History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, vol 2 | Page 4

of Truxillo,
in 1486. An inhabitant of that place had been committed to prison for
some offence by order of the civil magistrate. Certain priests, relations
of the offender, alleged that his religious profession exempted him
from all but ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, as the authorities refused to
deliver him up, they inflamed the populace to such a degree, by their
representations of the insult offered to the church, that they rose in a
body, and, forcing the prison, set at liberty not only the malefactor in
question, but all those confined there. The queen no sooner heard of
this outrage on the royal authority, than she sent a detachment of her
guard to Truxillo, which secured the persons of the principal rioters,
some of whom were capitally punished, while the ecclesiastics, who
had stirred up the sedition, were banished the realm. Isabella, while by
her example she inculcated the deepest reverence for the sacred
profession, uniformly resisted every attempt from that quarter to
encroach on the royal prerogative. The tendency of her administration
was decidedly, as there will be occasion more particularly to notice, to
abridge the authority which that body had exercised in civil matters

under preceding reigns. [2]
Nothing of interest occurred in the foreign relations of the kingdom,
during the period embraced by the preceding chapter; except perhaps
the marriage of Catharine, the young queen of Navarre, with Jean
d'Albret, a French nobleman, whose extensive hereditary domains, in
the southwest corner of France, lay adjacent to her kingdom. This
connection was extremely distasteful to the Spanish sovereigns, and
indeed to many of the Navarrese, who were desirous of the alliance
with Castile. This was ultimately defeated by the queen-mother, an
artful woman, who, being of the blood royal of France, was naturally
disposed to a union with that kingdom. Ferdinand did not neglect to
maintain such an understanding with the malcontents of Navarre, as
should enable him to counteract any undue advantage which the French
monarch might derive from the possession of this key, as it were, to the
Castilian territory. [3]
In Aragon, two circumstances took place in the period under review,
deserving historical notice. The first relates to an order of the Catalan
peasantry, denominated vassals de remenza. These persons were
subjected to a feudal bondage, which had its origin in very remote ages,
but which had become in no degree mitigated, while the peasantry of
every other part of Europe had been gradually rising to the rank of
freemen. The grievous nature of the impositions had led to repeated
rebellions in preceding reigns. At length, Ferdinand, after many
fruitless attempts at a mediation between these unfortunate people and
their arrogant masters, prevailed on the latter, rather by force of
authority than argument, to relinquish the extraordinary seignorial
rights, which they had hitherto enjoyed, in consideration of a stipulated
annual payment from their vassals. [4]
The other circumstance worthy of record, but not in like manner
creditable to the character of the sovereign, is the introduction of the
modern Inquisition into Aragon. The ancient tribunal had existed there,
as has been stated in a previous chapter, since the middle of the
thirteenth century, but seems to have lost all its venom in the
atmosphere of that free country; scarcely assuming a jurisdiction
beyond that of an ordinary ecclesiastical court. No sooner, however,
was the institution organized on its new basis in Castile, than Ferdinand
resolved on its introduction, in a similar form, in his own dominions.

Measures were accordingly taken to that effect in a meeting of a privy
council convened by the king at Taraçona, during the session of the
cortes in that place, in April, 1484; and a royal order was issued,
requiring all the constituted authorities throughout the kingdom to
support the new tribunal in the exercise of its functions. A Dominican
monk, Fray Gaspard Juglar, and Pedro Arbues de Epila, a canon of the
metropolitan church, were appointed by the general, Torquemada,
inquisitors over the diocese of Saragossa; and, in the month of
September following, the chief justiciary and the other great officers of
the realm took the prescribed oaths. [5]
The new institution, opposed to the ideas of independence common to
all the Aragonese, was particularly offensive to the higher orders, many
of whose members, including persons filling the most considerable
official stations, were of Jewish descent, and of course precisely the
class exposed to the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Without difficulty,
therefore, the cortes was persuaded in the following year to send a
deputation to the court of Rome, and another to Ferdinand, representing
the repugnance of the new tribunal to the liberties of the nation, as well
as to their settled opinions and habits, and praying that its operation
might be suspended for the present, so far at least as