III.

SECT. he kept. possession during the reign of Louis XII. But his successor Francis I. was too high-spirited and enterprising tamely to relinquish his title. A. D. 1512. As soon as he was seated upon the throne, he prepared to invade the Milanese; and his right of succession to it appears, from this detail, to have been more natural, and more just than that of any other competitor.

'The con

stitution

ment of Spain.

IT is unnecessary to enter into any detail with respect to the form of government in Genoa, Parma, Modena, and the other inferior states of Italy. Their names, indeed, will often occur in the following history. But the power of these states themselves was so inconsiderable, that their fate depended little upon their own efforts; and the frequent revolutions which they underwent, were brought about rather by the operations of the princes who attacked or defended them, than by any thing peculiar in their internal constitution.

Of the great kingdoms on this side of the Alps, and govern- Spain is one of the most considerable; and as it was the hereditary domain of Charles V. as well as the chief source of his power and wealth, a distinct knowledge of its political constitution is of capital importance towards understanding the transactions of his reign.

Conquered

by the Vandals,

THE Vandals and Goths, who overturned the Roman power in Spain, established a form of government in that country, and introduced customs and laws, perfectly similar to those which were

Moors.

established in the rest of Europe by the other SECT. victorious tribes which acquired settlements there. For some time, society advanced, among the new inhabitants of Spain, by the same steps, and seemed to hold the same course as in other European nations. To this progress, a sudden stop was put A. D. 712, by the invasion of the Saracens or Moors from Africa. The Goths could not withstand the efforts and by the of their enthusiastic valour, which subdued the' greatest part of Spain, with the same impetuous rapidity that distinguishes all the operations of their arms. The conquerors introduced into the country in which they settled, the Mahometan religion, the Arabic language, the manners of the East, together with that taste for the arts, and that love of elegance and splendour, which the caliphs had begun to cultivate among their subjects,

dominion in

SUCH Gothic nobles as disdained to submit to The Christians graduthe Moorish yoke, fled for refuge to the inacces- ally recover sible mountains of Asturias. There they com- Spain. forted themselves with enjoying the exercise of the Christian religion, and with maintaining the authority of their ancient laws. Being joined by many of the boldest and most warlike among their countrymen, they sallied out upon the adjacent settlements of the Moors in small parties; but venturing only upon short excursions at first, they were satisfied with plunder and revenge, without thinking of conquest. By degrees, their strength increased, their views enlarged, a regular government was established among them, and they began to aim at extending their territories. While they

III.

SECT. pushed on their attacks with the unremitting ardour excited by zeal for religion, by the desire of vengeance, and by the hope of rescuing their country from oppression; while they conducted their operations with the courage natural to men who had no other occupation but war, and who were strangers to all the arts which corrupt or enfeeble the mind; the Moors gradually lost many of the advantages to which they had been indebted for their first success. They threw off all dependence on the caliphs*; they neglected to preserve a close connection with their countrymen in Africa; their empire in Spain was split into many small kingdoms; the arts which they cultivated, together with the luxury to which these gave rise, relaxed, in some measure, the force of their military institutions, and abated the vigour of their warlike spirit. The Moors, however, continued still to be a gallant people, and possessed great resources. According to the magnificent style of the Spanish historians, eight centuries of almost uninterrupted war elapsed, and three thousand seven hundred battles were fought, before the last of the Moorish kingdoms in Spain submitted to the Christian arms,

1492.

The union

of its vari

ous kingjoms.

As the Christians made their conquests upon the Mahometans at various periods, and under different leaders, each formed the territory which he had wrested from the common enemy, into an independent state. Spain was divided into almost as many separate kingdoms as it contained pro

*Jos. Sim. Assemanni Histor. Ital. Scriptores, vol. iii. p. 135.

III.

vinces; in each city of note, a petty monarch SECT. established his throne, and assumed all the ensigns of royalty. In a series of years, however, by the usual events of intermarriages, or succes sion, or conquest, all these inferior principalities were annexed to the more powerful kingdoms of Castile and of Aragon. At length, by the fortunate marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, the former the hereditary monarch of Aragon, and the latter raised to the throne of Castile by the affection of her subjects, all the Spanish crowns were united, and descended in the same line.

cient cus

ed amidst

volutions

FROM this period, the political constitution of Their anSpain began to assume a regular and uniform ap- toms and pearance; the genius of its government may be laws reserv delineated, and the progress of its laws and man- all their reners may be traced, with certainty, Notwithstanding the singular revolution which the invasion of the Moors occasioned in Spain, and the peculiarity of its fate, in being so long subject to the Mahometan yoke, the customs introduced by the Vandals and Goths had taken such deep root, and were so thoroughly incorporated with the frame of its government, that in every province which the Christians recovered from the Moors, we find the condition of individuals, as well as the political constitution, nearly the same as in other nations which renof Europe. Lands were held by the same tenure; state in justice was dispensed in the same form; the same some privileges were claimed by the nobility; and the to that of same power exercised by the Cortes, or general tions of assembly of the kingdom. Several circumstances

ders their

some de

gree simila

other na

Europe.

III.

SECT. contributed to secure this permanence of the feu dal institutions in Spain, notwithstanding the conquest of the Moors, which seemed to have overturned them. Such of the Spaniards as preserved their independence, adhered to their ancient customs, not only from attachment to them, but out of antipathy to the Moors, to whose ideas concerning property and government these customs were totally repugnant. Even among the Chris tians, who submitted to the Moorish conquerors, and consented to become their subjects, ancient customs were not entirely abolished. They were permitted to retain their religion, their laws concerning private property, their forms of administering justice, and their mode of levying taxes, The followers of Mahomet are the only enthusiasts who have united the spirit of toleration with zeal for making proselytes, and who, at the same time that they took arms to propagate the doctrine of their Prophet, permitted such as would not embrace it, to adhere to their own tenets, and to practise their own rites. To this peculiarity in the genius of the Mahometan religion, as well as to the desire which the Moors had of reconciling the Christians to their yoke, it was owing that the ancient manners and laws in Spain survived the violent shock of a conquest, and were permitted to subsist, notwithstanding the introduction of a new religion and a new form of government into that country. It is obvious, from all these particulars, that the Christians must have found it extremely easy to re-establish manners and government on their ancient foundations, in those provinces of