PART II. their broad lands covered unbroken leagues of extent in every quarter of the kingdom." The queen, who reared many of their children in the royal palace, under her own eye, endeavoured to draw her potent vassals to the court; 12 but many, still cherishing the ancient spirit of independence, preferred to live in feudal grandeur, surrounded by The of archbishop of Toledo. office of admiral became hereditary, after Henry III., in the noble family of Enriquez, and that of constable in the house of Velasco. Although of great authority and importance in their origin, and, indeed, in the time of the Catholic sovereigns, these posts gradually, after becoming hereditary, declined into mere titular dignities. Salazar de Mendoza, Dignidades, lib. 2, cap. 8, 10; lib. 3, cap. 21. L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 24. 11 The duke of Infantado, head of the ancient house of Mendoza, whose estates lay in Castile, and, indeed, in most of the provinces of the kingdom, is described by Navagiero as living in great magnificence. He maintained a body guard of 200 foot, besides men-atarms; and could muster more than 30,000 vassals. (Viaggio, fol. 6, 33.) Oviedo makes the same statement. (Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 8.) Lucio Marineo, among other things in his curious farrago, has given an estimate of the rents, 66 poco mas 6 menos, " of the great nobility of Castile and Aragon, whose whole amount he computes at one-third of those of the whole kingdom. I will select a few of the names familiar to us in the present narrative. Enriquez, admiral of Castile, 50,000 ducats income, equal to $440,000. Velasco, constable of Castile, 60,000 ducate income, estates in Old Castile. Toledo, duke of Alva, 50,000 ducats income, estates in Castile and Navarre. Mendoza, duke of Infantado, 50,000 ducats income, estates in Castile and other provinces. Guzman, duke of Medina Sidonia, 55,000 ducats income, estates in Andalusia. Cerda, duke of Medina Celi, 30,000 ducats income, estates in Castile and Andalusia. Ponce de Leon, duke of Arcos, 25,000 ducats income, estates in Andalusia. Pacheco, duke of Escalona (marquis of Villena), 60,000 ducats income, estates in Castile. Cordova, duke of Sessa, 60,000 ducats income, estates in Naples and Andalusia. Aguilar, marquis of Priego, 40,000 ducats income, estates in Andalusia and Estremadura. Mendoza, count of Tendilla, 15,000 ducats income, estates in Castile. Pimentel, count of Benavente, 60,000 ducats income, estates in Castile. Giron, count of Ureña, 20,000 ducats income, estates in Andalusia. Silva, count of Cifuentes, 10,000 ducats income, estates in Andalusia. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 24, 25.) The estimate is confirmed, with some slight discrepances, by Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 18, 33, et alibi. See also Salazar de Mendoza, Dignidades, discurso 2. 12 En casa de aquellos Principes estaban las hijas de los principales señores é cavalleros por damas de la Reyna é de las Infantas sus hijas, y en la corte andaban todos los mayorazgos y hijos de grandes é los mas heredados de sus reynos." Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 4, dial. 44. XXVI. their retainers in their strong castles, and wait CHAPTER there, in grim repose, the hour when they might sally forth and reassert by arms their despoiled authority. Such a season occurred on Isabella's death. The warlike nobles eagerly seized it; but the wily and resolute Ferdinand, and afterwards the iron hand of Ximenes, kept them in check, and prepared the way for the despotism of Charles the Fifth, round whom the haughty aristocracy of Castile, shorn of substantial power, were content to revolve as the satellites of a court, reflecting only the borrowed splendors of royalty. of the church. The Queen's government was equally vigilant in Treatment resisting ecclesiastical encroachment. It may appear otherwise to one who casts a superficial glance at her reign, and beholds her surrounded always by a troop of ghostly advisers, and avowing religion as the great end of her principal operations at home and abroad." It is certain, however, that, while in all her acts she confessed the influence of religion, she took more effectual means than any of her predecessors, to circumscribe the temporal powers of the clergy.11 The volume of her pragmáticas is PART II. Care of morals. filled with laws designed to limit their jurisdiction, and restrain their encroachments on the secular authorities.15 Towards the Roman See, she maintained, as we have often had occasion to notice, the same independent attitude. By the celebrated concordat made with Sixtus the Fourth, in 1482, the pope conceded to the sovereigns the right of nominating to the higher dignities of the church.16 The Holy See, however, still assumed the collation to inferior benefices, which were too often lavished on non-residents, and otherwise unsuitable persons. The queen sometimes extorted a papal indulgence granting the right of presentation, for a limited time; on which occasions she showed such alacrity, that she is known to have disposed, in a single day, of more than twenty prebends and inferior dignities. At other times, when the nomination made by his Holiness, as not unfrequently happened, was distasteful to her, she would take care to defeat it, by forbidding the bull to be published until laid before the privy council; at the same time sequestrating the revenues of the vacant benefice, till her own requisitions were complied with." She was equally solicitous in watching over the fol. 9.) He notices also the great 15 See Pragmáticas del Reyno, more than once, with her usual sense of justice, on their application, to shield them from the encroachments of the civil tribunals. Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. pp. 98, 99. 16 See Part I. Chapter 6, of this History. 17 See examples of this, in Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. pp. 95-102. - Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 14. XXVI. morals of the clergy, inculcating on the higher CHAPTER prelates to hold frequent pastoral communication with their suffragans, and to report to her such as were delinquent.1 By these vigilant measures, she succeeded in restoring the ancient discipline of the church, and weeding out the sensuality and indolence, which had so long defiled it; while she had the inexpressible satisfaction to see the principal places, long before her death, occupied by prelates, whose learning and religious principle gave the best assurance of the stability of the reformation.19 Few of the Castilian monarchs have been brought more frequently into collision, or pursued a bolder policy, with the court of Rome. Still fewer have extorted from it such important graces and concessions; a circumstance, which can only be imputed, says a Castilian writer, "to singular good fortune and consummate prudence "; 20 to that deep conviction of the queen's integrity, we may also add, which disarmed resistance, even in her enemies. commons. The condition of the commons under this reign State of the was probably, on the whole, more prosperous than 18 Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. p. 94.-L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 182. 19 Oviedo bears emphatic testimony to this. "En nuestros tiempos há habido en España de nuestra Nacion grandes varones Letrados, excelentes Perlados y Religiosos y personas que por sus habilidades y sciencias hán subido á las mas altas dignidades de Capelos é de Arzobispados y todo lo que mas se puede alcanzar, en la Iglesia de 20"Lo que debe admirar es, que PART II. 21 in any other period of the Spanish history. New avenues to wealth and honors were opened to them; and persons and property were alike protected under the fearless and impartial administration of the law. "Such was the justice dispensed to every one under this auspicious reign," exclaims Marineo, “that nobles and cavaliers, citizens and laborers, rich and poor, masters and servants, all equally partook of it." " We find no complaints of arbitrary imprisonment, and no attempts, so frequent both in earlier and later times, at illegal taxation. In this particular, indeed, Isabella manifested the greatest tenderness for her people. By her commutation of the capricious tax of the alcavala for a determinate one, and still more by transferring its collection from the revenue officers to the citizens themselves, she greatly relieved her subjects.22 Finally, notwithstanding the perpetual call for troops for the military operations, in which the government was constantly engaged, and notwithstanding the example of neighbouring countries, 21Porque la igualidad de la justicia que los bienauenturados Principes hazian era tal, que todos los hombres de qualquier condicion que fuessen: aora nobles, y caualleros aora plebeyos, y labradores, y ricos, o pobres, flacos, o fuertes, señores, o sieruos en lo que a la justicia tocaua todos fuessen iguales." Cosas Memorables, fol. 180. 22 These beneficial changes were made with the advice, and through the agency of Ximenes. (Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 24. Quintanilla, Archetypo, p. 181.) The alcavala, a tax of one tenth on all transfers of property, produced more than any other branch of the revenue. As it was originally designed, more than a century before, to furnish funds for the Moorish war, Isabella, as we have seen in her testament, entertained great scruples as to the right to continue it, without the confirmation of the people, after that was terminated. Ximenes recommended its abolition, without any qualification, to Charles V., but in vain. (Iidem auct., ubi supra.) Whatever be thought of its legality, there can be no doubt it was one of the most successful means ever devised by a government for shackling the industry and enterprise of its subjects. |