Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/81

CASTILE. Ixiii remain a dead letter. Accordingly, we find them section perpetually convulsing the kingdom with their schemes of selfish aggrandizement. The petitions of the commons are filled with remonstrances on their various oppressions, and the evils resulting from their long, desolating feuds. So that, not- withstanding the liberal forms of its constitution, there was probably no country in Europe, during the Middle Ages, so sorely afflicted with the vices of intestine anarchy, as Castile. These were still fur- ther aggravated by the improvident donations of the monarch to the aristocracy, in the vain hope of con- ciliating their attachment, but which swelled their already overgrown power to such a height, that, by the middle of the fifteenth century, it not only over shadowed that of the throne, but threatened to sub- vert the liberties of the state. Their self-confidence, however, proved eventually their ruin. They disdained a cooperation with the lower orders in defence of their privileges, and re- lied too unhesitatingly on their power as a body, to feel jealous of their exclusion from the national legislature, where alone they could have made an effectual stand against the usurpations of the crown. — The course of this work, will bring under review the dexterous policy, by which the crown contrived to strip the aristocracy of its substantial privileges, and prepared the way for the period, when it should retain possession only of a few barren though osten- tatious dignities. ^'^ ' 67 An elaborate dissertation, by on the preeminence and privileges the advocate Don Alonso Carillo, of the Castilian grandee, is append-