Another practice steadily pursued by the sovereigns was to raise men of humble station to offices of the highest trust; not, however, like their contemporary, Louis XI, because their station was humble, in order to mortify the higher orders, but because they courted merit wherever it was to be found—a policy much and deservedly commended by the sagacious observers of the time. The history of Spain does not probably afford another example of a person of the lowly condition of Ximenes attaining, not merely the highest offices in the kingdom, but eventually its uncontrolled supremacy.
The queen’s government was equally vigilant in resisting ecclesiastical encroachment. It may appear otherwise to one who casts a superficial glance at her reign, and beholds her surrounded always by a troop of ghostly advisers, and avowing religion as the great end of her principal operations at home and abroad. It is certain, however, that, while in all her acts she confessed the influence of religion, she took more effectual means than any of her predecessors to circumscribe the temporal powers of the clergy. The volume of her pragmáticas is filled with laws designed to limit their jurisdiction and restrain their encroachments on the secular authorities.
Convent of the Martyrs, Granada
By vigilant measures she succeeded in restoring the ancient discipline of the church, and weeding out the sensuality and indolence which had so long defiled it.[74] Few of the Castilian monarchs have been brought more frequently into collision, or pursued a bolder policy, with the court of Rome. Still fewer extorted from it such important graces and concessions.
The condition of the commons under this reign was probably, on the whole, more prosperous than in any other period of Spanish history. New avenues to wealth and honours were opened to them; and persons and property were alike protected under the fearless and impartial administration of the law. “Such was the justice dispensed to everyone under this auspicious reign,” exclaims Marineo, “that nobles and cavaliers, citizens and labourers, rich and poor, masters and servants, all equally partook of it.” We find no complaints of arbitrary imprisonment, and no attempts, so frequent both in earlier and later times, at illegal taxation. In this particular, indeed, Isabella manifested the greatest tenderness for her people. By her commutation of the capricious tax of the alcabala for a determinate one, and still more by transferring its collection from the revenue officers to the citizens themselves, she greatly relieved her subjects.
Finally, notwithstanding the perpetual call for troops for the military operations in which the government was constantly engaged, and notwithstanding the example of neighbouring countries, there was no attempt to establish that iron bulwark of despotism, a standing army; at least, none nearer than that of the voluntary levies of the hermandad, raised and paid by the people. The queen never admitted the arbitrary maxims of Ximenes in regard to the foundation of government. Hers was essentially one of opinion, not force.
There is no country which has been guilty of such wild experiments, or has shown, on the whole, such profound ignorance of the true principles of economical science, as Spain under the sceptre of the family of Austria. And as it is not always easy to discriminate between their acts and those of Ferdinand and Isabella, under whom the germs of much of the subsequent legislation may be said to have been planted, this circumstance has brought undeserved discredit on the government of the latter. Undeserved, because laws mischievous in their eventual operation were not always so at the time for which they were originally devised; not to add that what was intrinsically bad has been aggravated tenfold under the blind legislation of their successors. It is also true that many of the most exceptionable laws sanctioned by their names are to be charged on their predecessors, who had engrafted their principles into the system long before; and many others are to be vindicated by the general practice of other nations, which authorised retaliation on the score of self-defence.
It would be unfair to direct our view to the restrictive measures of Ferdinand and Isabella without noticing also the liberal tenor of their legislation in regard to a great variety of objects. Such, for example, are the laws encouraging foreigners to settle in the country; those for facilitating communication by internal improvements, roads, bridges, canals, on a scale of unprecedented magnitude; for a similar attention to the wants of navigation, by constructing moles, quays, lighthouses, along the coast, and deepening and extending the harbours, “to accommodate,” as the acts set forth, “the great increase of trade”; for embellishing and adding in various ways to the accommodations of the cities; for relieving the subject from onerous tolls and oppressive monopolies; for establishing a uniform currency and standard of weights and measures throughout the kingdom, objects of unwearied solicitude through this whole reign; for maintaining a police which, from the most disorderly and dangerous, raised Spain, in the language of Martyr,[l] to be the safest country in Christendom; for such equal justice as secured to every man the fruits of his own industry, inducing him to embark his capital in useful enterprises; and, finally, for enforcing fidelity to contracts, of which the sovereigns gave such a glorious example in their own administration as effectually restored that public credit which is the true basis of public prosperity.
The most important of the foreign acquisitions were those nearest home, Granada and Navarre, at least they were the only ones capable, from their position, of being brought under control and permanently and thoroughly identified with the Spanish monarchy.