Volume III Part 13 (2/2)
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]
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