Men of rank commanded the armies abroad, and were sent as viceroys to Naples, Sicily, Milan, and the provinces of the New World. But at home they were rarely raised to civil or military office. They no longer formed a necessary part of the national legislature, and were seldom summoned to the meetings of the Cortes; for the Castilian noble claimed exemption from the public burdens, and it was rarely that the Cortes were assembled for any other purpose than to impose those burdens. Thus, without political power of any kind, they resided like so many private gentlemen on their estates in the country. Their princely style of living gave no umbrage to the king, who was rather pleased to see them dissipate their vast revenues in a way that was attended with no worse evil than that of driving the proprietors to exactions which made them odious to their vassals.[417] Such, we are assured by a Venetian envoy--who, with great powers of observation, was placed in the best situation for exerting them--was the policy of Philip. "Thus," he concludes, "did the king make himself feared by those who, if they had managed discreetly, might have made themselves feared by him."[418] While the aristocracy was thus depressed, the strong arm of Charles the Fifth had stripped the Castilian commons of their most precious rights. Philip, happily for himself, was spared the odium of having reduced them to this abject condition. But he was as careful as his father could have been, that they should not rise from it. The legislative power of the commons--that most important of all their privileges--was nearly annihilated. The Castilian Cortes were, it is true, frequently convoked under Philip--more frequently, on the whole, than in any preceding reign; for in them still resided the power of voting supplies for the crown. To have summoned them so often, therefore, was rather a proof of the necessities of the government than of respect for the rights of the commons. [Sidenote: THE CORTES.] The Cortes, it is true, still enjoyed the privilege of laying their grievances before the king; but as they were compelled to vote the supplies before they presented their grievances, they had lost the only lever by which they could effectually operate on the royal will. Yet when we review their petitions, and see the care with which they watched over the interests of the nation, and the courage with which they maintained them, we cannot refuse our admiration. We must acknowledge that, under every circumstance of discouragement and oppression, the old Castilian spirit still lingered in the hearts of the people. In proof of this, it will not be amiss to cite a few of these petitions, which, whether successful or not, may serve at least to show the state of public opinion on the topics to which they relate.