ime and time again she showed herself equal to
the most trying situations in a way which was most surprising in one of
her age and experience. Her firmness of character was ever felt,
although her manners were always mild and her whole attitude was
calculated to conciliate rather than to antagonize.

Pure and discreet in every way, Isabella was ever a zealous Christian,
and she never failed to aid the Church when the means were within her
reach. The gradual decline of the Moorish power in Spain had given rise
to a most unfortunate spirit of religious intolerance, with which
Isabella was soon called upon to deal, and her action in this matter is
but characteristic of the time in which she lived. Spain was filled with
Jews, who had settled unmolested under the Moslem rule, and there were
also many Moriscoes, or people of mixed Spanish and Moorish origin; and
these unfortunates were now to be submitted to the tortures of that
diabolical institution known as the Inquisition, because they were not
enthusiastic in their support of the Catholic religion. Isabella tried
to oppose the introduction of these barbarous practices into Castile,
but by specious argument her scruples were overcome and she was made to
bow to the will of the pope and his legates. In the workings of the
Inquisition little distinction was made between men and women, and both
seem to have suffered alike at the hands of these cruel ministers of the
Church. In 1498, for the first time, it was decreed that men and women
held under arrest by order of the inquisitor should be provided with
separate prisons, and it is easy to imagine from this one statement that
Isabella must have been very much of a bigot, or she could not have
allowed so flagrant an abuse to exist for any length of time, no matter
what the occasion for it. When the power of the inquisitor seemed about
to extend to the Jews for the first time, they offered to Fernando and
Isabella thirty thousand pieces of silver, for the final campaigns
against the Moors, if they might be allowed to live unmolested. The
proposition was being favorably entertained, when Torquemada, the chief
inquisitor, suddenly appeared before the king and queen, with a crucifix
in his uplifted hand; and if the traditional account be true, he
addressed them in these words: "Judas sold his Master for thirty pieces
of silver, your highnesses are about to do the same for thirty thousand;
behold Him, take Him, and hasten to sell Him