A QUEEN OF QUEENS.*
THERE was room for this agreeable book, appearing at a happy moment when the thoughts of English readers are turned towards Spain. But it would be welcome at any time, for there are few more striking figures in European history than Isabel the Catholic, Queen of Spain, and there is no more romantic time than these years of the Renaissance, during which she governed and protected and conquered and persecuted her people. We all know her and Ferdinand— correctly, Fernando—very well by name. He shines with a A Queen of Queens and the Making of Spain. By Christopher Hare. Illus. trated. Loudon Harper and Brothers. [lOs. 6d.3
certain reflected light, for there was nothing at all heroic about him and his cunning ambitions. But she really was a great woman, and would have shown herself such in any country or position. We have all read Prescott and Washington Irving in our youth, and have risen from their
enchanting pages with a good deal of respect and admiration for the united Sovereigns, their patriotism and the other glories of their reign. Since those days it has been the
fashion to forget the lights for the shadows, and to dwell more on cruel persecutions of Moors and Jews, on the severities of the Inquisition under the authority of " Y. la Reyna." Now, with the usual swing of the pendulum, arises Mr. Hare to say all that can be said on the other side, and, little as we may like the argument, we are once more reminded that for the first seventeen centuries tolerance of men's errors meant indifference to the good of their souls and the honour of religion. Learned men of the Church read and believed their Bible. It appeared to them " that God was the first Inquisitor," when he condemned Adam and Eve and drove them out of Paradise. That these doctrines, carried out by men against each other, meant endless cruelty, did not affect their truth in the eyes of Isabel's time. And it needs little knowledge of history to be aware of the fact that persecution was not the sin of one Church only. John Knox, as Mr. Hare reminds us, was ready and anxious to exterminate idolaters. And our own Church of England has been hard enough in her day. But Mr. Hare's rather triumphant quota- tion from Dr. Arnold's sermon on the "Wars of the Israelites" seems beside the mark. Dr. Arnold was not alluding to heretics or schismatics when he spoke in favour of destroying the wicked, and his words would not really have suited the mouth of Queen Isabel.
The subject of the book is wide. It is by no means a study of the Queen's life alone, but a good, swift, picturesque sketch of the history of Spain, beginning with the conquest of the Moors in A.D. 711, and going on to the gradual recovery of power and territory by the Christian Goths who fled before them to the mountains of Asturias. Then comes the rise of the Christian kingdoms, Asturias, Leon, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and the Countahip of Catalonia ; then the fusion of these, after much fighting and confusion and many romantic episodes, including the immortal story of the Cid, into the two kingdoms of Castile and Leon and Aragon and Catalonia.
There is a thread of connection between Castilian and English history in the middle of the twelfth century, when Alfonso III. married Eleanor Plantagenet, daughter of
Henry II. Her daughter Berenguela succeeded to the king- dom on the death of a young brother, and ruled wisely till she abdicated in favour of her son. She had married the King of Leon, but after this, by her clever diplomacy, the two kingdoms were permanently united. The next link with England was the marriage of Berenguela's grand- daughter, Eleanor of Castile, with Edward of England. The next was the claim of John of Gaunt to the throne of Castile through his wife Costanza, the daughter of Pedro I. They were actually crowned King and Queen of Castile, and only resigned their claim on the marriage of their daughter Catherine to Enrique, son of Juan I. Thus the great Queen Isabel had several Plantagenets among her ancestry, and when her youngest daughter Catalina married Arthur of England the connection between the countries was no new thing.
The separate story of Castile ends with the marriage of Isabel to Fernando, Prince of Aragon, and after that Spanish history rolls on in one widening stream. At the time of this marriage by far the largest part of the country was under the dominion of the Moors. When Fernando died he was King of all Spain and of Navarre, and his greedy ambition was grasping at Italy and the Tyrol. The tale of how all this came about is pleasantly told by Mr. Hare. He had splendid materials to work upon for the great romance of the driving out of the Moors, a romance in which Christianity does not always shine so brightly as Islam in the heroic and generous virtues.
Setting the hardnesses and prejudices of her time aside, Isabel of Castile was a woman of splendid character. Never was a Queen so unwearied, so undaunted, in pursuing the glory and advantage of her country. There was a really heroic strain in the woman who never spared herself personally, never thought of 'fatigue, but was always present, always ready in body and mind, either to lead her troops or to make the laws and to encourage the learning and the arts which helped Spain out of savagery into civilisation. Not long after her time Bacon spoke the verdict of the world: " In all her revelations of Queen or Woman she was an honour to her sex and Corner-stone of the Great- ness of Spain." Mr. Hare's estimate of her achievements is not less laudatory :—
"Raised to her high position at the crisis of her nation's history, with turbulent citizens, a rebellious aristocracy, a divided land and a debased clergy, Isabel, with clear-eyed vision and single-hearted devotion, set herself to the redemption of her country. She found it torn asunder by factions, she left it strong and united, with a learned and purified Church, with the work of centuries completed by the conquest of the Moors, and the whole of Spain from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean under one rule."
She died, worn out, at fifty-three. Her will is among the interesting documents of history, if only in these two points :
she solemnly enjoins on her successors never to give up the fortress of Gibraltar, and she "prays that the conversion of the Indians be carried out mercifully and with all kindness." Isabel the Catholic shares with other Sovereigns and other times the sad distinction of being a great persecutor of the Jews. It must be acknowledged that she did her best to
convert them by a simple catechism drawn up for that special purpose. But when this naturally failed, the Inquisi- tion burned or imprisoned them by thousands. These " gentle means " being of no avail, they were finally expelled from Spain with four months' notice; and it is to be observed that this doom of exile, with the partial confiscation of their goods, seems to have been regarded both by persecutors and persecuted as far more cruel than the stake or the dungeon. When one sorrow after another fell upon the Sovereigns—the death of their eldest daughter Isabel, Queen of Portugal, and her child; the death of Prince Juan, their eldest son, immediately after his marriage to Margaret of Austria ; the death of Arthur of England and the ,sorrows of Queen Katharine ; the madness of Juana, heiress of Spain—it is not to be wondered at that a whisper reached Spain from various countries of Europe attributing all these misfortunes to "the
curse of the Jews."
Mr. Hare always writes with evidence of so much research, and with such a real enthusiasm for his subject, that we cannot help regretting some literary lapses in his style. This book, for instance, would have been greatly improved in value and dignity if he had read through his proofs more severely, cut out various ornamental passages, and tightened up certain slovenly sentences. He will believe that these criticisms are meant entirely in goodwill. As we have already said, the book is agreeable and picturesque, and we have read it with interest and enjoyment.
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