The rebellion of the Comuneros had hardly been suppressed, when Navarre was invaded by Henri d’Albret with the connivance of Francis I. Charles had engaged to restore Navarre to the House of Albret; but negotiations had failed to bring about fulfilment, or confirmation of the promise. Henri d’Albret entered into communication with the Comuneros, with a view to combined action; but his army came too late. It was commanded with more courage than discretion by a scion of the exiled family, Andre de Foix d’Asparros, or Lesparre. The garrison of Navarre had been greatly weakened by the withdrawal of troops to crush the revolt in Castile. St Jean Pied-de-Port was easily captured, the fortifications of Pamplona were not yet sufficiently strong-to offer more than a feeble resistance. Henri d’Albret was welcomed by his partisans within the kingdom, and the whole of Navarre was overrun. Elated by his easy conquest, Asparros crossed the frontier of Castile and laid siege to Logrono. The Duke of Nagera, viceroy of Navarre, had hurried south to obtain assistance from the Regents. Logrono made a heroic defence, while he marched to its relief with the troops lately victorious at Villalar. Meanwhile Sangiiesa had been recaptured in the rear of the French, who now retired towards Pamplona fearing to have their retreat cut off. They were overtaken by the Spanish army, two leagues from the city; the garrison which they had left for its defence was unable to join them. Driven to bay, Asparros ordered an immediate attack while the Spaniards were resting after their long march. He was utterly defeated and taken prisoner at Noain (June, 1521). The Albrets never again attempted to win back their kingdom by force of arms.
Charles returned to Spain (1522), no longer a diffident and delicate young man, passive in the hands of his advisers. His views had broadened, and his temper was haughty and autocratic. Spain was now part of a larger whole. The accident of the possessions of the Aragonese Crown in Italy, the election to the Empire, and the inheritance of the House of Burgundy checked and warped her development as an African and Atlantic Power; but foreign courtiers were no longer allowed to treat her as a conquered country. The Emperor learnt to know and respect the Spaniards; Spanish statesmen sat in his Council; Spanish soldiers formed the mainstay of his power abroad. The overthrow of the Comuneros had compelled their fear and respect; association in world-wide schemes of universal monarchy and championship of the Church endeared him to them, and roused them from their natural lethargy and absorption in provincial and class differences. Military glory turned away attention from the burden and sufferings of the land and increased the national contempt for all professions save that of arms. The middle class which under the Catholic Kings was struggling into existence almost disappeared. But Charles attempted to found his world-wide power on submission, and not on political, social, and economic well-being. Spain was indeed formally united, and political unity was based on religious unity as Isabel had intended; but the vigorous provincial and municipal life, checked by harsh centralisation, became a source of weakness instead of a reserve of strength.
A memorable intellectual, literary, and artistic development accompanied the political expansion and the growth of military glory. The striking originality of the new generation contrasts with the effete imitation that sufficed for its predecessor. The predominance of the Castilian dialect was already secured; but even in the fifteenth century poets sought models in Provencal, Gallegan, and Italian. Ausias March (who died in 1466), the most notable among them, wrote in his native Lemosin. Literature was an exotic cultivated at Court; hardly a poem of the hundreds collected into the Cancioneros of Baena, Stuniga, and Hernando del Castillo (published in 1511) possesses more than historical interest. The frivolity, artificiality, and disorder of the reigns of John II and Henry IV were reflected by their poets, and their tragedy by the chronicles,—probably, too, by ballads now modernised beyond recognition.
The introduction of printing coincides with the accession of the Catholic Kings, and the next half century produced translations of the Latin and Italian classics in abundance. Though the Revival of Learning influenced Spain, it bore no fruit there till later. The scholars who brought the new learning to the Peninsula were mostly foreigners, or Spaniards trained abroad. Peter Martyr of Anghera, the two brothers Geraldino and Marineus Siculus, were Italians; Arias Barbosa, a Portuguese, taught Greek by the side of Fernan Nuiiez de Guzman, a Spanish nobleman; but Spain produced no Hellenists of note. Luis Vives, the humanist, tutor to William de Croy, the boy Archbishop of Toledo, and to Mary of England, was Spanish only by the accident of his birth. Antonio de Nebrija, or Lebrija, the most distinguished native scholar of his age, was educated at Bologna, though his teaching was, like his Latin Dictionary (1492) and Spanish and Latin Grammars, addressed to his fellow-countrymen. His daughter Francisca was one of a company of learned women who carried their teaching even to the universities and the Court. Ferdinand himself was all but illiterate, but Isabel had a taste for learning. After her accession she acquired some knowledge of Latin; so carefully were her children educated, that Queen Juana could make impromptu speeches in the learned tongue. Isabel’s schemes of reform included the education of the nobility; by her command Peter Martyr opened a school at Court. His success exceeded his hopes, and learning became so fashionable that the sons of grandees lectured at the universities. The Church, though impoverished, aided the cause with splendid benefactions. Schools were founded at Toledo (1490); the decayed studium generate of Valencia was revived (1500); Barcelona followed suit (1507). The noble college of Santa Cruz at Valladolid was finished in 1492; that of Santiago at Salamanca some thirty years later. Both were founded by Archbishops of Toledo. As a patron of learning no less than as a statesman Ximenes de Cisneros led the way. In 1508 he founded the University of Alcala (Complutum), alma mater of • so many famous Spaniards, with professorial chairs of grammar, philosophy, and medicine. Its chief purpose, however, was the study of the Holy Scriptures, and its first-fruits were the earliest Polyglot Bible (of which the First Part was published in 1514). The Semitic text is the work of converted Jews; a Greek cooperated with Spanish scholars on the Latin and Greek texts. The level of education was raised, and foundations were laid from which the Golden Age of Spanish Literature could take its rise.
But the notable books of the period owe little or nothing to classical or foreign influence. Play-acting did not become popular till the time of Lope de Rueda (about 1550) and even then its methods were rude and simple; but the secular drama emerged from the religious early in the century. In the annus mirabilis 1492 the first drama was publicly acted by a regular company. The “representations” of Juan del Encina (1468-1534), the “comedies” of Torres de Naharro (published in 1517), and those of Gil Vicente (1470-1534), are much more than mere dialogues without action, like the one in which Princess Isabel had taken the part of a muse on a birthday of her brother Alfonso (who died in 1468). Gil Vicente was a Portuguese, and the other two lived long in Italy; but, although there the drama