There was hardly a private or public shortcoming of which Henry in his lifetime had not been accused. From the Sovereign Pontiff to frank, but humble subjects, remonstrances against his notoriously bad conduct had been offered to the wretched King; and at his death the accumulated evils, bred by a line of frivolous monarchs, had reached their climax. There was no justice, order or security for life or property, and the strong oppressed the weak without reproach or hindrance, the only semblance of law being maintained by the larger walled cities in their territories by means of their armed burgess brotherhood. But in the disturbances that had succeeded the birth of the Beltraneja the cities themselves were divided, and in many cases the factions within their own walls made them scenes of bloodshed and insecurity. Faith and religion, that had hitherto been the mainstay of the throne of Castile, had been trampled under foot and oppressed by a monarch whose constant companions and closest servitors had been of the hated brood of Mahomet. Nobles who, for themselves and their adherents, had wrung from the Kings nearly all they had to give, and threatened even to overwhelm the cities, were free from taxation, except the almost obsolete feudal aid in spears which the Sovereign had nominally a right to summon at need. Such men as Villena, or Alvaro de Luna in the previous reign, with more armed followers than the King and greater available wealth, were the real sovereigns of Castile in turbulent alternation, and the final disintegration of the realm into petty principalities appeared to be the natural and imminent outcome of the state of affairs that existed when Henry IV. breathed his last.
All Castile and Leon, with their daughter kingdoms, were looking and praying for a saviour who could bring peace and security; and at first sight it would seem as if a turbulent State that had never been ruled by a woman could hardly expect that either of the young princesses who claimed the crown could bring in its dire need the qualities desired for its salvation. Isabel’s popularity, especially in Valladolid, Avila and Segovia, was great; and at the moment of the King’s death her friends were the stronger and more prompt, for Villena had just died, the Beltraneja was but a child of twelve, and the Queen-Mother, discredited and scorned, was lingering out her last days in a convent in Madrid.[[22]] The towns, for the most part, awaited events in awe, fearing to take the wrong side, and a breathless pause followed the death of the King. Isabel was at Segovia, and under her influence and that of Cabrera, the city was the first to throw off the mask and raised the pennons for Isabel and Ferdinand, to whom, in her presence, it swore allegiance and proclaimed sovereigns of Castile. Valladolid followed on the 29th December; whilst Madrid, whose fortress was in the hands of Villena’s son, declared for the Beltraneja. The nobles shuffled again; moved by personal interest or rivalry, the Archbishop of Toledo, abandoning Isabel out of jealousy of Cardinal Mendoza; whilst Alburquerque, the supposed father of the Beltraneja, joined her opponent, and civil war, aided by foreign invasion from Portugal, was organised to dispute with Isabel and her husband their right to the crown.
By rare good fortune the young couple, who were thus forced to fight for their splendid inheritance, were the greatest governing geniuses of their age. It is time to say something of their gifts and characters. They were both, at the time of their accession, twenty-three years of age, and, as we have seen, their experience of life had already been great and disillusioning. Isabel’s was incomparably the higher mind of the two. The combined dignity and sweetness of her demeanour captivated all those who approached her, whilst her almost ostentatious religious humility and devotion won the powerful commendation of the churchmen who had suffered so heavily during the reign of Henry. There is no reason to doubt her sincerity or her real good intentions any more than those of her great-grandson, Philip II., a very similar, though far inferior, character. Like him, she never flinched from inflicting what we now call cruelty in the pursuance of her aims, though she had no love for cruelty for its own sake. She was determined that Spain should be united, and that rigid orthodoxy should be the cementing bond; that the sacred sovereign of Castile should be supreme over the bodies and souls of men, for her crown in her eyes was the symbol of divine selection and inspiration, and nothing done in the service of God by His vice-regent could be wrong, great as the suffering that it might entail. She was certainly what our lax generation calls a bigot; but bigotry in her time and country was a shining virtue, and is still her greatest claim to the regard of many of her countrymen. She was unmerciful in her severity in suppressing disorder and revolt; but we have seen the state at which affairs had arrived in Castile when she acceded to the crown, and it is quite evident that nothing but a rod of iron governed by a heart of ice was adequate to cope with the situation. Terrible as was Isabel’s justice, it entailed in the end much less suffering than a continuance of the murderous anarchy she suppressed.[[23]] Her strength and activity of body matched her prodigious force of mind, and she constantly struck awe in her potential opponents by her marvellous celerity of movement over desolate tracts of country almost without roads, riding often throughout the night distances that appear at the present day to be almost incredible.
Ferdinand was as despotic and as ambitious as she, but his methods were absolutely different. He wanted the strength of Castile to push Aragonese interests in Italy and the Mediterranean; and, like Isabel, he saw that religious unity was necessary if he was to be provided with a solid national weapon for his hand. But for Isabel’s exalted mystic views of religion he cared nothing. He was, indeed, severely practical in all things; never keeping an oath longer than it suited him to do so, loving the crooked way if his end could be gained by it, and he positively gloried in the tergiversation by which throughout his life he got the better of every one with whom he dealt, until death made sport of all his plans and got the better of him. His school of politics was purely Italian; and he cynically acted upon the knowledge, as Henry VII. of England also did, that the suppression of feudalism doomed the sovereign to impotence unless he could hoard large sums of ready money wrung from subjects. In future he saw that kings would be feared, not for the doubtful feudatories they might summon, but in proportion to the men and arms they could promptly pay for in cash; and he went one better than the two Henry Tudors in getting the treasure he saw was needed. They squeezed rills of money from religious orthodoxy, and divided their subjects for a century; he drew floods of gold by exterminating a heterodox minority, and united Spain for the ends he had in view. Ferdinand and Isabel might therefore challenge the admiration of subjects for their greatness and high aims, and command loyalty by their success as rulers; but they cannot be regarded as loveable human beings.
Between two such strong characters as these it was not to be expected that all would be harmonious at first, and the married life of Isabel began inauspiciously enough in one respect. There is no doubt that both Ferdinand and his father intended that the former should be King regnant of Castile, and not merely King consort. Ferdinand indeed, through his grandfather of the same name, was the male heir to the Castilian crowns; and as the Salic law prevailed in Aragon, they assumed that it might be enforced in Castile. This, however, was very far from Isabel’s view; reinforced as she was by the decision of the Castilian churchmen and jurists, and she stood firm. For a time Ferdinand sulked and threatened to leave her to fight out her battle by herself; but better counsels prevailed, and an agreement was made by which they were to reign jointly, but that Isabel alone should appoint all commanders, officers and administrators, in Castile, and retain control of all fiscal matters in her realms.
On the 2nd January 1475, Ferdinand joined his wife in Segovia, where a Cortes had been summoned to take the oath of allegiance to them. Through the thronged and cheering street he rode to the Alcazar; Beltran de la Cueva, Duke of Alburquerque, by his side, and nobles, bishops and burgesses, flocked to do homage to the new sovereigns. Two months later the faithful city of Valladolid greeted the royal couple with effusive joy; and a round of festivities drew the lieges and gave time for adherents to come in. Both parties were mustering forces for the great struggle; and it needed stout hearts on the part of Isabel and her husband to face the future. The Archbishop of Toledo was now on the side of the Beltraneja; and so was Madrid and some of the great nobles of Andalucia; and, worst of all, Alfonso of Portugal had been betrothed to his niece the Beltraneja; and was even now gathering his army to invade Castile and seize the crown. On the 3rd April the new sovereigns held high festival at Valladolid. Isabel, in crimson brocade and with a golden crown upon her veiled abundant russet hair, mounted a white hackney with saddle cloth, housings and mane covered with gold and silver flowers. She was followed by fourteen noble dames dressed in parti-coloured tabards, half green brocade and half claret velvet, and head dresses to imitate crowns; and, as they rode to take the place of honour in the tilt yard, men said that no woman was ever seen so beautiful and majestic as the Queen of Spain.[[24]] Knights and nobles flocked to the lists, and King Ferdinand rode into the yard mounted upon his warhorse to break a lance, the acknowledged finest horseman in Spain. But as he entered the populace stared to see the strange crest he bore upon his helm, and the stranger motto emblazoned upon his shield. What could it mean? asked, not without fear, some of those who professed to be his friends. The crest took the form of a blacksmith’s anvil, and the motto ran;—
Como yunque sufro y callo,
Por el tiempo en que me hallo.
I do bear, like anvil dumb,
Blows, until the time shall come.[[25]]