The Wars of the Roses,[10] as they are called, caused deep-seated changes in England's life and society. They mark for her the transition from the mediaeval to the modern era which was everywhere taking place. Beginning as a contest between two rival branches of the Plantagenets for the kingship, these wars remained aristocratic throughout. That is to say, the common people took little interest in them, while the nobles, espousing sides, fought savagely and murderously, giving one another no quarter, sparing the lesser folk, but executing as traitors their prisoners of rank. When one side seemed hopelessly overcome, Louis would lend them arms and money wherewith to seek revenge once more. Thus almost all the old nobility of England perished; and both lines of kings became extinct, Richard III, their last representative, being accused of murdering all his relatives or possible rivals.[11] At last, Richard too was slain, and a new family of rulers, only remotely connected with the old, was inaugurated by Henry Tudor, grandson of a private gentleman of Wales. This new king, Henry VII (1485-1509), found no powerful lords to oppose his will. One or two impostors were raised against him,[12] France making anxious efforts to prolong the troubles of her dangerous neighbor; but the attempts failed through the utter completeness of the aristocracy's exhaustion. Thus in England as in France, though by widely differing chances, the kingly power had triumphed over feudalism. Monarchs began to come into direct contact, not always pleasant, with the entire mass of their subjects, the "third estate," the common people. RISE OF SPANISH POWER Spain also was to pass through a similar experience. Indeed, one of the most striking facts of this age of the Renaissance is the swift and spectacular rise of Spain from a land of feebleness and internal strife into the most powerful kingdom of Europe. We have seen the Spanish peninsula in previous ages the seat of endless strife between Saracens and Christians. Gradually the Moors had been driven back, and the little independent Christian states had been united by the fortunes of war and marriage into three--Portugal on the Atlantic coast, Castile occupying the larger part of the mainland, and Aragon, a maritime kingdom, less extensive in Spain, but extending its sovereignty over many of the Mediterranean isles, over Sicily and southern Italy. In 1469 Isabella, heiress of Castile, and Ferdinand, heir of Aragon, were wedded; and soon afterward their countries were united under their joint rule. The combined strength of both was then devoted to a long religious war against the Moors. Granada, the last and most famous of the Moorish capitals and strongholds, was finally captured in 1492.[13] The followers of Mahomet were driven out of Western Europe during the same period that, under Turkish leadership, they had at last won Constantinople in the East.