injunction, which the former, fearful of the sequestration of their temporalities in Castile, obeyed with as much promptness as the latter. At the same time, Ferdinand and Isabella proclaimed their intention of inviting the princes of Christendom to unite with them in convoking a general council for the reformation of the manifold abuses, which dishonored the church. No sound could have grated more unpleasantly on the pontifical ear, than the menace of a general council, particularly at this period, when ecclesiastical corruptions had reached a height which could but ill endure its scrutiny. The pope became convinced that he had ventured too far, and that Henry the Fourth was no longer monarch of Castile. He accordingly despatched a legate to Spain, fully empowered to arrange the matter en an amicable basis.

The legate, who was a layman, by name Domingo Centurion, no sooner arrived in Castile, than he caused the sovereigns to be informed of his presence there, and the purpose of his mission; but he received orders instantly to quit the kingdom, without attempting so much as to disclose the nature of his instructions, since they could not but be derogatory to the dignity of the crown. A safe-conduct was granted for himself and his suite; but, at the same time, great surprise was expressed that any one should venture to appear, as envoy from his Holiness, at the court of Castile, after it had been treated by him with such unmerited indignity.

Far from resenting this ungracious reception, the legate affected the deepest humility; professing himself willing to waive whatever immunities he might claim as papal amba.s.sador, and to submit to the jurisdiction of the sovereigns as one of their own subjects, so that he might obtain an audience. Cardinal Mendoza, whose influence in the cabinet had gained him the t.i.tle of "third king of Spain," apprehensive of the consequences of a protracted rupture with the church, interposed in behalf of the envoy, whose conciliatory deportment at length so far mitigated the resentment of the sovereigns, that they consented to open negotiations with the court of Rome. The result was the publication of a bull by Sixtus the Fourth, in which his Holiness engaged to provide such natives to the higher dignities of the church in Castile, as should be nominated by the monarchs of that kingdom; and Alfonso de Burgos was accordingly translated to the see of Cuenca. [47] Isabella, on whom the duties of ecclesiastical preferment devolved, by the act of settlement, availed herself of the rights, thus wrested from the grasp of Rome, to exalt to the vacant sees persons of exemplary piety and learning, holding light, in comparison with the faithful discharge of this duty, every minor consideration of interest, and even the solicitations of her husband, as we shall see hereafter. [48]

And the chronicler of her reign dwells with complacency on those good old times, when churchmen were to be found of such singular modesty, as to require to be urged to accept the dignities to which their merits ent.i.tled them. [49]

V. The regulation of trade. It will be readily conceived that trade, agriculture, and every branch of industry must have languished under the misrule of preceding reigns. For what purpose, indeed, strive to acc.u.mulate wealth, when it would only serve to sharpen the appet.i.te of the spoiler? For what purpose cultivate the earth, when the fruits were sure to be swept away, even before harvest time, in some ruthless foray? The frequent famines and pestilences, which occurred in the latter part of Henry's reign and the commencement of his successor's, show too plainly the squalid condition of the people, and their utter dest.i.tution of all useful arts. We are a.s.sured by the Curate of Los Palacios, that the plague broke out in the southern districts of the kingdom, carrying off eight, or nine, or even fifteen thousand inhabitants from the various cities; while the prices of the ordinary aliments of life rose to a height, which put them above the reach of the poorer cla.s.ses of the community. In addition to these physical evils, a fatal shock was given to commercial credit by the adulteration of the coin. Under Henry the Fourth, it is computed that there were no less than one hundred and fifty mints openly licensed by the crown, in addition to many others erected by individuals without any legal authority. The abuse came to such a height, that people at length refused to receive in payment of their debts the debased coin, whose value depreciated more and more every day; and the little trade, which remained in Castile, was carried on by barter, as in the primitive stages of society. [50]

The magnitude of the evil was such as to claim the earliest attention of the cortes under the new monarchs. Acts were pa.s.sed fixing the standard and legal value of the different denominations of coin. A new coinage was subsequently made. Five royal mints were alone authorized, afterwards augmented to seven, and severe penalties denounced against the fabrication of money elsewhere. The reform of the currency gradually infused new life into commerce, as the return of the circulations, which have been interrupted for a while, quickens the animal body. This was furthered by salutary laws for the encouragement of domestic industry. Internal communication was facilitated by the construction of roads and bridges.

Absurd restrictions on change of residence, as well as the onerous duties which had been imposed on commercial intercourse between Castile and Aragon, were repealed. Several judicious laws were enacted for the protection of foreign trade; and the flouris.h.i.+ng condition of the mercantile marine may be inferred from that of the military, which enabled the sovereigns to fit out an armament of seventy sail in 1482, from the ports of Biscay and Andalusia, for the defence of Naples against the Turks. Some of their regulations, indeed, as those prohibiting the exportation of the precious metals, savor too strongly of the ignorance of the true principles of commercial legislation, which has distinguished the Spaniards to the present day. But others, again, as that for relieving the importation of foreign books from all duties, "because," says the statute, "they bring both honor and profit to the kingdom, by the facilities which they afford for making men learned," are not only in advance of that age, but may sustain an advantageous comparison with provisions on corresponding subjects in Spain at the present time. Public credit was re- established by the punctuality with which the government redeemed the debt contracted during the Portuguese war; and, notwithstanding the repeal of various arbitrary imposts, which enriched the exchequer under Henry the Fourth, such was the advance of the country under the wise economy of the present reign, that the revenue was augmented nearly six fold between the years 1477 and 1482. [51]

Thus released from the heavy burdens imposed on it, the spring of enterprise recovered its former elasticity. The productive capital of the country was made to flow through the various channels of domestic industry. The hills and the valleys again rejoiced in the labor of the husbandman; and the cities were embellished with stately edifices, both public and private, which attracted the gaze and commendation of foreigners. [52] The writers of that day are unbounded in their plaudits of Isabella, to whom they princ.i.p.ally ascribe this auspicious revolution in the condition of the country and its inhabitants, [53] which seems almost as magical as one of those transformations in romance wrought by the hands of some benevolent fairy. [54]

VI. The pre-eminence of the royal authority. This, which, as we have seen, appears to have been the natural result of the policy of Ferdinand and Isabella, was derived quite as much from the influence of their private characters, as from their public measures. Their acknowledged talents were supported by a dignified demeanor, which formed a striking contrast with the meanness in mind and manners that had distinguished their predecessor.

They both exhibited a practical wisdom in their own personal relations, which always commands respect, and which, however it may have savored of worldly policy in Ferdinand, was, in his consort, founded on the purest and most exalted principle. Under such a sovereign, the court, which had been little better than a brothel under the preceding reign, became the nursery of virtue and generous ambition. Isabella watched a.s.siduously over the nurture of the high-born damsels of her court, whom she received into the royal palace, causing them to be educated under her own eye, and endowing them with liberal portions on their marriage. [55] By these and similar acts of affectionate solicitude, she endeared herself to the higher cla.s.ses of her subjects, while the patriotic tendency of her public conduct established her in the hearts of the people. She possessed, in combination with the feminine qualities which beget love, a masculine energy of character, which struck terror into the guilty. She enforced the execution of her own plans, oftentimes even at great personal hazard, with a resolution surpa.s.sing that of her husband. Both were singularly temperate, indeed, frugal, in their dress, equipage, and general style of living; seeking to affect others less by external pomp, than by the silent though more potent influence of personal qualities. On all such occasions as demanded it, however, they displayed a princely magnificence, which dazzled the mult.i.tude, and is blazoned with great solemnity in the garrulous chronicles of the day. [56]

The tendencies of the present administration were undoubtedly to strengthen the power of the crown. This was the point to which most of the feudal governments of Europe at this epoch were tending. But Isabella was far from being actuated by the selfish aim or unscrupulous policy of many contemporary princes, who, like Louis the Eleventh, sought to govern by the arts of dissimulation, and to establish their own authority by fomenting the divisions of their powerful va.s.sals. On the contrary, she endeavored to bind together the disjointed fragments of the state, to a.s.sign to each of its great divisions its const.i.tutional limits, and, by depressing the aristocracy to its proper level and elevating the commons, to consolidate the whole under the lawful supremacy of the crown. At least, such was the tendency of her administration up to the present period of our history. These laudable objects were gradually achieved without fraud or violence, by a course of measures equally laudable; and the various orders of the monarchy, brought into harmonious action with each other, were enabled to turn the forces, which had before been wasted in civil conflict, to the glorious career of discovery and conquest, which it was destined to run during the remainder of the century.

The sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, published in 1821, is devoted altogether to the reign of Isabella, It is distributed into Ill.u.s.trations, as they are termed, of the various branches of the administrative policy of the queen, of her personal character, and of the condition of science under her government. These essays exhibit much curious research, being derived from unquestionable contemporary doc.u.ments, printed and ma.n.u.script, and from the public archives. They are compiled with much discernment; and, as they throw light on some of the most recondite transactions of this reign, are of inestimable service to the historian. The author of the volume is the late lamented secretary of the Academy, Don Diego Clemencin; one of the few who survived the wreck of scholars.h.i.+p in Spain, and who with the erudition, which has frequently distinguished his countrymen, combined the liberal and enlarged opinions, which would do honor to any country.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Among other examples, Pulgar mentions that of the alcayde of Castro- Nuno, Pedro de Mendana, who, from the strong-holds in his possession, committed such grievous devastations throughout the country, that the cities of Burgos, Avila, Salamanca, Segovia, Valladolid, Medina, and others in that quarter, were fain to pay him a tribute, (black mail,) to protect their territories from his rapacity. His successful example was imitated by many other knightly freebooters of the period. (Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 66.)--See also extracts cited by Saez from ma.n.u.script notices by contemporaries of Henry IV. Monedas de Enrique IV., pp. 1, 2.

[2] The _quaderno_ of the laws of the Hermandad has now become very rare. That in my possession was printed at Burgos, in 1527. It has since been incorporated with considerable extension into the Recopilacion of Philip II.

[3] Quaderno de las Leyes Nuevas de la Hermandad, (Burgos, 1527,) leyes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 20, 36, 37.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap.

51.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 160, ed. 1539.--Mem. de la Acad.

de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 4.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 76.--Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, fol. 36.--By one of the laws, the inhabitants of such seignorial towns as refused to pay the contributions of the Hermandad were excluded from its benefits, as well as from traffic with, and even the power of recovering their debts, from other natives of the kingdom.

Ley 33.

[4] Recopilacion de las Leyes, (Madrid, 1640,) lib. 8, t.i.t. 13, ley 44.-- Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 379.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 51.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 6.--Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decad., fol. 37, 38.--Las Pragmaticas del Reyno, (Sevilla, 1520,) fol. 85.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 160.

[5] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 76.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap.