The nobles, who had stood by their master in the struggle, fared no better. They found too late how short-sighted was the policy which had led them to put their faith in princes. Henceforth they could not be said to form a necessary part of the legislature. For as they insisted on their right to be excused from bearing any share in the burdens of the state, they could take no part in voting the supplies; and as this was almost the only purpose for which the Cortes was convened, their presence was no longer required in it. Instead of the powers which were left to them untouched by Ferdinand and Isabella, they were now amused with high-sounding and empty titles, or with offices about the person of the monarch. In this way they gradually sank into the unsubstantial though glittering pageant of a court. Meanwhile the government of Castile, assuming the powers of both making the laws and enforcing their execution, became in its essential attributes nearly as absolute as that of Turkey.
Such was the gigantic despotism which, on the death of Charles, passed into the hands of Philip the Second. The son had many qualities in common with his father. But among these was not that restless ambition of foreign conquest which was ever goading the emperor. Nor was he, like his father, urged by the love of glory to military achievement. He was of too sluggish a nature to embark readily in great enterprises. He was capable of much labour; but it was of that sedentary kind which belongs to the cabinet rather than the camp. His tendencies were naturally pacific: and up to the period at which we are now arrived, he had engaged in no wars but those into which he had been drawn by the revolt of his vassals, as in the Netherlands and Granada, or those forced on him by circumstances beyond his control. Such was the war which he had carried on with the pope and the French monarchy at the beginning of his reign.
But while less ambitious than Charles of foreign acquisitions, Philip was full as tenacious of the possessions and power which had come to him by inheritance. Nor was it likely that the regal prerogative would suffer any diminution in his reign, or that the nobles or commons would be allowed to retrieve any of the immunities which they had lost under his predecessors.