Volume III Part 15 (1/2)

[35] Isabella at her brother's court might well have sat for the whole of Milton's beautiful portraiture.

”So dear to heaven is saintly chast.i.ty, That, when a soul is found sincerely so, A thousand liveried angels lackey her.

Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt, And, in clear dream and solemn vision.

Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, Till oft converse with heavenly habitants Begin to cast a beam on the outward shape, The unpolluted temple of the mind, And turns it by degrees to the soul's essence, 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 senorios, parescia que _su vida era mas contemplativa que activa_. Porque siempre se hallava 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 canonicas demas de otras muchas votivas y extraordinarias devociones que tenia.” Cosas Memorables, fol. 183.

[37] Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 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 Cromwell's court. The queen, far from taking exception at it, vindicates herself from the grave imputations with a degree of earnestness and simplicity, which may provoke a smile in the reader. ”I am aware,” she concludes, ”that custom cannot make an action, bad in itself, good; but I wish your opinion, whether, under all the circ.u.mstances, these can be considered bad; that, if so, they may be discontinued in future.” See this curious correspondence in Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 13.

[39] Such encomiums become still more striking in writers of sound and expansive views like Zurita and Blancas, who, although flouris.h.i.+ng in a better instructed age, do not scruple to p.r.o.nounce 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, a.n.a.les, 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 Republiques 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.” (Const.i.tutional History of England, (Paris, 1827,) vol. i. chap. 3.) Even Lord Burleigh, commenting on the mode of examination adopted in certain cases by the High Commission court, does not hesitate to say, the interrogatories were ”so curiously penned, so full of branches and circ.u.mstances, as he thought the inquisitors of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and to trap their preys.”

Ibid., chap. 4.

[42] Even Milton, in his essay on the ”Liberty of Unlicensed Printing,”

the most splendid argument, perhaps, the world had then witnessed in behalf of intellectual liberty, would exclude Popery from the benefits of toleration, as a religion which the public good required at all events to be extirpated. Such were the crude views of the rights of conscience entertained in the latter half of the seventeenth century, by one of those gifted minds, whose extraordinary elevation enabled it to catch and reflect back the coming light of knowledge, long before it had fallen on the rest of mankind.

[43] The most remarkable example of this, perhaps, occurred in the case of the wealthy Galician knight, Yanez de Lugo, who endeavored to purchase a pardon of the queen by the enormous bribe of 40,000 doblas of gold. The attempt failed, though warmly supported by some of the royal counsellors.

The story is well vouched. Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 97.--L.

Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 180.

[44] The reader may recollect a pertinent ill.u.s.tration of this, on the occasion of Ximenes's appointment to the primacy. See Part II. Chapter 5, of this History.

[45] See, among other instances, her exemplary chastis.e.m.e.nt of the ecclesiastics of Truxillo. Part I. Chapter 12, of this History.

[46] Ibid., Part I. Chapter 6, Part II. Chapter 10, et alibi. Indeed, this independent att.i.tude was shown, as I have more than once had occasion to notice, not merely in s.h.i.+elding the rights of her own crown, but in the boldest remonstrances against the corrupt practices and personal immorality of those who filled the chair of St. Peter at this period.

[47] The public acts of this reign afford repeated evidence of the pertinacity with which Isabella insisted on reserving the benefits of the Moorish conquests and the American discoveries for her own subjects of Castile, by whom and for whom they had been mainly achieved. The same thing is reiterated in the most emphatic manner in her testament.

[48] Opus Epist., epist. 31.

[49] Mem. de la. Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 49.

[50] The preamble of one of her _pragmaticas_ against this lavish expenditure at funerals, contains some reflections worth quoting for the evidence they afford of her practical good sense. ”Nos deseando proveer e remediar al tal gasto sin provecho, e considerando que esto no redunda en sufragio e alivio de las animas de los defuntos,” etc. ”Pero los Catolicos Christianos que creemos que hai otra vida despues desta, donde las animas esperan folganza e vida perdurable, _desta habemos de curar e procurar de la ganar por obras meritorias, e no por cosas transitorias e vanas como son los lutos e gastos excesivos_,” Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi.

p. 318.

[51] Her exposure in this way on one occasion brought on a miscarriage.

According to Gomez, indeed, she finally died of a painful internal disorder, occasioned by her long and laborious journeys. (De Rebus Gestis, fol. 47.) Giovio adopts the same account. (Vitae Ill.u.s.t. Virorum, p. 275.) The authorities are good, certainly; but Martyr, who was in the palace, with every opportunity of correct information, and with no reason for concealment of the truth, in his private correspondence with Tendilla and Talavera, makes no allusion whatever to such a complaint, in his circ.u.mstantial account of the queen's illness.

[52] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. vii. p. 411.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 29.

[53] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 182.--”p.r.o.nunciaba con primor el latin, y era tan habil en la prosodia, que si erraban algun acento, luego le corregia.” Idem., apud Florez, Reynas Catholicas, tom. ii. pp. 834.