First Sentence

"1. FERNANDO was afield against the Moors in what he called a holy war, and Isabel, his consort, was at Cordova, among her children and inquisitors, while a crime that was to ring through earth and heaven was being prepared in Aragon; a crime that was to shake their throne, to draw them up into the north of Spain, to give the Queen a violent shock, to cause the birth of a princess some weeks before her time, to stamp the policy of King and Queen through all their future years."