MONASTIC REFORMS. 395 The general, however, on his return to Italy, had chapter sufficient address to obtain authority from His Holi- '. 1 . . ^ t r-i -i '^^^ pope's ness to send a commission oi conventuals to Lastile, imerierence. who should be associated with Ximenes in the management of the reform. These individuals soon found themselves mere ciphers ; and, highly offend- ed at the little account which the archbishop made of their authority, they preferred such complaints of his proceedings to the pontifical court, that Alexan- der the Sixth was induced, with the advice of the college of cardinals, to issue a brief, November 9th, 1496, peremptorily inhibiting the sovereigns from proceeding further in the affair, until it had been regularly submitted for examination to the head of the church. ^^ Isabella, on receivine; this unwelcome mandate, consents to ' ~ 'the reform. instantly sent it to Ximenes. The spirit of the latter, however, rose in proportion to the obstacles it had to encounter. He sought only to rally the queen's courage, beseeching her not to faint in the good work, now that it was so far advanced, and assuring her that it was already attended with such beneficent fruits, as could not fail to secure the pro- tection of Heaven. Isabella, every act of whose administration may be said to have had reference, more or less remote, to the interests of religion, was as little likely as himself to falter in a matter, which proposed these interests as its direct and only ob- ject. She assured her minister that she would 37 Gomez, De Rebus Gestis, fol. 23. — Quintanilla, Archetype, lib. 1, cap. 11.
