The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, riding out from the city to meet her with the four-and-twenty gaily clad nobles of his suite and a throng of royal officials and clergy, tended her with complacent homage the keys of the different gates. Was he not lord of the city? “Duke of Seville” he was popularly called, since he had succeeded in driving his rival, the Marquis of Cadiz, beyond the walls. The Marquis, it is true, had retaliated by seizing the strong fortress of Xerez; but the Duke now meant to recover this through the Queen’s influence and favour. By good fortune his rival had married a sister of that arch-rebel the Marquis of Villena, and chastisement of the brother-in-law could therefore, he hoped, be looked on as a piece of disinterested patriotism. It was in this spirit the Duke had chosen to regard the faction fights that had decimated the population of Seville and forced many of its leading citizens into exile. Not so those, whose fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers had died fighting in sheer self-defence, their backs against the very houses now hung with tapestries and brocades! Not so those, whose wives and daughters had been the prey of dissolute mercenaries! Not so those, who had been dispossessed of their lands, or whose shops had been raided and sacked! It was the cry of such as these that made Isabel hold public audience every Friday, that the injured might bring her their complaints. Raised high on a dais in the large hall of the Alcazar, with the prelates and knights below her on the one side, and the Doctors of her Council on the other, she listened, weighed evidence, and gave judgment, referring the more doubtful cases for enquiry by special “Alcaldes,” with the injunction that there should be no delay. As a result hundreds of criminals were executed, and lands and goods were restored to their rightful owners; while in some instances so strong was the fear aroused that voluntary restitution was made, in the hope of avoiding a trial. It is characteristic of Isabel that the ever-increasing revelation of crime failed to shake her purpose. It was her will, as “the fountain of justice,” to see justice prevail; and through all the long hours of accusation and defence, through case after case, she and her fellow-judges listened with a grave impartiality that won for her tribunal a respect bordering on the horror accorded to the superhuman. If there was to be nothing but strict justice, who in Seville should be saved? At length the Bishop of the city and its leading citizens ventured to remonstrate. The number of murders and robberies committed had been so great, they declared, that scarcely a family could call itself guiltless; and they petitioned that an amnesty might be granted, lest the people in despair were driven to fresh crime.