Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/261

DEATH OF HENRY IV. 117 revenues gave him perhaps less real influence, than chapter his commanding and resolute character, which had — enabled him to triumph over every obstacle devised by his more crafty adversary, the grand master of St. James. The prelate, however, with all his generous self-devotion, was far from being a com- fortable ally. He would willingly have raised Isa- bella to the throne, but he would have her indebted for her elevation exclusively to himself. He looked with a jealous eye on her most intimate friends, and complained that neither she nor her husband deferred sufficiently to his counsel. The princess could not always conceal her disgust at these hu- mors, and Ferdinand, on one occasion, plainly told him that " he was not to be put in leading-strings, like so many of the sovereigns of Castile." The old king of Aragon, alarmed at the consequences of a rupture with so indispensable an ally, wrote in the most earnest manner to his son, representing the necessity of propitiating the offended prelate. But Ferdinand, although educated in the school of dissimulation, had not yet acquired that self- command, which enabled him in after-life to sacri- fice his passions, and sometimes indeed his prin- ciples, to his interests.^ The most frightful anarchy at this period pre- civiunar vailed throughout Castile. While the court was abandoned to corrupt or frivolous pleasure, the administration of justice was neglected, until crimes 8 Zurita, Anales, torn. iv. fol. 170. — Alonso de Palencia, Cor6- nica, MS., cap. 45.