Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/349

205 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. 205 cartel of defiance, until the point at issue should be chapteu settled by the regular course of justice. ^° '. It is true the haughty nobility of Castile winced 1474. more than once at finding themselves so tightly curbed by their new masters. On one occasion, a number of the principal grandees, with the duke of Infantado at their head, addressed a letter of remonstrance to the king and queen, requiring them to abolish the hermandad, as an institution burdensome on the nation, deprecating the slight degree of confidence which their highnesses repos- ed in their order, and requesting that four of their number might be selected to form a council for the general direction of affairs of state, by whose ad- vice the king and queen should be governed in all matters of importance, as in the time of Henry the Fourth. Ferdinand and Isabella received this unseasona- ble remonstrance with great indignation, and re- turned an answer couched in the haughtiest terms. " The hermandad," they said, "is an institution most salutary to the nation, and is approved by it as such. It is our province to determine who are best entitled to preferment, and to make merit the standard of it. You may follow the court, or retire 30 Ordenancas Reales, lib. 2, tit. Leon, agreed to fight on horse- 1, ley 2; lib. 4, tit. 9, ley 11. back, with sharp spears {puntas — Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part, ^e f^zamanfes), in doublet and hose, 2, cap. 96, 101. — Recop. de las without defensive armour of any Leyes, lib. 8, tit. 8, ley 10 et al. kind. The place appointed for the — These affairs were conducted combat was a narrow bridge across in the true spirit of knight-errantry, the Xarama, three leagues from Oviedo mentions one, in which Madrid. Quincuagenas,MS., bat. two young men of the noble 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23. houses of Velasco and Ponce de