In the first half of the fifteenth century in Spain there was one woman, Isabella of Portugal, who deserves to be remembered for her many good qualities and for the fact that she was the mother of the great Queen Isabella. It was as the wife of John II. of Castile that the elder Isabella was brought into the political life of the time and made to play her part. This King John was one of the weakest and in some ways the most inefficient of monarchs, for, in spite of his intelligence, his good manners, and his open and substantial appreciation of the learned men of his time, his political life was contemptible, as he was completely under the control of the court favorite, Alvaro de Luna.Alvaro de Luna era el hombre más politico, disimulado, y astuto de su tiempo[Alvaro de Luna was the most politic, deceitful, and astute man of his time], so says the Spanish historian Quintana; and as Burke puts it, he had the strongest head and the bravest heart in all Castile. There was no one to excel him in knightly sport, no one lived in greater magnificence, and he was, in truth, "the glass of fashion, the mould of form, the observed of all observers." To this perfect knight, the king was a mere puppet who could be moved this way or that with perfect impunity. So complete was the ascendency of Luna, that it is said on good authority that the king hesitated to go to bed until he had received his favorite's permission. When King John's first wife, Maria of Portugal, died in 1445, it was his desire to marry a princess of the royal house of France; but, for his own reasons, the Lord of Luna willed otherwise, and the king, submissive, obeyed orders and espoused Isabella of Portugal, a granddaughter of King John I. No sooner had this fiery princess taken her place beside King John, after their marriage in 1450, than she began to assert her independence in a way which caused great scandal at the court and brought dismay to the heart of Alvaro de Luna. Isabella opposed the plans of this masterful nobleman at every turn, refused to accept his dictation about the slightest matter, declined to make terms with him in any way, and declared herself entirely beyond his control, in spite of the fact that he had been responsible for her marriage. King John was at first as much surprised as any of the other people at the boldness of his young queen, but he soon saw that it would be possible, with Isabella's aid, to throw off the hateful yoke which Luna had put about his neck, and this is what took place in a very short time. The queen was more than a match for all who opposed her, court intrigues, instigated by Luna, were to no avail, and in the end he had to give up, beaten by a woman, and one whom he had hoped to make his agent, or ally, in the further subjection of the king. A year after the marriage of John and Isabella, the Princess Isabella was born, and with her advent there came new hope for Spain.
In the neighboring little kingdom of Navarre there was another princess who lived at about the same time, who distinguished herself not by the same boldness of manner perhaps, but by a quiet dignity, and by a wise and temperate spirit which was often sorely tried. Blanche, Princess of Navarre, had been married in 1419 to the Prince of Aragon, John; but in the early years of their married life, before Navarre, the substantial part of Blanche's marriage portion, came under her definite control, the young prince spent the most of his time in Castile, where he was connected with many of the court intrigues which were being woven around the romantic figure of Alvaro de Luna. Finally, Blanche became Queen of Navarre, upon her father's death in 1425, but John was still too much concerned with his Castilian affairs to care to leave them and come to take his place at the side of his wife's throne. For three years Blanche was left to her own devices, and during that time she ruled her little state without the aid or assistance of king or prime minister, and was so eminently successful in all her undertakings that her capacity was soon a matter of favorable comment. Finally, in 1428, John was forced to leave Castile, as Luna had gained the upper hand for the moment, and he considered this as a favorable opportunity to go to Navarre and gain recognition as Queen Blanche's husband. Accordingly, he went in great state to Pamplona, the capital city, and there, with imposing ceremonies, the public and official coronation of John and Blanche was celebrated. At the same time, Blanche's son Charles was recognized as his mother's successor in her ancestral kingdom. But Navarre was not a congenial territory for King John, who was of a restless, impulsive disposition; and he was so bored by the provincial gayety of Pamplona that after a very short stay he could endure it no longer, and set off for Italy, leaving Blanche in entire control as before. Navarre was a sort of halfway ground between France and the various governments of Spain, and was often the centre of much intrigue and plotted treachery; but John was so completely overshadowed now by Luna's almost absolute power, that he knew there was no field for his activity at home. Blanche, however, was confronted more than once by the most delicate situations, as her good city of Pamplona was constantly filled with the agents of foreign powers; but so firm was the queen's character, and so careful were her judgments, that she was able to administer her government until her death, in 1441, with much success and very little criticism.
The next woman to occupy a conspicuous place in the annals of Aragon and Navarre is Doña Juana Henriquez, the second wife of this same John II. Doña Juana was the daughter of Don Fadrique Henriquez, Admiral of Castile, who had become the most influential man in the kingdom during a moment of temporary disgrace for Alvaro de Luna; and at this time of his success, for factional reasons, John considered that an alliance with the admiral might further his own plans with respect to Castile. This second wife was not a woman of high birth, and was totally unaccustomed to the new surroundings in which she found herself placed; but with the quick adaptive power which is possessed by women to so marked a degree, Juana was soon able to hold her own at court and to make a good showing, in fact, on any occasion. She was a very beautiful woman, of the traditional Spanish type, with dark eyes and dark hair, and a very engaging manner, and to her cleverness she joined a great ambition which made her unceasing in her efforts for her husband's advancement. She was inclined to be haughty and domineering in tone, was not overscrupulous, as might have been expected of one who had lived in the atmosphere of the Castilian court at this time, and the sum total of her efforts did little more than to perpetuate the period of strife and turmoil. The admiral, Don Fadrique, was in control for but a short time; and upon the return to power of Alvaro, John was driven out of the country, after being wounded in battle, and the admiral himself was killed in the fighting at Olmedo. John took his wife with him to Pamplona, where he now went, as that city offered him a most convenient exile. His return to his wife's country was not made in peace, for no sooner had he arrived than he proceeded to dispossess his son Charles, who had been openly acknowledged as his mother's heir at the time of her coronation. In the warfare which ensued, and which was a snarl of petty, selfish interests, Juana did yeoman service in her husband's cause. At the time of her hurried flight to Navarre, she had tarried for a short time in the little town of Sos, in Aragon, and there she had given birth to a son, Fernando, who was to be instrumental in bringing peace and glory to Spain in spite of the fact that he first saw the light in the midst of such tumult and confusion. Notwithstanding her delicate condition, Juana was soon in the thick of the fray, as she hastened to the town of Estella, which had been threatened, fortified the place, and defended it effectually from all the attacks made upon it by the hostile forces. She seems to have been a born fighter, and, though her efforts may often have been misdirected, she must have exerted a powerful influence upon the mind of her son, who was to show himself at a later day as good a fighter in a larger cause.
To turn back to Castile now for a time, in the labyrinth of this much involved period, where the duplication of names and the multiplicity of places makes it difficult to thread one's way intelligently, it will be found that the court, during the reign of Henry IV., was chiefly distinguished by its scandalous immorality. Quintana, in his volume entitled theGrandezas de Madrid, gives enough information on the subject to reveal the fact that the roués of that period could learn little from their counterparts to-day, as the most shameless proceedings were of everyday occurrence, and men and women both seemed to vie with each other in their wickedness. It would be somewhat unjust to include the great body of the people in this vicious class, as the most conspicuous examples of human degradation and degeneracy were to be found at the court, but the fact remains that public ideas in regard to moral questions were very lax; the clergy was corrupt, and the moral tone of the whole country was deplorably low, as judged by the standards of to-day. Women deceived their husbands with much the same relish as Boccaccio depicts in hisDecameron; passions were everywhere the moving forces, in the higher and lower classes as well, and nowhere was there to be seen the continence which comes from an intelligent self-control.
In the midst of this carnival of vice and corruption, King Henry, the older brother of the Princess Isabella, was a most striking figure. He had been divorced from his first wife, Blanche of Aragon, on the ground of impotence, but had succeeded, in spite of this humiliation, in contracting another alliance, this time with the beautiful, but not overscrupulous, Juana of Portugal. Beltran de Cueva, a brilliant nobleman, was the favorite and influential person at the court at this time, and his gradual rise to favor had been due in no small measure to the protection of the new queen, who was Beltran's all but acknowledged mistress and took no pains to conceal the matter at any time. In fact, at a great tournament held near Madrid in 1461, soon after Juana's arrival at the court, Beltran posed as her preferred champion, and held the lists against all comers in defence of his mistress's preëminent and matchless beauty. The king was far from displeased at this liaison between Beltran and the queen, and he was so delighted at the knight's unvarying success in this tournament, that the story goes that he founded a monastery upon the spot and named it, in honor of Saint Jerome and Beltran, San Geronimo del Paso, or of the "passage of arms"! The king was little moved by all this, for the simple reason that he was paying a most ardent court at the same time to one of the queen's ladies in waiting. This Lady Guiomar, his mistress, was beautiful, but bold and vicious, as her relations with such a king demonstrate, but for a time at least she was riding upon the crest of the wave. Proud in her questionable honor, and daring to be jealous of the real queen, she made King Henry pay dearly for her favors, and she was soon installed in a palace of her own and living in a splendor and magnificence which rivalled that of the queen herself. The Archbishop of Seville, strange to relate, openly espoused her cause. Her insolent and domineering ways were a fit counterpart to those of the queen, and the unfortunate people were soon making open complaint. Beltran, the king in fact, was the open and accepted favorite of the queen, and Henry, the king in name only, was devoting himself to a vain and shallow court beauty who wished to be a veritable queen and longed for the overthrow of her rival! Such was the sad spectacle presented to the world by Castile at this time, but the crisis was soon to come which would clarify the air and lead to a more satisfactory condition in the state. Matters were hastened to their climax when the queen gave birth, in 1462, to a daughter who was called after her mother, Juana; but so evident was the paternity of this pitiful little princess, that she was at once christened La Beltraneja in common parlance; and by that sobriquet she is best known in history. It is doubtful if the sluggish moral natures of this time would have been moved by this fact, if the king had not insisted that this baby girl should be acknowledged as his daughter and heiress to the crown of Castile. This was too much for the leaders of the opposition, and they demanded that Henry's younger brother, Alfonso, be recognized as his successor. This proposition brought about civil warfare, which was ended by Alfonso's death in 1468, and then Isabella was generally recognized as the real successor to her unworthy brother Henry, in spite of the claims he continued to put forth in favor of La Beltraneja.
Before the cessation of domestic hostilities, Isabella had been sorely tried by various projects which had been advanced for her marriage. She had been brought up by her mother, Queen Isabella, in the little town of Arevalo, which had been settled upon her at the time of the death of her husband, King John II. There, in quiet and seclusion, quite apart from the vice and tumult of the capital, the little princess had been under the close tutelage of the Church, as her mother had grown quite devout with advancing years; and as Isabella ripened into womanhood, it became evident that she possessed a high seriousness and a strength of character quite unusual. Still, all was uncertain as to her fate. Her brother Henry had first endeavored to marry her to Alfonso V. of Portugal, the elder and infamous brother of his own shameless queen, but Isabella had declined this alliance on the ground that it had not been properly ratified by the Cortes of Castile, and as a result the plan was soon dropped. In the midst of the rebellion which had broken out after Henry's attempt to foist La Beltraneja upon the state, he had proposed as a conciliatory measure that one of the most turbulent of the factional leaders, Don Pedro Giron, Grand Master of Calatrava, should wed Isabella, and the offer had been accepted. This man, who was old enough to be her father, was stained with vice, in spite of his exalted position in the religious Order of Calatrava, and his character was so notoriously vile that the mere mention of such an alliance was nothing short of insult to Isabella. Again she did not allow herself to be dominated by her brother, and after announcing that she utterly refused to consent to such an arrangement, she shut herself up in her apartments and declared her intention of resisting any attempts which might be made to coerce her. But the king gave no heed to her remonstrances, and made arrangements for the wedding festivities, the bridegroom having been summoned. The pope had absolved the profligate grand master from his vows of celibacy, which he had never kept, and poor Isabella, sustained only by the moral support of her courageous mother, was beginning to quake and tremble, as she knew not what might happen, and the prospect for her future happiness was far from good. A providential illness overcame the dreaded bridegroom when he was less than forty leagues from Madrid, as it turned out, and Isabella was able to breathe again freely.
With the death of the younger Alfonso, there were many who urged Isabella to declare herself at once as the Queen of Castile and to head a revolution against her brother, the unworthy Henry. Her natural inclinations, as well as the whole character of her early education, had made her devout, almost bigoted, by nature, and it was but natural that her advisers at this time in her career were mostly members of the clergy, who saw in this young queen-to-be a great support for the Spanish Church in the future. But this girl of sixteen was wiser than her advisers, for she refused to head a revolution, and contented herself with a claim to the throne upon her brother's death. Such a claim necessarily had to run counter to the claim of the dubious Princess Juana, and to discredit her cause as much as possible her sobriquetLa Beltranejawas zealously revived. Sure of the support of the clergy, and still wishing to be near to her advisers, Isabella went to the monastery at Avila, where, it is said, deputations from all parts of Castile came to entreat her to assume the crown at once. Her policy of delay made possible an interview between sister and brother, at which Henry, unable to withstand the manifest current of public sentiment, agreed to accept Isabella as his successor and as the lawful heir to the throne of Castile. With this question settled in this satisfactory way, the matter of Isabella's marriage again became an affair of national importance. There were suitors in plenty, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, brother of Edward IV. of England, and the Duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI. and heir to the French throne, being among the number; but the young Isabella, influenced as much by policy as by any personal feeling in the matter, had decided that she would wed Fernando, son of John II. of Aragon and his second wife, the dashing Doña Juana Henriquez, and nothing would change her from this fixed purpose. In a former day it had been a woman, Queen Berenguela, who had labored long and successfully for the union of Castile and Leon; and now another woman, this time a girl still in her teens, was laboring for a still greater Spanish unity, which will consolidate the interests of the two kingdoms of Aragon and Castile and give to all Spain the peace which was now such a necessity to the future well-being of the country. There were numerous obstacles thrown in the way of this marriage, which was not pleasing to all of the Castilian factions. The Archbishop of Seville tried to kidnap Isabella to prevent it, and would have done so but for the activity of another prelate, the Archbishop of Toledo, who rescued the unfortunate maiden and carried her off to sure friends in Valladolid, where she awaited Fernando's coming.
Burke gives an admirable description of Isabella at this time, in the following lines: "That royal and noble lady was then in the full bloom of her maiden beauty. She had just completed her eighteenth year. In stature somewhat superior to the majority of her countrywomen, and inferior to none in personal grace and charm, her golden hair and her bright blue eyes told perhaps of her Lancastrian ancestry. Her beauty was remarkable in a land where beauty has never been rare; her dignity was conspicuous in a country where dignity is the heritage not of a class but of a nation. Of her courage, no less than of her discretion, she had already given abundant proofs. Bold and resolute, modest and reserved, she had all the simplicity of a great lady born for a great position. She became in after life something of an autocrat and overmuch of a bigot. But it could not be laid to the charge of a persecuted princess of nineteen that she was devoted to the service of her religion." Such was Isabella when she married Fernando; and the wedding was quietly celebrated at Valladolid, in the house of a friend, Don Juan de Vivero, while the warlike Archbishop of Toledo had charge of the ceremony. Never was there a simpler royal wedding in all the annals of Spanish history: there was no throng of gay nobles, there were none of the customary feasts or tournaments, there was no military display, no glitter of jewels, no shimmer of silks and satins, but all was quiet and serious, and the few guests at this solemn consecration seemed impressed with the dignity of the occasion. The pathway of the young princess was not all strewn with roses, however, as her marriage seemed to enrage her degenerate brother and to stimulate him to new deeds of unworthiness. In spite of the fact that King Henry's shameless conduct in private life had been given a severe rebuke, by implication at least, at the time that Isabella was being urged on all sides to declare herself as queen and dispossess her brother, this perverted monarch continued his profligate career in most open fashion. He had not only one mistress but many of them at the court, he loaded them with riches and with favors, and often, in a somewhat questionable excess of religious zeal, he appointed them to posts of honor and importance in conventual establishments! No sooner had Isabella's wedding been celebrated than Henry began to stir up trouble again, declared that the queen's daughter, La Beltraneja, was the only lawful heir to his estates, and to further his projects he succeeded in arranging for a betrothal ceremony between this young woman and the young Duke of Guienne, heir presumptive to the crown of France, who had been one of Isabella's suitors, as will be remembered. This French alliance, threatening for a moment, was soon impaired by the unexpected death of the young duke, and Isabella's position was strengthened daily by the growing disbelief in La Beltraneja's legitimacy. To give in detail an account of all the plots which were concocted against Isabella would take many chapters in itself, for she met with bitter opposition in spite of the fact that she seems to have won the sympathies of the larger part of the population of the two countries.
In the midst of this continual intrigue came the news of King Henry's death in 1474, and then Isabella, who had been biding her time, was proclaimed queen by her own orders, and the proclamation was made at Segovia, which was then her place of residence. As a mere matter of curiosity, it may be interesting to record the long list of titles which actually belonged to Isabella at this time. She was Queen of Castile, Aragon, Leon, Sicily, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Mallorcas, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, Alguynias, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, Countess of Barcelona, Sovereign Lady of Biscay and Molina, Duchess of Athens and Neopatria, Countess of Roussillon, Cerdagne, Marchioness of Ovistan and Goziano! After assuming the heavy burden implied by this somewhat overpowering list of titles, the young queen's first serious annoyance came from her husband, strange as the case may seem. Fernando of Aragon was the nearest living male representative of King Henry, and he somewhat selfishly began to take steps to supplant Isabella in her succession. Little did he know his wife, however, if he imagined it possible to deprive her of Castile, and events soon showed that she was the stronger of the two. At her orders, the laws and precedents with regard to royal succession were carefully examined, and it was soon published abroad that there was no legal objection to her assumption of power. Fernando was appeased to some degree by certain concessions made by his wife, their daughter Juana was recognized as heiress of Castile, and, all in all, in spite of his disgruntled state of mind, he wisely concluded to remain at Isabella's side and help to fight her battles. A new cause for alarm soon appeared: another of Isabella's former suitors, Alfonso, King of Portugal, was affianced to the pitiful La Beltraneja, the two were proclaimed King and Queen of Castile, and the country was at once invaded by a hostile force. Isabella interested herself personally in the equipment of her troops, she faced every emergency bravely, and after a short campaign her banners were triumphant and all things seemed to indicate that an era of peace had been begun. The pope dissolved the marriage between Alfonso and La Beltraneja soon after, and these two unhappy mortals forthwith retired from the world, she to the convent of Saint Clare at Coimbra, while the poor king resigned his crown and became a Franciscan monk. So great, in fact, was Isabella's victory at this time, and so keen was her appreciation of the fact that her greatest cause for alarm had been completely removed from the scene of action, that she walked barefooted in a procession to the church of Saint Paul at Tordesillas, to express her feeling of thanksgiving for her great success.
Following close upon the heels of this last stroke of good fortune for Castile came the news that the old King of Aragon, Fernando's father, was dead, and now, in truth, came that unity of Spain which had been the dream of more than one Utopian mind in days gone by. With fortune smiling upon them in so many ways, the sovereigns of this united realm were still confronted by many serious problems of government, especially in Castile, which called for speedy settlement. The long years of weak and vicious administration had filled the country with all kinds of abuses, and the task of internal improvement was difficult enough to cause even a stouter heart to quail. The queen in all these matters displayed a rare sagacity and developed a rare faculty for handling men which stood her in good stead. The recalcitrant nobles and the rebellious commoners were all brought to terms by her influence, and her power was soon unquestioned. She had an army at her back and a crowd of officers ready to carry out and enforce her instructions to the letter, but, more than all this, her great and personal triumph was the result of her tremendous personal power and magnetism. She travelled all over Spain in a most tireless fashion, she met the people in a familiar manner, and showed her sympathy for them in countless ways; but there was always about her something of that divinity which doth hedge a king, which made all both fear and respect her. No nook or corner of the whole country was too remote, her visits covered the whole realm, and everywhere it was plain to see that her coming had been followed by the most satisfactory results. Having thus created a great and mighty public sentiment in her favor, Isabella was not slow to attack the great questions of national reforms, which were sadly in need of her attention. She boldly curtailed the privileges of the grandees of Spain, and to such good effect that she transformed, in an incredibly short space of time, the most turbulent aristocracy on the continent into a body of devoted and submissive retainers, the counterpart of which was not to be found in any other country of Europe. Her wide grasp of affairs is seen in the support she was willing to give to Columbus in his voyage overseas, and time and time again she showed herself equal to the most trying situations in a way which was most surprising in one of her age and experience. Her firmness of character was ever felt, although her manners were always mild and her whole attitude was calculated to conciliate rather than to antagonize.
Pure and discreet in every way, Isabella was ever a zealous Christian, and she never failed to aid the Church when the means were within her reach. The gradual decline of the Moorish power in Spain had given rise to a most unfortunate spirit of religious intolerance, with which Isabella was soon called upon to deal, and her action in this matter is but characteristic of the time in which she lived. Spain was filled with Jews, who had settled unmolested under the Moslem rule, and there were also many Moriscoes, or people of mixed Spanish and Moorish origin; and these unfortunates were now to be submitted to the tortures of that diabolical institution known as the Inquisition, because they were not enthusiastic in their support of the Catholic religion. Isabella tried to oppose the introduction of these barbarous practices into Castile, but by specious argument her scruples were overcome and she was made to bow to the will of the pope and his legates. In the workings of the Inquisition little distinction was made between men and women, and both seem to have suffered alike at the hands of these cruel ministers of the Church. In 1498, for the first time, it was decreed that men and women held under arrest by order of the inquisitor should be provided with separate prisons, and it is easy to imagine from this one statement that Isabella must have been very much of a bigot, or she could not have allowed so flagrant an abuse to exist for any length of time, no matter what the occasion for it. When the power of the inquisitor seemed about to extend to the Jews for the first time, they offered to Fernando and Isabella thirty thousand pieces of silver, for the final campaigns against the Moors, if they might be allowed to live unmolested. The proposition was being favorably entertained, when Torquemada, the chief inquisitor, suddenly appeared before the king and queen, with a crucifix in his uplifted hand; and if the traditional account be true, he addressed them in these words: "Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver, your highnesses are about to do the same for thirty thousand; behold Him, take Him, and hasten to sell Him." Impressed by this dramatic presentation of the subject, Isabella was impelled to sign the decrees which banished the Jews from Spain and led to so much slaughter and persecution. All of this side of Isabella's character causes some expression of surprise perhaps, but it must be remembered that her religious zeal and enthusiasm were such that anyone who dared to oppose the power of Rome in any way could have no claim upon her of any kind.
This same trait of character is everywhere prominent in Isabella's treatment of the Moors. In the year 1487 the important Moorish city of Malaga was compelled finally to surrender to the armies of Fernando and Isabella after a most heroic defence, but these Christian rulers could feel no pity for their unfortunate captives, and were unwilling to show any sense of appreciation of their valor. Accordingly, the whole population of some fifteen thousand people was sold into slavery and scattered throughout Europe! Prescott, in his history of the time of Fernando and Isabella, states that the clergy in the Spanish camp wanted to have the whole population put to the sword, but to this Isabella would not consent. Burke gives the following details with regard to the fate of all these prisoners of war: "A hundred choice warriors were sent as a gift to the pope. Fifty of the most beautiful girls were presented to the Queen of Naples, thirty more to the Queen of Portugal, others to the ladies of her court, and the residue of both sexes were portioned off among the nobles, the knights, and the common soldiers of the army, according to their rank and influence." If Isabella showed herself tender-hearted in not allowing a regular massacre of these poor Moors, she was far less compassionate with regard to the Jews and the renegade Christians who were within the walls of Malaga when the city was taken. These poor unfortunates were burned at the stake, and Albarca, a contemporary Church historian, in describing the scene, says that these awful fires were "illuminations most grateful to the Catholic piety of Fernando and Isabella."
Isabella shows this same general mental temper in her whole attitude to war and warlike deeds, for she seems to have possessed little of that real sentiment or pity which women are supposed to show. Tolstoi has said that the first and chief thing that should be looked for in a woman is fear, but this remark cannot be applied in any way to Isabella, for no fear was ever found in her. In the camp at Granada, in those last days of struggle, the queen appeared on the field daily, superbly mounted, and dressed in complete armor; and she gave much time to the inspection of the quarters of the soldiers and reviewed the troops at her pleasure. One day she said, in talking to some of her officers, that she would like to go nearer to the city walls for a closer inspection of the place, whereupon a small escort of chosen men was immediately detailed to take the queen to a better point for observing the city and its means of defence. They all advanced boldly, the queen in the front rank, and so angered the Moors by their insolence, so small was their party, that the gates of the city suddenly opened and a large body of citizens came forth to punish them for their temerity. In spite of the unequal numbers, the Christian knights, inspired by the presence and the coolness of their queen, who was apparently unmoved by the whole scene, performed such miracles of valor that two thousand Moors were slain in a short time and their fellows compelled to retire in confusion.
With the conquest of the Moors, the spreading of the influence of Spain beyond the seas became a more immediate question. Its solution, however, was still prevented by the theories of statesmen and theologians. Columbus had won the queen to his cause during the famous audience at the summer court at Salamanca, when he was presented to the sovereigns by Cardinal de Mendoza, at which interview, we are told, he "had no eyes for any potentate but Isabella." But after years of disappointment to Columbus, the queen was again the great power to further his project: she offered to pledge her crown jewels to defray the cost of the expedition. Thus a speedy issue was obtained, and to Isabella's determination Spain owes a glory which gilds the reign of this queen with imperishable lustre.
The wealth which had come to Spain as the result of her conquests in Moorish territory, and, far more, the treasure which was beginning to pour into the country from the new Spanish possessions beyond the seas, brought to the old peninsula a possibility for lavish and brilliant display in dress which was by no means disregarded. All Europe, in this same period of the Renaissance, had been undergoing to a greater or less degree this social transformation, but the looms of Valencia and Granada furnished the silks and brocades which other countries bought with eagerness, and Spain may be considered very properly as the home of all this courtly show. The wonderful gold cloths which were woven by the deft fingers of the Moriscoes were everywhere prized by fine ladies and ardent churchmen, for there was no finer material for a fetching robe of state in all the world, and no altar cloth or priestly robe could possess excelling beauty and not owe a debt to Spain. Someone has said that women are compounds of plain-sewing and make-believe, daughters of Sham and Hem, and, without questioning the truth of the statement, the same remark might be applied to both the clergy and the women of this period at least, if "fine-sewing" be substituted for "plain-sewing" in the epigram. Isabella herself, in spite of her well-known serious character, dressed in a way which was magnificent beyond belief, and the smallest provincial court was a marvel of brave array. Never had the women adorned themselves so splendidly before, the fashions were made and followed with much scrupulous precision, and so great was the sum of money expended by people of all classes, high and low, that the far-seeing and prudent began to fear the consequences. It is said that on more than one occasion the Cortes deplored the prevalent extravagance and the foolish pride which made even the laboring classes vie in richness of dress with the nobility, "whereby they not only squander their own estate, but bring poverty and want to all." When, however, Fernando and Isabella discovered that gold was being used in large amounts in the weaving of these costly tissues, they issued an order which not only prohibited the wearing of this finery, but inflicted heavy penalties upon all those who should import, sell, or manufacture any textures containing gold or silver threads!
While Her Most Catholic Majesty was issuing edicts of this kind relating to the material affairs of life, it must not be supposed that she was in any way neglecting the humanities, for the truth is quite the contrary. Never before had such encouragement been given to learning by a Spanish sovereign, and never before had there been so little jealousy of foreigners in the matter of scholarship. Isabella was the leader in this broad movement, and from all parts of Europe she summoned distinguished men in science and literature, who were installed at her court in positions of honor or were given chairs in the universities. The final expulsion of the Moors had brought about an era of peace and quiet which was much needed, as Spain had been rent by so much warfare and domestic strife, and for so many years, that the more solid attainments in literature had been much neglected, and the Spanish nobles were covered with but a polite veneer of worldly information and knowledge which too often cracked and showed the rough beneath. Isabella endeavored to change this state of affairs, and by her own studies, and by her manifest interest in the work of the schools, she soon succeeded in placing learning in a position of high esteem, even among the nobles, who did not need it for their advancement in the world. Paul Jove wrote: "No Spaniard was accounted noble who was indifferent to learning;" and so great was the queen's influence, that more than one scion of a noble house was glad to enter upon a scholarly career and hold a university appointment. It may well be imagined that in all this new intellectual movement which was stimulated by Isabella, it was the sober side of literature and of scholarship which was encouraged, as a light and vain thing such as lyric poetry would have been as much out of place in the court of the firm defender of the Catholic faith as the traditional bull in the traditional china shop. Isabella, under priestly influences, favored and furthered the revival of interest in the study of Greek and Latin, and it is in this realm of classical study that the scholars of the time were celebrated.
The power of example is a wonderful thing always, and in the present instance the direct results of Isabella's interest in education may be seen in the fact that many of the women of her day began to show an unusual interest in schools and books. The opportunities for an education were not limited to the members of the sterner sex, and it appears that both men and women were eager to take advantage of the many new opportunities which were afforded them at this epoch. A certain Doña Beatriz de Galindo was considered the greatest Latin scholar among the women of her time, and for several years her praises were sounded in all the universities. Finally, Doña Beatriz was appointed special teacher in the Latin language to the queen herself; and so great was her success with this royal pupil, that she was rewarded with the titlela Latina, by which she was commonly known ever after. According to a Spanish proverb, "the best counsel is that of a woman," and surely Isabella acted upon that supposition. This is not all, however, for not only was a woman called to give lessons to the queen, but women were intrusted with important university positions, which they filled with no small credit to themselves. Good Dr. Holmes has said: "Our ice-eyed brain-women are really admirable if we only ask of them just what they can give and no more," but the bluestockings of Isabella's day were by no means ice-eyed or limited in their accomplishments, and they managed to combine a rare grace and beauty of the dark southern type with a scholarship which was most unusual, all things taken into consideration. Doña Francisca de Lebrija, a daughter of the great Andalusian humanist Antonio de Lebrija, followed her father's courses in the universities of Seville, Salamanca, and Alcala, and finally, in recognition of her great talents, she was invited to lecture upon rhetoric before the Alcala students. At Salamanca, too, there was a liberal spirit shown toward women, and there it was that Doña Lucia de Medrano delivered a course of most learned lectures upon classical Latinity. These are merely the more illustrious among the learned women of the time, and must not be considered as the only cases on record. Educational standards for the majority of both men and women were not high, as a matter of course, and, from the very nature of things, there were more learned men than learned women; but the fact remains that Isabella's position in the whole matter, her desire to learn and her desire to give other women the same opportunity and the same desire, did much to encourage an ambition of this kind among the wives and daughters of Spain. The queen was a conspicuous incarnation of woman's possibilities, and her enlightened views did much to broaden the feminine horizon. Where she led the way others dared to follow, and the net result was a distinct advance in national culture.
In spite of all this intellectual advance, the game of politics was still being played, and women were still, in more than one instance, the unhappy pawns upon the board who were sacrificed from time to time in the interest of some important move. The success of Spanish unity had aroused Spanish ambition, Fernando and Isabella had arranged political marriages for their children, and the sixteenth century was to show that, in one instance at least, this practical and utilitarian view of the marriage relation brought untold misery and hardship to one poor Spanish princess. In each case the royal alliances which were contracted by the Spanish rulers for their various children were the subject of much careful planning and negotiation, and yet, in spite of it all, these measures constitute the most conspicuous failure in all their long reign. Particularly pathetic and distressing is the story of the poor Princess Juana, whose prospects were most brilliant and whose destiny was most cruel. Juana was married in 1496 to the Archduke Philip of Austria, Governor of the Netherlands and heir to the great domain of his father, the Emperor Maximilian, and the wedding had been celebrated in a most gorgeous fashion. It was in the month of August that a splendid Spanish fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and Santander, to carry the Spanish maiden to her waiting bridegroom. As is usual in such affairs, the beauty of the girl had been much extolled, and the archduke, then in his eighteenth year, was all aglow with hope and expectation. Watchmen had been posted to keep a lookout for the ships from Spain, and when they finally came in sight with their glistening white sails and their masts and spars all gay with flags and streamers, salutes were fired and they received a royal welcome. The Spanish admiral in person led the Princess Juana to meet her affianced husband, and soon after, in the great cathedral at Lille, the two young people were married in the midst of great festivities. It seems almost pitiful to think of the human side of all this great and glittering show. Juana was barely seventeen years of age, alone, without mother or father or sister or brother, in a strange land, in the midst of a strange court, where all about her were speaking a strange language, and the wife of a youth whom she had never seen until the eve of her marriage! For a few long weeks Juana was somewhat reserved in her new surroundings, and in her heart she longed again for Spain; but as the days passed she became accustomed to her new home, took pleasure in the greater liberty which was now accorded her as a married woman, and soon, neglected by her parents, so far as any show of affection was concerned, she learned to grow indifferent to them and to all their interests. By the year 1500, however, Juana had become a most important person, as death had claimed her brother and her older sisters and she now remained the rightful heir not only to Aragon, but to her mother's realm of Castile as well. This fact caused much uneasiness in Spain, as such an outcome was most unexpected. Secret agents who had been sent to Flanders to inquire into the political and religious views of the archduchess brought back most discouraging reports. It was asserted that she was no longer a careful Catholic, that she "had little or no devotion," and that she was "in the hands of worthless clerics from Paris." As a matter of fact, Juana, once freed from the ecclesiastical restraints which had been imposed upon her in her younger days by her pious mother, did what it was most natural for her to do,—she went to the opposite extreme. Spain, at that time, with its Inquisition and its fervid zeal for Rome, was the most religious country in Europe, while in the Netherlands there was a growing liberal spirit which attracted the archduchess. It must have been annoying to her to feel that her mother, Isabella, was in a constant fret about the condition of her soul, while otherwise she was treated with a distant formality, entirely devoid of a mother's love, and it is no small wonder that she refused to accept a spiritual director and father confessor who had been sent from Spain to save her from perdition.
With all these facts in mind, Isabella was greatly troubled, for the thought that the indifferent Juana might some day reign in her stead and undo all that she had done with so much labor for the glory of the Church was naturally repugnant to her devout nature. Finally, after a son was born to Juana, Charles, who was to become at a later day the Emperor Charles V., the queen decided upon a somewhat doubtful procedure to avert, for a time at least, the impending catastrophe. The Cortes, under royal pressure, was induced to provide for the government after Isabella's death, in case Juana might be absent from the kingdom, or in case of her "being present in Castile, but, unwilling or unable to reign." Under any or all of those circumstances, it was provided that Fernando should act as regent until her son Charles had reached his twentieth year, a rather unusual age, at a time when young princes were frequently declared to have attained their majority at fifteen or sixteen. Isabella's intention in all this was too obvious, for it was plainly a part of her plan that Juana should never have any share in the government of the country of which she was the rightful heir. The whole transaction smacks strongly of duplicity of the worst kind, for at the very time that the Cortes was being prevailed upon to do this, Juana was being given a royal welcome in both Aragon and Castile, for she had been induced to come home for a visit; and she was even being given public recognition as the future queen of these two countries. There were feasts and tournaments given in her honor, Fernando and Isabella introduced her to their subjects with apparent pleasure, and yet under it all was this heartless trick which they had planned in utter defiance of the law. Still, the law in Spain at this time was almost synonymous with the wish of the sovereign; and so powerful was Isabella and so great was her influence with her legislative body, that there was little dissent to the plan for usurpation which had its origin in her fertile brain. The reasons for this action will never be definitely known, perhaps. It would hardly seem that Juana's lukewarm Catholicism would be sufficient to warrant so radical a step, and it is difficult to give credence to the vaguely circulated rumor that Juana was insane.
Whether this alleged insanity was real or not, it served as a pretext for the action taken, and the report regarding the unhappy princess was soon common property. When Isabella drew her last breath in 1504, Fernando artfully convoked the Cortes, formally renounced any interest in the succession to the throne of Castile, and caused Juana and Philip to be proclaimed as successors to Isabella and himself. Within two months, however, Juana's claims were completely disregarded, it was officially announced that she was not in her right mind, and Fernando was empowered to take control of the Castilian government and rule as regent, according to the terms of the decree which had been arranged by Isabella some years before, and was to remain as ade factosovereign until Charles had reached the specified majority. The statements which were made to support the claim as to her insanity were not altogether clear, and to-day at least they do not seem convincing. Her attitude of indifference toward the extreme point of view taken by her mother in regard to religion may have been scandalous, as no doubt it was at that time, but it was hardly evidence of an impaired intellect. During her last visit to Spain before her mother's death, Juana had resisted with violence when she was imprisoned for a time and had not been allowed to go to her husband, and such resistance was quite natural in a high-spirited young woman who was being treated in a high-handed and illegal manner; but because her jailer had been the Bishop of Burgos, and because she had been detained by royal order, her action was considered as a certain indication of mental derangement. Again, it was asserted that on one occasion, soon after Juana's return to Flanders from the place of her imprisonment, she gave unmistakable signs of insanity in the course of a court quarrel. It seems that during her absence a certain lady in waiting at her ducal court had succeeded in winning the favor of Philip, and had received such marked attentions from the archduke that the affair was soon gossiped about in every nook and corner of the palace, from scullery maid to the lord high chamberlain. Juana was given a full account of the whole affair before she had been in the palace twenty-four hours, and it so enraged her that she sought out her rival in her husband's affection, and, after a terrible scene, clipped the golden locks of the fair enchantress so close to her head that, for a time at least, her beauty was marred. This was not dignified action, and it might well have been the act of any angered woman under those circumstances, but in Spain the one terrible word "insanity" was whispered about and no other explanation could or would be accepted. Her sanity had never been questioned in Flanders, and, in spite of her quick temper and many unreasonable acts, no one had ever thought to fasten this terrible suspicion upon her. The game was worth the candle, however; Isabella had been unwilling to take any chances, and the ambiguous clause, "being present in Castile, but unable or unwilling to reign," gave the hint which Fernando had been only too willing to act upon, and the trumped-up charge of insanity was an easy thing to sustain.
Fernando's assumption of the regency, however, and the action of the Cortes, which virtually disregarded the claims of Juana to the throne, angered her and her husband still more, and they set out by ship for Spain, after some delay, to demand an explanation. Fernando went to meet them at the little village of Villafafila, and there, after an audience with the archduke which took place in the little parish church and which lasted for several hours, it was agreed between them that Juana, "on account of her infirmities and sufferings, which decency forbids to be related," was to be "refused under any circumstances to occupy herself with the affairs of the kingdom," and it was mutually agreed that Juana was to be prevented by force, if necessary, from taking any part in the government of Castile! What happened in that interview no man can ever know exactly, but it certainly appears that the wily Fernando had been able by some trick or mass of false evidence to convince Philip that Juana was really insane, and yet he had been with his wife almost continually for the previous two years and had not thought of her in that light, and Fernando had not even seen his daughter within that same space of time! But then and there the fate of the much-abused princess was definitely decided. Juana, self-willed as she had shown herself to be, was not a woman of strong character or any great ability, and her husband had so regularly controlled her and bent her to his will that he found little trouble in the present instance in deposing her entirely, that he might rule Castile in her stead. When Philip died suddenly two months after he had assumed the reigns of government, Juana was stricken with a great grief, which, it is said, did not at first find the ordinary solace afforded by tears. She refused for a long time to believe him dead; and when there was no longer any doubt of the fact, she became almost violent in her sorrow. She had watched by her husband's bedside during his illness, and was most suspicious of all who had anything to do with her, for she thought, as was probably the case, that Philip had been poisoned, and she feared that the same fate might be reserved for her. In any event, Juana was treated with little or no consideration at this unhappy moment; the Cardinal Ximenes, who had been made grand inquisitor, assumed control of the state until Fernando might be summoned from Naples, whither he had gone; and, all in all, the rightful heir to the throne was utterly despised and disregarded. She was allowed to follow her husband's body to its last resting place, and then, after a brief delay, she went to live at Arcos, where she was well watched and guarded by her jealous father, who feared that some disaffected nobles might seek her out and gain her aid in organizing a revolt against his own government. While in this seclusion, Juana was sought in marriage by several suitors, and among them Henry VII. of England; but all these negotiations came to naught, and in the end she was sent to the fortress of Tordesillas, where she was kept in close confinement until the time of her death.
There is no trustworthy evidence to show that Juana was mad before the death of her husband, and all her eccentricities of manner could well have been accounted for by her wayward, jealous, and hysterical character, but after her domestic tragedy there is little doubt but that her mind was to some degree unsettled. Naturally nervous, and feeling herself in the absolute power of persons who were hostile to her interests, she became most excitable and suspicious, and may well have lost her reason before her last hour came. The story of her confinement in the old fortress at Tordesillas is enough in itself to show that stronger minds than hers might have given way under that strain. This palace-prison overlooked the river Douro, and was composed of a great hall, which extended across the front of the building, and a number of small, dark, and poorly ventilated rooms at the back. In addition to the jailer, who was responsible for the prisoner, the place was filled with a number of women, whose duty it was to keep a close watch upon Juana and prevent her from making any attempt to escape. The use of the great hall with its view across the river was practically denied to her, she was never allowed to look out of the window under any circumstances, for fear she might appeal to some passer-by for aid, and, in general, unless she was under especial surveillance, she was confined, day in and day out, in a little back room, a veritable cell, which was without windows, and where her only light came from the rude candles common to that age. Priests were frequent visitors, but, to the end, Juana would have nothing to do with them, and it is even said that on more than one occasion she had to be dragged to the prison chapel when she was ordered to hear mass. No man can tell whether this unhappy woman would have developed a strong, self-reliant character if the course of her life had been other than it was, but, accepting the facts as they stand, there is no more pathetic figure in all the history of Spain than this poor, mistreated Juana la Loca, "the mad Juana," and to every diligent student of Spanish history this instance of woman's inhumanity to woman will ever be a blot on the scutcheon of the celebrated Isabella of Castile.
The religious fanaticism which was responsible in part at least for the fate of Juana soon took shape in a modified form as a definite national policy, and the grandson and great-grandson of Isabella, Charles V. and his son, King Philip, showed themselves equally ardent in the defence of the Catholic faith, even if their ardor did not lead them to treat with inhumanity some member of their own family. Spain gloried in this religious leadership, exhausted herself in her efforts to maintain the cause of Rome in the face of the growing force of the Reformation, and not only sent her sons to die upon foreign battlefields, but ruthlessly took the lives of many of her best citizens at home in her despairing efforts to wipe out every trace of heresy. This whole ecclesiastical campaign produced a marked change in the character of the Spanish people; they lost many of their easy-going ways, while retaining their indomitable spirit of national pride, and became stern, vindictive, and bigoted. In the process of this transformation, the women of the country were perhaps in advance of the men in responding to the new influences which were at work upon them. The number of convents increased rapidly, every countryside had its wonder-working nun who could unveil the mysteries of the world while in the power of some ecstatic trance, and women everywhere were the most tireless supporters of the clergy. It was natural that this should be the case, for there was a nervous excitement in the air which was especially effective upon feminine minds, and the Spanish woman in particular was sensitive and impressionable and easily influenced. Among all of the devout women of this age living a conventual life, the most distinguished, beyond any question, was Teresa de Cepeda, who is perhaps the favorite saint of modern Spain to-day.
Teresa's early life resembled that of any other well-born young girl of her time, although she must have enjoyed rather exceptional educational advantages, as her father was a man of scholarly instincts, who took an interest in his daughter's development and sedulously cultivated her taste for books. When Teresa was born in 1515, the Spanish romances of chivalry and knight-errantry were in the full tide of their popularity; and as soon as the little girl was able to read, she spent many hours over these fascinating tales. Endowed by nature with a very unusual imagination, she was soon so much absorbed in these wonder tales, which were her mother's delight, that she often sat up far into the night to finish the course of some absorbing adventure. At this juncture, her father, fearing that this excitement might be harmful, tried to divert her mind by putting in her way books of pious origin, wherein the various trials and tribulations of the Christian martyrs were described in a most graphic and realistic style. Soon Teresa was even more interested in these stories than in those of a more worldly character, and the glories of martyrdom, which were described as leading to a direct enjoyment of heavenly bliss without any purgatorial delay, made such a profound impression upon her youthful mind that she resolved at the early age of seven to start out in search of a martyr's crown. Prevailing upon her little brother to accompany her in this quest for celestial happiness, she started out for the country of the Moors, deeming that the surest way to attain the desired goal. While this childish enthusiasm was nipped in the bud by the timely intervention of an uncle, who met the two pilgrims trudging along the highway, the idea lost none of its fascination for a time; and the two children immediately began to play at being hermits in their father's garden, and made donation to all the beggars in the neighborhood of whatever they could find to give away, depriving themselves of many customary pleasures to satisfy their pious zeal. With the lapse of time, however, this morbid sentiment seemed to disappear, and Teresa was much like any other girl in her enjoyment of the innocent pleasures of life. Avila, in Old Castile, was her home, and there she was sent to an Augustinian convent to complete her education, but without any idea that she would eventually adopt a religious life for herself. This convent, indeed, seemed to make little impression upon her, and it was only after a chance visit made to an uncle who was about to enter a monastery, and who entreated her to withdraw from the vanities of the world, that she seems to have gone back with undimmed ardor to her childish notions. In spite of her father's opposition, Teresa, in her eighteenth year, left home one morning and went to install herself at the Carmelite convent of the Incarnation, which was situated in the outskirts of her native city. The lax discipline and somewhat worldly tone of the place proved a great surprise to her, as she had imagined that the odor of sanctity must be all-pervasive in a religious house; but she evidently accommodated herself to the conditions as she found them, for she made no decided protest and gave evidence of no special piety until twenty years after she had formally given up the world. Then, saddened and sobered by her father's death, Teresa began to have wonderful trances, accompanied by visions wherein Christ, crucified, appeared to her time and time again. Although in later times these unusual experiences have been adduced to prove her saintship, at the time of their occurrence they were not looked upon in the same light, and there were many who said that Teresa was possessed of devils. She was more than half inclined to this view of the case herself, and the eminent religious authorities who were consulted in the matter advised her to scourge herself without mercy, and to exorcise the figures, both celestial and infernal, which continued to appear before her. The strange experiences continued to trouble her, however, in spite of all that she could do, and to the end of her days she was subject to them. Constantly occupied with illusions and hallucinations, she soon became a religious mystic, living apart from the world and yet deeply interested in its spiritual welfare. One of her visions in particular shows into what a state of religious exaltation she could be thrown. She imagined herself a frameless mirror of infinite size, with Christ shining in the middle of it, and the mirror itself, she knew not how, was in Christ!
In the midst of these experiences Teresa began to wonder what she could do for the real advancement of the Church, and her first thought was that there must be reform in the convents if the cause of religion was to prosper. Discouraged by the members of her own convent, who looked upon any reform movement as a reflection upon their own establishment, Teresa was nevertheless encouraged to go on with her work by certain far-seeing ecclesiastics who were able to appreciate its ultimate value. It was her plan to establish a convent wherein all the early and austere regulations of the Carmelite order were to be observed, and, by working secretly, she was able to carry it out. There was violent protest, which almost led to violence, and it was only after full papal approval that she was allowed to go about her business unmolested. The reorganizing spirit of the Counter-Reformation which was now at work within the Catholic Church gave her moral support, and the remaining years of her life were devoted to the work of conventual reorganization and regeneration which she had begun with so stout a heart. It was her wont to travel everywhere in a little cart which was drawn by a single donkey, and winter and summer she went her way, enduring innumerable hardships and privations, that her work might prosper. Sixteen convents and fourteen monasteries were founded as the result of her efforts; and as her sincerity and single-mindedness became more and more apparent, she was everywhere hailed by the people as a devout and holy woman, and was even worshipped by some as a saint on earth. Disappointment and failure were her lot at times, and she found it difficult to maintain the stern discipline of which she was such an ardent advocate. On one occasion, it is said that her nuns in the convent of Saint Joseph, at Avila, went on a strike and demanded a meat diet, which, it may be added, she refused to grant; and a prioress at Medina answered one of her communications in a very impertinent manner and showed other signs of insubordination; but Teresa was calm and unruffled, in her outward demeanor at least, and found a way by tactful management, and by a judicious show of her authority, to settle all differences and disputes without great difficulty. When death overtook her in 1582, miracles were worked about her tomb, and when the vault was opened, after a period of nine months, it is asserted that her body was uncorrupted. Removed to a last resting place at Avila at a somewhat later date, her bones were finally carried off by pious relic hunters, who believed them to possess miraculous properties. In the forty years which followed her death, Teresa was so revered throughout her native land that she was canonized by Pope Gregory XV. in 1622. To her exalted spirit were joined a firm judgment and a wonderful power of organization, and in placing her among the saints she was given a merited reward for her holy labors.
The harsh intolerance which came with the Spanish Counter-Reformation manifested itself oftentimes in acts of cruelty and oppression which are almost beyond belief. So eager were the zealots for the triumph of pure and unadulterated Catholicism, that no consideration whatever was shown for the Moriscoes, or Spanish Moors, whose form of belief was Catholic, but tinged with Moslem usages, and even women and children were made to suffer the unreasoning persecution of the Christians. One offensive measure after another was adopted for the discomfiture of the thrifty sons of the Prophet, and finally, with the purpose of wiping out all distinctions of any kind which might lead to a retention of national characteristics, it was decreed in 1567 that no woman should walk abroad with a covered face. Such a measure was certainly short-sighted. For hundreds of years this Oriental custom had been common in southern Spain; it was significant of much of their idea of social order and decency, and any attempt to abolish it with a single stroke of a Catholic pen was both unwise and imprudent. According to Hume, "this practice had taken such a firm hold of the people of the south of Spain that traces of it remain to the present day in Andalusia, where the women of the poorer classes constantly cover the lower part of the face with the corner of a shawl. In Peru and Chili (originally colonized by the Spanish) the custom is even more universal." Yet it was this firmly rooted habit that the Christians tried to destroy! As the result of this order, the majority of the Spanish women showed themselves in public as rarely as possible, and then they tried to evade the law whenever they could. Other measures, equally severe and equally impossible, which were enacted at the same time, ended finally, as might have been expected, in a desperate revolt. A horde of Moslem fanatics, goaded to desperation, swept down upon the Christians of Granada, and there was a terrible massacre. This was all that was necessary to start the Spaniards upon a campaign which was still more cruel than any which had preceded it, for now the avowed object was revenge and not war. Six thousand helpless women and children were slaughtered in a single day by the Marquis de los Velez, and this is but a single instance of the bloodthirsty spirit which was rampant at the time.
Even among the Spanish people, the officers of the Inquisition found many victims, and women quite as often as men had to endure its rigors. In spite of the many centuries of Christian influence, there were still to be found in various parts of the country remnants of the old pagan worship which were difficult to eradicate. It was claimed that sects were in existence which not only denied the Christian faith, but openly acknowledged the Devil as their patron and promised obedience to him! In the ceremonies attendant upon this worship of the powers of darkness, women played no unimportant part, and many were the reputed witches who were supposed to be on terms of intimate acquaintance with the arch-fiend in person. As the suppression of this heresy was assumed by the Church, the Inquisition, as its punitive organ, took charge of the matter and showed little mercy in its dealings with suspected persons, for whom the rack and other instruments of torture were put to frequent use. In the year 1507 the Inquisition of Calahorra burned more than thirty women as sorceresses and magicians, and twenty years later, in Navarre, there were similar condemnations. So frequent, indeed, were these arrests for magic and sorcery, that the "sect of sorcerers," as it was called, seemed to be making great headway throughout the whole country, and the Inquisition called upon all good Christians to lodge information with the proper authorities whenever they "heard that any person had familiar spirits, and that he invoked demons in circles, questioning them and expecting their answer, as a magician, or in virtue of an express or tacit compact." It was also their duty to report anyone who "constructed or procured mirrors, rings, phials, or other vessels for the purpose of attracting, enclosing, and preserving a demon, who replies to his questions and assists him in obtaining his wishes; or who had endeavored to discover the future by interrogating demons in possessed people; or tried to produce the same effect by invoking the devil under the name ofholy angelorwhite angel, and by asking things of him with prayers and humility, by practising other superstitious ceremonies with vases, phials of water, or consecrated tapers; by the inspection of the nails, and of the palm of the hand rubbed with vinegar, or by endeavoring to obtain representations of objects by means of phantoms in order to learn secret things or which had not then happened." Such orders led to the arrest of hundreds of women all over Spain, and many of them went to death in the flames, for women rather than men were affected by this crusade, as they were generally the adepts in these matters of the black art. That such things could be in Spain at this time may cause some surprise, but it must be remembered that superstition dies hard and that many of the things which are here condemned are still advertised in the columns of the newspapers, and the belief in the supernatural seems to have taken a new lease of life as the result of certain modern investigations. Superstition has ever gone hand in hand with civilization, in spite of the repeated efforts of the latter to go its way alone.
Witches and sorceresses, however, were far outnumbered in the prisons of the Inquisition by the numerous Spanish women who were accused of Lutheranism, for the reformed doctrines had succeeded in making great progress even here in this hotbed of popery, and many persons were burned for their lack of faith in the old formulas of belief. Anauto de féwas a great public holiday, celebrated in some large open square, which had been especially prepared for the event, with tiers upon tiers of seats arranged on every side for the accommodation of the thousands of spectators; and to this inspiring performance came many noble ladies, decked out as if for a bull fight, and eager to witness each act of atrocity in its slightest detail. The names of scores of the women who perished in this way might be cited to show that from all classes the Church was claiming its victims; and even after death, condemnation might come and punishment might be inflicted. To illustrate the possibilities of this religious fury, the case of Doña Eleanora de Vibero will more than suffice. She had been buried at Valladolid, without any doubt as to her orthodoxy, but she was later accused of Lutheranism by a treasurer of the Inquisition, who said that she had concealed her opinions by receiving the sacraments and the Eucharist at the time of her death. His charges were supported by the testimony of several witnesses, who had been tortured or threatened; and the result of it all was that her memory and her posterity were condemned to infamy, her property was confiscated, and at the first solemnauto de féof Valladolid, held in 1559, and attended by the Prince Don Carlos and the Princess Juana, her disinterred body was burned with her effigy, her house was razed to the ground, and a monument with an inscription relating to this event was placed upon the spot.
Such is this sixteenth century in Spain, an age of strange contrasts, where the greatest crimes are committed in the holy name of Religion!