Ferdinand of Aragon was no hero. But he was a strong man; a capable ruler; a clever if a treacherous diplomatist. And to this husband and consort was Isabella faithful through life, not merely in the grosser sense of the word, to which Ferdinand for himself paid so little heed; but in every way and walk of life. She supported him in his policy; she assisted him in his intrigues; she encouraged him in his ambitious designs; she lied for him, whenever prudence required it; she worked for him at all times, as she worked for Spain. For his policy, his intrigues, his designs were all her own. Whenever the views of the king and queen were for a moment discordant, Isabella prevailed, without apparent conflict of authority. In her assumption of supremacy in the marriage contract; in her nomination of Gonsalvo de Cordova to the command of the army; in her choice of Ximenez as the Primate of Spain, she carried her point, not by petulance or even by argument, but by sheer force of character; nor did she strain for one moment, even in these manifestations of her royal supremacy, the friendly and even affectionate relations that ever subsisted between herself and her husband. The love and devotion of Isabella was a thing of which the greatest of men might have well been proud. And though Ferdinand the Catholic may not fairly be counted among the greatest, he was a man wise enough to appreciate the merits of his queen, and to accept and maintain the anomalous position in which he found himself as her consort. In war at least it might have been supposed that the queen would occupy a subordinate position. Yet in no department of State did Isabella show to greater advantage than as the organizer of victorious armies; not as a batallador after the fashion of her distinguished ancestors in Castile and in Aragon; but as the originator of an entirely new system of military administration. Before her time, in Spain, war had been waged by the great nobles and their retainers in attendance upon the king. There was no such thing as uniformity of action or preparation, no central organization of any kind. Each man went into battle to fight and to forage as opportunity offered. Each commander vied with his fellow nobles in deeds of bravery, and accorded to them such support as he chose. The sovereign exercised a general authority, and assumed the active command of the united multitude of soldiers, on rare and important occasions. If victory followed, as at the Navas de Tolosa, the soldiers were rewarded with the plunder, and took possession of the property of the enemy. If the Christians were defeated, the army melted away; and the king betook himself to the nearest shelter.