The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume III Part 13

Her faithful follower, Martyr, was with the court at this time in Medina del Campo. In a letter to the count of Tendilla, dated October 7th, he states that the most serious apprehensions were entertained by the physicians for the queen's fate. "Her whole system," he says, "is pervaded by a consuming fever. She loathes food of every kind, and is tormented with incessant thirst, while the disorder has all the appearance of terminating in a dropsy." [4]

In the mean while, Isabella lost nothing of her solicitude for the welfare of her people, and the great concerns of government. While reclining, as she was obliged to do a great part of the day, on her couch, she listened to the recital or reading of whatever occurred of interest, at home or abroad. She gave audience to distinguished foreigners, especially such Italians as could acquaint her with particulars of the late war, and, above all, in regard to Gonsalvo de Cordova, in whose fortunes she had always taken the liveliest concern. [5] She received with pleasure, too, such intelligent travellers, as her renown had attracted to the Castilian court. She drew forth their stores of various information, and dismissed them, says a writer of the age, penetrated with the deepest admiration of that masculine strength of mind, which sustained her so n.o.bly under the weight of a mortal malady. [6]

This malady was now rapidly gaining ground. On the 15th of October we have another epistle of Martyr, of the following melancholy tenor. "You ask me respecting the state of the queen's health. We sit sorrowful in the palace all day long, tremblingly waiting the hour, when religion and virtue shall quit the earth with her. Let us pray that we may be permitted to follow hereafter where she is soon to go. She so far transcends all human excellence, that there is scarcely anything of mortality about her. She can hardly be said to die, but to pa.s.s into a n.o.bler existence, which should rather excite our envy than our sorrow. She leaves the world filled with her renown, and she goes to enjoy life eternal with her G.o.d in heaven. I write this," he concludes, "between hope and fear, while the breath is still fluttering within her." [7]

The deepest gloom now overspread the nation. Even Isabella's long illness had failed to prepare the minds of her faithful people for the sad catastrophe. They recalled several ominous circ.u.mstances which had before escaped their attention. In the preceding spring, an earthquake, accompanied by a tremendous hurricane, such as the oldest men did not remember, had visited Andalusia, and especially Carmona, a place belonging to the queen, and occasioned frightful desolation there. The superst.i.tious Spaniards now read in these portents the prophetic signs, by which Heaven announces some great calamity. Prayers were put up in every temple; processions and pilgrimages made in every part of the country for the recovery of their beloved sovereign,--but in vain. [8]

Isabella, in the mean time, was deluded with no false hopes. She felt too surely the decay of her bodily strength, and she resolved to perform what temporal duties yet remained for her, while her faculties were still unclouded.

On the 12th of October she executed that celebrated testament, which reflects so clearly the peculiar qualities of her mind and character. She begins with prescribing the arrangements for her burial. She orders her remains to be transported to Granada, to the Franciscan monastery of Santa Isabella in the Alhambra, and there deposited in a low and humble sepulchre, without other memorial than a plain inscription on it. "But,"

she continues, "should the king, my lord, prefer a sepulchre in some other place, then my will is that my body be there transported, and laid by his side; that the union we have enjoyed in this world, and, through the mercy of G.o.d, may hope again for our souls in heaven, may be represented by our bodies in the earth." Then, desirous of correcting by her example, in this last act of her life, the wasteful pomp of funeral obsequies to which the Castilians were addicted, she commands that her own should be performed in the plainest and most unostentatious manner, and that the sum saved by this economy should be distributed in alms among the poor.

She next provides for several charities, a.s.signing, among others, marriage portions for poor maidens, and a considerable sum for the redemption of Christian captives in Barbary. She enjoins the punctual discharge of all her personal debts within a year; she retrenches superfluous offices in the royal household, and revokes all such grants, whether in the forms of lands or annuities, as she conceives to have been made without sufficient warrant. She inculcates on her successors the importance of maintaining the integrity of the royal domains, and, above all, of never divesting themselves of their t.i.tle to the important fortress of Gibraltar.

After this, she comes to the succession of the crown, which she settles on the infanta Joanna, as "queen proprietor," and the archduke Philip as her husband. She gives them much good counsel respecting their future administration; enjoining them, as they would secure the love and obedience of their subjects, to conform in all respects to the laws and usages of the realm, to appoint no foreigner to office,-an error, into which Philip's connections, she saw, would be very likely to betray them, --and to make no laws or ordinances, "which necessarily require the consent of cortes," during their absence from the kingdom. [9] She recommends to them the same conjugal harmony which had ever subsisted between her and her husband; she beseeches them to show the latter all the deference and filial affection "due to him beyond every other parent, for his eminent virtues;" and finally inculcates on them the most tender regard for the liberties and welfare of their subjects.

She next comes to the great question proposed by the cortes of 1503, respecting the government of the realm in the absence or incapacity of Joanna. She declares that, after mature deliberation, and with the advice of many of the prelates and n.o.bles of the kingdom, she appoints King Ferdinand her husband to be the sole regent of Castile, in that exigency, until the majority of her grandson Charles; being led to this, she adds, "by the consideration of the magnanimity and ill.u.s.trious qualities of the king, my lord, as well as his large experience, and the great profit which will redound to the state from his wise and beneficent rule." She expresses her sincere conviction that his past conduct affords a sufficient guarantee for his faithful administration, but, in compliance with established usage, requires the customary oath from him on entering on the duties of the office.

She then makes a specific provision for her husband's personal maintenance, which, "although less than she could wish, and far less than he deserves, considering the eminent services he had rendered the state,"

she settles at one-half of all the net proceeds and profits accruing from the newly discovered countries in the west; together with ten million maravedies annually, a.s.signed on the _alcavalas_ of the grand-masters.h.i.+ps of the military orders.

After some additional regulations, respecting the descent of the crown on failure of Joanna's lineal heirs, she recommends in the kindest and most emphatic terms to her successors the various members of her household, and her personal friends, among whom we find the names of the marquis and marchioness of Moya, (Beatrice de Bobadilla, the companion of her youth,) and Garcila.s.so de la Vega, the accomplished minister at the papal court.

And, lastly, concluding in the same beautiful strain of conjugal tenderness in which she began, she says, "I beseech the king my lord, that he will accept all my jewels, or such as he shall select, so that, seeing them, he may be reminded of the singular love I always bore him while living, and that I am now waiting for him in a better world; by which remembrance he may be encouraged to live the more justly and holily in this."

Six executors were named to the will. The two princ.i.p.al were the king and the primate Ximenes, who had full powers to act in conjunction with any one of the others. [10]

I have dwelt the more minutely on the details of Isabella's testament, from the evidence it affords of her constancy in her dying hour to the principles which had governed her through life; of her expansive and sagacious policy; her prophetic insight into the evils to result from her death,--evils, alas! which no forecast could avert; her scrupulous attention to all her personal obligations; and that warm attachment to her friends, which could never falter while a pulse beat in her bosom.

After performing this duty, she daily grew weaker, the powers of her mind seeming to brighten as those of her body declined. The concerns of her government still occupied her thoughts; and several public measures, which she had postponed through urgency of other business, or growing infirmities, pressed so heavily on her heart, that she made them the subject of a codicil to her former will. It was executed November 23d, only three days before her death.

Three of the provisions contained in it are too remarkable to pa.s.s unnoticed. The first concerns the codification of the laws. For this purpose, the queen appoints a commission to make a new digest of the statutes and _pragmaticas_, the contradictory tenor of which still occasioned much embarra.s.sment in Castilian jurisprudence. This was a subject she always had much at heart; but no nearer approach had been made to it, than the valuable, though insufficient work of Montalvo, in the early part of her reign; and, notwithstanding her precautions, none more effectual was destined to take place till the reign of Philip the Second.

[11]

The second item had reference to the natives of the New World. Gross abuses had arisen there since the partial revival of the _repartimientos_, although Las Casas says, "intelligence of this was carefully kept from the ears of the queen." [12] Some vague apprehension of the truth, however, appears to have forced itself on her; and she enjoins her successors, in the most earnest manner, to quicken the good work of converting and civilizing the poor Indians, to treat them with the greatest gentleness, and redress any wrongs they may have suffered in their persons or property.

Lastly, she expresses her doubts as to the legality of the revenue drawn from the _alcavalas_, const.i.tuting the princ.i.p.al income of the crown.

She directs a commission to ascertain whether it were originally intended to be perpetual, and if this were done with the free consent of the people; enjoining her heirs, in that event, to collect the tax so that it should press least heavily on her subjects. Should it be found otherwise, however, she directs that the legislature be summoned to devise proper measures for supplying the wants of the crown,--"measures depending for their validity on the good pleasure of the subjects of the realm." [13]

Such were the dying words of this admirable woman; displaying the same respect for the rights and liberties of the nation, which she had shown through life, and striving to secure the blessings of her benign administration to the most distant and barbarous regions under her sway.

These two doc.u.ments were a precious legacy bequeathed to her people, to guide them when the light of her personal example should be withdrawn for ever.

The queen's signature to the codicil, which still exists among the ma.n.u.scripts of the royal library at Madrid, shows, by its irregular and scarcely legible characters, the feeble state to which she was then reduced. [14] She had now adjusted all her worldly concerns, and she prepared to devote herself, during the brief s.p.a.ce which remained, to those of a higher nature. It was but the last act of a life of preparation. She had the misfortune, common to persons of her rank, to be separated in her last moments from those whose filial tenderness might have done so much to soften the bitterness of death. But she had the good fortune, most rare, to have secured for this trying hour the solace of disinterested friends.h.i.+p; for she beheld around her the friends of her childhood, formed and proved in the dark season of adversity.

As she saw them bathed in tears around her bed, she calmly said, "Do not weep for me, nor waste your time in fruitless prayers for my recovery, but pray rather for the salvation of my soul." [15] On receiving the extreme unction, she refused to have her feet exposed, as was usual on that occasion; a circ.u.mstance, which, occurring at a time when there can be no suspicion of affectation, is often noticed by Spanish writers, as a proof of that sensitive delicacy and decorum, which distinguished her through life. [16] At length, having received the sacraments, and performed all the offices of a sincere and devout Christian, she gently expired a little before noon, on Wednesday, November 26th, 1504, in the fifty-fourth year of her age, and thirtieth of her reign. [17]

"My hand," says Peter Martyr, in a letter written on the same day to the archbishop of Granada, "falls powerless by my side, for very sorrow. The world has lost its n.o.blest ornament; a loss to be deplored not only by Spain, which she has so long carried forward in the career of glory, but by every nation in Christendom; for she was the mirror of every virtue, the s.h.i.+eld of the innocent, and an avenging sword to the wicked. I know none of her s.e.x, in ancient or modern times, who in my judgment is at all worthy to be named with this incomparable woman." [18]

No time was lost in making preparations for transporting the queen's body unembalmed to Granada, in strict conformity to her orders. It was escorted by a numerous _cortege_ of cavaliers and ecclesiastics, among whom was the faithful Martyr. The procession began its mournful march the day following her death, taking the route through Arevalo, Toledo, and Jaen.

Scarcely had it left Medina del Campo, when a tremendous tempest set in, which continued with little interruption during the whole journey. The roads were rendered nearly impa.s.sable; the bridges swept away, the small streams swollen to the size of the Tagus, and the level country buried under a deluge of water. Neither sun nor stars were seen during their whole progress. The horses and mules were borne down by the torrents, and the riders in several instances perished with them. "Never," exclaims Martyr, "did I encounter such perils, in the whole of my hazardous pilgrimage to Egypt." [19]

At length, on the 18th of December, the melancholy and way-worn cavalcade reached the place of its destination; and, amidst the wild strife of the elements, the peaceful remains of Isabella were laid, with simple solemnities, in the Franciscan monastery of the Alhambra. Here, under the shadow of those venerable Moslem towers, and in the heart of the capital which her n.o.ble constancy had recovered for her country, they continued to repose till after the death of Ferdinand, when they were removed to be laid by his side, in the stately mausoleum of the cathedral church of Granada. [20]

I shall defer the review of Queen Isabella's administration, until it can be done in conjunction with that of Ferdinand; and shall confine myself at present to such considerations on the prominent traits of her character, as have been suggested by the preceding history of her life.

Her person, as mentioned in the early part of the narrative, was of the middle height, and well proportioned. She had a clear, fresh complexion, with light blue eyes and auburn hair,--a style of beauty exceedingly rare in Spain. Her features were regular, and universally allowed to be uncommonly handsome. [21] The illusion which attaches to rank, more especially when united with engaging manners, might lead us to suspect some exaggeration in the encomiums so liberally lavished on her. But they would seem to be in a great measure justified by the portraits that remain of her, which combine a faultless symmetry of features with singular sweetness and intelligence of expression.

Her manners were most gracious and pleasing. They were marked by natural dignity and modest reserve, tempered by an affability which flowed from the kindliness of her disposition. She was the last person to be approached with undue familiarity; yet the respect which she imposed was mingled with the strongest feelings of devotion and love. She showed great tact in accommodating herself to the peculiar situation and character of those around her. She appeared in arms at the head of her troops, and shrunk from none of the hards.h.i.+ps of war. During the reforms introduced into the religious houses, she visited the nunneries in person, taking her needle-work with her, and pa.s.sing the day in the society of the inmates.

When travelling in Galicia, she attired herself in the costume of the country, borrowing for that purpose the jewels and other ornaments of the ladies there, and returning them with liberal additions. [22] By this condescending and captivating deportment, as well as by her higher qualities, she gained an ascendency over her turbulent subjects, which no king of Spain could ever boast.

She spoke the Castilian with much elegance and correctness. She had an easy fluency of discourse, which, though generally of a serious complexion, was occasionally seasoned with agreeable sallies, some of which have pa.s.sed into proverbs. [23] She was temperate even to abstemiousness in her diet, seldom or never tasting wine; [24] and so frugal in her table, that the daily expenses for herself and family did not exceed the moderate sum of forty ducats. [25] She was equally simple and economical in her apparel. On all public occasions, indeed, she displayed a royal magnificence; [26] but she had no relish for it in private, and she freely gave away her clothes [27] and jewels, [28] as presents to her friends. Naturally of a sedate, though cheerful temper, [29] she had little taste for the frivolous amus.e.m.e.nts which make up so much of a court life; and, if she encouraged the presence of minstrels and musicians in her palace, it was to wean her young n.o.bility from the coa.r.s.er and less intellectual pleasures to which they were addicted. [30]

Among her moral qualities, the most conspicuous, perhaps, was her magnanimity. She betrayed nothing little or selfish, in thought or action.

Her schemes were vast, and executed in the same n.o.ble spirit in which they were conceived. She never employed doubtful agents or sinister measures, but the most direct and open policy. [31.] She scorned to avail herself of advantages offered by the perfidy of others. [32] Where she had once given her confidence, she gave her hearty and steady support; and she was scrupulous to redeem any pledge she had made to those who ventured in her cause, however unpopular. She sustained Ximenes in all his obnoxious but salutary reforms. She seconded Columbus in the prosecution of his arduous enterprise, and s.h.i.+elded him from the calumny of his enemies. She did the same good service to her favorite, Gonsalvo de Cordova; and the day of her death was felt, and, as it proved, truly felt by both, as the last of their good fortune. [33] Artifice and duplicity were so abhorrent to her character, and so averse from her domestic policy, that when they appear in the foreign relations of Spain, it is certainly not imputable to her.

She was incapable of harboring any petty distrust, or latent malice; and, although stern in the execution and exaction of public justice, she made the most generous allowance, and even sometimes advances, to those who had personally injured her. [34]

But the principle, which gave a peculiar coloring to every feature of Isabella's mind, was piety. It shone forth from the very depths of her soul with a heavenly radiance, which illuminated her whole character.

Fortunately, her earliest years had been pa.s.sed in the rugged school of adversity, under the eye of a mother who implanted in her serious mind such strong principles of religion as nothing in after life had power to shake. At an early age, in the flower of youth and beauty, she was introduced to her brother's court; but its blandishments, so dazzling to a young imagination, had no power over hers; for she was surrounded by a moral atmosphere of purity,

"Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt." [35]

Such was the decorum of her manners, that, though encompa.s.sed by false friends and open enemies, not the slightest reproach was breathed on her fair name in this corrupt and calumnious court.

She gave a liberal portion of her time to private devotions, as well as to the public exercises of religion. [36] She expended large sums in useful charities, especially in the erection of hospitals and churches, and the more doubtful endowments of monasteries. [37] Her piety was strikingly exhibited in that unfeigned humility, which, although the very essence of our faith, is so rarely found; and most rarely in those whose great powers and exalted stations seem to raise them above the level of ordinary mortals. A remarkable ill.u.s.tration of this is afforded in the queen's correspondence with Talavera, in which her meek and docile spirit is strikingly contrasted with the puritanical intolerance of her confessor.

[38] Yet Talavera, as we have seen, was sincere, and benevolent at heart.

Unfortunately, the royal conscience was at times committed to very different keeping; and that humility which, as we have repeatedly had occasion to notice, made her defer so reverentially to her ghostly advisers, led, under the fanatic Torquemada, the confessor of her early youth, to those deep blemishes on her administration, the establishment of the Inquisition, and the exile of the Jews.

But, though blemishes of the deepest dye on her administration, they are certainly not to be regarded as such on her moral character. It will be difficult to condemn her, indeed, without condemning the age; for these very acts are not only excused, but extolled by her contemporaries, as const.i.tuting her strongest claims to renown, and to the grat.i.tude of her country. [39] They proceeded from the principle, openly avowed by the court of Rome, that zeal for the purity of the faith could atone for every crime. This immoral maxim, flowing from the head of the church, was echoed in a thousand different forms by the subordinate clergy, and greedily received by a superst.i.tious people. [40] It was not to be expected, that a solitary woman, filled with natural diffidence of her own capacity on such subjects, should array herself against those venerated counsellors, whom she had been taught from her cradle to look to as the guides and guardians of her conscience.

However mischievous the operations of the Inquisition may have been in Spain, its establishment, in point of principle, was not worse than many other measures, which have pa.s.sed with far less censure, though in a much more advanced and civilized age. [41] Where, indeed, during the sixteenth, and the greater part of the seventeenth century, was the principle of persecution abandoned by the dominant party, whether Catholic or Protestant? And where that of toleration a.s.serted, except by the weaker?

It is true, to borrow Isabella's own expression, in her letter to Talavera, the prevalence of a bad custom cannot const.i.tute its apology.

But it should serve much to mitigate our condemnation of the queen, that she fell into no greater error, in the imperfect light in which she lived, than was common to the greatest minds in a later and far riper period.

[42]

Isabella's actions, indeed, were habitually based on principle. Whatever errors of judgment be imputed to her, she most anxiously sought in all situations to discern and discharge her duty. Faithful in the dispensation of justice, no bribe was large enough to ward off the execution of the law. [43] No motive, not even conjugal affection, could induce her to make an unsuitable appointment to public office. [44] No reverence for the ministers of religion could lead her to wink at their misconduct; [45] nor could the deference she entertained for the head of the church, allow her to tolerate his encroachments on the rights of her crown. [46] She seemed to consider herself especially bound to preserve entire the peculiar claims and privileges of Castile, after its union under the same sovereign with Aragon. [47] And although, "while her own will was law," says Peter Martyr, "she governed in such a manner that it might appear the joint action of both Ferdinand and herself," yet she was careful never to surrender into his hands one of those prerogatives which belonged to her as queen proprietor of the kingdom. [48]

Isabella's measures were characterized by that practical good sense, without which the most brilliant parts may work more to the woe than to the weal of mankind. Though engaged all her life in reforms, she had none of the failings so common in reformers. Her plans, though vast, were never visionary. The best proof of this is, that she lived to see most of them realized.

She was quick to discern objects of real utility. She saw the importance of the new discovery of printing, and liberally patronized it from the first moment it appeared. [49] She had none of the exclusive, local prejudices, too common with her countrymen. She drew talent from the most remote quarters to her dominions, by munificent rewards. She imported foreign artisans for her manufactures; foreign engineers and officers for the discipline of her army; and foreign scholars to imbue her martial subjects with more cultivated tastes. She consulted the useful in all her subordinate regulations; in her sumptuary laws, for instance, directed against the fas.h.i.+onable extravagances of dress, and the ruinous ostentation, so much affected by the Castilians in their weddings and funerals. [50] Lastly, she showed the same perspicacity in the selection of her agents; well knowing that the best measures become bad in incompetent hands.

But, although the skilful selection of her agents was an obvious cause of Isabella's success, yet another, even more important, is to be found in her own vigilance and untiring exertions. During the first busy and bustling years of her reign, these exertions were of incredible magnitude.

She was almost always in the saddle, for she made all her journeys on horseback; and she travelled with a rapidity, which made her always present on the spot where her presence was needed. She was never intimidated by the weather, or the state of her own health; and this reckless exposure undoubtedly contributed much to impair her excellent const.i.tution. [51]

She was equally indefatigable in her mental application. After a.s.siduous attention to business through the day, she was often known to sit up all night, dictating despatches to her secretaries. [52] In the midst of these overwhelming cares, she found time to supply the defects of her early education by learning Latin, so as to understand it without difficulty, whether written or spoken; and indeed, in the opinion of a competent judge, to attain a critical accuracy in it. [53] As she had little turn for light amus.e.m.e.nts, she sought relief from graver cares by some useful occupation appropriate to her s.e.x; and she left ample evidence of her skill in this way, in the rich specimens of embroidery, wrought with her own fair hands, with which she decorated the churches. She was careful to instruct her daughters in these more humble departments of domestic duty; for she thought nothing too humble to learn, which was useful. [54]

With all her high qualifications, Isabella would have been still unequal to the achievement of her grand designs, without possessing a degree of fort.i.tude rare in either s.e.x; not the courage, which implies contempt of personal danger,--though of this she had a larger share than falls to most men; [55] nor that which supports its possessor under the extremities of bodily pain,--though of this she gave ample evidence, since she endured the greatest suffering her s.e.x is called to bear, without a groan; [56]

but that moral courage, which sustains the spirit in the dark hour of adversity, and, gathering light from within to dispel the darkness, imparts its own cheering influence to all around. This was shown remarkably in the stormy season which ushered in her accession, as well as through the whole of the Moorish war. It was her voice that decided never to abandon Alhama. [57] Her remonstrances compelled the king and n.o.bles to return to the field, when they had quitted it, after an ineffectual campaign. As dangers and difficulties multiplied, she multiplied resources to meet them; and, when her soldiers lay drooping under the evils of some protracted siege, she appeared in the midst, mounted on her war-horse, with her delicate limbs cased in knightly mail; [58] and, riding through their ranks, breathed new courage into their hearts by her own intrepid bearing. To her personal efforts, indeed, as well as counsels, the success of this glorious war may be mainly imputed; and the unsuspicious testimony of the Venetian minister, Navagiero, a few years later, shows that the nation so considered it. "Queen Isabel," says he, "by her singular genius, masculine strength of mind, and other virtues most unusual in our own s.e.x, as well as hers, was not merely of great a.s.sistance in, but the chief cause of the conquest of Granada. She was, indeed, a most rare and virtuous lady, one of whom the Spaniards talk far more than of the king, sagacious as he was, and uncommon for his time." [59]