IX. LATTER DAYS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH…

IX. LATTER DAYS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH

Charles at Yuste.--His Mode of Life.--Interest in Public Affairs.--Celebrates his Obsequies.--Last Illness.--Death and Character.

1556-1558.

While the occurrences related in the preceding chapter were passing, an event took place which, had it happened earlier, would have had an important influence on the politics of Europe, and the news of which, when it did happen, was everywhere received with the greatest interest. This event was the death of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, in his monastic retreat at Yuste. In the earlier pages of our narrative, we have seen how that monarch, after his abdication of the throne, withdrew to the Jeronymite convent among the hills of Estremadura. The reader may now feel some interest in following him thither, and in observing in what manner he accommodated himself to the change, and passed the closing days of his eventful life. The picture I am enabled to give of it will differ in some respects from those of former historians, who wrote when the Archives of Simancas, which afford the most authentic records for the narrative, were inaccessible to the scholar, native as well as foreign.[280]

[Sidenote: CHARLES AT YUSTE.]

Charles, as we have seen, had early formed the determination to relinquish at some future time the cares of royalty, and devote himself, in some lonely retreat to the good work of his salvation. His consort, the Empress Isabella, as appears from his own statement at Yuste, had avowed the same pious purpose.[281] She died, however, too early to execute her plan; and Charles was too much occupied with his ambitious enterprises to accomplish his object until the autumn of 1555, when, broken in health and spirits, and disgusted with the world, he resigned the sceptre he had held for forty years, and withdrew to a life of obscurity and repose.

The spot he had selected for his residence was situated about seven leagues from the city of Plasencia, on the slopes of the mountain chain that traverses the province of Estremadura. There, nestling among the rugged hills, clothed with thick woods of chestnut and oak, the Jeronymite convent was sheltered from the rude breezes of the north. Towards the south, the land sloped by a gradual declivity, till it terminated in a broad expanse, the Vera of Plasencia, as it was called, which, fertilized by the streams of the sierra, contrasted strongly in its glowing vegetation with the wild character of the mountain scenery. It was a spot well fitted for such as would withdraw themselves from commerce with the world, and consecrate their days to prayer and holy meditation. The Jeronymite fraternity had prospered in this peaceful abode. Many of the monks had acquired reputation for sanctity, and some of them for learning, the fruits of which might be seen in a large collection of manuscripts preserved in the library of the monastery. Benefactions were heaped on the brotherhood. They became proprietors of considerable tracts of land in the neighborhood, and they liberally employed their means in dispensing alms to the poor who sought it at the gate of the convent. Not long before Charles took up his residence among them, they had enlarged their building by an extensive quadrangle, which displayed some architectural elegance in the construction of its cloisters.

Three years before the emperor repaired thither, he sent a skilful architect to provide such accommodations as he had designed for himself. These were very simple. A small building, containing eight rooms, four on each floor, was raised against the southern wall of the monastery. The rooms were low, and of a moderate size. They were protected by porticos, which sheltered them on two sides from the rays of the sun, while an open gallery, which passed through the centre of the house, afforded means for its perfect ventilation. But Charles, with his gouty constitution, was more afraid of the cold damps than of heat; and he took care to have the apartments provided with fire-places, a luxury little known in this temperate region.

A window opened from his chamber directly into the chapel of the monastery; and through this, when confined to his bed, and too ill to attend mass, he could see the elevation of the host. The furniture of the dwelling--according to an authority usually followed--was of the simplest kind; and Charles, we are told, took no better care of his gouty limbs than to provide himself with an arm-chair, or rather half a chair, which would not have brought four reals at auction.[282] The inventory of the furniture of Yuste tells a very different story. Instead of "half an arm-chair," we find, besides other chairs lined with velvet, two arm-chairs especially destined to the emperor's service. One of these was of a peculiar construction, and was accommodated with no less than six cushions and a footstool, for the repose of his gouty limbs. His wardrobe showed a similar attention to his personal comfort. For one item we find no less than sixteen robes of silk and velvet, lined with ermine or eider-down, or the soft hair of the Barbary goat. The decorations of his apartment were on not merely a comfortable, but a luxurious scale;--canopies of velvet; carpets from Turkey and Alcaraz; suits of tapestry, of which twenty-five pieces are specified, richly wrought with figures of flowers and animals. Twelve hangings, of the finest black cloth, were for the emperor's bed-chamber, which, since his mother's death, had been always dressed in mourning. Among the ornaments of his rooms were four large clocks of elaborate workmanship. He had besides a number of pocket-watches, then a greater rarity than at present. He was curious in regard to his timepieces, and took care to provide for their regularity by bringing the manufacturer of them in his train to Yuste. Charles was served on silver. Even the meanest utensils for his kitchen and his sleeping apartment were of the same costly material, amounting to nearly fourteen thousand ounces in weight.[283]

The inventory contains rather a meagre show of books, which were for the most part of a devotional character. But Charles's love of art was visible in a small but choice collection of paintings, which he brought with him to adorn the walls of his retreat. Nine of these were from the pencil of Titian. Charles held the works of the great Venetian in the highest honor, and was desirous that by his hand his likeness should be transmitted to posterity. The emperor had brought with him to Yuste four portraits of himself and the empress by Titian; and among the other pieces by the same master were some of his best pictures. One of these was the famous "Gloria," in which Charles and the empress appear, in the midst of the celestial throng, supported by angels, and in an attitude of humble adoration.[284] He had the painting hung at the foot of his bed, or according to another account, over the great altar in the chapel. It is said, he would gaze long and fondly on this picture, which filled him with the most tender recollections; and as he dwelt on the image of one who had been so dear to him on earth, he may have looked forward to his reunion with her in the heavenly mansions, as the artist had here depicted him.[285]

[Sidenote: CHARLES AT YUSTE.]

A stairway, or rather an inclined plane, suited to the weakness of Charles's limbs, led from the gallery of his house to the gardens below. These were surrounded by a high wall, which completely secluded him from observation from without. The garden was filled with orange, citron, and fig trees, and various aromatic plants that grew luxuriantly in the genial soil. The emperor had a taste for horticulture, and took much pleasure in tending the young plants and pruning his trees. His garden afforded him also the best means for taking exercise; and in fine weather he would walk along an avenue of lofty chestnut-trees, that led to a pretty chapel in the neighboring woods, the ruins of which may be seen at this day. Among the trees, one is pointed out,--an overgrown walnut, still throwing its shade far and wide over the ground,--under whose branches the pensive monarch would sit and meditate on the dim future, or perhaps on the faded glories of the past.

Charles had once been the most accomplished horseman of his time. He had brought with him to Yuste a pony and a mule, in the hope of being able to get some exercise in the saddle. But the limbs that had bestrode day after day, without fatigue, the heavy war-horse of Flanders and the wildest genet of Andalusia, were unable now to endure the motion of a poor palfrey; and, after a solitary experiment in the saddle on his arrival at Yuste, when he nearly fainted, he abandoned it for ever.[286]

There are few spots that might now be visited with more interest, than that which the great emperor had selected as his retreat from the thorny cares of government. And until within a few years the traveller would have received from the inmates of the convent the same hospitable welcome which they had always been ready to give to the stranger. But in 1809 the place was sacked by the French; and the fierce soldiery of Soult converted the pile, with its venerable cloisters, into a heap of blackened ruins. Even the collection of manuscripts, piled up with so much industry by the brethren, did not escape the general doom. The palace of the emperor, as the simple monks loved to call his dwelling, had hardly a better fate, though it came from the hands of Charles's own countrymen, the liberals of Cuacos. By these patriots the lower floor of the mansion was turned into stables for their horses. The rooms above were used as magazines for grain. The mulberry-leaves were gathered from the garden to furnish material for the silkworm, who was permitted to wind his cocoon in the deserted chambers of royalty. Still the great features of nature remain the same as in Charles's day. The bald peaks of the sierra still rise above the ruins of the monastery. The shaggy sides of the hills still wear their wild forest drapery. Far below, the eye of the traveller ranges over the beautiful Vera of Plasencia, which glows in the same exuberant vegetation as of yore; and the traveller, as he wanders among the ruined porticos and desolate arcades of the palace, drinks in the odors of a thousand aromatic plants and wild-flowers that have shot up into a tangled wilderness, where once was the garden of the imperial recluse.[287]

Charles, though borne across the mountains in a litter, had suffered greatly in his long and laborious journey from Valladolid. He passed some time in the neighboring village of Xarandilla, and thence, after taking leave of the greater part of his weeping retinue, he proceeded with the remainder to the monastery of Yuste. It was on the third of February, 1557, that he entered the abode which was to prove his final resting-place.[288] The monks of Yuste had been much flattered by the circumstance of Charles having shown such a preference for their convent. As he entered the chapel, Te Deum was chanted by the whole brotherhood; and when the emperor had prostrated himself before the altar, the monks gathered round him, anxious to pay him their respectful obeisance. Charles received them graciously, and, after examining his quarters, professed himself well pleased with the accommodations prepared for him. His was not a fickle temper. Slow in forming his plans, he was slower in changing them. To the last day of his residence at Yuste,--whatever may have been said to the contrary,--he seems to have been well satisfied with the step he had taken and with the spot he had selected.

[Sidenote: HIS MODE OF LIFE.]

From the first, he prepared to conform, as far as his health would permit, to the religious observances of the monastery. Not that he proposed to limit himself to the narrow circumstances of an ordinary friar. The number of his retinue that still remained with him was at least fifty, mostly Flemings;[289] a number not greater, certainly, than that maintained by many a private gentleman of the country. But among these we recognize those officers of state who belong more properly to a princely establishment than to the cell of the recluse. There was the major-domo, the almoner, the keeper of the wardrobe, the keeper of the jewels, the chamberlains, two watchmakers, several secretaries, the physician, the confessor, besides cooks, confectioners, bakers, brewers, game-keepers, and numerous valets. Some of these followers seem not to have been quite so content as their master with their secluded way of life, and to have cast many a longing look to the pomps and vanities of the world they had left behind them. At least such were the feelings of Quixada, the emperor's major-domo, in whom he placed the greatest confidence, and who had the charge of his household. "His majesty's bedroom," writes the querulous functionary, "is good enough; but the view from it is poor,--barren mountains, covered with rocks and stunted oaks; a garden of moderate size, with a few straggling orange-trees; the roads scarcely passable, so steep and stony; the only water, a torrent rushing from the mountains; a dreary solitude!" The low, cheerless rooms, he predicts, must necessarily be damp, boding no good to the emperor's infirmity.[290] "As to the friars," observes the secretary, Gaztelu, in the same amiable mood, "please God that his majesty may be able to tolerate them,--which will be no easy matter; for they are an importunate race."[291] It is evident that Charles's followers would have been very willing to exchange the mortifications of the monastic life for the good cheer and gaiety of Brussels.

The worthy prior of the convent, in addressing Charles, greeted him with the title of paternidad, till one of the fraternity suggested to him the propriety of substituting that of magestad.[292] Indeed, to this title Charles had good right, for he was still emperor. His resignation of the imperial crown, which, as we have seen, so soon followed that of the Spanish, had not taken effect, in consequence of the diet not being in session at the time when his envoy, the prince of Orange, was to have presented himself at Ratisbon, in the spring of 1557. The war with France made Philip desirous that his father should remain lord of Germany for some time longer. It was not, therefore, until more than a year after Charles's arrival at Yuste, that the resignation was accepted by the diet, at Frankfort, on the twenty-eighth of February, 1558. Charles was still emperor, and continued to receive the imperial title in all his correspondence.[293]

We have pretty full accounts of the manner in which the monarch employed his time. He attended mass every morning in the chapel, when his health permitted. Mass was followed by dinner, which he took early and alone, preferring this to occupying a seat in the refectory of the convent. He was fond of carving for himself, though his gouty fingers were not always in the best condition for this exercise.[294] His physician was usually in attendance during the repast, and might, at least, observe how little his patient, who had not the virtue of abstinence, regarded his prescriptions. The Fleming, Van Male, the emperor's favorite gentleman of the chamber, was also not unfrequently present. He was a good scholar; and his discussions with the doctor served to beguile the tediousness of their master's solitary meal. The conversation frequently turned on some subject of natural history, of which the emperor was fond; and when the parties could not agree, the confessor, a man of learning, was called in to settle the dispute.

After dinner,--an important meal, which occupied much time with Charles,--he listened to some passages from a favorite theologian. In his worldly days, the book he most affected is said to have been Comines's Life of Louis the Eleventh,[295]--a prince whose maxim, "Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare," was too well suited to the genius of the emperor. He now, however, sought a safer guide for his spiritual direction, and would listen to a homily from the pages of St. Bernard, or more frequently St. Augustine, in whom he most delighted.[296] Towards evening, he heard a sermon from one of his preachers. Three or four of the most eloquent of the Jeronymite order had been brought to Yuste for his especial benefit. When he was not in condition to be present at the discourse, he expected to hear a full report of it from the lips of his confessor, Father Juan de Regla. Charles was punctual in his attention to all the great fasts and festivals of the Church. His infirmities, indeed, excused him from fasting, but he made up for it by the severity of his flagellation. In Lent, in particular, he dealt with himself so sternly, that the scourge was found stained with his blood; and this precious memorial of his piety was ever cherished, we are told, by Philip, and by him bequeathed as an heirloom to his son.[297]

Increasing vigilance in his own spiritual concerns made him more vigilant as to those of others,--as the weaker brethren sometimes found to their cost. Observing that some of the younger friars spent more time than was seemly in conversing with the women who came on business to the door of the convent, Charles procured an order to be passed, that any woman who ventured to approach within two bowshots of the gate should receive a hundred stripes.[298] On another occasion, his officious endeavor to quicken the diligence of one of the younger members of the fraternity is said to have provoked the latter testily to exclaim, "Cannot you be contented with having so long turned the world upside down, without coming here to disturb the quiet of a poor convent?"

[Sidenote: HIS MODE OF LIFE.]

He derived an additional pleasure, in his spiritual exercises, from his fondness for music, which enters so largely into those of the Romish Church. He sung well himself, and his clear, sonorous voice might often be heard through the open casement of his bedroom, accompanying the chant of the monks in the chapel. The choir was made up altogether of brethren of the order, and Charles would allow no intrusion from any other quarter. His ear was quick to distinguish any strange voice, as well as any false note in the performance,--on which last occasion he would sometimes pause in his devotions, and, in half-suppressed tones, give vent to his anger by one of those scurrilous epithets, which, however they may have fallen in with the habits of the old campaigner, were but indifferently suited to his present way of life.[299]

Such time as was not given to his religious exercises was divided among various occupations, for which he had always had a relish, though hitherto but little leisure to pursue them. Besides his employments in his garden, he had a decided turn for mechanical pursuits. Some years before, while in Germany, he had invented an ingenious kind of carriage for his own accommodation.[300] He brought with him to Yuste an engineer named Torriano, famous for the great hydraulic works he constructed in Toledo. With the assistance of this man, a most skilful mechanician, Charles amused himself by making a variety of puppets representing soldiers, who went through military exercises. The historian draws largely on our faith, by telling us also of little wooden birds which the ingenious pair contrived, so as to fly in and out of the window before the admiring monks![301] But nothing excited their astonishment so much as a little hand-mill, used for grinding wheat, which turned out meal enough in a single day to support a man for a week or more. The good fathers thought this savored of downright necromancy; and it may have furnished an argument against the unfortunate engineer in the persecution which he afterwards underwent from the Inquisition.

Charles took, moreover, great interest in the mechanism of timepieces. He had a good number of clocks and watches ticking together in his apartments; and a story has obtained credit, that the difficulty he found in making any two of them keep the same time drew from him an exclamation on the folly of attempting to bring a number of men to think alike in matters of religion, when he could not regulate any two of his timepieces so as to make them agree with each other; a philosophical reflection for which one will hardly give credit to the man who, with his dying words, could press on his son the maintenance of the Inquisition as the great bulwark of the Catholic faith. In the gardens of Yuste there is still, or was lately, to be seen, a sun-dial constructed by Torriano to enable his master to measure more accurately the lapse of time as it glided away in the monotonous routine of the monastery.[302]

Though averse to visits of curiosity or idle ceremony,[303] Charles consented to admit some of the nobles whose estates lay in the surrounding country, and who, with feelings of loyal attachment to their ancient master, were anxious to pay their respects to him in his retirement. But none who found their way into his retreat appear to have given him so much satisfaction as Francisco Borja, duke of Gandia, in later times placed on the roll of her saints by the Roman Catholic Church. Like Charles, he had occupied a brilliant eminence in the world, and like him had found the glory of this world but vanity. In the prime of life, he withdrew from the busy scenes in which he had acted, and entered a college of Jesuits. By the emperor's invitation, Borja made more than one visit to Yuste; and Charles found much consolation in his society, and in conversing with his early friend on topics of engrossing interest to both. The result of their conferences was to confirm them both in the conviction, that they had done wisely in abjuring the world, and in dedicating themselves to the service of Heaven.

The emperor was also visited by his two sisters, the dowager queens of France and Hungary, who had accompanied their brother, as we have seen, on his return to Spain. But the travelling was too rough, and the accommodations at Yuste too indifferent, to encourage the royal matrons to prolong their stay, or, with one exception on the part of the queen of Hungary, to repeat their visit.

But an object of livelier interest to the emperor than either of his sisters was a boy, scarcely twelve years of age, who resided in the family of his major-domo, Quixada, in the neighboring village of Cuacos. This was Don John of Austria, as he was afterwards called, the future hero of Lepanto. He was the natural son of Charles, a fact known to no one during the father's lifetime, except Quixada, who introduced the boy into the convent as his own page. The lad, at this early age, showed many gleams of that generous spirit by which he was afterwards distinguished,--thus solacing the declining years of his parent, and affording a hold for those affections which might have withered in the cold atmosphere of the cloister.

Strangers were sure to be well received who, coming from the theatre of war, could furnish the information he so much desired respecting the condition of things abroad. Thus we find him in conference with an officer arrived from the Low Countries, named Spinosa, and putting a multitude of questions respecting the state of the army, the organization and equipment of the different corps, and other particulars, showing the lively interest taken by Charles in the conduct of the campaign.[304]

[Sidenote: HIS INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS.]

It has been a common opinion, that the emperor, after his retirement to Yuste, remained as one buried alive, totally cut off from intercourse with the world;--"as completely withdrawn from the business of the kingdom and the concerns of government," says one of his biographers, "as if he had never taken part in them;"[305]--"so entirely abstracted in his solitude," says another contemporary, "that neither revolutions nor wars, nor gold arriving in heaps from the Indies, had any power to affect his tranquillity."[306]

So far from this being the case, that not only did the emperor continue to show an interest in public affairs, but he took a prominent part, even from the depths of his retreat, in the management of them.[307] Philip, who had the good sense to defer to the long experience and the wisdom of his father, consulted him, constantly, on great questions of public policy. And so far was he from the feeling of jealousy often imputed to him, that we find him on one occasion, when the horizon looked particularly, dark, imploring the emperor to leave his retreat, and to aid him not only by his counsels, but by his presence and authority.[308] The emperor's daughter Joanna, regent of Castile, from her residence at Valladolid, only fifty leagues from Yuste, maintained a constant correspondence with her father, soliciting his advice in the conduct of the government. However much Charles may have felt himself relieved from responsibility for measures, he seems to have been as anxious for the success of Philip's administration as if it had been his own. "Write more fully," says one of his secretaries in a letter to the secretary of the regent's council; "the emperor is always eager to hear more particulars of events."[309] He showed the deepest concern in the conduct of the Italian war. He betrayed none of the scruples manifested by Philip, but boldly declared that the war with the pope was a just war, in the sight of both God and man.[310] When letters came from abroad, he was even heard to express his regret that they brought no tidings of Paul's death, or Caraffa's![311] He was sorely displeased with the truce which Alva granted to the pontiff, intimating a regret that he had not the reins still in his own hand. He was yet more discontented with the peace, and the terms of it, both public and private; and when Alva talked of leaving Naples, his anger, as his secretary quaintly remarks, was "more than was good for his health."[312]

The same interest he showed in the French war. The loss of Calais filled him with the deepest anxiety. But in his letters on the occasion, instead of wasting his time in idle lament, he seems intent only on devising in what way he can best serve Philip in his distress.[313] In the same proportion he was elated by the tidings of the victory of St. Quentin. His thoughts turned upon Paris, and he was eager to learn what road his son had taken after the battle.[314] According to Brantôme, on hearing the news, he abruptly asked, "Is Philip at Paris?"--He judged of Philip's temper by his own.[315]

At another time, we find him conducting negotiations with Navarre;[316] and then, again, carrying on a correspondence with his sister, the regent of Portugal, for the purpose of having his grandson, Carlos, recognized as heir to the crown, in case of the death of the young king, his cousin. The scheme failed, for it would be as much as her life was worth, the regent said, to engage in it. But it was a bold one, that of bringing under the same sceptre these two nations, which, by community of race, language, and institutions, would seem by nature to have been designed for one. It was Charles's comprehensive idea; and it proves that, even in the cloister, the spirit of ambition had not become extinct in his bosom. How much would it have rejoiced that ambitious spirit, could he have foreseen that the consummation so much desired by him would be attained under Philip![317]

[Sidenote: HIS INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS.]

But the department which especially engaged Charles's attention in his retirement, singularly enough, was the financial. "It has been my constant care," he writes to Philip, "in all my letters to your sister, to urge the necessity of providing you with funds,--since I can be of little service to you in any other way."[318] His interposition, indeed, seems to have been constantly invoked to raise supplies for carrying on the war. This fact may be thought to show that those writers are mistaken who accuse Philip of withholding from his father the means of maintaining a suitable establishment at Yuste. Charles, in truth, settled the amount of his own income; and in one of his letters we find him fixing this at twenty thousand ducats, instead of sixteen thousand, as before, to be paid quarterly and in advance.[319] That the payments were not always punctually made may well be believed, in a country where punctuality would have been a miracle.

Charles had more cause for irritation in the conduct of some of those functionaries with whom he had to deal in his financial capacity. Nothing appears to have stirred his bile so much at Yuste as the proceedings of some members of the board of trade at Seville. "I have deferred sending to you," he writes to his daughter, the regent, "in order to see if, with time, my wrath would not subside. But, far from it, it increases, and will go on increasing till I learn that those who have done wrong have atoned for it. Were it not for my infirmities," he adds, "I would go to Seville myself, and find out the authors of this villany, and bring them to a summary reckoning."[320] "The emperor orders me," writes his secretary, Gaztelu, "to command that the offenders be put in irons, and in order to mortify them the more, that they be carried, in broad daylight, to Simancas, and there lodged, not in towers or chambers, but in a dungeon. Indeed, such is his indignation, and such are the violent and bloodthirsty expressions he commands me to use, that you will pardon me if my language is not so temperate as it might be."[321] It had been customary for the board of trade to receive the gold imported from the Indies, whether on public or private account, and hold it for the use of the government, paying to the merchants interested an equivalent in government bonds. The merchants, naturally enough, not relishing this kind of security so well as the gold, by a collusion with some of the members of the board of trade, had been secretly allowed to remove their own property. In this way the government was defrauded--as the emperor regarded it--of a large sum on which it had calculated. This, it would seem, was the offence which had roused the royal indignation to such a pitch. Charles's phlegmatic temperament had ever been liable to be ruffled by these sudden gusts of passion; and his conventual life does not seem to have had any very sedative influence on him in this particular.

For the first ten months after his arrival at Yuste, the emperor's health, under the influence of a temperate climate, the quiet of monastic life, and more than all, probably, his exemption from the cares of state, had generally improved.[322] His attacks of gout had been less frequent and less severe than before. But in the spring of 1558, the old malady returned with renewed violence. "I was not in a condition," he writes to Philip, "to listen to a single sermon during Lent."[323] For months he was scarcely able to write a line with his own hand. His spirits felt the pressure of bodily suffering, and were still further depressed by the death of his sister Eleanor, the queen-dowager of France and Portugal, which took place in February, 1558.

A strong attachment seems to have subsisted between the emperor and his two sisters. Queen Eleanor's sweetness of disposition had particularly endeared her to her brother, who now felt her loss almost as keenly as that of one of his own children. "She was a good Christian," he said to his secretary, Gaztelu; and, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, he added, "We have always loved each other. She was my elder by fifteen months; and before that period has passed I shall probably be with her."[324] Before half that period, the sad augury was fulfilled.

At this period--as we shall see hereafter--the attention of the government was called to the Lutheran heresy, which had already begun to disclose itself in various quarters of the country. Charles was possessed of a full share of the spirit of bigotry which belonged to the royal line of Castile, from which he was descended. While on the throne, this feeling was held somewhat in check by a regard for his political interests. But in the seclusion of the monastery he had no interests to consult but those of religion; and he gave free scope to the spirit of intolerance which belonged to his nature. In a letter addressed, the third of May, 1558, to his daughter Joanna, he says: "Tell the grand-inquisitor from me to be at his post, and lay the axe at the root of the evil before it spreads further. I rely on your zeal for bringing the guilty to punishment, and for having them punished, without favor to any one, with all the severity which their crimes demand."[325] In another letter to his daughter, three weeks later, he writes: "If I had not entire confidence that you would do your duty, and arrest the evil at once by chastising the guilty in good earnest, I know not how I could help leaving the monastery, and taking the remedy into my own hands."[326] Thus did Charles make his voice heard from his retreat among the mountains, and by his efforts and influence render himself largely responsible for the fiery persecution which brought woe upon the land after he himself had gone to his account.

[Sidenote: HE CELEBRATES HIS OBSEQUIES.]

About the middle of August, the emperor's old enemy, the gout, returned on him with uncommon force. It was attended with symptoms of an alarming kind, intimating, indeed, that his strong constitution was giving way. These were attributed to a cold which he had taken, though it seems there was good reason for imputing them to his intemperate living; for he still continued to indulge his appetite for the most dangerous dishes, as freely as in the days when a more active way of life had better enabled him to digest them. It is true, the physician stood by his side, as prompt as Sancho Panza's doctor, in his island domain, to remonstrate against his master's proceedings. But, unhappily, he was not armed with the authority of that functionary; and an eel-pie, a well-spiced capon, or any other savory abomination, offered too great a fascination for Charles to heed the warnings of his physician.

The declining state of the emperor's health may have inspired him with a presentiment of his approaching end, to which, we have seen, he gave utterrance some time before this, in his conversation with Gaztelu. It may have been the sober reflections which such a feeling would naturally suggest that led him, at the close of the month of August, to conceive the extraordinary idea of preparing for the final scene by rehearsing his own funeral. He consulted his professor on the subject, and was encouraged by the accommodating father to consider it as a meritorious act. The chapel was accordingly hung in black, and the blaze of hundreds of wax-lights was not sufficient to dispel the darkness. The monks in their conventual dresses, and all the emperor's household, clad in deep mourning, gathered round a huge catafalque, shrouded also in black, which had been raised in the centre of the chapel. The service for the burial of the dead was then performed; and amidst the dismal wail of the monks, the prayers ascended for the departed spirit, that it might be received into the mansions of the blessed. The sorrowful attendants were melted to tears, as the image of their master's death was presented to their minds, or they were touched, it may be, with compassion for this pitiable display of his weakness. Charles, muffled in a dark mantle, and bearing a lighted candle in his hand, mingled with his household, the spectator of his own obsequies; and the doleful ceremony was concluded by his placing the taper in the hands of the priest, in sign of his surrendering up his soul to the Almighty.

Such is the account of this melancholy farce given us by the Jeronymite chroniclers of the cloister life of Charles the Fifth, and which has since been repeated--losing nothing in the repetition--by every succeeding historian, to the present time.[327] Nor does there seem to have been any distrust of its correctness till the historical scepticism of our own day had subjected the narrative to a more critical scrutiny. It was then discovered that no mention of the affair was to be discerned in the letters of any one of the emperor's household residing at Yuste, although there are letters extant written by Charles's physician, his major-domo, and his secretary, both on the thirty-first of August, the day of the funeral, and on the first of September. With so extraordinary an event fresh in their minds, their silence is inexplicable.

One fact is certain, that, if the funeral did take place, it could not have been on the date assigned to it; for on the thirty-first the emperor was laboring under an attack of fever, of which his physician has given full particulars, and from which he was destined never to recover. That the writers, therefore, should have been silent in respect to a ceremony which must have had so bad an effect on the nerves of the patient, is altogether incredible.

Yet the story of the obsequies comes from one of the Jeronymite brethren then living at Yuste, who speaks of the emotions which he felt, in common with the rest of the convent, at seeing a man thus bury himself alive, as it were, and perform his funeral rites before his death.[328] It is repeated by another of the fraternity, the prior of Escorial, who had ample means of conversing with eye-witnesses.[329] And finally, it is confirmed by more than one writer near enough to the period to be able to assure himself of the truth.[330] Indeed, the parties from whom the account is originally derived were so situated that, if the story be without foundation, it is impossible to explain its existence by misapprehension on their part. It must be wholly charged on a wilful misstatement of facts. It is true, the monkish chronicler is not always quite so scrupulous in this particular as would be desirable,--especially where the honor of his order is implicated. But what interest could the Jeronymite fathers have had in so foolish a fabrication as this? The supposition is at variance with the respectable character of the parties, and with the air of simplicity and good faith that belongs to their narratives.[331]

We may well be staggered, it is true, by the fact that no allusion to the obsequies appears in any of the letters from Yuste; while the date assigned for them, moreover, is positively disproved. Yet we may consider that the misstatement of a date is a very different thing from the invention of a story; and that chronological accuracy, as I have more than once had occasion to remark, was not the virtue of the monkish, or indeed of any other historian of the sixteenth century. It would not be a miracle if the obsequies should have taken place some days before the period assigned to them. It so happens that we have no letters from Yuste between the eighteenth and twenty-eighth of August. At least, I have none myself, and have seen none cited by others. If any should hereafter come to light, written during that interval, they may be found possibly to contain some allusion to the funeral. Should no letters have been written during the period, the silence of the parties who wrote at the end of August and the beginning of September may be explained by the fact, that too long a time had elapsed since the performance of the emperor's obsequies, for them to suppose it could have any connection with his illness, which formed the subject of their correspondence. Difficulties will present themselves, whichever view we take of the matter. But the reader may think it quite as reasonable to explain those difficulties by the supposition of involuntary error, as by that of sheer invention.

Nor is the former supposition rendered less probable by the character of Charles the Fifth. There was a taint of insanity in the royal blood of Castile, which was most fully displayed in the emperor's mother, Joanna. Some traces of it, however faint, may be discerned in his own conduct, before he took refuge in the cloisters of Yuste. And though we may not agree with Paul the Fourth in regarding this step as sufficient evidence of his madness,[332] we may yet find something in his conduct, on more than one occasion, while there, which is near akin to it. Such, for example, was the morbid relish which he discovered for performing the obsequies, not merely of his kindred, but of any one whose position seemed to him to furnish an apology for it. Not a member of the toison died, but he was prepared to commemorate the event with solemn funeral rites. These, in short, seemed to be the festivities of Charles's cloister life. These lugubrious ceremonies had a fascination for him, that may remind one of the tenacity with which his mother, Joanna, clung to the dead body of her husband, taking it with her wherever she went. It was after celebrating the obsequies of his parents and his wife, which occupied several successive days, that he conceived, as we are told, the idea of rehearsing his own funeral,--a piece of extravagance which becomes the more credible when we reflect on the state of morbid excitement to which his mind may have been brought by dwelling so long on the dreary apparatus of death.

But whatever be thought of the account of the mock funeral of Charles, it appears that on the thirtieth of August he was affected by an indisposition which on the following day was attended with most alarming symptoms. Here also we have some particulars from his Jeronymite biographers which we do not find in the letters. On the evening of the thirty-first, according to their account, Charles ordered a portrait of the empress, his wife, of whom, as we have seen, he had more than one in his collection, to be brought to him. He dwelt a long while on its beautiful features, "as if," says the chronicler, "he were imploring her to prepare a place for him in the celestial mansions to which she had gone."[333] He then passed to the contemplation of another picture,--Titian's "Agony in the Garden," and from this to that immortal production of his pencil, the "Gloria," as it is called, which is said to have hung over the high altar at Yuste, and which, after the emperor's death, followed his remains to the Escorial.[334] He gazed so long and with such rapt attention on the picture, as to cause apprehension in his physician, who, in the emperor's debilitated state, feared the effects of such excitement on his nerves. There was good reason for apprehension; for Charles, at length, rousing from his reverie, turned to the doctor, and complained that he was ill. His pulse showed him to be in a high fever. As the symptoms became more unfavorable, his physician bled him, but without any good effect.[335] The Regent Joanna, on learning her father's danger, instantly despatched her own physician from Valladolid to his assistance. But no earthly remedies could avail. It soon became evident that the end was approaching.[336]

Charles received the intelligence, not merely with composure, but with cheerfulness. It was what he had long desired, he said. His first care was to complete some few arrangements respecting his affairs. On the ninth of September, he executed a codicil to his will. The will, made a few years previous, was of great length, and the codicil had not the merit of brevity. Its principal object was to make provision for those who had followed him to Yuste. No mention is made in the codicil of his son Don John of Austria. He seems to have communicated his views in regard to him to his major-domo, Quixada, who had a private interview of some length with his master a few days before his death. Charles's directions on the subject appear to have been scrupulously regarded by Philip.[337]

[Sidenote: HIS LAST ILLNESS.]

One clause in the codicil deserves to be noticed. The emperor conjures his son most earnestly, by the obedience he owes him, to follow up and bring to justice every heretic in his dominions; and this without exception, and without favor or mercy to any one. He conjures Philip to cherish the Holy Inquisition, as the best instrument for accomplishing this good work. "So," he concludes, "shall you have my blessing, and the Lord shall prosper all your undertakings."[338] Such were the last words of the dying monarch to his son. They did not fall on a deaf ear; and the parting admonition of his father served to give a keener edge to the sword of persecution which Philip had already begun to wield.

On the nineteenth of September, Charles's strength had declined so much that it was thought proper to administer extreme unction to him. He preferred to have it in the form adopted by the friars, which, comprehending a litany, the seven penitential psalms, and sundry other passages of Scripture, was much longer and more exhausting than the rite used by the laity. His strength did not fail under it, however; and the following day he desired to take the communion, as he had frequently done during his illness. On his confessor's representing that, after the sacrament of extreme unction, this was unnecessary, he answered, "Perhaps so, but it is good provision for the long journey I am to set out upon."[339] Exhausted as he was, he knelt a full quarter of an hour in his bed during the ceremony, offering thanks to God for his mercies, and expressing the deepest contrition for his sins, with an earnestness of manner that touched the hearts of all present.[340]

Throughout his illness he had found consolation in having passages of Scripture, especially the Psalms, read to him. Quixada, careful that his master should not be disquieted in his last moments, would allow very few persons to be present in his chamber. Among the number was Bartolomé de Carranza, who had lately been raised to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. He had taken a prominent part in the persecution in England under Mary. For the remainder of his life he was to be the victim of persecution himself, from a stronger arm than his, that of the Inquisition. Even the words of consolation which he uttered in this chamber of death were carefully treasured up by Charles's confessor, and made one of the charges against him in his impeachment for heresy.

On the twenty-first of September, St. Matthew's day, about two hours after midnight, the emperor, who had remained long without speaking, feeling that his hour had come, exclaimed, "Now it is time!" The holy taper was placed lighted in his right hand, as he sat up leaning on the shoulder of the faithful Quixada. With his left he endeavored to clasp a silver crucifix. It had comforted the empress, his wife, in her dying hour; and Charles had ordered Quixada to hold it in readiness for him on the like occasion.[341] It had lain for some time on his breast; and as it was now held up before his glazing eye by the archbishop of Toledo, Charles fixed his gaze long and earnestly on the sacred symbol,--to him the memento of earthly love as well as heavenly. The archbishop was repeating the psalm De Profundis,--"Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord!"--when the dying man, making a feeble effort to embrace the crucifix, exclaimed, in tones so audible as to be heard in the adjoining room, "Ay Jesus!" and sinking back on the pillow, expired without a struggle.[342] He had always prayed--perhaps fearing the hereditary taint of insanity--that he might die in possession of his faculties.[343] His prayer was granted.

The emperor's body, after being embalmed, and placed in its leaden coffin, lay in state in the chapel for three days, during which three discourses were pronounced over it by the best preachers in the convent. It was then consigned to the earth, with due solemnity, amidst the prayers and tears of the brethren and of Charles's domestics, in presence of a numerous concourse of persons from the surrounding country.

The burial did not take place, however, without some difficulty. Charles had requested by his will that he might be laid partially under the great altar, in such a manner that his head and the upper part of his body might come under the spot where the priest stood when he performed the service. This was dictated in all humility by the emperor; but it raised a question among the scrupulous ecclesiastics as to the propriety of permitting any bones save those of a saint to occupy so holy a place as that beneath the altar. The dispute waxed somewhat warmer than was suited to the occasion; till the momentous affair was finally adjusted by having an excavation made in the wall, within which the head was introduced, so as to allow the feet to touch the verge of the hallowed ground.[344] The emperor's body did not long abide in its resting-place at Yuste. Before many years had elapsed, it was transported, by command of Philip the Second, to the Escorial, and in that magnificent mausoleum it has continued to repose, beside that of the Empress Isabella.

The funeral obsequies of Charles were celebrated with much pomp by the court of Rome, by the Regent Joanna at Valladolid, and, with yet greater magnificence, by Philip the Second at Brussels. Philip was at Arras when he learned the news of his father's death. He instantly repaired to a monastery in the neighborhood of Brussels, where he remained secluded for several weeks. Meanwhile he ordered the bells in all the churches and convents throughout the Netherlands to be tolled thrice a day for four mouths, and during that time that no festivals or public rejoicings of any kind should take place. On the twenty-eighth of December the king entered Brussels by night, and on the following day, before the hour of vespers, a procession was formed to the church of St. Gudule, which still challenges the admiration of the traveller as one of the noblest monuments of mediæval architecture in the Netherlands.

[Sidenote: HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.]

The procession consisted of the principal clergy, the members of the different religious houses, bearing lighted tapers in their hands, the nobles and cavaliers about the court, the great officers of state and the royal household, all clad in deep mourning. After these came the knights of the Golden Fleece, wearing the insignia and the superb dress of the order. The marquis of Aguilar bore the imperial sceptre, the duke of Villahermosa the sword, and the prince of Orange carried the globe and the crown of the empire. Philip came on foot, wrapped in a sable mantle, with his head buried in a deep cowl. His train was borne by Ruy Gomez de Silva, the favorite minister. Then followed the duke of Savoy, walking also alone, with his head covered, as a prince of the blood. Files of the Spanish and German guard, in their national uniforms, formed an escort to the procession, as it took its way through the principal streets, which were illumined with a blaze of torchlight, that dispelled the gathering shadows of evening.

A conspicuous part of the procession was a long train of horses led each by two gentlemen, and displaying on their splendid housings, and the banners which they carried, the devices and arms of the several states over which the emperor presided.

But no part of the pageant attracted so much notice from the populace as a stately galley, having its sides skilfully painted with battle-pieces suggested by different actions in which Charles had been engaged; while its sails of black silk were covered with inscriptions in letters of gold, that commemorated the triumphs of the hero.

Although the palace was at no great distance from St. Gudule's, the procession occupied two hours in passing to the church. In the nave of the edifice stood a sort of chapel, constructed for the occasion. Its roof, or rather canopy, displaying four crowns embroidered in gold, rested on four Ionic pillars curiously wrought. Within lay a sarcophagus covered with a dark pall of velvet, surmounted by a large crimson cross. The imperial crown, together with the globe and sceptre, was deposited in this chapel, which was lighted up with three thousand wax tapers.

In front of it was a scaffolding covered with black, on which a throne was raised for Philip. The nobles and great officers of the crown occupied the seats, or rather steps, below. Drapery of dark velvet and cloth of gold, emblazoned with the imperial arms, was suspended across the arches of the nave; above which ran galleries, appropriated to the duchess of Lorraine and the ladies of the court.[345]

The traveller who at this time visits this venerable pile, where Charles the Fifth was wont to hold the chapters of the Golden Fleece, while he gazes on the characteristic effigy of that monarch, as it is displayed on the superb windows of painted glass, may call to mind the memorable day when the people of Flanders, and the rank and beauty of its capital, were gathered together to celebrate the obsequies of the great emperor; when, amidst clouds of incense and the blaze of myriads of lights, the deep tones of the organ, vibrating through the long aisles, mingled with the voices of the priests, as they chanted their sad requiem to the soul of their departed sovereign.[346]

I have gone somewhat into detail in regard to the latter days of Charles the Fifth, who exercised, in his retirement, too important an influence on public affairs for such an account of him to be deemed an impertinent episode to the history of Philip the Second. Before parting from him for ever, I will take a brief view of some peculiarities in his personal, rather than his political character, which has long since been indelibly traced by a hand abler than mine.

Charles, at the time of his death, was in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He was older in constitution than in years. So much shaken had he been, indeed, in mind as well as body, that he may be said to have died of premature old age. Yet his physical development had been very slow. He was nearly twenty-one years old before any beard was to be seen on his chin.[347] Yet by the time he was thirty-six, gray hairs began to make their appearance on his temples. At forty the gout had made severe inroads on a constitution originally strong; and before he was fifty, the man who could keep the saddle day and night in his campaigns, who seemed to be insensible to fatigue as he followed the chase among the wild passes of the Alpuxarras, was obliged to be carried in a litter, like a poor cripple, at the head of his armies.[348]

His mental development was equally tardy with his bodily. So long as Chievres lived,--the Flemish noble who had the care of his early life,--Charles seemed to have no will of his own. During his first visit to Spain, where he came when seventeen years old, he gave so little promise, that those who approached him nearest could discern no signs of his future greatness. Yet the young prince seems to have been conscious that he had the elements of greatness within him, and he patiently bided his time. "Nondum"--"Not yet"--was the motto which he adopted for his maiden shield, when but eighteen years old, at a tournament at Valladolid.

[Sidenote: HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.]

But when the death of the Flemish minister had released the young monarch from this state of dependence, he took the reins into his own hands, as Louis the Fourteenth did on the death of Mazarin. He now showed himself in an entirely new aspect. He even displayed greater independence than his predecessors had done. He no longer trusted everything, like them, to a council of state. He trusted only to himself; and if he freely communicated with some one favorite minister, like the elder Granvelle, and the cardinal, his son, it was in order to be counselled, not to be controlled by their judgments. He patiently informed himself of public affairs; and when foreign envoys had their audiences of him, they were surprised to find him possessed of everything relating to their own courts and the objects of their mission.

Yet he did not seem to be quick of apprehension, or, to speak more correctly, he was slow in arriving at his results. He would keep the courier waiting for days before he could come to a decision. When he did come to it, no person on earth could shake it. Talking one day with the Venetian Contarini about this habit of his mind, the courtly minister remarked, that "it was not obstinacy to adhere to sound opinions." "True," said Charles, "but I sometimes adhere to those that are unsound."[349]

His indefatigable activity both of mind and body formed a strong contrast to the lethargy of early years. His widely scattered empire, spreading over the Low Countries, Spain, Germany, and the New World, presented embarrassments which most princes would have found it impossible to overcome. At least they would have been compelled to govern, in a great measure, by deputy,--to transact their business by agents. But Charles chose to do everything himself,--to devise his own plans, and to execute them in person. The number of his journeys by land and by water, as noticed in his farewell address, is truly wonderful; for that was not the day of steamboats and railways. He seemed to lead the life of a courier. But it was for no trivial object that he made these expeditions. He knew where his presence was needed; and his promptness and punctuality brought him, at the right time, on the right spot. No spot in his broad empire was far removed from him. He seemed to possess the power of ubiquity.

The consciousness of his own strength roused to a flame the spark of ambition which had hitherto slept in his bosom. His schemes were so vast, that it was a common opinion he aspired to universal monarchy. Like his grandfather, Ferdinand, and his own son, Philip, he threw over his schemes the cloak of religion. Or, to deal with him more fairly, religious principle probably combined with personal policy to determine his career. He seemed always ready to do battle for the Cross. He affected to identify the cause of Spain with the cause of Christendom. He marched against the Turks, and stayed the tide of Ottoman inroad in Hungary. He marched against the Protestants, and discomfited their armies in the heart of Germany. He crossed the Mediterranean, and humbled the Crescent at Algiers. He threw himself on the honor of Francis, and travelled through France to take vengeance on the rebels of Flanders. He twice entered France as an enemy, and marched up to the gates of Paris. Instead of the modest legend on his maiden shield; he now assumed the proud motto, "Plus ultra;" and he vindicated his right to it, by sending his fleets across the ocean, and by planting the banner of Castile on the distant shores of the Pacific. In these enterprises he was generally successful. His success led him to rely still more on himself. "Myself and the lucky moment," was his favorite saying. The "star of Austria," was still a proverb. It was not till the evening of life that he complained of the fickleness of fortune; that his star, as it descended to the horizon, was obscured by clouds and darkness.

Thus Charles's nerves were kept in a state of perpetual excitement. No wonder that his health should have sunk under it; like a plant forced by extraordinary stimulants to an unnatural production at the expense of its own vitality.

His habits were not all of them the most conducive to health. He slept usually only four hours; too short a time to repair the waste caused by incessant toil.[350] His phlegmatic temperament did not incline him to excess. Yet there was one excess of which he was guilty,--the indulgence of his appetite to a degree most pernicious to his health. A Venetian contemporary tells us, that, before rising in the morning, potted capon was usually served to him, dressed with sugar, milk, and spices. At noon he dined on a variety of dishes. Soon after vespers he took another meal; and later in the evening supped heartily on anchovies, or some other gross and savory food of which he was particularly fond.[351] On one occasion, complaining to his maître d'hôtel that the cook sent him nothing but dishes too insipid and tasteless to be eaten, the perplexed functionary, knowing Charles's passion for timepieces, replied, that "he did not know what he could do, unless it were to serve his majesty a ragout of watches!" The witticism had one good effect, that of provoking a hearty laugh from the emperor,--a thing rarely witnessed in his latter days.[352]

It was in vain that Cardinal Loaysa, his confessor, remonstrated, with an independence that does him credit, against his master's indulgence of his appetite, assuring him that resistance here would do more for his soul than any penance with the scourge.[353] It seems a pity that Charles, considering his propensities, should have so easily obtained absolution from fasts, and that he should not, on the contrary, have transferred some of the penance which he inflicted on his back to the offending part. Even in the monastery of Yuste he still persevered in the same pernicious taste. Anchovies, frogs' legs, and eel-pasties were the dainty morsels with which he chose to be regaled, even before the eyes of his physician. It would not have been amiss for him to have exchanged his solitary repast more frequently for the simpler fare of the refectory.

With these coarser tastes Charles combined many others of a refined and intellectual character. We have seen his fondness for music, and the delight he took in the sister art of design,--especially in the works of Titian. He was painted several times by this great master, and it was by his hand, as we have seen, that he desired to go down to posterity. The emperor had, moreover, another taste, perhaps talent, which, with a different training and in a different sphere of life, might have led him to the craft of authorship.

A curious conversation is reported as having been held by him with Borja, the future saint, during one of the visits paid by the Jesuit to Yuste. Charles inquired of his friend whether it were wrong for a man to write his autobiography, provided he did so honestly, and with no motive of vanity. He said that he had written his own memoirs, not from the desire of self-glorification, but to correct manifold mistakes which had been circulated of his doings, and to set his conduct in a true light.[354] One might be curious to know the answer, which is not given, of the good father to this question. It is to be hoped that it was not of a kind to induce the emperor to destroy the manuscript, which has never come to light.

However this may be, there is no reason to doubt that at one period of his life he had compiled a portion of his autobiography. In the imperial household, as I have already noticed, was a Flemish scholar, William Van Male, or Malinæus, as he is called in Latin, who, under the title of gentleman of the chamber, wrote many a long letter for Charles, while standing by his bedside, and read many a weary hour to him after the monarch had gone to rest,--not, as it would seem, to sleep.[355] This personage tells us that Charles, when sailing on the Rhine, wrote an account of his expeditions to as late a date as 1550.[356] This is not very definite. Any account written under such circumstances, and in so short a time, could be nothing but a sketch of the most general kind. Yet Van Male assures us that he had read the manuscript, which he commends for its terse and elegant diction; and he proposes to make a Latin version of it, the style of which should combine the separate merits of Tacitus, Livy, Suetonius, and Cæsar![357] The admiring chamberlain laments that, instead of giving it to the world, Charles should keep it jealously secured under lock and key.[358]

The emperor's taste for authorship showed itself also in another form. This was by the translation of the "Chevalier Délibéré," a French poem then popular, celebrating the court of his ancestor, Charles the Bold of Burgundy. Van Male, who seems to have done for Charles the Fifth what Voltaire did for Frederick, when he spoke of himself as washing the king's dirty linen, was employed also to overlook this translation, which he pronounces to have possessed great merit in regard to idiom and selection of language. The emperor then gave it to Acuña, a good poet of the court, to be done into Castilian verse. Thus metamorphosed, he proposed to give the copy to Van Male. A mischievous wag, Avila the historian, assured the emperor that it could not be worth less than five hundred gold crowns to that functionary. "And William is well entitled to them," said the monarch, "for he has sweat much over the work."[359] Two thousand copies were forthwith ordered to be printed of the poem, which was to come out anonymously. Poor Van Male, who took a very different view of the profits, and thought that nothing was certain but the cost of the edition, would have excused himself from this proof of his master's liberality. It was all in vain; Charles was not to be balked in his generous purpose; and, without a line to propitiate the public favor, by stating in the preface the share of the royal hand in the composition, it was ushered into the world.[360]

Whatever Charles may have done in the way of an autobiography, he was certainly not indifferent to posthumous fame. He knew that the greatest name must soon pass into oblivion, unless embalmed in the song of the bard or the page of the chronicler. He looked for a chronicler to do for him with his pen what Titian had done for him with his pencil,--exhibit him in his true proportions, and in a permanent form, to the eye of posterity! In this he does not seem to have been so much under the influence of vanity as of a natural desire to have his character and conduct placed in a fair point of view,--what seemed to him to be such,--for the contemplation or criticism of mankind.

[Sidenote: HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.]

The person whom the emperor selected for this delicate office was the learned Sepulveda. Sleidan he condemned as a slanderer; and Giovio, who had taken the other extreme, and written of him with what he called the "golden pen" of history, he no less condemned as a flatterer.[361] Charles encouraged Sepulveda to apply to him for information on matters relating to his government. But when requested by the historian to listen to what he had written, the emperor refused. "I will neither hear nor read," he replied, "what you have said of me. Others may do this when I am gone. But if you wish for information on any point, I shall be always ready to give it to you."[362] A history thus compiled was of the nature of an autobiography, and must be considered, therefore, as entitled to much the same confidence, and open to the same objections, as that kind of writing. Sepulveda was one of the few who had repeated access to Charles in his retirement at Yuste;[363] and the monarch testified his regard for him, by directing that particular care be taken that no harm should come to the historian's manuscript before it was committed to the press.[364]

Such are some of the most interesting traits and personal anecdotes I have been able to collect of the man who, for nearly forty years, ruled over an empire more vast, with an authority more absolute, than any monarch since the days of Charlemagne. It may be thought strange that I should have omitted to notice one feature in his character, the most prominent in the line from which he was descended, at least on the mother's side,--his bigotry. But in Charles this was less conspicuous than in many others of his house; and while he sat upon the throne, the extent to which his religious principles were held in subordination by his political, suggests a much closer parallel to the policy of his grandfather, Ferdinand the Catholic, than to that of his son, Philip the Second, or of his imbecile grandson, Philip the Third.

But the religious gloom which hung over Charles's mind took the deeper tinge of fanaticism after he had withdrawn to the monastery of Yuste. With his dying words, as we have seen, he bequeathed the Inquisition as a precious legacy to his son. In like manner, he endeavored to cherish in the Regent Joanna's bosom the spirit of persecution.[365] And if it were true, as his biographer assures us, that Charles expressed a regret that he had respected the safe-conduct of Luther,[366] the world had little reason to mourn that he exchanged the sword and the sceptre for the breviary of the friar,--the throne of the Cæsars for his monastic retreat among the wilds of Estremadura.

* * * * *

The preceding chapter was written in the summer of 1851, a year before the appearance of Stirling's "Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth," which led the way in that brilliant series of works from the pens of Amédée Pichot, Mignet, and Gachard, which has made the darkest recesses of Yuste as light as day. The publication of these works has deprived my account of whatever novelty it might have possessed, since it rests on a similar basis with theirs, namely, original documents in the Archives of Simancas. Yet the important influence which Charles exerted over the management of affairs, even in his monastic retreat, has made it impossible to dispense with the chapter. On the contrary, I have profited by these recent publications to make sundry additions, which may readily be discovered by the reader, from the references I have been careful to make to the sources whence they are derived.

The public has been hitherto indebted for its knowledge of the reign of Charles the Fifth to Robertson,--a writer who, combining a truly philosophical spirit with an acute perception of character, is recommended, moreover, by a classic elegance of style which has justly given him a preëminence among the historians of the great emperor. But in his account of the latter days of Charles, Robertson mainly relies on commonplace authorities, whose information, gathered at second hand, is far from being trustworthy,--as is proved by the contradictory tenor of such authentic documents as the letters of Charles himself, with those of his own followers, and the narratives of the brotherhood of Yuste. These documents are, for the most part, to be found in the Archives of Simancas, where, in Robertson's time, they were guarded, with the vigilance of a Turkish harem, against all intrusion of native as well as foreigner. It was not until very recently, in 1844, that the more liberal disposition of the government allowed the gates to be unbarred which had been closed for centuries; and then, for the first time, the student might be seen toiling in the dusty alcoves of Simancas, and busily exploring the long-buried memorials of the past. It was at this period that my friend, Don Pascual de Gayangos, having obtained authority from the government, passed some weeks at Simancas in collecting materials, some of which have formed the groundwork of the preceding chapter.

While the manuscripts of Simancas were thus hidden from the world, a learned keeper of the archives, Don Tomas Gonzalez, discontented with the unworthy view which had been given of the latter days of Charles the Fifth, had profited by the materials which lay around him, to exhibit his life at Yuste in a new and more authentic light. To the volume which he compiled for this purpose he gave the title of "Retiro, Estancia, y Muerte del Emperador Carlos Quinto en el Monasterio de Yuste." The work, the principal value of which consists in the copious extracts with which it is furnished from the correspondence of Charles and his household, was suffered by the author to remain in manuscript; and, at his death, it passed into the hands of his brother, who prepared a summary of its contents, and endeavored to dispose of the volume at a price so exorbitant that it remained for many years without a purchaser. It was finally bought by the French government at a greatly reduced price,--for four thousand francs. It may seem strange that it should have even brought this sum, since the time of the sale was that in which the new arrangements were made for giving admission to the archives that contained the original documents on which the Gonzalez MS. was founded. The work thus bought by the French government was transferred to the Archives des Affaires Etrangères, then under the direction of M. Mignet. The manuscript could not be in better hands than those of a scholar who has so successfully carried the torch of criticism into some of the darkest passages of Spanish history. His occupations, however, took him in another direction; and for eight years the Gonzalez MS. remained as completely hidden from the world in the Parisian archives as it had been in those of Simancas. When, at length, it was applied to the historical uses for which it had been intended, it was through the agency, not of a French, but of a British writer. This was Mr. Stirling, the author of the "Annals of the Artists of Spain,"--a work honorable to its author for the familiarity it shows, not only with the state of the arts in that country, but also with its literature.

[Sidenote: MEMOIRS OF CHARLES.]

Mr. Stirling, during a visit to the Peninsula, in 1849, made a pilgrimage to Yuste; and the traditions and hoary reminiscences gathered round the spot left such an impression on the traveller's mind, that, on his return to England, he made them the subject of two elaborate papers in Fraser's Magazine, in the numbers for April and May, 1851. Although these spirited essays rested wholly on printed works, which had long been accessible to the scholar, they were found to contain many new and highly interesting details; showing how superficially Mr.

Stirling's predecessors had examined the records of the emperor's residence at Yuste. Still, in his account the author had omitted the most important feature of Charles's monastic life,--the influence which he exercised on the administration of the kingdom. This was to be gathered from the manuscripts of Simancas.

Mr. Stirling, who through that inexhaustible repository, the Handbook of Spain, had become acquainted with the existence of the Gonzalez MS., was, at the time of writing his essays, ignorant of its fate. On learning, afterwards, where it was to be found, he visited Paris, and, having obtained access to the volume, so far profited by its contents as to make them the basis of a separate work, which he entitled "The Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth." It soon attracted the attention of scholars, both at home and abroad, went through several editions, and was received, in short, with an avidity which showed both the importance attached to the developments the author had made, and the highly attractive form in which he had presented them to the reader.

The Parisian scholars were now stimulated to turn to account the treasure which had remained so long neglected on their shelves. In 1854, less than two years after the appearance of Mr. Stirling's book, M. Amédée Pichot published his "Chronique de Charles-Quint," a work which, far from being confined to the latter days of the emperor, covers the whole range of his biography, presenting a large amount of information in regard to his personal habits, as well as to the interior organization of his government, and the policy which directed it. The whole is enriched, moreover, by a multitude of historical incidents, which may be regarded rather as subsidiary than essential to the conduct of the narrative, which is enlivened by much ingenious criticism on the state of manners, arts, and moral culture of the period.

It was not long after the appearance of this work that M. Gachard, whom I have elsewhere noticed as having been commissioned by the Belgian government to make extensive researches in the Archives of Simancas, gave to the public some of the fruits of his labors, in the first volume of his "Retraite et Mort de Charles-Quint." It is devoted to the letters of the emperor and his household, which form the staple of the Gonzalez MS.; thus placing at the disposition of the future biographer of Charles the original materials with which to reconstruct the history of his latter days.

Lastly came the work, long expected, of M. Mignet, "Charles-Quint; son Abdication, son Séjour, et sa Mort au Monastère de Yuste." It was the reproduction, in a more extended and elaborate form, of a series of papers, the first of which appeared shortly after the publication of Mr. Stirling's book. In this work the French author takes the clear and comprehensive view of his subject so characteristic of his genius. The difficult and debatable points he discusses with acuteness and precision; and the whole story of Charles's monastic life he presents in so luminous an aspect to the reader as leaves nothing further to be desired.

The critic may take some interest in comparing the different manners in which the several writers have dealt with the subject, each according to his own taste, or the bent of his genius. Thus through Stirling's more free and familiar narrative there runs a pleasant vein of humor, with piquancy enough to give it relish, showing the author's sensibility to the ludicrous, for which Charles's stingy habits, and excessive love of good cheer, even in the convent, furnish frequent occasion.

Quite a different conception is formed by Mignet of the emperor's character, which he has cast in the true heroic mould, not deigning to recognize a single defect, however slight, which may at all impair the majesty of the proportions. Finally, Amédée Pichot, instead of the classical, may be said to have conformed to the romantic school in the arrangement of his subject, indulging in various picturesque episodes, which he has, however, combined so successfully with the main body of the narrative as not to impair the unity of interest.

Whatever may be thought of the comparative merits of these eminent writers in the execution of their task, the effect of their labors has undoubtedly been to make that the plainest which was before the most obscure portion of the history of Charles the Fifth.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

I. VIEW OF THE NETHERLANDS

Civil Institutions.--Commercial Prosperity.--Character of the People.--Protestant Doctrines.--Persecution by Charles the Fifth.

We have now come to that portion of the narrative which seems to be rather in the nature of an episode, than part and parcel of our history; though from its magnitude and importance it is better entitled to be treated as an independent history by itself. This is the War of the Netherlands; opening the way to that great series of revolutions, the most splendid example of which is furnished by our own happy land. Before entering on this vast theme, it will be well to give a brief view of the country which forms the subject of it.

At the accession of Philip the Second, about the middle of the sixteenth century, the Netherlands, or Flanders, as the country was then usually called,[367] comprehended seventeen provinces, occupying much the same territory, but somewhat abridged, with that included in the present kingdoms of Holland and Belgium.[368] These provinces, under the various denominations of duchies, counties, and lordships, formed anciently so many separate states, each under the rule of its respective prince. Even when two or three of them, as sometimes happened, were brought together under one sceptre, each still maintained its own independent existence. In their institutions these states bore great resemblance to one another, and especially in the extent of the immunities conceded to the citizens as compared with those enjoyed in most of the countries of Christendom. No tax could be imposed, without the consent of an assembly consisting of the clergy, the nobles, and the representatives of the towns. No foreigner was eligible to office, and the native of one province was regarded as a foreigner by every other. These were insisted on as inalienable rights, although in later times none were more frequently disregarded by the rulers.[369]

[Sidenote: THEIR CIVIL INSTITUTIONS.]

The condition of the commons in the Netherlands, during the Middle Ages, was far in advance of what it was in most other European countries at the same period. For this they were indebted to the character of the people, or rather to the peculiar circumstances which formed that character. Occupying a soil which had been redeemed with infinite toil and perseverance from the waters, their life was passed in perpetual struggle with the elements. They were early familiarized to the dangers of the ocean. The Flemish mariner was distinguished for the intrepid spirit with which he pushed his voyages into distant and unknown seas. An extended commerce opened to him a wide range of observation and experience; and to the bold and hardy character of the ancient Netherlander was added a spirit of enterprise, with such enlarged and liberal views as fitted him for taking part in the great concerns of the community. Villages and towns grew up rapidly. Wealth flowed in from this commercial activity, and the assistance which these little communities were thus enabled to afford their princes drew from the latter the concession of important political privileges, which established the independence of the citizen.

The tendency of things, however, was still to maintain the distinct individuality of the provinces, rather than to unite them into a common political body. They were peopled by different races, speaking different languages. In some of the provinces French was spoken, in others a dialect of the German. Their position, moreover, had often brought these petty states into rivalry, and sometimes into open war, with one another. The effects of these feuds continued after the causes of them had passed away; and mutual animosities still lingered in the breasts of the inhabitants, operating as a permanent source of disunion.

From these causes, after the greater part of the provinces had been brought together under the sceptre of the ducal house of Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, it was found impossible to fuse them into one nation. Even Charles the Fifth, with all his power and personal influence, found himself unequal to the task.[370] He was obliged to relinquish the idea of consolidating the different states into one monarchy, and to content himself with the position--not too grateful to a Spanish despot--of head of a republic, or, to speak more properly, of a confederacy of republics.

There was, however, some approach made to a national unity in the institution which grew up after the states were brought together under one sceptre. Thus, while each of the provinces maintained its own courts of justice, there was a supreme tribunal established at Mechlin, with appellate jurisdiction over all the provincial tribunals. In like manner, while each state had its own legislative assembly, there were the states-general, consisting of the clergy, the nobles, and the representatives of the towns, from each of the provinces. In this assembly--but rarely convened--were discussed the great questions having reference to the interests of the whole country. But the assembly was vested with no legislative authority. It could go no further than to present petitions to the sovereign for the redress of grievances. It possessed no right beyond the right of remonstrance. Even in questions of taxation, no subsidy could be settled in that body, without the express sanction of each of the provincial legislatures. Such a form of government, it must be admitted, was altogether too cumbrous in its operations for efficient executive movement. It was by means favorable to the promptness and energy demanded for military enterprise. But it was a government which, however ill-suited in this respect to the temper of Charles the Fifth, was well suited to the genius of the inhabitants, and to their circumstances, which demanded peace. They had no ambition for foreign conquest. By the arts of peace they had risen to this unprecedented pitch of prosperity, and by peace alone, not by war, could they hope to maintain it.

But under the long rule of the Burgundian princes, and still more under that of Charles the Fifth, the people of the Netherlands felt the influence of those circumstances which in other parts of Europe were gradually compelling the popular, or rather the feudal element, to give way to the spirit of centralization. Thus in time the sovereign claimed the right of nominating all the higher clergy. In some instances he appointed the judges of the provincial courts; and the supreme tribunal of Mechlin was so far dependent on his authority, that all the judges were named and their salaries paid by the crown. The sovereign's authority was even stretched so far as to interfere not unfrequently with the rights exercised by the citizens in the election of their own magistrates,--rights that should have been cherished by them as of the last importance. As for the nobles, we cannot over-estimate the ascendancy which the master of an empire like that of Charles the Fifth must have obtained over men to whom he could open such boundless prospects in the career of ambition.[371]

But the personal character and the peculiar position of Charles tended still further to enlarge the royal authority. He was a Fleming by birth. He had all the tastes and habits of a Fleming. His early days had been passed in Flanders, and he loved to return to his native land as often as his busy life would permit him, and to seek in the free and joyous society of the Flemish capitals some relief from the solemn ceremonial of the Castilian court. This preference of their lord was repaid by the people of the Netherlands with feelings of loyal devotion.

[Sidenote: THEIR COMMERCIAL PROSPERITY.]

But they had reason for feelings of deeper gratitude in the substantial benefits which the favor of Charles secured to them. It was for Flemings that the highest posts even in Spain were reserved, and the marked preference thus shown by the emperor to his countrymen was one great source of the troubles in Castile. The soldiers of the Netherlands accompanied Charles on his military expeditions, and their cavalry had the reputation of being the best appointed and best disciplined in the imperial army. The vast extent of his possessions, spreading over every quarter of the globe, offered a boundless range for the commerce of the Netherlands, which was everywhere admitted on the most favorable footing. Notwithstanding his occasional acts of violence and extortion, Charles was too sagacious not to foster the material interests of a country which contributed so essentially to his own resources. Under his protecting policy, the industry and ingenuity of the Flemings found ample scope in the various departments of husbandry, manufactures, and trade. The country was as thickly studded with large towns as other countries were with villages. In the middle of the sixteenth century it was computed to contain above three hundred and fifty cities, and more than six thousand three hundred towns of a smaller size.[372] These towns were not the resort of monks and mendicants, as in other parts of the Continent, but they swarmed with a busy, laborious population. No man ate the bread of idleness in the Netherlands. At the period with which we are occupied Ghent counted 70,000 inhabitants, Brussels 75,000, and Antwerp 100,000. This was at a period when London itself contained but 150,000.[373]

The country, fertilized by its countless canals and sluices, exhibited everywhere that minute and patient cultivation which distinguishes it at the present day, but which in the middle of the sixteenth century had no parallel but in the lands tilled by the Moorish inhabitants of the south of Spain. The ingenious spirit of the people was shown in their dexterity in the mechanical arts, and in the talent for invention which seems to be characteristic of a people accustomed from infancy to the unfettered exercise of their faculties. The processes for simplifying labor were carried so far, that children, as we are assured, began, at four or five years of age, to earn a livelihood.[374] Each of the principal cities became noted for its excellence in some branch or other of manufacture. Lille was known for its woollen cloths, Brussels for its tapestry and carpets, Valenciennes for its camlets, while the towns of Holland and Zealand furnished a simpler staple in the form of cheese, butter, and salted fish.[375] These various commodities were exhibited at the great fairs held twice a year, for the space of twenty days each, at Antwerp, which were thronged by foreigners as well as natives.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Flemings imported great quantities of wool from England, to be manufactured into cloth at home. But Flemish emigrants had carried that manufacture to England; and in the time of Philip the Second the cloths themselves were imported from the latter country to the amount of above five millions of crowns annually, and exchanged for the domestic products of the Netherlands.[376] This single item of trade with one of their neighbors may suggest some notion of the extent of the commerce of the Low Countries at this period.

But in truth the commerce of the country stretched to the remotest corners of the globe. The inhabitants of the Netherlands, trained from early youth to battle with the waves, found their true element on the ocean. "As much as Nature," says an enthusiastic writer, "restricted their domain on the land, so much the more did they extend their empire on the deep."[377] Their fleets were to be found on every sea. In the Euxine and in the Mediterranean they were rivals of the Venetian and the Genoese, and they contended with the English, and even with the Spaniards, for superiority on the "narrow seas" and the great ocean.

The wealth which flowed into the country from this extended trade was soon shown in the crowded population of its provinces and the splendor of their capitals. At the head of these stood the city of Antwerp, which occupied the place in the sixteenth century that Bruges had occupied in the fifteenth, as the commercial metropolis of the Netherlands. Two hundred and fifty vessels might often be seen at the same time taking in their cargoes at her quays.[378] Two thousand loaded wagons from the neighboring countries of France, Germany, and Lorraine daily passed through her gates;[379] and a greater number of vessels, freighted with merchandise from different quarters of the world, were to be seen floating at the same time on the waters of the Scheldt.[380]

The city, in common with the rest of Brabant, was distinguished by certain political privileges, which commended it as a place of residence even to foreigners. Women of the other provinces, it is said, when the time of their confinement drew near, would come to Brabant, that their offspring might claim the franchises of this favored portion of the Netherlands.[381] So jealous were the people of this province of their liberties, that in their oath of allegiance to their sovereign, on his accession, it was provided that this allegiance might lawfully be withheld whenever he ceased to respect their privileges.[382]

Under the shelter of its municipal rights, foreigners settled in great numbers in Antwerp. The English established a factory there. There was also a Portuguese company, an Italian company, a company of merchants from the Hanse Towns, and, lastly, a Turkish company, which took up its residence there for the purpose of pursuing a trade with the Levant. A great traffic was carried on in bills of exchange. Antwerp, in short, became the banking-house of Europe; and capitalists, the Rothschilds of their day, whose dealings were with sovereign princes, fixed their abode in Antwerp, which was to the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century what London is in the nineteenth,--the great heart of commercial circulation.[383]

[Sidenote: PROTESTANT DOCTRINES]

In 1531, the public Exchange was erected, the finest building of its kind at that time anywhere to be seen. The city, indeed, was filled with stately edifices, the largest of which, the great cathedral, having been nearly destroyed by fire, soon after the opening of the Exchange, was rebuilt, and still remains a noble specimen of the architectural science of the time. Another age was to see the walls of the same cathedral adorned with those exquisite productions of Rubens and his disciples, which raised the Flemish school to a level with the great Italian masters.

The rapidly increasing opulence of the city was visible in the luxurious accommodations and sumptuous way of living of the inhabitants. The merchants of Antwerp rivalled the nobles of other lands in the splendor of their dress and domestic establishments. Something of the same sort showed itself in the middle classes; and even in those of humbler condition, there was a comfort approaching to luxury in their households, which attracted the notice of an Italian writer of the sixteenth century. He commends the scrupulous regard to order and cleanliness observed in the arrangement of the dwellings, and expresses his admiration, not only of the careful attention given by the women to their domestic duties, but also of their singular capacity for conducting those business affairs usually reserved for the other sex. This was particularly the case in Holland.[384] But this freedom of intercourse was no disparagement to their feminine qualities. The liberty they assumed did not degenerate into licence; and he concludes his animated portraiture of these Flemish matrons by pronouncing them as discreet as they were beautiful.

The humbler classes, in so abject a condition in other parts of Europe at that day, felt the good effects of this general progress in comfort and civilization. It was rare to find one, we are told, so illiterate as not to be acquainted with the rudiments of grammar; and there was scarcely a peasant who could not both read and write;[385]--this at a time when to read and write were accomplishments not always possessed, in other countries, by those even in the higher walks of life.

It was not possible that a people so well advanced in the elements of civilization should long remain insensible to the great religious reform which, having risen on their borders, was now rapidly spreading over Christendom. Besides the contiguity of the Netherlands to Germany, their commerce with other countries had introduced them to Protestantism as it existed there. The foreign residents, and the Swiss and German mercenaries quartered in the provinces, had imported along with them these same principles of the Reformation; and lastly the Flemish nobles, who, at that time, were much in the fashion of going abroad to study in Geneva, returned from that stronghold of Calvin well fortified with the doctrines of the great Reformer.[386] Thus the seeds of the Reformation, whether in the Lutheran or the Calvinistic form, were scattered wide over the land, and took root in a congenial soil. The phlegmatic temperament of the northern provinces, especially, disposed them to receive a religion which addressed itself so exclusively to the reason, while they were less open to the influences of Catholicism, which, with its gorgeous accessories, appealing to the passions, is better suited to the lively sensibilities and kindling imaginations of the south.

It is not to be supposed that Charles the Fifth could long remain insensible to this alarming defection of his subjects in the Netherlands; nor that the man whose life was passed in battling with the Lutherans of Germany could patiently submit to see their detested heresy taking root in his own dominions. He dreaded this innovation no less in a temporal than in a spiritual view. Experience had shown that freedom of speculation in affairs of religion naturally led to free inquiry into political abuses; that the work of the reformer was never accomplished so long as anything remained to reform, in state as well as in church. Charles, with the instinct of Spanish despotism, sought a remedy in one of those acts of arbitrary power in which he indulged without scruple when the occasion called for them.

In March, 1520, he published the first of his barbarous edicts for the suppression of the new faith. It was followed by several others of the same tenor, repeated at intervals throughout his reign. The last appeared in September, 1550.[387] As this in a manner suspended those that had preceded it, to which, however, it substantially conformed, and as it became the basis of Philip's subsequent legislation, it will be well to recite its chief provisions.

By this edict, or "placard," as it was called, it was ordained that all who were convicted of heresy should suffer death "by fire, by the pit, or by the sword;"[388] in other words, should be burned alive, be buried alive, or be beheaded. These terrible penalties were incurred by all who dealt in heretical books, or copied or bought them, by all who held or attended conventicles, by all who disputed on the Scriptures in public or private, by all who preached or defended the doctrines of reform. Informers were encouraged by the promise of one half of the confiscated estate of the heretic. No suspected person was allowed to make any donation, or sell any of his effects, or dispose of them by will. Finally, the courts were instructed to grant no remission or mitigation of punishment under the fallacious idea of mercy to the convicted party, and it was made penal for the friends of the accused to solicit such indulgence on his behalf.[389]

The more thoroughly to enforce these edicts, Charles took a hint from the terrible tribunal with which he was familiar in Spain,--the Inquisition. He obtained a bull from his old preceptor, Adrian the Sixth, appointing an inquisitor-general, who had authority to examine persons suspected of heresy, to imprison and torture them, to confiscate their property, and finally sentence them to banishment or death. These formidable powers were intrusted to a layman,--a lawyer of eminence, and one of the council of Brabant. But this zealous functionary employed his authority with so good effect, that it speedily roused the general indignation of his countrymen, who compelled him to fly for his life.

By another bull from Rome, four inquisitors were appointed in the place of the fugitive. These inquisitors were ecclesiastics, not of the fierce Dominican order, as in Spain, but members of the secular clergy. All public officers were enjoined to aid them in detecting and securing suspected persons, and the common prisons were allotted for the confinement of their victims.

[Sidenote: PERSECUTION BY CHARLES THE FIFTH.]

The people would seem to have gained little by the substitution of four inquisitors for one. But in fact they gained a great deal. The sturdy resistance made to the exercise of the unconstitutional powers of the inquisitor-general compelled Charles to bring those of the new functionaries more within the limits of the law. For twenty years or more their powers seem not to have been well defined. But in 1546 it was decreed that no sentence whatever could be pronounced by an inquisitor without the sanction of some member of the provincial council. Thus, however barbarous the law against heresy, the people of the Netherlands had this security, that it was only by their own regular courts of justice that this law was to be interpreted and enforced.[390]

Such were the expedients adopted by Charles the Fifth for the suppression of heresy in the Netherlands. Notwithstanding the name of "inquisitors," the new establishment bore faint resemblance to the dread tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, with which it has been often confounded.[391] The Holy Office presented a vast and complicated machinery, skilfully adapted to the existing institutions of Castile. It may be said to have formed part of the government itself, and, however restricted in its original design, it became in time a formidable political engine, no less than a religious one. The grand-inquisitor was clothed with an authority before which the monarch himself might tremble. On some occasions, he even took precedence of the monarch. The courts of the Inquisition were distributed throughout the country, and were conducted with a solemn pomp that belonged to no civil tribunal. Spacious buildings were erected for their accommodation, and the gigantic prisons of the Inquisition rose up, like impregnable fortresses, in the principal cities of the kingdom. A swarm of menials and officials waited to do its bidding. The proudest nobles of the land held it an honor to serve as familiars of the Holy Office. In the midst of this external pomp, the impenetrable veil thrown over its proceedings took strong hold of the imagination, investing the tribunal with a sort of supernatural terror. An individual disappeared from the busy scenes of life. No one knew whither he had gone, till he reappeared, clothed in the fatal garb of the san benito, to take part in the tragic spectacle of an auto da fé. This was the great triumph of the Inquisition, rivalling the ancient Roman triumph in the splendor of the show, and surpassing it in the solemn and mysterious import of the ceremonial. It was hailed with enthusiasm by the fanatical Spaniard of that day, who, in the martyrdom of the infidel, saw only a sacrifice most acceptable to the Deity. The Inquisition succeeded in Spain, for it was suited to the character of the Spaniard.

But it was not suited to the free and independent character of the people of the Netherlands. Freedom of thought they claimed as their birthright; and the attempt to crush it by introducing the pernicious usages of Spain was everywhere received with execration. Such an institution was an accident, and could not become an integral part of the constitution. It was a vicious graft on a healthy stock. It could bear no fruit, and sooner or later it must perish.

Yet the Inquisition, such as it was, did its work while it lasted in the Netherlands. This is true, at least, if we are to receive the popular statement, that fifty thousand persons, in the reign of Charles the Fifth, suffered for their religious opinions by the hand of the executioner![392] This monstrous statement has been repeated by one historian after another, with apparently as little distrust as examination. It affords one among many examples of the facility with which men adopt the most startling results, especially when conveyed in the form of numerical estimates. There is something that strikes the imagination, in a numerical estimate, which settles a question so summarily, in a form so precise and so portable. Yet whoever has had occasion to make any researches into the past,--that land of uncertainty,--will agree that there is nothing less entitled to confidence.

In the present instance, such a statement might seem to carry its own refutation on the face of it. Llorente, the celebrated secretary of the Holy Office, whose estimates will never be accused of falling short of the amount, computes the whole number of victims sacrificed during the first eighteen years of the Inquisition in Castile, when it was in most active operation, at about ten thousand.[393] The storm of persecution there, it will be remembered, fell chiefly on the Jews,--that ill-omened race, from whom every pious Catholic would have rejoiced to see his land purified by fire and fagot. It will hardly be believed that five times the number of these victims perished in a country like the Netherlands, in a term of time not quite double that occupied for their extermination in Spain;--the Netherlands, where every instance of such persecution, instead of being hailed as a triumph of the Cross, was regarded as a fresh outrage on the liberties of the nation. It is not too much to say, that such a number of martyrs as that pretended would have produced an explosion that would have unsettled the authority of Charles himself, and left for his successor less territory in the Netherlands at the beginning of his reign, than he was destined to have at the end of it.

Indeed, the frequent renewal of the edicts, which was repeated no less than nine times during Charles's administration, intimates plainly enough the very sluggish and unsatisfactory manner in which they had been executed. In some provinces, as Luxembourg and Groningen, the Inquisition was not introduced at all. Gueldres stood on its privileges, guaranteed to it by the emperor on his accession. And Brabant so effectually remonstrated on the mischief which the mere name of the Inquisition would do to the trade of the country, and especially of Antwerp, its capital, that the emperor deemed it prudent to qualify some of the provisions, and to drop the name of Inquisitor altogether.[394] There is no way more sure of rousing the sensibilities of a commercial people, than by touching their pockets. Charles did not care to press matters to such extremity. He was too politic a prince, too large a gainer by the prosperity of his people, willingly to put it in peril, even for conscience' sake. In this lay the difference between him and Philip.

[Sidenote: UNPOPULAR MANNERS OF PHILIP.]

Notwithstanding, therefore, his occasional abuse of power, and the little respect he may have had at heart for the civil rights of his subjects, the government of Charles, as already intimated, was on the whole favorable to their commercial interests. He was well repaid by the enlarged resources of the country, and the aid they afforded him for the prosecution of his ambitious enterprises. In the course of a few years, as we are informed by a contemporary, he drew from the Netherlands no less than twenty-four millions of ducats.[395] And this supply--furnished not ungrudgingly, it is true--was lavished, for the most part, on objects in which the nation had no interest. In like manner, it was the revenues of the Netherlands which defrayed great part of Philip's expenses in the war that followed his accession. "Here," exclaims the Venetian envoy, Soriano, "were the true treasures of the king of Spain; here were his mines, his Indies, which furnished Charles with the means of carrying on his wars for so many years with the French, the Germans, the Italians, which provided for the defence of his own states, and maintained his dignity and reputation."[396]

Such then was the condition of the country at the time when the sceptre passed from the hands of Charles the Fifth into those of Philip the Second;--its broad plains teeming with the products of an elaborate culture; its cities swarming with artisans, skilled in all kinds of ingenious handicraft; its commerce abroad on every sea, and bringing back rich returns from distant climes. The great body of its people, well advanced in the arts of civilization, rejoiced in "such abundance of all things," says a foreigner who witnessed their prosperity, "that there was no man, however humble, who did not seem rich for his station."[397] In this active development of their powers, the inquisitive mind of the inhabitants naturally turned to those great problems in religion which were agitating the neighboring countries of France and Germany. All the efforts of Charles were unavailing to check the spirit of inquiry; and in the last year of his reign he bitterly confessed the total failure of his endeavor to stay the progress of heresy in the Netherlands.[398] Well had it been for his successor, had he taken counsel by the failure of his father, and substituted a more lenient policy for the ineffectual system of persecution. But such was not the policy of Philip.

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II. SYSTEM ESTABLISHED BY PHILIP

Unpopular Manners of Philip.--He enforces the Edicts.--Increase of Bishoprics.--Margaret of Parma Regent.--Meeting of the States-General.--Their spirited Conduct.--Organization of the Councils.--Rise and Character of Granvelle.--Philip's Departure.

1559.

Philip the Second was no stranger to the Netherlands. He had come there, as it will be remembered, when very young, to be presented by his father to his future subjects. On that occasion he had greatly disgusted the people by that impenetrable reserve which they construed into haughtiness, and which strongly contrasted with the gracious manners of the emperor. Charles saw with pain the impression which his son had left on his subjects; and the effects of his paternal admonitions were visible in a marked change in Philip's deportment on his subsequent visit to England. But nature lies deeper than manner; and when Philip returned, on his father's abdication, to assume the sovereignty of the Netherlands, he wore the same frigid exterior as in earlier days.

His first step was to visit the different provinces, and receive from them their oaths of allegiance. No better occasion could be offered for conciliating the good-will of the inhabitants. Everywhere his approach was greeted with festivities and public rejoicing. The gates of the capitals were thrown open to receive him, and the population thronged out, eager to do homage to their new sovereign. It was a season of jubilee for the whole nation.

In this general rejoicing, Philip's eye alone remained dark.[399] Shut up in his carriage, he seemed desirous to seclude himself from the gaze of his new subjects, who crowded around, anxious to catch a glimpse of their young monarch.[400] His conduct seemed like a rebuke of their enthusiasm. Thus chilled as they were in the first flow of their loyalty, his progress through the land, which should have won him all hearts, closed all hearts against him.

The emperor, when he visited the Netherlands, was like one coming back to his native country. He spoke the language of the people, dressed in their dress, conformed to their usages and way of life. But Philip was in everything a Spaniard. He spoke only the Castilian. He adopted the Spanish etiquette and burdensome ceremonial. He was surrounded by Spaniards, and, with few exceptions, it was to Spaniards only that he gave his confidence. Charles had disgusted his Spanish subjects by the marked preference he had given to his Flemish. The reverse now took place, and Philip displeased the Flemings by his partiality for the Spaniards. The people of the Netherlands felt with bitterness that the sceptre of their country had passed into the hands of a foreigner.

During his progress Philip caused reports to be prepared for him of the condition of the several provinces, their population and trade,--presenting a mass of statistical details, in which, with his usual industry, he was careful to instruct himself. On his return, his first concern was to provide for the interests of religion. He renewed his father's edicts relating to the Inquisition, and in the following year confirmed the "placard" respecting heresy. In doing this, he was careful, by the politic advice of Granvelle, to conform as nearly as possible to the language of the original edicts, that no charge of innovation might be laid to him, and thus the odium of these unpopular measures might remain with their original author.[401]

[Sidenote: UNPOPULAR MANNERS OF PHILIP.]

But the object which Philip had most at heart was a reform much needed in the ecclesiastical establishment of the country. It may seem strange that in all the Netherlands there were but three bishoprics,--Arras, Tournay, and Utrecht. A large part of the country was incorporated with some one or other of the contiguous German dioceses. The Flemish bishoprics were of enormous extent. That of Utrecht alone embraced no less than three hundred walled towns, and eleven hundred churches.[402] It was impossible that any pastor, however diligent, could provide for the wants of a flock so widely scattered, or that he could exercise supervision over the clergy themselves, who had fallen into a lamentable decay both of discipline and morals.

Still greater evils followed from the circumstance of the episcopal authority's being intrusted to foreigners. From their ignorance of the institutions of the Netherlands, they were perpetually trespassing on the rights of the nation. Another evil consequence was the necessity of carrying up ecclesiastical causes, by way of appeal, to foreign tribunals; a thing, moreover, scarcely practicable in time of war.

Charles the Fifth, whose sagacious mind has left its impress on the permanent legislation of the Netherlands, saw the necessity of some reform in this matter. He accordingly applied to Rome for leave to erect six bishoprics, in addition to those previously existing in the country. But his attention was too much distracted by other objects to allow time for completing his design. With his son Philip, on the other hand, no object was allowed to come in competition with the interests of the Church. He proposed to make the reform on a larger scale than his father had done, and applied to Paul the Fourth for leave to create fourteen bishoprics and three archbishoprics. The chief difficulty lay in providing for the support of the new dignitaries. On consultation with Granvelle, who had not been advised of the scheme till after Philip's application to Rome, it was arranged that the income should be furnished by the abbey lands of the respective dioceses, and that the abbeys themselves should hereafter be placed under the control of priors or provosts depending altogether on the bishops. Meanwhile, until the bulls should be received from Rome, it was determined to keep the matter profoundly secret. It was easy to foresee that a storm of opposition would arise, not only among those immediately interested in preserving the present order of things, but among the great body of the nobles, who would look with an evil eye on the admission into their ranks of so large a number of persons servilely devoted to the interests of the crown.[403]

Having concluded his arrangements for the internal settlement of the country, Philip naturally turned his thoughts towards Spain. He was the more desirous of returning thither from the reports he received, that even that orthodox land was becoming every day more tainted with the heretical doctrines so rife in the neighboring countries. There were no hostilities to detain him longer in the Netherlands, now that the war with France had been brought to a close. The provinces, as we have already stated, had furnished the king with important aid for carrying on that war, by the grant of a stipulated annual tax for nine years. This had not proved equal to his necessities. It was in vain, however, to expect any further concessions from the states. They had borne, not without murmurs, the heavy burdens laid on them by Charles,--a monarch whom they loved. They bore still more impatiently the impositions of a prince whom they loved so little as Philip. Yet the latter seemed ready to make any sacrifice of his permanent interests for such temporary relief as would extricate him from his present embarrassments. His correspondence with Granvelle on the subject, unfolding the suicidal schemes which he submitted to that minister, might form an edifying chapter in the financial history of that day.[404] The difficulty of carrying on the government of the Netherlands in this crippled state of the finances doubtless strengthened the desire of the monarch to return to his native land, where the manners and habits of the people were so much more congenial with his own.

Before leaving the country, it was necessary to provide a suitable person to whom the reins of government might be intrusted. The duke of Savoy, who, since the emperor's abdication, had held the post of regent, was now to return to his own dominions, restored to him by the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. There were several persons who presented themselves for this responsible office in the Netherlands. One of the most prominent was Lamoral, prince of Gavre, count of Egmont, the hero of St. Quentin and of Gravelines. The illustrious house from which he was descended, his chivalrous spirit, his frank and generous bearing, no less than his brilliant military achievements, had made him the idol of the people. There were some who insisted that these achievements inferred rather the successful soldier than the great captain;[405] and that, whatever merit he could boast in the field, it was no proof of his capacity for so important a civil station as that of governor of the Netherlands. Yet it could not be doubted that his nomination would be most acceptable to the people. This did not recommend him to Philip.

Another candidate was Christine, duchess of Lorraine, the king's cousin. The large estates of her house lay in the neighborhood of the Netherlands. She had shown her talent for political affairs by the part she had taken in effecting the arrangements of Cateau-Cambresis. The prince of Orange, lately become a widower, was desirous, it was said, of marrying her daughter. Neither did this prove a recommendation with Philip, who was by no means anxious to raise the house of Orange higher in the scale, still less to intrust it with the destinies of the Netherlands. In a word, the monarch had no mind to confide the regency of the country to any one of its powerful nobles.[406]

The individual on whom the king at length decided to bestow this mark of his confidence was his half-sister, Margaret, duchess of Parma. She was the natural daughter of Charles the Fifth, born about four years before his marriage with Isabella of Portugal. Margaret's mother, Margaret Vander Gheenst, belonged to a noble Flemish house. Her parents both died during her infancy. The little orphan was received into the family of Count Hoogstraten, who, with his wife, reared her with the same tenderness as they did their own offspring. At the age of seventeen she was unfortunate enough to attract the eye of Charles the Fifth, who, then in his twenty-third year, was captivated by the charms of the Flemish maiden. Margaret's virtue was not proof against the seductions of her royal suitor; and the victim of love--or of vanity--became the mother of a child, who received her own name of Margaret.

[Sidenote: MARGARET OF PARMA REGENT.]

The emperor's aunt, then regent of the Netherlands, took charge of the infant; and on the death of that princess, she was taken into the family of the emperor's sister, Mary, queen of Hungary, who succeeded in the regency. Margaret's birth did not long remain a secret; and she received an education suited to the high station she was to occupy in life. When only twelve years of age, the emperor gave her in marriage to Alexander de'Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, some fifteen years older than herself. The ill-fated connection did not subsist long, as, before twelve months had elapsed, it was terminated by the violent death of her husband.

When she had reached the age of womanhood, the hand of the young widow was bestowed, together with the duchies of Parma and Placentia as her dowry, on Ottavio Farnese, grandson of Paul the Third. The bridegroom was but twelve years old. Thus again it was Margaret's misfortune that there should be such disparity between her own age and that of her husband as to exclude anything like sympathy or similarity in their tastes. In the present instance, the boyish years of Ottavio inspired her with a sentiment not very different from contempt, that in later life settled into an indifference in which both parties appear to have shared, and which, as a contemporary remarks with naïveté, was only softened into a kindlier feeling when the husband and wife had been long separated from each other.[407] In truth, Margaret was too ambitious of power to look on her husband in any other light than that of a rival.

In her general demeanor, her air, her gait, she bore great resemblance to her aunt, the regent. Like her, Margaret was excessively fond of hunting, and she followed the chase with an intrepidity that might have daunted the courage of the keenest sportsman. She had but little of the natural softness that belongs to the sex, but in her whole deportment was singularly masculine; so that, to render the words of the historian by a homely phrase, in her woman's dress she seemed like a man in petticoats.[408] As if to add to the illusion, Nature had given her somewhat of a beard; and, to crown the whole, the malady to which she was constitutionally subject was a disease to which women are but rarely liable,--the gout.[409] It was good evidence of her descent from Charles the Fifth.

Though masculine in her appearance, Margaret was not destitute of the kindlier qualities which are the glory of her sex. Her disposition was good; but she relied much on the advice of others, and her more objectionable acts may probably be referred rather to their influence than to any inclination of her own.

Her understanding was excellent, her apprehension quick. She showed much versatility in accommodating herself to the exigencies of her position, as well as adroitness in the management of affairs, which she may have acquired in the schools of Italian politics. In religion she was as orthodox as Philip the Second could desire. The famous Ignatius Loyola had been her confessor in early days. The lessons of humility which he inculcated were not lost on her, as may be inferred from the care she took to perform the ceremony, in Holy Week, of washing the dirty feet--she preferred them in this condition--of twelve poor maidens;[410] outstripping, in this particular, the humility of the pope himself.--Such was the character of Margaret, duchess of Parma, who now, in the thirty-eighth year of her age, was called, at a most critical period, to take the helm of the Netherlands.

The appointment seems to have given equal satisfaction to herself and to her husband, and no objection was made to Philip's purpose of taking back with him to Castile their little son, Alexander Farnese,--a name destined to become in later times so renowned in the Netherlands. The avowed purpose was to give the boy a training suited to his rank, under the eye of Philip; combined with which, according to the historian, was the desire of holding a hostage for the fidelity of Margaret and of her husband, whose dominions in Italy lay contiguous to those of Philip in that country.[411]

Early in June, 1559, Margaret of Parma, having reached the Low Countries, made her entrance in great state into Brussels, where Philip awaited her, surrounded by his whole court of Spanish and Flemish nobles. The duke of Savoy was also present, as well as Margaret's husband, the duke of Parma, then in attendance on Philip. The appointment of Margaret was not distasteful to the people of the Netherlands, for she was their countrywoman, and her early days had been passed amongst them. Her presence was not less welcome to Philip, who looked forward with eagerness to the hour of his departure. His first purpose was to present the new regent to the nation, and for this he summoned a meeting of the States-General at Ghent, in the coming August.

On the twenty-fifth of July, he repaired with his court to this ancient capital, which still smarted under the effects of that chastisement of his father, which, terrible as it was, had not the power to break the spirits of the men of Ghent. The presence of the court was celebrated with public rejoicings, which continued for three days, during which Philip held a chapter of the Golden Fleece for the election of fourteen knights. The ceremony was conducted with the magnificence with which the meetings of this illustrious order were usually celebrated. It was memorable as the last chapter of it ever held.[412] Founded by the dukes of Burgundy, the order of the Golden Fleece drew its members immediately from the nobility of the Netherlands. When the Spanish sovereign, who remained at its head, no more resided in the country, the chapters were discontinued; and the knights derived their appointment from the simple nomination of the monarch.

On the eighth of August, the States-General assembled at Ghent. The sturdy burghers who took their seats in this body came thither in no very friendly temper to the government. Various subjects of complaint had long been rankling in their bosoms, and now found vent in the form of animated and angry debate. The people had been greatly alarmed by the avowed policy of their rulers to persevere in the system of religious persecution, as shown especially by the revival of the ancient edicts against heresy and in support of the Inquisition. Rumors had gone abroad, probably with exaggeration, of the proposed episcopal reforms. However necessary, they were now regarded only as part of the great scheme of persecution. Different nations, it was urged, required to be guided by different laws. What suited the Spaniards would not for that reason suit the people of the Netherlands. The Inquisition was ill adapted to men accustomed from their cradles to freedom of thought and action. Persecution was not to be justified in matters of conscience, and men were not to be reclaimed from spiritual error by violence, but by gentleness and persuasion.

[Sidenote: MEETING OF THE STATES-GENERAL.]

But what most called forth the invective of the Flemish orators was the presence of a large body of foreign troops in the country. When Philip disbanded his forces after the French war had terminated, there still remained a corps of the old Spanish infantry, amounting to some three or four thousands, which he thought proper to retain in the western provinces. His avowed object was to protect the country from any violence on the part of the French. Another reason assigned by him was the difficulty of raising funds to pay their arrears. The true motive, in the opinion of the states, was to enforce the execution of the new measures, and overcome any resistance that might be made in the country. These troops, like most of the soldiers of that day, who served for plunder quite as much as for pay, had as little respect for the rights or the property of their allies, as for those of their enemies. They quartered themselves on the peaceful inhabitants of the country, and obtained full compensation for loss of pay by a system of rapine and extortion that beggared the people, and drove them to desperation. Conflicts with the soldiery occasionally occurred, and in some parts the peasantry even refused to repair the dikes, in order to lay the country under water rather than submit to such outrages! "How is it," exclaimed the bold syndic of Ghent, "that we find foreign soldiers thus quartered on us, in open violation of our liberties? Are not our own troops able to protect us from the dangers of invasion? Must we be ground to the dust by the exactions of these mercenaries in peace, after being burdened with the maintenance of them in war?" These remonstrances were followed by a petition to the throne, signed by members of the other orders as well as the commons, requesting that the king would be graciously pleased to respect the privileges of the nation, and send back the foreign troops to their own homes.

Philip, who sat in the assembly with his sister, the future regent, by his side, was not prepared for this independent spirit in the burghers of the Netherlands. The royal ear had been little accustomed to this strain of invective from the subject. For it was rare that the tone of remonstrance was heard in the halls of Castilian legislation, since the power of the commons had been broken on the field of Villalar. Unable or unwilling to conceal his displeasure, the king descended from his throne, and abruptly quitted the assembly.[413]

Yet he did not, like Charles the First of England, rashly vent his indignation by imprisoning or persecuting the members who had roused it. Even the stout syndic of Ghent was allowed to go unharmed. Philip looked above him to a mark more worthy of his anger,--to those of the higher orders who had encouraged the spirit of resistance in the commons. The most active of these malecontents was William of Orange. That noble, as it may be remembered, was one of the hostages who remained at the Court of Henry the Second for the fulfilment of the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. While there, a strange disclosure was made to the prince by the French monarch, who told him that, through the duke of Alva, a secret treaty had been entered into with his master, the king of Spain, for the extirpation of heresy throughout their dominions. This inconsiderate avowal of the French king was made to William on the supposition that he was stanch in the Roman Catholic faith, and entirely in his master's confidence. Whatever may have been the prince's claims to orthodoxy at this period, it is certain he was not in Philip's confidence. It is equally certain that he possessed one Christian virtue which belonged neither to Philip nor to Henry,--the virtue of toleration. Greatly shocked by the intelligence he had received, William at once communicated it to several of his friends in the Netherlands. One of the letters unfortunately fell into Philip's hands. The prince soon after obtained permission to return to his own country, bent, as he tells us in his Apology, on ridding it of the Spanish vermin.[414] Philip, who understood the temper of his mind, had his eye on his movements, and knew well to what source, in part at least, he was to attribute the present opposition. It was not long after, that a Castilian courtier intimated to the prince of Orange and to Egmont, that it would be well for them to take heed to themselves; that the names of those who had signed the petition for the removal of the troops had been noted down, and that Philip and his council were resolved, when a fitting occasion offered, to call them to a heavy reckoning for their temerity.[415]

Yet the king so far yielded to the wishes of the people as to promise the speedy departure of the troops. But no power on earth could have been strong enough to shake his purpose where the interests of religion were involved. Nor would he abate one jot of the stern provisions of the edicts. When one of his ministers, more hardy than the rest, ventured to suggest to him that perseverance in this policy might cost him the sovereignty of the provinces, "Better not reign at all," he answered, "than reign over heretics!"[416]--an answer extolled by some as the height of the sublime, by others derided as the extravagance of a fanatic. In whatever light we view it, it must be admitted to furnish the key to the permanent policy of Philip in his government of the Netherlands.

Before dissolving the States-General, Philip, unacquainted with the language of the country, addressed the deputies through the mouth of the bishop of Arras. He expatiated on the warmth of his attachment to his good people of the Netherlands, and paid them a merited tribute for their loyalty both to his father and to himself. He enjoined on them to show similar respect to the regent, their own countrywoman, into whose hands he had committed the government. They would reverence the laws and maintain public tranquillity. Nothing would conduce to this so much as the faithful execution of the edicts. It was their sacred duty to aid in the extermination of heretics,--the deadliest foes both of God and their sovereign. Philip concluded by assuring the states that he should soon return in person to the Netherlands, or send his son Don Carlos as his representative.

The answer of the legislature was temperate and respectful. They made no allusion to Philip's proposed ecclesiastical reforms, as he had not authorized this by any allusion to them himself. They still pressed, however, the removal of the foreign troops, and the further removal of all foreigners from office, as contrary to the constitution of the land. This last shaft was aimed at Granvelle, who held a high post in the government, and was understood to be absolute in the confidence of the king. Philip renewed his assurances of the dismissal of the forces, and that within the space, as he promised, of four months. The other request of the deputies he did not condescend to notice. His feelings on the subject were intimated in an exclamation he made to one of his ministers: "I too am a foreigner; will they refuse to obey me as their sovereign?"[417]

[Sidenote: ORGANIZATION OF THE COUNCILS.]

The regent was to be assisted in the government by three councils which of old time had existed in the land;--the council of finance, for the administration, as the name implies, of the revenues; the privy council, for affairs of justice and the internal concerns of the country; and the council of state, for matters relating to peace and war, and the foreign policy of the nation. Into this last, the supreme council, entered several of the Flemish nobles, and among them the prince of Orange and Count Egmont. There were, besides, Count Barlaimont, president of the council of finance, Viglius, president of the privy council, and lastly Granvelle, bishop of Arras.

The regent was to act with the coöperation of these several bodies in their respective departments. In the conduct of the government, she was to be guided by the council of state. But by private instructions of Philip, questions of a more delicate nature, involving the tranquillity of the country, might be first submitted to a select portion of this council; and in such cases, or when a spirit of faction had crept into the council, the regent, if she deemed it for the interest of the state, might adopt the opinion of the minority. The select body with whom Margaret was to advise in the more important matters was termed the Consulta; and the members who composed it were Barlaimont, Viglius, and the bishop of Arras.[418]

The first of these men, Count Barlaimont, belonged to an ancient Flemish family. With respectable talents and constancy of purpose, he was entirely devoted to the interests of the crown. The second, Viglius, was a jurist of extensive erudition, at this time well advanced in years, and with infirmities that might have pressed heavily on a man less patient of toil. He was personally attached to Granvelle; and as his views of government coincided very nearly with that minister's, Viglius was much under his influence. The last of the three, Granvelle, from his large acquaintance with affairs, and his adroitness in managing them, was far superior to his colleagues;[419] and he soon acquired such an ascendancy over them, that the government may be said to have rested on his shoulders. As there is no man who for some years is to take so prominent a part in the story of the Netherlands, it will be proper to introduce the reader to some acquaintance with his earlier history.

Anthony Perrenot--whose name of Granvelle was derived from an estate purchased by his father--was born in the year 1517, at Besançon, a town in Franche Comté. His father, Nicholas Perrenot, founded the fortunes of the family, and from the humble condition of a poor country attorney rose to the rank of chancellor of the empire. This extraordinary advancement was not owing to caprice, but to his unwearied industry, extensive learning, and a clear and comprehensive intellect, combined with steady devotion to the interests of his master, Charles the Fifth. His talent for affairs led him to be employed not merely in official business, but in diplomatic missions of great importance. In short, he possessed the confidence of the emperor to a degree enjoyed by no other subject; and when the chancellor died, in 1550, Charles pronounced his eulogy to Philip in a single sentence, saying that in Granvelle they had lost the man on whose wisdom they could securely repose.[420]

Anthony Perrenot, distinguished from his father in later times as Cardinal Granvelle, was the eldest of eleven children. In his childhood he discovered such promise, that the chancellor bestowed much pains personally on his instruction. At fourteen he was sent to Padua, and after some years was removed to Louvain, then the university of greatest repute in the Netherlands. It was not till later that the seminary of Douay was founded, under the auspices of Philip the Second.[421] At the university, the young Perrenot soon distinguished himself by the vivacity of his mind, the acuteness of his perceptions, an industry fully equal to his father's, and remarkable powers of acquisition. Besides a large range of academic study, he made himself master of seven languages, so as to read and converse in them with fluency. He seemed to have little relish for the amusements of the youth of his own age. His greatest amusement was a book. Under this incessant application his health gave way, and for a time his studies were suspended.

Whether from his father's preference or his own, young Granvelle embraced the ecclesiastical profession. At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to orders. The son of the chancellor was not slow in his advancement, and he was soon possessed of several good benefices. But the ambitious and worldly temper of Granvelle was not to be satisfied with the humble duties of the ecclesiastic. It was not long before he was called to court by his father, and there a brilliant career was opened to his aspiring genius.

The young man soon showed such talent for business, and such shrewd insight into character, as, combined with the stores of learning he had at his command, made his services of great value to his father. He accompanied the chancellor on some of his public missions, among others to the Council of Trent, where the younger Granvelle, who had already been promoted to the see of Arras, first had the opportunity of displaying that subtle, insinuating eloquence, which captivated as much as it convinced.

[Sidenote: RISE AND CHARACTER OF GRANVELLE.]

The emperor saw with satisfaction the promise afforded by the young statesman, and looked forward to the time when he would prove the same pillar of support to his administration that his father had been before him. Nor was that time far distant. As the chancellor's health declined, the son became more intimately associated with his father in the counsels of the emperor. He justified this confidence by the unwearied toil with which he devoted himself to the business of the cabinet; a toil to which even night seemed to afford no respite. He sometimes employed five secretaries at once, dictating to them in as many different languages.[422] The same thing, or something as miraculous, has been told of other remarkable men, both before and since. As a mere tour de force Granvelle may possibly have amused himself with it. But it was not in this way that the correspondence was written which furnishes the best key to the events of the time. If it had been so written, it would never have been worth the publication.

Every evening Granvelle presented himself before the emperor, and read to him the programme he had prepared of the business of the following day, with his own suggestions.[423] The foreign ambassadors who resided at the court were surprised to find the new minister so entirely in the secrets of his master; and that he was as well instructed in all their doings as the emperor himself.[424] In short, the confidence of Charles, given slowly and with much hesitation, was at length bestowed as freely on the son as it had been on the father. The two Granvelles may be truly said to have been the two persons who most possessed the confidence of the emperor, from the time that he took the reins of government into his own hands.

When raised to the see of Arras, Granvelle was but twenty-five years old. It is rare that the mitre has descended on a man of a more ambitious spirit. Yet Granvelle was not averse to the good things of the world, nor altogether insensible to its pomps and vanities. He affected great state in his manner of living, and thus necessity, no less than taste, led him to covet the possession of wealth as well as of power. He obtained both; and his fortunes were rapidly advancing when, by the abdication of his royal master, the sceptre passed into the hands of Philip the Second.

Charles recommended Granvelle to his son as every way deserving of his confidence. Granvelle knew that the best recommendation--the only effectual one--must come from himself. He studied carefully the character of his new sovereign, and showed a wonderful flexibility in conforming to his humors. The ambitious minister proved himself no stranger to those arts by which great minds, as well as little ones, sometimes condescend to push their fortunes in a court.

Yet, in truth, Granvelle did not always do violence to his own inclinations in conforming to those of Philip. Like the king, he did not come rapidly to results, but pondered long, and viewed a question in all its bearings, before arriving at a decision. He had, as we have seen, the same patient spirit of application as Philip, so that both may be said to have found their best recreation in labor. Neither was he less zealous than the king for the maintenance of the true faith, though his accommodating nature, if left to itself, might have sanctioned a different policy from that dictated by the stern, uncompromising spirit of his master.

Granvelle's influence was further aided by the charms of his personal intercourse. His polished and insinuating manners seem to have melted even the icy reserve of Philip. He maintained his influence by his singular tact in suggesting hints for carrying out his master's policy, in such a way that the suggestion might seem to have come from the king himself. Thus careful not to alarm the jealousy of his sovereign, he was content to forego the semblance of power for the real possession of it.[425]

It was soon seen that he was as well settled in the confidence of Philip as he had previously been in that of Charles. Notwithstanding the apparent distribution of power between the regent and the several councils, the arrangements made by the king were such as to throw the real authority into the hands of Granvelle. Thus the rare example was afforded of the same man continuing the favorite of two successive sovereigns. Granvelle did not escape the usual fate of favorites; and whether from the necessity of the case, or that, as some pretend, he did not on his elevation bear his faculties too meekly, no man was so generally and so heartily detested throughout the country.[426]

Before leaving the Netherlands, Philip named the governors of the several provinces,--the nominations, for the most part, only confirming those already in office. Egmont had the governments of Flanders and Artois; the prince of Orange, those of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, and West Friesland. The commission to William, running in the usual form, noticed "the good, loyal, and notable services he had rendered both to the emperor and his present sovereign."[427] The command of two battalions of the Spanish army was also given to the two nobles,--a poor contrivance for reconciling the nation to the continuance of these detested troops in the country.

Philip had anxiously waited for the arrival of the papal bull which was to authorize the erection of the bishoprics. Granvelle looked still more anxiously for it. He had read the signs of the coming storm, and would gladly have encountered it when the royal presence might have afforded some shelter from its fury. But the court of Rome moved at its usual dilatory pace, and the apostolic nuncio did not arrive with the missive till the eve of Philip's departure,--too late for him to witness its publication.[428]

[Sidenote: PHILIP'S DEPARTURE.]

Having completed all his arrangements, about the middle of August the king proceeded to Zealand, where, in the port of Flushing, lay a gallant fleet, waiting to take him and the royal suite to Spain. It consisted of fifty Spanish and forty other vessels,--all well manned, and victualled for a much longer voyage.[429] Philip was escorted to the place of embarkation by a large body of Flemish nobles, together with the foreign ambassadors and the duke and duchess of Savoy. A curious scene is reported to have taken place as he was about to go on board. Turning abruptly round to the prince of Orange, who had attended him on the journey, he bluntly accused him of being the true source of the opposition which his measures had encountered in the States-General. William, astonished at the suddenness of the attack, replied that the opposition was to be regarded, not as the act of an individual, but of the states. "No," rejoined the incensed monarch, shaking him at the same time violently by the wrist, "not the states, but you, you, you!"[430] an exclamation deriving additional bitterness from the fact that the word you, thus employed, in the Castilian was itself indicative of contempt. William did not think it prudent to reply, nor did he care to trust himself with the other Flemish lords on board the royal squadron.[431]

The royal company being at length all on board, on the twentieth of August, 1559, the fleet weighed anchor; and Philip, taking leave of the duke and duchess of Savoy, and the rest of the noble train who attended his embarkation, was soon wafted from the shores,--to which he was never to return.

* * * * *

Luc-Jean-Joseph Vandervynckt, to whom I have repeatedly had occasion to refer in the course of the preceding chapter, was a Fleming,--born at Ghent in 1691. He was educated to the law, became eminent in his profession, and at the age of thirty-eight was made a member of the council of Flanders. He employed his leisure in studying the historical antiquities of his own country. At the suggestion of Coblentz, prime minister of Maria Theresa, he compiled his work on the Troubles of the Netherlands. It was designed for the instruction of the younger branches of the imperial family, and six copies only of it were at first printed, in 1765. Since the author's death, which took place in 1779, when he had reached the great age of eighty-eight, the work has been repeatedly published.

As Vandervynckt had the national archives thrown open to his inspection, he had access to the most authentic sources of information. He was a man of science and discernment, fair-minded, and temperate in his opinions, which gives value to a book that contains, moreover, much interesting anecdote, not elsewhere to be found. The work, though making only four volumes, covers a large space of historical ground,--from the marriage of Philip the Fair, in 1495, to the peace of Westphalia, in 1648. Its literary execution is by no means equal to its other merits. The work is written in French; but Vandervynckt, unfortunately, while he both wrote and spoke Flemish, and even Latin, with facility, was but indifferently acquainted with French.

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III. PROTESTANTISM IN SPAIN

Philip's Arrival in Spain.--The Reformed Doctrines.--Their Suppression.--Autos da Fé.--Prosecution of Carranza.--Extinction of Heresy.--Fanaticism of the Spaniards.

1559.

The voyage of King Philip was a short and prosperous one. On the twenty-ninth of August, 1559, he arrived off the port of Laredo. But while he was in sight of land, the weather, which had been so propitious, suddenly changed. A furious tempest arose, which scattered his little navy. Nine of the vessels foundered, and though the monarch had the good fortune, under the care of an experienced pilot, to make his escape in a boat, and reach the shore in safety, he had the mortification to see the ship which had borne him go down with the rest, and with her the inestimable cargo he had brought from the Low Countries. It consisted of curious furniture, tapestries, gems, pieces of sculpture, and paintings,--the rich productions of Flemish and Italian art, which his father, the emperor, had been employed many years of his life in collecting. Truly was it said of Charles, that "he had sacked the land only to feed the ocean."[432] To add to the calamity, more than a thousand persons perished in this shipwreck.[433]

The king, without delay, took the road to Valladolid; but on arriving at that capital, whether depressed by his late disaster, or from his habitual dislike of such empty parade, he declined the honors, with which the loyal inhabitants would have greeted the return of their sovereign to his dominions. Here he was cordially welcomed by his sister, the Regent Joanna, who, long since weary of the cares of sovereignty, resigned the sceptre into his hands, with a better will than that with which most persons would have received it. Here, too, he had the satisfaction of embracing his son Carlos, the heir to his empire. The length of Philip's absence may have allowed him to see some favorable change in the person of the young prince, though, if report be true, there was little change for the better in his disposition, which, headstrong and imperious, had already begun to make men tremble for the future destinies of their country.

Philip had not been many days in Valladolid when his presence was celebrated by one of those exhibitions, which, unhappily for Spain, maybe called national. This was an auto da fé, not, however, as formerly, of Jews and Moors, but of Spanish Protestants. The Reformation had been silently, but not slowly, advancing in the Peninsula; and intelligence of this, as we have already seen, was one cause of Philip's abrupt departure from the Netherlands. The brief but disastrous attempt at a religious revolution in Spain is an event of too much importance to be passed over in silence by the historian.

[Sidenote: THE REFORMED DOCTRINES.]

Notwithstanding the remote position of Spain, under the imperial sceptre of Charles she was brought too closely into contact with the other states of Europe not to feel the shock of the great religious reform which was shaking those states to their foundations. Her most intimate relations, indeed, were with those very countries in which the seeds of the Reformation were first planted. It was no uncommon thing for Spaniards, in the sixteenth century, to be indebted for some portion of their instruction to German universities. Men of learning, who accompanied the emperor, became familiar with the religious doctrines so widely circulated in Germany and Flanders. The troops gathered the same doctrines from the Lutheran soldiers, who occasionally served with them under the imperial banners. These opinions, crude for the most part as they were, they brought back to their own country; and a curiosity was roused which prepared the mind for the reception of the great truths which were quickening the other nations of Europe. Men of higher education, on their return to Spain, found the means of disseminating these truths. Secret societies were established; meetings were held; and, with the same secrecy as in the days of the early Christians, the Gospel was preached and explained to the growing congregation of the faithful. The greatest difficulty was the want of books. The enterprise of a few self-devoted proselytes at length overcame this difficulty.

A Castilian version of the Bible had been printed in Germany. Various Protestant publications, whether originating in the Castilian or translated into that language, appeared in the same country. A copy, now and then, in the possession of some private individual, had found its way, without detection, across the Pyrenees. These instances were rare, when a Spaniard named Juan Hernandez, resident in Geneva, where he followed the business of a corrector of the press, undertook, from no other motive but zeal for the truth, to introduce a larger supply of the forbidden fruit into his native land.

With great adroitness, he evaded the vigilance of the custom-house officers, and the more vigilant spies of the Inquisition, and in the end succeeded in landing two large casks filled with prohibited works, which were quickly distributed among the members of the infant church. Other intrepid converts followed the example of Hernandez, and with similar success; so that, with the aid of books and spiritual teachers, the number of the faithful multiplied daily throughout the country.[434] Among this number was a much larger proportion, it was observed, of persons of rank and education than is usually found in like cases; owing doubtless to the circumstance that it was this class of persons who had most frequented the countries where the Lutheran doctrines were taught. Thus the Reformed Church grew and prospered, not indeed as it had prospered in the freer atmospheres of Germany and Britain, but as well as it could possibly do under the blighting influence of the Inquisition; like some tender plant, which, nurtured in the shade, waits only for a more genial season for its full expansion. That season was not in reserve for it in Spain.

It may seem strange that the spread of the Reformed religion should so long have escaped the detection of the agents of the Holy Office. Yet it is certain that the first notice which the Spanish inquisitors received of the fact was from their brethren abroad. Some ecclesiastics in the train of Philip, suspecting the heresy of several of their own countrymen in the Netherlands, had them seized and sent to Spain, to be examined by the Inquisition. On a closer investigation, it was found that a correspondence had long been maintained between these persons and their countrymen, of a similar persuasion with themselves, at home. Thus the existence, though not the extent, of the Spanish Reformation was made known.[435]

No sooner was the alarm sounded, than Paul the Fourth, quick to follow up the scent of heresy in any quarter of his pontifical dominions, issued a brief, in February, 1558, addressed to the Spanish inquisitor-general. In this brief, his holiness enjoins it on the head of the tribunal to spare no efforts to detect and exterminate the growing evil; and he empowers that functionary to arraign and bring to condign punishment all suspected of heresy, of whatever rank or profession,--whether bishops or archbishops, nobles, kings, or emperors. Paul the Fourth was fond of contemplating himself as seated in the chair of the Innocents and the Gregories, and like them setting his pontifical foot on the necks of princes. His natural arrogance was probably not diminished by the concessions which Philip the Second had thought proper to make to him at the close of the Roman war.

Philip, far from taking umbrage at the swelling tone of this apostolical mandate, followed it up, in the same year, by a monstrous edict, borrowed from one in the Netherlands, which condemned all who bought, sold, or read prohibited works to be burned alive.

In the following January, Paul, to give greater efficacy to this edict, published another bull, in which he commanded all confessors, under pain of excommunication, to enjoin on their penitents to inform against all persons, however nearly allied to them, who might be guilty of such practices. To quicken the zeal of the informer, Philip, on his part, revived a law fallen somewhat into disuse, by which the accuser was to receive one fourth of the confiscated property of the convicted party. And finally, a third bull from Paul allowed the inquisitors to withhold a pardon from the recanting heretic, if any doubt existed of his sincerity; thus placing the life as well as fortune of the unhappy prisoner entirely at the mercy of judges who had an obvious interest in finding him guilty. In this way the pope and the king continued to play into each other's hands, and while his holiness artfully spread the toils, the king devised the means for driving the quarry into them.[436]

Fortunately for these plans, the Inquisition was at this time under the direction of a man peculiarly fitted to execute them. This was Fernando Valdés, cardinal-archbishop of Seville, a person of a hard, inexorable nature, and possessed of as large a measure of fanaticism as ever fell to a grand-inquisitor since the days of Torquemada. Valdés readily availed himself of the terrible machinery placed under his control. Careful not to alarm the suspected parties, his approaches were slow and stealthy. He was the chief of a tribunal which sat in darkness, and which dealt by invisible agents. He worked long and silently under ground before firing the mine which was to bury his enemies in a general ruin.

[Sidenote: SUPPRESSION OF THE REFORM.]

His spies were everywhere abroad, mingling with the suspected, and insinuating themselves into their confidence. At length, by the treachery of some, and by working on the nervous apprehensions or the religions scruples of others, he succeeded in detecting the lurking-places of the new heresy, and the extent of ground which it covered. This was much larger than had been imagined, although the Reformation in Spain seemed less formidable from the number of its proselytes than from their character and position. Many of them were ecclesiastics, especially intrusted with maintaining the purity of the faith. The quarters in which the heretical doctrines most prevailed were Aragon, which held an easy communication with the Huguenots of France, and the ancient cities of Seville and Valladolid, indebted less to any local advantages than to the influence of a few eminent men, who had early embraced the faith of the Reformers.

At length, the preliminary information having been obtained, the proscribed having been marked out, the plan of attack settled, an order was given for the simultaneous arrest of all persons suspected of heresy, throughout the kingdom. It fell like a thunderbolt on the unhappy victims, who had gone on with their secret associations, little suspecting the ruin that hung over them. No resistance was attempted. Men and women, churchmen and laymen, persons of all ranks and professions, were hurried from their homes, and lodged in the secret chambers of the Inquisition. Yet these could not furnish accommodations for the number, and many were removed to the ordinary prisons, and even to convents and private dwellings. In Seville alone eight hundred were arrested on the first day. Fears were entertained of an attempt at rescue, and an additional guard was stationed over the places of confinement. The inquisitors were in the condition of a fisherman whose cast has been so successful that the draught of fishes seems likely to prove too heavy for his net.[437]

The arrest of one party gradually led to the detection of others. Dragged from his solitary dungeon before the secret tribunal of the Inquisition, alone, without counsel to aid or one friendly face to cheer him, without knowing the name of his accuser, without being allowed to confront the witnesses who were there to swear away his life, without even a sight of his own process, except such garbled extracts as the wily judges thought fit to communicate, is it strange that the unhappy victim, in his perplexity and distress, should have been drawn into disclosures fatal to his associates and himself? If these disclosures were not to the mind of his judges, they had only to try the efficacy of the torture,--the rack, the cord, and the pulley,--until, when every joint had been wrenched from its socket, the barbarous tribunal was compelled to suspend, not terminate, the application, from the inability of the sufferer to endure it. Such were the dismal scenes enacted in the name of religion, and by the ministers of religion, as well as of the Inquisition,--scenes to which few of those who had once witnessed them, and escaped with life, dared ever to allude. For to reveal the secrets of the Inquisition was death.[438]

At the expiration of eighteen months from the period of the first arrests, many of the trials had been concluded, the doom of the prisoners was sealed, and it was thought time that the prisons should disgorge their superfluous inmates. Valladolid was selected as the theatre of the first auto da fé, both from the importance of the capital and the presence of the court, which would thus sanction and give greater dignity to the celebration. This event took place in May, 1559. The Regent Joanna, the young prince of the Asturias, Don Carlos, and the principal grandees of the court, were there to witness the spectacle. By rendering the heir of the crown thus early familiar with the tender mercies of the Holy Office, it may have been intended to conciliate his favor to that institution. If such was the object, according to the report it signally failed, since the woeful spectacle left no other impressions on the mind of the prince than those of indignation and disgust.

The example of Valladolid was soon followed by autos da fé in Granada, Toledo, Seville, Barcelona,--in short, in the twelve capitals in which tribunals of the Holy Office were established. A second celebration at Valladolid was reserved for the eighth of October in the same year, when it would be graced by the presence of the sovereign himself. Indeed, as several of the processes had been concluded some months before this period, there is reason to believe that the sacrifice of more than one of the victims had been postponed, in order to give greater effect to the spectacle.[439]

The auto da fé--"act of faith"--was the most imposing, as it was the most awful, of the solemnities authorized by the Roman Catholic Church. It was intended, somewhat profanely, as has been intimated, to combine the pomp of the Roman triumph with the terrors of the day of judgment.[440] It may remind one quite as much of those bloody festivals prepared for the entertainment of the Cæsars in the Colisæum. The religions import of the auto da fé was intimated by the circumstance of its being celebrated on a Sunday, or some other holiday of the Church. An indulgence for forty days was granted by his holiness to all who should be present at the spectacle; as if the appetite for witnessing the scenes of human suffering required to be stimulated by a bounty; that too in Spain, where the amusements were, and still are, of the most sanguinary character.

The scene for this second auto da fé at Valladolid was the great square in front of the church of St. Francis. At one end a platform was raised, covered with rich carpeting, on which were ranged the seats of the inquisitors, emblazoned with the arms of the Holy Office. Near to this was the royal gallery, a private entrance to which secured the inmates from molestation by the crowd. Opposite to this gallery a large scaffold was erected, so as to be visible from all parts of the arena, and was appropriated to the unhappy martyrs who were to suffer in the auto.

At six in the morning all the bells in the capital began to toll, and a solemn procession was seen to move from the dismal fortress of the Inquisition. In the van marched a body of troops, to secure a free passage for the procession. Then came the condemned, each attended by two familiars of the Holy Office, and those who were to suffer at the stake by two friars, in addition, exhorting the heretic to abjure his errors. Those admitted to penitence wore a sable dress; while the unfortunate martyr was enveloped in a loose sack of yellow cloth,--the san benito,--with his head surmounted by a cap of pasteboard of a conical form, which, together with the cloak, was embroidered with figures of flames and of devils fanning and feeding them; all emblematical of the destiny of the heretic's soul in the world to come, as well as of his body in the present. Then came the magistrates of the city, the judges of the courts, the ecclesiastical orders, and the nobles of the land on horseback. These were followed by the members of the dread tribunal, and the fiscal, bearing a standard of crimson damask, on one side of which were displayed the arms of the Inquisition, and on the other the insignia of its founders, Sixtus the Fifth and Ferdinand the Catholic. Next came a numerous train of familiars, well mounted, among whom were many gentry of the province, proud to act as the body-guard of the Holy Office. The rear was brought up by an immense concourse of the common people, stimulated on the present occasion, no doubt, by the loyal desire to see their new sovereign, as well as by the ambition to share in the triumphs of the auto da fé. The number thus drawn together from the capital and the country, far exceeding what was usual on such occasions, is estimated by one present at full two hundred thousand.[441]

[Sidenote: AUTOS DA FE.]

As the multitude defiled into the square, the inquisitors took their place on the seats prepared for their reception. The condemned were conducted to the scaffold, and the royal station was occupied by Philip, with the different members of his household. At his side sat his sister, the late regent, his son, Don Carlos, his nephew, Alexander Farnese, several foreign ambassadors, and the principal grandees and higher ecclesiastics in attendance on the court. It was an august assembly of the greatest and the proudest in the land. But the most indifferent spectator, who had a spark of humanity in his bosom, might have turned with feelings of admiration from this array of worldly power, to the poor martyr, who, with no support but what he drew from within, was prepared to defy this power, and to lay down his life in vindication of the rights of conscience. Some there may have been, in that large concourse, who shared in these sentiments. But their number was small indeed in comparison with those who looked on the wretched victim as the enemy of God, and his approaching sacrifice as the most glorious triumph of the Cross.

The ceremonies began with a sermon, "the sermon of the faith," by the bishop of Zamora. The subject of it may well be guessed, from the occasion. It was no doubt plentifully larded with texts of Scripture, and, unless the preacher departed from the fashion of the time, with passages from the heathen writers, however much out of place they may seem in an orthodox discourse.

When the bishop had concluded, the grand-inquisitor administered an oath to the assembled multitude, who on their knees solemnly swore to defend the Inquisition, to maintain the purity of the faith, and to inform against any one who should swerve from it. As Philip repeated an oath of similar import, he suited the action to the word, and, rising from his seat, drew his sword from its scabbard, as if to announce himself the determined champion of the Holy Office. In the earlier autos of the Moorish and Jewish infidels, so humiliating an oath had never been exacted from the sovereign.

After this, the secretary of the tribunal read aloud an instrument reciting the grounds for the conviction of the prisoners, and the respective sentences pronounced against them. Those who were to be admitted to penitence, each, as his sentence was proclaimed, knelt down, and, with his hands on the missal, solemnly abjured his errors, and was absolved by the grand-inquisitor. The absolution, however, was not so entire as to relieve the offender from the penalty of his transgressions in this world. Some were doomed to perpetual imprisonment in the cells of the Inquisition, others to lighter penances. All were doomed to the confiscation of their property,--a point of too great moment to the welfare of the tribunal ever to be omitted. Besides this, in many cases the offender, and, by a glaring perversion of justice, his immediate descendants, were rendered for ever ineligible to public office of any kind, and their names branded with perpetual infamy. Thus blighted in fortune and in character, they were said, in the soft language of the Inquisition, to be reconciled.

As these unfortunate persons were remanded, under a strong guard, to their prisons, all eyes were turned on the little company of martyrs, who, clothed in the ignominious garb of the san benito, stood waiting the sentence of the judges,--with cords round their necks, and in their hands a cross, or sometimes an inverted torch, typical of their own speedy dissolution. The interest of the spectators was still further excited, in the present instance, by the fact that several of these victims were not only illustrious for their rank, but yet more so for their talents and virtues. In their haggard looks, their emaciated forms, and too often, alas! their distorted limbs, it was easy to read the story of their sufferings in their long imprisonment, for some of them had been confined in the dark cells of the Inquisition much more than a year. Yet their countenances, though haggard, far from showing any sign of weakness or fear, were lighted up with a glow of holy enthusiasm, as of men prepared to seal their testimony with their blood.

When that part of the process showing the grounds of their conviction had been read, the grand-inquisitor consigned them to the hands of the corregidor of the city, beseeching him to deal with the prisoners in all kindness and mercy;[442] a honeyed, but most hypocritical phrase, since no choice was left to the civil magistrate, but to execute the terrible sentence of the law against heretics, the preparations for which had been made by him a week before.[443]

The whole number of convicts amounted to thirty, of whom sixteen were reconciled, and the remainder relaxed to the secular arm,--in other words, turned over to the civil magistrate for execution. There were few of those thus condemned who, when brought to the stake, did not so far shrink from the dreadful doom that awaited them as to consent to purchase a commutation of it by confession before they died; in which case they were strangled by the garrote, before their bodies were thrown into the flames.

Of the present number there were only two whose constancy triumphed to the last over the dread of suffering, and who refused to purchase any mitigation of it by a compromise with conscience. The names of these martyrs should be engraven on the record of history.

One of them was Don Carlos de Seso, a noble Florentine, who had stood high in the favor of Charles the Fifth. Being united with a lady of rank in Castile, he removed to that country, and took up his residence in Valladolid. He had become a convert to the Lutheran doctrines, which he first communicated to his own family, and afterwards showed equal zeal in propagating among the people of Valladolid and its neighborhood. In short, there was no man to whose untiring and intrepid labors the cause of the Reformed religion in Spain was more indebted. He was, of course, a conspicuous mark for the Inquisition.

[Sidenote: AUTOS DA FE.]

During the fifteen months in which he lay in its gloomy cells, cut off from human sympathy and support, his constancy remained unshaken. The night preceding his execution, when his sentence had been announced to him, De Seso called for writing materials. It was thought he designed to propitiate his judges by a full confession of his errors. But the confession he made was of another kind. He insisted on the errors of the Romish Church, and avowed his unshaken trust in the great truths of the Reformation. The document, covering two sheets of paper, is pronounced by the secretary of the Inquisition to be a composition equally remarkable for its energy and precision.[444] When led before the royal gallery, on his way to the place of execution, De Seso pathetically exclaimed to Philip, "Is it thus that you allow your innocent subjects to be persecuted?" To which the king made the memorable reply, "If it were my own son, I would fetch the wood to burn him, were he such a wretch as thou art!" It was certainly a characteristic answer.[445]

At the stake De Seso showed the same unshaken constancy, bearing his testimony to the truth of the great cause for which he gave up his life. As the flames crept slowly around him, he called on the soldiers to heap up the fagots, that his agonies might be sooner ended; and his executioners, indignant at the obstinacy--the heroism--of the martyr, were not slow in obeying his commands.[446]

The companion and fellow-sufferer of De Seso was Domingo de Roxas, son of the marquis de Poza, an unhappy noble, who had seen five of his family, including his eldest son, condemned to various humiliating penances by the Inquisition for their heretical opinions. This one was now to suffer death. De Roxas was a Dominican monk. It is singular that this order, from which the ministers of the Holy Office were particularly taken, furnished many proselytes to the Reformed religion. De Roxas, as was the usage with ecclesiastics, was allowed to retain his sacerdotal habit until his sentence had been read, when he was degraded from his ecclesiastical rank, his vestments were stripped off one after another, and the hideous dress of the san benito thrown over him, amid the shouts and derision of the populace. Thus apparelled, he made an attempt to address the spectators around the scaffold; but no sooner did he begin to raise his voice against the errors and cruelties of Rome, than Philip indignantly commanded him to be gagged. The gag was a piece of cleft wood, which, forcibly compressing the tongue, had the additional advantage of causing great pain, while it silenced the offender. Even when he was bound to the stake, the gag, though contrary to custom, was suffered to remain in the mouth of De Roxas, as if his enemies dreaded the effects of an eloquence that triumphed over the anguish of death.[447]

The place of execution--the quemadero, the burning-place, as it was called--was a spot selected for the purpose without the walls of the city.[448] Those who attended an auto da fé were not, therefore, necessarily, as is commonly imagined, spectators of the tragic scene that concluded it. The great body of the people, and many of higher rank, no doubt, followed to the place of execution. On this occasion, there is reason to think, from the language--somewhat equivocal, it is true--of Philip's biographer, that the monarch chose to testify his devotion to the Inquisition by witnessing in person the appalling close of the drama; while his guards mingled with the menials of the Holy Office, and heaped up the fagots round their victims.[449]

Such was the cruel exhibition which, under the garb of a religious festival, was thought the most fitting ceremonial for welcoming the Catholic monarch to his dominions! During the whole time of its duration in the public square, from six in the morning till two in the afternoon, no symptom of impatience was exhibited by the spectators, and, as may well be believed, no sign of sympathy for the sufferers.[450] It would be difficult to devise a better school for perverting the moral sense, and deadening the sensibilities of a nation.[451]

[Sidenote: PROSECUTION OF CARRANZA.]

Under the royal sanction, the work of persecution now went forward more briskly than ever.[452] No calling was too sacred, no rank too high, to escape the shafts of the informer. In the course of a few years, no less than nine bishops were compelled to do humiliating penance in some form or other for heterodox opinions. But the most illustrious victim of the Inquisition was Bartolomé Carranzo, archbishop of Toledo. The primacy of Spain might be considered as the post of the highest consideration in the Roman Catholic Church after the papacy.[453] The proceedings against this prelate, on the whole, excited more interest throughout Christendom than any other case that came before the tribunal of the Inquisition.

Carranza, who was of an ancient Castilian family, had early entered a Dominican convent in the suburbs of Guadalajara. His exemplary life, and his great parts and learning, recommended him to the favor of Charles the Fifth, who appointed him confessor to his son Philip. The emperor also sent him to the Council of Trent, where he made a great impression by his eloquence, as well as by a tract which he published against plurality of benefices, which, however, excited no little disgust in many of his order. On Philip's visit to England to marry Queen Mary, Carranza accompanied his master, and while in that country he distinguished himself by the zeal and ability with which he controverted the doctrines of the Protestants. The alacrity, moreover, which he manifested in the work of persecution made him generally odious under the name of the "black friar,"--a name peculiarly appropriate, as it applied not less to his swarthy complexion than to the garb of his order. On Philip's return to Flanders, Carranza, who had twice refused a mitre, was raised--not without strong disinclination on his own part--to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo. The "nolo episcopari," in this instance, seems to have been sincere. It would have been well for him if it had been effectual. Carranza's elevation to the primacy was the source of all his troubles.

The hatred of theologians has passed into a proverb; and there would certainly seem to be no rancor surpassing that of a Spanish ecclesiastic. Among the enemies raised by Carranza's success, the most implacable was the grand-inquisitor, Valdés. The archbishop of Seville could ill brook that a humble Dominican should be thus raised from the cloister over the heads of the proud prelacy of Spain. With unwearied pains, such as hate only could induce, he sought out whatever could make against the orthodoxy of the new prelate, whether in his writings or his conversation. Some plausible ground was afforded for this from the fact, that, although Carranza, as his whole life had shown, was devoted to the Roman Catholic Church, yet his long residence in Protestant countries, and his familiarity with Protestant works, had given a coloring to his language, if not to his opinions, which resembled that of the Reformers. Indeed, Carranza seems to have been much of the same way of thinking with Pole, Contarini, Morone, and other illustrious Romanists, whose liberal natures and wide range of study, had led them to sanction more than one of the Lutheran dogmas which were subsequently proscribed by the Council of Trent. One charge strongly urged against the primate was his assent to the heretical doctrine of justification by faith. In support of this, Father Regla, the confessor, as the reader may remember, of Charles the Fifth, and a worthy coadjutor of Valdés, quoted words of consolation employed by Carranza, in his presence, at the death-bed of the emperor.[454]

The exalted rank of the accused made it necessary for his enemies to proceed with the greatest caution. Never had the bloodhounds of the Inquisition been set on so noble a quarry. Confident in his own authority, the prelate had little reason for distrust. He could not ward off the blow, for it was an invisible arm stronger than his own that was raised to smite him. On the twenty-second of August, 1559, the emissaries of the Holy Office entered the primate's town of Torrelaguna. The doors of the episcopal palace were thrown open to the ministers of the terrible tribunal. The prelate was dragged from his bed at midnight, was hurried into a coach, and while the inhabitants were ordered not so much as to present themselves at the windows, he was conducted, under a strong guard, to the prisons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. The arrest of such a person caused a great sensation throughout the country, but no attempt was made at a rescue.

The primate would have appealed from the Holy Office to the pope, as the only power competent to judge him. But he was unwilling to give umbrage to Philip, who had told him in any extremity to rely on him. The king, however, was still in the Netherlands, where his mind had been preoccupied, through the archbishop's enemies, with rumors of his defection. And the mere imputation of heresy, in this dangerous crisis, and especially in one whom he had so recently raised to the highest post in the Spanish church, was enough, not only to efface the recollection of past services from the mind of Philip, but to turn his favor into aversion. For two years Carranza was suffered to languish in confinement, exposed to all the annoyances which the malice of his enemies could devise. So completely was he dead to the world, that he knew nothing of a conflagration which consumed more than four hundred of the principal houses in Valladolid, till some years after the occurrence.[455]

At length the Council of Trent, sharing the indignation of the rest of Christendom at the archbishop's protracted imprisonment, called on Philip to interpose in his behalf, and to remove the cause to another tribunal. But the king gave little heed to the remonstrance, which the inquisitors treated as a presumptuous interference with their authority.

In 1566, Pius the Fifth ascended the pontifical throne. He was a man of austere morals and a most inflexible will. A Dominican, like Carranza, he was greatly scandalized by the treatment which the primate had received, and by the shameful length to which his process had been protracted. He at once sent his orders to Spain for the removal of the grand-inquisitor, Valdés, from office, summoning, at the same time, the cause and the prisoner before his own tribunal. The bold inquisitor, loth to lose his prey, would have defied the power of Rome, as he had done that of the Council of Trent. Philip remonstrated; but Pius was firm, and menaced both king and inquisitor with excommunication. Philip had no mind for a second collision with the papal court. In imagination he already heard the thunders of the Vatican rolling in the distance, and threatening soon to break upon his head. After a confinement of now more than seven years' duration, the archbishop was sent under a guard to Rome. He was kindly received by the pontiff, and honorably lodged in the castle of St. Angelo, in apartments formerly occupied by the popes themselves. But he was still a prisoner.

[Sidenote: PROSECUTION OF CARRANZA.]

Pius now set seriously about the examination of Carranza's process. It was a tedious business, requiring his holiness to wade through an ocean of papers, while the progress of the suit was perpetually impeded by embarrassments thrown in his way by the industrious malice of the inquisitors. At the end of six years more, Pius was preparing to give his judgment, which it was understood would be favorable to Carranza, when, unhappily for the primate, the pontiff died.

The Holy Office, stung by the prospect of its failure, now strained every nerve to influence the mind of the new pope, Gregory the Thirteenth, to a contrary decision. New testimony was collected, new glosses were put on the primate's text, and the sanction of the most learned Spanish theologians was brought in support of them. At length, at the end of three years further, the holy father announced his purpose of giving his final decision. It was done with great circumstance. The pope was seated on his pontifical throne, surrounded by all his cardinals, prelates, and functionaries of the apostolic chamber. Before this august assembly, the archbishop presented himself unsupported and alone, while no one ventured to salute him. His head was bare. His once robust form was bent by infirmity more than by years; and his care-worn features told of that sickness which arises from hope deferred. He knelt down at some distance from the pope, and in this humble attitude received his sentence.

He was declared to have imbibed the pernicious doctrines of Luther. The decree of the Inquisition prohibiting the use of his catechism was confirmed. He was to abjure sixteen propositions found in his writings; was suspended from the exercise of his episcopal functions for five years, during which time he was to be confined in a convent of his order at Orvieto; and, finally, he was required to visit seven of the principal churches in Rome, and perform mass there by way of penance.

This was the end of eighteen years of doubt, anxiety, and imprisonment. The tears streamed down the face of the unhappy man, as he listened to the sentence; but he bowed in silent submission to the will of his superior. The very next day he began his work of penance. But nature could go no further; and on the second of May, only sixteen days after his sentence had been pronounced, Carranza died of a broken heart. The triumph of the Inquisition was complete.

The pope raised a monument to the memory of the primate, with a pompous inscription, paying a just tribute to his talents and his scholarship, endowing him with a full measure of Christian worth, and particularly commending the exemplary manner in which he had discharged the high trusts reposed in him by his sovereign.[456]

Such is the story of Carranza's persecution,--considering the rank of the party, the unprecedented length of the process, and the sensation it excited throughout Europe, altogether the most remarkable on the records of the Inquisition.[457] Our sympathy for the archbishop's sufferings may be reasonably mitigated by the reflection, that he did but receive the measure which he had meted out to others.

While the persecution of Carranza was going on, the fires lighted for the Protestants continued to burn with fury in all parts of the country, until at length they gradually slackened and died away, from mere want of fuel to feed them. The year 1570 may be regarded as the period of the last auto da fé in which the Lutherans played a conspicuous part. The subsequent celebrations were devoted chiefly to relapsed Jews and Mahometans; and if a Protestant heretic was sometimes added to this list, it was "but as the gleaning of grapes after the vintage is done."[458]

Never was there a persecution which did its work more thoroughly. The blood of the martyr is commonly said to be the seed of the church. But the storm of persecution fell as heavily on the Spanish Protestants as it did on the Albigenses in the thirteenth century; blighting every living thing, so that no germ remained for future harvests. Spain might now boast that the stain of heresy no longer defiled the hem of her garment. But at what a price was this purchased! Not merely by the sacrifice of the lives and fortunes of a few thousands of the existing generation but by the disastrous consequences entailed for ever on the country. Folded under the dark wing of the Inquisition, Spain was shut out from the light which in the sixteenth century broke over the rest of Europe, stimulating the nations to greater enterprise in every department of knowledge. The genius of the people was rebuked, and their spirit quenched, under the malignant influence of an eye that never slumbered, of an unseen arm ever raised to strike. How could there be freedom of thought, where there was no freedom of utterance? Or freedom of utterance, where it was as dangerous to say too little as too much? Freedom cannot go along with fear. Every way the mind of the Spaniard was in fetters.

His moral sense was miserably perverted. Men were judged, not by their practice, but by their professions. Creed became a substitute for conduct. Difference of faith made a wider gulf of separation than difference of race, language, or even interest. Spain no longer formed one of the great brotherhood of Christian nations. An immeasurable barrier was raised between that kingdom and the Protestants of Europe. The early condition of perpetual warfare with the Arabs who overran the country had led the Spaniards to mingle religion strangely with their politics. The effect continued when the cause had ceased. Their wars with the European nations became religious wars. In fighting England or the Netherlands, they were fighting the enemies of God. It was the same everywhere. In their contest with the unoffending natives of the New World, they were still battling with the enemies of God. Their wars took the character of a perpetual crusade, and were conducted with all the ferocity which fanaticism could inspire.

[Sidenote: RECEPTION OF ISABELLA.]

The same dark spirit of fanaticism seems to brood over the national literature; even that lighter literature which in other nations is made up of the festive sallies of wit, or the tender expression of sentiment. The greatest geniuses of the nation, the masters of the drama and of the ode, while they astonish us by their miracles of invention, show that they have too often kindled their inspiration at the altars of the Inquisition.

Debarred as he was from freedom of speculation, the domain of science was closed against the Spaniard. Science looks to perpetual change. It turns to the past to gather warning, as well as instruction, for the future. Its province is to remove old abuses, to explode old errors, to unfold new truths. Its condition, in short, is that of progress. But in Spain, everything not only looked to the past, but rested on the past. Old abuses gathered respect from their antiquity. Reform was innovation, and innovation was a crime. Far from progress, all was stationary. The hand of the Inquisition drew the line which said, "No further!" This was the limit of human intelligence in Spain.

The effect was visible in every department of science,--not in the speculative alone, but in the physical and the practical; in the declamatory rant of its theology and ethics, in the childish and chimerical schemes of its political economists. In every walk were to be seen the symptoms of premature decrepitude, as the nation clung to the antiquated systems which the march of civilization in other countries had long since effaced. Hence those frantic experiments, so often repeated, in the financial administration of the kingdom, which made Spain the byword of the nations, and which ended in the ruin of trade, the prostration of credit, and finally the bankruptcy of the state.--But we willingly turn from this sad picture of the destinies of the country to a more cheerful scene in the history of Philip.

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IV. PHILIP'S THIRD MARRIAGE

Reception of Isabella.--Marriage Festivities.--The Queen's Mode of Life.--The Court removed to Madrid.

1560.

So soon as Philip should be settled in Spain, it had been arranged that his young bride, Elizabeth of France, should cross the Pyrenees. Early in January, 1560, Elizabeth,--or Isabella, to use the corresponding name by which she was known to the Spaniards,--under the protection of the Cardinal de Bourbon and some of the French nobility, reached the borders of Navarre, where she was met by the duke of Infantado, who was to take charge of the princess, and escort her to Castile.

Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, fourth duke of Infantado, was the head of the most illustrious house in Castile. He was at this time near seventy years of age, having passed most of his life in attendance at court, where he had always occupied the position suited to his high birth and his extensive property, which, as his title intimated, lay chiefly in the north. He was a fine specimen of the old Castilian hidalgo, and displayed a magnificence in his way of living that became his station. He was well educated, for the time; and his fondness for books did not prevent his excelling in all knightly exercises. He was said to have the best library and the best stud of any gentleman in Castile.[459]

He appeared on this occasion in great state, accompanied by his household and his kinsmen, the heads of the noblest families in Spain. The duke was attended by some fifty pages, who, in their rich dresses of satin and brocade, displayed the gay colors of the house of Mendoza. The nobles in his train, all suitably mounted, were followed by twenty-five hundred gentlemen, well equipped, like themselves. So lavish were the Castilians of that day in the caparisons of their horses, that some of these are estimated, without taking into account the jewels with which they were garnished, to have cost no less than two thousand ducats![460] The same taste is visible at this day in their descendants, especially in South America and Mexico, where the love of barbaric ornament in the housings and caparisons of their steeds is conspicuous among all classes of the people.

Several days were spent in settling the etiquette to be observed before the presentation of the duke and his followers to the princess,--a perilous matter with the Spanish hidalgo. When at length the interview took place, the cardinal of Burgos, the duke's brother, opened it by a formal and rather long address to Isabella, who replied in a tone of easy gaiety, which, though not undignified, savored much more of the manners of her own country than those of Spain.[461] The place of meeting was at Roncesvalles,--a name which to the reader of romance may call up scenes very different from those presented by the two nations now met together in kindly courtesy.[462]

From Roncesvalles the princess proceeded, under the strong escort of the duke, to his town of Guadalajara in New Castile, where her marriage with King Philip was to be solemnized. Great preparations were made by the loyal citizens for celebrating the event in a manner honorable to their own master and their future queen. A huge mound, or what might be called a hill, was raised at the entrance of the town, where a grove of natural oaks had been transplanted, amongst which was to be seen abundance of game. Isabella was received by the magistrates of the place, and escorted through the principal streets by a brilliant cavalcade, composed of the great nobility of the court. She was dressed in ermine, and rode a milk-white palfrey, which she managed with an easy grace that delighted the multitude. On one side of her rode the duke of Infantado, and on the other the cardinal of Burgos. After performing her devotions at the church, where Te Deum was chanted, she proceeded to the ducal palace, in which the marriage ceremony was to be performed. On her entering the court, the princess Joanna came down to receive her sister-in-law, and, after an affectionate salutation, conducted her to the saloon, where Philip, attended by his son, was awaiting his bride.[463]

[Sidenote: RECEPTION OF ISABELLA.]

It was the first time that Isabella had seen her destined lord. She now gazed on him so intently, that he good-humoredly asked her "if she were looking to see if he had any gray hairs in his head?" The bluntness of the question somewhat disconcerted her.[464] Philip's age was not much less than that at which the first gray hairs made their appearance on his father's temples. Yet the discrepancy between the ages of the parties in the present instance was not greater than often happens in a royal union. Isabella was in her fifteenth year,[465] and Philip in his thirty-fourth.

From all accounts, the lady's youth was her least recommendation. "Elizabeth de Valois," says Brantôme, who know her well, "was a true daughter of France,--discreet, witty, beautiful, and good, if ever woman was so."[466] She was well made, and tall of stature, and on this account the more admired in Spain, where the women are rarely above the middle height. Her eyes were dark, and her luxuriant tresses, of the same dark color, shaded features that were delicately fair.[467] There was sweetness mingled with dignity in her deportment, in which Castilian stateliness seemed to be happily tempered by the vivacity of her own nation. "So attractive was she," continues the gallant old courtier, "that no cavalier durst look on her long, for fear of losing his heart, which in that jealous court might have proved the loss of his life."[468]

Some of the chroniclers notice a shade of melancholy as visible on Isabella's features, which they refer to the comparison the young bride was naturally led to make between her own lord and his son, the prince of Asturias, for whom her hand had been originally intended.[469] But the daughter of Catherine de Medicis, they are careful to add, had been too well trained, from her cradle, not to know how to disguise her feelings. Don Carlos had one advantage over his father, in his youth; though, in this respect, since he was but a boy of fourteen, he might be thought to fall as much too short of the suitable age as the king exceeded it. It is also intimated by the same gossiping writers, that from this hour of their meeting, touched by the charms of his step-mother, the prince nourished a secret feeling of resentment against his father, who had thus come between him and his beautiful betrothed.[470] It is this light gossip of the chroniclers that has furnished the romancers of later ages with the flimsy materials for that web of fiction, which displays in such glowing colors the loves of Carlos and Isabella. I shall have occasion to return to this subject when treating of the fate of this unhappy prince.

When the nuptials were concluded, the good people of Guadalajara testified their loyalty by all kinds of festivities in honor of the event,--by fireworks, music, and dancing. The fountains flowed with generous liquor. Tables were spread in the public squares, laden with good cheer, and freely open to all. In the evening, the regidores of the town, to the number of fifty or more, presented themselves before the king and queen. They were dressed in their gaudy liveries of crimson and yellow velvet, and each one of these functionaries bore a napkin on his arm, while he carried a plate of sweetmeats, which he presented to the royal pair and the ladies of the court. The following morning Philip and his consort left the hospitable walls of Guadalajara, and set out with their whole suite for Toledo. At parting, the duke of Infantado made the queen and her ladies presents of jewels, lace, and other rich articles of dress; and the sovereigns took leave of their noble host, well pleased with the princely entertainment he had given them.[471]

At Toledo preparations were made for the reception of Philip and Isabella in a style worthy of the renown of that ancient capital of the Visigoths. In the broad vega before the city, three thousand of the old Spanish infantry engaged in a mock encounter with a body of Moorish cavalry, having their uniforms and caparisons fancifully trimmed and ornamented in the Arabesque fashion. Then followed various national dances by beautiful maidens of Toledo, dances of the Gypsies, and the old Spanish "war-dance of the swords."[472]

[Sidenote: MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES.]

On entering the gates, the royal pair were welcomed by the municipality of the city, who supported a canopy of cloth of gold over the heads of the king and queen, emblazoned with their ciphers. A procession was formed, consisting of the principal magistrates, the members of the military orders, the officers of the Inquisition,--for Toledo was one of the principal stations of the secret tribunal,--and, lastly, the chief nobles of the court. In the cavalcade might be discerned the iron form of the duke of Alva, and his more courtly rival, Ruy Gomez de Silva, count of Melito,--the two nobles highest in the royal confidence. Triumphal arches, ornamented with quaint devices and emblematical figures from ancient mythology, were thrown across the streets, which were filled with shouting multitudes. Gay wreaths of flowers and flaunting streamers adorned the verandas and balconies, which were crowded with spectators of both sexes in their holiday attire, making a display of gaudy colors that reminds an old chronicler of the richly tinted tapestries and carpetings of Flanders.[473] In this royal state, the new-married pair moved along the streets towards the great cathedral; and after paying their devotions at its venerable shrine, they repaired to the alcazar,--the palace-fortress of Toledo.

For some weeks, during which the sovereigns remained in the capital, there was a general jubilee.[474] All the national games of Spain were exhibited to the young queen; the bull-fight, the Moorish sport of the cañas, or tilt of reeds, and tournaments on horseback and on foot, in both of which Philip often showed himself armed cap-à-pie in the lists, and did his devoir in the presence of his fair bride, as became a loyal knight. Another show, which might have been better reserved for a less joyous occasion, was exhibited to Isabella. As the court and the cortes were drawn together in Toledo, the Holy Office took the occasion to celebrate an auto da fé, which, from the number of the victims and quality of the spectators, was the most imposing spectacle of the kind ever witnessed in that capital.

No country in Europe has so distinct an individuality as Spain; shown not merely in the character of the inhabitants, but in the smallest details of life,--in their national games, their dress, their social usages. The tenacity with which the people have clung to these amidst all the changes of dynasties and laws is truly admirable. Separated by their mountain barrier from the central and eastern parts of Europe, and during the greater part of their existence brought into contact with Oriental forms of civilization, the Spaniards have been but little exposed to those influences which have given a homogeneous complexion to the other nations of Christendom. The system under which they have been trained is too peculiar to be much affected by these influences, and the ideas transmitted from their ancestors are too deeply settled in their minds to be easily disturbed. The present in Spain is but the mirror of the past, in other countries fashions become antiquated, old errors exploded, early tastes reformed. Not so in the Peninsula. The traveller has only to cross the Pyrenees to find himself a contemporary of the sixteenth century.

The festivities of the court were suddenly terminated by the illness of Isabella, who was attacked by the small-pox. Her life was in no danger; but great fears were entertained lest the envious disease should prove fatal to her beauty. Her mother, Catherine de Medicis, had great apprehensions on this point; and couriers crossed the Pyrenees frequently, during the queen's illness, bringing prescriptions--some of them rather extraordinary--from the French doctors for preventing the ravages of the disorder.[475] Whether it was by reason of these nostrums, or her own excellent constitution, the queen was fortunate enough to escape from the sick-room without a scar.

Philip seems to have had much reason to be contented not only with the person, but the disposition, of his wife. As her marriage had formed one of the articles in the treaty with France, she was called by the Spaniards Isabel de la Paz,--"Isabella of the Peace." Her own countrymen no less fondly styled her "the Olive-Branch of Peace,"--intimating the sweetness of her disposition.[476] In this respect she may be thought to have formed a contrast to Philip's former wife, Mary of England; at least after sickness and misfortune had done their work upon that queen's temper, in the latter part of her life.

If Isabella was not a scholar, like Mary, she at least was well instructed for the time, and was fond of reading, especially poetry. She had a ready apprehension, and learned in a short time to speak the Castilian with tolerable fluency, while there was something pleasing in her foreign accent, that made her pronunciation the more interesting. She accommodated herself so well to the usages of her adopted nation, that she soon won the hearts of the Spaniards. "No queen of Castile," says the loyal Brantôme, "with due deference to Isabella the Catholic, was ever so popular in the country." When she went abroad, it was usually with her face uncovered, after the manner of her countrywomen. The press was always great around her whenever she appeared in public, and happy was the man who could approach so near as to get a glimpse of her beautiful countenance.[477]

Yet Isabella never forgot the land of her birth; and such of her countrymen as visited the Castilian court were received by her with distinguished courtesy. She brought along with her in her train to Castile several French ladies of rank, as her maids of honor. But a rivalry soon grew up between them and the Spanish ladies in the palace, which compelled the queen, after she had in vain attempted to reconcile the parties, to send back most of her own countrywomen. In doing so, she was careful to provide them with generous marriage portions.[478]

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S MODE OF LIFE.]

The queen maintained great state in her household, as was Philip's wish, who seems to have lavished on his lovely consort those attentions for which the unfortunate Mary Tudor had pined in vain. Besides a rare display of jewels, Isabella's wardrobe was exceedingly rich. Few of her robes cost less than three or four hundred crowns each,--a great sum for the time. Like her namesake and contemporary, Elizabeth of England, she rarely wore the same dress twice. But she gave away the discarded suit to her attendants,[479] unlike in this to the English queen, who hoarded up her wardrobe so carefully, that at her death it must have displayed every fashion of her reign. Brantôme, who, both as a Frenchman and as one who had seen the queen often in the court of Castile, may be considered a judge in the matter, dwells with rapture on the elegance of her costume, the matchless taste in its arrangement, and the perfection of her coiffure.

A manuscript of the time, by an eye-witness, gives a few particulars respecting her manner of living, in which some readers may take an interest. Among the persons connected with the queen's establishment, the writer mentions her confessor, her almoner, and four physicians. The medical art seems to have been always held in high repute in Spain, though in no country, considering the empirical character of its professors, with so little reason. At dinner the queen was usually attended by some thirty of her ladies. Two of them, singularly enough as it may seem to us, performed the office of carvers. Another served as cupbearer, and stood by her majesty's chair. The rest of her attendants stood round the apartment, conversing with their gallants, who, in a style to which she had not been used in the French courts, kept their heads covered during the repast. "They were there," they said, "not to wait on the queen, but her ladies." After her solitary meal was over, Isabella retired with her attendants to her chamber, where, with the aid of music, and such mirth as the buffoons and jesters of the palace could afford, she made shift to pass the evening.[480]

Such is the portrait which her contemporaries have left us of Elizabeth of France; and such the accounts of her popularity with the nation, and the state maintained in her establishment. Well might Brantôme sadly exclaim, "Alas! what did it all avail?" A few brief years only were to pass away before this spoiled child of fortune, the delight of the monarch, the ornament and pride of the court, was to exchange the pomps and glories of her royal state for the dark chambers of the Escorial.

From Toledo the court proceeded to Valladolid, long the favourite residence of the Castilian princes, though not the acknowledged capital of the country. Indeed there was no city, since the time of the Visigoths, that could positively claim that preëminence. This honor was reserved for Madrid, which became the established residence of the court under Philip, who in this but carried out the ideas of his father, Charles the Fifth.

The emperor had passed much time in this place, where, strange to say, the chief recommendation to him seems to have been the climate. Situated on a broad expanse of table-land, at an elevation of twenty-four hundred feet above the level of the sea, the brisk and rarefied atmosphere of Madrid proved favorable to Charles's health. It preserved him, in particular, from attacks of the fever and ague, which racked his constitution almost as much as the gout. In the ancient alcazar of the Moors he found a stately residence, which he made commodious by various alterations. Philip extended these improvements. He added new apartments, and spent much money in enlarging and embellishing the old ones. The ceilings were gilded and richly carved. The walls were hung with tapestries, and the saloons and galleries decorated with sculpture and with paintings,--many of them the productions of native artists, the first disciples of a school which was one day to rival the great masters of Italy. Extensive grounds were also laid out around the palace, and a park was formed, which in time came to be covered with a growth of noble trees, and well stocked with game. The alcazar, thus improved, became a fitting residence for the sovereign of Spain. Indeed, if we may trust the magnificent vaunt of a contemporary, it was "allowed by foreigners to be the rarest thing of the kind possessed by any monarch in Christendom."[481] It continued to be the abode of the Spanish princes until, in 1734, in the reign of Philip the Fifth, the building was destroyed by a fire, which lasted nearly a week. But it rose like a phoenix from its ashes; and a new palace was raised on the site of the old one, of still larger dimensions, presenting in the beauty of its materials as well as of its execution one of the noblest monuments of the architecture of the eighteenth century.[482]

Having completed his arrangements, Philip established his residence at Madrid in 1563. The town then contained about twelve thousand inhabitants. Under the forcing atmosphere of a court, the population rose by the end of his long reign to three hundred thousand,[483]--a number which it has probably not since exceeded. The accommodations in the capital kept pace with the increase of population. Everything was built for duration. Instead of flimsy houses that might serve for a temporary residence, the streets were lined with strong and substantial edifices. Under the royal patronage public works on a liberal scale were executed. Madrid was ornamented with bridges, aqueducts, hospitals, the Museum, the Armory,--stately structures which even now challenge our admiration, not less by the excellence of their designs than by the richness of their collections and the enlightened taste which they infer at this early period.

[Sidenote: THE COURT REMOVED TO MADRID.]

In the opinion of its inhabitants, indeed we may say of the nation, Madrid surpassed, not only every other city in the country, but in Christendom. "There is but one Madrid," says the Spanish proverb.[484] "When Madrid is the theme, the world listens in silence!"[485] In a similar key, the old Castilian writers celebrate the glories of their capital,--the nursery of wit, genius, and gallantry,--and expatiate on the temperature of a climate propitious alike to the beauty of the women and the bravery of the men.[486]

Yet, with all this lofty panegyric, the foreigner is apt to see things through a very different medium from that through which they are seen by the patriotic eye of the native. The traveller to Madrid finds little to praise in a situation where the keen winds from the mountains come laden with disease, and where the subtle atmosphere, to use one of the national proverbs, that can hardly put out a candle, will extinguish the life of a man;[487] where the capital, insulated in the midst of a dreary expanse of desert, seems to be cut off from sympathy, if not from intercourse, with the provinces;[488] and where, instead of a great river that might open to it a commerce with distant quarters of the globe, it is washed only by a stream,--"the far-famed Manzanares,"--the bed of which in summer is a barren watercourse. The traveller may well doubt whether the fanciful advantage, so much vaunted, of being the centre of Spain, is sufficient to compensate the manifold evils of such a position, and even whether those are far from truth who find in this position one of the many causes of the decline of the national prosperity.[489]

A full experience of the inconveniences of the site of the capital led Charles the Third to contemplate its removal to Seville. But it was too late. Madrid had been too long, in the Castilian boast, "the only court in the world,"[490]--the focus to which converged talent, fashion, and wealth from all quarters of the country. Too many patriotic associations had gathered round it to warrant its desertion; and, in spite of its local disadvantages, the capital planted by Philip the Second continued to remain, as it will probably ever remain, the capital of the Spanish monarchy.

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