Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/72

48 4g WAR OF GRANADA. PART I. Embassy from Maxi- milian. istration of justice. A commission was specially appointed to supervise the conduct of the corregi- dors and subordinate magistrates, " so that every one," says Pulgar, " w^as most careful to discharge his duty faithfully, in order to escape the penalty, which was otherwise sure to overtake him."^ While at Valladolid, the sovereigns received an embassy from Maximilian, son of the emperor Frederic the Fourth, of Germany, soliciting their cooperation in his designs against France for the restitution of his late wife's rightful inheritance, the duchy of Burgundy, and engaging in turn to support them in their claims on Roussillon and Cerdagne. The Spanish monarchs had long enter- tained many causes of discontent with the French court, both with regard to the mortgaged territory of Roussillon, and the kingdom of Navarre ; and they watched with jealous eye the daily increasing authority of their formidable neighbour on their own frontier. They had been induced in the pre- ceding summer, to equip an armament at Biscay 3 Conde, Dominacion de los Ara- bes,tom. iii. pp. 239, 240. — Pul- gar, Reyes Catolicos, cap. 100, 101.— During the precedincr year, while the court was at Murcia, wo find one of the examples of prompt and severe exercise of jus- tice, which sometimes occur in this reign. One of the royal collectors having been resisted and personally maltreated by the alcayde of Sal- vatierra, a place belonging to the crown, and by the alcalde of a ter- ritorial court of the duke of Alva, the queen caused one of the royal judges privately to enter into the place, and take cognizance of the affair. The latter, after a brief investigation, commanded the al- cayde to be hung up over his for- tress, and the alcalde to be deliver- ed over to the court of chancery at Valladolid, who ordered his right hand to be amputated, and banish- ed him the realm. This summary justice was perhaps necessary in a community, that might be said to be in transition from a state of bar- barism to that of civilization, and had a salutary elToct in proving to the people, that no rank was ele- vated enough to raise the offender above the law. Pulgtu-, cap. 99.