sed such absolute authority. After hearing them
courteously, the Cardinal produced the late King's testament and its
formal ratification by the absent King Charles. As they raised some
objections to the extent of the powers these documents gave him, he led
them to a window of his apartment commanding a view of a large encampment
of soldiers and artillery, saying, "There are the powers I have received
from his Catholic Majesty, by which I govern and shall continue to govern
Castile, until the King, my master and yours, shall take possession of his
kingdom." This answer both astonished and silenced them and they withdrew
convinced of the futility of conspiracies against a man so well prepared
and so determined.

The supreme object of his regency was to consolidate the union of the
various kingdoms and principalities of the peninsula into one state--in
other words to create a nation. This he did, and thus laid the
foundations of Spain's greatest power and glory, for he delivered the
kingdom to the young monarch in a more prosperous condition than it had
ever before enjoyed, and with the royal authority more widely extended and
more firmly grounded than any other Spanish sovereign had ever possessed
it.

The regency of Cardinal Ximenez did not last two years, yet such was the
permanent character of his beneficent influence upon the national
development, that the memory of his services is still undimmed in Spain.
Amongst the statesmen of his times, he was facile princeps and he enjoys
the unique distinction of being the only prime-minister in history who was
regarded as a saint by his own contemporaries. (28)

To this ascetic and autocratic but not unkindly statesman Las Casas
decided to address himself, and he proceeded to Madrid to acquaint the two
regents with the abuses prevailing in the Indies and to announce his
intention of going to Flanders unless the necessary measures for the
relief of the oppressed Indians could be devised in Spain before the King
arrived. He drew up a statement of the case in Latin, which he submitted
to the Ambassador Adrian, and another, identical, in Spanish, for Cardinal
Ximenez. The gentle-hearted Fleming was horrified by what he read of the
atrocities perpetrated in the King's name in the colonies, and repairing
to the apartment of Cardinal Ximenez, who lodged in the same palace, asked
him if such enormities were possible. As the Cardinal already had plenty
of information on the sub