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 118 STATESMEN AND SAGES few years the country was cleared of banditti and the blessing of personal security under the government was restored. .Isabella revived also another ancient custom of her forefathers, that of presid- ing in person over courts of justice. From city to city she travelled on horse- back, making the circuit of her kingdom, regardless of personal fatigue. Side by side with Ferdinand, when he had leisure from foreign complications to accom- pany her, she sat (not unmindful of the dignity belonging to the crown) with her courtiers around her, to listen with interest, that she might redress wrongs, punish the wrongdoers, and administer justice even to the lowliest of her subjects. Her personal address, and the unbounded respect which her integrity inspired ; her proclamation throughout the kingdom that the interests of her people were her interests, re-established such public confidence that, says a writer of that age, " Those who had long despaired of public justice blessed God for their deliverance, as it were, from deplorable captivity." Nor did the sovereigns relax their per- sonal efforts for the restoration of law and order until the cortes had passed measures for the permanent administration of justice. Thus in a few years, from a state of anarchy and misrule, Castile entered upon her "Golden Age of Justice." The golden age of literature, developed in the next century, has been justly ascribed to the impetus given by Isabella to liberal education, classical and scien- tific. Under her patronage schools were established in every city, presided over by learned men. The printing press, lately invented, was introduced ; foreign books were imported free of duty, while such precedence was given to native literature as led on to the brilliant achievements of the sixteenth century. In social reform precept was enforced by example. In all that was pure, in all that was true, in all that was noble and magnanimous, Isabella, in private life, was a witness unto her people. No calumny of any kind, even in a depraved age, was ever cast upon Isabella of Castile or upon any one of her royal children. But the strongest characteristic of Isabella, that which colored her whole life and gave force to every public action, was her fervent piety and her unfaltering [perhaps blind] faith in the divine authority of the Roman Catholic Church. For all the evils that grew out of the latter she is still branded, even among the liberal- minded of to-day, regardless of her illiberal age, with that worst of all brands, " a religious bigot." This side of her character we will not discuss, but refer our readers to the history of Christianity during the fifteenth century, when the great flood-tide of religious intolerance reached its height. It was in the fulness of this tide that the great historic events of her reign oc- curred, viz., the conquest of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews, the Inquisition, and the discovery of America. After each of these, for honor or dishonor, we interline the name of Isabella. Yet the conquest of Granada, or the reconquest of every foot of land which the Moors had taken from the Goths, was fore- ordained in Castilian councils centuries before Isabella was born. The expulsion of the Jews, the so-called " enemies of Christ," was but a part of the same effort " to rid the land of unbelieving invaders." The Inquisition, with all its horrors,