With these concessions Father Francis left his Sovereign, affected
at her goodness and astonished at her influence on himself. He had
entered her presence believing nothing could change the severity of
his intentions or the harshness of his feelings; he left her with the
one entirely renounced, and the other utterly subdued.
Such was the triumph of prejudice achieved by the lofty-minded and
generous woman, who swayed the sceptre of Castile.[A] And yet, though
every history of the time unites in so portraying her; though her
individual character was the noblest, the most magnanimous, the most
complete union of masculine intellect with perfect womanhood,
ever traced on the pages of the past; though under her public
administration her kingdom stood forth the noblest, the most refined,
most generous, ay, and the freest, alike in national position, as in
individual sentiment, amongst all the nations of Europe, Isabella's
was the fated hand to sign two edicts[B] whose consequences
extinguished the lustre, diminished the virtues, enslaved the
sentiments, checked the commerce, and in a word deteriorated the whole
character of Spain.
[Footnote A: We are authorized to give this character to Isabella of
Castile, and annex the lustre of such action to her memory; as we know
that even when, by the persuasions and representations of Torquemada,
the Inquisition was publicly established, Isabella constantly
interfered her authority to prevent _zeal_ from becoming _inhumanity_.
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