It is the arrogant self-assertion of a people absolutely convinced, from king to peasant, of their divine mission to astonish and subdue the world in the name of the Catholic Faith and Holy Church. The triumphant close of their long crusade intensified this spiritual pride; and Spanish architecture and sculpture ran riot in a wealth of ornament and detail, that cannot but arrest though it often wearies the eye. Such was the “plateresque” or “silversmith” method of elaborate decoration, seen at its best at Avila in the beautiful Renaissance tomb of Prince John, which though ornate is yet refined and pure, at its most florid in the façade of the Convent of San Pablo at Valladolid. Under its blighting spell the strong simplicity of an earlier age withered; and Gothic and Renaissance styles alike were to perish through the false standard of merit applied to them by a decadent school. [Illustration: FAÇADE OF SAN PABLO AT VALLADOLID FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LACOSTE, MADRID ] The first impression emerging from a survey of Queen Isabel’s reign is the thought of the transformation those thirty years had wrought in the character of her land. It is not too much to say that in this time Spain had passed from mediævalism to take her place in a modern world. She had conquered not only her foes abroad but anarchy at home. She had evolved a working-system of government and discovered a New World. She had trampled out heresy; and thus provided a solution of the religious problem at a time when most of the other nations of Europe were only beginning to recognise its difficulties. Not all these changes were for the best. On the heavy price paid in blood and terror for the realization of the ideal “One people, one Faith” we have already remarked. We can see it with clear eyes now; but at the time the sense of orthodoxy above their fellows, that arose from persecuting zeal, gave to the Spanish nation a special power; and Isabel “the Catholic” was the heroine of her own age above all for the bigotry that permitted the fires and tortures of the Inquisition. A woman ... [says Martin Hume] whose saintly devotion to her Faith blinded her eyes to human things, and whose anxiety to please the God of Mercy made her merciless to those she thought His enemies. With this verdict, a condemnation yet a plea for understanding, Isabel, “the persecutor” must pass before the modern judgment-bar. In her personal relations, both as wife and mother, and in her capacity as Queen on the other hand she deserves our unstinted admiration. The reign of Ferdinand and Isabel [says Mariéjol] may be summarized in a few words. They had enjoyed great power and they had employed it to the utmost advantage both for themselves and the Spanish nation. Royal authority had been in their hands an instrument of prosperity. Influence abroad,—peace at home,—these were the first fruits of the absolute monarchy.