Kingdom of Castile

“ In the second quarter of the eleventh century the kingdom of Pampeluna or Navarre had, by the energy of a single man, the Sviatopluk or Stephen Dushan of his little realm, risen to the first place among the Christian powers of Spain. Castile and Aragon do not appear with kingly rank till both had passed under the momentary rule of a neighbour which in after times seemed so small beside either of them. And the name of Castile, whether as county, kingdom, or empire, marks a comparatively late stage of Christian advance. ”

“ Castile had come into being as a border province of the Asturian kingdom, governed by military counts. From the first there seems to have been a spirit of resistance to the overrule of the Asturian kings (later known as kings of Leon) . Finally, under its Count Fernan Gonzalez (who died 970) , Castile secured its independence. But whether leading a separate political existence, or united with Leon, Castile was ever jealously sensitive of any precedence [Pg 3726] claimed or exercised by its sister kingdom. ”

“ If criticism maintains that this benevolent government degenerated into despotism during the sixteenth century, while Spain became the tool and purse of imperial ambitions, it should be remembered that neither Castilian Queen nor Aragonese King could have fought the evils they found successfully with any other weapon than their own supremacy, nor is it fair to hold them responsible for the tyranny of their successors. Ferdinand indeed may be blamed for yielding to the lure of an Italian kingdom ”

“ Thou art right, Luis, but philosophy and fact are different matters. We may reason calmly on principles, when their application in practice causeth much pain. Thou hast a frank and manly nature, young man; one that dreadeth neither the gibe of the Christian, nor the lance of the Moor, and wilt answer to any, in fearlessness and truth. A Castilian thyself, dost thou, too, really think one of thy kingdom better than one of Genoa? ”

“ The birth of a son could only mean the destruction of the union between Castile and Aragon, on which the foundations of Spanish empire had been laid; while by the terms of the marriage treaty Ferdinand also risked the dismemberment of his own dominions. Louis XII. was willing to cede as dowry for his niece the rights over Naples which he had failed to maintain by force of arms; but the price he demanded in return was the restoration of that half of the Kingdom which was guaranteed to him by the original Partition Treaty, should Germaine and the Spanish monarch have no heirs. ”

“ They allude with unconcealed pride to the picturesque beauty of the landscape, soon to be marred by the cruel hand of war; to the formidable entrenchments guarded by many towers, to the fleet encircling the capacious harbor, to the innumerable tents covering the slopes of every hillside and following the winding lines of circumvallation, to the magnificent silken standards displaying the familiar arms of Castile and Leon, or emblazoned with the insignia of the proudest houses of the kingdom. ”

“ Aragon did homage to Castile for her territory on the western bank of the Ebro, until the twelfth century, as did Navarre, Portugal, and, at a later period, the Moorish kingdom of Granada. [1] And, when at length the various states of Spain were consolidated into one monarchy, the capital of Castile became the capital of the new empire, and her language the language of the court and of literature. ”

“ For this intent the Roman pontiffs gave them authority, and order was given that the princes should help them with their favor and arm. These judges were called 'inquisitors,' because of the office which they exercised of hunting out and making inquest, a custom now very general in Italy, France, Germany, and also in the kingdom of Aragon. Castile, henceforth, would not suffer any nation to go beyond her in the desire which she always had to punish such enormous and wicked excesses. ”

“ This western kingdom had always seemed in danger of absorption by its more powerful neighbour; once their common enemy, the Moor, had been driven southwards; but good fortune and a spirit of sturdy independence had preserved its freedom. By the great victory of Aljubarrota in 1385 Portugal had vindicated her claim to be a separate nationality; and Castile, leaving the flower of her chivalry dead on the battlefield, had retired to nurse her resentment in secret. ”

“ Sympathy at home and abroad were alienated. Louis XI., more hopeful of adding Franche Comté to his possessions than the hostile population of Northern Spain, had come to terms with Castile; Sixtus IV., under pressure from Castile, Aragon, and the Aragonese House of Naples, had revoked his bull of dispensation for Joanna’s marriage; Ferdinand himself, in January, 1479, had succeeded his father peacefully in the three divisions of the western kingdom. ”

“ The County of Castile, a dependency of the Asturian crown, grown powerful through the signal abilities and eminent services of its present ruler, Ferdinand Gonzalez, a personage famous in mediæval history and fable, aspired to the name and privileges of an independent kingdom. Its governor was a vassal [589] whose fief was hereditary, but who held his office at the pleasure of the monarch, and, so far as the scanty annals of the age afford information, no province of the Peninsula was more inclined to turbulence and sedition. ”

“ In 1476, Aben Ismail died; and his successor, Muley Abul Hacen, a chieftain already famous in his own land for various daring raids into Christian territory, ceased to send the required tribute to Castile. When the ambassadors of Ferdinand and Isabel came before him to remonstrate, he replied haughtily:
“Go, tell your sovereigns that the kings of Granada, who were wont to pay tribute, are dead. In my kingdom there is no coin minted save scimitars and iron-tipped lances.” ”

“ We have great things in reserve, and I devoutly wish we may all be found equal to our several duties. I hope my Lord the King will not withhold from my undertaking the light of his gracious countenance."
"You are a servitor of Castile, Señor Colon, though little is attempted for even this kingdom, without the approbation and consent of the King of Aragon. Don Fernando hath been gained over to our side, though his greater caution and superior wisdom have not as easily fallen into the measure, as woman's faith and woman's hopes." ”

“ Of the impression made by their magnificence on foreigners we can gather from the diary of a certain Roger Machado who, in the capacity of 322king-at-arms, accompanied an English embassy to the Spanish Court at Medina del Campo in 1488. “People speak,” he says, “of the honour done to Ambassadors in England; but it is not to be compared to the honour which is done to Ambassadors in the kingdom of Castile.”
The torchlight procession that accompanied them from their lodgings to their evening reception at the palace; the majesty and condescension of the sovereigns ”

“ The latter, “the corona” or “big crown,” in contradistinction to the “coronilla” or “little crown” of Aragon, continued throughout the Queen’s lifetime to look on her husband as more or less of a foreigner; and all the many documents signed “Yo, El Rey” could not weigh with a true Castilian against Isabel’s single “Yo, La Reina.” It is she, who, when “Los Reyes” are not mentioned together, is hailed to-day in Spain as the chief representative of national grandeur, just as “castellano,” the speech of the larger kingdom, has become synonymous with our term “Spanish.” ”

“ The levies of the principal nobles had been the backbone of the war against the Portuguese, and still supplied no mean contribution to the Christian forces in the kingdom of Granada. The military retainers of the Cardinal of Spain numbered some two thousand men, while, as we have already seen, a combination of the vassals of the Duke of Medina-Sidonia and Marquis of Cadiz was sufficient to make Muley Hacen raise the siege of Alhama. ”

“ In 1037 Leon was united by Ferdinand I., called the Great, to Castile; and from its central position, and the strength arising from perpetual vigilance, the new kingdom gradually widened and added to its dominions, until eventually all the kingdoms of the Peninsula were united under the banner of Castile. Navarre belonged to a French count, whose successor drove the Saracens from the territory adjacent on the south-west, and founded the kingdom of Aragon.
In 1085 the Cid, a Castilian chieftain, born at Búrgos, and famous in poetry, romance, and war, seized Toledo, and overran Valencia ”

“ About the same time, died Don John II., when Ferdinand mounted the throne of Aragon. These events virtually reduced the sovereignties of the peninsula, which had so long been cut up into petty states, to four, viz., the possessions of Ferdinand and Isabella, which included Castile, Leon, Aragon, Valencia, and many other of the finest provinces of Spain; Navarre, an insignificant kingdom in the Pyrenees; Portugal, much as it exists to-day; and Granada, the last abiding-place of the Moor, north of the strait of Gibraltar. ”

“ The country was scarcely pacified from the anarchy of civil war and foreign invasion; national credit and patriotism were strained to the uttermost in what, it had become evident, must be a prolonged struggle against the Moors; the French were threatening his own loved kingdom of Aragon, and he could spare neither time nor money to regain command of the eastern Pyrenees; insidious heresy was sapping the Catholic Faith, and wide care and organization would be required for its suppression. ”

“ Where war in Southern Italy was concerned, Spain had in many ways the advantage over France, above all in her extensive eastern seaboard and her possession of the island of Sicily, which afforded a convenient base of operations for landing reinforcements and provisions. Louis would have needed to maintain an enormous army had he endeavoured to keep Naples entirely free of Spanish aggression; but his alternative policy of sharing the kingdom bordered quite as close on the impossible. ”

“ Castile's proud monarch to the nuptial bed
In happier days her royal daughter led:
To him the furious queen for vengeance cries,
Implores to vindicate his lawful prize,
The Lusian sceptre, his by spousal right:
The proud Castilian arms and dares the fight.
To join his standard as it waves along,
The warlike troops from various regions throng:
Those who possess the lands by Rodrick given,
What time the Moor from Turia's banks was driven;
That race who joyful smile at war's alarms,
And scorn each danger that attends on arms ”

“ Peter Martyr, who was one of the escort, declared that the Heavens opened, pouring down torrents that drove the horsemen to shelter in the ditches by the wayside, while the mules sank exhausted and terrified in the road. Never for a moment was there a gleam of either sun or star, until on December 25th, as the funeral procession entered Granada, the clouds lifted for the first time.
386There in the city of her triumph, in the Franciscan monastery of the Alhambra, the very heart of the kingdom she had won for Christianity, Isabel of Castile was laid to rest. ”

“ But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian or the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or the Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian. Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races and languages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons laden with the treasures of America. In Castile was ostentatiously displayed and lavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppression and corruption. In Castile were the King and his Court. ”

“ France, Holland, Germany, convulsed and desolated by civil wars and religious dissensions; the Ottoman power rolled away on the waters of Lepanto; Portugal falling in Africa, to be then united to Castile; the Spanish sword agitating the whole world with the spirit of heroism, of religion, of ambition, and of avarice;—when was there ever a time more full of astonishing events, or more suited to sublime the fancy? Yet the Castilian muses, deaf and indifferent to this universal agitation, could scarcely inspire their favourites with aught but moralities, rural images, gallantry, and love. ”

“ Around it, on each anniversary of his death, a detachment of Granadan Moors, with lighted tapers in their hands, once stood motionless and in silence. To-day, three times in every year, the body of Castile’s most famous sovereign is exposed to public view adorned with all the pomp of royalty,—with the crown, the sceptre, the robes; mass is said, and a regiment of soldiers salute the mouldering remains of one of the most eminent and successful commanders of his time. ”

“ And in spite of all that we, her counsellors, could do to impose some check upon her speech—for the Castilian had the name of being as proud a prince as there was on the earth—she refused to soften her words, and insisted that the envoy should bear them to his master.
“And further, Don Jose de Fermosilla,” said she, “I would have you bid Castile, our cousin, assemble all his hosts and bring them hither, and they shall not lack for a welcome. ”

“ The Castilian ecclesiastics were often lax in their morals. The higher prelates were possessed of great riches and authority. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the people in Castile had more power, compared with the power of the sovereign, than in any other European country. ”