It is no matter of wonder that an attempt was made on Ferdinand’s life, in Catalonia, soon after the capture of Granada, and that even Isabella was not safe from covert attack. Still, they were a well–matched pair, and, from a worldly and contemporary point of view, were all–sufficient to Spain in her time of greatest need. Isabella was calm and lucid in her counsels, inclined to benevolence and mercy where religious questions were not involved, and, as one writer has expressed it, followed after Ferdinand’s armies to garner the wheat which he had cut on the fields of war. Ferdinand was crafty, a diplomat whose match all Europe could not then produce. This is shown in his conduct of the Neapolitan wars, when he outwitted the King of France, and eventually gathered the rewards to himself, adding the title of King of Naples to his other distinctions. “Foreign affairs were conducted by the king in behalf of Aragon, just as colonial affairs were for the benefit of Castile.” They did not lack for learned and astute counsellors, such as Cardinal Mendoza, Torquemada, and Ximenes. The last named, born before his sovereigns, yet outlived them both, and to the end was a faithful, even though bigoted, servant and courtier. Chosen as the queen’s confessor in 1492, he was later appointed Archbishop of Toledo, and after Isabella’s death became a cardinal, throughout his career remaining loyal to the throne. Another faithful servant of the Crown was Gonsalvo de Cordova, who fought magnificently against the Moors, and then was sent to carry on the wars in Naples, where Spanish arms were so triumphant that he earned the title of the “Great Captain,” and covered Ferdinand’s reign with glory. After the death of Isabella, which occurred on November 26, 1504, Ferdinand’s diplomacy continued him in power as regent and sovereign, except for a brief term; and it was to him that Columbus vainly appealed for justice when, weak and broken from his four transatlantic voyages, he came back to endure poverty and neglect. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. WHEN SPAIN WAS GREAT.