Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/97

 ferred them, knew well by what a precarious, illicit section tenure he was to hold them.

From the view which has been presented of the Castilian constitution at the beginning of the fif- teenth century, it is apparent, that the sovereign was possessed of less power, and the people of greater, than in other European monarchies at that period. It must be owned, however, as before in- timated, that the practical operation did not always correspond with the theory of their respective func- tions in these rude times ; and that the powers of the executive, being susceptible of greater compact- ness and energy in their movements, than could possibly belong to those of more complex bodies, were sufficiently strong in the hands of a resolute prince, to break down the comparatively feeble barriers of the law. Neither were the relative privileges, assigned to the different orders of the state, equitably adjusted. Those of the aristocracy were indefinite and exorbitant. The license of armed combinations too, so freely assumed both by this order and the commons, although operating as a safety-valve for the escape of the effervescing