PART II. Her magnanimity. 29 no relish for it in private, and she freely gave away her clothes27 and jewels,28 as presents to her friends. Naturally of a sedate, though cheerful temper, she had little taste for the frivolous amusements, 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 nobility from the coarser 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 noble spirit, in which they were conceived. She never employed doubtful agents or sinister measures, but the most direct and open policy. She scorned to avail herself of advantages offered by the perfidy of others. 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 32 27 Florez quotes a passage from an original letter of the queen, written soon after one of her progresses into Galicia, showing her habitual liberality in this way. "Decid a doña Luisa, que porque vengo de Galicia desecha de vestidos, no le envio para su hermana; que no tengo agora cosa buena; mas yo ge los enviare presto buenos." Reynas Cathólicas, tom. ii. p. 839. 28 See the magnificent inventory presented to her daughter-in-law, Margaret of Austria, and to her daughter Maria, queen of Portugal, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 12. 31 29 "Alegre," says the author of the "Carro de las Doñas," "de una alegria honesta y mui mesurada." Ibid., p. 558. 30 Among the retainers of the court, Bernaldez notices "la moltitud de poetas, de trobadores, e músicos de todas partes." Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 201. 31 Queria que sus cartas é mandamientos fuesen complidos con diligencia." Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 1, cap. 4. 32 See a remarkable instance of this, in her treatment of the faithless Juan de Corral, noticed in Part I. Chapter 10, of this History. XVI. unpopular. She sustained Ximenes in all his ob- CHAPTER noxious, but salutary reforms. She seconded Columbus in the prosecution of his arduous enterprise, and shielded 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 harbouring 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 Her piety. 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 33 The melancholy tone of Columbus's correspondence after the queen's death, shows too well the color of his fortunes and feelings. (Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. pp. 341 et seq.) The sentiments of the Great Captain were still more unequivocally expressed, according to Giovio. Nec multis inde diebus Regina fato concessit, incredibili cum dolore atque jacturà Consalvi; nam ab eâ tanquam alumnus, ac in ejus regià educatus, cuncta quæ exoptari possent virtutis et dignitatis incrementa ademptum fuisse fatebatur, rege ipso quan- 275. 34 The reader may recall a striking example of this, in the early part of her reign, in her great tenderness and forbearance towards the humors of Carillo, archbishop of Toledo, her quondam friend, but then her most implacable foe. PART II. Her bigotry. passed 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 encompassed 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 35 Isabella at her brother's court Till oft converse with heavenly habitants The unpolluted temple of the mind, Till all be made immortal." 36"Era tanto," says L. Marineo, "el ardor y diligencia que tenia cerca el culto divino, que aunque de dia y de noche estava muy ocupada en grandes y arduos negocios de la governacion de muchos reynos y señorios, parescia que su vida era mas contemplativa que activa. Porque siempre se haIlava presente a los divinos oficios y a la palabra de Dios. Era tanta su atencion que si alguno de los que celebravan o cantavan los psalmos, o otras cosas de la yglesia errava alguna dicion o syllaba, lo sintia y lo notava, y despues como maestro a discipulo se lo emendava y corregia. Acostumbrava cada dia dezir todas las horas canónicas demas de otras muchas votivas y extraordinarias devociones que tenia." Cosas Memorables, fol. 183. 37 Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. XVI. in that unfeigned humility, which, although the CHAPTER 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 illustration 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. her age. But, though blemishes of the deepest dye on her Common to administration, they are certainly not to be regarded as such on her moral character. It will be difficult to condemn her, indeed, without condemn 1, cap. 4. Lucio Marineo enumerates many of these splendid charities. (Cosas Memorables, fol. 165.) See also the notices scattered over the Itinerary (Viaggio in Spagna) of Navagiero, who travelled through the country a few years after. 38 The archbishop's letters are little better than a homily on the sins of dancing, feasting, dressing, and the like, garnished with scriptural allusions, and conveyed in a tone of sour rebuke, that would have done credit to the most canting Roundhead in Oliver Crom well's court. The queen, far from See this curious corre- PART II. And later times. ing the age; for these very acts are not only excused, but extolled by her contemporaries, as constituting her strongest claims to renown, and to the gratitude of her country.99 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 superstitious people.10 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 passed with far less censure, though in a much more advanced and civilized age." Where, indeed, during the sixteenth, 39 Such encomiums become still more striking in writers of sound and expansive views like Zurita and Blancas, who, although flourishing in a better instructed age, do not scruple to pronounce the Inquisition the greatest evidence of her prudence and piety, whose uncommon utility, not only Spain, but all Christendom, freely acknowledged"! Blancas, Commentarii, p. 263. - Zurita, Anales, tom. v. lib. 1, cap. 6. 40 Sismondi displays the mischievous influence of these theological dogmas in Italy, as well as Spain, under the pontificate of Alexander VI. and his immediate predecessors, in the 90th chapter of his eloquent and philosophical "Histoire des Républiques Italiennes." 41 I borrow almost the words of Mr. Hallam, who, noticing the penal statutes against Catholics under Elizabeth, says, "They established a persecution, which fell not at all short in principle of that for which the Inquisition had become so odious." (Constitutional History of England, (Paris, 1827,) vol. i. chap. 3.) Even Lord Burleigh, commenting on the mode |