Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/346

202 ADiMINISTRATION OF CASTILE PART grants unconstitutionally made during the latter half — '- of Henry the Fourth's reign, and the commence- ment of the present. ^^ This measure, however violent, and repugnant to good faith, it may appear at the present time, seems then to have admitted of justification, as far as the nation was concerned ; since such alienation of the public revenue was in itself illegal, and contrary to the coronation oath of the sovereign ; and those who accepted his obli- gations, held them subject to the liability of their revocation, which had frequently occurred under the preceding reigns. As the intended measure involved the interests of most of the considerable proprietors in the kingdom, who had thriven on the necessities of the crown, it was deemed proper to require the attendance of the nobility and great ecclesiastics in cortes by a special summons, which it seems had been previously omit- ted. Thus convened, the legislature appears, with great unanimity, and much to the credit of those most deeply affected by it, to have acquiesced in the proposed resumption of the grants, as a meas- ure of absolute necessity. The only difliculty was to settle the principles on which the retrenchment miglit be most equitably made, with reference to creditors, whose claims rested on a great variety of grounds. The plan suggested by cardinal Mendoza 25 See the empliatic language, had pressed the measure, as one ot on this and other grievances, of the last necessity to the crown, as the Castilian commons, in their early as the cortes of Madrigal, in memorial to the sovereigns, Apen- 1470. The reader will find the dice. No. 10, of Clomcncin's valu- whole petition extracted hy .Mari- able compilation. The commons na, Teoria, torn. ii. cap. 5.