Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/262

118 118 TROUBLES IN CASTILE AND ARAGON. PART were committed with a frequency and on a scale, '. which menaced the very foundations of society. The nobles conducted their personal feuds with an array of numbers which might compete with those of powerful princes. The duke of Infantado, the head of the house of Mendoza, ^ could bring into the field, at four and twenty hours' notice, one thousand lances and ten thousand foot. The bat- tles, far from assuming the character of those waged by the Italian condottieri at this period, were of the most sanguinary and destructive kind. Andalusia was in particular the theatre of this savage warfare. The whole of that extensive district was divided by the factions of the Guzmans and Ponces de Leon. The chiefs of these ancient houses having recently died, the inheritance descended to young men, whose hot blood soon revived the feuds, which had been permitted to cool under the temperate sway of their fathers. One of these fiery cavaliers was Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, so deservedly cele- brated afterwards in the wars of Granada as the marquis of Cadiz. He was an illegitimate and younger son of the count of Arcos, but was prefer- red by his father to his other children in conse- quence of the extraordinary qualities which he evinced at a very early period. He served his apprenticeship to the art of war in the campaigns 9 This nobleman, Diego Hurla- reipfn of Isabella, (Quincuagenas, do, " muy pentil caballero y gran MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 8.) To serior," as Oviedo calls him, was avoid confusion, however, 1 have at this time only marquis of San- given him the title by which he tillana, and was not raised to the is usually recognised by Castilian title of duke of Infantado till the writers.