Part II., Chapters 17, 20.

[36] In the first cortes after Isabella's death, at Toro, in 1505, Ferdinand introduced the practice, which has since obtained, of administering an oath of secrecy to the deputies, as to the proceedings of the session; a serious wound to popular representation. (Marina, Teoría, tom. i. p. 273.) Capmany (Práctica y Estilo, p. 232.) errs in describing this as "un arteficio Maquiavélico inventado por la política Alemana." The German Machiavelism has quite sins enough in this way to answer for.

[37] The introductory law to the "Leyes de Toro" holds this strange language; "Y porque al rey pertenesce y ha poder de hazer fueros y leyes, y de las interpretar y emendar donde vieren que cumple," etc. (Leyes de Toro, fol. 2.) What could John II., or any despot of the Austrian line, claim more?

[38] See the address of the cortes, in Marina, Teoría, tom. p. 282.

[39] Among the writers repeatedly cited by me, it is enough to point out the citizen Marina, who has derived more illustrations of his liberal theory of the constitution from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella than from any other; and who loses no opportunity of panegyric on their "paternal government," and of contrasting it with the tyrannical policy of later times.

[40] Marina enumerates no less than nine separate codes of civil and municipal law in Castile, by which the legal decisions were to be regulated, in Ferdinand and Isabella's time. Ensayo Historico-Critico, sobre la Antigua Legislacion de Castilla, (Madrid, 1808,) pp. 383-386.-- Asso y Manuel, Instituciones, Introd.

[41] See