Yet I have been led to the conviction that her share in the administration of her kingdom has been exaggerated. The chroniclers of the period were for the most part Castilians who would naturally seek to subordinate the action of the Aragonese intruder, and subsequent writers, in their eagerness to magnify the reputation of Isabella, have followed the example. In the copious royal correspondence with the officials of the Inquisition the name of Isabella rarely appears. To those in Castile as in Aragon Ferdinand mostly writes in the first person singular, without even using the _pluralis majestatis_; the receiver of confiscations is _mi receptor_, the royal treasury is _mi camera e fisco_; the Council of the Inquisition is _mi consejo_. In spite of the agreement of 1474, the signature _Yo la Reina_ rarely appears alongside of _Yo el Rey_, and still rarer are Ferdinand's allusions to _la Serenissima Reina, mi muy cara e muy amada muger_, while in the occasional letters issued by Isabella during her husband's absence, she is careful to adduce his authority as that of _el Rey mi señor_.[73] It is scarce likely that this preponderance of Ferdinand was confined to directing the affairs of the Holy Office.
There has been a tendency of late to regard the Inquisition as a political engine for the conversion of Spain from a medieval feudal monarchy to one of the modern absolute type, but this is an error. The change effected by Ferdinand and Isabella and confirmed by their grandson Charles V was almost wholly wrought, as it had been two centuries earlier in France, by the extension and enforcement of the royal jurisdiction, superseding that of the feudatories.[74] In Castile the latter had virtually ceased to be an instrument of good during the long period of turbulence which preceded the accession of Isabella; something evidently was needed to fill the gap; the zealous and efficient administration of justice, which I have described, not only restored order to the community but went far to exalt the royal power, and, while it abased the nobles, it reconciled the people to possible usurpations which were so beneficent. In the consolidation and maintenance of this no agency was so effective as the institution known as the _Santa Hermandad_.