Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/109

ARAGON. xci mons and the ecclesiastics. ^^ But they were too section formidable when united, and too easily united, to be successfully assailed. The Moorish wars termi- nated, in Aragon, with the conquest of Valencia, or rather the invasion of Murcia, by the middle of the thirteenth century. The tumultuous spirits of the aristocracy, therefore, instead of finding a vent, as in Castile, in these foreign expeditions, were turned within, and convulsed their own country with per- petual revolution. Haughty from the consciousness of their exclusive privileges and of the limited num- ber who monopolized them, the Aragonese barons regarded themselves rather as the rivals of their sovereign, than as his inferiors. Intrenched within the mountain fastnesses, which the rugged nature of the country everywhere afforded, they easily bade defiance to his authority. Their small number gave a compactness and concert to their operations, which could not have been obtained in a multitudi- nous body. Ferdinand the Catholic well discrimi- nated the relative position of the Aragonese and Castilian nobility, by saying, " it was as difficult to divide the one, as to unite the other." ^^ These combinations became still more frequent Privileges or A Union. after formally receiving the approbation of King Alfonso the Third, who, in 1287, signed the two celebrated ordinances entitled the " Privileges of Union," by which his subjects were authorized to 21 Zurita, Anales, torn. i. fol. 198. 22 Sempere, Histoire des Cortes, — He recommended this policy to p. 164. his son-in-law, the king of Castile.