to
equivocate as to the reason of his non-admission to Marie. Reason had
indeed returned, and with it the full sense of the dangers she had
drawn upon herself; but neither frame nor mind was in a state to
encounter such an interview as the Prior demanded.

The severity of Father Francis originated, as we have before remarked,
neither in weak intellect nor selfish superstition. Towards himself
indeed he never relented either in severity or discipline; towards
others benevolence and humanity very often gained ascendency; and
something very like a tear glistened in his eye as Isabella forcibly
portrayed the state in which Marie still remained. And when she
concluded, by frankly imparting her intention, if health were indeed
restored, to leave no means untried--even to pursue some degree of
severity if nothing else would do--to wean her from her mistaken
faith, he not only abandoned his previous intentions, but commended
and blessed the nobler purpose of his Sovereign. To his request that
Marie might be restrained from all intercourse with the younger
members of Isabella's female court--in fact, associate with none but
strict and uncompromising Catholics--the Queen readily acceded; and
moreover, granted him full permission to examine the mansion of
Don Ferdinand Morales, that any books or articles of dangerous or
heretical import might be discovered and destroyed.

With these concessions Father Francis left his Sovereign, affected
at her goodness and astonished at her influence on himself. He had
entered her presence believing nothing could change the severity of
his intentions or the harshness of his feelings; he left her with the
one entirely renounced, and the other utterly subdued.

Such was the triumph of prejudice achieved by the lofty-minded and
generous woman, who swayed the sceptre of Castile.[A] And yet, though
every history of the time unites in so portraying her; though her
individual character was the noblest, the most magnanimous, the most
complete union of masculine intellect with perfect womanhood,
ever traced on the pages of the past; though under her public
administration her kingdom stood forth the noblest, the most refined,
most generous, ay, and the freest, alike in national position, as in
individual sentiment, amongst all the nations of Europe, Isabella's
was the fated hand to sign two edicts[B] whose consequences
extinguished the lustre, diminished the virtues, enslaved the
sentiments, checked th