[22]. She died in June 1475.
[23]. Although she allowed a poor madman who attempted to kill Ferdinand to be torn to bits by red hot pincers, and consigned scores of thousands of poor wretches to the flames for doubting the correctness of her views on religion, she refused ever to go to a bullfight after attending one at which two men had been killed. She strongly condemned such waste of human life without good object.
[24]. Oviedo, who knew her well, says that no other woman could compare with her in beauty.
[25]. ‘Cronicon de Valladolid,’ Doc. Ined. 14, and also Alfonso de Palencia.
[26]. As one instance of the mercenary character of the Castilian nobles of the time, I may mention that there is a bond signed by the King of Portugal in the Frias archives promising to young Villena the Mastership of Santiago in payment for his help.
[27]. The King of Portugal, having heard that Castilian raiders had crossed the Portuguese frontier, is said to have proposed to Ferdinand at this juncture a compromise, by which the Beltraneja should be dropped, and Isabel recognised in return for the cession to Portugal of all Galicia and the two fortresses of Zamora and Toro which he occupied. Ferdinand was inclined to agree to this, and sent an envoy to propose it to his wife. Before the envoy had finished his first sentence Isabel stopped him indignantly, and forbade him to continue. She herself, she said, would in future direct the war, and no foot of her own realm of Castile should be surrendered. She then hurried to Medina and summoned the Cortes, as is told in the text.
[28]. Each group of 100 heads of families subscribed sufficient to pay, mount, arm, and maintain a horseman; and when intelligence of a crime came, every church bell in the district rang an alarm to summon the members of the constabulary to pursue the evil-doer, a special prize being given to the captor. It must be understood that the townships in Spain extend in every case over a large territory outside the walls, so that the house tax, although nominally urban because collected by the municipalities, was really collected also from rural hamlets.
[29]. The importance of obtaining control of the Orders was seen by Isabel at the very beginning of her reign. When the Master of Santiago died in 1476 the Queen was at Valladolid. Without a moment’s delay she mounted her horse and rode to the town of Huete, where the Chapter to elect the new Master was to be held. She entered the Chapter and in an energetic speech urged the knights for the sake of her, their sovereign, to elect her husband their Master. The Castilian knights were angry at the idea of an Aragonese heading them, and opposed the suggestion. Isabel found a way out by pledging Ferdinand to transfer his powers as Master to a Castilian as soon as he was elected; and this he did, appointing his faithful follower Cardenas; but when the latter died Ferdinand became actual Master. Thenceforward the knighthoods (encomiendas) were endowed with pensions derived from rent charges on portions of the estates, the bulk of the revenue being absorbed by the King’s treasury. For details of the Orders and their appropriation, see Ulick Burke’s ‘History of Spain’ to 1515, edited by Martin Hume.
[30]. As at Jaen in 1473, where the Constable of Castile was killed whilst trying to stop the massacre.
[31]. Galindez and Perez de Pulgar.