King, Georgiana Goddard: A brief account of the military orders in Spain (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1921)

IN SPAIN
263
chances: the nobles could be kept busy
against the Moors, or they could be left
to tear the land to pieces, or they could
be broken. Alfonso XI, for instance, tried
the first and succeeded: Peter, his son,
tired the last and failed. In the reign of
John II the Constable could not prevent
the second: it went on in the reign of his
son Henry. After Granada fell there were
no more Moors. The Catholic Kings broke
the great nobles and the great convents,
and the land had rest.
The peasant stepping down the red fur-
row behind his yoke of brown oxen, the
spectacled merchant leaning above his
painfully amassed spoils of eastern traffic
spread brilliant on the board at the shop
front, tasted security. The flush of sunset
faded from chivalry; the defence of Spain
had ended and conquest had begun. Queen
Isabel’s breach of faith with the last Moors
down by Granada, like Queen Constance’s
with the first Moors up in Toledo, is
justified by history if the course of things
can justify what outrages the spirit. So
was the expulsion of the Jews: so was,
Alterna-
tives
1. war
2. discord
3. absolu-
tism
AND MONOGRAPHS