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CLOISTER LIFE OF THE 
 
 EMP. CHARLES V. 
 
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE 
 
 EMPEROR CHARLES 
 
 THE FIFTH. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM STIRLING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' ANNALS OF THE ARTISTS OF SPAIN, 
 
 
 THIRD EDITION. ENLJRGED ^ CORRECT^^X>>' f) .^ THE " ^ 
 
 LONDON: JOHN W.PARKER i^l^- SON,<j:p. 
 WEST STRAND. 
 
 MDCCCmi. 
 
 :po 
 
 n^ 
 
5 
 
 
G. F. 
 
 TO 
 KICHAKD FOED, 
 
 AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS WRITINGS, 
 
 AND AS A MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP, 
 THIS WORK IS 
 
 INSCRIBED. 
 
CONTENTS OF THE PREFACE. 
 
 Authorities cited in this work : 
 
 Fr. J. de Siguen^a p. vii 
 
 Fr. P. de Sandoval viii 
 
 J. A. de Vera, Fr. M. de Angulo and marquess of Valparaiso, viii, ix 
 
 Father P. Ribadeneira ix 
 
 M. Gachard and T. Gonzalez x, xi, xii 
 
 Doubts as to the self-performed obsequies of Charles V. examined, xiii-xvii 
 
 Notice of the portrait of Charles V. on the title-page xviii 
 
 Postscript for a second edition xix 
 
 Postscript for a third edition xix 
 
 M. Bakhuizen van den Brink's analysis of a MS. by a monk of 
 
 Yuste xix-xxi 
 
 M. Th. Juste xxii 
 
 M. Mignet xxii 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE first, and perhaps the best, printed account of the 
 cloister-life of Charles the Fifth, is to be found in Joseph 
 de Siguen9a's History of the Order of St. Jerome. The author 
 was born, about 1545, of noble parents, in the Aragonese city 
 from whence, according to the Jeromite custom, he afterwards 
 took his name. He became a monk about the age of twenty- 
 one, at El Parral, near Segovia, and having studied at the 
 royal college of the Escorial, he obtained great fame as a 
 preacher in and around Segovia, and was made prior of his 
 convent. Removing to the Escorial, he devoted himself to 
 literary labour in the library which was then being collected 
 and arranged by the learned Arias Montano. His reputation 
 for knowledge soon stood so high, that Philip the Second used 
 to say of him, that he was the greatest wonder of the new 
 convent, which was called the eighth wonder of the world. 
 The first of his literary works, a series of discourses on Eccle- 
 siastes, was denounced as heretical before the bar of the 
 inquisition at Toledo; but he defended it so well, that he 
 received honourable acquittal, and returned to the Escorial 
 with an unblemished character for orthodoxy, to write the 
 history of St. Jerome and his Order. The first volume, con- 
 taining the life of the saint, was published in 1595, in quarto, 
 at Madrid; the second and third, in folio, in 1600 and 1605. 
 The author died in 1606, of apoplexy, at the Escorial, having 
 been twice elected prior of the house. 
 
 One of the most able and learned of ecclesiastical historians, 
 Siguenca, for the elegance and simple eloquence of his style, 
 has been ranked among the classical writers of Castille. Like 
 all monkish chroniclers, he has been compelled to bind up a 
 
 b 2 
 
vili PREFACE. 
 
 vast quantity of the tares of religious fiction with the wheat of 
 authentic history ; but he writes with an air of sincerity and 
 good faith, and when he is not dealing with miracles and 
 visions, he seems to be earnest in his endeavour to discover and 
 record the truth. In relating the life of the emperor at Yuste, 
 he had the advantage of conversing with many eye-witnesses 
 of the facts; Fray Antonio de Yillacastin, and several other 
 monks of Yuste were his brethren at the Escorial ; the emperor's 
 confessor, Regla, and his favourite preacher, Yillalva, filled 
 the same posts in the household of Philip the Second, and were 
 therefore often at the royal convent ; the prior may also have 
 seen there, Quixada the chamberlain, and Gaztelu the secretary, 
 of Charles; and at Toledo or Madrid he may have had oppor- 
 tunities of knowing Torriano, the emperor's mechanician. 
 
 Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, bishop of Pamplona, printed 
 his well-known History of Chanrles the Fifth at Yalladolid, in 
 folio, the first part in 1604, and the second part in 1606. In 
 the latter, a supplementary book is devoted to the emperor's 
 retirement at Yuste. It was drawn up, as we are told by the 
 author, from a manuscript relation in his possession, written 
 by Fray Martin de Angulo, prior of Yuste, at the desire of the 
 infanta Juana, daughter of the emperor and regent of Spain at 
 the time of his death. As Angulo came to Yuste, on being 
 elected prior, only in the summer of 1558, his personal know- 
 ledge of the emperor's sayings and doings was limited to the 
 last few months of his life. There can be little doubt that his 
 relation was known to Siguenga, whose position as prior of the 
 Escorial must have given him access to all the royal archives. 
 
 Juan Antonio deYerayFigueroa, count of La Roca, printed 
 his Epitome of the Life of Charles the Fifth, in quarto, at Madrid, 
 in 1613. It contains little that Sandoval and others had not 
 already published; but there are a few anecdotes of the 
 emperor s retirement which the author may have picked up 
 ffom tradition. Being more than seventy years of age at his 
 death, in 1 658, he may have conversed with persons who had 
 known his hero. He also may have seen the narrative of the 
 prior Angulo. 
 
 Of that narrative a copy exists, or did lately exist, in the 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 National Library at Madrid. It was seen there some years 
 ago by M. Gachard, of Bruxelles.' My friend Don Pascual 
 de Gayangos kindly undertook to search for it, but he 
 was not successful in discovering the original document, or 
 even an early copy. He found, however, a manuscript work of 
 the seventeenth century, which professed to embody the account 
 by Angulo. This work, entitled El perfecto Desengano, was 
 written in 1638, and dedicated to the count duke of Olivares j 
 and its author, in whose autograph it is written, was the mar- 
 quess del Valparaiso, a knight of Santiago and member of the 
 council of war. It is one of the countless treatises of that age, 
 on the virtues of princes, of which Charles the Fifth, in Spain 
 at least, was always held up as a model. The second part, of 
 which a copy is now before me, is entitled. Life of tJie emperor 
 in the conv&nt of Y2iste, taken from tluit which was vyritten 
 hy the prim" Fray Martin de Angulo, hy command of the prin- 
 cess Dona Juana, and from other hooks and papers of equal 
 quality and credit. With exception of a few sentences, and a 
 few trifling alterations, the greater part of this narrative is 
 word for word that of Sandoval. I likewise recognise a few 
 excerpts from Vera. Unless, therefore, we suppose that San- 
 doval and Vera, anticipating the process adopted by Valparaiso, 
 transferred the document of Angulo to their own pages, it 
 seems very doubtful whether the marquess had more than a 
 second-hand knowledge of the narrative of the prior. 
 
 The Jesuit Pedro Ribadeneira, in his Life of father Fran- 
 cisco Borja, printed in quarto, at Madrid, in 1592, gave a long 
 and circumstantial account of the interviews which took place 
 in Estremadura between that remarkable man and Charles the 
 Fifth. Born in 1527, and in very early life a favourite disciple 
 of Loyola, Ribadeneira had ample opportunities of gathering 
 the materials of his biography from the lips of Borja himself. 
 He is not always accurate in his dates and names of places, but 
 I do not think that his mistakes of this kind are sufficiently 
 important to discredit in any great degree the facts which he 
 relates. 
 
 ^ Bulletins de VAcademie Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, torn, 
 xii. Premiere Partie : 1845. 
 
 • 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 These are the principal writers who have treated of the 
 latter days of Charles the Fifth, and who might have conversed 
 with his contemporaries. From their works, Strada, De Thou, 
 Leti, and later authors, writing on the same subject, have 
 drawn their materials, which, in passing from pen to pen, have 
 undergone considerable changes of form. 
 
 Our own Robertson has told the story of the emperor s life 
 at Yuste with much dignity and grace, and still more in- 
 accuracy. Citing the respectable names of Sandoval, Vera, 
 and De Thou, he seems to have chiefly relied upon Leti, one 
 of the most lively and least trustworthy of the historians of 
 his time. He does not appear to have been aware of the 
 existence of Siguenga — the author, as we have seen, of the 
 only printed account of the imperial retirement which can 
 pretend to the authority of contemporary narrative. 
 
 A visit which I paid to Yuste in the summer of 1849, led 
 me to look into the earliest records of the event to which the 
 ruined convent owes its historical interest. Finding the subject 
 but slightly noticed, yet considerably misrepresented, by English 
 writers, I collected the results of my reading into two papers, 
 contributed to Frasers Magazine, in April and May, 1851. 
 
 An article by M. Gachard, in the Bulletins of the Royal 
 Academy of Bruxelles,^ afterwards informed me that the 
 archives of the Foreign Office of France contained a MS. 
 account of the retirement of Charles the Fifth, illustrated with 
 original letters, and compiled by Don Tomas Gonzalez. Of 
 the existence of this precious document I had already been 
 made aware by Mr. Ford's Handbook for Spain; but my in- 
 quiries after it, both in Madrid and in Paris, had proved fruit- 
 less. During the past winter I have had ample opportunities 
 of examining it, opportunities for which I must express my 
 gratitude to the president of France, who favoured me with 
 the necessary order, and to lord Normanby, late British ambas- 
 sador in Paris, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who kindly interested 
 themselves in getting the order obeyed by the unwilling 
 
 ^ Bulletins de I'Acad. Boy. des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, torn. xii. 
 lere Partie, 1845. 
 
PREFACE. Xi 
 
 officials of the archives. As the Gonzalez MS. has formed the 
 groundwork of the following chapters, it may not be out of 
 place here to give some account of that work and of its com- 
 piler. 
 
 At the restoration of Ferdinand the Seventh to the throne 
 of Spain, the royal archives of that kingdom, preserved in the 
 castle of Simancas, near Valladolid, were intrusted to the care 
 of Don Tomas Gonzalez, canon of Plasencia. They were in a 
 state of great confusion, owing to the depredations of the French 
 invader, subsequent neglect, and the partial return of the 
 papers which followed the peace. Gonzalez succeeded in re- 
 storing order, and he also found time to use his opportunities 
 for the benefit of historical literature. To the Memoirs of the 
 Royal Academy of Historry he contributed a long and elaborate 
 paper on the relations between Philip the Second and our 
 queen Elizabeth; and he had prepared this account of the 
 retirement of Charles the Fifth, and had had it fairly copied 
 for the press, when death brought his labours to a premature 
 close. His books and papers fell into the hands of his brother 
 Manuel, for whom he had obtained the reversion of his post at 
 Simancas. At the revolution of La Granja, in 1836, Manuel 
 being displaced and beggared, ofiered the memoir of Charles 
 the Fifth to the governments of France, Kussia, Belgium, and 
 England, at the price of 10,000 francs, or about 400?., re- 
 serving the right of publishing it for his own behoof, or of 
 15,000 francs without such reservation. No purchaser at 
 that price appearing, he at last disposed of it, in 1844, for 
 the sum of 4000 francs, to the archives of the French Foreign 
 Office, of which M. Mignet was then director.^ Of what 
 possible use this curious memoir could be in the conduct of 
 modem foreign afiairs, it is difficult even to guess ; but it is 
 due to M. Mignet to say, that both during his tenure of 
 office and since, he has taken every precaution in his power 
 to keep his prize sacred to the mysterious purpose for which 
 he had originally destined it. 
 
 ' I am enabled to state the exact sum through the kindness of M. Van 
 de Weyer, Belgian minister to the court of England, who obtained the 
 information from M. Gachard. 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 By the terms of his bargain M. Mignet acquired both the 
 original MS. of Gonzalez, and the fair copy enriched with notes 
 in his own hand. The copy contains 387 folio leaves, written 
 on both sides, the memoir filling 266 leaves, and the appendix 
 121. There is also a plan of the palace, and part of the 
 monastery of Yuste. 
 
 The memoir is entitled The retirementj residence^ and death 
 of the emperor Chmrles tlie Fifth in the Tnonastery of Yuste ; a 
 historical narrative founded on documents.^ It commences 
 with an account of many political events previous to, and not 
 much connected with, the emperor's retirement ; such as the 
 negotiations for the marriage of Philip the Second with the 
 infanta Mary of Portugal, and afterwards with queen Mary of 
 England ; the regency established in Spain during his absence ; 
 the deaths of queen Juana, mother of the emperor, and of popes 
 Julius the Third and Marcellus the Second; the truce of 
 Vaucelles; and the diplomatic relations of pope Paul the 
 Fourth with the courts of France and Spain. But the bulk of 
 the memoir consists almost wholly of original letters, selected 
 from the correspondence carried on between the courts at 
 Valladolid and Bruxelles, and the retired emperor and his 
 household, in the years 1556, 1557, and 1558. The principal 
 writers are Philip the Second, the infanta Juana, princess of 
 Brazil and regent of Spain, Juan Vazquez de Molina, secretary 
 of state, Francisco de Eraso, secretary to the king, and Don 
 Garcia de Toledo, tutor to Don Carlos; the emperor, Luis 
 Quixada, chamberlain to the emperor, Martin de Gaztelu, his 
 secretary, William Yan Male, his gentleman of the chamber, 
 and Mathys and Cornelio, his physicians. The thread of the 
 narrative is supplied by Gonzalez, who has done his part with 
 great judgment, permitting the story to be told as far as pos- 
 sible by the original actors in their own words. 
 
 The appendix is composed of the ten following documents 
 referred to in the memoir, and of various degrees of value and 
 interest. 
 
 ' Retiro estancia y muerte del emperador Carlos Quinto en d monastei'io 
 de Ymte; relacion historica docuTtientada. 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 1 Instructions given hy tlie emperor to his son at Augshwgf 
 
 on tlie dth Janua/ri/, 1548. 
 2> 
 
 Speeches pronounced by the emperor at Bruxelles during 
 the ceremonies of his abdication. 
 
 6 Letter from the cardinal archbishop {Siliceo) of Toledo to 
 
 the p)rincess-rege7it of Spain, 28th June, 1556. 
 
 7 Extract fr&m the inventory of the furnitmre and jewels 
 
 belonging to the emperor at his death. 
 
 8 Protest of Philip the Second against the pope, 6th May, 
 
 1557. 
 
 9 Justification of the hing of Spain against the pope, the 
 
 king of France, and the duke of Ferra/ra. 
 
 10 Will of the emperor, with its codicil. 
 Of these papers, Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and perhaps some of the 
 others, have already been printed : of No. 7 I have given an 
 abstract in my appendix. 
 
 Notwithstanding the minute information which Gonzalez 
 has brought to light respecting the daily life of the emperor 
 at Yuste, some doubt still rests on the question whether 
 Charles did or did not perform his own obsequies. Gonzalez 
 treats the story as an idle tale : he laments the credulity 
 displayed even in the sober statement of Siguenga; and he 
 pours out much patriotic scorn on the highly- wrought picture 
 of Kobertson. The opinions of the canon, on all other 
 matters carefully weighed and considered, are well worthy of 
 respect, and require some examination. 
 
 Of Kobertson's account of the matter, it is impossible to 
 offer any defence. Masterly as a sketch, it has unhappily 
 been copied from the canvas of the unscrupulous Leti.i In 
 everything but style it is indeed very absurd. '■ The emperor 
 was bent,' says the historian, ' on performing some act of 
 
 * Vita delV invitissimo imp. Carlo V. da Gregorio Leti. 4 vols. 12mo. 
 Amsterdam: 1700, iv. 370-4. 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 ' piety that would display his zeal, and merit the favour of 
 ' Heaven. The act on which he fixed was as wild and un- 
 
 * common as any that superstition ever suggested to a weak 
 *and disordered fancy. He resolved to celebrate his own 
 
 * obsequies before his death. He ordered his tomb to be 
 
 * erected in the chapel of the monastery. His domestics 
 
 * marched thither in funeral procession, with black tapers in 
 
 * their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. He was 
 ' laid in his coffin, with much solemnity. The service for the 
 ' dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the prayers which 
 
 * were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingling his tears 
 
 * with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been 
 
 * celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprink- 
 
 * ling holy water on the coffin in the usual form, and all the 
 ' assistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then 
 ' Charles rose out of the coffin, and withdrew to his apartment, 
 ' full of those awful sentiments which such a singular solemnity 
 ' was calculated to inspire. But either the fatiguing length of 
 
 * the ceremony, or the impressions which the image of death 
 
 * left on his mind, affected him so much, that next day he 
 ' was seized with a fever. His feeble frame could not long 
 
 * resist its violence, and he expired on the twenty-first of 
 ' September, after a life of fifty-eight years, six months, and 
 
 * twenty-five days.' 
 
 Siguen9a's account of the affair, which I have adopted, is 
 that Charles, conceiving it to be for the benefit of his soul, and 
 having obtained the consent of his confessor, caused a funeral 
 service to be performed for himself, such as he had lately been 
 performing for his father and mother. At this service he 
 assisted, not as a corpse, but as one of the spectators; holding 
 in his hand, like the others, a waxen taper, which, at a 
 certain point of the ceremonial, he delivered to the officiating 
 priest, in token of his desire to commit his soul to 
 the keeping of his Maker. There is not a word to justify 
 the tale that he followed the procession in his shroud, or 
 that he simulated death in his coffin, or that he was left be- 
 hind, shut up alone in the church, when the service was over. 
 
 In this story respecting an infirm old man, the devout son 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 of a church where services for the dead are of daily occur- 
 rence, I can see nothing incredible, or very surprising. It is 
 surely as reasonable for a man on the brink of the grave to 
 perform funeral rites for himself, as to perform such rites for 
 persons who had been buried many years before. Super- 
 stition and dyspepsia have driven men into far greater 
 extravagances. Nor is there any reason to doubt Siguen9a's 
 veracity in a matter in which the credit of his order, or the 
 interest of the church, is in no way concerned. He might 
 perhaps be suspected of overstating the regard entertained 
 by the emperor for the friars of Yuste, were his evidence 
 not confirmed by the letters of the friar-hating household. 
 But I see no reason for questioning the accuracy of his 
 account of the imperial obsequies. That account was written 
 while he was prior of the Escorial, and as such almost in 
 the personal service of Philip the Second, a prince who was 
 peculiarly jealous of what was wi'itten about his father. ^ And 
 it was published with the authority of his name, while men 
 were still alive who could have contradicted a mis-state- 
 ment. 
 
 The strongest objection urged by Gonzalez to the story, 
 rests on the absence of all confirmation of it in the letters 
 written from Yuste. We know, he says, that, on the 26th 
 of August, 1558, the emperor gave audience to Don Pedro 
 Manrique ; that on the 27th he spent the greater part of the 
 day in writing to the princess-regent; and that on the 28th 
 he held a long conference with Garcilasso de la Yega on the 
 afiairs of Flanders. Can we therefore believe what is alleged 
 by Siguen9a, that the afternoon of the 27th and the morning 
 of the 28th were given by Charles to the performance of his 
 fimeral-rites ; and if rites so remarkable were performed, is it 
 credible that no allusion to them should be made in letters 
 written at Yuste on the days when they took place? 
 
 Part of the objection falls to the ground, when reference 
 is made to the folio of Siguen^a. He says^ that the obsequies 
 
 ^ See chap. xL p. 293. 
 2 Siguen§a : Hist, de la Ordm de S. Germ., torn. iii. p. 201. 
 
XVI PREFACE 
 
 were celebrated, not on the 27th and 28th, but on the SOth, 
 of August ; and it so happens, that on that day and the next, 
 no letters were written at Yuste, or at least, that none 
 bearing either of those dates fell into the hands of Gonzalez. 
 The emperor's attack of illness, on the 30th, was ascribed by 
 the physician to his having sat too long in the sun in his 
 western alcove; and his being able to sit there tallies with 
 Siguenga's statement, that he felt better after his funeral. 
 From the absence of allusion in the letters to a service so 
 remarkable, I infer, not that it never took place, but that the 
 secretary and chamberlain did not think it worthy of remark. 
 Charles was notoriously devout, and very fond of devotional 
 exercises beyond the daily routine of religious observance. 
 His punctuality in performing his spiritual duties may be 
 noted in the Yuste letters, where frequent mention is made 
 of his receiving the Eucharist at the hermitage of Belem, 
 a fact stated in proof, we may be sure, not of the warmth 
 of his piety, but of the robustness of his health. Of the 
 services performed in the church for the souls of his deceased 
 parents and wife, which both Siguenga and Sandoval have 
 recorded, and which I see no reason to doubt, no notice what- 
 ever occurs in the letters, except a casual remark which fell 
 from the pen of secretary Gaztelu, on the 28th of April, 1558, 
 that ' Juan Gaytan had come to put in order the wax and 
 other things needful for the honours of the empress, which 
 his majesty was in the habit of celebrating on each May-day.' 
 The truth seems to be that the most hearty enmity prevailed 
 between the Jeromites and the imperial household ; and that 
 the chamberlain and his people abstained from all communi- 
 cations with the monks not absolutely necessary, and left the 
 religious recreations, as well as the spiritual interests of their 
 master, entirely in the hands of the confessor and the prior. 
 Keeping no record of the functions performed within the walls 
 of the convent, it is possible that the lay letter-writers of Yuste 
 might have passed over in silence even such a scene as that 
 fabled by Robertson ; while in the sober pages of Siguenca, 
 there really seems nothing that a Spaniard of 1558, living 
 next door to a convent, might not have deemed unworthy of 
 special notice. 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 It is remarkable that Gonzalez, while so strenuously deny- 
 ing the credibility of the story, should have furnished, under 
 his own hand, a piece of evidence of some weight in its favour. 
 In an inventory of state-papers of Castille, drawn up by him in 
 1818, and existing at Simancas, and in duplicate in the Foreign 
 Office at Madrid, M. Gachard found the following entry : 
 
 No. 119, ann. 1557. Original letters of Cha/rles V., written 
 from Xarandilla and Yuste to tJie infanta Juana, and Juan 
 Vazquez de Molina. * * * They treat of tJie public affairs 
 of the time : item, of the mourning stuffs oBDEREit for 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMING HIS FUNERAL HONOURS DURING 
 
 MIS life} 
 
 M. Gachard supposes that this entry may have been tran- 
 scribed by Gonzalez from the wrapper of a bundle of papers 
 which he had found thus entitled, and the contents of which 
 he had neglected to verify. If his subsequent researches did 
 not discover any such documents, it is to be regretted that he 
 had not at least corrected the error of the inventory. 
 
 The gravest objection to the account of the affair which I 
 have adopted, is, that it is not wholly confirmed by the prior 
 Angulo. In Angulo's report, says M. Gachard,^ it is stated that 
 Charles ordered his obsequies to be performed during his life; 
 but it is not stated whether the order was fulfilled. Sandoval, 
 professing to take Angulo for his guide, is altogether silent 
 on the subject ; and as he can hardly be supposed to have 
 been ignorant of the work of Siguenya, there is room for the 
 presumption that he rejected the evidence of that churchman. 
 But on a mere presumption, founded on the fact that a Bene- 
 dictine did not choose to quote the writings of a Jeromite, I 
 cannot agree to discard evidence otherwise respectable. I 
 have therefore followed prior Siguenca, of the Escorial, the 
 revival of whose version of the story will, I hope, in time, 
 coimteract the inventions of later writers — inventions which I 
 have more than once heard gravely recognised as instructive and 
 authentic history in the pulpit discourses of popular divines. 
 
 ^ Item, de los lutos que encargO para hacerse las honras en vida. Bull, 
 de VAcad. roy. xii. Premiere Parti e, p. 257. 
 2 Id., p. 259. 
 
XVlll PREFACE. 
 
 It may be a source of disappointment to my readers, as 
 it is to myself, that I have not been able to lay before them 
 any of the original letters of the emperor and his servants, 
 and their royal and official correspondents. In obtaining 
 access, however, to the manuscript of Gonzalez, I was subjected 
 to conditions which rendered this impossible. The French 
 government, I was informed, had entertained the design of 
 publishing the entire work — a design which the revolution 
 of 1848 of course laid upon the shelf, but which, I trust, 
 will ere long be carried into effect. Meanwhile, I believe 
 that neither the memoir nor the letters contain any interest- 
 ing fact, or trait of character, which will not be found in the 
 following pages, with some illustrations of the emperor and 
 his history, gathered from other sources, which I hope may 
 not be found altogether without value. 
 
 The portrait of the emperor, on my title-page, is taken 
 from the fine print, engraved by Eneas Yico from his own 
 drawing, — a head surrounded by a florid framework of archi- 
 tectural and emblematical ornament. This seems to have 
 been the portrait which Charles, according to Lodovico Dolce, 
 examined so curiously and approved so highly, and for which 
 he rewarded Vico with two hundred crowns.^ The drawing 
 was probably made several years before the plate was engraved, 
 but I have been unable to find any satisfactory contemporary 
 portrait of the emperor in his latter days. Perhaps none 
 exists, as Charles, at the age of thirty-five, considered himself, 
 as he told the painter Holanda, already too old for limning 
 purposes. The eagle and ornaments around the present head, 
 are selected from woodcuts in Spanish books of 154:5^ and 
 1552.3 
 
 Keie; dlstMay, 1852. 
 
 ' Dialogo delta Pittwra de M. Lod. Dolce, sm. 8vo. Vinegia : 1557. fol. 1 8. 
 
 2 ^1. Ant. Nebrissensis ; Rerum a Fernando et EUzabetJia, gest., &c., 
 fol. Granada: 1545. 
 
 'J. C. Calvete: Viage del principe D. Plielippe, fol. Anvers: 1552. 
 The neatly executed arms on the title-page bear the mark generally 
 attributed to Juan D'Arphe y Villafaue, the famous goldsmith, engraver, 
 and artistic-author of Valladolid. 
 
XIX 
 
 POSTSCRIPT FOR A SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The favour with which this work has been received having 
 rendered a second edition necessary, I have endeavoured to 
 acknowledge my sense of the kindness of the public, by 
 bestowing on its pages a careful revision, as well as some new 
 matter which I hope will be found to enhance its utility and 
 interest, without greatly increasing its size. 
 
 128, Park Street, Grosvenor Square, 
 Dec. 2\st, 1852. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. 
 
 This edition had already gone to press, when I first saw a 
 paper communicated to the Royal Academy of Belgium, by 
 M. Bakhuizen van den Brink, and entitled La Betraite de 
 Charles Quint, analyse d^wn manuscript Espagnol contenvpo- 
 rain, par un Religieux de Vordre de St. JeroTne ct Yuste} The 
 manuscript, thus analysed with great care and ability, was 
 formerly in the archives of the Cour-feodale, and is now 
 in those of the Cour-d'appel at Bruxelles. It consists of 
 forty-five folio pages, written in a fine close hand of the end 
 of the sixteenth, or of the beginning of the seventeenth, 
 century. Its title is A brief and summa/ry histc/ry of how 
 the emperor Don Charles tlie Fifth, our lord, determined to 
 retire to the monastery of St. Jerome of Yuste, in the Vera of 
 Plasencia, and to renounce his states in favour of the prince 
 Don Philip his son, and of the mode amd mawner in which he 
 lived for a yea/r and eight Tnonths, all hut eight days, in the 
 jnonastery until his death, amd of the things which happened 
 
 ^ Compte-rendu des secmces de la commission royale d'histoire ou recueU 
 de ses hrdletins. Deuxieme serie. torn. i. ler bulletin. Svo. Bruxelles. 
 1850, p. 57. A few copies were struck off as a separate tract, and to 
 one of them my references are made. 
 
XX POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. 
 
 in his life and death.^ The memoir is divided into fifty 
 chapters, of which the first tells How the prince Don Philip 
 was married in England, and the last treats of the afflic- 
 tion of the village of Quacos and all the Vera when the body 
 of the emperor was rerrwved from Yuste. It was written, 
 says M. Bakhuizen, in or about 1574, soon after the removal of 
 the emperor's remains. The author informs us that he was 
 a monk of Yuste, and that he was one of four of the brother- 
 hood who were appointed to watch the corpse of Charles at 
 the time of his death, and one of eight who were sent to 
 attend it to the Escorial. But he has concealed his name, 
 which at this distance of time there is little hope of dis- 
 covering. M. Bakhuizen is inclined to identify him with 
 one of four persons — the prior Angulo, the confessor Begla, 
 Fray Lorenzo de Losar, employed as purveyor of the imperial 
 household, and Fray Miguel de Torralva, who held the post 
 of ohrero or master of works. The prior and the confessor, 
 he says, are spoken of in such terms in the memoir, that 
 it is very unlikely that either of them was the author of it ; 
 to which I may add that, in the case of the confessor, this 
 improbability is enhanced by the fact that Kegla left Yuste 
 immediately after the emperor's death, and appears to have 
 resided afterwards either at court or at Zaragoza. Of the 
 two remaining friars, M. Bakhuizen is inclined to favour the 
 claim of Losar, his name appearing along with that of the 
 prior as a witness to the process- verbal which recorded the 
 deposit of the emperor's body at Yuste, and that document 
 being given at full length in the memoir. 
 
 Not having seen the manuscript, I am unable to judge 
 of the soundness of M. Bakhuizen's hypothesis. In the 
 absence of direct evidence I should be inclined to attribute such 
 a paper to the one monk of Yuste whom we know to have 
 been fond of reading and writing, Fray Hernando de Corral. 
 
 1 Historia hreve y swmaria de como el emperador Don Carlos Quinto, 
 nuestro senor, trato de venir se d recojer al monasteno de S. Hieronimo de 
 Yuste, que es en la Vera de Plasencia, y renimdar sus estados en el prin- 
 cipe, Don Phelipe su hijo, y del modo y manera que vivio un ano y ocho 
 meses menos nueve dias, que estuvo en este monasterio, hasta que m/urio, ydt 
 las cosas que acaecieron en su vida y muerte. T^ 
 
POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. XXI 
 
 The narrative in the main confirms those of Sandoval and 
 Siguenga. It is not improbable that the author, before he 
 wrote his reminiscences, may have refreshed his memory by 
 reading Angulo's memoir, which may account for minute 
 coincidences with the expressions of Sandoval, who borrowed 
 freely from Angulo. For example, Sandoval says the emperor 
 was contented to lead ' the poor life of an honourable esquire,^ 
 la pohre vida de un esnodero Iwnrado, while the Bakhuizen 
 MS. compares the imperial household to that of a poor country 
 gentleman, un pohre hidalgo.'^ The resemblance to Siguen^a's 
 account is still closer, so close that it seems likely that 
 Siguenga, who does not avow any obligation to Angulo, may 
 have been indebted for some, at least, of his facts, to this 
 other monk of Yuste. To cite a few instances ; the monk 
 speaks of the retired emperor as a pohre hidalgo ; Siguenga caUs 
 him an honesto hidalgo -^ the monk erroneously places the body 
 of queen Juana amongst the royal corpses brought in 1574 
 to the Escorial j* Siguenga, although prior of the Escorial, 
 has fallen into the same error -^ the stories of the hyssop and 
 pyx, which I have related^ on the authority of Siguenga,''' are 
 also told by the monk;^ and lastly, Siguenga's description of 
 the obsequies performed by Charles for himself is confirmed 
 in every particular by this anonymous eyewitness.^ Who- 
 ever its author may have been, the manuscript is well worth 
 printing entire, and I trust that the Belgian government 
 may ere long be induced to give it to the world. Meanwhile, 
 1 have to acknowledge my obligations to M. Bakhuizen 
 van den Brink's paper for several fresh details of the emperor's 
 life and death, and to M. Yan de Weyer and M. Gachard for 
 their kindness in bringing that paper under my notice. 
 
 ^ Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos Y., 2 torn. fol. Pamplona : 1634, ii. p. 811. 
 
 2 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 20. 
 
 ' Siguen9a : Hist, de la ord. de S. Geronimo, ill. p. 291. 
 
 * Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 60. 
 
 * Siguen9a: iii. p. 569. * Chap. viii. p. 184. 
 
 ^ Siguen9a: iii. p. 194, 195. 
 
 * Bakhuizen van den Brink, La Retraite, p. 39. 
 » Id., p. 45. 
 
xxil POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. 
 
 To this edition I have also added a chapter on the emperor's 
 abdication and subsequent life at Bruxelles, in which I have 
 freely availed myself of information supplied by M. Th. Juste, 
 in his agreeable tract on that subject. ^ 
 
 Soon after the appearance of my work, M. Mignet com- 
 menced a series of elaborate papers on Charles the Fifth, his 
 abdication and retirement, still in course of publication in the 
 Journal des Savants, at Paris.^ Composed mainly of mate- 
 rials afforded by the MS. of Gonzalez, these papers explain 
 why that MS. was acquired by the Foreign Office of France, 
 and why it has been so zealously guarded by M. Mignet. 
 They are written in the able style with which M. Mignet's 
 other works have made the world familiar. The paucity of 
 extracts from the original documents is a matter of regret, 
 but this defect may perhaps be repaired when the completed 
 chapters are published in the form of a book. 
 
 128, Park Street, Grosvenor Square, 
 June 25th, 1853. 
 
 ^ U Abdication de Charles Quint, par Th. Juste, (extraite du Progrh 
 Pacifique, ) 8vo. Liege, 1851. pp. 31. 
 
 ' Charles Quint, son abdication, sa retraite, son sejour, et sa mort au 
 monastere hieronomite de Yuste, par M. Mignet, These papers began in 
 the number for November, 1852, and were continued in December, and 
 in Janiiary and March, 1853. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The immediate ancestors and descendants of the Emperor Charles V. 
 
 and his brothers and sisters p. xxx 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 First notices of the intention of 
 Charles V. to retire from the 
 
 world P- 1 
 
 Mary queen of England offers 
 
 him her hand 2 
 
 He transfers it to his son Philip, 
 who breaks off a match with 
 the infanta Mary of Portugal 2 
 Emperor's feeble health ... 3 
 Exaggerated reports of it . . . 4 
 Emperor recalls Philip from 
 
 Windsor to Bruxelles ... 4 
 Invests him with the grand mas- 
 tership of the Golden Fleece . 5 
 Abdicates in his favour the sove- 
 reignty of the Netherlands, on 
 the 25th October, 1555 . . 5 
 Company and ceremonial . 5, 6 
 Emperor's speech . . . 7, 8, 9 
 Jacques Maes's speech . . .10 
 Speeches of Philip and the bishop 
 
 of Arras 10 
 
 Speech of Mary, queen of Hun- 
 gary 11 
 
 J. Maes's rsply 11 
 
 Emperor abdicates his Sicilian 
 and Spanish crowns on the 16th 
 January, 1556 12 
 
 Executes a deed of renunciation 
 of the imperial crown on the 
 16th August 12 
 
 His wish to make Philip em- 
 peror 12 
 
 Opposed by his brother, Ferdi- 
 nand, king of Romans ... 12 
 
 Emperor's anxiety to lay aside 
 the title 13 
 
 He retires to a house in the park 
 at Bruxelles 13 
 
 He is visited by the admiral de 
 Coligny 14 
 
 Jests of Brusquet, the French 
 jester 15 
 
 The emperor at Grimberghe . 16 
 
 At Bruxelles and Ghent ... 16 
 
 Journey to the coast , . . .16 
 
 Emperor's letter to Ferdinand on 
 12th September 16 
 
 He embarks at Zuitburg for 
 Spain on 13th September . .17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Eleanor, queen dowager of 
 
 France and Portugal . . .18 
 Mary, queen dowager of Hungary 19 
 They sail on the 17th . . . . 22 
 And land on the 28th September, 
 
 1556 23 
 
 Laredo 23 
 
 Want of preparations to receive 
 
 them 24 
 
 Arrival of Luis Quixada ... 24 
 They set out on the 6th of October 26 
 
 Journey to Medina de Pomar, 
 where they arrive on the 9th 
 of October 27, 28 
 
 Visitors 29 
 
 Arrival at Burgos on 13th Oct. ; 
 reception there .... 29, 30 
 
 Journey to Valladolid 16th-21st 
 October 31 
 
 Don Carlos meets the emperor at 
 Cabezon 32 
 
 Valladolid 33 
 
 d 
 
XXIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Infanta Juana, princess-dowager 
 of Brazil, and regent of 
 
 Spain 34 
 
 Festivities at Valladolid ... 35 
 Perico de Sant Erbas .... 36 
 Don Constantino de Braganza, 
 and causes of ill-will between 
 Spain and Portugal . . 36, 37 
 
 Aifairs submitted to the em- 
 peror 38 
 
 Anthony, duke of Vendome, pro- 
 poses to sell his rights to Na- 
 varre 38 
 
 Doubts as to the emperor's choice 
 of a retreat 39 
 
 Don Carlos 40 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 The emperor sets out from Valla- 
 dolid on the 4th November . 42 
 
 Medina del Campo 43 
 
 Rodrigo de Duenas .... 43 
 Penaranda, Alaraz, Barco de 
 
 Avila, &c 44 
 
 Tomavacas 45 
 
 The pass of Puertonuevo . . .45 
 Reach Xarandilla on the 12th 
 
 November 46 
 
 The Vera of Plasencia ... 47 
 Reasons for the emperor's choice 
 
 of retreat examined .... 48 
 Village and castle of Xarandilla 49 
 The count of Oropesa .... 60 
 
 Bad weather 50 
 
 Public affairs 51 
 
 Pope Paul IV. and Henry II. of 
 France 51, 62 
 
 They combine against Philip II. ; 
 
 Coligny invades Flanders ; 
 
 duke of Guise invades Naples 52 
 Flanders defended by Emanuel 
 
 Philibert, duke of Savoy . . 53 
 Naples, by duke of Alba ... 63 
 The infanta Mary of Portugal 64, 65 
 
 Navarre 56 
 
 Barbary 66 
 
 Buildings at Yuste . . . . 56, 57 
 The emperor visits them ... 57 
 Discontent of his household . . 58 
 Quixada ; Gaztelu . . . . 58, 59 
 The emperor's love of eating . 60 
 Partridges of Gama, and sausages 
 
 from Tordesillas, and presents 
 
 to his larder 61, 62 
 
 Quixada's fears 6^ 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The household of the emperor . 63 
 The confessor. Fray Juan de 
 
 Begla 63 
 
 The chamberlain, Luis Quixada 64 
 His wife, Magdalena de Ulloa, 
 
 and Don John of Austria 66, 67, 68 
 The secretary, Martin de Gaztelu 69 
 William Van Male, gentleman of 
 
 the chamber 69 
 
 He translates the emperor's 
 
 Memoirs 70 
 
 Is made to print Acuiia's trans- 
 lation of Le Chevalier Delihere 71 
 He puts the emperor's prayers 
 
 into Latin 72 
 
 His letters 73 
 
 Loss of his books 74 
 
 Marriage 76 
 
 Dr. Henry Mathys the phy- 
 sician 76 
 
 Dr. Giovanni Antonio Mole, and 
 
 Dr. Cornelio Mathys ... 76 
 Giovanni or Juanelo Torriano, 
 
 the mechanician 76 
 
 Visitors of the emperor ... 77 
 Father Francisco Borja, of the 
 
 company of Jesus . . . .77 
 
 His history 77, 80 
 
 Visits Xarandilla on the 17th 
 
 December, 1556 go 
 
 Conversations with the emperor,81, 85 
 Don Luis de Avila y Zuiliga . . 85 
 His Commentaries on tlie War in 
 
 Germany ggj 
 
 Visits Xarandilla on the 21st 
 
 January, 1557 gy 
 
 The archbishop of Toledo, and 
 
 the bishop of Plasencia . . 88 
 
 Emperor's health 89 
 
 An attack of gout . . . . ^89 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXV 
 
 Senna wine 89 
 
 Neapolitan manna 90 
 
 Emperor's present of game to 
 the convent of Yuste at Christ- 
 mas ... 90 
 
 Lorenzo Pires 90 
 
 News from Italy 91 
 
 ~ jror's disgust ..... 91 
 
 His anxiety for the safety of Oran 91 
 
 Works at Yuste 92 
 
 Servants paid off, and take leave 93 
 Removal to Yuste on the 3rd 
 
 February, 1557 93 
 
 Blunder of the prior .... 94 
 Grief of the dismissed servants . 94 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 95,96 
 
 . 97 
 
 the 
 
 Order of St. Jerome . 
 
 Yuste — its site 
 
 Its foundation in 1408, and its 
 early history . . . 
 
 Its remarkable monks 
 
 Fr. Hernando de Corral, 
 literary friar . . . . 
 
 Fr. Ant. de Villacastin . 
 
 Fr. Juan de Ortega . . 
 
 The charities of Yuste 
 
 The ' palacio' of Yuste . 
 
 Prospect from the windows 
 
 The great ' nogal' of Yuste 
 
 Domestic arrangements . 
 
 List of the chief members of 
 the household, with their sa- 
 laries ...... 105, 106 
 
 98 
 99 
 
 100 
 101 
 102 
 103 
 103 
 104 
 105 
 105 
 
 Emperor's health, and employ- 
 ments of the physicians . .107 
 Furniture of the palace . . . 107 
 
 Plate 108 
 
 Emperor's dress 109 
 
 Pictures and portraits . . .110 
 
 Books Ill 
 
 Music 112 
 
 The chaplains, Fr. Fran, de Vil- 
 lalva, Fr. Juan de Agoloras, 
 Fr. Juan deSantandres 113, 114 
 Emperor's day . . . , . .114 
 Torriano and his clocks . . .115 
 His mechanical toys . . . .116 
 Emperor's pet birds, and his 
 
 shooting excursions . . .117 
 His last appearance on horseback 117 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 The household become more 
 
 reconciled to Yuste . . .118 
 Monsieur de La Chaulx . . . 118 
 Improvement in the emperor's 
 
 health 119 
 
 Quixada complains of the soli- 
 tude of Yuste 119 
 
 Emperor's attention to business 119 
 His style and title .... 120 
 He accredits an ambassador to 
 
 Portugal 120 
 
 Petitioners 120 
 
 Refutation of the tale that he re- 
 pented of his retirement . . 121 
 His revenue . ..... 123 
 
 Punctually paid 124 
 
 The financial difficulties of Spain 124 
 The princess-regent seizes upon 
 the bullion belonging to the 
 traders of Seville, who resist 
 her officers with success . .125 
 
 The emperor's indignation 
 
 against them . . . 125,126 
 Foreign affairs : Ruy Gomez 
 
 deSilva 127 
 
 He is lodged in the convent . 128 
 Emperor consulted as to send- 
 ing Don Carlos to Flanders . 128 
 War in the Netherlands and 
 
 Navarre 129^ 
 
 Affairs of Italy 129 
 
 Duke of Guise invades Naples . 129 
 Duke of Alba defends it . . . 129 
 Solyman the Magnificent . .130 
 The pirates of the Mediter- 
 ranean 180, 131 
 
 Levies for the army in Flanders 132 
 The emperor appeals to the 
 
 church for a loan .... 132 
 The archbishops of Toledo and 
 Zaragoza, and the bishop of 
 Cordova 132 
 
XXVI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Archbishop Valdes of Seville . 132 
 
 His excuses 133 
 
 His discussion with Ochoa, and 
 its result 134 
 
 Second visit of Ruy Gomez de 
 SilvatoYuste 135 
 
 Anthony, king of Navarre, and 
 his agents .... 135, 136 
 
 Death of John III., king of 
 Portugal 136 
 
 Jealousy between Portugal and 
 Spain 137 
 
 Emperor condoles with his 
 sister, queen Catherine . .137 
 
 The princess of Brazil disap- 
 pointed of the regency of 
 Portugal 138 
 
 Battle of St. Quentin . . 138, 139 
 Joy occasioned by the news at 
 
 Yuste 139 
 
 The dilatory policy of Philip II. 140 
 Guise retreats from the Neapo- 
 litan frontier 141 
 
 Alba advances towards Rome 141 
 Shameful treaty between Philip 
 
 II. and the pope .... 141 
 Emperor's displeasure . 142, 143 
 
 Don Carlos 143 
 
 Letters from his tutor, D. Garcia 
 de Toledo, to the em- 
 peror 144 
 
 Opinion of the Venetian envoy 
 at Bruxelles 145 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Emperor's good health . . .146 
 Famine and sickness in the Vera 147 
 Emperor's garden and its im- 
 provements 147 
 
 His poultry and fishponds . .148 
 His care for his domestic com- 
 forts 148 
 
 Quixada obtains leave of absence 149 
 The friars become unruly . .149 
 
 Quixada's return 150 
 
 His dislike to Yuste . . . .150 
 Death of Fr. Juan de Ortega 150, 151 
 Turbulent peasants of Quacos . 152 
 J. G. Sepulveda, the historian, 
 
 visits Yuste 153 
 
 D. Luis de Avila . ... 154 
 
 His house at Plasencia and its 
 
 frescoes 155 
 
 His opinion of the emperor re- 
 corded in his Commentaries on 
 the German War .... 155 
 Partiality of the emperor for him 156 
 Fresco-picture of the battle of 
 Renti, and the remark of the 
 emperor upon it . . 156, 157 
 Report of the emperor's removal 
 to Navarre 157 
 
 D. Francisco Bolivar . . . .158 
 D. Martin de Avendaiio . . . 158 
 Message to Quixada from Mari- 
 
 quita de Eraso 159 
 
 Presents to the emperor's 
 larder from the friars of Gua- 
 dalupe, the bishop of Segovia, 
 &c., and the duchess of Bejar 159 
 Visits of queens Eleanor and 
 
 Mary 160 
 
 Their correspondence with the 
 
 duke of Infantado .... 161 
 The infanta Mary of Portugal . 161 
 Jealousy between Portugal and 
 
 Spain 162 
 
 The queens go to Badajoz . .163 
 Hurricane at Yuste . . . .163 
 Father Francisco Borja sent to 
 Lisbon by the princess-re- 
 gent 164 
 
 Returns by way of Yuste . .164 
 Emperor's confidence in him . 165 
 Borja's judgment between his 
 son and the admiral of Ara- 
 
 gon 165 
 
 Alms given to Borja .... 166 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 The emperor's health declines . 167 
 Burglary at Yuste . . . .167 
 Dispute with the corregidor of 
 
 Plasencia 168 
 
 Don Juan de Acufia . . . .168 
 The treaty between Philip II. and 
 
 the pope, and the emperor's 
 dissatisfaction with it . . .169 
 
 Duke of Alba, and his share in 
 the business . . 169, 170, 171 
 
 Affairs in Flanders, and Spanish 
 
 171, 172 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXVll 
 
 Duke of Guise takes Calais . . 172 
 The emperor's regret . . . .173 
 Reports of the pregnancy of 
 
 Mary Queen of England and 
 
 Spain, and her death . . .173 
 
 Emperor's gout 174 
 
 Meeting at Badajoz between the 
 
 queens and the infanta Mary 
 
 of Portugal ...... 174 
 
 Queen Eleanor taken ill at 
 
 Talaverilla 175 
 
 Dies— leaving her fortune to 
 
 the infanta of Portugal . .176 
 Grief of queen Mary and the 
 
 emperor 177, 178 
 
 Luis de Avila visits him . . .178 
 Queen Mary at Yusto . . .178 
 Removes to Xarandilla . . .179 
 Goes to Valladolid, attended by 
 
 Quixada 179 
 
 Emperor requests that she may 
 
 be consulted in public affairs 180 
 The princess-regent refuses . .180 
 Emperor's scheme of finance . 180 
 Seville bullion case . . . .181 
 
 The grand inquisitor Valdes 
 refuses to attend the body of 
 queen Juana to Granada . .182 
 
 Emperor's health and occupa- 
 tions 183 
 
 His fondness for religious cere- 
 monies 183 
 
 He gives the friars a pic-nic on 
 St. Bias's day, 1558 . . .184 
 
 His attention to religious forms 
 and to fasts 184 
 
 He flogs himself in the choir on 
 Fridays in Lent 185 
 
 His familiarity with the friars . 186 
 
 He dines in their refectory . .187 
 
 His goodnature to his servants 188 
 
 He is disturbed by women at 
 the convent gate . . . .189 
 
 The remedy 189 
 
 The renunciation of the imperial 
 crown completed 3rd May, 
 1558 190 
 
 The emperor's joy at the intelli- 
 gence, and consequent orders 190 
 
 His dislike to royal insignia . 191 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Church in danger 192 
 
 Church abuses and reform move- 
 ment 192, 193 
 
 Heretical books . . . 194, 195 
 Spanish heretics not protestants 196 
 Causes of the suppression of 
 
 heresy in Spain . . . 197, 199 
 Measures of the grand inquisitor 
 
 Valdes 200 
 
 Dr. Aug. Cazalla 200 
 
 Letters and words of the em- 
 peror 201, 202 
 
 Er. Domingo de Roxas . . . 202 
 Progress of the persecution . . 202 
 Anxiety of the emperor . . .203 
 His letter to the regent . . .203 
 His letter to the king, and its 
 
 autograph postscript . . . 204 
 The king's memorandum . . 204 
 Quixada's interview with the 
 
 grand inquisitor .... 204 
 The inquisitor's measures de- 
 tailed in letter to the emperor 205 
 
 Censure of books 205 
 
 Catalogue of prohibited books, 
 
 1559 206 
 
 Dr. Mathys bums his bible . . 207 
 Father Borja's son .... 207 
 
 Pompeyo Leoni 207 
 
 Fr. Domingo de Guzman . . 208 
 Arrest of Const. Ponce de la 
 
 Fuente 208 
 
 Execution of Dr. Cazalla, of Fr. 
 Fro. de Roxas, and D. de 
 
 Guzman 209, 210 
 
 Death of C. Ponce de la Fuente 210 
 The emperor's hatred of heresy, 
 and regrets for having spared 
 the life of Luther . . 210,211 
 Fr. Bart. Carranza de Miranda 
 
 made archbishop of Toledo . 212 
 Account of him . . . 212,213 
 Jealousy of Valdes . . . .213 
 Carranza's reception at Valla- 
 dolid 214 
 
 War in Flanders 215 
 
 Duke of Guise takes Thionville 215 
 Battle of Gravelines gained by 
 
 the Spaniards 216 
 
 Turkish fleet on the coast of Spain 217 
 Menorca attacked, and Ciuda- 
 
 della sacked 218 
 
 Measures of defence . . . .219 
 Quixada returns to Yuste with 
 his wife and Don John of 
 Austria 220 
 
XXVlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Illness df tlie regent .... 221 
 Her proposal for changing the 
 
 capital of Spain 221 
 
 Affair of the adelantado of 
 
 Canary 222 
 
 Death of the prior of Yuste . 222 
 Emperor refuses to interfere in 
 
 the election of his successor . 222 
 Fr Martin de Angulo appointed 223 
 Visits of Don Luia de Avila, 
 
 the bishop of Avila, count 
 of Oropesa, Garcilasso de la 
 
 Vega, &c 223, 224 
 
 Father Fro. Borja 224 
 
 The emperor's Memoirs . . . 224 
 His anxiety as to his treatment 
 
 by historians 225 
 
 Ocampo and Sepulveda . 225, 226 
 Courtly reply of Borja . . . 227 
 Recollections of him in the Vera 227 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Emperor's health during the 
 
 spring and summer of 1558 . 228 
 Meals and symptoms .... 228 
 The physician becomes alarmed 
 
 in August 229 
 
 Emperor's attention to religious 
 
 rites 230 
 
 Performs his own obsequies on 
 
 the 30th of August . . . .231 
 Taken ill next day .... . 232 
 Meditations on his wife's por- 
 trait and other pictures . . 232 
 Laid on his death-bed . . . 233 
 Details of his illness .... 233 
 
 Making of his will 233 
 
 Dr. Cornelio sent for .... 233 
 Slight improvement in the case 234 
 Physic, delirium, and letters . 234 
 
 Codicil to the will 235 
 
 News of the defeat of the count 
 
 of Alcaudete in Africa . 235, 236 
 Emperor signs the codicil . . 237 
 Its recommendations to the 
 
 king to put down heresy . . 237 
 Kegla's suggestion regarding 
 
 Don John of Austria . . . 237 
 Queen of Hungary consents to 
 
 go to Flanders 238 
 
 Emperor's illness increases . . 238 
 He receives extreme unction . 241 
 His last private conference with 
 
 Quixada . . • .-. • • -242 
 He insists on receiving the 
 
 eucharist ....... 242 
 
 His devoutness ..*... 243 
 Archbishop of Toledo arrives, 
 
 and sees the emperor . . . 243 
 Closing scene .... 244, 245 
 
 Death 246 
 
 The grief of Quixada .... 247 
 Four friars appointed to watch 
 
 beside the emperor's body . 247 
 
 Their curiosity 247 
 
 Preparations for the inter- 
 ment 247 
 
 Funeral sermons and rites . .248 
 Sermon by Fr. F. de Vil- 
 
 lalva 248, 249 
 
 Remarks on the character of 
 
 Charles 250, 251 
 
 On his abdication and its 
 
 (siusea 252, 255 
 
 His love of monks and con* 
 
 vents . 255 
 
 It descends to his children 256, 257 
 His disappointments at Yuste . 268 
 The prudence and extreme dul- 
 
 ness of his writings . . . 259 
 His popular manners . . . .260 
 His religious moderation in the 
 
 world, and his bigotry in the 
 
 cloister 261 
 
 The Carolea of Sempere . . 262 
 The Carlo Famoso of Capata . 263 
 Extracts from the latter . . . 263 
 Mention of Don John of Austria 
 
 in the poem ...*.* 264 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Portents at the death of the 
 emperor 266 
 
 Contents of the codicil to his 
 will 267, 270 
 
 Paper relating to Don John of * 
 Austria 270 
 
 The princess-regent's orders re- 
 specting the emperor's per- 
 sonal property « , . , , 271 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Quixada and his wife, and Don 
 
 John 271, 272 
 
 Note on the traditional origin 
 
 of the name of Quacos . . 272 
 Funeral honours of the emperOr 
 
 at Valladolid 272 
 
 At Bruxelles, &c 273 
 
 At Lisbon, Rome, and Lon- 
 don 274,275 
 
 Emperor's body removed to the 
 
 Escorial in 1574 . . . 275, 277 
 Placed in the Pantheon by 
 
 Philip IV. in 1654 .... 278 
 Remark of Philip IV. ... 279 
 The emperor's sarcophagus, said 
 to have been opened by 
 Charles III. for Mr. Beck- 
 ford 279 
 
 Queen Mary of Hungary . . 280 
 Third marriage of Philip II. . 282 
 His return to Spain .... 283 
 The princess-regent Juana . . 283 
 
 Luis Quixada 285 
 
 Don John of Austria received 
 
 by Philip II 286 
 
 Quixada's death 288 
 
 Dona Magdalena de Ulloa . . 288 
 Extracts from letters of Don 
 John of Austria . . 288,289 
 
 Don John's affection for her 
 
 Her Jesuits' church and college 289 
 
 at Villagarcia 290 
 
 Insolence of the visitor of the 
 company to her and her 
 
 friends . 291 
 
 Her other foundations and alms- 
 deeds 291 
 
 Her death 291 
 
 L. Quixada's disposition of his 
 
 estate . , 292 
 
 His portrait now at Madrid . . J292 
 William Van Male .... 292 
 Correspondence between Philip 
 II. and the bishop of Arras 
 respecting his papers . . . 293 
 Martin de Gaztelu . . . .294 
 
 Guyon de Moron 294 
 
 Dr. Henry Mathys .... 295 
 Dr. Comelio Mathys .... 295 
 Fr, Juan de Regla .... 295 
 Fr. Francisco de Villalva . .297 
 Fr. Juan de A^oloras . . . 298 
 Fr. Juan de Santandres . . 298 
 Fr. Antonio de Villacastin . . 298 
 Giovanni Torriano .... 300 
 Father Francisco Boija . . . 302 
 
 His beatification 305 
 
 Archbishop Carranza of Toledo 306 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 Monastery 
 
 the duke 
 
 Pacheco 
 
 Visited by 
 
 Repaired 
 
 1638 . 
 
 The monks 
 
 Visited by 
 
 Visited by 
 
 of Yuste visited by 
 of Alba and cardinal 
 in 1559 . . . . 
 PhilipJL in 1570 . 
 by PhiUp IV. in 
 
 D. Antonio Ponz 
 M. Laborde . . 
 
 312 
 312 
 
 314 
 314 
 315 
 316 
 
 The monastery burnt by the 
 
 French in 1809 316 
 
 Visited by Lord John Russell in 
 
 1813 316 
 
 Robbed by the Constitutionalists 
 
 in 1820 317 
 
 Visited by Mr. Ford in 1832 . 318 
 Monasteries suppressed in 1837 318 
 My own visit to Yuste in 1849 319 
 State of the monastery . . . 320 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Extracts from the Inventory of the effects of Charles the Fifth at Yuste, p. 322 
 
 Books 323 
 
 Plate 324 
 
 Jewels 325 
 
 Crucifixes, paintings, &c 326 
 
 Furniture of the emperor's chamber 327 
 
 Stable, &c 328 
 
 Imdex 329 
 
XXX 
 
 
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 —Fernando, 
 -Carlos Lor 
 —Diego, 6. 11 
 —Maria, b. 1 
 
 
 
 d ,^ ri 'g T ^ h ^ 
 
 CO r'*'T3'a o S H 
 
 ■v i-i tn c^-, • S 5 
 
 
THE CLOISTER LIFE 
 
 OF THE EMPEROR 
 CHARLES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE IMPEEIAL ABDICATION 
 
 IT is not possible to determine the precise time at 
 which the emperor Charles the Fifth formed his 
 celebrated resolution to exchange the cares and honours 
 of a throne for the religious seclusion of a cloister. It 
 is certain, however, that this resolution was formed many 
 years before it was carried into eflPect. With his empress, 
 Isabella of Portugal, who died in 1538, Charles had 
 agreed that so soon as state affairs and the ages of 
 their children should permit, they were to retire for the 
 remainder of their days — he into a convent of friars, 
 and she into a nunnery. In 1542, he confided his 
 design to the duke of Gandia; and in 1546, it had 
 been whispered at court, and was mentioned by Ber- 
 nardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared envoy of Venice, in 
 a report to the doge.^ 
 
 In 1548, Phihp, heir-apparent of the Spanish 
 monarchy, was sent for by his father to receive the 
 
 * Relatione, Luglio, 1546 ; printed in Correspondence of the Emperor 
 Charles V. Edited by Rev. W. Bradford. 8vo. London: ISoO. p. 475. 
 
2 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 oath of allegiance from the states of the Netherlands ; 
 and in 1551_, he invested him with the duchy of Milan. 
 When only in his eighteenth year, the prince had been 
 left a widower by the death of his wife, Mary, daughter 
 of John the Third of Portugal. On his return to 
 Spain, he entered into negotiations for the hand of a 
 second Portuguese bride, his cousin, the infanta Mary, 
 daughter of his father^s sister Eleanor, by the late king, 
 Don Emanuel. After delays unusual even in Penin- 
 sular diplomacy, these negotiations had almost reached 
 a successful issue, when the emperor, on the thirtieth of 
 July, 1553, from Bruxelles, addressed Philip in a letter 
 which produced a very memorable effect on the politics 
 of Europe. Mary Tudor, he wrote, had inherited the 
 crown of England, and had given him an early hint of 
 her gracious willingness to become his second empress. 
 Eor himself, this tempting opportunity must be fore- 
 gone. ' Were the dominions of that kingdom greater 
 even than they are,^ he said, 'they should not move me 
 from my purpose — a purpose of quite another kind/^ 
 But he desired his son to take the matter into his 
 serious consideration, and to weigh well the merits of 
 the English princess before he resolved to conclude any 
 other match. In her childhood, the lady Mary had been 
 betrothed to the emperor, and she was now eleven years 
 older than his son. But Philip, who was preparing to 
 marry an infanta of thirty- three, was quite willing to 
 transfer his affections to a queen of thirty-seven. 
 Usually slow to decide, he showed in this matter a 
 promptitude of decision which proves how early in life 
 he deserved the title, afterwards given to him by his- 
 torians, of the Prudent. Concurring in the emperor^s 
 
 1 'Pero bien os puedo asegurar que otros muchos estados mas princi- 
 pales no me doblaran ni moveran del proposito en que estoi, que es bien 
 diferente.' Emp. to Philip II. 30tli July, 1553. 
 
1550-2.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 8 
 
 opinion, that one or other of them ought to marry the 
 queen of England, and seeing that matrimony was dis- 
 tasteful to his father, he professed his readiness to take 
 that duty on himself. He had, happily, not absolutely 
 concluded the Portuguese match, and he would therefore 
 at once proceed to break it oflP, on the plea that the dowry 
 promised was insufficient. Father and son being thus 
 of one mind, they opened the diplomatic campaign which 
 ended in adding another kingdom to the hymeneal con- 
 quests for which the house of Austria was already 
 famous,^ and in placing Philip, as king-consort, on the 
 throne of England. On the same day when Charles 
 suggested to his son the propriety of breaking faith with 
 his favourite sister^s only child, he signed the first order 
 for money to be spent in building his retreat at Yuste, 
 a Jeromite convent in Estremadura in Spain; and as 
 soon as the treachery had been completed and the prize 
 secured, he began seriously to prepare for a life of piety 
 and repose. 
 
 Rest and quiet were indeed urgently demanded by 
 the state of his health. His constitution, naturally 
 feeble, had long been imdermined by violent attacks of 
 gout. In 1550 that disease, flying to his head, had 
 threatened him with sudden death. In 1552, when his 
 army of sixty thousand men lay before Metz, and all 
 his thoughts were bent on that celebrated siege, it was 
 with difficulty, when he visited the lines, that he could 
 sit his Turkish charger for a quarter of an hour at a 
 time ; his face was pale and thin, his eyes sunken, and 
 
 ^ And so tersely celebrated in the epigram of Matthias Corvinus 
 
 Bella gerant alii ; tu felix Austria nube ! 
 Nam quae Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus. 
 
 Fight those who will ; let well starr'd Austria wed, 
 And conquer kingdoms in the marriage bed. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 his hair and beard were observed to have whitened with 
 remarkable rapidity. Early in 1554 his health and 
 spirits were so much shaken_, that there was some 
 colour for the deplorable report of them which the 
 French ambassador was instructed to make to the sultan 
 at Constantinople. Solyman the Magnificent was to be 
 told that his great christian rival had lost the use of an 
 arm and a leg ; that he was utterly unfit for business, 
 and spent his time in taking watches to pieces and put- 
 ting them together again; that he was gradually going 
 out of his mind; and that his sister, the queen of 
 Hungary, permitted him to be seen only at the far end 
 of a long gallery, where he showed himself sitting in his 
 chair, and looking more like a statue than a man.^ In 
 spite, however, of gout, dyspepsia, apd horological pur- 
 suits, he succeeded, greatly to the chagrin of France, in 
 adding the crown matrimonial of England to the many 
 diadems which were to be worn by his son Philip. But 
 had he much longer continued to bear the burden of 
 supreme power, there is little doubt that the hand of 
 death would soon have made Mary Tudor queen of 
 Castille. 
 
 That Philip might meet his English bride on equal 
 terms, the emperor ceded to him, in 1554, the title of 
 king of Naples. In the autumn of 1555 he recalled 
 him from Windsor to receive yet higher and more sub- 
 stantial honours, and to assist at the most remarkable 
 solemnities of a centurj^ prolific of great pageants as well 
 as of great events. The theatre of these solemnities 
 was the hall of the castle of Caudenberg, the ancient 
 palace of the dukes of Brabant, a mass of buildings of 
 various dates and styles, from the towering donjon 
 
 ^ Ribier ; Lettres et Memoir es d'etat sous les Regnes de Francois I., 
 Eenri II., et Francois II. 2 vols. fol. Paris : 1677. ii. p. 485. 
 
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 5 
 
 keep of duke John the Second/ to the airy portal, 
 pierced and pinnacled in the richest Gothic of the 
 days of Charles the Bold. Here, on the twenty -third 
 of October, Charles held a chapter of the Golden Fleece, 
 and invested Philip with the grand mastership of that 
 illustrious order. Three days later, on the twenty-fifth 
 of October, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the states- 
 general of the Netherlands appeared in the same hall 
 by their deputies, to witness the emperor's abdication 
 of the dominions of the house of Burgundy. They 
 took their seats on benches placed in the form of a 
 half circle, in front of a decorated dais, on which 
 stood three chairs beneath a canopy of state. On each 
 side of this dais were rows of seats, those on the right 
 being reserved for the knights of the Golden Fleece, 
 and those on th6 left for royal and noble guests. 
 Archers of the guard and halberdiers stood sentry at 
 the doors and kept order in the body of the hall, which 
 was densely crowded with spectators. The walls were 
 covered with magnificent tapestries, on which the rich 
 looms of Flanders had wrought the story of the Fleece 
 of Gold, and the institution of the order by Philip the 
 Good. When the deputies had taken their places accord- 
 ing to their rank, the doors which communicated with 
 the palace chapel were thrown open, and the emperor 
 appeared. The whole assembly rose and uncovered as 
 he approached. Supporting himself on the right with 
 a stafi*, and leaning with his left hand on the shoulder 
 of William prince of Orange, he slowly made his way 
 across the dais, and seated himself in the central chair. 
 
 ^ The building was destroyed by a fire, which broke out on the night 
 of the 3rd or 4th of February, 1731. It occupied the site of the 
 present chxirch of Caudenberg, and of the Place-royale. Th. Juste : 
 L' Abdication de Charles Quint. 8vo. Liege: 1851 ; an agreeable work, 
 reprinted in a separate form from the Prog res Pacifique. 
 
6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 He was closely followed by his son Philip, by his sisters, 
 Mary queen of Hungary and Eleanor queen of France, 
 and by his nephew, Ferdinand archduke of Austria. 
 After these came his beautiful niece, Christina duchess 
 of Lorraine, his nephew the gallant Emanuel Phihbert, 
 duke of Savoy, and the pope^s nuncio, heading a splen- 
 did throng of cardinals, ambassadors, nobles, and knights 
 of the fleece. The king of England and Naples seated 
 himself in the chair on the emperor's right hand, while 
 the queen of Hungary took that on his left. When all 
 were placed, the usher of the council called over the 
 names of the deputies of the provinces, and asked if 
 they were furnished with the necessary powers. Their 
 answers made, the emperor ordered the councillor Phili- 
 bert de Bruxelles to state to the assembly the reasons 
 which had induced him to abdicate the throne. In a 
 pompous oration, that functionary set forth that ill- 
 health had rendered the burden of power intolerable to 
 their master, and compelled him to seek the milder cli- 
 mate of Spain ; and he expatiated on the good fortune of 
 the Netherlands in being thus called upon to transfer 
 their allegiance to a prince in all respects so admirable 
 as the heir-apparent of Castille. The emperor then rose, 
 slowly and painfully, leaning heavily on the arm of the 
 prince of Orange. Holding in his hand a paper of 
 notes, to which he occasionally referred, he delivered in 
 French, in the midst of the profoundest silence, a speech, 
 of which the substance, if not the exact words, has been 
 preserved.^ 
 
 ^ The official account of the abdication, and various documents con- 
 nected with it, ten in all, preserved in the royal archives of Belgium, have 
 been published by M. Gachard, in his Analectes Belgiques, vol. i. 8vo. 
 Bruxelles, 1830, pp. 70 — 106. The emperor's speech is unfortunately not 
 officially reported, nor do the original notes exist, but there is an account 
 of it drawn up 'par quelque bon personnaige estani a la dicte assembl^e,' 
 which must have been esteemed a correct one, or it would hardly have 
 been placed in the archives. 
 
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 7 
 
 ' Some of you/ he said, ' will remember that on the 
 fifth of January last, forty years had elapsed since the 
 day when, in this very hall, I received, at the age of 
 fifteen, from my paternal grandfather the emperor 
 Maximilian, the sovereignty of the Belgian provinces. 
 My maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, king Ferdinand 
 the Catholic, dying soon after, there devolved on me 
 the care of a heritage which the state of my mother's 
 health did not permit her to govern. At the age of 
 seventeen, therefore, I crossed the sea to take possession 
 of the kingdom of Spain. At nineteen, on the death 
 of the emperor, I ventured to aspire to the imperial ' 
 crown, from a desire, not of extending my dominions 
 but, of the more effectually providing for the safety of 
 Germany, and of my other kingdoms, and especially of 
 the Belgian provinces, and in the hope of maintaining 
 peace amongst christian nations, and of uniting their 
 forces in defending the catholic faith against the Turk. 
 
 ' These designs I have not been able completely to 
 execute, owing, in part, to the outbreak of the German 
 heresy, and in part to the jealousy of rival powers. 
 But with God's help I have never ceased to resist my 
 enemies, and to endeavour to fulfil the task imposed on 
 me. In the course of my expeditions, sometimes to 
 make war, sometimes to make peace, I have travelled 
 nine times into High Germany, six times into Spain, 
 seven times into Italy, four times into France, twice 
 into England, and twice into Africa, accomplishing in 
 all forty long journeys, without counting visits of less 
 importance to my various states. I have crossed the 
 Mediterranean eight times, and the Spanish sea twice. 
 I will not now allude to my journey from Spain to the 
 Netherlands, undertaken, as you know, for reasons suf- 
 ficiently grave.^ My frequent absence from these pro- 
 
 » To suppress the insurrection at Ghent in 1540. 
 
8 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 vinces obliged me to entrust their government to my 
 sister Mary, who is here present. I know, and the states- 
 general know also, how well she has discharged her duties. 
 Although I have been engaged in many wars, into none of 
 them have I gone willingly; and in bidding you farewell, 
 nothing is so painful to me as not to have been able to 
 leave you a firm and assured peace. Before my last expe- 
 dition into Germany, considering the deplorable state of 
 my health, I had already contemplated relieving myself 
 of the burden of public business; but the troubles 
 which agitated Christendom induced me to put off my 
 design, in the hope of restoring peace, and because, not 
 being so enfeebled as I now am, I felt it incumbent on 
 me to sacrifice to the welfare of my people what 
 remained to me of strength and life. I had almost 
 attained the end of my endeavours, when the sudden 
 attack made upon me by the king of France and some 
 of the German princes, forced me again to take up 
 arms. I have done what I can to defeat the league 
 against me; but the issue of war is in the hand of 
 God, who gives victory or takes it away at his pleasure. 
 Let us be thankful to Providence that we have not 
 to deplore any of those great reverses which leave deep 
 traces behind them, but on the contrary, have obtained 
 some victories of which our children may cherish the 
 remembrance. In entering on my retirement I entreat 
 you to be faithful to your prince, and to maintain a good 
 understanding amongst yourselves. Above all, resist 
 those new sects which infest the adjoining countries; 
 and if heresy should penetrate within your frontier, 
 hasten to extirpate it, or evil will overtake you. For 
 myself, I must confess that I have been led into 
 many errors, whether by youthful inexperience, or by 
 the pride of riper age, or by some other weakness 
 inherent in human nature. But I declare that never, 
 
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 9 
 
 knowingly and willingly, have I done wrong or \iolence, 
 nor authorized such deeds in others. If, notwithstand- 
 ing, such offences may be justly chargeable upon me, I 
 solemnly assure you that I have committed them un- 
 known to myself and against my own desire; and I 
 entreat those whom I may thus have wronged, both 
 those who are present to- day and those who are absent, 
 to grant me their forgiveness.' 
 
 Fatigued with standing and speaking, perhaps over- 
 come by his emotions, the emperor here sat down to 
 rest. Queen Eleanor brought him a small cup of 
 cordial. Having touched it with his Hps, he again rose, 
 and turning to his son, who stood uncovered by his 
 side, addressed him to this effect. 
 
 ' Were you put in possession of these provinces by 
 my death, so fair a heritage might well give me a claim 
 on your gratitude. But now that I give them up to 
 you of my own will, dying as it were before the time 
 for your advantage, I expect that your care and love of 
 your people will repay me in the way such a boon 
 deserves. Other kings reckon themselves fortunate to 
 be able, at the hour of death, to place their crowns 
 on their children's heads ; I wish to enjoy this happiness 
 in my hfe, and to see you reign. My conduct will 
 have few imitators, as it has few examples; but it will 
 be praised if you justify my confidence, if you do not 
 dechne in the wisdom you have hitherto displayed, and 
 if you continue to be the strenuous defender of the 
 cathohc faith, and of law and justice, which are the 
 strength and the bulwarks of empire. May you also have 
 a son to whom you may, in turn, transmit your power !' 
 
 With these words the emperor tenderly embraced his 
 son, who was now kneeling before him, and kissing his 
 hand. Placing his hand on the head of his successor, 
 Charles the Fifth, with tears in his eyes, bestowed on 
 
L 
 
 10 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 him his paternal blessing, and committed him to the 
 protection of God. Philip^s cold heart was melted at 
 this solemn moment, and he also shed tears, which 
 likewise flowed plentifully both in the ranks of the noble 
 and knightly spectators, and amongst the populace in 
 the centre of the hall. 
 
 The emperor and his son having resumed their seats, 
 Jacques Maes, an eminent lawyer and syndic of Antwerp, 
 stood up to answer the abdicating monarch in the name of 
 the states-general. His speech was remarkable for long- 
 winded magniloquence and gross adulation. Charles 
 was described as the greatest of monarchs, his Flemish 
 people, as the most devoted and peaceable of subjects. 
 As for Philip, that worthy image of a great sire was 
 ^ declared to be so marvellously endowed by nature, that 
 ^^ had the states-general been free to choose their lord, 
 they must have preferred him to any other prince in 
 Christendom. Rising from his chair, the new sovereign 
 bowed to the assembly, replied in a few words expres- 
 sive of his regret for his imperfect French, which com- 
 pelled him to speak through the mouth of the bishop of 
 Arras, to whom however he had imparted his wishes and 
 his feelings. 
 
 Anthony Perrenot, bishop of Arras, was the able 
 statesman afterwards so powerful and so famous as 
 cardinal Granvelle. His address was well suited to the 
 occasion, being brief, clear, and dignified. In the king^s 
 name, he assured the states-general th|it his majesty had 
 accepted the sovereignty only out of respect to the 
 express command of his father. He solemnly promised 
 to employ all his power in governing them and defend- 
 ing them well, and he hoped that he should find him- 
 self the ruler of a loyal people. He would remain among 
 them as long, and he would return to them as often, as 
 affairs required his presence. He would specially watch 
 
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 11 
 
 over the maintenance of the cathoHc religion, justice, their 
 old laws, privileges, and immunities, and in all things 
 would show himself a good prince, as he hoped that 
 they would show themselves good subjects. 
 
 When the bishop ended his harangue, the third per- 
 sonage in the royal group beneath the canopy rose to 
 address the assembly. Mary, queen of Hungary, for 
 twenty-four years the able and indefatigable ruler of the 
 Netherlands, announced that she also was about to 
 resign the delegated authority which she had so long 
 wielded. The emperor and the king, said she, had 
 at last permitted her to pass into Spain, there to 
 serve God in the tranquillity which her age and her 
 fatigues demanded. Had her knowledge and capacity 
 been equal to the zeal and fidelity with which she 
 had devoted herself to her duties, never would sovereign 
 have been better served, nor country better governed. 
 While she begged for indulgence and forgiveness for 
 the errors which she had committed, she acknowledged 
 that these would have been far more numerous, but 
 for the assistance she had received from the counsellers 
 now around her, and from those who had gone before 
 them. Entreating the emperor, the king, and the 
 deputies to accept her services in the spirit in which 
 they had been rendered, she desired to carry with her 
 the goodwill of the Belgian people, and to assure them 
 of her affection, and of her earnest desire for their 
 welfare, to which ^ any power she might possess would 
 ever be directed.^ 
 
 The eloquence and flattery of Jacques Maes were 
 again put in motion. In his own diffuse style, and 
 in the name of the states - general, he assured the 
 
 ^ Queen Mary's speech is printed by M. Gachard, from a minute in 
 her own handwriting, in the royal archives of Belgium. 
 
12 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 queen of Hungary that her government had given uni- 
 versal satisfaction, and he thanked her for the affection 
 towards her late subjects which she had just expressed. 
 The emperor then signed and sealed the formal deed 
 of abdication; and declaring Philip invested with the 
 sovereignty of the Netherlands, he slowly retired from 
 the hall, followed by his family and court, and leaving 
 the audience deeply moved with a scene, which, more 
 than any other event of an eventful reign, is calculated 
 to affect the imagination and dwell in the remembrance 
 of distant posterity. 
 
 In the year following, on the sixteenth of January, 
 1556, in the same place, and with a similar ceremonial, 
 he signed and sealed the act of abdication of his 
 SiciHan and Spanish kingdoms, and their dependencies 
 in Africa and the New World; and on the sixteenth of 
 August he placed in the hands of the prince of Orange, 
 who received it with tears, a deed of renunciation of the 
 imperial crown to be laid before the diet of the empire. 
 It was already understood that the electors were to confer 
 the vacant dignity on Charleses brother Ferdinand, king 
 of the Romans, and actual sovereign of the archduchies 
 of Austria. To obtain the diadem of the Csesars for 
 his son Philip, had long been one of the dreams of 
 Charles's ambition. Ferdinand, however, would neither 
 waive his claims, nor even consent to the proposal that 
 Philip should succeed him, to be succeeded in his turn 
 by Ferdinand's son, Maximilian, king of Bohemia. The 
 discussion of the question had for some time caused a 
 coolness between the emperor and the king of the Romans; 
 and Charles was especially offended with Ferdinand for 
 seeking to strengthen his position by the support of the 
 protestant electors. But the design being abandoned as 
 hopeless, it was now the earnest wish of the abdicating 
 monarch that the subsequent formalities should be ac- 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 13 
 
 complished with all practicable speed. 'Should the 
 electors/ he wrote to Ferdinand/ 'refuse their consent to 
 the transfer of the title, which God forbid, my ambassadors 
 are instructed to demand that I be at least permitted to 
 resign to you the entire administration of affairs. My 
 conscience being thus discharged of its burden, I will 
 keep the title, although, if any way can be found of 
 laying even that aside, it is the thing which I most 
 desire, and in which your good offices will give me most 
 contentment.^ 
 
 When Charles laid down the sceptre, he also quitted 
 the palace, of his Burgundian ancestors. He chose for 
 his retreat a small house, where part of his childhood 
 had been spent, in the park of Bruxelles, not then 
 the trim urban pleasance which later times and taste 
 have made it, but a skirt of the wild forest of Soigne. 
 This pavilion, of one story and a few rooms, for a 
 century afterwards was known as the house of Charles 
 the Fifth; its site, near the Louvain-gate, is now 
 covered by the national or legislative palace of Belgium. 
 Here the retired monarch hved for many months, 
 much tormented with gout, but giving close attention 
 to the winding up of his affairs with the world. In 
 the previous autumn the king of the Romans had 
 negotiated at Augsburg a peace with the protestants of 
 Germany. In the spring of 1556, under the arbitration 
 of the EngUsh queen, the terms of a long truce be- 
 tween the house of Valois and the house of Austria were 
 agreed upon at the abbey of Vaucelles. In this truce 
 the emperor took the deepest interest and an active part; 
 hoping that it might be the foundation of that solid 
 
 ^ On the 8th August, 1556. The letter occurs in the CoiTespondenz 
 des Kaisers Karl V. von Dr. Karl Lanz. 3 vols. 8vo. Leipzig: 1844. 
 iii. p. 708-9. 
 
U CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 and lasting peace in winch, as he told the states- 
 general, it had been his wish to retire from the world. 
 While thus engaged, he seemed to be rehearsing the 
 existence which he had so long planned for himself in 
 the distant convent in Spain. His sole counsellor and 
 confidant was the bishop of Arras. He was waited on 
 by a few gentlemen of grave and venerable aspect, and 
 clad in black ; and he inhabited only a couple of rooms 
 sombrely tapestried with black cloth. 
 
 Here, on Palm-Sunday, 1556, he received the admiral 
 de Coligny, ambassador of Henry the Second of France, 
 sent to Bruxelles to witness the ratification by the king 
 of Spain of the truce between the crowns. The 
 Frenchman and his brilliant following nearly filled the 
 small room in which they found the emperor dressed 
 in a citizen^s black gown of Florence serge and a 
 Mantua bonnet, sitting beside his black writing-table. 
 When the most Christian king^s letter was put into his 
 hand, it was with some difficulty that his gouty fingers 
 broke the broad official seal. ' What will you say of me, 
 my lord admiral,^ said he; 'am I not a brave cavalier to 
 break a lance with, I, — who can hardly open a letter V 
 After hearing the letter read by the bishop of Arras, 
 and discussing its contents, he asked the ambassador 
 about his master^s health, and whether he was getting 
 grey. On learning that a few white hairs were already 
 visible on the head of Henry the Second, he said that 
 he well remembered the time when he had first observed 
 upon his own those unpleasant symptoms of decay. 
 It was at Naples, after his return from Tunis, when he 
 was being dressed and perfumed to pay his court to the 
 ladies. At first he ordered his barber to pluck out the 
 intruders. But for every white hair thus removed, he 
 soon found that three more made their appearance ; and 
 he doubted not that, if he had persevered in the de- 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 15 
 
 pilatory process, he would soon have been as white as 
 a swan. 
 
 Brusquet, the famous jester of four kings of France/ 
 had come in the train of the admiral. Recognising 
 him, the emperor asked him how he did; to which 
 Brusquet repHed that his majesty was too gracious 
 to notice one of the worms of the earth. ^ Have you 
 forgotten/ said Charles, ' what passed between you 
 and the marshal de Strozzi on the day of spurs ?^ 
 alluding to a battle in which that famous general had 
 found his spurs of more use than his sword. *I re- 
 member it well,^ retorted Brusquet; 'it was at the very 
 time when your Majesty bought those fine rubies and 
 carbuncles which you wear on your fingers,' pointing 
 to the emperor's hands, knotted and disfigured with 
 gout. At this rough personal thrust Charles laughed 
 heartily — a laugh in which aU the company joined — and 
 said, ' I would not for a good deal have lost the lesson 
 you have taught me, not to meddle with a man who 
 looks hke a harmless idiot, as you look, and assuredly 
 are not.' He then courteously dismissed the admiral 
 and his companions; and, going to an open window, 
 stood there watching the cavalcade as it went glittering 
 through the park, a well-timed appearance which dis- 
 pelled a rumour that had been circulated of his being 
 at the point of death. ^ 
 
 Sometime afterwards, a contagious malady breaking 
 out at BruxeUes, the emperor removed for awhile from 
 
 ^ Francis I., Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX. Brantome gives an 
 account of Brusquet and his witticisms, in his Discours sur le mareschal 
 Strozzi; oeuvres, 8 torn. 8vo, Paris, 1787, iv. p. 435. He kept what he 
 called a book of fools, and he inscribed in it the name of his master, 
 Francis I., after Charles V. had been permitted to pass through France 
 on his way to Ghent, ' But what,' said Francis, ' if I allow him to return 
 as securely as he came V ' Nay,' said Brusquet, * if he ventures himself 
 again in your power, I will erase your name, and put his in its place.' 
 
 * Ribier ; Lettres et Memoires d'etat : Voyage de M. VAmiral. ii. p. 633. 
 
16 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. i. 
 
 his home in the park to a still humbler retreat in the 
 village of Grimberghe, near Vilvorde. He continued to 
 linger in Flanders, partly on account of the difficulties 
 which lay in the way of his renunciation of the imperial 
 crown, but mainly from a desire to see his daughter, 
 Mary, wife of his nephew, Maximilian, king of Bohemia. 
 These royal personages being detained in Germany until 
 July, his departure for Spain, which had been fixed for 
 the month of June, was postponed until August. When 
 Maximilian and Mary arrived, Bruxelles became for a 
 few days the scene of tournays, banquets, and other 
 sumptuous festivities. These ended, the emperor began 
 his journey, and arrived on the thirteenth of August at 
 his favourite city of Ghent. There he was lodged, for 
 ten or twelve days, in the hotel of Ravenstein, the 
 mansion of an old historic race, standing opposite the 
 ancient palace of the counts of Flanders, in which he 
 had first seen the hght. 
 
 On the twenty-sixth of August, he gave a farewell 
 audience to the foreign ambassadors who had followed 
 him from Bruxelles. He then took the road to Flushing, 
 where the fleet had assembled to convey him to Spain. 
 Besides the queens of France and Hungary, who were 
 to be the companions of his voyage, he was attended to 
 the coast by Philip the Second, Mary queen of Bohemia, 
 and many of the nobles of the Netherlands. A good 
 many days were spent at Flushing, or at Zuitburg, in 
 waiting for favourable weather. Amongst the last things 
 done on shore by the emperor was to write to his 
 brother Ferdinand a long letter of advice as to the 
 manner of dealing with the electoral diet in order to 
 procure its unconditional acceptance of the act of ab- 
 dication. He concluded it in these words : ^ I am all 
 ready, waiting with the queens my sisters, until it shall 
 please God to send us a fair wind to set sail, being 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 17 
 
 determined to let no opportunity slip, but to take the 
 earliest occasion of proceeding on our voyage, which I 
 pray God to prosper. — From Zuitburg, the twelfth of 
 September, 1556.'^ The royal party embarked on the 
 following day. 
 
 ^ Lanz : Correspondenz, iii. p. 712. The place is supposed to be the 
 village now called Wester-Souburg, near Flessingue, or Flushing, 
 Juste : L' Abdication, p. 30, note. 
 
18 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE BAY OF BISCAY; LAREDO; BURGOS; 
 AND VALLADOLID. 
 
 OF the royal ladies who were now about to accompany 
 their imperial brother in his voyage, and, like him, 
 to seek retirement in Spain, the elder was the gentle and 
 once beautiful Eleanor, queen dowager of Portugal and 
 of France. She was now in her fifty-eighth year, and 
 much broken in health. In youth the favourite sister 
 of the emperor, and in later days always addressed 
 by him as madame ma meilleur soeur,^ she had never- 
 theless been the peculiar victim of his poHcy and 
 ambition. As a mere lad, he had driven from his court 
 her first-love, Frederick, prince-palatine, that he might 
 strengthen his alliance with Portugal by marrying her 
 to Emanuel the Great, a man old enough to be her 
 father, and tottering on the brink of the grave. When 
 she became a widow, two years afterwards, her hand 
 was used by her brother, first as a bait to flatter the 
 hopes and fix the fidelity of the unfortunate constable 
 de Bourbon, and next as a means of soothing the 
 wounded pride and obtaining the alliance of his captive, 
 the constable's liege lord. The French marriage was 
 probably the more unhappy of the two. Francis the 
 First never forgot that he had signed the contract in 
 
 • See his letters to her amongst the Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de 
 Qranvelle d'apres les manuscrits de la Biblioth. de Besangon, torn. i. — viii. 
 4to. Paris: 1840—50. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V 19 
 
 prison, and speedily forsook his new wife for the sake of 
 mistresses new or old. The queen was obhged to 
 solace herself with such reflections as were plentifully 
 supplied in the pedantic Latin verses of the day, in 
 which the world was told, that whereas the fair Helen 
 of Troy had been a cause of war, the no less lovely 
 Eleanor of Austria was a bond and pledge of peace. 
 She bore her husband's neglect with heroic meekness : 
 she was an affectionate mother to the children of her 
 predecessor, and so far as her influence extended, an 
 unwearied peace-maker between the houses of Valois 
 and Austria. Since 1547, the year of her second 
 widowhood, she had lived chiefly at the court of the 
 emperor, whose last pubhc act of brotherly unkindness 
 had been to instigate his son to break his troth to her 
 only daughter. 
 
 The other sister, Mary, queen dowager of Hungary, 
 was five years younger than Eleanor, and a woman of a 
 very different stamp. Her husband, Louis the Second, 
 had been slain in 1526, fighting the Turk among the 
 marshes of Mohacz. Inconsolable for his loss, Mary, 
 then only twenty-three years of age, took a vow of per- 
 petual widowhood, a vow from which she never sought 
 a dispensation. In spite of this act of feminine devo- 
 tion, she was, even in that age of manly women, re- 
 markable for her intrepid spirit and her iron frame. 
 To much of the bodily strength of her Polish ancestress, 
 Cymburgis of the hammer-fist, she united the cool head 
 and the strong wiU of her brother Charles. Hunting 
 and hawking she loved hke Mary of Burgundy, and her 
 horsemanship must have dehghted the knightly heart of 
 her grand sire Maximilian. Not only could she bring 
 down her deer with unerring aim, but tucking up her 
 sleeves, and drawing her knife, she would cut the animaFs 
 throat, and rip up its belly in as good style as the best 
 
 c 2 
 
20 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 of the royal foresters.^ It was to her that the imperial 
 ambassador in England made known Mary Tudor's 
 desire for some ^ wild-boar venison/ to grace the feasts 
 which followed her coronation — a desire which was forth- 
 with gratified by the arrival in London of the lieutenant 
 of the royal venery of Flanders, with a prime six-year- 
 old boar, as a gift from the queen of Hungary.^ Roger 
 Ascham, meeting the sporting dowager as she galloped 
 into Tongres, far ahead of her suite, although it was her 
 tenth day in the saddle, recorded the fact in his note- 
 book, with a remark which briefly summed up the 
 popular opinion of her character. ' She is,^ says he, 
 ' a virago ; she is never so well as when she is flinging 
 on horseback and hunting all the night long.^^ To the 
 firm hand of this Amazon-sister the emperor very 
 wisely committed the government of the turbulent Low 
 Countries. For twenty-four stormy years she adminis- 
 tered it with much vigour and tolerable success; now 
 foiUng the ambitious schemes of Denmark and of 
 France ; now repressing Anabaptist or Lutheran risings ; 
 and always gathering as she could the sinews of war for 
 the imperial armies abroad. While she conducted in 
 her cabinet a vast correspondence, she was also at 
 all times ready for a gallop to any corner of her states, 
 where there was need of her quick eye and bold hand. 
 Guarding the northern outpost of the dominion of 
 Austria, her experience in watching the designs of 
 France on the one side, and England on the other, 
 had sharpened to the finest acuteness her political 
 sagacity. She it was who first penetrated the secret 
 
 * Libro de la Monteria del Bey D. Alonso; fol. Se villa : 1582. See 
 the Discwso de G. Argote de Molina, fol. 19. 
 
 « Papiers de Oranvdle. iv. 121 — 135. 
 
 " P. Fraser Tytler's Orig. Letters of the reigns of K. Edward VI. and 
 Q. Mary, 2 vols. 8vo, London : 1839, ii. p. 127. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 21 
 
 counsels of Maurice of Saxony, and obtained proof of 
 his treason to the imperial cause. Charles, who soon 
 discovered the value of her advice and assistance, was 
 wont to call her his other self. In spite of the troubled 
 times in which she reigned, her vice-regal court was 
 not wanting in the splendour which had long distin- 
 guished the old court of Burgundy. The palace which 
 she built at Binche in Hainault, and her beautiful 
 adjacent gardens of Mariemont, with their marbles 
 and fountains, were the pride of the Netherlands; 
 and the festivities with which she had there enter- 
 tained the emperor and prince Philip in the summer 
 of 1549,^ were long remembered for their surpassing 
 magnificence by the old courtiers of Vienna and 
 Madrid. Binche was soon afterwards burned to the 
 ground by the French, an injury for which Mary vowed 
 to make all France do penance, and to leave no stone 
 standing at Fontainebleau.^ Although she did not live to 
 accomplish the latter threat, her latest exploit in arms was 
 a foray, during the siege of Metz, which she led with so 
 much spirit into Picardy, that Henry the Second found 
 it necessary to come to the rescue of his province. She 
 had, indeed, no reason to love the French, who not only 
 carried fire and sword into her favourite bowers, but 
 assailed her reputation with the poisoned arrows of their 
 satire. The epigrammatists of Paris loved to rhyme of 
 her as the huntress Dian, and to insinuate that in spite 
 of her professed fidelity to her husband's memory, a love 
 of the chase formed her sole title to the name of the 
 chaste goddess. She was now in her fifty-second year 
 — bronzed rather than broken by her toils, and though 
 
 * A full and entertaining account of the 'Fiestas de Bins,' for so the 
 Spaniards called the place, will be found in J. C. Calvete ; Viaje del 
 principe D. Philippe, fol. 182-205. 
 
 2 Brantome; GEuvres, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris: 1787, ii. p. 647. 
 
22 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 seeking retirement and repose, still fit for the council or 
 the saddle. The reason for which she had demanded 
 her release from power was a palpitation of the heart, 
 to which she had been subject for many years. It was 
 much against his will that the emperor accepted her 
 resignation ; and more than once before their departure 
 both he and Philip the Second hinted their wish that 
 she should resume the helm in the Netherlands, which 
 had been meanwhile entrusted to the duke of Savoy. 
 To these hints she not only turned a deaf ear, but she 
 even refused to take any part in obtaining the supplies 
 from the states-general, who had already displayed a 
 disposition to economy extremely inconvenient to the 
 paragon prince who now claimed their allegiance and 
 their bounty. It is probable, therefore, that an un- 
 favourable opinion of her nephew had as much weight 
 in determining her retirement, as the state of her health 
 and her advancing age.^ 
 
 The fleet which had assembled at Flushing numbered 
 fifty-six Spanish and Flemish sail, and was commanded 
 by Don Luis de Carvajal. The vessel prepared for the 
 emperor was a Biscayan ship of five hundred and sixty- 
 five tons, the Espiritu Santo, but generally called the 
 Bertendona, from the name of the commander. The 
 cabin of Charles was fitted up with green hangings, a 
 swing bed with curtains of the same colour, and eight 
 glass windows. His personal suite consisted of one 
 hundred and fifty persons. The queens were accom- 
 modated on board a Flemish vessel. Although the royal 
 party embarked at Zuitburg on the thirteenth of Sep- 
 tember, the state of the weather did not allow them to 
 put to sea until the seventeenth. The next day, as 
 
 ' An excellent notice of queen Mary of Hungary, from the pen, I 
 believe, of M. Th. Juste, will be found in the Revue Nationale de Bel- 
 gique, torn. xvii. p. 13, 8vo, 1847. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 23 
 
 they passed between the white cliffs of Kent and Artois, 
 they fell in with an English squadron of five sail, of 
 which the admiral came on board the emperor's ship, 
 and kissed his hand. On the twentieth, contrary winds 
 drove them to take shelter under the isle of Portland 
 for a night and a day. The weather continuing un- 
 favourable, on the twenty-second the emperor ordered 
 the admiral to steer for the isle of Wight, but a fair 
 breeze springing up as they came in sight of that island, 
 the fleet once more took a westerly course, and gained 
 the coast of Biscay without further adventure. On the 
 afternoon of Monday, the twenty-eighth of September, the 
 good ship Bertendona cast anchor in the road of Laredo. 
 
 The gulf of Laredo is a forked inlet of irregular form, 
 opening towards the east, and walled from the north- 
 western blast by the craggy and castled headland of 
 Santoiia. Laredo, with its fortress, stands at the mouth of 
 the gulf on the south-eastern shore. Once a commercial 
 station of the Romans, it became an important arsenal 
 of St. Ferdinand of Castille. From Laredo, Ramon 
 Bonifaz sailed to the Guadalquivir and the conquest of 
 Seville ; and a Laredo-built ship struck the fatal blow to 
 the Moorish capital, by bursting the bridge of boats and 
 chains which connected the Golden Tower with the 
 suburb of Triana, an exploit commemorated by St. 
 Ferdinand in the augmentation, of a ship, to the muni- 
 cipal bearings of Laredo. After some centm-ies of 
 prosperity, the town was cruelly sacked, in 1639, by the 
 archbishop of Bordeaux, the apostolic admiral of Louis 
 the Thirteenth. Santander rose upon its ruins; its 
 population dwindled from fourteen, to three, thousand ; 
 fishing craft only were found in its sand-choked haven ; 
 yet, true to its martial fame, it sent a gallant band of 
 seamen to die at Trafalgar. 
 
 This ancient seaport was now the scene of a debarka- 
 
24 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 tion more remarkable than any which Spain had known 
 since Columbus stepped ashore at Palos, with his red 
 men from the New World. Landing on the evening 
 of the twenty-eighth of September, 1556/ the emperor 
 was received by Pedro Manrique, bishop of Salamanca, 
 and Durango, an alcalde of the court, who were in 
 waiting there by order of the infanta Juana, regent of 
 Spain. He was joined on the following morning by 
 the two queens. The arrival of the royal party seemed 
 to take the bishop and the town by surprise, for few 
 preparations had as yet been made for its reception. 
 The admiral Carvajal instantly despatched his brother 
 Alonso to court with the intelligence, which he dehvered 
 at Valladolid on the first of October. 
 
 The princess-regent, the infanta Juana, had already 
 issued instructions to the primate, prelates, and chap- 
 ters of Spain to cause prayers to be said in their 
 respective cathedrals for the prosperity of her father's 
 voyage. She had also given orders to colonel Luis 
 Quixada, the emperor's chamberlain, who had preceded 
 him to Spain, to prepare a residence for the emperor at 
 Valladolid. These arrangements completed, Quixada had 
 returned to his country house at Villagarcia, six leagues 
 to the north-west of Valladolid, whither a courier was 
 now sent with a command for him to repair with all 
 speed to the coast. The active chamberlain was in the 
 saddle by two in the morning of the second of October, 
 and making the best of his way, on his own horses, to 
 Burgos, he there took post, and accompHshed the entire 
 
 * De Thou {Hist, sui Temp., lib. xvii.) says, that Charles on landing 
 knelt down and kissed the earth, ejaculating, ' I salute thee, common 
 mother ! Naked came I forth from the womb to receive the treasures of 
 the earth, and naked am I about to return to the bosom of the universal 
 mother.' Had the emperor really done or spoken so, it is most unlikely 
 that his secretary would have failed to mention it in his letters — none 
 of which contain any hint that can justify the tale. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 25 
 
 distance (fifty-six leagues, or about two hundred and ten 
 English miles,) in three days, dismounting on the night 
 of the fourth at Laredo. 
 
 The presence of the stout old soldier was much wanted. 
 Half of the emperor^s people were ill; Monsieur de 
 La Chaulx and Monsieur d'Aubremont had tertian and 
 quartan fevers; seven or eight of the meaner at- 
 tendants were dead ; yet there were no doctors to give 
 any assistance. There was even a difficulty in finding 
 a priest to say mass, the staff of physicians and chaplains 
 which had been ordered down from Valladolid not having 
 yet been heard of But for the well-stored larder of the 
 bishop of Salamanca, there would have been short 
 commons at the royal table. When the secretary, Martin 
 Gaztelu, wrote to complain of these things, there was 
 no courier at hand to carry the letter. The weather 
 was wet and tempestuous, and of a fleet of ships, laden 
 with wool, which the royal squadron had met at sea, 
 some had returned dismasted to port, and others had 
 gone to the bottom,^ The Flemings were loud in their 
 discontent, and very ill-disposed to penetrate any further 
 into a country so hungry and inhospitable. The alcalde 
 who was charged with the preparations for the journey, 
 was at his wit^s end, though hardly beyond the beginning 
 of his work. The emperor himself was ill, and out of 
 humour with the badness of the arrangements ; but he 
 was cheered by the sight of his trusty Quixada, and 
 welcomed him with much kindness. 
 
 ' The loss of the vessel of Francis Cachopin, with eighty men, and a 
 cargo worth 80,000 ducats, is particularly mentioned by Gaztelu, in his 
 letter to Juan Vazquez de Molina, dated 6th of October. This storm 
 seems to be the sole foundation for Sandoval's story {Hist, de Carlos V., 
 Lib. xxxii. c. 39, 2 vol, Pamplona : 1634, ii. p. 820, and repeated by 
 Strada, Be Bello Belgico, 2 tom. sm. Svo. Antv. 1640, i., p. 10) that the 
 emperor's ship went down a few hours after he had quitted her. No 
 trace of such an accident is to be found in the Gonzalez MS. 
 
26 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 From the moment that the old campaigner took the 
 command, matters began to wear a more hopeful aspect. 
 The day after his arrival was spent in vigorous prepa- 
 ration ; and in the morning of the sixth of October, a 
 messcDger came from Valladolid with a seasonable supply 
 of provisions. That morning, while Gaztelu penned a 
 somewhat desponding account of the backwardness of 
 things in general, Quixada wrote a cheerful announce- 
 ment that they were to begin their march that day at 
 noon, after his majesty had dined — a promise which he 
 managed to fulfil. 
 
 The emperor, in spite of the discomforts of his sojourn 
 at Laredo, is said to have left to the town some marks 
 of his favour. The parish church of the Assumption of 
 the Virgin — a fine temple of the thirteenth century, 
 grievously marred by the embellishments of the eigh- 
 teenth — was happy in the possession of a holy image. 
 Our Lady of the Magian kings, full of miraculous power, 
 and of benevolence to sailors. Two lecterns of bronze, 
 in the shape of eagles with expanded wings, and an 
 altar-ternary of silver, which still adorn her shrine, are 
 prized as proofs that Charles the Fifth enjoyed and valued 
 her protection.^ 
 
 The feeble state of the emperor's health required that 
 he should travel by easy stages. His first day's march, 
 along the rocky shore of the gulf, and up the right bank 
 of the Ason, was hardly three leagues. The halting 
 place was Ampuero, a village, hung on the wooded side 
 of Moncerrago. Next day, about four leagues were 
 accomplished, on a road which still kept along the 
 sylvan valley of the Ason — a mountain stream, renowned 
 for its salmon, and for the grand cataract in which it 
 
 1 Madoz : Diccionario geografico estadistico historico de Espana, 17 vols, 
 roy. 8vo. Madrid: 1850, art. Laredo, a work of the greatest value and 
 importance. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 27 
 
 leaps from its source high up in the sierra. La Nestosa, 
 a hamlet in a fertile hill-embosomed plain, was the second 
 day^s bourne. The third journey, of four leagues, was 
 on the ridge of Tornos, to Aguera, a village buried among 
 the wildest mountains of the great sierra which divides 
 the woods and pastures of Biscay from the brown plains 
 of Old Castillo. On the fourth day, a march of five 
 leagues across the southern spurs of the same range, 
 brought the travellers to Medina de Pomar, a small 
 town on a rising ground in a wide and windswept plain. 
 Here the emperor paused a day to repose. 
 
 He had performed the journey with tolerable ease, 
 in a horse-litter, which he exchanged, when the road was 
 rugged or very steep, for a chair carried by men* Two 
 of these chairs, and three litters, in case of accident in 
 the wild highland march, formed his travelling equip- 
 ment. By the side of the litter rode Luis Quixada; 
 or, in case the chamberlain, who was also marshal and 
 quarter-master, was needed elsewhere, his place was 
 taken by La Chaulx, an old and faithful servant, who, 
 thirty years before, had had the honour of appearing 
 as the emperor's marriage-proxy at the court of Portu- 
 gal.^ The rest of the attendants followed on horse- 
 back, and the cavalcade was preceded by the alcalde 
 Durango, and five alguazils, with their wands of office — 
 a vanguard which Quixada said made the party look 
 like a convoy of prisoners. These alguazils, and the 
 general shabbiness of the regiment under his command, 
 Avere matters of great concern to the colonel; but his 
 remonstrances met with no sympathy from the em- 
 peror, who said the tipstaves did very well for him, and 
 
 » His long and interesting account of his proceedings there, is in the 
 Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V., von Dr. Karl Lanz, i. p. 169. The 
 name is usually spelt by Sandoval and other Spaniards Laxao. 
 
28 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 that he did not mean for the future to have any guards 
 attached to his household. 
 
 On the road, between Ampuero and La Nestosa, they 
 met Don Enrique de Guzman, coming from court, charged 
 with a large stock of provisions and ample supply of con- 
 serves. These latter dainties the emperor immediately 
 desired to taste, and finding their quality good, he gave 
 orders that they were to be kept sacred for his pecuHar 
 eating. Guzman was accompanied by Don Pedro Pimen- 
 tel, gentleman of the chamber to the young prince, Don 
 Carlos, bearing letters of compliment from his master, 
 who desired that the emperor would indicate to his 
 ambassador, as he called Pimentel, the place on the 
 road where he was to meet him. Without settling 
 this point, Quixada wrote, by the emperor^s orders, to 
 court, commanding a regular supply of melons to be 
 sent for the imperial table, and some portable glass 
 windows to be got ready for use on the journey be- 
 yond Valladolid, as the nights were already becoming 
 chilly. He asked also for the dimensions of the apart- 
 ments prepared at Valladolid for the queens, that he 
 might send forward fitting tapestry for their decoration; 
 and he begged that the measurements might be taken 
 with great exactness, as their majesties, especially the 
 queen of Hungary, could not bear the slightest mistake 
 in the execution of their behests. The royal dowagers 
 had brought with them from Flanders a profusion of 
 fine tapestry of all kinds, much of which still adorns 
 the walls of the Spanish palaces. They did not travel 
 in company with their brother, but kept one day's 
 march in the rear, as it would have been difficult to 
 lodge their combined followers. The management of 
 their journey, and the selection of their quarters, rested 
 with the all-provident Quixada; who had found time to 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 29 
 
 make general arrangements on these heads as he gal- 
 loped down the road from Villagarcia. 
 
 During the day of rest at Medina, the imperial 
 quarters were thronged with noble and civic visitors, 
 who rode into the town from all points of the compass. 
 Addresses came from the corporations of Burgos, 
 Salamanca, Palencia, Pamplona, and other cities ; from 
 the archbishop of Toledo, and other prelates. On the 
 eleventh of October, Charles again mounted his litter, 
 and travelled five leagues to Pesadas, a poor town, on a 
 bleak table-land swept by the merciless north wind, where 
 he was met by the constable of Navarre. After a brief 
 audience, he dismissed that nobleman, with a request 
 that he would go forward and welcome the two queens. 
 The night of the twelfth of October was passed, after a 
 five leagues' march, at Gondomin ;^ and the next day, a 
 journey of about the same length, still over vast undu- 
 lating heaths, rough with thickets of dwarf oak, led to 
 the domains of the Cid, beyond which rose the ancient 
 gate and beautiful twin spires of Burgos. 
 
 Two leagues from the city, the emperor was met by 
 the constable of Castillo, Don Pedro Fernandez deVelasco, 
 and a gallant company of loyal gentlemen. The con- 
 stable, whom age and infirmities had compelled to ex- 
 change, like his lord, the saddle for the litter, conducted 
 him with all honour to the noble palace of the Velascos, 
 popularly known as the Casa del Cordon, from the mas- 
 sive stone-carved cord of St. Francis, which enfolds and 
 protects the great portal. He offered hospitality to the 
 whole of the imperial train, but this Luis Quixada was 
 instructed to decline. While the emperor made his 
 entry into the city, the bells of the cathedral rang a peal 
 
 Hontamin is the present name. 
 
30 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 of welcome ; and at night, the chapter made a still finer 
 display of loyalty, in a grand illumination of its steeples. 
 For once, sombre Burgos, which was said to wear mourn- 
 ing for all Castillo,^ seems to have laid aside its weeds. 
 
 The privations, spiritual and temporal, endured by 
 Charles at Laredo, and arising, as it appears, from mis- 
 calculation of time, are the sole evidence furnished by 
 his servants of that neglect which even Spanish historians 
 have long been in the habit of depicting, as if to deter 
 princes from the dangerous experiment of abdication. 
 Had the emperor really been exposed to this mortifica- 
 tion, perhaps his pride would have led him to suffer in 
 sUence. But then his hundred and fifty followers, newly 
 come from the flesh-pots of Flanders, must have starved; 
 and they at least would have cried aloud, and spared 
 not. So far from the imperial traveller being allowed 
 to pass through his ancient kingdom unnoticed, his stay 
 of two days- at Burgos seems to have been a perpetual 
 levee. Amongst those who came to pay their homage, 
 were the admiral of Castillo, the dukes of Medina- Celi, 
 Medina- Sidonia, Maqueda, Najera, Infantado, and many 
 other grandees. The royal councils of state, the royal 
 chancery of Valladolid, and other pubhc bodies, sent 
 deputations with loyal addresses. Amongst the lesser 
 nobles who came in crowds to the Casa del Cordon, not 
 the least noticeable was Don Gutierre de Padilla, brother 
 of the gallant Juan de Padilla, with whom, thirty-five 
 years before, the constitutional liberties of Castillo had 
 perished in the disastrous wars of the Commons. For 
 fighting on the winning side in that heroic struggle, 
 Gutierre had been rewarded with a commandery, and 
 at this time he held the honorary post of gentleman of 
 the imperial chamber. 
 
 1 And. Navagiero : II Viaggio fatto in Spagna. sm. 8vo. Vinegia : 
 1563, fol. 35. 
 
1656.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 81 
 
 From Burgos the emperor set out for Valladolid on 
 the sixteenth of October. In spite of his infirmities, the 
 constable offered to accompany him part of the first 
 day's journey — an offer which, however, his guest would 
 not accept. But to the great contentment of Quixada, 
 Don Francisco de Beaumont insisted on joining the 
 cavalcade with an escort of cavalry, thus superseding 
 the alcalde and his alguazils. Their road lay along the 
 rich vale and near the right bank of the Arlanzon, a 
 river sometimes rolling its muddy waters in a deep and 
 rapid stream, sometimes expanding them into broad 
 shallows. The first resting place was about four leagues 
 from Burgos, at the village of Celada, the second, seven 
 leagues further, at Palenzuela, where the emperor was 
 pleased to find a supply of flounders, newly arrived from 
 court. Fish was his favourite food, yet it never agreed 
 with him ; so these flounders were probably the cause of 
 the indisposition of which he complained at Torquemada, 
 where, after a journey of four leagues, he passed the 
 night. In this town of vine-dressers, seated amongst 
 productive gardens and orchards, near the confluence of 
 the Arlanzon, the Arlanza, and the Pisuerga, he was 
 met by the bishop of the neighbouring city of Palencia. 
 This prelate, Pedro de la Gasca, was a man of some 
 distinction; his skilful diplomacy in repressing a for- 
 midable rebelhon had saved Peru to Castille; and he 
 had very lately received from the emperor his present 
 mitre, as the reward of his services.^ He now waited 
 on his benefactor with a magnificent supply of meat, 
 game, and fruit, sufficient to feast the whole of his 
 train. 
 
 The next night the emperor was lodged three leagues 
 
 » F. Fernandez de Pulgar : Eistoria de Palencia, 4 vols. fol. Madrid 
 1679, iii. p. 201. 
 
32 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 further on, at Duenas, where Ferdinand of Aragon first 
 met Isabella the Catholic, and where the count of 
 Buendia now received their descendant in his feudal 
 castle on the adjacent height, overlooking the broad 
 valley of the Pisuerga. Some gentlemen from Valla- 
 dolid meeting him here, advised him to enter the capital 
 by way of Cigales, and the Puente-mayor, by which 
 means he would at once reach the palace, without noise 
 and without a crowd. ^ No,^ said he ; * I will go the 
 usual way, by the gate of San Pedro ; for it would be a 
 shame not to let my people see me/^ The fifth day, his 
 journey was again a short one, of three leagues ; and 
 the halting-place was Cabezon, a village within two 
 leagues of the capital, and boasting of a fine bridge over 
 the Pisuerga. Here the infant Don Carlos was in 
 waiting, by his grandfather's directions. It was the 
 first time that the emperor had seen the unhappy heir 
 of his name and his honours. He embraced him with 
 much appearance of affection, and made him sup at his 
 table. During the meal, the prince took a fancy to a 
 little portable chafing dish, which the emperor carried 
 in his hand for warmth, and begged to have it for his 
 own; to which the proprietor replied, that he should 
 have it as soon as he was dead, and had no further use 
 for it. 
 
 Early next day, the twenty-first of October, Juan 
 Vasquez de Molina, secretary of state, came to Cabezon, 
 and had a long conference with the emperor, of whom 
 he had been an old and approved servant. He found 
 him in good health and spirits, not at all fatigued with 
 his journey, and in all respects better than his attend- 
 ants had known him for several years. Charles would 
 
 * 'Ruindad no dejarse ver por los suyos/ are the words given by 
 Gonzalez. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 83 
 
 not, however, accept the honours of a public reception, 
 which it had been proposed to give him at ValladoHd ; 
 bat desired that the pomps prepared for the occasion 
 might be reserved until the arrival of the queens, who 
 were also on the road. Accordingly, he made his entry 
 that same afternoon, by the gate of San Pedro, or of 
 the Chancery, without parade of any kind, and was 
 received in the court of the palace by his grandson, Don 
 Carlos, and by his daughter, the princess-regent.^ 
 
 Valladolid was at this time at the height of its pro- 
 sperity, as the wealthy and flourishing capital of the 
 Spanish monarchy. It possessed a noble palace standing 
 in dehcious gardens ; a splendid college erected by car- 
 dinal Mendoza and built all of white marble in the 
 florid Gothic of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and some reli- 
 gious houses, such as San Benito and San Pablo, 
 unexcelled as examples of the rich and fantastic tran- 
 sition style of architecture. Other churches and con- 
 vents, and many mansions of the nobility adorned the 
 
 ^ The emperor's itinerary from Laredo to Valladolid was as follows — 
 the distances being compiited as far as possible by the fine maps of Ccl. 
 Don Francisco Coello, now in course of publication at Madrid : 
 
 Leagues. 
 Oct. 6, Monday, Laredo to Ampuero 3 
 
 7, Tuesday, La Nestosa 4 
 
 8, Wednesday, Aguera 4 
 
 9, Thursday, Medina de Pomar. . . 5 
 
 11, Saturday, Pesadas 5 
 
 12, Sunday, Gondomin 5 
 
 13, Monday, Burgos 5 
 
 16, Thursday, Celada 4 
 
 17, Friday, Palenzuela 7 
 
 18, Saturday Torquemada 4 
 
 19, Sunday, Duenas 3 
 
 20, Monday, Cabezon 3 
 
 21, Tuesday, Valladolid 2 
 
 In all about 54 leagues. 
 
34 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, il 
 
 streets and squares, spread tlieir long fronts to the great 
 parade-ground known as the Campo Grande, or rose 
 amongst the gardens which fringed the Pisuerga. 
 
 The princess-regent Juana was the second daughter 
 
 of the emperor, and widow of Juan, prince of Brazil, 
 
 heir-apparent of the Portuguese crown. Her married 
 
 life had been no less brief than bright; the prince, who 
 
 loved her tenderly, dying in less than thirteen months 
 
 after their union. Juan was the only son, not only 
 
 of his parents, but of the decaying house of Avis ; and 
 
 therefore, on his pregnant widow of nineteen, were 
 
 centered all the hopes of the Portuguese nation. In 
 
 spite, however, of the prayers which rose in every 
 
 church, and the processions which glittered through 
 
 every town between the Minho and cape St. Vincent, 
 
 alarming portents preceded the royal birth. A woman, 
 
 clad in black, was seen to stand by the bed of Juana, 
 
 snapping her fingers, and blowing into the air, as 
 
 if in prediction of the futility of the national hope ; 
 
 and Moorish figures, with torches in their hands, rushed 
 
 at night by the palace windows, in full view of the 
 
 princess and her ladies, riding on the wintry blast, and 
 
 uttering doleful cries as they descended into the sea. 
 
 But in the night of the fifteenth of January, 1554, a 
 
 shout of joy rung through the broad square between 
 
 the palace and the Tagus, when it was announced to 
 
 the expectant crowd that the prince was born whose 
 
 romantic fate has made the name of Sebastian so 
 
 famous in song and story. From the pangs of travail 
 
 the young mother, who had been kept ignorant of her 
 
 husband^s death, passed to the sorrows of widowhood; 
 
 she wept for the father of her child as Rachel for her 
 
 children, and would not be comforted; and but for the 
 
 king, who forbade the cutting oflF of her fine aubura 
 
 hair, she would have retired with her grief to a nun- 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 35- 
 
 nerj.^ Having repaid to the house of Avis the debt 
 incurred by the house of Austria at the birth of Don 
 Carlos, she was soon recalled to Spain, to govern that 
 country, as regent, first for her father, the emperor, and 
 now for her brother, Philip the Second. This high 
 post she filled with firmness and moderation, displaying 
 no want of sagacity, except in her policy towards the 
 enthusiasts for rehgious reform, whom she treated with 
 the foolish severity practised by many of the mildest 
 and wisest rulers of the time. Her policy was ever 
 directed by that strong family feeling which the princes 
 of the nineteenth century have learned to call by the 
 more decorous name of public spirit. Of personal am- 
 bition she appears to have been entirely free. For many 
 months before her brother returned to Spain, she was 
 constantly urging him to come back and ease her of the 
 burden of power. To her father her deference was ever 
 most readily and afifectionately paid. Devotion was the 
 ruling passion of her widowed life; her recreation 
 during her regency was to retire, for prayer and scourg- 
 ing, to the convent which the Franciscans called their 
 Scala Cceli, amongst the gloomy rocks and tall pines of 
 Abrojo. She encouraged her ladies to become nuns, 
 but dissuaded them from becoming wives; and she 
 would never give audience to foreign ambassadors without 
 being covered from head to foot with a veil, drawing/- it 
 aside for a moment only when some envoy, more curious 
 than his fellows, desired permission to identify her pale 
 and melancholy face. 
 
 While at Valladohd, the emperor and his suite were 
 
 lodged in the house of Don Gomez Perez de las Marinas. 
 
 Another residence was assigned to the queens, who 
 
 aiTived on the twenty-second of October, the day after 
 
 I '■ ' — ' 
 
 * M. de Meneses : Chronica de D. Sebastiao, fol. Lisboa : 1730, pp. 
 27—30. 
 
 D 2 
 
86 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 their brother. The grandees, the dignitaries of the church 
 and the law, the council of state in their robes of cere- 
 mony, and the college doctors in their scarlet hoods, met 
 them in grand procession, and conducted them into the 
 city in triumph. They were charmed with their recep- 
 tion; Quixada and his people had made no mistake about 
 the tapestries; and queen Mary, at the banquet in the 
 evening, remarked that every day she found new cause 
 to rejoice that she had come to Spain. The banquet 
 was followed by a ball, at which the emperor also 
 was present. The admiral of Castillo, the duke of Sesa, 
 heir of the great captain, the count of Benevente, and 
 the marquess of Astorga were amongst the chief 
 nobles who came to do homage to their ancient lord, 
 whose hand was also kissed by the members of the 
 council of Castillo. It was probably at this ball that 
 Charles caused the wives of all his personal attendants 
 to be assembled around him, and bade each in par- 
 ticular farewell. Perico de Sant Erbas, a famous jester 
 of the court, passing by at the moment, the emperor 
 good humouredly saluted him by lifting his hat. 
 This buffoon had formerly been wont to make the 
 emperor laugh by calling his son Philip Sefior de Todo, 
 lord of All,^ and now that he was so, this opportunity of 
 reviving the old joke was too good to be lost by the bitter 
 fool. ' What ! do you uncover to me V said the jester; 
 ' does it mean that you are no longer an emperor V 
 ' No, Pedro,' replied the object of the jest; ' but it means 
 that I have nothing to give you beyond this courtesy .^^ 
 On the twenty- seventh of October, Don Constantino de 
 Braganza arrived from Lisbon to congratulate the em- 
 
 * Bradford's Correspondence of Charles V. Relatione di Navar/iero, 
 p. 439. 
 
 2 J. A. de Vera : Vida del Emp. Carlos V. 4to. Bruxelles : 1656. p. 24(J. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 37 
 
 peror, in the name of his cousin, John the Tliird, and his 
 sister Catherine, king and queen of Portugal, on his safe 
 return to Spain. Charles received him with that per- 
 fect graciousness with which he knew well how to meet 
 the advances of a rival who had just cause for dis- 
 satisfaction. For the courts of Lisbon and Valladohd, 
 though friendly in appearance, were really upon terms 
 far from cordial. Not only had Philip the Second 
 broken his faith to an infanta of Portugal, but his father 
 had aided him in foiling the designs of a Portuguese 
 infant upon the crown matrimonial of England. For 
 that splendid prize the gallant Don Luis of Portugal 
 had been one of the earliest candidates. Knowing that 
 the prince of Spain was already betrothed to his half- 
 sister, and being himself a brother-in-law, as well as a 
 brother in arms, of his sire, he at once confided his 
 plan to the emperor, and asked for his aid in its execu- 
 tion. Charles received his confidence graciously, and 
 afifected to favour his pretensions, until Philip had made 
 his election sure. Don Luis was lately dead, leaving 
 a bastard son, who, as prior of Crato, afterwards became 
 famous for a time as Philip's most formidable rival for 
 the crown of Portugal. But the afi'ronts which the 
 house of Avis had received in the persons of Don Luis 
 and the infanta, were still too recent to be forgotten, 
 and may have been partly the cause why the princess 
 Juana so soon forsook her baby- son, and the kingdom 
 which was his heritage. The national enmities which 
 burned on the opposite shores of the Guadiana were 
 not extinct in royal bosoms at Lisbon and Valladohd; 
 France was careful to fan the useful fiame ; and it was 
 suspected that the moidores of Brazil were not unknown 
 to the troops which soon began to plant the lilied banner 
 on fortress after fortress along the ever-fluctuating 
 frontier of French and Austrian Flanders. 
 
38 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 During his stay at Valladolid, the emperor every day 
 held long conferences on public affairs with the princess- 
 regent and the secretary Vazquez. He could not 
 approach the machine of government which he had so 
 long directed without examining with lively interest its 
 condition and its movements. He was anxious now to 
 give its present guides the benefit of his parting advice, 
 — advice which, as the event proved, he continued to 
 transmit from Yuste by every post, and which was 
 ended only with his powers of hearing and dictating 
 despatches. But that he now intended to abstain from 
 further interference with business of state is plain, from 
 a letter which he wrote to Philip the Second on the 
 thirtieth of October. 
 
 This letter relates chiefly to certain overtures which 
 had been made to the emperor by Anthony de Bour- 
 bon, whom he called duke of Vendome, but who was 
 known in France by the title of king of Navarre. 
 Since Ferdinand the Catholic had driven John the 
 Third across the Pyrenees, the dominions of the house 
 of D^Albret hardly extended beyond the horizon of its 
 fair castle of Pau. The chains in which Castillo held 
 Navarre were stronger than those through which Don 
 Sancho clove his way at Navas de Tolosa, and which 
 his exiled descendants still emblazoned in gold on their 
 blood-red shield. Yet the late king Henry, husband of 
 the story-loving pearl of Margarets, had willed himself 
 a provisional tomb, until fortune should permit him to be 
 laid in the cathedral of Pamplona. His son-in-law, the 
 chief of the Bourbons, was, however, neither very soli- 
 citous nor very hopeful of disturbing Henry's repose at 
 Lescar. To the courage, courtesy, and good humour 
 which seldom desert a Bourbon in high or low estate, the 
 first king of the name added, in full measure, that laxity 
 of principle and instability of purpose which seem to 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. yO 
 
 belong to the blood. Protestant and catholic, huguenot 
 and leaguer by turns, he anticipated in his career all 
 that tarnished, little that ennobled, the name of his 
 son Henry the Fourth; and he died detested by the 
 party which he had forsaken, and described, by the party 
 to which he had attached himself, as a man without 
 heart and without gall. As governor of Picardy, he 
 had lately commanded against the imperial troops in 
 Flanders; but he had now joined his strong-minded 
 wife, Jane D'Albret, in her principality of Bearne. 
 Menaced even in that modest domain by the all-powerful 
 Guises, who recommended its annexation to the realm 
 of France, they were desirous of securing the protection 
 of their other great neighbour beyond the Pyrenees. 
 Anthony had therefore proposed to cede to the king of 
 Spain, for a suitable consideration, all his wife^s rights 
 to coronation or to interment at Pamplona. 
 
 Writing to Philip the Second, the emperor informed 
 him that this matter had been brought under his notice 
 at Burgos, by the duke of Alburquerque, viceroy of 
 Navarre, and that he had given audience to Monsieur 
 Ezcurra, the confidential agent of the duke of Vendome. 
 The subject had also been discussed at ValladoHd. He 
 had refused, however, to enter upon the affair, and 
 left it entirely in the king^s hands. He hoped that the 
 prince of Orange and the chancellor had come to a 
 settlement with the king of the Romans, as to the last 
 formalities of his renunciation of the empire ; and he 
 entreated Philip to hasten the settlement by all the 
 means in his power, being anxious to enter his monastery 
 ' free from this, as from other cares.^ 
 
 While Charles was thus bent on conventual quiet, 
 he was so reserved in his communications with his 
 attendants, that they were still in doubt whether he 
 
40 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ii. 
 
 really intended to shut himself up for life in the dis- 
 tant cloister of Yuste. From Burgos, Gaztelu wrote, 
 that in spite of his constant opportunities, he was unable 
 to penetrate the emperor^s intentions — the expressions 
 which he let fall being always, as it seemed, purposely 
 equivocal. At Valladolid, however, he had commanded 
 the attendance of the prior of Yuste, and the general of 
 the order of Jerome, Fray Francisco de Tofiiio ; and he 
 gave audience so frequently to these friars, that the 
 Flemings must have begun to despair of escaping the 
 backwoods of Estremadura. 
 
 The acquaintance of the emperor and his grandson, 
 Don Carlos, which commenced at Cabezon, was of course 
 improved at Valladolid. On the grandfather^s side, 
 there seems to have been little of the fondness which 
 usually belongs to the relationship. Although only 
 eleven years old, Carlos had already shown symptoms 
 of the mental malady which darkened the long life of 
 queen Juana, his great grandmother by the side both 
 of his father, Philip of Spain, and of his mother, Mary 
 of Portugal. Of a sullen and passionate temper, he lived 
 in a state of perpetual rebellion against his aunt, and 
 displayed in the nursery the weakly mischievous spirit 
 which marked his short career at his father's court. His 
 sad and early death, still mysterious both in its cause 
 and its circumstances, has made him the darling of 
 romance; and in that fairy realm, he goes crowned 
 with immortal garlands, such as certainly have never 
 been won in the battle-fields of life by any son or 
 descendant of his sire. He might possibly have become 
 the champion of the people's rights, and of liberty of 
 conscience ; but it was scarcely probable that a hero of 
 that order should be borne in the purple of the house of 
 Hapsburg. His shadowy claims to the title have been 
 
1656.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 41 
 
 maintained by several Schiller-struck champions.^ But 
 his high faculties for good or evil, if he possessed them, 
 certainly escaped the shrewd insight of his grandfather, 
 who regarded him merely as a froward and untractable 
 child, whose future interests would be best served by a 
 present unsparing use of the rod. Recommending, there- 
 fore, to the princess an increased severity of discipline 
 in the management of her nephew, the emperor re- 
 marked to his sisters that he had observed with concern 
 the boy's unpromising conduct and manners, and that 
 it was very doubtful how the man would grow up. This 
 opinion was conveyed by queen Eleanor to Philip the 
 Second, who had requested his aunt to note carefully 
 the impression made by his son ; and it is said to have 
 laid the foundation for the aversion which the king 
 entertained towards Carlos. 
 
 ' Of these, one of the latest and most plausible in his view is Don 
 Adolfo de Castro. See his agreeable work, Historia de los Protestantes 
 Espanoles, 8vo, Cadiz, 1851, pp. 243 — 319, or The Spanish Protestants, 
 translated by T. Parker, fcap. 8vo. London : 1851, pp. 278 to 339, in 
 which, however, I cannot admit that he makes out his case. 
 
42 CLOISTER LIFE OF Tchap. hi. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CASTLE OF XARANDILLA. 
 
 SINCE the emperor had turned fifty and had begun 
 to lose his teeth, he had ceased to eat in pubUc, or 
 at least performed that royal function in private as 
 often as good policy permitted.^ On the fourth of No- 
 vember he exhibited himself at table to his subjects for 
 the last time, dining about noon before as many of the 
 citizens of Valladolid as chose to attend and could find 
 standing room in the apartment. Immediately after- 
 wards he bade farewell to the princess-regent and her 
 nephew, and set forward on his journey to Estremadura, 
 dismissing, at the Campo-gate, a crowd of grandees who 
 had wished to ride for some miles beside his litter. 
 
 The followers whom he had brought from Burgos 
 continued to attend him, with a small escort of horse 
 and a company of forty halberdiers commanded by a 
 lieutenant. They had not gone far over the naked 
 plain, patched here and there with stubby vineyards, 
 when the emperor complained of iUness, and halted his 
 litter. His servants retired with him into a wayside 
 garden, and by the application of hot cushions to his 
 stomach, he was soon sufficiently restored to proceed. 
 At the ferry of the broad Duero he looked towards the 
 fortress of Simancas, which rose on its round hill top 
 out of the plain a few miles higher up the river, and 
 
 ^ Joan Gin. Sepulveda ; De Rebus gestis Caroli V. Lib. xxx. c. 25. 
 Opera, 4 torn. 4° Madriti 1780, ii. p. 528. 
 
155G.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 43 
 
 remarked to Quixada that he hoped the thirty thousand 
 ducats, with which he counted upon paying his people, 
 had been lodged there in safety. The day^s march of 
 four leagues closed at Valdestillas, a village seated 
 amongst low woods of melancholy pine. 
 
 The next day's journey, which was somewhat shorter, 
 brought the party to Medina del Campo, a fine old 
 historical town in a singularly bad site, with a grand 
 collegiate church presiding over many other religious 
 buildings, and a noble hospital, well supplied with 
 patients by the miasma which rose from the stagnating 
 Zapardiel that crept beneath the walls. Here was an 
 ancient residence of the crown of Castile, called La 
 Mota, a stately pile hallowed by the death-bed of 
 Isabella the Catholic. The emperor, however, was not 
 lodged there, but in the house of one Rodrigo de Duenas, 
 a rich money-broker, whither he was conducted by the 
 authorities and by most of the inhabitants, who had 
 met him at the gate. His host, imitating, perhaps, un- 
 consciously, the splendid Fuggers of Augsburg, had 
 provided, amongst other luxuries for the emperor^s use, 
 a chafing-dish of gold, filled, not with the usual charred 
 vine-tendrils, but with the finest cinnamon of Ceylon. 
 Charles was so displeased with this piece of ostentation, 
 that he refused, very uncourteously and unreasonably as 
 it seems, to allow the poor capitaUst to kiss his hand, 
 and on going away next day, ordered his night's lodging 
 to be paid for.^ From Medina he privately sent one of 
 his chaplains to Tordesillas to observe the state and 
 service of the chapel which he had endowed there for 
 the benefit of the souls of his parents. 
 
 In the course of the third day's march he remarked 
 to his attendants that, thank God ! they were now 
 
 » This story is told by Gonzalez ; but whether on the authority of a 
 letter does not appear. 
 
44 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. m. 
 
 getting beyond the reach of state and ceremony^ and 
 that there would be now no more visits to make or 
 receive, or receptions to undergo. Six or seven leagues, 
 still over vast bare undulating plains, where the plough 
 feebly contended with the waste, brought them to 
 Horcajo de las Torres, a lone village, built on a wind- 
 swept table land. The fourth day was marked by an 
 improvement in the weather, which had hitherto been 
 rainy, and by the arrival of a courier from court with a 
 supply of potted anchovies and other favourite fish for 
 the emperor. He also was presented with an offering 
 of eels, trouts, and barbel, by the townspeople of Pene- 
 randa, where he rested for the night in the mansion 
 of the Bracamontes. The road now approached the 
 southern hills and entered the straggling woods of ever- 
 green oak which clothe the base, and become dense on 
 the lower slopes, of the wild sierra of Bejar, the centre 
 of that mountain chain which forms the backbone of the 
 Peninsula, stretching from Moncayo in Aragon to the 
 rock of Lisbon on the Atlantic. 
 
 In the fifth day^s march the emperor began to feel 
 the keenness of the mountain air; the little chafing-dish 
 was constantly in his hand; and the previous night having 
 been chilly, he sent forward a messenger to superintend 
 the warming of his room at Alaraz,a village sweetly nestled 
 in the valley of the Gamo. Here he wrote to the king on 
 the morning of the ninth of November; and sleeping that 
 night at Gallegos de Solmiron, he arrived on the tenth 
 at Barco de Avila, a small walled town, finely placed in 
 a rich vale, overhung by the lofty sierras of Bejar and 
 Gredos, and watered by the fresh stream of the Tormes, 
 dear to the angler and to the lyric muse of Castillo. A 
 second courier from court here overtook the party, with 
 some eider-down cushions for the emperor, who was 
 much pleased with their warmth and lightness, and said 
 he would have them made into jackets and dressing- 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 45 
 
 gowns for his own use. The eighth day^s march, of six 
 or seven mountain leagues^ was the hardest they had yet 
 encountered. The road, constantly ascending the rocky 
 and wood-clad steeps, was extremely bad ; and although 
 the country people, whom they met, aided in overcoming 
 the difficulties of the way, the cavalcade did not reach 
 the halting place at Tornavacas until after dark. The 
 emperor, however, bore the fatigue with all the spirit 
 and somewhat of the strength of his younger days ; he 
 was even able, on his arrival, to go out to see the 
 villagers fish the pools of the Xerte by torchlight; and 
 he afterwards supped heartily on the fine trout taken 
 in the course of this picturesque sport. 
 
 He was now within six or seven leagues of Xarandilla, 
 the village in the neighbourhood of Yuste where he' 
 proposed to remain until his conventual abode was 
 ready. His original intention had been to go thither by 
 way of Plasencia, and thence along the Vera, or valley, 
 in which the village stood. But from Tornavacas there 
 led to Xarandilla a track across the mountains, by which 
 a day's journey could be saved, and Plasencia, with its 
 episcopal and municipal civilities, avoided. This shorter 
 but far rougher road, the emperor determined to face. 
 He set out on his last march in good time in the morn- 
 ing of the twelfth of November, his cavalcade being 
 swelled by a great band of the last night's fishermen, and 
 other peasants, who carried planks and poles, relieved 
 the bearers of the chairs, led the mules, and pointed 
 out the way. This assistance was not only useful but 
 necessary, the road being as wild a mountain path as 
 mule ever traversed. Overhung, for the most part, with 
 the bare boughs of great oaks and chestnuts, the narrow 
 and slippery track sometimes followed, sometimes crossed 
 torrents swollen with the late rains, wound beneath 
 toppling crags, climbed the edge of frightful precipices, 
 
46 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. m. 
 
 and reached the culminating horror in the pass of Puerto- 
 nuevo, a chasm rugged and steep as a broken staircase, 
 which cleft the topmost crest of the sierra. On this 
 airy height, the traveller, pausing to take breath, sud- 
 denly sees the fair Vera unrolled, in all its green length, 
 at his feet. Girdled with its mountain wall this nine- 
 league stretch of pasture and forest, broken here and 
 there with village roofs and convent belfries, slopes 
 gently to the west, where beautiful Plasencia, crowned 
 with cathedral towers and throned on a terrace of rock, 
 sits queenlike amongst vineyards and gardens and the 
 silver windings of the Xerte. 
 
 The emperor was charmed with the aspect of his 
 promised land. ' Is this indeed the Vera !' said he, 
 gazing intently at the landscape at his feet. He then 
 turned his eye to the north, into the forest-mantled 
 gorge, between the beetling rocks of the Puertonuevo ; 
 ' Now,^ he said, looking back, as it were, through the 
 gates of the world he was leaving, ' ^tis the last pass I 
 shall ever go through.^ Ya no pasare otro puerto} 
 During the ascent and descent, he was carried in a 
 chair, the stout and vigilant Quixada marching at his 
 side, pike in hand. They reached Xarandilla before 
 sunset, and alighted at the castle of the count of 
 Oropesa, the great feudal lord of the vicinity, and 
 head of an ancient branch of the Toledos. The 
 Flemings were overcome with fatigue and with disgust 
 at the obstacles which every step had put between 
 themselves and home. But all agreed that the emperor 
 bore the journey remarkably well, and did not appear 
 greatly wearied at its close. He chose a bed-room 
 different from that allotted to him by his host ; and re- 
 
 * Puerto has in Spanish tlie double signification of * gate' and ' moun- 
 tain pass.' 
 
1566.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 47 
 
 quested that a fire-place might be immediately added to 
 the chamber which he was afterwards to occupy.^ 
 
 Xarandilla was, and still is, the most considerable 
 village in the Vera of Plasencia, a city so called by its 
 founder on account of the beauty of its site, and its 
 ' pleasantness to saints and men/ Walled to the north 
 by lofty sierras, and watered with abundant streams, its 
 mild climate, rich soil, and perpetual verdure, led some 
 patriotic scholars of Estremadura to identify this beau- 
 tiful valley with the Elysium of Homer — ^the green 
 land without snow, or winter, or showers' — in spite of 
 the ^ soft-blowing sea-breeze' which refreshed the one, 
 and the torrents of rain which sometimes deluged the 
 other. With greater plausibility the Vera was conjec- 
 tured to have been the scene where Sertorius fell by 
 the traitor-hand of Perperna.^ Saintly history also 
 deemed it hallowed, in the seventh century, by the last 
 labours of St. Magnus of Ireland,^ and, in the eighth 
 century, by the martyrdom of fourteen Andalusian 
 bishops slain in one massacre by the Saracen. The fair 
 valley was unquestionably famous throughout Spain for 
 its wine, oil, chestnuts, and citrons, for its magnificent 
 
 ' In this itinerary, from Valladolid to Xarandilla, I am without means 
 of computing the distances with any certainty : 
 
 Leagues. 
 Nov. 4, Tuesday, Valladolid to Valdestillas 4 
 
 5, Wednesday, Medina del Campo 34 
 
 6, Thursday, Horcajode las Torres... 3 
 
 7, Friday, Penaranda 4 
 
 8, Saturday, Alaraz 4 
 
 9, Sunday, Gallegos de Solmiron... 3 
 
 10, Monday, Barco de Avila 3 
 
 11, Tuesday, Tomavacas 6 or 7 
 
 12, Wednesday Xarandilla 6 or 7 
 
 In all 36^ to 38^ leagues. 
 
 2 Strada : De Bello Belgico, lib. i. 
 
 8 He was a prior of a convent at Garganta la OUa. J. de Tamayo 
 Salazar : San Epitacio de Tui, 4to. Madrid : 1646, p. 42 ; and Sancti 
 JSispani, 6 vols. fol. Lugd. : 1657, v. p. 68. The fact, however, is dis- 
 
48 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. hi. 
 
 timber^ for the deer^ bears, wolves, and all otlier animals 
 of the chase, which abounded in its woods, and for the 
 delicate trout which peopled its mountain waters. 
 
 The reasons which guided Charles the Fifth in his 
 choice of a retreat have never been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained. There is no direct evidence that he had even 
 visited the Vera before he came there to die.^ It 
 is possible that the patriotism of some Estremaduran 
 companion in arms, and his talk on the march or by the 
 camp fire, may have obtained for his native province the 
 honour of being the scene of the emperor's evening of 
 life. While making the pilgrimage to the shrine of Our 
 Lady of Guadalupe, in April, 1525,^ or during the few 
 days which he spent at Oropesa on his way to Seville, in 
 February, 1526,^ it is not improbable that love of the 
 chase may have tempted Charles to penetrate the sur- 
 rounding forests, and that the sylvan valley may have 
 
 puted and the honour claimed for the Alps, and a place called Fuesscn, 
 supposed to be derived from Fauces, of which Garganta is also a transla- 
 tion. Theodore of St. Gall, who wrote the life of St. Magnus (printed 
 by J. Messingham, Flonlegium Sanct. Hibernice, ito. Paris: 1624, p. 296), 
 is entirely silent as to the claims of the Vera. 
 
 ' Robertson {Charles V., b. xii.) cites no authoi'ity for his account of 
 the matter. ' From Valladolid,' says he, 'he [the emperor] continued 
 his journey to Plasencia [a town which, as we have seen, he purposely 
 avoided.] He had passed through this place a great many years before ; 
 and having been struck at that time with the delightful situation of the 
 monastery of St. Justus, belonging to the order of St. Jerome, not many 
 miles distant from the town, he had then observed to some of his 
 attendants that this was a spot to which Diocletian might have retired 
 with pleasure. The impression had remained so strong on his mind that 
 he pitched upon it as the place of his own retreat.' M. Juste, L' Abdica- 
 tion, repeats the story, and assigns the incident to the date 1542. but 
 like Robertson, gives no authority either for the story or the date. From 
 the Itinerary of the emperor by Vandenesse, from 1519 to 1551, printed 
 in Bradford's Correspondence, we learn (pp. 531-5) that in 1542 Charles 
 was never nearer to Yuste than Valladolid. 
 
 * Fr. Gabriel de Talavera : Ilistoria de Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, 
 4to. Toledo, 1597. The letter of brotherhood, carta de hermandad, 
 given to the emperor, printed at fol. 210, is dated 21 April, 1525. 
 
 3 Itinerary of the emperor, by Vandenesse, in Bradford's Correspondence, 
 p. 490. He remained at Oropesa (erroneously written Aropesa) from 
 the 25th to the end of February. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 49 
 
 remained pictured in his memory as the very soHtude 
 for some future Diocletian. In 1534 he was at Sala- 
 manca, visiting his old tutor, bishop Luis Cabeza de Vaca, 
 and undergoing the pompous and pedantic civilities of 
 the university;^ and it is also possible that in that 
 journey he may have had a glimpse of his final resting- 
 place. But there was no palace or hunting-seat of the 
 crown near enough to the Vera to have made him natu- 
 rally familiar with so remote a spot ; nor do the annals 
 of Yuste, or even of Plasencia, contain any record of 
 an imperial visit either to the sequestered convent or to 
 the pleasant city. Of the natural charms of the place 
 he may have heard enough to attract him thither; but 
 the reputation of the valley for salubrity, which seems 
 to have been scarcely deserved,^ was probably rather the 
 consequence than the cause of its being chosen for his 
 retreat by the monarch of the fairest portions of Europe. 
 The village of Xarandilla is seated on the side of the 
 sierra of Xaranda, and near the confluence of two 
 mountain torrents which fall from the rugged Peiianegra. 
 Its chief feature is the parish church of Our Lady of 
 the Tower, perched on a mass of rock forty feet high, 
 and approached by steep and narrow stairs, which give it 
 the appearance of a place rather of defence than devotion. 
 The mansion of the Oropesas, built in the feudal style, 
 with corner towers, has long been in ruins ; and of its 
 imperial inmate the village has preserved no other me- 
 
 1 Gil Gon9alez de Avila : Historia de Salamanca; 4to. Salamanca, 
 1606, p. 475. 
 
 2 Mariana {De Rel. Eisp. Lib. xi. cap. 14. fol. Toleti, 1582, p. 533) 
 gives the city of Plasencia an opposite character. The site was called 
 Ambroz, but Alonso VIII. changed the name — ' quod nomen Placentiae 
 appellatione mutari placuit, ominis caussa quasi divis et hominibus pla- 
 citurae et ex regionis amaenitate, quamvis cceli salubritate non eadem.' 
 This passage is cited by Fr. Alonso Fernandez, in his Historia y Anales 
 de Plasencia, fol. Madrid, 1627, p. 6, with the suppression, rather 
 patriotic than honest, of the latter damaging clause. 
 
 E 
 
50 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. m. 
 
 morial than a fountain^ which is still called the fountain 
 of the emperor, in the garden of a deserted monastery 
 once belonging to the order of St. Augustine. 
 
 Here Charles remained for nearly three months, 
 awaiting the completion of the works at Yuste. His 
 abode, though only an occasional residence of his host, 
 Fernando, fourth count of Oropesa, was commodious in 
 all save fire-places, and in the opinion of his attendants, 
 was handsomely furnished and fitted up. He installed 
 himself in a room with a southern aspect, opening upon a 
 covered gallery, and overlooking a flower-garden planted 
 with orange-trees. For a few days he lived as the 
 count^s guest, but finding that his stay might be inde- 
 finitely prolonged, he afterwards commenced house- 
 keeping on his own account. On the eighteenth of 
 November, therefore, Oropesa and his brother, Francisco 
 Alvarez de Toledo, who had been viceroy of Peru,^ and 
 ambassador to the council of Trent, took their leave, 
 and returned to their usual home, somewhere on their 
 adjoining estates, which extended far into the Vera on one 
 side, and across the mountain to Tornavacas on the other. 
 
 During the whole month of November the weather 
 was cold and stormy, giving a cheerless prospect of the 
 winter climate of Estremadura. Rain fell every day, 
 sometimes in torrents, and was followed by fogs, some- 
 times so thick, that a man became invisible at the dis- 
 tance of twelve paces. Yuste, on its wooded hill side, 
 was wrapped in a mantle of perpetual and impenetrable 
 mist. For whole days it was scarcely possible for an 
 invalid to leave the house, the streets of Xarandilla 
 being canals of muddy water, through which Luis 
 Quixada waded from his lodging to his daily duties, in 
 fisherman^s boots made of felt and cow-hide. 
 
 ^ P. de Rojas : Discursos Genealogicos, 4to. Toledo: 1636, p. 111. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 51 
 
 Meanwhile tlie emperor, wrapped in a robe of eider- 
 down made from the princess's cushions, sat by the fire- 
 side, in good health and spirits, attended by the secretary 
 Gaztelu, who read to him the despatches which arrived 
 almost daily from Valladolid, and wrote replies from his 
 dictation. The course of events in Flanders was watched 
 by Charles with especial interest; he was always eager 
 for intelligence, and Gaztelu never finished reading a 
 letter without being asked if there was no more. 
 
 By a remarkable coincidence the year which saw the 
 emperor descend from his throne, at the age of fifty- six, 
 to prepare for his tomb, hkewise saw a newly-elected 
 pope plunging, at the age of eighty, into the vortex of 
 political strife, with all the reckless ardour of a boy. 
 The two men seemed to have changed characters as well 
 as places. Charles, the most ambitious of princes, was 
 about to turn monk; Caraffa, the most studious and 
 ascetic of monks, bursting from that chrysalis state, 
 shone forth as the most splendid and restless sovereign 
 in Em'ope. No Gregory or Alexander ever played the 
 old pontifical game of usurpation and nepotism with 
 more arrogance and audacity than Paul the Fourth. 
 Since Clement stole from his sacked city and beleaguered 
 castle in the cuirass and jack-boots of a trooper, the popes 
 had taken care to exert, only in the gentlest manner, 
 their paternal authority over the house of Hapsburg. But 
 Paul, as if his studies had never been disturbed by the 
 trumpets of Bourbon, flung experience and prudence to 
 the winds. Hating Spain with the hatred of an here- 
 ditary bondsman, the old volcanic Neapolitan poured forth 
 against her torrents of the foulest abuse, and, sitting in 
 the pastoral chair of St. Peter, he denounced the Spanish 
 portion of his Christian flock as ' heretics, schismatics, 
 accursed of God, the spawn of Jews and Moors^ the off- 
 
 ¥ 2 
 
52 CLOISTER LIFE OF [ 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 scouring of the earth.^^ He had^ besides, an ancient 
 feud with the house of Austria, on account of the 
 punishments inflicted on the Caraffas who had joined the 
 French during the foray of Lautrec, and also a personal 
 grudge, for opposition made to his own elevation to the 
 archbishopric of Naples." War seemed to ofi'er a pro- 
 spect, not only of gratifying his hatred with sharper 
 weapons than words, but of paying ofi" old scores and of 
 providing his needy nephews with desirable duchies. 
 The antiquated claims of the papacy on Naples as a 
 church-fief furnished a ready cause of quarrel; and 
 Paul at once invited the Grand Turk to land in Sicily, 
 and lured France across the Alps, by holding out such 
 hopes of an Italian crown as no French king has ever 
 been able to realize or resist. Henry the Second, only 
 a few months before, had concluded a truce for five 
 years with the king of Spain. But at the call of the 
 minister of truth and peace, whose hereditary device 
 happened to bear the canting motto, Cava Fe, he was 
 ready to commit any profitable perfidy and undertake 
 any promising war. The admiral Coligny was therefore 
 sent to carry fire and sword into Flanders; and the 
 gallant Francis of Lorraine, duke of Guise, the ablest 
 general in France, led twenty thousand of her best 
 troops into Italy. 
 
 Philip the Second, too faithless himself to be sur- 
 prised at the bad faith of his royal brother, took vigor- 
 ous measures to frustrate his endeavours. He gave the 
 
 1 * Heretici, scismatici, et maladetti de Dio, seme de' Giudei et de* 
 Marrani, feccia del raondo.' Cited by Federigo Badovaro in his Relatione 
 1557, made to his government as ambassador from Venice to the king of 
 Spain, of which an account is given in an interesting paper by M. Marchal 
 in the Bulletins de VAcademie royale des sciences et belles lettres de 
 Bruxelles ; tom. xii. l®"" partie, 1845, p. 63. 
 
 2 Dom. Ant. Parrino : Teatro de' governi de' Vicere di Napoli : 2 vols. 
 4to. Napoli, 1770. i. pp. 142-143. Bat. Platina; Uistoria dei sommi 
 Fontificl, 4to. Venetia, 1592, fol. 366. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 63 
 
 military command, as well as the civil government, of 
 the Netherlands to duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy ; 
 he entrusted the duke of Alba with the defence of 
 Naples ; and he himself passed into England, and secured 
 the co-operation of the love-sick Mary, in the teeth of 
 her distrustful and Spain-hating ministers and people. 
 
 After a lapse of three centuries, Emanuel Philibert 
 still ranks as the most able and honest prince of that 
 royal Hue of Savoy, in which, although ability has seldom 
 been wanting, geography seems to have rendered honesty 
 almost impossible/ His father, duke Charles, in the 
 long wars between Francis the First and Charles the 
 Fifth, had been nearly stripped of his territory. Part 
 was conquered by his nephew and enemy, the king ; and 
 part was held for security's sake, in the strong grasp of 
 his brother-in-law and friend, the emperor. When his 
 life and injuries were ended, his son Emanuel Philibert 
 found the port of Nice and a few remote valleys of high- 
 land Piedmont the sole dominion of the house which 
 claimed the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Happily 
 the young Ironhead, as he was called, had early foreseen 
 that the career of a soldier of fortune was the one path 
 by which he could hope to regain his position among the 
 princes of Europe. He therefore gave himself, heart 
 and soul, to the profession of arms, and, having served 
 with distinction under his imperial uncle in Germany and 
 Flanders, he was already, though still under thirty, 
 reckoned one of the best captains in the service of Spain.^ 
 
 Ferdinand duke of Alba became, in his old age, the 
 last of the great soldiers of Castillo. His grandfather, 
 the first duke, under the Catholic king, had led the 
 Christian chivalry to the leaguer of Granada ; his father 
 
 * *La Geographie les empeche d'etre honn^tes gens.' Prince de 
 Ligne ; Melanges, 5 torn, 8vo. Paris, 1829, v. p. 29. 
 
 ' Histoire d'EmawtM Philibert. 12mo, Amsterdam, 1693, p. 5. 
 
54 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. hi. 
 
 had left his bones among the Moors in the African isle 
 of Zerbi ; and he himself had fought by the side of the 
 emperor on the banks of the Danube^ beneath the walls 
 of Tunis, in Provence and Dauphiny, and in the Pro- 
 testant electorates. He had held independent com- 
 mands of importance in Catalonia and Navarre, and he 
 had commanded in chief in the campaign which closed 
 with the victory at Muhlberg and the capture of the 
 duke of Saxony. These triumphs had been clouded by 
 his repulse from Metz, and his late reverses in the Mi- 
 lanese; but the stern disciplinarian was still hardly 
 past the prime of life, and in full favour with his sove- 
 reign ; and he joined the army of Naples, resolved to 
 win back on the Eoman campagna the laurels which he 
 had lost on the plains of the Po.^ 
 
 Besides the momentous affairs of Italy and the 
 Netherlands, several minor matters claimed and obtained 
 the emperor's attention. Foremost amongst them stood 
 the negotiations with the court of Portugal, touching 
 the infanta Mary. Queen Eleanor, the mother of this 
 princess, had not seen her since the time when she 
 herself had been recalled, in her first widowhood, to 
 Castillo by the emperor, and had left her baby under 
 
 1 J. V. Rustant ; Historia del duque de Alva; 2 torn. 4to. Madrid : 
 1751 ; a book which seems to be little more than a translation of the 
 rare Latin life by Osorio. This famous leader is held very cheap by 
 Badovaro in his Relatione already quoted at p. 37. He accuses him not 
 only of ignorance of military affairs, but of cowardice, and asserts that 
 liis appointment to the chief command in Germany astonished the whole 
 army, and was a mere job to please the Spaniards, which the emperor 
 consented to, because he had made up his mind to do the whole work 
 himself. As regards Charles, this statement is so improbable, that it 
 may well be supposed to rest on the authority of some of the numerous 
 enemies of Alba, who hated him for his haughty manners and severe 
 discipline. Ic is certain that he had every opportunity of learning 
 his profession in all the imperial wars, that the emperor himself em- 
 ployed him at Metz, and that in his old age he was so far superior to 
 any other general in the Spanish service, that Philip XL entrusted him, 
 though in disgrace at the time, with the conquest of Portugal. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 55 
 
 the care of her half-brother, John the Third. She 
 parted with her sadly against her will, and only because 
 the usages of Portugal and the clamours of the city of 
 Lisbon did not permit an infanta to leave the kingdom. 
 It had since been the main object of the fond mother^s 
 heart to negotiate for her daughter such a marriage as 
 should set her free from this thraldom, and once more 
 reunite them. She had first affianced her to the 
 Dauphin, who did not live to fulfil his engagement; 
 and she afterwards vainly endeavoured to match her 
 with Maximilian, king of Bohemia, and Philip of Cas- 
 tille.^ In following her brother and sister to Spain, 
 Eleanor was much influenced by the hope of inducing 
 her daughter to come and reside with her in that 
 country. PhiHp the Second also seemed desirous of 
 making some amends for his ungenerous treatment of 
 the infanta, by marrying her to their mutual cousin, 
 the archduke Charles of Austria. John the Third of 
 Portugal, her guardian, was likewise solicitous to pro- 
 vide her with a husband, and had offered her hand, not 
 only to the archduke, but also to the emperor Ferdinand 
 his father, and to the duke of Savoy, without success.^ 
 Dispirited by these mortifications, Mary herself turned 
 her thoughts to the natural refuge of a love-lorn damsel 
 of thirty-six — the cloister; and the falseness of Philip 
 had fiUed her heart with bitterness towards Spain and 
 her Spanish kindred, and with distrust of any proposal 
 which came from beyond the Guadiana. She even de- 
 murred about complying with the desire of her mother, 
 that they should meet on the frontier of the two king- 
 doms; and the king of Portugal sustained her objec- 
 
 ' Damiam de Goes : Chronica do Rei Dom Emanuel, 4 torn. fol. Lisbon 
 1566-7, iv. p. 84. 
 
 ' Meneses : Chronica de D. Sebastiao, p. 69. 
 
5ft CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. hi. 
 
 tioDs on the ground that he did not wish her to be in- 
 veigled into taking the veil in a Spanish nunnery. The 
 emperor had already declined his son's invitation to in- 
 terfere, but he now found it impossible to resist the 
 entreaties of his sisters and the princess-regent. He 
 therefore allowed the Portuguese ambassador, Don 
 Sancho de Cordova, to come to Xarandilla on the 
 twenty-ninth of November, and gave him several au- 
 diences during his two days' stay. 
 
 King Anthony of Navarre, as he was called in France, 
 in right of his wife, or the duke of Vendome, as he was 
 styled in Spain, had also contrived to gain the emperor's 
 attention to his proposals.^ His emissary, M. Ezcurra, 
 therefore presented himself at Xarandilla, on the third of 
 December, and was dismissed with a letter, written in 
 cipher, to the secretary Vazquez. 
 
 On the eighth of December there arrived a Jew of 
 Barbary, bringing with him papers to prove that the 
 king of France was negotiating a secret treaty at Fez, 
 by which it was rendered probable that Moorish rovers 
 would soon revenge on the coasts of Spain the ravages 
 committed by the Spanish troops on the frontiers of 
 Picardy. The informer was sent on to Valladolid, on 
 the ninth, with a letter to the secretary of state. 
 
 The progress of the works at Yuste, and the prepara- 
 tions for removal, thither, were subjects of every-day dis- 
 cussion. The new buildings had been commenced more 
 than three years before, the first money being paid for 
 the purpose on the thirtieth of July, 1553. Gaspar de 
 Vega, one of the best of the royal architects, gave the 
 plans, working, however, it is said, from a sketch drawn 
 by the emperor's own hand. Yuste was visited on the 
 twenty-fourth of May, 1554, by Philip, at the desire of 
 
 » Chap. ii. p. 39. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 57 
 
 his father, as he was on his road to England. He 
 assisted at the procession of Corpus Christi, inspected 
 the works with great minuteness, and slept a night in 
 the convent. The control of the cash and the general 
 superintendence of the building was entrusted to Fray- 
 Juan de Ortega, general of the Jeromites, and Fray 
 Melchor de Pie de Concha. Ortega was a man of 
 ability and learning, w^ho enjoyed for a time the reputa- 
 tion of having written Lazarillo de Tormes, the charm- 
 ing parent of those picaresque stories in which modern 
 fiction had its birth. Certain reforms which he at- 
 tempted to introduce into the rule of his order, met 
 with so much opposition and odium, that he was de- 
 posed from the generalship, when his successor, Tofino, 
 thought fit to remove him and his assistant. Concha, 
 from their functions at Yuste. The emperor, however, 
 was highly indignant at this interference, and imme- 
 diately replaced them in their duties, which they con- 
 tinued to discharge at the time of his arrival at Xaran- 
 dilla. 
 
 The greatest secrecy had been enjoined as to the 
 purpose of these architectural operations, and Charles 
 had evinced much displeasure on learning that his 
 intention of retiring to the monastery had been spoken 
 of in the country, owing to the indiscreet tatthng of the 
 friars. Ortega, as well as the general Tofino, had been 
 summoned to meet him at Valladolid, and now at Xaran- 
 dilla they and the prior of Yuste had long and frequent 
 audiences. On the twenty-second of November, in spite 
 of the rain and fog, the emperor got into his htter, and 
 went over to the convent, to inspect the state of the 
 works for himself. It being the feast of St. Cathe- 
 rine, it was his first care to perform his devotions 
 in the church. Notwithstanding the gloom of the 
 weather and the wintry forest, he declared himself 
 
68 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iii. 
 
 satisfied with what he saw^ and ordered forty beds to be 
 prepared, twenty for masters and twenty for servants, 
 as speedily as possible. His intention was to remain 
 at Xarandilla until the arrival of certain books and 
 papers, which it was necessary to consult before settling 
 with the domestics whom he was about to discharge ; 
 but he hoped to remove to the convent in the middle of 
 December. 
 
 Meanwhile, the household, especially the Flemish 
 and more numerous portion of it, was in a state of dis- 
 content, bordering on mutiny. The chosen paradise of 
 the master was regarded as a sort of hell upon earth by 
 the servants. To all that they could urge against 
 the salubrity of Yuste, Charles either was wholly 
 deaf, or replied with the proverb, ^The Hon is not 
 so fierce,^ or, as we say, the devil is not so black, ^ as 
 he is painted V No es tan bravo el leon como le 
 pintan. The mayordomo and the secretary therefore 
 poured, by every post, their griefs into the ear of the 
 secretary of state. The count of Oropesa, wrote Luis 
 Quixada, had been driven away from Xarandilla by the 
 damp, and Yuste was well known to be far damper than 
 Xarandilla. His majesty had been pleased to approve 
 of the abode prepared for him, but he himself had like- 
 wise been there, and knew that it was full of defects 
 and discomfort. The rooms were too small, the windows 
 too large ; the window which opened from the emperor's 
 bed-room into the church would not command the ele- 
 vation of the host at the high altar; and if service were 
 performed at one of the side altars, where the officiating 
 monk could be seen by his majesty in bed, his majesty 
 in bed would be seen by the monk. In spite of the 
 glass and the shutters, he feared that the emperor would 
 be disturbed during the night when the hours were 
 chanted. The apartments on the ground floor were in 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 69 
 
 utter darkness, and reeking with moisture; the garden 
 was paltry, the orange-trees few, and the boasted prospect, 
 what was it, but a hill and some oak trees? Neverthe- 
 less, he hoped the place might prove better than it 
 promised; and he entreated the secretary not to show 
 his letter to her highness, nor to tell her of the dispa- 
 raging tone in which he had written about Yuste. 
 
 Gaztelu was equally desponding. Some of the friars 
 were to be drafted off into other convents, to make 
 room for the new comers; and none being willing to 
 forego the chances of imperial favour, fierce dissensions 
 had arisen on tliis point, and had even reached the 
 emperor's ears. It seemed as if his majesty must adjust 
 these quarrels himself, or seek another retreat, which 
 would be much against his inclination; but, indeed, 
 what good could be expected to come of wishing to live 
 among friars? The quartermaster, Ruggier, in re- 
 porting progress, had ventured to complain of the want 
 of servants' accommodation. At this the emperor was 
 very angry, and telhng him that he wanted his service 
 and not his advice, said he must find means of lodging 
 twenty-one of the people at Yuste, and the rest at 
 Quacos, ' a place,' added Gaztelu piteously, ' worse than 
 Xarandilla.' Still more was the emperor exasperated 
 at a letter which he received from the queen of Hun- 
 gary, entreating him to think twice before he settled in 
 a spot ' so unhealthy as Yuste ;' and he expressed great 
 wrath against those who had given her such informa- 
 tion, and whom he suspected to be Monsieur de La Chaulx 
 and the doctor Cornelio, who had lately come from court. 
 Poor La Chaulx might well be excused if he had given 
 an unfavourable report of the climate ; he was not the 
 man he had been when he led the ball at the emperor's 
 wedding, in the Alcazar at Seville ; and he continued to 
 burn and shiver with violent ague fits. The doctor 
 
60 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. hi. 
 
 found a good many patients in the lower ranks of the 
 household. In spite, however, of these various dis- 
 tresses, the Flemings, according to the testimony of the 
 Castillians, looked fair and fat, and fed voraciously on 
 the ' hams and other bucolic meats' of Estremadura, a 
 province still unrivalled in swine and savoury prepara- 
 tions of pork. 
 
 In this matter of eating, as in many other habits, the 
 emperor was himself a true Fleming. His early ten- 
 dency to gout was increased by his indulgences at table, 
 which generally far exceeded his feeble powers of diges- 
 tion. Koger Ascham, standing • hard by the imperial 
 table at the feast of Golden fleece,' watched with wonder 
 the emperor's progress through ' sod beef, roast mutton, 
 baked hare,' after which ^ he fed well of a capon,' drink- 
 ing, also, says the fellow of St. John's, 'the best that 
 ever I saw ; he had his head in the glass five times as 
 long as any of them, and never drank less than a good 
 quart at once of Rhenish wine.'^ Even in his worst 
 days of gout and dyspepsia, before setting out from 
 Flanders, the fulness and frequency of the meals which 
 occurred between his spiced milk in the morning and his 
 heavy supper at night, so amazed an envoy of Venice,^ 
 that he thought them worthy of especial notice in his 
 despatch to the senate. The emperor's palate, he re- 
 ported, was, like his stomach, quite worn out; he was 
 ever complaining of the sameness and insipidity of the 
 meats served at his table ; and the chamberlain, Monfal- 
 conet, protested, in despair, that he knew not how the 
 cook was to please his master, unless he were to gratify 
 his taste for culinary novelty and chronometrical mecha- 
 nism, by sending him up a pasty of watches. 
 
 1 Works of Roger Ascham, \io. London : 1761, p. 375. 
 
 2 Badovaro. See p. 62. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 61 
 
 Eating was now the only physical gratification which 
 he could still enjoy, or was unable to resist. Like 
 Frederick the Great, who died of his polenta, he con- 
 tinued, therefore, to dine to the last upon the rich dishes, 
 against which his ancient and trusty confessor, cardinal 
 Loaysa, had protested a quarter of a century before/ 
 The supply of his table was a main subject of the corre- 
 spondence between the raayordomo and the secretary of 
 state. The weekly courier from Valladolid to Lisbon 
 was ordered to change his route that he might bring, 
 every Thursday a provision of eels and other rich fish 
 (pescado grueso) for Friday^s fast. There was a constant 
 demand for anchovies, tunny, and other potted fish, and 
 sometimes a complaint that the trouts of the country 
 were too small ; the olives, on the other hand, were too 
 large, and the emperor wished, instead, for olives of 
 Perejon. One day, the secretary of state was asked for 
 some partridges from Gama, a place from whence the 
 emperor remembered that the count of Osorno once sent 
 him, into Flanders, ' some of the best partridges in the 
 world.^^ Another day, sausages were wanted ^of the kind 
 which the queen Juana, now in glory, used to pride 
 herself in making, in the Flemish fashion, at Tordesillas,' 
 and for the receipt for which the secretary is referred to 
 the marquis of Denia. Both orders were punctually 
 executed. The sausages, although sent to a land 
 supreme in that manufacture, gave great satisfaction. 
 Of the partridges, the emperor said that they used to be 
 better, ordering, however, the remainder to be pickled. 
 
 • Ca/rtas al Emp. Carlos V. escritas en los anos de 1530-32. Copiadas de 
 las autografas en el archivo de Simancas. Par G. Heine. 8vo. Berlin, 
 1848, p. 69. 
 
 - The count managed that they should reach Flanders in perfect con- 
 dition by putting rust in their mouths, ' echandoles orin en la boca.' The 
 emperor considered that this singular preservative would not be neces- 
 sary in the present journey. 
 
62 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. hi. 
 
 The emperor's weakness being generally known or 
 soon discovered, dainties of all kinds were sent to him 
 as presents. Mutton, pork, and game were the pro- 
 visions most easily obtained at Xarandilla; but they 
 were dear. The bread was indifferent, and nothing was 
 good and abundant but chestnuts, the staple food of 
 the people. But in a very few days the castle larder 
 wanted for nothing. One day the count of Oropesa sent 
 an oifering of game; another day, a pair of fat calves 
 arrived from the archbishop of Zaragoza; the arch- 
 bishop of Toledo and the duchess of Frias were constant 
 and magnificent in their gifts of venison, fruit, and 
 preserves; and supplies of all kinds came at regular 
 intervals from Seville and from Portugal. 
 
 Luis Quixada, who knew the emperor's habits and 
 constitution well, beheld with dismay these long trains of 
 mules laden, as it were, with gout and bile. He never 
 acknowledged the receipt of the good things from Val- 
 ladolid without adding some dismal forebodings of con- 
 sequent mischief; and along with an order he sometimes 
 conveyed a hint that it would be much better if no 
 means were found of executing it. If the emperor made 
 a hearty meal without being the worse for it, the mayor- 
 domo noted the fact with exultation; and he remarked 
 with complacency his majesty's fondness for plovers, 
 which he considered harmless. But his office of pur- 
 veyor was more commonly exercised under protest ; and 
 he interposed between his master and an eel- pie as, in 
 other days, he would have thrown himself between the 
 imperial person and the point of a Moorish lance. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 63 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 SERVANTS AND VISITORS. 
 
 IT was during the emperor's stay at Xarandilla, that 
 his household was joined by the friar of the order 
 of St. Jerome, whom he had chosen as his confessor. 
 To this important post Juan de Regla was perhaps 
 fairly entitled, by his professional distinction; and he 
 was certainly one of those monks who knew how to 
 make ladders, to place and favour, of the ropes which 
 girt their ascetic loins. An Aragonese by birth, he first 
 saw the hght in a peasant's hut on the mountains of 
 Jaca, in 1500, the same year in which the future Caesar, 
 who was destined to be his spiritual son, was born, in 
 the halls of the house of Burgundy, in the good city of 
 Ghent. At fourteen, he was sent to Zaragoza, to make 
 one of the motley crew of poor scholars, so often the 
 glory and the shame of the Spanish church, and the 
 delight of the picaresque literature. Obtaining as he 
 could the rudiments of what was then held to be learn- 
 ing, he lived on alms and the charity-soup dispensed by 
 the Jeromites of Santa Engracia. Dming the vacations, 
 by carrying letters or messages, sometimes as far as 
 Barcelona, Valencia, or Madrid, he earned a little money, 
 which he spent in books. His diligent pursuit of know- 
 ledge having attracted the notice of the fathers of Santa 
 Engracia, their favour obtained for him the post of 
 domestic tutor to two lads of family, who were about to 
 enter the university of Salamanca. In that congenial 
 
64 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 abode he remained for thirteen years, in the last six of 
 which he was released from the duties of pedagogue, and 
 free to pursue his private reading of theology, canon- 
 law, and the biblical tongues. With his mind thus 
 stored, he returned, in his thirty-sixth year, to Zaragoza, 
 and received the habit of St. Jerome in the familiar 
 cloisters of Santa Engracia. Ere long, he had made 
 himself the most popular confessor within its walls, 
 young and old flocking to his chair in such crowds, that 
 it seemed as if perpetual holy- week were kept in the 
 convent-church. As a preacher, his success was not so 
 great; and the critics considered his discourses to be 
 deficient in learning, of which, nevertheless, he had 
 enough to be chosen as one of the theologians, sent in 
 1551 by Charles the Fifth to represent the doctors of 
 Aragon at the council of Trent. At his return from 
 this honourable, but fruitless mission, he became prior 
 of the convent whose broken meat he had once eaten ; 
 and he would have been elected to that office a second 
 time, had not the emperor summoned him to Xarandilla 
 to commence a higher career of ambition, and to enter 
 political life at the precise age at which Charles himself 
 was retiring from it. On being introduced into the 
 imperial presence, Regla chose to speak, in the mitre- 
 shunning cant of his cloth, of the great reluctance which 
 he had felt in accepting a post of such weighty responsi- 
 bility. ' Never fear,' said Charles, somewhat maliciously, 
 as if conscious that he was dealing with a hypocrite; 
 ' before I left Flanders, five doctors were engaged for a 
 whole year in easing my conscience; so you wiU have 
 notldng to answer for but what happens here.' 
 
 It may be as well now to sketch the portraits of the 
 other members of the imperial household, who after- 
 wards formed the principal personages of the tiny 
 court of Yuste. Foremost in interest as in rank stands 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 65 
 
 the active mayordomo^ who has already figured so fre- 
 quently in this narrative, Luis Quixada, or to give him 
 his full Castillian appellation, Luis Mendez Quixada 
 Manuel de Figueredo y Mendoza. He was the last of 
 a knightly race of Old Castille, whose martial achieve- 
 ments, says one of its admirers, ' deserve to be written 
 with a pen plucked from the wing of the eagle that 
 soared, in battle, over the head of Alexander/ ^ The 
 first recorded warrior of the line was Ruy Arias Quixada, 
 who fought in 1085 under the king Don Alonso the Sixth, 
 at the taking of Toledo. From that siege to Isabella's 
 crowning conquest of Granada, there was hardly a field 
 fought in Spain where the pennon, chequered azure and 
 argent, of a Quixada, was not displayed among the fore- 
 most banners of the Christian host. Gutierre Gon9alez 
 Quixada, lord of Villagarcia, was distinguished by his 
 prowess in the toumays, and his favour at the court of 
 Philip the First, or the Handsome. He served with dis- 
 tinction in the conquest of Navarre, and in the wars of 
 the Commons of Castillo ; and as a leader of the famous 
 infantry of Spain, he became so renowned, that it was 
 sufficient praise for soldiers in that service to be called 
 as well trained and as well appointed as the soldiers of 
 Gutierre Quixada. By his wife, Maria Manuel, lady 
 of Villamayor, he had four sons and a daughter. Of 
 these children, three embraced the profession of arms ; 
 Alvaro entered the church, and died in 1554, a dignitary 
 of Santiago ; and Anna was for many years abbess of 
 Las Huelgas, at Valladolid. Pedro, the eldest son, 
 being slain before Tunis, in 1535, the family estates 
 passed shortly afterwards, on the death of his father. 
 
 ^ Juan de Villafane : Vida de Dona Magdalena de Ulloa, 4to. Sala- 
 manca: 1728. p. 16. 
 
66 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, nr, 
 
 to the second son Luis. Commencing his career as a 
 page in the imperial household, Luis had likewise served 
 with distinction in the same campaign as a captain of 
 foot. His sagacity allayed the discord which had 
 arisen between the Spanish and Itahans about the 
 post of honour before Goleta;^ and he was wounded 
 while leading his company to the assault of its 
 bastions.^ At Terouanne, in the Netherlands, he 
 was again at the head of a storming party, when his 
 younger brother Juan fell at his side, slain by a ball 
 from a French arquebus.^ His services soon raised 
 him to the grade of colonel, and he was also pro- 
 moted, in the imperial household, to the post of deputy 
 mayordomo, under the duke of Alba, and in that capacity 
 constantly attended the person and obtained the entire 
 confidence of the emperor. In 1549, he married Dona 
 Magdalena de Ulloa, a lady of blood as blue and nature 
 as gentle as any in Castillo.'* The marriage took place 
 at Valladolid, the bridegroom appearing by proxy, b.ut 
 he soon after obtained leave of absence from Bruxelles, 
 and joined his bride in Spain. They retired for awhile 
 to his patrimonial mansion at Yillagarcia, a small town 
 lying six leagues from Valladolid, beyond the heath of 
 San Pedro de la Espina, in the vale of the Sequillo. 
 
 To Quixada^s care the emperor afterwards confided 
 his illegitimate son, in later years so famous as Don 
 John of Austria. The boy was sent to Spain in 1550, 
 in his fourth year, under the name of Geronimo, in the 
 charge of one Massi, a favourite musician of the 
 emperor, who was told that he was the son of Adrian 
 
 ^ Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., lib. xxii. c. 17. ' Ih. c. 27. 
 
 » J. G. Sepulveda : De Rebus gestis Caroli V., lib. xxviii. c. 27. 
 * ViUa&iie : Vida de Dona Mag. de VUoa. p. 43. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 67 
 
 de Bues, one of the gentlemen of the imperial chamber/ 
 At this man's death, he remained for some time with 
 his widow at Leganes, near Madrid, learning his letters 
 from the curate and sacristan, running wild among the 
 village children, or with his cross-bow ranging the corn- 
 clad plains in pursuit of sparrows. It was not until 
 1554 that he was transferred to the more fitting guar- 
 dianship of the lady of Villagarcia ; the imperial usher 
 who brought him, bringing her also a letter from 
 Quixada, commending the young stranger to her care as 
 ' the son of a great man, his dear friend/ Magdalena, 
 who had no children of her own, took the pretty sun- 
 burnt boy at once to her heart, and watched over him 
 with the tenderest solicitude j supposing, for some time, 
 that he was the offspring of some early attachment of 
 her lord. A fire breaking out in the house at midnight, 
 Quixada by rushing to the rescue of his ward before he 
 attended to the safety of his wife, led her afterwards to 
 suspect the truth.^ But as long as the emperor lived. 
 
 * Witli the emperor's will was deposited in the royal archives a packet 
 of four papers, which appears to have been at first in the custody of 
 Philip II., being inscribed in his hand- writing, ' If I die before his 
 majesty, to be returned to him ; if after him to be given to my son ; or, 
 failing him, my next heir.' In the first of these papers, the contents of 
 which will be noticed more particularly in another place, the emperor 
 acknowledged Geronimo to be his son, begotten, during his widowhood, 
 of an unmarried woman in Germany, and referred his heir for further 
 information concerning him to Adrian de Bues ; or, in case of his death, 
 to Oger Bodoarte, porter of the imperial chamber. Inside this document 
 was the receipt granted by Massi, his wife Ana de Medina, and their 
 son Diego, for the son of Adrian de Bues ; and a sum of one hundred 
 crowns to defray his travelling expenses to Spain, and one year's board 
 and lodging, calculated from the 1st of August, 1550, and binding 
 themselves to accept fifty ducats for his annual keep in future, and to 
 preserve the strictest secrecy as to his parentage. This curious receipt 
 is dated Bruxelles, 13 June, 1550, and is signed by the parties, Oger 
 Bodoarte signing for the woman, at her husband's request, she being 
 unable to write. The documents are printed at fiill length in the 
 Papiei'S de Qranvelle, iv. 496. 
 
 « Villafaue : Vida de M. de JJlloa, p. 43. 
 
 r2 
 
68 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 the mayordomo never suffered her to penetrate the 
 mystery. Amongst the neighbours Don John passed 
 for a favourite page. The parental care of his guardians, 
 whom he called, according to a usual mode of CastiUian 
 endearment, his uncle and aunt, he returned with the 
 affection of a son. Dona Magdalena used to make him 
 the dispenser of the alms of bread and money, which 
 were given at her gate on stated days to the poor; and 
 her efforts to imbue him with devotion towards the 
 Blessed Virgin are supposed by his historians to have 
 borne good fruit, in the banners, embroidered with Our 
 Lady^s image, which floated from every galley in his 
 fleet at Lepanto. In the early part of his education, 
 Quixada had but httle share, being generally absent in 
 attendance on the emperor. During his brief visits to 
 his estate, he lived the usual Hfe of a country hidalgo, 
 amusing himself with the chase and law, flying his 
 hawks and carrying on a tedious plea with his tenants 
 about manorial rights, in which he was ultimately de- 
 feated. Strongly attached to his paternal fields on the 
 naked plains of Old Castille, although he may have 
 been content to exchange them for the active hfe of 
 the camp or the court, it was not without many a pang 
 that he prepared for his banishment to the wilds of 
 Estremadura. Unconsciously portrayed in his own 
 graphic letters, the best of the Yuste correspondence, 
 he stands forth the type of the cavaher, and ' old rusty 
 Christian,^ ^ of Castille — spare and sinewy of frame, and 
 somewhat formal and severe in the cut of his beard and 
 the fashion of his manners; in character reserved and 
 punctilious, but true as steel to the cause espoused or 
 the duty undertaken ; keen and clear in his insight into 
 
 * ' Cristiano viejo rancioso,' Don Quixote, p. i. cap. xxvii., so ta-ans- 
 lated by Shelton. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 69 
 
 men and things around him, yet devoutly believing his 
 master the greatest prince that ever had been or was to 
 be ; proud of himself, his family, and his services, and 
 inclined, in a grave decorous way, to exaggerate their 
 importance ; a true son of the church, with an instinc- 
 tive distrust of its ministers ; a hater of Jews, Turks, 
 heretics, friars, and Flemings; somewhat testy, some- 
 what obstinate, full of strong sense and strong prejudicie; 
 a warm-hearted, energetic, and honest man. 
 
 Martin Gaztelu, the secretary, comes next to the 
 mayordomo in order of precedence, and in the import- 
 ance of his functions. His place was one of great trust. 
 The whole correspondence of the emperor passed through 
 his hands. Even the most private and confidential 
 communications addressed to the princess-regent by 
 her father, were generally written, at his dictation, by 
 Gaztelu; for the imperial fingers were seldom suffi- 
 ciently free from gout to be able to do more than add 
 a brief postscript, in which Dona Juana was assured of 
 the afi'ection of her hutn padre Carlos. The secretary 
 had probably spent his life in the service of the emperor; 
 but I have been unable to learn more of his history than 
 his letters have preserved. His epistolary style was 
 clear, simple, and business-like, but inferior to that of 
 Quixada in humour, and in careless graphic touch, and 
 more sparing in glimpses of the rural life of Estremadura 
 three hundred years ago. 
 
 William Van Male, or, as the Spaniards called him, 
 Malines, or, in that Latin form in which his name still 
 lingers in the bye- ways of literature, Malineus, was the 
 scholar and man of letters of the society. Born at 
 Bruges, of a noble but decayed family, and with a 
 learned education for his sole patrimony, he went to 
 seek his fortune in Spain, and the service of the duke 
 of Alba, an iron soldier, who cherished the arts of 
 
70 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 peace with a discerning love very rare in his profession 
 and his country. He afterwards turned his thoughts 
 towards the church, but not obtaining any preferment, 
 he did not receive the tonsure. About 1548, Don Luis 
 de Avila, grand-commander of Alcantara, and a soldier, 
 historian, and court favourite of great eminence, engaged 
 him to put into Latin his commentaries on the wars in 
 Germany, holding out hopes of placing him, in return, 
 in the imperial household. Van Male executed his task 
 with much elegance,^ but Avila failed to fulfil the hopes 
 he had excited, although the modest ambition of his 
 translator did not soar beyond the post of historio- 
 grapher, and two hundred florins a year. Another and 
 a better friend, however, the Seigneur de Praet, obtained 
 for Van Male, in 1550, the place of harbero, or gentle- 
 man of the imperial chamber of the second class. 
 ^ His learning, intelligence, industry, cheerful disposi- 
 tion, and simple nature, made him a great favourite with 
 the emperor, who soon could scarcely dispense with his 
 attendance by day or night. With a strong natural 
 taste for arts and letters, Charles, often during his busy 
 life, regretted that his imperfect early education debarred 
 him from many literary pursuits and pleasures. In 
 Van Male he had found a humble instrument, ever 
 ready, able, and willing to supply his deficiencies. 
 Sailing up the Rhine in 1550, he beguiled the tedium 
 of the voyage by composing a memoir of his campaigns 
 and travels. The new gentleman of the chamber was 
 employed on his old task of translation ; and he accord- 
 ingly turned the emperor^s French, which he likewise 
 pronounced to be terse, elegant, and eloquent, into Latin, 
 
 * Ludov. de Avila Oommentariorum de Bello Germanico a Cavoli Ccesare 
 gesto lib. ii. 8vo, Antvei-piae, 1550. It was printed by Steels, who 
 reprinted it the same year ; and another edition was published in 12mo, 
 at Strasburg, in 1620. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 71 
 
 in which he put forth his whole strength, and combined, 
 as he supposed, the styles of Livy, Caesar, Suetonius, 
 and Tacitus. 
 
 Another of the emperor^s literary recreations was to 
 make a version, in Castillian prose, of the old and 
 popular French poem, called Le Chevalier Delibere, an 
 allegory, composed some twenty years before, by Oliver 
 de la Marche, in honour of the ducal house of Bur- 
 gundy. Fernando de Acuiia, a soldier-poet, and at that 
 time keeper of the captive elector, George Frederick of 
 Saxony, was then commanded to turn it into rhyme, a 
 task which he performed very happily, working up the 
 emperor^s prose into spirited and richly-idiomatic verse, 
 retouching and refreshing the antiquated flattery of the 
 last century, and stealing, here and there, a chaplet' 
 from the old Burgundian monument to hang upon the 
 shrine of Aragon and Castille. The manuscript was 
 finally given to Van Male, in order to be passed through 
 the press, the emperor telling him that he might have 
 the profits of the publication for his pains, but forbidding 
 that the book should contain any allusion to his own 
 share in its production. Against this condition Van 
 Male remonstrated, knowing, no doubt, that the name 
 of the imperial translator would sell the book far more 
 speedily and certainly than any possible merit of the 
 translation, and alleging that such a condition was an 
 injustice both to the honourable vocation of letters and 
 to the world at large. The emperor, however, was 
 inflexible, and the Spanish courtiers wickedly afi*ected 
 the greatest envy at the good fortune of the Fleming. 
 Luis de Avila, with special malice, m his quality of 
 author assured the emperor that the book would yield a 
 profit of five hundred crowns, upon which Charles, 
 charmed at being generous at no cost at all, remarked, 
 ' Well, it is right that William, who has had the greatest 
 
72 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 part of tlie sweat, should reap the harvest/ Poor Van 
 Male saw no prospect of reaping anything but chaff ; he 
 timidly hinted at the risk of the undertaking, and did 
 his best to escape the threatened boon. But hints were 
 thrown away on the emperor; he was eager to see him- 
 self in type ; and he accordingly ordered Jean Steels to 
 strike off, at Van Male^s expense, two thousand copies 
 of a book which is now scarce, perhaps because the 
 greater part of the impression passed at once from the 
 publisher to the pastrycook. The pecuniary results 
 have not been recorded, but there is little doubt that 
 the Fleming^s fears were justified rather than the hopes 
 of the malicious companions, whom he called, in his 
 vexation, ^ those windy Spaniards.' 
 
 During the six harassed and sickly years which pre- 
 ceded the emperor's abdication. Van Male was his con- 
 stant attendant, and usually slept in an adjoining room, 
 to be ever within call. Many a sleepless night Charles 
 beguiled by hearing the poor scholar read the Vulgate, 
 and illustrate it by citations from Josephus or other 
 writers; and sometimes they sang psalms together, a 
 devotional exercise of which the emperor was very fond. 
 He had composed certain prayers for his own use, which 
 he now required Van Male to put into Latin, and other- 
 wise correct and arrange. The work was so well 
 executed that Charles several times spoke, in the hearing 
 of some of the other courtiers, of the comfort he had 
 found in praying in Van Male's terse and elegant 
 Latinity instead of his own rambling French. This 
 praise from the master produced the usual envy among 
 the servants; the chaplains, especially, were indignant 
 that a layman should have thus poached upon their 
 peculiar ground and be praised for it, and they assailed 
 him with all kinds of coarse jests, and saluted him by a 
 Greek name signifying praying-master. They did not, 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 73 
 
 however, undermine his credit ; the emperor treated 
 him with undiminished confidence; he alone was pre- 
 sent when the doctors Vesahus and Baersdorp were 
 wrangHng over the symptoms and diseases of his 
 master^ s shattered frame; and, as he watched through 
 the long winter nights by the imperial couch, he was 
 admitted to a nearer view than any other man had ever 
 attained of the history and the workings of that ardent, 
 reserved, and commanding mind. ' I was struck dumb,' 
 he wrote to his friend, De Praet, after one of these 
 mysterious confidences, ' and I even now tremble at the 
 recollection of the things which he told me/ 
 
 The small collection of letters to De Praet^ contain 
 nearly all that is known of the life of Van Male. These 
 letters were written for the most part in 1550, 1551, 
 and 1552, sometimes by the emperor's bedside, and 
 often long after midnight, when his tossings had sub- 
 sided into slumber. Lively and agreeable as letters, 
 they are invaluable for the glimpses they afibrd of the 
 everyday life of Charles. In them we can look at the 
 hero of the sixteenth century with the eyes of his valet. 
 We can see him in his various moods — now well and 
 cheerful, now bilious and peevish ; ever suffering from 
 his fatal love of eating, [edacitas damnosa,) yet never 
 able to restrain it ; rebelling against the prudent rules 
 of Baersdorp and the great Vesalius, and appealing to 
 one CabaUo, {CaballuSj by Van Male called onagrus 
 magnus,) a Spanish quack, whose dietary was whatever 
 his patient liked to eat and drink : calling for his iced 
 beer before daybreak, and then repenting at the warn- 
 
 1 Lettres sur la vie interieure de VEmpereur Charles Quint., ecrites par 
 Guillaume Van Male, publiees par le Baron de Beiffenberg, 8vo. Brux- 
 elles : 1843. M. Reiffenberg has fallen into an error in supposing 
 (p. xxiii.) that Van Male retired from the emperor's service at the time of 
 the abdication. 
 
74 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 ings of Van Male and the dysentery ; now listening to 
 the book of Esdras, or criticising the wars of the Mac- 
 cabees, and now laughing heartily at a filthy saying of 
 the Turkish envoy ; groaning in his bed, in a comphca- 
 tion of pains and disorders; or mounting his favourite 
 genet, matchless in shape and blood, to review his 
 artillery in the vale of the Moselle. 
 
 In spite of his busy life, Van Male found time for 
 his beloved books, and De Praet being also a book- 
 collector, the letters addressed to him are full of notices 
 of borrowings and lendings, buyings and exchangings, 
 of favourite authors, generally the classics. At the 
 memorable flight from Innspruck, when the emperor in 
 his litter was smuggled by torchlight through the passes 
 into Carinthia, the hbrary of Van Male fell, with the 
 rest of the imperial booty, into the hands of the pikemen 
 of duke Maurice. * Ah,^ says he, ' with how many tears 
 and lamentations have I wailed the funeral wail of my 
 library !^ When the emperor^s great army lay before 
 Metz, sanguine of success and plunder, the afflicted 
 scholar prepared for his revenge, and engaged some 
 Spanish veterans, masters in the art of pillage, to assist 
 him in securing the cream of the literary spoil. ' Non 
 ultra metas^ however, was the new reading which the 
 gallantry of Guise enabled the wits of Metz to offer of 
 the famous ' Flus ultra' of Austria ; and Van Male was 
 balked of the hours of delicious rapine to which he 
 looked forward amongst the cabinets of the curious. 
 
 But if he were willing on an occasion to make free 
 with other men^s book-shelves, he was also willing that 
 other men should make free with the produce of his 
 own brains. The emperor having read Paolo Giovio's 
 account of his expedition to Tunis, was desirous that 
 certain errors should be corrected. Van Male was 
 therefore desired to undertake the task, and he com- 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 75 
 
 menced it, so new was the art of reviewing, by reading 
 the work four times through. He then drew up, with 
 the assistance of hints from the emperor, a long letter 
 to the author, in a style soft and courtly as the bishop's 
 own, which was signed and sent by Luis de Avila, who, 
 having served in the war, was judged more eligible as 
 the ostensible critic. 
 
 Under the pressure of duties at the desk and in the 
 dressing-room, the health of Van Male gave way, and 
 he was sometimes little less a valetudinarian than the 
 great man to whom he administered Maccabees, physic, 
 or iced-beer. He had seized the opportunity of a short 
 absence on sick-leave to crown a long attachment by 
 marriage ; and sometime before his master's abdication, 
 he had applied for a place in the treasury of the Nether- 
 lands, under his friend, De Praet. The emperor, on 
 hearing of his entrance into the wedded state, ex- 
 pressed the warmest approbation of the step, and interest 
 in his w^elfare. ^You will hardly believe,' wrote the 
 simple-minded good man, ' with what approval Csesar 
 received my communication, and how when we were 
 alone, not once, but several times, he laid me down 
 rules for my future guidance, exhorting me to frugality, 
 parsimony, and other virtues of domestic life.' His 
 majesty, however, gave him nothing but good advice, 
 unwilling, perhaps, to diminish the value of his precepts 
 by lessening the necessity of practising them. Getting 
 no place, therefore. Van Male was forced, with his dear 
 Hippolyta and her babes, to encounter the bay of Biscay, 
 and the mountain roads of Spain. 
 
 The emperor, indeed, could not do without him. 
 Peevish with gout, and wearied by the delays at Yuste, 
 and the discontent among his people, he one day scolded 
 him so harshly for being out of the way when he called, 
 that Yan Male tendered his resignation, which was 
 
76 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 accepted. But_, ere a week had elapsed, both parties 
 had cooled down; and the Spanish secretary remarked 
 that William had not only been forgiven, but was as 
 much in favour as before. His temper must have been 
 excellent, for he contrived to be a favourite with his 
 master without being the detestation of his Castillian 
 fellow- servants. 
 
 The doctor of the court was a young Fleming, named 
 Henry Mathys, or, in the Spanish form, Mathisio. He 
 had not held the appointment long, and there being 
 much sickness at Xarandilla, it was thought advisable 
 to summon to his aid Dr. Giovanni Antonio Mole, from 
 Milan. Another Mathys, Cornelius Henry, or as he 
 was generally called doctor Cornelio, who had long been 
 physician to the queen of Hungary, was also sent for to 
 Valladolid. They remained, however, only a few weeks 
 in attendance, and Henry Mathys was again left in sole 
 charge of the health of the emperor and his people. 
 He appears to have discharged his functions creditably; 
 and with the pen, at least, he was indefatigable, for 
 every variation in the imperial symptoms, and every pill 
 and potion with which he endeavoured to neutralize 
 the slow poisons daily served up by the cook, he duly 
 chronicled in Latin despatches, usually addressed to the 
 king, and written with singular dulness and prolixity. 
 
 Giovanni, or, as he was familiarly called, Juanelo 
 Torriano, was a native of Cremona, who had attained 
 considerable fame as a mechanician, and in that capacity 
 had been introduced into the emperor^s service many 
 years before, by the celebrated Alonso de Avalos, 
 marquess del Vasto. A curious old clock, made in 
 1402, by Zelandin, for Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, was 
 brought from Paris as a present to Charles at his coro- 
 nation, in 1530, at Bologna. Being much out of repair, it 
 was put into the hands of Torriano, who so skilfully 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. TTf 
 
 restored it, or rather made a new clock with the help 
 of its materials, that the emperor took him with him to 
 Spain.^ He had now brought him to Estremadura 
 to take care of his clocks and watches, and to construct 
 these and other pieces of mechanism for the amusement 
 of his leisure hours. 
 
 Besides the envoys and other official people whom 
 state affairs called to Xarandilla, there were several 
 ancient servants of the emperor who came thither to 
 tender the homage of their loyalty. One of these 
 deserves especial notice for the place he holds in the 
 history, not only of Spain, but of the religious struggles 
 of the sixteenth century — Francisco Borja, who, a few 
 years before, had exchanged his dukedom of Gandia for 
 the robe of the order of Jesus. In his brilliant youth 
 this remarkable man had been the star and pride of the 
 nobility of Spain. He was the heir of a great and 
 wealthy house — a branch of the royal line of Aragon, — 
 which had abeady given two pontiffs to Rome, and to 
 history several personages remarkable for the brightness 
 of their virtues and the blackness of their crimes. ' The 
 universe,^ cried a poet, some ages later, in a frenzy of 
 panegyric,^ ' is full of Borja ; there are Borjas famous by 
 sea, Borjas great by land, Borjas enthroned in heaven -/ 
 and he might have added, with equal truth, that in the 
 lower regions also, the house of Borja was fairly repre- 
 sented. Francisco was distinguished no less by the 
 favour of the emperor than by the splendour of his 
 
 ' Falconnet: Memoires deV Academic, 4to, Paris, 1753, vol. xx. pp. 440. 
 He quotes as his authority, Bernard. Saccus, De jtalicarum rerum 
 vai'ietate, Leb. vii. c. 17, 4to. Papiae, 1565 ; and he calls Torriano, Joannes 
 Janellus. 
 
 ' Epitome de la Eloquencia Espanola, par D. Francisco Josef Artiga, 
 12mo. Huesca : 1692. See dedication to the duke of Gandia, by Fr. 
 Man. Artiga, the author's son. 
 
78 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 birth, the graces of his person, and the endowments of 
 his mind. Born to be a courtier and a soldier, he 
 was also an accomplished scholar and no inconsiderable 
 statesman. He broke horses and trained hawks as well 
 as the most expert master of the manage and the mews ; 
 he composed masses which long kept their place in the 
 choirs of Spain ; he was well versed in polite learning, 
 and deeply read in the mathematics ; he wrote Latin and 
 Castillian, as his works still testify, with ease and grace ; 
 he served in Africa and Italy with distinction; and as 
 viceroy of Catalonia, he displayed abilities for adminis- 
 tration which in a few years might have placed him high 
 amongst the Mendozas and De Lannoys. The pleasures 
 and honours of the world, however, seemed from the 
 first to have but slender attraction for the man so rarely 
 fitted to obtain them. In the midst of life and its 
 triumphs, his thoughts perpetually turned upon death 
 and its mysteries. Ever punctilious in the performance 
 of his rehgious duties, he early began to dehght in 
 spiritual contemplation and to discipline his mind by 
 self-imposed penance. Even in his favourite sport of 
 falconry he found occasion for self-punishment, by 
 resolutely fixing his eyes on the ground at the moment 
 when he knew that his best hawk was about to stoop 
 upon the heron. These tendencies were confirmed by 
 an accident which followed the death of the empress 
 Isabella. As her master of the horse, it was Borja's 
 duty to attend the body from Toledo to the chapel-royal 
 of Granada, and to make oath to its identity ere it was 
 laid in the grave. But when the coffin was opened and 
 the cerements drawn aside, the progress of decay was 
 found to have been so rapid that the mild and lovely 
 face of Isabella could no longer be recognised by the 
 most trusted and the most faithful of her servants. His 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 7t 
 
 conscience would not allow him to swear that the mass 
 of corruption thus disclosed was the remains of his royal 
 mistress, but only that, having watched day and night 
 beside it, he felt convinced that it could be no other than 
 the form which he had seen enshi'ouded at Toledo. 
 From that moment, in the twenty-ninth year of his 
 prosperous life, he resolved to spend what remained to 
 him of time in earnest preparation for eternity. A few 
 years later, the death of his beautiful and excellent wife 
 strengthened his purpose, by snapping the dearest tie 
 which bound him to the world. Having erected a 
 Jesuits' college at Gandia, their first establishment of 
 that kind in Europe, and having married his eldest son 
 and his two daughters, he put his affairs in order, and 
 retired into the young and still struggling society of 
 Ignatius Loyola. In the year 1548, the thirty-eighth 
 of his age, he obtained the emperor's leave to make his 
 son fifth duke of Gandia, and he himself became father 
 Francis of the company of Jesus. 
 
 He was admitted to the company, and received eccle- 
 siastical tonsure at Rome, from whence, to escape a 
 cardinal's hat, he soon returned to Spain, and retired to 
 a severe course of theological study, in a hermitage near 
 Loyola, the Mecca of the Jesuits. Plenary indulgence 
 having been conceded by the pope to all who should 
 hear his first mass, he performed that rite, and preached 
 his first sermon, in the presence of a vast concourse in 
 the open air, at Vergara. As provincial of Aragon and 
 Andalusia, he afterwards laboured as a preacher and 
 teacher in many of the cities of Spain ; he had procured 
 and superintended the foundation of colleges at Alcola 
 and Seville ; and he was now engaged in instituting and 
 organising another at Plasencia. 
 
 In the world, Borja had been the favourite and 
 
80 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, i v. 
 
 trusted friend of most of his royal cousins of Austria and 
 Avis. When he had joined the society of Jesus, the 
 infant Don Luis of Portugal for some time entertained 
 the design of assuming the same robe ; and when the 
 queen Juana lay dying at Tordesillas, it was father Borja 
 who was sent by the princess-regent to administer the 
 last consolations of religion, and who began to acquire 
 a reputation for miraculous powers, because the crazy 
 old woman gave some feeble sign of returning reason, 
 as she came face to face with death. Charles himself 
 seems to have regarded him with affection as strong as 
 his cold nature was capable of feeling. It can have 
 been with no ordinary interest that he watched the 
 career of the man whom alone he had chosen to make 
 the confidant of his intended abdication, and who had 
 unexpectedly forestalled him in the execution of the 
 scheme. They were now in circumstances similar, yet 
 different. Both had voluntarily descended from the 
 eminence of their hereditary fortunes. Broken in health 
 and spirits, the emperor was on his way to Yuste, to 
 spend the evening of his days in repose. The duke, on 
 the other hand, in the full vigour of his age, had entered 
 the humblest of religious orders, to begin a new life of 
 the most strenuous toil. In Spain, many a stout soldier 
 died a monk; his own ancestor, the infant Don Pedro 
 of Aragon, had closed a life of camps and councils, in 
 telling his beads amongst the Capuchins of Barcelona.^ 
 But it was reserved for Borja to leave the high road of 
 ambition, in life's bright noon, for a thorny path, in 
 which the severest asceticism was united with the closest 
 official drudgery, and in which there was no rest but 
 the grave. 
 
 Having learned from the count of Oropesa that the 
 
 » ^urita : Anales de Aragon, an, 1358, lib. ix. c. 18. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 81 
 
 emperor had been frequently inquiring about him, father 
 Francis the Sinner, for so Borja called himself, arrived 
 at Xarandilla on the seventeenth of December. He 
 was attended by two brothers of the order, father Marcos, 
 and father Bartolome Bustamente. The latter, an aged 
 priest, who had been secretary to cardinal Tavera, was 
 known to fame as a scholar and as architect of the 
 noble hospital of St. John Baptist, at Toledo, a structure 
 on which the cardinal-archbishop had so lavished his 
 wealth, that his enemies said it would certainly procure 
 him and Bustamente warm places in purgatory.^ The 
 emperor received Borja with a cordiality which was 
 more foreign to his nature than his habits, but which, 
 on this occasion, was probably sincere. Both he and his 
 Jesuit guest had withdrawn from the pomps and vanities 
 of life ; but custom being stronger than reason or faith, 
 their greeting was as ceremonious as if it had been ex- 
 changed beneath the canopy of estate at Augsburg or 
 Valladolid. Not only did the priest, lapsing into the 
 ways of the grandee, kneel to kiss the hand of the 
 prince, but he even insisted on remaining upon his 
 knees during the interview. Charles, who addressed 
 him as duke, finally compelled him to assume a less 
 humble attitude, only by refusing to converse with him 
 until he should have taken a chair and put on his hat.^ 
 Borja had been warned, by the princess-regent, say 
 
 1 Salazar de Mendo5a : Chronica del Card. Juan de Tavera, 4to. 
 Toledo : 1603, p. 310. 
 
 * In this portion of my narrative, I have followed Ribadeneira and 
 Nieremberg {Vidas de F. Borja, 4to. Madrid: 1592, p. 93 ; and fol. 
 Madrid, 1644, p. 134), who have, however, fallen into an error, which 
 the MS. of Gonzalez enables me to correct. Both say that Borja first 
 visited the retired emperor at Yuste, and Nieremberg asserts that he 
 came from Alcala de Henares ; whereas he came from Plasencia, and 
 paid his visit at Xarandilla. Gonzalez disbelieves their account of the 
 emperor's desire to seduce Borja from the company, and of what 
 passed at the interview, but assigns no reason for his disbelief. The 
 
82 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 the Jesuits, that the emperor intended to urge him to 
 pass from the company to the order of St. Jerome. He 
 therefore anticipated his design, by asking leave to give 
 an account of his hfe since he had made rehgious pro- 
 fession, and of the reasons which had decided his choice 
 of a habit, ^ of which matters,^ said he, ' I will speak to 
 your majesty as I would speak to my Maker, who 
 knows that all I am going to say is true.^ Leave being 
 granted, he told, at great length, how, having resolved to 
 enter a monastic order, he had prayed and caused many 
 masses to be said for God^s guidance in making his 
 election; how, at first, he inclined to the rule of St. 
 Francis, but found that whenever his thoughts went in 
 that direction, he was seized with an unaccountable 
 melancholy : how he turned his eyes to the other orders, 
 one after another, and always with the same gloomy 
 result : how, on the contrary, when last of all, he 
 thought of the company of Jesus, the Lord had filled 
 his soul with peace and joy : how it frequently happened, 
 in the great orders, that monks arrived at higher honour 
 in this life than if they had remained in the world, a 
 risk which he desired by all means to avoid, and 
 which hardly existed in a recent and humble fraternity, 
 still in that furnace of trial through which the others 
 had long ago passed : how the company, embracing in 
 its scheme an active as well as a contemplative life, 
 provided for the spiritual welfare of men of the most 
 
 conversation, as reported by Ribadeneira, appears very probable, and his 
 report is so circumstantial, that we may well suppose it to have been 
 drawn up either from Borja's own recital, or from notes found amongst 
 his papers. In the letters of Quixada, in the Gonzalez MS., we are told 
 that Borja was admitted to long audiences of the emperor on the 17th, 
 21st, and 22nd of December, and we may conjecture that he likewise 
 saw him on the 18th, 19th, and 20th, days on which the mayordomo did 
 not happen to be writing to the secretary of state. Quixada throws no 
 light whatever on the subject of their conversations, and therefore no 
 discredit on Ribadeneira's statement. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 88 
 
 opposite characters, and of each man in the various 
 stages of his intellectual being ; and lastly, how he had 
 submitted these reasons to several grave and holy- 
 fathers of the other orders, and had received their 
 approval and their blessing, ere he took the vows which 
 had now for ten years been the hope and the consola- 
 tion of his life. 
 
 The emperor listened to this long narrative with 
 attention, and expressed his satisfaction at hearing his 
 friend's history from his own lips. ' For,' said he, ' I 
 felt great surprise when I received at Augsburg your 
 letters from Rome, notifying the choice which you had 
 made of a religious brotherhood. And I still think that 
 a man of your weight ought to have entered an order 
 which had been approved by age, rather than this new 
 society, in which no white hairs are found, and which 
 besides, in some quarters, bears but an indifferent repu- 
 tation.' To this Borja replied, that in all institutions, 
 even in Christianity itself, the purest piety and the 
 noblest zeal were to be looked for near the source ; that 
 had he known of any evil in the company, he would 
 never have joined, or would already have left it; and 
 that in respect of white hairs, though it was hard to 
 expect that the children should be old while the parent 
 was still young, even these were not wanting, as 
 might be seen in his companion, the father Bustamente. 
 That ecclesiastic, who had begun his novitiate at the 
 ripe age of sixty, was accordingly called into the pre- 
 sence. The emperor at once recognised him as a priest 
 who had been sent to his court at Naples, soon after the 
 campaign of Tunis, charged with an important mission 
 by cardinal Tavera, primate and governor of Spain. 
 
 Three hours of discourse with these able, earnest, 
 and practised champions of Jesuitism had some effect 
 even upon a mind so slow to be convinced as that 
 
 G 2 
 
84 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 of Charles. He hated innovation with the hatred of a 
 king, a devotee, and an old man ; and having fought 
 for forty years a losing battle with the terrible monk of 
 Saxony, he looked with suspicion even upon the great 
 orthodox movement led by the soldier of Guipuzcoa. 
 The infant company, although, or perhaps because, in 
 favour at the Vatican, had gained no footing at the im- 
 perial court ; and as its fame grew, the prelates around 
 the throne, sons or friends of the ancient orders, were 
 more likely to remind their master how its general had 
 once been admonished by the holy office of Toledo, 
 than to dwell on his piety and eloquence, or the splen- 
 did success of his missions in the east. In Bobadilla, 
 one of the first followers of Loyola, the emperor had 
 seen something of the fiery zeal of the new society; he 
 had admired him on the field of Muhlberg, severely 
 wounded, yet persisting in carrying temporal and spi- 
 ritual aid to the wounded and dying ; but on the publi- 
 cation of the unfortunate Interim, meant to soothe, but 
 active only to inflame the hate of catholics and re- 
 formers, he had been compelled to banish this same 
 good Samaritan from the empire for his virulent attacks 
 upon the new decree.^ This unexpected opposition 
 strengthened Charleses natural dislike to the company; 
 and he afterwards rewarded with a colonial mitre the 
 blustering Dominican Cano, who announced from the 
 pulpits of Castille the strange tidings that the Jesuits 
 were the precursors of antichrist foretold in the Apoca- 
 lypse. His new confessor, Fray Juan de Regla, with 
 monkish subserviency and rancour, espoused the same 
 cause, and openly spoke of the company as an apt in- 
 strument of Satan or the great Turk.^ Latterly, how- 
 
 ' Nieremberg : Vidas de Ig. Loyola y otros hijos de la Compania, fol. 
 Madrid : 1645, p. 649-50. 
 
 2 Nieremberg : Vida de F. Borja, p. 173. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 86 
 
 ever, the vehement old pope, having frownerl on the 
 order as a thing of Spain and perdition, may perhaps 
 have prepared his imperial rival to view it with a more 
 favourable eye. His prejudices, in fact, at last yielded 
 to the earnest and temperate reasonings of his ancient 
 servant and brother-in-arms; and his^feelings towards 
 the Jesuits leaned from that time to approval and friendly 
 regard. 
 
 The talk of the emperor and his guest sometimes 
 reverted to old days. ' Do you remember,' said Charles, 
 ^ how I told you, in 1542, at Mon9on, during the holding 
 of the Cortes of Aragon, of my intention of abdicating 
 the throne ? I spoke of it to but one person besides.' 
 The Jesuit replied that he had kept the secret truly, 
 but that now he hoped he might mention the mark of 
 confidence with which he had been honoured. ' Yes,' 
 said Charles; 'now that the thing is done, you may say 
 what you will.' 
 
 After a visit of five days at Xarandilla, Borja took 
 his leave, and returned to Plasencia. The emperor 
 appears usually to have given him audience alone, for 
 no part of their conversations was reported either by 
 the secretary or by the mayordomo. Nor is any notice 
 taken of Borja in their correspondence, beyond the bare 
 mention of his arrival and departure, and of the em- 
 peror's remark, that ' the duke was much changed since 
 he first knew him as marquess of Lombay.' 
 
 Of the emperor's few intimate friends, it happened 
 that one other, Don Luis de Avila y Zuiiiga, was now 
 his neighbour in Estremadura. This shrewd poHtician, 
 lively writer, and crafty courtier, a very difi'erent per- 
 sonage from father Francis the Sinner, was no less 
 welcome at Xarandilla. He was one of the most dis- 
 tinguished of that remarkable band of soldier-statesmen 
 who shed a lustre round the throne of the Spanish 
 
86 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 emperor and maintained the honour of the Spanish 
 name for the greater part of the sixteenth century. At 
 the holy see^ under Pius the Fourth and Paul the 
 Fourth, he had twice represented his master, and had 
 attempted to urge on the lagging deliberations of the 
 council of Trent f he had served with credit at Tunis ; 
 and he commanded the imperial cavalry during the 
 campaigns of 1546 and 1547 in Germany, and at the 
 siege of Metz. These services obtained for him the post 
 of chamberlain, and the emperor's full confidence; and 
 he was also made grand commander, or chief member 
 after the sovereign, of the order of Alcantara. With 
 these honours, and six skulls of the Virgins of Cologne, 
 presented to him by the grateful elector, he returned to 
 Plasencia, to share the honours with the wealthy heiress 
 of Fadrique de Ztmiga, marquess of Mirabel, and to 
 place the skulls in the rich Zufiiga chapel in the church 
 of San Vicente.^ He was now living in laurelled and 
 lettered ease in the fine palace of the Mirabels, which is 
 still one of the chief architectural ornaments of king 
 Alonzo's pleasant city. 
 
 Avila's literary tastes and acquirements had been 
 acknowledged fifteen years before by the learned Florian 
 de Ocarapo, who had selected him from the herd of 
 Castillian nobles, to honour him with the dedication of 
 the first four parts of his edition of the Chronicle of 
 Spain.^ This compliment was afterwards justified by 
 the publication of Avila's own commentaries on the war 
 of the emperor with the Protestants of Germany, a work 
 by which he earned a high rank amongst the historians 
 
 1 A. F. Fernandez : Historia de Plasencia, fol, Madrid : 1627, p. 113. 
 
 2 Los quatro partes enteras de la cronica de Espana, que mando com- 
 poner el Ser. Rey Don Alonso llamado et Sabio, fol. Zamora, 1541. 
 See Southey's Ckronicle of the Cid. 4to. London : 1808, p. v. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 87 
 
 of his time. His Castillian was pure and idiomatic; 
 and his style, for clearness and rapidity, was compared 
 by his admirers to that of Caesar. Besides these lite- 
 rary merits, the book, from the intimate relation exist- 
 ing between the author and the chief actor in the story, 
 was invested with something of an official authority. 
 It was accepted as a record, not merely of what the 
 green-cross knight had seen, but of what the catholic 
 emperor wished to be believed. At this time, there- 
 fore, it had already passed through several editions,^ 
 and had been translated into Latin,^ Flemish,^ and 
 English,'' into Italian^ by the author himself, and twice 
 into French, at Antwerp^ and at Paris.' In Germany 
 it had created a great sensation ; the duke of Bavaria 
 and the count-palatine were enraged beyond measure 
 at the free handling displayed in their portraits by this 
 Spanish master ; the diet of Passau presented a formal 
 remonstrance to the emperor against the libels of his 
 chamberlain; and Albert, margrave of Brandenburg, 
 who, by changing sides during the war, had peculiarly 
 exposed himself to castigation, proposed that the author 
 should maintain the credit of his pen by the prowess of 
 his sword.^ The emperor, however, who approved the 
 history and loved the historian, interposed to soothe the 
 
 * It appeared, says Nic. Antonio, first in Spain (without mentioning 
 any town) in 1546, and again in 1547. 
 
 * By Van Male. See p. 70. 
 
 " In 8vo. (Steels) : Antwerp, 1550. 
 
 * The Commentaries of Don Lewes de Avila and Suniga, great Master of 
 Acanter, which treateth of the great wars in Germanie, made by Charles 
 the Fifth, maxime Emperoure of Rome, &c. Sm, 8vo. London : 1555 
 (Black letter). The translator was John Wilkinson. 
 
 * In 12mo. Venice : 1549. 
 
 * By Mat. Vaulchier. 8vo. 1550. 
 
 ^ By G. Boilleau de Bullion. 1550. 
 
 s R. Ascham : Discourse of Germany and the Emper'or Charles his Court. 
 4to. London (Black letter) : N. D. fol. 14. 
 
88 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. it. 
 
 electors, cajole the diet, and forbid the duel ; and a 
 dnke of Brunswick, some years after, did the obnoxious 
 volume the honour of translating it into German. 
 Pleased with his success, the author was probably 
 employing his leisure at Plasencia in composing those 
 commentaries on the war in Africa which, though 
 perused and praised by Sepulveda, have not yet been 
 given to the press. 
 
 His first visit to the emperor was paid on the twenty- 
 first of January, 1557. He spent the night at Xaran- 
 dilla, and returned home next day. Some weeks before, 
 on the sixth of December, his father-in-law, the marquess 
 of Mirabel, had likewise been graciously received. Early 
 in January, the archbishop of Toledo and the bishop of 
 Plasencia sent excuses for not paying their respects, 
 both prelates pleading the infirm state of their health. 
 The primate was the cardinal Juan Martinez Siliceo, to 
 whom, eleven years before, the emperor had given that 
 splendid mitre, not quite in accordance, it was said, with 
 his own wish, but at the request of his son Philip, whose 
 tutor the fortunate cai'dinal had been. The bishop of 
 Plasencia was Don Gutierre de Carvajal, a magnificent 
 prelate, who shared the emperor^s tastes and gout. He 
 was the builder of the fine Gothic chapel attached to 
 the church of St. Andrew at Madrid ; and his coat of 
 arms, or, with bend sable, commemorated on wall or 
 portal his various architectural embellishments in all 
 parts of his diocese.^ Charles received the excuses of 
 both prelates with perfect good humour, entreating them 
 not to put themselves to any inconvenience on his ac- 
 count, and remarking to Quixada, that neither of them 
 were persons much to his liking. 
 
 * P. de Salazar : Chronica de el Card. D. Juan de Tavera, 4to. 
 Toledo : 1603^ p. 355. A. Fernandez : Historia de Plasencia, p. 191. 
 
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 89 
 
 Until the close of the year 1556, the emperor had 
 enjoyed, what was for him remarkably good health 
 and spirits. In the latter weeks of the year he had 
 been able to devote two hours a day to his accounts, 
 and to reckoning with Luis Quixada the sums due to 
 the servants whom he was about to discharge. When 
 the weather was fine, he used to go out with his fowling- 
 piece, and even walked at a tolerably brisk pace. His 
 chief annoyance was the state of his fingers, which were 
 so much swollen and disabled by gout, that he remarked, 
 on receiving from the duchess of Frias a present of a 
 chased silver saucepan and a packet of perfumed gloves, 
 ' If she sends gloves, she had better also send hands to 
 wear them on.^ But on the twenty-seventh and twenty- 
 eighth of December, he felt several twinges of gout in his 
 knees and shoulders, and kept his bed for a week, lying 
 in considerable pain, and wrapped in one of his eider- 
 down robes, beneath a thick quilted covering. For some 
 days he was entirely deprived of the use of his right arm, 
 and could neither raise a cup to his lips, nor wipe his 
 mouth. Nevertheless, his appetite continued keen ; and 
 he one day paid the wife of Quixada the compliment of 
 committing an excess upon sausages and olives, which 
 the good lady had sent to him from Villagarcia. As 
 the attack subsided, he complained of a sore throat, 
 which made it difficult for him to swallow, an inconve- 
 nience which the majordomo did not much deplore, 
 saying, sententiously, ' shut your mouth, and the gout 
 will get well.^^ 
 
 Barley-water, with yolks of eggs, formed his frequent 
 refreshment in his illness, and his medicine was given in 
 the shape of pills and senna wine. This beverage was 
 one which he had long used, and about the concoction 
 
 La gota se cura tapando la boca. 
 
90 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 of which very precise directions had been transmitted in 
 the autumn, from Flanders, to the secretary of state. A 
 quantity of the 'best senna-leaves of Alexandria^ were 
 to be steeped, in the proportion of about a pound to a 
 gallon, in a jar of good light wine, for three or four 
 months; the liquor was then to be poured off into a 
 fresh jar; and after standing for a year, it was fit for use. 
 The white wine of Yepes was mentioned as the best for 
 the purpose ; but the selection was left to the general of 
 the Jeromites, an order famous for its choice cellars. 
 The emperor asked likewise for manna, and there being 
 none amongst the doctor's stores, he ordered some to be 
 procured from Naples, observing, at the same time, that 
 no supply had been sent since his abdication — the single 
 trivial incident and remark which lend support to the 
 common story that the change in his position had made 
 a change in the attention with which he was treated. 
 
 Loving good cheer himself, Charles knew that to 
 provide good cheer was to take a straight and easy way 
 to the good will of other men, and especially of church- 
 men. At Christmas, therefore, he selected from his 
 well-stored larder an ample and various supply of 
 game as a present to the Jeromites of Yuste. That 
 festival happening to fall upon a Friday, he took the 
 precaution of first asking the prior whether it was to be 
 observed as a feast or a fast. Learning that the rule 
 respecting meagre-days admitted of no relaxation, he 
 considerately withheld until Saturday the dainties for 
 Sunday's feast.^ 
 
 On the sixth of January, though still in bed, the em- 
 peror was able to see Lorenzo Pires, the Portuguese 
 envoy, on the affairs of the infanta ; when he also ex- 
 
 ^ M. Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite de Charles Quint ; 
 Analyse d'un manuscrit Espagnol contemporain par mi religieux de 
 I'ordre de Saint-Jerome a Yuste. 8vo. Bruxelles : 1850. p. 24. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 91 
 
 pressed his heaiiy approval of king John's choice of 
 the good Aleixo de Meneses as governor of their grand- 
 son, Don Sebastian/ On the seventh he got up, com- 
 plaining only at intervals of a heat in his legs, which 
 were relieved by being bathed with vinegar and water. 
 In spite of his omelettes of sardines, and the beer which 
 no medical warnings could induce him to forego, he was 
 soon restored to his usual health. 
 
 Despatches now came in from Italy, announcing the 
 truce of forty days, which the duke of Alba had made 
 with the pope and his nephew, after driving the papal 
 troops out of the town and citadel of Ostia. The 
 emperor was very angry that he had not pushed on to 
 Eome, and would not listen to the conditions of the 
 truce, but kept muttering between his teeth his fears of 
 the approach of the French from Piedmont. He after- 
 wards wrote to the king, expressing the greatest dis- 
 pleasure at the conduct of Alba, who, he feared, had 
 suffered himself to be bribed by the concession of 
 certain patronage enjoyed by the pope in the duke's 
 marquessate of Coria. The conditions of the truce 
 despatched to Flanders by Alba, were not ratified by 
 the king, and the war recommenced early in 1557. 
 
 Some days later, on the thirty-first of January, the 
 emperor addressed a very earnest and anxious letter to 
 the princess-regent on the alarming aspect of affairs both 
 in Flanders and the Mediterranean, urging her to use 
 all diligence in raising men and money to carry on the 
 wars, and especially to provide for the defence of Oran, 
 which was then threatened by the Moors. ' If Oran 
 be lost,' he wrote, ' I hope I shall not be in Spain or 
 the Indies, but in some place where I shall not hear of so 
 great an affront to the king, and disaster to these 
 
 1 Meneze3 : Chronica, p. 
 
92 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 realms/ On the second of Febrnary, he agam entreated 
 the princess to keep a watchful eye on the frontiers of 
 Navarre, and remarked that it was a pity the king 
 should have ordered the duke of Alburquerque to Eng- 
 land at a time when the probable movements of the 
 French forces rendered his presence of so much im- 
 portance in that viceroyalty. In consequence of this 
 remonstrance, the duke was suffered to remain at Pam- 
 plona, to foil any attempts at violent resumption of the 
 kingdom by the court of Pau. 
 
 Meanwhile the long-delayed buildings at Yuste had 
 almost arrived at a conclusion. Their slow progress 
 had caused the emperor repeated disappointments. So 
 far back as the sixteenth of December he was so confident 
 of being able to quit Xarandilla that the post was de- 
 tained beyond the usual time, that the removal to the 
 convent might be announced at Valladolid. His depar- 
 ture was still further postponed by his illness; and 
 the fathers of Yuste began to despair of his ever coming 
 to them at all. On the twenty-first of January, a 
 remittance of money arriving from court, Quixada 
 began to pay the servants their wages; and on the 
 twenty-third, he went over to Yuste to make a final 
 inspection, and to look for a house for himself in the 
 village of Quacos. On the twenty-fifth. Monsieur 
 d'Aubremont, one of the chamberlains, took his leave 
 of the emperor, who bade him farewell very graciously, 
 and presented him with letters to the king, and set 
 forth on his return to Flanders with his private train 
 of twelve servants. On the twenty-sixth, all claims 
 against the privy purse were settled, and by the end of the 
 month the new household was definitely formed, on a 
 reduced scale. The emperor at first wished to discharge 
 many more of his followers than Quixada thought could 
 be dispensed with ; and it was finally resolved to send 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 93 
 
 back ninety-eight to Flanders free of cost^ and to trans- 
 fer about tifty-two to Yuste. The heutenant and his 
 halberdiers were dismissed, and also the alguazils, with 
 the alcalde Durango, to whom the emperor presented 
 the horses for which he had no further use. Thirty 
 mules were sent away to Valladolid ; and eight mules, 
 a small one-eyed horse, two litters, and a hand-chair, 
 were reserved for the reduced stable establishment of 
 the emperor. 
 
 All was ready at Xarandilla for departure on the first 
 of February. But at the last moment it was found 
 that the friars, who had undertaken to lay in provisions 
 for the first day's consumption at Yuste, had provided 
 nothing at all. The business, therefore, devolved on 
 Quixada, and the removal was postponed for two days 
 more. After dinner on the third, the emperor received 
 all the servants who were going away, saying a kind 
 word to each as he was presented by the mayordomo. 
 ' His majesty,' wrote Quixada, ' was in excellent health 
 and spirits, which was more than could be said of the 
 poor people whom he was dismissing.' All of them, 
 he said, had received letters of recommendation ; but it 
 was a sad sight, this breaking up of so old a company 
 of retainers ; and he hoped the secretary of state would 
 do what he could for those who went to Valladolid, not 
 forgetting the others who remained in Estremadura. At 
 three o'clock the emperor was placed in his litter, and 
 the count of Oropesa and the attendants mounted their 
 horses ; the lieutenant put his pikemen in motion ; and, 
 crossing the leafless forest, in two hours the cavalcade 
 halted at the gates of Yuste. 
 
 There the bells were ringing a peal of welcome, and 
 the prior was waiting to receive his imperial guest, who, 
 on alighting, was placed in a chair and carried to the 
 door of the church, Oropesa walking at his right hand. 
 
94 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. iv. 
 
 and Quixada at his left. At the threshold he was 
 met by the whole brotherhood in procession^ chant- 
 ing the Te Deum to the music of the organ. The altars 
 and the aisle were brilliantly lighted up with tapers, and 
 decked with their richest frontals, hangings, and plate. 
 Borne through the pomp to the steps of the high altar, 
 Charles knelt down and returned thanks to God for the 
 happy termination of his journey, and joined in the 
 vesper service of the feast of St. Bias. This ended, 
 the prior stepped forward with a congratulatory speech, 
 in which, to the scandal of the courtiers, he addi^essed 
 the emperor as 'your paternity,^ until some friar, with 
 more presence of mind and etiquette, whispered that 
 the proper style was 'majesty.^ The orator next pre- 
 sented his Jeromites to their new brother, each kissing 
 his hand and receiving his fraternal embrace. Some of 
 the friars bestowed on his gouty fingers so cordial a 
 squeeze, that the pain compelled him to withdraw his 
 hand, and say, ' Pray don't, father ; it hurts me.' ^ 
 During this ceremony the retiring retainers, who had 
 all of them attended their master to his journey's close, 
 stood round, expressing their sorrow by tears and lamen- 
 tations. As their master entered the church, one of the 
 Flemish women in the crowd shrieked and swooned 
 away. The forty halberdiers, who had marched beside 
 his litter from Valladolid, flung their pikes on the 
 ground, as if to denote that their occupation was gone. 
 Sounds of mourning were heard, until late in the 
 evening, round the gate. Meanwhile the emperor, at- 
 tended by Oropesa and conducted by the prior, made 
 an inspection of the convent, and finally retired to sup 
 in his new home, and enjoy the repose which had so 
 long been the dream of his life. 
 
 Bakbuizen van den Brink : Retmite de Charles V. p. 25. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 9A 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MONASTERY OF ST. JEROME OF YUSTE. 
 
 THE Spanish order of St. Jerome was an offshoot 
 from the great Italian order of St. Francis of Assisi. 
 St. Bridget^ a princess of Sweden, who, anticipating queen 
 Christina by three centuries, had taken up her abode 
 at Rome, foretold that there would soon arise in Spain 
 a society of recluses to tread in the footsteps of the 
 great doctor of Bethlehem. The very next year, in 
 1374, two hermits who had been living a Franciscan 
 life in the mountains of Toledo, presented themselves 
 at Avignon, and kneeling at the feet of Gregory the 
 Eleventh, obtained the institution of the order of St. 
 Jerome. The first monastery, San Bartolome of Lu- 
 piana, was built by the hands of the first prior and his 
 monks, on the north side of a bleak hill near Guada- 
 laxara, in Old Castillo. From this highland nest the 
 new religion spread its austere swarms far and wide over 
 Spain. Its houses, humble indeed at first, arose in the 
 Vega of Toledo, and in the pine-forest of Guisando; 
 a devout duke of Gandia planted another in the better 
 land of Valencia ; and in pastoral Estremadura, ere the 
 fourteenth century closed, the shrine of Our Lady of 
 Guadalupe — which rivalled Loretto itself in miracles, in 
 pilgrims, and in wealth — was committed to the keeping 
 of a colony from Lupiana. Each year the new habit — 
 a white woollen tunic, girt with leather, and a brown 
 woollen scapulary and mantle, of which the fashion and 
 
96 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 material had been revealed to St. Bridget and conse- 
 crated by the use of St. Jerome and of the blessed 
 Mary herself — became more familiar and more favoured 
 in city and hamlet^ among the motley liveries of the 
 church. At Madrid and Segovia, at Seville and Valla- 
 dolid, stately cloisters and noble churches, in the 
 beautiful pointed architecture of the fifteenth century, 
 were built for St. Jerome and his flock. A Jeromite 
 monastery was one of the first works undertaken at 
 Granada by the Catholic conquerors, and a Jeromite 
 friar was enthroned as the first archbishop in the purified 
 mosque. The completion of the superb cloister of St. 
 Engracia, begun by Ferdinand for the Jeromites of 
 Zaragoza, was the first architectural work of Charles the 
 Fifth, on taking possession of his Spanish kingdoms. 
 On the Tagus, the Jeromite convent of Belem, the 
 burial-place of the royal line of Avis, and a miracle of 
 jewellery in stone, is one of the few surviving glories of 
 Don Emanuel. The town-like vastness of Guadalupe, 
 its fortifications, treasure- tower, and cellars, its orange- 
 gardens, and cedar- groves, and its princely domains, 
 astonished a far-travelled and somewhat cynical mag- 
 nifico of Venice^ into a tribute of hearty admiration. 
 In Spain its wealth and importance has passed into a 
 proverb, which thus pointed out the path of preferment, 
 
 He who is a count, and to be a duke aspires, 
 
 Let him straight to Guadalupe, and sing among the friars.' 
 
 The order reached the climax of its greatness when its 
 monks were installed by Philip the Second in the palace 
 convent of San Lorenzo of the Escorial. 
 
 1 Navagiero : Viaggio fatto in Spagna. sm. 8vo. Vinegia : 1563, pp. 
 11-12. 
 
 2 Quien es conde, y dessea ser duque, 
 
 Metase fraile en Guadalupe, 
 Hern. Nunez : Eefranes, fol. Salamanca, 1655, fol. 106. 
 
1557.] . EMPEROR CHARLES V. 9f 
 
 The Escorial and Guadalupe, his houses, lands, and 
 flocks, were the best endowments of the Jeromite. He 
 could rarely boast of such eloquence and learning as 
 sometimes lay beneath the white robe of the Dominican 
 preacher, or the inky cloak of the bookish Benedictine. 
 In his schools, he was taught no philosophy but that of 
 Thomas Aquinas ; and even if he did not wholly lack 
 Latin, he was altogether guiltless of that Cicero-worship 
 for which St. Jerome, in liis memorable dream, was 
 flogged by seraphim before the judgment- seat of heaven. 
 But to none of his rivals, white, black, or grey, did he 
 yield in the rigour of his religious observance, in the 
 splendour of his services, in the munificence of his alms, 
 and in the abundant hospitality of his table. In his con- 
 vents, eight hours always, and on days of festival, twelve 
 hoiu-s out of the twenty-four were devoted to sacred 
 offices; and the prior of the Escorial challenged com- 
 parison between the ordinary service of his church and the 
 holyday pomp of the greatest cathedrals of Spain. In 
 houses like Guadalupe, large hospitals were maintained 
 for the sick, vast quantities of food were daily dispensed 
 to the poor, and the refectory-boards were spread, some- 
 times as often as seven times a day, for the guests of all 
 ranks who came in crowds to dine with St. Jerome. 
 
 The crder early planted its standard in the Vera of 
 Plasencia; choosing for its camp one of the sweetest 
 spots of the sweet valley. Yuste stands on its northern 
 side, and near its eastern end, about two leagues west of 
 XarandiUa, and seven leagues east of Plasencia. The site 
 is a piece of somewhat level ground, on the lower slope 
 of the mountain, which is clothed, as far as the eye can 
 reach, with woods of venerable oak and chestnut. About 
 an English mile to the south, and lower down the hill, 
 the village of Quacos nestles unseen amongst its orchards 
 and mulberry gardens. The monastery owes its name^ 
 
 H 
 
98 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 not to a saint, but to a streamlet^ which descends from 
 the sierra behind its walls, and its origin, to the piety 
 of one Sancho Martin of Quacos, who granted, in 1402, 
 a tract of forest land to two hermits from Plasencia. 
 Here these holy men built their cells, and planted an 
 orchard; and obtained, in 1408, by the favour of the 
 infant Don Fernando, a bull, authorizing them to found 
 a religious house of the order of St. Jerome. In spite, 
 however, of this authority, while their works were still 
 in progress, the friars of a neighbouring convent, 
 armed with an order from the bishop of Plasencia, set 
 upon them, and dispossessed them of their land and 
 unfinished walls, an act of violence, against which the 
 Jeromites appealed to the archbishop of Santiago. The 
 judgment of the primate being given in their favour, they 
 next applied for aid to their neighbour, Garci Alvarez de 
 Toledo, lord of Oropesa, who accordingly came forth 
 from his castle of Xarandilla, with his azure and argent 
 banner, and drove out the intruders. Nor was it only 
 with the strong hand that this noble protected the new 
 community; for at the chapter of St. Jerome, held at 
 Guadalupe in 1415, their house would not have been 
 received into the order, but for his generosity in guaran- 
 teeing a revenue sufficient for the maintenance of a prior 
 and twelve brethren, under a rule in which mendicancy 
 was forbidden. The buildings were also erected mainly 
 at his cost, and his subsequent benefactions were muni- 
 ficent and many. He was therefore constituted, by the 
 grateful monks, protector of the convent, and the dis- 
 tinction became hereditary in his descendants, the counts 
 of Oropesa. 
 
 1 Siguen9a : Hist, de S. Geronimo. Parte ii. p. 191. Some Spanish 
 writers, and almost all foreign writers, have called it San Yoste, or St. 
 Just, or St. Justus, as if the place had been called after one of the three 
 saints of that name, of Alcala, Lyons, or Canterbury. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 00 
 
 These early struggles past, the Jeromites of Yuste 
 grew and prospered. Gifts and bequests were the chief 
 events in their peaceful annals. They became patrons 
 of chapelries and hermitages ; they made them orchards 
 and olive groves; and their corn and wine increased. 
 The hostel, dispensary, and other offices of their convent, 
 were patterns of monastic comfort and order; and in 
 due time they built a new church, a simple, solid, and 
 spacious structure, in the pointed style. A few years 
 before the emperor came to dwell amongst them, they 
 had added to their small antique cloister a new quad- 
 rangle of stately proportions, and of the elegant classical 
 architecture which Berruguete had recently introduced 
 into Castille. 
 
 Although more remarkable for the natural beauty 
 which smiled around its walls, than for any growth of 
 spiritual grace within them, Yuste did not fail to boast 
 of its worthies. Eai'ly in the sixteenth century one of 
 its sons, Fray Pedro de Bejar, was chosen general of the 
 order, and was remarkable for the vigour of his adminis- 
 tration and the boldness and efficacy of his reforms. 
 The prior Geronimo de Plasencia, a scion of the great 
 house of Zuiiiga, was cited as a model of austere and 
 active holiness. The lay brother Melchor de Yepes, 
 after twice deserting the convent to become a soldier, 
 being crippled in felling a huge chestnut-tree in the 
 forest, became for the remainder of his days a pattern 
 of bed-ridden patience and piety. Fray Juan de Xeres, 
 an old soldier of the great captain, was distinguished by 
 the gift of second sight, and was nursed upon his death- 
 bed by the eleven thousand virgins. Still more favoured 
 was Fray Bodrigo de Ca9eres, for the blessed Mary 
 herself, in answer to his repeated prayers, came down in 
 visible beauty and glory, and received his spirit on the 
 eve of the feast of her assumption. The pulpit popularity 
 
 H 2 
 
100 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 of the prior, Diego de San Geronimo, a son of the old 
 Castillian line of Tovar, was long remembered in the 
 Vera, in the names of a road leading to Garganta la 
 Olla, and of a bridge near Xaraiz, constructed, when he 
 grew old and infirm, by the people of these places, to 
 smooth the path of their favourite preacher to their 
 village pulpits.^ 
 
 The fraternity now numbered amongst its members 
 a certain Fray Alonso Mudarra, who had been in the 
 world a man of rank, and employed in the civil service 
 of the emperor. Fray Hernando de Corral was the man 
 of letters of the band ; and it was perhaps partly on 
 account of this strange taste, that those who did not 
 think him a saint considered him a fool. The tallest 
 and brawniest of the brotherhood, his great strength was 
 equalled by his love of using it ; and whenever there 
 was any hard or rough work to be done, he took it as 
 an afiront if he was not called to do it. Amongst his 
 other eccentricities, were noted his not returning to bed 
 after early matins, but roaming through the cloisters, 
 praying aloud, and telling his beads; his buying, beg- 
 ging, and reading every book that came in his way; 
 and the want of due regard for the refectory-cheer, which 
 he sometimes evinced by dividing amongst beggars at 
 the gate the entire contents of the conventual larder. 
 He was also particularly fond of the choral service, and 
 careful in compelling the attendance of his brethren ; 
 and, observing that the vicar chose frequently to absent 
 himself from his duty, he one day left his stall, and re- 
 turned with the truant, like the lost sheep in the para- 
 ble, struggling in his stalwart arms. The greater part 
 of his leisure being spent in reading, he was consulted 
 by the whole convent as an oracle of knowledge ; and 
 he hkewise was supposed to be frequently visited in his 
 
 A. Fernandez, Hist, de Plasencia, p. 196. 
 
1657.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 101 
 
 cell by the spirits of the departed. He wrote much, it 
 is said, but on what subjects, or with what degree of 
 merit, no evidence remains. The black letter folios in 
 the library of the convent were frequently enriched with 
 his notes, and of these a few have survived the neglect 
 of three centuries, and the violence of three revolutions.* 
 Such were the friars of Yuste whose names have sur- 
 vived in the records of the order; but there was one 
 among them who likewise belongs to the nobler history 
 of art. Fray Antonio de Villacastin was born, about 
 1512, of humble parents, in the small town of Castille, 
 whence, according to Jeromite usage, he borrowed his 
 name. Early left an orphan, he was brought up, or 
 rather suffered to grow up, in the house of an uncle, 
 without prospect of future provision, and without any 
 preparation for gaining his bread except a slight know- 
 ledge of reading and writing. When about seventeen 
 years old, being sent one day with a jug and a real to 
 fetch some wine, the necessity of seeking his fortune 
 struck him so forcibly as he walked along, that by the 
 time his errand was done, his mind was made up. 
 Meeting his sister in the street, he handed her the jug 
 and the copper change, and taking the road at once, 
 begged his way to Toledo, where he slept for the first 
 night under the market tables in the square of Zocodover. 
 He was found there next morning by a master tiler, 
 who, pitying his forlorn condition, took him home, and 
 taught him his trade of making wainscots and pavements 
 of coloured tiles, at which he wrought for ten years for 
 his food and clothing. At the end of this long appren- 
 
 ^ In the fine and curious Spanish librarj' of Mr. Ford, there is a copy of 
 the Chronica del Rey D.Alonzo el Ongeno, fol. Valladolid : 1551, which 
 has the following entry on the back of the last leaf : En veinte y dos de 
 Mayo del ano de m.d.lii. (?) compre yofrai Hernando de Corral este lihro 
 en trugillo costome xx reales. He then goes on to state the dates of the 
 emperor's arrival at the convent and death, and of the deaths of queen 
 Eleanor of France and queen Mary of Hungary. 
 
L02 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 ticeship, becoming enamoured of the monastic state, he 
 begged a real — the only one he ever possessed — from his 
 master^s son, and entered the Jeromite convent at La 
 Sisla, without the walls of Toledo. In assuming the 
 cowl, however, he by no means laid aside the trowel, 
 which was ever in his hand when the house stood in 
 need of repair. Being a master of the practical part of 
 building, he was also frequently employed in other 
 monasteries of the order. In the Toledan nunnery of 
 San Pablo, the operations were so extensive that he was 
 at work there for several years; and his biographer 
 mentions, in his praise, that when his duties ended he 
 maintained no connexion with the nuns, ' nor ever re- 
 ceived any billets from them, a snare from which a friar 
 so placed seldom escapes.^^ His architectural reputa- 
 tion, after fifteen or sixteen years' practice in the cloister, 
 stood so high, that the general Ortega selected him, in 
 1554, as master of the works at Yuste, which he had 
 now completed to the entire satisfaction of the emperor. 
 In these secular occupations he strengthened and im- 
 proved the secular virtues of good temper and good 
 sense, and yet maintained a high character for zeal and 
 punctuality in the religious business of his cloth ; un- 
 conscious that he was training himself for one of the 
 most important posts ever filled in the world of art by 
 a Spanish monk — that of master and surveyor of the 
 works at the palace-monastery of the Escorial. 
 
 Fray Juan de Ortega, late general of the order,^ con- 
 tinued to reside with the fraternity of Yuste, although 
 he still remained a member of his own convent at Alba 
 de Tormes. In intelligence and manners he was greatly 
 above the vulgar herd of friars, and was much esteemed 
 
 ' Siguen^a : Hist, de la orden de S. Geron. P. iii., p. 
 2 Chap, iii., p. 57. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 10$ 
 
 and trusted by the emperor, and even by his monk- 
 hating household. 
 
 In works of charity, that redeeming virtue of the 
 monastic system, the fathers of Yuste were dihgent and 
 bounteous. Of wheat, six hundred fanegas, or about 
 one hundred and twenty quarters, in ordinary years, and 
 in years of scarcity sometimes as much as fifteen hun- 
 dred fanegas, or three hundred quarters, were distributed 
 at the convent-gate ; large donations of bread, meat, oil, 
 and a little money, were given, publicly or in private, by 
 the prior, at Easter, Christmas, and other festivals ; and 
 the sick poor in the village of Quacos were freely sup- 
 phed with food, medicine, and advice. 
 
 The emperor's house, or palace, as the friars loved to 
 call it, although many a country notary is now more 
 splendidly lodged, was more deserving of the approba- 
 tion accorded to it by the monarch, than of the abuse 
 lavished upon it by his chamberlain. Backed by the 
 massive south wall of the church, the building presented 
 a simple front of two storys to the garden and the 
 noontide sun. Each story contained four chambers, 
 two on either side of the corridor, which traversed the 
 structure from east to west, and led at either end into a 
 broad porch, or covered gallery, supported by pillars and 
 open to the air. Each room was furnished with an 
 ample fireplace, in accordance with the Flemish wants 
 and ways of the chilly invalid. The chambers look- 
 ing upon the garden were bright and pleasant, but 
 those on the north side were gloomy, and even dark, the 
 light being admitted to them only by windows opening 
 on the corridor, or on the external and deeply shadowed 
 porches. Charles inhabited the upper rooms, and slept 
 in that at the north-east corner, from which a door, or 
 window, had been cut in a slanting direction into the 
 church, through the chancel wall, and close to the high 
 
104 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 altar. The shape of this opening appears to have been 
 altered after the strictures passed on it by Quixada, for 
 it now affords a good view of the space where the high 
 altar once stood. The emperor's cabinet, in which he 
 transacted business, was on the opposite side of the 
 corridor, and looked upon the garden. From its window, 
 his eye ranged over a cluster of rounded knolls, clad in 
 walnut and chestnut, in which the mountain died gently 
 away into the broad bosom of the Vera. Not a building 
 was in sight, except a summer-house peering above the 
 mulberry tops at the lower end of the garden, and a 
 hermitage of Our Lady of Solitude, about a mile dis- 
 tant, hung upon a rocky height, which rose like an isle 
 out of the sea of forest. Immediately below the win- 
 dows the garden sloped gently to the Vera, shaded here 
 and there with the massive foliage of the fig, or the 
 feathery boughs of the almond, and breathing perfume 
 from tall orange-trees, cuttings of which some of the 
 friars, themselves transplanted,-in after days vainly strove 
 to keep alive at the bleak Escorial. The garden was 
 easily reached from the western porch or gallery by an 
 inclined path, which had been constructed to save the 
 gouty monarch the pain and fatigue of going up and 
 down stairs. This porch, which was much more spacious 
 than the eastern, was his favourite seat when filled with 
 the warmth of the declining day. Commanding the 
 same view as the cabinet, it looked also upon a small 
 parterre, surrounding a fountain, of which the basin was 
 formed of a single block of fine stone, brought, with 
 infinite labour, along the rugged woodland tracks, from 
 a quarry five leagues off, in the Sierra.^ A short alley 
 of cypress led from the parterre to the principal gate of 
 the garden. Beyond this gate and wall was the luxuriant 
 forest ; a wide space in front of the convent being covered 
 
 ^ Bakhuizen vin den Brink : Retraite de Charles V. p. 21. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 105 
 
 by the shade of a magnificent walnut-tree, even then 
 known as the great walnut-tree of Yuste, a Nestor of the 
 woods, which has seen the hermit's cell rise into a royal 
 convent and sink into a ruin, and has survived the Spanish 
 order of Jerome, and the Austrian dynasty of Spain. 
 
 The emperor's attendants were lodged in apartments 
 built for them near the new cloister, and in the lower 
 rooms of that cloister ; and the hostel of the convent was 
 given up to the physician, the bakers, and the brewers. 
 The remainder of the household were disposed of in the 
 village of Quacos. The emperor^s private rooms being 
 surrounded on three sides by the garden of the convent, 
 that was resigned to his exclusive possession, and put 
 under the care of his own gardeners. The ground near 
 the windows was planted with flowers, under the citron- 
 trees; and further off, between the shaded paths which 
 led to the summer-house, vegetables were cultivated 
 for his table, which was likewise supplied with milk 
 from a couple of cows that pastured in the forest. The 
 Jeromites removed their pot-herbs to a piece of ground 
 to the eastward, behind some taU elms and the wall of 
 the imperial domain. The entrances to the palace and 
 its dependencies were quite distinct from those which 
 led to the monastery; and all internal communications 
 between the region of the friars and the settlement of 
 the Flemings were carefully closed or built up. 
 
 The household of the emperor consisted in aU of 
 about sixty persons. His confidential attendants, who 
 composed his ' chamber,^ as it was called, stand thus 
 marshalled in his will, doubtless in the exact order of 
 their precedence, and with the annexed salaries attached 
 to their names. 
 
 LuisQuixada . . • j ^^^f ^^"^ ^'^^^'^" | 
 
 Henrique Mathys . . Physician! '. '. ^ | 18M00 maravedis, 
 
 Guyonde Moron . • {^7X7 (^UrlT:;')]] ''' ^^^^^^ 
 
106 CLOISTER LIFE OF 
 
 Martin de Gaztelu . . Secretary . . . . j 150,000 raaravedis, 
 
 or £43. 
 William Van Male . . \ ^__,i . ,, „ ( 300 florins, or £30. 
 
 Gentlemen 
 
 of the] 
 
 Charles Prevosti . J X'w (avudZl ^^^ " °^ ^^*^- 
 OgierBodart'^ ... f^Z^ara) l ^00 „ or £20. 
 
 Martin Donjart ... J ^^ camara) • • • ( 300 ,^ or £30. 
 
 Giovanni Torriano . . Watchmaker 
 
 Nicholas Beringuen 
 William Wykerslooth . . 
 
 Dirk 
 
 Gabriel De Suet 
 
 75,000 maravedis. 
 or £21 10s. 
 
 ' Gentlemen of the ] 
 
 chamber of the se- I each 250 florins, or 
 cond class, (par- [ £25. 
 heros) ' 
 
 Peter Van Oberstraaten, Apothecary .... 280 florins, or £28. 
 
 Peter Guillen . . . Assistant-apothecary, 80 „ or £8. 
 
 The salary of Quixada, on returning to his post in 
 1556, was to be raised, and he himself had been asked 
 to name the amount of increase, which, however, he 
 declined to do, leaving the matter entirely in the hands 
 of his master. Charles, who was the most frugal of 
 men, was at this time in correspondence with the king 
 and the secretary of state on the subject ; and in one of 
 his subsequent letters,^ it appears that he considered the 
 mayordomo^s rank entitled him to the same salary as 
 that which had been enjoyed by the chamberlain of 
 queen Juana, or that which was still paid to the tutor 
 of Don Carlos. Nevertheless, the question remained 
 unsettled, and it was one of the points to be arranged 
 by Archbishop Carranza, who, however, did not arrive 
 at Yuste, until the emperor's accounts with the world 
 were on the eve of being closed. 
 
 Quixada, Moron, Gaztelu, and Torriano, lived at 
 
 1 The spelling of these Flemish names, both in the printed pages of 
 Sandoval and the MS. of Gonzalez is most inaccurate and perplexing. 
 * Prevost' is, in many cases, turned into Puhest, Dirk is Chiriqice, and 
 others are disguised beyond the powers of detection of any one but a 
 Fleming. Even the Italian Torriano, whose name, in its Spanish fami- 
 liar form, was Juanelo Torriano, sometimes figures as Juan el Lotoriano. 
 In turning the maravedis and florins into English money, I have been 
 guided chiefly by Josef Garcia Cavallero : Breve Cotejo y Valance de las 
 pesas y tnedidas de varias naciones, 4to. Madrid : 1731. 
 
 2 No doubt the person alluded to in chap, iv , p. 67, note, as Bodoarte. 
 ' Gaztelu to Vazquez, twenty-fourth of August, 1587. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARL 
 
 Quacos, where lodgings were likewi^ 
 
 laundresses, the only female portion 61 
 
 and many of the inferior servants. So maS^ 
 
 being Flemings, a Flemish capuchin, Fray John Alis, 
 
 was established at Xarandilla for the convenience of 
 
 those who wished to confess. 
 
 On the fourth of February, the emperor awoke in 
 his new home, in excellent health and spirits. He speiit 
 the morning in inspecting the rooms, and the arrange- 
 ment of the furniture ; and in the afternoon, he caused 
 himself to be carried in his chair to the hermitage of 
 Belem, about a quarter of a mile from the monastery. 
 The physicians Cornelio and Mole, who were still in 
 attendance, walked out to botanize in the woods, in 
 search of certain specifics against hemorrhoids, with 
 which their patient had been troubled. Not finding 
 them, Cornelio went to look for them at Plasencia, and 
 finally was obhged to procure a supply from Valladolid. 
 Meanwhile the symptoms of the disease abated so much, 
 that when, in about a fortnight, the plants arrived, the 
 emperor ordered them to be planted in the garden, and 
 even dispensed with the attendance of the consulting 
 doctors, dismissing them with all courtesy, and letters 
 to the princess-regent. 
 
 A great monarch, leaving of his own free will his 
 palace and the purple for sackcloth and a cell, is so fine 
 a study, that history, misled, nothing loth, by pulpit 
 declamation, has delighted to discover such a model 
 ascetic in the emperor at Yuste. ^ His apartments, 
 when prepared for his reception,^ says Sandoval, ' seemed 
 rather to have been newly pillaged by the enemy, than 
 furnished for a great prince ; the walls were bare, except 
 in his bed-chamber, which was hung with black cloth ; 
 the only valuables in the house were a few pieces of plate 
 of the plainest kind ; his dress, always black, was usually 
 
108 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 very old ; and he sat in an old arm chair, with but half 
 a seat, and not worth four reals/^ This picture, accurate 
 in only two of the details, is quite false in its general 
 eflPect. The emperor's conventual abode, judging by the 
 inventory of its contents,^ was probably not worse fur- 
 nished than many of the palaces in which his reigning 
 days had been passed. He was not surrounded at 
 Yuste with the splendours of his host of Augsburg ; but 
 neither did the fashions of the sumptuous Fugger pre- 
 vail at Ghent or Innsbruck, Valsain or Segovia. For 
 the hangings of his bed-room he preferred sombre black 
 cloth to gayer arras ; but he had brought from Flanders 
 suits of rich tapestry, wrought with figures, landscapes, 
 or flowers, more than sufficient to hang the rest of the 
 apartments ; the supply of cushions, eider-down quilts, 
 and linen, was luxuriously ample; his friends sat on 
 chairs covered with black velvet ; and he himself reposed 
 either on a chair with wheels, or in an easy chair to 
 which six cushions and a footstool belonged. Of gold 
 and silver plate, he had upwards of thirteen thousand 
 ounces ; he washed his hands in silver basins with water 
 poured from silver ewers ; the meanest utensil of his 
 chamber was of the same noble material ; and from the 
 brief descriptions of his cups, vases, candlesticks, and 
 salt-cellars, it seems probable that his table was graced 
 with several masterpieces of Tobbia and Cellini. 
 
 In his dress he had ever been plain to parsimony, 
 
 1 Sandoval, torn- ii. p. 825. "Wilhelm Snouckaert, who had been the 
 emperor's librarian at Brussels, and who, under the more euphonious 
 name of Zenocarus, wrote De repuhUca vita, <kc. Cces. Aug- Quinti Caroli 
 max monarchce, fol. Bruges : 1559, says (p. 289) that Charles had only 
 twdve servants at Yuste. Yet he asserts (p. 288) that his dull, meagre, 
 and pompous book had been seen and approved by Don Luis de Avila. 
 Cesare Campana, in his Vita de Catholico Don FiLippo de Austria, 3 vols. 
 4to. (Vicenza : 1605,) part ii. fol. 151, reduces this slender retinue to 
 four. 
 
 ' Drawn up after his decease, by Quixada, Gaztelu, and Begla. An 
 abstract of the document will be found in the Appendix. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. J 00 
 
 and therefore it was not very likely that he should turn 
 dandy in the cloister. His suit of sober black was no 
 doubt the same, or such another, as that painted by 
 Titian in the fine portrait wherein the emperor still 
 sits before us, pale, thoughtful, and dignified, in the 
 Belvidere palace at Vienna ; and he probably often gave 
 audience in such a ^ gowne of black tafifety and furred 
 nightcap, like a great codpiece,' as Roger Ascham saw 
 him in, ' sitting sick in his chamber ' at Augsburg, and 
 looking so like Roger's friend, ^ the parson of Epurstone/* 
 In his soldier-days he would knot and patch a broken 
 sword belt, until it would have disgraced a private 
 trooper f and he even carried his love of petty economy 
 so far, that being caught near Naumburg in a shower, 
 he took off his velvet cap, which happened to be new, 
 and sheltered it under his arm, going bareheaded in the 
 rain until an old cap was brought him from the town.^ 
 His jewel-case was, as might be supposed, rather mis- 
 cellaneous than valuable in its contents, amongst which 
 may be mentioned a few rings and bracelets, some 
 medals and buttons to be worn in the cap, several collars 
 and badges of various sizes of the Golden Fleece,'' some 
 crucifixes of gold and silver, various charms, such as the 
 
 ' Eng. Works, p. 375. 
 
 2 Salazar de Mendoza : Origen de las dignidades de Costilla, fol. 
 Toledo : 1618, p. 161. 
 
 3 Ranke : Ottoman and Spa/nish Empires. Kelly's translation. 8vo. 
 London: 1843, p. 30. 
 
 * The collar of this order, given by Ferdinand VII. to the late duke 
 of Wellington, was believed in Spain to have belonged to Charles V. ; 
 and the same story was told of the Fleece sent, in 1851 or 1852, to the 
 president, now ' par la grdce de Dietc et la voloni e nationale,' emperor 
 Napoleon III., of France. It is a compliment which the Spanish crown 
 very likely has in its power to pay ; as the emperor in the course 
 of his life must have possessed many badges of the order. In our 
 duke's case, the collar and badge may have been authentic ; but the con- 
 necting ornament, as figured in lord Downes's Orders and Batons of the 
 D. of Wellington, obi. fol. : London, 1852, is plainly modern and spurious. 
 No such ornament is found on the medals or contemporary prints of 
 Charles V. 
 
no CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap v. 
 
 bezoar-stone against the plague, and gold rings from 
 England against cramp, a morsel of the true cross, and 
 other reliques, three or four pocket-watches, and several 
 dozen pairs of spectacles. 
 
 If the emperor despised the vulgar gew-gaws of 
 wealth and power, his retreat was adorned with some 
 pictures, few, but well chosen, and worthy of a discern- 
 ing lover of art, and of the patron and friend of Titian. 
 A composition on the subject of the Trinity, and three 
 pictures of Our Lady, by that great master, filled the 
 apartments with poetry and beauty; and as specimens 
 of his skill in another style, there were portraits of the 
 recluse himself and of his empress. Our Lord bearing 
 his cross, and several other sacred pictures, came from 
 the easel of ' Maestro Miguel — probably Michael Cock, 
 of Antwerp, famous for his skill in copying, and his 
 dishonesty in appropriating the works of Eaphael. Three 
 cased miniatures of the empress, painted in her youthful 
 beauty, and soon after the honeymoon in the Alhambra, 
 kept alive Charles's recollection of the wife whom he 
 had lost; and Mary Tudor, knitting her forbidding 
 brows on a panel of Antonio More, hung on the wall, to 
 remind him of the wife whom he had escaped, and of 
 the kingdom which his son had conquered in that prudent 
 alliance. Philip himself, his sisters, the princess-regent, 
 the queen of Bohemia, and the duchess of Parma, and 
 the king of France, portrayed on canvas, or in relief on 
 gold or silver medallions, likewise helped by their effigies 
 to enliven the apartments of the emperor, as well as by 
 their policy to occupy his daily thoughts and nightly 
 dreams. Long tradition,^ which there seems little 
 reason to doubt, adds, that over the high-altar of the 
 
 1 Fr. Fran, de Los Santos : Descripdon del Esconal, fol. Madrid 
 1657, fol. 71. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. Ill 
 
 convent, and in sight of his own bed, he had placed that 
 celebrated composition called the ' Glory of Titian,' a 
 picture of the last judgment, in which Charles, his wife, 
 and their royal children were represented in the master^s 
 grandest style, as conducted by angels into life eternal. 
 And another masterpiece of the great Venetian — St. 
 Jerome praying in his cavern, with a sweet landscape in 
 the distance — is also reputed to have formed the appo- 
 site altar-piece in the private oratory of the emperor. 
 
 The palace of Yuste was less rich in books than in 
 pictures. The library indeed barely exceeded thirty 
 volumes, chiefly of works of devotion or science. Amongst 
 the religious books were the treatises on Christian doc- 
 trine, by Dr. Constantine de la Fuente,^ who died soon 
 after, a prisoner for heresy in the dungeons of Seville, 
 and by Fray Pedo de Soto,^ a luminary of Trent, and 
 long the emperor's confessor, and now employed by 
 Philip to preach the Roman superstition in the not 
 unwilling halls of Oxford. 
 
 Divine philosophy was represented by the writings of 
 Ptolemy and Appian, and by Italian, French, and Cas- 
 tillian^ versions of Boethius De Consolationej a work 
 which had the honour of being translated into our 
 Enghsh tongue by Alfred and by Chaucer ; and which 
 for a thousand years was pre-eminently the book which 
 no gentleman's library could be without. For historical 
 reading, there were Caesar's Commentaries in Italian, the 
 German Wars, by the grand-commander of Alcantara/ 
 and some sheets in manuscript of the great chronicle 
 upon which the canon Ocampo was now at work at 
 Zamora. Besides the Psalter, the only poetry in the 
 
 * Doctrina Christiana, 8vo. Antwerp : s. a. 
 
 2 Institutionum Christianarum, libri iii, 16mo. August, 1548. 
 
 3 Probably that by Fr. Alberto de Aguayo, 4to. Sevilla : 1521. 
 
 * Chap. iv. p. 86. 
 
112 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 collection was the Chevalier Delibere of OUivier de la 
 Marche, and the Castillian translation, versified from 
 the emperor's prose by Acuna/ the latter being in 
 manuscript, and both adorned with coloured plates and 
 drawings. ^A large volume, filled with illuminated 
 drawings on vellum,' seems to imply that Charles brought 
 with him to the woods some memorials of Clovio and 
 Holanda, as weU as of the bolder pencil of Titian ; and 
 there were also several illuminated missals and hours, 
 and a quantity of maps of Italy, Flanders, Germany, 
 and the Indies. Most of the books were bound in 
 crimson velvet, with clasps and corners of silver, the 
 sumptuous dress in which the early bibliomaniacs loved 
 to array their treasures, but which the ever-teeming 
 press was fast turning into a more sober garb of goat- 
 skin or hogskin. 
 
 Music, ever one of the favourite pleasures of Charles, 
 here also lent its charms to soothe the cares which 
 followed him from the world, and the dyspepsia from 
 which he would not even try to escape. A little organ, 
 with a silver case and of exquisite tone, was long kept 
 at the Escorial, with the tradition,^ that it had been the 
 companion of his journeys, and the solace of his evenings 
 when encamped before Tunis. The order of St. Jerome 
 being desirous to gratify the taste of their guest, the 
 general had reinforced the choir of Yuste with fourteen 
 or fifteen friars, chosen from the different monasteries 
 under his sway, for their fine voices and musical skill. 
 In the management of the choir and organ, the emperor 
 took a lively interest ; and from the window of his bed- 
 room his voice might often be heard to accompany the 
 chant of the friars. His ear never failed to detect a 
 wrong note, and the mouth whence it came ; and he 
 
 1 Chap. iv. p. 71. 
 
 2 Beckford's /taZy, Spain, and Portugal ', fcap. 8vo. Lond. : 1840, p. 323. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 113 
 
 would frequently mention the name of the offender, 
 with the addition of hideputa bermejo^ or some other 
 epithet savouring more of the camp than the cloister. 
 A singing-master from Plasencia being one day in the 
 church, ventured to join in the service ; but he had not 
 sung many bars before orders came down from the 
 palace that the interloper should be silenced or turned 
 out. Guerrero, a chapel-master of Seville, having com- 
 posed and presented to the emperor a book of masses and 
 motets, one of the former was soon selected for per- 
 formance at Yuste. When it was ended, the imperial 
 critic remarked to his confessor that Guerrero, the hide- 
 puta ! was a cunning thief; and going over the piece, he 
 pointed out the stolen passages, and named the masters 
 whose works had suffered pillage.* 
 
 Eloquence was likewise an art which the emperor 
 loved, and of which the order desired to provide him 
 with choice specimens. Three chaplains, who were 
 esteemed the best preachers in the fold of Jerome, were 
 ordered to repair to Yuste for his delectation. The fore- 
 most of these. Fray Francisco de Villalva, had entered 
 the convent of Montamarta, near Zamora, about 1530. 
 Being a promising youth, the prior sent him to the 
 college of the order at Siguen9a, whence he came forth 
 an expert dialectician, and soon rose to be the most 
 popular teacher in Castille. His theological professor 
 being appointed archbishop of Granada, took him 
 into his service, and in that capacity Villalva had an 
 opportunity of studpng for a year the best Italian 
 orators at the council of Trent. He was afterwards 
 preacher to the great hospital at Zaragoza, whence he 
 was summoned to Yuste. There his eloquence charmed 
 the emperor, as it had charmed the peasants of Zamora ; 
 
 1 Sandoval, ii. p. 828, 
 I 
 
Ill CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 and he so eclipsed his colleagues^ that they seem to have 
 been seldom called to the pulpit except during a few- 
 weeks when Charles, at the urgent request of the city 
 of Zaragoza, spared him for awhile to his old admirers. 
 
 Fray Juan de A9oloras, a monk from the great con- 
 vent of Our Lady of Prado, near Valladolid, was also an 
 eminent divine and schoolman, and he had so success- 
 fully combatted the harsh tone and accent of his native 
 Biscay, that his delivery in the pulpit was considered as 
 a model of grace. Fray Juan de Santandres, from the 
 convent of Santa Catalina, at Talavera, was less eloquent 
 than his compeers, but highly esteemed for purity of 
 doctrine and life. Besides these regular and retained 
 ministers, any Jeromite with a reputation for preaching 
 who chanced to pass that way, was sure of an invita- 
 tion to display his powers before the emperor at Yuste. 
 
 The simple and regular habits of Charles accorded 
 well with the monotony of monastic life. Every morn- 
 ing, father Regla appeared at his bed-side to inquire how 
 he had passed the night, and to assist him in his private 
 devotions. Mathys, the doctor, was next admitted ; and 
 Torriano the mechanician was also an early visitor.^ 
 The emperor then rose and was dressed by his valets ; 
 after which he heard mass, going down, when his health 
 permitted, into the church. According to his invariable 
 custom, which in Italy was said to have given rise to the 
 saying, dalla messa, alia mensa, from mass to mess, he 
 went from these devotions to dinner about noon. The 
 meal was long ; for his appetite was voracious; his hands 
 were so disabled with gout, that carving, which he never- 
 theless insisted on doing for himself, was a tedious 
 
 ^ M. Bakhuizen van den Brink, Retraite de Cliarles V., p. 33, says that 
 Torriano was the first person who entered the imperial bed-chamber : 
 but I prefer the more probable account of Siguenya. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 116 
 
 process ; and even mastication was slow and difficult, his 
 teeth being so few and far between. The physician 
 attended him at table, and at least learned the causes of 
 the mischief which his art was to counteract. The 
 patient, while he dined, conversed with the doctor on 
 matters of science, generally of natural history ; and if 
 any difference of opinion arose, father E-egla was sent for 
 to settle the point out of Pliny. The cloth being drawn, 
 the confessor usually read aloud from one of the em- 
 peror's favourite divines, Augustine, Jerome, or Bernard, 
 an exercise which was followed by conversation, and an 
 hour of slumber. At three o'clock the monks were 
 mustered in the convent to hear a sermon delivered by 
 one of the imperial preachers, or a passage read by Fray 
 Bernardino de Salinas from the Bible, frequently from 
 the epistle to the Romans, the book which the emperor 
 preferred. To these discourses or readings Charles 
 always hstened with profound attention ; and if sickness 
 or business compelled him to be absent, he never failed 
 to send a formal excuse to the prior, and to require 
 from his confessor an account of what had been preached 
 or read. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to seeing 
 the official people from court, or to the transaction of 
 business with his secretary. 
 
 Sometimes the workshop of Torriano was the resource 
 of the emperor's spare time. He was very fond of 
 clocks and watches, and curious in reckoning to a frac- 
 tion the hoiu-s of his retired leisure. The Lombard had 
 long been at work upon an elaborate astronomical time- 
 piece, which was to perform not only the ordinary duties 
 of a clock, but to tell the days of the month and year, 
 and to denote the movements of the planets. In this 
 delicate labour the mechanician advanced as slowly as 
 the doctors of Trent in the construction of their system 
 of theology. Twenty years had elapsed since he had 
 
 I 2 
 
1 1 6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. v. 
 
 first conceived the idea, and the actual execution cost 
 him three years and a half. Indeed, the work had not 
 received the last touches at the time of the emperor's 
 death. Of wheels alone it contained eighteen hundred ; 
 the material of the case was gilt bronze, and its form 
 round, about two feet in diameter, and somewhat less in 
 height, with a tapering top, which ended in a tower con- 
 taining the bell and hammer. Charles was greatly- 
 pleased with the ingenious toy; he inquired what in- 
 scription the maker intended to put upon it ; and being 
 told that nothing had been contemplated beyond the words, 
 
 lANNELLVS . TVRRIANVS . CREMONENSIS . HOROLOGIORVM . 
 
 ARCHiTECTOR . added FACILE . PRiNCEPS . which accordingly 
 made part of the epigraph. On the back of the clock 
 Juanelo caused his own portrait to be graven, encirchng 
 it with a legend, less in accordance with his original 
 modest intentions than with the emperor^s laudatory 
 amendment, qvi . sim . scies . si . par . opvs . eacere . 
 
 CONABERIS. 
 
 He likewise made for the emperor a smaller clock, 
 less multiform and ambitious in its functions, and 
 inclosed in a case of crystal, which allowed the working 
 of the machinery to be seen, and suggested the motto — 
 
 VT . ME . FVGIENTEM . AGNOSCAM. 
 
 He also constructed a self-acting mill, which, though 
 small enough to be hidden in a friar^s sleeve, could grind 
 two pecks of corn in a day ; and the figure of a lady who 
 danced on the table to the sounds of her own tam- 
 bourine.^ Other puppets were also attributed to him, 
 minute men and horses which fought, and pranced, and 
 blew tiny trumpets, and birds which flew about the room 
 
 * Ambrosio de Morales : Antiguedades de Espana, fol. Alcala de 
 Henares : 1575, fol. 93. Morales knew Tovriano well, and appears to 
 have seen the clock which he so minutely describes, although he does not 
 say where it was ultimately placed. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 117 
 
 as if alive ; toys which, at first, scared the prior and his 
 monks out of their wits, and for awhile gained the 
 artificer the dangerous fame of a wizard/ 
 
 Sometimes the emperor fed his pet birds, which 
 appear to have succeeded in his affections the stately 
 wolf-hounds that followed at his heel in the days when 
 he sat to Titian; or he sauntered among his trees and 
 flowers, down to the little summer-house looking out 
 upon the Vera; or sometimes, but more rarely, he 
 strolled into the forest with his gun, and shot a few of 
 the wood-pigeons which peopled the great chestnut trees. 
 His out-door exercise was always taken on foot, or, if 
 the gout forbade, in his chair or litter; for the first time 
 that he mounted his pony he was seized with a violent 
 giddiness, and almost fell into the arms of his attendants.^ 
 Such was the last appearance in the saddle of the accom- 
 plished cavaUer, of whom his soldiers used to say, ' that 
 had he not been born a king he would have been the 
 prince of hght horsemen,^^ and whose seat and hand on 
 the bay charger presented to him by our bluff king Hal,"* 
 won, at Calais-gate, the applause of the Enghsh knights 
 fresh from those tournays, — 
 
 Where England vied with France in pride on the famous field of gold. 
 
 Next came vespers; and after vespers supper, a meal very 
 much like the dinner, consisting frequently of pickled 
 salmon and other unwholesome dishes, which made 
 Quixada^s loyal heart quake within him. 
 
 • Strada : De Hello Belg., lib. i. 
 
 2 Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., ii. p. 825. and Siguen9a, iii. p. 192, 
 whence many of these details are taken. 
 
 3 J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Vida del Emp. Carlos 7., 4to. Brussels : 
 1656, p. 263. 
 
 * Stow's Annals, fol. London : 1631, p. 511. 
 
118 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, vi 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 STATE-CRAFT IN THE CLOISTER. 
 
 DIMLY seen over the wintry woodlands, and through 
 a November mist, Yuste had appeared to the 
 household at Xarandilla a place of penance; but their 
 dismal forebodings were by no means realized in their 
 new quarters on the fresh hill-side, bright with the 
 sunshine of the budding spring. Writing on the day of 
 the emperor's arrival there. Monsieur de La Chaulx com- 
 plained of nothing but the Jeromite neighbours. ' His 
 majesty,' he said, 'was delighted with the place, and 
 still more were the friars dehghted to see him among 
 them, an event which they had almost ceased to hope 
 for. May it please God that he shall find them en- 
 durable, for they are ever apt to be importunate, espe- 
 cially those who are such blockheads as some of the 
 fraternity here seem to be.' La Chaulx himself had 
 apparently recovered from his ague, and become recon- 
 ciled to the climate of Estremadura, for being one of 
 the chamberlains who had been placed on the retired 
 list, he made the pilgrimage to Guadalupe, and after- 
 wards resided for a few weeks on a commandery of 
 Alcantara which he enjoyed in the province. He was 
 afterwards chosen by the emperor as his envoy to' the 
 queen of England, and set out on that mission about the 
 middle of March, with letters in which Charles assured 
 Mary ' that although his retreat was all he could wish 
 it, he would not, in taking his own ease, fail to assist by 
 word and deed such measures as might be necessary for 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. ]1() 
 
 the furtherance of those great affairs of which the king, 
 his son, now had his hands full/ 
 
 Instructions had come from Valladolid to the local 
 authorities of Plasencia and the Vera, requiring their 
 implicit obedience to the order of the emperor; and con- 
 tentment, or an approach to contentment, returned to 
 the troubled minds of the household. Secretary Gaztelu 
 candidly avowed that he had become reconciled to Yuste, 
 and that as a residence it was far better than Xaran- 
 dilla. Quixada admitted that the place seemed to agree 
 with his master, and that his general health was excel- 
 lent. While acknowledging the receipt of salmon from 
 Valladolid, lampreys from the Tagus, and pickled soles 
 sent by the duchess of Bejar, he nevertheless owned 
 that his majesty's twinges of gout had lately been less 
 frequent and less severe. On St. Martin's day, he 
 said, he walked without assistance to the high altar to 
 make his offering. 'You cannot think,' writes he to 
 Vazquez, ' how well and plump he looks ; and his fresh 
 colour is to me quite astonishing. But,' he adds mourn- 
 fully, ' this is a very lonely and doleful existence; and if 
 his majesty came here in search of solitude, by my faith ! 
 he has found it.' In another letter he says, ' This is 
 the most solitary and wretched life I have ever known, 
 and quite insupportable to those who are not content to 
 leave their lands and the world, which I, for one, am 
 not content to do.' 
 
 Philip the Second assured the Venetian envoy at 
 Bruxelles that his father's health seemed as completely 
 restored by the air of Yuste as if he had been there for 
 ten years. ^ From the time of his arrival at the convent, 
 he had been able to give close and regular attention to 
 public affairs. It is worthy of remark that during the 
 
 Relatione of Badovaro. See chap. iii. p. 52. 
 
120 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 greater part of his residence in Spain, from his landing 
 at Laredo in September 1556, to the third of May 1558, 
 his public despatches were always headed ' the emperor,^ 
 and addressed to ^Juan Vazquez de Molina, my secre- 
 tary/ He wrote not only with the authority, but in the 
 formal style, of a sovereign, and until his abdication of 
 the imperial throne had been accepted by the diet, he 
 considered himself, as in fact he was, emperor of the 
 Romans. A dispute about precedence, the great question 
 of diplomacy until the first French revolution, arising 
 at the court of Lisbon between the ambassadors of 
 France and Spain, he accredited the Spaniard as am- 
 bassador from himself as well as from his son, and so 
 foiled the pretensions of the Frenchman. It soon be- 
 came known that the recluse at Yuste had as much 
 power as the regent at Valladolid, and the gate was 
 therefore besieged with suitors. Women presented 
 themselves, asserting that they were widows of veterans 
 who had fought in Germany, in Italy, or in Africa, — 
 'a class of petitioners,^ said Gaztelu, 'very prone to 
 imposture,^ which was therefore civilly referred to Val- 
 ladolid. One Anton Sanchez, a venerable countryman 
 from Criptana, came to complain of the maladministra- 
 tion of the villages and lands of the order of Santiago ; 
 he seemed respectable as well as venerable, and was 
 kindly received and dismissed with letters of recom- 
 mendation to the council of the orders. A fiery English 
 courier, who had been kept waiting a whole month at 
 court for the answer to his despatches, losing all 
 patience, made his way across the mountains to lodge 
 his complaint at Yuste. The emperor received him 
 with perfect courtesy, and transmitted orders to Valla- 
 dolid that his business should be concluded, and he sent 
 home forthwith. 
 
 It has been frequently asserted that the emperor^s 
 life at Yuste was a long repentance for his resignation 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. J 21 
 
 of power ; and that Philip was constantly tormented, in 
 England or in Flanders, by the fear that his father 
 might one day return to the throne/ This idle tale can 
 be accounted for only by the melancholy fact, that histo- 
 rians have found it easier to invent than to investigate. 
 An opinion certainly prevailed, even among those who 
 had access to good political information,^ that Charles 
 w^ould resume power when his health was sufficiently 
 re-established, an opinion founded, perhaps, on the fact 
 that the cession of the imperial crown was still incom- 
 plete, and on the difficulty which the world found in 
 believing that the first prince in Christendom had, of 
 his own free will, descended for ever from the first throne 
 in the world. But, however it may have arisen, the 
 notion was justified by no word or deed of the emperor. 
 So far from regretting his retirement, Charles refused 
 to entertain several proposals that he should quit it. 
 Although he had abdicated the Spanish crowns, Philip 
 had not yet formally taken possession of them, and the 
 princess-regent, fearing that the turbulent and still free 
 people of Aragon might make that a pretext for refusing 
 the supplies, was desirous that her father should summon 
 and attend a Cortes at Mon9on, in which the oath might 
 be solemnly taken to the new king. The emperor's dis- 
 inclination to move obliged her to find other means of 
 meeting the difficulty, which was finally surmounted 
 without disturbing his repose. Later in the year, in the 
 autumn of 1557, it was confidently reported that the old 
 cloistered soldier would take the command of an army 
 which it was found necessary to assemble in Navarre, 
 and at one mournful moment he had actually taken it 
 into consideration whether he should leave his choir, his 
 
 » G. Leti : Vita deV Imp. Carlo V., 4 yols,, 12mo. Amsterd. : 1700, 
 iv. 362-3. Araelot de la Houssaye : Memoires, 2 vols., 12mo. Amst. : 
 1700, i. 294. 
 
 * Relatione of Badovaro. 
 
122 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 sermons, and his flowers, for the fatigues and privations 
 of a camp. He was often urged, both by the king and 
 the princess-regent, directly by letters, and covertly 
 through his secretary and chamberlain, to instruct the 
 prince of Orange to keep in abeyance as long as possible 
 the deed of imperial abdication; the reasons alleged 
 being that when the sceptre had absolutely departed, 
 the pope would find fresh pretexts for interference in 
 the internal affairs of the empire, and Spanish influence 
 would be wofuUy weakened, in the duchy of Milan 
 especially, and generally throughout Europe. But on 
 this point Charles would listen neither to argument nor 
 to entreaty : he was willing to exercise his imperial rights 
 so long as they remained to him; but he would not 
 retard by an hour the fulfilment of the exact conditions 
 to which he had subscribed at Bruxelles. Philip, on his 
 side, seems to have been as free from jealousy as his 
 father was free from repentance. Although frequently 
 implored by his sister to return to Spain and relieve her 
 of the burden of power, he continued in Flanders, main- 
 taining that his presence was of greater importance near 
 the seat of war, and that so long as their father lived and 
 would assist her with his counsel, she would find no great 
 difficulty in conducting the internal affairs of Castille. 
 In truth, Philip^s filial affection and reverence shines like 
 a grain of fine gold in the base metal of his character : 
 his father was the one wise and strong man who crossed 
 his path whom he never suspected, undervalued, or used 
 ill. The jealousy of which he is popularly accused, 
 however, seems at first sight probable, considering the 
 many blacker crimes of which he stands convicted before 
 the world. But the repose of Charles cannot have been 
 troubled with regrets for his resigned power, seeing that 
 in truth he never resigned it at all, but wielded it at 
 Yuste as firmly as he had wielded it at Augsburg or 
 Toledo. He had given up little beyond the trappings of 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 123 
 
 royalty ; and his was not a mind to regret the pageant, 
 the guards, and the gold sticks. 
 
 The portion which he had reserved to himself of the 
 wealth of half the world was one sixteenth part of the 
 rents of the crown,^ and a share of the profits of the 
 silver mines of Guadalcanal. The sum thus raised must 
 have fluctuated from year to year; nor has the amount 
 been ascertained with any approach to exactness. Some 
 writers'^ have estimated it as high as one hundred thou- 
 sand crowns; others^ have fixed it us low as twelve 
 thousand ducats, or about fifteen hundred pounds ster- 
 ling, a pro\'ision scarcely amounting to the half of that 
 which his will directed to be made for his natural son, 
 Don John. The truth probably lies between the two 
 statements. A sum of thirty thousand ducats was at the 
 emperor's disposal in the fortress of Simancas. Soon after 
 he had settled himself at Yuste, he sent Gaztelu to Valla- 
 doHd to arrange with Vazquez about the time and mode 
 of paying the instalments of his revenue. He was like- 
 wise instructed to provide for the regular payment of 
 certain alms to the convents in which daily prayers 
 were to be said for the emperor's soul, the list being 
 headed by the name of the great Dominican house of 
 Our Lady of Atocha, the miraculous image which is still 
 the favourite idol of Madrid. The envoy returned from 
 ValladoHd on the eighth of March, bringing the good 
 news that the mines of Guadalcanal were producing in 
 great and unusual abundance, and that the king of 
 
 * The technical words of Gaztelu are, ' derechos de once y seis al 
 miliar,' — 'duties of eleven and six in the thousand ;' of which I have 
 been able to find no explanation. My friend, Don Pascual de Gayangos, 
 thinks that it ought, perhaps, to have been ' on^a y miliar,' meaning one 
 sixteenth of a thousand, or about Gy^^ per cent, of the crown rents, the 
 word ' on(,a,' or ounce, the -^ of a pound being frequently used to de- 
 note that fraction. 
 
 2 Th. Juste; L' Abdication, p. 29. 
 
 ' Sandoval, Hist, de Carlos V., Lib. xxxii., c. 39, p. 820. 
 
124 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap vi. 
 
 Portugal had consented that the infanta Mary should 
 visit her mother in Spain. The despatches from Yuste 
 make no complaints of that unpunctuality of the treasury 
 remittances on which historians have frequently had to 
 moralize. Gaztelu, indeed, once cautioned the secretary 
 of state against delays in making his payments, the 
 emperor, he wrote, being most particular in requiring 
 the exact performance of each part of the service of his 
 household.^ The advice appears to have been followed ; 
 for the only other remark on the subject is one made by 
 Charles himself, — ' the money for the expenses of my 
 house always comes to hand in very good time.^" 
 
 In spite of the untold wealth which Spain possessed 
 beyond the ocean, the crown was in constant distress 
 for money. That financial ruin which was completed 
 by Ohvares, had begun in the days of Granvella. By 
 means of bills of exchange, obtained at usurious rates 
 from the bankers of Genoa, the colonial revenue was 
 forestalled two years before it was collected; and the 
 bars and ingots of Mexico and Peru may be said to 
 have been eaten up by courtiers and soldiers, fired 
 away in cannon, and chanted away by friars, before 
 they had been dug from the caverns of Sierra Madre, or 
 washed from the gravel of Yauricocha. When in due 
 time the precious freight of the galleons reached the royal 
 vaults at Seville, it belonged almost wholly to foreign 
 merchants ; and the country having no manufacturing 
 or commercial industry in which the golden harvest 
 could become the seed of new public and private wealth, 
 it passed away to enrich poorer soils and fructify in colder 
 climes. The popular sense of the value of the golden 
 
 ■ Gaztelu to Vazquez, June 15th, 1557. 
 
 * ' La provision de dinero para mi casa llega siempre a muy bien 
 tiempo.' Emperor to Vazquez, Sept. 22nd, 1557. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. _ 125 
 
 regions was embodied in the proverb, used by expectants 
 heartsick with deferred hope, who said that the event 
 despaired of ' would come with the Indian revenue/^ 
 The war in Italy and the war in Flanders, the fleets in 
 the Mediterranean, the fortresses on the shores of 
 Africa, now demanded such vast and increasing supplies, 
 that the princess-regent was almost at her wit^s end for 
 ways and means of obtaining them. Many a hint did 
 she drop, in her despatches, of the good use she could 
 make of the money at Simancas. But the emperor would 
 take no hints, and, like another Shylock, preferred keep- 
 ing his ducats to pleasing his daughter. 
 
 Necessity, which has no law and respects none, at 
 length drove the princess and her council to a step con- 
 trary to every principle of justice. The plate-fleet having 
 arrived at Seville, orders were sent down to the Indian 
 board to take possession of the whole bullion, not only 
 of that which belonged to the crown, but also of that 
 which was the property of private adventurers, who were 
 to be paid its value in places under government, in 
 orders on the land-revenue, or in treasury-bonds bearing 
 interest. As might be expected, the robbers who proposed 
 to buy, and the victims who were required to sell, 
 differed widely about the price. The places were refused, 
 the bonds scoffed at ; and finally the traders, aided by 
 the wanderers from whom the gains of their wild lives 
 were about to be wrested, attacked the royal ofiicers as 
 they were landing their booty, and rescued it from the 
 grasp of the crown. 
 
 When the news of this transaction reached Yuste, 
 the emperor went into a fit of passion very unusual 
 to his cool temperament. The view which he took 
 
 * * No se logra mas que hazienda de las Indias ;' Mtmoires curieux 
 envoyez de Madnd, sm. 8vo. Paris : 1670. 
 
126 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 of the matter was entirely royal and wrong. He would 
 not, perhaps he could not, see the injustice which had 
 been done to the subject ; but he felt most keenly the 
 indignity which had been suffered by the crown. The 
 rough gold-seekers who had thus boldly defended their 
 hard-earned wealth, repelling violence by violence, ap- 
 peared to him no better than pirates who had boarded 
 a royal galleon on the high seas, or brigands who had 
 rifled a train of royal mules on the king^s highway. Were 
 his health sufficiently strong, he said, he would go down 
 to Seville himself, and sift the matter to the bottom; 
 he would not be trammelled by the ordinary forms of 
 justice, but would at once confiscate the goods of the 
 oficnders, and place their persons in durance, there to 
 fast and do penance for their crime. Unjust as this 
 view of the affair was, it was precisely the view which 
 the traders expected the government to take, and which 
 they would themselves have taken had they been the 
 government. Alarmed for the consequences, the prior 
 and consuls of the merchants of Seville — the chairman 
 and chamber of commerce of their day — raised a sum 
 of money by subscription, and set out to Valladolid 
 with their oflPering, in hopes of pacifying the regent and 
 the council. On the way, they craved leave to present 
 themselves and tell their story at Yuste. The emperor 
 refused this request with scorn, and assured the princess 
 that he would communicate his indignation to the king, 
 were he to write with both feet in the grave, or, to use 
 his own forcible phrase, ^ were he holding death in his 
 teeth.'^ A commission appointed to examine the matter 
 began its sittings in March, and continued them, with 
 but slender results, through the summer and autumn, 
 
 ^ ' Soy bueno por ello aunque tengo la muerte entre los dientes, 
 holgare de hacerlo :' Emp. to Princess -regent, 1st April, 1557- 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 127 
 
 urged at intervals to despatch by the impatient inquiries 
 transmitted from Yuste. It was not till September that 
 the emperor showed any symptoms of being reasonable 
 on the matter ; nor till he had heard that the most serious 
 discontent prevailed among the commercial men of 
 Seville, would he allow Gaztelu to write that, for the 
 sake of public credit, it might be proper for the regent 
 to alter her policy towards them, and take such a course 
 as would keep them in good humour. One of the 
 arrested culprits, Francisco Tello, however, died, after 
 having been twice submitted to the torture, in the 
 dungeons of Simancas, merely for refusing his gold to 
 that exigency of state against which the neighbouring 
 strong-box of the emperor was inexorably shut. 
 
 In the spring of 1557, the foreign affairs of Spain had 
 assumed so grave an aspect, that the king determined to 
 lay them before his father for his consideration and 
 advice. For this important mission he selected Ruy 
 Gomez de Silva, coimt of Melito, afterwards so weU 
 known as prince of Eboli. This celebrated favourite, 
 now in his fortieth year, was head of a considerable Portu- 
 guese branch of the great house of Silva which traced its 
 heroic lineage to the kings who reigned in Alba Longa. 
 At the marriage of the emperor he had held the bride^s 
 train as one of her pages ; attached to the person of 
 Phihp from the cradle, he had been the playmate of his 
 childhood, and the friend of his youth ; he had accompa- 
 nied the prince on his travels, and had supported the 
 timid and awkward knight at the toumay and cane-play; 
 not long since he had carried the wedding gifts to the fond 
 bride who awaited the king at Winchester; and he was 
 himself married to the proud beauty and heiress who was, 
 or was to be, his master^s imperious mistress. Strong in 
 these various relations, as in capacity and experience, he 
 was every day gaining ground upon his rival, the mag^ 
 
128 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 nificent bishop of Arras, and he now ranked as one of 
 the most important personages who stood near the 
 Spanish throne.^ Charles had a high opinion of the 
 favourite^s prudence and abilities ; he had for some days 
 looked with anxiety for his arrival, and he now received 
 him with every demonstration of cordiahty. Although 
 he had strictly forbidden the friars to entertain guests, 
 on this occasion he relaxed the rule, and ordered Quixada 
 to provide him a lodging within the precincts of Yuste. 
 The favoured envoy arrived there early on the twenty- 
 third of March, and was closeted for five hours with the 
 emperor. Part of his message was an entreaty on 
 behalf of the king, that the emperor, if his health per- 
 mitted, and state afikirs rendered it expedient, would 
 remove from the monastery to some other residence 
 nearer the seat of government.^ Philip also desired his 
 father's opinion on the policy of carrying Don Carlos to 
 Flanders to receive the oath of allegiance as heir ap- 
 parent to the dominions of the house of Burgundy ; and 
 if the emperor approved the design, the count was in- 
 structed to bring the prince with him when he returned.^ 
 The journey, however, was never made by Don Carlos, 
 his grandfather colisidering that his fitful and passionate 
 temperament rendered it as yet unsafe to produce him 
 to the world.'* Next day, the count had a second 
 audience as long as the first; and the day following, 
 the twenty-fifth of March, after hearing mass at day- 
 break, he mounted his horse and took the road to Toledo. 
 
 '^ Luis de Salazar : Historia de la Casa de Silva, 2 vols., fol. Madrid : 
 1685, ii. 456. 
 
 ' Philip's original letter of the second February, 1557, to Ruy Gomez 
 de Silva, is given in the MS. of Gonzalez, 
 
 3 Salazar : Hist, de la Casa de Silva, ii. 473. 
 
 * Luis Cabrera de Cordova : Filipe Segundo, fol. Madrid : 1619, 
 p. 144. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 129 
 
 The external affairs of the kingdom certainly required 
 at this time counsel of the greatest sagacity, and action 
 of the greatest promptitude and courage. War was 
 raging on the frontier of the Netherlands, and it was 
 threatened on the frontier of Navarre. Cohgny, at the 
 head of a considerable army, was laying waste Flemish 
 Artois ; and Henry the Second was preparing forces for 
 still greater operations. Although Anthony of Navarre 
 was still engaged in treating about an amicable cession 
 of his rights to the actual possessor of his kingdom, he 
 was suspected to be secretly treating with France for 
 aid to enable him to regain Pamplona by the strong 
 hand. The duke of Alburquerque was charged with 
 the defence of Navarre; and in Flanders, where the 
 more important battles were to be fought, Philip the 
 Second had wisely committed his cause to the military 
 genius of the duke of Savoy. 
 
 Italy also presented grave causes for anxiety. Had 
 the power of the Roman see equalled the fury of Paul 
 the Fourth, the house of Austria would long ago have 
 found its neck beneath the heel of that fierce old pontifi*. 
 The duke of Guise, with a gallant army, was now in 
 the states of the church, and advancing upon the 
 confines of Naples. The insolent incapacity of the 
 Carafiks, and the inefficiency of their warlike prepara- 
 tions, had not as yet cooled the ardour of their French 
 allies, nor become fully evident to their antagonist, the 
 duke of Alba. At the beginning of this year's campaign, 
 fortune had frowned on the Spanish arms. The papal 
 forces, led by Strozzi, had recovered Ostia, and had 
 driven the CastiUians out of Castel-Gandolfo, Palestrina 
 and other strongholds, by which they had hoped to 
 bridle both the pope and the Frenchman. Even the 
 duke of Pagliano, Caraffa as he was, had stormed 
 
 K 
 
130 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. yi. 
 
 Vicovaro and put the Spanisli garrison to the sword.^ 
 Alba^ therefore, was acting strictly on the defensive, 
 being unwilling to waste blood and treasure on fields 
 where nothing was to be gained but dry blows and 
 barren glory, or, as he said, ' to stake the crown of 
 Naples against the brocade surcoat of the duke of 
 Guise/^ 
 
 The aid of the great Turk enabled the most christian 
 king to attack his most catholic brother by sea as well 
 as by land, and to harass him at many points of his 
 extended shores. For the second time within a few 
 years, Christendom was scandalized by seeing St. Denis, 
 St. Peter, and Mahomet leagued against St. James. 
 Solyman the Magnificent had ascended the throne of 
 the east in the same year when Charles the Fifth 
 became emperor of the west. His reign was no less 
 active and eventful, and far more uniform in its pros- 
 perity. By the capture of Rhodes, he had driven back 
 the outpost of Christendom to Malta ; he had performed 
 moslem worship in the cathedral of Buda, and had pushed 
 his ravages to the gates of Vienna ; his power was now 
 acknowledged far up the Adriatic ; and by his judicious 
 protection of the pirates of Africa and the Egean isles, 
 his influence was paramount in the Mediterranean. 
 
 The growth which this piracy was permitted to attain 
 is a striking proof of the mutual jealousy and distrust 
 which rendered the christian powers incapable of any 
 combined and sustained eff'ort for the common interests 
 of Christendom. From Cadiz to Patras there was hardly 
 a spot which had not sufi'ered, and none which felt itself 
 safe, from the wild marauders from the shores of Numidia. 
 
 » Alex. Andrea : De la guerra de Roma y de Napoles, Ano de md. lvi 
 y LVil, 4to. Madrid : 1589, pp. 146, 151. 
 
 2 J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Resultas de la vida de Don Fern. Alvarez 
 de Toledo, duque de Alba, 4to. Milan : 1643, p. 66. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 131 
 
 Better built, and better manned and equipped than any 
 other vessels on the ocean, their light galleots and brigan- 
 tines were ready at all seasons, put out in all weathers, 
 and stooping on their prey with the swiftness and pre- 
 cision of the cormorant, overbore resistance or baffled 
 pursuit. Sailing in great fleets, they laid waste entire 
 districts and carried off whole populations. A few years 
 before, Barbarossa had sold at one time, at his beautiful 
 home on the Bosphorus, where his white tomb still gleams 
 amongst its cypresses, no less than sixteen thousand 
 christian captives into slavery. It was not only the sea- 
 man, the merchant, or the traveller who was exposed to 
 this calamitous fate. The peasant of Aragon or Provence, 
 who returned at sunset from pruning his vines or his 
 olives far from the sound of the waves, might on the 
 morrow be ploughing the main, chained to a Barbary oar. 
 Sometimes a whole brotherhood of friars, from telling 
 their beads at ease in Valencia, found themselves hoeing 
 in the rice-fields of Tripoli ; sometimes the vestals of a 
 Sicilian nunnery were parcelled out amongst the harems 
 of Fez. The blood-red flag ventured fearlessly within 
 range of the guns of St. Elmo or Monjuich; it had 
 actually floated on the walls of Gaeta ; and when it ap- 
 peared off the Ligurian shore, the persecuted duke of 
 Savoy msely fled inland from his castle of Nice. Yet 
 Europe continued to endure these outrages, as it might 
 have endured a visitation of earthquakes or of locusts ; 
 and the white-robed fathers of mercy annually set forth 
 on their beneficent pilgrimages with a ransom of itself 
 sufficient to perpetuate the evils which the order of re- 
 demption was intended to relieve. Meanwhile, with such 
 a navy at his disposal as that of Tunis, and Tripoli, and 
 Algiers, and such commanders as Barbarossa, Sala, or 
 Mami the Arnaut, the sultan wielded the greatest mari- 
 time power in the Mediterranean, and was the most 
 
 k2 
 
132 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 formidable of the foes against whom the wisdom of 
 Charles was now called to defend Spain. 
 
 Flanders, however, appeared to be the point upon 
 which it was advisable that the strength of the crown 
 should be first concentrated. Ruy Gomez de Silva had 
 been instructed to raise eight thousand Castillians for 
 the army of the duke of Savoy. But the treasury of 
 Valladolid being already drained to its last ducat, it 
 became necessary to look elsewhere for the sinews of 
 war. The emperor was of opinion that it was now time 
 to apply for aid to the church. The primate of Spain, 
 cardinal Siliceo, was very infirm and very loyal, and his 
 tenure of the second wealthiest see in Europe had been 
 sufficiently long to make him very rich. To his money 
 bags it was therefore determined first to apply the lancet, 
 and the operator at once set off for Toledo. 
 
 The good old prelate bled freely, and without a 
 murmur, pouring into the royal coffers, in the shape of 
 a benevolence, or loan which had but slender chance of 
 being paid, no less a sum than four hundred thousand 
 ducats. The archbishop of Zaragoza, who was next 
 applied to, was also tolerably generous, contributing, 
 from revenues of no great magnificence, twenty thousand 
 ducats. The bishop of Cordova was less tractable. 
 Although his see was very rich, and he himself an ille- 
 gitimate scion of the house of Austria, it was not until 
 he had received several hints from the emperor himself 
 that he consented to advance one hundred thousand 
 ducats. Fernando de Valdes, archbishop of Seville, 
 was, however, the prelate who strove with most spirit 
 against the spoliations of the king's envoy. Magnificent 
 to the church, and mean to all the rest of the world, 
 profligate, selfish, and bigoted, with some refinement 
 of taste, and much dignity of manner, he was a fair 
 specimen of the great ecclesiastic of the sixteenth. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 133 
 
 century. In spite of his seventy-four years, his abihties 
 and energies were unimpaired, while his selfishness and 
 bigotry were daily becoming more intense. The splendid 
 mitre of St. Isidore was the sixth that had pressed his 
 politic brows ; for beginning his episcopal career in the 
 little Catalonian see of Helna, he had intrigued his way 
 not only to the throne of Seville, but to the chair of 
 grand inquisitor at Valladohd.^ He left, as the prin- 
 cipal memorials of his name, as archbishop, the crown 
 of masonry and the weather-cock Faith on the beautiful 
 belfry of his cathedral at Seville ; and as inquisitor, two 
 thousand four hundred death-warrants in the archives of 
 the holy office of Spain. 
 
 When this astute prelate received from Ruy Gomez 
 de Silva the unwelcome notice that the king expected 
 his aid in the shape of mundane coin as well as of 
 spiritual fire, he adopted the truly Castillian tactics of 
 delay, and allowed two months to elapse without return- 
 ing any definite reply. At length the emperor himself 
 addressed him in a letter similar in style to that which 
 had opened the purse-strings of the bishop of Cordova. 
 It was with much surprise, said Charles, that he found 
 an old servant of the crown, who had held great prefer- 
 ment for so many years, thus backward with his offering 
 when the emergency was so grave and the security so 
 good. The archbishop, seeing the affair growing 
 serious, now left the court and retired to the monastery, 
 a few leagues off, of St. Martin de la Fuente. From 
 this retreat he penned a reply, than which nothing could 
 be more temperate, plausible, dignified, and evasive. 
 Professing the profoundest reverence for his catholic 
 Csesarean majesty, and gratitude for his past favours, he 
 
 » D. Ortiz de Zuiiiga : Annales de SeviUa, fol. Madrid : 1677, pp. 503, 
 632. 
 
134 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 assured him that he never had had the good fortune to 
 possess four hundred thousand ducats in his hfe. His 
 revenues were more than absorbed by the colleges which 
 he was building at Salamanca and Oviedo, and by a 
 chapel^ likewise in progress, in Asturias, in which he 
 intended to endow seven chaplains to say perpetual 
 masses for the souls of his majesty and the empress. 
 All that he could do, therefore, was to borrow a portion 
 of the money which he had already allotted to these 
 charities, trusting that, small as it would be, the emperor 
 would accept it, and make provision for its restitution 
 in due time. 
 
 Meanwhile, unfortunately for the prelate's case, six 
 mules laden with silver were seen to arrive from the 
 south at his palace at Valladolid. The princess-regent, 
 therefore, directed Hernando de Ochoa, one of the royal 
 accountants, to proceed to St. Martin de la Fuente, and 
 reason the archbishop into compliance. The details of 
 the interview are given in a letter from Ochoa to the 
 emperor.^ Poverty was still the plea urged by the pre- 
 late, but in a style very different from the courtly tone 
 of his letters to Yuste. How could he find so much 
 money ? Where was it to come from ? He had never 
 had one hundred thousand ducats in his possession at 
 one time in his life, nor eighty thousand, nor sixty 
 thousand ; no, nor even thirty thousand. Might all the 
 devils take him if he ever had ! He would also swear 
 it, if needful, on the most holy sacrament. Nothing 
 daunted, the cool accountant assured his lordship that 
 he laboured under a mistake; taking his archbishopric 
 at the admitted annual value of sixty thousand ducats, 
 he proceeded to anatomize the prelate's annual expendi- 
 
 May 20th. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 135 
 
 ture, and compare it with his revenue ; and considering 
 that it was notorious that his lordship never gave din- 
 ners or bought plate, he ended by advising him to offer 
 as a compromise the sum of one hundred and fifty- 
 thousand ducats. But he also recommended him to 
 return to court, and attend to the business at once, or 
 else the emperor would infallibly find some means of 
 helping himself to the larger sum which he might fairly 
 demand. 
 
 Reasoning of the same kind was also used by the 
 archbishop^s brother, who was afterwards sent to him by 
 the princess. Last of all came a second letter from 
 Yuste, in which the emperor plainly told his ^ reverend 
 father in Christ,^ that it was well known that his coffers 
 had lately been replenished with as much silver as six 
 mules could carry, and that he hoped therefore that he 
 would pay quietly, as it would be very unpleasant to 
 have to use stronger means of compulsion. The old 
 fox, however, was a match for them all; he continued 
 to fence for a week or two more ; and he finally induced 
 the princess to accept of one third of the sum named 
 by her accountant, or fifty thousand ducats, of which 
 only one half was to be paid down in ready money. 
 
 Ruy Gomez de Silva was again at Yuste on the 
 fourteenth of May, and on the fifteenth of July. On 
 each occasion he had a long interview with the emperor 
 to report his progress in the king^s affairs. In his last 
 visit he was accompanied by Monsieur Ezcurra and 
 Monsieur Burdeo, agents of the duke of Vendome ; and 
 the emperor gave a patient hearing to their proposal 
 that their master should cede his claims on Navarre on 
 receiving the investiture of the duchy of Milan. It 
 cannot be supposed that Charles ever dreamed of paying 
 such a price for a province which was already his own, 
 and which had been part of the dominions of his house 
 
186 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 for fifty years/ But it was of great importance to keep 
 alive the hopes of the pretender, who, like a true Bour- 
 bon, was intriguing both with Trance and Spain, and 
 capable of any treachery to either for the slightest gain 
 to himself. In August, he was reported to have gone 
 down to Rochelle to inspect the squadron which Henry 
 the Second was fitting out to attack the annual plate 
 fleet, now on its homeward voyage to the Guadalquivir. 
 It was thought necessary, therefore, to strengthen the 
 forces of Alburquerque, and to use double vigilance in 
 guarding the passes into Navarre ; and it was now that 
 the rumour arose of the emperor's intention to take the 
 command there in person. During the summer, a con- 
 siderable body of troops had been embarked at Laredo, 
 for Flanders. Buy Gomez de Silva followed, probably 
 about the end of July, taking with him a second detach- 
 ment, and the money which he, the regent, and the 
 emperor had succeeded in wringing from the poverty of 
 the state and the avarice of the church. 
 
 The king of Portugal died at Lisbon, on the eleventh 
 of June, and on the fifteenth the tidings reached Yuste. 
 John the Third was a prince of but slender capacity, 
 but the mantle of his father's good fortune remained 
 with him for awhile ; and his reign belongs to the golden 
 age of Portugal, being illustrated with the great names 
 of De Gama and Noronha, De Castro and Xavier. But 
 disasters abroad and misfortune at home clouded the 
 close of his career. The death of his only son, Don Juan, 
 was closely followed by that of his brother, the gallant 
 Don Luis, to whom the nation looked as natural guardian 
 
 * In one of the papers mentioned in chap, iv. p. 67, note, Charles, 
 while he recorded his belief that Navarre had been justly conquered by 
 his grandfather, nevertheless charged Philip carefully to consider whether 
 it ought to be restored, or compensation allowed to any of the claimants 
 — a clear proof that he himself did not intend to settle the matter. 
 Papiera de Qranvelle, iv. 500. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 137 
 
 of the baby-heir. The king himself fell into premature 
 decrepitude, both of body and mind. The little Sebas- 
 tian, his grandson, was sitting one day by his bedside, 
 when something was brought to the king to drink. The 
 child, asking for something too, began to cry, because 
 the cup offered him had not a cover, like that which had 
 been given to his grandfather, — a mark of early ambition 
 which the old man took very much to heart, and 
 ordered the boy out of the room for thus desiring to be 
 treated hke a king before his time.^ 
 
 First cousin to Charles the Fifth, John was also 
 brother of his empress, husband of his sister, and 
 father-in-law of two of his children. But, in spite of 
 these intricately-entwined ties, they were not on the 
 most cordial terms; and the plans and policy of one 
 court were studiously kept secret from the other. When 
 secretary Gaztelu, therefore, wrote to the secretary of 
 state to send a speedy and ample supply of the best and 
 deepest mourning for the imperial household, he also 
 required him to find out what had passed in the 
 Portuguese council of state, at a meeting at which it 
 was understood the late king had expressed a wish to 
 abdicate, and to appoint the princess of Brazil as 
 guardian of her son and regent of his kingdom. But 
 in making these inquiries, he was to be especially careful 
 that the emperor^s name was not connected with the 
 affair. Don Fadrique Henriquez de Guzman, mayor- 
 domo of Don Carlos, was soon after despatched to 
 Yuste, to be the bearer of the emperor^s condolences to 
 his sister, the widowed queen Catherine. He arrived, 
 with the mourning for the household, on the third of 
 July, was admitted to a long audience on the fourth, 
 and at daybreak on the fifth, set out for Lisbon. He 
 
 1 Menezes : Chronica, p. 43. 
 
138 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 was furnished with very minute instructions, and was spe- 
 cially charged to make no mention of the princess of Brazil 
 in his conversations with the queen or the ministers. But 
 while the emperor wished to avoid all apparent interference, 
 he was nevertheless very desirous that his daughter 
 should be appointed to the Portuguese regency. The 
 princess herself was naturally most anxious to have the 
 guardianship of her son and his interests ; and it was 
 perhaps with a view to Portugal that she so frequently 
 implored her brother to relieve her from her duties in 
 Spain. But weeks passed away without any certain 
 intelligence, and although there were two Spanish 
 envoys at Lisbon, the princess determined to send a 
 third, in the person of father Francisco Borja. Neither 
 Portugal nor the house of Avis, however, would submit 
 to the rule of a sister of the king of Spain. The regency 
 was therefore given to the queen dowager, who closed 
 her able administration with the brilliant defence of 
 Mazagaon against the Moors. The reins then passed 
 to the feebler hands of the cardinal Henry, nor was 
 Juana ever permitted to hold any share of power, or 
 even to embrace her son. 
 
 For disappointments in Portugal the emperor was 
 consoled by glorious news from Flanders. Philip had 
 landed there in July with eight thousand troops, en- 
 trusted to him by his fond queen and her reluctant 
 people. Emboldened by this accession of strength, and 
 reinforced by the new levies from Spain, the duke of 
 Savoy was now able to carry on the war with greater 
 vigour. He held CoHgny blockaded in St. Quentin, 
 a place of some strength on the steep bank of the 
 Somme. The constable de Montmorency, who com- 
 manded the main French army, was ordered by the 
 king of France to throw some troops into the place. 
 Permitting this movement to be effected with but little 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 139 
 
 opposition, the duke seized that opportunity of passing 
 the river with his whole force. By a succession of 
 skilful manoeuvres, he succeeded in surprising Mont- 
 morency, and compelling him to give battle, when count 
 Egmont, at the head of seven thousand cavalry, obtained 
 in one brilliant charge the most complete victory ever 
 won by the lions and castles of Spain from the lilies of 
 France. The army of the constable suffered utter 
 annihilation, while the loss of the duke was said not to 
 exceed one hundred men. The duke d'Enghien, Tu- 
 renne, and other French leaders of note, were slain ; and 
 the constable and four princes of the blood, the Rhine- 
 grave, and a host of the French nobility, with cannon, 
 munition, and countless banners, fell into the hands of 
 the Spaniard. 
 
 This great battle was fought on the tenth of August. 
 The first news was conveyed to the emperor in a brief 
 despatch from Vazquez, dated on the twentieth, and pro* 
 bably reached Yuste about the twenty-third. A more 
 detailed account, which was afterwards printed at Val- 
 ladolid, soon arrived, brought or closely followed by a 
 courier sent by the king from Flanders. The emperor 
 listened to the intelligence with the greatest interest, and 
 ordered the messenger to be rewarded with a gold chain 
 and a handsome sum of money.^ On the seventh of 
 September a solemn mass was celebrated in the con- 
 ventual church in token of thanksgiving, and consi- 
 derable alms were distributed from the imperial purse to 
 the neighbouring poor. The emperor was much disap- 
 pointed to learn that his son had not been present in 
 
 * Gonzalez says 150,000 ducats, which is probably a slip of the pen 
 for maraiedis. The emperor is reported to have greatly disappointed 
 the soldier who brought him the sword and gauntlets of Francis the 
 First from the field of Pavia, by giving him only one hundred gold 
 crowns for his trouble. Eelatione of Badovaro. 
 
140 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. yi. 
 
 the field, and bestowed his malediction upon the English 
 troops, for whom the king was reported to have been 
 waiting in the rear. For some weeks he continued 
 impatient for news, counting the days, as Quixada wrote, 
 which must elapse before the king could be at the gates 
 of Paris. The citizens of Paris, like the emperor, also 
 took it for granted that the Spaniards would march 
 directly upon their capital, and many of the wealthier 
 families fled southward into the heart of the kingdom. 
 But the hopes of Yuste and the fears of the Louvre 
 were equally foiled of their fulfilment ; for Philip, ever 
 timid and procrastinating, wasted the golden moments 
 and the enthusiasm of his troops on the capture of a few 
 insignificant fortresses in Picardy. 
 
 The triumph of the duke of Savoy in the Nether- 
 lands had a signal effect upon the war in Italy. No 
 sooner had Guise commenced offensive operations against 
 the kingdom of Naples, than he discovered that no aid 
 was to be expected from the pope or his nephews, and 
 no reliance to be placed on their promises. They had 
 already exasperated him by refusing him Ostia or 
 Ancona, which he wished to garrison, as a retreat for 
 his troops in case of the failure of the enterprise. 
 These robber-churchmen, indeed, treated their French 
 knight-errant very much as Gines de Passamonte and 
 his gang treated the good knight of La Mancha, after 
 he had rescued them, at the expense of his bones, from 
 the lash and the oar.^ As Guise lay on the border-stream 
 of Tronto, he was joined by Httle more than one half of 
 the papal auxiliaries which had been promised him ; and 
 he had not advanced far into the enemy's territory 
 before the insolence of the Roman leader, the marquess 
 of Montebello, compelled him to turn that Caraffa 
 
 * Don Quixote, part i. cap. 22. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. Ul 
 
 ignominiously out of his camp. With zeal thus cooled, 
 and with forces quite inadequate to effect any per- 
 manent conquest for France, Guise therefore confined 
 his operations to the capture of some paltry places in 
 the Abruzzi, and to an unsuccessful siege of Civitella, 
 from which he was driven with considerable loss both 
 of men and time. Retreating towards Rome, he 
 threatened to evacuate the ecclesiastical states, and join 
 the duke of Ferrara in an attack upon Parma and the 
 Milanese. Alba in his turn now crossed the Tronto, 
 marched into the Campagna, and took up a position 
 within sight of Rome. The pope and the Caraffas, no 
 less cowardly than rash, humbled themselves before 
 Guise, and bribed him to assist them by fresh promises ; 
 and the war might have been again renewed but for the 
 tidings of St. Quentin. Happily for art and its monu- 
 ments, the panic of the king of France, the baseness of 
 the king of Spain, and the supple treachery of Christ^s 
 vicar, saved Rome from a second sack. Guise and his 
 army were instantly recalled : Alba was instructed that 
 his master valued his great victory chiefly because it 
 might restore him to the good graces of the pope;' 
 and the holy father himself made haste to sacrifice his 
 friend, and conclude a close bargain with his foe. The 
 terms obtained were no less disgraceful to Paul and to 
 Phihp than advantageous to the Roman see. The pope 
 was bound not to take part against Spain during the 
 present war, and not to assist the duke of Guise with 
 provisions or protection. The king, on his side, en- 
 gaged to restore all the places he had taken from the 
 pope, and raze the fortifications with which he had 
 strengthened them; to do homage for the crown of 
 Naples ; and, while he claimed an amnesty for the 
 
 ^ J. V. Rustant : Historia del dugue de Alba, 2 torn. 4to. Madrid : 
 1751, ii. 59. 
 
142 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ti. 
 
 papal rebels, he permitted the pontiff to except from it 
 Marc Antonio Colonna and the chief Roman magnates 
 who had been the most active of Albans allies, and whose 
 fortunes were best worth the acceptance of the plunder- 
 ing Caraffas/ 
 
 The emperor had ever regarded PauFs policy with 
 indignation, which had lately become mingled with 
 scorn. He was for meeting his fury with calm firm- 
 ness ; and it was by his advice that the bulls of excom- 
 munication, which were frantically fulminated against 
 his son, were forbidden to be pubhshed in the churches, 
 and were declared contraband in the sea-ports of Spain. 
 Had the king been a heretic, said Charles, he could not 
 have been treated with greater rigour ; the quarrel was 
 none of his seeking ; and in his endeavours to avoid it 
 he had done all that was required of him before God 
 and the world. Had the matter been left in the hands 
 of the emperor, Paul would have been dealt with in 
 the stern fashion which brought Clement to his senses : 
 Alba would have been directed to advance, Rome would 
 have been stormed, the pontiff made prisoner ; and the 
 primate of Spain and the prior of Yuste would have 
 been directed to put their altars into mourning, and say 
 many masses for the speedy deliverance of the holy 
 father of the faithful. 
 
 It is not very clear why Philip the Second dealt 
 thus gently with the foolish and wicked old man who 
 was now at his mercy. Certain it is that no sentiment 
 of generosity towards a fallen foe ever found place in 
 that cold and selfish heart. His moderation may have 
 been dictated by pure superstition, or it may have 
 arisen from his secret desire to obtain, at some future, 
 time, the pope^s sanction for his scheme of dividing the 
 great sees and abbeys of the Low Countries — a scheme 
 
 » J. V. Rustant : Hist, del D de Alba, ii. 61. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 143 
 
 which lie afterwards executed at the cost of so much 
 blood, treasure, and territory. 
 
 The Roman treaty was almost the sole affair of im- 
 portance transacted during the emperor^s sojourn at 
 Yuste, without his opinion having been first asked and 
 his approval obtained. About the middle of October, 
 he heard with some anxiety that Alba had concluded a 
 treaty with the pope, but the precise conditions being 
 probably still unknown at Valladolid, did not then reach 
 Yuste. Writing by his master's desire for fuller infor- 
 mation, Quixada confided to the secretary of state that 
 the emperor was very much afraid that the terms obtained 
 were bad, having generally observed that a treaty was 
 sure to prove unfavourable when it was reported to be 
 completed and yet the specification of the particular 
 clauses withheld. The next instalment of news, that 
 the French army had effected their retreat, only in- 
 creased the misgivings of the emperor. At length there 
 came a detailed account of the negotiations, and a copy 
 of the treaty, which the secretary of state said had 
 given satisfaction both at Rome and Valladolid. At 
 each paragraph that was read, the emperor^s anger grew 
 fiercer ; and before the paper had been gone through he 
 would hear no more. He was laid up next day with 
 an attack of gout, which the people about him ascribed 
 to the vexation which he had suffered ; and so deep an 
 impression did the affair make upon his mind, that for 
 weeks after he was frequently overheard muttering to 
 himself, through his shattered teeth, broken sentences 
 of displeasure. 
 
 One of the subjects which lay nearest the emperor's 
 heart was the education of his grandson, Don Carlos. 
 The impression made upon him by the boy during his 
 brief stay at Valladolid had been, as we have seen, 
 unfavourable. The prince's governor, Don Garcia de 
 
144 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vi. 
 
 Toledo, was ordered to transmit to Yuste regular 
 accounts of his pupil's progress. His letters, though 
 few of them are in existence, were probably frequent, 
 and they are so minute in their details of the prince's 
 health and habits, that there is no doubt but the 
 emperor took a lively interest in his grandson. Carlos 
 is painted by his tutor as a sickly, sulky, and backward 
 boy, certainly very unlikely to grow up the patriot hero 
 into which the poet's licence and the historian's paradox 
 have turned him at a later period of his unhappy life. 
 On the thirtieth of July, Don Garcia complained to the 
 emperor that his pupil was lazy at his books, and con- 
 stipated in his bowels. The king, he said, had ordered 
 him down to Tordesillas, as a place better suited for 
 study than the court; but he, for his part, thought 
 that if they were to leave Valladolid at all, the prince 
 would be nowhere so well as at Yuste, under the eye of 
 his grandfather. 
 
 A month later, on the twenty-seventh of August, he 
 wrote that Don Carlos was better in health, but so 
 cholerick in temper, that they were thinking of putting 
 him under a course of physic for that disorder; but that 
 they would wait until the emperor's pleasure were known. 
 He then described the prince's mode of passing the day. 
 Rising somewhat before seven, he prayed, breakfasted, 
 and went to hear mass at half-past eight ; after which 
 came lessons until eleven, when he dined. A few hours 
 were then given to amusement with his companions, 
 with whom he played at trucos (a game somewhat like 
 bowls) or quoits; at half-past three he partook of a 
 light meal (merienda), which was followed by reading, 
 and an hour of out-door exercise, before or after supper, 
 according to the weather. By half-past nine he had gone 
 through the prayers of his rosary, and was in bed, where 
 he soon fell fast asleep. The poor tutor was compelled 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. HA 
 
 still to acknowledge that he had failed to imbue him 
 with the shghtest love of learning, in which he conse- 
 quently made but httle progress ; that he not only hated 
 his books, but showed no inclination for cane-playing, 
 or the still more necessary accomplishment of fencing; 
 and that he was so careless and awkward on horseback, 
 that they Avere afraid of letting him ride much, for fear 
 of accidents. To the emperor, who had loved and prac- 
 tised all manly sports with the ardour and the skill of a 
 true Burgundian, it must have been a disappointment to 
 learn that the prowess of duke Charles and kaiser Max, 
 which had dwindled woefully in his son Philip, seemed 
 altogether extinct in the next generation. 
 
 These notices of the character of the heir-apparent 
 are confirmed by the account of him which the Venetian, 
 ambassador at the court of Bruxelles transmitted to his 
 republic. He reported that Don Carlos was a youth of 
 a haughty and turbulent temper, which his tutors vainly 
 endeavoured to tame by making him read Cicero^s 
 treatise De Officiis ; and that, upon being told that the 
 Low Countries were settled upon the issue of his step- 
 mother, Mary of England, he declared that he would 
 maintain his right to those states in single combat 
 with any son who might be born to his father in that 
 marriage.^ 
 
 Rdatione of Badovaro. 
 
146 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. yii. 
 
 CHAPTER VIT. 
 
 THE VISIT OF THE QUEENS. 
 
 DURING the whole of the year 1557 the emperor's 
 health gave him hut little annoyance, and cost Dr. 
 Mathys but little trouble or anxiety. It seemed as if there 
 were some truth in the saying, attributed by the monks 
 to Torriano, and supposed to have been the result of his 
 astrological researches, that the Vera was the most salu- 
 brious place in the world, and Yuste the most salubrious 
 spot in the Vera.^ In spite of generally eating too much, 
 Charles slept well, and his gout made itself felt only in 
 occasional twinges; so effectually did the senna wine 
 counteract the syrup of quinces which he drank at 
 breakfast, the Rhine wine which washed down his mid- 
 day meal, and the beer which, though denounced by the 
 doctor, was the habitual beverage *of the patient when- 
 ever he was thirsty. He had suffered, in September, a 
 slight attack of dysentery from eating too much fruit. 
 Towards the end of October, he was troubled by an 
 inflammation in his left eye, and while waiting one day 
 for a draught of senna wine, fell down in a fainting-fit, 
 from which, however, he was soon recovered by a little 
 vinegar sprinkled on his face, and suffered no subsequent 
 iU effect. About the middle of December, he com- 
 plained of feebleness, and of phlegm in his throat ; and. 
 
 Siguen9a, iii. 200. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. Il7 
 
 for awhile, forewent wine and beer, and drank hippocras, 
 a kind of spiced wine, mixed with hot water. With 
 these exceptions, he was in very tolerable health; he 
 was able to go out with his gun, though not always 
 able to take a steady aim without help : he passed a 
 good deal of time in the open air ; and frequently went 
 to confess and take the sacrament at the hermitage of 
 Bethlehem — a dependency of the convent, and about a 
 quarter of a mile off in the forest. 
 
 In the Vera, the year was very unhealthy, the 
 spring having been marked by a famine, which ex- 
 tended over the greater part of Estremadura. So severe 
 was the scarcity, that the emperor^s sumpter mules, 
 laden with dainties, on their way to the convent, were 
 pillaged by the hungry peasants; and, in the Campo de 
 Aranuelo, almost the whole population of several villages 
 perished of starvation. In the autumn, severe colds and 
 fevers prevailed at Yuste and Quacos ; and William Van 
 Male lost two children, and was in great apprehension 
 for the life of his wife. 
 
 The emperor gave much of his leisure time and un- 
 employed thought to his garden. He had ever been 
 a lover of nature, and a cherisher of birds and flowers. 
 In one of his campaigns, the story was told, that a 
 swallow having built her nest and hatched her young upon 
 his tent, he would not allow the tent to be struck when 
 the army resumed its march, but left it standing for the 
 sake of the mother and brood.^ From Tunis he is said 
 to have brought not only the best of his laurels, but the 
 pretty flower called the Indian pink, sending it from the 
 African shore to his gardens in Spain, whence, in time, 
 
 * Vieyra : Sermoens, vol. xv. p. 195. Quoted in Southey's Common 
 Place Booh, i. p. 408. 
 
 l2 
 
148 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, vii 
 
 it won its way into every cottage garden in Europe.^ 
 Yuste was a very paradise for these simple tastes and 
 harmless pleasures. The emperor spent part of the 
 summer in embelHshing the ground immediately below 
 his windows ; he raised a terrace^ on which he placed a 
 fountain, and laid out a parterre; and beneath it he 
 formed a second parterre, planted like the first, with 
 flowers and orange-trees. Under his supervision, Tor- 
 riano constructed a sun-dial, which became an appro- 
 priate ornament of the garden.^ Amongst his poultry were 
 some Indian fowls, sent him by the bishop of Plasencia. 
 Of two fish-ponds which he caused to be formed with 
 the water of the adjacent brook, he stored one with 
 trout, and the other with tench. It was evidently 
 his wish to make himself comfortable in the retreat 
 where he had a reasonable prospect of passing many 
 years. In the autumn, he sent for an additional game- 
 keeper to kill game for his table ; and in winter, for a 
 new stove for his apartments; and he also received from 
 Flanders a large box of tapestry, amongst which was a 
 set of hangings wrought with scenes from his campaigns 
 at Tunis, which still exist in the queen of Spain^s palace 
 at Madrid. He also contemplated an addition to his 
 little palace, and he had made several drawings with his 
 own hands of an intended oratory, and a new wing for 
 the accommodation of the king, his son, who was to 
 visit him as soon as public affairs permitted him to 
 return to Spain. The plans never proceeded farther 
 than the paper stage ; nor was Philip's visit to Yuste paid 
 until the emperor's own rooms were vacant. 
 
 ' Rene Rapin, in his Hortorum libH, iv. 4to. Paris, 1665, lib. i. 
 952-4, thus celebrates the event : — 
 
 Hunc primus, pceno quondam de litore florem, 
 Dum premeret victor dura obsidione Tunetum ; 
 Carolus Austriades terrae transmisit Iberse. 
 
 • Bakhuizen van den Brink : Retraite de Charles V., p. 23. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. ]49 
 
 During the spring, Luis Quixada^s home-sick heart 
 was gladdened by leave of absence, a favour accorded 
 of the emperor's own free will, and unasked, as the 
 honest chamberlain was careful to observe in his next 
 letter to the secretary of state. He would have been 
 very glad, he added, if he were not coming back any 
 more, to eat asparagus and truffles in Estremadura.* 
 He set out on the third of April, and the impatient 
 English courier who had come the day before with his 
 complaints of Castillian dilatoriness,^ was probably his 
 companion as he rode through the wild glens and over 
 the sweet flowery wastes to Valladolid. To the princess- 
 regent and the queen he carried letters, written in the 
 emperor's own hand, which showed how implicitly the 
 old soldier was trusted, and how he was treated almost 
 like one of the family. The letter to the regent briefly 
 referred her to the bearer for an account of her father's 
 way of life, and his views on financial matters, and ou 
 the proper mode of dealing with the Sevillian rogues 
 who preferred keeping their money to giving it to the 
 state ; while in the letter to the queen of France, the 
 royal matron was advised by her brother to take coun- 
 sel with the mayordomo in the afiair of the meeting 
 with her daughter, the impracticable infanta of Portugal. 
 
 At court or at his house at Villagarcia, Quixada re- 
 mained until August, when the emperor, who missed him 
 more each day, sent for him back. In the absence of 
 the chief of his household, he seems to have fallen in 
 some degree into the hands of the friars, and by that 
 circumstance to have partially lost his prepossession in 
 favour of the Jeromite robe. ' The friars,' writes Gaztelu, 
 in undisguised glee, 'do not understand his majesty; 
 
 * ' Bien me alegrara, no volver a Estremadura a comer esparragos y 
 turmos de tierra.' To Juan Vazquez, March 28th, 1557. 
 " Chap. vi. p. 120. 
 
150 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 and now at last he has found out, I think, his mistake 
 in supposing that they are fit to be employed in his ser- 
 vice in any way whatever/ It was high time, there- 
 fore, that Quixada should resume the command, and 
 drive the monks back over the frontier. He arrived at 
 Yuste on the twenty-first of August, having ridden post 
 to Medina del Campo, and thence on what he called 
 beasts of the country. The emperor was very glad to see 
 him; and he was also glad to find the emperor very 
 well, paler perhaps, but fatter than when he took his 
 leave. Rumours had reached Valladolid, probably in 
 consequence of the alarm raised in Navarre, that Charles 
 intended to leave the convent, but the chamberlain now 
 assured the secretary that they were unfounded. ' His 
 majesty,^ he wrote, ' is the most contented man in the 
 world, and the quietest, and the least desirous of moving 
 in any direction whatsoever, as he tells us himself.^^ 
 After thirty-five years of service, and being by the death 
 of his brother the last of his house, Quixada had much 
 wished to be relieved of his official duties, and settle at 
 home. But the emperor having so urged him to remain 
 that it was impossible to refuse, he had now resolved, 
 he said, to move his wife and household into Estrema- 
 dura, in spite of the expense and inconvenience to which 
 it must put him, and his great dislike to the country. 
 The letter in which this determination was conveyed to 
 Vazquez ended, as usual, with the date, ' In Yuste,^ to 
 which the writer in this case added the words, ^ evil to 
 him who built it here; thirtieth of August, 1557.^^ 
 
 During the summer, in Fray Juan de Ortega'' the 
 convent lost one of its best inmates, and the emperor 
 
 * ' Esta el hombre el mas contento del mundo, y con mas reposo y con 
 menor gana para salir para ninguna parte y ansi lo dice.' 
 
 2 En Yuste : mal haya quien aqui lo edifico ; a los 30 de Augusto, 
 1557. 
 
 s Chap. iii. p. 67 ; chap. v. p. 102. 
 
1557] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 151 
 
 and his household their favourite amongst the friars. 
 Having been ailing for some time, he obtained leave, at 
 the end of May, to retire to his own convent at Alba de 
 Tormes. On the twenty-fourth of August, the whole 
 community of Yuste were saddened by the news of his 
 death. Finding himself no better, and getting weary of 
 his doctor, he put himself into the hands of a gatherer 
 of simples, the quack of the district, who very speedily 
 relieved him from his sufferings, and from further need 
 of physic. Ortega is one of those men of whose life 
 the remaining fragments make us wish for more. As 
 general, having suffered a vote of censure for attempting 
 to reform the order, the decree of the chapter had 
 likewise declared him and his associates incapable of 
 afterwards bearing any rule within the domain of St. 
 Jerome. The emperor must have approved of his policy, 
 or at least must have considered him unjustly treated, 
 for he almost immediately afterwards offered him a 
 mitre in the Indies. But Ortega declined the honour, 
 saying that the friar whom his superiors had pronounced 
 unfit to hold a priory, must be unfit to preside over a 
 diocese, and that he considered it to be his duty to 
 submit, as a private monk, to the penance imposed 
 upon him. In 1553, while he was still general, there 
 issued from an Antwerp press the charming story of 
 Lazarillo de Tormes, destined to be a model of racy 
 CastilHan, and to found a new school of literature. 
 Leaving the courts and the castles, the peers and 
 paladins of conventional romance, the witty novelist had 
 taken for his hero a little dirty urchin of Salamanca, 
 and sent him forth to delight Europe with his exquisite 
 humour, keen satire, and vivid pictures of Spanish life, 
 and to win a popularity which was not equalled until 
 the great knight of La Mancha took the field. The 
 authorship, however, remained unacknowledged and un- 
 known ; and it was not until after the death of Diego 
 
152 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 Hurtado de Mendoza that it came to be generally ascribed 
 to that accomplished statesman, soldier, and historian. 
 But at the decease of Ortega there was found in his cell 
 a manuscript of the work, from which the fathers of Alba 
 conjectured that it must have been written in his col- 
 lege-days at Salamanca.^ Whether the glory belong 
 to the layman or the churchman, the monk who was 
 capable of so chivalrously refusing a mitre, and who was 
 supposed to be capable of writing the first and one of the 
 best of modern fictions, must have been a man of noble 
 character, and of remarkable powers. 
 
 The ignorance and gossiping of the friars were not 
 the sole local annoyances suffered by the emperor and 
 his household. The villagers of Quacos were the unruly 
 protestants who troubled his reign in the Vera. Although 
 these rustics shared amongst them the greater part of 
 the hundred ducats which he dispensed every month in 
 charity, they teazed him by constant acts of petty 
 aggression, by impounding his cows, poaching his fish- 
 ponds, and stealing his fruit. One fellow having sold 
 the crop on a cherry-tree to the emperor^s purveyor at 
 double its value, and for ready money, when he found 
 that it was left ungathered, resold it to a fresh purchaser, 
 who of course left nothing but bare boughs behind him. 
 Weary of this persecution, Charles at last sent for Don 
 Juan de Vega, president of Castillo, who arrived on the 
 
 ' The story is told by Siguen9a, ii. p. 184. N. Antonio includes Laza- 
 rillo among the works of Mendoza, but he says that some people still 
 ascribed it to Ortega. Mr. Ticknor, in his excellent and discerning 
 criticism on Mendoza {History of Spanish Literature, 3 vols. 8 vo. New 
 York : 1849, i. 513) raises no doubt as to the authorship, without, how- 
 ever, stating on what, besides internal evidence, Mendoza's claim rests. 
 The first edition was printed at Antwerp, 1553 ; another appeared at 
 Burgos, in 1554, and a third at Antwerp, in the same year ; yet the first 
 mentioned by Antonio is that of Tarragona, 1586 ; so ignorant was the 
 laborious bibliographer of Spain — being also a churchman — of one of the 
 most curious and valuable portions of her literature, the novels. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 153 
 
 twenty-fifth of August at Luis Quixada's house, in the 
 guilty village. Next morning he had an interview of 
 an hour and a half with the emperor ; and spent the day 
 following in concerting measures with the licentiate 
 Murga, the rural judge, to whom he administered a sharp 
 rebuke, which that functionary in his turn visited upon 
 the unruly rustics. The president returned to Valladolid 
 on the twenty-eighth ; and a few days afterwards several 
 culprits were apprehended. But whilst Castillian justice 
 was taking its usual deliberate course, some of them 
 who had relatives amongst the Jeromites of Yuste, by 
 the influence of their friends at court, wrought upon the 
 emperor^s good nature so far, that he himself begged 
 that the sentence might be Ught.^ 
 
 Of the unofficial visitors who paid their respects during 
 this year at Yuste, one of the earliest and certainly the 
 most remarkable was Juan Gines Sepulveda, the his- 
 torian, whose flowing style and pure Latinity gained him 
 the title of the Livy of Spain. This able writer had 
 formerly held the posts of chaplain to the emperor, and 
 tutor- to prince Philip ; and was now one of the historio- 
 graphers-royal, in which capacity he had retired to his 
 estate at Pozoblanco, near Cordova, to compose his 
 annals of the emperor^s reign, and cultivate his flower- 
 garden. Amongst other pieces of sinecure church pre- 
 ferment which had fallen to his lot, was the archpriest- 
 hood of Ledesma,towhich he had been recently presented. 
 The fine weather early in March had tempted him to 
 set out for this new benefice; but being overtaken in 
 the mountains of Guadalupe by storms, which even the 
 tempest-stilling bells of Our Lady^s holy church^ could 
 not calm, he was glad to turn aside to the Vera to pay 
 his homage to the emperor, and to visit his old friend 
 
 ' Siguen9a : iii. 198. 
 * Talavera : Hist, de Na. 8ena, de Cruadalupe, fol. 16. 
 
154 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 Van Male. Charles, who had not seen him for eighteen 
 years, received him with great cordiality, and conversed 
 with him with much interest on the progress of his his- 
 tory. The learned traveller was highly delighted with 
 his patron^s kindness, the beauty of the place, and his 
 few days of repose in Van Male^s house at Quacos. He 
 had taken the mountain road by which Charles had come 
 to Yuste. The first part of his journey, although toilsome, 
 was ease itself to what was now before him. Crossing 
 the Puertonuevo in a storm would try the nerve and 
 task the endurance of a smuggler in his prime; and 
 it is therefore not surprising that it nearly killed 
 the sedentary doctor of sixty-seven. The ascent, he 
 said, was like the path of virtue, as described by 
 Hesiod, inasmuch as it was long, and steep, and 
 rugged ; but very unlike it, inasmuch as it led, not 
 to an easy plain, but to a yet more frightful descent.^ 
 He had ridden up ; but the rocks which now frowned 
 over his head, and the chasms which yawned at every 
 turn beneath him, so terrified him that he dismounted 
 from his mule, and walked eight miles in the mud, 
 through alternate rain and snow. He arrived at Alba 
 more dead than alive ; and in spite of good nursing in 
 the house of a warm canon of Salamanca, the month of 
 June found him in his parsonage at Ledesma, still com- 
 plaining of the cold which he had caught in that wild 
 mountain march.^ 
 
 Don Luis de Avila was a frequent visitor at Yuste. 
 Charles had always been fond of the society of his 
 lively Quintus Curtius ; and the historian regarded the 
 emperor with that enthusiastic admiration with which a 
 
 » The WorJcs and the Days, v. 288. 
 
 ^ He calls it ' iter totius Hispanise difficillimum ;' describing it in the 
 letter to Van Male, in his Epistolce, sm, 8vo Salaraant. 1557, ep. cii. 
 fol. 274, or Opera, 4to, Madrid, 1780, iii. p. 351. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 165 
 
 great man seldom fails to inspire his followers. The 
 lords of Mirabel religiously preserve an heir-loom 
 brought into the Zuiiiga family by Avila — a marble 
 bust of his favourite hero, chiselled by the masterly 
 hand of the elder Leoni, and inscribed with this loyal 
 doggrel — 
 
 Carolo quinto et ^ assai questo, 
 Perche si sa per tutto il mondo il resto. 
 
 Avila likewise caused some of the battles of the imperial 
 captain to be painted in fresco on various ceilings of the 
 noble mansion, and they were now actually in progress 
 under his own superintendence. The name of the artist 
 has not survived, and his work, long since faded, has 
 proved the truth of the adage which the old marquess 
 of Mirabel had shortly before written over one of the 
 windows — todo pasa — all things pass away.^ 
 
 There is a heartiness in Avila's flattery which says much 
 for its honesty and somewhat excuses its extravagance. 
 The bold dragoon concludes his German commentaries 
 with this blast of the true Castilhan trumpet : ' When 
 Caesar had subdued Gaul, after a ten years^ war, he made 
 the whole world ring with his story; and only to have 
 crossed the Rhine and passed eighteen days in Germany 
 seemed enough to vindicate the power and dignity of the 
 nation which ruled the world. In less than a year our 
 emperor conquered this province, whose matchless valour 
 has been confessed both by ancient and modem times. 
 In thirty years Charlemagne subjugated Saxony; our 
 emperor was master of it all in less than three months. 
 The greatness of this war demands a nobler pen than 
 mine, which tells nothing but the naked truth, and 
 what I have seen with my own eyes of the exploits of 
 
 * A. Ponz: Viage en Espana, 18 vols. sm. 8vo. Madrid: 1784, vii. 
 117, 118, 122. 
 
156 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vri. 
 
 Mm who ought as far to excel in fame the great captains 
 of past ages as he excels them all in valour and in 
 virtue/^ 
 
 The adulation of bishop Giovio was as distasteful to 
 Charles as the protestant abuse of Sleidan ; and he was 
 wont to call them his two liars. But Avila^s volume, 
 bound in crimson velvet and silver^ adorned his book- 
 shelf, and the door of his cabinet was ever open to the 
 author. It is characteristic of the times, that it was 
 remarked as a singular favour that the emperor one day- 
 ordered a capon to be reserved for the grand-commander 
 from his own well-supplied board."^ It may seem strange 
 that a retired prince, who had never been a lover of 
 pomp, should not have broken through the ceremonial 
 law which enjoined a monarch to eat alone, and which, 
 when on the throne, he had broken through once, 
 though once only, in favour of the duke of Alba.^ Still, 
 it must be remembered that he was a Spaniard, living, 
 among Spaniards, with whom punctilio was a kind of 
 piety ; and that near a century later the force of forms 
 was stiU so strong, that Richelieu himself, when most 
 wanting in ships, preferred that the Spanish fleet should 
 retire from the blockade of Rochelle, rather than that 
 its admiral should wear his grandee-hat in the most 
 Christian presence. 
 
 The emperor was fond of talking over his campaigns 
 with the veteran who had shared and recorded them. 
 One day, in the course of such conversation, Don Luis 
 spoke of the frescoes which were in progress in his house 
 at Plasencia, and said that on one of the ceilings was to 
 be painted the battle of Renti, and the Frenchmen flying 
 
 ' Avila: Comentario de la Chierra de Alemafki, sm. 8vo. Anvers: 
 1549, p. 180. 
 
 2 Vera : Vida de Ca/rlos V., p. 251. 
 
 3 Rustant : Vida del D. de Alba, i. 182. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 157 
 
 before the soldiers of Castille. ' Not so/ said the em- 
 peror, ' let the painter modify this if he can, for it was 
 no headlong flight, but an orderly retreat/^ This was 
 not the less candid because French historians claimed the 
 victory for France, and recounted with pride the cap- 
 tured colours and cannon, amongst which were the two 
 huge pieces known as the emperor^s pistols." Con- 
 sidering that the action had been fought only three or 
 four years before it is reported to have been thus 
 grossly misrepresented, it is possible that Eenti may 
 have been substituted by mistake for the name of some 
 less doubtful field. But Avila was of easy faith when 
 the honour of Castille and the emperor were concerned ; 
 and he may well be supposed capable of some such 
 loyal and patriotic inaccuracy in fresco, when he did 
 not hesitate to print his belief that the miracle which 
 had been wrought for Joshua and the chosen people in the 
 vaUey of Ajalon, had been repeated on behalf of Charles 
 and his Spaniards on the banks of the Elbe.s Some 
 years after, the duke of Alba, who had also been at 
 Muhlberg, was asked by the king of France whether he 
 had observed that the snn stood still. ^ I was so busy 
 that day,^ said the cautious soldier, ^with what was 
 passing on earth, that I had no time to notice what 
 took place in heaven.^ 
 
 A visit which Avila paid to the convent in August, 
 seems to have been prompted by an official letter 
 addressed by the princess-regent to the authorities of 
 Plasencia, and containing, or supposed to contain, a 
 hint that the emperor proposed soon to set out for 
 Navarre. The city being greatly excited by the rumours 
 thus raised, the grand-commander mounted his horse 
 
 > Vera : Vida de Carlos V., p. 252. 
 
 2 L. Favyn : Hist, de Navarre, fol. Paris : 1612, p. 814. 
 
 ' Avila: Comentario, fol. 70. 
 
158 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 and rode up the Vera to make inquiries into the state 
 of matters at Yuste. The recluse was disposed rather 
 to pique than to gratify the curiosity of the knight of 
 the green cross. Writing on his return to the secretary 
 of state, Avila said, ' I have left Fray Carlos in a very 
 calm and contented mood, not at all mistrusting his 
 strength, but behoving himself quite equal to the exertion 
 of moving from his retreat. Since I was there last, all 
 his ideas on this head may have changed; and I 
 could believe his undertaking anything from love to his 
 son, knowing as I do his brave spirit and his ancient 
 habits, having been reared, as he was, in war, like the 
 salamander in the furnace. The princesses letter has 
 set us all on the tiptoe of expectation here, and I do 
 not think that there is a man among us who would 
 stay behind if the emperor took the field. But if this 
 bravata, as they say in Italy, is really to be executed, I 
 pray God it may be done speedily, for the weather looks 
 threatening, and Navarre, with its early winter, is not 
 Estremadura/^ 
 
 Amongst other visitors at Yuste was Don Francisco 
 Bolivar, paymaster of the navy, who came on the six- 
 teenth of September and had a long audience next 
 day, to lay before the emperor certain information about 
 the Turkish naval force, and to tell him that the fleet 
 of Solyman which had been menacing the western 
 shores of the Mediterranean, had now steered for the 
 Levant. For this good news Charles presented him, 
 when he took leave, with a gold chain. A few weeks 
 later, on the sixth of October, Don Martin de Aven- 
 daiio, who had commanded a squadron newly arrived 
 from Peru, was received with a welcome so hearty, that 
 
 * Luis de Avila to Vazquez ; Plasencia, 24tli August, 1557. Gonzalez 
 MS. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 169 
 
 Quixada noted it in writing to the secretary Eraso. In 
 taking leave, the admiral was also furnished with a 
 strong letter of recommendation to the king. Perhaps 
 the excellent health which the emperor at that time 
 enjoyed might have been partly the cause of this cor- 
 diality, for the chamberlain said, in the same letter, 
 that he was unusually well, ' very plump and fresh- 
 coloured, and ate and slept better than he did himself/ 
 He added that his majesty had been pleased to rally 
 him on a message, conveyed to him by Eraso from his 
 little daughter Mariquita, that she would like to marry 
 his son, had there been an heir in the family of 
 Quixada.^ 
 
 The visitors at Yuste were generally envoys, or official 
 personages. Avila and the count of Oropesa and his bro- 
 ther, were amongst the few exceptions. The neighbour- 
 ing prelates and grandees continued to send their con- 
 tributions to the imperial larder. Oropesa kept it sup- 
 phed with game from the forest and the hill; the 
 Jeromites of Guadalupe, rich in lands and beeves, pre- 
 sented calves, lambs fattened on bread, and delicate 
 fruits; and the bishops of Segovia, Mondofiedo, and 
 Salamanca were careful to put in similar evidence 
 that they had not forgotten the giver of their mitres. 
 Occasionally, the donors of these dainties appear to have 
 nourished a hope of being recompensed with the loaves 
 and fishes of court patronage and favour. A few leagues 
 north of the convent, at the Alpine town of Bejar, was 
 a noble castle of the chief family of Zuiiiga, created dukes 
 of the place by Isabella the Catholic, a family known 
 afterwards both in arts and arms, and immortalized by 
 the dedication of Don Quixote. The mules sent to 
 Yuste by the duchess were in due time followed by the 
 
 Quixada to Francisco de Eraso. 6th Oct. 1557. 
 
100 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 lady's chaplain, charged with a request that the emperor 
 would graciously assist the family in obtaining a boon 
 for which they had long been soliciting the crown, the 
 restoration of the older dukedom of Plasencia. Charles 
 answered his fair suitor somewhat bluntly, that he con- 
 sidered the claim unfounded, and that he would burden 
 his conscience with no such matter. 
 
 Towards the end of September, the queens of France 
 and Hungary were expected in the Vera on a visit to 
 their brother. The castle of Xarandilla was placed at 
 their disposal by Oropesa, and prepared for their recep- 
 tion under the superintendence of Quixada and Van 
 Male. The queens set out from Valladolid on the 
 eighteenth of September, accompanied by their niece, 
 the regent, who was going to her pious retreat at Abrojo ; 
 and travelling by easy stages, they reached Xarandilla in 
 ten days. On the twenty-eighth they came to Yuste, 
 attended by the bishop of Plasencia, and saw the 
 emperor for about an hour. During their stay of ten 
 or eleven weeks in the Vera, queen Eleanor, being in 
 very feeble health, and easily fatigued, even by the 
 motion of her litter, was able to visit Yuste only three 
 times. On one of these occasions, she and her sister 
 came over in the morning to Quacos, and having dined 
 there, spent some hours at the convent, and returned 
 to the village to sleep. Quixada was somewhat scan- 
 dalized at this arrangement, and proposed an attempt 
 to lodge the royal ladies for one night at Yuste; but 
 Charles would not hear of it, nor would he even offer 
 them a dinner. The queen of Hungary was still robust 
 enough for the saddle; she delighted in the exercise of 
 her limbs and tongue ; and she was therefore frequently 
 on horseback, riding through the fading forest to her 
 brother's inhospitable gate. 
 
 The queens had not yet determined where to esta- 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. l6l 
 
 blish their permanent abode, and wislied to be guided 
 b}^ the emperor's advice. They had at one time thought 
 of Plasencia, but upon this he put his decided negative. 
 They next cast their eyes upon Guadalaxara, in Castille; 
 the crown having a great extent of land in and around 
 that town, the rights and privileges of which the king 
 was willing to make over to them for their lives. The 
 town boasting of no mansion suitable to their rank 
 but the palace of the duke of Infantado, they apphed 
 for the use of that truly noble pile. But the duke, 
 who had never been very cordial with the Austrian 
 royal family, excused giving up his house on the plea 
 of ill-health ; and in spite of the regent's representations 
 that as it had been given to the grand cardinal Men- 
 doza by Isabella the CathoHc, it was scarcely polite to 
 refuse to lend it for a time to her grand-daughters, he 
 continued to urge this plea in a number of letters, 
 equally courtly, copious, and tiresome. At the close of 
 the year, Quixada, writing to his friend the secretary 
 Eraso, hinted to that functionary that as the queens 
 still thought of residing at Guadalaxara, it would be 
 well for him to place at their disposition a grange which 
 he possessed in the neighbourhood, where they might 
 amuse themselves in fishing or in the chase. Both of 
 the royal widows, however, died before it was settled 
 where they were to live. 
 
 Their chief business at Yuste, at this time, was the 
 long-talked-of meeting between queen Eleanor and the 
 infanta of Portugal. To see this daughter once more, 
 was the sole wish of the poor mother's heart. The 
 daughter, on the other hand, seemed hardly less anxious 
 to avoid the interview. Long after the king of Por- 
 tugal had given his consent, and even after his death, 
 she continued to raise up obstacles in the way, in 
 which she was countenanced by her imcle, the cardinal 
 
 M 
 
162 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vii. 
 
 Henry. Father Francis Borja used his influence in vain. 
 The Spanish ambassador at Lisbon, Don Sancho de 
 Cordova, who met the queens at Xarandilla and Yuste, 
 gave so unfavourable an account of her intentions, that 
 Eleanor began to despair altogether of reahzing her 
 long cherished hope. The emperor, at her request, 
 himself wrote to his niece, urging compliance with her 
 mother^s very reasonable wishes ; and, after many delays 
 and a sham illness, the reluctant damsel consented. Pre- 
 parations were immediately set on foot for receiving her 
 at Badajoz with due honour, and sixteen nobles and 
 prelates were chosen to wait upon her at the frontier. 
 Among them were the duke of Escalona, the count of 
 Oropesa, the grand commander of Alcantsira, and the 
 bishops of Coria and Salamanca. 
 
 Many of the difficulties for which the infanta was 
 made responsible, no doubt, really arose from the ill- 
 feeling which at this time prevailed between the courts 
 of Lisbon and Valladolid. While these negotiations 
 were pending, a Portuguese courier was arrested on sus- 
 picion of being a French spy, and on his person was 
 found an autograph letter from the king of France, in 
 which the queen-regent was informed of the state of 
 the war in the Netherlands, and entreated to lend her 
 assistance against Spain. This letter was forwarded to 
 Yuste by secretary Vazquez, with a remark that it was 
 better to trust even Frenchmen than some Portuguese. 
 The emperor, on the other hand, told Quixada that he 
 thought the letter might have been written for the 
 purpose of being intercepted, and of exciting suspicion 
 and discord, and that the boasting of a Frenchman 
 ought never to be taken seriously. But he clearly in- 
 dicated his own feelings of the ill-will entertained at 
 Lisbon towards his son^s government, in conveying to 
 Vazquez the official information which he had received 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 103 
 
 from thence of a revolt in Peru, and the death of the 
 viceroy, the marquis of Cafiete. 'Although I well 
 know,' he wrote, ' that the court of Portugal would not 
 have sent me this news, had it been true, I should 
 wish to ascertain the ground whereon such a rumour 
 rests/' 
 
 The queens took leave of the emperor on the four- 
 teenth of December, and the next day set out for 
 Badajoz. Their departure was a great relief to Luis 
 Quixada, who had to attend to their comforts at Xaran- 
 dilla, in addition to his daily task of governing the 
 emperor's Flemings, and keeping on good terms with 
 his friars. The supplies required by their numerous 
 retinue had also produced a sort of famine in the Vera, 
 and had raised the price of mutton to a real, or two- 
 pence-halfpenny, a pound. The licentiate Murga, of 
 Quacos, was entrusted with the arrangements on the 
 road, and the queens were everywhere received with public 
 attention and respect. At Truxillo the authorities 
 wished to give a public festival in their honour, which, 
 however, the royal ladies graciously declined ; and resting 
 on the feast of St. Thomas, at Merida, they arrived on 
 Christmas-eve at Badajoz, where Don Luis de Avila was 
 waiting to receive them. 
 
 They were fortunate in the weather, which was clear 
 and calm, except on the day which they spent in the 
 X)ld Boman city. But, on the day after they left 
 Xarandilla, a terrible hurricane visited that part of the 
 Vera. At Yuste, two of the emperor's chimneys were 
 blown down, and one took fire ; and many of his cedars 
 and citrons measured their length upon the discomfited 
 parterres. Two houses fell at Xarandilla, and another 
 was overthrown at Quacos. 
 
 ' Emperor to Vazquez, 22nd Sept. 1557. Gonzalez MS, 
 
 M 
 
 •7 
 
164 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vir. 
 
 Father Borja had been selected by the princess-regent 
 for a special and secret mission to Lisbon in the autumn, 
 on the delicate subject of the regency of Portugal. He 
 received her summons at Simancas, where he had founded 
 a small Jesuits' house, and whither he loved to escape 
 from the distractions of the court, to unstinted penance 
 and prayer. The sun of September was scorching the 
 naked plains of the Duero, and the good Jesuit was in 
 feeble health. Nevertheless, he immediately obeyed 
 the regent's mandate, and repaired to Yuste, by her 
 direction, to hold counsel with the emperor ;^ after which, 
 scorning repose in the cool woodlands, he at once took 
 the road to Portugal across the charred wastes of Estre- 
 madura. This haste and the heat together, threw him 
 into a fever, of which he nearly died in the town of 
 Evora ; and when once more able to resume his journey, 
 he was nearly drowned in a squall in crossing the Tagus 
 to Lisbon. The queen Catherine, the cardinal Henry, 
 and the infanta Mary, all vied with each other in nursing 
 him; but he did not succeed in the objects of his mission, 
 for he obtained no promise of the regency for the 
 Spanish princess; nor could he even prevail upon the 
 Portuguese infanta to perform the very simple duty of 
 setting out to meet her widowed mother. He was again 
 at Yuste about the twentieth of December. The 
 emperor paid him the unusual compliment of lodging 
 him in the palace, and even entered into the prepara- 
 tion which Luis Quixada was making for his reception. 
 
 1 Ribadeneira : Vida de P. P. Borja, fol. 105. Gonzalez is inclined 
 to doubt the fact ; yet his MS, contains a letter (30th August, 1557) 
 from the princess to the emperor, in which she announces her intention 
 of sending Borja to Lisbon ; and one from Gaztelu to Vazquez (28th 
 December, 1557), which proves that he had been there. As it is ex- 
 tremely probable that the Jesuit would have been instructed to see the 
 emperor on his way to Portugal, and as there are several gaps in the 
 correspondence in September, I am inclined to suppose that some letters 
 may have been lost, and I have therefore followed Ribadeneira. 
 
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 165 
 
 The mayordomo having hung the walls of his chamber 
 with tapestry, the emperor, judging that it would rather 
 offend than please the Jesuit, ordered it to be taken 
 down, and its place to be supplied with some black 
 cloth of which he despoiled his own ante-room/ 
 
 Borja remained at the convent for some days, and of 
 course had frequent interviews with the emperor. It 
 was probably now that Charles returned to him a number 
 of letters, written at his request by the Jesuit, on the 
 politics and pohticians of the court of Valladolid. ' You 
 may be sure,^ said he, on restoring them, ' that no one 
 but myself has seen them.^ The confidence thus reposed 
 by the shrewdest of princes in Borja^s judgment and 
 observation, shows how keenly the things of earth may 
 be scanned by eyes which seem wholly fixed upon 
 heaven.^ 
 
 The emperor likewise told his friend of a dispute, 
 between two nobles, which had been referred to him for 
 decision, and on which he desired to have his opinion, as 
 he probably knew the rights of the case. The matter 
 in dispute was the title to certain lands ; and the parties 
 were Borja^s son, Charles duke of Gandia, and Don 
 Alonso de Cardona, admiral of Aragon. Thus appealed 
 to, the father behaved with that stoical indiflPerence to 
 the voice of blood, which, while it shocked some of his 
 lay admirers, never fails to command tbe loud applause 
 of his reverend biographers. ' I know not,' he said, 
 ' whose cause is the just one, but I pray your majesty 
 not only not to allow the admiral to be wronged, but to 
 show him all the favour compatible with equity.' When 
 the emperor expressed some not unnatural surprise, the 
 
 ' Nieremberg: Vida de Borja, p. 136. This story is somewhat doubt- 
 ful, not because it is in itself improbable, but because, if true, it would 
 have been probably mentioned in the letters of Quixada to Vazquez. 
 
 * Sandoval, ii. p. 833. 
 
166 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vir. 
 
 Cato of the company explained the singular tone of his 
 request, somewhat lamely as it seems,, by saying that 
 perhaps the admiral needed the disputed property more 
 than the duke did, and that it was good to assist the 
 necessitous.^ 
 
 During his stay at Yuste, Borja was treated with 
 marked distinction. Not only had his host arranged 
 the upholstery of his chamber, but he also sent him 
 each day the most approved dish from his well-supplied 
 board. When duty once more required the father to 
 take his staff in his hand, he carried with him two 
 hundred ducats for alms, which Quixada had been 
 directed by the emperor to force upon his acceptance. 
 ' It is a small sum,' said the chamberlain, ^ but in com- 
 parison with my lord's present revenues, it is perhaps 
 the largest bounty he ever bestowed at one time.'^ 
 
 * Niereniberg : Vida de Borja, p. 155. 
 ' Ribadeneira : Vida de Borja, p. 99. 
 
155S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 167 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELEANOR. 
 
 THE year 1558 did not open auspiciously at Yuste. 
 The emperor continued to be troubled with flying 
 gout : he complained of itching and tingUng in his legs, 
 from the knees downwards; and he was sometimes seized 
 with fits of vomiting. On the seventh of January he 
 was unable to leave his bed, or to see the admiral of 
 Aragon, who had come to state certain grievances which 
 he had against the master of Montesa, and who was 
 therefore dismissed to spend a few days in the pilgrimage 
 to Guadalupe. The season itself was unhealthy, and so 
 many members of the household were ill that Gaztelu 
 proposed to reinforce the medical staff with another 
 doctor, one Juan Muiioz, a good physician and surgeon, 
 who had been sent by the regent to attend upon her 
 father at Laredo. 
 
 On the night of the eighth of January, the palace 
 was broken into, and a sum of eight hundred ducats, 
 set apart for charitable uses, stolen from a box in the 
 emperor's wardrobe. The licentiate Murga was imme- 
 diately set to discover the robbers, but his perquisitions 
 attained no satisfactory end. It was evident that the 
 household was not free from blame, but the emperoi* 
 would not permit the persons suspected to be subjected 
 to the torture, the usual mode of compelling evidence in 
 those days, 'fearing,^ said Gaztelu, mysteriously, 'that 
 certain things might come out which had better remain 
 
1G8 CLOISTER LIFE OF' [chap. viii. 
 
 concealed/^ The culprits were never detected, nor was 
 the cash recovered. It is somewhat remarkable that a 
 few weeks afterwards the emperor divided two thousand 
 ducats, as a largesse, among his attendants, each re- 
 ceiving a sum proportioned according to the amount of 
 his salary. 
 
 While plagued by the depredations of thieves, the 
 emperor was also teased by the contentions of thief- 
 takers. The corregidor of Plasencia came over to 
 Quacos and arrested one Villa, an alguazil under Murga, 
 on pretence that he had exceeded his powers by exer- 
 cising his office within the city jurisdiction, which, as 
 the Plasencian affirmed, extended to the limits of the 
 village. Charles was much displeased, and caused a 
 complaint to be lodged at Valladolid, the result of which 
 was that the corregidor was suspended from his func- 
 tions, and the jurisdiction of Quacos enlarged by a fresh 
 official act. The offender, however, was forgiven, and 
 reinstated in a few weeks. 
 
 On the tenth of January, the emperor, though still in 
 bed, gave audience to Don Juan de Acuna, who had 
 recently come from Flanders; and the same day a 
 rumour was brought by the count of Oropesa, that the 
 duke of Alba had lately arrived at Bruxelles, and proposed 
 resigning the viceroyalty of Naples, and the command 
 of the army in Italy. At this rumour Charles displayed 
 more displeasure than Quixada thought good for his 
 health ; and he refused to listen to the despatches from 
 court relating to the Italian affairs until some days after 
 they had arrived. When at last he permitted them to 
 be read, and heard the secret articles of the treaty with 
 
 1 ' Pues no se permite a Murga que ponga d, question de tormento a los 
 que se sospecha que podrian tener culpa, en lo que han pasado cosas que 
 es mejor callarlas.' Gaztelu to Vazquez, 17th January, 1558. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 169 
 
 the pope, he only remarked that the reserved conditions 
 were as bad as those which had been made pubhc. 
 
 Disgraceful as the treaty was, the anger felt by the 
 emperor may perhaps have arisen partly because the 
 negotiations had been conducted without his knowledge 
 or consent. Philip's love of temporizing was notorious ; 
 ' Time and I against two/* was his favourite adage ; and 
 he often bought time at the price of golden opportunity. 
 When the victory of St. Quentin had compelled the 
 recal of Guise, Rome was so completely in the power 
 of Alba, that there was no visible motive for hastening 
 the pope's dehverance. Had the king wished to consult 
 his father, an armistice of a few weeks would have given 
 sufficient time for communication between Bruxelles 
 and Yuste. It is therefore most probable that PhiUp, 
 making, for reasons which he did not wish to explain, 
 a peace which he felt the emperor must disapprove, 
 purposely withheld from him any knowledge of the 
 treaty until it was actually signed and sealed. It is 
 certain that great and unaccountable delay took place 
 in laying before him some of the subsequent transactions 
 in Italy. Thus, although a rumour of Alba's departure 
 had reached Yuste on the tenth of January, it was not 
 until the twenty-seventh, that a letter, addressed to the 
 emperor by Alba himself, and dated so far back as the 
 twenty-third of September, 1557, reached Yuste by the 
 hands of Luis de Avila. This letter announced that 
 peace had been concluded, and described the state of 
 matters at Home; and further said that as the king's 
 affairs were now in a prosperous condition, the duke 
 intended soon to avail himself of his majesty's promise 
 that his term of service in Italy should be short, and to 
 embark for Lombardy ; after which he trusted ere long 
 
 Tiempo y yo para otros dos.' 
 
170 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 to kiss the emperor^s hand, and ask for -some repose 
 from his fatigues of twenty-five years. To this letter 
 Charles deigned no answer, nor did he make any remark 
 upon it, but refused to hsten to its details of public 
 affairs, with which he said he was already acquainted. 
 
 Alba was at this time already in the Netherlands. 
 He was soon followed thither by cardinal Caraffa, the 
 nephew to whom Paul the Fourth entrusted the duty 
 of driving a bargain with the king of Spain about the 
 money or territory with which the pontifical family 
 were to be bribed over to keep the peace,^ — a negotia- 
 tion which the greedy churchman prolonged until far 
 into the spring. Philip received the duke with all de- 
 monstrations of favour and gratitude, and was about to 
 appoint him to an important post in Spain. A turn in 
 the tide of events, however, induced him to alter this 
 resolution, and to keep him about his own person in the 
 capacity of president of the council of war. 
 
 The emperor, on the other hand, remained unrecon- 
 ciled to the shameful peace with the Caraffas, nor did 
 he ever forgive Alba his share in the transaction. The 
 duke was anxious to ascertain his opinion of his conduct 
 in remaining at court, and to obtain permission to visit 
 him at Yuste; and Gaztelu was therefore privately desired 
 by Vazquez to note whatever fell from him on these 
 topics. But Charles would neither express his opinion, 
 nor record the permission required, showing a disposi- 
 tion, when bis anger had cooled, rather to avoid the 
 subject than to forgive the duke. Only two months 
 before his death, hearing that Philip had presented Alba 
 with one hundred and fifty thousand ducats, he re- 
 marked that the king of Spain did more for the duke 
 
 A. Andrea : Guerra de Roma, &c , p. 315. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. J 71 
 
 of Alba thaB» the duke of Alba had ever done for the 
 king of Spain. 
 
 But, on the whole, the emperor's displeasure, though 
 very mortifying, was rather creditable to the duke. In 
 his conduct towards the pope. Alba had exactly fulfilled 
 his sovereign's commands, though he never approved of 
 his policy. To kiss the toe of Paul, in the name of his 
 master, he felt like an act of personal dishonour; and he 
 said, even in the pontiff's presence-chamber, to some of 
 the Itahan leaders, 'Were I king of Spain, cardinal 
 Caraffa should have gone to Bruxelles and done on his 
 knees, what I have done this day to the pope." The 
 shameful homage paid, the pontiff loaded him with 
 honours and caresses ; he invited him to dinner ; and he 
 offered to make over to him all the church patronage of 
 the holy see on his estates in Spain. But this offer 
 Alba declined, saying that the concession and the ac- 
 ceptance of such a boon would be hable to suspicion, 
 which it was better to avoid. ^ Had the emperor known 
 of this noble act of self-denial, and of the reluctance 
 with which his old comrade in arms had signed the 
 treaty, he would surely have regarded him with different 
 feelings ; and, as it would have been easy for Alba to 
 bring these facts under his notice, it is fair to conclude 
 that he bore the undeserved blame from a sense of 
 chivalrous honour to the king whom he served. 
 
 For the chagrin suffered by the emperor in Italian 
 pohtics, little compensation was afforded by the state of 
 things in the north. The victory of St. Quentin, signal 
 as it was, and important as it ought to have been, had 
 but a shght and transitory effect upon the fortune of 
 
 ' A. de Castro : Los Protestantes Espanoles, i. p. 131. 
 ' J. A. de Vera : Vida del duque de Alva, p. 73. See also chap. iii. 
 p. 68. 
 
172 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 the war. The timid and procrastinating policy of PhiHp 
 the Second had already let slip the opportunities afforded 
 by that battle, as his blind bigotry afterwards doomed 
 to death the gallant Egmont^ whose prowess had car- 
 ried the day. The French king had been allowed not 
 only to rally his forces, but once more to cross the 
 frontiers of Flanders. The duke of Nevers retook Ham: 
 Genlis put twelve hundred Spaniards to the sword at 
 Chaulny. Guise, burning to wipe away his disgraces 
 in the Abruzzi and the Roman plains, suddenly appeared 
 before Calais on the first night of the new year. Trust- 
 ing to the strength of the fortifications, and to the sur- 
 rounding marshes, which made the place almost an 
 island in winter, the English government had for some 
 years past, in a spirit of fatal economy, withdrawn great 
 part of the garrison at that season. The only approaches 
 by land were guarded by the forts of Risbank and 
 Newnham-bridge. These Guise attacked at night, and 
 was master of in the morning. The roar of his artillery 
 was heard at Dover ; but a storm dispersed the squadron 
 which put out with relief. After some days of desultory 
 and desperate fighting, lord Wentworth struck his flag ; 
 the English troops filed off under a guard of Scottish 
 archers; and the key of France, which, two centuries 
 before had resisted, for eleven months, Edward the 
 Third, fresh from Cressy, was restored in one week to the 
 house of Valois. The honour of having first conceived 
 and planned the enterprise belonged to the admiral 
 Coligny, still a prisoner of war in the hands of the duke 
 of Savoy. But Guise had nobly retrieved his laurels ; 
 and it would have been sufficient for his military glory, 
 had he been victor only in his two sieges — the most 
 remarkable of the age — the heroic defence of Metz, and 
 the dashing capture of Calais. France was in an uproar 
 of exultation ; St. Quentin was forgotten ; and loud and 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 173 
 
 long were the paeans of the Parisian wits, ' replenished 
 with scoffs and unmeasured terms against the English/ 
 who, in falling victims to a daring stratagem, gave, as it 
 seemed to these poetasters, a signal proof of the imme- 
 morial ' perfidy^ of Albion.^ 
 
 The news of the loss of Calais reached Valladolid at 
 the end of January, and Yuste on the second of Fe- 
 bruary. In both places they were received with little 
 less sorrow and alarm that they had caused in London. 
 In the exploit of Guise the emperor lamented not only 
 a loss and an affront suffered by the nation of which 
 his son was king, but an important accession to the 
 strength of the most formidable neighbour of the Spanish 
 Netherlands. The word Calais, which Mary Tudor 
 dolefully declared to be written on her heart, was also 
 ever on the tongue of her kinsman Charles. For days 
 he spoke of nothing else, recurring perpetually to the 
 sore subject, and saying that now there was nothing but 
 the castle of Ghent between the French and Bruxelles. 
 To his secretary Gaztelu he confessed that he had never 
 in his life received so painful a blow ; and he wrote in 
 the most urgent terms to the princess- regent, telling her 
 that every nerve must now be strained to raise money 
 to repair the loss, and reinforce the king^s army. The 
 chamberlain shared his master^s feelings; and in his letter 
 on the occasion to Vazquez, severely criticised the Cas- 
 tillian leaders for their remissness, and prophesied that 
 Gravelines, Nieuport, and Dunkirk, would likewise soon 
 faU into the hands of the enemy. 
 
 As a slight consolation for the loss of Calais, came a 
 promise of a new heir to the kingdom in the shape of a 
 report of the pregnancy of the queen, — a pregnancy in 
 which, however, few people believed except poor Mary her- 
 
 Hollinshed : Chronicles, 6 vols. 4to. London : 1808, iv. 93. 
 
174 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 self, and which was in truth nothing more than the crisis 
 of the dropsy, which in a few months gave her crown 
 to EHzabeth, released her people from the hateful yoke of 
 Philip, and enabled the mind of England once more to 
 march on the noble path of civil and rehgious freedom. 
 
 In this gloomy time of disaster, the emperor continued 
 to suffer from gout, which sometimes so completely dis- 
 abled his fingers, that instead of signing the necessary 
 despatches, he was obliged to seal them with a small 
 private signet. In spite of his eider-down robes and 
 quilts, he lay in bed shivering, and complaining of cold 
 in his bones. His appetite was beginning to fail him, 
 but his repasts, though diminished in quantity, were 
 still of a quality to perplex the doctor, consisting prin- 
 cipally of the rich fish which he would not forego 
 and could not digest. His favourite beverage at this 
 time was vino bastardo, a sweet wine made from raisins, 
 and brought from Seville, and long popular in England.^ 
 When he got a little better, he ate, in spite of all re- 
 monstrances, some raw oysters, a rash act upon which 
 Quixada remarked despairingly to the secretary of state, 
 ' Surely kings imagine that their stomachs are not made 
 like other men^s.' 
 
 Meanwhile the queens of France and Hungary effected 
 their meeting with their daughter and niece, the infanta 
 Mary of Portugal. Early in January, that princess 
 arrived at Elvas in great state, attended by a gallant 
 following of the Portuguese nobility. After some points 
 of etiquette had been argued and adjusted, she crossed 
 the plains of the Guadiana, and having been received in 
 due form by a party of Spanish nobles at the border 
 rivulet of Caya, she finally reached the longing arms of 
 
 ^ Prince Hal (Henry IV. Act ii. sc. 4), remarks, ' why then your 
 brown bastard is your only drink.' 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 175 
 
 her mother. Don Antonio Puertocarrero was sent down 
 from VallatloUd to offer her the congratulations of the 
 princess-regent, to which were added those of the 
 emperor, the emperor having hkewise received as he 
 passed, credentials at Yuste. At Badajoz the infanta 
 remained for twenty days, during which time her mother 
 and aunt exhausted all their arguments and caresses in 
 the attempt to induce her to settle in Spain. Queen 
 Eleanor gave her jewels to the value of fifty thousand 
 ducats, and queen Mary added a quantity of rich dresses 
 and household plenishing. But her heart was sealed 
 against the land of which she had hoped to be queen, 
 and against the nearest and tenderest ties of her Spanish 
 blood. She therefore remained inflexible in her determi- 
 nation to return to Portugal, and bade an eternal farewell 
 to her weeping mother with no visible marks of concern. 
 During her stay at Badajoz, however, she was careful to 
 fulfil the laws of etiquette to the letter, and accordingly 
 despatched Don Emanuel de Melo to present her com- 
 pliments to the regent and the emperor. Her am- 
 bassador travelled with unusual magnificence, and with 
 his cavalcade of fifty horsemen excited great stir in 
 Quacos and at Yuste. 
 
 On the eleventh of February the queens set out from 
 Badajoz, and the emperor sent Gaztelu down to Truxillo 
 to meet them on the road. But they had accomplished 
 only three leagues of their journey, when Eleanor, who 
 had been suffering at Badajoz with her usual asthma, and 
 a slight attack of fever, was taken seriously ill at Talave- 
 rilla, a small ague-stricken town on a melancholy plain. 
 Dr. Cornelio, who was in attendance, had the worst 
 opinion of her case. Intelligence of her danger was 
 immediately sent off to the infanta, who was still on the 
 frontier of Portugal, but who, nevertheless, refused to set 
 foot again in Spain. A courier was Hkewise despatched 
 
176 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. vm. 
 
 to Yuste^ whence Quixada was ordered instantly to ride 
 post to Talaverilla. Gaztelu, who had probably met the 
 courier on the road, as he was going to Truxillo, arrived 
 first, on the morning of the eighteenth of February. He 
 found the queen sitting in her chair, panting for breath, 
 and suffering much pain ; but in full possession of her 
 faculties, and listening with eager interest to some busi- 
 ness of her daughter's. At six in the evening, however, 
 he was hastily sent for to take leave of her ; her strength 
 was then utterly exhausted, and she was lying in a state 
 of stupor; the bishop of Palencia standing at her side 
 in his robes, ready to administer the last solemn rite 
 of the church. On hearing the secretary announced, 
 she roused herself for a moment, and said, ^ Tell my 
 brother, the emperor, that he must take care of my 
 daughter, the infanta.^ With her last thoughts thus fixed 
 upon the thankless child who had been the idol of her 
 life, she sank again into unconsciousness; and within 
 an hour, her loving heart had ceased to beat ; and the 
 long account of her gentle deeds, her womanly self- 
 sacrifices, and her meekly-borne sorrows, was closed for 
 ever. Luis de Avila, who stood by her dying bed, truly 
 described her ' as the gentlest and most guileless crea- 
 ture he had ever known, and as one who left no better 
 being in the world.' Quixada galloped into the town 
 just in time to see her before she expired, and imme- 
 diately, in a few simple lines of honest emotion, com- 
 municated the event to his master at Yuste. 
 
 The remains of the queen were deposited at Merida, 
 and afterwards gathered to those of her kindred at the 
 Escorial. Her desire was that the interment should be 
 simple and private, and the money which more sumptuous 
 obsequies would have cost should be given to the poor. 
 Under her will, her undutiful daughter became her 
 universal legatee, and inherited a vast quantity of plate, 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 177 
 
 jewels, and tapestry, sundry large suras due to the queen 
 by the crowns of France and Spain, and various lord- 
 ships in Castille and Languedoc ; a heritage which, with 
 her patrimonial portion and her towns of Viseu and 
 Torres Vedras, made her one of the greatest matches in 
 Europe.^ On the death of his English queen, Philip the 
 prudent once more turned his thoughts to his forsaken 
 love, and for a brief moment the Portuguese infanta was 
 again destined for the Spanish throne. A successful rival, 
 however, again intervened in the shape of peace with 
 France, and a young, lovely, and well-dowered daughter 
 of Valois. Fate had marked Mary of Avis for single 
 blessedness ; and in spite of all the attempts made on her 
 behalf, she died unmarried, a fact which Portuguese his- 
 torians patriotically ascribe to her unwillingness to de- 
 prive Portugal of her splendid dowry. Her grand-nephew, 
 Don Sebastian, became heir to the residue of her fortune 
 which remained after the completion of her splendid mau- 
 soleum, in the chapel of Our Lady of Light, and of the 
 nunneries and other religious edifices, which her lavish 
 piety had founded in all parts of the kingdom.^ 
 
 Queen Mary mourned for her sister with the mourn- 
 ing of true sorrow and affection. Tenderly attached to 
 each other, they had been for ten years inseparable 
 companions. Notwithstanding her desire to see her 
 daughter, Eleanor had refused to leave the Netherlands 
 until Mary was also free to seek for repose in Spain f 
 and Mary had made the care of Eleanor's dechning 
 health the chief occupation of her retirement. After 
 the funeral rites were over, when Gaztelu and Quixada 
 were setting out to Yuste, the queen of Hungary, in 
 
 ^ Dam. de Goes : CJironica do Rei D. Emanuel, iv. fol. 84. 
 • Pedro de Mariz : JHalogos de vai-ia historia, sm. 8vo. Lisbon 1594* 
 fol. 205. 
 
 ■ Papiers de Granvelle, iv. p. 477. 
 
 N 
 
] 78 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 giving them a parting audience, was so overcome with 
 grief, that her messages to her brother were drowned 
 in sobs and tears. The emperor, on receiving the news, 
 hkewise wept bitterly, and displayed an emotion which 
 he rarely felt, or, at least, rarely permitted to be 
 seen. For Eleanor, although her happiness never stood 
 in the way of his policy, had ever been his favourite 
 sister. ' There were but fifteen months,^ he said, 
 ' between us in age, and in less than that time I 
 shall be with her once more,' — a prophecy which was 
 exactly fulfilled. The shock increased the violence of 
 his disorders, and his strength was so much pros* 
 trated, that Gaztelu did not venture to tell him the 
 intelligence which had just come, that Oran was again 
 menaced by a Turkish fleet. Nevertheless the invalid 
 gave his orders about mourning for the household, and 
 about the masses to be said for the deceased in the con- 
 vent church. For many days he lay in bed, sometimes 
 tossing restlessly, sometimes unable to move for pain, 
 eating very little and sleeping still less. It was not tiU 
 the end of the month that he showed any symptoms of 
 amendment, or was able to sit up ; or to taste a dried 
 herring from Burgos with a head of garlic ; or to receive 
 visitors. Luis de Avila was one of the first inquirers 
 who presented himself; and the emperor was much the 
 better for seeing him. From the death-bed scene at 
 TalaveriUa, their conversation passed to war and politics, 
 when the emperor, recurring to the loss of Calais, said 
 that he regretted it like death itself. 
 
 The queen of Hungary arrived on the third of March, 
 and on this occasion was lodged for some nights in the 
 convent. When she visited her brother next morning, he 
 was much affected on seeing Mary enter his room alone ; 
 and he afterwards said to Quixada, that until then he 
 had not felt the reality of queen Eleanor's death. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 179 
 
 Observing the effect she had produced, queen Mary 
 avoided it in future by going attended either by the 
 chamberlain, or by Avila, or by the bishop of Palencia. 
 The course of their genuine natural sorrow was inter- 
 rupted by the official semblance of woe in the shape of 
 Don Hernando de Roxas, sent from Valladolid to con- 
 dole with the court of Lisbon, and of Don Bernardino de 
 Tavora, on a similar mission from Lisbon to the courts 
 of Valladohd and Yuste. The emperor gave audiences 
 to both of these envoys, and found that the Portuguese 
 brought, on the part of his queen, not only a string of 
 decent and consolatory truisms, but some very uncom- 
 fortable intelligence of a Turkish descent on the African 
 possessions of the house of Avis, and of the accession to 
 power of a new sultan of Fez, who was Hkely to be 
 troublesome both to Spain and Portugal.^ 
 
 Queen Mary moved in a few days from Yuste to her 
 old abode at Xarandilla. On the fifteenth of March 
 she came to take leave of the emperor and found him 
 again in bed, and suffering much pain from an ulcerated 
 finger. It was the last time that they met in this 
 world. She passed the night at Quacos, and set off 
 next day at noon for Valladolid, preceded by Luis 
 Quixada, who had started at dawn to provide for the 
 evening's repose. Some months afterwards she sent 
 some illuminated choir books to the monks of Yuste, as 
 an offering to their church and a memorial of her visit 
 to the convent. For Mary shared her brother's tastes, 
 and was both a collector and a lover of works of art. 
 Evidence of her feeling on these matters is preserved in 
 the letter relating to a portrait of her nephew Philip, 
 painted by Titian, and lent by her to Philip's longing 
 bride, Mary of England, in which she displays the greatest 
 
 \ Menezes : Chronica, p. 75. 
 N 2 
 
180 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 solicitude not only that the picture should be safely and 
 speedily returned, but that it should also be seen at a 
 due distance, and in an advantageous light/ 
 
 Quixada attended the queen not solely for her con- 
 venience, but partly to communicate to the princess- 
 regent some confidential instructions from the emperor, 
 and partly that he might now superintend the removal 
 of his own household from Villagarcia to Quacos. He 
 arrived at court at noon on the nineteenth, and imme- 
 diately saw the regent. His business was to explain the 
 emperor's views as to the best means of raising money, 
 the great end of all Spanish government, and to per- 
 suade the princess to consult queen Mary in all state 
 affairs of importance, and especially on topics connected 
 with Flanders, which she had ruled so long and so 
 wisely. With whatever deference Juana may have 
 received her father's financial advice, she showed no 
 deference whatever to his second proposal. She was 
 desirous to resign the government to her brother, but 
 she would on no account share it with her aunt. 
 She would not even permit Quixada to mention the 
 emperor's wish to the council of state. She was wilhng 
 that Mary's treasurer should be heard occasionally 
 before the council; but as he was a Frenchman, and 
 therefore not entirely to be trusted, even this concession 
 must be cautiously used. But as to allowing the queen 
 herself a voice as a matter of right, that, she said, she 
 could never agree to ; for Mary's temper was well known 
 to be so imperious that were she permitted to meddle at 
 all, she would soon make herself mistress of the whole 
 state. Besides, when she herself was appointed regent, 
 no such interference with her power was proposed or 
 even contemplated; and in short, if the point were 
 
 ^ Papiers d'etat de Granvelk; iv. p. 150. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 181 
 
 insisted on, she would resign the government.^ The 
 point was not insisted on, and queen Mary fixed her 
 residence at Cigales, a hamlet near which there was a 
 small royal seat, about two leagues from the capital, 
 crowning a vine-clad height on the western side of the 
 vale of the Pisuerga. 
 
 The emperor's scheme of finance seems to have been 
 submitted by the princess to the council, for a memorial 
 was immediately prepared by that body on the subject, 
 and forwarded for approval to Yuste. This document 
 suggested, as a means of raising funds, an increase in 
 the price of salt, the sale of certain lands belonging to 
 the military orders, the sale of certain honorary offices 
 and of patents of nobility [hidalguias)^ and the sale of 
 acts or patents conferring legitimacy on the children of 
 the clergy. 
 
 The inquiry into the Seville bullion case continued to 
 drag its slow length along, with results which were 
 submitted at intervals to the emperor. Some of the 
 merchants, accused of being averse to the seizure of their 
 property, having informed on each other, he advised that 
 free pardon should be offered to all shipmasters and 
 sailors who should give evidence leading to further dis- 
 coveries. Nothing worthy of note was elicited, but the 
 facts that there was hardly a trader in Seville who was 
 not guilty of conceahng his gold and silver ; and that 
 so great was the distrust of the royal mint, that some of 
 the importers made quoits {tejuelos) of those precious 
 metals, hoping that, in that humble disguise, they might 
 escape the vigilance of the royal searchers. 
 
 A proof of the straits to which the treasury was re- 
 duced is found in a fresh skirmish which took place 
 
 ' Quixada to emp., 19th of March, and princess to emp., 22nd of 
 March, 1558. Gonzalez MS. 
 
182 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 between the self-willed grand inquisitor^ Valdes, and 
 the court. Some months before the emperor had 
 written to the princess that so soon as the body of his 
 mother^ the late queen Juana, should be considered 
 sufficiently dry, it was to be transferred with proper 
 state from Tordesillas to Granada, and there laid beside 
 her husband, Philip the handsome, in the magnificent 
 tomb of white marble, wrought by the delicate chisel of 
 Vigarny, in the chapel-royal of the cathedral. Towards 
 the end of March, the weather being favourable, and 
 the royal corpse being pronounced ripe for removal, 
 the marquess of Comares and the grand-inquisitor were 
 ordered to hold themselves in readiness to escort it on 
 the journey. But the prelate excused himself, on the 
 plea that he must attend to the business of the holy 
 office, and to the souls of the Moriscos of Valladolid. 
 The princess, on the other hand, not only refused to 
 admit this excuse, but said that it was an excellent 
 opportunity for him to visit his diocese, from which he 
 had been long absent, and she therefore ordered him to 
 proceed on the journey, and return by way of Seville. 
 With this new order the archbishop flatly refused to 
 comply, alleging that since a certain decree of the 
 council of Trent, which had greatly extended the powers 
 of chapters, he had been waging such a war with his 
 canons that it was utterly impossible for him to honour 
 them with his presence. The infanta, finding him thus 
 stubborn, referred the matter to the council, which at 
 once decided against the recusant. Still the archbishop 
 held out, setting forth the hardship of his case in letters, 
 each of which was more cool, plausible, and copious 
 than the one before it ; and at last, hinting that if he 
 were left to choose his own time, he would go down to 
 Granada, and find means of levying on the Moriscos 
 there a fine of one hundred thousand ducats for the 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 188 
 
 royal service. The bait took, and the insolent old 
 churchman was left to pursue, undisturbed, his present 
 course of cruelty and exaction at Valladolid ; and another 
 holy man was appointed to pray beside the crazy queen's 
 coffin as it journeyed to the tomb. 
 
 Under a course of sarsaparilla and an infusion of 
 liquorice the emperor's health improved as the genial 
 spring weather came on. But his attack of gout had 
 shaken him considerably, and for many weeks painful 
 twinges were apt to revisit his arms and knees. Nor 
 was he so fit for exercise as he had been during the 
 previous year; and his gun ceased to persecute the 
 wood-pigeons in the walnut-trees. But he was still 
 able to sit or saunter among his new parterres, bright 
 and fragrant with vernal flowers, and to superintend the 
 progress of his fountain and summer-house, which were 
 ready in summer to shed their coolness and offer their 
 shade. To his family of pets the queen of Portugal 
 added in April a pair of very small Indian cats, and a 
 parrot, gifted with wonderful faculties of speech, which 
 soon became the favourite of the palace. 
 
 The emperor's punctual attendance, whenever his 
 health permitted, on religious rites in church, and his 
 fondness for finding occasion for extraordinary functions 
 there, won him golden opinions among the friars. On 
 each first of May, during his stay at the convent, he 
 caused funeral honours to be celebrated for his empress 
 with great pomp, and a liberal allowance of tapers. 
 When he himself had completed a year of residence, 
 some good-humom^ed bantering passed between him and 
 the master of the novices, about its being now time for 
 him to make profession : and he afterwards declared, as 
 the friars averred, that he was prevented from taking 
 the vows, and becoming one of themselves, only by the 
 state of his health. 
 
184 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 St. Blasts day, 1558, the anniversary of his arrival, 
 was held as a festival, and celebrated by masses, the Te 
 Deum, a procession, and a sermon by Yillalva. In the 
 afternoon, the emperor, who was unfortunately confined 
 to bed, and unable to appear,^ provided a sumptuous re- 
 past for the whole convent out of doors, it being the 
 custom of the fraternity to mark any accession to their 
 numbers by a pic-nic. The country people of the Vera 
 sent a quantity of partridges and kids to aid the feast, 
 which was also enlivened by the presence of many of the 
 Flemish retainers, male and female, from the village of 
 Quacos. The prior provided a more permanent memo- 
 rial of the day by opening a new book for the names of 
 brethren admitted to the convent, on the first leaf of 
 which the emperor inscribed his name, an autograph 
 which was the pride of the archives until they were de- 
 stroyed by the dragoons of Buonaparte. 
 
 On the first Sunday after he came to the convent, as 
 he went to mass, he observed the friar, who was sprinkling 
 the holy water, hesitate as he approached to be aspersed. 
 Taking the hyssop, therefore, from his hand, he bestowed 
 a plentiful shower upon his own face and clothes, saying, 
 as he returned the instrument, ' This, father, is the way 
 you must do it next time.^ Another friar ofibring the 
 pyx containing the holy wafer to his lips, in a similar 
 diffident manner, he took it into his hands, and not only 
 kissed it fervently, but applied it to his forehead and 
 eyes with true oriental reverence. 
 
 Feasting being his greatest pleasure, he considered 
 fasting at due times and seasons the first of human 
 duties; and during his last lent in Flanders, he had 
 specially charged the papal nuncio to grant licences for 
 the use of meat to no member of his household, except 
 
 ^ Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 39. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 185 
 
 the sick whose lives were in danger/ Although pro- 
 vided with an indulgence for eating before communion, 
 he never availed himself of it but when suffering from 
 extreme debility; and he always heard two masses on 
 the days when he partook of the solemn rite. 
 
 He usually heard mass from the window of his 
 bed-chamber, which looked into the church; but 
 at complines he went up into the choir with the 
 fathers, and prayed in a devout and audible voice in 
 his tribune. During the season of Lent, which came 
 round twice during his residence at Yuste, he regularly 
 appeared on Fridays in his place in the choir, and, at the 
 end of the appointed prayers, extinguishing the taper 
 which he, like the rest, held in his hand, he flogged him- 
 self with such sincerity of purpose that the scourge was 
 stained with blood, and the pious singularly edified. 
 Some of these ensanguined scourges, found in his 
 chamber after his death, became precious heir-looms in 
 the house of Austria, and honoured relics at the Es- 
 corial.^ Ever strict in requiring his Flemish servants 
 to assemble for confession on the stated days when 
 their countryman, the Flemish chaplain, came over from 
 Xarandilla,^ he was especially strict in causing them all, 
 down to the meanest scullion, to communicate on Ash 
 Wednesday; and on that occasion, he would stand on 
 the highest step of the altar, to observe if the muster 
 was complete. On Holy Thursday, his infirmities did 
 not permit him to perform the royal rite of washing 
 the feet of thirteen poor men; but it was performed 
 
 ' Relatione of Badovaro. See chap, iii., p. 62, note. 
 * They were seen and handled there in the next century by Caspar 
 Scioppiug, as he relates in his caustic book against Strada : Infamia 
 Famiani, 12mo. Amsterd. : 1663, p. 18. He adds that, being still 
 stained with the blood of Charles, they could have ' given little pain to 
 the backs' of the Philips, his descendants, p. 19. 
 =» Chap, v., p. 107. 
 
18G CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 in his presence by his chaplain, and was followed by the 
 usual distribution of food and alms/ 
 
 On Good Friday, he went forth at the head of 
 his household to adore the holy cross; and, although 
 he was so infirm that he was almost carried by the 
 men on whom he leaned, he insisted upon prostrating 
 himself three times upon the ground, in the manner of 
 the friars, before he approached the blessed symbol with 
 his lips. 
 
 The feast of St. Matthias, a saint whose name he 
 bore, he always celebrated with peculiar devotion as a 
 day of great things in his life, being the day of his 
 birth, his coronation, the victories of Bicocca and Pavia, 
 and the birth of his son Don John of Austria. On 
 this festival, therefore, he appeared at mass in a dress 
 of ceremony, and wearing the collar of the Golden fleece, 
 and at the ofl"ertory expressed his gratitude by an obla- 
 tion of as many crowns as his life numbered years. 
 The church was thronged with strangers, and the crowd 
 from distant villages was so great, that a second office 
 and sermon took place outside, beneath the shadow of 
 the great walnut-tree of Yuste. The concourse was 
 attracted by a plenary indulgence granted on that day 
 by special papal decree, and enjoyed by the convent 
 untd the privilege was transferred with the emperor's 
 bones to the Escorial.^ 
 
 The emperor lived with the friars on terms of friendly 
 familiarity, of which they were very proud, and his 
 household somewhat ashamed. He always insisted on 
 his confessor being seated in his presence, and would 
 never listen to the entreaties of the modest divine, that 
 he should at least be allowed to stand when the cham- 
 
 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Heti^aite, p. 39. 
 ' Ibid. 
 
155S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 187 
 
 berlain or any one else came into the room. ' Have no 
 care of this matter, Fray Juan/ he would say, ' since 
 you are my father in confession, and I am equally pleased 
 by your sitting in my presence, and by your blushing 
 when caught in the act/ He knew all the friars by 
 sight and by name, and frequently conversed with them, 
 as well as with the prior; and he received their pre- 
 sents of fruit with a courtesy as punctilious as the 
 gifts of a prelate or a duchess. When the visitors 
 of the order paid their triennial visit of inspection 
 to Yuste, they represented to him with all respect, 
 that his majesty himself was the only inmate of the 
 convent with whom they had any faidt to find; and 
 they entreated him to discontinue the benefactions 
 which he was in the habit of bestowing on the fraternity, 
 and which it was against their rule for Jeromites to 
 receive. One of his favourites was the lay-brother, 
 Alonso Mudarra, who, after having filled offices of trust 
 in the state, was now working out his own salvation as 
 cook to the convent. This worthy had an only daughter, 
 who did not share her father's contempt for mundane 
 things. When she came with her husband to visit him 
 at Yuste, emerging from among the pots in his dirtiest 
 apron, he thus addressed her: 'Daughter, behold my 
 gala apparel ; obedience is now my pleasure and my 
 pride ; for you, with your silks and vanities, I entertain 
 a profound pity !' So saying, he returned to his cook- 
 ing, and would never see her again, an effort of holiness 
 to which he appears to owe his place in the chronicles 
 of the order. 
 
 Once the emperor honoured the friars with his com- 
 pany at dinner in their refectory. It was on the sixth 
 of June, 1557, being St. Vincent's-day; and the illus- 
 trious guest was observed to be in particularly good 
 spirits. A table was laid for him apart, near a side- 
 
188 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 board, on wMcli Van Male, his sole attendant, carved 
 the meats as they came. The cookery of the austere 
 Fray Alonso did not seem to be to the taste of his im- 
 perial friend, who ate little, and left several of the 
 dishes untouched. The prior, expressing his regret 
 that the fare did not please, Charles assured him that 
 everything was excellent, and that he expected that 
 the untasted meats would be put aside for him for 
 another meal.^ 
 
 While the emperor's servants were surprised by his 
 familiarity with the stupid friars, the friars marvelled at 
 his forbearance with his careless servants. They noted 
 his patience with Adrian the cook, although it was 
 notorious that he left the cinnamon, which his master 
 loved, out of the dishes whereof it was the proper 
 seasoning : and how mildly he admonished Pelayo the 
 baker, who, getting drunk and neglecting his oven, sent 
 up burnt bread, which must have sorely tried the tooth- 
 less gums of the emperor. Nevertheless, the old military 
 habits of the recluse had not altogether forsaken him ; 
 and there were occasions in which he showed himself 
 something of a martinet in enforcing the discipline of 
 his household and the convent. Observing in his walks, 
 or from his window, that a certain basket daily went 
 and came between his garden and the garden of the 
 friars, he sent for Moron, minister of the horticultural 
 department, and caused him to institute a search, of 
 which the result was the harmless discovery that the 
 cepevorous Flemings were in the habit of bartering egg- 
 plants with the friars for double rations of onions. 
 The confessor Regla had gone one day, without ask- 
 ing leave, to borrow some books of a friend at Pla- 
 sencia. The emperor happening to call for him, and 
 
 ^ Balthuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 37. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. ISfil 
 
 learning his absence, immediately despatched a mounted 
 
 messenger in pursuit, to order him back. The order 
 
 reached the poor monk just as he alighted at his friend^s 
 
 door, after a ride of twenty-five miles ; but he thought 
 
 it prudent to obey it forthwith, and retrace his steps to 
 
 Yuste. ' I would have you know, Fray Juan,' said his 
 
 imperial charge, ' that it is my pleasure that you do 
 
 not stir from the convent without my consent/^ He 
 
 had also been disturbed by suspicious gatherings of 
 
 young women, who stood gossiping at the convent gate, 
 
 under pretence of receiving alms. At Yuste, the spirit 
 
 of misogyny was less stern than it had formerly been at 
 
 Mejorada, where the prior once assured queen Mary of 
 
 Castille that if she opened, as she proposed, a door from 
 
 her palace into the conventual choir, he and his monks 
 
 would fly from their polluted abode.^ In his secular life, 
 
 Charles was accused by one contemporary^ of following 
 
 the ways of pious times 'before polygamy was made a 
 
 sin,' and praised by another for being so severely virtuous 
 
 as to shut his window when he saw a pretty woman pass 
 
 along the street.'' Here, however, he was determined 
 
 that neither he himself, nor his servants, nor his Jero- 
 
 mite hosts should be led into temptation. His complaint 
 
 to the superior not sufficiently suppressing the evU, it 
 
 was repeated to the visitors when they came their 
 
 rounds. An order was then issued that the conventual 
 
 dole, instead of being divided at the door, should be 
 
 sent round in certain portions to the villages of the 
 
 Vera, for distribution on the spot. And although it was 
 
 well known that St. Jerome had sometimes miracu- 
 
 ^ M. Bakhuizen van den Brink : Retraite de Charles V., p. 31. 
 « Fr. Pedro de la Vega : Cronica de los frayles de Sant Eieronymo, fol. 
 Alcala : 1539 ; Hack letter, fol. xli. 
 
 •'' Badovaro. See chap, iii., p. 52, note. 
 ♦ Zenocarus : Vita Caroli V., p. 268. 
 
190 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. viii. 
 
 lously let loose the lion, which always figures in his 
 pictures, against the women who ventured themselves 
 within his cloisters,^ it was thought prudent to adopt 
 more sure and secular means for their exclusion. The 
 crier therefore went down the stragghng street of 
 Quacos, making the ungallant proclamation that any 
 woman who should be found nearer to the convent of 
 Yuste than a certain oratory, about two gunshots from 
 the gate, was to be punished with a hundred lashes. 
 
 On the third of May, 1558, the emperor received an 
 intimation from the secretary of state that all the forms 
 of his renunciation of the imperial crown had been gone 
 through, and that the act against which Philip and the 
 court had so frequently remonstrated, was now com- 
 plete. He expressed the greatest dehght at this inteUi- 
 gence, and sending for his chaplain, gave orders that his 
 name should henceforth be omitted from the mass and 
 other prayers, and the name of his brother Ferdinand 
 used in its place. In notifying the fact to his attendants, 
 he said, ' The name of Charles is now enough for me, 
 who henceforward am nothing.^ ^ In his next com- 
 munication with Valladolid, he instructed Gaztelu to inti- 
 mate that in future he was to be addressed, not as em- 
 peror, but as a private person, and that a couple of seals, 
 ' without crown, eagle, fleece, or other device,^ were to be 
 made and forthwith sent for his use. In this letter the usual 
 heading ' the emperor,^ was left out, and it was addressed 
 to Juan Vazquez de Molina, not as before, ' my secre- 
 trary,' but ' secretary of the council of the king, my son.^ 
 The blank seals were made and sent ; but, in spite of 
 Charles's injunctions, the princess-regent and all his 
 other correspondents continued to address him by his 
 ancient style and title of ^ sacred Csesarean CathoHc 
 
 ' P. de la Vega : Cronica, fol. xH. 
 2 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Eetraite, p. 43. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 191 
 
 majesty/ which indeed it would have been no less diffi- 
 cult than absurd to change. Once he made a practical 
 protest against being any longer considered as a royal 
 personage. The women of Quacos having sent him a 
 nosegay of fine pinks, the offering was conveyed in a 
 basket which the maker had adorned with an imperial 
 crown of wicker-work and flowers. This decoration he 
 ordered to be taken away, before he would receive the 
 pinks. 
 
1 92 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE INQUISITION, ITS ALLIES AND ITS VICTIMS. 
 
 THE year 1558 is memorable in the history of Spain. 
 In that year was decided the question whether she 
 was to join the intellectual movement of the north, or lag 
 behind in the old paths of mediseval faith; whether she 
 was to be guided by the printing-press, or to hold fast by 
 her manuscript missals. It was in that year that she felt 
 the first distinct shock of the great moral earthquake, 
 out of which had already come Luther and Protest- 
 antism, out of which were to come the Thirty years^ war, 
 the English commonwealth, French revolutions, and mo- 
 dern republics. The efifect was visible and palpable, yet 
 transient as the efi'ect produced by the great Lisbon 
 earthquake on the distant waters of Lochlomond. But 
 to the powers that were it was sufficiently alarming. 
 For some weeks a church-in-danger panic pervaded the 
 court at Valladolid and the cloister of Yuste ; and it 
 was feared that while the most catholic king was bring- 
 ing back his realm of England to the true fold, Castillo 
 herself might go astray into the howling wilderness of 
 heresy and schism. 
 
 The harvest of church abuses into which Luther and 
 his band thrust their sharp sickles in Germany had long 
 been rank and rife to the south of the Pyrenees. Nor 
 were reapers, strong, active, and earnest, wanting to the 
 field. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, not 
 only laymen, but even friars, priests, and dignitaries of 
 the church, had stood forth with voice and pen to make 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 193 
 
 solemn protest against the vices of the various orders of 
 the priesthood; against the greedy avarice and disso- 
 lute lives of monks; against the regular clergy, who 
 preferred their hawks and hounds to their cures of 
 souls; against oppressive prelates and chapters, who 
 Hved in open concubinage, and heaped preferment upon 
 their bastards; and even against Rome itself, where 
 all these iniquities were practised on an imperial scale, 
 and whence Europe was irrigated with ecclesiastical 
 pollution. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and 
 during the infamous papacy of Alexander the Sixth, 
 the disorders of the Franciscan mendicants had reached 
 such a pitch of public scandal in Spain, that those of them 
 who adhered to the party which was called cloisteral, 
 in opposition to the reformed party of the observants, 
 were suppressed by law, and actually expelled from their 
 monasteries. But although this just and necessary 
 measure was enforced by the strong hand of Ximenes, 
 then provincial of the order and afterwards cardinal-pri- 
 mate, the cowled vagabonds who, refusing to purge and 
 live cleanly, were driven from Toledo, had the audacity 
 to file out of the Yisagra gate in long procession, 
 headed by a crucifix, and chanting the psalm which 
 celebrates the exodus of the people of God from the 
 bondage of Egypt.^ Abundant proof of the demorahzed 
 state of the Spanish clergy, regular and secular, may be 
 found in those collections of obscene songs and poems, 
 stilt preserved as curiosities in hbraries, and com- 
 posed chiefly in the cloister, in an age when none 
 but churchmen wrote, and few but churchmen read.^ 
 
 ^ Psalm cxiii. (in our version cxiv.) : 'In exitu Israel de Fgypto/ &c. 
 See Eugenio de Robles : Vida del cardenal D. Frcm. Ximenes de Cisiveros, 
 4to. Toledo : 1604, p. 68, and Alvar. Gomez ; De rebus gestis a F, 
 Ximcnio Cisnerio : 4to. Compluti : 1569, fol. 7- 
 
 2 See the curious essay on this subject, by Don Imis de Usoz y Rio, 
 prefixed to the Cancionero de obras de bui'las, 4to. Valencia : 1519; re- 
 printed sm. 8vo. London : 1841. 
 
 O 
 
194 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 Similar evidence, perhaps still more convincing, exists 
 in the proverbial philosophy of Spain, that old and 
 popular record in which each generation noted its expe- 
 rience, where clerical cant, greed, falsehood, gluttony, 
 and uncleanness are so frequently lashed, as to leave 
 no doubt of the wisdom of the precept which said, 
 'Parson, friar, and Jew, friends like these eschew/' 
 
 These evils were so monstrous and so crying, that 
 those who denounced them enjoyed for awhile the 
 support of popular feeling, and even the good will of the 
 secular power. But while all good men, both lay and 
 ecclesiastic, deplored and even denounced the wickedness 
 of churchmen, there is no reason to believe that they 
 were shaken in their faith in the infallible church. 
 They abhorred the hireling shepherd, not only because 
 he was hateful in himself, but because they loved the 
 true fold, of which he was the danger and the disgrace. 
 Even the Inquisition was no enemy to reform, and 
 although its chief business was to keep the Jew and 
 the Moor under the yoke of enforced Christianity, it 
 occasionally took cognizance of the grosser cases of 
 clerical profligacy. Under the rule of Adrian of Utrecht, 
 afterwards pope, and of cardinal Manrique, the holy 
 office issued some decrees against the heresy of Luther 
 and against the importation of heretical books into 
 Spain. But the off'enders condemned under these laws 
 were few, and principally foreigners ; and the fires were 
 usually kindled for victims who were supposed to pray 
 with their faces turned to the east, to deal in astrology, 
 and witchcraft, to keep the Sabbath, to circumcise their 
 children, to hate the christian sound of bells, or to use 
 the heathen luxury of the bath. 
 
 It was not until near the middle of the century that the 
 
 ' 'Clerigo, frayle, 6 Judio, no lo tengas por amigo.' A de Castro ; Los 
 Protestantes Uspanoles : p. 39. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. l95 
 
 seed cast by the wayside took root in the stony ground of 
 Castille. Then it was that Spanish pens began to be 
 busy with translations of the Scriptures. That such 
 translations were as yet not forbidden, may be in- 
 ferred from the fact that the first work of the kind, 
 the Castillian new testament of Enzinas, printed at 
 Antwerp in 1543, was dedicated to the emperor 
 Charles the Fifth. In spite, however, of this judicious 
 choice of a patron, the poor author very shortly found 
 himself in prison at Bruxelles, as a heretical perverter 
 of the text. Notwithstanding his ill-fortune, several 
 versions of the psalms and other sacred books, and 
 a new testament in verse, were put forth from the 
 presses of Antwerp and Venice. Commentaries, glosses, 
 dialogues, and other treatises of questionable orthodoxy, 
 followed in rapid succession. Their circulation in Spain 
 became so extensive that the inquisition interfered with 
 fresh laws and increased severities. The stoppage of the 
 regular traffic only stimulated public curiosity, and the 
 forbidden tracts were soon smuggled in bales by the mule- 
 teers over the mountains from Huguenot Bearne, or run 
 in casks by English or Dutch traders, on the shores of 
 Andalusia. Somethmg like public opinion began to 
 gather and stir ; strange questions were raised in the 
 schools of Alcala and Salamanca; strange doctrines 
 were spoken from cathedral pulpits, and whispered in 
 monastic cloisters ; and high matters of faith, which had 
 been formerly left to the entire control of the clergy, 
 were handled by laymen, and even by ladies, at Seville 
 and ValladoHd. No longer contented with pointing out 
 the weather-stains and rents in the huge ecclesiastical 
 fabric, reformers began to pry with inconvenient curiosity 
 into the nature of its foundations. But no sooner had 
 the first stroke fallen upon that venerable accumu- 
 lation of ages than the chiefs of the black garrison 
 
 o2 
 
196 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 at once saw the full extent of their danger. To 
 them the rubbish on the surface being far more pro- 
 ductive, was at least as sacred as the eternal rock 
 beneath. Wisely therefore, postponing their private 
 differences to a fitter season of adjustment, they sallied 
 forth upon the foe, armed with all the power of the state 
 as well as with all the terror of the keys. The unhappy 
 inquirers, uncertain of their own aims and plans, were 
 not supported by any of those political chances and 
 necessities which aided the triumph of religious reform 
 in other lands. The battle was therefore short, the 
 carnage terrible, and the victory so signal and decisive, 
 that it remains to this day a source of shame or of pride 
 to the zealots of either party, who still love the sound of 
 the polemic trumpet. The protest ant must confess that 
 the new religion has never succeeded in eradicating the 
 old, even amongst the freest and boldest of the Teutonic 
 people. The catholic, on the other hand, may fairly 
 boast, that in the Iberian peninsula the seeds of reform 
 were crushed by Rome at once and for ever. 
 
 What the new tenets were can hardly be made clear 
 to us, since they were not clear to the unhappy persons 
 who were burned for holding them. Protestant divines 
 have assumed that these tenets were protestant, on 
 account of the savage vengeance with which they were 
 pursued by the church. In one feature these dead and 
 forgotten dogmas have some interest for the philosopher, 
 in the glimmering perception which appears in them, 
 that tolerance is a Christian duty; that honesty in 
 matters of behef, is of far greater moment than the 
 actual quality of the belief; and that speculative error 
 can never be corrected, or kept at bay, by civil punish- 
 ment. Yet none of the so-called Spanish protestants 
 have enunciated these sentiments so clearly as the 
 Benedictine Virues in his treatise against the opinions 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 197 
 
 of Luther and Melancthon.^ Had time been given for 
 the new spirit of inquiry to shape itself into some de- 
 finite form, it would doubtless have greatly modified the 
 character of Spanish religion; although it is scarcely 
 probable that it would have led the children of the 
 south, with their warm blood and tendency to sensuous 
 symbolism, into that track of severe and progressive 
 speculation, into which reform conducted the people of 
 the north. But inquiry demands time ; and the church 
 being too wise to trifle with so deadly a foe, it was 
 strangled in the cradle by the iron gripe of the inquisitor. 
 Fines, confiscation, the dungeon, the galleys, the rack, 
 and the fire, admonished men to believe without ques- 
 tioning : and engendered the popular feeling that learning 
 was indeed a dangerous thing, a feeling which early 
 embodied itself in the form of a proverb, often cast by 
 serene ignorance in the teeth of the toiling student, 
 'He is so learned that he runs the risk of turning 
 Lutheran.'^ 
 
 It would be curious to investigate the causes to which 
 this repressive policy owed its success; and to discover the 
 reasons why the Spaniard thus clung to a superstition 
 which the Hollander cast away ; why the strong giant 
 whose flag was on every sea, and whose foot was on every 
 shore, shrank to a pigmy in the field of theological specu- 
 lation. But the germs of a popular faith must be sought 
 for far and wide in the moral and physical circum- 
 stance of a people; and it lies beyond the scope of a 
 biographical fragment, to analyze the mixed blood of 
 the Spaniard, the moral atmosphere of his beautiful 
 land, and the texture of his national history. Suffice it, 
 
 ^ Quoted by A. de Castro : Los Protestantes Espanoles : p. 62. 
 
 * * Es tan docto que esta en peligro de ser Lutheranc' Cyprian Valera, 
 Exhartacion prefixed to his Castiilian Bible ; Amsterdam : 1602, and 
 quoted by A. de Castro ; Los Protesta/ntes Espanoles ; p. 84. 
 
198 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 therefore, to notice two points wherein the victorious 
 church possessed advantages in Spain, which were want- 
 ing to her in the countries where she was vanquished. 
 The first of these was the existence of a spiritual police 
 claiming unlimited jurisdiction over thought, long es- 
 tablished, well organized, well trained, untrammelled by 
 the forms of ordinary justice, and so habitually merci- 
 less, as to have accustomed the nation to see blood shed 
 like water on account of religious error. Before this 
 terrible machinery the recruits of reform, raw, wavering, 
 doubting, without any clear common principle or habits 
 of combination, were swept away like the Indians of 
 Mexico, before the cavalry and culverins of Cortes. 
 The second advantage of the Spanish church was her 
 intimate connexion with the national glory, and her 
 strong hold, if not on the affections, at least on the 
 antipathies of the people. The Moorish wars, which had 
 been brought to a close within the memory of men stiU 
 alive, had been eminently wars of religion and of race ; 
 they were domestic crusades, which had endured for 
 eight centuries, and in which the church had led the 
 van ; and in which the knights of Castille deemed it no 
 disloyalty to avow that they had been guided to victory 
 rather by the cross of Christ than by the castles and lions 
 of their beloved Isabella. Deeply significant of the spirit 
 of the enterprise and the age was the fact, that it was 
 the sacred cross of Toledo, the symbol of primacy borne 
 before the grand-cardinal Mendoza, which was solemnly 
 raised, in the sight of the Christian host, in the place 
 of the crescent, on the red towers of the Alhambra.^ 
 Since that proud day, the church, once more militant 
 under cardinal Ximenes, had carried the holy war into 
 
 ' Pedro de Salazar : Cronica de el gran Cardenal D. Pedro Gonzalez de 
 Mendoga, fol. Toledo : 1625, p. 256. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 199 
 
 Africa, and gained a footing in the land of Tarik and 
 the Saracen. All good Christians devoutly believed, with 
 the chronicler/ that ' powder burned against the infidel 
 was sweet incense to the Lord.' In Spain itself there 
 was still a large population of Moorish blood, which 
 made a garden of many a pleasant valley, and a fortress 
 of many a mountain range, and which, although Chris- 
 tian in name, was well known to be Moslem in heart 
 and secret practice, and to be anxiously looking to the 
 great Turk for deliverance from thraldom. Every city, 
 too, had its colony of Hebrews, wretches who accumu- 
 lated untold wealth, eschewed pork and holy water, and 
 ate the paschal lamb. Against these domestic dangers 
 the church kept watch and ward, doing, with the full 
 approval of the Christian people, all that cruelty and 
 bad faith could do to make Judaism and Islamism eternal 
 and implacable. When the Barbary pirates sacked a 
 village on the shores of Spain, or made a prize of a 
 Spanish galley at sea, it was the church who sent forth 
 those peaceful crusaders, the white-robed friars of the 
 order of Mercy, to redeem the captives from African 
 bondage. In Spain, therefore, heresy, or opposition to 
 the authority of the church, was connected in the popular 
 mind with all that was most shameful in their annals of 
 the past, and all that was most hated and feared in the 
 circumstances of the present, and in the prospects of the 
 future. In northern Europe, the church had no mar- 
 tial achievements to boast of, and few opportunities 
 of appearing in the beneficent character of a protector 
 or redeemer. She was known merely in her spiritual 
 capacity ; or as a power in the state no less proud and 
 oppressive than king or count; or as the channel through 
 
 ' Gonz. Fernandez de Oviedo : Quinauagenas ; quoted by Prescott ; 
 Hist, oj Ferdinand and laabella. 
 
200 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 which the national riches were drained off into the 
 papal treasury at Rome. In the north, the reformer 
 was not merely the denouncer of ecclesiastical abuses, 
 but the champion of the people's rights, and the re- 
 dresser of their wrongs. But in Spain, the poor enthu- 
 siast, to his horror, found himself associated in popular 
 esteem, as well as in the inquisition dungeons, with the 
 Jew, the crucifier of babies, and the Morisco, who plotted 
 to restore the caliphate of the west. Men's passions 
 became so inflamed against the new doctrines, that an 
 instance is recorded of a wretched fanatic, who asked 
 leave, which was joyfully granted, to light the pile 
 whereon his young daughters were to die. Long after 
 the excitement had passed away, a mark of the torrent 
 remained in the proverbial phrase, in which the aspect 
 of poverty was described as being ' ugly as the face of a 
 heretic/^ 
 
 The inquisitor general, archbishop Valdes, had for 
 some months past been watching the movement party 
 in the church with anxiety, not unmingled with alarm. 
 He had even applied to the pope for extended powers. 
 In February he received a brief, in which were renewed 
 and consolidated all the decrees ever issued by popes 
 or councils against heresy — a document in which Paul, 
 unable to resist the temptation of insulting Philip the 
 Second, even while he was treating with him, conferred 
 upon the inquisition the power of deposing from their 
 dignities heretics of whatever degree, were they bishops, 
 archbishops, or cardinals, dukes, kings, or emperors.^ 
 
 The first heretic of note who was arrested at Valla- 
 dolid, was Dr. Augustin CazaUa, an eminent divine who 
 
 ' A. de Castro : Hist, de los Protestantes Espanoles, pp. 218, 311. 
 * Llorente : Hist, de la Inquisicion, 8 vols. sm. 8vo. Barcelona : 1835, 
 iii. 264. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 201 
 
 had for ten years attended Charles the Fifth in Germany 
 and the Netherlands as his preacher, and in that capacity 
 had distinguished himself by the force and eloquence with 
 which he had denounced Luther and his errors. But 
 while he saved others, the doctor himself became a cast- 
 away. Having been for some time suspected of holding 
 the new opinions, he was arrested on the twenty-third 
 of April, as he was going to preach beyond the walls of 
 the city, and was lodged in the prison of the inquisition. 
 His sister, and several other noble ladies, were likewise 
 taken at the same time ; and orders were given to search 
 for an important member of the party, Fray Domingo 
 de Roxas, son of the marquess of Poza, a Dominican of 
 high reputation for sanctity. 
 
 Notice of these events was immediately sent to 
 Yuste. The emperor heard of them with much emotion. 
 — emotion not of pity for the probable fate of his chap- 
 lain, but of horror of the crime laid to his charge. He 
 soon afterwards addressed two letters to the princess- 
 regent, one a private and tender epistle, the other a public 
 despatch to be laid before the council. In both of them 
 he entreated her to lose no time and spare no pains to 
 uproot the dangerous doctrine; and in the second, he 
 advised that all who were found guilty should be punished, 
 without any exception ; and said that if the state of his 
 health permitted, he would himself undertake any toil for 
 the chastisement of so great a crime, and the remedy of 
 so great an evil. Talking of the same matter with the 
 prior of Yuste, he again expressed the same opinion 
 and the same wish. ' Father,^ said he, ' if anything 
 could drag me from this retreat, it would be to aid in 
 chastising these heretics. For such creatures as those 
 now in prison, however, this is not necessary, but I have 
 written to the inquisition to burn them all, for none of 
 
202 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 them will ever become true catholics, or are worthy to 
 live/^ 
 
 His advice was taken, though not with the prompti- 
 tude he desired. But the alguazils of the holy office knew 
 no repose from their labour of capturing the culprits. 
 In a few days Fray Domingo de Roxas was taken, with 
 several other members of the Roxas family, and several 
 noble ladies of the family of the marquess of Alcani9es, a 
 branch of the great house of Henriquez. New arrest- 
 ments, and new informations followed so fast upon each 
 other, that the inquisition was overwhelmed with busi- 
 ness, and its prisons filled to overflowing. The extra- 
 vagant alarm of the orthodox party was roused to fury 
 by the extravagant boasts of some of the arrested 
 preachers. ^ Let us alone,' cried Cazalla, ^ but for 
 four months, and we shall equal you in numbers.'^ 
 Eumours were rife of a rising among the Jews of 
 Murcia, and of a general emigration of the Moriscos 
 of Aragon towards the frontiers of France. The regent 
 and her minister were at their wits' ends at the dangers 
 which were thus thickening around them. 
 
 The crafty old inquisitor-general alone rejoiced in 
 the public panic and confusion. He was now secure 
 from all chance of being sent to attend a royal corpse 
 across the kingdom ; of being ordered into exile amongst 
 his refractory canons ; or of being fleeced of his savings 
 by the crown. So long as the faithful were menaced by 
 this flood of Lutheran heresy, so long would he be the 
 greatest man in the ark of safety — the church. He 
 therefore took his measures rather to direct than to lull 
 the storm. Visiting Salamanca, he made there a large 
 seizure of bibles and other heretical books, and convened 
 
 ^ Sandoval, ii. 829. 
 ' A. de Castro : Los Protestantes Es^afloUs, p. 312. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 203 
 
 a council of doctors, with whose assistance he drew up 
 a censure on the new doctrines, which he caused to be 
 pubhshed in all the cities of the kingdom. In order 
 the better to probe the seat of the disease, this zealous 
 minister of truth sent out a number of spies to mix 
 with the suspected Lutherans, under pretence of being 
 inquirers or converts, and thus to make themselves 
 acquainted with their numbers, principles, hopes, and 
 designs. Lured to destruction by these wretches, many- 
 persons of all ranks were arrested at Toro and Zamora, 
 Palencia and Logroilo. Seville was the great southern 
 seat of heresy, and in the neighbouring convent of St. 
 Isidro del Campo, the Jeromite friars almost to a man 
 were tainted with the new opinions. Valladolid, how- 
 ever, was the stronghold of the sect, and in spite of the 
 odour of sanctity which surrounded the pious regent, 
 the brimstone-savour of false doctrine offended the 
 orthodox nostril in the very precincts of the palace. 
 
 So engrossed was the emperor with the subject, that 
 he postponed to it for awhile all other affairs of state. 
 He urged the princess to remember that the welfare of 
 the kingdom and of the church of God was bound up in 
 the suppression of heresy, and that therefore it demanded 
 greater diligence and zeal than any temporal matter. 
 He had been informed that the false teachers had been 
 spreading their poison over the land for nearly a year ; a 
 length of time for which they could have eluded dis- 
 covery only through the aid or the connivance of a great 
 mass of the people. If it were possible, therefore, he 
 would have their crime treated in a short and summary 
 manner, like sedition or rebellion. The king his son 
 had executed sharp and speedy justice upon many 
 heretics, and even upon bishops in England ; how much 
 more, then, ought his measures to be swift and strong 
 in his own hereditary and catholic realms? He re- 
 
204 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 commended the princess to confer with Quixada, and 
 employ him in the business according as she judged 
 best. 
 
 To the king in Flanders he wrote in a similar strain, 
 insisting on the necessity of vigour and severity. And 
 as if the letter, penned by the secretary, were not suffi- 
 ciently forcible and distinct, he added this postscript in 
 his own hand : — 
 
 ' Son ; the black business which has risen here has 
 shocked me as much as you can think or suppose. 
 You will see what I have written about it to your sister. 
 It is essential that you write to her yourself, and that 
 you take all the means in your power to cut out the 
 root of the evil with rigour and rude handling. But 
 since you are better disposed, and will assist more 
 warmly, than I can say or wish, I will not enlarge 
 further thereon. Your good father Charles.^ ^ 
 
 After reading this letter and postscript, Philip wrote 
 on the margin this memorandum of a reply for the 
 guidance of his secretary : — 
 
 ' To kiss his hands for what he has already ordered 
 in this business, and to beg that he will carry it on, 
 and [assure him] that the same shall be done here, and 
 [that I will take care] to advise him of what has been 
 done up to the present time.'^ 
 
 At the end of May, Quixada, by the emperor's order, 
 saw the inquisitor-general, and urged on him the expe- 
 
 ' ' Hijo ; este negro negocio que aca se ha levantado, me tiene tan 
 escandalizado cuanto lo podeis pensai* y juzgar. Vos vereis lo que escribo 
 sobre ello a vuestra hermana. Es menester que escribais y que lo 
 procureis cortar de raiz y con mucho rigor y recio castigo. Y porque se 
 teneis mas voluntad y asistereis de mas hervor que yo lo sabria ni podra, 
 decir ni desear no me alargare mas en esto. De vuestro buen padre, 
 Carlos.'— Emperor to Philip the Second, 25th of May, 1558. Gonzalez 
 MS. 
 
 " Besalle los manos por lo que en esto ha mandado y suplicarle lo lleve 
 adelante, que de aca se hara lo mismo y avisarle de lo que se ha hecho 
 hasta agora. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. ^05 
 
 diency of despatch in his dealings with heretics, and of 
 even dispensing in their cases with the ordinary forms 
 of his tribunah But in this, as in everything else, 
 archbishop Valdes would take his own way and no 
 other. With his usual plausibility he assured the 
 chamberlain that the roots of the disease could not be 
 laid bare more thoroughly than by the ordinary opera- 
 tions of inquisitorial surgery. Besides, so many people 
 were crying out for quick and condign punishment to 
 fall upon the criminals, that there was every reason to 
 hope that the greater part of the nation still stood fast 
 in the faith. He had, however, sent for the bishop of 
 Tarazona and the inquisitor of Cuenca to assist him in 
 hearing cases, and would use every prudent method of 
 shortening the proceedings. 
 
 A few days later, on the second of June, the arch- 
 bishop himself wrote to the emperor, and submitted to 
 him various new measures which appeared to him likely 
 to be useful. First of all, he would extend the holy 
 office to Galicia, Biscay, and Asturias, provinces which 
 had not as yet benefited by its paternal care. He next 
 proposed to make confession and communion obligatory 
 upon all the king^s subjects, and to open a register of 
 such persons as habitually absented themselves from 
 those sacraments. A third suggestion was, that no 
 schoolmaster should be allowed to exercise his calling 
 until he had been licensed by a lay and a clerical ex- 
 aminer. And lastly, the book-trade was to be placed 
 under the severest restrictions. It was to be declared 
 unlawful to print any book without the author's and 
 printer's names, and without the permission of the holy 
 office, a permission which was also to be obtained be- 
 fore any book could be imported into the kingdom. 
 Foreigners were to be forbidden to sell books; and 
 Spanish books printed abroad were to be totally prohi- 
 
206 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 bited. Booksellers were to be compelled to hang up in 
 their shops lists of all the books which they kept for 
 sale. Lastly, informers were to be rewarded with the 
 third or fourth part of the property of such persons as 
 might be convicted through their means of breaches of 
 any of these laws. 
 
 Unwise, unjust, and impracticable as these measures 
 were, it does not appear that they were so considered by 
 the emperor, or that he withheld his approval from any 
 of their absurd provisions. The inquisitor-general there- 
 fore proceeded to enforce them. One of his first steps 
 was to prepare a catalogue of books prohibited by the 
 church, which was published at Valladolid in the follow- 
 ing year, and became the harbinger and model of the 
 famous expurgatory index, opened by Paul the Fourth, in 
 which the Vatican continues to record its protest against 
 the advancement of knowledge.^ Thus it came to pass 
 that Mariana and Solis, Cervantes and Calderon, were 
 forced to wait upon the pleasure and tremble at the 
 caprice of licenser after licenser ; that the beauty, the in- 
 tegrity, and even the existence of some of the finest works 
 of the human mind were so long jeoparded in the dirty 
 hands of stupid friars. There were ages in which the 
 church, as the sanctuary of art, and knowledge, and let- 
 ters, deserved the gratitude of the world ; but for the last 
 three centuries she has striven to cancel the debt, in the 
 noble ofi'spring of genius which she has strangled in the 
 birth, and in the vast fields of intellect which her dark 
 shadow has blighted. 
 
 For a time, at least, the vigilance exercised over book- 
 
 ' Cathalogus librorum qui prohibentur mandato illustriss. et reverendiss. 
 D. J). Femandi de Valdes Hispalen. archiepis. inquisitoris generalis 
 Hispanice necnon et supremi sanctce ac generalis inquidtionis senatus. 
 Hie anno Mdlix. editus Pincice, 4to. of 28 leaves, or 56 pages, including 
 title. It is extremely rare, and seems to have been unknown to Brundt. 
 A copy is in the possession of Don Pascual de Gayangos, at Madrid. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 207 
 
 shop and library was very strict. At Yuste, Dr. Mathys 
 had a small bible, in French and without notes, which, 
 in these times of doubt and danger, he feared might get 
 him into trouble. He therefore asked the secretary of 
 state to procure him a licence to retain and read the 
 volume. Vazquez replied that the inquisitors demurred 
 about granting this request; and the prudent doctor, 
 therefore, soon after intimated that he had burned the for- 
 bidden book in the presence of the emperor^s confessor. 
 
 The physician judged wisely. When court ladies and 
 Jeromite friars were attacked with the plague of heresy, 
 and carried off to the hospitals of the inquisition, who 
 could feel certain of escaping the epidemic, or the cure ? 
 The most catholic horror of the new doctrines was there- 
 fore professed at Yuste; and Gaztelu, reporting at the 
 beginning of June, that ceaseless rain had been falling 
 for nearly twenty days, remarked, that such weather 
 would do much damage in the country, but that the 
 errors of Luther would do far more. The emperor was 
 much distressed by a rumour that a son of father Borja 
 had been arrested at Seville. He immediately wrote to 
 the secretary of state to send him a statement of the 
 fact, and was relieved by learning that it was not known 
 at court. It turned out to be a fiction of the friars of 
 Yuste, who, thinking it hard that the fold of Jerome 
 alone should have the shame of harbouring wolves in 
 sheep^s clothing, were nothing loath to cast a stone at the 
 austerely orthodox and rapidly rising company of Jesus. 
 On discovering the story's source the emperor was not 
 greatly surprised; for, said Gaztelu, 'the friars and 
 Flemings are ever filling his ears with fables, and I 
 myself stink in their nostrils by reason of the many hes 
 I have brought home to them.^ 
 
 Another rumour, which was better founded, spoke of 
 the arrest of Pompeyo Leoni, one of the royal artists. 
 
208 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 Much annoyed, the emperor appHed to Vazquez for 
 information of the crime of ^ Pompeyo, son of Leoni, the 
 sculptor who made my bust and the king's, and brought 
 them with him to Spain in the fleet in which I myself 
 came hither/ The secretary answered that the sculptor 
 was in prison for maintaining certain Lutheran proposi- 
 tions j and that he was sentenced to appear at an auto- 
 de-fe, and afterwards suffer a year's imprisonment in a 
 monastery ; but that the busts were in safety. 
 
 At Seville, Fray Domingo de Guzman, also a new-made 
 prisoner, was likewise known to the emperor. Of him, 
 however, on hearing of his arrest, Charles merely re- 
 marked that he might have been locked up as much for 
 being an idiot as for being a heretic.^ A more illustrious 
 victim of the Andalusian holy office was Constantino 
 Ponce de la Fuente, magistral-canon of Seville, and 
 famous as a scholar, as a pulpit-orator, and as author of 
 several theological works much esteemed both in Italy 
 and Spain. He had attended the emperor in Germany 
 as his preacher and almoner, and one of his writings 
 was, at this time, on the imperial bookshelf at Yuste.^ 
 For him Charles entertained more respect, and upon 
 hearing that he had been committed to the castle of 
 Triana, observed, ' If Constantino be a heretic, he will 
 prove a great one. ' Like Cazalla, the canon, after 
 thundering against reform in the land of reform, had 
 returned to Spain a reformer. His immediate ' merits,' 
 for so the inquisition, with grim irony, called the acts 
 or opinions which quahfied a man for the stake, were 
 certain heretical treatises in his handwriting which had 
 been dug, with his other papers, out of a wall. 
 
 Notwithstanding the crowded state of the prisons, the 
 inquisition did not see fit to vary, during this year, the 
 
 ' Sandoval, ii. 829. « Chap. v. p. 111. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 209 
 
 monotony of the bull-fights by indulging the people 
 with an auto-de-fe. The emperor was therefore dead 
 before the unhappy clergymen, who had stood by his 
 bed in sickness and conversed with him at table in 
 health, were sent to expiate with their blood their 
 speculative offences against the church. Dr. Cazalla 
 was one of fourteen heretics who were ^ relaxed/ or, in 
 secular speech, burnt, in May, 1559, at Valladolid, be- 
 fore the regent and his court. Unhappily for his party 
 and for his own fair fame, the poor chaplain behaved, 
 with a pusillanimity very rare amongst Spaniards when 
 brought face to face with inevitable death, or amongst 
 men who suffer for conscience sake. Denying the crime 
 of ^ dogmatizing,^ as the inquisition well called preach- 
 ing, he confessed that he had held heretical opinions, 
 and abjectly abjured them all. His tears and cries, as 
 in his robe, painted with devils, he walked in the sad 
 procession and stood upon the fatal stage, moved the 
 contempt of his companions, amongst whom his brother 
 and sister had also come calmly to die. At the price 
 of this humiliation he obtained the grace of being 
 strangled before he was cast into the flames. A report 
 had spread amongst the populace that he had declared 
 that, if his penitence and sufferings should obtain him 
 salvation, he would appear the day after his death riding 
 through the city on a white horse. The inquisitors, 
 availing themselves of a rumour of which they perhaps 
 were authors, next day turned a white horse loose in the 
 streets, and caused it to be whispered that the steed was 
 indeed ridden by the departed doctor, although not in 
 such shape as to be visible to every carnal eye.^ Fray 
 Francisco de Roxas, amidst a band in which the shep- 
 herd and the muleteer were associated in suffering and 
 
 ' A. de Castro : Spanish Protestants, 
 P 
 
210 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 in glory with the noble knight and the delicate lady, 
 died bravely, in October 1559, at Valladolid, in the 
 presence of Phihp the Second. Fray Domingo de Guz- 
 man suffered at Seville in 1560, in that auto-de-fe in 
 which English Nicholas Burton also perished, and in 
 which Juana Bohorques, a yoiing mother who had been 
 racked to death a few weeks before, was solemnly de- 
 clared to have been innocent by her murderers them- 
 selves. Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, confessing to 
 the proscribed doctrines, but refusing to name his dis- 
 ciples, had been thrown into a dungeon, dark and 
 noisome as Jeremiah's pit, far below the level of the 
 Guadalquivir, where a dysentery soon delivered him 
 from chains and the hands of his tormentors. ^Yet 
 did not his body,' says a churchman, writing some ages 
 after, in the true spirit of orthodoxy, and with all the 
 bitterness of contemporary gall,^ 'for this escape the 
 avenging flames.' At this same auto-de-fe of 1560, 
 they burned the exhumed bones of Constantino, together 
 with his effigy, modelled with some care, and imitating, 
 with outstretched arms, the attitude in which he was 
 wont to charm the crowds that gathered beneath his 
 pulpit at Seville. 
 
 During the progress of the hunt after heretics Charles 
 frequently conversed with his confessor and the prior 
 on the subject which lay so near his heart. So keen 
 was his hatred of the very name of heresy, that he once 
 reproved Regla for citing, in his presence, in proof of 
 some indifferent topic, a passage from a book by one 
 Juan Fero, because that forgotten writer was then 
 known to have been no catholic.^ In looking back on 
 the early religious troubles of his reign, it was ever his 
 
 ^ Nicolas Antonio ; art., Constantino Ponce de la Fuente. 
 * Salazar de Mendoya : Dignidades de CaatUla, fol. Madrid : 1617, 
 fol. 161. 
 
165S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 211 
 
 regret that he did not put Luther to death when lie 
 had him in his power. He had spared him, he said, on 
 account of his pledged word, which, indeed, he would 
 have been bound to respect in any case which concerned 
 his own authority alone; but he now saw that he had 
 greatly erred in preferring the obligation of a promise 
 to the higher duty of avenging upon that archheretic his 
 offences against God. Had Luther been removed, he 
 conceived that the plague might have been stayed, but 
 now it seemed to rage with ever-increasing fury. He 
 had some consolation, however, in recollecting how 
 steadily he had refused to hear the points at issue 
 between the church and the schismatics argued in his 
 presence. At this price he had declined to purchase 
 the support of some of the protestant princes of the 
 empire, when he first took the field against the Saxon 
 and the Hessian : he had refused to buy aid at this 
 price, even when flying with only ten horsemen before 
 the army of duke Maurice. He knew the danger, 
 especially for the unlearned, of parleying with heretics 
 who had their quivers full of reasons so apt and so well 
 ordered. Suppose one of their specious arguments had 
 been planted in his soul, how did he know that he could 
 ever have got it rooted out ?^ Thus did a great man 
 misread the spirit of his time ; thus did he cling, to the 
 last, to the sophisms of blind guides who taught that 
 crass ignorance was saving faith, and that the delectable 
 mountains of spiritual perfection were to be climbed 
 only by those who would walk with stopped ears and 
 hoodwinked eyes. 
 
 In this year, cardinal Siliceo having gone to St. 
 Ildefonso's bosom, the vacant archiepiscopal throne of 
 Toledo became a mark for the intrigues of every ambi- 
 
 • Sandoval, ii. 829. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 tious cliurchman within the dominions of Spain. The 
 grand -inquisitor, busy as he was with his massacre of 
 the innocents, of course found time to urge his claim to 
 a seventh mitre. But his niggard responses to the 
 appeals of the needy crown were still remembered both 
 at Bruxelles and at Yuste; so for him promotion came 
 neither from the north nor from the west. 
 
 The golden prize was given to Fray Bartolome 
 Carranza de Miranda, a name which stands high on the 
 hst of the Wolseys of the world, of men remembered 
 less for the splendid heights to which they had chmbed 
 than for their sudden and signal fall. From a simple 
 Dominican monk, Carranza had risen to be a professor 
 at Valladolid, a leading doctor of Trent, prior of Palencia, 
 provincial of Spain, and prime -adviser of Philip the 
 Second in that short-lived return to popery which 
 Spanish churchmen loved to call the restoration of 
 England. In England the ruthless black friar had been 
 a mark for popular vengeance ; and Oxford, Cambridge, 
 and Lambeth long remembered how he had preached 
 the sacrifice of the mass, how he helped to dig up the 
 bones of Bucer, and how he had aided at the burning of 
 Cranmer. For these services his master had rewarded 
 him with the richest see in Christendom ; and he came 
 to Spain in the summer to take possession of his throne, 
 little dreaming that his implacable and indefatigable 
 rival, the inquisitor Valdes, was already preparing the 
 indictment which was to make his primatical reign a 
 long disgrace. 
 
 Carranza had been well known to the emperor, who 
 had given him his first step on the ladder of promotion 
 by sending him to displaj^his lore and his eloquence at 
 the council of Trent. There he acquitted himself so 
 well, that Charles ofifered him, first the Peruvian 
 bishopric of Cuzco, next the post of confessor to prince 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 213 
 
 Philip, and lastly the bishopric of the Canaries. His 
 refusal of all these dignities somewhat surprised his 
 patron; and this surprise became displeasure when he 
 learned that the refuser had accepted the mitre of 
 Toledo. William, one of the emperor's barbers, related 
 that he had heard his master say, 'When I offered 
 Carranza the Canaries he declined it; now he takes 
 Toledo. What are we to think of his virtue V These 
 feelings were doubtless fostered by his confessor, Regla, 
 who, as a Jeromite, naturally hated a Dominican, and 
 afterwards proved himself one of the bitterest enemies 
 of the persecuted prelate. The truth is, that Carranza, 
 though a priest, seems to have been an honest and un- 
 ambitious man ; he carried his reluctance so far beyond 
 the bounds of decent clerical coyness as to recommend 
 to the king three eminent rivals as better qualified than 
 himself for the primacy;^ and the great crosier was 
 thrust by Philip into his unwilling hand on the ground 
 that he was of all men best fitted to keep the wolf of 
 heresy from the door of the true fold. 
 
 The emperor had given away, in his time, too many 
 mitres to wonder long at the worldly-mindedness of a 
 churchman. Valdes, also, was too astute to attempt to 
 injure his rival merely by alleging against him a vice 
 inherent in their common cloth. He stabbed, there- 
 fore, at what was then the tenderest spot in any repu- 
 tation, priestly or laic_, by casting a suspicion on his 
 orthodoxy. Before the unconscious archbishop arrived 
 at court, the inquisitor secretly informed the regent 
 that many of the captive heretics had made very un- 
 pleasant confessions respecting the opinions of the new 
 primate; and that the king ought to be put on his 
 
 ^ Salazar de Miranda : Vida de Fr. Bart, de Carranza y Miranda, 
 12mo. Madrid: 1788, p. 34. 
 
214 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 guard against him; and he gave a ghmpse into the 
 ways of his tribunal^ by adding, that although nothing 
 substantial had yet been advanced, still, had as much 
 been said of any other person, that person would already 
 have been taken into custody. The infanta of course 
 forwarded this intelligence to Yuste, and the emperor 
 expressed a wish to hear more of the matter, desiring, 
 however, that it should be handled with the greatest 
 caution and reserve. 
 
 Carranza sailed from Flanders on the twenty-fourth 
 of June, but being detained by contrary winds on the 
 Enghsh shore, he did not land at Laredo until the 
 beginning of August. On the thirteenth of that month 
 he kissed the regent's hand at Valladolid, where he 
 resided for some weeks in great honour in the noble 
 convent of San Pablo, with his brethren of the order of 
 St. Dominick. Caressed and consulted both by the 
 princess and by the knot of priests who were plotting 
 his ruin, he took his seat several times in the council of 
 state, and also at the council-board of the inquisition. 
 To the latter tribunal he gave an account of his pro- 
 ceedings against heresy in Flanders, and against the 
 Spaniards who had fled thither from spiritual justice ; 
 and he assisted the inquisitor-general with advice upon 
 the new laws to be promulgated against the press. He 
 was, however, desirous of proceeding to his diocese, being 
 unwilling to break, at the outset of his episcopal career, 
 the rules which he had laid down in his tract, written 
 when he was a simple monk, on the residence of bishops, 
 a tract which gained him many enemies among the 
 hierarchy,^ and which must have been peculiarly dis- 
 tasteful to the absentee of Seville. It was determined. 
 
 ^ Noticia de la vida de Bart. Carranza de Miranda, par D. M. S., 8vo. 
 Madrid : 1845, p. 7. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 215 
 
 therefore, that he should visit Yuste, as he went to 
 Toledo, in order to lay before the emperor some evidence 
 on the quarrel between his eldest daughter Mary and 
 her husband, Maximilian, king of Bohemia, whom she 
 charged with inconstancy, and wished to be parted 
 from. This affair being referred to the decision of 
 Charles, he was desirous of having an account of it from 
 a prudent and impartial witness. 
 
 The war in Flanders had continued to smoulder on 
 during the spring with few actions worthy of record, and. 
 little loss or gain to either party. At the end of April 
 the French must have made a movement causing some 
 alarm at Bruxelles, for on the third of May a cabinet 
 courier, named Espinosa, was sent off by land to Spain, 
 with a cipher-despatch concealed in his stirrup-leathers. 
 Galloping across the enemy's country without let or 
 hindrance, he reached Valladolid on the tenth, and was 
 sent on by the princess to carry his news, and tell his 
 story at Yuste. The emperor gave him a long audience, 
 and overwhelmed him with questions about the king's 
 measures of defence, which appeared to the old soldier 
 to be better than usual. ' He asked,' wrote the secre- 
 tary, ^more questions than were ever put to the damsel 
 Theodora,'^ a Christian slave, whose beauty and various 
 erudition charmed a king of Tunis, in an old and popular 
 Spanish tale.' In a few weeks, however, the duke of 
 Guise marched upon the Moselle, and stormed the im- 
 portant and strongly fortified town of Thionville, putting 
 
 "• 'Le hizo,' said Gaztelu, ' mas preguntas que se pudieran hacer a la 
 donzella Theodor,* — Gaztelu to Vazquez, 18th of May, 1558. Gon- 
 zalez MS. 
 
 * The Historia de la donzella Theodora was a popular story, written, 
 no one seems to know when, by one Alfonso, an Aragonese. Antonio 
 assigns a date neither to the book nor the author. The earliest edition 
 cited by Brunet is that of 1607. The tale was afterwards dramatized 
 by Lope de Vega. Ticknor : Eist. of Span. Lit. ii. 312. 
 
2 1 6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 the greater part of the garrison to the sword, and ex- 
 pelKng the inhabitants in order to give their homes to a 
 colony of his old clients of Metz. This loss was severely 
 felt by the emperor, who continued to deplore it, until 
 he was comforted by the tidings of the victory at 
 Gravelines. 
 
 The marechal de Thermes, governor of Calais, wishing 
 to illustrate his new baton by some gallant service, had 
 undertaken a foray into the Spanish Netherlands. 
 Having carried fire and sword, rapine and rape, along 
 a considerable length of coast, he was at last met by 
 Egmont, near the town of Gravelines, on the banks of 
 the Aa. The battle, fought for several hours with 
 great obstinacy, was at last turned against the lilies by 
 the sudden appearance of an English sailor, who mingled 
 in the fray with all the efi*ect of Neptune in an Homeric 
 field. Cruising along the coast with twelve small 
 vessels, admiral Malin, hearing the firing, put into the 
 river, and galled the flank of the French with broadsides 
 so unexpected and severe, that they were soon in head- 
 long flight. Two hundred prisoners were reserved as 
 curious trophies by the English tars ; the greater part 
 of the army was cut off" in detail by the furious peasantry; 
 the marechal and his chief officers fell into the hands of 
 Egmont; and the battle, which was the last event of 
 any importance in the war, had a considerable influence 
 in bringing about the peace of Cateau-Cambresis in the 
 following winter. But the emperor had, as usual, to 
 lament the opportunities wasted by his son; and often 
 observed, that now was the time to have invested Calais 
 when the enemy was disheartened, the garrison weakened, 
 and the governor taken. Luis Quixada entertained the 
 same idea, which, however, does not appear to have 
 struck any of the leaders in Flanders. The chamberlain 
 was especially delighted to hear of the capture of 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 217 
 
 ^Monsieur de Villebon, one of the marechal's lieutenants. 
 ' I knew him very well/ he wrote to Vazquez, ' when he 
 served under the duke of Vendome in Picardy; and 
 when we were at Hesdin, he was quartered in a town 
 only two or three leagues off, so that we frequently cor- 
 responded by letters. I should have taken him myself 
 one day, had a spy given me intelligence two hours 
 sooner. He is a man quite able to pay a ransom of 
 twelve or fifteen thousand crowns.^^ 
 
 Meanwhile, the dreaded navy of Solyman was again 
 menacing the shores of Spain. Early in spring a cloud of 
 Turkish sail had been seen so far in the west that it was 
 thought necessary to victual and strengthen the garrison 
 of Goleta. On the fifth of May, Don Luis de Castelvi 
 came to Yuste to report on the aflPairs of Italy, and 
 brought with him such intelligence of a treaty which 
 was said to be then forming between France and the 
 pope, the Venetian and the Turk, that the emperor 
 ordered him to proceed at once to the king at Bruxelles. 
 A squadron of Algerine galleys soon afterwards gave 
 chase to a line of battle ship sent by the viceroy of 
 Sicily with further munitions to Goleta, and forced her 
 to put back and run for Sardinia. The Turkish navy 
 was known to be assembhng at Negropont, and it was at 
 one time supposed, though erroneously, that a French 
 ambassador was on board, for the purpose of directing a 
 descent on the dominions of Spain. The government 
 of Valladolid, therefore, congratulated itself on having 
 taken the advice of the emperor, and having sent eight 
 thousand men and four hundred lances to Oran, under the 
 count of Alcaudete. At Naples the new viceroy, Don 
 Juan Manrique de Lara, had hardly assumed the reins 
 of power, ere he was called on to defend that kingdom 
 
 ' Quixada to Vazquez, 17th August, 1558. 
 
218 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 against one of the most formidable fleets ever fitted out 
 by sultan Solyman. Early in June Reggio was sacked, 
 and towards the middle of the month, a hundred and 
 thirty Ottoman sail appeared in the Bay of Naples. 
 Sorrento was surprised and pillaged, and several 
 thousands of the inhabitants of that beautiful shore, 
 including the whole sisterhood of the nunnery of St. 
 George, were sent as prisoners to the Levant.^ Holding 
 a westerly course, Mustapha pacha was joined by a 
 French fleet, which had put out from Marseilles 
 to supply him with provisions ; and at the end of 
 June the crescent flag was flying proudly among the 
 islands of Spain. On hearing of this pressing danger, 
 the emperor, who looked on the infidel fleet as the 
 instrument of French vengeance and ambition, urged 
 upon the regent the importance of providing for the 
 defence of Ratas, a Catalonian fortress long coveted by 
 France. The Turk, however, had other designs, for, 
 after threatening Mallorca, and finding it too strong, 
 he steered for the smaller island of Menorca, and 
 cast anchor, with a hundred and forty sail, before the 
 town of Ciudadella. Landing fifteen thousand men 
 and twenty-four pieces of cannon, he battered the 
 place for seven days, and made several attempts to 
 storm it; but the obstinate valour of the Menorcans 
 would probably have baffled his efibrts, had it not 
 been for a fire, which, breaking out in the university, 
 blew up the magazine, and a great part of the town 
 wall. The besieged then made a gallant sally, with 
 their women, children, and wounded, hoping to cross 
 the island to Mahon, a feat which was actually accom- 
 plished, though not without severe loss. The disap- 
 pointed pacha sacked and pillaged the town, and having 
 
 1 Parrino ; Vicere di Napoli ; i. pp. 160, 161. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 219 
 
 collected his booty and a few prisoners, put to sea the 
 same night/ Taking a northerly course, he was sup- 
 posed to have gone to Marseilles to water and victual 
 his fleet. 
 
 Meanwhile, all precautions were taken to strengthen 
 the defences of the eastern coast. Twelve hundred men 
 were thrown into Perpignan, and Don Garcia de Toledo 
 was sent to take the command of that important frontier 
 post. The defence of the coast of Andalusia was en- 
 trusted to the count of Tendilla. The duke of Maqueda 
 was ordered to exercise the closest vigilance over the 
 Moriscos of Catalonia and Valencia, especially at Denia 
 and Alicante ; a force of five or six hundred men was 
 appointed to guard the sierras of Espadon and Bernia, 
 strongholds of the suspected race; and a few watch- 
 towers were repaired and entrenched for rallying posts, 
 strict orders being also issued to the commanders to 
 destroy them as soon as the danger was past, lest the 
 defences of the Christian should become offensive posi- 
 tions of the Moor. The emperor was much distressed 
 at the fall of Ciudadella. His anxiety made him forget 
 his ailments; and such was his eagerness for news, that 
 he gave orders that he was to be called at whatever hour 
 of the night a courier should arrive from the Mediter- 
 ranean. The alarm did not subside until the seven- 
 teenth of August, when tidings came from Catalonia 
 that the Ottoman flag had disappeared from that part 
 of the sea, and that Don Francisco de Cordova, son of 
 the governor of Oran, who had been hovering on the 
 pacha's wake with two galleys of the order of St. John, 
 reported that the fleet had at last steered for the Levant. 
 On the same day it was also announced at Yuste that 
 
 ' V. Mut. : Historia del reyno de McUlorca, fol, Mallorca. 1650. Lib. x. 
 cap. 7, p. 453, which ought to be 436, there being an error in the paging 
 of this very rare volume from p. 69 to the end. 
 
220 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 some reprisal for the damage done at Menorca had been 
 made by the duke of Alburquerque on the infidel's most 
 Christian brother of France, by crossing the Bidassoa 
 and burning St. Jean de Luz. 
 
 While the Turk was thus spreading terror along th*e 
 coast of Spain, and troubhng the repose of Yuste, the 
 hero who was first to quell his pride, and set bounds to 
 the dominion of the crescent, was waging predatory war 
 upon the orchards of Quacos. Early in July, Quixada 
 returned from Valladolid and Villagarcia, bringing with 
 him his wife and household, and the future victor of 
 Lepanto. During the journey. Dona Magdalena suffered 
 greatly from the summer heat ; but she was consoled 
 for her fatigues by the kindness and courtesy of the 
 emperor. Immediately on her arrival, he sent one of 
 his attendants to call upon her with presents, and to 
 bid her welcome to her new home : and some days 
 after, when she came to Yuste to kiss his hand, he 
 received her with marked favour. In this visit she was 
 doubtless attended by Don John of Austria, who passed 
 for her page, and the emperor was said to be much 
 pleased with the beauty and manners of his boy. But 
 so strictly was the secret of his birth kept, that no men- 
 tion of his existence is to be found in any extant corre- 
 spondence between Yuste, Valladolid, and Bruxelles, 
 during the lifetime of the emperor. Yet his real pa- 
 rentage was suspected in the country, probably on 
 account of the attention which he met with at Yuste, 
 and which was not likely to escape the notice of the idle 
 and gossiping friars and Flemings. The crossbow with 
 which the future admiral had dealt destruction amongst 
 the sparrows and larks in the cornfields about Leganes, 
 found ampler and nobler game in the woodlands of the 
 Estremaduran hills. But he sometimes varied his sport 
 by making forays upon the gardens of Quacos, which 
 the peasants, nothing daunted by his whispered rank, 
 
155S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 221 
 
 resented by pelting him with stones when they caught 
 him in their fruit trees.* 
 
 Early in July the emperor was alarmed by hearing 
 of the illness of his daughter, the princess-regent, who 
 was attacked by a fever, which prevented her attention 
 to business for a few days. He expressed great anxiety 
 on her account, and ordered frequent couriers to bring 
 him intelligence of her state, which, however, was never 
 dangerous, and soon approached convalescence. Amongst 
 the last public measures which Juana brought under the 
 notice of her father, was a scheme for changing the seat 
 of government. She was in favour of a change, as she 
 considered Valladolid neither healthy nor conveniently 
 situated. Many members of the council of state were, 
 however, opposed to it, ' but you know,^ wrote the in- 
 fanta, ' how these gentlemen prefer their ease and good 
 lodging before all things.' Madrid appeared to her the 
 fittest place, were it not so disliked by the king ; and she 
 also mentioned the names of Toledo, Burgos, and Gua- 
 dalaxara. The plan was not executed until some years 
 after the return of Philip to Spain. The king having 
 agreed that Don Carlos and his tutor should be sent to 
 Yuste, and the emperor being willing to receive them, 
 the princess proposed that she should accompany her 
 nephew thither, in order to visit her father, and confer 
 with him on this question of the capital, and other busi- 
 ness of state. The queen of Hungary was likewise to 
 be of the party, it being the wish of Phihp that the 
 emperor should persuade her to return to the Low 
 Countries, and once more assume the government. The 
 removal of the heir-apparent, and the visit of the royal 
 ladies to Yuste, were, however, prevented by the fatal 
 illness of the emperor. 
 
 Another affair which weighed on the mind of the 
 
 Ponz : Viage de Es]paTia, vU. p. 140. 
 
222 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 princess at this time, was a dispute between her and 
 the council of state. A young courtier, the adelantado 
 of Canary, after making love to one of her ladies, finally 
 proposed for her hand, and was accepted. But failing 
 in the performance of his promise, he met the complaint 
 made by the fair one to the regent, by protesting that 
 the matter was a joke, and that he had never considered 
 it as serious. The princess, though she preferred her 
 ladies to become brides of heaven rather than wives of 
 mortals, was highly indignant with the lord of Canary, 
 and caged him in the tower of Medina del Campo. The 
 council of state here interfered, alleging that it had a 
 right to be consulted in any similar case of imprisonment. 
 The regent therefore remitted the affair to the emperor, 
 entreating him, however, to decide in her favour ; for it 
 much concerned, as she conceived, the dignity of her 
 household, that j^oung men should not be permitted to 
 plight their troth to her ladies, before witnesses and 
 in her very antechamber, and then flutter off on the plea 
 that the thing was a jest. The award of the emperor, 
 and the after-fate of the false wooer and forsaken damsel, 
 have not been recorded. 
 
 In the spring of this year the monotony of the con- 
 ventual life at Yuste was broken by the death of the 
 prior. He died at Lupiana, where he had gone to 
 attend the chapter of his order. That chapter had 
 elected as general the prior of Cordoba, who likewise died 
 before the electors separated. The new general being 
 Fray Juan de A9aloras, one of the emperor^s preachers, 
 the friars of Yuste petitioned the emperor to request 
 him to wave his privilege, and permit them to choose 
 their new prior. But Charles, to the great delight of 
 his household, at once, and rather drily, refused to 
 meddle in the matter, or to interfere with the rules of 
 their order ; and the vacant post was therefore given^ in 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 223 
 
 the usual way, to Fray Martin de Angulo, a monk of 
 Guadalupe. 
 
 Don Luis de Avila was, as usual, a frequent guest 
 at Yuste. During this year he had a law-suit in hand, 
 regarding his jurisdiction as lieutenant of the castle 
 of Plasencia ; and he of course attempted to enlist in 
 his cause the favour of the emperor, who would, how- 
 ever, say nothing until he had heard the other side of 
 the story from the secretary of state. The grand-com- 
 mander seems also to have been applying for employ- 
 ment; and a false report was spread in July that he 
 had actually set out for Flanders by order of the king. 
 The bishop of Avila paid a visit in April, which was 
 followed in May by his translation to the wealthy see of 
 Cordoba ; and in June the bishop of Segovia offered to 
 come and give thanks for his promotion to the arch- 
 bishopric of Santiago, but was excused the journey by 
 the emperor. Oropesa spent part of the summer at 
 Xarandilla, where he, his brother, and his two sons, had 
 the misfortune to be attacked with fever all at one time. 
 The count and the other Toledos were frequently at 
 Yuste. Garcilasso de la Vega, probably a nephew of 
 the poet, came about the middle of August. Having 
 been sent as ambassador to the holy see, on the accession 
 of Philip the Second, the hasty old pontiff arrested him, 
 because of a letter addressed by him to the duke of 
 Alba, and found, or pretended to be found, by Paul in 
 the boot-sole of an intercepted courier. This outrage had 
 been the first signal for hostilities. The emperor^s wrath 
 with the Roman policy of Alba and Phihp having cooled 
 down, he received Garcilasso with much courtesy, ques- 
 tioned him minutely about Italian politics during two 
 long audiences, listened with great interest to his relation, 
 and afterwards said he was greatly pleased by the envoy's 
 way of teUing his story. He kept him at Yuste for ten 
 
224 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 days, and sent him to Valladolid charged with messages 
 to the queen of Hungary, and the task of explaining 
 her brother's reasons for desiring her return to the 
 government of the Netherlands. This mission fulfilled, 
 he was ordered to come back and report the queen's 
 decision. Don Pedro Manrique, procurator to the cortes 
 from the city of Burgos, came on the twenty-sixth 
 of August, and was likewise graciously received, and dis- 
 missed with a letter to the king, one of the latest which 
 the emperor signed. The last visitor who found him 
 in health was the count of Urueila, Don Pedro Giron, 
 afterwards first duke of Ossuna, and as viceroy of Naples, 
 and in other posts a personage of some importance at 
 the court of Philip the Second. This grandee, who 
 had but lately succeeded to the honours of his great 
 house,^ arrived on the night of the twenty-sixth, at ten 
 o'clock, 'with a world of horses and servants,' for whom 
 Quixada found it very difficult to provide lodging. The 
 emperor received him very kindly, and the young noble 
 took his departure immediately after having kissed 
 hands — to be allowed to perform that ceremony being, 
 as the chamberlain noted with wonder, ' his sole business 
 and only request.' 
 
 Father Borja paid his last visit to Yuste this summer, 
 probably in July or August. He came, it is said, at the 
 request of Charles, who desired the benefit of his spiritual 
 counsels. It was, perhaps, at this time that the em- 
 peror spoke to him of the memoirs which he had 
 drawn up of his journeys and campaigns.^ They were 
 not written, he said, for the sake of magnifying his own 
 
 ^ His father, Don Juan Tellez Giron, fourth count of Uruena or 
 Urefia, as it was afterwards written, died on the 19th May, 1558. Dr. 
 Geronymo Gudiel : Oompendio de la familia de los Girones : fol. Alcala, 
 1577, fol. 121-122. 
 
 2 Chap. iii. p. 54. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 225 
 
 deeds, but for the sake of recording the truth ; because 
 he had observed in the histories of his time, that the 
 authors erred as often from ignorance of the facts as 
 from prejudice and passion. But he desired to know if 
 his friend thought that a man's writing about his own 
 actions at all, savoured too much of carnal vanity. The 
 judgment of Borja on this case of conscience, if it were 
 ever deUvered, has not been preserved. Nor is the fate 
 of the memoirs known. In a letter addressed to Phihp 
 the Second by Ruscelli, in 1561, they were spoken of as 
 being in preparation for the press, and likely to be soon 
 given to the world.^ Brantome, at a later date, ex- 
 pressed an author's surprise that a literary venture so 
 safe and so inviting, had been so long neglected by the 
 booksellers.^ It is not plain, therefore, that Borja is to 
 be blamed for the loss, if indeed they are lost, of these 
 precious commentaries of the Caesar of Castille. 
 
 Charles neither felt nor affected that indifference 
 about his place in history which many remarkable men 
 have affected, and a few, perhaps, have felt. This 
 very year, he had given a proof of the opposite senti- 
 ment. Florian de Ocampo, his veteran chronicler, was 
 stiU at work, in his study at Zamora, on his general 
 chronicle of Spain. Anxious for its preservation, the 
 emperor induced the regent to address letters to the 
 bishop, the dean, and the corregidor of that city, re- 
 quiring them, in the event of the old man's death, to 
 take possession of his papers, amounting to three thou- 
 sand sheets, and to hold themselves responsible for their 
 safety.^ Similar steps were taken to preserve the 
 
 ' Published by Belle-Forest. See Bayle's Dictionary, art. Charles V. 
 
 2 Brantome: Discours sur Charles V. (Euvres, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris: 1787. 
 iv. 37. 
 
 * Benito Cano, in his life of Ocampo, prefixed to the fine edition of 
 the Cronica, 4to. (Madrid : 1791), gives the end of March, 1555, as the 
 
 Q 
 
226 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. ix. 
 
 writings of Sepulveda, on whom the emperor had him- 
 self urged the necessity of adopting such precautions 
 when he visited Yuste the year before.^ In the work 
 of OcampOj Charles, although perhaps he did not know 
 it, had no personal interest; for the good canon, pur- 
 posing to write the history of his patron, had begun his 
 chronicle at Noah's flood, and after some thirty or forty 
 years' labour was surprised by death, while narrating 
 the exploits of the Scipios. Sepulveda had more judi- 
 ciously broken ground nearer Ghent and the last year 
 of the last century, and so left his Latin history of the 
 emperor completed. The fruit of Charles's foresight 
 was therefore found after many days — in 1780, when 
 the work was first given to the world. 
 
 Borja might, perhaps, have rejoiced in mortifying his 
 own lust of literary fame, or even in undergoing the 
 penance of historical slander. But he was hardly 
 capable of advising the imperial author to put his manu- 
 script into one of his Flemish fireplaces. In his dealings 
 with royalty the stern Jesuit had not quite cast off, 
 or on occasion he could resume, ways and language 
 befitting the chamberlain's gold key. To one of the 
 emperor's devout queries he replied in a style of courtly 
 gallantry, which sounds strange in the mouth of father 
 Francis the Sinner, and which would have done credit 
 to some later Jesuit, appointed to labour in the vine- 
 
 date of the chronicler's death, which date has been adopted by Rezabel 
 in his Bibliot. de Escritores individuos de los colegios mayores, 4to. 
 (Madrid : 1805, p. 234) and by Mr. Ticknor in his Hist, of Span. Litera- 
 ture, i. p. 555. But Gaztelu, in his letter in the Gonzalez MS., ad- 
 dressed to Vazquez on the 30th of May, 1558, orders precautions 
 to be taken about the cronica of Ocampo, ' in case of the old man's 
 death' — ' si occurna sufal/ecimiento, estando ya tan viejo. ' Another letter 
 (9th of July) suggests that the measures taken by the regent respect- 
 ing Ocampo's papers should also be taken respecting Sepulveda's, both 
 ■writers being so old. Ocampo must therefore have been alive for some 
 time after May, 1558. 
 » Chap. vi. p. 124. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 227 
 
 yard of Versailles. Narrating the course of his penances 
 and prayers, Charles asked him whether he could sleep 
 in his clothes ; ^ for I must confess/ added he, con- 
 tritely, ' that my infirmities, which prevent me from 
 doing many things of the kind that I would gladly do, 
 render this penance impossible in my case/ Borja, 
 who practised every kind of torment on his body, or, as 
 he called it, his ' beast,' and who in early life had in one 
 year fasted down a cubit of his girth, eluded the ques- 
 tion by an answer no less modest than dexterous. ' Your 
 majesty,' said he, ' cannot sleep in your clothes, because 
 you have watched so many nights in your mail. Let us 
 thank God that you have done better service by keep- 
 ing those vigils in arms than many a cloistered monk 
 who sleeps in his shirt of hair.' 
 
 During his brief stay at Yuste, the Jesuit won a new 
 ally to his cause in Dona Magdalena de Ulloa, whose 
 mind was deeply touched by his pious walk and con- 
 versation. The seed thus sown by the way-side sprang 
 up long afterwards in the substantial shape of three 
 colleges built and endowed for the company by that 
 good and devout lady. Almost a hundred years later, 
 the fame of the third general of Jesus still hngered in 
 the Vera. In 1650, the centenarian of Guijo used to 
 tell how he had seen the emperor, the count of Oropesa, 
 and father Francis in the woods between that village 
 and Xarandilla, and point out a great tree under which 
 they had made a repast, of which he, a loitering urchin, 
 had been permitted to gather up the crumbs. But 
 of the individual aspect of that remarkable group his 
 memory had preserved nothing for the third generation 
 except the dark robe and the ' meek and penitent fece 
 of him whom we called the holy duke.'^ 
 
 » Cienfuegos : Vida de F. Boija, fol. Madrid : 1726, p. 270. 
 Q 2 
 
228 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR. 
 
 DURING the spring of 1558_, the emperor's health 
 recovered from its winter's decline. At the end 
 of March, Dr. Mathys, in his usual solemn style, in- 
 formed the secretary of state that he considered his 
 majesty well enough to leave off his sarsaparilla and 
 liquorice-water. In May he was lining as usual, and 
 eating voraciously. His dinner began with a large dish 
 of cherries, or of strawberries, smothered in cream and 
 sugar; then came a highly-seasoned pasty; and next 
 the principal dish of the repast, which was frequently a 
 ham, or some preparation of rashers, the emperor being 
 very fond of the staple product of bacon-curing Estre- 
 madura. ' His majesty,' said the doctor, ^ considers 
 himself in very good health, and will not hear of chang- 
 ing his diet or mode of living ; trusting too much to the 
 force of habitj and to the strength of his constitution, 
 which, in bodies full of bad humours, like his, frequently 
 breaks down suddenly, and without warning.'^ His 
 hands occasionally troubled him, and his fingers were 
 sometimes ulcerated. But his chief complaint was of 
 the heat and itching in his legs at night, which he en- 
 deavoured to relieve by sleeping with them uncovered ; 
 a Ineasure whereby temporary ease was purchased at 
 the expense of a chill, which crept into the upper part 
 
 Mathys to Vazquez, 18th May, 1558. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 229 
 
 of his body, in spite of blankets and eider-down quilts. 
 Later in the summer he had some threatenings of gout, 
 and his appetite diminished so much, that he sometimes 
 lived for days on bread and conserves. It is evident, 
 however, that Quixada, an excellent judge of his master's 
 symptoms, not only apprehended no danger, but con- 
 sidered that his life might be prolonged for years; else 
 he would never have put himself to the trouble and 
 expense of bringing his family down to Estremadura. 
 On his arrival he reported favourably of the emperor's 
 health, spirits, and looks. Yet Doiia Magdalena had not 
 been many weeks in her new abode at Quacos, when a 
 bell, tolling from amongst the woods of Yuste, announced 
 that she might prepare for her return to Villagarcia. 
 
 It was not until the ninth of August that the phy- 
 sician became seriously alarmed about the state of his 
 patient. To cure the uneasy sensations in his legs at 
 night, Charles had had recourse to cold bathing, by way 
 of a repellant, regardless of the remonstrances of Mathys. 
 'I would rather,' he said, ^have a slight fever, than 
 suffer this perpetual itching.' In vain the doctor ob- 
 served that men were not allowed to choose their own 
 maladies, and that some worse evil might happen to him 
 if he used so dangerous a remedy. The repellant system 
 did not answer; the patient's legs continuing to itch, 
 and his throat being choked with phlegm. Still he was 
 able to attend to business, and sufficiently alive to minor 
 matters to be much annoyed at a frost which killed some 
 melons of a pecuharly choice kind, that were ripening 
 for his table. On the sixteenth and seventeenth of 
 August he was seized with violent purgings and with 
 pains in the head, which bore a suspicious resemblance 
 to gout. But as these symptoms soon subsided, he 
 was supposed to have caught cold by sleeping, as the 
 nights were getting chilly, with open doors and windows. 
 
230 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 Much illness prevailed in the Vera^ and so many of the 
 household were on the sick list, that Quixada was 
 obhged to be at the palace at daybreak, and did not get 
 home to Quacos till nine in the evening. The weather 
 was very changeable and trying to delicate frames. The 
 cold of the early part and middle of the month was suc- 
 ceeded by terrific storms of wind and thunder, in which 
 twenty-seven cows were struck dead by lightning, as 
 they pastured in the forest. 
 
 About this time, according to the historian of St. 
 Jerome, the emperor^s thoughts seemed to turn more 
 than usual upon religion and its rites. Whenever, 
 during his stay at Yuste, any of his friends, of the degree 
 of princes or knights of the fleece, had died, he had 
 ever been punctual in doing honour to their memory, 
 by causing their obsequies to be performed by the friars; 
 and these lugubrious services may be said to have 
 formed the festivals of his gloomy life in the cloister. 
 The daily masses said for his own soul were always ac- 
 companied by others for the souls of his father, mother, 
 and wife. But now he ordered further solemnities of 
 the funeral kind to be performed in behalf of these rela- 
 tions, each on a difiierent day, and attended them himself, 
 preceded by a page bearing a taper, and joining in the 
 chaunt, in a very devout and audible manner, out of a 
 tattered prayer-book. 
 
 These rites ended, he asked his confessor whether 
 he might not now perform his own funeral, and so do 
 for himself what would soon have to be done for him 
 by others. Regla replied that his majesty, please God, 
 might live many years, and that when his time came 
 these services would be gratefully rendered, without his 
 taking any thought about the matter. ' But,^ persisted 
 Charles, 'would it not be good for my soul?^ The 
 monk said that certainly it would; pious works done 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 231 
 
 during life being far more efficacious than when they were 
 postponed till after death. Preparations were therefore at 
 once set on foot; a catafalque which had served before 
 on similar occasions was erected; and on the following 
 day, the thirtieth of August, as the monkish historian 
 relates, this celebrated service was actually performed/ 
 The high altar, the catafalque, and the whole church 
 shone with a blaze of wax lights; the friars were all in 
 their places, at the altars, and in the choir, and the 
 household of the emperor attended in deep mourning. 
 ^ The pious monarch himself was there, attired in sable 
 weeds, and bearing a taper, to see himself interred and 
 to celebrate his own obsequies/^ While they were 
 singing the solemn mass for the dead he came forward 
 and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating 
 priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the 
 hands of his Maker. High above, over the kneehng 
 throng and the gorgeous vestments, the flowers, the 
 curling incense, and the ghttering altar, the same idea 
 shone forth in that splendid canvas whereon Titian had 
 pictured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the 
 heavenly mansions prepared for the blessed. 
 
 Many years before self-interment had been practised 
 by a bishop of Liege — cardinal Erard de la Marck, 
 Charles's ambassador to the diet during his election to 
 the imperial throne; an example which may perhaps 
 have led to the ceremonies at Yuste. For several years 
 before his death, in 1528, did this prelate annually re- 
 hearse his obsequies and follow his coffin to the stately 
 tomb which he had reared in his cathedral at Liege .^ 
 
 ^ Gonzalez denies this, as it seems to me, on insufficient grounds, 
 which I have discussed in the preface to these chapters. 
 
 '^ Siguen^a : iii. p. 201, 
 
 3 On the tomb were these words : erardus a makka, mortem habens 
 BJS ocuLis vivENS posuiT. — Am, de la Houssaye : Memoires HistoriqueSy 
 &c. 2 vols. 12mo. Amsterd.: 1722, p. 186. 
 
232 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 The funeral-rites ended, the emperor dined in his 
 western alcove. He ate little, but he remained for a 
 great part of the afternoon sitting in the open air, and 
 basking in the sun, which, as it descended to the horizon, 
 beat strongly upon the white walls. Feeling a violent 
 pain in his head, he returned to his chamber and lay- 
 down. Mathys, whom he had sent in the morning to 
 Xarandilla to attend the count of Oropesa in his illness, 
 found him, when he returned, stiU suffering consider- 
 ably, and attributed the pain to his having remained 
 too long in the hot sunshine. Next morning he was 
 somewhat better, and was able to get up and go to 
 mass, but still felt oppressed, and complained much of 
 thirst. He told his confessor, however, that the funeral 
 service of the day before had done him good. The 
 sunshine again tempted him into his open gallery. As 
 he sat there, he sent for a portrait of the empress, and 
 hung for some time, lost in thought, over the gentle 
 face, which, with its blue eyes, auburn hair, and pensive 
 beauty, somewhat resembled the noble countenance of 
 that other Isabella, the great queen of Castille. He 
 next called for a picture of Our Lord praying in the 
 garden, and then for a sketch of the Last Judgment, by 
 Titian. Having looked his last upon the image of the 
 wife of his youth, it seemed as if he were now bidding 
 farewell, in the contemplation of these other favourite 
 pictures, to the noble art which he had loved with a love 
 that cares, and years, and sickness could not quench, 
 and that will ever be remembered with his better fame. 
 Thus occupied, he remained so long abstracted and 
 motionless, that Mathys, who was on the watch, thought 
 it right to awake him from his reverie. On being 
 spoken to, he turned round and complained that he was 
 ill. The doctor felt his pulse, and pronounced him in 
 a fever. Again the afternoon sun was shining over the 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 288 
 
 gi'eat walnut-tree, full into the gallery. From this 
 pleasant spot, filled with the fragrance of the garden 
 and the murmur of the fountain, and bright with 
 glimpses of the golden Vera, they carried him to the 
 gloomy chamber of his sleepless nights, and laid him on 
 the bed from which he was to rise no more. 
 
 The minute particulars of his last illness, which have 
 been preserved by eye-witnesses, or by persons who had 
 conversed with them, will be most conveniently grouped 
 under the dates to which they belong. It was on the 
 thirty-first of August that the fever declared itself, but 
 after going to bed that evening, his thirst subsided, and 
 he felt easier. 
 
 September the first. — ^No great change took place in 
 his condition. But he was aware that the hand of 
 death was upon him, and wishing to finish his will, he 
 ordered that the secretary of state should be immediately 
 applied to for a royal licence empowering Gaztelu to act 
 on the occasion as a notaiy. Directions were at the 
 same time given that couriers and horses should be kept 
 in readiness along the road, to ensure despatch in the 
 communications between Valladolid and Yuste. 
 
 September the second. — The emperor awoke, com- 
 plaining of violent thirst, and attempted to relieve it by 
 drinking barley-water and sugar. Quixada begged leave 
 to send for more doctors; the patient said he did not 
 Hke to have many of them about him ; but he at last 
 agreed that Comelio might be called in, from Cigales. 
 During the day he dozed at intervals, and towards the 
 afternoon his mind was observed to wander ; but in the 
 evening he had rallied sufficiently to confess and receive 
 the eucharist, after which, at half-past eight, the physi- 
 cian took from him nine or ten ounces of very black bad 
 blood, which afforded considerable relief. 
 
 September the third. — He awoke refreshed, and alto- 
 
234 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 gether rather better. At eleven he took some refresh- 
 ment, and drank some wine and water, and a little 
 beer; and then he heard Gaztelu read that part of his 
 will which related to his household. In the afternoon 
 he was again bled in the hand. This evening Quixada 
 determined to pass the night in the palace, which he did 
 not again quit while his master continued to breathe. 
 
 September the fourth. — The pain had left the em- 
 peror's head, but the fever was still high. He regretted 
 that more blood had not been taken from him, feeling 
 too full of it — an opinion from which the doctors dis- 
 sented. During the whole day he was very restless. 
 He had stripped off the jacket, under- waistcoat, and 
 drawers which he usually wore in bed, and lay tossing 
 in his shirt under a single silken coverlet ; and he in- 
 sisted on the door and windows of his room being kept 
 open. He complained bitterly of thirst, which the per- 
 mitted syrup-vinegar and manna seemed to aggravate 
 rather than allay ; and the doctors were obliged to allow 
 him nine ounces of his favourite beer, which he drank 
 eagerly, with apparent rehef. Vomiting and a slight 
 perspiration followed. Quixada was looking anxiously 
 for Dr. Cornelio, and had sent on horses to wait on the 
 road for his litter. 
 
 September the fifth. — Dr. Mathys administered to the 
 emperor a strong dose of rhubarb in three pills. He 
 felt so much better that he gave orders that if the post- 
 courier, who went out every afternoon at four, should 
 meet Cornelio before he had accomphshed half the 
 journey, he was to tell him to go back. ' But,^ said 
 Quixada in his letter, ' I shall take care that he does 
 not meet him at all, unless it be very near this place. ^ 
 
 September the sixth. — The patient was worse again ; 
 very feverish all day, and in the afternoon delirious; 
 but in the evening he was easier, and again sensible. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 235 
 
 An express arrived with a notary's licence for Gaztelu, 
 and letters from the regent and the great officers of 
 state full of grief for the emperor's illness. The princess 
 was very anxious for leave to visit her father, but he 
 would not consent to it. In the afternoon there was a 
 storm, so violent, and accompanied with such unusual 
 darkness, that tlie post could not be despatched. 
 
 September the seventh. — No change. The post sent 
 off with a double bag. 
 
 September the eighth. — Dr. Cornelio arrived, and 
 with him Garcilasso de la Vega. The emperor was 
 neither better nor worse ; Dr. Mathys stating the fact 
 in a very long letter, which ended with the remark that 
 the fever was not in itself dangerous, and might even 
 prove beneficial, but that, the constitution of the patient 
 considered, the result must be regarded with much 
 doubt and apprehension. The sick man, however, was 
 sufficiently easy and collected to receive Garcilasso, who 
 had come laden with a heap of despatches, which were 
 destined to remain unread; and to express the greatest 
 satisfaction at learning that his sister, the queen of 
 Hungary, had accepted the government of the Nether- 
 lands. Gaztelu employed the day in drawing out in 
 due form a codicil to be added to the will. In the 
 afternoon the wind and rain again roared round the 
 convent, and the post was once more detained by the 
 violence of the tempest. 
 
 September the ninth. — The emperor remained as be- 
 fore. A new gloom overspread the household in conse- 
 quence of tidings from Africa, that Don Martin de 
 Cordova, count of Alcaudete, and the army of Oran, had 
 been cut to pieces by the infidels. For many years 
 viceroy of the Spanish dominions in Africa, and well 
 skilled in the ways of the Moors both in policy and war, 
 the ill-fated veteran was one of the most trusted coun- 
 
236 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 sellers of the crown. During the spring and summer, 
 the fortunes of a war between Hassan^ pacha of Algiers, 
 son and heir of Barbarossa, and Halif, the new kicg of 
 Fez, gave him hopes of turning Moslem quarrels to 
 Christian advantage. Mostagan, a fortified town about 
 twelve leagues to the east of Oran, was a prize upon 
 which his hopes had been long fixed. About the middle 
 of August, therefore, at the head of six thousand four 
 hundred men, and a considerable train of artillery, he 
 marched thither, sending along the coast nine brigan- 
 tines laden with munitions, and relying on promises of 
 further aid from the king of Fez. But the expedition, 
 which ought to have been a surprize, was ruined by 
 the undue caution of its movements. The convoy was 
 captured by an Algerine fleet ; the Moorish ally proved 
 faithless ; the attack on Mostagan failed ; and in their 
 hasty retreat the weary, thirsty, and famished Christians 
 were overtaken by the army of Hassan. At Mazagran 
 the old count, who had completely lost his head, was 
 trampled to death in the gateway by his own terrified 
 troops, and the greater part of his army fell beneath the 
 Turkish scimitar and the Arab spear, or was sent to 
 row in the galleys of Algiers. His son, Don Martin 
 de Cordova, was taken prisoner, and only a handful of 
 fugitives escaped to tell their tale of disaster at Oran. 
 With Alcaudete, who had been looked upon as a leader 
 no less prudent than brave, fell many knights and nobles 
 of Andalusia ; and the fate of his expedition caused such 
 mourning as had been unknown in Spain since the fatal 
 day when that other Cordova, the good knight of 
 Aguilar, fell with his gallant band in the pass of the 
 Red Sierra.^ Quixada and Garcilasso, friends of many 
 
 ^ L. de Marmol Carvajal : Descripcion de Africa, 3 torn. fol. Granada: 
 1573-99, ii. p. 197-9. Fr. Diego de Haedo : Historia de Argel, fol. 
 Valladolid : 1612, p. 174. Don Martin de Cordova was ransomed, and 
 lived to be governor of Oran, and to revenge his father's death. A. Lopez 
 de Haro : NohiiaHo de Espana, 2 torn. fol. Madrid : 1622, ii. 153. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 237 
 
 of the victims, were greatly astonished that a commander 
 of so much experience should have put any trust in the 
 Punic promises of a Moor. They did not venture to 
 break the news to the emperor, knowing how keenly he 
 would feel the reverse suffered by his son in the land of 
 his own glory and misfortune.^ He therefore went to 
 the grave unconscious of the calamity which had be- 
 fallen Spain. No visible change had taken place in his 
 condition ; but he was able to hear the codicil of his will 
 read, and to sign and seal it. 
 
 Charles had made his will on the sixth of June, 1554, 
 at Bruxelles. The codicil, from its great length, its 
 minuteness, and the frequent recurrence of provisions to 
 be observed in case he died before he should see his 
 son, there being now no hope of such a meeting, appears 
 to have been prepared some time before. But as it 
 was read to him ere his trembling hand affixed the 
 last stamp of his authority, it remains as a proof 
 that one of his latest acts was to charge Philip, 
 by his love and allegiance, and by his hope of salva- 
 tion, 'to take care that the heretics were repressed and 
 chastised with all publicity and rigour, as their faults 
 deserved, without respect of persons, and without regard 
 to any plea in their favour.^ The rest of the paper is 
 filled with directions for his interment, and with a list 
 of legacies to forty-eight servants, and many thought- 
 ful arrangements for the comfort of those who had 
 followed him from Flanders. Although willing to send 
 all his protestant subjects to martyrdom, he watched 
 with fatherly kindness over the fortunes of grooms and 
 scullions. It is said that Fray Juan de Regla proposed 
 that Don John of Austria should be named in the will 
 as next heir to the crown, failing the emperor^s grand- 
 children; but if this incredible advice were given by 
 
 » Chap. iv. p. 91. 
 
238 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 the confessor, the dying man had energy enough left to 
 reject it with indignation.^ 
 
 September the tenth. — He was somewhat easier, al- 
 though very weak, and able to take no nourishment, 
 except a few spoonfuls of mutton-broth. He once more 
 received the eucharist, and confessed with great devout- 
 ness. Garcilasso was admitted to his bedside to take 
 leave, and again was assured of the relief he felt in 
 knowing that the Netherlands were to be governed by 
 queen Mary. Gaztelu wrote that it was his majesty^s 
 particular desire that a safe-conduct should be imme- 
 diately prepared for Dr. Cornelio and ten or twelve 
 persons, who were to go to Flanders, but that it was to 
 be kept secret for the present from the queen, for good 
 and sufficient reasons. Quixada, in his letter to Vazquez, 
 said that it would be well that orders should be sent to 
 him for his guidance, in case it should please God to 
 make the sickness of his majesty mortal. 
 
 September the eleventh. — A crisis in the fever had 
 been looked for on this day; and the doctors were of 
 opinion that it was changing into what they called a 
 double tertian. Don Luis de Avila came, and remained 
 at Quacos. 
 
 September the twelfth. — The patient had passed a 
 better night, and was able to take some food ; and 
 hopes of a recovery began to be entertained. 
 
 September the thirteenth. — These hopes faded. He 
 was decidedly worse. Nothing would remain on his 
 stomach, and his weakness, and the state of his pulse, 
 greatly alarmed the two physicians. His throat was 
 constantly choked with phlegm, which, being too feeble 
 to expectorate, he endeavoured to remove with his finger. 
 
 1 Salazar de Mendoga {Dign. de Costilla, fol. 161) says that Regla 
 used to tell the story himself. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 239 
 
 Letters from the regent and the queen of Hungary con- 
 tinued to express their wish to go to Yuste. Quixada, 
 writing in reply, said that his majesty had always, since 
 the beginning of his illness, been averse to this proposal, 
 and that when he himself spoke of it again to-day, the 
 emperor shook his head, as if to say no. Had his 
 majesty been equal to any exertion, he would have also 
 ventured to remind him that he ought formally to thank 
 the queen for consenting to return to Flanders, knowing, 
 as he did, how glad and how grateful he had been on 
 receiving the intelligence. But in truth he was unfit 
 not only to write, but even to dictate a letter, or to 
 attend to any business whatsoever. If the archbishop 
 of Toledo, therefore, was on the road to Yuste, he need 
 not hurry himself. When he arrived, he must lodge 
 either at a Dominican monastery, about a league off, or 
 at Quacos; as no stranger could be put up at Yuste 
 without the express orders of his majesty. 
 
 September the fifteenth. — Rhubarb pills had been 
 again administered with good effect, and hope was not 
 yet extinguished. ' But,^ adds Quixada, ' you can hardly 
 imagine how weak his majesty is. We all of us do 
 our best to anticipate his wants ; and if our blood would 
 do him good, we would give it most joyfully.^ 
 
 September the sixteenth. — The doctors considered 
 him in a shght degree better. Avila, on the other hand, 
 thought him hanging between life and death. A courier 
 came from Lisbon with letters from the queen of Por- 
 tugal, and to carry back news of the emperor^s health. 
 Catherine was aware of the dangerous state of her 
 brother, and she had given great alms for the benefit of 
 his soul, and had ordered masses to be said for him in 
 every church in the kingdom. 
 
 September the seventeenth. — Mathys wrote that the 
 emperor had been seized with ague fits, the cold fits 
 
240 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 lasting much longer than the hot; that he vomited 
 frequently and violently, ' after which his majesty hes 
 unable to speak or move, and does not even ask for 
 water to wash his mouth/ Gaztelu informed the secre- 
 tary of state that he was no better ; and that certain 
 moneys had arrived from Seville. Quixada wrote not 
 only to Vazquez, but to the regent and to the king. 
 In each of the letters he said that the doctors now 
 entertained little hope, and that the emperor^s state was 
 truly deplorable. To the king he gave a brief sketch 
 of the codicil which had been added to the will. ' The 
 emperor,^ he wrote, ' having once expressed a desire to 
 be buried here, and that the empress should be brought 
 from Granada to be laid beside him, I ventured to 
 observe that this house was not of sufficient quality to 
 be made the resting-place of such great sovereigns ; upon 
 which he said he would leave the matter in the hands 
 of your majesty.^ The chamberlain concluded by 
 assuring the king that in the matter he knew of — per- 
 haps alluding to Don John — he would use every pre- 
 caution in the world until his majesty came to Spain. 
 
 September the eighteenth. — The emperor, wrote 
 Mathys, touched nothing to-day but a little chicken 
 broth, and some watered wine ; the phlegm in his throat 
 was very troublesome. Quixada said that he had not 
 spoken a word for twenty -four hours ; and Avila gave it 
 as his opinion that he was certainly worse, whatever the 
 doctors might say. 
 
 September the nineteenth. — Mathys announced that 
 the hot and cold fits continued with great violence, and 
 that his pulse was getting feebler and feebler. Dr. 
 Cornelio had been ill and feverish all yesterday, and was 
 no better to-day. At eight in the evening, Quixada 
 wrote that a servant of the archbishop of Toledo was 
 just come to say that the primate might be looked for 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 241 
 
 immediately; but it was now of no consequence when 
 he arrived, as all hope of the emperor being able to 
 attend to business was past. Called to the sick room, 
 the writer laid his pen down, and resumed it in three- 
 quarters of an hour. He wrote thus : ' The doctors 
 say, the fever rises and his strength sinks. Ever since 
 noon, I have been keeping them from giving him 
 extreme unction. They have been with me again to 
 say it is time, but I have sent them to feel his pulse 
 once more ; for I will not allow the thing to be done 
 until the necessity for it is quite plain. Thrice have 
 they thus tried to bury him, as it were, and it goes to 
 my very soul to see it.^ The course of the pen was 
 once more checked. ' I had written thus far, when 
 the doctors came, and urged me to make haste. We 
 have therefore given his majesty extreme unction. It 
 seemed to me premature, but I yielded to the opinion 
 of those who ought to know best. You will under- 
 stand how I, who have served him thirty-seven years, 
 feel at seeing him thus going. May God take him to 
 heaven ! But I say again that, to my thinking, the 
 end will not be to-night. God be with him, and with 
 us all ! The ceremony is just now over, nine at night, 
 Monday, September the nineteenth.' 
 
 There were two forms of administering this crown- 
 ing rite, a longer form for churchmen and a briefer one 
 for the laity. At the request of the prior, the emperor 
 was asked, by Quixada, which of the two he pre- 
 ferred, and he chose to be treated in the ecclesiastical 
 fashion. This involved the reading of the seven peni- 
 tential psalms, a litany, and several passages of scrip- 
 ture; through all of which the emperor made the 
 proper responses in an audible voice. After the ser- 
 vice was over, he appeared rather revived than exhausted 
 by it. 
 
242 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 September the twentieth. — During the whole of the 
 past night he had been attended by his confessor, and by 
 the preacher Villalva, who frequently read aloud, at his 
 request, passages from scripture — usually from the psalms. 
 The psalm which he liked best was that beginning 
 Domine I refugium factum es nobis} Soon after day- 
 break, he signified his wish to be left alone with his 
 chamberlain. When the door was shut upon the re- 
 tiring clergy, he said ; ' Luis Quixada, I feel that I am 
 sinking little by little, for which I thank God, since it 
 is his will. Tell the king, my son, that I beg he will 
 settle with my servants who have attended me to my 
 death ; that he will find some employment for WilHam 
 Van Male ; and that he will forbid the friars of this 
 convent to receive guests in the house.' He then ex- 
 pressed his great regret at not being able to confer with 
 the archbishop of Toledo, about the affair between the 
 king and queen of Bohemia; and said he had intended 
 to send an envoy to convey his opinion of the matter 
 to Maximilian, but had waited until he should have 
 heard the primate's story. ' As for what he told me 
 to say of myself,' said Quixada, in writing to Philip 
 the Second, ' I do not repeat it, being so nearly con- 
 cerned in it j and other things I will also leave untold 
 until it pleases God to bring your majesty hither.' The 
 emperor afterwards asked for the eucharist. Fray Juan 
 de Regla reminded him that after having received 
 extreme unction, that sacrament was no longer neces- 
 sary. ' It may not be necessary,' said the dying man, 
 ' but it is good company on so long a journey.' About 
 seven in the morning, therefore, the consecrated wafer 
 was brought from the high altar of the church, fol- 
 lowed by the friars in solemn procession. The patient 
 
 Lord !— thou hast been our refuge.' — Psalm xc. of our version. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 243 
 
 received it, with great devoutness, from the hands of his 
 confessor ; but he had great difficulty in swallowing the 
 sacred morsel, and afterwards opened his mouth, and 
 made Quixada see if it had all gone down. In spite of 
 his extreme weakness, he followed all the responses as 
 usual, and repeated, with much fervour, the whole verse. 
 In manustuasDomine! commendospiritummeum; redimisti 
 nos Dominel Deus veritatis;^ and he afterwards remained 
 kneeling in his bed for some time, and uttering ejacu- 
 lations in praise of the blessed sacrament, so pious and so 
 apposite that the friars conceived them to be prompted 
 by the Holy Ghost. He was soon, however, seized with 
 violent vomitings ; and, during the greater part of the 
 day, lay motionless, with closed eyes, but not uncon- 
 scious of what went on around him. 
 
 About noon the archbishop arrived, and was imme- 
 diately admitted to the sick room, where he was re- 
 cognised by the patient, who addressed a few words to 
 him, and told him to go and repose himself.^ The count 
 of Oropesa and his brother, Don Francisco, also came, 
 although they were themselves hardly recovered from 
 their illness. In the afternoon it was supposed that 
 the emperor^s strength was ebbing fast, and all his 
 
 1 'Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ; thou hast redeemed 
 us, O Lord God of truth.' 
 
 * M. Bakhuizen van den Brink {La Retraite, p. 47-50), on the autho- 
 rity of the friar, whose memoir he has analysed, gives a different 
 account of the archbishop's reception. Admitted to kiss the emperor's 
 hand on his arrival, he was refused admission in the afternoon, although 
 Quixada, Oropesa, and Avila, entreated Charles to see him. At last, 
 Quixada told the confessor Regla that they all believed that he was 
 the cause of these repeated refusals. Regla indignantly denied the im- 
 putation, and said he did not care if all the prelates of Spain were 
 admitted ; that it was obvious that the emperor did not wish to see the 
 archbishop, and that at such a moment he did not think his wishes 
 should be opposed ; but, that no doubt might remain, he would himself, 
 in the presence of Quixada and Avila, ask his majesty to receive him. 
 When the proposal was made, Charles replied only by a reproachful 
 look ; and the archbishop at last effected an entrance later in the day 
 with the other attendants, when it was reported that the emperor was 
 
 R 2 
 
244 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 friends assembled at the palace. They found him per- 
 fectly calm and collected, for which he expressed great 
 thankfulness, it having long been his dread that he 
 might die out of his mind. A few words of consolation, 
 touching forgiveness of sins, were at intervals addressed 
 to him by the archbishop, words which Regla treasured 
 up and reported to the inquisition. Sad and swarthy of 
 visage, Carranza had also a hoarse, disagreeable voice. 
 Hearing it on one of these occasions, the emperor gave 
 a sign of impatience so unmistakeable, that Quixada 
 thought it right to interpose, and whisper, ' Hush, my 
 lord, you are disturbing his majesty.^ ^ The primate took 
 the hint and was silent. 
 
 Towards eight o'clock in the eVening, Charles asked if 
 the consecrated tapers were ready. He was evidently 
 sinking rapidly. The physicians acknowledged that 
 the case was past their skill, and that all hope was 
 over. Cornelio retired. Mathys remained by the bed- 
 side, occasionally feeling the patient's pulse, and whis- 
 pering to the group of anxious spectators, ' His majesty 
 has but two hours to live — but one hour — but half an 
 hour.' Charles meanwhile lay in a stupor, seemingly 
 unconscious, but now and then murmuring a prayer and 
 tiu'ning his eyes to heaven. At length he raised him- 
 
 at the point of death. Having reached the bedside, the prelate ex- 
 pounded the psalm, De Profundis. The emperor listened in silence, but 
 after he was gone out, said to Regla, ' Did you observe the tone in 
 which the archbishop said, ' All is finished V ' On the whole, I am 
 inclined to reject this story as not agreeing with the evidence afforded 
 by the Gonzalez MS. There, I find no trace of the emperor's unwilling- 
 ness to see the archbishop ; and Quixada expressly states that he greatly 
 regretted being too weak to talk with him on the delicate affair about 
 which he had come. Had this unwillingness existed, would Quixada 
 have concealed it from the king ; or would the archbishop have ventured 
 to write to the regent, as he did write, of his gracious reception ? On 
 the other hand, the confessor Regla, from whom directly or indirectly 
 the story comes, being one of the archbishop's chief accusers before the 
 Inquisition, had an interest in making it appear that he had acted fairly 
 by the primate ai Yuste, and that the emperor, as well as himself, had 
 been struck with his unorthodox exposition of the psalm. 
 1 Siguenja : iii. p. 203. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 245 
 
 self and called for ' William/ Van Male was instantly 
 at his side, and understood that he wished to be turned 
 in bed, during which operation the emperor leaned upon 
 him heavily, and uttered a groan of agony. The physician 
 now looked towards the door, and said to the archbishop, 
 who was standing in its shadow, ^ Domine,jam moriturl' 
 'My lord, he is now dying!' The primate came forward 
 with the chaplain Villalva, to whom he made a sign to 
 speak. It was now nearly two o'clock in the morning of 
 the twenty-first of September, St. Matthew's day. Ad- 
 dressing the dying man, the favourite preacher told him 
 how blessed a privilege he enjoyed in having been born 
 on the feast of St. Matthias the apostle, who had been 
 chosen by lot to complete the number of the twelve, 
 and in being about to die on the feast of St. Matthew, 
 who for Christ's sake had forsaken wealth, as his 
 majesty had forsaken imperial power. For some time 
 the preacher held forth in this pious and edifying strain. 
 At last the emperor interposed, saying, ' The time is 
 come : bring me the candle and the crucifix.' These 
 were cherished relics, which he had long kept in reserve 
 for this supreme hour. The one was a taper from Our 
 Lady's shrine at Montserrate, the other, a crucifix of 
 beautiful workmanship, which had been taken from the 
 dead hand of his wife at Toledo, and which afterwards 
 comforted the last moments of his son at the Escorial. 
 He received them eagerly from the archbishop, and 
 taking one in each hand, for some moments he silently 
 contemplated the figure of the Saviour, and then clasped 
 it to his bosom. Those who stood nearest to the bed 
 now heard him say quickly, as if replying to a call, ' Ya, 
 voy^ Benor,^ — 'Now, Lord, I go.' As his strength 
 failed, his fingers relaxed their hold of the crucifix, 
 which the primate therefore took, and held it up before 
 him. A few moments of death- wrestle between soul 
 and body followed ; after which, ydth his eyes fixed on 
 
246 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 the cross^ and with a voice loud enough to be heard 
 outside the room, he cried 'Ay, Jesus !' and expired. 
 
 The clock had just struck two. In or near the 
 chamber of death were assembled the prior, the chap- 
 lains, and Fray Pedro de Sotomayor; Quixada and 
 Gaztelu, and the two physicians ; the count of Oropesa, 
 his brother Don Francisco de Toledo, his cousin Don 
 Juan, and his uncle, Don Diego, abbot of Cabanas ; Don 
 Luis de Avila, and archbishop Carranza. Don John of 
 Austria, in his quality of page to Quixada, is likewise 
 supposed to have witnessed the end of him whom he was 
 afterwards so proud to call his sire. The count, the 
 primate, the grand-commander, the secretary, and the 
 chamberlain, immediately retired to write letters to Val- 
 ladolid. All agreed that the behaviour of the emperor 
 on his death-bed had been most pious and edifying. Avila 
 recorded with pride that his master had given him a 
 look of recognition just before the final struggle. 
 Quixada said he had died as devoutly as the queen of 
 France, and in a manner worthy of the ' greatest man 
 that ever had lived, or ever would hve, in the world.'^ 
 
 While the courtiers wrote their letters, the physicians 
 remained beside the body, assuring themselves of the fact 
 that the spirit had indeed departed. At intervals, 
 during the hours of darkness, they applied their ears to 
 the pulseless bosom, and held a mirror to the lips, 
 whence no breathing came. At daybreak, the corpse 
 having been washed and anointed, was laid out on the 
 
 ' * El hombre mas principal que jamas ay o habria.' Quixada to the 
 king : Gonzalez MS. A few particulars of the death-bed scene I have 
 gleaned from a letter, written on the 27th of September, 1558, by one 
 of the monks of Yuste, which forms part of the Collecion de documentos 
 ineditos para la Mstoria de Espana, por D. Martin Fernandez de Na- 
 varette, D. Miguel de Salva, y Don Pedro Sanz de Baranda. 8 vols. 4to. 
 Madrid : 1842-6, vi. p. 667. The names both of the receiver and of the 
 writer are unknown ; but it is not improbable that the letter proceeded 
 from the pen of Fray Hernando de Corral ; see chap. v. p. 100. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 247 
 
 bed, with the curtains drawn closely around. Four 
 monks, chosen by the prior, kept watch in the chamber 
 with tapers burning. Luis Quixada, his tender and 
 anxious occupation gone, now had leisure to feel his 
 loss and indulge his sorrow. For hours he remained 
 weeping by the bed, which was now disturbed by no 
 fevered tossings, and where the pillow needed smootliing 
 no more. It was long ere the friars, overawed by his 
 presence^ yet stung by their super-feminine curiosity, 
 found an opportunity of peeping within the curtains. 
 When, at length, some pressing matter of the arrange- 
 ments called the chamberlain from the room, the drapery 
 was cautiously drawn aside, and the Jeromites beheld the 
 well-known face, in all the majesty of its deep repose. 
 It had somewhat more of colour, and a more cheer- 
 ful expression than it had lately worn ; the body was 
 habited in the robe in which Charles usually slept ; a piece 
 of black stuff was laid across the breast ; and the head 
 was covered with an embroidered cap. On the bosom 
 was placed the crucifix of the empress ; and at the head 
 of the bed hung a beautiful picture of Our Blessed Lady.* 
 In the course of the morning a messenger was sent 
 to Plasencia for two hundred yards of black cloth for 
 hangings for the church : and that day and the next 
 were spent in making other preparations for the funeral. 
 On the twenty-third of September, the licentiate Murga, 
 of Quacos, being disabled by illness, the corregidor of 
 Plasencia, Don Pedro Osorio Zapata, arrived, and in his 
 presence the will was read, and a certificate of the 
 death properly drawn up and signed. The body had 
 meanwhile been embalmed by the physicians. Enclosed 
 
 ^ Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 53. The monk, of whose 
 memoir the work is an analysis, was one of the four who watched by 
 the corpse, which gives the greater interest and authority to his simple 
 details. 
 
248 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 in a leaden coffin, within a massive outer case of chestnut- 
 wood, and covered with a black velvet pall, it was then 
 lowered through the bed-room window into the church, 
 and placed on a canopied catafalque in front of the high 
 altar/ The funeral services lasted for three days, and 
 the monks of three neighbouring convents swelled the 
 company of mourners, and the dirges for the dead. 
 Each day mass was said by the primate, assisted 
 by the prior as deacon, and the prior of Granada as sub- 
 deacon. The household of the emperor displayed great 
 feeling during the solemn rites, and Quixada, Gaztelu, 
 and Avila were especially overcome with grief. 
 
 A funeral-sermon was preached on the first day, by 
 the eloquent Villalva, who had found an occasion 
 worthy of all his powers. By desire of Quixada the 
 orator had kept notes, day by day, of what occurred at 
 the imperial death-bed f and these he now wrought into 
 
 * Sandoval (ii. p. 835) says that these preparations had been hardly 
 made, when the corregidor of Plasencia arrived, with his clerks and con- 
 stables, and, in spite of the friars' remonstrances, opened the coflBn, in 
 order to identify the body. This story, so improbable in itself, would 
 not be worth mentioning but for the fact, that Sandoval professes to 
 have been guided, in his account of the emperor at Yuste, by a paper 
 drawn up by the prior. But as it is contradicted by the evidence of the 
 Gonzalez MS., and not mentioned by Siguen9a, I have rejected it. 
 
 Another better known fable seems to be indebted for general circula- 
 tion to Dr. Salazar de Mendo9a. In his Dignidades de Castilla, p. 158, 
 he tells us that Charles, five years before his death, had caused his coffin 
 to be made, with a winding-sheet, and other furniture of the tomb, and 
 kept them in his bedroom, and looked at them nightly before retiring to 
 rest. People who saw the box thought it must be filled with treasure, 
 or important papers ; and when asked about it, the emperor would smile, 
 and say it did contain something which he valued very highly. Salazar, 
 a Spaniard, cites as his authority a Frenchman, Pierre Gregoire of 
 Thoulouse, who tells the story at great length in his work De Reipuhlica, 
 2 torn. fol. Lugduni: 1609, lib. vi., cap. iii., sect. 8, torn, i., p. 139, and 
 says he found it ' in oratione funebri ejus (Caroli V.) Sueuca' — a source 
 which I have been unable to discover. Sandoval had heard it, but did 
 not believe it. I have somewhere read a similar anecdote of the emperor 
 Maximilian I. 
 
 * Los Santos : Hist, de la ord. de S. Oeronimo, torn. iv. fol. Madrid : 
 1680, p. 516. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 249 
 
 a discourse, so impassioned, that some of the hearers 
 declared that it made their flesh creep, and their hair 
 stand on end. In that part of his peroration, in which it 
 was the custom for a preacher to address himself to the 
 more distinguished of his audience, the friar produced a 
 great effect by apostrophizing the emperor as if he were 
 still alive, and hstening to the sermon in his accustomed 
 place. In the earlier part of the service it had hap- 
 pened, that a dispute had arisen between Avila and 
 Quixada, about a chair which had been brought into 
 the choir for the use of one of the noble worship- 
 pers, probably the count of Oropesa, who was in feeble 
 health. The chamberlain declared that no person should 
 sit in the presence of the emperor, though in his coffin. 
 The grand-commander urged the necessity of the case, 
 and the infirmities of his friend. ' If he cannot stand 
 or kneel like other people,' said Quixada, 'he had 
 better stay away/ and he ordered a page to remove 
 the chair. The matter was being debated when Vil- 
 lalva ascended the pulpit, and it helped to point the ap- 
 plication of the sermon's close. The rule which Quixada 
 enforced on others was scrupulously obeyed by himself. 
 His close attendance, and that of Don John, at the 
 ceremonies was remarked in the convent; and it was 
 observed that neither of them, from morning to night, 
 ever sat down.^ 
 
 Sermons were also pronounced on the second day, by 
 Fray Luis de San Gregorio, prior of Granada, and on 
 the third by Fray Francisco de Angulo, prior of Sta. 
 Engracia at Zaragoza. The imperial dust was then 
 mingled with the common earth. ' Let my sepulture/ 
 said the will of Charles, ' be so ordered, that the lower 
 half of my body lie beneath, and the upper half before^ 
 
 * Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Eetraite, p. 65, 5d. 
 
250 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 the higli altar, that the priest who says mass may tread 
 upon my head and my breast/ But the clergy present 
 being divided in opinion as to the lawfulness of placing 
 under the high altar a corpse not in the odour of sanc- 
 tity, the matter was compromised by laying the coffin in 
 a cavity made in the wall behind, so that it encroached 
 on a very small portion of the holy ground. 
 
 So ended the career of Charles the Fifth, the greatest 
 monarch of the memorable sixteenth century. The vast 
 extent of his dominions in Europe, the wealth of his 
 transatlantic empire, the sagacity of his mind, and the 
 energy of his character, combined to render him the 
 most famous of the successors of Charlemagne. ^ Chris- 
 tendom,^ wrote a Venetian envoy ^ in 1551, in one of 
 those curious secret reports addressed by the keenest of 
 observers to the most jealous of governments, ' has seen 
 no prince since Charlemagne so wise, so valorous, or so 
 great as this emperor Charles.^ Pre-eminently the man 
 of his time, his name is seldom wanting to any monu- 
 ment of the age. He stood between the days of 
 chivalry, which were going out, and the days of printing, 
 which were coming in; respecting the traditions of the 
 one, and fulfilling many of the requirements of the 
 other. Men of the sword found him a bold cavalier; 
 and those whose weapons were their tongues or their 
 pens, soon learned to respect him as an astute and 
 consummate politician. Like his ancestors, Don Jayme, 
 or Don Sancho, with lance in rest, and shouting San- 
 tiago for Spain! he led his knights against the Moorish 
 host, among the olives of Goleta; and even in his last 
 campaign in Saxony, the cream-coloured genet of the 
 emperor was ever in the van of battle, like the famous 
 piebald charger of Turenne in later fields of the pala- 
 
 ' Marino de' Cavalli : Bulletin de Vacad. roy. de Bruxelles, torn, xii. 
 p. 57. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 251 
 
 tinate. Some historians have contrasted Charles with 
 his more showy and perhaps more amiable rival, Francis 
 the First, making the two monarchs the impersonations 
 of opposite qualities and ideas; the emperor of state craft 
 and cunning, the king of soldiership and gallantry. 
 Francis was, no doubt, oftener to be seen glittering in 
 armour, and adorning the pageants of royalty and war; 
 but Charles was oftener in the trench and the field, 
 scenes for which alone he cared to don his battered mail 
 and shabby accoutrements. His journey across France, 
 in order to repress the revolt of Ghent, was a finer 
 example of daring, of a great danger deliberately braved 
 for a great purpose, than is to be found in the story of 
 the gay champion of the field of gold. In the council 
 chamber he was ready to measure minds with aU comers; 
 with the northern envoy who claimed liberty of con- 
 science for the protestant princes; with the magnifico 
 who excused the perfidies of Venice; or with the stiU 
 subtler priest, who stood forth in red stockings to gloze 
 in defence of the still greater iniquities of the holy see. 
 In the prosecution of his plans, and the maintenance of 
 his influence, Charles shrank from no labour of mind, or 
 fatigue of body. Where other sovereigns would have 
 sent an ambassador, and opened a negotiation, he paid 
 a visit, and concluded a treaty. From Groningen to 
 Otranto, from Vienna to Cadiz, no unjust steward of the 
 house of Austria could be sure that his misdeeds would 
 escape detection on the spot from the keen cold eye of 
 the indefatigable emperor. The name of Charles is 
 connected, not only with the wars and politics, but with 
 the peaceful arts of his time: it is linked with the graver 
 of the Vico, the chisel of Leoni, the pencil of Titian, and 
 the lyre of Ariosto; and as a lover and patron of art, 
 his fame stood as high at Venice and Nuremberg as at 
 Antwerp and Toledo. 
 
252 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 The admiration which was raised by the great events 
 of his reign, was sustained to the last by the unwonted 
 manner of its close. In our days, abdication has been 
 so frequently the refuge of weak men, fallen on evil 
 times, or the last shift of baffled bad men, that it is 
 difficult for us to conceive the sensation which must 
 have been produced by the retirement of Charles. 
 England is among the few nations of Europe to whose 
 thrones there are no pretenders expiating in exile their 
 personal or inherited sins ; perhaps the sole nation 
 whose royal house has no member who has put oflP, or 
 has declined to put on, the hereditary crown. Now that 
 the divinity which doth hedge a king has become a 
 bowing wall and a tottering fence, it is almost impos- 
 sible to look upon the solemn ceremony which was 
 enacted at Bruxelles with the feeling or the eyes of the 
 sixteenth century. The act of the emperor was a thing 
 not indeed altogether unheard of, but known only in 
 books and distant times. The knights of the fleece^ 
 who wept on the dais, around their Caesar, knew little 
 more about Diocletian than was known by the farmers 
 and clothiers who elbowed each other in the crowd below. 
 It was only some rare student who remembered that a 
 Theodosius and an Isaac had submitted their heads to 
 the razor, to save their necks from the axe or the bow- 
 string; that a Lothaire had led a hermit's life in the 
 forest of Ardennes; that a Carloman had milked the 
 ewes of the Benedictines at Monte Cassino. Spanish 
 history aflPorded several examples of abdications, but 
 they belonged to the misty ages of the Goth, and the 
 Castillian who was in the habit of alluding to very 
 remote antiquity as ' the days of king Wamba,' perhaps 
 seldom knew that the example set by that martial 
 monarch had been followed by Bermudo, and Alonso, 
 and Ramiro, when each, in his turn, exchanged the 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 258 
 
 diadem for the cowl. The act of Charles, therefore, was 
 fitted to strike the imagination of men, by the novelty 
 of the occasion, by the solemnity of the circumstances, 
 by the splendour of the abdicated crowns, and by the 
 world-wide fame with which they had been worn. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the emperor gave the true 
 reasons of his retirement when, panting for breath, and 
 unable to stand alone, he told the states of Flanders 
 that he resigned the government because it was a burden 
 which his shattered frame could no longer bear. He 
 was fulfilhng the plan which he had cherished for nearly 
 twenty years. Indeed, he seems to have determined to 
 abdicate almost at the time when he determined to reign. 
 So powerful a mind as that of Charles, has seldom 
 been so tardy in giving evidence of power. Until he 
 appeared in Italy, in 1529, the thirtieth year of his age, 
 his strong wiU had been as wax in the hands of other 
 men. Up to that time the most laborious, reserved, 
 and inflexible of princes, was the most docile subject of 
 his ministers. His mind ripened slowly, and his body 
 decayed prematurely. By nature and hereditary habit 
 a keen sportsman, in his youth he was unwearied iu 
 tracking the bear and the wolf over the hills of Toledo 
 and Granada; and he was distinguished for his prowess 
 against the buU and the boar.^ Yet ere he had turned 
 fifty, he was reduced to amuse himself by shooting 
 crows and daws amongst the trees of his garden. The 
 hand which had wielded the lance, and curbed the 
 charger, was so enfeebled with gout, that it was some- 
 times unable to break the seal of a letter. Dechning 
 fortune combined with decaying health to maintain him 
 in that general vexation of spirit which he shared with 
 
 ^ Lihro de la Montei-ia : Discurso de 0. Argote de Molina, p. 6. Ranke's 
 Ottoman and Spanish Empires, translated by Kelly. 8vo. London : 1843, 
 p. 30. 
 
26i CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, x, 
 
 king Solomon. His later schemes of policy and conquest 
 ended in nothing but disaster and disgrace. The pope, 
 the Turk, the king of France, and the protestant princes 
 of the empire, were once more arrayed against the 
 potentate, who, in the bright morning of his career, had 
 imposed laws upon them all. The flight from Innsbruck 
 avenged the cause wHich seemed lost at Muhlberg. 
 The treaty of Passau, by placing the Lutheran religion 
 amongst the recognised institutions of the empire, over- 
 turned the entire fabric of the emperor's policy, and 
 destroyed his hopes of transmitting the imperial crown 
 to his son. While the doctors of the church assembled 
 at Trent, in that council which had cost so much treasure 
 and intrigue, continued their solemn quibblings, the pro- 
 testant faith was spreading itself even in the dominions 
 of the orthodox house of Hapsburg. The emperor's 
 well-known devise, the pillars of Hercules, with the 
 proud motto, plus ultra, for which the inventor had 
 been rewarded with two mitres,^ became the butt of the 
 pedantic wits of France. Guise and the gallant towns- 
 men of Metz, furnished a new reading — non ultra 
 METAS, — for the motto;^ and Paris was made merry with 
 the suggestion that the pillars should be changed into 
 a crab, and the words into plus citra,^ to express the 
 ebb of the imperial fortunes. The finances both of Spain 
 and the other dominions of Austria were in the utmost 
 disorder; and the lord of Mexico and Peru had been 
 forced to beg a loan from the duke of Florence. It is 
 
 ^ Luis Marliano, author of this famous device, was paid for his inge- 
 nuity, first with the bishopric of Tuy {sorely against the will of cardinal 
 Ximenes ; Alv. Gomez ; I)e rebus gestis, fol. 151), and afterwards with 
 that of Ciudad Rodrigo. Rod. Mendez Silva : Catalogo Real. 4to. 
 Madrid : 1656, fol. 136. 
 
 * Le Moyne: De VArt des Devises. 4to. Paris : 1666, p. 215. 
 
 3 Strada : De Bdlo Belgico, lib. i. 2 torn. sm. 8vo. Antwerp : 1640, 
 117. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 256 
 
 no wonder, therefore, that Charles seized the first gleam 
 of sunshine and returning calm to make for the long 
 desired haven of refuge ; that he reheved his brow of 
 its thorny crowns as soon as he had obtained an object 
 dear to him as a father, a pohtician, and a devotee, by 
 placing his son Phihp on the rival throne of the heretic 
 l\idors. 
 
 His habits and turn of mind made a rehgious house 
 the natural place of his retreat. Like a true Castillian, 
 
 With age, with cares, with maladies opprest, 
 He sought the refuge of conventual rest. 
 
 Monachism had for him a charm, vague yet powerful, 
 such as soldiership has for the young; and he was ever 
 fond of catching glimpses of the life which he had 
 resolved, sooner or later, to embrace. When the empress 
 died, he retired to indulge his grief in the cloisters of 
 La Sisla, near Toledo. After his return from one of his 
 African campaigns, he paid a visit to the noble convent 
 of Mejorado, near Olmedo, and spent two days in familiar 
 converse with Jeromites, sharing their refectory fare, and 
 walking for hours in their garden alleys of venerable 
 cypress. When he held his court at Bruxelles, he was 
 often a guest at the convent of Groenendael ; and the 
 monks commemorated his condescension as a monarch 
 as well as his skill as a marksman, by placing his statue 
 in bronze on the banks of their fishpond, at a point 
 where he had brought down a heron from an amazing 
 height. At Alcala, when attending service in the 
 university church, he would not occupy the throne pre- 
 pared for him, but insisted on sitting with the canons, 
 saying that he never could be better placed than among 
 reverend and learned divines.^ 
 
 * Alf. Sanctii : De Rehus Hispanice a/aacephaleosis. 4to. Compluti 
 1634, p. 377. 
 
256 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 These church predilections, coloured with religious 
 melancholy, Charles inherited from his ancestors on both 
 sides of the house, and transmitted to his descendants. 
 Ferdinand the catholic was not free from them; and 
 the emperor Maximilian was said to have entertained, in 
 his latter days, the notable design of taking orders and 
 getting himself chosen pope. Philip the Second was 
 pre-eminently the friend of friars : in his wretched cell 
 adjoining the church of the Escorial he hved a life of 
 the severest asceticism ; and, ever reckless of the blood 
 of his people, he was often to be seen on his knees, 
 reverently dusting and polishing the golden reliquaries 
 in which he had enshrined the bones of his saints. Don 
 John of Austria, when sickening of deferred hope of a 
 throne, instinctively turned his thoughts to the cowl and 
 a celestial crown. Philip the Third never missed visiting 
 a convent when the opportunity occurred j they long re- 
 membered, at Montserrate, the devotion with which he 
 clambered to every rock-hewn cell of that romantic 
 hermit-warren ; and when the third part of Siguen9a^s 
 Jeromite history appeared, he sat up a whole night to 
 read the fascinating folio.^ Even the licentious Philip 
 the Fourth, and the half idiot Charles the Second were 
 careful to send the best buck or the best boar from 
 their day's heap of game to the prior of the Escorial ; 
 and, in the true spirit of their grandsire of Yuste, they 
 used to descend into the pantheon of their palace-con- 
 vent, and muse upon death amongst the ashes of their 
 ancestors. 
 
 Nor were the princesses of the Spanish house of 
 Austria untinged with the religious melancholy of their 
 race. Like queen Juana, many of them ended their 
 
 ^ Porreno : Hechos y dichos de Felipe III. 4 to. Madrid : 1723, 
 p. 332-4. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 257 
 
 days in the cloister ; and a few even took the veil and 
 wore the ring of lady abbess. Amongst these were the 
 regent Juana and her sister, the empress Mary, with 
 her daughter the archduchess Margaret, who refused the 
 hand of her uncle, Philip the Second, and, as sister 
 Margaret of the Cross, was famous for near half a cen- 
 tury among the vestals of Madrid. The infanta Isabella, 
 the able ruler of the Netherlands, at the death of her 
 husband took the habit, though not the vows, of a Fran- 
 ciscan nun, as the habit which had been worn with so 
 much holy distinction by ladies of her name and lineage, 
 the Isabellas of Hungary and of Portugal.^ The married 
 life of queen Margaret, wife of Philip the Third, was 
 divided between childbed and church.^ Paris, with its 
 pageantries and the new pleasures of bridehood and a 
 throne, could not dispel the constitutional gloom from 
 the young heart of Maria Teresa. ' What did you think 
 of your reception?^ asked Anne of Austria, on the 
 evening of her arrival at the Louvre. ^I thought,^ 
 replied the queen of Louis the Fourteenth, ' of that 
 other pageant which shall one day carry me to the 
 tomb.^^ The influence of Spanish blood may be seen in 
 the declining years of Louis himself, and in the strange 
 story of the devout Bourbon, who wore the family 
 honours of Orleans between the profligate regent and 
 the infamous Egahte. 
 
 To the last Charles loved his woodland nest at Yuste. 
 It has been said that he was wont to declare that he 
 had enjoyed there more real happiness in one day than 
 
 > C. de Benavente : Adverteiicias para Reyes. 4to. Madrid : 1643, 
 pp. 228, 9. 
 
 2 See her life, Vida y muerte de Dona Margarita de Austria, por 
 Diego de Guzman. 4to. Madrid : 1617. 
 
 ' Fr. Juan B. de Soria : BiMoria de Dona Maria Teresa de Austria, 
 Beina de Francia. sm. 8vo. Madrid : 1684, p. 11. 
 
258 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 he had derived from all his triumphs^' an extravagant 
 assertion, which is nevertheless far nearer the truth than 
 the idle tale that his retirement was a long repentance 
 of his abdication. But the cloister, like the world, was 
 not without its disappointments. He had escaped only 
 from the pageantry of courts, not from the toil and 
 excitement of public affairs. To Yuste he had come, 
 seeking sohtude and repose ; but although his chamber- 
 lain complained bitterly that he had indeed found the 
 one, his own long and laboured despatches prove that 
 he enjoyed but little of the other. He began by attempt- 
 ing to confine his attention to a few matters in which 
 he was specially interested, and which he hoped ere long 
 to bring to a happy termination ; but the circle gradually 
 widened, and at last his anxious eye learned once more 
 to sweep the whole horizon of Spanish policy. From 
 the war in Flanders he would turn to the diplomacy of 
 Italy or Portugal; and his plans for replenishing the 
 treasury at Valladolid, were followed by remarks on the 
 garrisons in Africa, or the signal towers along the 
 Spanish shore. He watched the course of the vessel 
 of state with interest as keen as if the helm were still 
 in his own hands ; and the successes and the disasters 
 of his son affected him as if they were his own. Unfor- 
 tunately, in 1557 and 1558, the disasters greatly out- 
 numbered and outweighed the successes. On one side 
 of the account stood the brilliant but barren victory of 
 St. Quentin, and the less signal but better employed 
 victory of Gravelines ; on the other, there was the bullion 
 riots at Seville, the disgraceful treaty of Rome, the loss 
 of Calais and of Thionville, the sack of Menorca, and 
 the outburst of heresy. He might well dread the arrival 
 
 * Phil. Camerarii Meditationes Historicce, 3 torn. 4to. Francofui-ti 
 1602-9, i. p. 210. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 259 
 
 of each courier; and the destruction of the array of 
 Oran was announced in the despatches which lay unread 
 on his table at the time of his death. 
 
 The prudence and moderation which generally guided 
 his acts in the world dictated his writings at Yuste. 
 Notwithstanding his displeasure with the Roman nego- 
 tiations of Alba and the loss of Calais and Thionville, 
 which he expressed freely enough in conversation^ few 
 traces of ruffled temper are to be found in his written 
 remarks on these subjects. It was this caution and 
 self-control which saved his reign from many of those 
 disorders and scandals which disgraced the rule of his 
 successors. The three Philips were governed by 
 favourites and viziers, minions of fortune, who in time 
 became her martyrs. The ministers of Charles neither 
 rose so high nor fell so low ; he never had a Perez, a 
 Lerma, an OHvares, or a Calderon. 
 
 Perhaps the very qualities which rendered the de- 
 spatches of the emperor so admirable as state papers, at 
 the dates which they bore, and in the hands to which 
 they were addressed, tend to diminish their value as ma- 
 terials for his biography. A close reasoner, careful in 
 analyzing facts, and subtle in penetrating motives, Charles 
 was nevertheless one of the most tiresome writers who 
 ever drove the quill of political or diplomatic correspond- 
 ence. Heavy and redundant in style, his pictures of men 
 and events are flat and colourless ; and even in argu- 
 ment, his vivacity is cramped and crippled by the fence 
 of caution and reserve which ever hedges his path. Very 
 rarely does it happen that any spark of human feeling 
 or passion illumines his weary records of the daily toils 
 of power j of hopes and fears, to which a generous heart 
 can seldom respond; of selfish intrigues and ignoble 
 rivalries : and of aU the dusty plans of an ambition 
 which never soared above the famUy tree of Hapsburg. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 In the cloister^ Charles was no less popular than he 
 had been in the world. In spite of his feeble health 
 and phlegmatic temperament, in spite of his caution, 
 which was ever suspicious, and his selfishness, which 
 frequently made him false ; in spite of his jealous love 
 of power, and of his contempt for popular rights, there 
 was still in his conduct and bearing that indescribable 
 charm which wins the favour of the multitude. A little 
 book, of no literary value, but frequently printed both in 
 French and Flemish, sufficiently indicates in its title the 
 qualities which coloured the popular view of his cha- 
 racter. The life and actions, heroic and pleasant, of the 
 invincible emperor, Charles the Fifth, was long a favourite 
 chap-book in the Low Countries. It relates how he 
 defeated Solyman the Magnificent; how he permitted 
 a Walloon boor to obtain judgment against him for the 
 value of a sheep, killed by the wheels of his coach; how 
 he rode down the Moorish horsemen at Tunis; and how 
 he jested, like any private sportsman, with the woodmen 
 of Soigne. A similar reputation for affkbility and good 
 humour, heightened by the added quality of sanctity, he 
 left behind him in the sylvan monastery of Estremadura. 
 Doomed by royal etiquette to eat alone, he sometimes 
 broke through the rule in favour of St. Benedict or St. 
 Jerome. Dining in former years with the fathers of 
 Montserrate, the prior, a rough Aragonese, ventured to 
 tell him that he had polluted their sober board by eating 
 flesh-meat there, a monkish pleasantry which the im- 
 perial guest won the hearts of his hosts by taking in 
 perfectly good part.^ At Yuste he once dined in the 
 refectory, and although the fare did not tempt him to 
 
 ^ Yida que el emperador tuvo en el convento de Yuste : in the MS. en- 
 titled Elperfecto desengano por el marques de Valparaiso, 1638, of which 
 I have given an account in my preface. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 261 
 
 do the friars that honour a second time, the bad dishes 
 did not affect the good humour of his conversation.' 
 
 In one point alone did Charles in the cell differ widely 
 from Charles on the throne. In the world, fanaticism 
 had not been one of his vices ; he feared the keys no 
 more than his cousin of England, and he confronted 
 the successor of St. Peter no less boldly than he made 
 head against the heir of St. Louis. While he held 
 Clement the Seventh prisoner at Rome, he permitted at 
 Madrid the mockery of masses for that pontiff^s speedy 
 deliverance. Against the protestants he fought rather as 
 rebels than as heretics, and he frequently stayed the hand 
 of the victorious zealots of the church. At Wittenberg 
 he set a fine example of moderation, in forbidding the 
 destruction of the tomb of Luther, saying that he con- 
 tended with the living and not with the dead.^ To a 
 Venetian envoy, accredited to him at BruxeUes, in the 
 last year of his reign, he appeared free from all taint of 
 polemical madness, and willing that subjects of theology 
 should be discussed in his presence, with fair philoso- 
 phical freedom.^ 
 
 But once within the walls of Yuste, he assumed aU 
 the passions, prejudices, and superstitions of a friar. 
 Looking back on his past life, he thanked God for the 
 evil that he had been permitted to do in the matter of 
 religious persecution, and repented him, in sackcloth and 
 ashes, for having kept his phghted word to a heretic. 
 Rehgion was the enchanted ground whereon his strong 
 will was paralyzed and his keen intellect fell grovelling in 
 the dust. Protestant and philosophic historians love to 
 relate how Charles, finding that no two of his time- 
 
 ' Chap. viii. p. 187. 
 
 2 Juncker: Vita Mart. Luteri, sm. 8vo. Francofurti : 1699, p. 219. 
 Sleidan : De Statu relig. et reip., lib. xix., is cited as his authority. 
 ' JRdatione of Badovaro. 
 
262 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 pieces could be made to go alike, remarked that he had 
 perhaps erred in spending so much blood and treasure 
 in the hope of compelling men to a yet more impossible 
 uniformity in the more difficult matters of religion. The 
 antithesis of some declaimer on toleration, passing from 
 pen to pen, has at last been placed by a Sleidan or a 
 Giovio, more careless or unscrupulous than their fellows, 
 as an aphorism in the mouth of the emperor himself, 
 against whom it was probably, in the first instance, 
 launched.^ It would have been well for his own fame, 
 well, perhaps, for the moral and intellectual progress of 
 Spain, had such a sentiment been found in the table- 
 talk of the Spanish Diocletian. But it is certain that 
 the philosophy of 
 
 him who walked 
 In the Salonian garden's noble shade, 
 
 was unknown, or unapproved, at Yuste, in the cloister 
 of the Jeromite or in the cabinet of the imperial recluse. 
 While Charles lived and died at Yuste, no less than 
 two aspiring pens were at work upon epic poems to 
 commemorate his reign. Sempere, a merchant of Va- 
 lencia, was first in the field, in 1560, with his Carolea, 
 of which the thirty printed cantos bring the heroes 
 history down only to his coronation at Bologna. The 
 huge and worthless fragment was never completed.^ In 
 
 ^ I have sought in vain for the inventor of this popular fiction, of 
 which I can find no trace in books of the sixteenth century. Strada, De 
 Bello Belg., lib. i, p. 13, speaking of the emperor's love of watchmaking 
 and watches, adds, 'quorum videlicit rotas multo qu^m fortunse faciliua 
 temperabat ;' a remark which was kindly pointed out to me by Mr. 
 Macaulay, as the possible germ of the story. It is told in its present 
 shape, as a well-known anecdote, in Harris's Description of the gardens of 
 Loo, 4to, London : 1699, p. 70-2, the earliest book in which I have met 
 with it. Hume relates it in his History of Queen Mary Tudor, whence 
 it was probably transplanted, without question, by Robertson, who 
 having the will and codicil of Charles before him in Sandoval, ought to 
 have rejected it on internal evidence. 
 
 =* Ticknor's Hist, of Spanish Literature, ii. p. 456. 
 
1568.] 
 
 EMPEROR CHARLES V. 
 
 203 
 
 1568, Luis ^apata, a soldier, published, likewise at 
 Valencia, his Carlo Famoso, in fifty cantos. The com- 
 position of this work cost him the labour of thirteen 
 years, and the printing of it, upwards of one thousand 
 ducats, but neither from this large outlay of time and 
 money, nor from a still more lavish expenditure of 
 flattery in his dedication to Philip the Second, did he 
 reap anything, according to his own account,^ but vexa- 
 tion and deferred hope. He, too, commenced his 
 rhymed annals, — for the poem was nothing more, — on a 
 scale so colossal, that he was compelled to compress into 
 the final canto the twelve last years of his heroes life. 
 From this wilderness of justly neglected verse I venture 
 to select these stanzas as a fair specimen of the poem, 
 and of the admiration with which the retirement of 
 Charles was regarded. 
 
 Y el emperador, que antes no solia 
 Caber en todo el mundo de aposento^j 
 En Yuste, en nuestra Espana un aba 
 Se recogio ^ la fin ^ un aposento : 
 
 Y alii (puesto en el ciel un pie) bivia, 
 Mas qu'en su cielo Jupiter contento. 
 En religion sin habito biviendo 
 A quantos bavia monges excediendo. 
 
 Otros se ban del imperio descargado, 
 Mas que no de virtud de miedo lleno, 
 Qu'en la una mano vian el bierro ayrado, 
 
 Y en el otra el vaso oculto de veneno ; 
 Imitando al castor, y aun tan loado 
 
 Les fue, que de su fama hoy dura el trueno, 
 Mas el dexo un imperio, 6 caso duro, 
 Glorioso, dulce, en paz, quieto y seguro. 
 
 
 TlfK 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 Carlo que como cisne su fin siente 
 
 Al niiio Don Juan de Austria ante si llama. 
 
 1 In a MS. quoted by J. A. Pellicer (Don Quixote, 5 vol- 8vo, 
 Madrid, 1797, i. p. 73, note), who thinks that Carlo Famosowas the 
 book alluded to by Cervantes as Hechos dd Emperador, which was 
 burned, along with the Carolea, by the priest and barber among the 
 books of which they cleared the Quixote library. It is now of extreme 
 rarity. 
 
264 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. x. 
 
 Y le dize quien es, y de alii ausente 
 
 Se le encomienda al rey que tanto el ama ; 
 
 Y hecho lo que un rey tan excellente 
 En tal tiempo devia, como una llama 
 Que le falta ya al fin el nutrimiento 
 
 Se fue agozar de Dios ^ su alto assiento.* 
 
 So Charles the emperor, whose mighty reign 
 The globe itself scarce held within its bound. 
 At Yuste, a fair abbey of our Spain, 
 A lowly home and quiet haven found : 
 Here, half his heart in heaven, did he remain. 
 Tranquil as Jove with sovrain glories crown'd j 
 In all things save the hood a holy friar. 
 In Christian graces peerless in the choir. 
 
 Kings erst have left their sceptred state and sway. 
 Pale terror prompting, not calm strength of soul ; 
 Flash'd, in their dreams, the falchion's dreadful ray, 
 Lurk'd, in their fears, the drug within the bowl ; 
 (So beavers, hunted, cast their spoils away,) 
 Yet fame's loud tongues the noble deed extol : 
 But greater Charles, with glory all his own, 
 Resign'd a peaceful, sure, and splendid throne. 
 * « * * « 
 
 His end at last foreknowing, like the swan. 
 
 The emperor to his side bids quickly bring 
 
 The opening Austrian flower, his young Don John ; 
 
 Reveals his birth ; and to the absent king 
 
 Commends in loving wise this other son ; 
 
 Then, sooth'd with holy rites, his soul takes wing. 
 
 With fitful flickering like a lamp that dies, 
 
 To God's high seat and bliss beyond the skies. 
 
 The statement with regard to Don John is, perhaps, 
 not wholly to be relied upon ; nor is it to be wholly 
 rejected. (Japata wrote while the events were fresh in 
 men's memories ; in his dedication to the king he chal- 
 lenged comparison for accuracy with any prose historian; 
 and he professed to mark with an asterisk every 
 passage in which he had ventured to embelhsh fact with 
 fiction. No asterisk throws a doubt upon the incident 
 above recorded. By the letters written from Yuste it is 
 neither confirmed nor discredited. Quixada, De Bues, 
 
 ! Carlo Fmwso de Don Luys Cajpata. 4to. Valencia : 1566, fol. 287. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 265 
 
 Bodart, and Philip the Second seem to have been the 
 only persons in the secret ; but during the life of the 
 emperor, the chamberlain never alluded to it in his cor- 
 respondence with the king ; and even after his master's 
 death he mentioned it, as the next chapter will show, 
 very cautiously, very briefly, and with evident reluctance. 
 
2Q6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FINAL NOTICES OF THE COURT OF YUSTE. 
 
 CHARLES the Fifth did not leave the world without 
 some of those portents in which his age loved to 
 trace the influence of a remarkable death upon the 
 operations of external nature. In Aragon, the famous 
 bell of Vililla, which, ringing of itself, had foretold the 
 death of Ferdinand the Catholic, and the sack of Rome 
 by the army of Bourbon, once more sent its hoarse and 
 mysterious warning along the plains of the Ebro.^ A comet 
 appeared over Yuste at the beginning of the emperor's last 
 illness, and was last seen on the night in which he died. In 
 the spring of 1558, a hly in his garden, growing beneath 
 his windows, bore two buds, of which one flowered and 
 faded in due course, but the other remained a bud 
 through the summer and autumn, to the great astonish- 
 ment of the gardeners and the friars. But on the night 
 of the twentieth of September, it burst into full bloom, 
 as an emblem of the whiteness of the parting spirit, and 
 of the sure and certain hope of its reception into the 
 mansions of bhss. Reverently gathered in the morning, 
 this wondrous lily was fastened upon the black veil 
 which covered the sacramental shrine in the conventual 
 
 1 Dr. Juan de Quinones : Discv/rso de la Campana de Vililla. 4to, 
 Madrid : 1625, fol. 4. A curious volume. The prophetic properties of 
 the hell were ascribed, by some, to the influence of the stars, or the 
 touch of angels ; by others, to the presence in the metal of one of the 
 thirty pieces of silver for which Judas Iscariot betrayed his master. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 207 
 
 clmrch, and remained there until it dropped off from 
 decay. In the week following the obsequies, a pied 
 bird, large as a vulture, but of a kind unknown in the 
 Vera, perched at night on the roof of the church, exactly- 
 over the imperial grave, and disturbed the friars by- 
 barking like a dog. For five successive nights it barked 
 there in the clear moonlight, always at the same hour, 
 and always arriving from the east and flying away 
 towards the west. And four years later, a holy capu- 
 chin of the new world. Fray Gon9alo Mendez, as he knelt 
 in his convent chapel at Guatemala, was blessed with a 
 vision wherein he saw the emperor before the judgment- 
 seat of our Lord, making his defence against the accusing 
 demons, and with so much success that he received 
 honourable acquittal, and was in the end borne off to 
 heaven by the angels of hght. 
 
 The codicil of the will of Charles, the only part of 
 the document which properly belongs to his Ufe at 
 Yuste, is drawn up with a minuteness of detail very 
 characteristic of the careful habits of the man. After 
 a profession of attachment to the church, and hatred of 
 heresy, and after the directions for his burial, which 
 have been already noticed, he proceeds to describe a 
 monument and altar-piece which he wished to be erected 
 in the church of the convent, in the event of Yuste 
 being chosen by his son for the final resting-place for 
 his bones. The altar-piece was to be of alabaster, a 
 copy in relief of Titian^s picture of the Last Judgment, 
 the picture on which he was gazing at the moment when 
 he felt the first touch of death. A custodia, or sacra- 
 mental tabernacle, was likewise to be made of alabaster 
 and marble, and placed between statues of the empress 
 and himself. These effigies were to be sculptured 
 kneeling, with hands clasped as if in prayer, barefoot, 
 and with uncovered heads, and clad in sheets like peni- 
 
268 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 tents. For further particulars he referred the king to 
 Luis Quixada and the confessor Regla, who were fully 
 instructed in his meaning and wishes. In case of the 
 removal of his body, instead of the altar-piece and 
 monument, the convent was to receive a picture for their 
 high altar, of such kind as the king should appoint. 
 
 The emperor next expresses his concern at hearing 
 that the pensions which he had granted to the servants 
 whom he had dismissed at Xarandilla had been very ill 
 paid, and he entreats the king to order their punctual 
 payment for the future. He directs that the friars of 
 Yuste, and the friars from other convents, who had 
 been specially employed in his service as readers, 
 preachers, musicians, or in other capacities, shall receive 
 such gratuities as shall appear sufficient to father Regla 
 and Quixada. To the confessor himself he bequeaths 
 an annual pension of four hundred ducats, (about 80Z. 
 sterling,) and four hundred ducats in legacy. Of 
 Quixada he twice speaks in the most affectionate terms, 
 acknowledging his long and good services, and his 
 willing fidelity in incurring the expense and incon- 
 venience of removing his wife and household to Quacos. 
 Lamenting that he has done so little to promote his 
 interest, he earnestly recommends him to the king's 
 favour, and leaves him a legacy of two thousand ducats, 
 (400Z. sterhng,) and a pension of the value of his present 
 emoluments, without mentioning the amount, until he 
 shall be provided with a better appointment. He also 
 desires the infanta to cause the amount of fines recovered, 
 or that should be recovered by his attorney, from the 
 poachers and rioters of Quacos, to be paid into the 
 hands of a person named by the executors, for distribu- 
 tion amongst the poor of the village. The contents of his 
 larder and cellar, and his stores of provisions in general, 
 at the day of his decease, and likewise the dispensary, 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 269 
 
 with its drugs and vessels, he leaves to the brother- 
 hood of Yuste, and to the poor any money which may 
 remain in his coffers after defraying the wages of his 
 servants. 
 
 These are all mentioned by name, and for the most 
 part receive pensions, except a few to whom small gra- 
 tuities are given, it being explained that previous provi- 
 sion has been made for them. The pensions range 
 from four hundred florins, (32/. sterling,) conferred on 
 the doctor, Mathys, to ninety florins, which requite the 
 services of Isabel Plantin, laundress of the table-hnen. 
 The gratuities vary from one hundred and fifty thousand 
 maravedis, (about 45/. sterling,) left to the secretary 
 Gaztelu, to seven thousand five hundred maravedis, 
 given to Jorge de Diano, a boy employed in the work- 
 shop of Torriano. That mechanician himself being already 
 pensioned to the amount of two hundred crowns, receives 
 only fifteen thousand maravedis ; and he is likewise re- 
 minded that he has been paid something to account on 
 the price of a clock which is in hand, and for which his 
 employer is content that the executors shall pay a fair 
 valuation. 
 
 The executors of the will were Quixada, Gaztelu, and 
 father Regla. Immediately after the obsequies they 
 began to carry its provisions into effect. The wages 
 of the servants were all paid in gold, and most of them 
 took their departure to Valladolid, the Flemings being 
 anxious to secure berths in the fleet which was then 
 assembling at Laredo, to carry the queen of Hungary to 
 her government in the Netherlands. The cook and 
 some of the confectioners, recommended by Quixada, 
 were taken into the service of the princess-regent. 
 Amongst the friars, the executors distributed eleven 
 hundred and ninety ducats in gratuities. The largest 
 of these gratuities was a sum of two hundred ducats to 
 
270 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 the preacher Villalva. Fray Lorenzo de Losar received 
 one hundred and fifty ducats, for acting as purveyor to 
 the emperor^s household : the friars from Zaragoza 
 and Granada, who had been in attendance as preachers 
 for three months, had forty each : Fray Marcos de 
 Cardona, counter-bass, and an assistant in the garden 
 of the emperor, seventy; and thirty -five were divided 
 amongst the four relations of Fray Juan de Villamayor, 
 who had died three months before in the post of chapel- 
 master. Strict injunctions were laid upon the prior of 
 Yuste that no one was to be permitted, under any pre- 
 text whatever, but the king^s order, to lodge in the 
 palace, which he and his fraternity were expected to keep 
 in proper repair. 
 
 Of Don John of Austria, the sole acknowledgment 
 of him as son of Charles the Fifth, and the only declara- 
 tion of his father^s intentions with regard to him, were 
 contained in a separate paper executed at Bruxelles, on 
 the sixth of June, 1554, and already deposited in the 
 custody of the king.^ By this document Charles re- 
 quired that Geronimo — for so Don John was called — 
 his natural son born to him in his widowhood by a Ger- 
 man unmarried woman, should be educated in a manner 
 befitting his rank ; and he further intimated a wish that 
 he should afterwards enter one of the reformed monastic 
 orders; provided, however, that his inclinations were 
 not forced or even influenced in the matter. In the 
 event of his preferring a secular career, lands of the 
 annual value of between twenty and thirty thousand 
 ducats, in the kingdom of Naples, were to be settled 
 upon him and his heirs. 
 
 Quixada and Gaztelu were employed for some weeks 
 in drawing up an inventory of the emperor's effects, and 
 
 Papiers de Grcmvelle, iv. 496. See also chap. iv. p. 67, note. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 271 
 
 in superintending their removal to Valladolid. The 
 regent was very minute in the instructions which she 
 sent down for their guidance. On finding that the 
 physician Cornelio, and some of the other attendants, 
 had asked for the mules in the imperial stable, and that 
 the old one-eyed pony had been actually made over to 
 the doctor, she issued a mandate, that nothing which 
 had been used by her father, or in his ser^^ce, should be 
 given away. She Ukewise required that his favourite 
 cat and talking parrot should be sent to her; and these 
 pets were accordingly forthwith despatched to VaUa- 
 dolid by Quixada, in one of the imperial litters, at- 
 tended by a trusty servant.^ Dona Magdalena de 
 UUoa improved her spare time in Estremadura by 
 making a pilgrimage with Don John of Austria to the 
 shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and adoring beneath 
 the galaxy of silver lamps, gifts of royal devotees, to 
 which her companion was one day to add the brightest 
 star, in the beautiful 'fanal' taken from the galley of 
 the Turkish admiral at Lepanto.^ The chamberlain and 
 secretary had much difficulty in setthng various small 
 and unexpected claims brought against the emperor^s 
 estate by the neighbouring peasants, and supported by 
 their friends the friars. At length, however, these 
 quibblings were disposed of, and Quixada was able to 
 
 * The litter in which these incongruous passengers travelled was pro- 
 bably that which is now preserved in the royal armoury at Madrid. 
 Described in the catalogue (Catalogo de la armeria real, No. 2425, 8vo. 
 Madrid : 1849, p. 179) as something between a black leather trunk and 
 a Sclavonian kibitka, it is very like a large cradle. It is engraved 
 in Jubinal : La Armeria real de Madrid, 2 vol. fol. Paris : s. A. ii. pi. 30. 
 In the same armoury {Cat., No. 1931, p, 121) are four iron trenchers, 
 which belonged to the emperor's campaigning canteen, and which are 
 caustically contrasted, in the Hand-hook for Spain, p. 450, with the 
 * golden necessaires' left behind by the runaway Buonapartes at Vittoria 
 and Waterloo. 
 
 ' Fr. Gabriel de Talavera : Historia de Na Senora de Gwidalwpe, 4to. 
 Toledo : 1597, fol. 156. 
 
272 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 bid farewell to Quacos^ and to Estremadura early in 
 the month of December. 
 
 At Valladolidj funeral honours were performed for 
 the emperor, in the presence of the regent and her 
 court, in the beautiful church of the royal Benedictines. 
 A sermon was preached on the occasion by Francisco 
 Borja, from the text, Ecce elongavi fugiens et mansi in 
 solitudine, ^ Lo ! then would I wander afar off, and 
 remain in the wilderness/^ It was filled with praise 
 of the emperor for his pious magnanimity in taking 
 leave of the world before the world had taken leave of 
 him — praise which, in the mouth of a Jesuit, who had 
 once been a wealthy grandee, must have savoured 
 somewhat of self-glorification. Amongst other edifying 
 reminiscences of his friend, Borja told his hearers that 
 he had it from the lips of the deceased, that never since 
 he was one and twenty years old, had he failed to set 
 apart some portion of each day for inward prayer. 
 
 Solemn services were also performed for the emperor 
 
 1 To the hon. colonel Percy, who spent some days during the winter 
 of 1851-2 at Yuste, I am indebted for the following tradition of the 
 Vera, picked up from the bailiff of the convent. The village of Quacos, 
 says the legend, was originally called by the more euphonious name of 
 Villafior del Rey. Don John of Austria attending some rural festival 
 there, and getting into a quarrel with the villagers, received a blow on 
 the head so severe, that he was carried insensible to the monastery of 
 Yuste. The emperor, enraged at this affront, decreed that the name 
 of the village should be changed ; and, the cry of a duck striking his 
 ear at the moment that he was devising a new appellation, he selected 
 the word Quacos. This idle tale may perhaps be founded on some older 
 tradition ; but it is certain that Quacos was so called, before Charles or 
 Don John came to Yuste, in the letters of Quixada and Gaztelu from 
 Xarandilla. It has been suggested to me that the name may have been 
 derived from the Latin, Quercus, oaks of all kinds abounding in the 
 forest. But whatever its origin, there is some traditionary reproach 
 attached to it. The inhabitants, to this day, dislike any allusion to the 
 above story : and to speak to a native of the place, of ' Quacos con 
 perdon,' 'Quacos, by your leave,' as if it were a word unfit for ears 
 polite, is a mode of topographical teasing from which serious quarrels 
 have been known to arise. 
 
 2 Psalm liv. 7, in the Vulgate ; or in our translation, Iv. 7. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 273 
 
 in all the convents of the order of Jerome; and the 
 great fraternity of Guadalupe, in their noble Gothic 
 church, displayed peculiar magnificence in honour of 
 the imperial devotee, to whom, when a pilgrim at the 
 virgin's shrine thirty-two years before, the prior had 
 granted a brief of brotherhood, whereby he was entitled 
 to the benefit of fifty-four annual masses sung by the 
 friars.' Obsequies were celebrated by the primate of 
 Spain at Talavera and at Toledo; and Seville and 
 Naples also distinguished themselves by the lavish 
 loyalty of their funeral pomps. 
 
 But Bruxelles excelled aU the cities of the Austrian 
 dominion in the splendour with which she did honour 
 to the emperor's memory. The ceremonies took place 
 on the twenty-ninth and thirtieth of December. The 
 procession, in which walked Phihp the Second, robed 
 and hooded like a friar, and attended by the dukes of 
 Brunswick and Savoy, and a host of the nobility of 
 Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, was two hours 
 in passing from the palace to the church of St. Gudule. 
 Its principal feature was a great galley, placed on a 
 cunningly devised ocean, which answered the double 
 purpose of supporting some islands emblematic of the 
 Indies, and of concealing the power which rolled the 
 huge structure along. Faith, Hope, and Charity, were 
 the crew of this enchanted bark; and her sides were 
 hung with twelve paintings of Charles's principal ex- 
 ploits, which were further set forth in golden letter- 
 press upon the sails of black satin. A long line of 
 horses followed, each led by two gentlemen, and bearing 
 on its housings the blazon of one of the states of the 
 emperor. They were led up the aisle of the church. 
 
 ' Talavera : HUt. de Gttadalupe, fol. 210. 
 T 
 
274 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap, xl 
 
 past the altar, and past the stalls occupied by the 
 knights of the golden fleece. As the last horse, covered 
 with a black footcloth, went by, the count of Bossu, 
 one of the knights, the early playmate and dear friend 
 of the emperor, threw himself on his knees, and remained 
 for some time prostrate on the pavement in an agony of 
 grief/ The funeral discourse was pronounced by Francis 
 Richardot, afterwards bishop of Arras, an eminent 
 scholar and divine, and esteemed the most eloquent 
 preacher within the dominions of Burgundy.^ 
 
 Funeral honours were also performed in most of the 
 foreign capitals, and those at Lisbon and Rome were pecu- 
 liarly splendid. The ceremonies in the Roman church 
 of St. James of the Spaniards gave great umbrage to 
 the sensitive nation which worshipped in the church of 
 St. Louis of the French. The walls of the Castilhan 
 temple were hung with huge paintings of the emperor's 
 victories, especially of the field of Pavia, in which the 
 portrait and banner of the royal captive were paraded 
 with ostentatious accuracy. The Roman magnates of 
 the French party asked why the sack of Rome and the 
 captivity of Clement the Seventh were not hkewise 
 commemorated ; and the pope expressed his indignation 
 against the sixteen cardinals in the interest of Spain 
 for being present at the proceedings. The French 
 ambassador affected a diplomatic unconcern, and re- 
 marked that the great conqueror had in the end received 
 such entertainment at the hands of his master that he 
 
 1 An elaborate account of it, with many curious plates, came from the 
 press of Ch. Plantin. La magnifica e somtuosa pompa funerale fatta in 
 Burselle, il di xxix di Decembre, mdlviii, nelV essequie dello invitissimo 
 Carlo Quinto, fol. Anversa : 1559. 
 
 2 Papiers de Granvelle, iv. p. 510 ; v. p. 4, note. This oraison funebre, 
 and those on Mary Queen of Hungary and Mary Queen of England, form 
 a very rare volume, fol. Antwerp : 1558. 
 
1574.] EMPEROR CHARLES V, 275 
 
 was fain to hide his diminished head in the cloister/ 
 Nevertheless, when peace was concluded, funeral honours 
 were accorded to the emperor in some of the cathedrals 
 of France ; and even our protestant Elizabeth caused a 
 solemn dirge and mass of requiem to be sung for his 
 soul in her abbey of Westminster.^ It was computed 
 that throughout Europe his obsequies were performed 
 in upwards of three thousand churches, at a cost of six 
 millions of ducats.' 
 
 The church of Yuste was merely a temporary resting- 
 place of 'imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay.^ 
 The emperor, in his will, had confided the care of his 
 bones to his son, expressing a wish, however, to be laid 
 beside his wife and his parents in the cathedral of 
 Granada, in the splendid chapel-royal, rich with the 
 tombs and trophies of Ferdinand and Isabella. Philip, 
 however, shivering in the rear at St. Quentin, had 
 already vowed to St. Lawrence the great monastery 
 which it was his after-delight to make the chief monu- 
 ment of the power and the piety of the house of Haps- 
 burg. At the Escorial, therefore, he determined to 
 unite the bones of his father and mother, in the mauso- 
 leum destined for the Spanish line of Austria. In 1573 
 the building was sufficiently advanced for the purpose, 
 the grey dome of the church being already visible from 
 Madrid on the distant side of Guadarama. 
 
 Towards the end of January, 1574, Don Francisco 
 
 ' See the letter of M. d'Angoul^me to Henry II., 22nd March, 1550, 
 in Ribier : Lettres et Memoires, i. p. 792-3. 
 
 * On the 24th of Dec, 1558. Queen Mary's funeral had been cele- 
 brated there on the 13th. Lingard's Hist, of England, 10 vols. 8vo. 
 London: 1849, vi. p. 8. 
 
 3 Gregorio Leti {Vita de Carlo V., 4 torn. 12nio. Amsterdam : 1700, 
 iv. 412-3), quoting, without saying where he found it, an account of the 
 emperor's life and death, by father Regla, says that Regla computed the 
 number of services at 3700, while Saavedra made them only 2400. 
 
 T 2 
 
27(5 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 Delgado, bishop of Jaen/ the duke of Alcala, Don Luis 
 Manrique, and secretary Gaztelu, arrived at Yuste, 
 charged with the duty of removing the deposit which 
 had given a world-wide fame to the remote monastery. 
 The monks bewailed the removal as if the bones of the 
 emperor had been those of Santiago himself. In a ser- 
 mon preached on the occasion, one of them apostrophized 
 the dead monarch with somewhat of eloquence and 
 pathos. ' Although/ said he, ' you are but a hfeless 
 corpse, the garment of the spirit which has long en- 
 joyed, as we believe, the glory of God, we thank your 
 Csesarean majesty for the grace which you have done to 
 Yuste and to our order. In a year and eight months 
 passed in this sohtude, we are well assured that you 
 have gained more renown than in the whole of your 
 long reign. History, indeed, will never forget your 
 great achievements; but in the end of your life, you 
 surpassed them all. Grief for losing you, who so loved 
 us, chokes my utterance; for I know that, when you 
 are gone, although we who are now alive are your de- 
 voted servants and chaplains, a time wiU come when, 
 even in this place, your memory will be regarded no 
 more than if you had never dwelt within our walls.^ 
 
 Quacos itself felt that a glory was departing from the 
 Vera. Its thieving and poaching villagers were inspired 
 by the occasion to a grotesque demonstration of sorrow 
 and reverence. As the coffin, placed on a litter and 
 attended by the funeral train, passed along the street, 
 two rude paintings were exposed, in which Quacos and 
 Solitude were supposed to be personified, and in the 
 name of which a viUage-poet recited some doleful doggrel. 
 Preceded by the royal standard, the procession was 
 
 "• Martin de Ximena : Catalogo de los obisjaos de Jaen, fol. Madrid : 
 1654, p. 486. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 277 
 
 formed of the official personages, prebendaries of Jaen, 
 royal chaplains, and their servants, eight Jeroraites from 
 Yuste, and twenty-four mendicant friars from other 
 convents of the Vera. Religious services were performed 
 at the halting-places each morning and evening during 
 the ten days of march, in the course of which the 
 principal incident was a quarrel between the Jeromites 
 and the Franciscans about precedence, which was decided 
 in favour of Yuste.^ 
 
 From Granada, Merida, and Valladohd were brought, 
 at the same time the remains of the empress Isabella 
 and her two children, Fernando and Juan, who died in 
 infancy, of the princess ]\iary, the first wife of Philip 
 the Second, and of Eleanor and Mary, the queens of 
 France and Hungary. The occasion of the first funeral 
 solemnities in the new temple of the Escorial was marked 
 by one of those terrific storms which visit the bleak 
 sierra, sent, as the monks supposed, by the prince of 
 darkness, in the hope of overthrowing the rising fortress 
 of piety .^ A grand arch of timber, erected at the side 
 portal, known as the kitchen gate, was blown away be- 
 fore the eyes of the trembling worshippers, and its 
 hangings of rich brocade, rent into minute shreds, were 
 scattered far and wide over the surrounding chase. The 
 ceremonies within the church lasted for three days; the 
 emperor's body was once more buried with all the rites 
 used at the interment of a Jeromite friar; and his 
 funeral oration was pronounced for the second time by 
 his favourite preacher Villalva. 
 
 With his empress, Charles was laid in a vault in front 
 of the high altar. By the side of this magnificent altar, 
 in a lofty niche, lined with precious jaspers, their monu- 
 
 * Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 58-C 
 
 * Siguen9a : iii. p. 569. 
 
278 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 ment forms an appropriate ornament of the most splendid 
 chapel ever created by the sombre genius of CastiUian 
 art, and the lavished wealth of the New World. Wrought 
 in bronze by Leoni, their fine effigies, in mantles su- 
 perbly emblazoned, kneel in the attitude of prayer, with 
 joined palms, and uncrowned heads, and eyes fixed on 
 the holy shrine. Thou, of the CHiLDfiEN of Charles 
 THE Fifth, says the inscription, who shalt surpass 
 
 THE GLORY OF HIS ACTIONS, TAKE THIS PLACE: YE OTHERS 
 REVERENTLY FORBEAR.^ 
 
 Eighty years afterwards the repose of the emperor 
 was again broken. Philip the Second had provided a 
 very simple vault for the reception of the ashes of his 
 house, saying, ' I have built a dwelling for God, let my 
 son, if he will, build for his bones and ours.^ Philip 
 the Third, accepting that humbler share of the work, 
 commenced the celebrated pantheon, which, after the 
 labour of thirty-three years, was finished by Philip the 
 Fourth. On the sixteenth of March, 1654, the dust of 
 the Austrian kings of Spain, and of their consorts who 
 had continued the royal Une, was translated to this 
 splendid sepulchral chamber. Fray Juan de Avellanada 
 pronounced a discourse on EzekieFs text, ' O ye dry 
 bones, hear the word of the Lord'/^ — a burst of intrepid 
 panegyric, worthy of the audience, which, after warning 
 future kings of Spain that they must live well if they, 
 wished to sleep by the side of the holy Philip the Second, 
 the preacher closed with a prayer to that glorified prince 
 and his royal companions in bliss to become his advo- 
 cates before the throne of the Almighty.^ Each of the 
 
 » HUNC LOCUM SI QUIS POSTEE. CaKOLO V. HABITAM GLORIAM RERUM 
 GESTARUM SPLENDORE SUPERAVERIS, IPSE SOLUS OCCUPATO, CETERI REVE- 
 RENTER ABSTINETE. 
 
 2 Ezek. xxxvii. 4. 
 
 ' Los Santos : Descripcion del Escorial, fol. 183-4. 
 
1787.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 279 
 
 seven coffins was carried by three nobles and three 
 Jeromite friars: the procession was headed by the re- 
 mains of the fair Isabel of Bourbon, the first queen of 
 Philip the Fourth, and it was closed by the dust of 
 Charles the Fifth. After infinite splendid ceremonies, 
 they were borne round the church in procession, and 
 at last down the long marble staircase to their superb 
 place of rest, which gleamed in the light of countless 
 tapers and golden lamps, reflected from marble, and 
 jasper, and gold, Kke a creation of oriental romance. 
 The grandees who bore the coffin of Charles were the 
 prime-minister Don Luis de Haro, the duke of Abrantes, 
 and the marquess of Aytona. As the body was deposited 
 in the marble sarcophagus, the coverings were removed 
 to enable Phihp the Fourth to come face to face with 
 his great ancestor. The corpse was found to be quite 
 entire, and even some sprigs of sweet thyme, folded in 
 the winding-sheet, retained, said the friars, all their 
 vernal fragrance after the lapse of fourscore winters. 
 After looking for some minutes in silence at the pale 
 dead face of the hero of his line, the king turned to 
 Haro, and said, ^ Cuerpo honrado^ honoured body, Don 
 Luis.^ ' Very honoured,' replied the minister; words 
 brief indeed, but very pregnant, for the prior of the 
 Escorial considered that they comprised all that a Chris- 
 tian ought to feel on so solemn an occasion.^ 
 
 Once again, at the distance of four generations, the 
 emperor's grave is said to have been opened by the 
 descendant of that despised Anthony of Bourbon at 
 whose claims on Navarre Charles had scoff'ed, and whose 
 posterity had wrested from the house of Austria the 
 sceptre of Spain and the Indies. Mr. Beckford used 
 
 ' ' Exprimiendo Su Magestad en breves palabras todo aquel sentir, 
 a que se puede alargar la piedad Christiana en caso semejante.' Lo 
 Santos : Descrip. del Escorial, fol. Madrid : 1657, fol. 156. 
 
280 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 to relate that when he was leaving Madrid, Charles 
 the Third, as a parting civility, desired to know what 
 favour he would accept at his hands. The boon asked 
 and granted was leave to see the face of Charles the 
 Fifth, in order to test the fidelity of the portraits by 
 Titian. The finest portraits of Charles, as well as his 
 remains, were then still at the Escorial. The marble 
 sarcophagus being moved from its niche and the lid 
 raised, the Ughts of the Pantheon once more gleamed 
 on the features of the dead emperor. The pale brow 
 and cheek, the slightly aquiline nose, the protruding 
 lower jaw, the heavy Burgundian lip, and the sad and 
 thoughtful expression, remained nearly as the Venetian 
 had painted them, and unchanged since the eyelids had 
 been closed by Quixada. There, too, were the sprigs of 
 thyme, seen by PhiUp the Fourth, and gathered seven 
 ages before in the woods of Yuste.' 
 
 Those who have read this record of the last years of 
 Charles the Fifth may perhaps desire to know some- 
 what of the subsequent fortunes both of the personages 
 who have figured in its pages, and of the convent of 
 Yuste and its miniature palace. 
 
 Queen Mary of Hungary did not live to complete 
 her preparations for returning to the Netherlands. It 
 was with great reluctance that she had consented to 
 resume the government of these rich, restless, and refrac- 
 tory provinces. Three years before, she had pleaded 
 for her release from it, on the ground that time had 
 
 ^ For this curious anecdote I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. 
 Beckford's daughter, the duchess of Plamilton. He had left, unfor- 
 tunately, no note or memorandum of the fact, and therefore the date, 
 and the names of the other witnesses of this singular spectacle cannot 
 now be recovered. His letters prove that he was at Madrid at the close 
 of 1787 and in the spring of 1795. I have been unable to obtain any 
 corroborative evidence from Spain, and therefore the story must be taken 
 simply as told by Mr. Beckford. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 281 
 
 enfeebled her powers, and that a new spirit was abroad 
 which called for a new pohcy, and the energies of a 
 younger ruler. * It is but fitting/ she wrote to the 
 emperor in the autumn of 1555, 'that a woman who has 
 lived fifty years, of which twenty-four have been spent 
 in the service of the state, should be content, for the re- 
 mainder of her days, to serve one God and one master. 
 I see also growing up in this country a young and vigo- 
 rous generation, to whose ways I cannot and will not ac- 
 commodate mine. Men's loyalty and respect to God and 
 to their king are so poisoned, not here only, but every- 
 where else, that I would not desire to continue in power 
 were I a man, and an able one. Being as I am, a woman, 
 I assure your majesty, that I would rather work for my 
 bread than remain here at the head of affairs.'^ Yet 
 to tliis anxious and arduous eminence, with faculties 
 further impaired by time, and grief, and sickness, the 
 entreaties of her brother had persuaded her to go back. 
 Perhaps her active mind and frame, after a Hfe of rapid 
 marches and stormy councils, sunk under the intoler- 
 able weight of leisure and repose. Towards the close of 
 July, she had had a slight attack of small-pox; but 
 early in August, she was sufficiently recovered to pro- 
 pose to accompany her niece, the regent, in her visit to 
 Yuste. At the beginning of September, she signified 
 her willingness to return to BruxeUes, and began to 
 prepare for the voyage. But her disorder returned vrith 
 renewed violence later in the autumn, and she died at 
 Cigales, on the twenty-eighth of October, 1558, five weeks 
 after the death of her brother. On the night of her 
 death, the barking bird^ was once more seen and heard 
 on the roof of the church of Yuste.^ The wiU of Mary 
 
 ' Papiers de GranveUe, torn. iv. p. 476. ' Page 267. 
 
 3 Bakhuizeu van den Brink : La Betraite, p. 52. 
 
282 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 ordered that her funeral should be of the plainest kind ; 
 and that a small golden hearty which had belonged to 
 her husband, and which she had always worn, should be 
 melted down, and the value given to the poor. ' Se- 
 parated by death,^ were the woi'ds of her testamentary 
 allusion to her long-lost lord, ' in love we have never been 
 parted/ ^ So passed away, in the same year, and within 
 a few months of one another, the royal personages form- 
 ing the remarkable group which had landed at Laredo. 
 Sixteen years afterwards, their ashes were united at the 
 Escorial, queen Eleanor being brought from her provi- 
 sional resting-place at Merida, and queen Mary, from 
 the royal abbey of San Benito at Valladolid. Their 
 bronze effigies, royally robed, kneel behind those of 
 Charles and his empress, with clasped hands and prayer- 
 ful faces turned to the magnificent high altar. 
 
 The death of Mary Tudor, queen of England and 
 Spain, concurred, with the fortune of the war, to dis- 
 pose both the French and the Spanish monarchs to 
 peaceful counsels. Philip the prudent immediately 
 began to look around him for an advantageous match, 
 worthy of the matrimonial genius of Austria. After 
 some new coquetting with the court of Portugal for the 
 forsaken infanta, he fixed upon the beautiful Elizabeth 
 of Valois, daughter of the king of France. His second 
 wife was a middle-aged queen, who had been affianced 
 to his father ; his third, a princess in the bloom of girl- 
 hood, betrothed to his son, Don Carlos. The duke of Alba 
 married her, as proxy for his master, in June, 1559 ; 
 and Margaret, sister of Henry the Second, at the same 
 time gave her hand to the duke of Savoy. It was at 
 the tournament held in honour of this double alliance, 
 that the eye of Henry was pierced by the fatal spHnter 
 of Montgomery's lance. Pope Paul the Fourth, who 
 
 » M. Juste : Revue Nationale de Belgique, torn. xvii. p. 29. 
 
1559.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 288 
 
 had meanwhile quarrelled with the worthless nephews 
 for whose sakes he had set Christendom in a flame, 
 soon followed his ally to the grave. Philip was now 
 able to return to Spain. He arrived at Valladolid, and 
 assumed the government on the eighth of September; 
 and the auspicious event was celebrated by an auto-de-fe, 
 at which the galleries and the scaffold were brilliantly 
 filled with orthodox grandees and heretic victims. 
 Among the courtiers appeared the count of Oropesa 
 bearing the sword of state, the symbol of so much cruel 
 injustice. It was at this butchery that Philip uttered 
 the sentiment which so gladdened the hearts and 
 strengthened the hands of the savage priesthood. Don 
 Carlos de Sesa, one of the noblest and best of the 
 sufferers, as he passed beneath the royal balcony, 
 appealed to the king to know the cause for which he 
 was sentenced to die. ' I would myself,^ said Philip, 
 ' carry the wood to bum my own son, were he a heretic 
 like you.^^ 
 
 The infanta Juana, princess of Brazil, reheved of her 
 regency by the arrival of the king, and still disappointed 
 in her hopes of obtaining the regency of Portugal, 
 brought her brief secular career to a close at the age of 
 twenty-three. Retiring to Madrid, she there founded a 
 nunnery, selecting her first barefooted recluses, by the 
 advice of father Borja, from the Franciscan convent of 
 Santa Clara, at Gandia. Some years before, a certain 
 holy confessor of that house, praying one night alone in 
 the chapel, at the shrine of Our Lady of Grace, beheld 
 seven stars glide from under the virgin^s mantle, and 
 revolve, each in its course, around the dim aisles. These 
 stars, it was revealed to him, represented seven new 
 convents, of which the Gandian house was to be the 
 mother. Six of the offshoots had already sprung ; the 
 
 Cabrera : D. Filipe II. p. 236. 
 
284 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 piety of the infanta now provided the last in the royal 
 nunnery of Our Lady of Consolation, of which the first 
 abbess was a Borja and aunt of the Jesuit. This 
 convent soon became one of the finest in Madrid, and 
 no less remarkable for its stately cloister and pleasant 
 gardens than for the piety of its noble virgins, who for 
 awhile had for their confessor Fray Nicolas Factor, the 
 canonized capuchin and painter of Valencia. Here Doiia 
 Juana devoted herself, for the remainder of her days, 
 to religious exercises, not assuming the veil, yet becoming 
 every year more strict in her self-imposed rule of life. 
 Her favourite relaxation was to take the air at the country 
 palace of the Pardo, attended by a band of musicians ; 
 but even this harmless pleasure she soon abandoned as 
 sinful. Her chief occupation was embroidering scarfs 
 and handkerchiefs, which she likewise displayed great skill 
 in selling at a high price to her courtly visitors for the 
 benefit of the poor. If a confessor of reputation came 
 to Madrid, she would go wrapped in her mantle and 
 veil, and kneel in her turn among the crowd of peni- 
 tents who flocked to his grated chair. Her joy was 
 to enrich her convent with relics, which she enshrined in 
 caskets of silver and gold; and in the chapel where 
 they were kept, she made herself an oratory, which 
 became her place of daily resort for meditation and 
 prayer, or as a biographer called it, ' the Aranjuez of 
 her devout pleasures, the Pardo of her spiritual delights.' 
 But, in spite of her secluded habits, Brantome, with 
 what truth I know not, asserts that she wished to 
 marry Charles the Ninth of France, a prince fourteen 
 years younger than herself, and that she heard with a 
 pang of bitter disappointment that her niece, the arch- 
 duchess Elizabeth, had made her bridal entry into 
 Paris.^ Dyi^g after a short illness at the Escorial, in 
 
 1 Brantome : (Emres, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris : 1787, ii. p. 541. 
 
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. S85 
 
 1573, Dona Juana was buried in her favourite convent 
 at Madrid, five years before her son, Don Se])astian, 
 was slain in battle hj the Moors of Barbary. Shortly 
 after her death. Fray Nicolas Factor, saying a mass for 
 her soul, beheld her in a vision, attended by St. Mary 
 Magdalene, St. Ines, and St. Dorothea, which he took 
 for a sign that she was already released from the pains 
 of purgatory.^ Her sister, the widowed empress Mary, 
 came to Madrid, in 1580, and fixed her abode in 
 the convent of Our Lady of Consolation, where her 
 daughter, the archduchess Margaret, took the veil, and 
 lived, for fifty years, a burning and a shining hght 
 amongst the devout virgins of Castille. 
 
 From registering the effects of the dead emperor, 
 Luis Quixada passed into the service of the reigning 
 king. The letter, in which he narrated, on the thirtieth 
 of September, the principal circumstances of the imperial 
 death-bed to Philip, concluded with these words ; — 'For 
 myself, I will not be importunate with your majesty, 
 but only ask you to remember that I have served your 
 father, to the best of my power, for thirty-seven years, 
 and that I will serve you to my lifers end.^ PhiKp had 
 an early occasion to observe the fidelity and tact with 
 which the old soldier could fulfil a trust and keep a 
 secret. Immediately after the death of Charles, it was 
 whispered at Valladolid that there lived in Quixada^s 
 family a lad who was supposed to be his master^s son ; 
 and the rumour reaching the ear of the regent, secretary 
 Vazquez, by her desire, wrote confidentially to the 
 chamberlain, to inquire if it was true. Quixada re- 
 
 * Christ. Moreno: Vida de Nicolas Factor, 4to. Barcelona: 1618, 
 p. 178. The other particulars of the princess's life are taken from 
 Fr. Juan Carillo, Relacion historica de la real fundadon del mona^terio 
 de las descalzas de Sta. Clara de Madmd, de las vidas de Da. Juana de 
 Austria, su fundadora y de la emperatriz Maria su hermana, &c. 4to. 
 Madrid : 1616. See also Ger. de Quintana : Hist&ria de Madrid, fol. 
 Madrid : 1629, fol. 412. 
 
286 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 plied that a boy, who had been committed to his care, 
 some years before, by a friend whom he could not name, 
 certainly resided in his house; but what reason was 
 there for supposing that his parentage had been cor- 
 rectly surmised, when the emperor had mentioned his 
 name neither in his will, nor in the codicil affixed to it ? 
 Not satisfied with this answer, Vazquez repeated the 
 question, which was again evaded. Meanwhile, Quixada 
 applied to the king, whom he knew to be in the secret, 
 for instructions. He again wrote, on the thirteenth of 
 December, from Valladohd, saying that the matter was 
 much discussed, but that he always denied any know- 
 ledge of it, and should continue to hold the same 
 language, even to the regent, who had hitherto had the 
 goodness to ask no questions. Being aware, as he was, 
 of the king's desire that nothing should be made public 
 until he himself arrived in Spain, he had taken every 
 precaution to insure secrecy; but he had nevertheless 
 been careful that the boy should be educated according 
 to his quality in life. 
 
 From court Quixada and his wife soon retired, with 
 Don John, to VHlagarcia. When Philip the Second 
 came to Spain, in 1559, he appointed his brother and 
 his guardian to meet him near the neighbouring convent 
 of San Pedro de la Espina. Quixada assembled his 
 vassals, and rode forth in state with his charge, having 
 first made the secret of his birth known to Dona Mag- 
 dalena, and asked pardon for having so long withheld 
 it from her. They met the king in a wild rocky glen, 
 in the chase of Torozos, and were graciously received, 
 Philip, who had come thither under pretext of hunting, 
 remarking that he had never captured game which had 
 given him so much pleasure.^ They afterwards followed 
 
 ^ Villafane r Vida de Da. Magd. de Vlloa, p. 49-50, 52. 
 
1570.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 287 
 
 the court to Madrid, where Quixada had an opportunity 
 of once more signahzing his devotion to his master's 
 son, by rescuing him from a fire, which burnt down 
 their house in the night, before he attended to the 
 safety of Dona Magdalena. His loss by this fire 
 amounted to a hundred thousand ducats, besides the 
 destruction of his family archives. His services were not 
 neglected by the king, who made him master of the 
 horse to the heir apparent, and president of the council 
 of the Indies, and gave him, also, the commanderies of 
 Viso, El Moral, and Santa Cruz de Argamasilla, con- 
 siderable benefices in the order of Calatrava.^ 
 
 When Don John was sent, in the autumn of 1569, 
 to command against the Moriscos, whom Christian 
 oppression and bad faith had driven to revolt in the 
 Alpuxarras, the old mayordomo went with him as a 
 mihtary tutor, with the rank of general of infantry. 
 Luis de Avila served in the same expedition. At the 
 beginning of the campaign, Quixada was attacked 
 with fever, which his constitution could not throw off 
 as it might have done in the old days of Africa or 
 Flanders. He was still more afflicted by the bad dis- 
 cipline of the camp, which was filled with raw recruits 
 attracted by the hope of plunder, or, as he described 
 them in one of his latest letters,^ ' thinking less of fighting 
 than of robbing God and man.' In the spring of 
 1570, as he and Don John were reconnoitering the 
 strong mountain fortress of Seron, when a bold sally 
 from the place threw the Castillians into confusion, 
 bordering on flight, Quixada was engaged in rallying 
 
 * El Moral was worth, in 1659, 7500 ducats annually; Jcyumal du 
 voyage en Espagne, 4to. Paris : 1682, p. 369. Argamasilla had been 
 previously held by the favourite Ruy Gomez de Silva : Hist, de la casa 
 de SUva, ii., 464. 
 
 2 To the prince of Eboli ; Villafane : Vida de Da. Magd. de UUoa, 
 p. 74. 
 
 S 
 
288 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 and reassuring them, when a ball from an infidel gun 
 brought his campaigns to a close. Shot through the 
 shoulder, he fell by the side of his pupil, from whose 
 helmet a ball glanced as he covered the retreat of the 
 party who bore the woimded veteran from his last 
 field.^ Carried to Canilles, Quixada died there on the 
 twenty-fifth of February, 1570, in the arms of his wife, 
 who had hastened from Madrid to nurse him.^ Don 
 John mourned for him as for a father, and buried him, 
 with military honours, in the church of the Jeromite 
 friars at Baza, whence his bones were afterwards removed 
 to Villagarcia. 
 
 When the good Dona Magdalena left the Christian 
 camp, Don John rode for some miles beside her litter, 
 and embraced her tenderly when they parted. During 
 the rest of the campaign, amidst the fatigues and 
 anxieties of command, he seized every opportunity of 
 writing to her ; and one of his hurried letters from the 
 field, recurring to their mutual loss, concludes with 
 these afifectionate words : — Luis died as became him, 
 fighting for the glory and safety of his son, and covered 
 with immortal honour. Whatever I am, whatever I 
 shall be, I owe to him, by whom I was formed, or 
 rather begotten, in a nobler birth. Dear sorrowing 
 widowed mother ! I only am left to you, and to you 
 indeed do I of right belong, for whose sake Luis died, 
 and you have been stricken with this woe. Moderate 
 your grief with your wonted wisdom. Would that I were 
 near you now, to dry your tears, or mingle them with 
 mine ! Farewell, dearest and most honoured mother ! 
 and pray to God to send back your son from these wars 
 
 1 Lnys de Mannol Carvajal : Historia del rehdion y castigQ de lo» 
 Moi'iscos de Granada, fol. Malaga : 1600, fol. 195. 
 8 Villafafie: Vida deDa. Magd. de UUoa, p. 78. 
 
1576.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 289 
 
 to your bosom /^ We may be sure Magdalena's oratory 
 was the scene of many such prayers. In another letter, 
 during the same campaign, Don John thanks her for 
 her regularity in answering his letters, and in satisfying 
 the chief desire of his heart to know that she is well : — 
 ' I am ever anxious,' he adds, ' so to comport myself as 
 to deserve your approval, for there is no one whom I so 
 much wish to please as you, to whom I owe my bringing 
 up, and the place which you have fitted me to hold — a 
 debt which I mil acknowledge even in my grave/^ 
 
 The childless widowhood of Dona Magdalena was 
 passed at her husband's house of Villagarcia, and was 
 chiefly spent in works of charity and devotion, per- 
 formed for the benefit of his soul. For her darling 
 young prince she busied herself in occupations of a 
 more practical and secular kind; and the hero of 
 Lepanto wore no linen but what was fashioned by her 
 loving hands. The filial affection with which he always 
 regarded her is one of the most pleasing features in his 
 wayward character and chequered history; he never 
 came back to Spain without paying her a visit, or went 
 to the wars without bidding her farewell.^ It was to her 
 that he brought the block of wood from the true cross, 
 presented to him by pope Pius the Fifth, as the most 
 precious guerdon in his power to bestow on the conqueror 
 of the Turk.'' When she was founding her coUege at Vil- 
 lagarcia, in 1576, Don John wrote to the pope's secretary 
 to ask for the necessary licences, enforcing his request 
 
 ■ Preserved in a Latin dress in Joannis Austriaci vita, auctore Antonio 
 Osorio, a MS. in the National library at Madrid, for a transcript of 
 which I am indebted to my friend Don Pascual de Gayangos. 
 
 " This letter is preserved in the Royal Academy of History at Madrid. 
 The end, with the date, is unfortunately wanting ; but there is internal 
 evidence that it was written in the summer, probably in June, of 1570- 
 For a transcript of it I am indebted to Don Pascual de Gayangos. 
 
 3 Vanderhammen : Vida de D. Juan de Austi-ia, fol. 292, 
 
 * ViUafaue ; Vida de Da. Magd. de UUoa, p. 274. 
 
 U 
 
290 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 with these words : — ' There is nothing I so much desire 
 as to gratify the wish of this lady_, whom I regard as 
 my own mother/^ In 1577, as he took leave of her, on 
 going to govern the Netherlands, she was seized with a 
 presentiment of evil, and instituted daily masses for his 
 health. Her forebodings were just; for within two 
 years, into which had been compressed an age of toil, 
 anxiety, and mortification, he lay on his death-bed at 
 Namur, raving, in his delirium, of battle-fields, and 
 leaving, as his last message to the brother, who was 
 suspected of repaying his loyal service with poison, the 
 request that his bones might be laid near the dust of 
 their sire at the Escorial.^ 
 
 Dona Magdalena^s chief tie to the world was now 
 broken. For awhile, she adopted Don John^s natural 
 daughter Anna; but she placed the child, at the age 
 of seven years, in a convent, at Madrigal, where she 
 afterwards took the veil. Rehgion had then no rival 
 in the widow^s heart; and her days were passed in 
 doing good, after the fashion prescribed by her Jesuit 
 counsellors. The most important of her pious works 
 were the Jesuits^ college and church of San Luis, 
 at Villagarcia. In 1580, the buildings were suffi- 
 ciently advanced to admit of the consecration of the 
 church. The visitor and other dignitaries of the com- 
 pany were present at the ceremony, to which Doila 
 Magdalena had also invited many of her noble relations 
 and friends from Valladolid. The next day, her devo- 
 tion to the society of Jesus was put to a severe test. 
 After mass, she proposed to her guests to inspect the 
 collegiate buildings. But they had hardly entered 
 the cloister when the rector met them, bearing the 
 
 J Villafane : Vida de Da. Magd. de Ulloa, p. 284. 
 
 * Vanderhammen : Vida de D. Juan de Austria, fol. 324. 
 
1598.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 291 
 
 positive commands of the visitor that they should imme- 
 diately retire. The foundress was silent with astonish- 
 ment ; but her friends, especially the ladies, were loud 
 in their indignation. Her brother, the marquess de 
 La Mota, who had always looked coldly on her pious 
 munificence, flinging his gloves on the pavement, cried, 
 ' I would rather have seen this than be king of 
 Castille. Now, my lady, you will understand the people 
 you have been wasting your wealth upon, and the kind 
 of gratitude which they bear you.' Magdalena endured 
 with equal meekness the insolence of the priest and the 
 taunts of her friends. The Jesuit had acted on a too 
 strict interpretation of a brief of pope Pius the Fifth. 
 When the affair was known at Rome, the general of 
 the company, Everardo Mercuriano, wrote to her to 
 explain and excuse the treatment which she had re- 
 ceived, and to assure her that he had issued orders 
 for her to have leave to see the building which she 
 had founded. He also wrote to the rector of the 
 college, ordering him to do all in his power to remove 
 any unpleasant feehng which might remain in her mind, 
 and to recover the ground that the company might 
 have lost in her esteem. That Httle ground had been 
 lost Magdalena soon made evident by continued benefac- 
 tions to the institution, as well as by founding two other 
 colleges at Santander and Oviedo. Nor were her alms- 
 deeds confined to the company ; she founded an hospital 
 at Villagarcia, and a nunnery and a penitentiary at 
 Valladolid ; she sent several missions to Barbary for the 
 redemption of captives; she spent large sums in por- 
 tioning orphan brides ; and her bounty furnished many 
 a silver chalice and paten to the rural churches of 
 Biscay and Asturias. Her life of kindly deeds and 
 blameless enthusiasm came to an end in 1598, when 
 she was laid beside her lord in the collegiate church of 
 
 u 2 
 
292 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xl. 
 
 Villagarcia. Amongst the relics of that temple, two 
 crucifixes were held in peculiar veneration, one being 
 that which Magdalena had pressed to her dying lips, the 
 other a trophy rescued, by the emperor's old companion 
 in arms, from a Moorish bonfire in the Alpuxarras/ 
 
 Having no children, Quixada, according to the fashion 
 of his age and nation, declared his soul his heir. On 
 the death of his widow, to whom the life-rent of his 
 whole estate was left, all that part of his property which 
 was in his own power was to be devoted to charitable 
 uses — uses to which the income of Magdalena was also, 
 as we have seen, almost exclusively devoted. The 
 ancient mayofazgo, or entailed estate of the family, passed 
 to an Ocampo, a son of Luis's paternal aunt, who was 
 directed to assume the name of Quixada, and the arms, 
 chequers azure and argent, bordered with the bearings, 
 wolves gules on a field or, of the Osorios.^ Villagarcia is 
 now the property of the count of Santa Coloma, to 
 whom has likewise descended a portrait of Luis Quixada. 
 The bronzed old soldier is represented as a man of 
 goodly presence; his dark eyes beam with sagacity; 
 and his mouth, shaded by a thick well-trimmed beard, 
 is stamped with firmness of purpose. In a rich though 
 sober suit of black and brown, his red-cross hung from 
 his neck by a gold chain, he stands, stafi^ in hand, as 
 he may have presented himself in the ante-chamber of 
 the regent at Valladolid. 
 
 William Van Male, the amiable and scholarly gen- 
 tleman of the emperor's chamber, returned to Flanders, 
 with the slender annual pension of one hundred and fifty 
 florins, which was to be reduced to one half on his suc- 
 ceeding to the keepership of the palace of Bruxelles, 
 
 Villafane : Yida de M. de Vlloa, pp. 78, 443. 
 « Id., pp. 27, 81. 
 
1561.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 293 
 
 a post of which the king had granted him the reversion. 
 On the seventeenth of February, 1561, Philip the Second 
 wrote from Toledo, to the bishop of Arras, his minister 
 in Flanders, that he had heard that Van Male was 
 likely to compose a history of his majesty, now in 
 glory ; that it was possible such a work might contain 
 some things either untrue or unworthy of the merits of 
 the deceased ; and that therefore the bishop had better 
 institute a search, as if for some other purpose, amongst 
 Van Male's papers, and if any such writing was founds 
 send it to him to Spain, that it might be burtied as it de- 
 served/ The emperor's poor scholar and faithful servant 
 was happily saved from this indignity by the protecting 
 hand of death. On the seventh of March, Arras rephed 
 from BruxeUes, that Van Male having died before the 
 receipt of the king's letter, he himself had already taken 
 the precaution of searching amongst his papers for his- 
 torical documents or notes, but that none had been 
 found. A good many days before his death. Van Male 
 himself, he reported, had been observed to tear up and 
 burn a large quantity of papers. He had also been 
 often heard, by his intimate friends, to lament, even 
 with tears, that Luis Quixada, soon after the emperor's 
 decease, had taken from him, almost by force, the 
 memoirs which his majesty and he had composed ; and 
 to say that he hoped nevertheless one day to write, 
 from memory, an account of his master, and that he 
 should have already begun the work had it not been for 
 the infirm state of his health.^ If this report of Van 
 Male's table-talk be true, it seems plain that the loss of 
 the curious memoirs of Charles the Fifth, composed by 
 himself, and translated into Latin by an elegant scholar, 
 — if indeed they are lost and not only buried in some 
 
 ' Papiers de Grcmvelle, vi. p. 273. ' Id., vi. p. 290. 
 
294 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 forgotten hoard of Spanish historic lore^ — may be added 
 to the black catalogue of the misdeeds of his dull, bigoted, 
 and cruel son. Van Male was interred in the church of 
 St. Gudule, at Bruxelles, where his widow, Hippolyta 
 Reynen, was laid by his side in 1579. Their epitaph 
 praised the probity and various learning of the husband, 
 and the piety and prudence of the wife.^ Their son 
 Charles considerably bettered the fortunes of the family; 
 he was ambassador in France in 1598, and one of the 
 negotiators of the treaty of Verviers for the archduchess 
 infanta Isabella; their grandson, Aurelius Augustus, died 
 in Madrid in 1662, first member of the supreme council of 
 the Netherlands, in the service of Philip the Fourth, and 
 was buried in the church of St. Andrew, beneath an 
 epitaph which was a long relation of dignities and virtues.^ 
 
 Of Martin de Gaztelu, the prudent and painstaking 
 secretary of the emperor, my researches have discovered 
 no further trace, beyond the fact that he assisted at the 
 final obsequies of his late master at the Escorial, in 1574. 
 
 Guyon de Moron, keeper of the imperial wardrobe, is 
 supposed to be identical with Guillaume de Moron, lord 
 of Terny and Beaumont. On his return to Burgundy, 
 he had a dispute with the family of cardinal Granvelle, 
 about certain malversations, alleged by him to have been 
 committed by the great man's relations, in the adminis- 
 tration of the royal salt mines. Joining the political 
 party opposed to the cardinal, he repaired to Madrid in 
 1565, to lay his complaint at the foot of the throne. 
 There, however, he was denounced to the inquisition, 
 an admirable engine for ridding a powerful minister 
 
 • It is cited by M. de Reiffenberg {Lettres de O. Van Male, p. 23), and 
 gives Jan. 1st, 1560, as the date of Van Male's death, which M.Gachard 
 thinks reconcileable with the date in the Granvelle papers, by allowing 
 for the two ways of counting the years, from the 1 st Jan. or from Easter. 
 See the Bulletin de VAcad. Roy. de Bruxelles, 11th Jan., 1845. 
 
 2 Reiffenberg : Lettres de G. Van Male, pp. xxiii., xxx., xxxii. 
 
1559.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 295 
 
 of a troublesome opponent ; and his revelations on the 
 salt-question were eternally silenced at the stake.' 
 
 The two physicians Mathys returned to the Nether- 
 lands. Henry wrote a treatise on the aphorisms of 
 Hippocrates, and was made physician to the king. 
 Dying in 1565, at Bruxelles, he was buried in the church 
 of St. Gudule, beneath an epitaph placed there by 
 his widow and children.^ Doctor Comelio, who had also 
 translated into Latin a Greek book on the healing art, 
 enjoyed a great practice, in pursuing which he was killed 
 by a fall from his horse.'' 
 
 From the vigils and dirges of Yuste, Fray Juan de 
 Eegla hastened to court to await the arrival of the king."* 
 As prior of Santa Engracia, he had been compelled to 
 retract certain heterodox tenets at the bar of the inqui- 
 sition. Nevertheless, he now employed his leisure in 
 drawing up two informations against the archbishop of 
 Toledo, which he lodged in the holy office. The principal 
 facts alleged against the prelate were, that at Yuste he 
 had given the emperor absolution before receiving his 
 confession, and that he had bid him be of good cheer, 
 because his sins were wholly washed away by the blood of 
 Christ. These allegations were supported strongly by the 
 
 ' G. Groen Van Prinsterer : Archives de la maison d' Orange-Nassau, 
 vol. i. 8vo. Leide: 1835. See the letter from the prince of Orange to 
 count Louis of Nassau, 30th Aug., 1565, p. 277. 
 
 2 Val. Andreas : Bihliotheca Belgica, 4to. Lovaine : 1683, p. 362. 
 Jo. Fr. Foppens : Bihliotheca Belgica, 2 vols. 4to. Bruxelles : 1739, 
 i., p. 457. Biographie des hommes remarquaUes de la Flandre Oc- 
 cidentaZe, 4 vol. 8vo. Bruges : 1843, i. p. 314. 
 
 3 Foppens : Bib. Belg., i., p. 203. His book was Atictiuirii Joarmis 
 Zacharice filii methodi medendi, libri vi., 4to. Venetiis : 1554, 8vo. 
 Paris : 1555. Biog. de la Fland. occid., i. 303. 
 
 * Leti ( Vita di Carlo V.) often cites, and sometimes (juotes a document 
 which he calls, Vita e morte di Carlo Cesare nel deserto, by Fray Juan 
 de Regla, but which, being unnoticed by any other author, was pro- 
 bably a fiction of his own busy brain. Perhaps he meant the paper by 
 prior Angulo, about which he may have read in Sandoval. 
 
296 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 testimony of some of the friars of Yuste, and slightly by 
 that of Don Luis de Avila. Villalva, on the other hand, 
 declared that he had heard nothing unorthodox fall from 
 the archbishop^s lips; while Quixada maintained a politic 
 neutrality, saying he believed that the primate spoke to 
 the emperor about remission of sins, but that his own 
 duties had prevented him from attending to the words.^ 
 When the king returned to Spain, the confessor was 
 graciously received. Honoured with a long audience, 
 he gave Philip an account of the emperor^s retirement 
 and death, and told him certain secrets respecting Don 
 John of Austria, confided to him by the dying man for 
 the ear of his successor. It may be fsavlj supposed that 
 the friar discreetly suppressed his own suggestions, if, 
 indeed, they were his, as to the alteration of the line of 
 succession in Don John's favour:^ for he was commanded 
 to remain at court as one of the executors of the 
 emperor's will, and received an order for the payment 
 of his pension out of the royal revenues in the see of 
 Calahorra. When the business of the executorship was 
 closed, he returned to Zaragoza, and was again chosen 
 prior of Sta. Engracia. In the autumn of 1568 he was 
 employed to convey to the Escorial some of the earliest 
 treasures of the reliquary, fragments of the holy corpses 
 of the parents of St. Lorenzo, and of St. Justo and St. 
 Pastor. These two young martyrs did him the honour 
 of appearing at several of the early masses which he per- 
 formed during the journey, and even of serving him in 
 the capacity of acolytes.^ He was afterwards elected 
 prior of the Jeromite convent at Madrid, a house rich 
 with the gifts of kings and queens, and much frequented 
 and favoured by the royal family ; and ere long, in spite 
 of his repugnance to the custody of a royal conscience. 
 
 * Llorente : ffistoria de la Inquisicion de Espana, cap. xviii., art. 2, 
 8 torn., 12mo. Barcelona : 1835, hi. p. 238-243. 
 
 « Chap. X. p. 237, ' Siguen9a ; iii., p. 558. 
 
1559.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 297 
 
 he accepted the post of confessor to his majesty. We 
 are assured by his panegyrist that he bore these honours 
 with exemplary meekness and moderation, asking for 
 favours only for his convent, and referring all petitioners 
 who besought his influence in the closet, either to the 
 tribunals of justice or to the ministers of state. Of his 
 annual pension he gave one fourth to the poor of 
 Calahorra, and the rest to his Jeromite brethren at 
 Zaragoza. But if he were free from avarice and poli- 
 tical intrigue, he was deeply stained with another vice 
 of his calling. His hate was bitter and inextinguishable, 
 and displayed itself in the eager and unscrupulous zeal 
 with which he ran at the head of the pack that hunted 
 the unfortunate archbishop Carranza into the castle of 
 St. Angelo. He died of fever in the summer of 1574, 
 in the rising cloisters of the Escorial.^ During his long 
 life he had formed a considerable collection of books, 
 which he bequeathed, as a last token of filial love, to 
 his mother-convent of Santa Engracia, and which was 
 accordingly added to its noble hbrary, famous for 
 literary treasures, and for the lovely prospect seen from 
 its windows, extending over the garden of the Ebro to 
 the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees.^ 
 
 Fray Francisco de Villalva, on the return of Philip 
 the Second to Spain, was appointed one of his preachers, 
 and was ever afterwards much in his confidence in 
 ecclesiastical aflFairs. In framing the constitution of the 
 convent of the Escorial, in which the Jeromites saw 
 with exultation their ancient seats of Lupiana and 
 Guadalupe outdone in magnificence, Villalva was con- 
 stantly consulted. He was likewise employed to report 
 on the claim of the metropolitan church of Toledo to 
 retain a missal and breviary of its own in spite of a 
 
 > Sigiien9a : p. iii,, p. 448. 
 
 » Vine. Blasco de Lanuza : Sistoria de Aragon, 2 torn. 4to. Zaragoza : 
 1622, i., 110. 
 
298 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 decree of the council of Trent ; and he drew up, on 
 this subject, a paper so learned and so lucid, that it 
 silenced, and his friends said convinced, the successor 
 of St. Ildefonso and his chapter of golden canons. 
 Preaching before the king at the Escorial on Easter- 
 day, 1575, Villalva was seized, as he descended from the 
 pulpit, with an illness of which he died in a few days. 
 Notwithstanding his fame as a preacher, none of his 
 sermons appear to have found their way to the press ; 
 but as his celebrated discourse at the emperor^ s funeral 
 at Yuste was handed about in manuscript, and sent both 
 to the regent at Valladolid and to the king at Bruxelles, 
 it is possible that it may still survive in some of the 
 older libraries of Spain or the Netherlands.^ 
 
 The preacher Fray Juan de A9aloras was general 
 of the order of Jerome from 1558 to 1561; he was 
 afterwards named by the king as one of the commis- 
 sioners to examine the famous propositions of archbishop 
 Carranza ; and he eventually harangued his way to the 
 patriarchal chair and the mitre of the Canaries.^ 
 
 Fray Juan de Santandres, the third preacher, ended 
 his days as friar of his convent at Talavera, the chief 
 incident and reward of his harmless and obscure life 
 being, that it was vouchsafed to him to foretel, at some 
 distance of time, the exact day and hour of his own 
 death.* 
 
 Fray Antonio de Villacastin, the builder of the palace 
 of Yuste, returned to his convent of La Sisla, near 
 Toledo, and for some years performed the humbler func- 
 tions of baker to the fraternity. When the building of 
 the Escorial was commenced, in 1563, he was appointed 
 master of the works; and for forty years he superin- 
 tended the execution of every detail of the mighty 
 
 * Los Santos : Hist, de San. Oeron., p. 616. 
 
 2 Siguen9a : p. iii-^ 207, 370. ' Siguen9a, ib. 193. 
 
1603.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 299 
 
 fabric, from the hewing of the granite by Biscayan 
 masons, to the painting of the frescoes on wall or dome 
 by Cambiaso or Tibaldi. His clear head, strong memory, 
 cool temper, and sound practical knowledge enabled him 
 to fill the post with great credit to himself, and to the 
 general satisfaction both of those whose money he spent, 
 and of those whose labours he directed. Phihp the Second 
 was very fond of him ; being attracted at first it is said 
 by the retiring habits of the friar, who always retreated 
 at his approach, and was caught in the end only by a 
 stratagem, the king following him along the top of an 
 unfinished wall, which afi'orded no way of evasion. In 
 the course of his duties, he had his share of the hard 
 knocks, and hair-breadth escapes, which are apt to 
 occur among scafibldings and cranes. Later in life, he 
 was afflicted with a dangerous swelling in the arm, for 
 which the surgeon threatened amputation. But one 
 night, as he lay awake with the pain, he felt a pair of 
 hands rubbing and kneading the diseased limb, which 
 forthwith began to recover, and was as sound as the 
 other in a few days. Fray Antonio then confided the 
 fact to the prior Siguen9a, who agreed with him in 
 beheving that the mysterious manipulator was none other 
 than the blessed St. Lawrence himself. When the 
 huge monastery was completed, the eyes of ViUacastin 
 were attacked with cataract, which, not being operated 
 upon by the saint of the gridiron, rendered the sufferer 
 quite blind. He died in 1603, aged ninety, and he was 
 interred, by his own desire, beneath the cloister-pave- 
 ment, at the door of the cell in which he had so long 
 lived and laboured. In the church of the Escorial, 
 Luca Cambiaso has introduced the pale grave face of 
 ViUacastin, very near his own, in the group on the 
 threshold of the glory of heaven, which he painted, in 
 fresco, on the vaulted ceiling of the choir. 
 
300 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 From Yuste, Juanelo Torriano went to Toledo, where 
 lie was employed by tlie corporation to supply the city 
 with water from the Tagus, which flows beneath its 
 rock-built walls. Of this work he had, many years 
 before, in Italy, constructed a model, at the suggestion 
 of his patron, the marquess del Vasto, who had come 
 from Spain enchanted with the noble old capital, and. 
 grieving for the dearth of water which it endured, though 
 girdled with a deep and abundant stream. The merit 
 of the plan belonged partly to Roberto Valturio, but 
 many improvements were added by Torriano ; the water 
 being raised to the height of the alcazar by an ingenious 
 combination of wheels, placed in an edifice of brick built 
 on the margin of the river. The learned Morales left 
 a long description of the work, or artificio, as it was 
 called, and lauded it as a miracle of mechanical genius. 
 He likewise furnished a Latin inscription for a statue of 
 the artist, with which it was at one time intended to 
 crown the building, and a copy of verses which conclude 
 with these extravagant lines, — 
 
 Aerias rupes jubet hunc transceudere ; paret ; 
 Atque hie sideribus proximus ecce fluit.* 
 
 He bids the Tagus scale the rocks, and lo ! 
 Obedient, near the stars, the waters flow. 
 
 In the middle of the seventeenth century the work was 
 still in use, and was noticed by Quevedo in a Castillian 
 lyric of a very different cast, in which some bantering 
 praise is thus given to Torriano, — 
 
 Flamenco dicen que fue 
 Y sorbedor de lo puro ; 
 Muy mal con el agua estaba 
 Que en tal trabajo la puso.* 
 
 ' Morales : Antig. de Fspana, fol. 92. 
 
 ' Itinerario desde Madrid a su torre, Obras, 3 torn. 4to. Brussels ; 
 1660-1. Poesias : p. 420. 
 
1585.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 801 
 
 Juanelo, 'tis clear, was fond of his beer, 
 
 And drank his schnaps neat, like a Fleming ; 
 
 No weakness or whim, for water, in him 
 The lymph to such labours condemning ! 
 
 The Tagus-streara, however, soon rested from its 
 labours ; for the mechanism falhng to decay was never 
 repaired ; and Toledo returned to her old Tantalus-state, 
 and that simpler hydraulic machinery, of mules and 
 water-jars, to which she still adheres. A few ruined 
 brick arches on the right bank of the river, below the 
 bridge, and immediately beneath the towers of the alcazar, 
 are the sole remains of the work of the ingenious 
 Lombard. He was afterwards engaged at Madrid, in 
 making some draw-wells on an improved principle. 
 But Toledo continued to be his home, and he died there, 
 leaving a daughter, in 1585, and was buried in the 
 convent of the Carmen. The street in which he lived 
 is still called 'the street of the wooden man,^ ^ calle 
 del hombre de palo^ in memory, says tradition, of a 
 puppet, of his making, which used to walk daily to the 
 archiepiscopal palace, and return laden with an allowance 
 of bread and meat, after doing ceremonious obeisance 
 to the donor.^ The city of Toledo honoured Torriano 
 with a medal, bearing his head, shaggy, bearded, and 
 stern ; on the reverse was a gushing fountain, supported 
 on the head of a nymph, and surrounded by thirsty 
 ancients, with the inscription, virtvs . nvnqvam . deficit, 
 the mechanician's favourite motto. His bust, finely 
 executed in marble, perhaps by Berruguete, still adorns 
 the cabinet of natural history in the archbishop's palace 
 at Toledo.^ His portrait, inscribed with his name and 
 the medal-motto, hkewise hangs in the smaller cloister 
 of the Escorial.^ 
 
 ' Ponz : Viage, i. 161-2, where the medal is engraved. 
 
 ' J. Amador de los Rios : Toledo Pintoresca, 8vo. Madrid : 1845, p. 201. 
 
 * Descripcion dd Hscoi-ial, sm. Svo. Madrid : 1843, p. 225. 
 
302 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 Father Borja continued to preach, teach, and travel 
 with unflagging zeal and remarkable success. Soon 
 after pronouncing the emperor's funeral sermon, he 
 was again in Portugal, visiting his colleges at Evora, 
 Coimbra, Braga, and Porto, and negotiating for the 
 princess of Brazil in the affair of the regency. His 
 holiness and his catholic enthusiasm did not, however, 
 protect him from suspicions of heresy in the reform 
 panic which overspread the court and church of Spain. 
 He had communicated, it was said, with Pray Domingo 
 de Roxas, and he was summoned by archbishop Car- 
 ranza to bear ^;itness on his behalf before the inquisition. 
 Reports injurious to his orthodoxy and to that of the 
 company for awhile shook Borja's credit with the king ; 
 and they certainly obtained for him the ill-will of the 
 inquisitor Valdes, and for a little devotional treatise, 
 which he had written many years before, a place in that 
 prelate's famous catalogue of prohibited books. That 
 such imputations should have been cast on an order 
 of which the first rule was unqualified submission to 
 the holy see, well exemplifies the blind fury of po- 
 lemic war, in which men, who cannot tell friends from 
 foes, pretend to judge between speculative truth and 
 error. 
 
 Out of Spain, however, the fame of Borja was un- 
 tarnished, and his influence unshaken. Called to Rome 
 by pope Pius the Pourth, to advise on the affairs of the 
 church, he was twice chosen vicar- general of the com- 
 pany, and finally, on the death of Laynez, in 1567, 
 received the staff of Loyola. During his vigorous rule 
 of seven years, the company lengthened its cords and 
 strengthened its stakes in every part of the globe, and 
 in every order and condition of mankind. Jesuit poli- 
 ticians gained the ear of princes and prelates who had 
 hitherto regarded the society with coldness or enmity; 
 
1671.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 808 
 
 Jesuit scholars and thinkers, no less elegant than pro- 
 found, spoke through the press in every language of 
 Europe ; Jesuit colleges, presided over by teachers the 
 ablest that the world had yet seen, arose amid the snows 
 of Poland and the forests of Peru; Barbary, Florida, and 
 Brazil were watered with the blood of Jesuit martyrs ; 
 and Jesuit ministers of mercy moved amid the roar of 
 battle on the bastions of Malta and the decks of Lepanto. 
 Never was discipline so perfect as in the ranks of the 
 company; never was a multitude of minds so skilfully 
 combined into a single intellectual machine, developing 
 the powers of all, yet moved by the will of one. Like 
 Ignatius, Borja brought to his religious command much 
 of his old military spirit ; and his addresses to his fol- 
 lowers were frequently illustrated by images such as 
 might have presented themselves to Gonsalvo or Alba. 
 ' Let the preacher,' says he, in his excellent rules for the 
 composition and dehvery of a sermon, ' think himself a 
 mere piece of artillery, with which God is to batter and 
 overthrow the proud walls of Babylon, and his own 
 part of the business nothing but the lump of iron or 
 brass, cold and heavy, and the dirty powder, black, 
 ill-savoured, and useless, until it is touched with the 
 fire of the Holy Spirit.' ' In spite of the duties of his 
 command, he himself continued in person to batter the 
 walls of Babylon, both from the pulpit and with the pen; 
 his sermons and his treatises, collected after his death, 
 fiUing a foHo of goodly dimensions. 
 
 The general of Jesus visited Spain for the last time in 
 1571, being specially sent thither by pope Pius the Fifth 
 as the companion of the cardinal-legate who was commis- 
 sioned to preach a new crusade against the Turk in the 
 courts of western Christendom. From the moment when 
 
 ^ Tratado para los predicadores. Ribadeneira : Vida de F. Borja, 
 p. 233. 
 
304 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 Boija stepped ashore at Barcelona his progress was a 
 perpetual triumph. His son Fernando received him 
 with autograph letters of welcome from the king and 
 cardinal Espinosa; his former subjects, the turbulent 
 Catalonians, flocked in crowds to crave his blessing; 
 at Valencia, his eldest son, the duke of Gandia, met 
 him at the gates with the flower of the nobility; at 
 Madrid he held an infant of Spain at the baptismal 
 font ; and he was treated by the king not only as an 
 old and trusted counsellor, but with the honour due to 
 a bearer of a morsel of the true cross, presented by the 
 pope to the splendid reliquary of the Escorial. Of the 
 off'ers of new houses for the company which now poured 
 in, the last which Borja accepted was that of Dona Magda- 
 lena de Ulloa to build a college atVillagarcia, a pious work 
 in which he found, after many days, the bread which he 
 had cast upon the waters at Yuste. In Portugal equal 
 honours awaited him; the young king, Sebastian, im- 
 ploring his benediction, and the cardinal-infant, Henry, 
 busying himself about the repair of his travel- worn ward- 
 robe. In France, Charles the Ninth, forsaking for a day 
 the chase of Chambord, led the gallant cavalcade which 
 met the Jesuit father beyond the walls of Blois; and 
 Catherine of Medicis, seating the stranger at her side, 
 begged for his rosary as a relic, and reverently listened to 
 his exhortations for the extinction of heresy and heretics, 
 exhortations which she so signally obeyed, a few months 
 later, on the night of St. Bartholomew. During his 
 progress from court to court, and from castle to castle, 
 Borja led the rigid life of a mendicant friar, fasting at 
 royal banquets, and sleeping at night on the floors of 
 tapestried chambers. He sufi*ered no day to pass without 
 saying mass ; and it was during the performance of this 
 rite on a cold winter^s morning, in a church lately sacked 
 by the Huguenots, that the seeds of deadly disease were 
 
1572.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 305 
 
 sown in his enfeebled frame. The icy air of Mont Cenis 
 accelerated the progress of the disorder^ and he lay almost 
 in a dying state, for some days at Turin, and for some 
 months at Ferrara, under the care of the princes of 
 Savoy and of Este. Eallying somewhat in the summer 
 of 1572, he proceeded to Loretto to pay his last devo- 
 tions at Our Lady's shrine. Thence, feeling the hand 
 of death upon him, he hurried forward to Rome, travel- 
 ling night and day, without moving from his litter. For 
 two days after his arrival at the house of the company, 
 his bed-chamber was besieged by ambassadors, anxious 
 to do honour to the friend of their sovereigns, and by 
 cardinals desirous of taking leave of him whom they 
 once thought of placing in the chair of St. Peter. On 
 the third day the Roman populace crowded to the 
 church of the Jesuits to see the general laid beside his 
 companions in glory and toil, and his predecessors in 
 power, Loyola and Laynez. 
 
 The company of Jesus and the house of Borja soon 
 discovered that their dead chief, a saint amongst 
 grandees, was likewise a grandee amongst saints. His 
 prayers, they alleged, had restored health to the sick, 
 sight to the blind, and teeth to the toothless ; and father 
 Bustamente, in one of their mountain marches, falling 
 with his mule over a precipice, had reached the bottom 
 unhurt, by virtue of the intercession of his companion. 
 Relics and images of him grew potent in cases of fever 
 and childbirth, flesh wounds, and heart disease; earth- 
 quakes, both in Italy and New Spain, were assuaged by 
 his invocation; and his portrait, in a village church of 
 New Granada, sweated for twenty-one days shortly before 
 the death of the viceroy, who was a Borja, and during 
 some persecution which the company was sustaining at 
 Madrid. One of the Jesuit's bones reheved the par- 
 turient pangs of the duchess of Uzeda; another cured 
 
 X 
 
306 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 the ague of the pious queen Margaret. Pleading these 
 portents, his grandson, the cardinal-duke of Lerma, 
 applied, in 1615, to pope Paul the Fifth, for his canoni- 
 zation ; and his claim being examined, and the deviVs 
 advocate heard with all the grave impartiality of the 
 church, a brief of beatification was issued, in 1624, by 
 pope Urban the Eighth. One of the saint's arms was 
 left at Rome, the rest of his body was removed to 
 Madrid, and exposed, in a silver shrine beneath lamps of 
 silver, to the adoration of the faithful in the church of 
 the company. 
 
 Archbishop Carranza went from Yuste to Toledo, and 
 devoted the remainder of 1558 and the first six months of 
 1559 in the duties of his high calling. Meanwhile, 
 his enemy, the inquisitor Valdes, was leaving no stone 
 unturned to establish a case of heresy against him. 
 Soon after his appointment to the primacy, Carranza had 
 published, at Antwerp, a folio catechism of Christianity, 
 or an account of aU that is professed in receiving the 
 sacrament of baptism.^ To the protestant, who in these 
 days looks into this very rare and still more tedious 
 volume, the work appears to breathe the fiercest spirit 
 of intolerant Romanism. Heresy is reprobated ; bibles 
 in the vulgar tongue are condemned ; Spain is praised 
 as the one land where the fountain of truth is still un- 
 polluted ; Phihp the Second is exhorted to further per- 
 secutions ; Mary Tudor is extolled as the saviour of the 
 soul of England. ' In these dangerous times,' says the 
 - prelate, in his dedication to the king, ' when heretics 
 
 1 Comentarios del reverendissimo senor Frai Bartholome Carranza de 
 Miranda, argobispo de Toledo, sobre el catechismo christiano, fol. Anvers : 
 1558. This book was so rigidly suppressed by the inquisition, that not- 
 withstanding its fame as the cause of the archbishop's trial, it has not 
 been mentioned by Brunet. I bought my copy at the sale of the library 
 of the late canon Riego, who was also a dealer in books, and whose 
 note in the fly leaf, on the excessive rarity of the volume, thus concludes, 
 ' Su precio de este exemplar dos onzas de oro o seis guineas.' 
 
1559.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 307 
 
 are so zealous in propagating error, it behoves catholics 
 to make some exertions in the cause of truth; at the 
 request of several churches of Spain, I have therefore 
 composed this work in Castillian for the use of private 
 persons, and I shall shortly translate it into Latin for 
 the benefit of other countries, especially of England/ 
 Yet this was the book in Avhich the sharp-eyed inquisitor 
 contrived to find materials sufficient for the ruin of his 
 rival. The rack, which often agonized its victims into 
 the wildest accusations against themselves, easily ob- 
 tained a large mass of evidence against the primate 
 from heretics who pretended that he was the author or 
 the accomphce of their sins against the true faith. Hope 
 or fear also brought many free auxiliaries to the councils 
 of the inquisitor ; and many a friar in the habit of St. 
 Jerome or St. Francis was ready to join in a cry 
 against the Dominican who had secured the mitre of 
 Toledo. To be armed against all chances, Valdes pro- 
 cured the ratification, by pope Pius the Fourth, of his 
 predecessor's briefs, which empowered the inquisition to 
 arrest even prelates who were suspected of heresy. 
 
 The snare being thus laid, the princess-regent, who 
 had resigned herself entirely to the influence of Valdes, 
 summoned the archbishop to court in the summer of 
 1559; and the familiars of the holy office arrested him, 
 at night and in his bed, at a village on the road to 
 Valladolid. He had for some time foreseen the storm, 
 and he put his whole trust in the friendly disposition of 
 the king. Philip, however, from some cause which is 
 still a mystery, was now eager to abase the man upon 
 whom he had so lately thrust greatness. When brought 
 before the holy office, Carranza refused to be judged by 
 Valdes, alleging the notorious personal animosity with 
 which that prelate regarded him. The matter being 
 referred to the pope, he authorized the king to choose a 
 
 X 2 
 
308 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 new judge. Philip chose the archbishop of Santiago, 
 who must have been in the interest of Valdes ; for he, 
 in his turn, devolved his powers on two councillors of 
 the inquisition, mere tools and creatures of their chief. 
 Advised by his advocate that it was useless to appeal 
 against injustice so manifest and wilful, Carranza per- 
 mitted the trial to proceed ; and at first he had some 
 hope of an acquittal, on the ground that his book had 
 been declared orthodox by commissioners appointed to 
 examine it by the council of Trent. His enemies, how- 
 ever, had. the art to prevent the opinion of the commis- 
 sion from being ratified by the council, although they 
 failed in obtaining a decree of condemnation, and al- 
 though eleven dignitaries of the church expressed their 
 approbation of the catechism. At length Carranza ap- 
 pealed to pope Pius. But he, instead of trying the 
 cause himself, was persuaded by the king to send for this 
 purpose a legate and. two other judges to Spain. Pius, 
 however, died soon afterwards, and his successor insisted 
 that the trial should be adjourned to Rome. Pius the 
 Fifth, an honest man, though a bigot, remembered the 
 good service which had been done by Carranza in Eng- 
 land, and was indignant at the injustice with which he 
 was treated by the inquisition and his sovereign. When, 
 therefore, he had succeeded, in the teeth of Philip, in 
 bringing both parties before him in 1567, he took every 
 occasion of mortifying the accusing inquisitors, the 
 deputies of Valdes ; and he would probably have decided 
 in favour of the prisoner. But he, too, was called to 
 his account before pronouncing sentence ; and the case 
 was re-opened before Gregory the Thirteenth. This 
 pontiff was equally unwilling to condemn the prelate or 
 to displease the king. In a long and ambiguous judg- 
 ment, drawn up in 1576, he therefore took a middle 
 course, very different from that which the kmg desired, 
 
1576.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 309 
 
 and from that which justice dictated. The catechism 
 was declared to contain sixteen heretical propositions, 
 which the author was required pubhcly to abjure; and 
 while he was relieved from all previous ecclesiastical 
 censures, he was suspended, during the pope's pleasure, 
 from his preferment, and ordered to perform certain 
 penances, and sentenced to five years' imprisonment in 
 the Dominican convent at Orvietto. The sufferings 
 endured by the Spanish primate met with great sym- 
 pathy at Rome. When the pope's decision was known, 
 he at once proceeded to perform part of his penance by 
 visiting the seven basilicas ; and he was attended by so 
 splendid a retinue of friends that this humiliation wore 
 the appearance of a triumph. But long imprison- 
 ment at Valladolid, and in the castle of St. Angelo, 
 had broken his health and enfeebled his constitu- 
 tion. The unwonted excitement and exertion, there- 
 fore, produced an attack of inflammation, of which he 
 died on the second of May, 1576, in the convent of 
 Minerva. He was buried with great pomp in the con- 
 ventual church, and the pope made a wretched atone- 
 ment for his injustice, by inscribing the tomb with an 
 epitaph in which the archbishop was praised as a man 
 illustrious by his lineage, his life, his almsdeeds, his elo- 
 quence, and his doctrine. His sad and anxious coun- 
 tenance, tolerably painted by Luis de Carbajal, appears 
 among the portraits of the primates in the winter 
 chapter-room at Toledo. 
 
 While suffering in prison the sickness of deferred 
 hope, the unhappy prelate may perhaps have lamented 
 that he had reached Yuste too late to explain to the 
 emperor the circumstances of his promotion, and to 
 learn and remove the suspicions which had been cast 
 upon his faith. This was the mischance which marked 
 the ebb of his fortune. It is impossible to conjecture 
 
3 Id CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xi. 
 
 the cause which turned the esteem of Philip the 
 Second into hatred so bitter and unrelenting/ The 
 scandal and inconvenience of having his primate even 
 suspected of heresy in the midst of a reform panic was 
 so great and glaring, that his natural course would have 
 been to hush the matter up, even had he believed the 
 charge. But the charge was untenable, and supported 
 by evidence that would have been admitted only before 
 a tribunal of unscrupulous enemies. The single expres- 
 sion which a cursory perusal of the catechism has enabled 
 me to detect as being likely to alarm those who bene- 
 fited by supporting every existing abuse, is the prelate^s 
 desire ' to resuscitate the ancient belief of the primitive 
 church and the wisest and purest age,^^ — a desire alleged 
 by all religious reformers, from the brave men of Ger- 
 many, who burst the bonds of spiritual tyranny, to the 
 triflers of our own day in England, who wage puny 
 war about bowings and kneelings and flowers, the 
 mechanism and the millinery of worship. It may be 
 that Carranza^s printed theology contains (what theology 
 does not ?) passages that might be interpreted in a sense 
 neither intended nor foreseen by the writer. It may 
 be that he helped himself to ideas or phrases from 
 Lutheran books whose authors he would willingly have 
 burnt ; just as the inquisitor Torquemada sent sorcerers 
 to the stake, yet protected himself from poison by 
 keeping a piece of unicorn's horn on his table. Yet the 
 historian of the Spanish inquisition was unable to find 
 in the catechism any one of the sixteen propositions, 
 upon which the pope pronounced sentence of condemna- 
 tion — a sentence wrung from the pontifi" with much 
 difficulty even by the immense influence of the crown 
 
 ^ It was known to Antonio Perez, who says he had stated it in one of 
 his twelve memorials, which are unfortunately lost. 
 * Catechismo, Prologo, fol. 2. 
 
1576.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 811 
 
 of Spain. It is certain that Carranza for the greater 
 part of his life had been a divine of approved orthodoxy, 
 and a preacher of high reputation ; that both in England 
 and the Netherlands he had been a vigilant shepherd of 
 the faithful and an unsparing butcher of heretics; and 
 that one of his first acts as primate was to advise the 
 king to appropriate the revenues of one canonry in 
 every cathedral of Spain to the use of the inquisition. 
 It seems, therefore, but reasonable to believe that he 
 spoke the plain truth when he made his dying declara^ 
 tion that he had never held any of the heretical opinions 
 of which he had been accused.^ 
 
 ' Don Adolfo de Castro considers Carranza a protestant, and combats 
 the position of Llorente, but without showing that any one of the sixteen 
 propositions is found in the catechism, or in any other way, as it appears 
 to me, proving what he asserts. Los Protestantes Esparides, p. -237. 
 
312 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap xn. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 YUSTE AND ITS RUINS. 
 
 AFTER negotiating the peace of 1559, and marrying, 
 as proxy for Philip the Second, the daughter of 
 France, known among Austrian queens as Isabella 
 of the peace, the duke of Alba returned to Spain. In 
 the autumn of that year, about twelve months after the 
 emperor^s death, he visited Yuste, accompanied by car- 
 dinal Pacheco. They remained there for three days, 
 and were very punctual in their attendance at the ofl&ces 
 of the church. It was noted by the friars that the 
 duke, on entering the room where his old master died, 
 took off his hat on the threshold, and remained un- 
 covered until he came out.^ With recollections of Hun- 
 gary, and Africa, and Saxony, and the confidence 
 of Charles, thoughts of his inglorious operations in 
 Italy, and the emperor's consequent displeasure, must 
 have mingled painfully in the mind of Alba, as he rode 
 through the hills to his home and sweet gardens at 
 Abadia. 
 
 In memory of the emperor, the monastery of Yuste 
 was dignified with the title of royal. Philip the Second 
 confirmed its privileges in 1562, and honoured it in 1570 
 with a visit of two days. As he approached the pre- 
 cincts, he stopped his coach, in order to read the inscrip- 
 tion which the monks, or perhaps Quixada, had caused 
 
 ^ Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 56. 
 
1570.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 313 
 
 to be carved beneath the imperial arms upon the comer- 
 stone of the garden wall — 
 
 'In this holy house of St. Jerome of Yuste, was 
 ended in retirement the life, spent in defending the faith 
 and maintaining justice, of Charles the Fifth, emperor, 
 king of the Spains, most christian and most invincible. 
 He died on the 2 1st of September, 1558.'^ 
 
 On the wall of the open gallery, qn the west side 
 of the palace, the following inscription records the 
 exact date when the emperor, sitting there, was first 
 attacked by the illness which carried him to the 
 grave : — 
 
 ' His majesty the emperor, Don Charles the Fifth, 
 our lord, was seated in this place when his malady 
 seized him on the thirty-first of August, at four o'clock 
 in the afternoon ; he died on the twenty-first of Sep- 
 tember, at half-past two in the morning, in the year of 
 our Lord, 1558.^ ^ 
 
 Out of respect to the memory of his sire, Philip 
 would not sleep in the room where the emperor died, 
 but occupied an adjoining closet, so small that there 
 was hardly room for a cainp-bed.^ He presented the 
 
 ' En esta santa casa de Hieronimo de Tuste se retiro 4 acabar su vida, 
 el que toda la gasto en defensa de la fe, y conservacion de la justicia, 
 Carlos V. emperador, rey de las Espanas, Christianissimo, invictissimo. 
 Murio a 21 de Setiembre de 1558. 
 
 * Su magestad el emperador don Carlos quinto nuestro seiior, en este 
 lugar estava asentado quando le dio el mal, a los treinta y uno de Agosto 
 a las quatro de la tarde : failed o a los 21 de Setiembre 4 los dos y media 
 de la maiiana ano de No. Sr., 1558. 
 
 * These particulars are mostly taken from the HandhooTc of Spain, 
 1845, p. 552, and from the notes made on the spot by Mr. Ford, from the 
 MS. book of documents, written by Fr. Luis de Sta. Maria in 1620, and 
 shown to him by the prior in 1832. The Abbe St, Real, in his dull 
 Don Carlos, Nouvelle Histwique {CEuvres, 8 vols, 12mo. Paris : 1757, 
 vol. v.), most absurdly makes Yuste the scene of the imaginary loves of 
 Carlos and queen Isabella. The book was written in 1672, and trans- 
 lated into English ' by H. L 12mo, London, 1674,' as a piece of authentic 
 history ; and, more extraordinary still, was cited as such by Bayle, art. 
 Charles V. 
 
314 CLOISTER LIFE OF [ 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 fraternity with some relics and a gilt cup ; and he pro- 
 vided them with an exact copy of the ' Glory ^ of Titian, 
 which he had removed from their altar to the hall 
 of the Escorial where the monks assembled to hear 
 Scripture readings. 
 
 A new altar and architectural decorations were de- 
 signed for the church of Yuste, by Juan de Herrera, 
 the architect of the Escorial_, and finished in 1583, by 
 Juan de Segura. Some further statues and embellish- 
 ments, which were probably disfigurements, were added 
 by Juan Gomez de Mora, in the reign of Philip the 
 Third.^ The top was adorned with the imperial eagle 
 of Hapsburg, and the armorial bearings of the emperor ; 
 bearings which the monks also planted in box shrubs in 
 the centre of their principal cloister. 
 
 In the year 1638 the palace underwent a complete 
 repair, by order of Philip the Fourth, and at a cost of 
 six thousand ducats." 
 
 Until the present century, Yuste lacked not a due 
 succession of Jeromite fathers. Neither in the days of 
 Charles, nor in subsequent times, were its worthies, who 
 are commemorated in the history of the order, men of 
 sufiicient mark to impress their names upon any mere 
 secular record. Content to mortify their bodies, they 
 made little or no use of their minds. Only a few 
 appear to have deviated from the beaten track of even 
 monkish mediocrity. Fray Antonio de Belvis was 
 popular as an orator in the pulpits of Andalusia. Fray 
 Juan de los Santos evinced sufficient taste for study to 
 be sent by the community to the college of Siguen9a. 
 Ill health, however, cut short his academical career, and 
 he returned to Yuste to dress vines, and to tend the 
 sick, a work of mercy to which he fell a sacrifice. 
 
 ' Ponz : Viage, vii. 136. ' Valparaiso MS. See Preface, p. ix., note. 
 
1780.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 315 
 
 dying of the fever of which he had signally cured one of 
 his brethren. Promx)ted to the Escorial, Fray Bernar- 
 dino de Salinas became a favourite of Phihp the Second; 
 and Fray Miguel de Alaexos, the emperor's reader, 
 another Jeromite from Yuste, enjoyed the dignity of 
 prior of that royal convent from 1582 to 1589. One 
 monk was distinguished as a leader of the choir; another 
 as an instructor of the novices ; and a third obtained 
 honourable notice as an agriculturahst by certain im- 
 provements effected on the conventual farm of Valmo- 
 risco. Some were revered for benefactions to the house; 
 others for their austerities; and a few for the visions 
 which had brightened or darkened their cells. Strangers 
 visiting Yuste were desired to observe the silver candle- 
 sticks of the altar, and the manuscript book of the choir, 
 the gift of Fray Christobal, or the work of Fray Luis ; 
 and they were told how father Paul had scaled the 
 steep of spiritual perfections by making a ladder his 
 nightly couch ; and how father Christopher resigned his 
 meek spirit into the real and visible hands of Our 
 Blessed Lady. 
 
 Don Antonio Ponz, the laborious traveller, and long 
 the traveller's best guide in Spain, visited Yuste about 
 1780, and was lodged in the palace of the emperor. 
 He remarked in the church two pictures of Our Lord, 
 bearing the cross, and crowned with thorns, which the 
 fiiars attributed to a painter brought to Spain by 
 queen Mary of Hungary. Some years before, the 
 Vera had suffered greatly by a plague of caterpillars 
 which had killed many of the chestnut-trees, and by 
 accidental fires which had charred whole tracts of the 
 forest. The consequent famine had much diminished 
 the population, and the owners of the soil were endea- 
 vouring to restore prosperity by encouraging agriculture 
 and the growth of silk. 
 
816 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xii. 
 
 Early in the present century, Yuste was visited by 
 M. Alexandre Laborde, the well-known French traveller, 
 and became the subject of an inaccurate sketch and 
 ground-plan by his artists, and of a meagre description 
 by himself.^ 
 
 It was the war of independence which began the ruin 
 of the fair home of the monarch and the monk. In 
 1809, the Vera of Plasencia, like the rest of Estre- 
 madura, was in the hands of the French, under Soult. 
 The first foraging party who visited Yuste did no harm; 
 but the next comers, a body of two hundred dragoons, 
 finding a dead Frenchman near the convent gate, broke 
 in and sacked the place. The buildings were set on 
 fire on the ninth of August, and continued to burn 
 for eight days. All the archives of the house were 
 destroyed, but a single folio volume of notes and docu- 
 ments, written in 1620, by Fray Luis de Sta. Maria, 
 which the prior happened to be consulting about some 
 rights disputed by the peasants of Quacos, when the 
 Frenchmen burst in, and which he saved by throwing into 
 a thicket in the garden. The church was preserved from 
 destruction by its massive walls and vaulted roof, and it 
 was likewise the means of protecting the palace and a 
 portion of the cloister. 
 
 Enough was saved of the buildings to lodge a portion 
 of the brotherhood. In 1813 they had the honour of 
 receiving an English visitor, perhaps the first who had 
 set foot within their walls since the courier who came 
 to complain of official slowness at Valladohd,^ cer- 
 
 * A. Laborde : Voyage Pittoresque et Historique d'Espagne. 2 vol. (2 
 parts in each), fol. Paris, 1806. Vol. i., 2«°»« partie : p. 118. His view 
 has been reproduced in a woodcut in Jubinal's Armeria real de Madrid, 
 ii. p. 11. There is also a wretched woodcut view of the 'palacio' of 
 Yuste, with letter-press still more absurd, in the 'Semanario Pintoresco 
 Espanol,' No. 38, 18th Dec, 1836, p. 312. 
 
 2 Chap vi. p. 120. 
 
1813.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 817 
 
 tainly the most distinguished of their guests since the 
 days when literature and politics had been discussed 
 there by Avila and Sepulveda, Ruy Gomez and Gar- 
 cilaso. About the middle of June in that year, lord 
 John Russell left the camp of Wellington to visit the 
 old quarters of Charles the Fifth. He found the palace 
 of Yuste untenanted and unfurnished, but in tolerable 
 repair, and the convent filled with monks, even more 
 ignorant and stupid than those whose insolence and 
 tattling moved the scorn of the secretary, or the ire of 
 the testy chamberlain. The prophecy uttered by the 
 preacher at the removal of the bones of Charles the 
 Fifth had been completely fulfilled.^ They had no tra- 
 ditions to teU of their imperial guest, nor any reverence 
 for his memory, but rather a grudge against him, because 
 the convent had been but little enriched by Jiis wiU. 
 They spoke of the visit of a Frenchman, doubtless 
 M. Laborde, and said he was accompanied by an artist, 
 who had disturbed the convent and the neighbourhood 
 by sketching, an outrage for which he had very justly 
 been put to death by the peasants, near Puente del 
 Arzobispo. Amongst these enlightened churchmen no 
 representative remained of the studious book-buying 
 Fray Hernando de Corral, nor any vestige of the library, 
 whose black letter tomes he was wont to read and 
 annotate." 
 
 The brief triumph of the constitutionahsts in 1820 
 was a signal for the first dispersion of the friars. During 
 the vacancy of the monastery, the w^ork of destruction 
 went on briskly. The few vases belonging to the dis- 
 pensary of Charles the Fifth which had escaped the 
 French, were carried off by one Morales, an apothecary 
 
 • Chap. V. p. 101. 
 
 2 For these facts I am indebted to the kindness of lord John Russell 
 himself. 
 
318 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xii. 
 
 of liberal opinions, to his shop at Xarandilla. The 
 patriots of Texeda helped themselves to the copy of the 
 ' Glory' of Titian, and hung it in their parish church. 
 The palace was utterly gutted, and the church was used 
 as a stable. 
 
 When the arms of the holy alliance had once more 
 placed the crown and the cowl in the ascendant, a 
 handful of picturesque drones again gathered at their 
 pleasant hive of Yuste. They feebly and partially 
 restored it, patching up the offices formerly occupied by 
 the emperor's servants into some cells and a refectory. 
 But they were unable to raise money enough to pay 
 for bringing their altar-piece back from Texeda. Mr. 
 Ford, best of travellers, was one of the last of their 
 visitors, passing a pleasant May-day with them in 
 1832, and sleeping at night in the chamber of the 
 emperor. The monks were about twelve in number, 
 and amongst them was a patriarch — Fray Alonso Caval- 
 lero, who had taken the cowl at Yuste, in 1778, and 
 remembered Ponz and his visit. ^The good-natured, 
 garrulous brotherhood' accompanied the stranger in his 
 ramble about the ruined buildings and gardens; in the 
 evening he supped with the prior and procurator in an 
 alcove, overlooking the lovely Vera, and sweet and 
 melodious with the scent of thyme and the song of 
 nightingales; and at dawn, on the morrow, an early 
 mass was said for the parting guest.^ 
 
 Five years afterwards, in 1837, came the final sup- 
 pression of the monasteries. The poor monks were 
 again turned out, some to die of starvation near their 
 old haunts, others to die for Don Carlos and the 
 church on the hills of Biscay. The royal monastery of 
 Yuste soon fell into utter and irremediable ruin. 
 
 Handbook ; 1845, p. 551-3. The account of Yuste is one of the best 
 travelling sketches in that charming book. 
 
1849.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 819 
 
 In the summer of 1 849, in the course of a ride from 
 Madrid to Lisbon, I paid a visit to the Vera of Pla- 
 sencia. On the evening of the fourth of June, halting 
 near the gate of Oropesa to look back over the noble 
 stretch of plain, richly wooded with olive and ilex, which 
 lay behind and beneath me, I fell into conversation with 
 an aged priest of the town, who sat enjoying the thyme- 
 scented air at the base of a way-side cross. When he 
 learned that I was going to Yuste, he said that he had 
 been a monk there for several years of his life, but that 
 he believed that the convent was now in ruins, and 
 scarce worth a visit. Having been lately reading, in 
 the cathedral library of Toledo, the story of the empe- 
 ror's retirement, as told in the classic page of Siguen9a, 
 I endeavoured to ascertain from this ancient Jeromite, 
 whether the traditions of his convent agreed with the 
 narrative of the historian. The history of his order, 
 however, had formed no part of the good friar's read- 
 ing. He knew, he said, that Charles the Fifth had 
 taken the monastic vows in the convent of Yuste, but 
 he did not know whether he had performed his own 
 obsequies or not, nor did he recollect that any anecdotes 
 or traditions respecting him existed among the fra- 
 ternity. 
 
 Next day I struck off the great Badajoz road at 
 Navalmoral, and taking a northern direction across 
 the plain, soon entered the oak forest, which extends 
 far into the Vera of Plasencia. Here the track be- 
 came very narrow and indistinct, and the diflBculty of 
 keeping it was so much increased by a storm of 
 rain followed by mist, that nothing but the guidance of 
 a friendly woodman saved me from the inconveniences 
 of a woodland bivouac. At simset the clouds cleared 
 away, and as the path led through open glades, or over 
 cistus-covered knolls bare of wood, beautiful prospects 
 
320 CLOISTER LIFE OF [chap. xn. 
 
 opened across the Vera to the hills in whose forest 
 lap Yuste lay nestling unseen. The moon had risen 
 on the groves of venerable chestnuts which embower the 
 village of Quacos, ere I had knocked at the door of the 
 little inn, and disturbed the colony of silkworms which 
 seemed to fill the whole house, except the spot occupied 
 by my bed. 
 
 Early on the following morning, the sixth of June, 
 ascending through more groves of chestnut, yellow vine- 
 yards, green potatoe-fields, and orchards of fig and 
 mulberry, I took the path to the monastery of Yuste. 
 The corner of the garden wall, with its inscription, 
 which Philip the Second had halted to read, was the 
 first trace of the establishment which the screening 
 woods permitted me to observe ; and coasting that wall, 
 I soon reached the great walnut-tree, and the three gates 
 which led respectively to the convent, the church, and 
 the palace. Having knocked at each of the cra.zj doors, 
 after some delay, I was admitted into the monastic pre- 
 cincts by the only inhabitant, a peasant baihfF of the lay 
 proprietors, who eked out his wages by showing the 
 historical site to the passing stranger. The principal 
 cloister was choked with the rubbish of the fallen upper 
 story, the richly carved capitals which had supported it 
 peeping here and there from the soil, and a thick 
 mantle of wild shrubs and flowers. Two sides of the 
 smaller and older cloister were still standing, with black- 
 ened walls and rotting floors and ceiling. The strong 
 granite-built church, proof against the fire of the Gaul, 
 and the wintry storms of the sierra, was a hollow 'shell, 
 the classical decorations of the altar, and quaint wood- 
 work of the choir, having been partly used for fuel, partly 
 carried off to the parish church of Quacos. Beautiful blue 
 and yellow tiles, which had lined the chancel, were fast 
 dropping from the walls ; and above, the window through 
 
1849.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 321 
 
 which the dying glance of Charles had sought the altar, 
 remained like the eye-socket in a skull, turned towards 
 the damp blank space that was once bright with holy 
 tapers and the colouring of Titian. In a vault beneath, 
 approached by a door of which the key could not be 
 found, I was told that the coffin of chesnut wood, in 
 which the emperor's body had lain for sixteen years, was 
 still kept as a rehc. Of his palace, the lower chambers 
 were used as a magazine for fuel; and in the rooms 
 above, where he Hved and died, maize and olives were 
 garnered, and the silk-worm wound its cocoon in dust 
 and darkness. His garden below, with its tank and 
 broken fountain, was overgrown with tangled thickets 
 of fig, mulberry, and almond, interspersed with a few 
 patches of potherbs, and here and there an orange tree, 
 or a cypress, to mark where once the terrace smiled 
 with its blooming parterres. Within and without the 
 buildings, time had dealt gently only with the great 
 walnut-tree at the gates, which reared its giant head, 
 and spread forth its broad and vigorous boughs over the 
 mouldering walls to shroud and dignify their desolation. 
 Yet in the lovely face of nature, changeless in its sum- 
 mer charms, in the hill and forest and wide Vera, in the 
 generous soil and genial sky, there was enough to show 
 how well the imperial eagle had chosen the nest wherein 
 to fold his wearied wings. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A SELECTION FROM THE EXTRACTS MADE BY DON TOMAS 
 GONZALES FROM THE INVENTORY OF THE JEWELS, WARD- 
 ROBE, AND FURNITURE OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE 
 FIFTH, AT YUSTE, DRAWN UP AFTER HIS DEATH, BY FRAY 
 JUAN DE REGLA, MARTIN DE GAZTELU, AND LUIS QUIXADA. 
 
 A bag, of mulberry silk, containing three portraits of the 
 empress, painted on vellum, and two pictures of the * Last 
 Judgment.' 
 
 Bags, containing portraits of the duchess of Parma, on a 
 small panel, and of the emperor when a boy; and a portrait 
 of the king of France, with his genealogy. 
 
 A box of black leather, lined with crimson velvet, containing 
 four bezuar stones,^ variously set in gold, one of which the 
 emperor ordered to be given to William Yan Male, his 
 gentleman of the chamber, being sick, as it was suspected, 
 of the plague. 
 
 Various quadrants, astrolabes, and other mathematical instru- 
 ments. 
 
 A sand-glass set in ebony, with its box. 
 
 Twenty-seven pairs of spectacles. 
 
 ' The bezuar, bezoar, or bezar, was a stone found in the kidneys of 
 the cervicahra, a wild animal of Arabia, partaking of the nature of the 
 deer and the goat, and somewhat larger than the latter. The stone was 
 supposed to be formed of the poison of serpents which had bitten the 
 producer, combined with the counteracting matter with which nature 
 had furnished it. It was a charm against plague and poison. For mar- 
 vellous properties, see Gaspar de Morales : lAbro de las virtudes y pro- 
 priedades maravillosas de jpied/ras preciosas ; sm. 8vo. Madiid : 1605 ; 
 fol. 202—211. 
 
APPENDIX. 323 
 
 Thirty-nine pairs of gold and enamelled clasps {cIoajos), to be 
 
 ■worn in the cap. 
 A cameo medal {medaUa de ccmwfeo)^ with its gold mounting. 
 A number of gold tooth-picks. 
 
 BOOKS, 
 
 Amongst which, amounting in all to about thirty-one volumes, and 
 usually described as bound in crimson velvet with silver clasps 
 and mountings, the following names occur : — 
 
 El CahaUero determinado} in French, with illuminated 
 paintings. 
 
 The same, in manuscript, in Castillian {romance), by Don 
 Hernando de Acuna ; likewise with illuminations. 
 
 Boethius; De Consolatione ; three copies; in French, Italian, 
 and Castillian. 
 
 The "War of Germany, by the Comendador-Mayor of Alcan- 
 tara (Don Luis de Avila).^ 
 
 A large book of vellum; containing many drawings and 
 illuminations. 
 
 Several missals and books of hours, with illuminations. 
 
 The Christian Doctrine, by Dr. Constantino.^ 
 
 The Meditations of Fray Luis de Granada. 
 
 The Christian Doctrine, by Fray Pedro de Soto. 
 
 Caesar's Commentaries, in Tuscan. 
 
 Commentary on the psalm In te Domine speravi, in manu- 
 script, by Fray Tomas de Puertocarrero. 
 
 Astronomicon Csesaris de Pedro Apiano. 
 
 Tolomeo. 
 
 Two portfolios, with some manuscript sheets of the histories 
 written by Florian de Ocampo and others. 
 
 Two books of Meditation. 
 
 Titelman's Exposition of the Psalms.^ 2 vols. 
 
 ^ Chap. iv. p. 86. 2 Chap. iv. p. 86. ' Chap. ix. p. 208. 
 
 * CommentaHi paraphrastici in Psalmos, was printed at Antwerp, in 
 1552, by Steels, at the particular request of the emperor, conveyed by 
 Van Male, See Van Male's Letters, by Reiffenberg : Ep. xxxii. p. 87. 
 
 y 2 
 
324 APPENDIX. 
 
 A book of Memorias, with its gold pen. Probably a note- 
 book, but possibly the emperor's Memoirs.^ 
 
 Maps of Italy, Flanders, Germany, and the Indies. 
 
 A large portfolio of black velvet, containing papers, and 
 sealed up for the princess- regent. 
 
 The fowling-piece (arcahuz) used by his majesty, and various 
 cross bows {bcdlestas), quivers, (carcajos), and other trap- 
 pings and furniture of the chase (arreos y muehles de caza). 
 
 PLATE. 
 
 Approximate 
 
 Plate of the Chapel. weight 
 
 in marks. 
 
 A variety of chalices, candlesticks, crucifixes, mon- 
 strances, &c 100 
 
 Plate op the Chamber. 
 
 Cups, basins, jugs, bottles, pitchers, candlesticks ; a warm- 
 ing pan with its handle {calentador con mango)', a 
 ' pizpote ;' a basin in the shape of a tortoise, used by 
 his majesty in washing his teeth {faente a Tnanera de 
 galapago en que S. M. lavaha los dientes) ; a salt-box 
 of Moorish workmanship (caja para sal labrada a la 
 morisca), &c 150 
 
 Plate of the Pantkt. 
 
 A gold and enamelled salt-cellar, with its cover; six 
 square gilt trenchers, with the arms of his majesty ; 
 eight saucers ; chafing-dishes for keeping the dishes 
 warm on the table ; cups, spoons, knives, and forks . 70 
 
 Plate of the Cellar. 
 
 A piece of gold, to be put hot into water or wine, for 
 the use of his majesty (weighing upwards of SJ ounces). ^ 
 
 ' Chap. iv. p. 70, chap ix. p. 224, and chap. xi. p. 293. 
 2 Liquor, in which hot metal was quenched, was held to possess valu- 
 able astringent properties. See Bacon's remarks on the subject, in his 
 Mistoria Vitce et Mortis, v. 7; Works, 10 vols. 8vo. London: 1803, vol. 
 viii. p. 422. His New Advices in order to Health, v. ii. p. 224, contains 
 the following memorandum : * To use once during supper wine in which 
 gold is quenched.' 
 
APPENDIX. S^6 
 
 Approximate 
 weight 
 ^ in marks. 
 
 Jars, mugs, and bottles, of various shapes {jcurroa, twrros^ 
 
 frascos, cubiletes). 
 Silver mouth-pieces (brocales con tornillos), to screw on 
 
 to leather hunting-bottles ; tubes (canutos), with 
 
 which hia majesty drank when he had the gout ; 
 
 spoons, (fee 400 
 
 Plate of the Larder. 
 
 Two large ^ 
 
 Thirty-six middle-sized I dishes. 
 
 Thirty-six smaller J 
 
 Two dishes for serving sucking pigs (lechones,) saucers, &c. 650 
 
 Plate of the Dispensary. 
 
 Cups, mugs, pans, pots, boxes, phials ; box for carrying 
 preserved lemon-peel or candied pumpkin {diacitron o 
 calahazate,) &c Q^ 
 
 Plate of the Wax Room. 
 Six wrought candlesticks 26 
 
 Weight, in marks, about 1561 
 or 12,488 ounces.^ 
 
 Plate and Jewels in the care of the Keeper of 
 the Jewels. 
 
 A reliquary ftdl of reliques. 
 A piece of the true cross. 
 Another piece, set in a cross of gold. 
 
 Several vessels for sprinkling perfimies (almarras) of silver. 
 Two bracelets, and two rings of gold, and one of bone, all 
 good for hemorrhoids {almorranas). 
 
 1 The mark of Cologne, or as it was called in Spain, of Burgos, con- 
 tained eight ounces. J. Garcia Cavallero : Breve Cotejo y Valance, 
 pp. 33, 36, 108. 
 
826 APPENDIX. 
 
 A blue stone, witli two clasps (corchetes) of gold, good for gout. 
 
 Rosaries, chains, and several pairs of spectacles. 
 
 The great order of the golden fleece, with its collar, and 
 
 several others of a smaller size. 
 A small picture on panel of Our Lady, mounted with silver, 
 
 which belonged to the empress. 
 A box containing a crucifix of wood, the same which his 
 
 majesty and the empress held in their hands when they 
 
 died, and two scourges {disciplinas). 
 A signet-ring of chalcedony, engraved with the imperial 
 
 arms. 
 Eighteen files to file his majesty's teeth. 
 
 Crucifixes, Paintings, and other Articles. 
 
 A picture of the Trinity, on canvas, by Titian. 
 
 A large picture on wood, with Jesus Christ bearing his cross, 
 
 Our Lady, St. John, and St. Yeronica, by master Michael,^ 
 
 (in the monastery). 
 A picture on wood, a crucifix, which stands upon the prin- 
 cipal altar, with gilt base and top. 
 A picture of the scourging of Christ, by Titian. 
 A picture of Our Lady, on wood, by master Michael. 
 A picture of Christ bearing his cross, by master Michael, and 
 
 another of Our Lady, on stone, joined with it, by Titian. 
 A picture of Our Lady, on wood, by Titian. 
 A picture of Our Lady with Our Lord in her arms, on canvas, 
 
 by Titian. 
 Portraits of the emperor and the empress, on canvas, by 
 
 Titian. 
 A portrait of the emperor in armour, by Titian. 
 A full-length portrait of the empress, by Titian. 
 A portrait of the queen of England, on wood, by Thomas 
 
 (doubtless a mistake for Antonio) More. 
 A picture with four figures, portraits of children of the queen 
 
 of Bohemia. 
 
 1 Chap. V. p. 110. 
 
APPENDIX, 827 
 
 Tapestry of gold, silver, and silk, representing the Adoration 
 
 of the kings. 
 An altar-piece with doors, containing pictures of the Virgin 
 
 and babe, and of the Annunciation of the Virgin, and 
 
 adorned with nine gold medallions of various sizes, portraits 
 
 of the emperor, the empress (2), king Philip (2), the queen 
 
 of England, the queen of Bohemia (2), and the princess of 
 
 Portugal 
 Several other pictures of sacred subjects without names of 
 
 masters. 
 Three large books of paper, with drawings of trees, flowers, 
 
 men, and other objects, from the Indies. 
 The great clock made by Master Juanelo, with its case, and 
 
 the table of walnut-wood with cloth cover, upon which it 
 
 stands in his majesty's chamber. 
 Another clock, of crystal, with its base, by the said Juanelo. 
 Another clock, called the Portal 
 Another, called the Mirror. 
 Others, round and small, for the pocket. 
 Six pieces of tapestry — landscapes. 
 Seven pieces, with animals and landscapes. 
 Twelve pieces, with foliage {verdura). 
 Five coverings for seats {hancales)^ with foliage. 
 Twelve hangings of fine black cloth for the apartments of the 
 
 emperor (in the monastery). 
 Four door-curtains {omte-puertas) of black cloth. 
 Seven carpets (al/ombras), four Turkish, and three of Alcaraz. 
 Canopies (dosds) of fine black velvet. 
 A quantity of linen. 
 
 In his Majesty's Chamber. 
 
 Two beds, of difierent sizes. 
 Six blankets of white cloth. 
 Fourteen feather bolsters {colchones de plvmia). 
 Thirty- seven pillows (almohadas), with much holland bed- 
 linen {ropa de hclavdo) of all kinds. 
 
328 APPENDIX. 
 
 Six chairs, covered with black velvet. 
 
 His majesty's arm-chair, with six cushions and a footstool. 
 
 Chair in which his majesty was carried, with its staves {andobs 
 
 de hrazo). 
 Twelve chairs of walnut-wood, garnished with nails {toeho- 
 
 ld THE Wardrobe. 
 
 Sixteen long robes, lined with eider-down, ermine, Tunis kid- 
 skin, or velvet. 
 
 Six bomooses {alhornoces) one of them presented to his 
 majesty at Tunis. 
 
 In the Stable. 
 
 Four mules of burden, one of them chesnut, and named 
 
 ' Cardenala.' 
 A grey horse. 
 Two other mules. 
 
 In the Harness-room. 
 
 A litter lined with black velvet, and mounted outside with 
 steel. Delivered at Yalladolid on the 26th of October, 
 1558. 
 
 Another, of smaller size, with a seat inside, lined with black 
 serge and covered outside with leather. 
 
 The whole of the above property, not left in the monastery, 
 was given over to the charge of Juan Esteque, keeper of his 
 majesty's jewels, on the 1st of November, 1558. 
 
INDEX, 
 
 The following words have been abbreviated thus: — archduchess, ahdss.; 
 archbishop, ahhp.; bishop, bp.; cardinal, card.; church, ch.; convent, conv.; 
 count, c; duke, d.; duchess, dss.; king, k.; prince, p.; princess, pss.; queen, q. 
 
 Aa, 216 
 
 Abadia, 312 
 
 Abrantes, d. of, 279 
 
 Abrojo, 35, 160 
 
 Abruzzi, 141 
 
 A9aloras, Fr. J. de, 114, 222, 298 
 
 Alcaudete, M. de Cordoba, c. of, 217, 
 
 235 
 Acuna, F. de, 71, 112, 323 
 Acuna, J. de, 168 
 Adrian, the cook, 188 
 Adrian VI., pope, 194 
 Aguayo, Fr. A. de. 111 
 Aguera, 27 
 Aguilar, A. de, 236 
 Ajalon, valley of, 157 
 Alaexos, Fr. M, de, 315 
 Alaraz, 44 
 Alba, Ferdinand Alvarez de Toledo, d. 
 
 of, 53, 54, 66, 91, 92, 129, 130, 
 
 141, 143, 156, 157, 168, 169, 170, 
 
 223, 259, 282, 312 
 Alba de Tormes, 102, 151, 154 
 Albert, marg. of Brandenburg, 87 
 Alburquerque, d. of, 39, 129, 136, 220 
 Alcala, d. of, 276. 
 Alcala de Henares, 79, 81, 255 
 Aleanices, m. of, 202 
 Alcantara, grand commander of; see 
 
 Avila, L. de 
 Alcantara, order of, 118 
 Alcaraz, 327 
 Alcazar of Seville, 59 
 Alexander VI., pope, 193 
 Alexander the Great, 65 
 Alexandria, senna of, 90 
 
 Alfred the Great, 111 
 
 Alis, Fr. J., 107 
 
 Alhambra, 198 
 
 Alonso, k. of Castille, 252 
 
 Alonzo VI., 65 
 
 Alonzo VIII., 49 
 
 Alonso XL, 101 
 
 Alonso el Sabio, 86 
 
 Alpuxarras, war in the, 287, 292 
 
 Alvarez de Toledo, D., 246 
 
 Alvarez de Toledo, Francisco, 50, 243, 
 246 
 
 Alvarez de Toledo, G., 98 
 
 Alvarez de Toledo, J., 246. 
 
 Amador de los Rios, J., 301 
 
 Ampuero, 26 
 
 Ancona, 140 
 
 Andrea, A., 170 
 
 Andreas, V., 295 
 
 Angouleme, M. d', 275 
 
 Angulo, Fr. F. de, 249 
 
 Angulo, Fr. M. de, viii., xvii., xx., 
 223, 248 
 
 Anna, q. of Hungary, xxx. 
 
 Anna, q. of Spain, xxx. 
 
 Anne of Austria, q. of France, 257 
 
 Anthony de Bourbon, k. of Navarre, 
 38, 56, 129, 135,217,279 
 
 Antonio, N., 87, 152, 210 
 
 Antwerp, 251 
 
 Appian, 111 
 
 Aquinas, St. Thomas ; see St. Tho- 
 mas, and passim. 
 
 Aragon, admiral of, 165, 167 
 
 Aragon, cortes of, 85, 121 
 
 Aranjuez, 284 
 
330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Argamasilla, 287 
 
 Argote de Molina, G., 20, 253 
 
 AriostOj'L., 251 
 
 Arlanza, 31 
 
 Arlanzon, 31 
 
 Armeria; see Armory 
 
 Armory, royal, at Madrid, 271 
 
 Arphe ; see D'Arphe 
 
 Arras, bp. of; see Granvelle, card. 
 
 Artiga, F. J., 77 
 
 Artiga, M., 77 
 
 Artois, 129 
 
 Ascham, E., 20, 60, 87, 109 
 
 Ason, 26 
 
 Asparagus, 149 
 
 Assisi, 95 
 
 Astorga, m. of, 36 
 
 Atocha, conv. of, at Madrid, 123 
 
 Atocha, Our Lady of, 123 
 
 Avalos, A. de ; see Vasto, M. de 
 
 Avellanada, Fr. J. de, 278 
 
 Avendano, M. de, 158 
 
 Avila, bp. of, 223 
 
 Aubremont, M. d', 25 
 
 Auctuarius Joannes, 295 
 
 Augsburg, xiii., 83, 108, 122 
 
 Austria, Don John of, xxx. 66, 68, 123, 
 
 186, 220, 237, 256, 270, 271, 285, 
 
 287, 288, 289, 296 
 Austria, Juana of, xxx. 
 Austria, Leopoldo of, bp. of Cordova, 
 
 132 
 Austria, Margaret of, xxx. 
 Austria, Piramo Conrado of, xxx, 
 Auto-de-fe at Valladolid, 283 
 Avila y Zuiiiga, L. de, 70, 71, 75, 85, 
 
 108, 111, 154, 159, 162, 163, 169, 
 
 176, 178, 223, 238, 239, 249, 296, 
 
 323 
 Aytona, m. of, 279 
 
 Babylon, 303 
 
 Bacon, 324 
 
 Badajoz, 162, 163, 175 
 
 Badovaro, F., 52, 60, 113, 119, 145, 
 185, 189, 261 
 
 Baersdorp, 73 
 
 Bakhuizen, van den Brink, M., xix., 
 90, 104, 114, 148, 184, 186, 189, 
 190, 243, 247, 249, 277, 281, 312 
 
 Barbarossa, 131 
 
 Barcelona, 63, 80 
 
 Bastardo wine, 174 
 
 Bavaria, d. of, 87 
 
 Bayle, 225, 313 
 
 Baza, 288 
 
 Beaumont, 294 
 
 Beaumont, F. de, 31 
 
 Beckford, W., 112, 279 
 
 Bejar, 44, 159 
 
 Bejar, dss. of, 119, 159 
 
 Bejar, Fr. P. de, 99 
 
 Belem, hermitage of, xvi., 96, 147 
 
 Belvedere palace at Vienna, 109 
 
 Belle forest, 225 
 
 Belvis, Fr. A. de, 314 
 
 Beringuen, N., 106 
 
 Bermudo, k. of Spain, 252 
 
 Benevente, c. of, 36 
 
 Bernia, 219 
 
 Berruguete, A., 99, 301 
 
 Bertendona, 22 
 
 Besan9on, 18 
 
 Bethlehem, hermitage of; see Belem. 
 
 Bezoar-stone, 322 
 
 Bianca Maria, empress, xxx. 
 
 Bible circulated in Spain, 195 
 
 Bible burnt at Yuste, 207 
 
 Bicocca, 186 
 
 Binche, 21 
 
 Biscay, bay of, 23 
 
 Blasco de Lanuza, V., 297 
 
 Blomberg, Barbara, xxx. 
 
 Bobadilla, father, 84 
 
 Bodart, O., 106, 265 
 
 Bodoarte, 0., 67 
 
 Boethius, 111, 323 
 
 Bohorques, Juana, 210 
 
 Boilleau de Bullion, G., 87 
 
 Bolivar, F., 158 
 
 Bonifaz, R., 23 
 
 Bordeaux, archbp. of, 23 
 
 Borja, Fern, de, 304 
 
 Borja, house of, 77 
 
 Borja, St. Francis ; see St. Francis 
 
 Bossu, c. of, 274 
 
 Bourbon, constable de, 18 
 
 Bracamonte, 44 
 
 Bradford, Rev. W., 1, 48 
 
 Braga, 302 
 
 Braganza, C de, 36 
 
 Brandenburg, Albert, marg. of, 87 
 
 Brantome, 21, 225 
 
 Bruges, 69 
 
 Brunswick, d. of, 273 
 
 Brusquet, 15 
 
 Bruxelles, 4, 13, 15, 66, 273 
 
 Bruxelles, Ph. de, 6 
 
 Bucer, 212 
 
 Buda, 130 
 
INDEX. 
 
 831 
 
 Biiendia, c. of, 32 
 
 Baes, A. de, 66, 67 
 
 Bullion riots at Seville, 125, 127, 181 
 
 Buonaparte, Joseph, 271 
 
 Buonaparte, Napoleon, 184, 271 
 
 Burdeo, M. 135 
 
 Burgos, 24, 29, 30, 221, 224 
 
 Burton, N., 210 
 
 Bustamente, Father B., 81 
 
 Caballo, 73 
 
 Cabanas, 246 
 
 Cabeza de Vaca, bp. L., 49 
 
 Cabezon, 32 
 
 Cabrera de Cordova, L., 128, 283 
 
 Ca^eres, Fr. R. de, 99 
 
 Cachopin, F., 25 
 
 Cadiz, 130, 251 
 
 CsBsar, 71 
 
 Calahorra, 296, 297 
 
 Calais, 117, 172, 178, 258 
 
 Calderon, P., 206 
 
 Calderon, Rod., 259 
 
 Calvete, J. C, xviii., 21 
 
 Cambiaso, L., 299 
 
 Cambridge, 212 
 
 Campana, C, 108 
 
 Canaries, 213 
 
 Canary, adelantado of, 222 
 
 Canete, m. of, 163 
 
 Canilles, 288 
 
 Cano, B., 225 
 
 Cano, Fr. M., 84 
 
 Capata, L, 263 
 
 Capital of Spain changed, 221 
 
 Caraflfa, card,, 170, 171 
 
 Caraffa, Giov. Piet.; see Paul IV., pope 
 
 Carbajal, L. de, 309 
 
 Cardenala, 328 
 
 Cardona, A. de, admiral of Aragon, 
 
 165, 167 
 Cardona, Fr. M. de, 270 
 Carlo Famoso, 263 
 Carillo, Fr. J., 285 
 Carloman, 252 
 Carlos, Don, inf. of Spain, eld. son of 
 
 Philip II., 32, 40, 128, 143, 144, 
 
 145, 221 
 Carolea, 262 
 Carranza de Miranda, Fr. B., abp. of 
 
 Toledo, 106, 212, 239, 242, 244, 
 
 297, 298, 306 
 Carvajal, A. de, 24 
 Carvajal, G. de, bp. of Plasencia, 88 
 Carvajal, L. de, 22, 24 
 
 Casa del Cordon, 29 
 
 Castel-Gandolfo, 129 
 
 Castelvi, L. de, 217 
 
 Castille, admiral of, 36 
 
 Castille, cortes of, 224 
 
 Castro, A. de,41, 171, 194, 197, 209, 
 
 310 
 Castro, J. de, 136 
 Catalogue of prohibited books, 1559, 
 
 206 
 Catalonia, 54 
 Cateau-Cambresis, 216 
 Catherine of Mediuis, q. of France, 
 
 304 
 Catherine, q. of Portugal, xxx., 37, 
 
 137, 164 
 Cats of the emperor, 183 
 Cavallero, Fr. A., 318 
 Cavallero, J. G., 106 
 Cavalli, M. de', 250 
 Caudenberg, castle of, at Bmxelles,4 
 Caya, 174 
 
 Cazalla, A., 200, 202, 208, 209 
 Celada, 31 
 Cellini, B., 108 
 Cervantes, M., 206, 263 
 Chambord, 304 
 Charlemagne, 155, 250 
 Charles V., emperor, vii.-xxii., xxx. 
 His intention to retire from the 
 
 world, 1 
 His abdication, 6-12 
 His retired life at Bruxelles, 13 
 He embarks for Spain, 17 
 Arrives at Laredo, 23 
 Journey to Valladolid, 26-33 
 Journey to Xarandilla, 42-46 
 His attention to public business, 
 
 51-56, 119-136 
 He visits Yuste, 57 
 Removes thither, 93 
 His health, 3, 89, 107, 119, 146, 
 
 167, 174, 183, 228 
 His way of life, 114, 117, 183 
 His love of eating, 60-62, 159 
 His revenue, 123 
 His grief on the death of q. 
 Eleanor, 178 ; and on the loss 
 of Calais, 173 
 His familiarity with the friars, 90, 
 
 186, 187, 255 
 His good nature to his servants, 
 
 188 
 His hatred of heresy, 201-204, 
 210, 237 
 
332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Charles V., emperor: 
 
 His memoirs, 70, 224, 293 
 
 His anxiety about bis treatment 
 
 by historians, 225 
 His attention to religious rites, 
 
 114, 183, 184, 185, 230 
 His joy at layiug aside the im- 
 perial dignity and insignia, 190 
 He performs his own obsequies, 
 
 231 
 His last illness, 232-246 
 [ He makes a codicil to his will, 
 233, 237; receives extreme 
 unction, 241 ; and the eucha- 
 rist, 242 ; and dies, 246 
 His interment, 247-249 
 His character, 250-261 
 His body removed to the Escu- 
 rial, 275-277 ; and laid in the 
 Pantheon, 278 
 Inventory of his effects at Yuste, 
 322-328 
 Charles the Bold, d. of Burgundy, 
 
 XXX., 145 
 Charles Emanuel, d. of Savoy, xxx. 
 Charles III., d. of Savoy, 53 
 Charles II., k. of Spain, 256 
 Charles HI., k. of Spain, 280 
 Charles IX , k. of France, 284, 304 
 Chaucer, 111 
 Chaulny, 172 
 Chirique, 106 
 
 Christian II,, k. of Denmark, xxx. 
 Christina, dss. of Lorraine, 6 
 Christina, q. of Sweden, 95 
 Cid, the, 29 
 Cienfuegos, card., 227 
 Cigales, 32, 181, 233, 281 
 Ciudadella, 218, 219 
 Ciudad Eodrigo, 254 
 Clement VII., pope, 51, 261, 274 
 Clovio, G., 112 
 Cordova, bp. of; see Austria, Leo- 
 
 poldo of. 
 Cordova, F. de, 219 
 Cordova, L. Cabrera de; see Cabrera. 
 Cordova, M. de, 236 
 Cordova, S. de, 56, 162 
 Coria, -91 
 Coria, bp. of, 162 
 Cornelio, Dr., xii., 59, 107, 175, 233, 
 
 234,240,244,271, 295 
 Corpus Christi, feast of, 57 
 Corral, Fr. H. de, xx., 100, 246 
 Corregidor of Plasencia, 168 
 
 Cortes ; see Aragon and Castille. 
 
 Count Palatine, 87 
 
 Cock, M., 110, 326 
 
 Coello, F., 33 
 
 Coimbra, 302 
 
 Colonna, M. A., 142 
 
 Coligny, G. de, admiral of France, 14, 
 
 52, 129, 138, 172 
 Columbus, 24 
 Comares, m. of, 182 
 Commons, wars of the, 30, 65 
 Constantinople, 4 
 Cortes, H., 198 
 Cranmer, 212 
 
 Crato, Antonio, prior of, 37 
 Cremona, 76 
 Cressy, 172 
 Criptana, 120 
 Cross, sister Margaret of the; see 
 
 Margaret, ahdss. 
 Cuenca, inquisitor of, 205 
 Curita, 80 
 Cuzco, 212 
 
 Cymburgis, dss. of Burgundy, 19 
 Cyprus, 53 
 
 Danube, 54 
 
 Dauphin ; see Francis 
 
 Dauphiny, 54 
 
 D'Arphe y Villafane, J., xviii. 
 
 De Bues, A., 264 
 
 De Castro; see Castro 
 
 Denia, m. of, 61 
 
 De Gama ; see Gama 
 
 Delgado, F., bp. of Jaen, 276 
 
 De Suet, G., 106 
 
 De Thou, J. A., x., 24 
 
 Diano, J. de, 269 
 
 Diego, inf. of Spain, xxx. 
 
 Diocletian, 48, 49, 252, 262 
 
 Dirk, 106 
 
 Dolce, L., xviii. 
 
 Donjart, M., 106 
 
 Downes, lord, 109 
 
 Drouyn de Lhuys, M,, X. 
 
 Duenas, 32 
 
 Dueiias, R. de, 43 
 
 Duero, 42, 164 
 
 Dunkirk, 173 
 
 Durango, Alcalde, 24, 27, 29 
 
 Earthquake of Lisbon, 192 
 Eboli, Anna de Mendoza, pss. of, 127 
 Eboli, Buy Gomez de Silva, p. of; 
 see Melito, c. of 
 
INDEX. 
 
 883 
 
 Edward III., k. of England, 172 
 
 Elbe, 157 
 
 Eleanor, q. dowager of France and 
 
 Portugal, XXX., 2, 6, 9, 18, 41, 54, 
 
 101, 100, 1(53, 174, 175, 170, 277 
 Elizabeth of Valois; see Isabella of 
 
 the Peace 
 Elizabeth, ahdss. q. of France, 284 
 El Moral, 287 
 El Parral, vii. 
 Elvas, 174 
 Emanuel the Great, k, of Portugal, 
 
 XXX., 2, 18, 96 
 Emanuel Philibert, d. of Savoy, 6, 22, 
 
 53, 55, 129, 138, 273 
 Egmont, c. of, 139, 172, 216 
 Enghien, d, d', 139 
 Enzinas, J. de, 195 
 Epurstone, parson of, 109 
 Eraso, F. de, xii., 159 
 Eraso, M. de, 159 
 Escalona, d. of, 162 
 Escorial, vii., 112, 256, 275, 277, 282, 
 
 297, 298, 301, 304. 
 Esdras, 74 
 Espadon,2]9 
 Espinosa, card., 304 
 Espinosa, courier, 215 
 Espiritu Santo, 22 
 Este, 305 
 Esteque, J., 328 
 Evora, 164, 302 
 Ezcurra, M., 39, 56, 135 
 
 Factor, Fr. N., 284, 285 
 
 Favyn, L., Ic7 
 
 Falconnet, 76 
 
 Ferdinand, archduke, 6 
 
 Ferdinand I., emperor, xxx., 12, 13, 
 
 16, 55, 190 
 Ferdinand III. (St.) k. of Castille 
 
 and Leon, 23 
 Ferdinand V. (the Catholic), k. of 
 
 Aragon and Naples, xxx., 7, 32, 193, 
 
 256, 266, 275 
 Ferdinand VII., k. of Spain, xi., 109 
 Fernando, inf. of Aragon, 98 
 Fernando, inf. of Spain, xxx., 277 
 Fernandez, A., 49, 86, 88, 100 
 Fernandez de Navarette, M., 246 
 Fernandez de Oviedo, G., 199 
 Fernandez de Pulgar, F., 31 
 Fernandez de Velasco, P. constable 
 
 of Castille, 29 
 Fero, J., 210 
 
 Ferrara, 305 
 
 Ferrara, d. of, 141 
 
 Fez, 131 
 
 Fez, sultan of, 179 
 
 Field of cloth of Gold, 251 
 
 Flanders, war in, 138 
 
 Flessingue or Flushing, 17 
 
 Florence, 254 
 
 Flushing, 16 
 
 Foix, J. de, xxx. 
 
 Fontainbleau, 21 
 
 Foppens, J. F., 295 
 
 Ford, R., v., X., 101,318 
 
 Francis, dauphin of France, 65 
 
 Francis, d. of Lorraine, xxx. 
 
 Francis L, k. of France, 18, 53, 139, 
 
 251 
 Francis the Sinner, father, 81; see 
 
 St. Francis Borja. 
 Francisco Maria Sforza, d. of Milan, 
 
 xxx. 
 Eraser's Magazine, x. 
 Frederick the Great, k. of Prussia, 61 
 Frederick, prince palatine, xxx., 18 
 Frias, dss. of, 62, 89 • 
 Fuente, Dr. C. de la, 111 
 Fuessen, 48 
 Fugger, 108 
 Fuggers, 43 
 
 Gachabd, M., ix., X., xvii., xxi., 6, 11, 
 
 294 
 Gaeta, 131 
 
 Gallegos de Solmiron, 44 
 Gama, partridges of, 61 
 Gama, V. de, 136 
 Gamo, 44 
 
 Gandia, 77, 79, 283 
 Gandia, d. of, 1, 95; see also St. 
 
 Francis Borja 
 Gandia, Charles, d. of, 165 
 Garcilasso de la Vega, 223, 235, 238 
 Garganta la 011a, 47, 100 
 Gasca, P. de la, bp. of Palencia, 31 
 Garcia Cavallero, J., 325 
 Gayangos, D. P., de, ix., 123, 206, 289 
 Gaytan, J., xvi. 
 Gaztelu, M., xii., xvi., 25, 51, 59, 
 
 69, 106, 119, 123, 124, 127, 137, 
 
 170, 178, 207, 233, 240, 269, 270, 
 
 294 
 Genhs, 172 
 Genoa, 124 
 George Frederick, elector of Saxony, 
 
 71 
 
334 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Germaine, q. of Aragon, xxx. 
 
 Ghent, 16,63,108,251 
 
 Ghent, castle of, 173 
 
 Giovio, P., 74, 156, 262 
 
 Giralda of Seville, 133 
 
 Giron, J. Tellez, 224 
 
 Giron, P., 224 
 
 Gloria of Titian, 111, 314, 318 
 
 Goes, D. de, 55, 177 
 
 Golden Fleece, badge of the, 109 
 
 Golden Fleece, chapter of, 5 
 
 Goleta, 66,217,250 
 
 Gomez, A., 193, 254 
 
 Gomez de Mora, J., 314 
 
 Gomez de Silva, R. ; see Melito 
 
 Gon9alez de Avila, c, 49 
 
 Gondomin, 29 
 
 Gonzalez, M., xi. 
 
 Gonzalez, T,, x., xi., xv., xvii. 
 
 Granada, 78, 240, 249, 275, 277 
 
 Granada, conquest of, 65 
 
 Granada, J eromite convent of, 96 
 
 Granada, Fr. L. de, 323 
 
 Granvelle, Anthony Perrenot de, bp. 
 
 of Arras, afterwards cardinal, 10, 14, 
 
 18, 19, 124, 128, 293, 294 
 Gravelines, 173, 216, 258 
 Gredos, 44 
 Gregoire, P., 247 
 Gregory XIII., pope, 308 
 Grimberghe, 16 
 Groenendael, conv. of, 255 
 Groen Van Prinsterer, G., 295 
 Groningen, 251 
 Guadalaxara, 95, 161, 221 
 Guadalaxara, palace of, 161 
 Guadalcanal, mines of, 123 
 Guadalquivir, 23 
 Guadalupe, Jeromite convent of, 48, 
 
 95, 97, 118, 273 
 Guadalupe, Jeromites of, 159 
 Guadalupe, Our Lady of, 271 
 Guadalupe, Sierra de, 1 53 
 Guadiana, 174 
 Guatemala, 267 
 Gudiel, G., 224 
 Guerrero, 113 
 Guillen, P., 106 
 Guijo, 227 
 Guise, Fran9ois de Lorraine, d. of, 52, 
 
 74, 129, -140, 141, 169, 172, 215, 
 
 254 
 Guzman, E. de, 28 
 Guzman, Fr. D. de, 208 
 Guzman, F. H. de, 137 
 
 Haedo, Fr. D. de, 236 
 
 Halif, k. of Fez, 236 
 
 Ham, 172 
 
 Hamilton, Susan, dss. of, 280 
 
 Haro, Don Luis de, 279 
 
 Harris, 262 
 
 Hassan, pacha of Algiers, 236 
 
 Heine, G., 61 
 
 Helna, 133 
 
 Hemorrhoids, 107 
 
 Henriquez de Guzman, F. ; see Guz- 
 man 
 
 Henry, card, of Avis, aftervrards k. of 
 Portugal, 162, 164, 304 
 
 Henry II., k. of France, 14, 21, 52, 
 56, 110, 129, 138, 157, 275, 282 
 
 Henry IV., k. of France, 39 
 
 Henry VIII., k. of England, 117 
 
 Henry, k. of Navarre, 38 
 
 Hercules, pillars of, 254 
 
 Hermitage of Our Lady of Solitude, 
 104 
 
 Herrera, J. de, 314 
 
 Hesdin, 217 
 
 Hippocras, 147 
 
 Hippocrates, 295 
 
 Holanda, F, de, xviii., 112 
 
 HoUinsbed, 173 
 
 Hombre de palo, calle de, in Toledo, 
 300 
 
 Hontamin, 29 
 
 Horcajo de las Torres, 44 
 
 Hospital of St. John Baptist at Toledo, 
 81 
 
 Houssaye, A. de la, 231 
 
 Hume, D., 262 
 
 Hurtado de Mendoza, D., 152 
 
 Infantado, d. of, 30, 161 
 Innsbruck, 74, 108, 254 
 Inquisition, 192, 244 
 Inquisitor-general, the; see VaJdes, 
 
 F. de 
 Isaac, emperor, 252 
 Isabella Clara Eugenia, infanta of 
 
 Spain, archduchess, 257, 294 
 Isabella of Austria, q. of Denmark, 
 
 XXX. 
 
 Isabella of Bourbon, q. of Spain, 279 
 Isabella, the Catholic q. of Castille, 
 
 32, 161, 193, 198, 275 
 Isabella, empress, 1, 78, 240 
 Isabella of Valois, or of the Peace, q, 
 
 of Spain, 282, 312 
 Italy, wax in, 91, 129, 140 
 
INDEX. 
 
 885 
 
 Jaca, 63 
 
 Jaen, 277 
 
 Jane d'Albret, q. of Navarre, 39 
 
 Jayme el Couquistador, k. of Aragon, 
 
 Jeremiah, 210 
 
 Jesus, 246 
 
 Jesus, company of, 70, 82, 84, 302, 
 305 
 
 Jews of Murcia, 202 
 
 John of Austria, Don ; see Austria 
 
 John II., d. of Brabant, 5 
 
 John III., k. of Navarre, 38 
 
 John III., k. of Portugal, xxx., 2, 55, 
 91, 136, 137, 157 
 
 Journal des Savants, xxii. 
 
 Juan, infant of Spain, xxx., 277 
 
 Juan, p. of Brazil, infant of Portugal, 
 XXX., 34 
 
 Juau of Austria, Don ; see Austria 
 
 Juana of Austria ; see Austria. 
 
 Juana, pss. of Brazil, infanta and re- 
 gent of Spain, xii., xxx., 24, 34, 69, 
 138, 160, 180, 204, 221, 239, 271, 
 283, 302, 307 
 
 Juana, q. of Spain, xii., xxx., 61, 80, 
 182, 256 
 
 Juanelo; see Torriano. 
 
 Juvenal, A., 271, 316 
 
 Julius III., pope, xii. 
 
 Juncker, C, 261 
 
 Juste, Th., xxii., 5, 17, 22, 48, 123 
 
 Kelly, W., 109, 253 
 
 Laborde, A., 316, 317 
 
 La Chaulx, M. de, 25, 27, 59, 118 
 
 La Granja, xi. 
 
 La Mancha, 140, 151 
 
 La Houssaye, A. de, 121 
 
 La Marche, 0. de ; see Marche 
 
 La Marck ; see Marck 
 
 Lambeth, 212 
 
 La Mota, castle of, 43 
 
 La Mota, m. of, 291 
 
 La Nestosa, 27 
 
 Languedoc, 177 
 
 Lanuza; see Blasco de Lannza. 
 
 Lanz, Dr. K., 13,27 
 
 Laredo, 23, 25, 26, 136, 214, 269 
 
 Las Huelgas, nunnery of, at Valla- 
 
 dolid, 65 
 La Sisia, conv. of, 102, 255, 298 
 La Vega. See Vega, P. de la. 
 Laynez, 302, 305 
 
 Lazarillo de Tonnes, 57, 151 
 
 Lebrixa, A.de; seeNebrisseusiSf^l.A. 
 
 Ledesma, 153, 154 
 
 Leganes, 67, 220 
 
 Le Moyne, 254 
 
 Leoni, L., 155, 207, 251 
 
 Leoni, P., 155, 207, 251, 278 
 
 Lepanto, 68 
 
 Lerma, card. d. of, 259, 306 
 
 Lescar, 38 
 
 Leti, G. X., xiii., 121, 275, 295 
 
 Lewis, k. of Hungary, xxx., 6 
 
 Light, chapel of Our Lady of, at Lis- 
 bon, 177 
 
 Ligne, p. de, 53 
 
 Lingard, Dr., 275 
 
 Lion of St. Jerome, 190 
 
 Lisbon, 164, 274 
 
 Livy,71, 153 
 
 Llorente, 200, 296 
 
 Loaysa, card., 61 
 
 Lochlomond, 192 
 
 Logrono, 203 
 
 Lombay, m. of, 85 
 
 Loo, gardens of the, 262 
 
 Lopez de Haro, A., 236 
 
 Loretto, 95, 305 
 
 Losar, Fr. L. de, xx., 270 
 
 Los Santos, Fr. Fran, de, 110, 248, 
 278, 279, 298, 314 
 
 Lothaire, 252 
 
 Lotoriano, J. el, 106 
 
 Louis XIII., k. of France, 156 
 
 Louis XIV., k. of France, 257 
 
 Louvre, 140 
 
 Loyola, 79 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius ; see St. Ignatius 
 
 Luis, infant of Portugal, 37, 80, 136 
 
 Lupiana, 95, 222 
 
 Luther, M., 84, 192, 194, 196, 201, 
 261 
 
 Maccabees, 74, 75 
 
 Macaulay, Right Hon. T. B., 262 
 
 Maes, J., 10, 11 
 
 Madrid, 63, 221, 284, 304 
 
 Madrigal, 290 
 
 Mahomet, 130 
 
 Mahon, 218 
 
 Malin, admiral, 216 
 
 Mallorca, 218 
 
 Malineus ; see Van Male 
 
 Malta, 130 
 
 Mami the Arnaut, 131 
 
 Manna of Naples, 89 
 
336 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Manrique, card., 194 
 
 Manrique, P., 224 
 
 Manrique, P., bp. of Salamanca, 24 
 
 Manrique de Lara, J., 217 
 
 Manuel, M., 65 
 
 Maqueda, d. of, 30, 219 
 
 Marchal, M., 52 
 
 Marche, O. de la, 71, 112 
 
 Marck, card. E. de la, 231 
 
 Marcos, father, 81 
 
 Margaret of Austria, dss. of Parma, 
 XXX., 110, 322 
 
 Margaret, dss. of Savoy, xxx. 
 
 Margaret, q. of Spain, 257, 306 
 
 Margaret, archduchess, 257, 285 
 
 Maria, infanta of Spain, xxx. 
 
 Mariana, J., 49, 206 
 
 Maria Teresa, q. of France, 257 
 
 Marinas, G. Perez de las ; see Perez. 
 
 Marliano, L., 254 
 
 Marmol Carvajal, L. de, 236, 288 
 
 Mariz, P. de, 177 
 
 Marseilles, 218 
 
 Mary, dss. of Burgundy, empress, xxx., 
 19 
 
 Mary, infanta of Portugal, xii., xxx., 
 2,54,124, 161, 164, 174, 177 
 
 Mary, infanta of Portugal, pss. of 
 Spain, XXX., 277 
 
 Mary, q. of Bohemia, afterwards em- 
 press, XXX., 16, 110, 215, 242, 257, 
 285, 327 
 
 Mary, q. dowager of Hungary, xxx., 
 6, 8, 11, 19, 36, 101,160, 163, 174, 
 177, 178, 181, 221, 235, 238, 239, 
 269, 277, 280, 315 
 
 Mary Tudor, q. of England and Spain, 
 xii., XXX., 2, 20, 110, 145, 173, 179, 
 275, 282, 327 
 
 Martin, S., 98 
 
 Massi, 66 
 
 Mathys, Dr. C. ; see Cornelio 
 
 Mathys, Dr. H., xii., 76, 105, 114, 
 146, 228, 207, 232, 240, 269, 295 
 
 Matthias Corvinus, k. of Hungary, 3 
 
 Maurice, d. of Saxony, 21, 74, 211 
 
 Maximilian I., emp., xxx,, 7, 145, 256 
 
 Maximilian II., k. of Bohemia, after- 
 wards emperor, xxx., 12, 16, 55, 215, 
 242 
 
 Mazagaon, 138, 236 
 
 Medina-Celi, d. of, 30 
 
 Medina del Campo, 43, 15, 223 
 
 Medina de Pomar, 27, 29 
 
 Medina-Sidonia, d. of. 30 
 
 Mejorada, 189, 255 
 
 Melito, R. Gomez de Siloa, c. of, 127, 
 
 132, 133, 135, 136, 287 
 Melancthou, P., 197 
 Melo, E. de, 175 
 Memoirs of Charles V., by himself, 
 
 293 
 Mendez, Fr. G., 267 
 Mendez Silva, R., 254 
 Meneses, A. de, 91 
 Meneses, M. de, 35, 55, 91, 179 
 Mendoza, D. Hurtado de, 152 
 Mendo9a, Salazar de ; see Salazar. 
 Mendoza, P. de, grand card, of Spain,^ 
 
 161, 198 
 Menorca, 218, 258 
 Mercuriano, E., 291 
 Merida, 163, 176, 277, 282 
 Messingham, J., 48 
 Metz, 3, 54, 74, 84, 254 
 Mexico, 124, 254 
 Mignet, M., xi., xxii. 
 Minerva, conv. of, at Rome, 309 
 Minho, 34 
 
 Mirabel, m. of, 86, 88, 155 
 Mirabel, palace of, at Plasencia, 155 
 Miracle of Muhlberg, 157 
 Male ; see Van Male. 
 Mohacz, 19 
 Mole, G. A., 76, 107 
 Molina, J. Vazquez de ; see Vazquez. 
 Moncayo, 44 
 Moncerrago, 26 
 Mon9on, 85, 121 
 Mondonedo, bp. of, 159 
 Monfalconet, 60 
 Monjuich, 131 
 Montamarta, 113 
 Mont Cenis, 305 
 Monteria del R. D. Alonso,20 
 Monte Cassino, 252 
 Montano, A., vii. 
 Montebello, m. of, 140 
 Montesa, master of, 167 
 Montgomery, c. of, 282 
 Montmorency, constable de, 138, 139 
 Montserrate, conv. of, 256, 260 
 Montserrate, Our Lady of, 245 
 Morales, 317 
 Morales, A. de, 116, 300 
 Morales, G. de, 322 
 Moreno, C, 285 
 Moriscos of Aragon, 202 
 Moriscos of Catalonia and Valencia, 
 219 
 
INDEX. 
 
 387 
 
 Moriscos of Granada and of Vulla- 
 
 dolid, 182 
 More, A., 110 
 
 Moron, G. de, 105, 188, 294 
 Mostagan, 230 
 Mota, m. of La, 291 
 Mudarra,Fr. A., 100, 187 
 Mublberfir, 54, 84, 157, 264 
 Muiloz, Dr. J., 167 
 Murga, I he licentiate, 153, 163, 167 
 Mustapha pacha, 218 
 Mu^ v., 219 
 
 Najera, d. of, 30 
 
 Kassau, c. Louis of, 295 
 
 Naples, 217 
 
 Narboniie, vicomte de, xxx. 
 
 Navagiero, A., 30, 9b 
 
 Navagiero, B., 1 
 
 Navalmoral, 319 
 
 Navarre, 54, 150 
 
 Navarre, k. of; see Anthony, John 
 
 III., Henry, Sancho 
 Navarre, constable of, 29 
 Navas de Tolosa, 38 
 Naumburg, 109 
 Nebrissensis, ^. A., xviii, 
 Negropont, 217 
 Nevers, d. of, 1 72 
 New Granada, 305 
 Newnham-bridge, 172 
 New Spain, 305 
 Nice, 53, 131 
 Nieuport, 173 
 Nieremberg, father J. E., 81, 84, 165, 
 
 166 
 Noah's Flood, 226 
 Nogal-Grande of Yuste, 105 
 Normanby, m. of, x. 
 Noronha, 136 
 Nunez, H., 96 
 Nuremberg, 251 
 
 Obebstraaten ; see Van Ober- 
 
 Ocampo, F. de, 86, 111, 225, 226 
 
 Ocampo, J., 292 
 
 Ochoa, H. de,134 
 
 Octavio Farnese, d. of Parma, xxx. 
 
 Olivares, count-duke of, ix., 124, 259 
 
 Olmedo, 255 
 
 Oporto, 302 
 
 Ortega, Fr. J. de, 57, 102, 150, 151 
 
 Oran, 91, 178, 217, 235 
 
 Oran, army of, destroyed, 235 
 
 Orange, William the Silent, p. of, 39, 
 
 122, 295 
 Order of St. Jerome, 95 
 Organ, silver, 112 
 Orleans, Philippe Egalite, d. of, 257 
 Orleans, Philippe, d. of, 257 
 Oropesa, 48, 319 
 Oropesa, counts of, 98 
 Oropesa, Fernando, c. of, 46, 48, 50, 
 
 62, 93, 94, 159, 162, 168, 223, 
 
 227, 232, 243, 249 
 Oropesa, G., lord of, 98 
 Ortiz de Zuiiiga, D,, 133 
 Orvietto, 309 
 Osorio, A., 289 
 Osorios, the, 292 
 Osorno, c. of, 61 
 Ossuna, d. of, 224 
 Ostia, 91, 129,140 
 Otranto, 251 
 Our Lady of Atocha, conv. of, at 
 
 Madrid, 123 
 Our Lady of Consolation, conv. of at 
 
 Madrid, 284, 285 
 Our Lady of Grace, 283 
 Our Lady of Guadalupe, 271 
 Our Lady of Light, 177 
 Our Lady of Loretto, 95, 305 
 Our Lady of Montserrate, 245 
 Our Lady of Prado, 114 
 Our Lady of Solitude, 104 
 Oxford, 111, 212 
 
 Pacheco, card., 312 
 
 Padilla, G. de, 30 
 
 Padilla, J. de, 30 
 
 Pagliano, d. of, 129 
 
 Palatine, count, 87 
 
 Palencia, 29,31, 203,212 
 
 Palencia, bp. of, 31, 160, 176, 179 
 
 Palenzuela, 31 
 
 Palestrina, 129 
 
 Palos, 24 
 
 Pamplona, 29, 38, 92 
 
 Pamplona, bp. of ; see Sandoval, Fr. 
 
 P. de. 
 Pantheon of the Escorial, 279, 280 
 Pardo, the, 284 
 Paris, 140, 284 
 Parker, T., 41 
 
 Parma, dss. of; see Margaret 
 Parrot of the emperor, 183 
 Passaraonte, G. de, 140 
 Passau, 254 
 Passau, diet of, 87 
 
838 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Pau, 92 
 
 Pau, castle of, 38 
 
 Paul IV., pope, xii., 51, 85, 86, 129, 
 
 140, 141, 142, 170, 200, 206, 223, 
 
 282 
 Paul v., pope, 306 
 Pavia, 139, 186, 274 
 Patras, 130 
 
 Peace made at Rome, 1558, 169 
 Pedro, infant of Aragon, 80 
 Pelayo, the baker, 188 
 Pellicer, J. A., 263 
 Penaranda, 44 
 Percy, hon. col. 272 
 Perejon, olives of, 61 
 Perez, Ant., 259, 310 
 Perez de las Marinas, G., 35 
 Perperna, 47 
 Peru, 124, 158, 163, 254 
 Pesadas, 29 
 
 Philibert, d. of Savoy, xxx. 
 Philip the Good, d. of Burgundy, 5 
 Philip II., k. of Spain, viii., xii., xiii., 
 
 XXX., 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 16, 21, 37, 41, 
 
 52, 55, 65, 110,119,127,128,141, 
 
 142, 169, 170, 177, 179, 182, 204, 
 
 221, 256, 257, 275, 285, 286, 293, 
 
 296, 297, 299, 307, 327 
 Philip III., k. of Spain, xxx., 256, 
 
 278 
 Philip IV., k. of Spain, 256, 278 
 Pie de Concha, Fr. M., 67 
 Piedmont, 53, 91 
 Pimentel, P., 28 
 Piracy of the Moslem powers, 130, 
 
 131 
 Piramo Conrado ; see Austria 
 Pires, L., 90 
 
 Pisuerga, 31, 32, 34, 181 
 Pius IV., pope, 86, 302, 307, 308 
 Pius v., pope, 289, 291, 303, 308 
 Plantin, Ch., 274 
 Plantin, Isabel, 269 
 Plasencia, 46, 49, 85, 107, 119, 157 
 Plasencia, G. de Carvajal, bp. of, 148 
 Plasencia, dukedom of, 160 
 Plasencia, Fr. G. de, 99 
 Pliny, 115 
 Plus Ultra, 254 
 
 Ponce de la Fiiente, Dr. C, 208, 210 
 Ponz, A., 155, 221, 301, 314, 315, 
 
 318 
 Porreno, B., 256 
 Porto, or Oporto, 302 
 Pozoblanco, 153 
 
 Prado, Our Lady of, 114 
 
 Praet, De, 70 
 
 Prescott, W. H., 199 
 
 Prevost, C, lOi) 
 
 Prohibited books, first catalogue of, 
 
 published in 1559, 206 
 Protestantism, 192 
 Provence, 54 
 Ptolemy, 111 
 Pubest, 106 
 
 Puente del Arzobispo, 317 
 Puertocarrero, A., 175 
 Puertonuevo, 46, 154 
 
 QuACos, XX., 59, 92, 97, 103, 105, 
 107, 147, 152, 154, 160, 184, 190, 
 191, 229, 272, 276, 320 
 
 Quevedo, F. de, 300 
 
 Quiiiones, J. de, 266 
 
 Quintana, G., 285 
 
 Quixada, Alv., 65 
 
 Quixada, Anna, 65 
 
 Quixada, G. Gonyalez, 65 
 
 Quixada, J., 66 
 
 Quixada, Luis Mendez, xii., 24, 25, 
 27, 28, 29, 46, 58, 62, 65, 68, 89, 
 92,93, 94, 105, 117, 128, 140, 149, 
 150, 160, 162, 163, 164, 166, 174, 
 176, 180, 204, 216, 229, 241, 242, 
 247, 249, 264, 268, 269, 270, 285, 
 292, 293, 296 
 
 Quixada, P., 65 
 
 Quixada, R. A., 65 
 
 Quixote, Don, 68, 140, 151 
 
 Quoits of gold, 181 
 
 Ramibo, k. of Spain, 252 
 
 Ranke, 109, 253 
 
 Rapin, R., 148 
 
 Ravenstein, 16 
 
 Refectory of Yuste, 187 
 
 Reggio, 218 
 
 Regla, Fr. J. de, viii., xx., 63, 84, 114, 
 
 187, 188, 213, 230, 237, 242, 268, 
 
 269, 275, 295 
 Reiffenberg, baron de, 73, 294 
 Renti, 156 
 
 Revenue of emperor, 123 
 Reynen, Hip., 75, 147, 294 
 Rezabel, 226 
 Rhine, 70, 139 
 Rhinegrave, the, 139 
 Rhodes, 130 
 Ribadeneira, father P., ix., 81, 164, 
 
 166,303 ; ;-- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 339 
 
 Ribier, 4, 275 
 
 Richardot, F., 274 
 
 Richelieu, card , 150 
 
 Riego, canou, 806 
 
 Riabank, 172 
 
 Robbery in the palace of Yuste, 167 
 
 Robertson, Wm., D.D., x., xiii., 48, 
 
 202 
 Robles, E. de, 193 
 Rochelle, 130, 156 
 Rojas, P. de, 50 
 Romans, epistle to, 15 
 Rome, 83 
 Rosas, 218 
 
 Roxas, Fr. D. de, 201, 202, 302 
 Roxas, Fr. F. de, 209 
 Roxas, H. de, 179 
 Ruggier, 59 
 Ruscelli, 225 
 Russell, lord John, 317 
 Ru8tant,J. v., 54, 141, 350 
 
 Saavedra, 275 
 
 Saccus, B., 76 
 
 St. Angelo, castle of, at Rome, 297, 
 309 
 
 St. Andrew, ch. of, at Madrid, 88, 294 
 
 St. Augustine, 115 
 
 St. Bartholomew, massacre of, 304 
 
 St. Bernard, 115 
 
 St. Bias, feast of, 94, 184 
 
 St. Bridget of Sweden, 95, 96 
 
 St. Catherine, feast of, 57 
 
 St. Denis, 130 
 
 St. Dorothea, 285 
 
 St. Elizabeth of Hungary ; see St. 
 Isabella 
 
 St. Elmo, 131 
 
 St. Engracia; see Santa Engracia 
 
 St. Epitacio de Tuy, 47 
 
 St. Francis of Assisi, 95 
 
 St. Francis Borja, d. of Gandia, ge- 
 neral of the comp. of Jesus, ix., 1, 
 77-85, 138, 162, 164, 165, 166, 
 224, 272, 283, 302-306 
 
 St. Francis Xavier, 136 
 
 St. George, conv. of, at Sorrento, 
 218 
 
 St. Gudule, ch. of, at Bruxelles, 273, 
 294, 295 
 
 St. Ignatius Loyola, ix., 305 
 
 St. Ildefonso, 298 
 
 St. Ines, 285 
 
 St. Isabella, q. of Hungary, 257 
 
 St. Isabella, q. of Portugal, 257 
 
 St. Isidro del Campo, conv. of, near 
 
 Seville, 203 
 St. James of the Spaniards, ch. of, at 
 
 Rome, 274 
 St. Jean de Luz, 220 
 St. Jerome, 95, 97, HI, 189,198 
 St. Jerome, order of, 95, 98 
 St. Jerome, conv. of, at Madrid, 296 
 St. Just, or Justus of Alcala, Lyons, 
 
 or Canterbury, 98 
 St. Justo, 296 
 St. Lawrence, 275 
 St. Lorenzo, 296, 299 
 St. Louis, 261 
 St, Louis of the French, ch. of, at 
 
 Rome, 274 
 St. Magnus of Ireland, 47 
 St. Martin's day, 119 
 St. Martin de la Fuente, conv. of, 
 
 133, 134 
 St. Mary Magdalene, 285 
 St. Matthew, feast of, 245 
 St. Matthias, feast of, 186, 245 
 St. Pastor, 296 
 St. Peter, 130, 261 , 
 St. Quentin, battle of, 138, 172, 258 
 St. Real, abbe, 313 
 St. Thomas Aquinas, 97 
 St. Thomas, feast of, 163 
 St. Vincent, cape, 34 
 St. Vincent, feast of, 187 
 Sala, 131 
 
 Salamanca, 29, 49, 63, 154, 202 
 Salamanca, bp. of, 159, 162 
 Salazar, L. de, 128 
 Salazar, P. de, 88, 198 
 Salazar de Mendo9a, 81, 109, 210 
 
 238, 248 
 Salazar de Miranda, 213 
 Salinas, Fr. B. de, 115,315 
 Salva, M. de, 246 
 San JBartolom^ of Lupiana, 95 ; see 
 
 also Lupiana 
 San Benito, conv. of, at Valladolid, 
 
 282 
 Sanchez, A., 120 
 Sancho, k. of Navarre, 38 
 Sancho el Bravo, k. of Castille, 249 
 Sanctius, A., 255 
 Sandoval, Fr. P. de, viii., xxi., 66, 107, 
 
 117, 165, 208, 211, 248 
 San Geronimo, Fr. D. de, 100 
 San Gregorio, Fr. L. de, 249 
 San Pablo, conv. of, at Toledo. 102 
 San Pablo, conv. of, at Valladolid, 214 
 
340 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 San Pedro de la Espina, conv. of, 66, 
 
 286 
 Santa Catalina, conv. of, at Toledo, 
 
 114 
 Santa Clara, conv. of, at Gandia, 283 
 Santa Coloma, c. of, 292 
 Santa Cruz de Argamasilla, 287 
 Santa Engracia, conv. of, at Zara- 
 
 goza, 68, 64, 97, 249, 296, 297 
 Santa Maria, Fr. L. de, 313, 316 
 Santander, 291 
 
 Santandres, Fr. J. de, 114, 298 
 Sant Erbas, P. de, 36 
 Santiago, 276 
 
 Santiago, ahbp. of, 98, 223, 308 
 Santiago, order of, 120 
 Santona, 23 
 
 San Vicente, ch. of, at Plasencia, 86 
 Sanz de Baranda, P., 246 
 Sardinia, 217 
 Savoy, 305 
 
 Scala Coeli, convent of, 35 
 Scipios, 226 
 Scioppius, G., 185 
 Sebastian, k. of Portugal, xxx., 34, 91, 
 
 137, 177, 304 
 Segovia, vii., 108 
 Segovia, bp. of, 159, 223 
 Segura, J. de, 314 
 Sempere, 262 
 Senna wine, 90 
 Sesa, C. de, 283 
 Sesa, d. of, 36 
 
 Sepulveda, J. G., 66, 88, 153, 226 
 Seron, 287 
 Sertorius, 47 
 
 Seville, 23, 79, 124, 125, 181, 258 
 Seville, abbp. of; see Valdes, F. de 
 Sbakspeare, 174 
 Sierra Bermeja, 236 
 Sierra Madre, 124 
 Siguen9a, Fr. J. de, vii., xiv., xxi., 98, 
 
 102, 113, 114, 117, 153, 231,244, 
 
 247, 256, 277, 296, 297, 298, 299 
 Siliceo, J. Martinez, card. ahbp. of 
 
 Toledo, xiii., 62, 88, 132, 211 
 Silva, house of, 128 
 Siraancas, xi., 42, 61, 123, 125, 164 
 Sleidan, J., 156, 261, 262 
 Snouckaert, W., 108 
 Solis, A., 206 
 
 Solmiron ; see Gallegos de Solrairon 
 Solomon, 254 
 Solyman the Magnificent, sultan, 4, 
 
 130, 158, 217 
 
 Somme, 138 
 
 Sorrento, 218 
 
 Soto, Fr. P. de, 111,323; 
 
 Sotomayor, Fr. P. de, 246 
 
 Soult, marshal, 316 
 
 Southey, R., 147 
 
 Steels, 70, 72 
 
 Stow, 117 
 
 Strada, F., x., 25,47, 117, 185, 254, 
 
 262 
 Strozzi, marshal de, 15, 129 
 Suet, G. de, 106 
 Suetonius, 71 
 Sun stands still at Muhlberg, 157 
 
 Tacitus, 71 
 
 Tagus, 34, 96, 164, 300, 301 
 
 Talavera, 273, 298 
 
 Talavera, Fr. G. de, 48, 153, 273 
 
 Talaverilla, 1 75 
 
 Tamayo de Salazar, T., 47 
 
 Tarazona, bp. of, 205 
 
 Tarik, 199 
 
 Tavera, card. J. de, 81, 83 
 
 Tavora, B. de, 179 , 
 
 Tejuelos made of gold, 181 
 
 Tello, F., 127 
 
 Tendilla, c. of, 219 
 
 Terny, 294 
 
 Terouanne, 66 
 
 Texeda, 318 
 
 Theodora, la donzella, 215 
 
 Theodore of St. Gall, 48 
 
 Theodosius, emperor, 252 
 
 Thermes, marechal de, 216 
 
 Thionville, 215, 258 
 
 Thoulouse, 248 
 
 Thunderstorm, 230 
 
 Tibaldi, P., 299 
 
 Ticknor, G., 152, 226 
 
 Titelman, 323 
 
 Titian, 109, 110, 111,117, 179, 232, 
 
 251, 267, 280, 314, 321, 326 
 Tobbia, 108 
 
 Tofino, Fr. F. de, 40, 57 
 Toledo, 65, 81, 122, 221, 251, 273, 
 
 300 
 Toledo, Alvarez de ; See Alvarez. 
 Toledo, cathedral of, 297 
 Toledo, G. de, xii., 144, 219 
 TordesiUas, 43, 61, 80, 182 
 Tormes, 44 
 
 Torraes, L. de ; see Lazarillo. 
 Tornavacas, 45 
 Tornos, 27 
 
INDEX. 
 
 84 J 
 
 Toro, 203 
 
 Torozos, 286 
 
 Torralva, Fr. M. de, xx, 
 
 Torrequemada, 31 
 
 Torres Vedras, 177 
 
 Torriano, J., 70, 106, 114, 115, 146, 
 
 269, 800, 301, 327 
 Tovar, 100 
 Trafalgar, 23 
 
 Translationa of the bible, 195 
 Trent, council of, 50, 04, 86, 113, 
 
 182, 254 
 Triaua, 23 
 Tripoli, 131 
 Tronto, 140 
 
 Irue cross, pieces of, 289, 304 
 Truffles, 149 
 Truxillo, 163 
 Tunis, 14, 54, 65, 83, 86, 112, 131, 
 
 147 
 Turenne, 139, 250 
 Turin, 305 
 Tuy, 254 
 TyUer, P. F., 20 
 
 ULLOA,Magd. de, 66, 67, 89, 220, 227, 
 
 229, 271, 286, 288, 289, 304 
 Urban VIII., pope, 306 
 Uruena, c. of, 224 
 Usoz y Rio, L., J 93 
 Uzeda, dss. of, 305 
 
 Vaca ; see Cabeza de Vaca. 
 
 Valdes, F. de, ahbp. of Seville, inqui- 
 sitor-general, 132, 182, 200, 202, 
 205, 206, 212, 302, 306, 307 
 
 Vttldestillas, 43 
 
 Valencia, 63, 304 
 
 Valera, C, 197 
 
 Valladolid, 24, 28, 32, 33, 107, 119, 
 149,221,272,277,282 
 
 Valparaiso, M. del, ix. 
 
 Valturio, S., 300 
 
 Valsain, 108 
 
 Vandenesse, 48 
 
 Vanderhammen, 289 
 
 Van de Weyer, M., xi., xxi. 
 
 Vangest, M., xxx. 
 
 VanMale, A. A.,294 
 
 VanMale, C, 294 
 
 Van Male, W., xii., 69, 71, 106, 147, 
 160, 188, 245, 292, 322, 323 
 
 Van Oberstraaten, P., 106 
 
 Vasto, m. del, 76, 300 
 
 Vaucelles, xii., 13 
 
 Vaulchier, M., 87 
 
 Vazquez de Molina, J., xii., 25, 32, 
 38, 119, 124, 156, 162, 190, 207, 
 240 
 
 Vega of Toledo, 95 
 
 Vega, Garcilasso de la; see Gar- 
 cilasso. 
 
 Vega, G. de, 56 
 
 Vega, J. de, 152 
 
 Vega, Fr. P. de la, 189, 190 
 
 Vendome, d. of; see Anthony, k. of 
 Navarre. 
 
 Venice, 1, 251 
 
 Vera y Figueroa, J. A. de, viii., 117, 
 156, 171 
 
 Vera of Plasencia, 47,316 
 
 Vergara, 79 
 
 Versailles, 227 
 
 Verviers, 294 
 
 Vesalius, 73 
 
 Vico, JEn., xviii., 251 
 
 Vicovaro, 130 
 
 Vienna, 109, 251 
 
 Vieyra, 147 
 
 Vigamy, F., 182 
 
 ViliUa, bell of, 266 
 
 Villa, 168 
 
 Villalva, Fr. F. de, viii., 113, 184, 222, 
 
 245, 270, 297 
 Villacastin, Fr. A. de, viii., 101, 298 
 Villafane, J., 66, 67, 286, 287, 288, 
 
 289, 290, 292 
 Villaflor del Rey, 272 
 Villagarcia, 24, 65, 66, 149, 180,286, 
 
 289, 290, 291, 292, 304 
 Villamayor, 65 
 ViUamayor, Fr. J. de, 270 
 Villebon, M. de, 217 
 Vilvorde, 16 
 Vino bastardo, 174 
 Virues, 196 
 
 Visagra-gate of Toledo, 193 
 Visconti, Gio. Gal., 76 
 Viseu, 177 
 Viso, 287 
 Vittoria, 271 
 Vulgate, 72 
 
 Walnut-tree of Yuste, 105 
 Wamba, k. of Spain, 252 
 Waterloo, 271 
 Wellington, d, of, 109 
 Wentworth, lord, 172 
 Wester Souburg, 17 
 Westminster abbey, 275 
 
 A A 
 
342 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wight, isle of, 23 
 
 Wilkinson, J., 87 
 
 William the barber, 213 
 
 William the Silent, p. of Orange, 
 
 5,6 
 Winchester, 127 
 Wittenberg, 261 
 Wolsey, 212 
 Wykerslooth, W., 106 
 
 Xarandilla, 49, 50, 56, 57, 92, 93, 
 
 107, 160, 318 
 Xarandilla, castle of, 42, 46, 98, 160 
 Xavier; see St. Francis Xavier 
 Xeres, Fr. J. de, 99 
 Xerte, 45 
 Ximena, M., 276 
 Ximenes de Cisneros, Fr., card. ahbp. 
 
 of Toledo, 193, 198 
 
 Yauricocha, 124 
 Yepes, Fr. M. de, 99 
 
 Yepes, wine of, 90 
 
 Yuste, ix., xix., 3, 50, 56, 58, 93, 94, 
 
 97, 118, 146, 147, 160, 276 
 Yuste, prior of, 40, 57, 94 ; see also 
 
 Angulo, Fr. M. de. 
 
 Zamora, 111, 112, 203,225 
 
 Zarago/a,63, 296, 297 
 
 Zaragoza, ahbp. of, 62, 132 
 
 Zaragoza, hospital of, 113 
 
 Zapardiel, 43 
 
 Zelandin, 76 
 
 Zenocarus, 108, 189 
 
 Zerbi, 54 
 
 Zocodover at Toledo, 101 
 
 Zuitburg, 16, 17 
 
 Zuniga-chapel at Placencia, 86 
 
 Zuiiiga, F. de, 86 
 
 Zimiga, L. de A.vila y ; see Avila. 
 
 Zafiigas, the, 159 
 
 Zurita; see ^urita. 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 7, line 5,ybr Ferdinand, king Ferdinand, read king Ferdinand. 
 „ 79, line 4 from bottom, /or Alcola, read Alcala. 
 „ 98, note, line 2, for San Yoste, read San Yuste. 
 „ 109, line 6, for Belvidere, read Belvedere. 
 ,.111, line 16, /or Pedo, read Pedro. 
 „ 160, line IS, for Plaseucia, read Palencia. 
 „ 218, line 17, for Ratas, read Rosas. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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