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[Illustration: PHILIP THE SECOND.
_From the Original by Titian in the Royal Museum at Madrid._
London, George Routledge & Sons, Broadway, Ludgate Hill.]
HISTORY
OF
THE REIGN
OF
PHILIP THE SECOND,
KING OF SPAIN.
BY
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY OF HISTORY AT MADRID, ETC.
VOLUMES FIRST AND SECOND.
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.
LONDON
GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE
NEW YORK. 416, BROOME STREET.
PREFACE.
The reign of Philip the Second has occupied the pen of the historian
more frequently--if we except that of Charles the Fifth--than any other
portion of the Spanish annals. It has become familiar to the English
reader through the pages of Watson, who has deservedly found favor with
the public for the perspicuity of his style,--a virtue, however, not
uncommon in his day,--for the sobriety of his judgments, and for the
skill he has shown in arranging his complicated story, so as to maintain
the reader's interest unbroken to the end. But the public, in Watson's
day, were not very fastidious in regard to the sources of the
information on which a narrative was founded. Nor was it easy to obtain
access to those unpublished documents which constitute the best sources
of information. Neither can it be denied that Watson himself was not so
solicitous as he should have been to profit by opportunities which a
little pains might have put within his reach,--presenting, in this
respect, a contrast to his more celebrated predecessor, Robertson; that
he contented himself too easily with such cheap and commonplace
materials as lay directly in his path; and that, consequently, the
foundations of his history are much too slight for the superstructure.
For these reasons, the reign of Philip the Second must still be regarded
as open ground for English and American writers.
And at no time could the history of this reign have been undertaken with
the same advantages as at present, when the more enlightened policy of
the European governments has opened their national archives to the
inspection of the scholar; when he is allowed access, in particular, to
the Archives of Simancas, which have held the secrets of the Spanish
monarchy hermetically sealed for ages.
The history of Philip the Second is the history of Europe during the
latter half of the sixteenth century. It covers the period when the
doctrines of the Reformation were agitating the minds of men in so
fearful a manner as to shake the very foundations of the Romish
hierarchy in the fierce contest which divided Christendom. Philip, both
from his personal character, and from his position as sovereign of the
most potent monarchy in Europe, was placed at the head of the party
which strove to uphold the fortunes of the ancient Church; and thus his
policy led him perpetually to interfere in the internal affairs of the
other European states,--making it necessary to look for the materials
for his history quite as much without the Peninsula as within it. In
this respect the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella presents a strong
contrast to that of Philip the Second; and it was the consideration of
this, when I had completed my history of the former, and proposed at
some future day to enter upon that of the latter, that led me to set
about a collection of authentic materials from the public archives in
the great European capitals. It was a work of difficulty; and, although
I had made some progress in it, I did not feel assured of success until
I had the good fortune to obtain the coöperation of my friend, Don
Pascual de Gayangos, Professor of Arabic in the University of Madrid.
This eminent scholar was admirably qualified for the task which he so
kindly undertook; since, with a remarkable facility--such as long
practice only can give--in deciphering the mysterious handwriting of the
sixteenth century, he combined such a thorough acquaintance with the
history of his country as enabled him to detect, amidst the ocean of
manuscripts which he inspected, such portions as were essential to my
purpose.
With unwearied assiduity he devoted himself to the examination of many
of the principal collections, both in England and on the Continent.
Among these may be mentioned the British Museum and the State-Paper
Office, in London; the Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, in Brussels;
that of the University of Leyden; the Royal Library, at the Hague; the
Royal Library of Paris, and the Archives of the Kingdom, in the Hôtel
Soubise; the Library of the Academy of History, the National Library at
Madrid, and, more important than either, the ancient Archives of
Simancas, within whose hallowed precincts Señor Gayangos was one of the
first scholars permitted to enter.
Besides these public repositories, there are several private collections
to the owners of which I am largely indebted for the liberal manner in
which they have opened them for my benefit. I may mention, in
particular, the late Lady Holland, who kindly permitted copies to be
made by Señor Gayangos from the manuscripts preserved in Holland House;
Sir Thomas Phillips, Bart., who freely extended the same courtesy in
respect to the present work which he had shown to me on a former
occasion; and Patrick Fraser Tytler, Esq., the late excellent historian
of Scotland, who generously placed at my disposal sundry documents
copied by him in the public offices with his own hand, for the
illustration of the reign of Mary Tudor.
In Spain the collection made by Señor Gayangos was enriched by materials
drawn from the family archives of the marquis of Santa Cruz, whose
illustrious ancestor first had charge of the Spanish armada; from the
archives of Medina Sidonia, containing papers of the duke who succeeded
to the command of that ill-starred expedition; and from the archives of
the house of Alva,--a name associated with the most memorable acts of
the government of Philip.
The manuscripts, thus drawn from various quarters, were fortified by
such printed works as, having made their appearance in the time of
Philip the Second, could throw any light on his government. Where such
works were not to be purchased, Señor Gayangos caused copies to be made
of them, or of those portions which were important to my purpose. The
result of his kind, untiring labors has been to put me in possession of
such a collection of authentic materials for the illustration of the
reign of Philip as no one before had probably attempted to make. Nor
until now had the time come for making the attempt with success.
There still remained, however, some places to be examined where I might
expect to find documents that would be of use to me. Indeed, it is in
the nature of such a collection, covering so wide an extent of ground,
that it can never be complete. The historian may be satisfied, if he has
such authentic materials at his command, as, while they solve much that
has hitherto been enigmatical in the accounts of the time, will enable
him to present, in their true light, the character of Philip and the
policy of his government. I must acknowledge my obligations to more than
one person, who has given me important aid in prosecuting my further
researches.
One of the first of them is my friend, Mr. Edward Everett, who, in his
long and brilliant career as a statesman, has lost nothing of that love
of letters which formed his first claim to distinction. The year before
his appointment to the English mission he passed on the Continent,
where, with the kindness that belongs to his nature, he spent much time
in examining for me the great libraries, first in Paris, and afterwards
more effectually in Florence. From the _Archivio Mediceo_, in which he
was permitted by the grand duke to conduct his researches, he obtained
copies of sundry valuable documents, and among them the letters of the
Tuscan ministers, which have helped to guide me in some of the most
intricate parts of my narrative. A still larger amount of materials he
derived from the private library of Count Guicciardini, the descendant
of the illustrious historian of that name. I am happy to express my
lively sense of the courtesy shown by this nobleman; also my gratitude
for kind offices rendered me by Prince Corsini; and no less by the
Marquis Gino Capponi, whose name will be always held in honor for the
enlightened patronage which he has extended to learning, while
suffering, himself, under the severest privation that can befall the
scholar.
There was still an important deficiency in my collection,--that of the
_Relazioni Venete_, as the reports are called which were made by
ambassadors of Venice on their return from their foreign missions. The
value of these reports, for the information they give of the countries
visited by the envoys, is well known to historians. The deficiency was
amply supplied by the unwearied kindness of my friend, Mr. Fay, who now
so ably fills the post of minister from the United States to
Switzerland. When connected with the American legation at Berlin, he, in
the most obliging manner, assisted me in making arrangements for
obtaining the documents I desired, which, with other papers of
importance, were copied for me from the manuscripts in the Royal Library
of Berlin, and the Ducal Library of Gotha. I have also, in connection
with this, to express my obligations to the distinguished librarian of
the former institution, Mr. Pertz, for the good-will which he showed in
promoting my views.
Through Mr. Fay, I also obtained the authority of Prince Metternich to
inspect the Archives of the Empire in Vienna, which I inferred, from the
intimate relations subsisting between the courts of Madrid and Vienna in
that day, must contain much valuable matter relevant to my subject. The
result did not correspond to my expectations. I am happy, however, to
have the opportunity of publicly offering my acknowledgments to that
eminent scholar, Dr. Ferdinand Wolf, for the obliging manner in which he
conducted the investigation for me, as well in the archives above
mentioned, as, with better results, in the Imperial Library, with which
he is officially connected.
In concluding the list of those to whose good offices I have been
indebted, I must not omit the names of M. de Salvandy, minister of
public instruction in France at the time I was engaged in making my
collection; Mr. Rush, then the minister of the United States at the
French court; Mr. Rives, of Virginia, his successor in that office; and
last, not least, my friend, Count de Circourt, a scholar whose noble
contributions to the periodical literature of his country, on the
greatest variety of topics, have given him a prominent place among the
writers of our time.
I am happy, also, to tender my acknowledgments for the favors I have
received from Mr. Van de Weyer, minister from Belgium to the court of
St. James; from Mr. B. Homer Dixon, consul for the Netherlands at
Boston; and from my friend and kinsman, Mr. Thomas Hickling, consul for
the United States at St. Michael's, who kindly furnished me with sundry
manuscripts exhibiting the condition of the Azores at the period when
those islands passed, with Portugal, under the sceptre of Philip the
Second.
Having thus acquainted the reader with the sources whence I have derived
my materials, I must now say a few words in regard to the conduct of my
narrative. An obvious difficulty in the path of the historian of this
period arises from the nature of the subject, embracing, as it does,
such a variety of independent, not to say incongruous topics, that it is
no easy matter to preserve anything like unity of interest in the story.
Thus the Revolution of the Netherlands, although, strictly speaking,
only an episode to the main body of the narrative, from its importance,
well deserves to be treated in a separate and independent narrative by
itself.[1] Running along through the whole extent of Philip's reign, it
is continually distracting the attention of the historian, creating an
embarrassment something like that which arises from what is termed a
double plot in the drama. The best way of obviating this is to keep in
view the dominant principle which controlled all the movements of the
complicated machinery, so to speak, and impressed on them a unity of
action. This principle is to be found in the policy of Philip, the great
aim of which was to uphold the supremacy of the Church, and, as a
consequence, that of the crown. "Peace and public order," he writes on
one occasion, "are to be maintained in my dominions only by maintaining
the authority of the Holy See." It was this policy, almost as sure and
steady in its operation as the laws of Nature herself, that may be said
to have directed the march of events through the whole of his long
reign; and it is only by keeping this constantly in view that the
student will be enabled to obtain a clew to guide him through the
intricate passages in the history of Philip, and the best means of
solving what would otherwise remain enigmatical in his conduct.
In the composition of the work, I have, for the most part, conformed to
the plan which I had before adopted. Far from confining myself to a
record of political events, I have endeavored to present a picture of
the intellectual culture and the manners of the people. I have not even
refused such aid as could be obtained from the display of pageants, and
court ceremonies, which, although exhibiting little more than the
costume of the time, may serve to bring the outward form of a
picturesque age more vividly before the eye of the reader. In the
arrangement of the narrative, I have not confined myself altogether to
the chronological order of events, but have thrown them into masses,
according to the subjects to which they relate, so as to produce, as far
as possible, a distinct impression on the reader. And in this way I have
postponed more than one matter of importance to a later portion of the
work, which a strict regard to time would assign more properly to an
earlier division of the subject. Finally, I have been careful to fortify
the text with citations from the original authorities on which it
depends, especially where these are rare and difficult of access.
In the part relating to the Netherlands I have pursued a course somewhat
different from what I have done in other parts of the work. The scholars
of that country, in a truly patriotic spirit, have devoted themselves of
late years to exploring their own archives, as well as those of
Simancas, for the purpose of illustrating their national annals. The
results they have given to the world in a series of publications, which
are still in progress. The historian has reason to be deeply grateful to
those pioneers, whose labors have put him in possession of materials
which afford the most substantial basis for his narrative. For what
basis can compare with that afforded by the written correspondence of
the parties themselves? It is on this sure ground that I have mainly
relied in this part of my story; and I have adopted the practice of
incorporating extracts from the letters in the body of the text, which,
if it may sometimes give an air of prolixity to the narrative, will have
the advantage of bringing the reader into a sort of personal
acquaintance with the actors, as he listens to the words spoken by
themselves.
In the earlier part of this Preface, I have made the acknowledgments due
for assistance I have received in the collection of my materials; and I
must not now conclude without recording my obligations, of another kind,
to two of my personal friends,--Mr. Charles Folsom, the learned
librarian of the Boston Athenæum, who has repeated the good offices he
had before rendered me in revising my manuscript for the press; and Mr.
John Foster Kirk, whose familiarity with the history and languages of
Modern Europe has greatly aided me in the prosecution of my researches,
while his sagacious criticism has done me no less service in the
preparation of these volumes.
Notwithstanding the advantages I have enjoyed for the composition of
this work, and especially those derived from the possession of new and
original materials, I am fully sensible that I am far from having done
justice to a subject so vast in its extent and so complicated in its
relations. It is not necessary to urge in my defence any physical
embarrassments under which I labor; since that will hardly be an excuse
for not doing well what it was not necessary to do at all. But I may be
permitted to say, that what I have done has been the result of careful
preparation; that I have endeavored to write in a spirit of candor and
good faith; and that, whatever may be the deficiencies of my work, it
can hardly fail--considering the advantages I have enjoyed over my
predecessors--to present the reader with such new and authentic
statements of facts as may afford him a better point of view than that
which he has hitherto possessed for surveying the history of Philip the
Second.
BOSTON, _July, 1855_
CONTENTS.
Book I.
CHAPTER I.
ABDICATION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.
PAGE
Introductory Remarks--Spain under Charles the Fifth--He prepares to
resign the Crown--His Abdication--His Return to Spain--His Journey to
Yuste 1
CHAPTER II.
EARLY DAYS OF PHILIP.
Birth of Philip the Second--His Education--Intrusted with the
Regency--Marries Mary of Portugal--Visit to Flanders--Public
Festivities--Ambitious Schemes--Returns to Spain 11
CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
Condition of England--Character of Mary--Philip's Proposals of
Marriage--Marriage Articles--Insurrection in England 30
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
Mary's Betrothal--Joanna Regent of Castile--Philip embarks for
England--His splendid Reception--Marriage of Philip and Mary--Royal
Entertainments--Philip's Influence--The Catholic Church
restored--Philip's Departure 43
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Empire of Philip--Paul the Fourth--Court of France--League against
Spain--The Duke of Alva--Preparations for War--Victorious Campaign 59
CHAPTER VI.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Guise enters Italy--Operations in the Abruzz--Siege of Civitella--Alva
drives out the French--Rome menaced by the Spaniards--Paul consents to
Peace--Paul's Subsequent Career 73
CHAPTER VII.
WAR WITH FRANCE.
England joins in the War--Philip's Preparations--Siege of St.
Quentin--French Army routed--Storming of St. Quentin--Successes of the
Spaniards 85
CHAPTER VIII.
WAR WITH FRANCE.
Extraordinary Efforts of France--Calais surprised by Guise--The French
invade Flanders--Bloody Battle of Gravelines--Negotiations for
Peace--Mary's Death--Accession of Elizabeth--Treaty of
Cateau-Cambresis 102
CHAPTER 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 120
Book II.
CHAPTER I.
VIEW OF THE NETHERLANDS.
Civil Institutions--Commercial Prosperity--Character of the
People--Protestant Doctrines--Persecution by Charles the Fifth 146
CHAPTER II.
SYSTEM ESTABLISHED BY PHILIP.
Unpopular Manners of Philip--He enforces the Edicts--Increase of the
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 157
CHAPTER 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 170
CHAPTER IV.
PHILIP'S THIRD MARRIAGE.
Reception of Isabella--Marriage Festivities--The Queen's Mode of
Life--The Court removed to Madrid 183
CHAPTER V.
DISCONTENT IN THE NETHERLANDS.
The Reformation--Its Progress in the Netherlands--General
Discontent--William of Orange 192
CHAPTER VI.
OPPOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT.
Grounds of Complaint--The Spanish Troops--The New Bishoprics--Influence
of Granvelle--Opposed by the Nobles--His Unpopularity 201
CHAPTER VII.
GRANVELLE COMPELLED TO WITHDRAW.
League against Granvelle--Margaret desires his Removal--Philip
deliberates--Granvelle dismissed--Leaves the Netherlands 213
CHAPTER VIII.
CHANGES DEMANDED BY THE LORDS.
Policy of Philip--Ascendancy of the Nobles--The Regent's
Embarrassments--Egmont sent to Spain 226
CHAPTER IX.
PHILIP'S INFLEXIBILITY.
Philip's Duplicity--His Procrastination--Despatches from Segovia--Effect
on the Country--The Compromise--Orange and Egmont 238
CHAPTER X.
THE CONFEDERATES.
Design of the Confederates--They enter Brussels--The
Petition--The Gueux 253
CHAPTER XI.
FREEDOM OF WORSHIP.
The Edicts suspended--The Sectaries--The Public Preachings--Attempt to
suppress them--Meeting at St. Trond--Philip's Concessions 260
CHAPTER XII.
THE ICONOCLASTS.
Cathedral of Antwerp sacked--Sacrilegious Outrages--Alarm at
Brussels--Churches granted to Reformers--Margaret repents her
Concessions--Feeling at Madrid--Sagacity of Orange--His Religious
Opinions 273
CHAPTER XIII.
THE REGENT'S AUTHORITY REËSTABLISHED.
Reaction--Appeal to Arms--Tumult in Antwerp--Siege of Valenciennes--The
Government triumphant 290
CHAPTER XIV.
TRANQUILLITY RESTORED.
Oath imposed by Margaret--Refused by Orange--He leaves the
Netherlands--Submission of the Country--New Edict--Order restored 299
Book III.
CHAPTER I.
ALVA SENT TO THE NETHERLANDS.
Alva's Appointment--His remarkable March--He arrives at
Brussels--Margaret disgusted--Policy of the Duke--Arrest of Egmont and
Hoorne 310
CHAPTER II.
CRUEL POLICY OF ALVA.
The Council of Blood--Its Organization--General Prosecutions--Civil War
in France--Departure of Margaret--Her administration reviewed 327
CHAPTER III.
REIGN OF TERROR.
Numerous Arrests--Trials and Executions--Confiscations--Orange assembles
an Army--Battle of Heyligerlee--Alva's Proceedings 340
CHAPTER IV.
TRIALS OF EGMONT AND HOORNE
The Examination--Efforts in their Behalf--Specification of
Charges--Sentence of Death--The Processes reviewed 355
CHAPTER V.
EXECUTION OF EGMONT AND HOORNE.
The Counts removed to Brussels--Informed of the Sentence--Procession to
the Scaffold--The Execution--Character of Egmont--Fate of his
Family--Sentiment of the People 364
CHAPTER VI.
SECRET EXECUTION OF MONTIGNY.
Bergen and Montigny--Their Situation in Spain--Death of Bergen--Arrest
of Montigny--Plot for his Escape--His Process--Removal to
Simancas--Closer Confinement--Midnight Execution 378
Book IV.
CHAPTER I.
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE.
Condition of Turkey--African Corsairs--Expedition against Tripoli--War
on the Barbary Coast 393
CHAPTER II.
THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.
Masters of Rhodes--Driven from Rhodes--Established at Malta--Menaced by
Solyman--La Valette--His Preparations for Defence 409
CHAPTER III.
SIEGE OF MALTA.
Condition of Malta--Arrival of the Turks--They reconnoitre the
Island--Siege of St. Elmo--Its Heroic Defence--Its Fall 414
CHAPTER IV.
SIEGE OF MALTA.
Il Borgo invested--Storming of St. Michael--Slaughter of the
Turks--Incessant Cannonade--General Assault--The Turks
Repulsed--Perilous Condition of Il Borgo--Constancy of La Valette 432
CHAPTER V.
SIEGE OF MALTA.
The Turks dispirited--Reinforcement from Sicily--Siege raised--Mustapha
defeated--Rejoicings of the Christians--Mortification of Solyman--Review
of the Siege--Subsequent History of La Valette 445
CHAPTER VI.
DON CARLOS.
His Education and Character--Dangerous Illness--Extravagant
Behavior--Opinions respecting him--His Connection with the
Flemings--Project of Flight--Insane Conduct--Arrest 456
CHAPTER VII.
DEATH OF DON CARLOS.
Causes of his Imprisonment--His Rigorous Confinement--His Excesses--His
Death--Llorente's Account--Various Accounts--Suspicious
Circumstances--Quarrel in the Palace--Obsequies of Carlos 471
CHAPTER VIII.
DEATH OF ISABELLA.
Queen Isabella--Her Relations with Carlos--Her Illness and Death--Her
Character 490
FOOTNOTES
HISTORY OF PHILIP THE SECOND.
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
ABDICATION OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.
Introductory Remarks.--Spain under Charles the Fifth.--He prepares to
resign the Crown.--His Abdication.--His Return to Spain.--His Journey to
Yuste.
1555.
In a former work, I have endeavored to portray the period when the
different provinces of Spain were consolidated into one empire under the
rule of Ferdinand and Isabella; when, by their wise and beneficent
policy, the nation emerged from the obscurity in which it had so long
remained behind the Pyrenees, and took its place as one of the great
members of the European commonwealth. I now propose to examine a later
period in the history of the same nation,--the reign of Philip the
Second; when, with resources greatly enlarged, and territory extended by
a brilliant career of discovery and conquest, it had risen to the zenith
of its power; but when, under the mischievous policy of the
administration, it had excited the jealousy of its neighbors, and
already disclosed those germs of domestic corruption which gradually led
to its dismemberment and decay.
By the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, most of the states of the
Peninsula became united under one common rule; and in 1516, the sceptre
of Spain, with its dependencies both in the Old and the New World,
passed into the hands of their grandson, Charles the Fifth, who, though
he shared the throne nominally with his mother, Joanna, became, in
consequence of her incapacity, the real sovereign of this vast empire.
He had before inherited, through his father, Philip the Handsome, that
fair portion of the ducal realm of Burgundy which comprehended Franche
Comté and the Netherlands. In 1519, he was elected to the imperial crown
of Germany. Not many years elapsed before his domain was still further
enlarged by the barbaric empires of Mexico and Peru; and Spain then
first realized the magnificent vaunt, since so often repeated, that the
sun never set within the borders of her dominions.
Yet the importance of Spain did not rise with the importance of her
acquisitions. She was, in a manner, lost in the magnitude of these
acquisitions. Some of the rival nations which owned the sway of Charles,
in Europe, were of much greater importance than Spain, and attracted
much more attention from their contemporaries. In the earlier period of
that monarch's reign, there was a moment when a contest was going
forward in Castile, of the deepest interest to mankind. Unfortunately,
the "War of the _Comunidades_," as it was termed, was soon closed by
the ruin of the patriots; and, on the memorable field of Villalar, the
liberties of Spain received a blow from which they were destined not to
recover for centuries. From that fatal hour,--the bitter fruit of the
jealousy of castes and the passions of the populace,--an unbroken
tranquillity reigned throughout the country; such a tranquillity as
naturally flows not from a free and well-conducted government, but from
a despotic one. In this political tranquillity, however, the intellect
of Spain did not slumber. Sheltered from invasion by the barrier of the
Pyrenees, her people were allowed to cultivate the arts of peace, so
long as they did not meddle with politics or religion,--in other words,
with the great interests of humanity; while the more adventurous found a
scope for their prowess in European wars, or in exploring the boundless
regions of the Western world.
While there was so little passing in Spain to attract the eye of the
historian, Germany became the theatre of one of those momentous
struggles which have had a permanent influence on the destinies of
mankind. It was in this reign that the great battle of religious liberty
was begun; and the attention and personal presence of Charles were
necessarily demanded most in the country where that battle was to be
fought. But a small part of his life was passed in Spain, in comparison
with what he spent in other parts of his dominions. His early
attachments, his lasting sympathies, were with the people of the
Netherlands; for Flanders was the place of his birth. He spoke the
language of that country more fluently than the Castilian; although he
knew the various languages of his dominions so well, that he could
address his subjects from every quarter in their native dialect. In the
same manner, he could accommodate himself to their peculiar national
manners and tastes. But this flexibility was foreign to the genius of
the Spaniard. Charles brought nothing from Spain but a religious zeal,
amounting to bigotry, which took deep root in a melancholy temperament
inherited from his mother. His tastes were all Flemish. He introduced
the gorgeous ceremonial of the Burgundian court into his own palace, and
into the household of his son. He drew his most trusted and familiar
counsellors from Flanders; and this was one great cause of the troubles
which, at the beginning of his reign, distracted Castile. There was
little to gratify the pride of the Spaniard in the position which he
occupied at the imperial court. Charles regarded Spain chiefly for the
resources she afforded for carrying on his ambitious enterprises. When
he visited her, it was usually to draw supplies from the cortes. The
Spaniards understood this, and bore less affection to his person than to
many of their monarchs far inferior to him in the qualities for exciting
it. They hardly regarded him as one of the nation. There was, indeed,
nothing national in the reign of Charles. His most intimate relations
were with Germany; and as the Emperor Charles the Fifth of Germany, not
as King Charles the First of Spain, he was known in his own time, and
stands recorded on the pages of history.
[Sidenote: SPAIN UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH.]
When Charles ascended the throne, at the beginning of the sixteenth
century, Europe may be said to have been much in the same condition, in
one respect, as she was at the beginning of the eighth. The Turk menaced
her on the east, in the same manner as the Arab had before menaced her
on the west. The hour seemed to be fast approaching which was to decide
whether Christianity or Mahometanism should hold the ascendant. The
Ottoman tide of conquest rolled up to the very walls of Vienna; and
Charles, who, as head of the empire, was placed on the frontier of
Christendom, was called on to repel it. When thirty-two years of age, he
marched against the formidable Solyman, drove him to an ignominious
retreat, and, at less cost of life than is often expended in a skirmish,
saved Europe from invasion. He afterwards crossed the sea to Tunis,
then occupied by a horde of pirates, the scourge of the Mediterranean.
He beat them in a bloody battle, slew their chief, and liberated ten
thousand captives from their dungeons. All Europe rang with the praises
of the young hero, who thus consecrated his arms to the service of the
Cross, and stood forward as the true champion of Christendom.
But from this high position Charles was repeatedly summoned to other
contests, of a more personal and far less honorable character. Such was
his long and bloody quarrel with Francis the First. It was hardly
possible that two princes, so well matched in years, power, pretensions,
and, above all, love of military glory, with dominions touching on one
another through their whole extent, could long remain without cause of
rivalry and collision. Such rivalry did exist from the moment that the
great prize of the empire was adjudged to Charles; and through the whole
of their long struggle, with the exception of a few reverses, the
superior genius of the emperor triumphed over his bold, but less politic
adversary.
There was still a third contest, on which the strength of the Spanish
monarch was freely expended through the greater part of his reign,--his
contest with the Lutheran princes of Germany. Here, too, for a long
time, fortune favored him. But it is easier to contend against man than
against a great moral principle. The principle of reform had struck too
deep into the mind of Germany to be eradicated by force or by fraud.
Charles, for a long time, by a course of crafty policy, succeeded in
baffling the Protestant league; and, by the decisive victory at
Muhlberg, seemed, at last, to have broken it altogether. But his success
only ministered to his ruin. The very man on whom he bestowed the spoils
of victory turned them against his benefactor. Charles, ill in body and
mind, and glad to escape from his enemies under cover of the night and a
driving tempest, was at length compelled to sign the treaty of Passau,
which secured to the Protestants those religious immunities against
which he had contended through his whole reign.
Not long after, he experienced another humiliating reverse from France,
then ruled by a younger rival, Henry the Second, the son of Francis. The
good star of Charles--the star of Austria--seemed to have set; and as he
reluctantly raised the siege of Metz, he was heard bitterly to exclaim,
"Fortune is a strumpet, who reserves her favors for the young!"
With spirits greatly depressed by his reverses, and still more by the
state of his health, which precluded him from taking part in the manly
and martial exercises to which he had been accustomed, he felt that he
had no longer the same strength as formerly to bear up under the toils
of empire. When but little more than thirty years of age, he had been
attacked by the gout, and of late had been so sorely afflicted with that
disorder, that he had nearly lost the use of his limbs. The man who,
cased in steel, had passed whole days and nights in the saddle,
indifferent to the weather and the season, could now hardly drag himself
along with the aid of his staff. For days he was confined to his bed;
and he did not leave his room for weeks together. His mind became
oppressed with melancholy, which was, to some extent, a constitutional
infirmity. His chief pleasure was in listening to books, especially of a
religious character. He denied himself to all except his most intimate
and trusted counsellors. He lost his interest in affairs; and for whole
months, according to one of his biographers, who had access to his
person, he refused to receive any public communication, or to subscribe
any document, or even letter.[2] One cannot understand how the business
of the nation could have been conducted in such a state of things.
After the death of his mother, Joanna, his mind became more deeply
tinctured with those gloomy fancies which in her amounted to downright
insanity. He imagined he heard her voice calling on him to follow her.
His thoughts were now turned from secular concerns to those of his own
soul; and he resolved to put in execution a plan for resigning his crown
and withdrawing to some religious retreat, where he might prepare for
his latter end. This plan he had conceived many years before, in the
full tide of successful ambition. So opposite were the elements at work
in the character of this extraordinary man!
Although he had chosen the place of his retreat, he had been deterred
from immediately executing his purpose by the forlorn condition of his
mother, and the tender age of his son. The first obstacle was now
removed by the death of Joanna, after a reign--a nominal reign--of half
a century, in which the cloud that had settled on her intellect at her
husband's death was never dispelled.
The age of Philip, his son and heir, was also no longer an objection.
From early boyhood he had been trained to the duties of his station,
and, when very young, had been intrusted with the government of Castile.
His father had surrounded him with able and experienced counsellors, and
their pupil, who showed a discretion far beyond his years, had largely
profited by their lessons. He had now entered his twenty-ninth year, an
age when the character is formed, and when, if ever, he might be
supposed qualified to assume the duties of government. His father had
already ceded to him the sovereignty of Naples and Milan, on occasion of
the prince's marriage with Mary of England. He was on a visit to that
country, when Charles, having decided on the act of abdication, sent to
require his son's attendance at Brussels, where the ceremony was to be
performed. The different provinces of the Netherlands were also summoned
to send their deputies, with authority to receive the emperor's
resignation, and to transfer their allegiance to his successor. As a
preliminary step, on the twenty-second of October, 1555, he conferred on
Philip the grand-mastership--which, as Lord of Flanders, was vested in
himself--of the _toison d'or_, the order of the Golden Fleece, of
Burgundy; the proudest and most coveted, at that day, of all the
military orders of knighthood.
Preparations were then made for conducting the ceremony of abdication
with all the pomp and solemnity suited to so august an occasion. The
great hall of the royal palace of Brussels was selected for the scene of
it. The walls of the spacious apartment were hung with tapestry, and the
floor was covered with rich carpeting. A scaffold was erected, at one
end of the room, to the height of six or seven steps. On it was placed a
throne, or chair of state, for the emperor, with other seats for Philip,
and for the great Flemish lords who were to attend the person of their
sovereign. Above the throne was suspended a gorgeous canopy, on which
were emblazoned the arms of the ducal house of Burgundy. In front of the
scaffolding, accommodations were provided for the deputies of the
provinces, who were to be seated on benches arranged according to their
respective rights of precedence.[3]
[Sidenote: CEREMONY OF ABDICATION.]
On the twenty-fifth of October, the day fixed for the ceremony, Charles
the Fifth executed an instrument by which he ceded to his son the
sovereignty of Flanders.[4] Mass was then performed; and the emperor,
accompanied by Philip and a numerous retinue, proceeded in state to the
great hall, where the deputies were already assembled.[5]
Charles was, at this time, in the fifty-sixth year of his age. His form
was slightly bent,--but it was by disease more than by time,--and on his
countenance might be traced the marks of anxiety and rough exposure. Yet
it still wore that majesty of expression so conspicuous in his portraits
by the inimitable pencil of Titian. His hair, once of a light color,
approaching to yellow, had begun to turn before he was forty, and, as
well as his beard, was now gray. His forehead was broad and expansive;
his nose aquiline. His blue eyes and fair complexion intimated his
Teutonic descent. The only feature in his countenance decidedly bad was
his lower jaw, protruding with its thick, heavy lip, so characteristic
of the physiognomies of the Austrian dynasty.[6]
In stature he was about the middle height. His limbs were strongly knit,
and once well formed, though now the extremities were sadly distorted by
disease. The emperor leaned for support on a staff with one hand, while
with the other he rested on the arm of William of Orange, who, then
young, was destined at a later day to become the most formidable enemy
of his house. The grave demeanor of Charles was rendered still more
impressive by his dress; for he was in mourning for his mother; and the
sable hue of his attire was relieved only by a single ornament, the
superb collar of the Golden Fleece, which hung from his neck.
Behind the emperor came Philip, the heir of his vast dominions. He was
of a middle height, of much the same proportions as his father, whom he
resembled also in his lineaments,--except that those of the son wore a
more sombre, and perhaps a sinister expression; while there was a
reserve in his manner, in spite of his efforts to the contrary, as if he
would shroud his thoughts from observation. The magnificence of his
dress corresponded with his royal station, and formed a contrast to that
of his father, who was quitting the pomp and grandeur of the world, on
which the son was about to enter.
Next to Philip came Mary, the emperor's sister, formerly queen of
Hungary. She had filled the post of regent of the Low Countries for
nearly twenty years, and now welcomed the hour when she was to resign
the burden of sovereignty to her nephew, and withdraw, like her imperial
brother, into private life. Another sister of Charles, Eleanor, widow of
the French king, Francis the First, also took part in these ceremonies,
previous to her departure for Spain, whither she was to accompany the
emperor.
After these members of the imperial family came the nobility of the
Netherlands, the knights of the Golden Fleece, the royal counsellors,
and the great officers of the household, all splendidly attired in their
robes of state, and proudly displaying the insignia of their orders.
When the emperor had mounted his throne, with Philip on his right hand,
the Regent Mary on his left, and the rest of his retinue disposed along
the seats prepared for them on the platform, the president of the
council of Flanders addressed the assembly. He briefly explained the
object for which they had been summoned, and the motives which had
induced their master to abdicate the throne; and he concluded by
requiring them, in their sovereign's name, to transfer their allegiance
from himself to Philip, his son and rightful heir.
After a pause, Charles rose to address a few parting words to his
subjects. He stood with apparent difficulty, and rested his right hand
on the shoulder of the Prince of Orange, intimating, by this preference
on so distinguished an occasion, the high favour in which he held the
young nobleman. In the other hand he held a paper, containing some hints
for his discourse, and occasionally cast his eyes on it, to refresh his
memory. He spoke in the French language.
He was unwilling, he said, to part from his people without a few words
from his own lips. It was now forty years since he had been intrusted
with the sceptre of the Netherlands. He was soon after called to take
charge of a still more extensive empire, both in Spain and in Germany,
involving a heavy responsibility for one so young. He had, however,
endeavored earnestly to do his duty to the best of his abilities. He had
been ever mindful of the interests of the dear land of his birth, but,
above all, of the great interests of Christianity. His first object had
been to maintain these inviolate against the infidel. In this he had
been thwarted, partly by the jealousy of neighboring powers, and partly
by the factions of the heretical princes of Germany.
In the performance of his great work, he had never consulted his ease.
His expeditions, in war and in peace, to France, England, Germany,
Italy, Spain, and Flanders, had amounted to no less than forty. Four
times he had crossed the Spanish seas, and eight times the
Mediterranean. He had shrunk from no toil, while he had the strength to
endure it. But a cruel malady had deprived him of that strength.
Conscious of his inability to discharge the duties of his station, he
had long since come to the resolution to relinquish it. From this he had
been diverted only by the situation of his unfortunate parent, and by
the inexperience of his son. These objections no longer existed; and he
should not stand excused, in the eye of Heaven or of the world, if he
should insist on still holding the reins of government when he was
incapable of managing them,--when every year his incapacity must become
more obvious.
[Sidenote: CEREMONY OF ABDICATION]
He begged them to believe that this, and no other motive, induced him to
resign the sceptre which he had so long swayed. They had been to him
dutiful and loving subjects; and such, he doubted not, they would prove
to his successor. Above all things, he besought them to maintain the
purity of the faith. If any one, in these licentious times, had admitted
doubts into his bosom, let such doubts be extirpated at once. "I know
well," he concluded, "that, in my long administration, I have fallen
into many errors, and committed some wrongs, but it was from ignorance;
and, if there be any here whom I have wronged, they will believe that it
was not intended, and grant me their forgiveness."[7]
While the emperor was speaking, a breathless silence pervaded the whole
audience. Charles had ever been dear to the people of the
Netherlands,--the land of his birth. They took a national pride in his
achievements, and felt that his glory reflected a peculiar lustre on
themselves. As they now gazed for the last time on that revered form,
and listened to the parting admonitions from his lips, they were deeply
affected, and not a dry eye was to be seen in the assembly.
After a short interval, Charles, turning to Philip, who, in an attitude
of deep respect, stood awaiting his commands, he thus addressed
him:--"If the vast possessions which are now bestowed on you had come by
inheritance, there would be abundant cause for gratitude. How much more,
when they come as a free gift in the lifetime of your father! But,
however large the debt, I shall consider it all repaid, if you only
discharge your duty to your subjects. So rule over them, that men shall
commend, and not censure me for the part I am now acting. Go on as you
have begun. Fear God; live justly; respect the laws; above all, cherish
the interests of religion; and may the Almighty bless you with a son, to
whom, when old and stricken with disease, you may be able to resign your
kingdom with the same good-will with which I now resign mine to you."
As he ceased, Philip, much affected, would have thrown himself at his
father's feet, assuring him of his intention to do all in his power to
merit such goodness; but Charles, raising his son, tenderly embraced
him, while the tears flowed fast down his cheeks. Every one, even the
most stoical, was touched by this affecting scene; "and nothing," says
one who was present, "was to be heard, throughout the hall, but sobs and
ill-suppressed moans." Charles, exhausted by his efforts, and deadly
pale, sank back upon his seat; while, with feeble accents, he exclaimed,
as he gazed on his people, "God bless you! God bless you!"[8]
After these emotions had somewhat subsided, Philip arose, and,
delivering himself in French, briefly told the deputies of the regret
which he felt at not being able to address them in their native
language, and to assure them of the favor and high regard in which he
held them. This would be done for him by the bishop of Arras.
This was Antony Perennot, better known as Cardinal Granvelle, son of the
famous minister of Charles the Fifth, and destined himself to a still
higher celebrity as the minister of Philip the Second. In clear and
fluent language, he gave the deputies the promise of their new sovereign
to respect the laws and liberties of the nation; invoking them, on his
behalf, to aid him with their counsels, and, like royal vassals, to
maintain the authority of the law in his dominions. After a suitable
response from the deputies, filled with sentiments of regret for the
loss of their late monarch, and with those of loyalty to their new one,
the Regent Mary formally abdicated her authority, and the session
closed. So ended a ceremony, which, considering the importance of its
consequences, the character of the actors, and the solemnity of the
proceedings, is one of the most remarkable in history. That the crown of
the monarch is lined with thorns, is a trite maxim; and it requires no
philosophy to teach us that happiness does not depend on station. Yet,
numerous as are the instances of those who have waded to a throne
through seas of blood, there are but few who, when they have once tasted
the sweets of sovereignty, have been content to resign them; still fewer
who, when they have done so, have had the philosophy to conform to their
change of condition, and not to repent it. Charles, as the event proved,
was one of these few.
On the sixteenth day of January, 1556, in the presence of such of the
Spanish nobility as were at the court, he executed the deeds by which he
ceded the sovereignty of Castile and Aragon, with their dependencies, to
Philip.[9]
The last act that remained for him to perform was to resign the crown of
Germany in favor of his brother Ferdinand. But this he consented to
defer some time longer, at the request of Ferdinand himself, who wished
to prepare the minds of the electoral college for this unexpected
transfer of the imperial sceptre. But, while Charles consented to retain
for the present the title of Emperor, the real power and the burden of
sovereignty would remain with Ferdinand.[10]
At the time of abdicating the throne of the Netherlands, Charles was
still at war with France. He had endeavored to negotiate a permanent
peace with that country; and, although he failed in this, he had the
satisfaction, on the fifth of February, 1556, to arrange a truce for
five years, which left both powers in the possession of their respective
conquests. In the existing state of these conquests, the truce was by no
means favorable to Spain. But Charles would have made even larger
concessions, rather than leave the legacy of a war to his less
experienced successor.
[Sidenote: HIS RETURN TO SPAIN]
Having thus completed all his arrangements, by which the most powerful
prince of Europe descended to the rank of a private gentleman, Charles
had no longer reason to defer his departure, and he proceeded to the
place of embarkation. He was accompanied by a train of Flemish
courtiers, and by the foreign ambassadors, to the latter of whom he
warmly commended the interests of his son. A fleet of fifty-six sail was
riding at anchor in the port of Flushing, ready to transport him and his
retinue to Spain. From the imperial household, consisting of seven
hundred and sixty-two persons, he selected a hundred and fifty as his
escort; and accompanied by his sisters, after taking an affectionate
farewell of Philip, whose affairs detained him in Flanders, on the
thirteenth of September he sailed from the harbor of Flushing.
The passage was a boisterous one; and Charles, who suffered greatly from
his old enemy, the gout, landed, in a feeble state, at Laredo, in
Biscay, on the twenty-eighth of the month. Scarcely had he left the
vessel, when a storm fell with fury on the fleet, and did some mischief
to the shipping in the harbor. The pious Spaniard saw in this the finger
of Providence, which had allowed no harm to the squadron till its royal
freight had been brought safely to the shore.[11]
On landing, Charles complained, and with some reason, of the scanty
preparations that had been made for him. Philip had written several
times to his sister, the regent, ordering her to have everything ready
for the emperor on his arrival.[12] Joanna had accordingly issued her
orders to that effect. But promptness and punctuality are not virtues of
the Spaniard. Some apology may be found for their deficiency in the
present instance; as Charles himself had so often postponed his
departure from the Low Countries, that, when he did come, the people
were, in a manner, taken by surprise. That the neglect was not
intentional is evident from their subsequent conduct.[13]
Charles, whose infirmities compelled him to be borne in a litter, was
greeted, everywhere on the road, like a sovereign returning to his
dominions. It was evening when he reached the ancient city of Burgos;
and, as he passed through its illuminated streets the bells rang
merrily, to give him welcome. He remained there three days, experiencing
the hospitalities of the great constable, and receiving the homage of
the northern lords, as well as of the people, who thronged the route by
which he was to pass. At Torquemada, among those who came to pay their
respects to their former master was Gasca, the good president of Peru.
He had been sent to America to suppress the insurrection of Gonzalo
Pizarro, and restore tranquillity to the country. In the execution of
this delicate mission, he succeeded so well, that the emperor, on his
return, had raised him to the see of Plasencia; and the excellent man
now lived in his diocese, where, in the peaceful discharge of his
episcopal functions, he probably enjoyed far greater contentment than
he could have derived from the dazzling, but difficult post of an
American viceroy.
From Torquemada, Charles slowly proceeded to Valladolid, where his
daughter, the Regent Joanna, was then holding her court. Preparations
were made for receiving him in a manner suited to his former rank. But
Charles positively declined these honours, reserving them for his two
sisters, the dowager queens of France and Hungary, who accordingly made
their entrance into the capital in great state, on the day following
that on which their royal brother had entered it with the simplicity of
a private citizen.
He remained here some time, in order to recover from the fatigue of his
journey; and, although he took little part in the festivities of the
court, he gave audience to his ancient ministers, and to such of the
Castilian grandees as were eager to render him their obeisance. At the
court he had also the opportunity of seeing his grandson Carlos, the
heir of the monarchy; and his quick eye, it is said, in this short time,
saw enough in the prince's deportment to fill him with ominous
forebodings.
Charles prolonged his stay fourteen days in Valladolid, during which
time his health was much benefited by the purity and the dryness of the
atmosphere. On his departure, his royal sisters would have borne him
company, and even have fixed their permanent residence near his own. But
to this he would not consent; and, taking a tender farewell of every
member of his family,--as one who was never to behold them again,--he
resumed his journey.
The place he had chosen for his retreat was the monastery of Yuste, in
the province of Estremadura, not many miles from Plasencia. On his way
thither he halted near three months at Jarandilla, the residence of the
count of Oropesa, waiting there for the completion of some repairs that
were going on in the monastery, as well as for the remittance of a
considerable sum of money, which he was daily expecting. This he
required chiefly to discharge the arrears due to some of his old
retainers; and the failure of the remittance has brought some obloquy on
Philip, who could so soon show himself unmindful of his obligations to
his father. But the blame should rather be charged on Philip's ministers
than on Philip, absent as he was at that time from the country, and
incapable of taking personal cognizance of the matter. Punctuality in
his pecuniary engagements was a virtue to which neither Charles nor
Philip--the masters of the Indies--could at any time lay claim. But the
imputation of parsimony, or even indifference, on the part of the
latter, in his relations with his father, is fully disproved by the
subsequent history of that monarch at the convent of Yuste.[14]
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF PHILIP.]
This place, it is said, had attracted his eye many years before, when on
a visit to that part of the country, and he marked it for his future
residence. The convent was tenanted by monks of the strictest order of
Saint Jerome. But, however strict in their monastic rule, the good
fathers showed much taste in the selection of their ground, as well as
in the embellishment of it. It lay in a wild, romantic country,
embosomed among hills that stretch along the northern confines of
Estremadura. The building, which was of great antiquity, had been
surrounded by its inmates with cultivated gardens, and with groves of
orange, lemon, and myrtle, whose fragrance was tempered by the
refreshing coolness of the waters that gushed forth in abundance from
the rocky sides of the hills. It was a delicious retreat, and, by its
calm seclusion and the character of its scenery, was well suited to
withdraw the mind from the turmoil of the world, and dispose it to
serious meditation. Here the monarch, after a life of restless ambition,
proposed to spend the brief remainder of his days, and dedicate it to
the salvation of his soul. He could not, however, as the event proved,
close his heart against all sympathy with mankind, nor refuse to take
some part in the great questions which then agitated the world. Charles
was not master of that ignoble philosophy which enabled Diocletian to
turn with contentment from the cares of an empire to those of a
cabbage-garden.--In this retirement we must now leave the royal recluse,
while we follow the opening career of the prince whose reign is the
subject of the present history.
CHAPTER II.
EARLY DAYS OF PHILIP.
Birth of Philip the Second.--His Education.--Intrusted with the
Regency.--Marries Mary of Portugal.--Visit to Flanders.--Public
Festivities.--Ambitious Schemes.--Returns to Spain.
1527-1551.
Philip the Second was born at Valladolid, on the twenty-first of May,
1527. His mother was the Empress Isabella, daughter of Emanuel the Great
of Portugal. By his father he was descended from the ducal houses of
Burgundy and Austria. By both father and mother he claimed a descent
from Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic of Spain. As by blood he was
half a Spaniard, so by temperament and character he proved to be wholly
so.
The ceremony of his baptism was performed with all due solemnity, by
Tavera, archbishop of Toledo, on the twenty-fifth of June, when the
royal infant received the name of Philip, after his paternal
grandfather, Philip the Handsome, whose brief reign--for which he was
indebted to his union with Joanna, queen-proprietor of Castile--has
hardly secured him a place in the line of Castilian sovereigns.
The birth of a son--the heir of so magnificent an empire--was hailed
with delight both by Charles and by the whole nation, who prepared to
celebrate it in a style worthy of the event, when tidings reached them
of the capture of Pope Clement the Seventh and the sack of Rome by the
Spanish troops under the constable de Bourbon. The news of this event,
and the cruelties inflicted by the conquerors, filled all Europe with
consternation. Even the Protestants, who had no superfluous sympathy to
spare for the sufferings of the pope, were shocked by the perpetration
of atrocities compared with which the conduct of Attila and Alaric might
almost be deemed merciful. Whatever responsibility may attach to Charles
on the score of the expedition, it would be injustice to him to suppose
that he did not share in the general indignation at the manner in which
it was conducted. At all events, he could hardly venture to outrage the
feelings of Christendom so far as to take the present moment for one of
public rejoicing. Orders were instantly issued to abandon the intended
festivities, greatly to the discontent of the people, whose sympathy for
the pope did not by any means incline them to put this restraint on the
expression of their loyalty; and they drew from the disappointment an
uncomfortable augury that the reign of the young prince boded no good to
the Catholic religion.[15]
It was not long, however, before the people of Castile had an
opportunity for the full display of their enthusiasm, on the occasion of
Philip's recognition as rightful heir to the crown. The ceremony was
conducted with great pomp and splendor in the cortes at Madrid, on the
nineteenth of April, 1528, when he was but eleven months old. The prince
was borne in the arms of his mother, who, with the emperor, was present
on the occasion; while the nobles, the clergy, and the commons took the
oath of allegiance to the royal infant, as successor to the crown of
Castile. The act of homage was no sooner published, than the nation, as
if by way of compensation for the past, abandoned itself to a general
jubilee. Illuminations and bonfires were lighted up in all the towns and
villages; while everywhere were to be seen dancing, bull-fights, tilts
of reeds, and the other national games of that chivalrous and romantic
land.
Soon after this, Charles was called by his affairs to other parts of his
far-extended empire, and he left his infant son to the care of a
Portuguese lady, Doña Leonor Mascareñas, or rather to that of the
Empress Isabella, in whose prudence and maternal watchfulness he could
safely confide. On the emperor's return to Spain, when his son was
hardly seven years old, he formed for him a separate establishment, and
selected two persons for the responsible office of superintending his
education.[16]
One of these personages was Juan Martinez Siliceo, at that time
professor in the College of Salamanca. He was a man of piety and
learning, of an accommodating temper,--too accommodating, it appears
from some of Charles's letters, for the good of his pupil, though not,
as it would seem, for his own good, since he found such favor with the
prince, that, from an humble ecclesiastic, he was subsequently preferred
to the highest dignities of the Church.
[Sidenote: HIS EDUCATION.]
Under him Philip was instructed in the ancient classics, and made such
progress in Latin, that he could write it, and did write it frequently
in after life, with ease and correctness. He studied, also, Italian and
French. He seems to have had little knowledge of the former, but French
he could speak indifferently well, though he was rarely inclined to
venture beyond his own tongue. He showed a more decided taste for
science, especially the mathematics. He made a careful study of the
principles of architecture; and the fruits of this study are to be seen
in some of the noblest monuments erected in that flourishing period of
the arts. In sculpture and painting he also made some proficiency, and
became, in later life, no contemptible critic,--at least for a
sovereign.
The other functionary charged with Philip's education was Don Juan de
Zuñiga, commendador mayor of Castile. He taught his pupil to fence, to
ride, to take his part at the tilts and tourneys, and, in short, to
excel in the chivalrous exercises familiar to cavaliers of his time. He
encouraged Philip to invigorate his constitution by the hardy pleasures
of the chase, to which, however, he was but little addicted as he
advanced in years.
But, besides these personal accomplishments, no one was better qualified
than Zuñiga to instruct his people in the duties belonging to his royal
station. He was a man of ancient family, and had passed much of his life
in courts. But he had none of the duplicity or of the suppleness which
often marks the character of the courtier. He possessed too high a
sentiment of honor to allow him to trifle with truth. He spoke his mind
plainly, too plainly sometimes for the taste of his pupil. Charles, who
understood the character of Zuñiga, wrote to his son to honor and to
cherish him. "If he deals plainly with you," he said, "it is for the
love he bears you. If he were to flatter you, and be only solicitous of
ministering to your wishes, he would be like all the rest of the world,
and you would have no one near to tell you the truth;--and a worse thing
cannot happen to any man, old or young; but most of all to the young,
from their want of experience to discern truth from error." The wise
emperor, who knew how rarely it is that truth is permitted to find its
way to royal ears, set a just value on the man who had the courage to
speak it.[17]
Under the influence of these teachers, and, still more, of the
circumstances in which he was placed,--the most potent teachers of
all,--Philip grew in years, and slowly unfolded the peculiar qualities
of his disposition. He seemed cautious and reserved in his demeanor, and
slow of speech; yet what he said had a character of thought beyond his
age. At no time did he discover that buoyancy of spirit, or was he
betrayed into those sallies of temper, which belong to a bold and
adventurous, and often to a generous nature. His deportment was marked
by a seriousness that to some might seem to savor of melancholy. He was
self-possessed, so that even as a boy he was rarely off his guard.[18]
The emperor, whose affairs called him away from Spain much the greater
part of his time, had not the power of personally superintending the
education of his son. Unfortunately for the latter, his excellent mother
died when he was but twelve years old. Charles, who loved his wife as
much as a man is capable of loving whose soul is filled with schemes of
boundless ambition, was at Madrid when he received tidings of her
illness. He posted in all haste to Toledo, where the queen then was, but
arrived there only in time to embrace her cold remains before they were
consigned to the sepulchre. The desolate monarch abandoned himself to an
agony of grief, and was with difficulty withdrawn from the apartment by
his attendants, to indulge his solitary regrets in the neighboring
monastery of La Sisla.
Isabella well deserved to be mourned by her husband. She was a woman
from all accounts, possessed of many high and generous qualities. Such
was her fortitude, that, at the time of her confinement, she was never
heard to utter a groan. She seemed to think any demonstration of
suffering a weakness, and had the chamber darkened that her attendants
might not see the distress painted on her countenance.[19] With this
constancy of spirit, she united many feminine virtues. The palace, under
her rule, became a school of industry. Instead of wasting her leisure
hours in frivolous pleasures, she might be seen busily occupied, with
her maidens, in the elegant labors of the loom; and, like her ancestor,
the good Queen Isabella the Catholic, she sent more than one piece of
tapestry, worked by her own hands, to adorn the altars of Jerusalem.
These excellent qualities were enhanced by manners so attractive, that
her effigy was struck on a medal, with a device of the three Graces on
the reverse side, bearing the motto, _Has Habet et superat_.[20]
Isabella was but thirty-six years old at the time of her death. Charles
was not forty. He never married again. Yet the bereavement seems to have
had little power to soften his nature, or incline him to charity for the
misconduct, or compassion for the misfortunes of others. It was but a
few months after the death of his wife, that, on occasion of the
insurrection of Ghent, he sought a passage through the territory of his
ancient enemy of France, descended on the offending city, and took such
vengeance on its wretched inhabitants as made all Europe ring with his
cruelty.[21]
Philip was too young at this time to take part in the administration of
the kingdom during his father's absence. But he was surrounded by able
statesmen, who familiarized him with ideas of government, by admitting
him to see the workings of the machinery which he was one day to direct.
Charles was desirous that the attention of his son, even in boyhood,
should be turned to those affairs which were to form the great business
of his future life. It seems even thus early--at this period of mental
depression--the emperor cherished the plan of anticipating the natural
consequence of his decease, by resigning his dominions into the hands of
Philip so soon as he should be qualified to rule them.
No event occurred to disturb the tranquillity of Spain during the
emperor's absence from that country, to which he returned in the winter
of 1541. It was after his disastrous expedition against Algiers,--the
most disastrous of any that he had yet undertaken. He there saw his navy
sunk or scattered by the tempest, and was fortunate in finding a
shelter, with its shattered remnants, in the port of Carthagena. Soon
after landing, he received a letter from Philip, condoling with him on
his losses, and striving to cheer him with the reflection, that they had
been caused by the elements, not by his enemies. With this tone of
philosophy were mingled expressions of sympathy; and Charles may have
been gratified with the epistle,--if he could believe it the
composition of his son.[22] Philip soon after this made a journey to
the south; and, in the society of one who was now the chief object of
his affections, the emperor may have found the best consolation in his
misfortunes.
[Sidenote: INTRUSTED WITH THE REGENCY.]
The French had availed themselves of the troubled state of Charles's
affairs to make a descent upon Roussillon; and the Dauphin now lay in
some strength before the gates of Perpignan. The emperor considered this
a favorable moment for Philip to take his first lesson in war. The
prince accordingly posted to Valladolid. A considerable force was
quickly mustered; and Philip, taking the command, and supported by some
of the most experienced of his father's generals, descended rapidly
towards the coast. But the Dauphin did not care to wait for his
approach; and, breaking up his camp, he retreated, without striking a
blow, in all haste, across the mountains. Philip entered the town in
triumph, and soon after returned, with the unstained laurels of victory,
to receive his father's congratulations. The promptness of his movements
on this occasion gained him credit with the Spaniards; and the fortunate
result seemed to furnish a favorable augury for the future.
On his return, the prince was called to preside over the cortes at
Monzon,--a central town, where the deputies of Aragon, Catalonia, and
Valencia continued to assemble separately, long after those provinces
had been united to Castile. Philip, with all the forms prescribed by the
constitution, received the homage of the representatives assembled, as
successor to the crown of Aragon.
The war with France, which, after a temporary suspension, had broken out
with greater violence than ever, did not permit the emperor long to
protract his stay in the Peninsula. Indeed, it seemed to his Spanish
subjects that he rarely visited them, except when his exchequer required
to be replenished for carrying on his restless enterprises, and that he
stayed no longer than was necessary to effect this object. On leaving
the country, he intrusted the regency to Philip, under the general
direction of a council consisting of the duke of Alva, Cardinal Tavera,
and the Commendador Cobos. Some time after this, while still lingering
in Catalonia, previous to his embarkation, Charles addressed a letter to
his son, advising him as to his political course, and freely criticising
the characters of the great lords associated with him in the government.
The letter, which is altogether a remarkable document, contains, also,
some wholesome admonitions on Philip's private conduct. "The duke of
Alva," the emperor emphatically wrote, "is the ablest statesman and the
best soldier I have in my dominions. Consult him, above all, in military
affairs; but do not depend upon him entirely in these or in any other
matters. Depend on no one but yourself. The grandees will be too happy
to secure your favor, and through you to govern the land. But, if you
are thus governed, it will be your ruin. The mere suspicion of it will
do you infinite prejudice. Make use of all; but lean exclusively on
none. In your perplexities, ever trust in your Maker. Have no care but
for him." The emperor then passes some strictures on the Commendador
Cobos, as too much inclined to pleasure, at the same time admonishing
Philip of the consequences of a libertine career, fatal alike, he tells
him, to both soul and body. There seems to have been some ground for
this admonition, as the young prince had shown a disposition to
gallantry, which did not desert him in later life. "Yet, on the whole,"
says the monarch, "I will admit I have much reason to be satisfied with
your behavior. But I would have you perfect; and, to speak frankly,
whatever other persons may tell you, you have some things to mend yet.
Your confessor," he continues, "is now your old preceptor, the bishop
of Carthagena,"--to which see the worthy professor had been recently
raised. "He is a good man, as all the world knows; but I hope he will
take better care of your conscience than he did of your studies, and
that he will not show quite so accommodating a temper in regard to the
former as he did with the latter."[23]
On the cover of this curious epistle the emperor indorsed a direction to
his son, to show it to no living person; but if he found himself ill at
any time, to destroy the letter, or seal it up under cover to him. It
would, indeed, have edified those courtiers, who fancied they stood
highest in the royal favor, to see how, to their very depths, their
characters were sounded, and how clearly their schemes of ambition were
revealed to the eye of their master. It was this admirable perception of
character which enabled Charles, so generally, to select the right agent
for the execution of his plans, and thus to insure their success.
The letter from Palamos is one among many similar proofs of the care
with which, even from a distance, Charles watched over his son's course,
and endeavored to form his character. The experienced navigator would
furnish a chart to the youthful pilot, by which, without other aid, he
might securely steer through seas strange and unknown to him. Yet there
was little danger in the navigation, at this period; for Spain lay in a
profound tranquillity, unruffled by a breath from the rude tempest,
that, in other parts of Europe, was unsettling princes on their thrones.
A change was now to take place in Philip's domestic relations. His
magnificent expectations made him, in the opinion of the world, the best
match in Europe. His father had long contemplated the event of his son's
marrying. He had first meditated an alliance for him with Margaret,
daughter of Francis the First, by which means the feud with his ancient
rival might be permanently healed. But Philip's inclination was turned
to an alliance with Portugal. This latter was finally adopted by
Charles; and, in December, 1542, Philip was betrothed to the Infanta
Mary, daughter of John the Third and of Catharine, the emperor's sister.
She was, consequently, cousin-german to Philip. At the same time,
Joanna, Charles's youngest daughter, was affianced to the eldest son of
John the Third, and heir to his crown. The intermarriages of the royal
houses of Castile and Portugal were so frequent, that the several
members stood in multiplied and most perplexing degrees of affinity with
one another.
Joanna was eight years younger than her brother. Charles had one other
child, Mary, born the year after Philip. She was destined to a more
splendid fortune than her sister, as bride of the future emperor of
Germany. Since Philip and the Portuguese princess were now both more
than sixteen years old, being nearly of the same age, it was resolved
that their marriage should no longer be deferred. The place appointed
for the ceremony was the ancient city of Salamanca.
[Sidenote: MARRIES MARY OF PORTUGAL.]
In October, 1543, the Portuguese infanta quitted her father's palace in
Lisbon, and set out for Castile. She was attended by a numerous train of
nobles, with the archbishop of Lisbon at their head. A splendid embassy
was sent to meet her on the borders, and conduct her to Salamanca. At
its head was the duke of Medina Sidonia, chief of the Guzmans, the
wealthiest and most powerful lord in Andalusia. He had fitted up his
palace at Badajoz in the most costly and sumptuous style, for the
accommodation of the princess. The hangings were of cloth of gold; the
couches, the sideboards, and some of the other furniture, of burnished
silver. The duke himself rode in a superb litter, and the mules which
carried it were shod with gold. The members of his household and his
retainers swelled to the number of three thousand, well mounted, wearing
the liveries and cognizance of their master. Among them was the duke's
private band, including several natives of the Indies,--then not a
familiar sight in Spain,--displaying on their breasts broad silver
escutcheons, on which were emblazoned the arms of the Guzmans. The
chronicler is diffuse in his account of the infanta's reception, from
which a few particulars may be selected for such as take an interest in
the Spanish costume and manners of the sixteenth century.
The infanta was five months younger than Philip. She was of the middle
size, with a good figure, though somewhat inclined to _embonpoint_, and
was distinguished by a graceful carriage and a pleasing expression of
countenance. Her dress was of cloth of silver, embroidered with flowers
of gold. She wore a _capa_, or Castilian mantle, of violet-colored
velvet, figured with gold, and a hat of the same materials, surmounted
by a white and azure plume. The housings of the mule were of rich
brocade, and Mary rode on a silver saddle.
As she approached Salamanca, she was met by the rector and professors of
the university, in their academic gowns. Next followed the judges and
_regidores_ of the city, in their robes of office, of crimson velvet,
with hose and shoes of spotless white. After these came the
military,--horse and foot,--in their several companies, making a
brilliant show with their gay uniforms; and, after going through their
various evolutions, they formed into an escort for the princess. In this
way, amidst the sound of music and the shouts of the multitude, the
glittering pageant entered the gates of the capital.
The infanta was there received under a superb canopy, supported by the
magistrates of the city. The late ambassador to Portugal, Don Luis
Sarmiento, who had negotiated the marriage treaty, held the bridle of
her mule; and in this state she arrived at the palace of the duke of
Alva, destined for her reception in Salamanca. Here she was received
with all honour by the duchess, in the presence of a brilliant company
of cavaliers and noble ladies. Each of the ladies was graciously
permitted by the infanta to kiss her hand; but the duchess, the
chronicler is careful to inform us, she distinguished by the honor of an
embrace.
All the while, Philip had been in the presence of the infanta, unknown
to herself. Impatient to see his destined bride, the young prince had
sallied out, with a few attendants, to the distance of five or six miles
from the city, all in the disguise of huntsmen. He wore a slouched
velvet hat on his head, and his face was effectually concealed under a
gauze mask, so that he could mingle in the crowd by the side of the
infanta, and make his own scrutiny, unmarked by any one. In this way he
accompanied the procession during the five hours which it lasted, until
the darkness had set in; "if darkness could be spoken of," says the
chronicler, "where the blaze of ten thousand torches shed a light
stronger than day."
The following evening, November the twelfth, was appointed for the
marriage. The duke and duchess of Alva stood as sponsors, and the
nuptial ceremony was performed by Tavera, archbishop of Toledo. The
festivities were prolonged through another week. The saloons were filled
with the beauty of Castile. The proudest aristocracy in Europe vied with
each other in the display of magnificence at the banquet and the
tourney: and sounds of merriment succeeded to the tranquillity which had
so long reigned in the cloistered shades of Salamanca.
On the nineteenth of the month the new-married pair transferred their
residence to Valladolid,--a city at once fortunate and fatal to the
princess. Well might the chronicler call it "fatal;" for, in less than
two years, July 8th, 1545, she there gave birth to a son, the
celebrated Don Carlos, whose mysterious fate has furnished so fruitful a
theme for speculation. Mary survived the birth of her child but a few
days. Had her life been spared, a mother's care might perhaps have given
a different direction to his character, and, through this, to his
fortunes. The remains of the infanta, first deposited in the cathedral
of Granada, were afterwards removed to the Escorial, that magnificent
mausoleum prepared by her husband for the royalty of Spain.[24]
In the following year died Tavera, archbishop of Toledo. He was an
excellent man, and greatly valued by the emperor; who may be thought to
have passed a sufficient encomium on his worth when he declared, that
"by his death Philip had suffered a greater loss than by that of Mary;
for he could get another wife, but not another Tavera." His place was
filled by Siliceo, Philip's early preceptor, who, after having been
raised to the archiepiscopal see of Toledo, received a cardinal's hat
from Rome. The accommodating spirit of the good ecclesiastic had
doubtless some influence in his rapid advancement from the condition of
a poor teacher in Salamanca to the highest post,--as the see of Toledo,
with its immense revenues and authority, might be considered,--next to
the papacy, in the Christian Church.
For some years, no event of importance occurred to disturb the repose of
the Peninsula. But the emperor was engaged in a stormy career abroad, in
which his arms were at length crowned with success by the decisive
battle of Muhlberg.
This victory, which secured him the person of his greatest enemy, placed
him in a position for dictating terms to the Protestant princes of
Germany. He had subsequently withdrawn to Brussels, where he received an
embassy from Philip, congratulating him on the success of his arms.
Charles was desirous to see his son, from whom he had now been separated
nearly six years. He wished, moreover, to introduce him to the
Netherlands, and make him personally acquainted with the people over
whom he was one day to rule. He sent instructions, accordingly, to
Philip, to repair to Flanders, so soon as the person appointed to
relieve him in the government should arrive in Castile.
The individual selected by the emperor for this office was Maximilian,
the son of his brother Ferdinand. He was a young man of good parts,
correct judgment, and popular manners,--well qualified, notwithstanding
his youth, for the post assigned to him. He was betrothed, as already
mentioned, to the emperor's eldest daughter, his cousin Mary; and the
regency was to be delivered into his hands on the marriage of the
parties.
Philip received his father's commands while presiding at the cortes of
Monzon. He found the Aragonese legislature by no means so tractable as
the Castilian. The deputies from the mountains of Aragon and from the
sea-coast of Catalonia were alike sturdy in their refusal to furnish
further supplies for those ambitious enterprises, which, whatever glory
they might bring to their sovereign, were of little benefit to them. The
independent people of these provinces urged their own claims with a
pertinacity, and criticized the conduct of their rulers with a
bluntness, that was little grateful to the ear of majesty. The
convocation of the Aragonese cortes was, in the view of the king of
Spain, what the convocation of a general council was in that of the
pope,--a measure not to be resorted to but from absolute necessity.
On the arrival of Maximilian in Castile, his marriage with the Infanta
Mary was immediately celebrated. The ceremony took place, with all the
customary pomp, in the courtly city of Valladolid. Among the festivities
that followed may be noticed the performance of a comedy of Ariosto,--a
proof that the beautiful Italian literature, which had exercised a
visible influence on the compositions of the great Castilian poets of
the time, had now commended itself, in some degree, to the popular
taste.
Before leaving the country, Philip, by his father's orders, made a
change in his domestic establishment, which he formed on the Burgundian
model. This was more ceremonious, and far more costly, than the
primitive usage of Castile. A multitude of new offices was created, and
the most important were filled by grandees of the highest class. The
duke of Alva was made _mayor-domo mayor_; Antonio de Toledo, his
kinsman, master of the horse; Figueroa, count of Feria, captain of the
body-guard. Among the chamberlains was Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of
Eboli, one of the most important members of the cabinet under Philip.
Even the menial offices connected with the person and table of the
prince were held by men of rank. A guard was lodged in the palace.
Philip dined in public in great state, attended by his kings-at-arms,
and by a host of minstrels and musicians. One is reminded of the pompous
etiquette of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. All this, however, was
distasteful to the Spaniards, who did not comprehend why the prince
should relinquish the simple usages of his own land for the fashions of
Burgundy. Neither was it to the taste of Philip himself; but it suited
that of his father, who was desirous that his son should flatter the
Flemings by the assumption of a state to which they had been accustomed
in their Burgundian princes.[25]
Philip, having now completed his arrangements, and surrendered the
regency into the hands of his brother-in-law, had no reason longer to
postpone his journey. He was accompanied by the duke of Alva, Enriquez,
high-admiral of Castile, Ruy Gomez, prince of Eboli, and a long train of
persons of the highest rank. There was, besides, a multitude of younger
cavaliers of family. The proudest nobles of the land contended for the
honor of having their sons take part in the expedition. The number was
still further augmented by a body of artists and men of science. The
emperor was desirous that Philip should make an appearance that would
dazzle the imaginations of the people among whom he passed.
With this brilliant company, Philip began his journey in the autumn of
1548. He took the road to Saragossa, made an excursion to inspect the
fortifications of Perpignan, offered up his prayers at the shrine of Our
Lady of Montserrat, passed a day or two at Barcelona, enjoying the fête
prepared for him in the pleasant citron-gardens of the cardinal of
Trent, and thence proceeded to the port of Rosas, where a Genoese fleet,
over which proudly waved the imperial banner, was riding at anchor, and
awaiting his arrival. It consisted of fifty-eight vessels, furnished by
Genoa, Sicily, and Naples, and commanded by the veteran of a hundred
battles, the famous Andrew Doria.
Philip encountered some rough weather on his passage to Genoa. The doge
and the principal senators came out of port in a magnificent galley to
receive him. The prince landed, amidst the roar of cannon from the walls
and the adjacent fortifications, and was forthwith conducted to the
mansion of the Dorias, preëminent, even in this city of palaces, for
its architectural splendor.
During his stay in Genoa, Philip received all the attentions which an
elegant hospitality could devise. But his hours were not wholly resigned
to pleasure. He received, every day, embassies from the different
Italian states, one of which came from the pope, Paul the Third, with
his nephew, Ottavio Farnese, at its head. Its especial object was to
solicit the prince's interest with his father, for the restitution of
Parma and Placentia to the Holy See. Philip answered in terms
complimentary, indeed, says the historian, "but sufficiently ambiguous
as to the essential."[26] He had already learned his first lesson in
kingcraft. Not long after, the pope sent him a consecrated sword, and
the hat worn by his holiness on Christmas eve, accompanied by an
autograph letter, in which, after expatiating on the mystic import of
his gift, he expressed his confidence that in Philip he was one day to
find the true champion of the Church.
At the end of a fortnight, the royal traveller resumed his journey. He
crossed the famous battle-field of Pavia, and was shown the place where
Francis the First surrendered himself a prisoner, and where the Spanish
ambuscade sallied out and decided the fortune of the day. His bosom
swelled with exultation, as he rode over the ground made memorable by
the most brilliant victory achieved by his father,--a victory which
opened the way to the implacable hatred of his vanquished rival, and to
oceans of blood.
From Pavia he passed on to Milan, the flourishing capital of
Lombardy,--the fairest portion of the Spanish dominions in Italy. Milan
was, at that time, second only to Naples in population. It was second to
no city in the elegance of its buildings, the splendor of its
aristocracy, the opulence and mechanical ingenuity of its burghers. It
was renowned, at the same time, for its delicate fabrics of silk, and
its armor, curiously wrought and inlaid with gold and silver. In all the
arts of luxury and material civilization, it was unsurpassed by any of
the capitals of Christendom.
As the prince approached the suburbs, a countless throng of people came
forth to greet him. For fifteen miles before he entered the city, the
road was spanned by triumphal arches, garlanded with flowers and fruits,
and bearing inscriptions, both in Latin and Italian, filled with praises
of the father and prognostics of the future glory of the son. Amidst the
concourse were to be seen the noble ladies of Milan, in gay, fantastic
cars, shining in silk brocade, and with sumptuous caparisons for their
horses. As he drew near the town, two hundred mounted gentlemen came out
to escort him into the place. They were clothed in complete mail of the
fine Milanese workmanship, and were succeeded by fifty pages in gaudy
livery, devoted to especial attendance on the prince's person, during
his residence in Milan.
Philip entered the gates under a canopy of state, with the cardinal of
Trent on his right hand, and Philibert, prince of Piedmont, on his left.
He was received, at the entrance, by the governor of the place, attended
by the members of the senate, in their robes of office. The houses which
lined the long street through which the procession passed were hung with
tapestries, and with paintings of the great Italian masters. The
balconies and verandahs were crowded with spectators, eager to behold
their future sovereign, and rending the air with their acclamations. The
ceremony of reception was closed, in the evening, by a brilliant display
of fireworks,--in which the Milanese excelled,--and by a general
illumination of the city.
[Sidenote: VISIT TO FLANDERS]
Philip's time glided away, during his residence at Milan, in a
succession of banquets, _fêtes_, and spectacles of every description
which the taste and ingenuity of the people could devise for the
amusement of their illustrious guest. With none was he more pleased than
with the theatrical entertainments, conducted with greater elegance and
refinement in Italy than in any of the countries beyond the Alps. Nor
was he always a passive spectator at these festivities. He was
especially fond of dancing, in which his light and agile figure fitted
him to excel. In the society of ladies he lost much of his habitual
reserve; and the dignified courtesy of his manners seems to have made a
favorable impression on the fair dames of Italy, who were probably not
less pleased by the display of his munificence. To the governor's wife,
who had entertained him at a splendid ball, he presented a diamond ring
worth five thousand ducats; and to her daughter he gave a necklace of
rubies worth three thousand. Similar presents, of less value, he
bestowed on others of the court, extending his liberality even to the
musicians and inferior persons who had contributed to his entertainment.
To the churches he gave still more substantial proofs of his generosity.
In short, he showed, on all occasions, a munificent spirit worthy of his
royal station.
He took some pains, moreover, to reciprocate the civilities he had
received, by entertaining his hosts in return. He was particularly
fortunate in exhibiting to them a curious spectacle, which, even with
this pleasure-loving people, had the rare merit of novelty. This was the
graceful tourney introduced into Castile from the Spanish Arabs. The
highest nobles in his suite took the lead in it. The cavaliers were
arranged in six quadrilles, or factions, each wearing its distinctive
livery and badges, with their heads protected by shawls, or turbans,
wreathed around them in the Moorish fashion. They were mounted _à la
gineta_, that is, on the light jennet of Andalusia,--a cross of the
Arabian. In their hands they brandished their slender lances, with long
streamers attached to them, of some gay color, that denoted the
particular faction of the cavalier. Thus lightly equipped and mounted,
the Spanish knights went through the delicate manoeuvres of the Moorish
tilt of reeds, showing an easy horsemanship, and performing feats of
agility and grace, which delighted the Italians, keenly alive to the
beautiful, but hitherto accustomed only to the more ponderous and clumsy
exercises of the European tourney.[27]
After some weeks, Prince Philip quitted the hospitable walls of Milan,
and set out for the north. Before leaving the place, he was joined by a
body of two hundred mounted arquebusiers, wearing his own yellow
uniform, and commanded by the duke of Arschot. They had been sent to him
as an escort by his father. He crossed the Tyrol, then took the road by
the way of Munich, Trent, and Heidelberg, and so on towards Flanders. On
all the route, the royal party was beset by multitudes of both sexes,
pressing to catch a glimpse of the young prince who was one day to sway
the mightiest sceptre in Europe. The magistrates of the cities through
which he passed welcomed him with complimentary addresses, and with
presents, frequently in the form of silver urns, or goblets, filled with
golden ducats. Philip received the donatives with a gracious
condescension; and, in truth, they did not come amiss in this season of
lavish expenditure. To the addresses, the duke of Alva, who rode by the
prince's side, usually responded. The whole of the long journey was
performed on horseback,--the only sure mode of conveyance in a country
where the roads were seldom practicable for carriages.
At length, after a journey of four months, the royal cavalcade drew
near the city of Brussels. Their approach to a great town was intimated
by the crowds who came to welcome them; and Philip was greeted with a
tumultuous enthusiasm, which made him feel that he was now indeed in the
midst of his own people. The throng was soon swelled by bodies of the
military; and with this loyal escort, amidst the roar of artillery and
the ringing of bells, which sent forth a merry peal from every tower and
steeple, Philip made his first entrance into the capital of Belgium.
The Regent Mary held her court there, and her brother, the emperor, was
occupying the palace with her. It was not long before the father had
again the satisfaction of embracing his son, from whom he had been
separated so many years. He must have been pleased with the alteration
which time had wrought in Philip's appearance. He was now twenty-one
years of age, and was distinguished by a comeliness of person, remarked
upon by more than one who had access to his presence. Their report is
confirmed by the portraits of him from the pencil of Titian,--taken
before the freshness of youth had faded into the sallow hue of disease,
and when care and anxiety had not yet given a sombre, perhaps sullen,
expression, to his features.
He had a fair, and even delicate complexion. His hair and beard were of
a light yellow. His eyes were blue, with the eyebrows somewhat too
closely knit together. His nose was thin and aquiline. The principal
blemish in his countenance was his thick Austrian lip. His lower jaw
protruded even more than that of his father. To his father, indeed, he
bore a great resemblance in his lineaments, though those of Philip were
of a less intellectual cast. In stature he was somewhat below the middle
height, with a slight, symmetrical figure and well-made limbs. He was
attentive to his dress, which was rich and elegant, but without any
affectation of ornament. His demeanor was grave with that ceremonious
observance which marked the old Castilian, and which may be thought the
natural expression of Philip's slow and phlegmatic temperament.[28]
During his long residence in Brussels, Charles had the opportunity of
superintending his son's education in one department in which it was
deficient,--the science of government. And, surely, no instructor could
have been found with larger experience than the man who had been at the
head of all the great political movements in Europe for the last quarter
of a century. Philip passed some time, every day, in his father's
cabinet, conversing with him on public affairs, or attending the
sessions of the council of state. It can hardly be doubted that Charles,
in his private instruction, inculcated on his son two principles so
prominent throughout Philip's administration,--to maintain the royal
authority in its full extent, and to enforce a strict conformity to the
Roman Catholic Communion. It is probable that he found his son an apt
and docile scholar. Philip acquired, at least, such habits of patient
application, and of watching over the execution of his own plans, as
have been possessed by few princes.[29]
[Sidenote: PUBLIC FESTIVITIES.]
The great object of Philip's visit to the Low Countries had been, to
present himself to the people of the different provinces, to study their
peculiar characters on their own soil, and obtain their recognition as
their future sovereign. After a long residence at Brussels, he set out
on a tour through the provinces. He was accompanied by the queen-regent,
and by the same splendid retinue as on his entrance into the country,
with the addition of a large number of the nobles.
The Netherlands had ever been treated by Charles with particular favor,
and, under his royal patronage, although the country did not develop its
resources as under its own free institutions of a later period, it had
greatly prospered. It was more thickly studded with trading towns than
any country of similar extent in Europe; and its flourishing communities
held the first rank in wealth, industry, and commercial enterprise, as
well as in the splendid way of living maintained by the aristocracy. On
the present occasion, these communities vied with one another in their
loyal demonstrations towards the prince, and in the splendor of the
reception which they gave him. A work was compiled by one of the royal
suite, setting forth the manifold honors paid to Philip through the
whole of the tour, which, even more than his former journey, had the
aspect of a triumphal progress. The book grew, under the hands of its
patriotic author, to the size of a bulky folio, which, however
interesting to his contemporaries, would have but slender attraction for
the present generation.[30] The mere inscriptions emblazoned on the
triumphal arches, and on the public buildings, spread over a multitude
of pages. They were both in Latin and in the language of the country,
and they augured the happy days in store for the nation, when, under the
benignant sceptre of Philip, it should enjoy the sweets of tranquillity
and freedom. Happy auguries! which showed that the prophet was not
gifted with the spirit of prophecy.[31]
In these solemnities, Antwerp alone expended fifty thousand pistoles.
But no place compared with Brussels in the costliness and splendor of
its festivities, the most remarkable of which was a tournament. Under
their Burgundian princes the Flemings had been familiar with these
chivalrous pageants. The age of chivalry was, indeed, fast fading away
before the use of gunpowder and other improvements in military science.
But it was admitted that no tourney had been maintained with so much
magnificence and knightly prowess since the days of Charles the Bold.
The old chronicler's narrative of the event, like the pages of
Froissart, seems instinct with the spirit of a feudal age. I will give a
few details, at the hazard of appearing trivial to those who may think
we have dwelt long enough on the pageants of the courts of Castile and
Burgundy. But such pageants form part of the natural accompaniment of a
picturesque age, and the illustrations they afford of the manners of the
time may have an interest for the student of history.
The tourney was held in a spacious square, inclosed for the purpose, in
front of the great palace of Brussels. Four knights were prepared to
maintain the field against all comers, and jewels of price were to be
awarded as the prize of the victors. The four challengers were Count
Mansfeldt, Count Hoorne, Count Aremberg, and the Sieur de Hubermont;
among the judges was the duke of Alva; and in the list of the successful
antagonists we find the names of Prince Philip of Spain, Emanuel
Philibert, duke of Savoy, and Count Egmont. These are names famous in
history. It is curious to observe how the men who were soon to be at a
deadly feud with one another were thus sportively met to celebrate the
pastimes of chivalry.
The day was an auspicious one, and the lists were crowded with the
burghers of Brussels, and the people of the surrounding country. The
galleries which encompassed the area were graced with the rank and
beauty of the capital. A canopy, embroidered with the imperial arms in
crimson and gold, indicated the place occupied by Charles the Fifth and
his sisters, the regent of the Netherlands, and the dowager queen of
France.
For several hours the field was gallantly maintained by the four
challengers against every knight who was ambitious to prove his prowess
in the presence of so illustrious an assembly. At length the trumpets
sounded, and announced the entrance of four cavaliers, whose brilliant
train of followers intimated them to be persons of high degree. The four
knights were Prince Philip, the duke of Savoy, Count Egmont, and Juan
Manriquez de Lara, major-domo of the emperor. They were clothed in
complete mail, over which they wore surcoats of violet-colored velvet,
while the caparisons of their horses were of cloth of gold.
Philip ran the first course. His antagonist was the Count Mansfeldt, a
Flemish captain of great renown. At the appointed signal, the two
knights spurred against each other, and met in the centre of the lists
with a shock that shivered their lances to the very grasp. Both knights
reeled in their saddles, but neither lost his seat. The arena resounded
with the plaudits of the spectators, not the less hearty that one of the
combatants was the heir apparent.
The other cavaliers then tilted, with various success. A general
tournament followed, in which every knight eager to break a lance on
this fair occasion took part; and many a feat of arms was performed,
doubtless long remembered by the citizens of Brussels. At the end of the
seventh hour a flourish of trumpets announced the conclusion of the
contest, and the assembly broke up in admirable order, the knights
retiring to change their heavy panoplies for the lighter vestments of
the ball-room. A banquet was prepared by the municipality, in a style of
magnificence worthy of their royal guests. The emperor and his sisters
honored it with their presence, and witnessed the distribution of the
prizes. Among these, a brilliant ruby, the prize awarded for the _lança
de las damas_,--the "ladies' lance," in the language of chivalry,--was
assigned by the loyal judges to Prince Philip of Spain.
Dancing succeeded to the banquet; and the high-bred courtesy of the
prince was as much commended in the ball-room as his prowess had been in
the lists. Maskers mingled with the dancers in Oriental costume, some in
the Turkish, others in the Albanian fashion. The merry revels were not
prolonged beyond the hour of midnight, when the company broke up, loudly
commending, as they withdrew, the good cheer afforded them by the
hospitable burghers of Brussels.[32]
[Sidenote: PUBLIC FESTIVITIES.]
Philip won the prize on another occasion, when he tilted against a
valiant knight, named Quiñones. He was not so fortunate in an encounter
with the son of his old preceptor, Zuñiga, in which he was struck with
such force on the head, that, after being carried some distance by his
horse, he fell senseless from the saddle. The alarm was great, but the
accident passed away without serious consequences.[33]
There were those who denied him skill in the management of his lance.
Marillac, the French ambassador at the imperial court, speaking of a
tourney given by Philip in honor of the princess of Lorraine, at
Augsburg, says he never saw worse lance-playing in his life. At another
time he remarks, that the Spanish prince could not even hit his
antagonist.[34] It must have been a very palpable hit to be noticed by a
Frenchman. The French regarded the Spaniards of that day in much the
same manner as they regarded the English at an earlier period, or as
they have continued to regard them at a later. The long rivalry of the
French and Spanish monarchs had infused into the breasts of their
subjects such feelings of mutual aversion, that the opinions of either
nation in reference to the other, in the sixteenth century, must be
received with the greatest distrust.
But, whatever may have been Philip's success in these chivalrous
displays, it is quite certain they were not to his taste. He took part
in them only to conform to his father's wishes, and to the humor of the
age. Though in his youth he sometimes hunted, he was neither fond of
field-sports nor of the athletic exercises of chivalry. His constitution
was far from robust. He sought to invigorate it less by exercise than by
diet. He confined himself almost wholly to meat, as the most nutritious
food, abstaining even from fish; as well as from fruit.[35] Besides his
indisposition to active exercises, he had no relish for the gaudy
spectacles so fashionable in that romantic age. The part he had played
in the pageants, during his long tour, had not been of his own seeking.
Though ceremonious, and exacting deference from all who approached him,
he was not fond of the pomp and parade of a court life. He preferred to
pass his hours in the privacy of his own apartment, where he took
pleasure in the conversation of a few whom he honored with his regard.
It was with difficulty that the emperor could induce him to leave his
retirement and present himself in the audience-chamber, or accompany him
on visits of ceremony.[36]
These reserved and quiet tastes of Philip by no means recommended him to
the Flemings, accustomed as they were to the pomp and profuse
magnificence of the Burgundian court. Their free and social tempers were
chilled by his austere demeanor. They contrasted it with the affable
deportment of his father, who could so well conform to the customs of
the different nations under his sceptre, and who seemed perfectly to
comprehend their characters,--the astute policy of the Italian, the
home-bred simplicity of the German, and the Castilian propriety and
point of honor.[37] With the latter only of these had Philip anything in
common. He was in everything a Spaniard. He talked of nothing, seemed to
think of nothing, but Spain.[38] The Netherlands were to him a foreign
land, with which he had little sympathy. His counsellors and companions
were wholly Spanish. The people of Flanders felt, that, under his sway,
little favor was to be shown to them; and they looked forward to the
time when all the offices of trust in their own country would be given
to Castilians, in the same manner as those of Castile, in the early days
of Charles the Fifth, had been given to Flemings.[39]
Yet the emperor seemed so little aware of his son's unpopularity, that
he was at this very time making arrangements for securing to him the
imperial crown. He had summoned a meeting of the electors and great
lords of the empire, to be held at Augsburg, in August, 1550. There he
proposed to secure Philip's election as king of the Romans, so soon as
he had obtained his brother Ferdinand's surrender of that dignity. But
Charles did not show, in all this, his usual knowledge of human nature.
The lust of power on his son's account--ineffectual for happiness as he
had found the possession of it in his own case--seems to have entirely
blinded him.
He repaired with Philip to Augsburg, where they were met by Ferdinand
and the members of the German diet. But it was in vain that Charles
solicited his brother to waive his claim to the imperial succession in
favor of his nephew. Neither solicitations nor arguments, backed by the
entreaties, even the tears, it is said, of their common sister, the
Regent Mary, could move Ferdinand to forego the splendid inheritance.
Charles was not more successful when he changed his ground, and urged
his brother to acquiesce in Philip's election as his successor in the
dignity of king of the Romans; or, at least, in his being associated in
that dignity--a thing unprecedented--with his cousin Maximilian,
Ferdinand's son, who, it was understood, was destined by the electors to
succeed his father.
This young prince, who meanwhile had been summoned to Augsburg, was as
little disposed as Ferdinand had been to accede to the proposals of his
too grasping father-in-law; though he courteously alleged, as the ground
of his refusal, that he had no right to interfere with the decision of
the electors. He might safely rest his cause on their decision. They had
no desire to perpetuate the imperial sceptre in the line of Castilian
monarchs. They had suffered enough from the despotic temper of Charles
the Fifth; and this temper they had no reason to think would be
mitigated in the person of Philip.
[Sidenote: AMBITIOUS SCHEMES.]
They desired a German to rule over them,--one who would understand the
German character, and enter heartily into the feelings of the people.
Maximilian's directness of purpose and kindly nature had won largely on
the affections of his countrymen, and proved him, in their judgment,
worthy of the throne.[40]
Philip, on the other hand, was even more distasteful to the Germans than
he was to the Flemings. It was in vain that, at their banquets, he drank
twice or thrice as much as he was accustomed to do, until the cardinal
of Trent assured him that he was fast gaining in the good graces of the
people.[41] The natural haughtiness of his temper showed itself on too
many occasions to be mistaken. When Charles returned to his palace,
escorted, as he usually was, by a train of nobles and princes of the
empire, he would courteously take them by the hand, and raise his hat,
as he parted from them. But Philip, it was observed, on like occasions,
walked directly into the palace, without so much as turning round, or
condescending in any way to notice the courtiers who had accompanied
him. This was taking higher ground even than his father had done. In
fact, it was said of him, that he considered himself greater than his
father, inasmuch as the son of an emperor was greater than the son of a
king![42]--a foolish vaunt, not the less indicative of his character,
that it was made for him, probably, by the Germans. In short, Philip's
manners, which, in the language of a contemporary, had been little
pleasing to the Italians, and positively displeasing to the Flemings,
were altogether odious to the Germans.[43]
Nor was the idea of Philip's election at all more acceptable to the
Spaniards themselves. That nation had been long enough regarded as an
appendage to the empire. Their pride had been wounded by the light in
which they were held by Charles, who seemed to look on Spain as a royal
domain, valuable chiefly for the means it afforded him for playing his
part on the great theatre of Europe. The haughty Castilian of the
sixteenth century, conscious of his superior pretensions, could ill
brook this abasement. He sighed for a prince born and bred in Spain, who
would be content to pass his life in Spain, and would have no ambition
unconnected with her prosperity and glory. The Spaniards were even more
tenacious on this head than the Germans. Their remote situation made
them more exclusive, mere strictly national, and less tolerant of
foreign influence. They required a Spaniard to rule over them. Such was
Philip; and they anticipated the hour when Spain should be divorced from
the empire, and, under the sway of a patriotic prince, rise to her just
preëminence among the nations.
Yet Charles, far from yielding, continued to press the point with such
pertinacity, that it seemed likely to lead to an open rupture between
the different branches of his family. For a time Ferdinand kept his
apartment, and had no intercourse with Charles or his sister.[44] Yet in
the end the genius or the obstinacy of Charles so far prevailed over
his brother, that he acquiesced in a private compact, by which, while he
was to retain possession of the imperial crown, it was agreed that
Philip should succeed him as king of the Romans, and that Maximilian
should succeed Philip.[45] Ferdinand hazarded little by concessions
which could never be sanctioned by the electoral college. The reverses
which befell the emperor's arms in the course of the following year
destroyed whatever influence he might have possessed in that body; and
he seems never to have revived his schemes for aggrandizing his son by
securing to him the succession to the empire.
Philip had now accomplished the great object of his visit. He had
presented himself to the people of the Netherlands, and had received
their homage as heir to the realm. His tour had been, in some respects,
a profitable one. It was scarcely possible that a young man, whose days
had hitherto been passed within the narrow limits of his own country,
for ever under the same local influences, should not have his ideas
greatly enlarged by going abroad and mingling with different nations. It
was especially important to Philip to make himself familiar, as none but
a resident can be, with the character and institutions of those nations
over whom he was one day to preside. Yet his visit to the Netherlands
had not been attended with the happiest results. He evidently did not
make a favorable impression on the people. The more they saw of him, the
less they appeared to like him. Such impressions are usually reciprocal;
and Philip seems to have parted from the country with little regret.
Thus, in the first interview between the future sovereign and his
subjects, the symptoms might already be discerned of that alienation
which was afterwards to widen into a permanent and irreparable breach.
Philip, anxious to reach Castile, pushed forward his journey, without
halting to receive the civilities that were everywhere tendered to him
on his route. He made one exception at Trent, where the ecclesiastical
council was holding the memorable session that occupies so large a share
in Church annals. On his approach to the city, the cardinal legate,
attended by the mitred prelates and other dignitaries of the council,
came out in a body to receive him. During his stay there, he was
entertained with masks, dancing, theatrical exhibitions, and jousts,
contrived to represent scenes in Ariosto.[46] These diversions of the
reverend fathers formed a whimsical contrast, perhaps a welcome relief,
to their solemn occupation of digesting a creed for the Christian world.
[Sidenote: CONDITION OF SPAIN.]
From Trent Philip pursued his way, with all expedition, to Genoa, where
he embarked, under the flag of the veteran Doria, who had brought him
from Spain. He landed at Barcelona, on the twelfth day of July, 1551,
and proceeded at once to Valladolid, where he resumed the government of
the kingdom. He was fortified by a letter from his father, dated at
Augsburg, which contained ample instructions as to the policy he was to
pursue, and freely discussed both the foreign and domestic relations of
the country. The letter, which is very long, shows that the capacious
mind of Charles, however little time he could personally give to the
affairs of the monarchy, fully comprehended its internal condition and
the extent of its resources.[47]
The following years were years of humiliation to Charles; years marked
by the flight from Innsbruck, and the disastrous siege of Metz,--when,
beaten by the Protestants, foiled by the French, the reverses of the
emperor pressed heavily on his proud heart, and did more, probably, than
all the homilies of his ghostly teachers, to disgust him with the world
and its vanities.
Yet these reverses made little impression on Spain. The sounds of war
died away before they reached the foot of the Pyrenees. Spain, it is
true, sent forth her sons, from time to time, to serve under the banners
of Charles; and it was in that school that was perfected the admirable
system of discipline and tactics which, begun by the Great Captain, made
the Spanish infantry the most redoubtable in Europe. But the great body
of the people felt little interest in the success of these distant
enterprises, where success brought them no good. Not that the mind of
Spain was inactive, or oppressed with the lethargy which stole over it
in a later age. There was, on the contrary, great intellectual activity.
She was excluded, by an arbitrary government, from pushing her
speculations in the regions of theological or political science. But
this, to a considerable extent, was the case with most of the
neighboring nations; and she indemnified herself for this exclusion by a
more diligent cultivation of elegant literature. The constellation of
genius had already begun to show itself above the horizon, which was to
shed a glory over the meridian and the close of Philip's reign. The
courtly poets in the reign of his father had confessed the influence of
Italian models, derived through the recent territorial acquisitions in
Italy. But the national taste was again asserting its supremacy; and the
fashionable tone of composition was becoming more and more accommodated
to the old Castilian standard.
It would be impossible that any departure from a national standard
should be long tolerated in Spain, where the language, the manners, the
dress, the usages of the country, were much the same as they had been
for generations,--as they continued to be for generations, long after
Cervantes held up the mirror of fiction, to reflect the traits of the
national existence more vividly than is permitted to the page of the
chronicler. In the rude _romances_ of the fourteenth and the fifteenth
century, the Castilian of the sixteenth might see his way of life
depicted with tolerable accuracy. The amorous cavalier still thrummed
his guitar, by moonlight, under the balcony of his mistress, or wore her
favors at the Moorish tilt of reeds. The common people still sung their
lively _seguidillas_, or crowded to the _fiestas de toros_,--the cruel
bull-fights,--or to the more cruel _autos da fé_. This last spectacle,
of comparatively recent origin,--in the time of Ferdinand and
Isabella,--was the legitimate consequence of the long wars with the
Moslems, which made the Spaniard intolerant of religious infidelity.
Atrocious as it seems in a more humane and enlightened age, it was
regarded by the ancient Spaniard as a sacrifice grateful to Heaven, at
which he was to rekindle the dormant embers of his own religious
sensibilities.
The cessation of the long Moorish wars by the fall of Granada, made the
most important change in the condition of the Spaniards. They, however,
found a vent for their chivalrous fanaticism, in a crusade against the
heathen of the New World. Those who returned from their wanderings
brought back to Spain little of foreign usages and manners; for the
Spaniard was the only civilized man whom they found in the wilds of
America.
Thus passed the domestic life of the Spaniard, in the same unvaried
circle of habits, opinions, and prejudices, to the exclusion, and
probably contempt of everything foreign. Not that these habits did not
differ in the different provinces, where their distinctive peculiarities
were handed down, with traditional precision, from father to son. But,
beneath these, there was one common basis of the national character.
Never was there a people, probably, with the exception of the Jews,
distinguished by so intense a nationality. It was among such a people,
and under such influences, that Philip was born and educated. His
temperament and his constitution of mind peculiarly fitted him for the
reception of these influences; and the Spaniards, as he grew in years,
beheld, with pride and satisfaction, in their future sovereign, the most
perfect type of the national character.
CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
Condition of England.--Character of Mary.--Philip's Proposals of
Marriage.--Marriage Articles.--Insurrection in England.
1553, 1554.
In the summer of 1553, three years after Philip's return to Spain,
occurred an event which was to exercise a considerable influence on his
fortunes. This was the death of Edward the Sixth of England,--after a
brief but important reign. He was succeeded by his sister Mary, that
unfortunate princess, whose _sobriquet_ of "Bloody" gives her a
melancholy distinction among the sovereigns of the house of Tudor.
The reign of her father, Henry the Eighth, had opened the way to the
great revolution in religion, the effects of which were destined to be
permanent. Yet Henry himself showed his strength rather in unsettling
ancient institutions than in establishing new ones. By the abolition of
the monasteries, he broke up that spiritual militia which was a most
efficacious instrument for maintaining the authority of Rome; and he
completed the work of independence by seating himself boldly in the
chair of St. Peter, and assuming the authority of head of the Church.
Thus, while the supremacy of the pope was rejected, the Roman Catholic
religion was maintained in its essential principles unimpaired. In other
words, the nation remained Catholics, but not Papists.
[Sidenote: CONDITION OF ENGLAND.]
The impulse thus given under Henry was followed up to more important
consequences under his son, Edward the Sixth. The opinions of the German
Reformers, considerably modified, especially in regard to the exterior
forms and discipline of worship, met with a cordial welcome from the
ministers of the young monarch. Protestantism became the religion of the
land; and the Church of England received, to a great extent, the
peculiar organization which it has preserved to the present day. But
Edward's reign was too brief to allow the new opinions to take deep root
in the hearts of the people. The greater part of the aristocracy soon
showed that, whatever religious zeal they had affected, they were not
prepared to make any sacrifice of their temporal interests. On the
accession of a Catholic queen to the throne, a reaction soon became
visible. Some embarrassment to a return to the former faith was found in
the restitution which it might naturally involve of the confiscated
property of the monastic orders. But the politic concessions of Rome
dispensed with this severe trial of the sincerity of its new proselytes;
and England, after repudiating her heresies, was received into the fold
of the Roman Catholic Church, and placed once more under the
jurisdiction of its pontiff.
After the specimens given of the ready ductility with which the English
of that day accommodated their religious creeds to the creed of their
sovereign, we shall hardly wonder at the caustic criticism of the
Venetian ambassador, resident at the court of London, in Queen Mary's
time. "The example and authority of the sovereign," he says, "are
everything with the people of this country in matters of faith. As he
believes, they believe; Judaism or Mahometanism,--it is all one to them.
They conform themselves easily to his will, at least so far as the
outward show is concerned; and most easily of all where it concurs with
their own pleasure and profit."[48]
The ambassador, Giovanni Micheli, was one of that order of
merchant-princes employed by Venice in her foreign missions; men whose
acquaintance with affairs enabled them to comprehend the resources of
the country to which they were sent, as well as the intrigues of its
court. Their observations were digested into elaborate reports, which,
on their return to Venice, were publicly read before the doge and the
senate. The documents thus prepared form some of the most valuable and
authentic materials for the history of Europe in the sixteenth century.
Micheli's report is diffuse on the condition of England under the reign
of Queen Mary; and some of his remarks will have interest for the reader
of the present day, as affording a standard of comparison with the
past.[49]
London he eulogizes, as one of the noblest capitals in Europe,
containing, with its suburbs, about a hundred and eighty thousand
souls.[50] The great lords, as in France and Germany, passed most of
their time on their estates in the country.
The kingdom was strong enough, if united, to defy any invasion from
abroad. Yet its navy was small, having dwindled, from neglect and an
ill-judged economy, to not more than forty vessels of war. But the
mercantile marine could furnish two thousand more, which, at a short
notice, could be well equipped and got ready for sea. The army was
particularly strong in artillery, and provided with all the munitions of
war. The weapon chiefly in repute was the bow, to which the English
people were trained from early youth. In their cavalry they were most
defective. Horses were abundant, but wanted bottom. They were, for the
most part, light, weak, and grass-fed.[51] The nation was, above all, to
be envied for the lightness of the public burdens. There were no taxes
on wine, beer, salt, cloth, nor, indeed, on any of the articles that in
other countries furnished the greatest sources of revenue.[52] The whole
revenue did not usually exceed two hundred thousand pounds. Parliaments
were rarely summoned, except to save the king trouble or to afford a
cloak to his designs. No one ventured to resist the royal will; servile
the members came there, and servile they remained.[53]--An Englishman of
the nineteenth century may smile at the contrast presented by some of
these remarks to the condition of the nation at the present day; though
in the item of taxation the contrast may be rather fitted to provoke a
sigh.
The portrait of Queen Mary is given by the Venetian minister, with a
coloring somewhat different from that in which she is commonly depicted
by English historians. She was about thirty-six years of age at the time
of her accession. In stature, she was of rather less than the middle
size,--not large, as was the case with both her father and mother,--and
exceedingly well made. "The portraits of her," says Micheli, "show that
in her youth she must have been not only good-looking, but even
handsome;--though her countenance, when he saw her, exhibited traces of
early trouble and disease."[54] But whatever she had lost in personal
attractions was fully made up by those of the mind. She was quick of
apprehension, and, like her younger sister, Elizabeth, was mistress of
several languages, three of which, the French, Spanish, and Latin, she
could speak; the last with fluency.[55] But in these accomplishments she
was surpassed by her sister, who knew the Greek well, and could speak
Italian with ease and elegance. Mary, however, both spoke and wrote her
own language in a plain, straightforward manner, that forms a contrast
to the ambiguous phrase and cold conceits in which Elizabeth usually
conveyed, or rather concealed, her sentiments.
[Sidenote: CHARACTER OF MARY.]
Mary had the misfortune to labour under a chronic infirmity, which
confined her for weeks, and indeed months, of every year to her chamber,
and which, with her domestic troubles, gave her an air of melancholy,
that in later years settled into a repulsive austerity. The tones of her
voice were masculine, says the Venetian, and her eyes inspired a
feeling, not merely of reverence, but of fear, wherever she turned them.
Her spirit he adds, was lofty and magnanimous, never discomposed by
danger, showing in all things a blood truly royal.[56]
Her piety, he continues, and her patience under affliction, cannot be
too greatly admired. Sustained, as she was, by a lively faith and
conscious innocence, he compares her to a light which the fierce winds
have no power to extinguish, but which still shines on with increasing
lustre.[57] She waited her time, and was plainly reserved by Providence
for a great destiny.--We are reading the language of the loyal Catholic,
grateful for the services which Mary had rendered to the faith.
Yet it would be uncharitable not to believe that Mary was devout, and
most earnest in her devotion. The daughter of Katharine of Aragon, the
granddaughter of Isabella of Castile, could hardly have been otherwise.
The women of that royal line were uniformly conspicuous for their piety,
though this was too often tinctured with bigotry. In Mary, bigotry
degenerated into fanaticism, and fanaticism into the spirit of
persecution. The worst evils are probably those that have flowed from
fanaticism. Yet the amount of the mischief does not necessarily furnish
us with the measure of guilt in the author of it. The introduction of
the Inquisition into Spain must be mainly charged on Isabella. Yet the
student of her reign will not refuse to this great queen the praise of
tenderness of conscience and a sincere desire to do the right.
Unhappily, the faith in which she, as well as her royal granddaughter,
was nurtured, taught her to place her conscience in the keeping of
ministers less scrupulous than herself; and on those ministers may
fairly rest much of the responsibility of measures on which they only
were deemed competent to determine.
Mary's sincerity in her religious professions was placed beyond a doubt
by the readiness with which she submitted to the sacrifice of her
personal interests whenever the interests of religion seemed to demand
it. She burned her translation of a portion of Erasmus, prepared with
great labor, at the suggestion of her confessor. An author will readily
estimate the value of such a sacrifice. One more important, and
intelligible to all, was the resolute manner in which she persisted in
restoring the Church property which had been confiscated to the use of
the crown. "The crown is too much impoverished to admit of it,"
remonstrated her ministers. "I would rather lose ten crowns," replied
the high-minded queen, "than place my soul in peril."[58]
Yet it cannot be denied, that Mary had inherited, in full measure, some
of the sterner qualities of her father, and that she was wanting in that
sympathy for human suffering which is so graceful in a woman. After a
rebellion, the reprisals were terrible. London was converted into a
charnel-house; and the squares and principal streets were garnished with
the unsightly trophies of the heads and limbs of numerous victims who
had fallen by the hand of the executioner.[59] This was in accordance
with the spirit of the age. But the execution of the unfortunate Lady
Jane Grey--the young, the beautiful, and the good--leaves a blot on the
fame of Mary, which finds no parallel but in the treatment of the
ill-fated queen of Scots by Elizabeth.
Mary's treatment of Elizabeth has formed another subject of reproach,
though the grounds of it are not sufficiently made out; and, at all
events, many circumstances may be alleged in extenuation of her conduct.
She had seen her mother, the noble-minded Katharine, exposed to the most
cruel indignities, and compelled to surrender her bed and her throne to
an artful rival, the mother of Elizabeth. She had heard herself declared
illegitimate, and her right to the succession set aside in favor of her
younger sister. Even after her intrepid conduct had secured to her the
crown, she was still haunted by the same gloomy apparition. Elizabeth's
pretensions were constantly brought before the public; and Mary might
well be alarmed by the disclosure of conspiracy after conspiracy, the
object of which, it was rumored, was to seat her sister on the throne.
As she advanced in years, Mary had the further mortification of seeing
her rival gain on those affections of the people which had grown cool to
her. Was it wonderful that she should regard her sister, under these
circumstances, with feelings of distrust and aversion? That she did so
regard her is asserted by the Venetian minister; and it is plain that,
during the first years of Mary's reign, Elizabeth's life hung upon a
thread. Yet Mary had strength of principle sufficient to resist the
importunities of Charles the Fifth and his ambassador, to take the life
of Elizabeth, as a thing indispensable to her own safety and that of
Philip. Although her sister was shown to be privy, though not openly
accessory, to the grand rebellion under Wyatt, Mary would not constrain
the law from its course to do her violence. This was something, under
the existing circumstances, in an age so unscrupulous. After this storm
had passed over, Mary, whatever restraint she imposed on her real
feelings, treated Elizabeth, for the most part, with a show of kindness,
though her name still continued to be mingled, whether with or without
cause, with more than one treasonable plot.[60] Mary's last act--perhaps
the only one in which she openly resisted the will of her husband--was
to refuse to compel her sister to accept the hand of Philibert of Savoy.
Yet this act would have relieved her of the presence of her rival; and
by it Elizabeth would have forfeited her independent possession of the
crown,--perhaps the possession of it altogether. It may be doubted
whether Elizabeth, under similar circumstances, would have shown the
like tenderness to the interests of her successor.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S PROPOSALS OF MARRIAGE.]
But, however we may be disposed to extenuate the conduct of Mary, and in
spiritual matters, more especially, to transfer the responsibility of
her acts from herself to her advisers, it is not possible to dwell on
this reign of religious persecution without feelings of profound
sadness. Not that the number of victims compares with what is recorded
of many similar periods of persecution. The whole amount, falling
probably short of three hundred who perished at the stake, was less than
the number who fell by the hand of the executioner, or by violence,
during the same length of time under Henry the Eighth. It was not much
greater than might sometimes be found at a single Spanish _auto da fé_.
But Spain was the land in which this might be regarded as the national
spectacle,--as much so as the _fiesta de toros_, or any other of the
popular exhibitions of the country. In England, a few examples had not
sufficed to steel the hearts of men against these horrors. The heroic
company of martyrs, condemned to the most agonizing of deaths for
asserting the rights of conscience, was a sight strange and shocking to
Englishmen. The feelings of that day have been perpetuated to the
present. The reign of religious persecution stands out by itself, as
something distinct from the natural course of events; and the fires of
Smithfield shed a melancholy radiance over this page of the national
history, from which the eye of humanity turns away in pity and
disgust.--But it is time to take up the narrative of events which
connected for a brief space the political interests of Spain with those
of England.
Charles the Fifth had always taken a lively interest in the fortunes of
his royal kinswoman. When a young man he had paid a visit to England,
and while there had been induced by his aunt, Queen Katharine, to
contract a marriage with the Princess Mary,--then only six years
old,--to be solemnized on her arriving at the suitable age. But the term
was too remote for the constancy of Charles, or, as it is said, for the
patience of his subjects, who earnestly wished to see their sovereign
wedded to a princess who might present him with an heir to the monarchy.
The English match was, accordingly, broken off, and the young emperor
gave his hand to Isabella of Portugal.[61]
Mary, who, since her betrothal, had been taught to consider herself as
the future bride of the emperor, was at the time but eleven years old.
She was old enough, however, to feel something like jealousy, it is
said, and to show some pique at this desertion by her imperial lover.
Yet this circumstance did not prevent the most friendly relations from
subsisting between the parties in after years; and Charles continued to
watch over the interests of his kinswoman, and interposed, with good
effect, in her behalf, on more than one occasion, both during the reign
of Henry the Eighth and of his son, Edward the Sixth. On the death of
the latter monarch, he declared himself ready to assist Mary in
maintaining her right to the succession;[62] and, when this was finally
established, the wary emperor took the necessary measures for turning it
to his own account.[63]
He formed a scheme for uniting Philip with Mary, and thus securing to
his son the possession of the English crown, in the same manner as that
of Scotland had been secured by marriage to the son of his rival, Henry
the Second of France. It was, doubtless, a great error to attempt to
bring under one rule nations so dissimilar in every particular, and
having interests so incompatible as the Spaniards and the English.
Historians have regarded it as passing strange, that a prince, who had
had such large experience of the difficulties attending the government
of kingdoms remote from each other, should seek so to multiply these
difficulties on the head of his inexperienced son. But the love of
acquisition is a universal principle; nor is it often found that the
appetite for more is abated by the consideration that the party is
already possessed of more then he can manage.
It was a common opinion, that Mary intended to bestow her hand on her
young and handsome kinsman, Courtenay, earl of Devonshire, whom she had
withdrawn from the prison in which he had languished for many years, and
afterwards treated with distinguished favor. Charles, aware of this,
instructed Renard, his minister at the court of London, a crafty,
intriguing politician,[64] to sound the queen's inclinations on the
subject, but so as not to alarm her. He was to dwell, particularly, on
the advantages Mary would derive from a connection with some powerful
foreign prince, and to offer his master's counsel, in this or any other
matter in which she might desire it. The minister was to approach the
subject of the earl of Devonshire with the greatest caution; remembering
that, if the queen had a fancy for her cousin, and was like other women,
she would not be turned from it by anything that he might say, nor would
she readily forgive any reflection upon it.[65] Charles seems to have
been as well read in the characters of women as of men; and, as a
natural consequence, it may be added, had formed a high estimate of the
capacity of the sex. In proof of which, he not only repeatedly
committed the government of his states to women, but intrusted them
with some of his most delicate political negotiations.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S PROPOSALS OF MARRIAGE.]
Mary, if she had ever entertained the views imputed to her in respect to
Courtenay, must have soon been convinced that his frivolous disposition
would ill suit the seriousness of hers. However this may be, she was
greatly pleased when Renard hinted at her marriage,--"laughing," says
the envoy, "not once, but several times, and giving me a significant
look, which showed that the idea was very agreeable to her, plainly
intimating at the same time that she had no desire to marry an
Englishman."[66] In a subsequent conversation, when Renard ventured to
suggest that the prince of Spain was a suitable match, Mary broke in
upon him, saying that "she had never felt the smart of what people
called love, nor had ever so much as thought of being married, until
Providence had raised her to the throne; and that, if she now consented
to it, it would be in opposition to her own feelings, from a regard to
the public good;" but she begged the envoy to assure the emperor of her
wish to obey and to please him in everything, as she would her own
father; intimating, however, that she could not broach the subject of
her marriage to her council; the question could only be opened by a
communication from him.[67]
Charles, who readily saw through Mary's coquetry, no longer hesitated to
prefer the suit of Philip. After commending the queen's course in regard
to Courtenay, he presented to her the advantages that must arise from
such a foreign alliance as would strengthen her on the throne. He
declared, in a tone of gallantry rather amusing, that, if it were not
for his age and increasing infirmities, he should not hesitate to
propose himself as her suitor.[68] The next best thing was to offer her
the person dearest to his heart,--his son, the prince of Asturias. He
concluded by deprecating the idea that any recommendation of his should
interfere, in the least degree, with the exercise of her better
judgment.[69]
Renard was further to intimate to the queen the importance of secrecy in
regard to this negotiation. If she were disinclined to the proposed
match, it would be obviously of no advantage to give it publicity. If,
on the other hand, as the emperor had little doubt, she looked on it
favorably, but desired to advise with her council before deciding,
Renard was to dissuade her from the latter step, and advise her to
confide in him.[70] The wary emperor had a twofold motive for these
instructions. There was a negotiation on foot at this very time for a
marriage of Philip to the infanta of Portugal, and Charles wished to be
entirely assured of Mary's acquiescence, before giving such publicity to
the affair as might defeat the Portuguese match, which would still
remain for Philip, should he not succeed with the English queen.[71] In
case Mary proved favorable to his son's suit, Charles, who knew the
abhorrence in which foreigners were held by the English beyond all other
nations,[72] wished to gain time before communicating with Mary's
council. With some delay, he had no doubt that he had the means of
winning over a sufficient number of that body to support Philip's
pretensions.[73]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S PROPOSALS OF MARRIAGE.]
These communications could not be carried on so secretly but that some
rumor of them reached the ears of Mary's ministers, and of Noailles, the
French ambassador at the court of London.[74] This person was a busy
and unscrupulous politician, who saw with alarm the prospect of Spain
strengthening herself by this alliance with England, and determined,
accordingly, in obedience to instructions from home, to use every effort
to defeat it. The queen's ministers, with the chancellor, Gardiner,
bishop of Winchester, at their head, felt a similar repugnance to the
Spanish match. The name of the Spaniards had become terrible from the
remorseless manner in which their wars had been conducted during the
present reign, especially in the New World. The ambition and the
widely-extended dominions of Charles the Fifth made him the most
formidable sovereign in Europe. The English looked with apprehension on
so close an alliance with a prince who had shown too little regard for
the liberties of his own land to make it probable that he or his son
would respect those of another. Above all, they dreaded the fanaticism
of the Spaniards; and the gloomy spectre of the Inquisition moving in
their train made even the good Catholic shudder at the thought of the
miseries that might ensue from this ill-omened union.
It was not difficult for Noailles and the chancellor to communicate
their own distrust to the members of the parliament, then in session. A
petition to the queen was voted in the lower house, in which the commons
preferred an humble request that she would marry for the good of the
realm, but besought her, at the same time, not to go abroad for her
husband, but to select him among her own subjects.[75]
Mary's ministers did not understand her character so well as Charles the
Fifth did, when he cautioned his agent not openly to thwart her.
Opposition only fixed her more strongly in her original purpose. In a
private interview with Renard, she told him that she was apprised of
Gardiner's intrigues, and that Noailles, too, was _doing the impossible_
to prevent her union with Philip. "But I will be a match for them," she
added. Soon after, taking the ambassador, at midnight, into her oratory,
she knelt before the host, and, having repeated the hymn _Veni Creator_,
solemnly pledged herself to take no other man for her husband than the
prince of Spain.[76]
This proceeding took place on the thirtieth of October. On the
seventeenth of the month following, the commons waited on the queen at
her palace of Whitehall, to which she was confined by indisposition, and
presented their address. Mary, instead of replying by her chancellor, as
was usual, answered them in person. She told them, that from God she
held her crown, and that to him alone should she turn for counsel in a
matter so important;[77] she had not yet made up her mind to marry; but
since they considered it so necessary for the weal of the kingdom, she
would take it into consideration. It was a matter in which no one was so
much interested as herself. But they might be assured that, in her
choice, she would have regard to the happiness of her people, full as
much as to her own. The commons, who had rarely the courage to withstand
the frown of their Tudor princes, professed themselves contented with
this assurance; and, from this moment, opposition ceased from that
quarter.
Mary's arguments were reinforced by more conciliatory, but not less
efficacious persuasives, in the form of gold crowns, gold chains, and
other compliments of the like nature, which were distributed pretty
liberally by the Spanish ambassador among the members of her
council.[78]
In the following December, a solemn embassy left Brussels, to wait on
Mary and tender her the hand of Philip. It was headed by Lamoral, Count
Egmont, the Flemish noble so distinguished in later years by his
military achievements, and still more by his misfortunes. He was
attended by a number of Flemish lords and a splendid body of retainers.
He landed in Kent, where the rumor went abroad that it was Philip
himself; and so general was the detestation of the Spanish match among
the people, that it might have gone hard with the envoy, had the mistake
not been discovered. Egmont sailed up the Thames, and went ashore at
Tower Wharf, on the second of January, 1554. He was received with all
honor by Lord William Howard and several of the great English nobles,
and escorted in much state to Westminster, where his table was supplied
at the charge of the city. Gardiner entertained the embassy at a
sumptuous banquet; and the next day Egmont and his retinue proceeded to
Hampton Court, "where they had great cheer," says an old chronicler,
"and hunted the deer, and were so greedy of their destruction, that they
gave them not fair play for their lives; for," as he peevishly
complains, "they killed rag and tag, with hands and swords."[79]
On the twelfth, the Flemish count was presented to the queen, and
tendered her proposals of marriage in behalf of Prince Philip. Mary, who
probably thought she had made advances enough, now assumed a more
reserved air. "It was not for a maiden queen," she said, "thus publicly
to enter on so delicate a subject as her own marriage. This would be
better done by her ministers, to whom she would refer him. But this she
would have him understand," she added, as she cast her eyes on the ring
on her finger, "her realm was her first husband, and none other should
induce her to violate the oath which she had pledged at her coronation."
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE ARTICLES.]
Notwithstanding this prudery of Mary, she had already manifested such a
prepossession for her intended lord as to attract the notice of her
courtiers, one of whom refers it to the influence of a portrait of
Philip, of which she had become "greatly enamored."[80] That such a
picture was sent to her appears from a letter of Philip's aunt, the
regent of the Netherlands, in which she tells the English queen that she
has sent her a portrait of the prince, from the pencil of Titian, which
she was to return so soon as she was in possession of the living
original. It had been taken some three years before, she said, and was
esteemed a good likeness, though it would be necessary, as in the case
of other portraits by this master, to look at it from a distance in
order to see the resemblance.[81]
The marriage treaty was drawn up with great circumspection, under the
chancellor's direction. It will be necessary to notice only the most
important provisions. It was stipulated that Philip should respect the
laws of England, and leave every man in the full enjoyment of his rights
and immunities. The power of conferring titles, honors, emoluments, and
offices of every description, was to be reserved to the queen.
Foreigners were to be excluded from office. The issue of the marriage,
if a son, was to succeed to the English crown and to the Spanish
possessions in Burgundy and the Low Countries. But in case of the death
of Don Carlos, Philip's son, the issue of the present marriage was to
receive, in addition to the former inheritance, Spain and her
dependencies. The queen was never to leave her own kingdom without her
express desire. Her children were not to be taken out of it without the
consent of the nobles. In case of Mary's death, Philip was not to claim
the right of taking part in the government of the country. Further it
was provided that Philip should not entangle the nation in his wars with
France, but should strive to maintain the same amicable relations that
now subsisted between the two countries.[82]
Such were the cautious stipulations of this treaty, which had more the
aspect of a treaty for defence against an enemy than a marriage
contract. The instrument was worded with a care that reflected credit on
the sagacity of its framers. All was done that parchment could do to
secure the independence of the crown, as well as the liberties of the
people. "But if the bond be violated," asked one of the parliamentary
speakers on the occasion, "who is there to sue the bond?" Every
reflecting Englishman must have felt the inefficacy of any guaranty that
could be extorted from Philip, who, once united to Mary, would find
little difficulty in persuading a fond and obedient wife to sanction his
own policy, prejudicial though it might be to the true interests of the
kingdom.
No sooner was the marriage treaty made public, than the popular
discontent, before partially disclosed, showed itself openly throughout
the country. Placards were put up, lampoons were written, reviling the
queen's ministers and ridiculing the Spaniards; ominous voices were
heard from old, dilapidated buildings, boding the ruin of the monarchy.
Even the children became infected with the passions of their fathers.
Games were played in which the English were represented contending with
the Spaniards; and in one of these an unlucky urchin, who played the
part of Philip, narrowly escaped with his life from the hands of his
exasperated comrades.[83]
But something more serious than child's play showed itself, in three
several insurrections which broke out in different quarters of the
kingdom. The most formidable of them was the one led by Sir Thomas
Wyatt, son of the celebrated poet of that name. It soon gathered head,
and the number of the insurgents was greatly augmented by the accession
of a considerable body of the royal forces, who deserted their colours,
and joined the very men against whom they had been sent. Thus
strengthened, Wyatt marched on London. All there were filled with
consternation,--all but their intrepid queen, who showed as much
self-possession and indifference to danger as if it were only an
ordinary riot.
Proceeding at once into the city, she met the people at Guildhall, and
made them a spirited address, which has been preserved in the pages of
Holinshed. It concludes in the following bold strain, containing an
allusion to the cause of the difficulties:--"And certainly, if I did
either know or think that this marriage should either turn to the danger
or loss of any of you, my loving subjects, or to the detriment or
impairing of any part or parcel of the royal estate of this realm of
England, I would never consent thereunto, neither would I ever marry
while I lived. And on the word of a queen, I promise and assure you,
that, if it shall not probably appear before the nobility and commons,
in the high court of parliament, that this marriage shall be for the
singular benefit and commodity of all the whole realm, that then I will
abstain, not only from this marriage, but also from any other whereof
peril may ensue to this most noble realm. Wherefore now as good and
faithful subjects pluck up your hearts, and like true men stand fast
with your lawful prince against these rebels, both our enemies and
yours, and fear them not; for I assure you that I fear them nothing at
all!"[84] The courageous spirit of their queen communicated itself to
her audience, and in a few hours twenty thousand citizens enrolled
themselves under the royal banner.
Meanwhile, the rebel force continued its march, and reports soon came
that Wyatt was on the opposite bank of the Thames; then, that he had
crossed the river. Soon his presence was announced by the flight of a
good number of the royalists, among whom was Courtenay, who rode off
before the enemy at a speed that did little credit to his valor. All was
now confusion again. The lords and ladies in attendance gathered round
the queen in Whitehall, as if to seek support from her more masculine
nature. Her ministers went down on their knees, to implore her to seek
refuge in the Tower, as the only place of safety. Mary smiled with
contempt at the pusillanimous proposal, and resolved to remain where she
was, and abide the issue.
It was not long in coming. Wyatt penetrated as far as Ludgate, with
desperate courage, but was not well seconded by his followers. The few
who proved faithful were surrounded and overwhelmed by numbers. Wyatt
was made prisoner, and the whole rebel rout discomfited and dispersed.
By this triumph over her enemies, Mary was seated more strongly than
ever on the throne. Henceforward the Spanish match did not meet with
opposition from the people, any more than from the parliament.
Still the emperor, after this serious demonstration of hostility to his
son, felt a natural disquietude in regard to his personal safety, which
made him desirous of obtaining some positive guaranty before trusting
him among the turbulent islanders. He wrote to his ambassador to require
such security from the government. But no better could be given than the
royal promise that everything should be done to insure the prince's
safety. Renard was much perplexed. He felt the responsibility of his own
position. He declined to pledge himself for the quiet deportment of the
English; but he thought matters had already gone too far to leave it in
the power of Spain to recede.
[Sidenote: MARY'S BETROTHAL.]
He wrote, moreover, both to Charles and to Philip, recommending that the
prince should not bring over with him a larger retinue of Spaniards than
was necessary, and that the wives of his nobles--for he seems to have
regarded the sex as the source of evil--should not accompany them.[85]
Above all, he urged Philip and his followers to lay aside the Castilian
_hauteur_, and to substitute the conciliatory manners which might disarm
the jealousy of the English.[86]
CHAPTER IV.
ENGLISH ALLIANCE.
Mary's Betrothal.--Joanna Regent of Castile.--Philip embarks for
England.--His splendid Reception.--Marriage of Philip and Mary.--Royal
Entertainments.--Philip's Influence.--The Catholic Church
restored.--Philip's Departure.
1554, 1555.
In the month of March, 1554, Count Egmont arrived in England, on a
second embassy, for the purpose of exchanging the ratifications of the
marriage treaty. He came in the same state as before, and was received
by the queen in the presence of her council. The ceremony was conducted
with great solemnity. Mary, kneeling down, called God to witness, that,
in contracting this marriage, she had been influenced by no motive of a
carnal or worldly nature, but by the desire of securing the welfare and
tranquillity of the kingdom. To her kingdom her faith had first been
plighted; and she hoped that Heaven would give her strength to maintain
inviolate the oath she had taken at her coronation.
This she said with so much grace, that the bystanders, says Renard,--who
was one of them,--were all moved to tears. The ratifications were then
exchanged, and the oaths taken, in presence of the host, by the
representatives of Spain and England; when Mary, again kneeling, called
on those present to unite with her in prayer to the Almighty, that he
would enable her faithfully to keep the articles of the treaty, and
would make her marriage a happy one.
Count Egmont then presented to the queen a diamond ring which the
emperor had sent her. Mary, putting it on her finger, showed it to the
company; "and assuredly," exclaims the Spanish minister, "the jewel was
a precious one, and well worthy of admiration." Egmont, before departing
for Spain, inquired of Mary whether she would intrust him with any
message to Prince Philip. The queen replied, that "he might tender to
the prince her most affectionate regards, and assure him that she should
be always ready to vie with him in such offices of kindness as became a
loving and obedient wife." When asked if she would write to him, she
answered, "Not till he had begun the correspondence."[87]
This lets us into the knowledge of a little fact, very significant. Up
to this time Philip had neither written, nor so much as sent a single
token of regard to his mistress. All this had been left to his father.
Charles had arranged the marriage, had wooed the bride, had won over her
principal advisers,--in short, had done all the courtship. Indeed, the
inclinations of Philip, it is said, had taken another direction, and he
would have preferred the hand of his royal kinswoman, Mary of
Portugal.[88] However this may be, it is not probable that he felt any
great satisfaction in the prospect of being united to a woman who was
eleven years older than himself, and whose personal charms, whatever
they might once have been, had long since faded, under the effects of
disease and a constitutional melancholy. But he loved power; and
whatever scruples he might have entertained on his own account were
silenced before the wishes of his father.[89] "Like another Isaac,"
exclaims Sandoval, in admiration of his conduct, "he sacrificed himself
on the altar of filial duty."[90] The same implicit deference which
Philip showed his father in this delicate matter, he afterwards, under
similar circumstances, received from his own son.
[Sidenote: MARY'S BETROTHAL.]
After the marriage articles had been ratified, Philip sent a present of
a magnificent jewel to the English queen, by a Spanish noble of high
rank, the Marquis de las Nayas.[91] The marquis, who crossed from Biscay
with a squadron of four ships, landed at Plymouth, and, as he journeyed
towards London, was met by the young Lord Herbert, son of the earl of
Pembroke, who conducted him, with an escort of four hundred mounted
gentlemen, to his family seat in Wiltshire. "And as they rode together
to Wilton," says Lord Edmund Dudley, one of the party, "there were
certain courses at the hare, which was so pleasant that the marquis much
delighted in finding the course so readily appointed. As for the
marquis's great cheer, as well that night at supper as otherwise at his
breakfast the next day, surely it was so abundant, that it was not a
little marvel to consider that so great a preparation could be made in
so small a warning.... Surely it was not a little comfort to my heart
to see all things so honorably used for the honor and service of the
queen's majesty."[92]
Meanwhile, Philip was making his arrangements for leaving Spain, and
providing a government for the country during his absence. It was
decided by the emperor to intrust the regency to his daughter, the
Princess Joanna. She was eight years younger than Philip. About eighteen
months before, she had gone to Portugal as the bride of the heir of that
kingdom. But the fair promise afforded by this union was blasted by the
untimely death of her consort, which took place on the second of
January, 1554. Three weeks afterwards, the unhappy widow gave birth to a
son, the famous Don Sebastian, whose Quixotic adventures have given him
a wider celebrity than is enjoyed by many a wiser sovereign. After the
cruel calamity which had befallen her, it was not without an effort that
Joanna resigned herself to her father's wishes, and consented to enter
on the duties of public life. In July, she quitted Lisbon,--the scene of
early joys, and of hopes for ever blighted,--and, amidst the regrets of
the whole court, returned, under a princely escort, to Castile. She was
received on the borders by the king, her brother, who conducted her to
Valladolid. Here she was installed, with due solemnity, in her office of
regent. A council of state was associated with her in the government. It
consisted of persons of the highest consideration, with the archbishop
of Seville at their head. By this body Joanna was to be advised, and
indeed to be guided in all matters of moment. Philip, on his departure,
left his sister an ample letter of instructions as to the policy to be
pursued by the administration, especially in affairs of religion.[93]
Joanna seems to have been a woman of discretion and virtue,--qualities
which belonged to the females of her line. She was liberal in her
benefactions to convents and colleges; and their cloistered inmates
showed their gratitude by the most lavish testimony to her deserts. She
had one rather singular practice. She was in the habit of dropping her
veil, when giving audience to foreign ambassadors. To prevent all doubts
as to her personal identity, she began the audience by raising her veil,
saying, "Am I not the princess?" She then again covered her face, and
the conference was continued without her further exposing her features.
"It was not necessary," says her biographer, in an accommodating spirit,
"to have the face uncovered in order to hear."[94] Perhaps Joanna
considered this reserve as suited to the season of her mourning,
intending it as a mark of respect to the memory of her deceased lord. In
any other view, we might suspect that there entered into her
constitution a vein of the same madness which darkened so large a part
of the life of her grandmother and namesake, Joanna of Castile.
Before leaving Valladolid, Philip formed a separate establishment for
his son, Don Carlos, and placed his education under the care of a
preceptor, Luis de Vives, a scholar not to be confounded with his
namesake, the learned tutor of Mary of England. Having completed his
arrangements, Philip set out for the place of his embarkation in the
north. At Compostella he passed some days, offering up his devotions to
the tutelar saint of Spain, whose shrine, throughout the Middle Ages,
had been the most popular resort of pilgrims from the western parts of
Christendom.
While at Compostella, Philip subscribed the marriage treaty, which had
been brought over from England by the earl of Bedford. He then proceeded
to Corunna, where a fleet of more than a hundred sail was riding at
anchor, in readiness to receive him. It was commanded by the admiral of
Castile, and had on board, besides its complement of seamen, four
thousand of the best troops of Spain. On the eleventh of July, Philip
embarked, with his numerous retinue, in which, together with the Flemish
Counts Egmont and Hoorne, were to be seen the dukes of Alva and Medina
Coeli, the prince of Eboli,--in short, the flower of the Castilian
nobility. They came attended by their wives and vassals, minstrels and
mummers, and a host of idle followers, to add to the splendor of the
pageant and do honor to their royal master. Yet the Spanish ambassador
at London had expressly recommended to Philip that his courtiers should
leave their ladies at home, and should come in as simple guise as
possible, so as not to arouse the jealousy of the English.[95]
After a pleasant run of a few days, the Spanish squadron came in sight
of the combined fleets of England and Flanders, under the command of the
Lord Admiral Howard, who was cruising in the channel in order to meet
the prince and convoy him to the English shore. The admiral seems to
have been a blunt sort of man, who spoke his mind with more candor than
courtesy. He greatly offended the Flemings by comparing their ships to
muscle-shells.[96] He is even said to have fired a gun as he approached
Philip's squadron, in order to compel it to lower its topsails in
acknowledgment of the supremacy of the English in the "narrow seas." But
this is probably the patriotic vaunt of an English writer, since it is
scarcely possible that the haughty Spaniard of that day would have made
such a concession, and still less so that the British commander would
have been so discourteous as to exact it on this occasion.
On the nineteenth of July, the fleets came to anchor in the port of
Southampton. A number of barges were soon seen pushing off from the
shore; one of which, protected by a rich awning and superbly lined with
cloth of gold, was manned by sailors, whose dress of white and green
intimated the royal livery. It was the queen's barge, intended for
Philip; while the other boats, all gaily ornamented, received his nobles
and their retinues.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S SPLENDID RECEPTION.]
The Spanish prince was welcomed, on landing, by a goodly company of
English lords, assembled to pay him their obeisance. The earl of Arundel
presented him, in the queen's name, with the splendid insignia of the
order of the Garter.[97] Philip's dress, as usual, was of plain black
velvet, with a berret cap, ornamented, after the fashion of the time,
with gold chains. By Mary's orders, a spirited Andalusian jennet had
been provided for him, which the prince instantly mounted. He was a good
rider, and pleased the people by his courteous bearing, and the graceful
manner in which he managed his horse.
The royal procession then moved forward to the ancient church of the
Holy Rood, where mass was said, and thanks were offered up for their
prosperous voyage. Philip, after this, repaired to the quarters assigned
to him during his stay in the town. They were sumptuously fitted up, and
the walls of the principal apartment hung with arras, commemorating the
doings of that royal polemic, Henry the Eighth. Among other inscriptions
in honor of him might be seen one proclaiming him "Head of the Church,"
and "Defender of the Faith;"--words which, as they were probably in
Latin, could not have been lost on the Spaniards.[98]
The news of Philip's landing was received in London with every
demonstration of joy. Guns were fired, bells were rung, processions were
made to the churches, bonfires were lighted in all the principal
streets, tables were spread in the squares laden with good cheer, and
wine and ale flowed freely as water for all comers.[99] In short, the
city gave itself up to a general jubilee, as if it were celebrating some
victorious monarch returned to his dominions, and not the man whose name
had lately been the object of such general execration. Mary gave instant
orders that the nobles of her court should hold themselves in readiness
to accompany her to Winchester, where she was to receive the prince; and
on the twenty-first of July she made her entry, in great state, into
that capital, and established her residence in the episcopal palace.
During the few days that Philip stayed at Southampton, he rode
constantly abroad, and showed himself frequently to the people. The
information he had received, before his voyage, of the state of public
feeling, had suggested to him some natural apprehensions for his safety.
He seems to have resolved, from the first, therefore, to adopt such a
condescending, and indeed affable demeanor, as would disarm the jealousy
of the English, and if possible conciliate their good-will. In this he
appears to have been very successful, although some of the more haughty
of the aristocracy did take exception at his neglecting to raise his cap
to them. That he should have imposed the degree of restraint which he
seems to have done on the indulgence of his natural disposition, is good
proof of the strength of his apprehensions.[100]
The favor which Philip showed the English gave umbrage to his own
nobles. They were still more disgusted by the rigid interpretation of
one of the marriage articles, by which some hundreds of their attendants
were prohibited, as foreigners, from landing, or, after landing, were
compelled to reembark, and return to Spain.[101] Whenever Philip went
abroad he was accompanied by Englishmen. He was served by Englishmen at
his meals. He breakfasted and dined in public, a thing but little to his
taste. He drank healths, after the manner of the English, and encouraged
his Spanish followers to imitate his example, as he quaffed the strong
ale of the country.[102]
On the twenty-third of the month, the earl of Pembroke arrived, with a
brilliant company of two hundred mounted gentlemen, to escort the prince
to Winchester. He was attended, moreover, by a body of English archers,
whose tunics of yellow cloth, striped with bars of red velvet, displayed
the gaudy-colored livery of the house of Aragon. The day was
unpropitious. The rain fell heavily, in such torrents as might have
cooled the enthusiasm of a more ardent lover than Philip. But he was too
gallant a cavalier to be daunted by the elements. The distance, not
great in itself, was to be travelled on horseback,--the usual mode of
conveyance at a time when roads were scarcely practicable for carriages.
Philip and his retinue had not proceeded far, when they were encountered
by a cavalier, riding at full speed, and bringing with him a ring which
Mary had sent her lover, with the request that he would not expose
himself to the weather, but postpone his departure to the following day.
The prince, not understanding the messenger, who spoke in English, and
suspecting that it was intended by Mary to warn him of some danger in
his path, instantly drew up by the road-side, and took counsel with Alva
and Egmont as to what was to be done. One of the courtiers, who
perceived his embarrassment, rode up and acquainted the prince with the
real purport of the message. Relieved of his alarm, Philip no longer
hesitated, but, with his red felt cloak wrapped closely about him and a
broad beaver slouched over his eyes, manfully pushed forward, in spite
of the tempest.
As he advanced, his retinue received continual accessions from the
neighboring gentry and yeomanry, until it amounted to some thousands
before he reached Winchester. It was late in the afternoon when the
cavalcade, soiled with travel and thoroughly drenched with rain, arrived
before the gates of the city. The mayor and aldermen, dressed in their
robes of scarlet, came to welcome the prince, and, presenting the keys
of the city, conducted him to his quarters.
That evening Philip had his first interview with Mary. It was private,
and he was taken to her residence by the chancellor, Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester. The royal pair passed an hour or more together; and, as Mary
spoke the Castilian fluently, the interview must have been spared much
of the embarrassment that would otherwise have attended it.[103]
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF PHILIP AND MARY.]
On the following day the parties met in public. Philip was attended by
the principal persons of his suite, of both sexes; and as the
procession, making a goodly show, passed through the streets on foot,
the minstrelsy played before them till they reached the royal residence.
The reception-room was the great hall of the palace. Mary, stepping
forward to receive her betrothed, saluted him with a loving kiss before
all the company. She then conducted him to a sort of throne, where she
took her seat by his side, under a stately canopy. They remained there
for an hour or more, conversing together, while their courtiers had
leisure to become acquainted with one another, and to find ample food,
doubtless, for future criticism, in the peculiarities of national
costume and manners. Notwithstanding the Spanish blood in Mary's veins,
the higher circles of Spain and England had personally almost as little
intercourse with one another at that period, as England and Japan have
at the present.
The ensuing day, the festival of St. James, the patron saint of Spain,
was the one appointed for the marriage. Philip exchanged his usual
simple dress for the bridal vestments provided for him by his mistress.
They were of spotless white, as the reporter is careful to inform us,
satin and cloth of gold, thickly powdered with pearls and precious
stones. Round his neck he wore the superb collar of the Golden Fleece,
the famous Burgundian order; while the brilliant riband below his knee
served as the badge of the no less illustrious order of the Garter. He
went on foot to the cathedral, attended by all his nobles, vying with
one another in the ostentatious splendor of their retinues.
Half an hour elapsed before Philip was joined by the queen at the
entrance of the cathedral. Mary was surrounded by the lords and ladies
of her court. Her dress, of white satin and cloth of gold, like his own,
was studded and fringed with diamonds of inestimable price, some of
them, doubtless, the gift of Philip, which he had sent to her by the
hands of the prince of Eboli, soon after his landing. Her bright-red
slippers, and her mantle of black velvet, formed a contrast to the rest
of her apparel, and, for a bridal costume, would hardly suit the taste
of the present day. The royal party then moved up the nave of the
cathedral, and were received in the choir by the bishop of Winchester,
supported by the great prelates of the English Church. The greatest of
all, Cranmer, the primate of all England, who should have performed the
ceremony, was absent,--in disgrace and a prisoner.
Philip and Mary took their seats under a royal canopy, with an altar
between them. The queen was surrounded by the ladies of her court; whose
beauty, says an Italian writer, acquired additional lustre by contrast
with the shadowy complexions of the south.[104] The aisles and spacious
galleries were crowded with spectators of every degree, drawn together
from the most distant quarters to witness the ceremony.
The silence was broken by Figueroa, one of the imperial council, who
read aloud an instrument of the emperor, Charles the Fifth. It stated
that this marriage had been of his own seeking; and he was desirous that
his beloved son should enter into it in a manner suitable to his own
expectations and the dignity of his illustrious consort. He therefore
resigned to him his entire right and sovereignty over the kingdom of
Naples and the duchy of Milan. The rank of the parties would thus be
equal, and Mary, instead of giving her hand to a subject, would wed a
sovereign like herself.
Some embarrassment occurred as to the person who should give the queen
away,--a part of the ceremony not provided for. After a brief
conference, it was removed by the marquis of Winchester and the earls of
Pembroke and Derby, who took it on themselves to give her away in the
name of the whole realm; at which the multitude raised a shout that made
the old walls of the cathedral ring again. The marriage service was then
concluded by the bishop of Winchester. Philip and Mary resumed their
seats, and mass was performed, when the bridegroom, rising, gave his
consort the "kiss of peace," according to the custom of the time. The
whole ceremony occupied nearly four hours. At the close of it Philip,
taking Mary by the hand, led her from the church. The royal couple were
followed by the long train of prelates and nobles, and were preceded by
the earls of Pembroke and Derby, each bearing aloft a naked sword, the
symbol of sovereignty. The effect of the spectacle was heightened by the
various costumes of the two nations,--the richly-tinted and picturesque
dresses of the Spaniards, and the solid magnificence of the English and
Flemings, mingling together in gay confusion. The glittering procession
moved slowly on, to the blithe sounds of festal music, while the air was
rent with the loyal acclamations of the populace, delighted, as usual,
with the splendor of the pageant.
In the great hall of the episcopal palace, a sumptuous banquet was
prepared for the whole company. At one end of the apartment was a dais,
on which, under a superb canopy, a table was set for the king and queen;
and a third seat was added for Bishop Gardiner, the only one of the
great lords who was admitted to the distinction of dining with royalty.
Below the dais, the tables were set on either side through the whole
length of the hall, for the English and Spanish nobles, all arranged--a
perilous point of etiquette--with due regard to their relative rank. The
royal table was covered with dishes of gold. A spacious beaufet, rising
to the height of eight stages, or shelves, and filled with a profusion
of gold and silver vessels, somewhat ostentatiously displayed the
magnificence of the prelate, or of his sovereign. Yet this ostentation
was rather Spanish than English; and was one of the forms in which the
Castilian grandee loved to display his opulence.[105]
At the bottom of the hall was an orchestra, occupied by a band of
excellent performers, who enlivened the repast by their music. But the
most interesting part of the show was that of the Winchester boys, some
of whom were permitted to enter the presence, and recite in Latin their
epithalamiums in honor of the royal nuptials, for which they received a
handsome guerdon from the queen.
[Sidenote: ROYAL ENTERTAINMENTS.]
After the banquet came the ball, at which, if we are to take an old
English authority, "the Spaniards were greatly out of countenance when
they saw the English so far excel them."[106] This seems somewhat
strange, considering that dancing is, and always has been, the national
pastime of Spain. Dancing is to the Spaniard what music is to the
Italian,--the very condition of his social existence.[107] It did not
continue late on the present occasion, and, at the temperate hour of
nine, the bridal festivities closed for the evening.[108]
Philip and Mary passed a few days in this merry way of life, at
Winchester, whence they removed, with their court, to Windsor. Here a
chapter of the order of the Garter was held, for the purpose of
installing King Philip. The herald, on this occasion, ventured to take
down the arms of England, and substitute those of Spain, in honor of the
new sovereign,--an act of deference which roused the indignation of the
English lords, who straightway compelled the functionary to restore the
national escutcheon to its proper place.[109]
On the twenty-eighth of August, Philip and Mary made their public entry
into London. They rode in on horseback, passing through the borough of
Southwark, across London Bridge. Every preparation was made by the loyal
citizens to give them a suitable reception. The columns of the buildings
were festooned with flowers, triumphal arches spanned the streets, the
walls were hung with pictures or emblazoned with legends in
commemoration of the illustrious pair, and a genealogy was traced for
Philip, setting forth his descent from John of Gaunt,--making him out,
in short, as much of an Englishman as possible.
Among the paintings was one in which Henry the Eighth was seen holding
in his hand a Bible. This device gave great scandal to the chancellor,
Gardiner, who called the painter sundry hard names, rating him roundly
for putting into King Harry's hand the sacred volume, which should
rather have been given to his daughter, Queen Mary, for her zeal to
restore the primitive worship of the Church. The unlucky artist lost no
time in repairing his error by brushing out the offending volume, and
did it so effectually, that he brushed out the royal fingers with it,
leaving the old monarch's mutilated stump held up, like some poor
mendicant's, to excite the compassion of the spectators.[110]
But the sight which, more than all these pageants, gave joy to the
hearts of the Londoners, was an immense quantity of bullion, which
Philip caused to be paraded through the city on its way to the Tower,
where it was deposited in the royal treasury. The quantity was said to
be so great, that, on one occasion, the chests containing it filled
twenty carts. On another, two wagons were so heavily laden with the
precious metal as to require to be drawn by nearly a hundred
horses.[111] The good people, who had looked to the coming of the
Spaniards as that of a swarm of locusts which was to consume their
substance, were greatly pleased to see their exhausted coffers so well
replenished from the American mines.
From London the royal pair proceeded to the shady solitudes of Hampton
Court, and Philip, weary of the mummeries in which he had been compelled
to take part, availed himself of the indisposition of his wife to
indulge in that retirement and repose which were more congenial to his
taste. This way of life in his pleasant retreat, however, does not
appear to have been so well suited to the taste of his English subjects.
At least, an old chronicler peevishly complains that "the hall-door
within the court was continually shut, so that no man might enter unless
his errand were first known; which seemed strange to Englishmen that had
not been used thereto."[112]
Yet Philip, although his apprehensions for his safety had doubtless
subsided, was wise enough to affect the same conciliatory manners as on
his first landing,--and not altogether in vain. "He discovered," says
the Venetian ambassador, in his report to the senate, "none of that
_sosiego_--the haughty indifference of the Spaniards--which
distinguished him when he first left home for Italy and Flanders.[113]
He was, indeed, as accessible as any one could desire, and gave patient
audience to all who asked it. He was solicitous," continues Micheli, "to
instruct himself in affairs, and showed a taste for application to
business,"--which, it may be added, grew stronger with years. "He spoke
little. But his remarks, though brief, were pertinent. In short," he
concludes, "he is a prince of an excellent genius, a lively
apprehension, and a judgment ripe beyond his age."
Philip's love of business, however, was not such as to lead him to take
part prematurely in the management of affairs. He discreetly left this
to the queen and her ministers, to whose judgment he affected to pay the
greatest deference. He particularly avoided all appearance of an attempt
to interfere with the administration of justice, unless it were to
obtain some act of grace. Such interference only served to gain him the
more credit with the people.[114]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S INFLUENCE.]
That he gained largely on their good-will may be inferred from the
casual remarks of more than one contemporary writer. They bear emphatic
testimony to the affability of his manners, so little to have been
expected from the popular reports of his character. "Among other
things," writes Wotton, the English minister at the French court, "one I
have been right glad to hear of is, that the king's highness useth
himself so gently and lovingly to all men. For, to tell you the truth, I
have heard some say, that, when he came out of Spain into Italy, it was
by some men wished that he had showed a somewhat more benign countenance
to the people than it was said he then did."[115] Another contemporary,
in a private letter, written soon after the king's entrance into London,
after describing his person as "so well proportioned that Nature cannot
work a more perfect pattern," concludes with commending him for his
"pregnant wit and most gentle nature."[116]
Philip, from the hour of his landing, had been constant in all his
religious observances. "He was as punctual," says Micheli, "in his
attendance at mass, and his observance of all the forms of devotion, as
any monk;--more so, as some people thought, than became his age and
station. The ecclesiastics," he adds, "with whom Philip had constant
intercourse, talked loudly of his piety."[117]
Yet there was no hypocrisy in this. However willing Philip may have been
that his concern for the interests of religion might be seen of men, it
is no less true that, as far as he understood these interests, his
concern was perfectly sincere. The actual state of England may have even
operated as an inducement with him to overcome his scruples as to the
connection with Mary. "Better not reign at all," he often remarked,
"than reign over heretics." But what triumph more glorious than that of
converting these heretics, and bringing them back again into the bosom
of the Church? He was most anxious to prepare the minds of his new
subjects for an honorable reception of the papal legate, Cardinal Pole,
who was armed with full authority to receive the submission of England
to the Holy See. He employed his personal influence with the great
nobles, and enforced it occasionally by liberal drafts on those Peruvian
ingots which he had sent to the Tower. At least, it is asserted that he
gave away yearly pensions, to the large amount of between fifty and
sixty thousand gold crowns, to sundry of the queen's ministers. It was
done on the general plea of recompensing their loyalty to their
mistress.[118]
Early in November, tidings arrived of the landing of Pole. He had been
detained some weeks in Germany, by the emperor, who felt some
distrust--not ill-founded, as it seems--of the cardinal's disposition in
regard to the Spanish match. Now that this difficulty was obviated, he
was allowed to resume his journey. He came up the Thames in a
magnificent barge, with a large silver cross, the emblem of his legatine
authority, displayed on the prow. The legate, on landing, was received
by the king, the queen, and the whole court, with a reverential
deference which argued well for the success of his mission.
He was the man, of all others, best qualified to execute it. To a
natural kindness of temper he united an urbanity and a refinement of
manners, derived from familiar intercourse with the most polished
society of Europe, his royal descent entitled him to mix on terms of
equality with persons of the highest rank, and made him feel as much at
ease in the court as in the cloister. His long exile had opened to him
an acquaintance with man as he is found in various climes, while, as a
native-born Englishman, he perfectly understood the prejudices and
peculiar temper of his own countrymen. "Cardinal Pole," says the
Venetian minister, "is a man of unblemished nobility, and so strict in
his integrity, that he grants nothing to the importunity of friends. He
is so much beloved, both by prince and people, that he may well be
styled the king where all is done by his authority."[119] An English
cardinal was not of too frequent occurrence in the sacred college. That
one should have been found at the present juncture, with personal
qualities, moreover, so well suited to the delicate mission to England,
was a coincidence so remarkable, that Philip and Mary might well be
excused for discerning in it the finger of Providence.
On the seventeenth of the month, parliament, owing to the queen's
indisposition, met at Whitehall; and Pole made that celebrated speech in
which he recapitulated some of the leading events of his own life, and
the persecutions he had endured for conscience' sake. He reviewed the
changes in religion which had taken place in England, and implored his
audience to abjure their spiritual errors, and to seek a reconciliation
with the Catholic Church. He assured them of his plenary power to grant
absolution for the past; and--what was no less important--to authorize
the present proprietors to retain possession of the abbey lands which
had been confiscated under King Henry. This last concession, which had
been extorted with difficulty from the pope, reconciling, as it did,
temporal with spiritual interests, seems to have dispelled whatever
scruples yet lingered in the breasts of the legislature. There were few,
probably, in that goodly company, whose zeal would have aspired to the
crown of martyrdom.
The ensuing day, parliament, in obedience to the royal summons, again
assembled at Whitehall. Philip took his seat on the left of Mary, under
the same canopy, while Cardinal Pole sat at a greater distance on her
right.[120]
[Sidenote: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH RESTORED.]
The chancellor, Gardiner, then presented a petition in the name of the
lords and commons, praying for reconciliation with the papal see.
Absolution was solemnly pronounced by the legate, and the whole assembly
received his benediction on their bended knees. England, purified from
her heresy, was once more restored to the communion of the Roman
Catholic Church.
Philip instantly despatched couriers, with the glad tidings, to Rome,
Brussels, and other capitals of Christendom. Everywhere the event was
celebrated with public rejoicings, as if it had been some great victory
over the Saracens. As Philip's zeal for the faith was well known, and as
the great change had taken place soon after his arrival in England, much
of the credit of it was ascribed to him.[121] Thus, before ascending the
throne of Spain, he had vindicated his claim to the title of Catholic,
so much prized by the Spanish monarchs. He had won a triumph greater
than that which his father had been able to win after years of war, over
the Protestants of Germany; greater than any which had been won by the
arms of Cortés or Pizarro in the New World. Their contest had been with
the barbarian; the field of Philip's labors was one of the most potent
and civilized countries of Europe.
The work of conversion was speedily followed by that of persecution. To
what extent Philip's influence was exerted in this is not manifest.
Indeed, from anything that appears, it would not be easy to decide
whether his influence was employed to promote or to prevent it. One fact
is certain, that, immediately after the first martyrs suffered at
Smithfield, Alfonso de Castro, a Spanish friar, preached a sermon in
which he bitterly inveighed against these proceedings. He denounced them
as repugnant to the true spirit of Christianity, which was that of
charity and forgiveness, and which enjoined its ministers not to take
vengeance on the sinner, but to enlighten him as to his errors, and
bring him to repentance.[122] This bold appeal had its effect, even in
that season of excitement. For a few weeks the arm of persecution seemed
to be palsied. But it was only for a few weeks. Toleration was not the
virtue of the sixteenth century. The charitable doctrines of the good
friar fell on hearts withered by fanaticism; and the spirit of
intolerance soon rekindled the fires of Smithfield into a fiercer glow
than before.
Yet men wondered at the source whence these strange doctrines had
proceeded. The friar was Philip's confessor. It was argued that he would
not have dared to speak thus boldly, had it not been by the command of
Philip, or, at least, by his consent. That De Castro should have thus
acted at the suggestion of his master is contradicted by the whole tenor
of Philip's life. Hardly four years elapsed before he countenanced by
his presence an _auto da fé_ in Valladolid, where fourteen persons
perished at the stake; and the burning of heretics in England could have
done no greater violence to his feelings than the burning of heretics in
Spain. If the friar did indeed act in obedience to Philip, we may well
suspect that the latter was influenced less by motives of humanity than
of policy; and that the disgust manifested by the people at the
spectacle of these executions may have led him to employ this expedient
to relieve himself of any share in the odium which attached to
them.[123]
What was the real amount of Philip's influence, in this or other
matters, it is not possible to determine. It is clear that he was
careful not to arouse the jealousy of the English by any parade of
it.[124] One obvious channel of it lay in the queen, who seems to have
doated on him with a fondness that one would hardly have thought a
temper cold and repulsive, like that of Philip, capable of exciting. But
he was young and good-looking. His manners had always been found to
please the sex, even where he had not been so solicitous to please as he
was in England. He was Mary's first and only love; for the emperor was
too old to have touched aught but her vanity, and Courtenay was too
frivolous to have excited any other than a temporary feeling. This
devotion to Philip, according to some accounts, was ill requited by his
gallantries. The Venetian ambassador says of him, that "he well deserved
the tenderness of his wife, for he was the most loving and the best of
husbands." But it seems probable that the Italian, in his estimate of
the best of husbands, adopted the liberal standard of his own
country.[125]
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S INFLUENCE.]
About the middle of November, parliament was advised that the queen was
in a state of pregnancy. The intelligence was received with the joy
usually manifested by loyal subjects on like occasions. The emperor
seems to have been particularly pleased with this prospect of an heir,
who, by the terms of the marriage treaty, would make a division of that
great empire which it had been the object of its master's life to build
up and consolidate under one sceptre. The commons, soon after, passed an
act empowering Philip, in case it should go otherwise than well with the
queen at the time of her confinement, to assume the regency, and take
charge of the education of her child during its minority. The regency
was to be limited by the provisions of the marriage treaty. But the act
may be deemed evidence that Philip had gained on the confidence of his
new subjects.
The symptoms continued to be favorable; and, as the time approached for
Mary's confinement, messengers were held in readiness to bear the
tidings to the different courts. The loyal wishes of the people ran so
far ahead of reality, that the rumor went abroad of the actual birth of
a prince. Bells were rung, bonfires lighted; _Te Deum_ was sung in some
of the churches; and one of the preachers "took upon him to describe the
proportions of the child, how fair, how beautiful and great a prince it
was, as the like had not been seen!" "But for all this great labor,"
says the caustic chronicler, "for their yoong maister long looked for
coming so surely into the world, in the end appeared neither yoong
maister nor yoong maistress, that any man to this day can hear of."[126]
The queen's disorder proved to be a dropsy. But, notwithstanding the
mortifying results of so many prognostics and preparations, and the
ridicule which attached to it, Mary still cherished the illusion of one
day giving an heir to the crown. Her husband did not share in this
illusion; and, as he became convinced that she had no longer prospect of
issue, he found less inducement to protract his residence in a country
which, on many accounts, was most distasteful to him. Whatever show of
deference might be paid to him, his haughty spirit could not be pleased
by the subordinate part which he was compelled to play, in public, to
the queen. The parliament had never so far acceded to Mary's wishes as
to consent to his coronation as king of England. Whatever weight he may
have had in the cabinet, it had not been such as to enable him to make
the politics of England subservient to his own interests, or, what was
the same thing, to those of his father. Parliament would not consent to
swerve so far from the express provisions of the marriage treaty as to
become a party in the emperor's contest with France.[127]
Nor could the restraint constantly imposed on Philip, by his desire to
accommodate himself to the tastes and habits of the English, be
otherwise than irksome to him. If he had been more successful in this
than might have been expected, yet it was not possible to overcome the
prejudices, the settled antipathy, with which the Spaniards were
regarded by the great mass of the people, as was evident from the
satirical shafts, which, from time to time, were launched by
pamphleteers and ballad-makers, both against the king and his followers.
These latter were even more impatient than their master of their stay in
a country where they met with so many subjects of annoyance. If a
Spaniard bought anything, complains one of the nation, he was sure to be
charged an exorbitant price for it.[128] If he had a quarrel with an
Englishman, says another writer, he was to be tried by English law, and
was very certain to come off the worst.[129] Whether right or wrong, the
Spaniards could hardly fail to find abundant cause of irritation and
disgust. The two nations were too dissimilar for either of them to
comprehend the other. It was with no little satisfaction, therefore,
that Philip's followers learned that their master had received a summons
from his father to leave England, and join him in Flanders.
The cause of this sudden movement was one that filled the Castilians, as
it did all Europe, with astonishment,--the proposed abdication of
Charles the Fifth. It was one that might seem to admit of neither doubt
nor delay on Philip's part. But Mary, distressed by the prospect of
separation, prevailed on her husband to postpone his departure for
several weeks. She yielded, at length, to the necessity of the case.
Preparations were made for Philip's journey, and Mary, with a heavy
heart, accompanied her royal consort down the Thames to Greenwich. Here
they parted; and Philip, taking an affectionate farewell, and commending
the queen and her concerns to the care of Cardinal Pole, took the road
to Dover.
After a short detention there by contrary winds, he crossed over to
Calais, and on the fourth of September made his entry into that strong
place, the last remnant of all their continental acquisitions that still
belonged to the English.
Philip was received by the authorities of the city with the honors due
to his rank. He passed some days there receiving the respectful
courtesies of the inhabitants, and, on his departure, rejoiced the
hearts of the garrison by distributing among them a thousand crowns of
gold. He resumed his journey, with his splendid train of Castilian and
English nobles, among whom were the earls of Arundel, Pembroke,
Huntington, and others of the highest station in the realm. On the road,
he was met by a military escort sent by his father; and towards the
latter part of September, 1555, Philip, with his gallant retinue, made
his entry into the Flemish capital, where the emperor and his court were
eagerly awaiting his arrival.[130]
[Sidenote: EMPIRE OF PHILIP]
CHAPTER V.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Empire of Philip.--Paul the Fourth.--Court of France.--League against
Spain.--The Duke of Alva.--Preparations for War.--Victorious Campaign.
1555, 1556.
Soon after Philip's arrival in Brussels took place that memorable scene
of the abdication of Charles the Fifth, which occupies the introductory
pages of our narrative. By this event, Philip saw himself master of the
most widely extended and powerful monarchy in Europe. He was king of
Spain, comprehending under that name Castile, Aragon, and Granada,
which, after surviving as independent states for centuries, had been
first brought under one sceptre in the reign of his father, Charles the
Fifth. He was king of Naples and Sicily, and duke of Milan, which
important possessions enabled him to control, to a great extent, the
nicely balanced scales of Italian politics. He was lord of Franche
Comté, and of the Low Countries, comprehending the most flourishing and
populous provinces in Christendom, whose people had made the greatest
progress in commerce, husbandry, and the various mechanic arts. As
titular king of England, he eventually obtained an influence, which, as
we shall see, enabled him to direct the counsels of that country to his
own purposes. In Africa he possessed the Cape de Verd Islands and the
Canaries, as well as Tunis, Oran, and some other important places on the
Barbary coast. He owned the Philippines and the Spice Islands in Asia.
In America, besides his possessions in the West Indies, he was master of
the rich empires of Mexico and Peru, and claimed a right to a boundless
extent of country, that offered an inexhaustible field to the cupidity
and enterprise of the Spanish adventurer. Thus the dominions of Philip
stretched over every quarter of the globe. The flag of Castile was seen
in the remotest latitudes,--on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the
far-off Indian seas,--passing from port to port, and uniting by
commercial intercourse the widely scattered members of her vast colonial
empire.
The Spanish army consisted of the most formidable infantry in Europe;
veterans who had been formed under the eye of Charles the Fifth and of
his generals, who had fought on the fields of Pavia and of Muhlberg, or
who, in the New World, had climbed the Andes with Almagro and Pizarro,
and helped these bold chiefs to overthrow the dynasty of the Incas. The
navy of Spain and Flanders combined far exceeded that of any other power
in the number and size of its vessels; and if its supremacy might be
contested by England on the "narrow seas," it rode the undisputed
mistress of the ocean. To supply the means for maintaining this costly
establishment, as well as the general machinery of government, Philip
had at his command the treasures of the New World; and if the incessant
enterprises of his father had drained the exchequer, it was soon
replenished by the silver streams that flowed in from the inexhaustible
mines of Zacatecas and Potosí.
All this vast empire, with its magnificent resources, was placed at the
disposal of a single man. Philip ruled over it with an authority more
absolute than that possessed by any European prince since the days of
the Cæsars. The Netherlands, indeed, maintained a show of independence
under the shadow of their ancient institutions. But they consented to
supply the necessities of the crown by a tax larger than the revenues of
America. Naples and Milan were ruled by Spanish viceroys. Viceroys, with
delegated powers scarcely less than those of their sovereign, presided
over the American colonies, which received their laws from the parent
country. In Spain itself, the authority of the nobles was gone. First
assailed under Ferdinand and Isabella, it was completely broken down
under Charles the Fifth. The liberties of the commons were crushed at
the fatal battle of Villalar, in the beginning of that monarch's reign.
Without nobles, without commons, the ancient cortes had faded into a
mere legislative pageant, with hardly any other right than that of
presenting petitions, and of occasionally raising an ineffectual note of
remonstrance against abuses. It had lost the power to redress them. Thus
all authority vested in the sovereign. His will was the law of the land.
From his palace at Madrid he sent forth the edicts which became the law
of Spain and of her remotest colonies. It may well be believed that
foreign nations watched with interest the first movements of a prince
who seemed to hold in his hands the destinies of Europe; and that they
regarded with no little apprehension the growth of that colossal power
which had already risen to a height that cast a shadow over every other
monarchy.
From his position, Philip stood at the head of the Roman Catholic
princes. He was in temporal matters what the pope was in spiritual. In
the existing state of Christendom, he had the same interest as the pope
in putting down that spirit of religious reform which had begun to show
itself, in public or in private, in every corner of Europe. He was the
natural ally of the pope. He understood this well, and would have acted
on it. Yet, strange to say, his very first war, after his accession, was
with the pope himself. It was a war not of Philip's seeking.
[Sidenote: PAUL THE FOURTH.]
The papal throne was at that time filled by Paul the Fourth, one of
those remarkable men, who, amidst the shadowy personages that have
reigned in the Vatican, and been forgotten, have vindicated to
themselves a permanent place in history. He was a Neapolitan by birth,
of the noble family of the Caraffas. He was bred to the religious
profession, and early attracted notice by his diligent application and
the fruits he gathered from it. His memory was prodigious. He was not
only deeply read in theological science, but skilled in various
languages, ancient and modern, several of which he spoke with fluency.
His rank, sustained by his scholarship, raised him speedily to high
preferment in the Church. In 1513, when thirty-six years of age, he went
as nuncio to England. In 1525, he resigned his benefices, and, with a
small number of his noble friends, he instituted a new religious order,
called the Theatins.[131] The object of the society was, to combine, to
some extent, the contemplative habits of the monk with the more active
duties of the secular clergy. The members visited the sick, buried the
dead, and preached frequently in public, thus performing the most
important functions of the priesthood. For this last vocation, of
public speaking, Caraffa was peculiarly qualified by a flow of natural
eloquence, which, if it did not always convince, was sure to carry away
the audience by its irresistible fervor.[132] The new order showed
itself particularly zealous in enforcing reform in the Catholic clergy,
and in stemming the tide of heresy which now threatened to inundate the
Church. Caraffa and his associates were earnest to introduce the
Inquisition. A life of asceticism and penance too often extinguishes
sympathy with human suffering, and leads its votaries to regard the
sharpest remedies as the most effectual for the cure of spiritual error.
From this austere way of life Caraffa was called, in 1536, to a
situation which engaged him more directly in worldly concerns. He was
made cardinal by Paul the Third. He had, as far back as the time of
Ferdinand the Catholic, been one of the royal council of Naples. The
family of Caraffa, however, was of the Angevine party, and regarded the
house of Aragon in the light of usurpers. The cardinal had been educated
in this political creed, and, even after his elevation to his new
dignity, he strongly urged Paul the Third to assert the claims of the
holy see to the sovereignty of Naples. This conduct, which came to the
ears of Charles the Fifth, so displeased that monarch that he dismissed
Caraffa from the council. Afterwards, when the cardinal was named by the
pope, his unfailing patron, to the archbishopric of Naples, Charles
resisted the nomination, and opposed all the obstacles in his power to
the collection of the episcopal revenues. These indignities sank deep
into the cardinal's mind, naturally tenacious of affronts; and what, at
first, had been only a political animosity, was now sharpened into
personal hatred of the most implacable character.[133]
Such was the state of feeling when, on the death of Marcellus the
Second, in 1555, Cardinal Caraffa was raised to the papal throne. His
election, as was natural, greatly disgusted the emperor, and caused
astonishment throughout Europe; for he had not the conciliatory manners
which win the favor and the suffrages of mankind. But the Catholic
Church stood itself in need of a reformer, to enable it to resist the
encroaching spirit of Protestantism. This was well understood not only
by the highest, but by the humblest ecclesiastics; and in Caraffa they
saw the man whose qualities precisely fitted him to effect such a
reform. He was, moreover, at the time of his election, in his eightieth
year; and age and infirmity have always proved powerful arguments with
the sacred college, as affording the numerous competitors the best
guaranties for a speedy vacancy. Yet it has more than once happened that
the fortunate candidate, who has owed his election mainly to his
infirmities, has been miraculously restored by the touch of the tiara.
Paul the Fourth--for such was the name assumed by the new pope, in
gratitude to the memory of his patron--adopted a way of life, on his
accession, for which his brethren of the college were not at all
prepared. The austerity and self-denial of earlier days formed a strong
contrast to the pomp of his present establishment and the profuse luxury
of his table. When asked how he would be served, "How but as a great
prince?" he answered. He usually passed three hours at his dinner, which
consisted of numerous courses of the most refined and epicurean dishes.
No one dined with him, though one or more of the cardinals were usually
present, with whom he freely conversed; and as he accompanied his meals
with large draughts of the thick, black wine of Naples, it no doubt gave
additional animation to his discourse.[134] At such times, his favorite
theme was the Spaniards, whom he denounced as the scum of the earth, a
race accursed of God, heretics and schismatics, the spawn of Jews and of
Moors. He bewailed the humiliation of Italy, galled by the yoke of a
nation so abject. But the day had come, he would thunder out, when
Charles and Philip were to be called to a reckoning for their ill-gotten
possessions, and be driven from the land![135]
Yet Paul did not waste all his hours in this idle vaporing, nor in the
pleasures of the table. He showed the same activity as ever in the
labors of the closet, and in attention to business. He was irregular in
his hours, sometimes prolonging his studies through the greater part of
the night, and at others rising long before the dawn. When thus engaged,
it would not have been well for any one of his household to venture into
his presence, without a summons.
Paul seemed to be always in a state of nervous tension. "He is all
nerve," the Venetian minister, Navagero, writes of him; "and when he
walks, it is with a free, elastic step, as if he hardly touched the
ground."[136] His natural arrogance, was greatly increased by his
elevation to the first dignity in Christendom. He had always entertained
the highest ideas of the authority of the sacerdotal office; and now
that he was in the chair of St. Peter, he seemed to have entire
confidence in his own infallibility. He looked on the princes of Europe,
not so much as his sons--the language of the Church--as his servants,
bound to do his bidding. Paul's way of thinking would have better suited
the twelfth century than the sixteenth. He came into the world at least
three centuries too late. In all his acts he relied solely on himself.
He was impatient of counsel from any one, and woe to the man who
ventured to oppose any remonstrance, still more any impediment to the
execution of his plans. He had no misgivings as to the wisdom of these
plans. An idea that had once taken possession of his mind lay there, to
borrow a cant phrase of the day, like "a fixed fact,"--not to be
disturbed by argument or persuasion. We occasionally meet with such
characters, in which strength of will and unconquerable energy in action
pass for genius with the world. They, in fact, serve as the best
substitute for genius, by the ascendancy which such qualities secure
their possessors over ordinary minds. Yet there were ways of approaching
the pontiff, for those who understood his character, and who, by
condescending to flatter his humors, could turn them to their own
account. Such was the policy pursued by some of Paul's kindred, who,
cheered by his patronage, now came forth from their obscurity to glitter
in the rays of the meridian sun.
[Sidenote: COURT OF FRANCE.]
Paul had all his life declaimed against nepotism as an opprobrious sin
in the head of the Church. Yet no sooner did he put on the tiara than he
gave a glaring example of the sin he had denounced, in the favors which
he lavished on three of his own nephews. This was the more remarkable,
as they were men whose way of life had given scandal even to the
Italians, not used to be too scrupulous in their judgments.
The eldest, who represented the family, he raised to the rank of duke,
providing him with an ample fortune from the confiscated property of the
Colonnas,--which illustrious house was bitterly persecuted by Paul, for
its attachment to the Spanish interests.
Another of his nephews he made a cardinal,--a dignity for which he was
indifferently qualified by his former profession, which was that of a
soldier, and still less fitted by his life, which was that of a
libertine. He was a person of a busy, intriguing disposition, and
stimulated his uncle's vindictive feelings against the Spaniards, whom
he himself hated, for some affront which he conceived had been put upon
him while in the emperor's service.[137]
But Paul needed no prompter in this matter. He very soon showed that,
instead of ecclesiastical reform, he was bent on a project much nearer
to his heart,--the subversion of the Spanish power in Naples. Like
Julius the Second, of warlike memory, he swore to drive out the
_barbarians_ from Italy. He seemed to think that the thunders of the
Vatican were more than a match for all the strength of the empire and of
Spain. But he was not weak enough to rely wholly on his spiritual
artillery in such a contest. Through the French ambassador at his court,
he opened negotiations with France, and entered into a secret treaty
with that power, by which each of the parties agreed to furnish a
certain contingent of men and money to carry on the war for the recovery
of Naples. The treaty was executed on the sixteenth of December,
1555.[138]
In less than two months after this event, on the fifth of February,
1556, the fickle monarch of France, seduced by the advantageous offers
of Charles, backed, moreover, by the ruinous state of his own finances,
deserted his new ally, and signed the treaty of Vaucelles, which secured
a truce for five years between his dominions and those of Philip.
Paul received the news of this treaty while surrounded by his courtiers.
He treated the whole with scepticism, but expressed the pious hope, that
such a peace might be in store for the nations of Christendom. In
private he was not so temperate. But without expending his wrath in
empty menaces, he took effectual means to bring things back to their
former state,--to induce the French king to renew the treaty with
himself, and at once to begin hostilities. He knew the vacillating
temper of the monarch he had to deal with. Cardinal Caraffa was
accordingly despatched on a mission to Paris, fortified with ample
powers for the arrangement of a new treaty, and with such tempting
promises on the part of his holiness as might insure its acceptance by
the monarch and his ministers.
The French monarchy was, at that time, under the sceptre of Henry the
Second, the son of Francis the First, to whose character his own bore no
resemblance; or rather the resemblance consisted in those showy
qualities which lie too near the surface to enter into what may be
called character. He affected a chivalrous vein, excelled in the
exercises of the tourney, and indulged in vague aspirations after
military renown. In short, he fancied himself a hero, and seems to have
imposed on some of his own courtiers so far as to persuade them that he
was designed for one. But he had few of the qualities which enter into
the character of a hero. He was as far from being a hero as he was from
being a good Christian, though he thought to prove his orthodoxy by
persecuting the Protestants, who were now rising into a formidable sect
in the southern parts of his kingdom. He had little reliance on his own
resources, leading a life of easy indulgence, and trusting the direction
of his affairs to his favorites and his mistresses.
The most celebrated of these was Diana of Poictiers, created by Henry
duchess of Valentinois, who preserved her personal charms and her
influence over her royal lover to a much later period than usually
happens. The persons of his court in whom the king most confided were
the Constable Montmorency and the duke of Guise.
Anne de Montmorency, constable of France, was one of the proudest of the
French nobility,--proud alike of his great name, his rank, and his
authority with his sovereign. He had grown gray in the service of the
court, and Henry, accustomed to his society from boyhood, had learned to
lean on him for the execution of his measures. Yet his judgments, though
confidently given, were not always sound. His views were far from being
enlarged; and though full of courage, he showed little capacity for
military affairs. A consciousness of this, perhaps, may have led him to
recommend a pacific policy, suited to his own genius. He was a stanch
Catholic, extremely punctilious in all the ceremonies of devotion, and,
if we may credit Brantôme, would strangely mingle together the military
and the religious. He repeated his Pater-Noster at certain fixed hours,
whatever might be his occupation at the time. He would occasionally
break off to give his orders, calling out, "Cut me down such a man!"
"Hang up another!" "Run those fellows through with your lances!" "Set
fire to that village!"--and so on; when, having thus relieved the
military part of his conscience, he would go on with his Pater-Nosters
as before.[139]
A very different character was that of his younger rival, Francis, duke
of Guise, uncle to Mary, queen of Scots, and brother to the regent. Of a
bold, aspiring temper, filled with the love of glory, brilliant and
popular in his address, he charmed the people by his manners and the
splendor of his equipage and dress. He came to court, attended usually
by three or four hundred cavaliers, who formed themselves on Guise as
their model. His fine person was set off by the showy costume of the
time,--a crimson doublet and cloak of spotless ermine, and a cap
ornamented with a scarlet plume. In this dress he might often be seen,
mounted on his splendid charger and followed by a gay retinue of
gentlemen, riding at full gallop through the streets of Paris, and
attracting the admiration of the people.
[Sidenote: LEAGUE AGAINST SPAIN.]
But his character was not altogether made up of such vanities. He was
sagacious in counsel, and had proved himself the best captain of France.
It was he who commanded at the memorable siege of Metz, and foiled the
efforts of the imperial forces under Charles and the duke of Alva.
Caraffa found little difficulty in winning him over to his cause, as he
opened to the ambitious chief the brilliant perspective of the conquest
of Naples. The arguments of the wily Italian were supported by the
duchess of Valentinois. It was in vain that the veteran Montmorency
reminded the king of the ruinous state of the finances, which had driven
him to the shameful expedient of putting up public offices to sale. The
other party represented that the condition of Spain, after her long
struggle, was little better; that the reins of government had now been
transferred from the wise Charles to the hands of his inexperienced son;
and that the coöperation of Rome afforded a favorable conjunction of
circumstances, not to be neglected. Henry was further allured by
Caraffa's assurance that his uncle would grant to the French monarch the
investiture of Naples for one of his younger sons, and bestow Milan on
another. The offer was too tempting to be resisted.
One objection occurred, in certain conscientious scruples as to the
violation of the recent treaty of Vaucelles. But for this the pope, who
had anticipated the objection, readily promised absolution. As the king
also intimated some distrust lest the successor of Paul, whose advanced
age made his life precarious, might not be inclined to carry out the
treaty, Caraffa was authorized to assure him that this danger should be
obviated by the creation of a batch of French cardinals, or of cardinals
in the French interest.
All the difficulties being thus happily disposed of, the treaty was
executed in the month of July, 1556. The parties agreed each to furnish
about twelve thousand infantry, five hundred men-at-arms, and the same
number of light horse. France was to contribute three hundred and fifty
thousand ducats to the expenses of the war, and Rome one hundred and
fifty thousand. The French troops were to be supplied with provisions by
the pope, for which they were to reimburse his holiness. It was moreover
agreed, that the crown of Naples should be settled on a younger son of
Henry, that a considerable tract on the northern frontier should be
transferred to the papal territory, and that ample estates should be
provided from the new conquests for the three nephews of his holiness.
In short, the system of partition was as nicely adjusted as if the
quarry were actually in their possession, ready to be cut up and divided
among the parties.[140]
Finally, it was arranged that Henry should invite the Sultan Solyman to
renew his former alliance with France, and make a descent with his
galleys on the coast of Calabria. Thus did his most Christian majesty,
with the pope for one of his allies and the Grand Turk for the other,
prepare to make war on the most Catholic prince in Christendom![141]
Meanwhile, Paul the Fourth, elated by the prospect of a successful
negotiation, threw off the little decency he had hitherto preserved in
his deportment. He launched out into invectives more bitter than ever
against Philip, and in a tone of defiance told such of the Spanish
cardinals as were present that they might repeat his sayings to their
master. He talked of instituting a legal process against the king for
the recovery of Naples, which he had forfeited by omitting to pay the
yearly tribute to the holy see. The pretext was ill-founded, as the pope
well knew. But the process went on with suitable gravity, and a sentence
of forfeiture was ultimately pronounced against the Spanish monarch.
With these impotent insults, Paul employed more effectual means of
annoyance. He persecuted all who showed any leaning to the Spanish
interest. He set about repairing the walls of Rome, and strengthening
the garrisons on the frontier. His movements raised great alarm among
the Romans, who had too vivid a recollection of their last war with
Spain, under Clement the Seventh, to wish for another. Garcilasso de la
Vega, who had represented Philip, during his father's reign, at the
papal court, wrote a full account of these doings to the viceroy of
Naples. Garcilasso was instantly thrown into prison. Taxis, the Spanish
director of the posts, was both thrown into prison and put to the
torture. Saria, the imperial ambassador, after in vain remonstrating
against these outrages, waited on the pope to demand his passport, and
was kept standing a full hour at the gate of the Vatican, before he was
admitted.[142]
Philip had full intelligence of all these proceedings. He had long since
descried the dark storm that was mustering beyond the Alps. He had
provided for it at the close of the preceding year, by committing the
government of Naples to the man most competent to such a crisis. This
was the duke of Alva, at that time governor of Milan, and
commander-in-chief of the army in Italy. As this remarkable person is to
occupy a large space in the subsequent pages of this narrative, it may
be well to give some account of his earlier life.
Fernando Alvarez de Toledo was descended from an illustrious house in
Castile, whose name is associated with some of the most memorable events
in the national history. He was born in 1508, and while a child had the
misfortune to lose his father, who perished in Africa, at the siege of
Gelves. The care of the orphan devolved on his grandfather, the
celebrated conqueror of Navarre. Under this veteran teacher the young
Fernando received his first lessons in war, being present at more than
one skirmish when quite a boy. This seems to have sharpened his appetite
for a soldier's life, for we find him at the age of sixteen, secretly
leaving his home and taking service under the banner of the Constable
Velasco, at the siege of Fontarabia. He was subsequently made governor
of that place. In 1527, when not twenty years of age, he came, by his
grandfather's death, into possession of the titles and large patrimonial
estates of the house of Toledo.
The capacity which he displayed, as well as his high rank, soon made him
an object of attention; and as Philip grew in years, the duke of Alva
was placed near his person, formed one of his council, and took part in
the regency of Castile. He accompanied Philip on his journeys from
Spain, and, as we have seen, made one of his retinue both in Flanders
and in England. The duke was of too haughty and imperious a temper to
condescend to those arts which are thought to open the most ready
avenues to the favor of the sovereign. He met with rivals of a finer
policy and more accommodating disposition. Yet Philip perfectly
comprehended his character. He knew the strength of his understanding,
and did full justice to his loyalty; and he showed his confidence in his
integrity by placing him in offices of the highest responsibility.
[Sidenote: PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.]
The emperor, with his usual insight into character, had early discerned
the military talents of the young nobleman. He took Alva along with him
on his campaigns in Germany, where from a subordinate station he rapidly
rose to the first command in the army. Such was his position at the
unfortunate siege of Metz, where the Spanish infantry had nearly been
sacrificed to the obstinacy of Charles.
In his military career the duke displayed some of the qualities most
characteristic of his countrymen. But they were those qualities which
belong to a riper period of life. He showed little of that romantic and
adventurous spirit of the Spanish cavalier, which seemed to court peril
for its own sake, and would hazard all on a single cast. Caution was his
prominent trait, in which he was a match for any graybeard in the
army;--a caution carried to such a length as sometimes to put a curb on
the enterprising spirit of the emperor. Men were amazed to see so old a
head on so young shoulders.
Yet this caution was attended by a courage which dangers could not
daunt, and by a constancy which toil, however severe, could not tire. He
preferred the surest, even though the slowest, means to attain his
object. He was not ambitious of effect; he never sought to startle by a
brilliant _coup-de-main_. He would not have compromised a single chance
in his own favor by appealing to the issue of a battle. He looked
steadily to the end, and he moved surely towards it by a system of
operations planned with the nicest forecast. The result of these
operations was almost always success. Few great commanders have been
more uniformly successful in their campaigns. Yet it was rare that these
campaigns were marked by what is so dazzling to the imagination of the
young aspirant for glory,--a great and decisive victory.--Such were some
of the more obvious traits in the military character of the chief to
whom Philip, at this crisis, confided the post of viceroy of
Naples.[143]
Before commencing hostilities against the Church, the Spanish monarch
determined to ease his conscience, by obtaining, if possible, a warrant
for his proceedings from the Church itself. He assembled a body composed
of theologians from Salamanca, Alcalá, Valladolid, and some other
places, and of jurists from his several councils, to resolve certain
queries which he propounded. Among the rest, he inquired whether, in
case of a defensive war with the pope, it would not be lawful to
sequestrate the revenues of those persons, natives or foreigners, who
had benefices in Spain, but who refused obedience to the orders of its
sovereign;--whether he might not lay an embargo on all revenues of the
Church, and prohibit any remittance of moneys to Rome;--whether a
council might not be convoked to determine the validity of Paul's
election, which, in some particulars, was supposed to have been
irregular;--whether inquiry might not be made into the gross abuses of
ecclesiastical patronage by the Roman see, and effectual measures taken
to redress them. The suggestion of an ecclesiastical council was a
menace that grated unpleasantly on the pontifical ear, and was used by
European princes as a sort of counterblast to the threat of
excommunication. The particular objects for which this council was to be
summoned were not of a kind to soothe the irritable nerves of his
holiness. The conclave of theologians and jurists made as favorable
responses as the king had anticipated to his several interrogatories;
and Philip, under so respectable a sanction, sent orders to his viceroy
to take effectual measures for the protection of Naples.[144]
Alva had not waited for these orders, but had busily employed himself in
mustering his resources, and in collecting troops from the Abruzzi and
other parts of his territory. As hostilities were inevitable, he
determined to strike the first blow, and carry the war into the enemy's
country, before he had time to cross the Neapolitan frontier. Like his
master, however, the duke was willing to release himself, as far as
possible, from personal responsibility before taking up arms against the
head of the Church. He accordingly addressed a manifesto to the pope and
the cardinals, setting forth in glowing terms the manifold grievances of
his sovereign; the opprobrious and insulting language of Paul; the
indignities offered to Philip's agents, and to the imperial ambassador;
the process instituted for depriving his master of Naples; and, lastly,
the warlike demonstrations of the pope along the frontier, which left no
doubt as to his designs. He conjured his holiness to pause before he
plunged his country into war. As the head of the Church, it was his duty
to preserve peace, not to bring war into Christendom. He painted the
inevitable evils of war, and the ruin and devastation which it must
bring on the fair fields of Italy. If this were done, it would be the
pope's doing, and his would be the responsibility. On the part of
Naples, the war would be a war of defence. For himself, he had no
alternative. He was placed there to maintain the possessions of his
sovereign; and, by the blessing of God, he would maintain them to the
last drop of his blood.[145]
Alva, while making this appeal to the pope, invoked the good offices of
the Venetian government in bringing about a reconciliation between
Philip and the Vatican. His spirited manifesto to the pope was intrusted
to a special messenger, a person of some consideration in Naples. The
only reply which the hot-headed pontiff made to it was to throw the
envoy into prison, and, as some state, to put him to the torture.
Meanwhile, Alva, who had not placed much reliance on the success of his
appeal, had mustered a force, amounting in all to twelve thousand
infantry, fifteen hundred horse, and a train of twelve pieces of
artillery. His infantry was chiefly made up of Neapolitans, some of whom
had seen but little service. The strength of his army lay in his Spanish
veterans, forming one third of his force. The place of rendezvous was
San Germano, a town on the northern frontier of the kingdom. On the
first of September, 1556, Alva, attended by a gallant band of cavaliers,
left the capital, and on the fourth arrived at the place appointed. The
following day he crossed the borders at the head of his troops, and
marched on Pontecorvo. He met with no resistance from the inhabitants,
who at once threw open their gates to him. Several other places followed
the example of Pontecorvo; and Alva, taking possession of them, caused a
scutcheon displaying the arms of the sacred college to be hung up in the
principal church of each town, with a placard announcing that he held it
only for the college, until the election of a new pontiff. By this act
he proclaimed to the Christian world that the object of the war, as far
as Spain was concerned, was not conquest, but defence. Some historians
find in it a deeper policy,--that of exciting feelings of distrust
between the pope and the cardinals.[146]
Anagni, a place of some strength, refused the duke's summons to
surrender. He was detained three days before his guns had opened a
practicable breach in the walls. He then ordered an assault. The town
was stormed and delivered up to sack,--by which phrase is to be
understood the perpetration of all those outrages which the ruthless
code of war allowed, in that age, on the persons and property of the
defenceless inhabitants, without regard to sex or age.[147]
One or two other places which made resistance shared the fate of Anagni;
and the duke of Alva, having garrisoned his new conquests with such
forces as he could spare, led his victorious legions against Tivoli,--a
town strongly situated on elevated ground, commanding the eastern
approaches to the capital. The place surrendered without attempting a
defence; and Alva, willing to give his men some repose, made Tivoli his
head-quarters; while his army spread over the suburbs and adjacent
country, which afforded good forage for his cavalry.
The rapid succession of these events, the fall of town after town, and,
above all, the dismal fate of Anagni, filled the people of Rome with
terror. The women began to hurry out of the city; many of the men would
have followed but for the interference of Cardinal Caraffa. The panic
was as great as if the enemy had been already at the gates of the
capital. Amidst this general consternation, Paul seemed to be almost the
only person who retained his self-possession. Navagero, the Venetian
minister, was present when he received tidings of the storming of
Anagni, and bears witness to the composure with which he went through
the official business of the morning, as if nothing had happened.[148]
This was in public; but the shock was sufficiently strong to strike out
some sparkles of his fiery temper, as those found who met him that day
in private. To the Venetian agent who had come to Rome to mediate a
peace, and who had pressed him to enter into some terms of accommodation
with the Spaniards, he haughtily replied, that Alva must first recross
the frontier, and then, if he had aught to solicit, prefer his petition
like a dutiful son of the Church. This course was not one very likely to
be adopted by the victorious general[149]
In an interview with two French gentlemen, who, as he had reason to
suppose, were interesting themselves in the affair of a peace, he
exclaimed: "Whoever would bring me into a peace with heretics is a
servant of the Devil. Heaven will take vengeance on him. I will pray
that God's curse may fall on him. If I find that you intermeddle in any
such matter, I will cut your heads off your shoulders. Do not think this
an empty threat. I have an eye in my back on you,"--quoting an Italian
proverb,--"and if I find you playing me false, or attempting to entangle
me a second time in an accursed truce, I swear to you by the eternal
God, I will make your heads fly from your shoulders, come what may come
of it!" "In this way," concludes the narrator, one of the parties, "his
holiness continued for nearly an hour, walking up and down the
apartment, and talking all the while of his own grievances and of
cutting off our heads, until he had talked himself quite out of
breath."[150]
But the valor of the pope did not expend itself in words. He instantly
set about putting the capital in the best state of defence. He taxed the
people to raise funds for his troops, drew in the garrisons from the
neighboring places, formed a body-guard of six or seven hundred horse,
and soon had the satisfaction of seeing his Roman levies, amounting to
six thousand infantry, well equipped for the war. They made a brave
show, with their handsome uniforms and their banners richly emblazoned
with the pontifical arms. As they passed in review before his holiness,
who stood at one of the windows of his palace, he gave them his
benediction. But the edge of the Roman sword, according to an old
proverb, was apt to be blunt; and these holiday troops were soon found
to be no match for the hardy veterans of Spain.
Among the soldiers at the pope's disposal was a body of German
mercenaries, who followed war as a trade, and let themselves out to the
highest bidder. They were Lutherans, with little knowledge of the Roman
Catholic religion, and less respect for it. They stared at its rites as
mummeries, and made a jest of its most solemn ceremonies, directly under
the eyes of the pope. But Paul, who at other times would have punished
offences like these with the gibbet and the stake, could not quarrel
with his defenders, and was obliged to digest his mortification as he
best might. It was remarked that the times were sadly out of joint, when
the head of the Church had heretics for his allies and Catholics for his
enemies.[151]
Meanwhile the duke of Alva was lying at Tivoli. If he had taken
advantage of the panic caused by his successes, he might, it was
thought, without much difficulty, have made himself master of the
capital. But this did not suit his policy, which was rather to bring the
pope to terms than to ruin him. He was desirous to reduce the city by
cutting off its supplies. The possession of Tivoli, as already noticed,
enabled him to command the eastern approaches to Rome, and he now
proposed to make himself master of Ostia and thus destroy the
communications with the coast.
[Sidenote: VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGN.]
Accordingly, drawing together his forces, he quitted Tivoli, and
directed his march across the Campagna, south of the Roman capital. On
his way he made himself master of some places belonging to the holy see,
and in the early part of November arrived before Ostia, and took up a
position on the banks of the Tiber, where it spread into two branches,
the northern one of which was called the Fiumicino, or little river. The
town, or rather village, consisted of only a few straggling houses, very
different from the proud Ostia, whose capacious harbor was once filled
with the commerce of the world. It was protected by a citadel of some
strength, garrisoned by a small but picked body of troops, so
indifferently provided with military stores, that it was clear the
government had not anticipated an attack in this quarter.
The duke ordered a number of boats to be sent round from Nettuno, a
place on the coast, of which he had got possession. By means of these he
formed a bridge, over which he passed a small detachment of his army,
together with his battering train of artillery. The hamlet was easily
taken, but, as the citadel refused to surrender, Alva laid regular siege
to it. He constructed two batteries, on which he planted his heavy guns,
commanding opposite quarters of the fortress. He then opened a lively
cannonade on the outworks, which was returned with great spirit by the
garrison.
Meanwhile he detached a considerable body of horse, under Colonna, who
swept the country to the very walls of Rome. A squadron of cavalry,
whose gallant bearing had filled the heart of the old pope with
exultation, sallied out against the marauders. An encounter took place
not far from the city. The Romans bore themselves up bravely to the
shock; but, after splintering their lances, they wheeled about, and,
without striking another blow, abandoned the field to the enemy, who
followed them up to the gates of the capital. They were so roughly
handled in their flight, that the valiant troopers could not be induced
again to leave their walls, although Cardinal Caraffa--who had a narrow
escape from the enemy--sallied out with a handful of his followers, to
give them confidence.[152]
During this time Alva was vigorously pressing the siege of Ostia; but
though more than a week had elapsed, the besieged showed no disposition
to surrender. At length, the Spanish commander, on the seventeenth of
November, finding his ammunition nearly expended and his army short of
provisions, determined on a general assault. Early on the following
morning, after hearing mass as usual, the duke mounted his horse, and,
riding among the ranks to animate the spirits of his soldiers, gave
orders for the attack. A corps of Italians was first detached, to scale
the works; but they were repulsed with considerable loss. It was found
impossible for their officers to rally them, and bring them back to the
assault. A picked body of Spanish infantry was then despatched on this
dangerous service. With incredible difficulty they succeeded in scaling
the ramparts, under a storm of combustibles and other missiles hurled
down by the garrison, and effected an entrance into the place. But here
they were met with a courage as dauntless as their own. The struggle was
long and desperate. There had been no such fighting in the course of the
campaign. At length, the duke, made aware of the severe loss sustained
by his men, and of the impracticability of the attempt, as darkness was
setting in, gave the signal for retreat. The assailants had doubtless
the worst of it in the conflict; but the besieged, worn out with
fatigue, with their ammunition nearly exhausted, and almost without
food, did not feel themselves in condition to sustain another assault on
the following day. On the nineteenth of November, therefore, the morning
after the conflict, the brave garrison capitulated, and were treated
with honor as prisoners of war.[153]
The fate of the campaign seemed now to be decided. The pope, with, his
principal towns in the hands of the enemy, his communications cut off
both with the country and the coast, may well have felt his inability to
contend thus single-handed against the power of Spain. At all events,
his subjects felt it, and they were not deterred by his arrogant bearing
from clamoring loudly against the continuance of this ruinous war. But
Paul would not hear of a peace. However crippled by his late reverses,
he felt confident of repairing them all on the arrival of the French,
who, as he now learned with joy, were in full march across the territory
of Milan. He was not so disinclined to a truce, which might give time
for their coming.
Cardinal Caraffa, accordingly, had a conference with the duke of Alva,
and entered into negotiations with him for a suspension of arms. The
proposal was not unwelcome to the duke, who, weakened by losses of every
kind, was by no means in condition at the end of an active campaign to
contend with a fresh army under the command of so practised a leader as
the duke of Guise. He did not care to expose himself a second time to an
encounter with the French general, under disadvantages nearly as great
as those which had foiled him at Metz.
With these amiable dispositions, a truce was soon arranged between the
parties, to continue forty days. The terms were honorable to Alva, since
they left him in possession of all his conquests. Having completed these
arrangements, the Spanish commander broke up his camp on the southern
bank of the Tiber, recrossed the frontier, and in a few days made his
triumphant entry, at the head of his battalions, into the city of
Naples.[154]
So ended the first campaign of the war with Rome. It had given a severe
lesson, that might have shaken the confidence and humbled the pride of a
pontiff less arrogant than Paul the Fourth. But it served only to deepen
his hatred of the Spaniards, and to stimulate his desire for vengeance.
[Sidenote: GUISE ENTERS ITALY]
CHAPTER VI.
WAR WITH THE POPE.
Guise enters Italy.--Operations in the Abruzzi.--Siege of
Civitella.--Alva drives out the French.--Rome menaced by the
Spaniards.--Paul consents to Peace.--Paul's subsequent Career.
1557.
While the events recorded in the preceding pages were passing in Italy,
the French army, under the duke of Guise, had arrived on the borders of
Piedmont. That commander, on leaving Paris, found himself at the head of
a force consisting of twelve thousand infantry, of which five thousand
were Swiss, and the rest French, including a considerable number of
Gascons. His cavalry amounted to two thousand, and he was provided with
twelve pieces of artillery. In addition to this, Guise was attended by a
gallant body of French gentlemen, young for the most part, and eager to
win laurels under the renowned defender of Metz.
The French army met with no opposition in its passage through Piedmont.
The king of Spain had ordered the government of Milan to strengthen the
garrisons of the fortresses, but to oppose no resistance to the French,
unless the latter began hostilities.[155] Some of the duke's counsellors
would have persuaded him to do so. His father-in-law, the duke of
Ferrara, in particular, who had brought him a reinforcement of six
thousand troops, strongly pressed the French general to make sure of the
Milanese before penetrating to the south; otherwise he would leave a
dangerous enemy in his rear. The Italian urged, moreover, the importance
of such a step in giving confidence to the Angevine faction in Naples,
and in drawing over to France those states which hesitated as to their
policy, or which had but lately consented to an alliance with Spain.
France, at this time, exercised but little influence in the counsels of
the Italian powers. Genoa, after an ineffectual attempt at revolution,
was devoted to Spain. The coöperation of Cosmo de'Medici, then lord of
Tuscany, had been secured by the cession of Sienna. The duke of Parma,
who had coquetted for some time with the French monarch, was won over to
Spain by the restoration of Placentia, of which he had been despoiled by
Charles the Fifth. His young son, Alexander Farnese, was sent as a
hostage, to be educated under Philip's eye, at the court of Madrid,--the
fruits of which training were to be gathered in the war of the
Netherlands, where he proved himself the most consummate captain of his
time. Venice, from her lonely watch-tower on the Adriatic, regarded at a
distance the political changes of Italy, prepared to profit by any
chances in her own favor. Her conservative policy, however, prompted her
to maintain things as far as possible in their present position. She was
most desirous that the existing equilibrium should not be disturbed by
the introduction of any new power on the theatre of Italy; and she had
readily acquiesced in the invitation of the duke of Alva, to mediate an
accommodation between the contending parties. This pacific temper found
little encouragement from the belligerent pontiff who had brought the
war upon Italy.
The advice of the duke of Ferrara, however judicious in itself, was not
relished by his son-in-law, the duke of Guise, who was anxious to press
forward to Naples as the proper scene of his conquests. The pope, too,
called on him, in the most peremptory terms, to hasten his march, as
Naples was the object of the expedition. The French commander had the
address to obtain instructions to the same effect from his own court, by
which he affected to be decided. His Italian father-in-law was so much
disgusted by this determination, that he instantly quitted the camp, and
drew off his six thousand soldiers, declaring that he needed all he
could muster to protect his own states against the troops of Milan.[156]
Thus shorn of his Italian reinforcement, the duke of Guise resumed his
march, and, entering the States of the Church, followed down the shores
of the Adriatic, passing through Ravenna and Rimini; then, striking into
the interior, he halted at Gesi, where he found good accommodations for
his men and abundant forage for the horses.
Leaving his army in their pleasant quarters, he soon after repaired to
Rome, in order to arrange with the pope the plan of the campaign. He was
graciously received by Paul, who treated him with distinguished honor as
the loyal champion of the Church. Emboldened by the presence of the
French army in his dominions, the pope no longer hesitated to proclaim
the renewal of the war against Spain. The Roman levies, scattered over
the Campagna, assaulted the places but feebly garrisoned by the
Spaniards. Most of them, including Tivoli and Ostia, were retaken; and
the haughty bosom of the pontiff swelled with exultation as he
anticipated the speedy extinction of the Spanish rule in Italy.
After some days consumed in the Vatican, Guise rejoined his army at
Gesi. He was fortified by abundant assurances of aid from his holiness,
and he was soon joined by one of Paul's nephews, the duke of Montebello,
with a slender reinforcement. It was determined to cross the Neapolitan
frontier at once, and to begin operations by the siege of Campli.
This was a considerable place, situated in the midst of a fruitful
territory. The native population had been greatly increased by the
influx of people from the surrounding country, who had taken refuge in
Campli as a place of security. But they did little for its defence. It
did not long resist the impetuosity of the French, who carried the town
by storm. The men--all who made resistance--were put to the sword. The
women were abandoned to the licentious soldiery. The houses, first
pillaged, were then fired; and the once flourishing place was soon
converted into a heap of smouldering ruins. The booty was great, for the
people of the neighborhood had brought their effects thither for safety,
and a large amount of gold and silver was found in the dwellings. The
cellars, too, were filled with delicate wines; and the victors abandoned
themselves to feasting and wassail, while the wretched citizens wandered
like spectres amidst the ruins of their ancient habitations.[157]
[Sidenote: SIEGE OF CIVITELLA.]
The fate of Italy, in the sixteenth century, was hard indeed. She had
advanced far beyond the age in most of the arts which belong to a
civilized community. Her cities, even her smaller towns, throughout the
country, displayed the evidences of architectural taste. They were
filled with stately temples and elegant mansions; the squares were
ornamented with fountains of elaborate workmanship; the rivers were
spanned by arches of solid masonry. The private as well as public
edifices were furnished with costly works of art, of which the value was
less in the material than in the execution. A generation had scarcely
passed since Michael Angelo and Raphael had produced their miracles of
sculpture and of painting; and now Correggio, Paul Veronese, and Titian
were filling their country with those immortal productions which have
been the delight and the despair of succeeding ages. Letters kept pace
with art. The magical strains of Ariosto had scarcely died away when a
greater bard had arisen in Tasso, to take up the tale of Christian
chivalry. This extraordinary combination of elegant art and literary
culture was the more remarkable, from the contrast presented by the
condition of the rest of Europe, then first rising into the light of a
higher civilization. But, with all this intellectual progress, Italy was
sadly deficient in some qualities found among the hardier sons of the
north, and which seem indispensable to a national existence. She could
boast of her artists, her poets, her politicians; but of few real
patriots, few who rested their own hopes on the independence of their
country. The freedom of the old Italian republics had passed away. There
was scarcely one that had not surrendered its liberties to a master. The
principle of union for defence against foreign aggression was as little
understood as the principle of political liberty at home. The states
were jealous of one another. The cities were jealous of one another, and
were often torn by factions within themselves. Thus their individual
strength was alike ineffectual, whether for self-government or
self-defence. The gift of beauty which Italy possessed in so
extraordinary a degree only made her a more tempting prize to the
spoiler, whom she had not the strength or the courage to resist. The
Turkish corsair fell upon her coasts, plundered her maritime towns, and
swept off their inhabitants into slavery. The Europeans, scarcely less
barbarous, crossed the Alps, and, striking into the interior, fell upon
the towns and hamlets that lay sheltered among the hills and in the
quiet valleys, and converted them into heaps of ruins. Ill fares it with
the land which, in an age of violence, has given itself up to the study
of the graceful and the beautiful, to the neglect of those hardy virtues
which can alone secure a nation's independence.
From the smoking ruins of Campli, Guise led his troops against
Civitella, a town but a few miles distant. It was built round a conical
hill, the top of which was crowned by a fortress well lined with
artillery. It was an important place for the command of the frontier,
and the duke of Alva had thrown into it a garrison of twelve hundred men
under the direction of an experienced officer, the marquis of Santa
Fiore. The French general considered that the capture of this post, so
soon following the sack of Campli, would spread terror among the
Neapolitans, and encourage those of the Angevine faction to declare
openly in his favor.
As the place refused to surrender, he prepared to besiege it in form,
throwing up intrenchments, and only waiting for his heavy guns to begin
active hostilities. He impatiently expected their arrival for some days,
when he caused four batteries to be erected, to operate simultaneously
against four quarters of the town. After a brisk cannonade, which was
returned by the besieged with equal spirit, and with still greater loss
to the enemy, from his exposed position, the duke, who had opened a
breach in the works, prepared for a general assault. It was conducted
with the usual impetuosity of the French, but was repulsed with courage
by the Italians. More than once the assailants were brought up to the
breach, and as often driven back with slaughter. The duke, convinced
that he had been too precipitate, was obliged to sound a retreat, and
again renewed the cannonade from his batteries, keeping it up night and
day, though, from the vertical direction of the fire, with comparatively
little effect. The French camp offered a surer mark to the guns of
Civitella.
The women of the place displayed an intrepidity equal to that of the
men. Armed with buckler and cuirass, they might be seen by the side of
their husbands and brothers, in the most exposed situations on the
ramparts; and, as one was shot down, another stepped forward to take
the place of her fallen comrade.[158] The fate of Campli had taught them
to expect no mercy from the victor, and they preferred death to
dishonor.
As day after day passed on in the same monotonous manner, Guise's troops
became weary of their inactive life. The mercurial spirits of the French
soldier, which overleaped every obstacle in his path, were often found
to evaporate in the tedium of protracted operations, where there was
neither incident nor excitement. Such a state of things was better
suited to the patient and persevering Spaniard. The men began openly to
murmur against the pope, whom they regarded as the cause of their
troubles. They were led by priests, they said, "who knew much more of
praying than of fighting."[159]
Guise himself had causes of disgust with the pontiff which he did not
care to conceal. For all the splendid promises of his holiness, he had
received few supplies either of men, ammunition, or money; and of the
Angevine lords not one had ventured to declare in his favor or to take
service under his banner. He urged all this with much warmth on the
pope's nephew, the duke of Montebello. The Italian, recriminated as
warmly, till the dialogue was abruptly ended, it is said, by the duke of
Guise throwing a napkin, or, according to some accounts, a dish, at the
head of his ally.[160] However this may be, Montebello left the camp in
disgust and returned to Rome. But the defender of the Church was too
important a person to quarrel with, and Paul deemed it prudent, for the
present, at least, to stifle his resentment.
Meanwhile heavy rains set in, causing great annoyance to the French
troops in their quarters, spoiling their provisions, and doing great
damage to their powder. The same rain did good service to the besieged,
by filling their cisterns. "God," exclaimed the profane Guise, "must
have turned Spaniard."[161]
While these events were taking place in the north of Naples, the duke of
Alva, in the south, was making active preparations for the defence of
the kingdom. He had seen with satisfaction the time consumed by his
antagonist, first at Gesi, and afterwards at the siege of Civitella; and
he had fully profited by the delay. On reaching the city of Naples, he
had summoned a parliament of the great barons, had clearly exposed the
necessities of the state, and demanded an extraordinary loan of two
millions of ducats. The loyal nobles readily responded to the call; but
as not more than one third of the whole amount could be instantly
raised, an order was obtained from the council, requiring the governors
of the several provinces to invite the great ecclesiastics in their
districts to advance the remaining two thirds of the loan. In case they
did not consent with a good grace, they were to be forced to comply by
the seizure of their revenues.[162]
By another decree of the council, the gold and silver plate belonging to
the monasteries and churches, throughout the kingdom, after being
valued, was to be taken for the use of the government. A quantity of it,
belonging to a city in the Abruzzi, was in fact put up to be sent to
Naples; but it caused such a tumult among the people, that it was found
expedient to suspend proceedings in the matter for the present.
[Sidenote: SIEGE OF CIVITELLA.]
The viceroy still further enlarged his resources by the sequestration of
the revenues belonging to such ecclesiastics as resided in Rome. By
these various expedients the duke of Alva found himself in possession of
sufficient funds, for carrying on the war as he desired. He mustered a
force of twenty-two, or, as some accounts state, twenty-five thousand
men. Of these three thousand only were Spanish veterans, five thousand
were Germans, and the remainder Italians, chiefly from the Abruzzi,--for
the most part raw recruits, on whom little reliance was to be placed. He
had besides seven hundred men-at-arms and fifteen hundred light horse.
His army, therefore, though, as far as the Italians were concerned,
inferior in discipline to that of his antagonist, was greatly superior
in numbers.[163]
In a council of war that was called, some were of opinion that the
viceroy should act on the defensive, and await the approach of the enemy
in the neighborhood of the capital. But Alva looked on this as a timid
course, arguing distrust in himself, and likely to infuse distrust into
his followers. He determined to march at once against the enemy, and
prevent his gaining a permanent foothold in the kingdom.
Pescara, on the Adriatic, was appointed as the place of rendezvous for
the army, and Alva quitted the city of Naples for that place on the
eleventh of April, 1557. Here he concentrated his whole strength, and
received his artillery and military stores, which were brought to him by
water. Having reviewed his troops, he began his march to the north. On
reaching Rio Umano, he detached a strong body of troops to get
possession of Giulia Nuova, a town of some importance lately seized by
the enemy. Alva supposed, and it seems correctly, that the French
commander had secured this as a good place of retreat in case of his
failure before Civitella, since its position was such as would enable
him readily to keep up his communications with the sea. The French
garrison sallied out against the Spaniards, but were driven back with
loss; and, as Alva's troops followed in their rear, the enemy fled in
confusion through the streets of the city, and left it in the hands of
the victors. In this commodious position, the viceroy for the present
took up his quarters.
On the approach of the Spanish army, the duke of Guise saw the necessity
of bringing his operations against Civitella to a decisive issue. He
accordingly, as a last effort, prepared for a general assault. But,
although it was conducted with great spirit, it was repulsed with still
greater by the garrison; and the French commander, deeply mortified at
his repeated failures, saw the necessity of abandoning the siege. He
could not effect even this without sustaining some loss from the brave
defenders of Civitella, who sallied out on his rear, as he drew off his
discomfited troops to the neighboring valley of Nireto. Thus ended the
siege of Civitella, which, by the confidence it gave to the loyal
Neapolitans throughout the country as well as by the leisure it afforded
to Alva for mustering his resources, may be said to have decided the
fate of the war. The siege lasted twenty-two days, during fourteen of
which the guns from the four batteries of the French had played
incessantly on the beleaguered city. The viceroy was filled with
admiration at the heroic conduct of the inhabitants; and, in token of
respect for it, granted some important immunities, to be enjoyed for
ever by the citizens of Civitella. The women, too, came in for their
share of the honors, as whoever married a maiden of Civitella was to be
allowed the same immunities, from whatever part of the country he might
come.[164]
The two armies were now quartered within a few miles of each other. Yet
no demonstration was made, on either side, of bringing matters to the
issue of a battle. This was foreign to Alva's policy, and was not to be
expected from Guise, so inferior in strength to his antagonist. On the
viceroy's quitting Giulia Nuova, however, to occupy a position somewhat
nearer the French quarters, Guise did not deem it prudent to remain
there any longer, but, breaking up his camp, retreated, with his whole
army, across the Tronto, and, without further delay, evacuated the
kingdom of Naples.
The Spanish general made no attempt to pursue, or even to molest his
adversary in his retreat. For this he has been severely criticized, more
particularly as the passage of a river offers many points of advantage
to an assailant. But, in truth, Alva never resorted to fighting when he
could gain his end without it. In an appeal to arms, however favorable
may be the odds, there must always be some doubt as to the result. But
the odds here were not so decisively on the side of the Spaniards as
they appeared. The duke of Guise carried off his battalions in admirable
order, protecting his rear with the flower of his infantry and with his
cavalry, in which last he was much superior to his enemy. Thus the parts
of the hostile armies likely to have been brought into immediate
conflict would have afforded no certain assurance of success to the
Spaniards. Alva's object had been, not so much to defeat the French as
to defend Naples. This he had now achieved, with but little loss; and
rather than incur the risk of greater, he was willing, in the words of
an old proverb, to make a bridge of silver for the flying foe.[165] In
the words of Alva himself, "he had no idea of staking the kingdom of
Naples against the embroidered coat of the duke of Guise."[166]
On the retreat of the French, Alva laid siege at once to two or three
places, of no great note, in the capture of which he and his lieutenants
were guilty of the most deliberate cruelty; though, in the judgment of
the chronicler, it was not cruelty, but a wholesome severity, designed
as a warning to such petty places not to defy the royal authority.[167]
Soon after this, Alva himself crossed the Tronto, and took up a position
not far removed from the French, who lay in the neighborhood of Ascoli.
Although the two armies were but a few miles asunder, there was no
attempt at hostilities, with the exception of a skirmish in which but a
small number on either side were engaged, and which terminated in favor
of the Spaniards. This state of things was at length ended by a summons
from the pope to the French commander to draw nearer to Rome, as he
needed his presence for the protection of the capital. The duke, glad,
no doubt, of so honorable an apology for his retreat, and satisfied with
having so long held his ground against a force superior to his own, fell
back, in good order, upon Tivoli, which, as it commanded the great
avenues to Rome on the east, and afforded good accommodations for his
troops, he made his head quarters for the present. The manner in which
the duke of Alva adhered to the plan of defensive operations settled at
the beginning of the campaign, and that, too, under circumstances which
would have tempted most men to depart from such a plan, is a remarkable
proof of his perseverance and inflexible spirit. It proves, moreover,
the empire which he held over the minds of his followers, that, under
such circumstances, he could maintain implicit obedience to his orders.
[Sidenote: ROME MENACED BY THE SPANIARDS.]
The cause of the pope's alarm was the rapid successes of Alva's
confederate, Mark Antony Colonna, who had defeated the papal levies,
and taken one place after another in the Campagna, till the Romans began
to tremble for their capital. Colonna was now occupied with the siege of
Segni, a place of considerable importance; and the duke of Alva,
relieved of the presence of the French, resolved to march to his
support. He accordingly recrossed the Tronto, and, passing through the
Neapolitan territory, halted for some days at Sora. He then traversed
the frontier, but had not penetrated far into the Campagna when he
received tidings of the fall of Segni. That strong place, after a
gallant defence, had been taken by storm. All the usual atrocities were
perpetrated by the brutal soldiery. Even the sanctity of the convents
did not save them from pollution. It was in vain that Colonna interfered
to prevent these excesses. The voice of authority was little heeded in
the tempest of passion.--It mattered little, in that age, into whose
hands a captured city fell; Germans, French, Italians, it was all the
same. The wretched town, so lately flourishing, it might be, in all the
pride of luxury and wealth, was claimed as the fair spoil of the
victors. It was their prize-money, which served in default of payment of
their long arrears,--usually long in those days; and it was a mode of
payment as convenient for the general as for his soldiers.[168]
The fall of Segni caused the greatest consternation in the capital. The
next thing, it was said, would be to assault the capital itself. Paul
the Fourth, incapable of fear, was filled with impotent fury. "They have
taken Segni," he said in a conclave of the cardinals; "they have
murdered the people, destroyed their property, fired their dwellings.
Worse than this, they will next pillage Palliano. Even this will not
fill up the measure of their cruelty. They will sack the city of Rome
itself; nor will they respect even my person. But, for myself, I long to
be with Christ, and await without fear the crown of martyrdom."[169]
Paul the Fourth, after having brought this tempest upon Italy, began to
consider himself a martyr!
Yet even in this extremity, though urged on all sides to make
concessions, he would abate nothing of his haughty tone. He insisted, as
a _sine qua non_, that Alva should forthwith leave the Roman territory
and restore his conquests. When these conditions were reported to the
duke, he coolly remarked, that "his holiness seemed to be under the
mistake of supposing that his own army was before Naples, instead of the
Spanish army being at the gates of Rome."[170]
After the surrender of Segni, Alva effected a junction with the Italian
forces, and marched to the town of Colona, in the Campagna, where for
the present he quartered his army. Here he formed the plan of an
enterprise, the adventurous character of which it seems difficult to
reconcile with his habitual caution. This was a night assault on Rome.
He did not communicate his whole purpose to his officers, but simply
ordered them to prepare to march on the following night, the
twenty-sixth of August, against a neighboring city, the name of which he
did not disclose. It was a wealthy place, he said, but he was most
anxious that no violence should be offered to the inhabitants, in either
their persons or property. The soldiers should be forbidden even to
enter the dwellings; but he promised that the loss of booty should be
compensated by increase of pay. The men were to go lightly armed,
without baggage, and with their shirts over their mail, affording the
best means of recognizing one another in the dark.
The night was obscure, but unfortunately a driving storm of rain set in,
which did such damage to the roads as greatly to impede the march, and
the dawn was nigh at hand when the troops reached the place of
destination. To their great surprise, they then understood that the
object of attack was Rome itself.
Alva halted at a short distance from the city, in a meadow, and sent
forward a small party to reconnoitre the capital, which seemed to
slumber in quiet. But, on a nearer approach, the Spaniards saw a great
light, as if occasioned by a multitude of torches, that seemed glancing
to and fro within the walls, inferring some great stir among the
inhabitants of that quarter. Soon after this, a few horsemen were seen
to issue from one of the gates, and ride off in the direction of the
French camp at Tivoli. The duke, on receiving the report, was satisfied
that the Romans had, in some way or other, got notice of his design;
that the horsemen had gone to give the alarm to the French in Tivoli;
and that he should soon find himself between two enemies. Not relishing
this critical position, he at once abandoned his design, and made a
rapid countermarch on the place he had left the preceding evening.
In his conjectures the duke was partly in the right and partly in the
wrong. The lights which were seen glancing within the town were owing to
the watchfulness of Caraffa, who, from some apprehensions of an attack,
in consequence of information he had received of preparations in the
Spanish camp, was patrolling this quarter before daybreak to see that
all was safe; but the horsemen who left the gates at that early hour in
the direction of the French camp were far from thinking that hostile
battalions lay within gunshot of their walls.[171]
Such is the account we have of this strange affair. Some historians
assert that it was not the duke's design to attack Rome, but only to
make a feint, and, by the panic which he would create, to afford the
pope a good pretext for terminating the war. In support of this, it is
said that he told his son Ferdinand, just before his departure, that he
feared it would be impossible to prevent the troops from sacking the
city, if they once set foot in it.[172] Other accounts state that it was
no feint, but a surprise meditated in good earnest, and defeated only by
the apparition of the lights and the seeming state of preparation in
which the place was found. Indeed, one writer asserts that he saw the
scaling-ladders, brought by a corps of two hundred arquebusiers, who
were appointed to the service of mounting the walls.[173]
The Venetian minister, Navagero, assures us that Alva's avowed purpose
was to secure the person of his holiness, which, he thought, must bring
the war at once to a close. The duke's uncle, the cardinal of
Sangiacomo, had warned his nephew, according to the same authority, not
to incur the fate of their countrymen who had served under the Constable
de Bourbon, at the sack of Rome, all of whom, sooner or later, had come
to a miserable end.[174]
[Sidenote: ROME MENACED BY THE SPANIARDS.]
This warning may have made some impression on the mind of Alva, who,
however inflexible by nature, had conscientious scruples of his own, and
was, no doubt, accessible, as others of his time, to arguments founded
on superstition.
We cannot but admit that the whole affair,--the preparations for the
assault, the counsel to the officers, and the sudden retreat on
suspicion of a discovery,--all look very much like earnest. It is quite
possible that the duke, as the Venetian asserts, may have intended
nothing beyond the seizure of the pope. But that the matter would have
stopped there, no one will believe. Once fairly within the walls, even
the authority of Alva would have been impotent to restrain the licence
of the soldiery; and the same scenes might have been acted over again as
at the taking of Rome under the Constable de Bourbon, or on the capture
of the ancient capital by the Goths.
When the Romans, on the following morning, learned the peril they had
been in during the night, and that the enemy had been prowling round,
like wolves about a sheepfold, ready to rush in upon their sleeping
victims, the whole city was seized with a panic. All the horrors of the
sack by the Constable de Bourbon rose up to their imaginations,--or
rather memories, for many there were who were old enough to remember
that terrible day. They loudly clamored for peace before it was too
late; and they pressed the demand in a manner which showed that the mood
of the people was a dangerous one. Strozzi, the most distinguished of
the Italian captains, plainly told the pope that he had no choice but to
come to terms with the enemy at once.[175]
Paul was made more sensible of this by finding now, in his greatest
need, the very arm withdrawn from him on which he most leaned for
support. Tidings had reached the French camp of the decisive victory
gained by the Spaniards at St. Quentin, and they were followed by a
summons from the king to the duke of Guise, to return with his army, as
speedily as possible, for the protection of Paris. The duke, who was
probably not unwilling to close a campaign which had been so barren of
laurels to the French, declared that "no chains were strong enough to
keep him in Italy." He at once repaired to the Vatican, and there laid
before his holiness the commands of his master. The case was so
pressing, that Paul could not in reason oppose the duke's departure. But
he seldom took counsel of reason, and in a burst of passion exclaimed to
Guise, "Go, then; and take with you the consciousness of having done
little for your king, still less for the Church, and nothing for your
own honor."[176]
Negotiations were now opened for an accommodation between the
belligerents, at the town of Cavi. Cardinal Caraffa appeared in behalf
of his uncle, the pope, and the duke of Alva for the Spaniards. Through
the mediation of Venice, the terms of the treaty were finally settled,
on the fourteenth of September, although the inflexible pontiff still
insisted on concessions nearly as extravagant as those he had demanded
before. It was stipulated in a preliminary article, that the duke of
Alva should publicly ask pardon, and receive absolution, for having
borne arms against the holy see. "Sooner than surrender this point,"
said Paul, "I would see the whole world perish; and this, not so much
for my own sake as for the honor of Jesus Christ."[177]
It was provided by the treaty, that the Spanish troops should be
immediately withdrawn from the territory of the Church, that all the
places taken from the Church should be at once restored, and that the
French army should be allowed a free passage to their own country.
Philip did not take so good care of his allies as Paul did of his.
Colonna, who had done the cause such good service, was not even
reinstated in the possessions of which the pope had deprived him. But a
secret article provided that his claims should be determined hereafter
by the joint arbitration of the pontiff and the king of Spain.[178]
The treaty was, in truth, one which, as Alva bitterly remarked, "seemed
to have been dictated by the vanquished rather than by the victor." It
came hard to the duke to execute it, especially the clause relating to
himself. "Were I the king," said he haughtily, "his holiness should send
one of his nephews to Brussels, to sue for my pardon, instead of my
general's suing for his."[179] But Alva had no power to consult his own
will in the matter. The orders from Philip were peremptory, to come to
some terms, if possible, with the pope. Philip had long since made up
his own mind, that neither profit nor honor was to be derived from a war
with the Church,--a war not only repugnant to his own feelings, but
which placed him in a false position, and one most prejudicial to his
political interests.
The news of peace filled the Romans with a joy great in proportion to
their former consternation. Nor was this joy much diminished by a
calamity which at any other time would have thrown the city into
mourning. The Tiber, swollen by the autumnal rains, rose above its
banks, sweeping away houses and trees in its fury, drowning men and
cattle, and breaking down a large piece of the wall that surrounded the
city. It was well that this accident had not occurred a few days
earlier, when the enemy was at the gates.[180]
On the twenty-seventh of September, 1557, the duke of Alva made his
public entrance into Rome. He was escorted by the papal guard, dressed
in its gay uniform. It was joined by the other troops in the city, who,
on this holiday service, did as well as better soldiers. On entering the
gates, the concourse was swelled by thousands of citizens, who made the
air ring with their acclamations, as they saluted the Spanish general
with the titles of Defender and Liberator of the capital. The epithets
might be thought an indifferent compliment to their own government. In
this state the procession moved along, like the triumph of a conqueror
returned from his victorious campaigns to receive the wreath of laurel
in the capitol.
On reaching the Vatican, the Spanish commander fell on his knees before
the pope, and asked his pardon for the offence of bearing arms against
the Church. Paul, soothed by this show of concession, readily granted
absolution. He paid the duke the distinguished honor of giving him a
seat at his own table; while he complimented the duchess by sending her
the consecrated golden rose, reserved only for royal persons and
illustrious champions of the Church.[181]
[Sidenote: PAUL CONSENTS TO PEACE.]
Yet the haughty spirit of Alva saw in all this more of humiliation than
of triumph. His conscience, like that of his master, was greatly
relieved by being discharged from the responsibilities of such a war.
But he had also a military conscience, which seemed to be quite as much
scandalized by the conditions of the peace. He longed to be once more at
Naples, where the state of things imperatively required his presence.
When he returned there, he found abundant occupation in reforming the
abuses which had grown out of the late confusion, and especially in
restoring, as far as possible, the shattered condition of the
finances,--a task hardly less difficult than that of driving out the
French from Naples.[182]
Thus ended the war with Paul the Fourth,--a war into which that pontiff
had plunged without preparation, which he had conducted without
judgment, and terminated without honor. Indeed, it brought little honor
to any of the parties concerned in it, but, on the other hand, a full
measure of those calamities which always follow in the train of war.
The French met with the same fate which uniformly befell them, when,
lured by the phantom of military glory, they crossed the Alps to lay
waste the garden of Italy,--in the words of their own proverb, "the
grave of the French." The duke of Guise, after a vexatious campaign, in
which it was his greatest glory that he had sustained no actual defeat,
thought himself fortunate in being allowed a free passage, with the
shattered remnant of his troops, back to his own country. Naples,
besides the injuries she had sustained on her borders, was burdened with
a debt which continued to press heavily for generations to come. Nor
were her troubles ended by the peace. In the spring of the following
year, 1558, a Turkish squadron appeared off Calabria; and, running down
the coast, the Moslems made a landing on several points, sacked some of
the principal towns, butchered the inhabitants, or swept them off into
hopeless slavery.[183] Such were some of the blessed fruits of the
alliance between the grand seignior and the head of the Catholic Church.
Solyman had come into the league at the invitation of the Christian
princes. But it was not found so easy to lay the spirit of mischief as
it had been to raise it.
The weight of the war, however, fell, as was just, most heavily on the
author of it. Paul, from his palace of the Vatican, could trace the
march of the enemy by the smoking ruins of the Campagna. He saw his
towns sacked, his troops scattered, his very capital menaced, his
subjects driven by ruinous taxes to the verge of rebellion. Even peace,
when it did come, secured to him none of the objects for which he had
contended, while he had the humiliating consciousness that he owed this
peace, not to his own arms, but to the forbearance--or the superstition
of his enemies. One lesson he might have learned,--that the thunders of
the Vatican could no longer strike terror into the hearts of princes, as
in the days of the Crusades.
In this war Paul had called in the French to aid him in driving out the
Spaniards. The French, he said, might easily be dislodged hereafter;
"but the Spaniards were like dog-grass, which is sure to strike root
wherever it is cast."--This was the last great effort that was made to
overturn the Spanish power in Naples; and the sceptre of that kingdom
continued to be transmitted in the dynasty of Castile, with as little
opposition as that of any other portion of its broad empire.
Being thus relieved of his military labors, Paul set about those great
reforms, the expectation of which had been the chief inducement to his
election. But first he gave a singular proof of self-command, in the
reforms which he introduced into his own family. Previously to his
election, no one, as we have seen, had declaimed more loudly than Paul
against nepotism,--the besetting sin of his predecessors, who, most of
them old men and without children, naturally sought a substitute for
these in their nephews and those nearest of kin. Paul's partiality for
his nephews was made the more conspicuous by the profligacy of their
characters. Yet the real bond which held the parties together was hatred
of the Spaniards. When peace came, and this bond of union was dissolved,
Paul readily opened his ears to the accusations against his kinsmen.
Convinced at length of their unworthiness, and of the flagrant manner in
which they had abused his confidence, he deprived the Caraffas of all
their offices, and banished them to the farthest part of his dominions.
By the sterner sentence of his successor, two of the brothers, the duke
and the cardinal, perished by the hand of the public executioner.[184]
After giving this proof of mastery over his own feelings, Paul addressed
himself to those reforms which had engaged his attention in early life.
He tried to enforce a stricter discipline and greater regard for morals,
both in the religious orders and the secular clergy. Above all, he
directed his efforts against the Protestant heresy, which had begun to
show itself in the head of Christendom, as it had long since done in the
extremities. The course he adopted was perfectly characteristic.
Scorning the milder methods of argument and persuasion, he resorted
wholly to persecution. The Inquisition, he declared, was the true
battery with which to assail the defences of the heretic. He suited the
action so well to the word, that in a short time the prisons of the Holy
Office were filled with the accused. In the general distrust no one felt
himself safe; and a panic was created, scarcely less than that felt by
the inhabitants when the Spaniards were at their gates.
Happily, their fears were dispelled by the death of Paul, which took
place suddenly, from a fever, on the eighteenth of August, 1559, in the
eighty-third year of his age, and fifth of his pontificate. Before the
breath was out of his body, the populace rose _en masse_, broke open the
prisons of the Inquisition, and liberated all who were confined there.
They next attacked the house of the grand-inquisitor, which they burned
to the ground; and that functionary narrowly escaped with his life. They
tore down the scutcheons, bearing the arms of the family of Caraffa,
which were affixed to the public edifices. They wasted their rage on the
senseless statue of the pope, which they overturned, and, breaking off
the head, rolled it, amidst the groans and execrations of the
by-standers, into the Tiber. Such was the fate of the reformer, who, in
his reforms, showed no touch of humanity, no sympathy with the
sufferings of his species.[185]
Yet, with all its defects, there is something in the character of Paul
the Fourth that may challenge our admiration. His project--renewing that
of Julius the Second--of driving out the _barbarians_ from Italy, was
nobly conceived, though impracticable. "Whatever others may feel, I at
least will have some care for my country," he once said to the Venetian
ambassador.
[Sidenote: ENGLAND JOINS THE WAR WITH FRANCE.]
"If my voice is unheeded, it will at least be a consolation to me to
reflect, that it has been raised in such a cause; and that it will one
day be said that an old Italian, on the verge of the grave, who might be
thought to have nothing better to do than to give himself up to repose,
and weep over his sins, had his soul filled with this lofty
design."[186]
CHAPTER VII.
WAR WITH FRANCE.
England joins in the War.--Philip's Preparations.--Siege of St.
Quentin.--French Army routed.--Storming of St. Quentin.--Successes of
the Spaniards.
1557.
While the events related in the preceding chapter were passing in Italy,
the war was waged on a larger scale, and with more important results, in
the northern provinces of France. As soon as Henry had broken the
treaty, and sent his army across the Alps, Philip lost no time in
assembling his troops, although in so quiet a manner as to attract as
little attention as possible. His preparations were such as enabled him,
not merely to defend the frontier of the Netherlands, but to carry the
war into the enemy's country.
He despatched his confidential minister, Ruy Gomez, to Spain, for
supplies both of men and money; instructing him to visit his father,
Charles the Fifth, and, after acquainting him with the state of affairs,
to solicit his aid in raising the necessary funds.[187]
Philip had it much at heart to bring England into the war. During his
stay in the Low Countries, he was in constant communication with the
English cabinet, and took a lively interest in the government of the
kingdom. The minutes of the privy council were regularly sent to him,
and as regularly returned with his remarks, in his own handwriting, on
the margin. In this way he discussed and freely criticized every measure
of importance; and, on one occasion, we find him requiring that nothing
of moment should be brought before parliament until it had first been
submitted to him.[188]
In March, 1557, Philip paid a second visit to England, where he was
received by his fond queen in the most tender and affectionate manner.
In her letters she had constantly importuned him to return to her. On
that barren eminence which placed her above the reach of friendship,
Mary was dependent on her husband for sympathy and support. But if the
channel of her affections was narrow, it was deep.
Philip found no difficulty in obtaining the queen's consent to his
wishes with respect to the war with France. She was induced to this, not
merely by her habitual deference to her husband, but by natural feelings
of resentment at the policy of Henry the Second. She had put up with
affronts, more than once, from the French ambassador, in her own court;
and her throne had been menaced by repeated conspiracies, which, if not
organized, had been secretly encouraged by France. Still, it was not
easy to bring the English nation to this way of thinking. It had been a
particular proviso of the marriage treaty, that England should not be
made a party to the war against France; and subsequent events had tended
to sharpen the feeling of jealousy rather towards the Spaniards than
towards the French.
The attempted insurrection of Stafford, who crossed over from the shores
of France at this time, did for Philip what possibly neither his own
arguments nor the authority of Mary could have done. It was the last of
the long series of indignities which had been heaped on the country from
the same quarter; and parliament now admitted that it was no longer
consistent with its honor to keep terms with a power which persisted in
fomenting conspiracies to overturn the government and plunge the nation
into civil war. On the seventh of June, a herald was despatched, with
the formality of ancient and somewhat obsolete usages, to proclaim war
against the French king in the presence of his court and in his capital.
This was done in such a bold tone of defiance, that the hot old
constable, Montmorency, whose mode of proceeding, as we have seen, was
apt to be summary, strongly urged his master to hang up the envoy on the
spot.[189]
The state of affairs imperatively demanded Philip's presence in the
Netherlands, and, after a residence of less than four months in London,
he bade a final adieu to his disconsolate queen, whose excessive
fondness may have been as little to his taste as the coldness of her
subjects.
Nothing could be more forlorn than the condition of Mary. Her health
wasting under a disease that cheated her with illusory hopes, which made
her ridiculous in the eyes of the world; her throne, her very life,
continually menaced by conspiracies, to some of which even her own
sister was supposed to be privy; her spirits affected by the
consciousness of the decline of her popularity under the gloomy system
of persecution into which she had been led by her ghostly advisers;
without friends, without children, almost it might be said without a
husband,--she was alone in the world, more to be commiserated than the
meanest subject in her dominions. She has had little commiseration,
however, from Protestant writers, who paint her in the odious colors of
a fanatic. This has been compensated, it may be thought, by the Roman
Catholic historians, who have invested the English queen with all the
glories of the saint and the martyr. Experience may convince us that
public acts do not always furnish a safe criterion of private
character,--especially when these acts are connected with religion. In
the Catholic Church the individual might seem to be relieved, in some
measure, of his moral responsibility, by the system of discipline which
intrusts his conscience to the keeping of his spiritual advisers. If the
lights of the present day allow no man to plead so humiliating an
apology, this was not the case in the first half of the sixteenth
century,--the age of Mary,--when the Reformation had not yet diffused
that spirit of independence in religious speculation, which, in some
degree at least, has now found its way to the darkest corner of
Christendom.
[Sidenote: PHILIP'S PREPARATIONS.]
A larger examination of contemporary documents, especially of the
queen's own correspondence, justifies the inference, that, with all the
infirmities of a temper soured by disease, and by the difficulties of
her position, she possessed many of the good qualities of her
illustrious progenitors, Katharine of Aragon and Isabella of Castile;
the same conjugal tenderness and devotion, the same courage in times of
danger, the same earnest desire, misguided as she was, to do her
duty,--and, unfortunately, the same bigotry. It was, indeed, most
unfortunate, in Mary's case, as in that of the Catholic queen, that this
bigotry, from their position as independent sovereigns, should have been
attended with such fatal consequences as have left an indelible blot on
the history of their reigns.[190]
On his return to Brussels, Philip busied himself with preparations for
the campaign. He employed the remittances from Spain to subsidize a
large body of German mercenaries. Germany was the country which
furnished, at this time, more soldiers of fortune than any other; men
who served indifferently under the banner that would pay them best. They
were not exclusively made up of infantry, like the Swiss, but, besides
pikemen,--_lanzknechts_,--they maintained a stout array of cavalry,
_reiters_, as they were called,--"riders,"--who, together with the
cuirass and other defensive armor, carried pistols, probably of rude
workmanship, but which made them formidable from the weapon being little
known in that day. They were, indeed, the most dreaded troops of their
time. The men-at-arms, encumbered with their unwieldy lances, were drawn
up in line, and required an open plain to manoeuvre to advantage, being
easily discomposed by obstacles; and once broken, they could hardly
rally. But the _reiters_, each with five or six pistols in his belt,
were formed into columns of considerable depth, the size of their
weapons allowing them to go through all the evolutions of light cavalry,
in which they were perfectly drilled. Philip's cavalry was further
strengthened by a fine corps of Burgundian lances, and by a great number
of nobles and cavaliers from Spain, who had come to gather laurels in
the fields of France, under the eye of their young sovereign. The flower
of his infantry, too, was drawn from Spain; men who, independently of
the indifference to danger, and wonderful endurance, which made the
Spanish soldier inferior to none of the time, were animated by that
loyalty to the cause which foreign mercenaries could not feel. In
addition to these, the king expected, and soon after received, a
reinforcement of eight thousand English under the earl of Pembroke. They
might well fight bravely on the soil where the arms of England had won
two of the most memorable victories in her history.
The whole force, exclusive of the English, amounted to thirty-five
thousand foot and twelve thousand horse, besides a good train of
battering artillery.[191] The command of this army was given to Emanuel
Philibert, prince of Piedmont, better known by his title of duke of
Savoy. No man had a larger stake in the contest, for he had been
stripped of his dominions by the French, and his recovery of them
depended on the issue of the war. He was at this time but twenty-nine
years of age; but he had had large experience in military affairs, and
had been intrusted by Charles the Fifth, who had early discerned his
capacity, with important commands. His whole life may be said to have
trained him for the profession of arms. He had no taste for effeminate
pleasures, but amused himself, in seasons of leisure, with the hardy
exercise of the chase. He strengthened his constitution, naturally not
very robust, by living as much as possible in the open air. Even when
conversing, or dictating to his secretaries, he preferred to do so
walking in his garden. He was indifferent to fatigue. After hunting all
day he would seem to require no rest, and in a campaign had been known,
like the knights-errant of old, to eat, drink, and sleep in his armor
for thirty days together.
He was temperate in his habits, eating little, and drinking water. He
was punctual in attention to business, was sparing of his words, and, as
one may gather from the piquant style of his letters, had a keen insight
into character, looking below the surface of men's actions into their
motives.[192]
His education had not been neglected. He spoke several languages
fluently, and, though not a great reader, was fond of histories. He was
much devoted to mathematical science, which served him in his
profession, and he was reputed an excellent engineer.[193] In person the
duke was of the middle size; well-made, except that he was somewhat
bow-legged. His complexion was fair, his hair light, and his deportment
very agreeable.
Such is the portrait of Emanuel Philibert, to whom Philip now intrusted
the command of his forces, and whose pretensions he warmly supported as
the suitor of Elizabeth of England. There was none more worthy of the
royal maiden. But the duke was a Catholic; and Elizabeth, moreover, had
seen the odium which her sister had incurred by her marriage with a
foreign sovereign. Philip, who would have used some constraint in the
matter, pressed it with such earnestness on the queen as proved how much
importance he attached to the connection. Mary's conduct on the occasion
was greatly to her credit; and, while she deprecated the displeasure of
her lord, she honestly told him that she could not in conscience do
violence to the inclinations of her sister.[194]
The plan of the campaign, as determined by Philip's cabinet,[195] was
that the duke should immediately besiege some one of the great towns on
the northern borders of Picardy, which in a manner commanded the
entrance into the Netherlands. Rocroy was the first selected. But the
garrison, who were well provided with ammunition, kept within their
defences, and maintained so lively a cannonade on the Spaniards, that
the duke, finding the siege was likely to consume more time than it was
worth, broke up his camp, and resolved to march against St. Quentin.
This was an old frontier town of Picardy, important in time of peace as
an _entrepôt_ for the trade that was carried on between France and the
Low Countries. It formed a convenient place of deposit, at the present
period, for such booty as marauding parties from time to time brought
back from Flanders. It was well protected by its natural situation, and
the fortifications had been originally strong; but, as in many of the
frontier towns, they had been of late years much neglected.
[Sidenote: SIEGE OF ST. QUENTIN.]
Before beginning operations against St. Quentin, the duke of Savoy, in
order to throw the enemy off his guard, and prevent his introducing
supplies into the town, presented himself before Guise, and made a show
of laying siege to that place. After this demonstration he resumed his
march, and suddenly sat down before St. Quentin, investing it with his
whole army.
Meanwhile the French had been anxiously watching the movements of their
adversary. Their forces were assembled on several points in Picardy and
Champagne. The principal corps was under the command of the duke of
Nevers, governor of the latter province, a nobleman of distinguished
gallantry, and who had seen some active service. He now joined his
forces to those under Montmorency, the constable of France, who occupied
a central position in Picardy, and who now took the command, for which
his rash and impetuous temper but indifferently qualified him. As soon
as the object of the Spaniards was known, it was resolved to reinforce
the garrison of St. Quentin, which otherwise, it was understood, could
not hold out a week. This perilous duty was assumed by Gaspard de
Coligni, admiral of France.[196] This personage, the head of an ancient
and honored house, was one of the most remarkable men of his time. His
name had gained a mournful celebrity in the page of history, as that of
the chief martyr in the massacre of St. Bartholomew. He embraced the
doctrines of Calvin, and by his austere manners and the purity of his
life well illustrated the doctrines he embraced. The decent order of his
household, and their scrupulous attention to the services of religion,
formed a striking contrast to the licentious conduct of too many of the
Catholics, who, however, were as prompt as Coligni to do battle in
defence of their faith. In early life he was the gay companion of the
duke of Guise.[197] But as the Calvinists, or Huguenots, were driven by
persecution to an independent and even hostile position, the two
friends, widely separated by opinion and by interest, were changed into
mortal foes. That hour had not yet come. But the heresy that was soon to
shake France to its centre was silently working under ground.
As the admiral was well instructed in military affairs, and was
possessed of an intrepid spirit and great fertility of resource, he was
precisely the person to undertake the difficult office of defending St.
Quentin. As governor of Picardy he felt this to be his duty. Without
loss of time, he put himself at the head of some ten or twelve hundred
men, horse and foot, and used such despatch that he succeeded in
entering the place before it had been entirely invested. He had the
mortification, however, to be followed only by seven hundred of his men,
the remainder having failed through fatigue, or mistaken the path.
The admiral found the place in even worse condition than he had
expected. The fortifications were much dilapidated; and in many parts of
the wall the masonry was of so flimsy a character, that it must have
fallen before the first discharge of the enemy's cannon. The town was
victualled for three weeks, and the magazines were tolerably well
supplied with ammunition. But there were not fifty arquebuses fit for
use.
St. Quentin stands on a gentle eminence, protected on one side by
marshes, or rather a morass of great extent, through which flows the
river Somme, or a branch of it. On the same side of the river with St.
Quentin lay the army of the besiegers, with their glittering lines
extending to the very verge of the morass. A broad ditch defended the
outer wall. But this ditch was commanded by the houses of the suburbs,
which had already been taken possession of by the besiegers. There was,
moreover, a thick plantation of trees close to the town, which would
afford an effectual screen for the approach of an enemy.
One of the admiral's first acts was to cause a sortie to be made. The
ditch was crossed, and some of the houses were burned to the ground. The
trees on the banks were then levelled, and the approach to the town was
laid open. Every preparation was made for a protracted defence. The
exact quantity of provision was ascertained, and the rations were
assigned for each man's daily consumption. As the supplies were
inadequate to support the increased population for any length of time,
Coligni ordered that all except those actively engaged in the defence of
the place should leave it without delay. Many, under one pretext or
another, contrived to remain, and share the fortunes of the garrison.
But by this regulation he got rid of seven hundred useless persons, who,
if they had staid, must have been the victims of famine; and "their dead
bodies," the admiral coolly remarked, "would have bred a pestilence
among the soldiers."[198]
He assigned to his men their several posts, talked boldly of maintaining
himself against all the troops of Spain, and by his cheerful tone
endeavored to inspire a confidence in others which he was far from
feeling himself. From one of the highest towers he surveyed the
surrounding country, tried to ascertain the most practicable fords in
the morass, and sent intelligence to Montmorency, that, without relief,
the garrison could not hold out more than a few days.[199]
That commander, soon after the admiral's departure, had marched his army
to the neighborhood of St. Quentin, and established it in the towns of
La Fère and Ham, together with the adjoining villages, so as to watch
the movements of the Spaniards, and coöperate, as occasion served, with
the besieged. He at once determined to strengthen the garrison, if
possible, by a reinforcement of two thousand men under Dandelot, a
younger brother of the admiral, and not inferior to him in audacity and
enterprise. But the expedition miserably failed. Through the treachery
or the ignorance of the guide, the party mistook the path, came on one
of the enemy's outposts, and, disconcerted by the accident, were thrown
into confusion, and many of them cut to pieces or drowned in the morass.
Their leader, with the remainder, succeeded, under cover of the night,
in making his way back to La Fère.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF ST. QUENTIN.]
The constable now resolved to make another attempt, and in the open day.
He proposed to send a body, under the same commander, in boats across
the Somme, and to cover the embarkation in person with his whole army.
His force was considerably less than that of the Spaniards, amounting
in all to about eighteen thousand foot and six thousand horse, besides a
train of artillery consisting of sixteen guns.[200] His levies, like
those of his antagonist, were largely made up of German mercenaries. The
French peasantry, with the exception of the Gascons, who formed a fine
body of infantry, had long since ceased to serve in war. But the
chivalry of France was represented by as gallant an array of nobles and
cavaliers as ever fought under the banner of the lilies.
On the ninth of August, 1557, Montmorency put his whole army in motion;
and on the following morning, the memorable day of St. Lawrence, by nine
o'clock, he took up a position on the bank of the Somme. On the opposite
side, nearest the town, lay the Spanish force, covering the ground, as
far as the eye could reach, with their white pavilions; while the
banners of Spain, of Flanders, and of England, unfurled in the morning
breeze, showed the various nations from which the motley host had been
gathered.[201]
On the constable's right was a windmill, commanding a ford of the river
which led to the Spanish quarters. The building was held by a small
detachment of the enemy. Montmorency's first care was to get possession
of the mill, which he did without difficulty; and, by placing a garrison
there, under the prince of Condé, he secured himself from surprise in
that quarter. He then profited by a rising ground to get his guns in
position, so as to sweep the opposite bank, and at once opened a brisk
cannonade on the enemy. The march of the French had been concealed by
some intervening hills, so that, when they suddenly appeared on the
farther side of the Somme, it was as if they had dropped from the
clouds; and the shot which fell among the Spaniards threw them into
great disorder. There was hurrying to and fro, and some of the balls
striking the duke of Savoy's tent, he had barely time to escape with his
armor in his hand. It was necessary to abandon his position, and he
marched some three miles down the river, to the quarters occupied by the
commander of the cavalry, Count Egmont.[202]
Montmorency, as much elated with this cheap success as if it had been a
victory, now set himself about passing his troops across the water. It
was attended with more difficulty than he had expected. There were no
boats in readiness, and two hours were wasted in procuring them. After
all, only four or five could be obtained, and these so small that it
would be necessary to cross and recross the stream many times to effect
the object. The boats, crowded with as many as they could carry, stuck
fast in the marshy banks, or rather quagmire, on the opposite side; and
when some of the soldiers jumped out to lighten the load, they were
swallowed up and suffocated in the mud.[203] To add to these
distresses, they were galled by the incessant fire of a body of troops
which the Spanish general had stationed on an eminence that commanded
the landing.
While, owing to these causes, the transportation of the troops was going
slowly on, the duke of Savoy had called a council of war, and determined
that the enemy, since he had ventured so near, should not be allowed to
escape without a battle. There was a practicable ford in the river,
close to Count Egmont's quarters; and that officer received orders to
cross it at the head of his cavalry, and amuse the enemy until the main
body of the Spanish army, under the duke, should have time to come up.
Lamoral, Count Egmont, and prince of Gavre, a person who is to occupy a
large space in our subsequent pages, was a Flemish noble of an ancient
and illustrious lineage. He had early attracted the notice of the
emperor, who had raised him to various important offices, both civil and
military, in which he had acquitted himself with honor. At this time,
when thirty-five years old, he held the post of lieutenant-general of
the horse, and that of governor of Flanders.
Egmont was of a lofty and aspiring nature, filled with dreams of glory,
and so much elated by success, that the duke of Savoy was once obliged
to rebuke him, by reminding him that he was not the commander-in-chief
of the army.[204] With these defects he united some excellent qualities,
which not unfrequently go along with them. In his disposition he was
frank and manly, and, though hasty in temper, had a warm and generous
heart. He was distinguished by a chivalrous bearing, and a showy,
imposing address, which took with the people, by whom his name was held
dear in later times for his devotion to the cause of freedom. He was a
dashing officer, prompt and intrepid, well fitted for a brilliant
_coup-de-main_, or for an affair like the present, which required energy
and despatch; and he eagerly undertook the duty assigned him.
The light horse first passed over the ford, the existence of which was
known to Montmorency; and he had detached a corps of German pistoleers,
of whom there was a body in the French service, to defend the passage.
But the number was too small, and the Burgundian horse, followed by the
infantry, advanced, in face of the fire, as coolly and in as good order
as if they had been on parade.[205] The constable soon received tidings
that the enemy had begun to cross; and, aware of his mistake, he
reinforced his pistoleers with a squadron of horse under the duc de
Nevers. It was too late; when the French commander reached the ground,
the enemy had already crossed in such strength that it would have been
madness to attack him. After a brief consultation with his officers,
Nevers determined, by as speedy a countermarch as possible, to join the
main body of the army.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF ST. QUENTIN.]
The prince of Condé, as has been mentioned, occupied the mill which
commanded the other ford, on the right of Montmorency. From its summit
he could descry the movements of the Spaniards, and their battalions
debouching on the plain, with scarcely any opposition from the French.
He advised the constable of this at once, and suggested the necessity of
an immediate retreat. The veteran did not relish advice from one so much
younger than himself, and testily replied, "I was a soldier before the
prince of Condé was born; and, by the blessing of Heaven, I trust to
teach him some good lessons in war for many a year to come." Nor would
he quit the ground while a man of the reinforcement under Dandelot
remained to cross.[206]
The cause of this fatal confidence was information he had received that
the ford was too narrow to allow more than four or five persons to pass
abreast, which would give him time enough to send over the troops, and
then secure his own retreat to La Fère. As it turned out, unfortunately,
the ford was wide enough to allow fifteen or twenty men to go abreast.
The French, meanwhile, who had crossed the river, after landing on the
opposite bank, were many of them killed or disabled by the Spanish
arquebusiers; others were lost in the morass; and of the whole number
not more than four hundred and fifty, wet, wounded, and weary, with
Dandelot at their head, succeeded in throwing themselves into St.
Quentin. The constable, having seen the last boat put off, gave instant
orders for retreat. The artillery was sent forward in the front, then
followed the infantry, and, last of all, he brought up the rear with the
horse, of which he took command in person. He endeavored to make up for
the precious time he had lost by quickening his march, which, however,
was retarded by the heavy guns in the van.
The duc de Nevers, as we have seen, declining to give battle to the
Spaniards who had crossed the stream, had prepared to retreat on the
main body of the army. On reaching the ground lately occupied by his
countrymen, he found it abandoned; and joining Condé, who still held the
mill, the two officers made all haste to overtake the constable.
Meanwhile, Count Egmont, as soon as he was satisfied that he was in
sufficient strength to attack the enemy, gave orders to advance, without
waiting for more troops to share with him the honors of victory.
Crossing the field lately occupied by the constable, he took the great
road to La Fère. But the rising ground which lay between him and the
French prevented him from seeing the enemy until he had accomplished
half a league or more. The day was now well advanced, and the Flemish
captain had some fears that, notwithstanding his speed, the quarry had
escaped him. But, as he turned the hill, he had the satisfaction to
descry the French columns in full retreat. On their rear hung a body of
sutlers and other followers of the camp, who, by the sudden apparition
of the Spaniards, were thrown into a panic, which they had wellnigh
communicated to the rest of the army.[207] To retreat before an enemy is
in itself a confession of weakness sufficiently dispiriting to the
soldier. Montmorency, roused by the tumult, saw the dark cloud gathering
along the heights, and knew that it must soon burst on him. In this
emergency, he asked counsel of an old officer near him as to what he
should do. "Had you asked me," replied the other, "two hours since, I
could have told you; it is now too late."[208] It was indeed too late,
and there was nothing to be done but to face about and fight the
Spaniards. The constable, accordingly, gave the word to halt, and made
dispositions to receive his assailants.
Egmont, seeing him thus prepared, formed his own squadron into three
divisions. One, which was to turn the left flank of the French, he gave
to the prince of Brunswick and to Count Hoorne,--a name afterwards
associated with his own on a sadder occasion than the present. Another,
composed chiefly of Germans, he placed under Count Mansfeldt, with
orders to assail the centre. He himself, at the head of his Burgundian
lances, rode on the left against Montmorency's right flank. Orders were
then given to charge, and, spurring forward their horses, the whole
column came thundering on against the enemy. The French met the shock
like well-trained soldiers, as they were; but the cavalry fell on them
with the fury of a torrent sweeping everything before it, and for a few
moments it seemed as if all were lost. But the French chivalry was true
to its honor, and, at the call of Montmorency, who gallantly threw
himself into the thick of the fight, it rallied, and, returning the
charge, compelled the assailants to give way in their turn. The
struggle, now continued on more equal terms, grew desperate; man against
man, horse against horse,--it seemed to be a contest of personal
prowess, rather than of tactics or military science. So well were the
two parties matched, that for a long time the issue was doubtful; and
the Spaniards might not have prevailed in the end, but for the arrival
of reinforcements, both foot and heavy cavalry, who came up to their
support. Unable to withstand this accumulated force, the French
cavaliers, overpowered by numbers, not by superior valor, began to give
ground. Hard pressed by Egmont, who cheered on his men to renewed
efforts, their ranks were at length broken. The retreat became a flight;
and, scattered over the field in all directions, they were hotly pursued
by their adversaries, especially the German _schwarzreiters_,--those
riders "black as devils,"[209]--who did such execution with their
fire-arms as completed the discomfiture of the French.
Amidst this confusion, the Gascons, the flower of the French infantry,
behaved with admirable coolness.[210] Throwing themselves into squares,
with the pikemen armed with their long pikes in front, and the
arquebusiers in the centre, they presented an impenetrable array,
against which the tide of battle raged and chafed in impotent fury. It
was in vain that the Spanish horse rode round the solid masses bristling
with steel, if possible, to force an entrance, while an occasional shot,
striking a trooper from his saddle, warned them not to approach too
near.
It was in this state of things that the duke of Savoy, with the
remainder of the troops, including the artillery, came on the field of
action. His arrival could not have been more seasonable. The heavy guns
were speedily turned on the French squares, whose dense array presented
an obvious mark to the Spanish bullets. Their firm ranks were rent
asunder; and, as the brave men tried in vain to close over the bodies of
their dying comrades, the horse took advantage of the openings to plunge
into the midst of the phalanx. Here the long spears of the pikemen were
of no avail, and, striking right and left, the cavaliers dealt death on
every side. All now was confusion and irretrievable ruin. No one thought
of fighting, or even of self-defence. The only thought was of flight.
Men overturned one another in their eagerness to escape. They were soon
mingled with the routed cavalry, who rode down their own countrymen.
Horses ran about the field without riders. Many of the soldiers threw
away their arms, to fly the more quickly. All strove to escape from the
terrible pursuit which hung on their rear. The artillery and
ammunition-wagons choked up the road, and obstructed the flight of the
fugitives. The slaughter was dreadful. The best blood of France flowed
like water.
[Sidenote: ARMY ROUTED.]
Yet mercy was shown to those who asked it. Hundreds and thousands threw
down their arms, and obtained quarter. Nevers, according to some
accounts, covered the right flank of the French army. Others state that
he was separated from it by a ravine or valley. At all events, he fared
no better than his leader. He was speedily enveloped by the cavalry of
Hoorne and Brunswick, and his fine corps of light horse cut to pieces.
He himself, with the prince of Condé, was so fortunate as to make his
escape, with the remnant of his forces, to La Fère.
Had the Spaniards followed up the pursuit, few Frenchmen might have been
left that day to tell the story of the rout of St. Quentin. But the
fight had already lasted four hours; evening was setting in; and the
victors, spent with toil and sated with carnage, were content to take up
their quarters on the field of battle.
The French, in the mean time, made their way, one after another, to La
Fère, and, huddling together in the public squares, or in the quarters
they had before occupied, remained like a herd of panic-struck deer, in
whose ears the sounds of the chase are still ringing. But the loyal
cavaliers threw off their panic, and recovered heart, when a rumor
reached them that their commander, Montmorency, was still making head,
with a body of stout followers, against the enemy. At the tidings, faint
and bleeding as they were, they sprang to the saddles which they had
just quitted, and were ready again to take the field.[211]
But the rumor was without foundation. Montmorency was a prisoner in the
hands of the Spaniards. The veteran had exposed his own life throughout
the action, as if willing to show that he would not shrink in any degree
from the peril into which he had brought his followers. When he saw that
the day was lost, he threw himself into the hottest of the battle,
holding life cheap in comparison with honor. A shot from the pistol of a
_schwarzreiter_, fracturing his thigh, disabled him from further
resistance; and he fell into the hands of the Spaniards, who treated him
with the respect due to his rank. The number of prisoners was very
large,--according to some accounts, six thousand, of whom six hundred
were said to be gentlemen and persons of condition. The number of the
slain is stated, as usual, with great discrepancy, varying from three to
six thousand. A much larger proportion of them than usual were men of
family. Many a noble house in France went into mourning for that day.
Among those who fell was Jean de Bourbon, count d'Enghien, a prince of
the blood. Mortally wounded, he was carried to the tent of the duke of
Savoy, where he soon after expired, and his body was sent to his
countrymen at La Fère for honorable burial. To balance this bloody roll,
no account states the loss of the Spaniards at over a thousand men.[212]
More than eighty standards, including those of the cavalry, fell into
the hands of the victors, together with all the artillery,
ammunition-wagons, and baggage of the enemy. France had not experienced
such a defeat since the battle of Agincourt.[213]
King Philip had left Brussels, and removed his quarters to Cambray, that
he might be near the duke of Savoy, with whom he kept up daily
communication throughout the siege. Immediately after the battle, on the
eleventh of August, he visited the camp in person. At the same time, he
wrote to his father, expressing his regret that he had not been there to
share the glory of the day.[214] The emperor seems to have heartily
shared this regret.[215] It is quite certain, if Charles had had the
direction of affairs, he would not have been absent. But Philip had not
the bold, adventurous spirit of his father. His talent lay rather in
meditation than in action; and his calm, deliberate forecast better
fitted him for the council than the camp. In enforcing levies, in
raising supplies, in superintending the organization of the army, he was
indefatigable. The plan of the campaign was determined under his own
eye; and he was most sagacious in the selection of his agents. But to
those agents he prudently left the conduct of the war, for which he had
no taste, perhaps no capacity, himself. He did not, like his rival,
Henry the Second, fancy himself a great captain because he could carry
away the prizes of a tourney.
Philip was escorted to the camp by his household troops. He appeared on
this occasion armed _cap-à-pie_,--a thing by no means common with him.
It seems to have pleased his fancy to be painted in military costume. At
least, there are several portraits of him in complete mail,--one from
the pencil of Titian. A picture taken at the present time was sent by
him to Queen Mary, who, in this age of chivalry, may have felt some
pride in seeing her lord in the panoply of war.
On the king's arrival at the camp, he was received with all the honors
of a victor; with flourishes of trumpets, salvos of artillery, and the
loud shouts of the soldiery. The duke of Savoy laid at his feet the
banners and other trophies of the fight, and, kneeling down, would have
kissed Philip's hand; but the king, raising him from the ground, and
embracing him as he did so, said that the acknowledgments were due from
himself to the general who had won him such a victory. At the same time,
he paid a well-deserved compliment to the brilliant part which Egmont
and his brave companions had borne in the battle.[216]
[Sidenote: FRENCH ARMY ROUTED.]
The first thing to be done was to dispose of the prisoners, whose number
embarrassed the conquerors. Philip dismissed all those of the common
file, on the condition that they should not bear arms for six months
against the Spaniards. The condition did no great detriment to the
French service, as the men, on their return, were sent to garrison some
distant towns, and their places in the army filled by the troops whom
they had relieved. The cavaliers and persons of condition were lodged in
fortresses, where they could be securely detained till the amount of
their respective ransoms was determined. These ransoms formed an
important part of the booty of the conqueror. How important, may be
inferred from the sum offered by the constable on his own account and
that of his son,--no less, it is said, than a hundred and sixty-five
thousand gold crowns.[217] The soldier of that day, when the penalty was
loss of fortune as well as of freedom, must be confessed to have fought
on harder conditions than at present.
A council of war was next called, to decide on further operations. When
Charles the Fifth received tidings of the victory of St. Quentin, the
first thing he asked, as we are told, was "whether Philip were at
Paris."[218] Had Charles been in command, he would doubtless have
followed up the blow by presenting himself at once before the French
capital. But Philip was not of that sanguine temper which overlooks, or
at least overleaps, the obstacles in its way. Charles calculated the
chances of success; Philip, those of failure. Charles's character opened
the way to more brilliant achievements, but exposed him also to severer
reverses. His enterprising spirit was more favorable to building up a
great empire; the cautious temper of Philip was better fitted to
preserve it. Philip came in the right time; and his circumspect policy
was probably better suited to his position, as well as to his character,
than the bolder policy of the emperor.
When the duke of Savoy urged, as it is said, the expediency of profiting
by the present panic to march at once on the French capital, Philip
looked at the dangers of such a step. Several strong fortresses of the
enemy would be left in his rear. Rivers must be crossed, presenting
lines of defence which could easily be maintained against a force even
superior to his own. Paris was covered by formidable works, and forty
thousand citizens could be enrolled, at the shortest notice, for its
protection. It was not wise to urge the foe to extremity, to force a
brave and loyal people, like the French, to rise _en masse_, as they
would do for the defence of their capital. The emperor, his father, had
once invaded France with a powerful army, and laid siege to Marseilles.
The issue of that invasion was known to everybody. "The Spaniards," it
was tauntingly said, "had come into the country feasting on turkeys;
they were glad to escape from it feeding on roots!"[219] Philip
determined, therefore, to abide by his original plan of operations, and
profit by the late success of his arms to press the siege of St. Quentin
with his whole force.--It would not be easy for any one, at this
distance of time, to pronounce on the wisdom of his decision. But
subsequent events tend considerably to strengthen our confidence in it.
Preparations were now made to push the siege with vigor. Besides the
cannon already in the camp, and those taken in the battle, a good number
of pieces were brought from Cambray to strengthen the battering-train
of the besiegers. The river was crossed; and the Faubourg d'Ile was
carried by the duke, after a stout resistance on the part of the French,
who burned the houses in their retreat. The Spanish commander availed
himself of his advantage to establish batteries close to the town, which
kept up an incessant cannonade, that shook the old walls and towers to
their foundation. The miners also carried on their operations, and
galleries were excavated almost to the centre of the place.
The condition of the besieged, in the mean time, was forlorn in the
extreme; not so much from want of food, though their supplies were
scanty, as from excessive toil and exposure. Then it was that Coligni
displayed all the strength of his character. He felt the importance of
holding out as long as possible, that the nation might have time to
breathe, as it were, and recover from the late disaster. He endeavored
to infuse his own spirit into the hearts of his soldiers, toiling with
the meanest of them, and sharing all their privations. He cheered the
desponding, by assuring them of speedy relief from their countrymen.
Some he complimented for their bravery; others he flattered by asking
their advice. He talked loudly of the resources at his command. If any
should hear him so much as hint at a surrender, he gave them leave to
tie him hand and foot, and throw him into the moat. If he should hear
one of them talk of it, the admiral promised to do as much by him.[220]
The duc de Nevers, who had established himself, with the wreck of the
French army and such additional levies as he could muster, in the
neighborhood of St. Quentin, contrived to communicate with the admiral.
On one occasion he succeeded in throwing a reinforcement of a hundred
and twenty arquebusiers into the town, though it cost him thrice that
number, cut to pieces by the Spaniards in the attempt. Still the number
of the garrison was altogether inadequate to the duties imposed on it.
With scanty refreshment, almost without repose, watching and fighting by
turns, the day passed in defending the breaches which the night was not
long enough to repair. No frame could be strong enough to endure it.
Coligni had, fortunately, the services of a skilful engineer, named St.
Rémy, who aided him in repairing the injuries inflicted on the works by
the artillery, and by the scarcely less destructive mines of the
Spaniards. In the want of solid masonry, every material was resorted to
for covering up the breaches. Timbers were thrown across; and boats
filled with earth, laid on the broken rampart, afforded a good bulwark
for the French musketeers. But the time was come when neither the skill
of the engineer nor the courage of the garrison could further avail.
Eleven practicable breaches had been opened, and St. Rémy assured the
admiral that he could not engage to hold out four-and-twenty hours
longer.[221]
[Sidenote: STORMING OF ST. QUENTIN.]
The duke of Savoy also saw that the time had come to bring the siege to
a close by a general assault. The twenty-seventh of August was the day
assigned for it. On that preceding he fired three mines, which shook
down some fragments of the wall, but did less execution than was
expected. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, his whole force was
under arms. The duke divided it into as many corps as there were
breaches, placing these corps under his best and bravest officers. He
proposed to direct the assault in person.
Coligni made his preparations also with consummate coolness. He posted a
body of troops at each of the breaches, while he and his brother
Dandelot took charge of the two which, still more exposed than the
others, might be considered as the post of danger. He had the
satisfaction to find, in this hour of trial, that the men, as well as
their officers, seemed to be animated with his own heroic spirit.
Before proceeding to storm the place, the duke of Savoy opened a brisk
cannonade, in order to clear away the barricades of timber, and other
temporary defences, which had been thrown across the breaches. The fire
continued for several hours, and it was not till afternoon that the
signal was given for the assault. The troops rushed forward,--Spaniards,
Flemings, English, and Germans,--spurred on by feelings of national
rivalry. A body of eight thousand brave Englishmen had joined the
standard of Philip in the early part of the campaign;[222] and they now
eagerly coveted the opportunity for distinction which had been denied
them at the battle of St. Quentin, where the fortune of the day was
chiefly decided by cavalry. But no troops felt so keen a spur to their
achievements as the Spaniards, fighting as they were under the eye of
their sovereign, who from a neighboring eminence was spectator of the
combat.
The obstacles were not formidable in the path of the assailants, who
soon clambered over the fragments of masonry and other rubbish which lay
scattered below the ramparts, and, in the face of a steady fire of
musketry, presented themselves before the breaches. The brave men
stationed to defend them were in sufficient strength to occupy the open
spaces; their elevated position gave them some advantage over the
assailants, and they stood to their posts with the resolution of men
prepared to die rather than surrender. A fierce conflict now ensued
along the whole extent of the ramparts; and the French, sustained by a
dauntless spirit, bore themselves as stoutly in the fight as if they had
been in training for it of late, instead of being enfeebled by scanty
subsistence and excessive toil. After a severe struggle, which lasted
nearly an hour, the Spaniards were driven back at all points. Not a
breach was won; and, broken and dispirited, the assailants were
compelled to retire on their former position.
After this mortifying repulse, the duke did not give them a long time to
breathe, before he again renewed the assault. This time he directed the
main attack against a tower where the resistance had been weakest. In
fact, Coligni had there placed the troops on whom he had least reliance,
trusting to the greater strength of the works. But a strong heart is
worth all the defences in the world. After a sharp but short struggle,
the assailants succeeded in carrying the tower. The faint-hearted troops
gave way; and the Spaniards, throwing themselves on the rampart,
remained masters of one of the breaches. A footing once gained, the
assailants poured impetuously into the opening, Spaniards, Germans, and
English streaming like a torrent along the ramparts, and attacking the
defenders on their flank. Coligni, meanwhile, and his brother Dandelot,
had rushed, with a few followers, to the spot, in the hope, if possible,
to arrest the impending ruin. But they were badly supported. Overwhelmed
by numbers, they were trodden down, disarmed, and made prisoners. Still
the garrison, at the remaining breaches, continued to make a desperate
stand. But, with one corps pressing them on flank, and another in front,
they were speedily cut to pieces, or disabled and taken. In half an
hour resistance had ceased along the ramparts. The town was in
possession of the Spaniards.[223]
A scene of riot and wild uproar followed, such as made the late conflict
seem tame in comparison. The victorious troops spread over the town in
quest of plunder, perpetrating those deeds of ruthless violence, usual,
even in this enlightened age, in a city taken by storm. The wretched
inhabitants fled before them; the old and the helpless, the women and
children, taking refuge in garrets, cellars, and any other corner where
they could hide themselves from their pursuers. Nothing was to be heard
but the groans of the wounded and the dying, the cries of women and
children,--"so pitiful," says one present, "that they would grieve any
Christian heart,"[224]--mingled, with the shouts of the victors, who,
intoxicated with liquor, and loaded with booty, now madly set fire to
several of the buildings, which soon added the dangers of conflagration
to the other horrors of the scene. In a short time, the town would have
been reduced to ashes, and the place which Philip had won at so much
cost would have been lost to him by the excesses of his own soldiers.
The king had now entered the city in person. He had never been present
at the storming of a place, and the dreadful spectacle which he
witnessed touched his heart. Measures were instantly taken to extinguish
the flames, and orders were issued that no one, under pain of death,
should offer any violence to the old and infirm, to the women and
children, to the ministers of religion, to religious edifices, or, above
all, to the relics of the blessed St. Quentin. Several hundred of the
poor people, it is said, presented themselves before Philip, and claimed
his protection. By his command they were conducted, under a strong
escort, to a place of safety.[225]
It was not possible, however, to prevent the pillage of the town. It
would have been as easy to snatch the carcass from the tiger that was
rending it. The pillage of a place taken by storm was regarded as the
perquisite of the soldier, on which he counted as regularly as on his
pay. Those who distinguished themselves most, in this ruthless work,
were the German mercenaries. Their brutal rapacity filled even their
confederates with indignation. The latter seem to have been particularly
disgusted with the unscrupulous manner in which the _schwarzreiters_
appropriated not only their own share of the plunder, but that of both
English and Spaniards.[226]
[Sidenote: SUCCESSES OF THE SPANIARDS.]
Thus fell the ancient town of St. Quentin, after a defence which
reflects equal honor on the courage of the garrison, and on the conduct
of their commander. With its fortifications wretchedly out of repair,
its supplies of arms altogether inadequate, the number of its garrison
at no time exceeding a thousand, it still held out for near a month
against a powerful army, fighting under the eyes of its sovereign, and
led by one of the best captains of Europe.[227]
Philip, having taken measures to restore the fortifications of St.
Quentin, placed it under the protection of a Spanish garrison, and
marched against the neighboring town of Catelet. It was a strong place,
but its defenders, unlike their valiant countrymen at St. Quentin, after
a brief show of resistance, capitulated on the sixth of September. This
was followed by the surrender of Ham, once renowned through Picardy for
the strength of its defences. Philip then led his victorious battalions
against Noyon and Chaulny, which last town was sacked by the soldiers.
The French were filled with consternation, as one strong place after
another, on the frontier, fell into the hands of an enemy who seemed as
if he were planting his foot permanently on their soil. That Philip did
not profit by his success to push his conquests still further, is to be
attributed not to remissness on his part, but to the conduct, or rather
the composition, of his army, made up, as it was, of troops, who,
selling their swords to the highest bidder, cared little for the banner
under which they fought. Drawn from different countries, the soldiers,
gathered into one camp, soon showed all their national rivalries and
animosities. The English quarrelled with the Germans, and neither could
brook the insolent bearing of the Spaniards. The Germans complained that
their arrears were not paid,--a complaint probably well founded, as,
notwithstanding his large resources, Philip, on an emergency, found the
difficulty in raising funds, which every prince in that day felt, when
there was no such thing known as a well-arranged system of taxation.
Tempted by the superior offers of Henry the Second, the _schwarzreiters_
left the standard of Philip in great numbers, to join that of his rival.
The English were equally discontented. They had brought from home the
aversion for the Spaniards which had been festering there since the
queen's marriage. The sturdy islanders were not at all pleased with
serving under Philip. They were fighting, not the battles of England,
they said, but of Spain. Every new conquest was adding to the power of a
monarch far too powerful already. They had done enough, and insisted on
being allowed to return to their own country. The king, who dreaded
nothing so much as a rupture between his English and his Spanish
subjects, to which he saw the state of things rapidly tending, was fain
to consent.
By this departure of the English force, and the secession of the
Germans, Philip's strength was so much impaired, that he was in no
condition to make conquests, hardly to keep the field. The season was
now far advanced, for it was the end of October. Having, therefore,
garrisoned the conquered places, and put them in the best posture of
defence, he removed his camp to Brussels, and soon after put his army
into winter-quarters.[228]
Thus ended the first campaign of Philip the Second; the first, and, with
the exception of the following, the only campaign in which he was
personally present. It had been eminently successful. Besides the
important places which he had gained on the frontier of Picardy, he had
won a signal victory in the field.
But the campaign was not so memorable for military results as in a moral
view. It showed the nations of Europe that the Spanish sceptre had
passed into the hands of a prince who was as watchful as his predecessor
had been over the interests of the state; and who, if he were not so
actively ambitious as Charles the Fifth, would be as little likely to
brook any insult from his neighbors. The victory of St. Quentin,
occurring at the commencement of his reign, reminded men of the victory
won at Pavia by his father, at a similar period of his career, and, like
that, furnished a brilliant augury for the future. Philip, little given
to any visible expression of his feelings, testified his joy at the
success of his arms, by afterwards raising the magnificent pile of the
Escorial, in honor of the blessed martyr St. Lawrence, on whose day the
battle was fought, and to whose interposition with Heaven he attributed
the victory.
CHAPTER VIII.
WAR WITH FRANCE.
Extraordinary Efforts of France.--Calais surprised by Guise.--The French
invade Flanders.--Bloody Battle of Gravelines.--Negotiations for
Peace.--Mary's Death.--Accession of Elizabeth.--Treaty of
Cateau-Cambresis.
1557-1559.
The state of affairs in France justified Philip's conclusions in respect
to the loyalty of the people. No sooner did Henry the Second receive
tidings of the fatal battle of St. Quentin, than he despatched couriers
in all directions, summoning his chivalry to gather round his banner,
and calling on the towns for aid in his extremity. The nobles and
cavaliers promptly responded to the call, flocking in with their
retainers; and not only the large towns, but those of inferior size,
cheerfully submitted to be heavily taxed for the public service. Paris
nobly set the example. She did not exhaust her zeal in processions of
the clergy, headed by the queen and the royal family, carrying with them
relics from the different churches. All the citizens capable of bearing
arms enrolled themselves for the defence of the capital; and large
appropriations were made for strengthening Montmartre, and for defraying
the expenses of the war.[229]
[Sidenote: CALAIS SURPRISED BY GUISE.]
With these and other resources at his command, Henry was speedily
enabled to subsidize a large body of Swiss and German mercenaries. The
native troops serving abroad were ordered home. The veteran Marshal
Termes came, with a large corps, from Tuscany, and the duke of Guise
returned, with the remnant of his battalions, from Rome. This popular
commander was welcomed with enthusiasm. The nation seemed to look to him
as to the deliverer of the country. His late campaign in the kingdom of
Naples was celebrated as if it had been a brilliant career of victory.
He was made lieutenant-general of the army, and the oldest captains were
proud to take service under so renowned a chief.
The government was not slow to profit by the extraordinary resources
thus placed at its disposal. Though in the depth of winter, it was
resolved to undertake some enterprise that should retrieve the disasters
of the late campaign, and raise the drooping spirits of the nation. The
object proposed was the recovery of Calais, that strong place, which for
more than two centuries had remained in possession of the English.
The French had ever been keenly sensible to the indignity of an enemy
thus planting his foot immovably, as it were, on their soil. They had
looked to the recovery of Calais with the same feelings with which the
Spanish Moslems, when driven into Africa, looked to the recovery of
their ancient possessions in Granada. They showed how constantly this
was in their thoughts, by a common saying respecting any commander whom
they held lightly, that he was "not a man to drive the English out of
France."[230] The feelings they entertained, however, were rather those
of desire than of expectation. The place was so strong, so well
garrisoned, and so accessible to the English, that it seemed
impregnable. These same circumstances, and the long possession of the
place, had inspired the English, on the other hand, with no less
confidence, as was pretty well intimated by an inscription on the bronze
gates of the town,--"When the French besiege Calais, lead and iron will
swim like cork."[231] This confidence, as it often happens, proved their
ruin.
The bishop of Acqs, the French envoy to England, on returning home, a
short time before this, had passed through Calais, and gave a strange
report of the decay of the works, and the small number of the garrison,
in short, of the defenceless condition of the place. Guise, however, as
cautious as he was brave, was unwilling to undertake so hazardous an
enterprise without more precise information. When satisfied of the fact,
he entered on the project with his characteristic ardor. The plan
adopted was said to have been originally suggested by Coligni. In order
to deceive the enemy, the duke sent the largest division of the army,
under Nevers, in the direction of Luxemburg. He then marched with the
remainder into Picardy, as if to menace one of the places conquered by
the Spaniards. Soon afterwards the two corps united, and Guise, at the
head of his whole force, by a rapid march, presented himself before the
walls of Calais.
The town was defended by a strong citadel, and by two forts. One of
these, commanding the approach by water, the duke stormed and captured
on the second of January, 1558. The other, which overlooked the land, he
carried on the following day. Possessed of these two forts, he felt
secure from any annoyance by the enemy, either by land or by water. He
then turned his powerful battering-train against the citadel, keeping up
a furious cannonade by day and by night. On the fifth, as soon as a
breach was opened, the victorious troops poured in, and, overpowering
the garrison, planted the French colors on the walls. The earl of
Wentworth, who commanded in Calais, unable, with his scanty garrison, to
maintain the place now that the defences were in the hands of the enemy,
capitulated on the eighth. The fall of Calais was succeeded by that of
Guisnes and of Hames. Thus, in a few days the English were stripped of
every rood of the territory which they had held in France since the time
of Edward the Third.
The fall of Calais caused the deepest sensation on both sides of the
Channel. The English, astounded by the event, loudly inveighed against
the treachery of the commander. They should rather have blamed the
treachery of their own government, who had so grossly neglected to
provide for the defence of the place. Philip, suspecting the designs of
the French, had intimated his suspicions to the English government, and
had offered to strengthen the garrison by a reinforcement of his own
troops. But his allies, perhaps distrusting his motives, despised his
counsel, or at least failed to profit by it.[232] After the place was
taken, he made another offer to send a strong force to recover it,
provided the English would support him with a sufficient fleet. This
also, perhaps from the same feeling of distrust, though on the plea of
inability to meet the expense, was declined, and the opportunity for the
recovery of Calais was lost for ever.[233]
Yet, in truth, it was no great loss to the nation. Like more than one,
probably, of the colonial possessions of England at the present day,
Calais cost every year more than it was worth. Its chief value was the
facility it afforded for the invasion of France. Yet such a facility for
war with their neighbors, always too popular with the English before the
time of Philip the Second, was of questionable value. The real injury
from the loss of Calais was the wound which it inflicted on the national
honor.
The exultation of the French was boundless. It could not well have been
greater, if the duke of Guise had crossed the Channel and taken London
itself. The brilliant and rapid manner in which the exploit had been
performed, the gallantry with which the young general had exposed his
own person in the assault, the generosity with which he had divided his
share of the booty among the soldiers, all struck the lively imagination
of the French; and he became more than ever the idol of the people.
Yet, during the remainder of the campaign, his arms were not crowned
with such distinguished success. In May he marched against the strong
town of Thionville, in Luxemburg. After a siege of twenty days, the
place surrendered. Having taken one or two other towns of less
importance, the French army wasted nearly three weeks in a state of
inaction, unless, indeed, we take into account the activity caused by
intestine troubles of the army itself. It is difficult to criticize
fairly the conduct of a commander of that age, when his levies were made
up so largely of foreign mercenaries, who felt so little attachment to
the service in which they were engaged, that they were ready to quarrel
with it on the slightest occasion. Among these the German
_schwarzreiters_ were the most conspicuous, manifesting too often a
degree of insolence and insubordination that made them hardly less
dangerous as friends than as enemies. The importance they attached to
their own services made them exorbitant in their demands of pay. When
this, as was too frequently the case, was in arrears, they took the
matter into their own hands, by pillaging the friendly country in which
they were quartered, or by breaking out into open mutiny. A German
baron, on one occasion, went so far as to level his pistol at the head
of the duke of Guise. So widely did this mutinous spirit extend, that
it was only by singular coolness and address that this popular chieftain
could bring these adventurers into anything like subjection to his
authority. As it was, the loss of time caused by these troubles was
attended with most disastrous consequences.
[Sidenote: THE FRENCH INVADE FLANDERS.]
The duke had left Calais garrisoned by a strong force, under Marshal
Termes. He had since ordered that veteran to take command of a body of
fifteen hundred horse and five thousand foot, drawn partly from the
garrison itself, and to march into West Flanders. Guise proposed to join
him there with his own troops, when they would furnish such occupation
to the Spaniards as would effectually prevent them from a second
invasion of Picardy.
The plan was well designed, and the marshal faithfully executed his part
of it. Taking the road by St. Omer, he entered Flanders in the
neighborhood of Dunkirk, laid siege to that flourishing town, stormed
and gave it up to pillage. He then penetrated as far as Nieuport, when
the fatigue and the great heat of the weather brought on an attack of
gout, which entirely disabled him. The officer on whom the command
devolved allowed the men to spread themselves over the country, where
they perpetrated such acts of rapacity and violence as were not
sanctioned even by the code of that unscrupulous age. The wretched
inhabitants, driven from their homes, called loudly on Count Egmont,
their governor, to protect them. The duke of Savoy lay with his army, at
this time, at Maubeuge, in the province of Namur; but he sent orders to
Egmont to muster such forces as he could raise in the neighboring
country, and to intercept the retreat of the French, until the duke
could come to his support and chastise the enemy.
Egmont, indignant at the wrongs of his countrymen, and burning with the
desire of revenge, showed the greatest alacrity in obeying these orders.
Volunteers came in from all sides, and he soon found himself at the head
of an army consisting of ten or twelve thousand foot and two thousand
horse. With these he crossed the borders at once, and sent forward a
detachment to occupy the great road by which De Termes had penetrated
into Flanders.
The French commander, advised too late of these movements, saw that it
was necessary to abandon at once his present quarters, and secure, if
possible, his retreat. Guise was at a distance, occupied with the
troubles of his own camp. The Flemings had possession of the route by
which the marshal had entered the country. One other lay open to him
along the sea-shore, in the neighborhood of Gravelines, where the Aa
pours its waters into the ocean. By taking advantage of the ebb, the
river might be forded, and a direct road to Calais would be presented.
Termes saw that no time was to be lost. He caused himself to be removed
from his sick-bed to a litter, and began his retreat at once. On leaving
Dunkirk, he fired the town, where the houses were all that remained to
the wretched inhabitants of their property. His march was impeded by his
artillery, by his baggage, and especially by the booty which he was
conveying back from the plundered provinces. He however succeeded in
crossing the Aa at low water, and gained the sands on the opposite side.
But the enemy was there before him.[234]
Egmont, on getting tidings of the marshal's movements, had crossed the
river higher up, where the stream was narrower. Disencumbering himself
of artillery, and even of baggage, in order to move the lighter, he made
a rapid march to the sea-side, and reached it in time to intercept the
enemy. There was no choice left for Termes but to fight his way through
the Spaniards or surrender.
Ill as he was, the marshal mounted his horse, and addressed a few words
to his troops. Pointing in the direction of the blazing ruins of
Dunkirk, he told them that they could not return there. Then turning
towards Calais, "There is your home," he said, "and you must beat the
enemy before you can gain it." He determined, however, not to begin the
action, but to secure his position as strongly as he could, and wait the
assault of the Spaniards.
He placed his infantry in the centre, and flanked it on either side by
his cavalry. In the front he established his artillery, consisting of
six or seven falconets,--field-pieces of smaller size. He threw a
considerable body of Gascon pikemen in the rear, to act as a reserve
wherever their presence should be required. The river Aa, which flowed
behind his troops, formed also a good protection in that quarter. His
left wing he covered by a barricade made of the baggage and artillery
wagons. His right, which rested on the ocean, seemed secure from any
annoyance on that side.
Count Egmont, seeing the French thus preparing to give battle, quickly
made his own dispositions. He formed his cavalry into three divisions.
The centre he proposed to lead in person. It was made up chiefly of the
heavy men-at-arms and some Flemish horse. On the right he placed his
light cavalry, and on the left wing rode the Spanish. His infantry he
drew up in such a manner as to support the several divisions of horse.
Having completed his arrangements, he gave orders to the centre and the
right wing to charge, and rode at full gallop against the enemy.
Though somewhat annoyed by the heavy guns in their advance, the
battalions came on in good order, and fell with such fury on the French
left and centre, that horse and foot were borne down by the violence of
the shock. But the French gentlemen who formed the cavalry were of the
same high mettle as those who fought at St. Quentin. Though borne down
for a moment, they were not overpowered; and, after a desperate
struggle, they succeeded in rallying and in driving back the assailants.
Egmont returned to the charge, but was forced back with greater loss
than before. The French, following up their advantage, compelled the
assailants to retreat on their own lines. The guns, at the same time,
opening on the exposed flank of the retreating troopers, did them
considerable mischief. Egmont's horse was killed under him, and he had
nearly been run over by his own followers. In the mean while, the Gascon
reserve, armed with their long spears, pushed on to the support of the
cavalry, and filled the air with their shouts of "Victory!"[235]
The field seemed to be already lost; when the left wing of Spanish
horse, which had not yet come into action, seeing the disorderly state
of the French, as they were pressing on, charged them briskly on the
flank. This had the effect to check the tide of pursuit, and give the
fugitives time to rally. Egmont, meanwhile, was mounted on a fresh
horse, and, throwing himself into the midst of his followers, endeavored
to reanimate their courage and reform their disordered ranks. Then,
cheering them on by his voice and example, he cried out, "We are
conquerors! Those who love glory and their fatherland, follow me!"[236]
and spurred furiously against the enemy.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF GRAVELINES.]
The French, hard pressed both on front and on flank, fell back in their
turn, and continued to retreat till they had gained their former
position. At the same time, the _lanzknechts_ in Egmont's service,
marched up, in defiance of the fire of the artillery, and got possession
of the guns, running the men who had charge of them through with their
lances.[237] The fight now became general; and, as the combatants were
brought into close quarters, they fought as men fight where numbers are
nearly balanced, and each one seems to feel that his own arm may turn
the scale of victory. The result was brought about by an event which
neither party could control, and neither have foreseen.
An English squadron of ten or twelve vessels lay at some distance, but
out of sight of the combatants. Attracted by the noise of the firing,
its commander drew near the scene of action, and, ranging along shore,
opened his fire on the right wing of the French, nearest the sea.[238]
The shot, probably, from the distance of the ships, did no great
execution, and is even said to have killed some of the Spaniards. But it
spread a panic among the French, as they found themselves assailed by a
new enemy, who seemed to have risen from the depths of the ocean. In
their eagerness to extricate themselves from the fire, the cavalry on
the right threw themselves on the centre, trampling down their own
comrades, until all discipline was lost, and horse and foot became
mingled together in wild disorder. Egmont profited by the opportunity to
renew his charge; and at length, completely broken and dispirited, the
enemy gave way in all directions. The stout body of Gascons who formed
the reserve alone held their ground for a time, until, vigorously
charged by the phalanx of Spanish spearmen, they broke, and were
scattered like the rest.
The rout was now general, and the victorious cavalry rode over the
field, trampling and cutting down the fugitives on all sides. Many who
did not fall under their swords perished in the waters of the Aa, now
swollen by the rising tide. Others were drowned in the ocean. No less
than fifteen hundred of those who escaped from the field are said to
have been killed by the peasantry, who occupied the passes, and thus
took bloody revenge for the injuries inflicted on their country.[239]
Two thousand French are stated to have fallen on the field, and not more
than five hundred Spaniards, or rather Flemings, who composed the bulk
of the army. The loss fell most severely on the French cavalry; severely
indeed, if, according to some accounts, not very credible, they were cut
to pieces almost to a man.[240] The number of prisoners was three
thousand. Among them was Marshal Termes himself, who had been disabled
by a wound in the head. All the baggage, the ammunition, and the rich
spoil gleaned by the foray into Flanders, became the prize of the
victors.--Although not so important for the amount of forces engaged,
the victory of Gravelines was as complete as that of St. Quentin.[241]
Yet the French, who had a powerful army on foot, were in better
condition to meet their reverses than on that day. The duke of Guise, on
receiving the tidings, instantly marched with his whole force, and
posted himself strongly behind the Somme, in order to cover Picardy from
invasion. The duke of Savoy, uniting his forces with those of Count
Egmont, took up a position along the line of the Authie, and made
demonstrations of laying siege to Dourlens. The French and Spanish
monarchs both took the field. So well appointed and large a force as
that led by Henry had not been seen in France for many a year; yet that
monarch might justly be mortified by the reflection that the greater
part of this force was made up of foreign mercenaries, amounting, it is
said, to forty thousand. Philip was in equal strength, and the length of
the war had enabled him to assemble his best captains around him. Among
them was Alva, whose cautious councils might serve to temper the bolder
enterprise of the duke of Savoy.
A level ground, four leagues in breadth, lay between the armies.
Skirmishes took place occasionally between the light troops on either
side, and a general engagement might be brought on at any moment. All
eyes were turned to the battle-field, where the two greatest princes of
Europe might so soon contend for mastery with each other. Had the
fathers of these princes, Charles the Fifth and Francis the First, been
in the field, such very probably would have been the issue. But Philip
was not disposed to risk the certain advantages he had already gained by
a final appeal to arms. And Henry was still less inclined to peril
all--his capital, perhaps his crown--on the hazard of a single cast.
[Sidenote: NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE.]
There were many circumstances which tended to make both monarchs prefer
a more peaceful arbitrament of their quarrel, and to disgust them with
the war. Among these was the ruinous state of their finances.[242] When
Ruy Gomez de Silva, as has been already stated, was sent to Spain by
Philip, he was commanded to avail himself of every expedient that could
be devised to raise money. Offices were put up for sale to the highest
bidder. The public revenues were mortgaged. Large sums were obtained
from merchants at exorbitant rates of interest. Forced loans were
exacted from individuals, especially from such as were known to have
received large returns by the late arrivals from the New World. Three
hundred thousand ducats were raised on the security of the coming fair
at Villalon. The Regent Joanna was persuaded to sell her yearly pension,
assigned her on the _alcavala_, for a downright sum to meet the
exigencies of the state. Goods were obtained from the king of Portugal,
in order to be sent to Flanders for the profit to be raised on the
sale.[243] Such were the wretched devices by which Philip, who inherited
this policy of temporizing expedients from his father, endeavored to
replenish his exhausted treasury. Besides the sums drawn from Castile,
the king obtained also no less than a million and a half of ducats, as
an extraordinary grant from the states of the Netherlands.[244] Yet
these sums, large as they were, were soon absorbed by the expense of
keeping armies on foot in France and in Italy. Philip's correspondence
with his ministers teems with representations of the low state of his
finances, of the arrears due to his troops, and the necessity of
immediate supplies to save him from bankruptcy. The prospects the
ministers hold out to him in return are anything but encouraging.[245]
Another circumstance which made both princes desire the termination of
the war was the disturbed state of their own kingdoms. The Protestant
heresy had already begun to rear its formidable crest in the
Netherlands; and the Huguenots were beginning to claim the notice of the
French government. Henry the Second, who was penetrated, as much as
Philip himself, with the spirit of the Inquisition, longed for leisure
to crush the heretical doctrines in the bud. In this pious purpose he
was encouraged by Paul the Fourth, who, now that he was himself
restrained from levying war against his neighbors, seemed resolved that
no one else should claim that indulgence. He sent legates to both Henry
and Philip, conjuring them, instead of warring with each other, to turn
their arms against the heretics in their dominions, who were sapping the
foundations of the Church.[246]
The pacific disposition of the two monarchs was, moreover, fostered by
the French prisoners, and especially by Montmorency, whose authority had
been such at court, that Charles the Fifth declared "his capture was
more important than would have been that of the king himself."[247] The
old constable was most anxious to return to his own country, where he
saw with uneasiness the ascendancy which his absence and the
prolongation of the war were giving to his rival, Guise, in the royal
counsels. Through him negotiations were opened with the French court,
until, Henry the Second thinking, with good reason, that these
negotiations would be better conducted by a regular congress than by
prisoners in the custody of his enemies, commissioners were appointed on
both sides, to arrange the terms of accommodation.[248] Montmorency and
his fellow-captive, Marshal St. André, were included in the commission.
But the person of most importance in it, on the part of France, was the
cardinal of Lorraine, brother of the duke of Guise, a man of a subtle,
intriguing temper, and one who, like the rest of his family,
notwithstanding his pacific demonstrations, may be said to have
represented the war party in France[249]
On the part of Spain the agents selected were the men most conspicuous
for talent and authority in the kingdom; the names of some of whom,
whether for good or for evil report, remain immortal on the page of
history. Among these were the duke of Alva and his great antagonist,--as
he became afterwards in the Netherlands,--William of Orange. But the
principal person in the commission, the man who in fact directed it, was
Anthony Perrenot, bishop of Arras, better known by his later title of
Cardinal Granvelle. He was son of the celebrated chancellor of that name
under Charles the Fifth, by whom he was early trained, not so much to
the duties of the ecclesiastical profession as of public life. He
profited so well by the instruction, that, in the emperor's time, he
succeeded his father in the royal confidence, and surpassed him in his
talent for affairs. His accommodating temper combined with his zeal for
the interests of Philip to recommend Granvelle to the favor of that
monarch; and his insinuating address and knowledge of character well
qualified him for conducting a negotiation where there were so many
jarring feelings to be brought into concord, so many hostile and
perplexing interests to be reconciled.
As a suspension of hostilities was agreed on during the continuance of
the negotiations, it was decided to remove the armies from the
neighborhood of each other, where a single spark might at any time lead
to a general explosion. A still stronger earnest was given of their
pacific intentions, by both the monarchs disbanding part of their
foreign mercenaries, whose services were purchased at a ruinous cost,
that made one of the great evils of the war.
The congress met on the fifteenth of October, 1558, at the abbey of
Cercamps, near Cambray. Between parties so well disposed, it might be
thought that some general terms of accommodation would soon be settled.
But the war, which ran back pretty far into Charles the Fifth's time,
had continued so long, that many territories had changed masters during
the contest, and it was not easy to adjust the respective claims to
them. The duke of Savoy's dominions, for example, had passed into the
hands of Henry the Second, who, moreover, asserted an hereditary right
to them through his grandmother. Yet it was not possible for Philip to
abandon his ally, the man whom he had placed at the head of his armies.
But the greatest obstacle was Calais. "If we return without the recovery
of Calais," said the English envoys, who also took part in this
congress, "we shall be stoned to death by the people."[250]
[Sidenote: MARY'S DEATH.]
Philip supported the claim of England; and yet it was evident that
France would never relinquish a post so important to herself, which,
after so many years of hope deferred, had at last come again into her
possession. While engaged in the almost hopeless task of adjusting these
differences, an event occurred which suspended the negotiations for a
time, and exercised an important influence on the affairs of Europe.
This was the death of one of the parties to the war, Queen Mary of
England.
Mary's health had been fast declining of late, under the pressure of
both mental and bodily disease. The loss of Calais bore heavily on her
spirits, as she thought of the reproach it would bring on her reign, and
the increased unpopularity it would draw upon herself. "When I die," she
said, in the strong language since made familiar to Englishmen by the
similar expression of their great admiral, "Calais will be found written
on my heart."[251]
Philip, who was not fully apprised of the queen's low condition, early
in November sent the count, afterwards duke, of Feria as his envoy to
London, with letters for Mary. This nobleman, who had married one of the
queen's maids of honor, stood high in the favor of his master. With
courtly manners, and a magnificent way of living, he combined a
shrewdness and solidity of judgment, that eminently fitted him for his
present mission. The queen received with great joy the letters which he
brought her, though too ill to read them. Feria, seeing the low state of
Mary's health, was earnest with the council to secure the succession for
Elizabeth.
He had the honor of supping with the princess at her residence in
Hatfield, about eighteen miles from London. The Spaniard enlarged, in
the course of conversation, on the good-will of his master to Elizabeth,
as shown in the friendly offices he had rendered her during her
imprisonment, and his desire to have her succeed to the crown. The envoy
did not add that this desire was prompted not so much by the king's
concern for the interests of Elizabeth as by his jealousy of the French,
who seemed willing to countenance the pretensions of Mary Stuart, the
wife of the dauphin, to the English throne.[252] The princess
acknowledged the protection she had received from Philip in her
troubles. "But for her present prospects," she said, "she was indebted
neither to the king nor to the English lords, however much these latter
might vaunt their fidelity. It was to the people that she owed them, and
on the people she relied."[253] This answer of Elizabeth furnishes the
key to her success.
The penetrating eye of the envoy soon perceived that the English
princess was under evil influences. The persons most in her confidence,
he wrote, were understood to have a decided leaning to the Lutheran
heresy, and he augured most unfavorably for the future prospects of the
kingdom.
On the seventeenth of November, 1558, after a brief, but most disastrous
reign, Queen Mary died. Her fate had been a hard one. Unimpeachable in
her private life, and, however misguided, with deeply-seated religious
principles, she has yet left a name held in more general execration than
any other on the roll of English sovereigns. One obvious way of
accounting for this, doubtless, is by the spirit of persecution which
hung like a dark cloud over her reign. And this not merely on account of
the persecution; for that was common with the line of Tudor; but because
it was directed against the professors of a religion which came to be
the established religion of the country. Thus the blood of the martyr
became the seed of a great and powerful church, ready through all after
time to bear testimony to the ruthless violence of its oppressor.
There was still another cause of Mary's unpopularity. The daughter of
Katharine of Aragon could not fail to be nurtured in a reverence for the
illustrious line from which she was descended. The education begun in
the cradle was continued in later years. When the young princess was
betrothed to her cousin, Charles the Fifth, it was stipulated that she
should be made acquainted with the language and the institutions of
Castile, and should even wear the costume of the country. "And who,"
exclaimed Henry the Eighth, "is so well fitted to instruct her in all
this as the queen, her mother?" Even after the match with her imperial
suitor was broken off by his marriage with the Portuguese infanta,
Charles still continued to take a lively interest in the fortunes of his
young kinswoman; while she, in her turn, naturally looked to the
emperor, as her nearest relative, for counsel and support. Thus drawn
towards Spain by the ties of kindred, by sympathy, and by interest, Mary
became in truth more of a Spanish than an English woman; and when all
this was completed by the odious Spanish match, and she gave her hand to
Philip the Second, the last tie seemed to be severed which had bound her
to her native land. Thenceforth she remained an alien in the midst of
her own subjects.--Very different was the fate of her sister and
successor, Elizabeth, who ruled over her people like a true-hearted
English queen, under no influence, and with no interests distinct from
theirs. She was requited for it by the most loyal devotion on their
part; while round her throne have gathered those patriotic recollections
which, in spite of her many errors, still render her name dear to
Englishmen.
On the death of her sister, Elizabeth, without opposition, ascended the
throne of her ancestors. It may not be displeasing to the reader to see
the portrait of her sketched by the Venetian minister at this period, or
rather two years earlier, when she was twenty-three years of age. "The
princess," he says, "is as beautiful in mind as she is in body; though
her countenance is rather pleasing from its expression, than
beautiful.[254] She is large and well-made; her complexion clear, and of
an olive tint; her eyes are fine, and her hands, on which she prides
herself, small and delicate. She has an excellent genius, with much
address and self-command, as was abundantly shown in the severe trials
to which she was exposed in the earlier part of her life. In her temper
she is haughty and imperious, qualities inherited from her father, King
Henry the Eighth, who, from her resemblance to himself, is said to have
regarded her with peculiar fondness."[255]--He had, it must be owned, an
uncommon way of showing it.
[Sidenote: ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH.]
One of the first acts of Elizabeth was to write an elegant Latin epistle
to Philip, in which she acquainted him with her accession to the crown,
and expressed the hope that they should continue to maintain "the same
friendly relations as their ancestors had done, and, if possible, more
friendly."
Philip received the tidings of his wife's death at Brussels, where her
obsequies were celebrated, with great solemnity, on the same day with
her funeral in London. All outward show of respect was paid to her
memory. But it is doing no injustice to Philip to suppose that his heart
was not very deeply touched by the loss of a wife so many years older
than himself, whose temper had been soured, and whose personal
attractions, such as they were, had long since faded under the pressure
of disease. Still, it was not without feelings of deep regret that the
ambitious monarch saw the sceptre of England--barren though it had
proved to him--thus suddenly snatched from his grasp.
We have already seen that Philip, during his residence in the country,
had occasion more than once to interpose his good offices in behalf of
Elizabeth. It was perhaps the friendly relation in which he thus stood
to her, quite as much as her personal qualities, that excited in the
king a degree of interest which seems to have provoked something like
jealousy in the bosom of his queen.[256] However this may be, motives of
a very different character from those founded on sentiment now
determined him to retain, if possible, his hold on England, by
transferring to Elizabeth the connection which had subsisted with Mary.
A month had not elapsed since Mary's remains were laid in Westminster
Abbey, when the royal widower made direct offers, through his
ambassador, Feria, for the hand of her successor. Yet his ardor did not
precipitate him into any unqualified declaration of his passion; on the
contrary, his proposals were limited by some very prudent conditions.
It was to be understood that Elizabeth must be a Roman Catholic, and, if
not one already, must repudiate her errors and become one. She was to
obtain a dispensation from the pope for the marriage. Philip was to be
allowed to visit Spain, whenever he deemed it necessary for the
interests of that kingdom;--a provision which seems to show that Mary's
over-fondness, or her jealousy, must have occasioned him some
inconvenience on that score. It was further to be stipulated, that the
issue of the marriage should not, as was agreed in the contract with
Mary, inherit the Netherlands, which were to pass to his son Don Carlos,
the prince of Asturias.
Feria was directed to make these proposals by word of mouth, not in
writing, "although," adds his considerate master, "it is no disgrace for
a man to have his proposals rejected, when they are founded, not on
worldly considerations, but on zeal for his Maker and the interests of
religion."
Elizabeth received the offer of Philip's hand, qualified as it was, in
the most gracious manner. She told the ambassador, indeed, that, "in a
matter of this kind, she could take no step without consulting her
parliament. But his master might rest assured, that, should she be
induced to marry, there was no man she should prefer to him."[257]
Philip seems to have been contented with the encouragement thus given,
and shortly after he addressed Elizabeth a letter, written with his own
hand, in which he endeavored to impress on her how much he had at heart
the successes of his ambassador's mission.
The course of events in England, however, soon showed that such success
was not to be relied on, and that Feria's prognostics in regard to the
policy of Elizabeth were well founded. Parliament soon entered on the
measures which ended in the subversion of the Roman Catholic, and the
restoration of the Reformed religion. And it was very evident that these
measures, if not originally dictated by the queen, must at least have
received her sanction.
Philip, in consequence, took counsel with two of his ministers, on whom
he most relied, as to the expediency of addressing Elizabeth on the
subject, and telling her plainly, that, unless she openly disavowed the
proceedings of parliament, the marriage could not take place.[258] Her
vanity should be soothed by the expressions of his regret at being
obliged to relinquish the hopes of her hand. But, as her lover modestly
remarked, after this candid statement of all the consequences before
her, whatever the result might be, she would have no one to blame but
herself.[259] His sage advisers, probably not often called to deliberate
on questions of this delicate nature, entirely concurred in opinion with
their master. In any event, they regarded it as impossible that he
should wed a Protestant.
What effect this frank remonstrance had on the queen we are not told.
Certain it is, Philip's suit no longer sped so favorably as before.
Elizabeth, throwing off all disguise, plainly told Feria, when pressed
on the matter, that she felt great scruples as to seeking a dispensation
from the pope;[260] and soon after she openly declared in parliament,
what she was in the habit of repeating so often, that she had no other
purpose but to live and die a maid.[261]--It can hardly be supposed that
Elizabeth entertained serious thoughts, at any time, of marrying Philip.
If she encouraged his addresses, it was only until she felt herself so
securely seated on the throne, that she was independent of the ill-will
she would incur by their rejection. It was a game in which the heart,
probably, formed no part of the stake on either side. In this game, it
must be confessed, the English queen showed herself the better player of
the two.
[Sidenote: TREATY OF CATEAU-CAMBRESIS.]
Philip bore his disappointment with great equanimity. He expressed his
regret to Elizabeth that she should have decided in a way so contrary to
what the public interests seemed to demand. But since it appeared to her
otherwise, he should acquiesce, and only hoped that the same end might
be attained by the continuance of their friendship.[262] With all this
philosophy, we may well believe that, with a character like that of
Philip, some bitterness must have remained in the heart; and that, very
probably, feelings of a personal nature mingled with those of a
political in the long hostilities which he afterwards carried on with
the English queen.
In the month of February, the conferences for the treaty of peace had
been resumed, and the place of meeting changed from the abbey of
Cercamps to Cateau-Cambresis. The negotiations were urged forward with
greater earnestness than before, as both the monarchs were more sorely
pressed by their necessities. Philip, in particular, was so largely in
arrears to his army, that he frankly told his ministers "he was on the
brink of ruin, from which nothing but a peace could save him."[263] It
might be supposed that, in this state of things, he would be placed in a
disadvantageous attitude for arranging terms with his adversary. But
Philip and his ministers put the best face possible on their affairs,
affecting a confidence in their resources, before their allies as well
as their enemies, which they were far from feeling; like some
half-famished garrison, which makes a brave show of its scanty stock of
supplies, in order to win better terms from the besiegers.[264]
All the difficulties were at length cleared away, except the vexed
question of Calais. The English queen, it was currently said in the
camp, would cut off the head of any minister who abandoned it. Mary, the
young queen of Scots, had just been married to the French dauphin,
afterwards Francis the Second. It was proposed that the eldest daughter
born of this union should be united to the eldest son of Elizabeth, and
bring with her Calais as a dowry. In this way, the place would be
restored to England without dishonor to France.[265] Such were the wild
expedients to which the parties resorted in the hope of extricating
themselves from their embarrassment!
At length, seeing the absolute necessity of bringing the matter to an
issue, Philip ordered the Spanish plenipotentiaries to write his final
instructions to Feria, his minister in London. The envoy was authorized
to say, that, although England had lost Calais through her own
negligence, yet Philip would stand faithfully by her for the recovery of
it. But, on the other hand, she must be prepared to support him with her
whole strength by land and by sea, and that not for a single campaign,
but for the war so long as it lasted. The government should ponder well
whether the prize would be worth the cost. Feria must bring the matter
home to the queen, and lead her, if possible, to the desired conclusion;
but so that she might appear to come to it by her own suggestion rather
than by his. The responsibility must be left with her.[266] The letter
of the plenipotentiaries, which is a very long one, is a model in its
way, and shows that, in some particulars, the science of diplomacy has
gained little since the sixteenth century.
Elizabeth needed no argument to make her weary of a war which hung like
a dark cloud on the morning of her reign. Her disquietude had been
increased by the fact of Scotland having become a party to the war; and
hostilities, with little credit to that country, had broken out along
the borders. Her own kingdom was in no condition to allow her to make
the extraordinary efforts demanded by Philip. Yet it was plain if she
did not make them, or consent to come into the treaty, she must be left
to carry on the war by herself. Under these circumstances, the English
government at last consented to an arrangement, which, if it did not
save Calais, so far saved appearances that it might satisfy the nation.
It was agreed that Calais should be restored at the end of eight years.
If France failed to do this, she was to pay five hundred thousand crowns
to England, whose claims to Calais would not, however, be affected by
such a payment. Should either of the parties, or their subjects, during
that period, do anything in contravention of this treaty, or in
violation of the peace between the two countries, the offending party
should forfeit all claim to the disputed territory.[267] It was not very
probable that eight years would elapse without affording some plausible
pretext to France, under such a provision, for keeping her hold on
Calais.
The treaty with England was signed on the second of April, 1559. On the
day following was signed that between France and Spain. By the
provisions of this treaty, the allies of Philip, Savoy, Mantua, Genoa,
were reinstated in the possession of the territories of which they had
been stripped in the first years of the war. Four or five places of
importance in Savoy were alone reserved, to be held as guaranties by the
French king, until his claim to the inheritance of that kingdom was
determined.
The conquests made by Philip in Picardy were to be exchanged for those
gained by the French in Italy and the Netherlands. The exchange was
greatly for the benefit of Philip. In the time of Charles the Fifth, the
Spanish arms had experienced some severe reverses, and the king now
received more than two hundred towns in return for the five places he
held in Picardy.[268]
[Sidenote: TREATY OF CATEAU-CAMBRESIS.]
Terms so disadvantageous to France roused the indignation of the duke of
Guise, who told Henry plainly, that a stroke of his pen would cost the
country more than thirty years of war. "Give me the poorest of the
places you are to surrender," said he, "and I will undertake to hold it
against all the armies of Spain!"[269] But Henry sighed for peace, and
for the return of his friend, the constable. He affected much deference
to the opinions of the duke. But he wrote to Montmorency that the Guises
were at their old tricks,[270]--and he ratified the treaty.
The day on which the plenipotentiaries of the three great powers had
completed their work, they went in solemn procession to the church, and
returned thanks to the Almighty for the happy consummation of their
labors. The treaty was then made public; and, notwithstanding the
unfavorable import of the terms to France, the peace, if we except some
ambitious spirits, who would have found their account in the continuance
of hostilities, was welcomed with joy by the whole nation. In this
sentiment all the parties to the war participated. The more remote, like
Spain, rejoiced to be delivered from a contest which made such large
drains on their finances; while France had an additional reason for
desiring peace, now that her own territory had become the theatre of
war.
The reputation which Philip had acquired by his campaigns was greatly
heightened by the result of his negotiations. The whole course of these
negotiations--long and intricate as it was--is laid open to us in the
correspondence fortunately preserved among the papers of Granvelle; and
the student who explores these pages may probably rise from them with
the conviction that the Spanish plenipotentiaries showed an address, a
knowledge of the men they had to deal with, and a consummate policy, in
which neither their French nor English rivals were a match for them. The
negotiation all passed under the eyes of Philip. Every move in the game,
if not by his suggestion, had been made at least with his sanction. The
result placed him in honorable contrast to Henry the Second, who, while
Philip had stood firmly by his allies, had, in his eagerness for peace,
abandoned those of France to their fate.
The early campaigns of Philip had wiped away the disgrace caused by the
closing campaigns of Charles the Fifth; and by the treaty he had
negotiated, the number of towns which he lost was less than that of
provinces which he gained.[271] Thus he had shown himself as skilful in
counsel as he had been successful in the field. Victorious in Picardy
and in Naples, he had obtained the terms of a victor from the king of
France, and humbled the arrogance of Rome, in a war to which he had been
driven in self-defence.[272] Faithful to his allies and formidable to
his foes, there was probably no period of Philip's life in which he
possessed so much real consideration in the eyes of Europe, as at the
time of signing the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis.
In order to cement the union between the different powers, and to
conciliate the good-will of the French nation to the treaty by giving it
somewhat of the air of a marriage contract, it was proposed that an
alliance should take place between the royal houses of France and Spain.
It was first arranged that the hand of Henry's daughter, the Princess
Elizabeth, should be given to Carlos, the son and heir of Philip. The
parties were of nearly the same age, being each about fourteen years
old. Now that all prospect of the English match had vanished, it was
thought to be a greater compliment to the French to substitute the
father for the son, the monarch himself for the heir apparent, in the
marriage treaty. The disparity of years between Philip and Elizabeth was
not such as to present any serious objection. The proposition was said
to have come from the French negotiators. The Spanish envoys replied,
that, notwithstanding their master's repugnance to entering again into
wedlock, yet, from his regard to the French monarch, and his desire for
the public weal, he would consent to waive his scruples, and accept the
hand of the French princess, with the same dowry which had been promised
to his son Don Carlos.[273]
Queen Elizabeth seems to have been not a little piqued by the
intelligence that Philip had so soon consoled himself for the failure of
his suit to her. "Your master," said she, in a petulant tone, to Feria,
"must have been much in love with me not to be able to wait four
months!" The ambassador answered somewhat bluntly, by throwing the blame
of the affair on the queen herself. "Not so," she retorted, "I never
gave your king a decided answer." "True," said Feria, "the refusal was
only implied, for I would not urge your highness to a downright 'No,'
lest it might prove a cause of offence between so great princes."[274]
In June, 1559, the duke of Alva entered France for the purpose of
claiming the royal bride, and espousing her in the name of his master.
He was accompanied by Ruy Gomez, count of Melito,--better known by his
title of prince of Eboli,--by the prince of Orange, the Count Egmont,
and other noblemen, whose high rank and character might give lustre to
the embassy. He was received in great state by Henry, who, with his
whole court, seemed anxious to show to the envoy every mark of respect
that could testify their satisfaction with the object of his mission.
The duke displayed all the stately demeanor of a true Spanish hidalgo.
Although he conformed to the French usage by saluting the ladies of the
court, he declined taking this liberty with his future queen, or
covering himself, as repeatedly urged, in her presence,--a piece of
punctilio greatly admired by the French, as altogether worthy of the
noble Castilian breeding.[275]
[Sidenote: DEATH OF HENRY THE SECOND.]
On the twenty-fourth of June, the marriage of the young princess was
celebrated in the church of St. Mary. King Henry gave his daughter away.
The duke of Alva acted as his sovereign's proxy. At the conclusion of
the ceremony, the prince of Eboli placed on the finger of the princess,
as a memento from her lord, a diamond ring of inestimable value; and the
beautiful Elizabeth, the destined bride of Don Carlos, became the bride
of the king his father. It was an ominous union, destined, in its
mysterious consequences, to supply a richer theme for the pages of
romance than for those of history.
The wedding was followed by a succession of brilliant entertainments,
the chief of which was the tournament,--the most splendid pageant of
that spectacle-loving age. Henry was, at that time, busily occupied with
the work of exterminating the Protestant heresy, which, as already
noticed, had begun to gather formidable head in the capital of his
dominions.[276] On the evening of the fifteenth of June, he attended a
session of the parliament, and arrested some of its principal members
for the boldness of their speech in his presence. He ordered them into
confinement, deferring their sentence till the termination of the
engrossing business of the tourney.
The king delighted in these martial exercises, in which he could display
his showy person and matchless horsemanship in the presence of the
assembled beauty and fashion of his court.[277] He fully maintained his
reputation on this occasion, carrying off one prize after another, and
bearing down all who encountered his lance. Towards evening, when the
games had drawn to a close, he observed the young count of Montgomery, a
Scotch noble, the captain of his guard, leaning on his lance, as yet
unbroken. The king challenged the cavalier to run a course with him for
his lady's sake. In vain the queen, with a melancholy boding of some
disaster, besought her lord to remain content with the laurels he had
already won. Henry obstinately urged his fate, and compelled the count,
though extremely loth, to take the saddle. The champions met with a
furious shock in the middle of the lists. Montgomery was a rude jouster.
He directed his lance with such force against the helmet of his
antagonist, that the bars of the visor gave way. The lance splintered; a
fragment struck the king with such violence on the temple as to lay bare
the eye. The unhappy monarch reeled in his saddle, and would have fallen
but for the assistance of the constable, the duke of Guise, and other
nobles, who bore him in their arms senseless from the lists. Henry's
wound was mortal. He lingered ten days in great agony, and expired on
the ninth of July, in the forty-second year of his age, and the
thirteenth of his reign. It was an ill augury for the nuptials of
Elizabeth.[278]
The tidings of the king's death were received with demonstrations of
sorrow throughout the kingdom. He had none of those solid qualities
which make either a great or a good prince. But he had the showy
qualities which are perhaps more effectual to secure the affections of a
people as fond of show as the nation whom Henry governed.[279] There
were others in the kingdom, however,--that growing sect of the
Huguenots,--who looked on the monarch's death with very different
eyes,--who rejoiced in it as a deliverance from persecution. They had
little cause to rejoice. The sceptre passed into the hands of a line of
imbecile princes, or rather of their mother, the famous Catherine de
Medicis, who reigned in their stead, and who ultimately proved herself
the most merciless foe the Huguenots ever encountered.
CHAPTER 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.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER 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.