Of the three Basque provinces Biscay was a semi-independent principality until the end of the fourteenth century, when marriage made the King of Castile its Sefior. Alava and Guipuzcoa were originally behetrfas; the Kings of Castile became their overlords after the beginning of the thirteenth century. The former was incorporated as a province of Castile in 1332. While the local liberties of other provinces were sacrificed to the centralising policy of Ferdinand and Isabel, the Basques of Biscay and Guipuzcoa, owing partly to respect for tradition, and partly to the necessity of securing the loyalty of a frontier people, obtained the confirmation of their privileges and the right of self-government. Their contribution to the revenue was a “free gift” granted only after redress of grievances. In royal decrees they are called “a separate nation”; as such they upheld their freedom from direct taxation and their right of bearing arms,—the special marks of nobility. It is to be noted that certain Castilian towns enjoyed a similar privilege.
The first two years of Ferdinand and Isabel’s reign were occupied by a war of succession. Many of the Castilian grandees, supported by the Kings of Portugal and France, maintained the claim of Juana, called la Beltraneja, whom Henry IV had acknowledged as his daughter and successor, but whose legitimacy was doubtful. Aragon took no share in the war; for in this kingdom Ferdinand had not yet succeeded his father. The Portuguese and the Castilian malcontents overran the western frontier, and seized Burgos and strong positions in the Douro valley. The battle of Toro (1476) put an end to the danger, and left leisure for reforms. During the two preceding reigns Castile had been given up to anarchy; the municipalities had become almost independent; the nobles had usurped the privileges of royalty and devastated the country by their private wars. Centralisation, repression, and assertion of the supremacy of the Crown, were the remedies applied. The primary need was personal security. Outside the walls of the towns all men were at the mercy of the lawless nobility, or of robber bands. As far back as the thirteenth century the municipalities of Castile had formed leagues or “brotherhoods” for defence in time of war, or to resist encroachments by Kings or nobles. Isabel’s first parliament (Madrigal, 1476) revived and generalised this practice by founding the Holy Brotherhood. Throughout Castile each group of a hundred houses furnished a horseman for the repression of crimes of violence in the open country and for the arrest of criminals who fled from the towns. Judges of the Brotherhood resided in all important towns and summarily tried offenders. Their sentences, of mutilation or death, were carried out by the troopers on the scene of the crime. The whole organisation was placed under a central assembly appointed by the municipalities, whose president was a bastard brother of King Ferdinand. The nobles at first objected to this curtailment of their right of exercising justice; but their opposition was overcome. A few years later the Hermandad was extended to Aragon. Lawlessness disappeared, and the 2,000 trained troops of the Brotherhood, together with its treasury, were made use of in the Conquest of Granada. So well had the Holy Brotherhood fulfilled its purpose, that within twenty years of its foundation it had become unnecessary. In 1492 the Cortes of Castile complained of its cost. The Crown hereupon took over its troops, and in 1495 it was reduced to the standing of a country constabulary; in Aragon it was abolished in 1510.
The resources of the Crown were outweighed by the enormous wealth and power of the nobility. The danger of a combination between the grandees had been proved by the War of Succession, when a mere section of them came near to imposing its will on the country. The reduction and humiliation of the whole Order was undertaken and made easy by its continual feuds. The grandees had wrested from Henry IV almost the whole of the royal patrimony, adding Crown lands to their own, trespassing upon common lands, and extorting huge pensions guaranteed upon the revenue. It was urgently necessary to set free the royal revenues; and in accomplishing this the Crown was sure of the support of the people, which groaned under the burden of taxation made necessary by the loss of these resources. As soon as Ferdinand and Isabel felt their position assured, they revoked the whole of the grants made by their predecessor (Cortes of Toledo, 1480). All titles were subjected to review, and only property held on ancient tenure, or as a reward for .public service, was left to the nobles.
The power of the grandees was still excessive. One of its chief sources was the wealth of the Crusading Orders, at once military and religious, which had long neglected the vows of poverty and obedience, imposed at the time of their foundation in the latter half of the twelfth century. The purpose of that foundation itself, the work of reconquest, was wellnigh forgotten. The Grand Masterships conferred on their holders the independent command of an army, and the disposal of many rich commanderies; nor had they been wrongly called the chains and fetters of the Kings of Spain. Instead of crushing them, as the Templars had been crushed, Isabel took over their power. In 1476 she brought forward her husband for the Grand Mastership of Santiago. On this occasion she allowed the election to go against him; but afterwards, as vacancies occurred, he became successively Grand Master of Santiago, Alcantara and Calatrava. The Pope granted investiture on each occasion, with reversion to Isabel. Adrian VI (1523), and Clement VII (1530), attached the Grand Masterships perpetually to the Crown. The King gained the respect due to their semi-religious character, as well as their riches and authority.
Many of the great offices of State, such as those of Constable, Admiral and Adelantado, were hereditary. Shorn of their powers, these titles now became merely honorary in families of proved loyalty. The grandees were compelled to lay aside the insignia of royalty which they had usurped, and their mutinous spirit was checked by a few startling examples of royal justice. Their children were educated under the eye of the Queen, and learnt to respect the Crown. Careers were found for them in the Moorish and Italian wars or as officers of a stately Court. The class which had broken the power of Alvaro de Luna, deposed Henry IV, and disputed Isabel’s succession, ceased in a few years to be formidable. Isabel revived the custom of administering justice in person. During a progress through Andalucia (1477) she stamped out the great factions whose wars had devastated the land. A royal commissioner, accompanied by an army, suppressed the lawlessness of Galicia, and razed the castles of its robber barons.
At the time of the War of Succession the only regular force at the disposal of the Crown was a bodyguard of 500 men-at-arms and 500 light horse. During the war against Granada this was increased, and received the addition of the trained troops of the Holy Brotherhood. The rest of the army was made up of feudal contingents and local militias, arrayed each under its own banner and commanded by district governors, Grand Masters, grandees, or captains chosen by the municipalities. The period for which these militias could be kept in the field was limited by law and by the scanty royal revenues. Accordingly, they could not be moved far from home, and wars were local in character. The burden as well as the reward of the Conquest of Granada fell chiefly to the Andalucians. At its close, a guard of 2500 horse was retained in the royal service, and the powerful force of artillery that had been brought together was carefully kept up. When the troops of the Holy Brotherhood were disbanded, this force was found insufficient, and the local militias were revived upon a better plan. The old law binding all citizens to provide themselves with arms according to their condition having fallen into disuse, a decree was promulgated (at Valladolid in 1496) declaring one-twelfth of the males between the ages of twenty and forty-eight liable to military service at home or abroad. Captains were appointed, and the militias were mustered and drilled on holidays. But victories abroad made soldiering popular, and volunteers in abundance were found to submit to the discipline and learn the new tactics of the Great Captain. The militia was neglected; taxation had taken the place of personal service, and the municipalities refused to bear a double burden.
The Castilian navy dates its origin from the Moorish Wars, when the Cantabrian sailors sailed round the coast and cooperated with the land forces. Together with the Catalans they were afterwards employed in stopping communications between the Moriscos and their African brethren. The connexion with Italy, Flanders and Africa, increased the importance of the service, and the convoys required by the trade of the Indies rapidly developed a formidable fleet.
The vast powers centred in the Crown were exercised through the royal Council. Originally a deliberative assembly of members of the royal family, prelates, and nobles, it was entirely reformed by Ferdinand and Isabel (1480). Its former members were not excluded, but their votes were taken from them, and their places supplied by lawyers nominated by the Crown. The president, generally a bishop, was the second person in the kingdom. The