We now turn to Italy, among the stationary nations the mother country of

constitutional liberty. And here we shall take for our guide the wise,

the just, the liberal Sismondi, whose larger work upon the Republics of

Italy ought to be translated into English, and studied by every

American. We cannot take time and space here to introduce the history of

the influence of the House of Austria upon Italy, by even a succinct

account of the origin of the imperial claims there. It may be

maintained, with some justice, that owing to previous circumstances of

situation, the Constitution of the kingdom of Italy, its prosperity, and

even its freedom, grew together, under the earlier German Emperors.

“But,” says Sismondi, “the war of investitures, which lasted more than

sixty years, having accomplished the dissolution of every tie between

the different members of the kingdom of Italy, the peace of Constance,

in 1183, by the establishment of a legal liberty, brought to a close the

first and most noble struggle which the nations of modern Europe have

ever maintained against despotism.” “By this peace, the emperor

renounced all the regal privileges which he had hitherto claimed in the

interior of towns. He acknowledged the right of the confederate cities

to levy armies, to enclose themselves within fortifications, and to

exercise, by their commissioners, within their own walls, both civil and

criminal jurisdiction. The consuls of towns acquired, _by the simple

nomination of the people_, all the prerogatives of imperial vicars. The

cities of Lombardy were further authorised to _strengthen their

confederation_ for the defence of these just rights. On the other side,

they engaged to maintain certain rights of the Emperor, which were

defined at the same time; and in order to avoid all disputes, it was

agreed that these rights might always be bought off by the annual sum of

2000 marks of silver.”

There were, it is true, some struggles afterwards, with regard to these

same rights, but the result of these struggles was, in the end, the

greater independence of Italy; and it was in consequence of domestic

troubles, of the ambition of the Popes within Italy, that the French

were first called thither. When Rodolph of Hapsburgh became Emperor, he

sacrificed imperial rights in Italy, which, on the whole, were more

favourable to its freedom than the influence of the house of Anjou,

which replaced them. But he did it without knowing it, and because his

sole object at the moment was to gain from Pope Gregory X. a recognition

of his title to the Empire. When he afterwards discovered what he had

ignorantly done, he made some movements to resume them, but he was

obliged, by Nicholas III., to acknowledge his own diplomas, and from

that period, 1278, the republics as well as the principalities, situated

in the whole extent of what is now called the States of the Church, held

of the Holy See, and not of the Emperor.

It was at the period when the Austrian family was first growing in

power, by preying on those parts of Europe nearer at hand, that, from a

variety of concurring causes, the Republics of Italy became the

paramount power in the Peninsula. Sismondi has given a beautiful picture

of its aspect at this time in his Italian Republics, Chap. V. We make a

single extract:

“The cities, surrounded with thick walls, terraced, and guarded by

towers, were, for the most part, paved with broad flagstones; while the

inhabitants of Paris could not stir out of their houses without plunging

into the mud. Stone bridges of an elegant and bold architecture were

thrown over rivers; aqueducts carried pure water to the fountains. The

palaces of the podestas and signorie united strength with majesty. The

most admirable of those of Florence, the Palazzo Vecchio, was built in

1298. The Loggia in the same city, the church of Santa Croce, that of

Santa Maria del Fiore, with its dome, so admired by Michæl Angelo, were

begun by the architect Arnolfo, scholar of Nicolas di Pisa, between the

years 1254 and 1300. The prodigies of this first born of the fine arts

multiplied in Italy: a pure taste, boldness, and grandeur struck the eye

in all the public monuments, and finally reached even private dwellings;

while the princes of France, England, and Germany, in building their

castles, seemed to think only of shelter and defence. Sculpture in

marble and bronze soon followed the progress of architecture: in 1300,

Andrea de Pisa, son of the architect Nicolas, cast the admirable bronze

gates of the Baptistery at Florence: about the same time, Cimabue and

Giotti revived the art of painting, Casella music, and Dante gave to

Italy his divine poem, unequalled in succeeding generations. History was

written honestly, with scrupulous research and with a graceful

simplicity, by Giovanni Villani, and his school; the study of morals and

philosophy began; and Italy, ennobled by freedom, enlightened nations

till then sunk in darkness.

“The arts of necessity and luxury had been cultivated with not less

success than the fine arts; in every street, warehouses and shops

displayed the wealth that Italy and Flanders only knew how to produce.

It excited the astonishment and cupidity of the French or German

adventurer, who came to find employment in Italy, and who had no other

exchange to make than his blood, against the rich stuffs and brilliant

arms which he coveted. The Tuscan and Lombard merchants, however,

trafficked in the barbarous regions of the West, to carry there the

produce of their industry. Attracted by the franchises of the fairs of

Champagne and Lyons, they went thither, as well to barter their goods,

as to lend their capital at interest to the nobles, habitually loaded

with debt; though at the risk of finding themselves suddenly arrested,

their wealth confiscated, by order of the king of France, and their

lives, too, sometimes endangered by sanctioned robbers, under the

pretext of repressing usury. Industry, the employment of a superabundant

capital, the application of mechanism and science to the production of

wealth, secured the Italians a sort of monopoly through Europe; they

alone offered for sale what all the rich desired to buy; and

notwithstanding the various oppressions of the barbarian kings,

notwithstanding the losses occasioned by their own often repeated

revolutions, their wealth was rapidly renewed. The workmen, the interest

of capital, and the profit of trade, rose simultaneously, while every

one gained much and spent little; manners were still simple, _luxury was

unknown_, and the future was not forestalled by accumulated debt.”

We might go on farther to speak of Pisa and Genoa. “It is difficult to

comprehend how two simple cities could put to sea such prodigious fleets

as those of Pisa and Genoa.” But we merely wish to point attention

towards what Italy was, when left to develop its genius, unrestrained by

foreign influence. We pass from this period of prosperity over two

hundred years, to the time when Maximilian entered into the league of

Cambray. In 1301, Boniface VIII. called Charles of Valois to intervene

in the affairs of Tuscany; and the same year the Papal Court was

transferred into France. In 1313, the emperor Henry VII. invaded Italy,

to intervene in the affairs of Lombardy. In 1327, Louis IV. followed,

for the same purpose; and later, Charles IV., his successor. This

foreign influence was against republicanism, in favour of the

aristocratical families who wished to tyrannise in their respective

states. When Charles VIII. of France invaded Italy, in 1492, there was

no longer to be found, throughout the peninsula, “that power of a

people, whose every individual will tends to the public weal; whose

efforts are all combined for the public benefit and the common safety.

The princes of that country could appeal only to order and the obedience

of the subject, not to the enthusiasm of the citizen, for the protection

of Italian independence.”

The league of Cambray, (we here translate rather freely from Sismondi’s

larger work), was the first enterprise in which all the civilised states

of Europe joined, after the crusades. For the first time, the sovereigns

of nations made an agreement to partition between themselves an

independent state; reviving, by means of pedantic erudition,

superannuated pretensions; and claiming imprescriptable rights of

legitimacy. The crusades had united Europe on the foundation of

religious zeal and enthusiasm;—in the league of Cambray was developed a

new principle of union, the personal and momentary interest of the

strong to despoil the weak. To this event we must assign the origin of

the international law (du droit public), which, for the last three

hundred and fifty years, has governed Europe. It commenced by the most

crying injustice; and the diplomatic science which was, as it were, born

with the sixteenth century, has served ever since to give pretexts to

rapacity and bad faith.

The league of Cambray was an agreement between the Pope, Louis XII., and

Maximilian I., to divide all the _terra firma_ of the Venetian states.

Pope Julius II. had the best foundation for his claims, which were for a

restitution to the States of the Church of what the Venetians had taken

from them by violence and treachery, in the preceding century. As he

could not obtain it from themselves, however, he consented to receive it

from the hands of Louis XII. and Maximilian, who combined to despoil the

republic. The claims of Louis XII. were made for provinces, which, when

he had subjugated Milan, he had himself ceded to the Venetians as the

price of their assistance to him, but which he now claimed on the score

of the imprescriptable right of the Visconti family, of which he had

become heir. Maximilian, on his side, regarded himself as the legitimate

successor, not only of the most powerful German monarchs, but of the

Roman emperors; and claimed all the powers which had been exercised by

Frederic Barbarossa, Otho the Great, and even by Trajan and Augustus.

It is difficult to do justice to the absurdity of these claims. As to

imprescriptible rights, says Sismondi: “Venice, which presented itself

as the most ancient state of Christendom, as the only legitimate

daughter of the Roman republic could plead rights anterior to those of

all the sovereigns.” “The only basis of international law (du droit

public), which can sustain profound examination, is that of national

compact. The interest of nations requires the preservation of their

repose; and to guarantee this repose, it may, in some instances, admit

legitimacy, not as a right, but as a presumption of the national will.

It may also admit prescription, not as a right, but as a presumption of

the mutual satisfaction of all parties. It may admit treaties as the

only means of disarming popular hatred, and of saving the vanquished

from the rage of the vanquisher; but then it must admit also the

violation of these same treaties, as the only and the necessary remedy,

when cruel and dishonorable conditions have been imposed by the abuse of

force. In this case the violation can even become just; for neither the

government which has stipulated has the right to bind the nation to a

shameful and ruinous thing, nor has the present generation a right, for

its own advantage, to bind posterity to their ruin. National interest,

which leaves a hope to the vanquished, on whom a dishonouring treaty has

been imposed, teaches the vanquishers, for their own sake, not to abuse

victory.” “But with whatever fallacious arguments the potentates who

despoiled Venice coloured their pretensions, cupidity, jealousy, and

envy, were the true motives which armed them. With less than three

millions of subjects, upon a territory of less extent than a sixth part

of France, of Spain, or of Germany, Venice ranked with the greatest

empires. It had sustained in turn, the attacks of Muselmen, French, and

Spaniards, without giving any signs of weakness; the richest commerce

animated the capital; numerous manufactories flourished in all the

surrounding cities; the fields prospered by an industrious agriculture;

immense water-works had been achieved, which enriched the soil; and the

people were happy. The subjects of the neighbouring monarchs, comparing

their own poverty with so much strength, opulence, and security, were

tempted to ask in what consisted the difference; and to answer to

themselves, that, in Venice were seen neither the senseless luxury of a

voluptuous court; nor the depradations of courtier-ministers and their

subalterns; nor the petulant ignorance, and ruinous intrigues, of their

young favourites. Venice, without pretending to give lessons, without

being near perfection, was yet a living satire upon other governments;

and the latter, by instinct and without being able to render an account

of their motives, had long desired to destroy it.”

To give all an interest in the destruction of the only state

sufficiently strong to maintain the independence of Italy, Louis and

Maximilian agreed to divide between themselves all the _terra firma_ of

the Venetians; to abandon to Ferdinand all the fortresses in Apulia; to

the pope, the lordships in Romagna, and to the houses of Este and

Gonzaga, the small districts near the Po.”

The war began, January 1509, by the Pope’s excommunicating the Doge and

the Republic, and France commencing hostilities. In the war, there was

nothing so terrible to the Venetians as the action of the German army of

Maximilian. “No sooner did the Germans enter the Venetian cities, than

they plunged into the most brutal debauchery; offending public decency,

and exercising their cruelty and rapacity on all those who came within

their reach.” At the siege of Padua, after great efforts on the part of

Maximilian, the incredible valour of the Venetians, who had driven into

the city most of their forces, induced him to raise the siege. “But

these barbarians, who came to dispute with the Italians the sovereignty

of their country, did not need success to prove their ferocity. After

having taken from the poor peasant, or the captive, all that he

possessed, they put him _to the torture_ to discover hidden treasure, or

to extort ransom from the compassion of friends.—In this abuse of brute

force, the Germans showed themselves the most savage, &c.”

And Maximilian personally made himself responsible for these horrors.

“Pope Julius II. soon began to hate his accomplices in the league of

Cambray. Violent and irascible, he had often shown in his fits of

passion that he could be as cruel as the worst of them. But he had the

soul of an Italian. He could not brook the humiliation of his country

and its being enslaved by those whom he called barbarians. Having

recovered the cities of Romagna, the subject of his quarrel with the

Venetians, he began to make advances to them. At the end of the first

campaign, he entered into negotiations, and on the 21st of February,

1510, granted them absolution. He was aware that he could never drive

the barbarians out of Italy but by arming them against each other; and

as the French were those he most feared, he had recourse to the Germans.

It was necessary to begin with reconciling the Venetians to the emperor;

but Maximilian, always ready to undertake everything, and incapable of

bringing anything to a conclusion, would not relax in a single article

of what he called his rights. As emperor, he considered himself monarch

of all Italy, and although he was always stopped on its frontier, he

refused to renounce the smallest part of what he had purposed

conquering. He asserted that the whole Venetian territory had been

usurped from the empire; and before granting peace to the republic,

demanded almost its annihilation.”

War, of course, was continued, and in the course of three years the

French were driven from Italy, and an alliance formed between Venice and

France, for the purpose of driving out the Germans. This alliance was

inherited, or renewed by Francis I., who encountered the enemy at

Marignano, in the battle of which Marshal Trivulzio declared that every

other of the eighteen pitched battles he had seen seemed to him

children’s play in comparison. At this battle of the giants, as he

termed it, 20,000 dead were left on the field. “This horrible butchery

hastened the conclusion of the wars which arose from the league of

Cambray. On the 15th of January, 1516, a peace was signed between France

and Spain, and Maximilian alone remained at war with the republic.

During the campaign of that year, his German army continued to commit

the most enormous crimes in the Veronese March. Want of money, however,

in the end, compelled Maximilian to consent to the treaty of Noyon,

already signed by the French king. He evacuated Verona on the 14th of

December, and the Venetians were once more put by the French in

possession of all the states of which the league of Cambray had proposed

the partition; but their wealth was annihilated, their population

reduced to one half, their constitution itself broken; and they were

never after in a state to make those efforts for the independence of

Italy, which might have been expected from them before this devastating

war.”

When Maximilian died, January 19th, 1519, leaving his hereditary states

of Austria to his grandson Charles, already sovereign of Spain, the two

Sicilies, the Low Countries and Burgundy, Italy, indeed the whole of

Europe, was endangered by the immeasurable growth of this young

monarch’s power. “Leo X. therefore made preliminaries for an alliance

with Francis I., in order to strengthen himself against him. But

suddenly, with characteristic want of reflection, changing sides, he

signed a secret treaty with Charles V. to engage him to drive the French

out of Italy. The question for Italy was now no longer the distribution

of its provinces between different potentates, but its very existence.

Foreign nations for the future were to fight their battles on its

ground, and at its expense. Leo’s inconsiderate action compromised the

independence even of the States of the Church, where perhaps yet

remained a germ of the individuality of Italy among the nations. Of all

the misfortunes that ever came upon Italy, none was so terrible in its

instant barbarity, or so hopeless for its future, (for it sealed its

ruin,) as this war in Italy of Charles V. against Francis I. As our

purpose is more especially to illustrate the character of Charles, as a

member of the House of Hapsburgh, it is of no consequence that the

object aimed at in this instance was the aggrandizement of Spain, rather

than of the archduchy of Austria, which was now ceded to Ferdinand I. We

are obliged, from this time, to look in two directions for the crimes of

the family. While Ferdinand, in the East of Europe, was destroying

Bohemian liberties, and encroaching upon Hungary, Charles began his

successes in Lombardy with the siege of Pavia, which ended in the defeat

of the French, and the imprisonment of Francis I.; and soon Italy fully

comprehended that it was at the mercy of the conqueror.

It is not possible, in this slight work of ours, to explain

intelligibly, to those not familiar with the history of this period, how

it was, that at this moment all things concurred to put Italy so much

into the power of a single man. Sismondi, in his larger work on the

Italian republics, makes it perfectly clear. We must content ourselves

with stating the fact; and alas for the country that had no hope for its

rights but in the mercy and the justice of a member of the House of

Hapsburgh!

“The evil destiny of Italy was accomplished by Charles V., although it

was the French Charles VIII., who, by invading the country thirty-six

years before, had opened its gates to the transalpine nations. They

inflicted on her calamities beyond example in history; calamities so

much the more keenly felt, as the sufferers were more civilized, the

authors more barbarous. The French invasion ended in giving to the

greatest enemies of France the dominion of that country, so rich, so

industrious, and of which the possession was sought ardently by all.

Never would the House of Austria have achieved the conquest of Italy, if

Charles VIII., Louis XII., and Francis I., had not previously destroyed

the wealth and military organization of the nation; if they had not

themselves introduced the Spaniards into the kingdom of Naples, and the

Germans into the states of Venice; forgetful that both must soon after

be subject to Charles V.”

We must, however, go back from these generalities, to a statement of the

facts which we shall take from Sismondi’s Italian Republics.

“The secret treaty between Leo and the Emperor Charles V. was signed on

May 8th, 1521.” “The Pope united his army to that of the Emperor in the

kingdom of Naples; the command of it was given jointly to Prospero

Colonna and the marquis Pescara: war was declared on the 1st of August,

and the imperial and pontifical troops entered Milan on the 19th

November: but in the midst of the joy of this first success, Leo X.

died,” leaving “his successors in a state of distress, which was

unjustly attributed to them, and which rendered them odious to the

people; for the war into which he had plunged them, without any

reasonable motive, was the most disastrous of all those which had yet

afflicted unhappy Italy. There remained no power truly Italian that

could take any part in it for her defence. Venice was so exhausted by

the war of the league of Cambray, that she was forced to limit her

efforts to the maintenance of her neutrality, and was hardly powerful

enough to make even her neutral position respected. Florence remained

subject to Giulio de’ Medici. The republics of Sienna and Lucca were

tremblingly prepared to obey the strongest.” “The kingdom of Naples was

governed and plundered by the Spaniards. After the French had lost the

duchy of Milan, Francesco Sforza, who had been brought back by the

imperialists, possessed only the name of sovereign. He had never been

for a moment independent; he had never been able to protect his subjects

from the tyranny of the Spanish and German soldiers, who were his

guards. Finally, the marquis de Montferrat and the duke of Savoy had

allowed the French to become masters in their states, and had no power

to refuse them passage to ravage oppressed Italy anew.”

The first hostilities resulted in the French General’s evacuating

Lombardy, partly through the defection of his Swiss allies. The next

year Francis I. made himself master of Milan, and attempted the siege of

Pavia, where he was attacked by Pescara, and, after a murderous battle,

made prisoner. These transactions occupied more than two years, during

which time the imperial army, unpaid and unprovisioned by Charles, lived

at free quarters upon unhappy Lombardy. In the course of the year 1525,

there was much negotiation with respect to the ransom of Francis, and

efforts, nearly successful, were made by Jerome Molone of Milan, to arm

all Italy in vindication of her independence; these were frustrated

through the duplicity and treason of Pescara, who died on the 30th of

November, 1525 at the age of thirty-six, abhorred by all Italy.

“Charles, abusing the advantages which he had obtained, imposed on

Francis the treaty of Madrid, signed on the 14th of January, 1526, by

which the latter abandoned Italy and the duchy of Burgundy. He was set

at liberty on the 18th of March following, and almost immediately

declared to the Italians that he did not regard himself bound by a

treaty extorted from him by force. On the 22nd of May, he signed a

league for the liberty of Italy with Clement VII., the Venetians, and

Francesco Sforza, but still did not abandon the policy of his mother;

instead of thinking in earnest of restoring Italian independence, and

thus securing the equilibrium of Europe, he had only one purpose, that

of alarming Charles with the Italians; and was ready to sacrifice them

as soon as the emperor should abandon Burgundy. At the same time his

supineness, love of pleasure, distrust of his fortune, and repugnance to

violate the treaty of Madrid, hindered him from fulfilling any of the

engagements which he had contracted towards the Italians; he sent them

neither money, French cavalry, nor Swiss forces. Charles, on the other

hand, sent no supplies to pay his armies to Antonio de Leyva, the

constable Bourbon, and Hugo de Monçada, their commanders. These troops

were therefore obliged to live at free quarters, and the oppression of

the whole country was still more dreadful than it had ever been.

“The defection of the duke of Milan, in particular, gave a pretence to

Antonio de Leyva to treat the wretched Milanese with redoubled rigour,

as if they could be responsible for what Leyva called the treachery of

their master. The Spanish army was quartered on the citizens of Milan;

and there was not a soldier who did not make his host a prisoner,

keeping him bound at the foot of the bed, or in the cellar, for the

purpose of having him daily at hand, to force him, by blows or fresh

torture, to satisfy some new caprice; as soon as one wretched person

died of his sufferings, or broke his bond and ended his sufferings by a

voluntary death, either precipitating himself through a window or into a

well, the Spaniard passed into another house to recommence on its

proprietor the same torture. The Venetians and the Pope had united their

forces, under the command of the duke of Urbino, who, exaggerating the

tactics of Prospero Colonna, was ambitious of no other success in war

than that of avoiding battle. He announced to the Senate of Venice, that

he would not approach Milan till the French and Swiss, whose support he

had been promised, joined him. This inaction, while witnessing so many

horrors, reduced the Italians to despair. Sforza, who had been nine

months blockaded in the castle of Milan, and who always hoped to be

delivered by the duke of Milan, whose colours were in sight, supported

the last extremity of hunger before he surrendered to the Spaniard, on

the 24th of July, 1526. The Pope, meanwhile, was far from suspecting

himself in any danger, but his personal enemy, Pompeo Colonna, took

advantage of the name of the Imperial party to raise in the papal state

8000 armed peasants, with whom, on the 20th of September, he surprised

the Vatican, pillaged the palace, as well as the temple of St. Peter,

and constrained the Pope to abjure the alliance of France and Venice.

About the same time, George de Frundsberg, a German condottiere, entered

Lombardy with 13,000 adventurers, whom he had engaged to follow him, and

serve the emperor without pay, contenting themselves with the pillage of

that unhappy country.

The constable Bourbon, to whom Charles had given the chief command of

his forces in Italy, determined to take advantage of this new army, and

unite it to that for which at Milan he had now no further occasion; but

it was not without great difficulty that he could persuade the Spaniards

to quit that city, where they had enjoyed the savage pleasure of

inflicting torture on their hosts. At length, however, he succeeded in

leading them to Pavia. On the 30th of January, 1527, he joined

Frundsberg, who died soon after of apoplexy. Bourbon now remained alone

charged with the command of this formidable army, already exceeding

25,000 men, and continually joined on its route by disbanded soldiers

and brigands intent on pillage. The constable had neither money,

equipments, nor artillery, and very few cavalry; every town shut its

gates on his approach, and he was often on the point of wanting

provisions. He took the road of Southern Italy, and entered Tuscany,

still uncertain whether he should pillage Florence or Rome. The marquis

of Saluzzo, with a small army, retreated before him; the duke of Urbino

followed in his rear, but always keeping out of reach of battle. At

last, Bourbon took the road to Rome, by the valley of the Tiber. On the

5th of May, 1527, he arrived before the Capital of Christendom. Clement,

long alarmed at his march, had, on the 15th of March, signed a truce of

eight months with the viceroy of Naples, and dismissed his troops, never

imagining that one of the emperor’s lieutenants would not respect the

engagements of the other. On the approach of Bourbon, however, the walls

of Rome were again mounted with the engines of war. The next day, the

6th of May, this renegade prince led his troops to the assault of the

city. He was killed near the Janiculum, while mounting the first scaling

ladder. His fall did not stop the terrific band of robbers which he led.

The victorious army scaled the walls, which were ill defended, and

spread terror through the quarters of the Borgo, Vatican, and

Trastevere. In a few hours they were masters of the whole city, Clement

having neglected to destroy the bridges of the Tiber.

“The capital of Christendom was then abandoned to a pillage unparalleled

in that most calamitous period of the first triumph of barbarism over

civilization: neither Alaric the Goth, nor Genseric the Vandal, had

treated it with like ferocity. Not only was all that could be seized in

every house and every shop carried off, but the peasants of the fiefs of

Colonna took possession of the heavy furniture which did not tempt the

cupidity of the soldier. From the day when these barbarians entered the

city, all personal protection was withdrawn; women were abandoned to the

outrages of the victors; and sanctuaries, enriched by the veneration of

Christendom for twelve centuries, were devoted to spoliation. Men,

women, and children were seized, whenever their captors could flatter

themselves that they had concealed some treasure, or that there was any

one sufficiently interested for them to pay their ransom. Every house

resounded with the cries and lamentations of wretched persons thus

subjected to the torture; and this dreadful state of crime and agony

lasted not merely days, _but was prolonged for more than_ NINE _months_:

it was not till the 17th of February, 1528, that the prince of Orange,

one of the French lords, who had accompanied Bourbon in his rebellion,

finally withdrew from Rome all of this army that vice and disease had

spared. The Germans, indeed, after the first few days, had sheathed

their swords to plunge into drunkenness and the most cruel debauchery;

but the Spaniards, up to the last hour of their stay in Rome,

indefatigable in their cold-blooded cruelty, continued to invent fresh

torture to extort new ransoms from all who fell into their hands; even

the plague, the consequence of so much suffering, moral and physical,

which broke out amidst all these horrors, did not make the rapacious

Spaniard loose his prey.

“A struggle between the Italians, feebly seconded by the French, and the

generals of Charles V., was prolonged yet more than two years after the

sack of Rome; but it only added to the desolation of Italy, and

destroyed alike in all the Italian provinces, the last remains of

prosperity.” “The banditti whom Charles V. called his soldiers, whom he

never paid, and who showed no disposition to obedience, were cantoned at

Milan, Rome, and the principal cities of Italy: they divided their time

between debauchery, and the infliction of torture on their hosts; their

officers were unable to induce them to leave the towns, and advance

towards the enemy. The people, in the excess of suffering, met every

change with eagerness, and received Lantrec (the French commander) as a

deliverer.” He passed the Tronto on the 10th of February, 1528; lost

valuable time in Apulia, where he took and sacked Melfi on the 23d of

March, and did not arrive till the 1st of May before Naples.

“The prince of Orange had just entered the city with the army which had

sacked Rome, but of which the greater part had been carried off by a

dreadful mortality, the consequence and punishment of its vices and

crimes. Instead of vigorously attacking them, Lantrec, in spite of the

warm remonstrances of his officers, persisted in reducing Naples by

blockade; thus exposing his army to the influence of a destructive

climate.”... “The inhabitants of Naples experienced the most cruel

privations, and sickness soon made great havoc amongst them: but a

malady not less fatal broke out in the French camp.” “In the middle of

June, the French reckoned 25,000 men; by the 2d of August not 4000 were

left fit for service.” “Lantrec himself died on the 15th of August, and

almost all his officers.” The marquis de Saluces, on whom the command

devolved, felt the necessity of a retreat, but knew not how to secure it

in presence of such a superior force. He tried to escape from the

imperialists, by taking advantage of a tremendous storm in the night of

the 29th of August: but was soon pursued and overtaken at Aversa, where,

on the 30th, he was forced to capitulate. The magazines and hospitals at

Capua were, at the same time, given up to the Spaniards. The prisoners

and the sick were crowded together in the stables of the Magdalen, where

contagion acquired new force. The Spaniards foresaw it, and watched with

indifference the agony and death of all; for nearly all of that

brilliant army perished—a few invalids only ever returned to France.

“During this campaign, another French army, conducted by François de

Bourbon, Count de St. Pol, had entered Lombardy, at the moment when

Henry, duke of Brunswick, led thither a German army. Henry, finding

nothing more to pillage, announced that his mission was to punish a

rebellious nation, and put to the sword ALL _the inhabitants_ of the

villages through which he passed. Milan was at once a prey to famine and

the plague, aggravated by the cupidity and the cold-blooded ferocity of

Leyva, who seized ALL the provisions brought in from the country; and to

profit by the general misery, resold them at an enormous price.”

“The winter passed in suffering and inaction. The following year, Leyva

surprised the Count de St. Pol, at Landriano, on the 21st of June, 1529,

and made him prisoner with all his principal officers. This was the last

military incident of this dreadful war.”

“Peace was ardently desired on both sides; negotiations were actively

carried on; but every potentate sought to deceive his ally, in order to

obtain better conditions from his adversary. Margaret of Austria, the

sister of the emperor’s father, and Louisa of Savoy, the mother of the

king of France, met at Cambray; and in a conference, to which no

witnesses were admitted, arranged what was called “Le traité des dames.”

Clement VII. had, at the same time, a nuncio at Barcelona, who

negotiated with the emperor. The latter was impatient to arrange the

affairs of Italy, in order to pass into Germany. On the 20th of June,

1529, Charles signed at Barcelona a treaty of perpetual alliance with

the Pope: by it he engaged to sacrifice the republic of Florence to the

Pope’s vengeance, and to place in the service of Clement, in order to

accomplish it, all the brigands who had previously devastated Italy.

Florence was to be given in sovereignty to the bastard Alexander de’

Medici, who was to marry an illegitimate daughter of Charles V. On the

5th of August following, Louis and Margaret signed the treaty of

Cambray, by which Francis abandoned, without reserve, all his Italian

allies to the caprices of Charles; who, on his side, renounced Burgundy,

and restored to Francis his two sons, who had been retained as hostages.

Charles arrived at Genoa, on board the fleet of Andrea Doria, on the

12th of August. The Pope awaited him at Bologna, into which he made his

entry on the 5th of November. He summoned thither all the princes of

Italy, or their deputies, and treated them with more moderation than

might have been expected after the shameful abandonment of them by

France. As he knew the health of Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, to be

in a declining state, which promised but few years of life, he granted

him the restitution of his duchy, for the sum of 900,000 ducats, which

Sforza was to pay at different times; they had not all fallen due when

that prince died, on the 24th of October, 1535, without issue, and his

estates escheated to the emperor. On the 23d of December, 1529, Charles

granted peace to the Venetians, who restored him only some places in

Apulia, and gave up Ravenna and Cernia to the Pope.

“On the 20th of March, Alphonso d’Este also signed a treaty, by which he

referred his differences with the Pope to the arbitration of the

emperor. Charles did not pronounce on them till the following year. He

conferred on Alphonso the possession of Modena, Reggio, and Rubbiera, as

fiefs of the empire; and he made the Pope give him the investiture of

Ferrara. On the 15th of March, 1530, a diploma of the emperor raised the

marquisate of Mantua to a duchy, in favor of Frederick de Gonzaga. The

duke of Savoy and the marquis de Montferrat, till then protected by

France, arrived at Bologna, to place themselves under the protection of

the emperor. The duke of Urbino was recommended to him by the Venetians,

and obtained some promises of favor. The republics of Genoa, Sienna, and

Lucca, had permission to vegetate under the imperial protection; and

Charles, having received from the Pope at Bologna, on the 22d of

February and 24th of March, the two crowns of Lombardy and of the

empire, departed in the beginning of April for Germany, in order to

escape witnessing the odious service, in which he consented that his

troops should be employed against Florence.”

“A period of three centuries of weakness, humiliation, and suffering, in

Italy, began in the year 1530: from that time she has been always

oppressed by foreigners, and enervated and corrupted by her masters.

These last have reproached her with the vices of which they were

themselves the authors. After having reduced her to the impossibility of

resisting, they have accused her of cowardice when she submitted, and of

rebellion when she made efforts to vindicate herself. The Italians,

during this long period of slavery, have been agitated with the desire

of becoming once more a nation; as, however, they had lost the direction

of their own affairs, they ceased to have any history which could be

called theirs; their misfortunes have become but episodes in the

histories of other nations.”

Sismondi closes his history of the Italian Republics, with an account of

the successive fall of all the republics, which still remained

independent after the coronation of Charles V. Florence had been on the

point of recovering its liberty from the tyranny of the Medici, when the

constable Bourbon approached the walls in his march to Rome, on the 26th

of April, 1527; but the terror inspired by that army of brigands,

repressed the movement. When they heard, however, of the taking of Rome,

the Florentines rose with firmness, expelled the Medici, and restored

the republic. Michæl Angelo completed the fortifications of Florence, in

1529. On the other hand, “Clement VII. sent against his native city that

very prince of Orange, the successor of Bourbon, who had made him

prisoner at Rome; and with him that very army of robbers which had

overwhelmed the Holy See, and its subjects, with misery and every

outrage. This army entered Tuscany, September, 1529.” Florence

capitulated, after immense but vain efforts at defence, on the 12th of

August, 1530.

Into Sienna, Charles V. introduced a Spanish garrison, but the Siennese,

unable to bear the pride, cupidity, and ferocity of the Spanish, drove

them out the 11th of August, 1552. In 1555, after incredible sufferings,

it capitulated, the 2nd of April, 1555. The Spaniards retained

possession, nevertheless, for two years, and death and exile were the

lot of the generous citizens to whom amnesty had been promised.

In 1556 Burtamachi of Lucca made an attempt to restore liberty to the

Tuscan cities, which were all to be organized with popular constitutions

and confederate. The plot was discovered, Burtamachi executed, and the

city given up to a small oligarchy for the next two hundred and fifty

years. “Genoa, which had received the name of republic through Charles

V.’s connivance (who had needed its services in the war of 1528), was

governed by a narrow aristocracy, founded by Andrea Doria, who at the

same time “attached his country to the house of Austria, with a

submission which the greater number of Genoese felt as a deep

humiliation.” In 1547 the conspiracy of the French nearly destroyed this

government; Vachero’s conspiracy, in 1628, was also abortive. “But the

spirit of the ancient Italian republics was not extinguished among the

people of Genoa, as among the nobles.” In the war of the Austrian

succession, in 1746, they made alliance with the Bourbons. “The

Austrians appeared before Genoa; and the senate, which dared not arm the

population, opened their gates to them. The Austrians abused, as they

have ever done, the favours of fortune. They exacted from Genoa a

contribution of 9,000,000 of florins to the empire, a sum which that

city was not in a condition to pay. They seized all the money in the

bank, all the plate of the churches, and even the property of

individuals.” To these injuries they added insults which at length

roused the people, who, having no other arms, attacked their oppressors

with stones from the streets, and tiles torn from the houses, till,

notwithstanding a firing by the soldiers that filled many houses with

the dead, the streets were covered with dead Austrians, and the rest

fled in terror. These mostly perished on the barren mountains around the

city; for the Genoese retained their advantage till the treaty of

Aix-la-Chapelle secured their republic against Austria, under the

protection of the French.

Venice employed all the sixteenth century in endeavouring to repair the

disasters of the league of Cambray. Its policy was, especially during

the seventeenth century, to throw off the yoke of Austria, but it knew

its own weakness too well to make an open movement. During the Thirty

Years’ War, however, it gave succour to the Protestants of Germany, to

Bethlehem Gabor, and to Ragotski in Hungary. “But the attacks of the

Turks made it necessary for the Venetians to make friendly advances to

Austria; and as its own government grew more aristocratic, and odious

with despotism, it became more and more timid. It attempted to be

neutral in the war of the Spanish succession. In the French war of 1796

it actually took the side of Austria; but when Bonaparte declared war

against it, in 1797, Austria, with characteristic ingratitude, refused

all assistance; and at the peace of Santo Formio took possession of

Venice, and part of its states. But after the French made themselves

masters of Vienna, she was obliged by the treaty of Presburg to restore

Venice to the kingdom of Italy.

Thus, after Italy lost its liberty, in the first half of the fifteenth

century, four of the five nominal republics became narrow aristocracies.

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Napoleon Bonaparte effected a

momentary resurrection of this beautiful country. “Five millions and a

half of inhabitants in the kingdom of Italy were put in possession of a

constitution, securing the participation of numbers in the government,

which is the essence of a republic.” Six millions and a half in the

kingdom of Naples received institutions less advanced, it is true; but

even there the law had succeeded arbitrary power; public and oral

evidence had succeeded secret information and the torture; equality, the

feudal system of education, instead of retrograding, had been rendered

progressive; and thought, as well as religious conscience, had recovered

freedom. Finally, five millions and a half, (Piedmontese, Genoese,

Parmesans, Tuscans, and Romans,) were temporarily united to France,

“secure that at no very distant period, when their political education

should be accomplished, they would again be incorporated in that Italy

to the future liberty and glory of which they now directed every

thought.”

“It has been the work of the _coalition_ to destroy all; to place Italy

again under the galling yoke of Austria; to take from her, with

political liberty, civil and religious freedom, and even freedom of

thought; to corrupt her morals, and to heap upon her the utmost degree

of humiliation. Italy is unanimous in abhorring this ignominious yoke;

Italy, to break it, has done all that could be expected of her. In a

struggle between an established government and a nation, the former has

all the advantage; it has in its favour rapidity of communication,

certainty of information, soldiers, arsenals, fortresses, and finances.

The people have only their unarmed hands, and their masses _unaccustomed

to act together_: nevertheless, in every struggle with its oppressors,

during these fifteen years, in Italy, (Sismondi wrote in 1832,) the

victory has remained with the people. At Naples, in Sicily, in Piedmont,

in the states of the Church, at Modena and Parma, unarmed masses have

seized the arms of the soldiers; men chosen by the people have taken the

places of the despots in their palaces. The Italians, everywhere

victorious over their own tyrants, have, it is true, been everywhere

forced back under the yoke, with redoubled cruelty, by the league of

foreign despots. Attacked before they could have given themselves a

government, or formed a treasury, arsenals, or an army, by the sovereign

of another nation, who reckons not less than 30,000,000 of subjects,

they did not attempt a hopeless resistance, which would have deprived

them of every chance for the future.”

“Europe will know no repose till the nation which, in the dark ages,

lighted the torch of civilization with that of liberty, shall be enabled

herself to enjoy the light which she created.”

But we must now turn our regards upon SPAIN, which the Austrian family,

in the person of the ruthless conqueror of Italy, had taken into its

_Christian_ (?) guardianship, by right of his mother, Joanna of Castile.

It is not perhaps sufficiently well known, that Spain, as well as the

other countries of Europe, received from its Gothic and Vandalic

ancestors the germs of constitutional government, which, from peculiar

circumstances attending the Saracen conquest, were preserved in singular

purity in the several kingdoms of Spain, that were afterwards united

under Ferdinand and Isabella. Robertson, in a view of the state of

Europe, which he prefixes to his biography of Charles V., says:—

“Notwithstanding the singular revolution which the invasion of the Moors

occasioned in Spain, and the peculiarity of its fate, in being so long

subject to the Mahomedan yoke, the customs introduced by the Vandals and

Goths had taken such deep root, and were so thoroughly incorporated with

the frame of its government, that in every province which the Christians

recovered from the Moors, we find the condition of individuals, as well

as the political constitution, nearly the same as in other nations of

Europe.”

“The royal prerogative was circumscribed within such narrow bounds as

reduced the power of the sovereign almost to nothing. The privileges of

the nobility were great in proportion, and extended so far as to border

on absolute independance. The immunities of the cities were likewise

greater than in other feudal kingdoms; they possessed considerable

influence in the arts, and they aspired at obtaining more.”

In Spain also, as in other countries where the germs of constitutional

liberty existed, as the best legacy of their northern ancestry, there

was a struggle for development, which the conservative historians

uniformly stigmatize as “turbulence” and “want of respect to law,”

though in fact it is an aspiration for a government of laws rather than

of persons.

“In 1492,” says Robertson, “in the principality of Catalonia, which was

annexed to the kingdom of Aragon, the impatience of the people to obtain

the redress of their grievances having prompted them to take arms

against their sovereign John II., they, by a solemn deed, recalled the

oath of allegiance which they had sworn to him, declared him and his

posterity to be unworthy of the throne, and endeavoured to establish a

republican form of government, in order to secure the perpetual

enjoyment of that liberty after which they aspired. Nearly about the

same period, the indignation of the Castilian nobility against the weak

and flagitious administration of Henry IV. having led them to combine

against him, they arrogated, as one of the privileges belonging to their

order, the right of trying and of passing sentence on their sovereign.

That the exercise of this power might be as public and solemn, as the

pretension to it was bold, they summoned all the nobility of their party

to meet at Avila; a spacious theatre was erected in a plain, without the

walls of the town; an image, representing the king, was seated on a

throne, clad in royal robes, with a crown on its head, a sceptre in its

hand, and the sword of justice by its side.

“The accusation against the king was read, and the sentence of

deposition was pronounced, in presence of a numerous assembly. At the

close of the first article of the charge, the archbishop of Toledo

advanced, and tore the crown from the head of the image; at the close of

the second, the Conde de Placentia snatched the sword of justice from

its side; at the close of the third, the Conde de Beneventi wrested the

sceptre from its hand; at the close of the last, Don Diego Lopez de

Stuniga tumbled it headlong from the throne. At the same instant, Don

Alphonso, Henry’s brother, was proclaimed king of Castile and Leon, in

his stead.

“The most daring leaders of faction would not have ventured on these

measures, nor have conducted them with such public ceremony, if the

sentiments of the people concerning the royal dignity had not been so

formed by the laws and policy, to which they were accustomed both in

Castile and Catalonia, as prepared them to approve of such extraordinary

proceedings, or to acquiesce in them.

“In Aragon, the form of government was monarchical, but the genius and

maxims of it were purely republican. The kings, who were long elective,

retained only the shadow of power; the real exercise of it was in the

Cortes or parliament of the kingdom. This supreme assembly was composed

of four different arms or members. The nobility of the first rank; the

equestrian order, or nobility of the second class; the representatives

of the cities and towns, whose right to a place in the Cortes, if we may

give credit to the historians of Aragon, was coëval with the

constitution; the ecclesiastical order, composed of the dignitaries of

the church, together with the representatives of the inferior clergy. No

law could pass in this assembly without the assent of every single

member who had a right to vote. Without the permission of the Cortes, no

tax could be imposed; no war could be declared; no peace could be

concluded; no money could be coined; nor could any alteration be made in

the current specie. The power of reviewing the proceedings of all

inferior courts, the privilege of inspecting every department of

administration, and the right of redressing all grievances, belonged to

the Cortes. Nor did those who conceived themselves to be aggrieved,

address the Cortes in the humble tone of suppliants, and petition for

redress; they demanded it as the birthright of freemen, and required the

guardians of their liberty to decide with respect to the points which

they laid before them. This sovereign court was held during several

centuries, every year; but in consequence of a regulation introduced

about the beginning of the fourteenth century, it was convoked from that

period only once in two years. After it was assembled, the king had no

right to prorogue or dissolve it without its own consent; and the

session continued forty days.

“Not satisfied with having erected such formidable barriers against the

encroachments of the royal prerogative, nor willing to commit the sole

guardianship of their liberties entirely to the vigilance and authority

of an assembly, similar to the diets, states-general, and parliaments,

in which the other feudal nations have placed so much confidence, the

Aragonese had recourse to an institution peculiar to themselves, and

elected a Justiza or supreme judge.

“This magistrate, whose office bore some resemblance to that of the

Ephori in ancient Sparta, acted as the protector of the people and the

comptroller of the prince.

“The person of the Justiza was sacred, his power and jurisdiction almost

unbounded. He was the supreme interpreter of the laws. Not only inferior

judges, but the kings themselves, were bound to consult him in every

doubtful case, and to receive his responses with implicit deference. An

appeal lay to him from the royal judges, as well as from those appointed

by the barons within their respective territories. Even when no appeal

was made to him, he could interpose by his own authority, prohibit the

ordinary judge to proceed, take immediate cognizance of the cause

himself, and remove the party accused to the Manifestation or prison of

the state, to which no person had access but by his permission. His

power was exerted with no less vigour and effect in superintending the

administration of government, than in regulating the course of justice.

“It was the prerogative of the Justiza to inspect the conduct of the

King. He had a title to review all the royal proclamations and patents,

and to declare whether or not they were agreeable to law, and ought to

be carried into execution. He, by his sole authority, could exclude any

of the king’s ministers from the conduct of affairs, and call them to

answer for their mal-administration.

“He himself was accountable to the Cortes only, for the manner in which

he discharged the duties of this high office; and performed functions of

the greatest importance that could be committed to a subject.”

It is evident from the bare enumeration of the privileges of the

Aragonese Cortes, as well as of the rights belonging to the Justiza,

that a very small portion of power remained in the hands of the King.

The Aragonese seem to have been solicitous that their monarchs should

know and feel this state of impotence to which they were reduced.

Even in swearing allegiance to their sovereign, an act which ought

naturally to be accompanied with professions of submission and respect,

they devised an oath, in such a form, as to remind him of his dependence

on his subjects. “We,” said the Justiza to the king in the name of his

high-spirited barons, “who are each of us as good, and who are

altogether more powerful than you, promise obedience to your government,

if you maintain our rights and liberties; but if not, not.” Conformably

to this oath they established it as a fundamental article in their

constitution, that if the king should violate their rights and

privileges it was lawful for the people to disclaim him as their

sovereign, and to elect another, even though a heathen, in his place.

The attachment of the Aragonese to this singular constitution of

government was extreme, and their respect for it approached to

superstitious veneration. In the preamble to one of their laws, they

declare, that such was the barrenness of their country, and the poverty

of the inhabitants, that, if it were not on account of the liberties by

which they were distinguished from other nations, the people would

abandon it, and go in quest of a settlement to some more fruitful

region.

“In Castile, there were not such peculiarities in the form of

government, as to establish any remarkable distinction between it and

that of the other European nations. The executive part of government was

committed to the king, but, with a prerogative extremely limited. The

legislative authority resided in the Cortes, which was composed of the

nobility, the dignified ecclesiastics, and the representatives of the

cities. The assembly of the Cortes in Castile was very ancient, and

seems to have been almost coëval with the constitution. The members of

the three different orders, who had a right of suffrage, met in one

place, and deliberated as one collective body; the decisions of which

were regulated by the sentiments of the majority. The right of imposing

taxes, of enacting laws, and of redressing grievances, belonged to this

assembly; and in order to secure the assent of the king to such statutes

and regulations as were deemed salutary or beneficial to the kingdom, it

was usual in the Cortes to take no step towards granting money, until

all business relative to the public welfare was concluded. The

representatives of cities seem to have obtained a seat very early in the

Cortes of Castile, and soon acquired such influence and credit as were

very uncommon, at a period when the splendor and pre-eminence of the

nobility had eclipsed or depressed all other orders of men. The number

of members from cities bore such a proportion to that of the whole

collective body, as rendered them extremely respectable in the Cortes.

The degree of consideration which they possessed in the state may be

estimated by one event. Upon the death of John I., a council of regency

was appointed to govern the kingdom during the minority of his son.

“It was composed of an equal number of noble men and of deputies chosen

by the cities; the latter were admitted to the same rank, and invested

with the same powers, as prelates and grandees of the first order. But

though the members of communities in Castile were elevated above the

condition wherein they were placed in other kingdoms of Europe; though

they had attained to such political importance that even the proud and

jealous spirit of the feudal aristocracy could not exclude them from a

considerable share in the government; yet the nobles, notwithstanding

these acquisitions of the commons, continued to assert the privileges of

their order, in opposition to the crown, in a tone extremely high. There

was not any body of nobility in Europe more distinguished for

independence of spirit, haughtiness of deportment, and bold pretensions,

than that of Castile. The history of that monarchy affords the most

striking examples of the vigilance with which they observed, and of the

vigour with which they opposed, every measure of their kings that tended

to encroach on their jurisdiction, to diminish their dignity, or to

abridge their power. Even in their ordinary intercourse with their

monarchs, they preserved such a consciousness of their rank, that the

nobles of the first order claimed it as a privilege to be covered in the

royal presence, and approached their sovereign rather as equals than as

subjects.

“The constitutions of the subordinate monarchies, which depended upon

the crowns of Castile and Aragon, nearly resembled those of the kingdoms

to which they were annexed.

“In all of them, the dignity and independence of the nobles were great;

the immunities and power of the cities were considerable.

“An attentive observation of the singular situation of Spain, as well as

the various events which occurred there, from the invasion of the Moors

to the union of the kingdom, under Ferdinand and Isabella, will discover

the causes to which all the peculiarities in its political constitution

I have pointed out, ought to be ascribed.

“As the provinces of Spain were wrested from the Mahomedans gradually

and with difficulty, the nobles who followed the standard of any eminent

leader in these wars, conquered not for him alone but for themselves.

They claimed a share in the lands which their valour had won from the

enemy, and their prosperity and power increased, in proportion as the

territory of the prince extended.

“During their perpetual wars with the Moors, the monarchs of the several

kingdoms in Spain depended so much on their nobles, that it became

necessary to conciliate their good will by successive grants of new

honours and privileges. By the time that any prince could establish his

dominions in a conquered province, the greater part of the territory was

parcelled out by him among his barons, with such jurisdiction and

immunities as raised them almost to sovereign power.

“At the same time, the kingdoms erected in so many different corners of

Spain, were of inconsiderable extent. The petty monarch was but little

elevated above his nobles. They, feeling themselves to be almost his

equals, acted as such; and could not look up to the kings of such

limited domains with the same reverence that the sovereigns of the great

monarchies in Europe were viewed by their subjects. While these

circumstances concurred in exalting the nobility, and in depressing the

royal authority, there were other causes which raised the cities in

Spain to consideration and power.

“As the open country, during the wars with the Moors, was perpetually

exposed to the excursions of the enemy, with whom no peace or truce was

so permanent as to prove any lasting security, self-preservation obliged

persons of all ranks to fix their residence in places of strength. The

castles of the barons, which in other countries afforded a commodious

retreat from the depredations of banditti, or from the transient

violence of any interior commotion, were unable to resist an enemy whose

operations were conducted with regular and persevering vigour. Cities,

in which great numbers united for their mutual defence, were the only

places in which people could reside with any prospect of safety. To this

was owing the rapid growth of those cities in Spain of which the

Christians recovered possession. All who fled from the Moorish yoke

resorted to them, as to an asylum; and in them the greater part of those

who took the field against the Mahomedans established their families.

“Several of these cities, during a longer or shorter course of years,

were the capitals of little states, and enjoyed all the advantages which

accelerate the increase of the inhabitants in every place that is the

seat of government.

“From these concurring causes, the number of cities in Spain at the

beginning of the fifteenth century had become considerable, and they

were peopled far beyond the proportion which was common in other parts

of Europe, except in Italy and the Low Countries. The Moors had

introduced manufactures into those cities while under their dominion.

The Christians who, by intermixture with them, had learned their arts,

continued to cultivate them.

“Trade, in several of the Spanish towns, appears to have been carried on

with vigour; and the spirit of commerce continued to preserve the number

of their inhabitants, as the sense of danger had first induced them to

crowd together. As the Spanish cities were populous, many of the

inhabitants were of a rank superior to those who resided in towns in

other countries in Europe.

“That cause, which contributed chiefly to their population, affected

equally persons of every condition, who flocked thither promiscuously,

in order to find shelter there, or in hopes of making a stand against

the enemy, with greater advantage than in any other station. The persons

elected as their representatives in the Cortes by the cities, or

promoted to offices of trust and dignity in the government of the

community, were often of such considerable rank in the kingdom, as

reflected lustre on their constituents, and on the stations wherein they

were placed.

“As it was impossible to carry on a continual war against the Moors

without some other military force than that which the barons were

obliged to bring into the field, in consequence of the feudal tenures,

it became necessary to have some troops, particularly a body of light

cavalry, in constant pay. It was one of the privileges of the nobles,

that their lands were exempt from the burden of taxes. The charge of

supporting the troops requisite for the public safety fell wholly on the

cities; and their kings being frequently obliged to call upon them for

aid, found it necessary to gain their favour by concessions, which not

only extended their immunities, but added to their wealth and power.

“When the influence of all these circumstances, peculiar to Spain, is

added to the general and common causes which contributed to aggrandize

cities in other countries of Europe, this will fully account for the

extensive privileges which they acquired, as well as for the

extraordinary consideration to which they attained, in all the Spanish

kingdoms.

“By these exorbitant privileges of the nobility, and this unusual power

of the cities in Spain, the royal prerogative was hemmed in on every

side, and reduced within very narrow bounds. Sensible of this, and

impatient of such restraint, several monarchs endeavoured, at various

junctures, and by different means, to enlarge their own jurisdiction.

Their power, however, or their abilities, were so unequal to the

undertaking, that their efforts were attended with little success.”

But when Ferdinand and Isabella found themselves at the head of the

united kingdoms of Spain, and delivered from the danger and interruption

of domestic wars, they were not only in a condition to resume, but were

able to prosecute with advantage, the schemes of extending the

prerogative, which their ancestors had attempted in vain. Ferdinand’s

profound sagacity in concerting his measures, his persevering industry

in conducting them, and his uncommon address in carrying them into

execution, fitted him admirably for an undertaking which required all

these talents. He undertook to extend the royal prerogative, by

abridging the privileges and power of the nobility, and circumscribing

their jurisdiction. He also annexed the grandmasterships of the three

religious orders to the crown.

“By address, by promises, and by threats, he prevailed on the knights of

each order to place Isabella and himself at their head. Innocent VIII.

and Alexander VI. gave this election the sanction of papal authority,

and subsequent pontiffs rendered the annexation of these masterships to

the crown perpetual.” But Ferdinand also did something of a very

opposite nature, in order to abridge, and at length be able to

annihilate the territorial jurisdiction of the nobility. He countenanced

and supported the association of the cities of Aragon and Castile,

called the Holy Brotherhood, and which dated as far back as 1260.

“This brotherhood exacted a certain contribution from each of the

associated towns; they levied a considerable body of troops, in order to

protect travellers and to pursue criminals; they appointed judges, who

opened their courts in various parts of the kingdom.

“Whoever was guilty of murder, robbery, or of any act that violated the

public peace, and was seized by the troops of the Brotherhood, was

carried before judges of their nomination, who, without paying any

regard to the exclusive and sovereign jurisdiction which the lord of the

place might claim, tried and condemned the criminal. By the

establishment of this fraternity, the prompt and impartial

administration of justice was restored, and, together with it, internal

tranquillity and order began to return. The nobles alone murmured at

this salutary institution. They complained of it as an encroachment on

one of their most valuable privileges. They remonstrated against it in a

high tone; and, on some occasions, refused to grant any aid to the

crown, unless it were abolished.

“Ferdinand, however, not only saw the good effects of the Holy

Brotherhood, with respect to the police of his kingdoms, but perceived

its tendency to abridge, and at length to annihilate, the territorial

jurisdiction of the nobility. He countenanced it on every occasion. He

supported it with the whole force of royal authority; and, besides the

expedients employed by him in common with the other monarchs of Europe,

he availed himself of this institution, which was peculiar to his

kingdom, in order to limit and abolish that independent jurisdiction of

the nobility, which was no less inconsistent with the authority of the

prince than with the order of society.

“But though Ferdinand by these measures considerably enlarged the

boundaries of the prerogative, and acquired a degree of influence and

power far beyond what any of his predecessors had enjoyed, yet the

limitations of the royal authority, as well as the barriers against its

encroachments, continued to be many and strong. The spirit of liberty

was vigorous among the people of Spain; the spirit of independence was

high among the nobility; and though the love of glory, peculiar to the

Spaniards in every period of their history, prompted them to support

Ferdinand with zeal in his foreign operations, and to afford him such

aid as enabled him not only to undertake, but to execute great

enterprises, he reigned over his subjects with a jurisdiction less

extensive than that of any of the great monarchs of Europe.

“During a considerable part of the reign of his successor, Charles V.,

the prerogative of the Spanish Crown was equally circumscribed.”

The Cortes of Castile were indeed prevailed on to proclaim him king, on

condition that his mother should resume her authority, if she ever

recovered her reason, and at the same time they voted him a free gift of

600,000 ducats, to be paid in three years; a sum more considerable than

had ever been granted to any former monarch.

But the Castilians speedily became discontented with Charles, on account

of the favour he bestowed exclusively upon the Flemings, who engrossed

all honours, offices, and benefices, and who remitted into the Low

Countries, in the course of ten months, no less a sum than a million one

hundred thousand ducats.

The opposition Charles had to struggle with in the Cortes of Aragon was

more violent and obstinate than that which he had overcome in Castile;

after long delays, however, and with much difficulty, he persuaded the

members to confer on him the title of king in conjunction with his

mother. At the same time he bound himself by that solemn oath, which the

Aragonese exacted of their kings, never to violate any of their rights

or liberties. When a donation was demanded they were still more

intractable. Many months elapsed before they would agree to grant

Charles 200,000 ducats.

From Aragon Charles proceeded to Catalonia, where he wasted as much

time, encountered more difficulties, and gained less money.

Meanwhile the oppressive schemes of the Flemings provoked a confederacy

of Segovia, Toledo, Seville, and several other cities of the first rank,

for the defence of their rights and privileges; “and notwithstanding the

silence of the nobility who, on this occasion,” says Robertson,

“testified neither the public spirit nor the resolution which became

their order, the confederates laid before the king a full view of the

kingdom and of the mal-administration of his favourites. The confederacy

of these cities, at this juncture, was the beginning of that famous

union among the commons of Castile, which not long after threw the

kingdom into such violent convulsions as shook the throne, and almost

overturned the constitution.

“Charles’s election to the imperial crown increased the dissatisfaction.

To be deprived of the presence of their sovereign, and to be subjected

to the government of a viceroy and his council, were the immediate

consequences of this new dignity. To see the blood of their countrymen

shed in quarrels wherein the nation had no concern, to behold its

treasures wasted in supporting the splendor of a foreign title; to be

plunged into the chaos of Italian and German politics, were effects of

this event almost as unavoidable.”

An insurrection in Valencia, directed against the oppression of the

grandees, which was great in that kingdom, gave rise to an association

that laid their grievances before Charles, who, irritated at the moment

against the nobles who had opposed his going to Germany, authorized them

to continue in arms. Upon which they expelled all the nobles from the

city, and committed the government to magistrates of their own election,

and distinguished their conviction by the name of Germanada.

The cities of Castile also associated to crave redress of wrongs from

Charles, but he artfully avoided admitting their deputation, and

summoned the Cortes of Castile to meet at Compostella, in Galicia. He

called this assembly only to obtain another donative, in order to appear

in Germany with splendour suited to the Imperial dignity. To appoint a

meeting of the Cortes in so remote a province, and to demand a new

subsidy before the time for paying the former was expired, were

innovations of a most dangerous tendency; and among a people not only

jealous of their liberties, but accustomed to supply the wants of their

sovereigns with a very frugal hand, excited an universal alarm. The

magistrates of Toledo remonstrated against both these measures in a very

high tone; the inhabitants of Valladolid, who expected that the Cortes

would have been held in that city, were so enraged, that they took arms

in a tumultuary manner; and if Charles, with his foreign counsellors,

had not fortunately made their escape during a violent tempest, they

would have massacred all the Flemings, and have prevented him from

continuing his journey towards Compostella.

“Every city through which he passed petitioned against holding a Cortes

in Galicia, a point with regard to which Charles was inflexible. But

though the utmost influence had been exerted by the ministers, in order

to procure a choice of representatives favourable to their designs, such

was the danger, that, at the opening of the assembly, there appeared

among many of the members unusual symptoms of ill-humour which

threatened a fierce opposition to all the measures of the court. No

representatives were sent by Toledo; for the lot, according to which, by

ancient custom, the election was determined in that city, having fallen

upon two persons devoted to the Flemish ministers, their fellow-citizens

refused to grant them a commission in the usual form, and in their stead

made choice of two deputies, whom they empowered to repair to

Compostella, and to protest against the lawfulness of the Cortes

assembled there. The representatives of Salamanca refused to take the

usual oath of fidelity, unless Charles consented to change the place of

meeting. Those of Toro, Madrid, Cordova, and several other places,

declared the demand of another donative to be unprecedented,

unconstitutional, and unnecessary. All the arts, however, which

influence popular assemblies, bribes, promises, threats, and even force,

were employed, in order to gain members. The nobles, soothed by the

respectful assiduity with which Chievres and the other Flemings paid

court to them, or instigated by a mean jealousy of that spirit of

independence which they saw rising among the commons, openly favoured

the pretensions of the court, or at the utmost did not oppose them; and

at last, in contempt not only of the sentiments of the nation, but of

the ancient forms of the constitution, a majority voted to grant the

donative for which the emperor had applied. Together with this grant,

the Cortes laid before Charles a representation of those grievances

whereof his people complained, and in their name craved redress; but he,

having obtained from them all that he could expect, paid no attention to

this ill-timed petition, which it was no longer dangerous to disregard.”

No sooner was it known that the Cortes in Galicia had granted Charles a

free gift without obtaining the redress of any one grievance, than it

produced a civil war. There was an insurrection at Toledo, Segovia,

Burgos, and other cities, which Adrian, whom Charles had left regent in

Spain, failed to put down, and after having been defeated at Segovia,

disbanded his troops. Robertson says:

“Nor were the proceedings of the commons the effects merely of popular

and tumultuary rage; they aimed at obtaining redress of their political

grievances, and an establishment of public liberty on a secure basis,

objects worthy of all the zeal which they discovered in contending for

them. The feudal government in Spain was at that time in a state more

favourable to liberty than in any other of the great European kingdoms.

This was owing chiefly to the number of great cities in that country, a

circumstance I have already taken notice of, and which contributes more

than any other to mitigate the rigour of the feudal institutions, and to

introduce a more liberal and equal form of government. The inhabitants

of every city formed a great corporation, with valuable immunities and

privileges; they were delivered from a state of subjection and

vassalage; they were admitted to a considerable share in the

legislature; they had acquired the arts of industry, without which

cities cannot subsist; they had accumulated wealth, by engaging in

commerce; and being free and independent themselves, were ever ready to

act as the guardians of the public freedom and independence. The genius

of the internal government established among the inhabitants of cities,

which, even in countries where despotic power prevails most, is

democratical and republican, rendered the idea of liberty familiar and

dear to them. Their representatives in the Cortes were accustomed, with

equal spirit, to check the encroachments of the king and the oppression

of the nobles. They endeavoured to extend the privileges of their own

order; they laboured to shake off the remaining incumbrances with which

the spirit of feudal policy, favourable only to the nobles, had burdened

them; and conscious of being the most considerable orders in the state,

were ambitious of becoming the most powerful.”

Hence a general convention was held for a new association, that assumed

the name of the Holy Junta; which, through the resolution of their

leader Padilla, obtained possession of the person of Joanna, and carried

on the government in her name; “as the Castilians,” says Robertson, “who

idolized the memory of Isabella, retained a wonderful attachment to her

daughter, no sooner was it known that she had consented to assume the

reins of government, than the people expressed the most universal and

immoderate joy; and believing her recovery to be complete, ascribed it

to a miraculous interposition of Heaven, in order to rescue their

country from the oppression of foreigners. The Junta, conscious of the

reputation and power which they had acquired by seeming to act under the

royal authority, were no longer satisfied with requiring Adrian to

resign the office of regent; they detached Padilla to Valladolid with a

considerable body of troops, ordering him to seize such members of the

council as were still in that city, to conduct them to Tordesillas, and

to bring away the seals of the kingdom, the public archives and treasury

books. Padilla, who was received by the citizens as the deliverer of his

country, executed his commission with great exactness; permitting

Adrian, however, still to reside in Valladolid, though only as a private

person, and without any shadow of power.

“The emperor, to whom frequent accounts of these transactions were

transmitted while he was still in Flanders, was sensible of his own

imprudence and that of his ministers, in having despised too long the

murmurs and remonstrances of the Castilians. He beheld, with deep

concern, a kingdom, the most valuable of any he possessed, and in which

lay the strength and sinews of his power, just ready to disown his

authority, and on the point of being plunged in to all the miseries of

civil war. But though his presence might have averted this calamity, he

could not, at that time, visit Spain without endangering the Imperial

crown, and allowing the French king full leisure to execute his

ambitious schemes. The only point now to be deliberated upon, was,

whether he should attempt to gain the malcontents by indulgence and

concessions, or prepare directly to suppress them by force; and he

resolved to make trial of the former, while, at the same time, if that

should fail of success, he prepared for the latter. For this purpose, he

issued circular letters to all the cities of Castile, exhorting them in

most gentle terms, and with assurance of full pardon, to lay down their

arms; he promised such cities as had continued faithful, not to exact

from them the subsidy granted in the late Cortes, and offered the same

favour to such as returned to their duty; he engaged that no office

should be conferred for the future upon any but native Castilians. On

the other hand, he wrote to the nobles, exciting them to appear with

vigour in defence of their own rights, and those of the crown, against

the exorbitant claims of the commons; he appointed the high admiral Don

Fadrique Enriquez, and the high constable of Castile, Don Inigo de

Velasco, two noblemen of great abilities as well as influence, regents

of the kingdom in conjunction with Adrian; and he gave them full power

and instructions, if the obstinacy of the malcontents should render it

necessary, to vindicate the royal authority by force of arms.

“These concessions, which, at the time of his leaving Spain, would have

fully satisfied the people, came now too late to produce any effect. The

Junta, relying on the unanimity with which the nation submitted to their

authority, elated with the success which hitherto had accompanied all

their undertakings, and seeing no military force collected to defeat or

obstruct their designs, aimed at a more thorough reformation of

political abuses. They had been employed for some time in preparing a

remonstrance, containing a large enumeration, not only of the grievances

of which they craved redress, but of such new regulations as they

thought necessary for the security of their liberties. This

remonstrance, which is divided into many articles relating to all the

different members of which the constitution was composed, as well as the

various departments in the administration of government, furnishes us

with more authentic evidence concerning the intentions of the Junta,

than can be drawn from the testimony of the later Spanish historians,

who lived in times when it became fashionable and even necessary to

represent the conduct of the malcontents in the worst light, and as

flowing from the worst motives. After a long preamble concerning the

various calamities under which the nation groaned, and the errors and

corruption in government to which these were to be imputed, they take

notice of the exemplary patience wherewith the people had endured them,

until self-preservation, and the duty which they owed to their country,

had obliged them to assemble, in order to provide in a legal manner for

their own safety, and that of the constitution: For this purpose they

demanded that the king would be pleased to return to his Spanish

dominions and reside there, as all their former monarchs had done; that

he would not marry but with consent of the Cortes; that if he should be

obliged at any time to leave the kingdom, it shall not be lawful to

appoint any foreigner to be regent; that the present nomination of

Cardinal Adrian to that office shall instantly be declared void; that he

would not, at his return, bring along with him any Flemings or other

strangers; that no foreign troops shall, on any pretence whatever, be

introduced into the kingdom; that none but natives shall be capable of

holding any office or benefice either in church or state; that no

foreigner shall be naturalized; that free quarters shall not be granted

to soldiers, nor to the members of the king’s household, for any longer

time than six days, and that only when the court is in progress; that

all the taxes shall be reduced to the same state they were in at the

death of queen Isabella; that all alienations of the royal demesnes or

revenues since that queen’s death shall be resumed; that all new offices

created since that period shall be abolished; that the subsidy granted

by the late Cortes in Galicia shall not be exacted; that in all future

Cortes each city shall send one representative of the clergy, one of the

gentry, and one of the commons, each to be elected by his own order;

that the crown shall not influence or direct any city with regard to the

choice of its representatives; that no member of the Cortes shall

receive an office or pension from the king, either for himself or for

any of his family, under pain of death, and confiscation of his goods;

that each city or community shall pay a competent salary to its

representative for his maintenance during his attendance on the Cortes;

_that the Cortes shall assemble once in three years at least, whether

summoned by the king or not_, and shall then enquire into the

observation of the articles now agreed upon, and deliberate concerning

public affairs; that the rewards which have been given or promised to

any of the members of Cortes held in Galicia, shall be revoked; that it

shall be declared a capital crime to send gold, silver, or jewels out of

the kingdom; that judges shall have fixed salaries assigned them, and

shall not receive any share of the fines and forfeitures of persons

condemned by them; that no grant of the goods of persons accused shall

be valid, if given before sentence was pronounced against them; that all

privileges which the nobles have at any time obtained, to the prejudice

of the commons, shall be revoked; that the government of cities or towns

shall not be put into the hands of noblemen; that the possessions of the

nobility shall be subject to all public taxes in the same manner as

those of the commons; that such prelates as do not reside in their

dioceses six months in the year, shall forfeit their revenues during the

time they are absent; that the ecclesiastical judges and their officers

shall not exact greater fees than those which are paid in the secular

courts; that the king shall ratify and hold, as good service done to him

and to the kingdom, all the proceedings of the Junta, and pardon any

irregularities which the cities may have committed from an excess of

zeal in a good cause; that he shall promise and swear in the most solemn

manner to observe all these articles, and on no occasion attempt either

to elude, or to repeal them; and that he shall never solicit the pope or

any other prelate to grant him a dispensation or absolution from this

oath and promise.

“Such were the chief articles presented by the Junta to their sovereign.

As the feudal institutions in the several kingdoms of Europe were

originally the same, the genius of those governments which arose from

them bore a strong resemblance to each other, and the regulations which

the Castilians attempted to establish on this occasion, differ little

from those which other nations have laboured to procure in their

struggles with their monarchs for liberty. The grievances complained of,

and the remedies proposed by the English commons in their contests with

the princes of the house of Stuart, particularly resemble those upon

which the Junta now insisted. But the principles of liberty seem to have

been better understood, at this period, by the Castilians, than by any

other people in Europe; they had acquired more liberal ideas with

respect to their own rights and privileges; they had formed more bold

and generous sentiments concerning government; and discovered an extent

of political knowledge to which the English themselves did not attain

until more than a century afterwards.

“But the spirit of reformation among the Castilians, hitherto

unrestrained by authority, and emboldened by success, prompted the Junta

to propose innovations which, by alarming the other members of the

constitution, proved fatal to their cause. The nobles, who, instead of

obstructing, had favoured or connived at their proceedings, while they

confined their demands of redress to such grievances as had been

occasioned by the king’s want of experience, and by the imprudence and

rapaciousness of his foreign ministers, were filled with indignation

when the Junta began to touch the privileges of their order, and plainly

saw that the measures of the commons tended no less to break the power

of the aristocracy, than to limit the prerogatives of the crown. The

resentment which they had conceived on account of Adrian’s promotion to

the regency, abated considerably upon the emperor’s raising the

constable and admiral to joint power with him in that office; and as

their pride and dignity were less hurt by suffering the prince to

possess an extensive prerogative, than by admitting the high pretensions

of the people, they determined to give their sovereign the assistance

which he had demanded of them, and began to assemble their vassals for

that purpose.

“The Junta, meanwhile, expected with impatience the emperor’s answer to

their remonstrance, which they had appointed some of their number to

present. The members intrusted with this commission set out immediately

for Germany, but having received at different places certain

intelligence from court, that they could not venture to appear there

without endangering their lives, they stopped short in their journey,

and acquainted the Junta with the information which had been given them.

This excited such violent passions as transported the whole party beyond

all bounds of prudence or of moderation. That a king of Castile should

deny his subjects access into his presence, or refuse to listen to their

humble petitions, was represented as an act of tyranny so unprecedented

and intolerable, that nothing now remained but with arms in their hands

to drive away that ravenous band of foreigners which encompassed the

throne, who, after having devoured the wealth of the kingdom, found it

necessary to prevent the cries of an injured people from reaching the

ears of their sovereign. Many insisted warmly on approving a motion

which had formerly been made, for depriving Charles, during the life of

his mother, of the regal titles and authority which had been too rashly

conferred upon him, from a false supposition of her total inability for

government. Some proposed to provide a proper person to assist her in

the administration of public affairs, by marrying the queen to the

prince of Calabria, the heir of the Aragonese kings of Naples, who had

been detained in prison since the time that Ferdinand had dispossessed

his ancestors of their crown. All agreed that, as the hopes of obtaining

redress and security merely by presenting their requests to their

sovereign, had kept them too long in a state of inaction, and prevented

them from taking advantage of the unanimity with which the nation

declared in their favour, it was now necessary to collect their whole

force, and to exert themselves with vigour, in opposing this fatal

combination of the king and the nobility against their liberties.

“They soon took the field with twenty thousand men. After some success

and many mistakes in their military operations, the Junta was finally

defeated at Villalar, April 22d, 1522, and Padilla, their General, was

taken prisoner, and put to death the next day without even the form of a

trial. He spent the night in writing two letters, one to the city of

Toledo, and one to his wife.” They are his sufficient eulogy, and we

shall insert them here.

_The Letter of Don John Padilla to the City of Toledo._

“To thee, the crown of Spain, and the light of the whole world, free

from the time of the mighty Goths: to thee, who, by shedding the blood

of strangers, as well as thy own blood, hast recovered liberty for

thyself and thy neighbouring cities, thy legitimate son, Juan de

Padilla, gives information, how by the blood of his body, thy ancient

victories are to be refreshed. If fate hath not permitted my actions to

be placed among your successful and celebrated exploits, the fault hath

been in my ill fortune, not in my good will. This I request of thee as

of a mother, to accept, since God hath given me nothing more to lose for

thy sake, than that which I am now to relinquish. I am more solicitous

about thy good opinion than about my own life. The shiftings of fortune,

which never stands still, are many. But this I see with infinite

consolation, that I, the least of thy children, suffer death for thee,

and that thou hast nursed at thy breasts such as may take vengeance for

my wrongs. Many tongues will relate the manner of my death, of which I

am still ignorant, though I know it to be near. My end will testify what

was my desire. My soul I recommend to thee as to the patroness of

Christianity. Of my body I say nothing, for it is not mine. I can write

nothing more, for at this very moment I feel the knife at my throat,

with greater dread of thy displeasure, than apprehension of my own

pain.”

_The Letter to his Wife._

“SENORA,

“If your grief did not afflict me more than my own death, I should deem

myself perfectly happy. For the end of life being certain to all men,

the Almighty confers a mark of distinguishing favour upon that person,

for whom he appoints a death such as mine, which though lamented by

many, is nevertheless acceptable unto him. It would require more time

than I now have, to write anything that could afford you consolation.

_That_ my enemies will not grant me, nor do I wish to delay the

reception of that crown which I hope to enjoy. You may bewail your own

loss, but not my death, which, being so honourable, ought not to be

lamented by any. My spirit, for nothing else is left to me, I bequeath

to you. You will receive it, as the thing in this world which you value

most. I do not write to my father Pero Lopez, because I dare not; for

though I have shown myself to be his son in daring to lose my life, I

have not been the heir of his good fortune. I will not attempt to say

anything more, that I may not tire the executioner, who waits for me;

and that I may not excite a suspicion, that, in order to prolong my

life, I lengthen out my letter. My servant Sosia, an eyewitness, and to

whom I have communicated my most secret thoughts, will inform you of

what I cannot now write, and thus I rest, expecting the instrument of

your grief, and of my deliverance.” Sandov. Hist. vol. i. p. 478.

Padilla’s widow, Donna Maria Pacheco, showed herself worthy of her

husband, and prosecuted that cause in defence of which he had suffered.

“Respect for her sex, or admiration for her courage and abilities, as

well as sympathy with her misfortunes, and veneration for the memory of

her husband, secured her the same ascendant over the people which he had

possessed. The prudence and vigour with which she acted, justified that

confidence they placed in her. She wrote to the French general in

Navarre, encouraging him to invade Castile by the offer of powerful

assistance. She endeavoured by her letters and emissaries to revive the

spirit and hopes of the other cities. She raised soldiers, and exacted a

great sum from the clergy belonging to the cathedral, in order to defray

the expense of keeping them on foot. She employed every artifice that

could interest or inflame the populace. For this purpose she ordered

crucifixes to be used by her troops instead of colours, as if they had

been at war with the infidels and enemies of religion; she marched

through the streets of Toledo with her son, a young child, clad in deep

mourning seated on a mule, having a standard carried before him,

representing the manner of his father’s execution. By all these means

she kept the minds of the people in such perpetual agitation as

prevented their passions from subsiding, and rendered them insensible of

the dangers to which they were exposed, by standing alone in opposition

to the royal authority. While the army was employed in Navarre, the

regents were unable to attempt the reduction of Toledo by force; and all

their endeavours, either to diminish Donna Maria’s credit with the

people, or to gain her by large promises and the solicitations of her

brother the Marquis de Mondecar, proved ineffectual. Upon the expulsion

of the French out of Navarre, part of the army returned into Castile,

and invested Toledo. Even this made no impression on the intrepid and

obstinate courage of Donna Maria. She defended the town with vigour, her

troops in several sallies beat the royalists, and no progress was made

towards reducing the place, until the clergy, whom she had highly

offended by invading their property, ceased to support her. As soon as

they received information of the death of William de Croy, archbishop of

Toledo, whose possession of that see was their chief grievance, and that

the emperor had named a Castilian to succeed him, they openly turned

against her, and persuaded the people that she had acquired such

influence over them, by the force of enchantments, that she was assisted

by a familiar dæmon which attended her in the form of a Negro-maid, and

that by its suggestions she regulated every part of her conduct. The

credulous multitude, whom their impatience of a long blockade, and

despair of obtaining succours either from the cities formerly in

confederacy with them, or from the French, rendered desirous of peace,

took arms against her, and driving her out of the city, surrendered it

to the royalists. She retired to the citadel, which she defended with

amazing fortitude four months longer; and when reduced to the last

extremities, she made her escape in disguise, and fled to Portugal,

where she had many relations.

“Upon her flight, the citadel surrendered. Tranquillity was

re-established in Castile; and this bold attempt of the commons, like

all unsuccessful insurrections, contributed to confirm and extend the

power of the crown, which it was intended to moderate and abridge. The

Cortes still continued to make a part of the Castilian constitution, and

was summoned to meet whenever the king stood in need of money; but

instead of adhering to their ancient and cautious form of examining and

redressing public grievances, before they proceeded to grant any supply,

the more courtly custom of voting a donative in the first place was

introduced, and the sovereign having obtained all that he wanted, never

allowed them to enter into any inquiry, or to attempt any reformation

injurious to his authority. The privileges which the cities had enjoyed

were gradually circumscribed or abolished; _their commerce began from

this period to decline_; and becoming less wealthy and less populous,

they lost that power and influence which they had acquired in the

Cortes.”

Meanwhile there was civil war in Valencia, carried on by the Germanada,

to whom Charles had formerly granted the use of arms, against the

nobility, with whom he was, at the time of the grant, angry. At first he

left the nobles to fight their own battle, but after the victory of

Villalar he dispatched to their assistance a body of Castilian cavalry;

the insurrection was put down, and the republican government that had

been established was overthrown, the leaders suffering most cruel

deaths.

There were also disaffections in Aragon, and a formidable insurrection

in Majorca, and it seems as if it was only to the circumstance, that the

several kingdoms of Spain did not make common cause, that Charles owed

the preservation of his Spanish crowns.

On his return to Spain, after these commotions, he acted with the cool

prudence characteristic of him. After a rebellion so general, scarcely

twenty persons were punished capitally, and this clemency, together with

his care to avoid giving more offence, conciliated the war-wearied

people. The nobles also supported his authority against the commons,

whose late movements had been to them no less terrific than to the

emperor.

But it was only because Charles had not the power to do otherwise, that

he showed this clemency. In 1539, when wanting money to pay the Imperial

army, which had served him in Italy and elsewhere, “he assembled the

Cortes of Castile at Toledo, and having represented to them the

extraordinary expense of his military operations, together with the

great debts in which these had necessarily involved him, he proposed to

levy such supplies as the present exigency of his affairs demanded, by a

general excise on commodities. But the Spaniards already felt themselves

oppressed with a load of taxes unknown to their ancestors. They had

often complained that their country was drained not only of its wealth

but of its inhabitants, in order to prosecute quarrels in which it was

not interested, and to fight battles from which it could reap no

benefit, and they determined not to add voluntarily to their own

burdens, or to furnish the Emperor with the means of engaging in new

enterprises, no less ruinous to the kingdom than most of those which he

had hitherto carried on. The nobles, in particular, inveighed with great

vehemence against the imposition proposed, as an encroachment upon the

valuable and distinguishing privilege of their order, that of being

exempted from the payment of any tax. They demanded a conference with

the representatives of the cities concerning the state of the nation.

They contended that if Charles would imitate the example of his

predecessors, who had resided constantly in Spain, and would avoid

entangling himself in a multiplicity of transactions foreign to the

concerns of his Spanish dominions, the stated revenues of the crown

would be fully sufficient to defray the necessary expenses of

government. They represented to him, that it would be unjust to lay new

burdens upon the people, while this prudent and effectual method of

reëstablishing public credit, and securing national opulence, was

totally neglected. Charles, after employing arguments, entreaties, and

promises, but without success, in order to overcome their obstinacy,

dismissed the assembly with great indignation. From that period neither

the nobles nor the prelates have been called to these assemblies, on

pretence that such as pay no part of the public taxes, should not claim

any vote in laying them on. None have been admitted to the Cortes but

the procurators or representatives of eighteen cities. These, to the

number of thirty-six, being two from each community, form an assembly

which bears no resemblance either in power, or dignity, or independence,

to the ancient Cortes, and are absolutely at the devotion of the court

in all their determinations. Thus the imprudent zeal with which the

Castilian nobles had supported the regal prerogative, in opposition to

the claims of the commons during the commotions in the year 1521, proved

at last fatal to their own body. By enabling Charles to depress one of

the orders in the state, they destroyed that balance to which the

constitution owed its security, and put it in his power, or in that of

his successors, to humble the other, and to strip it gradually of its

most valuable privileges.”

Thus coolly, and without a groan of sympathy, does Robertson relate a

crime which extinguished a great nation.

But in this instance, it must be confessed, that the crime is less

liable to awaken the indignation of the historian and his readers,

because Might seems to _have made_ Right; this last outrage was not

resisted. When Charles V. thus coolly drove the ploughshare of

destruction over the constitutional rights of Spain, we cannot but

wonderingly inquire, where are those proud and turbulent Aragonese,

Catalonians, Castilians, from whom he and his courtiers so narrowly

escaped with life, when, in order to force from them 200,000 ducats, he

removed the Cortes from Valladolidto Compostella, by an exertion of his

royal prerogative? Where are those “Children of Toledo,” invoked by the

dying Padilla to take vengeance for the wrongs he suffered in their

cause? Whither, oh, whither has fled the spirit of the Holy Junta? What

has Spain been doing in these last score of years, that it should be so

changed? The ruthless will to destroy their constitutional rights in

Charles V.—that can surprise us no longer; that is the inherited spirit,

the essence of the family of Hapsburgh. How can any finite thing grow,

_except after its kind_? What is wonderful is not that Charles, with the

Pope, and Italy, and Flanders at his feet with the imperial army of

Germany to execute his behests, so managing by his cold diplomacy and

cunning hypocrisy all these forces, that they know not well what they

are doing it is not wonderful that all this was too much for the

material forces of Spain, or of any nation whatever, but it is

wonderful, and it needs explanation, that, in Spain itself, not a battle

was fought to sow the blood-seeds of a future harvest, not a solitary

voice even uttered the death-shriek of freedom over their

blood-honoured, time-honoured constitutional rights at the moment they

were finally strangled.

We must, in fact, look in another quite different direction for the

explanation of this fact, and, though it takes us a little out of the

course of our appointed work, we shall take leave to do so.

Liberty, that uncontained, uncontainable _spirit_, which is the life of

all life, at once its origin and its end, _what_ is it, _where_ is it?

_Where the Spirit of the Lord is_, says the apostle, _there is liberty_.

But let us not repeat these words technically; let us at once, ‘clearing

our minds of cant,’ seize upon their meaning. In vain for us is the

Spirit of the Lord, unless it is _incarnated_; and yet, when it becomes

incarnate, let us realize that none the less is it the uncontained and

uncontainable, and to be worshipped as such, neither in the temple nor

on the mountain, but in spirit and in truth. Liberty is nothing if it is

not the element of _manliness_. It exists for no nation any longer than

_manliness_ pervades the people. It is ITSELF EVOLVED from the manliness

of a people, and whatever may have been its triumphs on any soil, if the

men of that soil change or become no longer manly, we may wander among

the palaces or the cottages where they formerly dwelt, and inquire for

its whereabout in vain. Man cannot serve two masters, God and mammon.

When the moment for Charles V.’s master-stroke came, instead of those

men who once startled the echoes of the Sierras of Spain with their NO

to the demand of an encroaching royal prerogative, there are _ghouls_

only, that inhabit castle and cottage, city palace and city bizarre; the

activity, the energy, the life-blood of the country, has gone over the

sea;—for America has been discovered; the gold and silver mines of

Mexico and Peru have been opened a far off Eldorado, a _material_

‘fountain of immortal youth,’ that the _body_ may imbibe, has seized the

imagination and addressed every passion of the young men of the commons

of Spain. The trees of the garden are so fine for the eyes, that the

tree of life, which stands in the midst of the garden, is passed by,

until at last the words of doom have been pronounced, and there is no

winning the way back, but to fight with the flaming sword which turns

every way.

We have said and seen, in the foregoing pages, that the stronghold of

liberty is ever in THE COMMONS of a nation; and no nobility is

strengthened by manliness any farther, or any longer, than it makes

common cause with the rights of the commons. The nobility of Spain

deserted the commons in 1521, and this enabled Charles, in 1539, to do,

as far as their order was concerned, what we have just recorded. Still

there would have been hope for Spain, if—which is a fact very commonly

overlooked—the commons had not been far away from sacred fatherland,

drinking themselves drunk with the gold they had madly quaffed, after

having waded through seas of Indian blood to seize it. But it may be

asked, how could so base a quest have carried off noble men? How could

manly priests of the spirit of liberty have let the wine of immortality

be spilled, while they were rushing madly after what could, at best, be

of no value but as the chalice to hold it?

It is the child’s question, who wonders over the story of the chosen

people of the Bible, that they could stray away from their invisible God

and King after the stone and metal gods of the Pagans. Never was the

most sordid of objects so enveloped in the robes of an angel of light.

Who does not know that every innocent and lawful affection, every noble

and generous plan of usefulness to others, that the interests of

science, nay, even those of religion itself, can most easily take on

this garb of foreign adventure, after means to attain their object? And

were not the emblems of religion—the crosier and the bread of the

Lord—used freely by pope and prelate, to mystify and consecrate to the

imaginative and superstitious their own desire of action and adventure,

even their sordid lust of gold? Let us not revile, but LEARN that

liberty is a jealous god, who will have no other gods before her, but

inexorably visit on the children’s children the faithlessness of their

fathers to the Invisible Source, Guardian, Element, and End of a

nation’s life.

We do not pursue the history of Spain through the reigns of the other

kings of the House of Austria, although there might be much gathered to

illustrate our subject, even as late as the time of the War of

Succession, when the Catalonians were faithful to the House of Austria,

yet were heartlessly abandoned at last to the House of Bourbon, without

any stipulations for mercy made for them by those whose interests they

had defended so heroically. We must turn to the history of the

Netherlands.

The Netherlands came under the House of Austria, as we have already

seen, by the marriage of Maximilian I. with Mary, daughter of Charles

the Bold. The constitutional liberties of the people, in some instances,

dated as far back as the ninth century. Mr. Grattan, in his History of

the Netherlands, says:—

“From the time of Charlemagne, the people of the ancient Menapia formed

political associations to raise a barrier against the despotic violence

of the Franks. These associations were called _Gilden_, and in the Latin

of the times _Gildonia_. They comprised, besides their covenants for

mutual protection, an obligation which bound every member to give

succour to any other, in cases of illness, conflagration, or shipwreck.

But the growing force of these social compacts alarmed the quick-sighted

despotism of Charlemagne, and they were, consequently, prohibited both

by him and his successors. To give a notion of the importance of this

prohibition to the whole of Europe, it is only necessary to state that

the most ancient corporations (all which had preceded and engendered the

most valuable municipal rights) were nothing more than gilden.

Thus, to draw an example from Great Britain, the corporative charter of

Berwick still bears the title of _Charta Gildoniæ_. But the ban of the

sovereigns was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The

gilden stood their ground; and within a century after the death of

Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.

“This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern

parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland; for

there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded in

obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it were, those

rights which were established under the ancient forms of government. The

fact is undoubted; but the means which they employed are uncertain. It

appears most probable that this great privilege was the price of their

military services; for they held a high place in the victorious armies

of Charlemagne; and Turpin, the old French romancer, alluding to the

popular traditions of his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as

endowed with the most heroic valor.

“These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own

statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some one or

other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the freedom of

every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of property,—a right

which admitted no authority of the sovereign to violate by confiscation,

except in cases of downright treason; thirdly, in the privilege of trial

by none but native judges, and according to their national usages;

fourthly, in a very narrow limitation of the military services which

they owed to the king; fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal

property, in direct line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These

five principal articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political

aspect, totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their

privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited, the

Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed down

France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages produced a

government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta was the means of

founding at a later period in England.”