Besides the inveterate prejudices arising from antagonistic faiths and protracted warfare, other circumstances intervened to preclude the fusion of the two races after the Conquest. The Spaniard, with characteristic pride, asserted the superiority and predominance of his race and origin, and the slightest suspicion of Moorish blood constituted a blemish which no political or military distinction was ever able to eradicate. The industry of the Mudejares, their frugality, their clannishness, the seclusion of their women, aroused unfavorable comment among a people whose prejudices associated these practices with the name of an hereditary and implacable enemy. It had long been a subject of universal complaint that the larger proportion of the wealth of the kingdom was possessed by these unpopular tributaries. The idle Castilian, whose ancestors had for twenty-three generations subsisted by rapine, could not regard with indifference the plodding industry that conferred upon a subjugated and misbelieving race those substantial benefits which he had always been taught to regard as the birthright of a Christian. It was also publicly stated, to the prejudice of the tributary Moors, that even when they renounced their faith they still adhered to their former laborious habits; that none of them ever entered convents or monasteries; and that their contributions to the Church were not of the value to be expected from the zeal and generosity of sincere proselytes. Their conversion did not bring with it that indulgence and those privileges to which their ghostly instructors assured them they would be entitled; it did not even confer immunity from insult. Until the reign of Henry II. the Mudejares were exempt from the inconvenience of wearing a distinctive mark indicative of their social condition, which, long before imposed upon the Jews, was justly considered a badge of ignominy. After that time, however, they were required to wear upon their caps and turbans a blue crescent “of the size of an orange,” which constantly brought upon them the affronts of children, and not infrequently the taunts and violence of a fanatical populace. In spite of the serious restrictions imposed upon the Mudejares, and the enormous contributions levied upon their industry, they continued to prosper, and at the time of the surrender of Granada they were the most valuable subjects of the Spanish Crown. Policy, based upon a sense of weakness, had long repressed the avarice and envy of the Castilian sovereigns in their relations with a class whose skill and labor were the principal sources of the opulence of the realm. The time had now come when all restraint could be cast aside without danger, and royal aggression, not only sanctioned but suggested and encouraged by ecclesiastical authority, could violate every obligation, human and divine, that had been entered into with a conquered people, whose principal crime was their prosperity, and