[24] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 80.
[25] See the emphatic language, on this and other grievances, of the Castilian commons, in their memorial to the sovereigns, Apendice, No. 10, of Clemencin's valuable compilation. The commons had pressed the measure, as one of the last necessity to the crown, as early as the cortes of Madrigal, in 1476. The reader will find the whole petition extracted by Marina, Teoría, tom. ii. cap. 5.
[26] Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, cap. 51.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 5.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 95.—Ordenanças Reales, lib. 6, tit. 4, ley 26;—incorporated also into the Recopilacion of Philip II., lib. 5, tit. 10, cap. 17. See also leyes 3 and 15.
[27] Admiral Enriquez, for instance, resigned 240,000 maravedies of his annual income;—the Duke of Alva, 575,000;—the Duke of Medina Sidonia, 180,000.—The loyal family of the Mendozas were also great losers, but none forfeited so much as the overgrown favorite of Henry IV., Beltran de la Cueva, duke of Albuquerque, who had uniformly supported the royal cause, and whose retrenchment amounted to 1,400,000 maravedies of yearly rent. See the scale of reduction given at length by Señor Clemencin, in Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. loc. cit.
[28] "No monarch," said the high-minded queen, "should consent to alienate his demesnes; since the loss of revenue necessarily deprives him of the best means of rewarding the attachment of his friends, and of making himself feared by his enemies." Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 1, cap. 4.
[29] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, ubi supra.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. loc. cit.
[30] Ordenanças Reales, lib. 2, tit. 1, ley 2; lib. 4, tit. 9, ley 11.— Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 96, 101.—Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 8, tit. 8, ley 10 et al.—These affairs were conducted in the true spirit of knight-errantry. Oviedo mentions one, in which two young men of the noble houses of Velasco and Ponce de Leon agreed to fight on horseback, with sharp spears (puntas de diamantes), in doublet and hose, without defensive armor of any kind. The place appointed for the combat was a narrow bridge across the Xarama, three leagues from Madrid. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.
[31] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. vii. pp. 487, 488.
[32] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 80.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 100.
[33] For example, at the great cortes of Toledo, in 1480, it does not appear that any of the nobility were summoned, except those in immediate attendance on the court, until the measure for the resumption of the grants, which so nearly affected that body, was brought before the legislature.