Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/348

204 204 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. PART ments. It may be also added, that Isabella appro- '- priated the first fruits of this measure, by distrib- uting the sum of twenty millions of maravedies among the widows and orphans of those loyalists, who had fallen in the War of the Succession. ^^ This resumption of the grants may be considered as the basis of those economical reforms, which, without oppression to the subject, augmented the public revenue more than twelve fold during this auspicious reign. ^^ Lesisiaiive Scvcral othcr acts were passed by the same tnactnients, A •' cortes, which had a more exclusive bearing on the nobility. They were prohibited from quartering the royal arms on their escutcheons, from being at- tended by a mace-bearer and a body-guard, from imitating the regal style of address in their written correspondence, and other insignia of royalty which they had arrogantly assumed. They were forbid- den to erect new fortresses, and we have already seen the activity of the queen in procuring the de- molition or restitution of the old. They were ex- pressly restrained from duels, an inveterate source of mischief, for engaging in which the parties, both ])rincipals and seconds, were subjected to the penalties of treason. Isabella evinced her deter mination of enforcing this law on the highest ofl'en ders, by imprisoning, soon after its enactment, the counts of Luna and Valencia for exchanging a 28" No monarch," said the high- friends, and of making himself minded queen, " should consent to feared hy his enemies." Pulgar, alienate his demesnes; since the Reyes Catolicos, part. I, cap. 4. loss of revenue necessarily de- *> Pulgnr, Reyes Catolicos, ubi prives him of the best means of supra. — Mem. de la Acad, de rewarding the attachment of his Hist., tom. vi. loc. cit.