[57] "Era firme en sus propósitos, de los quales se retraia con gran dificultad." Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 1, cap. 4.
[58] The reader may refresh his recollection of Tasso's graceful sketch of Erminia in similar warlike panoply.
"Col durissimo acciar preme ed offende
Il delicato collo e l'aurea chioma;
E la tenera man lo scudo prende
Pur troppo grave e insopportabil soma.
Cosi tutta di ferro intorno splende,
E in atto militar se stessa doma."
Gerusalemme Liberata, canto 6, stanza 92.
[59] Viaggio, fol. 27.
[60] We find one of the first articles in the marriage treaty with Ferdinand enjoining him to cherish, and treat her mother with all reverence, and to provide suitably for her royal maintenance. (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Apend. no. 1.) The author of the "Carro de las Doñas" thus notices her tender devotedness to her parent, at a later period. "Y esto me dijo quien lo vido por sus proprios ojos, que la Reyna Doña Isabel, nuestra señora, cuando estaba alli en Arevalo visitando a su madre, ella misma por su persona servia a su misma madre. E aqui tomen ejemplo los hijos como han de servir à sus padres, pues una Reina tan poderosa y en negocios tan arduos puesta, todos los mas de los años (puesto todo aparte y pospuesto) iba a visitar a su madre y la servia humilmente." Viaggio, p. 557.
[61] Among other little tokens of mutual affection, it may be mentioned that not only the public coin, but their furniture, books, and other articles of personal property, were stamped with their initials, F & I, or emblazoned with their devices, his being a yoke, and hers a sheaf of arrows. (Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 2, dial. 3.) It was common, says Oviedo, for each party to take a device, whose initial corresponded with that of the name of the other; as was the case here, with jugo and flechas.
[62] Marineo thus speaks of the queen's discreet and most amiable conduct in these delicate matters. "Amava en tanta manera al Rey su marido, que andava sobre aviso con celos a ver si el amava a otras. Y si sentia que mirava a alguna dama o donzella de su casa con señal de amores, con mucha prudencia buscava medios y maneras con que despedir aquella tal persona de su casa, con su mucha honrra y provecho." (Cosas Memorables, fol. 182.) There was unfortunately too much cause for this uneasiness. See Part II. Chapter 24, of this History.
[63] The best beloved of her friends, probably, was the marchioness of Moya, who, seldom separated from her royal mistress through life, had the melancholy satisfaction of closing her eyes in death. Oviedo, who saw them frequently together, says, that the queen never addressed this lady, even in later life, with any other than the endearing title of hija marquesa, "daughter marchioness." Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23
[64] As was the case with Cardenas, the comendador mayor, and the grand cardinal Mendoza, to whom, as we have already seen, she paid the kindest attentions during their last illness. While in this way she indulged the natural dictates of her heart, she was careful to render every outward mark of respect to the memory of those whose rank or services entitled them to such consideration. "Quando," says the author so often quoted, "quiera que fallescia alguno de los grandes de su reyno, o algun príncipe Christiano, luego embiavan varones sabios y religiosos para consolar a sus heredores y deudos. Y demas desto se vestian de ropas de luto en testimonio del dolor y sentimiento que hazian." L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 185.
[65] Her humanity was shown in her attempts to mitigate the ferocious character of those national amusements, the bull-fights, the popularity of which throughout the country was too great, as she intimates in one of her letters, to admit of her abolishing them altogether. She was so much moved at the sanguinary issue of one of these combats, which she witnessed at Arevalo, says a contemporary, that she devised a plan, by guarding the horns of the bulls, for preventing any serious injury to the men and horses; and she never would attend another of these spectacles until this precaution had been adopted. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.