The vote of each city was, therefore, indivisible, and it mattered little, practically, whether there were one deputy or several.

The nobles represented not only their own order, but were supposed to act also in behalf of the rural population.

On the whole, there was a tolerably fair representation of the whole nation.

The people were well and worthily represented in the government of each city, and therefore equally so in the assembly of the estates.

It was not till later that the corporations, by the extinction of the popular element, and by the usurpation of the right of self-election, were thoroughly stiffened into fictitious personages which never died, and which were never thoroughly alive.
At this epoch the provincial liberties, so far as they could maintain themselves against Spanish despotism, were practical and substantial.