The first may be called the _Vitriolic_,--the period of intense, biting, corrosive activity,--the period in which it gnaws fiercely into all institutions with which it comes into contact,--the period in which it decomposes all elements of nationality. In Spain this first period was early developed and long continued. Grandees and nobles bit and cut their way into the Legislative system,--by brute force, too, they crushed their way through the Judicial system,--by judicious mixtures of cheating and bullying they often controlled the Executive system. Chapter after chapter of Mariana's history begins with the story of their turbulence, and ends with the story of its sad results;--how the nobles seized King James of Arragon;--how the Lara family usurped the Government of Castile;--how the houses of Lara, Haro, Castro and their peers are constantly concocting some plot, or doing some act to overthrow all governmental stability. But their warfare was not merely upon Government and upon each other;--it was upon the people at large. Out from their midst comes a constant voice of indignant petitions. These are not merely petitions from serfs. No! history written in stately style has given small place to their cries;--but the great flood of petitions and remonstrances comes from the substantial middle class, who saw this domineering upper class trampling out every germ of commercial and manufacturing prosperity. Such was the current of Spanish history. I now single out certain aristocratic characteristics bedded in it which made its flow so turbulent. Foremost of these was that first and most fatal characteristic of all aristocracies based on oppression--_the erection of a substitute for patriotism_. Devotion to caste, in such circumstances, always eats out love of country. A nobility often fight for their country--often die for it;--but in any supreme national emergency,--at any moment of moments in national history the rule is that you are sure to find them asking--not "What is my duty to my country?" but "_What is my duty to my order?_" Every crisis in Spanish history shows this characteristic,--take one example to show the strength of it. Charles the Fifth was the most terrible of all monarchic foes to the old Spanish institutions. The nobles disliked him for this. They also disliked him still more as a foreigner. Most of all they disliked him because the tools he used in overturning Spain were foreigners. Against this detested policy the cities of the kingdom planned a policy thoughtful and effectual. Cardinal Cisneros favored it,--the only thing needed was the conjunction of the nobles. They seemed favorable--but at the supreme moment they wavered. The interest of the country was clear;--but _how as to the interests of their order_? They began by fearing encroachments of the people;--they ended by becoming traitors, allowed the battle of Villalar to be lost--and with it the last chance of curbing their most terrible enemy.[8]