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Emperor Charles V and his Vast Realms 303 The Moors, as the Spanish Mohammedans were called, held out for two centuries more in the mountainous kingdom of Granada, in the southern part of the peninsula. Not until 1492, after a long siege, did the Christians capture the city of Gra- nada and the last vestige of Mohammedan rule in the Spanish peninsula disappear. 510. Spain becomes a European Power. The first Spanish monarch whose name need be mentioned here was Queen Isabella of Castile, who, in 1469, concluded an all-important marriage with Ferdinand, the heir of the crown of Aragon. It is with this union of Castile and Aragon that the great importance of Spain in European history begins. For the next hundred years Spain was to enjoy more military power than any other of the European states. In the same year that the conquest of the peninsula was com- pleted, the discoveries of Columbus, made under the auspices of Queen Isabella, opened up sources of undreamed-of wealth beyond the seas. The greatness of Spain in the sixteenth century was largely due to the riches derived from her American possessions. The shameless and cruel looting of the Mexican and Peruvian cities by Cortes and Pizarro, and the silver mines of the New World ( 501, 503), enabled Spain to assume, for a time, a position in Europe which her ordinary resources and the produc- tions of her own population would never have permitted. 511. Revival of the Inquisition. Unfortunately, the most in- dustrious, skillful, and thrifty among the inhabitants of Spain that is, the Moors and the Jews, who well-nigh supported the whole kingdom by their toil were bitterly persecuted by the Christians. So anxious was Isabella to rid her kingdom of the infidels that she revived the court of the Inquisition, of which an account was given above ( 399 ) . For several decades these Church courts arrested and condemned innumerable persons who were suspected of heresy, and thousands were burned at the stake during this period. These wholesale executions have served to associate Spain especially with the horrors of the Inquisition.