Note 65 — Chapter VI · FERDINAND AND ISABELLA (continued 2)

She gave evidence of this in the commutation of the sentence she obtained for the wretch who stabbed her husband, and whom her ferocious nobles would have put to death without the opportunity of confession and absolution, that “his soul might perish with his body!” (See her letter to Talavera.) She showed this merciful temper, so rare in that rough age, by dispensing altogether with the preliminary barbarities sometimes prescribed by the law in capital executions.