"Now History unfolds her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of Time."
Clearly to comprehend the internal condition of Spain at the period
of our narrative (1479)--a condition which, though apparently purely
national, had influence over every domestic hearth--it is necessary to
glance back a few years. The various petty Sovereignties into which
Spain had been divided never permitted any lengthened period of peace;
but these had at length merged into two great kingdoms, under the
names of Arragon and Castile. The _form_ of both governments was
monarchical; but the _genius_ of the former was purely republican,
and the power of the sovereign so circumscribed by the Junta, the
Justicia, and the Holy Brotherhood, that the vices or follies of the
monarch were of less consequence, in a national point of view, in
Arragon, than in any other kingdom. It was not so with Castile. From
the death of Henry the Third, in 1404, a series of foreign and civil
disasters had plunged the kingdom in a state of anarchy and misery.
John the Second had some virtues as an individual, but none as a king;
and his son Henry, who succeeded him in 1450, had neither the one nor
the other. Governed as his father had been, entirely by favorites,
the discontent of all classes of his subjects rapidly increased; the
people were disgusted and furious at the extravagance of the monarch's
minion; the nobles, fired at his insolence; and an utter contempt of
the king, increased the virulence of the popular ferment. Unmindful of
the disgrace attendant on his divorce from Blanche of Navarre, Henry
sought and obtained the hand of Joanna, Princess of Portugal, whose
ambition and unprincipled intrigues heightened the ill-favor with
which he was already regarded. The court of Castile, once so famous
for chastity and honor, sank to the lowest ebb of infamy, the shadow
of which, seeming to extend over the whole land, affected nobles and
people with its baleful influence. All law was at an end: the people,
even while they murmured against the King, followed his evil example;
and history shrinks from the scenes of debauchery and licentiousness,
robbery and murder, which desecrated the land. But this state of
things could not last long, while there still remained some noble
hearts amongst the Castilians. Five years after their marriage, the
Queen was said to have given birth to a daughter, whom Henry declared
should be his successor, in lieu of his young brother Alfonso (John's
son, by a second wife, Isabella of Portugal). This child the nobles
refused to receive, believing and declaring that she was not Henry's
daughter, and arrogated to themselves the right of trying and passing
sentence on their Sovereign, who, by his weak, flagitious conduct had,
they unanimously declared, forfeited all right even to the present
possession of the crown.
The confederates, who were the very highest and noblest officers of
the realm, assembled at Avita, and with a solemnity and pomp which
gave the whole ceremony an imposing character of reality, dethroned
King Henry in effigy, and proclaimed the youthful Alfonso sovereign in
his stead. All present swore fealty, but no actual good followed: the
flame of civil discord was re-lighted, and raged with yet greater
fury; continuing even after the sudden and mysterious death of the
young prince, whose extraordinary talent, amiability, and firmness,
though only fourteen, gave rise to the rumor that he had actually been
put to death by his own party, who beheld in his rising genius the
utter destruction of their own turbulence and pride. Be this as
it may, his death occasioned no cessation of hostilities, the
confederates carrying on the war in the name of his sister, the
Infanta Isabella. Her youth and sex had pointed her out as one not
likely to interfere or check the projects of popular ambition, and
therefore the very fittest to bring forward as an excuse for their
revolt. With every appearance of humility and deference, they offered
her the crown; but the proudest and boldest shrank back abashed,
before the flashing eye and proud majesty of demeanor with which she
answered, "The crown is not yours to bestow; it is held by Henry,
according to the laws alike of God and man; and till his death, you
have no right to bestow, nor I to receive it."
But though firm in this resolution, Isabella did not refuse to
coincide in their plans for securing her succession. To this measure
Henry himself consented, thus appearing tacitly to acknowledge the
truth of the reports that Joanna was a surreptitious child, and for
a brief period Castile was delivered from the horrors of war. Once
declared heiress of Castile and Leon, Isabella's hand was sought by
many noble suitors, and her choice fell on Ferdinand, the young
King of Sicily, and heir-apparent to the crown of Arragon. Love was
Isabella's incentive. Prudence, and a true patriotic ambition, urged
the Archbishop of Toledo not only to ratify the choice, but to smooth
every difficulty in their way; he saw at once the glory which might
accrue to Spain by this peaceful union of two rival thrones. Every
possible and impossible obstacle was privately thrown by Henry to
prevent this union, even while he gave publicly his consent; his
prejudice against Ferdinand being immovable and deadly. But the
manoeuvres of the Archbishop were more skilful than those of the King.
The royal lovers--for such they really were--were secretly united
at Valladolid, to reach which place in safety Ferdinand had been
compelled to travel in disguise, and attended only by four cavaliers;
and at that period so straitened were the circumstances of the Prince
and Princess, who afterwards possessed the boundless treasures of the
new world, that they were actually compelled to borrow money to defray
the expenses of their wedding!
The moment Henry became aware of this marriage, the civil struggle
recommenced. In vain the firm, yet pacific Archbishop of Toledo
recalled the consent he had given, and proved that the union not only
secured the after-glory of Spain, but Henry's present undisturbed
possession of his throne. Urged on by his wife, and his intriguing
favorite, the Marquis of Villena, who was for ever changing sides, he
published a manifesto, in which he declared on oath that he believed
Joanna to be his daughter, and proclaimed her heiress of Castile.
Ferdinand and Isabella instantly raised an array, regardless of the
forces of Portugal (to whose monarch Joanna had been betrothed), who
were rapidly advancing to the assistance of Henry. Ere, however, war
had regularly commenced, a brief respite was obtained by the death of
Henry, and instantly and unanimously Isabella was proclaimed Queen of
Leon and Castile. Peace, however, was not instantly regained; the King
of Portugal married Joanna, and resolved on defending her rights. Some
skirmishing took place, and at length a long-sustained conflict near
Fero decided the point--Ferdinand and the Castilians were victorious;
the King of Portugal made an honorable retreat to his own frontiers,
and the Marquis of Villena, the head of the malcontents, and by many
supposed to be the real father of Joanna, submitted to Isabella. Peace
thus dawned for Castile; but it was not till three years afterwards,
when Ferdinand had triumphed over the enemies of Arragon, and
succeeded his father as Sovereign of that kingdom, that any vigorous
measures could be taken for the restoration of internal order.
The petty Sovereignties of the Peninsular, with the sole exception of
the mountainous district of Navarre, and the Moorish territories in
the south, were now all united; and it was the sagacious ambition of
Ferdinand and Isabella to render Spain as important in the scale of
kingdoms as any other European territory; and to do this, they knew,
demanded as firm a control over their own subjects, as the subjection
of still harassing foes.
Above a century had elapsed since Spain had been exposed to the sway
of weak or evil kings, and all the consequent miseries of misrule and
war. Rapine, outrage, and murder had become so frequent and unchecked,
as frequently to interrupt commerce, by preventing all communication
between one place and another. The people acknowledged no law but
their own passions. The nobles were so engrossed with hatred of each
other, and universal contempt of their late sovereign, with personal
ambition and general discontent, that they had little time or leisure
to attend to any but their own interest. But a very brief interval
convinced both nobles and people that a new era was dawning for them.
In the short period of eighteen months, the wise administration of
Isabella and Ferdinand, had effected a sufficient change to startle
all ranks into the conviction that their best interests lay in prompt
obedience, and in exerting themselves in their several spheres, to
second the sovereign's will. The chivalric qualities of Ferdinand, his
undoubted wisdom and unwavering firmness, excited both love and fear;
while devotion itself is not too strong a term to express the national
feeling entertained toward Isabella. Her sweet, womanly gentleness,
blended as it was with the dignity of the sovereign; her ready
sympathy in all that concerned her people--for the lowest of her
subjects; doing justice, even if it were the proud noble who injured,
and the serf that suffered--all was so strange, yet fraught with such
national repose, that her influence every year increased; while every
emotion of chivalry found exercise, and yet rest in the heart of the
aristocracy for their Queen; her simple word would be obeyed, on the
instant, by men who would have paused, and weighed, and reasoned,
if any other--even Ferdinand himself--had spoken. Isabella knew her
power; and if ever sovereign used it for the good, the happiness of
her people, that proud glory was her own.
In spite of the miserable condition of the people during the civil
struggles, the wealth of Spain had not decreased. It was protected
and increased by a class of people whose low and despised estate was,
probably, their safeguard--these were the Jews, who for many centuries
had, both publicly and secretly, resided in Spain. There were many
classes of this people in the land, scattered alike over Castile,
Leon, Arragon, Navarre, and also in the Moorish territories; some
there were confined to the mystic learning and profound studies of the
schools, whence they sent many deeply learned men to other countries,
where their worth and wisdom gained them yet greater regard than they
received in Spain: others were low and degraded in outward seeming,
yet literally holding and guiding the financial and commercial
interests of the kingdom;--whose position was of the lowest--scorned
and hated by the very people who yet employed them, and exposed to
insult from every class; the third, and by far the largest body of
Spanish Jews, were those who, Israelites in secret, were so completely
Catholic in seeming, that the court, the camp, the council, even the
monasteries themselves, counted them amongst them. And this had been
the case for years--we should say for centuries--and yet so inviolable
was the faith pledged to each other, so awful the dangers around them,
were even suspicion excited, that the fatal secret never transpired;
offices of state, as well as distinctions of honor, were frequently
conferred on men who, had their faith or race been suspected, would
have been regarded as the scum of the earth, and sentenced to torture
and death, for daring to pass for what they were not. At the period
of which we write, the fatal enemy to the secret Jews of more modern
times, known as the Holy Office, did not exist; but a secret and
terrible tribunal there was, whose power and extent were unknown to
the Sovereigns of the land.
The Inquisition is generally supposed to have been founded by
Ferdinand and Isabella, about the year 1480 or '82; but a deeper
research informs us that it had been introduced into Spain several
centuries earlier, and obtained great influence in Arragon. Confiding
in the protection of the papal see, the Inquisitors set no bounds to
their ferocity: secret informations, imprisonments, tortures, midnight
assassinations, marked their proceedings; but they overreached
themselves. All Spain, setting aside petty rivalships, rose up against
them. All who should give them encouragement or assistance were
declared traitors to their country; the very lives of the Inquisitors
and their families were, in the first burst of fury, endangered; but
after a time, imagining they had sunk into harmless insignificance,
their oppressors desisted in their efforts against them, and
were guilty of the unpardonable error of not exterminating them
entirely.[A]
[Footnote A: Stockdale's History of the Inquisition.]
According to the popular belief, the dreaded tribunal slept, and so
soundly, they feared not, imagined not its awakening. They little
knew that its subterranean halls were established near almost all the
principal cities, and that its engines were often at work, even in the
palaces of kings. Many a family wept the loss of a beloved member,
they knew not, guessed not how--for those who once entered those fatal
walls were never permitted to depart; so secret were their measures,
that even the existence of this fearful mockery of justice and
Religion was not known, or at that time it would have been wholly
eradicated. Superstition had not then gained the ascendency which in
after years so tarnished the glory of Spain, and opened the wide gates
to the ruin and debasement under which she labors now. The fierce
wars and revolutions ravaging the land had given too many, and too
favorable opportunities for the exercise of this secret power; but
still, regard for their own safety prevented the more public display
of their office, as ambition prompted. The vigorous proceedings of
Ferdinand and Isabella rendered them yet more wary; and little did the
Sovereigns suspect that in their very courts this fatal power held
sway. The existence of this tribunal naturally increased the dangers
environing the Israelites who were daring enough to live amongst
the Catholics as one of them; but of this particular danger they
themselves were not generally aware, and their extraordinary skill
in the concealment of their faith (to every item of which they yet
adhered) baffled, except in a very few instances, even these ministers
of darkness.