Thus it seemed that the empire against which Elizabeth and Henry the Fourth had been scarcely able to contend would not improbably fall to pieces of itself, and that the first violent shock from without would scatter the ill-cemented parts of the huge fabric in all directions.
But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian or the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or the Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian.
Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races and languages.

Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima.

To Castile came the annual galleons laden with the treasures of America.

In Castile was ostentatiously displayed and lavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppression and corruption.

In Castile were the King and his Court.