Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/420

392 392 DEATH OF GONSALVO. PART to enrich his exchequer bv the venal sale of office, '- — like Louis the Twelfth, or by griping extortion, like another royal contemporary, Henry the Sev- enth. He amassed no treasure, ^^ and indeed died so poor, that he left scarcely enough in his coffers to defray the charges of his funeral. ^^ His bigotry. Ferdiuaud vv^as devout : at least he was scrupulous in regard to the exterior of religion. He was punc- tual in attendance on mass ; careful to observe all the ordinances and ceremonies of his church ; and left many tokens of his piety, after the fashion of the time, in sumptuous edifices and endowments for religious purposes. Although not a superstitious man for the age, he is certainly obnoxious to the reproach of bigotry ; for he cooperated with Isabella in all her exceptionable measures in Castile, and 51 On one occasion, having ob- same fact, as evidence of the injus- tained a liberal supply from the tice of the imputations on Ferdi- states of Aragon, (a rare occur- nand ; " Ma accade," adds the rence,) his counsellors advised him historian, truly enough, " quasi to lock it up against a day of need, sempre per il giudizio corrotto degli " Mas el Rey," says Zurita, " que uomini, die nei Re e piu lodata la siempre supo gastar su dinero pro- prodigalita, benche a quella sia an- vechosamente, y nunca fue escasso nessa la rapacita, che la parsimo- en despendello en las cosas del esta- nia congiunta con I'astinenza dalla do, tuvo mas aparejo para emple- roba di altri." (Istoria, torn. vi. arlo, que para encerrarlo." (An- lib. 12, p. 273.) ales, tom. vi. fol. 225.) The his- The state of Ferdinand's coffers torian, it must be allowed, lays formed, indeed, a strong contrast quite as much emphasis on his lib- to that of his brotlier monarch's, erality as it will bear. Henry VII., "whose treasure of 52 Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, store," to borrow the words of tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 24. — Zurita, Bacon, " left at his death, under Anales, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 100. his own key and keeping, amount- — Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., ed unto the sum of eighteen hun- epist. 566. dred thousand pounds sterling ; a " Vix ad funeris pompam et huge mass of money, even for paucis familiaribus pra;bendas ves- these times." (Hist, of Henry VII., tes pullalas, pecuniaj apud eum, Works, vol. v. j). 183.) Sir Ed- neque alibi congestae,reperta! sunt ; ward Coke swells this huge mass quod nemo unquam de vivente ju- to " fifty and three hundred thou- dicavit." (Peter Martyr, ubi su- sand pounds"! Institutes, part 4, pra.) Guicciardini alludes to the chap. 35.