Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/501

355 ROUT IN THE AXARQUIA. 356 powerful neighbour. The death of the king of chapter France, which occurred not long after, fortunately '■ — relieved the sovereigns from apprehensions of any immediate annoyance on that quarter. ^* Amid their manifold concerns, Ferdinand and Isabella kept their thoughts anxiously bent on their great enterprise, the conquest of Granada. At a congress general of the deputies of the hermandad, held at Pinto, at the commencement of the present year, 1483, with the view of reforming certain abuses in that institution, a liberal grant was made of eight thousand men, and sixteen thousand beasts of burden, for the purpose of conveying supplies to the garrison in Alhama. But the sovereigns expe- Resources or " ox tijg crown. rienced great embarrassment from the want of funds. There is probably no period in which the princes of Europe felt so sensibly their own penury, as at the close of the fifteenth century ; when, the demesnes of the crown having been very generally wasted by the lavishness or imbecility of its propri- etors, no substitute had as yet been found in that searching and well-arranged system of taxation, which prevails at the present day. The Spanish sovereigns, notwithstanding the economy which they had introduced into the finances, felt the pressure of these embarrassments, peculiarly, at the present juncture. The maintenance of the royal guard and of the vast national police of the 14 Aleson, Annales de Navarra, de Portugal, torn. iii. pp. 438- lib. 34, cap. 2 ; lib. 35, cap. 1, — 441. — Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, p. 199. — Mariana, Hist, de Espa- pp. 578, 579. — La Cl^de, Hist, fia, torn. ii. p. 551.