Notwithstanding that Isabella adored her husband, she would never suffer him to interfere with her authority as an independent sovereign, and she was as jealous of her prerogative as Elizabeth of England; except, indeed, where priestly intimidation was applied. Her extreme deference for the ecclesiastics around her was a misfortune for her people, but, consistently with the best points in her character, it could not have been otherwise. She was humane, just, and reasonable in all matters not influenced by the religious bigotry of the age. She declared the American Indians free, and ordered the instant return of several cargoes of them which had been sent to Spain for slaves.
After a successful and glorious reign of thirty years, Isabella the Catholic died, on the 26th of November, 1504, in the fifty-fourth year of her age. Her last years were clouded with the deepest melancholy. The insanity and misfortunes of her daughter Joanna, and the domestic afflictions of her daughter Catherine of Arragon, lacerated her heart with sorrow. She pined away in her lonely grandeur, till the deep and long-protracted melancholy invaded her constitution, and settled into a rapid and fatal decline.
The chief traits of Isabella’s character may be gathered from the preceding narrative, to which we subjoin the parallel drawn between her and Elizabeth of England, by Mr. Prescott, whose “History” so ably and satisfactorily unfolds the events of her reign.
“It is in these more amiable qualities of her sex, that Isabella’s 345 superiority becomes most apparent over her illustrious namesake, Elizabeth of England, whose history presents some features parallel to her own. Both were disciplined in early life by the teachings of that stern nurse of wisdom, adversity. Both were made to experience the deepest humiliation at the hands of their nearest relative, who should have cherished and protected them. Both succeeded in establishing themselves on the throne, after the most precarious vicissitudes. Each conducted her kingdom, through a long and triumphant reign, to a height of glory which it never before reached. Both lived to see the vanity of all earthly grandeur, and to fall the victims of an inconsolable melancholy; and both left behind an illustrious name, unrivalled in the annals of their country.
“But with these few circumstances of their history, the resemblance ceases. Their characters afford scarcely a point of contact. Elizabeth, inheriting a large share of the bold and bluff King Harry’s temperament, was haughty, arrogant, coarse, and irascible, while with these fiercer qualities she mingled deep dissimulation and strange irresolution. Isabella, on the other hand, tempered the dignity of royal station with the most bland and courteous manners. Once resolved, she was constant in her purposes; and her conduct in public and private life was characterized by candor and integrity. Both may be said to have shown that magnanimity which is implied by the accomplishment of great objects in the face of great obstacles. But Elizabeth was desperately selfish; she was incapable of forgiving, not merely a real injury, but the slightest affront to her vanity; and she was merciless in exacting retribution. Isabella, on the other hand, lived only for others; was ready at all times to sacrifice self to considerations of public duty; and, far from personal resentment, showed the greatest condescension and kindness to those who had most sensibly injured her; while her benevolent heart sought every means to mitigate the authorized severities of the law, even towards the guilty.
“Both possessed rare fortitude. Isabella, indeed, was placed in situations which demanded more frequent and higher displays of it than her rival; but no one will doubt a full measure of this quality in the daughter of Henry VIII. Elizabeth 346 was better educated, and every way more highly accomplished, than Isabella. But the latter knew enough to maintain her station with dignity, and she encouraged learning by a munificent patronage. The masculine powers and passions of Elizabeth seemed to divorce her, in a great measure, from the peculiar attributes of her sex; at least from those which constitute its peculiar charm; for she had abundance of foibles; a coquetry and a love of admiration which age could not chill; a levity most careless, if not criminal; and a fondness for dress and tawdry magnificence of ornament which was ridiculous or disgusting, according to the different periods of life in which it was indulged. Isabella, on the other hand, distinguished through life for decorum of manners, and purity beyond the breath of calumny, was content with the legitimate affection which she could inspire within the range of her domestic circle. Far from a frivolous affectation of ornament or dress, she was most simple in her own attire, and seemed to set no value on her jewels, but as they could serve the necessities of the state; when they could be no longer useful in this way, she gave them away to her friends.
“Both were uncommonly sagacious in the selection of their ministers, though Elizabeth was drawn into some errors, in this particular, by her levity, as was Isabella by her religious feeling. It was this, combined with her excessive humility, which led to the only grave errors in the administration of the latter. Her rival fell into no such errors; and she was a stranger to the amiable qualities which led to them. Her conduct was certainly not controlled by religious principle; and, though the bulwark of the Protestant faith, it might be difficult to say whether she were at heart most a Protestant or a Catholic. She viewed religion in its connection with the state,—in other words, with herself; and she took measures for enforcing conformity to her own views, not a whit less despotic, and scarcely less sanguinary, than those countenanced for conscience’ sake by her more bigoted rival.
“This feature of bigotry, which has thrown a shade over Isabella’s otherwise beautiful character, might lead to a disparagement of her intellectual power, compared with that of the English queen. To estimate this aright, we must contemplate 347 the results of their respective reigns. Elizabeth found all the materials of prosperity at hand, and availed herself of them most ably to build up a solid fabric of national grandeur. Isabella created these materials. She saw the faculties of her people locked up in a death-like lethargy, and she breathed into them the breath of life, for those great and heroic enterprises which terminated in such glorious consequences to the monarchy. It is when viewed from the depressed position of her early days, that the achievements of her reign seem scarcely leas than miraculous. The masculine genius of the English queen stands out relieved beyond its natural dimensions by its separation from the softer qualities of her sex; while her rival, like some vast and symmetrical edifice, loses, in appearance, somewhat of its actual grandeur, from the perfect harmony of its proportions.
“The circumstances of their deaths, which were somewhat similar, displayed the great dissimilarity of their characters. Both pined amidst their royal state, a prey to incurable despondency, rather than any marked bodily distemper. In Elizabeth it sprang from wounded vanity; a sullen conviction that she had outlived the admiration on which she had so long fed, and even the solace of friendship, and the attachment of her subjects. Nor did she seek consolation where alone it was to be found, in that sad hour. Isabella, on the other hand, sank under a too acute sensibility to the sufferings of others. But, amidst the gloom which gathered around her, she looked, with the eye of faith, to the brighter prospects which unfolded of the future. And, when she resigned her last breath, it was with the tears and universal lamentations of her people. It is in this undying, unabated attachment of the nation, indeed, that we see the most unequivocal testimony to the virtues of Isabella. Her own subjects extol her as ‘the most brilliant exemplar of every virtue,’ and mourn over the day of her death as ‘the last of the prosperity and happiness of the country;’ while those who had nearer access to her person are unbounded in their admiration of those amiable qualities whose full power is revealed only in the unrestrained intimacies of domestic life.”