Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/366

222 I. '222 ADMINISTRATION OF CASTILE. lART Cardinal Mendoza, whose influence in the cabinet had gained him the title of " third king of Spain," apprehensive of the consequences of a protracted rupture with the church, interposed in behalf of the envoy, whose conciliatory deportment at length so far mitigated the resentment of the sovereigns, that they consented to open negotiations with the court of Rome. The result was the publication of a bull by Sixtus the Fourth, in which his Holiness engaged to provide such natives to the higher dig- nities of the church in Castile, as should be nom- inated by the monarchs of that kingdom ; and Al- fonso de Burgos was accordingly translated to the see of Cuenca. ^^ Isabella, on whom the duties of ecclesiastical preferment devolved, by the act of settlement, availed herself of the rights, thus wrest- ed from the grasp of Rome, to exalt to the vacant sees persons of exemplary piety and learning, hold- ing light, in comparison with the faithful discharge of this duty, every minor consideration of interest, and even the solicitations of her husband, as we shall see hereafter. ^^ And the chronicler of her reign dwells with complacency on those good old times, when churchmen were to be found of such 4' Riol, in his account of this dignidades de la Iglesia hombres celebrated concordat, refers to the capazes 6 idoneos para la buena original instrument, as existing in administracion del servicio del cul- his time in the archives of Siman- to divino, 6 a la buena enseiianza cas, Semanario Erudite, tom. iii. d ulilidad de los Christianos sua p. 95. vasallos ; y entre todos los varones ^8 " Lo que es publico hoy en Es- de sus Jleynos asi por largo conos- paila 6 nolorio," says Gonzalo de cimiento como per larga 6 secreta Ovicdo, " nunca los Reyes Catho- informacion acordaron encojer 6 licos dcscaron ni procuraron sino elegir," &c. Quincuagenas, MS que proveer 6 presentar para las dial, de Talavera.