Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/515

487 REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION. 487 The territorial limits of the monarchy, in the chapter mean time, went on expanding beyond example ; — ^^^' Castile and Leon, brought under the same scep- tre w^ith Aragon and its foreign dependencies, Sici- ly and Sardinia; with the kingdoms of Granada, Navarre, and Naples; with the Canaries, Oran, and the other settlements in Africa; and with the isl- ands and vast continents of America. To these broad domains, the comprehensive schemes of the sovereigns would have added Portugal ; and their arrangements for this, although defeated for the present, opened the way to its eventual completion under Philip the Second. ^^^ The petty states, which had before swarmed over p^}'^ion<: y J ' principle. the Peninsula, neutralizing each other's operations, and preventing any effective movement abroad, were now amalgamated into one whole. Sectional jealousies and antipathies, indeed, were too sturdily rooted to be wholly extinguished ; but they gradu- ally subsided, under the influence of a common gov- ernment, and community of interests. A more en- larged sentiment was infused into the people, who, in their foreign relations, at least, assumed the atti- tude of one great nation. The names of Castilian and Aragonese were merged in the comprehensive one of Spaniard ; and Spain, with an empire which stretched over three quarters of the globe, and which almost realized the proud boast that the sun never set within her borders, now rose, not to the 145 Philip n. claimed the Portu- nand and Isabella, who, as the read- guese crown in right of his mother, er may remember, married King and his wife, both descended from Emanuel. Maria, third daughter of Ferdi-