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 THE CLOSE: WEST AND EAST 223 clad nobles and knights j and the sense of personal independ- ence was vigorously fostered. We need not here follow the course of dynastic struggles. On that head it will be enough to say that the fierce contest between the rival Lancaster houses of Lancaster and York, called the Wars and York, of the Roses, almost annihilated the old nobility, while it enabled France to throw off the English" yoke ; but it did not have the same destructive effect on the towns, or on the general population. The danger of a close aristocracy being formed was averted ; and after the strife was brought to an end, and the rival houses were united in the Tudor dynasty, the leading statesmen and the most powerful families were not found amongst the ancient nobility. Of the Spanish kingdoms during this period Aragon played a part of some importance, owing to her naval power in the Mediterranean, and to her appropriation first of one Sicily and then of both. In the four- teenth century Sicily was under a separate branch of the royal family of Aragon. In the fifteenth century Sicily itself was annexed to the Crown of Ara- gon, while a separate Aragonese dynasty ruled over Naples. Castile was occupied with wars sometimes against her neigh- bours of the Christian kingdoms, sometimes against the Moors and Granada, and sometimes also with civil strife. m x. It was in a struggle for the succession to the Crown of Castile, between Pedro the Cruel and Henry of Trastamare, that Edward the Black Prince interfered; for which England paid the penalty in the loss of Aquitaine. Within the peninsula the Castilian dominion was much the largest. When the united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon conquered Granada, the Spanish dominion was practically completed. But the third of the great Christian kingdoms, Portugal, was never absorbed into Castile or into the great Spanish kingdom, except at a later period, when, for three quarters of a century the royal family of Spain managed to keep the royal family of Portugal out of its inheritance. In the Middle Ages Portugal held its own, and in the fifteenth century it took the lead in maritime exploration. The steady