Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/297

271 RETIREMENT OF GONSALVO. 271 naciouslj refused to sanction any measures of cortes chapter for his recall ; and, when pressed by that body on ^^' this and other matters, at an audience which she granted before leaving Burgos, she plainly told them " to return to their quarters, and not to meddle further in the public business without her express commands." Not long after this, the legislature was prorogued by the royal council for four months. The term assigned for the provisional govern- D'sonieiiy ~ r D gtate of Caa ment expired in December, and was not renewed. ^''^ No other regency was appointed by the nobles ; and the kingdom, without even the shadow of protection afforded by its cortes, and with no other guide but its crazy sovereign, was left to drift at random amidst the winds and waves of faction. This was not slow in brewing in every quarter, with the aid especially of the overgrown nobles, whose license, on such occasions as this, proved too plainly, that public tranquillity was not founded so much on the stability of law, as on the personal character of the reigning sovereign. ^ The king's enemies, in the mean time, were •^ AbaTca, Reyes de Aragon, at the head of a body of troops with torn. ii. rey 30, cap. 16. — Peter better success, during her husband's Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 34G. — illness, and reestablished herself Zurita, Anales, lib. 7, cap. 36-38. in the strong fortress of Segovia, — Zuuiga, Annales de Sevilla, ai7o which Philip had transferred to 1507. — Bernaldez, Reyes Catoli- Manuel. (Peter Martyr, Opus cos, MS., cap. 206. Epist., epist. 343. — Bernaldez, The duke of Medina Sidonia, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 207.) son of the nobleman who bore so " No one lamented the circum- honorable a part in the Granadine stance," says Oviedo. The mar- war, mustered a large force by land chioness closed her life not long and sea for the recovery of his an- after this, at about sixty years of cient patrimony of Gibraltar. — age. Her husband, though much Isabella's high-spirited friend, the older, survived her. Quincuage- marchioness of Moya, put herself nas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.