In this wretched state of the kingdom, the princi pal aim of the government seemed to be, the devising. of means to procure money; and while its demands were most exorbitant, the system of taxation was most oppressive and vexatious. The whole revenue of the state was inadequate to defray even the in terest of the debt contracted by Charles in his ruin ous wars; the rebellion in the Low Countries cost his son Philip above twenty millions Sterling; and this monarch, who had given assignments upon the reve nue for sums borrowed from foreign bankers and his own subjects, was under the necessity of superseding these assignments, and thus in a manner becoming bank rupt. The constant influx of specie from the Ameri can colonies kept up for a time the apparent pros perity of the kingdom, but this was also absorbed in fruitless and expensive expeditions; and the galleons were as anxiously looked for as if the safety of the monarchy depended on their arrival. This disas trous state grew much worse under the last sove reigns of the house of Austria. In the reign of Charles II. the settled revenue of the kingdom was anticipated for several years; and what was still worse, the officers of the crown did not bring into the treasury above one-tenth of what they levied from the people. Following the steps of their predeces sors without possessing their abilities, they com pleted the ruin of the kingdom; and such was the state of apathy into which the country had sunk, that the potentates of Europe had signed a treaty of partition, and impatiently waited for its spoliation.
While manufactures and commerce were thus suf fering from the baleful policy of the government, agriculture was equally neglected. One great ob stacle to its improvement was the want of labourers to till the soil. The plague, which made such dread ful ravages in Spain during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, left extensive districts without an inhabi tant; and we learn from the account of \liguel Mar tines de Leyva, " that, for a century after, the lands were seen lying waste, and the villages empty; nor have the disasters then sustained been repaired since that period." That little attention was then paid to cultivation appears from a rescript of Philip II. in 1594, which begins thus: " We have been informed that the husbandmen arc in want of seed to sow their lands, and of cattle to plough them; that the earth being badly cultivated does not return what it ought, and that persons possessing farms reap no advantage from them." But though this prince granted the title of nobility, and exemption from military service to such as would devote themselves to the study of agriculture, yet this law was never put in execution, for the agriculturists obtained no honourable distinc tions, and upon them also principally fell the weight of military service.
With respect to its political state, Spain lost her own liberties while attempting to enslave other nations. At the commencement of the sixteenth century, her insti tutions were more favourable to freedom than those of any other of the great European kingdoms. The royal prerogative was greatly circumscribed by the privileges of the nobility and by the pretensions of the commons. The military power was lodged in the hands of the nobles, who appeared in the field at the head of their vassals, and without whose assistance the authority of the monarch was feeble and precarious. The inhabi tants or the cities also possessed valuable immunities, and were admitted to a considerable share in the legis lature. They had acquired the arts of industry, and had accumulated wealth by engaging in commerce. Free and independent themselves,they were ever ready to act as the guardians of public freedom and inde pendence. " Their representatives in the Cortes were accustomed with equal spirit to check the encroach ments or the king, and the oppression of the nobles. They endeavoured to extend the privileges or their own order; they laboured to shake off the remaining incumbrances with which the spirit of feudal policy, favourable only to the nobles, had burdened them; and conscious of being one of the most considerable orders in the state, were ambitious of becoming the most powerful." These orders, with the cicrgy,consti
toted the Cortes, and in this assembly alone resided the power of making laws, granting subsidies, Ece. When Charles, therefore, came to the throne in the lifetime of his mother Joanna, and assumed the title of king, he found great difficulty in prevailing upon this body to acknowledge him in this capacity. The Aragonese looked upon him only as the son of their queen, and opposed the assembling of the Cortes in his name. They at last, however, acknowledged him tin der the title of king in conjunction with his mother; but bound him by a solemn oath, which they exacted from all their kings, never to violate any of their rights or liberties. The Cortes of Castile proposed that, be fore acknowledging him as their sovereign, he should promise to observe the laws made at Burgos seven years before; viz. that no foreigner should he capable of any dignity or employment in church or state in Castile, and that no money should be sent out of the kingdom. But this was overruled, and a free gift of 600,000 ducats granted him, after which he promised to observe the laws, and more especially those on which they most insisted. The promises of Charles, however, were given without any intention of fulfilling them; and during the greater part of his reign there was a constant struggle between him and the Cortes; the one demanding subsidies, and the other a redress of grievances; and often separating without agreeing to either. Had the different orders of the Cortes been true to each other, they must have at last prevailed; and might have prevented those unhappy foreign wars which brought the kingdom to such poverty and weakness. For while the cities were forward in stat ing their grievances, and demanding redress with that boldness which is natural to a free people, the nobles, instigated by a mean jealousy of that spirit of indepen dence which they saw rising among the commons, stood by in silence, and discovered neither the public spirit nor resolution which became their station. When Charles summoned the Cortes of Castile to meet at Compostella instead of Valladolid, the commons re monstrated against the legality of the assembly in that place, and resisted all the arts of the courtiers to influ ence their vote. But the nobility, who were now de sirous of court favour, in opposition to the voice of the nation, granted every demand, without obtaining the redress of any one of the many grievances of which the people complained. The consequences of this was a civil war, which not long after threw the kingdom into such violent convulsions as shook the throne, and al most overturned the constitution. On this occasion the confederated cities put forth a remonstrance, con taining a long list of grievances, and some regulations which they thought necessary for their own safety and that of the constitution. Among other things, they demanded that the king shall reside within the king dom, or appoint a native regent; that no foreign troops shall on any pretence whatever be introduced into the kingdom; that none but natives shall hold any office or benefice in church or state; that no member of the Cortes shall receive an office or pension from the king, either for himself or for any of his family; that each city or community shall pay a competent salary to its representative during his attendance on the Cortes; that the Cortes shall assemble once in the year at least, whether summoned by the king or not; that neither gold, silver, nor jewels, shall be sent out of the king dom; that the lands of the nobility shall be taxed equally with those of the commons; that all the privi leges of the nobles, prejudicial to the commons, shall be revoked; and that no man shall be compelled to purchase papal indulgences.