Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/389

363 CONQUEST OF NAVARRE. 363 ordinary cases would doubtless have been granted chapter bj a neutral nation. But that nation must, after ^^"^ ' all, be the onlj judge of its propriety, and Navarre may find a justification for her refusal on these grounds. First, that, in her weak and defence- less state, it was attended with danger to herself. Secondly, that, as by a previous and existing treaty with Spain, the validity of which was recognised in her new one of July 17th with France, she had agreed to refuse the right of passage to the latter nation, she consequently could not grant it to Spain without a violation of her neutrality.^^ Thirdly, that the demand of a passage, however just in it- self, was coupled with another, the surrender of the fortresses, which must compromise the inde- pendence of the kingdom. ^° discusses the grounds of the war, der which he lay himself, and at or in his manifesto to the Navar- the same time secure what might rese, where it would have served be deemed a sufficient warrant for his purpose quite as effectually as retaining his acquisitions, his arms. I say nothing of the Rea-.^rs in general may think negative evidence afforded by the more time has been spent on the silence of contemporary writers, as discussion than it is worth. But Lebrija, Carbajal, Bernaldez, and the important light, in which it is Martyr, who, while they allude viewed by those who entertain to a sentence of excommunication more deference for a papal decree, passed in the consistory, or to the is sufficiently attested by the length publication of the bull of July, and number of disquisitions on it, give no intimation of the existence down to the present century. of that of February ; a silence ^9 Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, altogether inexplicable. The in- tom. iv. part. l,no. 69. ference from all this is, that the 30 According to Galindez de Car- date of the bull of February 18lh, bajal, only three fortresses were 1512, is erroneous ; that it should originally demanded by Ferdinand, be placed at some period posterior (Anales, MS., afio 1512.) He to the conquest, and consequently may have confounded the num- could not have served as the ground ber with that said to have been of it ; but was probably obtained at finally conceded by the king of Na- the instance of the Catholic king, in varre ; a concession, however, which order, by the odium which it threw amounted to little, since it excluded on the sovereigns of Navarre, as by name two of the most impor- excommunicate, to remove that un- tant places required, and the sin-