These were all dealt with in due course, in one manner or another, until all were more or less firmly attached to the crown and pledged to its support. The manner in which the sovereigns attached to their service the three great military orders of Calatrava, Santiago, and Alcantara well illustrates the subtlety of Isabella and the craft of Ferdinand. These orders were founded after the models of the Hospitalers and the Templars during the Crusades; but while originally intended for warfare against the Moors, they had become possessed of vast wealth and influence during the three hundred years of their existence. They were, in fact, through their strength, their capacity to send thousands of armed cavaliers into the field, and their absolute independence, a possible menace to the crown; so, when it happened that a vacancy occurred in the grand mastership of Santiago, in 1476, the queen by intrigue secured it for Ferdinand. Eleven years later he secured that of Calatrava, and in 1494, the last of all, the grand mastership of Alcantara. Thus were the most powerful of the independent military organizations secured and held in fealty to the crown. Though it required eighteen years to accomplish this, yet eventually it was brought about—an exhibition of persistence and craft which throws a flood of light upon the doings and aims of these astute rulers over regenerated Spain. The unarmed and undisciplined masses were of little account, in the scheme of reconquest planned by Ferdinand and Isabella. But the upper classes, with their immense wealth and privileges, with their castles, princely domains, and armed retainers—these were the first objects aimed at by the sovereigns, when they were forging the weapons and welding the nation together, preliminary to their onslaught upon the Moors. Isabella, as early as 1476, revived the association of common people which had once risen against the nobles, two hundred years before, called the _Hermandad_, or Brotherhood, composed mainly of people of the middle class, who acted as police and detectors of crime, and in the end became powerful enough to prove an effectual check upon the arrogance of the feudal lords. When, however, the sovereigns found themselves possessed of a strong standing army, with servile soldiers to do their bidding, the _Hermandad_ was disbanded; having served as a means to an end, it passed away.