The levies raised for this purpose amounted to twenty companies of men-at-arms, which, with the complement of four or five followers to each lance, made a force of some strength. It was further swelled by five thousand _ginetes_, or light cavalry.[436] These corps were a heavy charge on the crown. They were called "the Guards of Castile." The men-at-arms, in particular, were an object of great care, and were under admirable discipline. Even Philip, who had little relish for military affairs, was in the habit of occasionally reviewing them in person. In addition to these troops there was a body of thirty thousand militia, whom the king could call into the field when necessary. A corps of some sixteen hundred horsemen patrolled the southern coast of Andalusia, to guard the country from invasion by the African Moslems; and garrisons established in fortresses along the frontiers of Spain, both, north and south, completed a permanent force for the defence of the kingdom against domestic insurrection, as well as foreign invasion.
The Clergy--Their Subordination to the Crown--The Escorial--Queen Anne.
A review of the polity of Castile would be incomplete without a notice of the ecclesiastical order, which may well be supposed to have stood pre-eminent in such a country, and under such a monarch as Philip the Second. Indeed, not only did that prince present himself before the world as the great champion of the Faith, but he seemed ever solicitous in private life to display his zeal for religion and its ministers. Many anecdotes are told of him in connection with this. On one occasion, seeing a young girl going within the railing of the altar, he rebuked her, saying, "Where the priest enters is no place either for me or you."[437] A cavalier who had given a blow to a canon of Toledo he sentenced to death.[438]
Under his protection and princely patronage, the Church reached its most palmy state. Colleges and convents--in short, religious institutions of every kind--were scattered broadcast over the land. The good fathers loved pleasant and picturesque sites for their dwellings; and the traveller, as he journeyed through the country, was surprised by the number of stately edifices which crowned the hill-tops, or rested on their slopes, surrounded by territories that spread out for many a league over meadows and cultivated fields and pasture-land.