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which dazzled the multitude, and is blazoned with great solemnity in the garrulous chronicles of the day. [56]

      The tendencies of the present administration were undoubtedly to strengthen the power of the crown. This was the point to which most of the feudal governments of Europe at this epoch were tending. But Isabella was far from being actuated by the selfish aim or unscrupulous policy of many contemporary princes, who, like Louis the Eleventh, sought to govern by the arts of dissimulation, and to establish their own authority by fomenting the divisions of their powerful vassals. On the contrary, she endeavored to bind together the disjointed fragments of the state, to assign to each of its great divisions its constitutional limits, and, by depressing the aristocracy to its proper level and elevating the commons, to consolidate the whole under the lawful supremacy of the crown. At least, such was the tendency of her administration up to the present period of our history. These laudable objects were gradually achieved without fraud or violence, by a course of measures equally laudable; and the various orders of the monarchy, brought into harmonious action with each other, were enabled to turn the forces, which had before been wasted in civil conflict, to the glorious career of discovery and conquest, which it was destined to run during the remainder of the century.

       * * * * *

      The sixth volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Spanish Academy of History, published in 1821, is devoted altogether to the reign of Isabella, It is distributed into Illustrations, as they are termed, of the various branches of the administrative policy of the queen, of her personal character, and of the condition of science under her government. These essays exhibit much curious research, being derived from unquestionable contemporary documents, printed and manuscript, and from the public archives. They are compiled with much discernment; and, as they throw light on some of the most recondite transactions of this reign, are of inestimable service to the historian. The author of the volume is the late lamented secretary of the Academy, Don Diego Clemencin; one of the few who survived the wreck of scholarship in Spain, and who with the erudition, which has frequently distinguished his countrymen, combined the liberal and enlarged opinions, which would do honor to any country.

      FOOTNOTES

      [1] Among other examples, Pulgar mentions that of the alcayde of Castro- Nuño, Pedro de Mendana, who, from the strong-holds in his possession, committed such grievous devastations throughout the country, that the cities of Burgos, Avila, Salamanca, Segovia, Valladolid, Medina, and others in that quarter, were fain to pay him a tribute, (black mail,) to protect their territories from his rapacity. His successful example was imitated by many other knightly freebooters of the period. (Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 66.)—See also extracts cited by Saez from manuscript notices by contemporaries of Henry IV. Monedas de Enrique IV., pp. 1, 2.

      [2] The quaderno of the laws of the Hermandad has now become very rare. That in my possession was printed at Burgos, in 1527. It has since been incorporated with considerable extension into the Recopilacion of Philip II.

      [3] Quaderno de las Leyes Nuevas de la Hermandad, (Burgos, 1527,) leyes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 20, 36, 37.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 51.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 160, ed. 1539.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 4.—Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 76.—Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, fol. 36.—By one of the laws, the inhabitants of such seignorial towns as refused to pay the contributions of the Hermandad were excluded from its benefits, as well as from traffic with, and even the power of recovering their debts, from other natives of the kingdom. Ley 33.

      [4] Recopilacion de las Leyes, (Madrid, 1640,) lib. 8, tit. 13, ley 44.— Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 379.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 51.—Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Ilust. 6.—Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decad., fol. 37, 38.—Las Pragmáticas del Reyno, (Sevilla, 1520,) fol. 85.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 160.

      [5] Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 76.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 59.—Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. p. 477.—Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decad., fol. 41, 42.—Gonzalo de Oviedo lavishes many encomiums on Cabrera, for "his generous qualities, his singular prudence in government, and his solicitude for his vassals, whom he inspired with the deepest attachment." (Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.) The best panegyric on his character, is the unshaken confidence, which his royal mistress reposed in him, to the day of her death.

      [6] Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 381.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 65, 70, 71.—Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 29.—Carbajal, Anales, MS., año 77.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162; who says, no less than 8,000 guilty fled from Seville and Cordova.

      [7] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 29.-Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. fol. 283.-Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 382.-Lebrija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, lib. 7.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, ubi supra.-Garibay, Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 11.

      [8] Bernaldez, Reyes Católicos, MS., cap. 30.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 78.

      [9] "Era muy inclinada," says Pulgar, "á facer justicia, tanto que le era imputado seguir mas la via de rigor que de la piedad; y esto facia por remediar á la gran corrupcion de crímines que falló en el Reyno quando subcedió en él." Reyes Católicos, p. 37.

      [10] Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 97, 98.—L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 162.

      [11] Ordenanças Reales de Castilla, (Burgos, 1528,) lib. 2, tit. 3, ley 31.

      This constitutional, though, as it would seem, impotent right of the nobility, is noticed by Sempere. (Hist. des Cortès, pp. 123, 129.) It should not have escaped Marina.

      [12] Lib. 2, tit. 3, of the Ordenanças Reales is devoted to the royal council. The number of the members was limited to one prelate, as president, three knights, and eight or nine jurists. (Prólogo.) The sessions were to be held every day, in the palace. (Leyes 1, 2.) They were instructed to refer to the other tribunals all matters not strictly coming within their own jurisdiction. (Ley 4.) Their acts, in all cases except those specially reserved, were to have the force of law without the royal signature. (Leyes 23, 24.) See also Los Doctores Asso y Manuel, Instituciones del Derecho Civil de Castilla, (Madrid, 1792,) Introd. p. 111; and Santiago Agustin Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, (Madrid, 1788,) tom. iii. p. 114, who is mistaken in stating the number of jurists in the council, at this time, at sixteen; a change, which did not take place till Philip II.'s reign. (Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, tit. 4, ley 1.)

      Marina denies that the council could constitutionally exercise any judicial authority, at least, in suits between private parties, and quotes a passage from Pulgar, showing that its usurpations in this way were restrained by Ferdinand and Isabella. (Teoría, part. 2, cap. 29.) Powers of this nature, however, to a considerable extent, appear to have been conceded to it by more than one statute under this reign. See Recop. de las Leyes, (lib. 2, tit. 4, leyes 20, 22, and tit. 5, ley 12,) and the unqualified testimony of Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, ubi supra.

      [13] Ordenanças Reales, lib. 2, tit. 4.—Marina, Teoría de las Cortes, part. 2, cap. 25.

      By one of the statutes, (ley 4,) the commission of the judges, which, before extended to life, or a long period, was abridged to one year. This important innovation was made at the earnest and repeated remonstrance of cortes, who traced the remissness and corruption, too frequent of late in the court, to the circumstance that its decisions were not liable to be reviewed during life. (Teoría, ubi supra.) The legislature probably mistook the true cause of the evil. Few will doubt, at any rate, that the remedy proposed must have been fraught with far greater.

      [14] Ordenanças Reales, lib. 2, tit. 1, 3, 4, 15, 16, 17, 19; lib. 3, tit. 2.—Recop. de las Leyes, lib. 2, tit. 4, 5, 16.—Pulgar, Reyes Católicos, part. 2, cap. 94.

      [15] Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.—By one of the statutes of the cortes of Toledo, in 1480, the king was required to take his seat in the council every Friday. (Ordenanças Reales, lib. 2, tit. 3, ley 32.) It was not so new for the Castilians to have good laws, as for their monarchs to observe them.

      [16] Sempere, Hist. des Cortès, p. 263.

      [17]

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