The first impression emerging from a survey of Queen Isabel’s reign is the thought of the transformation those thirty years had wrought in the character of her land. It is not too much to say that in this time Spain had passed from mediævalism to take her place in a modern world. She had conquered not only her foes abroad but anarchy at home. She had evolved a working-system of government and discovered a New World. She had trampled out heresy; and thus provided a solution of the religious problem at a time when most of the other nations of Europe were only beginning to recognise its difficulties.

Not all these changes were for the best. On the heavy price paid in blood and terror for the realization of the ideal “One people, one Faith” we have already remarked. We can see it with clear eyes now; but at the time the sense of orthodoxy above their fellows, that arose from persecuting zeal, gave to the Spanish nation a special power; and Isabel “the Catholic” was the heroine of her own age above all for the bigotry that permitted the fires and tortures of the Inquisition.

A woman ... [says Martin Hume] whose saintly devotion to her Faith blinded her eyes to human things, and whose anxiety to please the God of Mercy made her merciless to those she thought His enemies.

With this verdict, a condemnation yet a plea for understanding, Isabel, “the persecutor” must pass before the modern judgment-bar. In her personal relations, both as wife and mother, and in her capacity as Queen on the other hand she deserves our unstinted admiration.

The reign of Ferdinand and Isabel [says Mariéjol] may be summarized in a few words. They had enjoyed great power and they had employed it to the utmost advantage both for themselves and the Spanish nation. Royal authority had been in their hands an instrument of prosperity. Influence abroad,—peace at home,—these were the first fruits of the absolute monarchy.

If criticism maintains that this benevolent government degenerated into despotism during the sixteenth century, while Spain became the tool and purse of imperial ambitions, it should be remembered that neither Castilian Queen nor Aragonese King could have fought the evils they found successfully with any other weapon than their own supremacy, nor is it fair to hold them responsible for the tyranny of their successors. Ferdinand indeed may be blamed for yielding to the lure of an Italian kingdom; but even his astuteness could not have foreseen the successive deaths that finally secured the Spanish Crown for a Hapsburg and an Emperor.

These were the tricks of Fortune, who according to Machiavelli is “the mistress of one-half our actions.” The other half is in human reckoning; and Isabel in her sincerity and strength shaped the destiny of Castile as far as in her lay with the instinct of a true ruler.

“It appeared the hand of God was with her,” says the historian, Florez, “because she was very fortunate in those things that she undertook.”