aggravated by the improvident donations of the monarch to the aristocracy,
in the vain hope of conciliating their attachment, but which swelled their
already overgrown power to such a height, that, by the middle of the
fifteenth century, it not only overshadowed that of the throne, but
threatened to subvert the liberties of the state.

Their self-confidence, however, proved eventually their ruin. They
disdained a co-operation with the lower orders in defence of their
privileges, and relied too unhesitatingly on their power as a body, to
feel jealous of their exclusion from the national legislature, where alone
they could have made an effectual stand against the usurpations of the
crown.--The course of this work will bring under review the dexterous
policy, by which the crown contrived to strip the aristocracy of its
substantial privileges, and prepared the way for the period, when it
should retain possession only of a few barren though ostentatious
dignities. [67]

The inferior orders of nobility, the _hidalgos_, (whose dignity, like
that of the _ricos hombres_, would seem, as their name imports, to
have been originally founded on wealth,) [68] and the _cavalleros_, or
knights, enjoyed many of the immunities of the higher class, especially
that of exemption from taxation. [69] Knighthood appears to have been
regarded with especial favor by the law of Castile. Its ample privileges
and its duties are defined with a precision and in a spirit of romance,
that might have served for the court of King Arthur. [70] Spain was indeed
the land of chivalry. The respect for the sex, which had descended from
the Visigoths, [71] was mingled with the religious enthusiasm, which had
been kindled in the long wars with the infidel. The apotheosis of
chivalry, in the person of their apostle and patron, St. James, [72]
contributed still further to this exaltation of sentiment, which was