Krai
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
RIVERSIDE
- 3 -
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE
~~ EMPEROR CHARLES
THE FIFTH.
BY
WILLIAM
AUTHOR OF 'ANNALS OF THE ARTISTS OF SPAIN.
FROM THE SECOND LONDON EDITION.
BOSTON:
CROSBY, NICHOLS & COMPANY
NEW YORK: CHARLES S. FRANCIS & CO.
1853.
$15
TO
RICHARD FORD,
AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS WHITINGS,
AND AS A MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP,
THIS WORK IS
INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS OF THE PREFACE.
Authorities cited in this work : PAGE
Fr. J. de Siguer^a v
Fr. P. de Sandoval vi
J. A. de Vera, Fr. M. de Angulo, and Marquis of Valparaiso vii
Father P. Ribadeneira viii
M. Gachard and T. Gonzalez ix
Doubts as to the self-performed obsequies of Charles V. examined' xii
Notice of the portrait of Charles V. on the title-page xvii
Postscript for a second edition xviii
PREFACE.
THE first, and perhaps the best, printed account of the
cloister life of Charles the Fifth, is to be found in Joseph
de Siguenga's History of the Order of St. Jerome. The
author was born about 1545, of noble parents, in the Ara-
gonese 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 hav-
ing 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 labor 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 Ecclesiastes, was
denounced as heretical before the bar of the Inquisition at
Toledo ; but he defended it so well, that he received honor-
able acquittal, and returned to the Escorial with an unblem-
ished character for orthodoxy, to write the history of St.
Jerome and his Order. The first volume, containing the life
of the saint, was published in 1595, in quarto, at Madrid ;
the second and third, in folio, in 1600 and 1605. The au-
thor 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 histori-
VI PREFACE.
ans, Siguenqa, 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 vast quantity of the tares of religious fiction with the
wheat of authentic history ; but he writes with an air of sin-
cerity and good faith, and when he is not dealing with mira-
cles and visions, he seems to be earnest in his endeavor to
discover and record the truth. In relating the life of the
emperor at Yuste, he had the advantage of conversing with
many eyewitnesses of the facts ; Fray Antonio de Villacas-
tin, and several other monks of Yuste, were his brethren at
the Escorial ; the emperor's confessor, Regla, and his favor-
ite preacher, Villalva, 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 opportunities of knowing
Torriano, the emperor's mechanician.
Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, bishop of Pamplona, printed
his well-known History of Charles the Fifth at Valladolid,
in folio, the first part in 1604, and the second part in 1606.
In the latter, a supplementary book is devoted to the em-
peror'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 re-
gent 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 knowledge 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 Siguenja, whose
position as prior of the Escorial must have given him ac-
cess to all the royal archives.
Juan Antonio de Vera y Figueroa, 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
PREFACE. VU
and others had not already published ; but there are a few
anecdotes of the emperor's retirement which the author may
have picked up from tradition. Being more than seventy
years of age at his death, in 1658, 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
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 Desen-
gano, was written in 1638, and dedicated to the count duke
of Olivares ; and its author, in whose autograph it is written,
was the Marquess 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 en-
titled, " Life of the Emperor in the Convent of Yuste, taken
from that which was written by the Prior Fray Martin de
Angulo, by command of the Princess Dona Juana, and from
other Books 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 recognize a few excerpts from Vera.
Unless, therefore, we suppose that Sandoval and Vera, an-
ticipating the process adopted by Valparaiso, transferred the
document of Angulo to their own pages, we must hold it very
doubtful whether the marquis had more than a second-hand
knowledge of the narrative of the prior.
* Bulletins de CAcadimie Royale des Sciences et des Btlles Lettres, Tom.
XII. Premiere Panic, 1845.
rt*
Vlll PREFACE.
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
favorite disciple of Loyola, Ribadeneira had ample opportu-
nities 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.
These are the principal writers who have treated of the
latter days of Charles the Fifth, and who might have con-
versed with his contemporaries. From their works, Strada,
De Thou, Leti, and later authors, writing on the same sub-
ject, 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 atYuste with all the dignity and grace which belongs to
his style, and much of that inaccuracy which is inevitable
when a subject has been but superficially examined. Citing
the respectable names of Sandoval, Vera, and De Thou, he
seems to have chiefly relied upon Leti, one of the most live-
ly and least trustworthy of the historians of his time. He
does not appear to have been aware of the existence of Si-
guenc_a, 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 sub-
ject but slightly noticed, yet considerably misrepresented, by
English writers, I collected the results of my reading into
two papers, contributed to Fraser^s Magazine* in 1851.
* Nos. for April and May, 1851.
PREFACE. IX
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 inquiries after it, both in Madrid and in Paris, had proved
fruitless. During the past winter I have had ample opportu-
nities of examining it, opportunities for which I must express
my gratitude to the President of France, who favored me
with the necessary order, and to Lord Normanby, late British
ambassador in Paris, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who kindly
interested themselves in getting the order obeyed by the un-
willing 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 compiler.
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 restoring order, and he also found time to use
his opportunities for the benefit of historical literature. To
the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of History he contrib-
uted 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 labors to a premature close. His books and papers fell
* Bulletins de FAcad. Roy. des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, Tom. XII.
IcrePartie, 1845.
X PREFACE.
into the hands of his brother Manuel, for whom he had ob-
tained the reversion of his post at Simancas. At the revolu-
tion of La Granja, in 1836, Manuel, being displaced, was
reduced to poverty. The memoir left by Tomas appearing
salable, he offered it to the governments of France, Russia,
Belgium, and England, at the price of 10,000 francs, or
about .400, reserving the right of publishing it for his own
behoof, or of 15,000 francs without such reservation. No
purchaser occurring, he was forced to lower his demands, and
at last he disposed of it, in 1844, for the sum of 4,000 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 modern foreign
affairs, 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 des-
tined it.
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 Retirement, Residence,
and Death of the Emperor Charles the Fifth in the Monas-
tery of Yuste ; an Historical Narrative founded on Docu-
ments.' 1 '' t It commences with many political events pre-
vious to, and not much connected with, the emperor's retire-
ment ; such as the negotiations for the marriage of Philip
the Second with the infanta Mary of Portugal, and after-
* I am enabled to state the exact sum through the kindness of M.
Van cle AVeyer, Belgian minister to the court of England, who obtained
the information from M. Gachard.
t " Retiro, Estancia, y Muerte del Emjwador Cailos Quinto en el Monus-
terio de Yuste ; Relation historica documcntada."
PREFACE. XI
wards 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 dip-
lomatic relations of pope Paul the Fourth with the courts of
France and Spain. But the bulk of the memoir consists al-
most wholly of original letters, selected from the correspond-
ence carried on between the courts at Valladolid and Brux-
elles, 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, Fran-
cisco 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 secre-
tary, William Van 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
possible by the original actors in their own words.
The appendix is composed of the ten following docu-
ments referred to in the memoir, and of various degrees of
value and interest.
1. Instructions given by the Emperor to his Son at Augs-
burg, on the 9th of January, 1548.
2 '1
3. I Speeches pronounced by the Emperor at BruxeUes
4. [ during the Ceremonies of his Abdication.
5. j
6. Letter from the Cardinal Archbishop (Siliceo) of To-
ledo to the Princess- Regent of Spain, 28th June,
1556.
7. Extract from the Inventory of the Furniture and Jew-
els belonging to the Emperor at his Death.
8. Protest of Philip the Second against the Pope, 6th
May, 1557.
Xll PREFACE.
9. Justification of the King of Spain against the Pope,
the King of France, and the Duke of Ferrara.
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, sorrte 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 dis-
played even in the sober statements of Siguen^a ; and he
pours out much patriotic scorn on the highly-wrought picture
of Robertson. The opinions of the canon, on all other mat-
ters carefully weighed and considered, are well worthy of
respect, and require some examination.
Of Robertson'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.* In
every thing but style it is indeed very absurd. " The em-
peror was bent," said the historian, " on performing sorhe act
of piety that would display his zeal, and merit the favor 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
* Vita ddf Invitissimo Imp. Carlo V. da Gregorio Leti, 4 vol., 12mo,
Amsterdam, 1700, IV. 370-374.
PREFACE. Xlll
celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with
sprinkling 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 sin-
gular 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 21st
of September, after a life of fifty-eight years, six months,
and twenty-five days."
Siguen^a'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 specta-
tors ; holding in his hand, like the others, a waxen taper,
which, at a certain point of the ceremonial, he gave into the
hands of the officiating priest, in token of his desire to com-
mit 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 behind, shut up alone in the church, when the ser-
vice was over.
In this story respecting an infirm old man, the devout son
of a church whose services for the dead are of daily occur-
rence, I can see nothing incredible, or very surprising. Ab-
stractedly considered, it appears quite as reasonable that a
man on the brink of the grave should perform funeral rites
for himself, as that he should perform such rites for persons
who had been buried many years before. But without ven-
turing upon this dark and dangerous ground, it may be safe-
ly asserted that superstition and dyspepsia have driven men
into extravagances far greater than the act which Siguen^a
XIV PREFACE.
has attributed to Charles. Nor is there any reason to doubt
the historian'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 accura-
cy 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 sensitive on the score of his father's
reputation.* And it was published with the authority of his
name, while men were still alive who could have contradict-
ed a misstatement.
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 had a long conference with Garcilasso de la Vega on the
affairs of Flanders. Can we therefore believe what is al-
leged by Siguenc.a, that the afternoon of the 27th and the
morning of the 28th were given by Charles to the perform-
ance of his funeral 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<ja. He says that the obsequies
were celebrated, not on the 27th and 28th, but on the 30th,
of August ; and it so happens, that on that day and the next
no letters were written at Yuste, or at least, that none bear-
ing either of those dates fell into the hands of Gonzalez.
* See Chap. X. p. 288.
PREFACE. XV
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 west-
ern alcove ; and his being able to sit there tallies with Si-
guenca'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 his steadfastness
in the faith, but of the robustness of his health. But of the
services performed in the church for the souls of his de-
ceased parents and wife, which both Siguen^a and Sandoval
have recorded, and which I see no reason to doubt, no notice
whatever 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 honors of the empress, which
his majesty was in the habit of celebrating on each May-
day. 1 ' 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
communications with the monks not absolutely necessary,
and left the religious recreations as well as the spiritual in-
terests of their master entirely in the hands of the confessor
and the prior. Keeping no record of the functions per-
formed 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.
b
XVI PREFACE.
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
favor. 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 fol-
lowing entry :
" No. 119, ann. 1557. Original Letters of Charles T.,
written from Xarandilla and Yuste to the Infanta Juana,
and Juan Vazquez de Molina They treat of the
public affairs of the time : ITEM, OF THE MOURNING STUFFS
ORDERED FOR THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMING HIS FUNERAL
HONORS DURING HIS 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 alto-
gether silent on the subject ; and as he can hardly be sup-
posed to have been ignorant of the work of Siguenca, 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 Benedictine did not choose to quote the writ-
ings of a Jeromite, I cannot agree to discard evidence other-
wise respectable. I have therefore followed prior Siguenca,
* " Item, de los lutos que encargd para hacerse las honras en vida." Bull.
dt FAcad. Roy., XII. Premiere Partie, p. 257.
PREFACE. XVII
of the Escorial, the revival of whose version of the story
will, I hope, in time, counteract the inventions of later writ-
ers, inventions which I have more than once heard gravely
recognized as instructive and authentic history in the pulpit
discourses of popular divines.
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 sub-
jected 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 be-
lieve that neither the memoir nor the letters contain any in-
teresting fact, or trait of character, which will not be found
in the following pages, with sorne illustrations of the em-
peror 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 Vico from his own
drawing, a head surrounded by a florid framework of
architectural and emblematical ornaments. 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 satis-
factory 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,
* Dialogo della Pittura de M. Lod. Dolce, sm. 8vo, Vinegia, 1557,
fol. 18.
XV111 PREFACE.
already too old for limning purposes. The eagle and orna-
ments around the present head are selected from wood-cuts
in Spanish books of 1545* and 1552.t
KEIR, 31 st May, 1852.
POSTSCRIPT FOR A SECOND EDITION.
THE favor with which this work has been received having
rendered a second edition necessary, I have endeavored 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 PAHK STREET, GROSVEXOR SQUARE,
December 2lst, 1852.
* Al. Ant. Nebrissensis : Rerum a Fernando et Elizabetha, gest., &e.,
fol., Granada, 1545.
t J. C. Calvete : Viage del Principe D. Phelippe, fol., Anvers, 1552.
The neatly executed arms on the title-page bear the mark generally
attributed to Juan D'Arphe y Villafane, the famous goldsmith, engraver,
and artistic author of Valladolid.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
First notices of the intention of
Charles V. to retire from the
world 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
Abdicates his crown 1155-6 . 3
Prepares to sail for Spain, with
his sisters 4
Eleanor, queen dowager of
France and Portugal ... 4
Mary, queen dowager of Hun-
gary 5
They sail from Flushing on the
17th 7
And land on the 28th Septem-
ber, 1556 8
Laredo 8
Want of preparations to receive
them 8
Arrival of Luis Quixada . . 9
They set out on the 6th of Oc-
tober 11
Journey to Medina de Pomar,
PAGB
where they arrive on the 9th
of October 11-13
Visitors 14
Arrival at Burgos on 13th Oc-
tober ; reception there . . 14
Journey to Valladolid 16th-
21st October 16
Don Carlos melts the emperor
at Cabezon 17
Valladolid 19
Infanta Jnana, princess dow-
ager of Brazil, and regent of
Spain 19-21
i Festivities at Valladolid . .21
! Perico de Sant Erbas ... 22
1 Don Constantino de Braganza,
and causes of ill-will between
Spain and Portugal ... 22
Affairs submitted to the em-
peror 23
Anthony, duke of Vendome,
proposes to sell his rights to
Navarre 24
Doubts as to the emperor's
choice of a retreat .... 25
Don Carlos 26
CHAPTER II.
The emperor sets ont from
Valladolid on the 4th No-
vember 28
Medina del Campo .... 29
Rodrigo de Duenas .... 29
Pefiaranda, Alaraz, Barco de
Avila, &c, 30
b*
Tornavacas 31
The pass of Puertonucvo . . 32
Reach Xarandilla on the 12th
November 33
The Vera of Plasencia ... 33
Reasons for the emperor's
choice of a retreat examined 34
XX
CONTENTS.
Village and castle of Xarandilla 36
The count of Oropesa ... 37
Bud weather 37
Public affairs 38
Pope Paul IV. and Henry II.
of France 38, 39
They combine against Philip
II. ; Coligny invades Flan-
ders ; Duke of Guise in-
vades Naples 39
Flanders defended by Emanuel
Philibert, duke of Savoy . . 40
Naples, by duke of Alba . . 40
The infanta Mary of Portugal 42
Xavarre 43
Barbary 4.'
Buildings at Yuste . . . . 44
The emperor visits them . . 45
Discontent of his household . 45
Quixada ; Gaztclu . . . 45, 46
The emperor's love of eating 47, 48
Partridges from Gama, and
sausages from Tordcsillas,
and presents to his larder . 49
Quixada's fears . . . . 49, 50
CHAPTER III.
The household of the emperor 51
The confessor, Fray Juan de
Regla 51
The chamberlain, Luis Quixada 53
His wife, Magdalena de Ulloa,
and Don John of Austria . 54
The secretary, Martin de Gaz-
telu 57
William Van Male, gentleman
of the chamber 57
He translates the emperor's
Memoirs 58
Is made to print Acuna's trans-
lation of Chevalier Delibere . 59
His letters 61
Loss of his books 62
Marriage 63
Henry Mathys, or Mathisio, the
physician 64
Dr. Giovanni Antonio Mole,
and Dr. Cornelio .... 64
Giovanni or Juanelo Torriano,
the mechanician .... 65
Visitors of the emperor ... 65
Father Francisco Borja, of the
company of Jesus .... 65
His history 65-69
Visits Xarandilla on the 17th
December, 1556 .... 69
Conversations with the em-
peror 70-74
Don Luis de Avila y Zuniga . 74
His Commentaries on the War in
Germany 75
Visits Xarandilla on the 21st
January, 1557 77
The archbishop of Toledo, and
the bishop of Plasencia . . 77
Emperor's health 78
An attack of gout 78
Senna wine 79
Neapolitan manna . . . . 79
Lorenzo Pires 79
News from Italy 80
Emperor's disgust 80
His anxiety for the safety of
Oran 80
Works at Yuste 81
Servants paid off, and take leave 81
Removal to Yuste on the 3d
February, 1557 82
Blunder of the prior .... 83
CHAPTER IV.
Order of St. Jerome .... 84
Yuste, its site 86
Its foundation in 1408, and its
early history 87
Its remarkable monks . . 88, 89
Fr. Ilernando de Corral, the
literary friar 89
Fr. Ant.'de Villacastin ... 91
CONTENTS.
XXI
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 sala-
ries 95,
Emperor's health, and employ-
ments of the physicians . .
Furniture of the palace . .
Plate
Emperor's dress
92 Pictures and portraits . . . 100
92 Books 102
93 Music 103
94 The chaplains, Fr. Fran, de
94 Villalva, Fr. Juan de Aco-
95 loras, Fr. Juan de Santan-
dres 104
Emperor's day 105
96 Torriano and his clocks . . . 106
His mechanical toys .... 107
97 Emperor's pet birds, and his
98 j shooting excursions . . .108
99 ! His last appearance on horse-
99 j back 108
CHAPTER V.
The household become more
reconciled to Yuste . . .110
Monsieur Lachaulx . . . .110
Improvement in the emperor's
health Ill
His attention to business . . 112
His style and title .... 112
He accredits an ambassador to
Portugal 112
Petitioners 112
Eefutation of the tale that he
repented of his retirement 113-115
His revenue 115
Punctually paid 116
The financial difficulties of
Spain 117
The princess-regent seizes up-
on the bullion belonging to
the traders of Seville, who
resist her officers with suc-
cess 118
The emperor's indignation
against them . . . . 118-120
Foreign affairs: Buy Gomez
de Silva 120
He is lodged in the convent . 121
Emperor consulted as to send-
ing Don Carlos to Flan-
ders 121
War in the Netherlands and
Navarre 122
Affairs of Italy 122
Duke of Guise invades Naples 122
Duke of Alba defends it . . 122
Solyman the Magnificent . .123
The pirates of the Mediterra-
nean 123-125
Levies for the army in Flanders 125
The emperor appeals to the
church for a loan . . . .125
The archbishops of Toledo and
Zaragoza, and the bishop of
Cordova 125
Archbishop Valdes of Seville 126
His excuses . 127
His discussion with Ochoa, and
its result 127-129
Second visit of Ruy Gomez de
Silva to Yuste 129
Anthony, king of Navarre, and
his agents 129, 130
Death of John III., king of
Portugal 130
Jealousy between Portugal and
Spain 131
Emperor condoles with his sis-
ter, queen Catherine . . . 131
The princess of Brazil disap-
pointed of the regency of
Portugal 132
Battle of St. Quentin .... 132
Joy occasioned by the news at
Yuste 133
i The dilatory policy of Philip
II 134
Guiso retreats from the Nea-
politan frontier 134
Alba advances towards Rome 135
XXII
CONTENTS.
Shameful treaty between Philip
II. and the Pope . . . .135
Emperor's displeasure . . .136
Don Carlos 138
Letters from his tutor, D. Gar-
cia de Toledo, to the em-
peror 138, 139
Opinion of the Venetian envoy
at Bruxelles 139
CHAPTER VI.
Emperor's good health . . .141
Famine and sickness in the
Vera 142
Emperor's garden and its im-
provements 142
His poultry and fish-ponds . . 143
His care for his domestic com-
forts 143
Quixada obtains leave of ab-
sence 144
The friars become unruly . .145
Quixada's return 145
His dislike to Yuste . . . .146
Death of Fr. Juan de Ortega . 146
Turbulent peasants of Quacos 148
J. G. Sepulveda, the historian,
visits Ynste 149
D. Luis de Avila 150
His house at Plasencia and its
frescoes 151
His Commentaries on the German
War 151
Partiality of the emperor for
him 152
Fresco picture of the battle of
Rend, and the remark of the
emperor upon it 153
Report of the emperor's re-
moval to Navarre . . . .154
D. Francisco Bolivar . . . .154
D. Martin de Avendano. . .155
Presents to the emperor's
larder from the friars of
Guadalupe, the bishop of
Segovia, &c., and the duch-
ess of Bejar 155
Visits of queens Eleanor and
Mary 156
Their correspondence with the
duke of Infantado . . . .157
The infanta Mary of Portugal 158
Jealousy between Portugal and
Spain 158
The queens go to Badajoz . .159
Hurricane at Yuste .... 160
Father Francisco Borja sent to
Lisbon by the princess-re-
gent 160
Returns by way of Yuste . .161
Emperor's confidence in him .. 162
Borja's judgment between his
son and the admiral of Ara-
gon 162
Alms given to Borja . . . .163
CHAPTER VII.
The emperor's health declines 164 ' Affairs in Flanders, and Span-
Burglary at Yuste 164
Dispute with the corregidor of
Plasencia 165
Don Juan de Acuna . . . .165
The treaty between Philip II.
and the pope, and the em-
peror's dissatisfaction with
it 165, 166
Duke of Alba, and his share in
the business 167
ish losses 169
Duke of Guise takes Calais . 169
The emperor's regret . . . .170
Reports of the pregnancy of
Mary, queen of England
and Spain, and her death . 171
Emperor's gout 171
Meeting at Badajoz between
the queens and the infanta
Mary of Portugal . . . .172
CONTENTS.
XXlll
Queen Eleanor taken ill at
Talaverilla 173
Dies, leaving her fortune to the
infanta of Portugal . . . . 174
Grief of the emperor . . . .175
Luis de Avila visits him . .176
Queen Mary at Yuste . . .176
Removes to Xarandilla . . .177
Goes to Valladolid, attended
by Quixada 177
Emperor requests that she may
be consulted in public af-
fairs 178
The princess-regent refuses . 178
Emperor's scheme of finance . 179
Seville bullion case . . . .179
The grand inquisitor refuses to
attend the body of queen
Juana to Granada . . . .180
Emperor's health and occupa-
tions 181
His fondness for religious cere-
monies 181
He flogs himself in the choir
on Fridays in Lent . . . 1 83
His familiarity with the friars . 184
His good-nature to his servants 1 85
He is disturbed by women at
the convent gate . . . .186
The remedy 187
The renunciation of the impe-
rial crown completed 3d May,
1558 187
Consequent order of Charles . 187
CHAPTER VIII.
Church in danger 189
Church abuses and reform
movement 190,191
Heretical books 192
Spanish heretics not Protes-
tants 194
Causes of the suppression of
heresy in Spain . . . 195-197
Measures of the grand inquisi-
tor Valdes 198
Dr. Aug. Cazalla 198
Letters and words of the em-
peror 199
Fr. Domingo de Roxas . . .199
Progress of the persecution . 200
Anxiety of the emperor . . .201
His letters to the regent . . .201
His letter to the king, and its
autograph postscript . 201,202
The king's memorandum . . 202
Quixada's interview with the
grand inquisitor 202
The inquisitor's measures de-
tailed in letter to* the em-
peror 203
Censure of books 203
Catalogue of prohibited books,
1559 204
Dr. Mathys burns his Bible . 205
Father Borja's son .... 205
Pompeyo Leoni . . . 206
Fr. Domingo de Guzman . . 206
Death of Const. Ponce de la
Fuente 206
Of Dr. Cazalla 207
Of Fr. Fro. de Roxas, and D.
de Guzman 208
The emperor's hatred of her-
esy, and regrets for having
spared the life of Luther . . 209
Fr. Bart. Carranza de Miranda
made archbishop of Toledo 210
Account of him . . . 211", 212
Jealousy of Valdes .... 212
Carranza's reception at Valla-
dolid 213
War in Flanders 214
Duke of Guise takes Thion-
ville 215
Battle of Gravelines gained by
the Spaniards 215
Turkish fleet on the coast of
Spain 216
Menorca attacked, and Ciu-
dadella sacked 217
Measures of defence . . . .218
Quixada returns to Yuste with
his wife and Don John of
Austria 219
Illness of the regent .... 220
Her proposal for changing the
capital of Sppin 220
XXIV
CONTENTS.
Affair of the adelantado of
Canary 221
Death of the prior of Yuste . 222
Emperor refuses to interfere
in the election of his succes-
sor 222
Fr. Martin de Angulo appoint-
ed 222
Visits of Don Luis de Avila,
the bishop of Avila, count of
Oropesa, Garcilasso de la
Vega, &c 222, 223
Father Fro. Borja 224
The emperor's Memoirs . . . 224
His anxiety as to his treatment
by historians 225
Ocampo and Sepulveda . . . 225
Courtly reply of Borja . . . 226
Recollections of him in the
Vera 227
CHAPTER IX.
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 . . . . 234
Slight improvement in the case 234
Physic, delirium, and let-
ters 234,235
Codicil to the will 235
News of the defeat of the count
of Alcaudete in Africa 236, 237
Emperor signs the codicil . . 238
Its recommendations to the
king to put down heresy . . 238
Kegla's suggestion regarding
Don John of Austria . . . 239
Queen of Hungary consents to
go to Flanders 239
Emperor's illness increases 240, 241
He receives extreme unction . 242
His last private conference with
Quixada 243
He insists on receiving the eu-
charist 244
His devoutness 244
Archbishop of Toledo arrives,
and sees the emperor . . . 245
Closing scene 246
Death 247
Preparations for the interment 248
Funeral sermons and rites . . 249
Remarks on the character of
Charles 250, 251
On his abdication and its
causes 251 -255
His love of monks and con-
vents 255
It descends to his children 256, 257
His disappointments at Yuste 258
The prudence and extreme
dulness of his writings . . 259
His popular manners .... 260
His religious moderation in the
world, and his bigotry in the
cloister 261, 262
The Carolea of Sempere . . . 263
The Carlo Famoso of Capata . 263
Extracts from the latter . . . 264
Mention of Don John of Aus-
tria in the poem 265
CHAPTER X.
Portents at the death of the
emperor 266
Contents of the codicil to his
will . . 267-269
CONTENTS.
XXV
Paper relating to Don John of
Austria 270
The princess-regent's orders re-
specting his personal prop-
erty 271
Quixada and his wife, and
Don John 271
Note on the traditional origin
of the name of Quacos . . 272
Funeral honors of the emperor
at Valladolid 272
At Bruxelles, &c 273
At Lisbon, Rome, and Lon-
don 275
Emperor's body removed to the
Escorial in 1574 . . . 275, 276
Placed in the Pantheon by
Philip IV. in 1654 .... 276
Remark of Philip IV. . . .277
The emperor's Sarcophagus
said to have been opened by
Charles III. for Mr. Beck-
ford 278
Queen Mary of Hungary . . 279
Third marriage of Philip II. . 280
His return to Spain .... 280
The princess-regent Juana 281, 282
Luis Quixada .... 282 - 285
His death 286
Dona Magdalena de Ulloa . . 286
Extract from a letter of Don
John of Austria 286
Don John's affection for her . 287
Her death 288
William Van Male .... 288
Correspondence between Philip
II. and the bishop of Arras
respecting his papers . 288, 289
Martin de Gaztelu 290
Fr. Juan de Regla 290
Fr. Francisco de Villalva . .291
Fr. Juan de A^oloras . . . 292
Fr. Juan de Santandres . . . 292
Fr. Antonio de Villacastin . . 293
Giovanni Torriano . . 294 - 296
Father Francisco Borja . 296 - 300
His beatification 300
Archbishop Carranza of To-
ledo 301 - 306
Monastery of Ynste .... 307
Visited by Philip II. in 1570 . 307
Repaired by Philip IV. in 1638 309
The monks 309
Visit of D. Antonio Ponz . .310
Visit of M. Cfeborde .... 310
The monastery burnt by the
French in 1809 311
Visit of Lord John Russell in
1813 311
Robbed by the Constitution-
alists in"l820 312
Visited by Mr. Ford in 1832 . 312
Monasteries suppressed in
1837 313
State of the monastery in
1849 313,314
APPENDIX.
Extracts from the inventory of the effects of Charles the Fifth at
Yuste 315
Books 316
Plate 317
Jewels ............ 319
Crucifixes, paintings, &c. ......... 320
Furniture of the emperor's chamber 321
Stable, &c 321
THE
CLOISTER LIFE
OP THE
EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH.
CHAPTER I.
THE BAY OF BISCAY; LAEEDO ; BURGOS, AND
VALLADOLID.
IT is not possible to determine the precise time at
which the emperor Charles the Fifth formed his cele-
brated resolution to exchange the cares and honors 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 effect. 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 con-
vent 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 men-
tioned by Bernardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared envoy
of Venice, in a report to the doge.*
* Relatione, Luglio, 1546; printed in Correspondence of the Emperor
Charles V. Edited by Rev. W. Bradford. 8vo, London, 1850, p. 475.
1
6 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
In 1548, Philip, heir apparent of the Spanish mon-
archy, was sent for by his father to receive the 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 re-
turn to Spain, he entered into negotiations for the
hand of a second Portuguese bride, his cousin, the in-
fanta Mary, daughter of his father's sister Eleanor, by
the late king, Don Emanuel. After delays unusual
even in Peninsular diplomacy, these negotiations had
almost reached a successful issue, when the emperor,
on the 30th of July, 1553, from Flanders, 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. For himself, this tempt-
ing opportunity must be foregone. " Were the do-
minions 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 considera-
tion, and to weigh well the merits of the English
princess before he resolved to conclude any other
match. The prompt and decisive reply of the infan-
ta's lover, who was rarely prompt or decisive, shows
how early in life he deserved the title, afterwards given
to him by historians, of the Prudent. Concurring in
the emperor's opinion, that one or other of them
ought to marry the queen of England, and seeing that
matrimony was distasteful to his father, he professed
THE EiMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. O
his readiness to take the duty on himself. He had,
happily, not absolutely concluded the Portuguese
match, and he would therefore at once proceed to
break it off, on the plea that the dowry promised was
insufficient. Father and son being thus of one mind,
that diplomatic campaign was opened which ended
in adding another kingdom to the hymeneal conquests
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 sug-
gested to his son the propriety of breaking faith with
his favorite sister's only child, he signed the first or-
der 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.
That Philip might meet his English bride on equal
terms, the emperor had ceded to him, before his mar-
riage, in 1554, the titles of king of Naples and duke
of Milan. Recalling him from Windsor, in 1555, he
assembled the states at Brussels, on the 25th of Oc-
tober, and made his solemn abdication of the domains
of the house of Burgundy in favor of the king of Na-
ples and England. On the 16th of January, in the
following year, he signed and sealed a similar act for
the Spanish kingdoms ; and on the 27th of August,
he placed in the hands of the young prince of Orange,
* And so tersely celebrated in the epigram of Matthias Corvinus :
Bella gerant alii ; tu felix Austria nube !
Nam qua2 Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus.
Fight those who will ; let well-starred Austria wed,
And conquer kingdoms in the marriage bed.
4 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
the famous William the Silent, a deed of renunciation
of the imperial crown, to be laid before the electoral
diet, which was then, as was already understood, to
confer the vacant dignity on Charles's brother Ferdi-
nand, king of the Romans and actual sovereign of the
archduchies of Austria.
These arrangements made, early in September,
1556, a fleet assembled at Flushing, under the com-
mand of Don Luis de Carvajal, for the purpose of con-
veying the retiring emperor to Spain. He was at-
tended to the coast by his son, now Philip the Second
of Spain, by his nephew and daughter, Maximilian
and Mary, king and queen of Bohemia, and by the
many nobles of the Netherlands. He was likewise
accompanied by his two sisters, who were to be the
companions of his voyage, being, like himself, about
to seek retirement in Spain.
Of these royal ladies, 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 favorite
sister of the emperor, and in later days always ad-
dressed by him as madame ma meilleur saeur* she had
nevertheless been the peculiar victim of his policy 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
* See his letters to her amongst the Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de
fjranvfJle d'uprt.s les manuscrits de la Biblioth. de Besan^on, Tom. I. -
VIII. 4lo, Paris, 1840 - 50.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. D
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 cap-
tive, 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 prison, and speedily forsook his new wife for the
sake of mistresses, new or old. The queen was
obliged 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 in-
fluence extended, an unwearied peacemaker 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 public 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 perpetual widowhood, a vow from which she
never sought a dispensation. In spite of this act of
feminine devotion, she was, even in that age of man-
ly women, remarkable for her intrepid spirit and her
i*
6 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 will of her brother
Charles. Hunting and hawking she loved like Mary
of Burgundy, and her horsemanship must have de-
lighted the knightly heart of her grandsire Maxi-
milian. Not only could she bring down her deer with
unerring aim, but, tucking up her sleeves, and drawing
her knife, she would cut the animal's throat, and rip
up its belly in as good style as the best of the royal
foresters?* It w T as 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 lieuten-
ant of the royal venery of Flanders, with a prime six-
year-old boar, as a gift from the queen of Hungary.f
Roger Ascham, meeting the sporting dowager as she
galloped into Spa, 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. During more than twenty
stormy years she administered it with much vigor and
* Libra de la Monteria del Rey D. Alonso ; fol, Sevilla, 1582. See
the Discurso de G. Argote de Molina, fol. 19.
t Papiers de Granvdk, 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 7
tolerable success, now foiling the ambitious schemes
of Denmark and of France ; now repressing Anabap-
tist or Lutheran risings ; and always gathering as she
could the sinews of war for the imperial armies abroad.
Her latest exploit was a foray, during the siege of
Metz, into French Picardy, which she led in person
with so much courage and conduct, that Henry the
Second found it necessary to come to the rescue of
his province. She was now in her fifty-second year,
bronzed rather than broken by her toils, and still fit
for the council or the saddle.
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 cur-
tains of the same color, and eight glass windows.
His personal suite consisted of one hundred and fifty
persons. The queens were accommodated on board
a Flemish vessel, and the entire fleet numbered fifty-
six sail. The royal party embarked on the 13th of
September, but the state of the weather did not allow
them to put to sea until the 17th. The next day, as
they passed between the white cliffs of Kent and Ar-
tois, 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 20th, contrary
winds drove them to take shelter under the isle of
Portland for a night and a day. The weather contin-
uing unfavorable, on the 22d 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
8
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
gained the coast of Biscay without further adventure.
On the afternoon of Monday, the 28th 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
northwestern blast by the rocky headland of Santona.
The town, with its castle, stands at the mouth of the
gulf on the southeastern shore. Once a commercial
station of the Romans, it became an important arse-
nal of St. Ferdinand of Castille. From Laredo, Ra-
rnon Bonifaz sailed to the Guadalquivir and the con-
quest 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 Gold-
en Tower with the suburb of Triana, an exploit com-
memorated by St. Ferdinand in the augmentation of
a ship to the municipal bearings of Laredo. After
some centuries of prosperity, the town was cruelly
sacked, in 1639, by the archbishop of Bordeaux, the
apostolic admiral of Louis the Thirteenth. Santan-
der 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 mar-
tial fame, it sent a gallant band of seamen to perish
at Trafalgar.
This ancient seaport was now the scene of a de-
barkation 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 28th of September, 1556,* the emperor
* De Thou (Hist, sui Temp., Lib. XVII.) says, that Charles on landing
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. \J
was received by Pedro Manrique, bishop of Sala-
manca, 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 sur-
prise, for few preparations had as yet been made -for
its reception. The admiral Carvajal instantly de-
spatched his brother Alonso to court with the intelli-
gence, which he delivered at Valladolid on the 1st of
October. The princess-regent had already given or-
ders to Colonel Luis Quixada, the emperor's cham-
berlain, who had preceded him to Spain, to prepare a
residence for her father. These arrangements com-
pleted, Quixada had returned to his country-house at
Villagarcia, six leagues to the northwest of Vallado-
lid, whither a courier was now sent with orders for
him to repair with all speed to the coast. The active
chamberlain was in the saddle by two in the morning
of the 2d of October, and making the best of his way,
on his own horses, to Burgos, he there took post, and
accomplished the entire distance (fifty-six leagues, or
about two hundred and ten English miles) in three
days, dismounting on the night of the 4th at Laredo.
The presence of the stout old soldier was much
wanted. Half of the emperor's people were ill ; Mon-
sieur Lachaulx and Monsieur d'Aubremont had ter-
knelt down and kissed the earth, ejaculating, " I salute thee, common
mother ! Naked came I forth from the womh 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.
10 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
tian and quartan fevers ; seven or eight of the meaner
attendants 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 com-
plain of these things, there was no courier at hand to
carry the letter. The weather was wet and tempes-
tuous, 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 bot-
tom.* 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,
w r as at his wit's end, though hardly beyond the begin-
ning of his work. The emperor himself was ill, and
out of humor with the badness of the arrangements ;
but he was cheered by the sight of his trusty Quixada,
and welcomed him with much kindness.
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 vigor-
ous preparation ; and in the morning of the 6th of
* 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 Strada's story {De Bella Betyico, 2
torn., sm. 8vo, Antv. 1640, 1. 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 11
October, a messenger came from Valladolid with a
seasonable supply of provisions. That morning,
while Gaztelu penned a somewhat desponding ac-
count of the backwardness of things in general, Qui-
xada wrote a cheerful announcement 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 so-
journ at Laredo, is said to have left to the town some
marks of his favor. The parish church of the As-
sumption of the Virgin a fine temple of the thir-
teenth century, grievously marred by the embellish-
ments of the eighteenth was happy in the posses-
sion of a holy image, Our Lady of the Magian kings,
full of miraculous power, and of benevolence to sail-
ors. 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 moun-
tain stream, renowned for its salmon, and for the
grand cataract in which it leaps from its source high
* Madoz : Diccionario geografico estadistico historico de Espana, 17 vols
roy. 8vo. Madrid, 1850, art. Laredo; a work of the greatest Talue and
importance.
12 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 Castille. 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 wind-
swept plain. Here the emperor paused a day to re-
pose.
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 ac-
cident in the wild highland march, formed his travel-
ling equipment. By his side rode Luis Quixada, or
Lachaulx if the presence of the chamberlain, who
acted as marshal and quarter-master, was required
elsewhere. The rest of the attendants followed on
horseback, 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 algua-
zils, and the general shabbiness of the regiment under
his command, were matters of great concern to the
colonel ; but his remonstrances met with no sympathy
from the emperor, who said the tipstaves did very well
for him, and 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 13
court, charged with a large stock of provisions and
ample supply of conserves. 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 peculiar eating. Guzman was
accompanied by Don Pedro Pimentel, gentleman of
the chamber to the young prince, Don Carlos, bear-
ing letters of compliment from his master, who de-
sired that the emperor would indicate to his ambassa-
dor, as he called Pimentel, the place on the road
where he was to meet him. Without sett.ling this
point, Quixada wrote, by the emperor's orders, to
court, desiring that a regular supply of melons should
be sent for the imperial table, and that some portable
glass windows should be got ready for use on the
journey beyond Valladolid, as the nights were already
becoming chill. He asked also for the dimensions of the
apartments prepared at Valladolid for the queens, that
he might send forward fitting tapestry for their deco-
ration ; and he begged that the measurements might
be taken with great exactness, as their majesties, es-
pecially 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 fol-
lowers. The management of their journey, and the
selection of their quarters, rested with the all-provident
Quixada; who had found time to make general ar-
14
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
rangements on these heads as he galloped 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 town from all points of the compass.
Addresses came from the corporations of Burgos, Sal-
amanca, Palencia, Pamplona, and other cities ; from
the archbishop of Toledo, and other prelates. On
the llth 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. Af-
ter a brief audience, he dismissed that nobleman, with
a request that he would go forward and welcome the
two queens. The night of the 12th 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 undulating 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 Castille, Don Pedro Fernandez
de Velasco, and a gallant company of loyal gentle-
men. The constable, whom age and infirmities had
compelled to exchange, like his lord, the saddle for
the litter, conducted him with all honor to the noble
palace of the Velascos, popularly known as the Casa
del Cordon, from the massive cord of St. Francis,
which enfolds and protects the great portal. He of-
fered 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 EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 15
the cathedral rang a peal 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 mourning for all
Castille,* seems to have laid aside its weeds.
The privations, spiritual and temporal, endured by
Charles at Laredo, and arising, as it appears, from
miscalculation 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 mortification, perhaps his pride would have led
him to suffer in silence. 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 Castille, the dukes of Medina-Cell,
Medina-Sidonia, Maqueda, Najera, Infantado, and
many other grandees. The royal councils of state,
the royal chancery of Valladolid, and other pub-
lic 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
* And. Navagiero : 77 Viaygio fatto in Spagna^ sm. 8vo, Vinegia, 1563,
fol. 35.
16 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
constitutional liberties of Castille had perished in the
disastrous wars of the Commons. For fighting on the
winning side in that horoic struggle, Gutierre had
been rewarded with a commandery, and at this time
he held the honorary post of gentleman of the imperial
chamber.
Brom Burgos the emperor set out for Valladolid
on the 16th 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 farther, at Palen-
zuela, where the emperor was pleased to find a sup-
ply of flounders, newly arrived from court. Fish was
his favorite food, yet it never agreed with him ; so
these flounders were probably the cause of the indis-
position 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 neighboring city of Pa-
lencia. This prelate was a man of some distinction ;
his skilful diplomacy in repressing a formidable rebel-
lion had saved Peru to Castille ; and he had very
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 17
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 farther 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 Valladolid 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." f 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 honors. He embraced him with much appear-
ance 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
* F. Fernandez de Pulgar : Historia de Palencia, 4 vols. fol., Madrid,
1679, III. p. 201.
t " Ruindad no dejarse ver por los suyos," are the words in the origi-
nal letter of the reporter, Gaztelu or Quixada.
2*
18 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
it as soon as he was dead, and had no further use
for it.
Early next day, the 21st of October, Juan Vazquez
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
attendants had known him for several years. Charles
would not, however, accept the honors of a public
reception, which it had been proposed to give
him at Valladolid ; but desired that the pomps pre-
pared 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,
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*
* The emperor's itinerary from Laredo to Valladolid was as follows ;
the- distances being computed as far as possible by the fine maps of Col.
Don Francisco Coello, now in course of publication at Madrid :
Leagues.
October 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 51 leagues.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 19
Valladolid was at this time at the height of its
prosperity, as the wealthy and flourishing capital of
the Spanish monarchy. It possessed a noble palace
standing in delicious gardens ; a splendid college
erected by cardinal Mendoza and built all of white
marble in the florid Gothic of Ferdinand and Isa-
bella ; and some religious houses, such as San Benito
and San Pablo, unexcelled as examples of the rich
and fantastic transition style of architecture. Other
churches and convents, and many mansions of the
great nobles, adorned the streets and squares, spread
their 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 daugh-
ter of the emperor, and widow of Juan, prince of Bra-
zil, heir apparent of the Portuguese crown. Her mar-
ried 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 nine-
teen were centred all the hopes of the Portuguese
nation. In spite, however, of the prayers which
rose in every church, and the processions which glit-
tered 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 torch-
es in their hands, rushed at night by the palace win-
dows, in full view of the princess and her ladies, rid-
20 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ing on the wintry blast, and uttering doleful cries as
they descended into the sea. But in the night of the
loth 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 crowds 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 off her fine auburn hair, she
would have retired with her grief to a nunnery.*
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 coun-
try, 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 religious 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 per-
sona] ambition 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
* M. de Mencses : Chronica de D. Sebastiao, fol., Lisboa, 1 730, pp.
27-30.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 21
her deference was ever most readily and affectionately
paid. Devotion was the ruling passion of her wid-
owed life ; her recreation during her regency was to
retire, for prayer and scourging, to the convent which
the Franciscans called their Scala Cceli, amongst the
gloomy rocks and tall pines of Abrojo. She encour-
aged her ladies to become nuns, but dissuaded them
from becoming wives ; and she would never give audi-
ence to foreign ambassadors but covered from head to
foot with a veil, drawing it aside for a moment only
when some envoy, more curious than his fellows, de-
sired permission to identify her pale and melancholy
face.
While at Valladolid, the emperor and his suite were
lodged in the house of Don Gomez Perez de las Ma-
rinas. Another residence was assigned to the queens,
who arrived on the 22d of October, the day after 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 wiih
their reception ; 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 Cas-
tille, the duke of Sesa, heir of the great captain, the
count of Benevente, and the marquis 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 Castille. It was probably
22
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
at this ball that Charles caused the wives of all his
personal attendants to be assembled around him, and
bade each in particular farewell. Perico de Sant Er-
bas, a famous jester of the court, passing by at the
moment, the emperor good-humoredly saluted him by
lifting his hat. This buffoon had formerly been wont
to make the emperor laugh by calling his son Philip
Senor 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 ? " said the jester ; " does it mean that you are
no longer an emperor?" "No, Pedro," replied the
object of the jest ; " but it means that I have nothing
to give you beyond this courtesy." f
On the 27th of October, Don Constantino de Bra-
ganza arrived from Lisbon to congratulate the emper-
or, in the name of his cousin, John the Third, and his
sister Catherine, king and queen of Portugal, on his
safe return to Spain. Charles received him with that
perfect graciousness with which he knew well how to
meet the advances of a rival who had just cause for
dissatisfaction. For the courts of Lisbon and Valla-
dolid, though friendly in appearance, were really upon
terms far from cordial. Not only had Philip the Sec-
ond broken his faith to an infanta of Portugal, but his
father had aided him in foiling the designs of a Por-
tuguese infant upon the crown matrimonial of Eng-
land. 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 be-
* Bradford's Correspondence of Claries V. Relatione di Navagiero, p.
439.
t J. A. de Vera : Vida del Emp. Carlos V., 4to, Bruxelles, 1656, p. 245.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 23
trothed 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 execution. Charles received his confi-
dence graciously, and affected to favor 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 Portu-
gal. But the affront which the house of Avis had re-
ceived in the persons of Don Luis and the infanta, was
still too recent to be forgotten, and may have been
partly the cause why the princess Juana so soon for-
sook 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 Valladolid ; France
was careful to fan the useful flame ; and it was sus-
pected that the moidores of Brazil were not unknown
to the troops which were now planting the lilied ban-
ner on fortress after fortress along the ever-fluctuating
frontier of French and Austrian Flanders.
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
24 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
intended to abstain from further interference with
business of state is plain, from a letter which he wrote
to Philip the Second on the 30th 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 Vendorne, 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 Castille 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, hus-
band of the story-loving pearl of Margarets, had willed
himself a provisional tomb, until fortune should per-
mit him to be laid in the cathedral of Pamplona.
His son-in-law, the chief of the Bourbons, was, how-
ever, neither very solicitous nor very hopeful of dis-
turbing Henry's repose at Lescar. To the courage,
courtesy, and good humor 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 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 25
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-pow-
erful Guises, who recommended its annexation to the
realm of France, they were desirous of securing the
protection of their other great neighbor 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 no-
tice at Burgos, by the duke of Albuquerque, viceroy
of Navarre, and that he had given audience to Mon-
sieur Ezcurra, the confidential agent of the duke of
Vendome. The subject had also been discussed at
Valladolid. 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 Ro-
mans, as to the last formalities of his renunciation of
the empire ; and he entreated Philip to hasten the set-
tlement 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
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 un-
able to penetrate the emperor's intentions, the ex-
pressions which he let fall being always, as it seemed,
3
26 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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
Tofino ; 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 grand-
son, Don Carlos, which commenced at Cabezon, was
of course improved at Valladolid. On the grand-
father'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 dark-
ened the long life of queen Juana, his great-grand-
mother 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 perpet-
ual 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 im-
mortal garlands, such as certainly have never been
won in the battle-fields of life by any son or descend-
ant of his sire. He might possibly have become the
champion of the people's rights, and of liberty of con-
science ; but it was scarcely probable that a her6 of
that order should be born in the purple of the house
of Hapsburg. His shadowy claims to the title have
been maintained by several Schiller-struck champions.*
* Of these one of the latest and most plausible in his view is Don
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 27
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, therefore, to the princess an increased
severity of discipline in the management of her
nephew, the emperor remarked 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 impres-
sion made by his son ; and it is said to have laid the
foundation for the aversion which the king entertained
towards Carlos.
Adolfo de Castro. See his agreeable work, Historia de los Protestantes
Espandes, 8vo, Cadiz, 1851, pp. 243-319, or T/ie Spanish Protestants,
translated by T. Parker, fcap. 8vo, London, 1851, pp. 278-339, in
which, however, I cannot admit that he makes out his case.
28 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER II.
THE CASTLE OF XAEANDILLA.
SINCE the emperor had turned fifty and had begun
to lose his teeth, he had ceased to eat in public, or at
least performed that royal function in private as often
as good policy permitted. On the 4th of November
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
afterwards he bade farewell to the princess-regent and
her nephew, and set forward on his journey to Es-
tremadura, dismissing, at the Campo gate, a crowd
of grandees who had wished to ride for some miles
beside his litter.
The following which 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 illness, and halted
his litter. His servants retired with him into a way-
side garden, and by the application of hot cushions to
his stomach he was soon sufficiently restored to pro-
ceed. At the ferry of the broad Duero he looked to-
wards the fortress of Simancas, which rose on its
round hill-top out of the plain a few miles higher up
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 29
the river, and 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 Val-
destillas, a village seated amongst low woods of
melancholy pine.
The next day's journey, which was somewhat short-
er, 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 re-
ligious buildings, and a noble hospital, well supplifed
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 Cas-
tille, 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 unconsciously, the splendid Fug-
gers of Augsburg, had provided, amongst other luxu-
ries 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 capitalist 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 chap-
* This story is told by Gonzalez ; but whether on the authority of a
letter does not appear.
3*
30 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
lains 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
getting beyond the reach of state and ceremony, and
that there would be now no more visits to make or re-
ceive, 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
Hrcajo de los 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 favorite fish
for the emperor. He also was presented with an of-
fering of eels, trouts, and barbel, by the townspeople
of Pefiaranda, where he rested for the night in the
mansion of the Bracamontes. The road now ap-
proached the southern hills and entered the straggling
woods of evergreen oak which clothe the base, and be-
come 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 Mon-
cayo 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 9th
of November; and sleeping that night at Gallegos de
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 31
Solmiron, he arrived on the 10th at Barco de Avila,
a small walled town, finely placed in a rich vale, over-
hung by the lofty sierras of Bejar and Credos, and
watered by the fresh stream of the Tormes, dear to
the angler and to the lyric muse of Castille. A sec-
ond 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 dress-
ing-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 as-
cending the rocky and wood-clad steeps, was extreme-
ly bad ; and although the country people whom they
met aided in overcoming the difficulties of the way,
the calvacade did not reach the halting-place at Tor-
navacas until after dark. The ernperor, however, bore
the fatigue with all the spirit and something of the
strength of his younger days ; he was even able, on his
arrival, to go out to see some of 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. i
He was now within six or seven leagues of Xaran-
dilla, the village in the neighborhood 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 Torna-
vacas there led to Xarandilla a track across the moun-
tains, 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 em-
32 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
peror determined to face. He set out on his last
march in good time in the morning of the 12th of No-
vember, his calvacade 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, and
reached its culminating horror in the pass of Puerto-
nuevo, a chasm rugged and steep as a broken stair-
case, which cleft the topmost crest of the sierra. On
this airy height, the traveller, pausing to take breath,
suddenly 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 ter-
race 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, " 't is the last pass
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 33
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 with a pike in his hand. They reached Xaran-
dilla 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 dis-
gust at the obstacles which every step had put be-
tween 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 requested that a fire-place might be imme-
diately added to the chamber which he was afterwards
to occupy, f
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
* Puerto has in Spanish the double signification of " gate " and
" mountain pass. 1 '
t In this itinerary, from Valladolid to Xarandilla, I am without means
of computing the distances with any certainty :
Leagues.
November 4, Tuesday, Valladolid to Valdestillas, . . 4
5, "Wednesday, . . Medina del Campo, . 3
6, Thursday, . . Horcajo de los Torres, 3
7, Friday, . . . Penaranda, . . 4
8, Saturday, . . Alaraz, . . 4
9, Sunday, . . . Gallegos de Solmiron, 3
10, Monday, . . Barco de Avila, . 3
11, Tuesday, . . . Tornavacas, . 6 or 7
12, Wednesday, Xarandilla, . . 6 or 7
In all, 36i to 38<J leagues.
34 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
north by lofty sierras, and watered with abundant
streams, its mild climate, rich soil, and perpetual ver-
dure led some patriotic scholars of Estremadura to
identify this beautiful 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 conjectured 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 labors 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 val-
ley was unquestionably famous throughout Spain for
its wine, oil, chestnuts, and citrons, for its magnificent
timber, for the deer, bears, wolves, and all other ani-
mals 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
Strada : De Bdh Belgico, Lib. I.
t He was a prior of a convent at Garganta la Olla. J. de Tamayo
Salazar : San Epitacio de Tui, 4to, Madrid, 1646, p. 42 ; and Sancti His-
pani, 6 vols. fol., Lugd. 1657, V. p. 68. The fact, however, is disputed
and the honor claimed for the Alps, and a place called Fuessen, supposed
to be derived from Fauces, of which Garganta is also a translation. The-
odore of St. Gall, who wrote the life of St. Magnus (printed by J. Mes-
singham, Florilegium Sanct. Hibernice, 4to, Paris, 1624, p. 296), is entirely
silent as to the claims of the Vera.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 35
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 prov-
ince the honor 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.f
or during the few days which he spent at Oropesa on
his way to Seville, in February, 1526, $ it is not im-
probable that love of the chase may have tempted
Charles to penetrate the surrounding forests, and that
the sylvan valley may have remained pictured in his
memory as the very solitude for some future Diocle-
tian. In 1534 he was at Salamanca, visiting his old
tutor, bishop Luis Cabeza de Vaca, and undergoing
the pompous and pedantic civilities of the univer-
sity ; and it is also possible that in that journey he
may have had a glimpse of his final resting-place.
* Robertson ( Charles V., B. XII.) cites no authority 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 at-
tendants 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."
t Fr. Gabriel de Talavera : Historia 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.
t Itinerary of the Emperor, by Vandenessc,from 1519 to 1551, printed in
Bradford's Correspondence, p. 490. He remained at Oropesa (erroneously
written Aropesa) from the 25th to the end of February.
Gil Gonzalez de Avila : Historia de Salamanca, 4to, Salamanca,
1606, p. 475.
36 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
But there was no palace or hunting-seat of the crown
near enough to the Vera to have made him naturally
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 ;
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 Pena-
negra. 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 de-
fence 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 memorial 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.
* Mariana (De Reb. Hisp., Lib. XI. cap. 14, fol., Toleti, 1592, p. 533)
gives the city of Plasencia an opposite character. The site was called
Ambroz, but Alonso VIII. changed the name ; " quod nomen Placen-
tise appellatione mutari placuit, ominis caussa quasi divis et hominibus
placiturae 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 patri-
otic than honest, of the latter damaging clause.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 37
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 com-
modious in all save fireplaces, 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 overlook-
ing 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 indefinitely prolonged, he after-
wards commenced housekeeping on his own account.
On the 18th 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,
sometimes so thick that a man became invisible at
the distance of twelve paces. Yuste, on its wooded
hill-side, was wrapped in a mantle of perpetual and
impenetrable mist. For whole days it was impos-
sible to leave the house, the streets of Xarandilla be-
ing canals of muddy water, through which Luis
Quixada waded from his lodging to his daily duties,
in fisherman's boots made of felt and cowhide.
* P. de Rojas: Discursos Genealogicos, 4to, Toledo, 1636, p. 111.
38 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Meanwhile the emperor, wrapped in a robe of eider-
down made from the princess's cushions, sat by the
fireside, 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 es-
pecial 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, likewise saw a new-
ly elected pope plunging, at the age of eighty, into
the vortex of political strife, with all the reckless ardor
of a boy. The two men seemed to have changed
characters as well as places. Charles, the most am-
bitious 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 Europe. 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 pru-
dence to the winds. Hating Spain with the hatred
of an hereditary bondsman, the old volcanic Neapoli-
tan poured forth against her torrents of the foulest
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 39
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 orTscouring of the
earth." ' War seemed to offer a prospect, not only of
gratifying his hatred with sharper weapons than
words, but of providing his nephews with duchies,
which were seldom to be obtained in times of peace.
He therefore lured France across the Alps, holding
out such hopes of the crown of Naples 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 he-
reditary device happened to bear the canting motto,
Cara Fe, he was ready to commit any profitable per-
fidy and undertake any promising war. The admiral
Coligny was therefore sent to carry fire and sword
into Flanders; and the gallant 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 vig-
orous measures to frustrate his endeavors. He gave
the military command of the Netherlands to duke
Emanuel Philibert of Savoy ; he intrusted the duke '
of Alba with the defence of Naples ; and he himself
* " Heretici, scismatici, et maladetti de Dio, seme de' Giudei et de 1
Marrani. feccia del mondo." Cited by Federigo Badovaro in his Rela-
tione, 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
Marchal in the Bulletins de FAcadtmie Roycdc des Sciences et Belles Lettres
de Bruxelles, Tom. XII. 1" partie, 1845, p. 63.
40 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
passed into England, and secured the cooperation 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 line of Savoy, in which, although ability has
seldom been wanting, geography seems to have ren-
dered 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, Emanuel Philibert found a few remote valleys
of highland 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 whrch he could hope to regain
his position among the princes of Europe. He there-
fore 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 al-
ready, though still under thirty, reckoned one of the
best captains in the service of Spain.f
Ferdinand duke of Alba became, in his old age, the
last of the great soldiers of Castille. His grandfather,
the first duke, under the Catholic king, had led the
Christian chivalry to the leaguer of Granada; his
* "La Geographic Ics empeche d'etre honndtes gens." Prince de
Ligne : Melanges, 5 torn. 8vo, Paris, 1829, V. p. 29.
t Histoire d' Emanuel Philibert, 12mo, Amsterdam, 1693, p. 5.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 41
father had left his bones among the Moors in the Af-
rican isle of Zerbi ; and he himself had fought by the
side of the emperor on the banks of the Danube, be-
neath the walls of Tunis, in Provence and Dauphiny,
and in the Protestant electorates. He had held inde-
\
pendent commands of importance in Catalonia and
Navarre, and he had commanded in chief in the cam-
paign 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 Milanese ; but the stern discipli-
narian was still hardly past the prime of life, and in
full favor with his sovereign ; and he joined the army
of Naples, resolved to win back on the Roman Carn-
pagna 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 ob-
tained the emperor's attention. Foremost among
them stood the negotiations with the court of Portu-
* J. V. Eustant : Historia dd 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. 39. He accuses him, not only of ig-
norance of military affairs, but of cowardice, and asserts that his appoint-
ment 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. It
is certain that he had every opportunity of learning his profession in all
the imperial wars, that the emperor himself employed him at Metz, and
that in his old age he was so far superior to any other general in the
Spanish service, that Philip the Second intrusted him, though in dis-
grace at the time, with the conquest of Portugal.
4*
42 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
gal, 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 Castille by the emperor, and had left
her baby under 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
clamors of the city of Lisbon did not permit an in-
fanta 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 endeavored to match her with Maximilian, king
of Bohemia, and Philip of Castille.* In following her
brother and sister to Spain, Eleanor was much influ-
enced by the hope of inducing her daughter to come
and reside with her in that country. Philip 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 like-
wise solicitous to provide 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, f Dispirited by these morti-
fications, Mary herself turned her thoughts to the nat-
ural refuge of a love-lorn damsel of thirty-six, the
cloister ; and the falseness of Philip had filled her
* Damiam de Goes : Cftronica do liei Dom Emanuel, 4 tom.,fol., Lisbon,
1566-7, IV. p. 84.
I Meneses : Chronica de D Selastiao, p. 69.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 4o
heart with bitterness towards Spain and her Spanish
relations, and with distrust of any proposal which
came from beyond the Guadiana. She even demurred
about complying with the desire of her mother, that
they should meet on the frontier of the two kingdoms ;
and the king of Portugal sustained her objections, on
the ground that he did not wish her to be inveigled
into taking the veil in a Spanish nunnery. The em-
peror 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
29th of November, and gave him several audiences
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 emis-
sary, M. Kzcurra, therefore presented himself at Xa-
randilla, on the 3d of December, and was dismissed
with a letter, written in cipher, to the secretary Vaz-
quez.
On the 8th of December there arrived a Jew of Bar-
bary, 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 rav-
ages committed by the Spanish troops on the frontiers
of Picardy. The informer was sent on to Valladolid,
on the 9th, with a letter to the secretary of state.
* Chap. I. p. 24.
44 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
The progress of the works at Yuste, and the prepa-
rations for removal thither, were subjects of every-day
discussion. The new buildings had been commenced
more than three years before, the first money being
paid for the purpose on the 30th of July, 1553. Gas-
par 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 24th of May, 1554, by Philip, at the de-
sire of his father, as he was on his road to England.
He assisted at the procession of Corpus Christi, in-
spected the works with great minuteness, and slept a
night in the convent. The control of the cash and
the general superintendence of the building were in-
trusted to Fray Juan de Ortega, general of the Jero-
mites, and Fray Melchor de Pie de Concha. Ortega
was a man of ability and learning, who enjoyed for a
time the reputation of having written Lazarillo de
Tormes, the charming parent of those picaresque sto-
ries in which modern fiction had its birth* Certain
reforms which he attempted to introduce into the rule
of his order met with so much opposition and odium,
that he was deposed 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 inter-
ference, and immediately replaced them in their du-
ties, which they continued to discharge at the time of
his arrival at Xarandilla.
The greatest secrecy had been enjoined as to the
purpose of these architectural operations, and Charles
had evinced much displeasure on learning that his in-
tention of retiring to the monastery had been spoken
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 45
of in the country, owing to the indiscreet tattling of
the friars. Ortega, as well as the general Tofiiio, had
been summoned to meet him at Valladolid, and now
at Xarandilla they and the prior of Yuste had long
and frequent audiences. On the 22d of November, in
spite of the rain and fog, the emperor got into his lit-
ter, and went over to the convent, to inspect the state
of the works for himself. It being the feast of St.
Catherine, it was his first care to perform his devo-
tions in the church. Notwithstanding the gloom of
the weather and the wintry forest, he declared himself
satisfied with what he saw, and ordered forty beds to
be prepared, twenty for masters and twenty for ser-
vants, 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
discontent, bordering on mutiny. The chosen para-
dise of the master was regarded as a sort of hell upon
earth by the servants. The mayordomo and the sec-
retary 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 Xaran-
dilla 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 likewise been there, and knew that it
was full of defects and discomfort. The rooms were
too small, the windows too large ; the window which
46 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
opened from the emperor's bed-room into the church
would not command the elevation 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 dis-
turbed during the night when the hours were chanted.
The apartments on the ground floor were in 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 ? Never-
theless, 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 dispar-
aging 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 favor, fierce
dissensions had arisen on this point, and had even
reached the emperor's ears. It seemed as if his maj-
esty must adjust these quarrels himself, or seek an-
other retreat, which would be much against his incli-
nation ; but, indeed, what good could be expected to
come of wishing to live among friars ? Their quarter-
master, Ruggier, in reporting progress, had ventured
to complain of the want of servants' accommodation.
At this the emperor was very angry, and, telling 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 47
more was the emperor exasperated at a letter which
he received from the queen of Hungary, entreating
him to think twice before he settled in a spot " so un-
healthy as Yuste " ; and he expressed great wrath
against those who had given her such information,
and whom he suspected to be Monsieur Lachaulx and
the doctor Cornelio, who had lately come from court.
Poor Lachaulx might well be excused if he had given
an unfavorable report of the climate, for he continued
to burn and shiver with violent ague fits, and the doc-
tor found a good many patients in the 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 voracious-
ly on the " hams and other bucolic meats " of Estre-
madura, a province still unrivalled in its swine and
its savory preparations of pork.
In this matter of eating, as in many other habits,
the emperor was himself a true Fleming. His early
tendency to gout was increased by his indulgences at
table, which generally far exceeded his feeble powers
of digestion. Roger 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," drinking 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 dyspep-
sia, before setting out from Flanders, the fulness and
* Works of Roger Ascham, 4to, London, 1761, p. 375.
48 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 remarked, was, like
his stomach, quite worn out; he was ever complain-
ing of the sameness and insipidity of the meats
served at his table ; and the chief cook, Monfalco-
netto, at last protested, in despair, that he knew not
how to please his master, unless he were to gratify his
taste for culinary novelty and chronometrical mechan-
ism by sending him a pasty of watches.
Eating was now the only physical gratification
which he could still enjoy, or was unable to resist. He
continued, therefore, to dine to the last upon the rich
dishes, against which his ancient and trusty confes-
sor, cardinal Loaysa, had protested a quarter of a cen-
tury before. f The supply of his table was a main
subject of the correspondence between the mayor-
domo 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 pro-
vision 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 some-
times 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
* Badovaro. See p 39.
t Cartas al Emp. Carlos V. escritas en los Arios de 1530 -32. Copiadas
de las Autografas en el Archive de Simancas. Par G. Heine. 8vo, Berlin,
1848, p. 69.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 49
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 par-
tridges 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 sau-
sages, although sent to a land supreme in that manu-
facture, gave great satisfaction. Of the partridges,
the emperor said that they used to be better, ordering,
however, the remainder to be pickled.
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
provisions 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 offering of game ; another
day a pair of fat calves arrived from the archbishop
of Zaragoza ; the archbishop of Toledo and the duch-
ess 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
* The count managed that they should reach Flanders in perfect con-
dition by " echandoles orin en la boca." The emperor considered that
this singular preservative would not be necessary in the present journey.
5
50 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
trains of mules laden, as it were, with gout and bile.
He never acknowledged the receipt of the good things
from Valladolid without adding some dismal fore-
bodings of consequent 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 mayordomo noted the fact with exul-
tation ; and he remarked with complacency his maj-
esty's fondness for plovers, which he considered harm-
less. But his office of purveyor 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 51
CHAPTER III.
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 favor, of the ropes which
girt their ascetic loins. An Aragonese by birth, he
first saw the light in a peasant's hut on the moun-
tains of Jaca, in 1500, the same year in which the fu-
ture Csesar, 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 lit-
erature. Obtaining as he could the rudiments of
what was then held to be learning, he lived on alms
and the charity-soup dispensed by the Jeromites of
Santa Engracia. During 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 knowledge
having attracted the notice of the fathers of Santa
Engracia, their favor obtained for him the post of do-
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
mestic tutor to two lads of family, who were about to
enter the university of Salamanca. In that congenial
abode he remained for thirteen years, in the last six
of which he was released from the duties of peda-
gogue, and free to pursue his private reading of theol-
ogy, 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 with-
in 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 honorable, but fruit-
less 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 retir-
ing 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 responsibility.
" 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 will
have nothing to answer for but what happens here."
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 53
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 the active mayordomo, who has already fig-
ured so frequently in this narrative, Luis Quixada,
or, to give him his full Castillian appellation, Luis
Mendez Quixada Manuel de Figueredo y Mendoza.
He was the second son of Gutierre Goncalez Quixa-
da, lord of Villagarcia, by Maria Manuel, lady of Villa-
mayor, and with his two brothers early embraced the
profession of arms. The elder brother became so dis-
tinguished as a leader of the famous infantry of Spain,
that it was sufficient praise to say of soldiers in that
service that they were as well appointed and as well
disciplined as those of Gutierre Quixada.* He was
slain before Tunis, in 1535, when the family estates
passed to the second brother, Luis. Commencing his
career as a page in the imperial household, Luis had
likewise served with distinction in the same cam-
paign as a captain of foot. His sagacity allayed the
discord which had arisen between the Spanish and
Italians about the post of honor before Goleta ;f and
he was wounded while leading his company to the
assault of its bastions. J At Tarvanna 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 arquebuse. His services soon raised him to
the grade of colonel, and he was also promoted, in the
imperial household, to the post of deputy mayordomo,
* Carlos de Loaysa, p. 66.
t Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., Lib. XXII. c. 17. t Ibid., c. 27.
J. G. Scpulveda : De Rebus gestis Caroli V., Lib. XXVIII. c. 27.
54 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
under the duke of Alba, and in that capacity con-
stantly 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 na-
ture as gentle as any in Castille.* The marriage took
place at Valladolid, the bridegroom appearing by
proxy, but he soon after obtained leave of absence
from Bruxelles, and joined his bride in Spain. They
retired for a while to his patrimonial mansion at Villa-
garcia, a small town lying six leagues from Vallado-
lid, 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 favorite musician of the
emperor, who was told that he was the son of Adrian
de Bues, one of the gentlemen of the imperial cham-
ber.! At this man's death he remained for some time
* Juan de Villafafie : Vida de Dona Magdalena de Ulloa, 4to, Sala-
manca, 1723, p. 43.
t With 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 handwriting, " If I die before his maj-
esty, 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 sou
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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 55
with his widow at Leganes, near Madrid, learning his
letters from the curate and sacristan, running wild
among the village children, or with his crossbow
ranging the corn-clad plains in pursuit of sparrows.
It was not until 1554 that he was transferred to the
more fitting guardianship of the lady of Villagarcia ;
the imperial usher who brought him, bringing her also
a letter from Quixada, commending the young stran-
ger 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 ;
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, the mayordomo
never suffered her to penetrate the mystery. Amongst
the neighbors Don John passed for a favorite page.
The parental care of his guardians, whom he called,
according to a usual mode of Castillian endearment,
his uncle and aunt, he returned with the affection of
a son. Dona Magdalena used to make him the dis-
penser of the alms of bread and money, which were
given at her gate on stated days to the poor ; and her
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 full length in the Papiers de
Granvelle, IV. 496.
* Villafafie : Vida de M de Ulloa. p. 43.
56 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
efforts to imbue him with devotion towards the Bles-
sed 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 edu-
cation, Quixada had but little share, being generally
absent in attendance on the emperor. During his
brief visits to his estate, he lived the usual life of a
country hidalgo, amusing himself with the chase and
law, and carrying on a tedious plea with his tenants
about manorial rights, in which he was ultimately de-
feated. He was, nevertheless, much attached to his
paternal fields on the naked plains of Old Castilie,
and although he may have been contented to exchange
them for the active life of the camp or the court, it
was not without many a pang that he prepared for
his banishment to the wilds of Estremadura. Uncon-
sciously portrayed in his own graphic letters, the best
of the Yuste correspondence, he stands forth the type
of the cavalier, and " old rusty Christian," * of Cas-
tilie, spare and sinewy of frame, and somewhat for-
mal 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 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
* " Cristiano vicjo rancioso," Don Quixote, Part I. cap. xxvii., so
translated by Sbclton.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 57
instinctive distrust of its ministers ; a hater of Jews,
Turks, heretics, friars, and Flemings ; somewhat tes-
ty, somewhat obstinate, full of strong sense and strong
prejudice ; a warm-hearted, energetic, and honest
man.
Martin Gaztelu, the secretary, comes next to the
mayordomo in order of precedence, and in the im-
portance 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 dic-
tation by Gaztelu ; for the imperial fingers were sel-
dom sufficiently free from gout to be able to do more
than add a brief postscript, in which Dona Juana was
assured of the affection of her buen 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 epis-
tolary style was clear, simple, and business-like, but
inferior to that of Quixada in humor, 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 by-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
peace with a discerning love very rare in his profession
and his country. He afterwards turned his thoughts
58 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 sol-
dier, historian, and court favorite 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 historiographer, 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 barbero, or gentleman of the imperial
chamber of the second class.
His learning, intelligence, industry, cheerful dispo-
sition, and simple nature, made him a great favorite
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 educa-
tion debarred him from many literary pursuits and
pleasures. In Van Male he had found a humble in-
strument, ever ready, able, and willing to supply his
deficiencies. Sailing up the Rhine, in 1550, he be-
guiled 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 accordingly turned the
* Ludov. de Avila Commentariorum de Bello Germanico a Caroli Ccesare
gesto, Lib. IL, 8vo, Antverpiae, 1550. It was printed by Steels, who re-
printed it the same year ; and another edition was published in 12mo, at
Strasburg, in 1620.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 59
emperor's French, which he likewise pronounced to
be terse, elegant, and eloquent, into Latin, in which
he put forth his whole strength, and combined, as he
supposed, the styles of Livy, Csesar, 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 honor of the ducal house of
Burgundy. Fernando de Acuna, a soldier-poet, and
at that time keeper of the captive elector, George Fred-
erick of Saxony, was then commanded to turn it into
rhyme, a task which he performed very happily, work-
ing up the emperor's prose into spirited and richly
idiomatic verse, retouching and refreshing the anti-
quated flattery of the last century, and stealing, here
and there, a chaplet from the old Burgundian monu-
ment 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 tell-
ing him that he might have the profits of the publica-
tion for his pains, but forbidding that the book should
contain any allusion to his own share in its produc-
tion. 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 honorable vocation of letters and to the
world at large. The emperor, however, was inflexi-
ble, and the Spanish courtiers wickedly affected the
greatest envy at the good fortune of the Fleming.
60 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Luis de Avila, with special malice, in 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 part of the sweat, should reap the harvest."
Poor Van Male saw no prospect of reaping any thing
but chaft'; he timidly hinted at the risk of the under-
taking, and did his best to escape the threatened boon.
But hints were thrown away on the emperor ; he was
eager to see himself in type ; and he accordingly or-
dered 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 pastry-cook.
The pecuniary results have not been recorded, but
there is little doubt that the Fleming's fears were jus-
tified rather than the hopes of the malicious compan-
ions, whom he called, in his vexation, " those windy
Spaniards."
During the six harassed and sickly years which
preceded the emperor's abdication, Van Male was his
constant 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 to-
gether, 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 otherwise correct and arrange. The
work was so well executed that Charles several
times spoke, in the hearing of some of the other cour-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 61
tiers, 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 pro-
duced the usual envy among the servants ; the chap-
lains, 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 signi-
fying praying-master. They did not, however, under-
mine his credit; the emperor treated him with undi-
minished confidence ; he alone was present when the
doctors Vesalius and Barsdorpius were wrangling
over the symptoms and the 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 at-
tained 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 trem-
ble 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
subsided into slumber. Lively and agreeable as let-
* Lettres sur la Vie interieure de TEmpereur Charles Quint., ecrites par
Guillaume Van Male, publiees par le Baron de Reiffenberg, 8vo,
Bruxelles, 1843. M. Reiftenberg has fallen into an error in supposing
(p. xxiii ) that Van Male retired from the emperor's service at the time
of the abdication.
6
62 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ters, they are invaluable for the glimpses they afford
of the every-day 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 dam-
nosa), yet never able to restrain it; rebelling against
the prudent rules of Baersdrop and the great Vesa-
lius, and appealing to one Caballo ( Caballus, 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 warnings of Van Male and the
dysentery ; now listening to the book of Esdras, or
criticizing the wars of the Maccabees, anc^ now laugh-
ing heartily at a filthy saying of the Turkish envoy;
groaning in his bed, in a complication of pains and
disorders ; or mounting his favorite 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 noti-
ces of borrowings and lendings, buyings and exchang-
ings, of favorite authors, generally the classics. At
the memorable flight from Innspruck, when the em-
peror in his litter was smuggled by torchlight through
the passes into Carinthia, the library 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 63
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
" Plus 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 Gio-
vio'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
commenced 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, phy-
sic, or iced beer. He had seized the opportunity of a
short absence on sick leave to crown a long attach-
ment by marriage ; and some time before his master's
abdication, he had applied for a place in the treasury
of the Netherlands, under his friend De Praet. The
emperor, on hearing of his entrance into the wedded
64 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
state, expressed the warmest approbation of the step,
and interest in his welfare. " You will hardly believe,"
wrote the simple-minded good man, " with what ap-
proval Caesar 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 do-
mestic 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 moun-
tain 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 Van Male tendered his resigna-
tion, which was accepted. But ere a week had
elapsed, both parties had cooled down ; and the Span-
ish secretary remarked that William had not only
been forgiven, but was as much in favor as before.
His temper must have been excellent, for he contrived
to be a favorite with his master without being the de-
testation of his Castillian fellow-servants.
The doctor of the court was a young Fleming,
named Henry Mathys, or, in the Spanish form, Ma-
thisio. 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. Cornelio, a Spaniard,
who had long been physician to the emperor, and
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 65
who was now in attendance on the princess-regent,
was also sent for to Valladolid. They remained,
however, only a few weeks in attendance, and Ma-
thys was again left in sole charge of the health of the
emperor and his people. He appears to have dis-
charged 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 endeavored to neutralize the slow poi-
sons 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 ca-
pacity had been introduced into the emperor's service
many years before, by the celebrated Alonso de Ava-
los, Marques del Vasto. Charles brought him to Es-
tremadura 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 de-
serves especial notice for the place he holds in the
history, not only of Spain, but of the religious strug-
gles 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 bril-
liant 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
6
66 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Aragon, which had already 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, that there was no room to doubt that in the
lower regions also the house of Borja was fairly rep-
resented. Francisco was distinguished no less by the
favor of the emperor than by the splendor of his birth,
the grace of his person, and the endowments of his
mind. Born to be a courtier and a soldier, he was
was also an accomplished scholar and no inconsider-
able 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 testi-
fy, with ease and grace ; he served in Africa and Italy
with distinction ; and as viceroy of Catalonia he dis-
played abilities for administration which in a few
years might have placed him high amongst the
Mendozas and De Lannoys. The pleasures and
honors 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 tri-
umphs, his thoughts perpetually turned upon death
and its mysteries. Ever punctilious in the perform-
* 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 67
ance of his religious duties, he early began to de-
light in spiritual contemplation and to discipline his
mind by self-imposed penance. Even in his favorite
sport of falconry he found occasion for self-punish-
ment, 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 recognized by the most trusted and
the most faithful of her servants. His conscience
would not allow him to swear that the mass of cor-
ruption 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 enshrouded 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 snap-
ping 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
68 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 ec-
clesiastical 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 in-
dulgence 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 labored as a
preacher and teacher in many of the cities of Spain ;
he had procured and superintended the foundation of
colleges at Alcala and Seville ; and he was now en-
gaged in instituting and organizing another at Pla-
sencia.
In the world, Borja had been the favorite and trust-
ed 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 enter-
tained 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 69
that he watched the career of the man whom alone he
had chosen to make the confidant of his intended ab-
dication, and who had unexpectedly forestalled him
in the execution of the scheme. They were now in
circumstances similar, yet different. Both had volun-
tarily 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 vigor of his age, had entered the humblest of relig-
ious orders, to begin a new life of 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
emperor had been frequently inquiring about him,
father Francis the Sinner, for so Borja called himself,
arrived at Xarandilla on the 17th of December. He
was attended by two brothers of the order, father Mar-
cos, 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 archi-
tect of the noble hospital of St. John Baptist, at To-
ledo, a structure on which the cardinal archbishop had
so lavished his wealth, that his enemies said it would
* urita, Anales de Aragon, An. 1358, Lib. IX. c. 18.
70 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
certainly procure him and Bustamente warm places in
purgatory.* The ernperor received Borja with a cor-
diality which was more foreign to his nature than his
habits, but which, on this occasion, was probably sin-
cere. 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 exchanged beneath the
canopy of state 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 in-
sisted on remaining upon his knees during the inter-
view. 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.f
* Salazar de Mendo?a : Chronica del Card. Juan de Tavera, 4to, To-
ledo, 1603, p. 310.
t 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 conversa-
tion, 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 pa-
pers. 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 22d 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 71
Borja had been warned, by the princess-regent, say
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 life since he had made re-
ligious profession, and of the reasons which had de-
cided 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 com-
pany of Jesus, the Lord had filled his soul with peace
and joy ; how it frequently happened, in the great or-
ders, that monks arrived at higher honor 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 opposite char-
acters, 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
72 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
blessing, ere he took the vows which had now for ten
years been the hope and the consolation of his life.
The emperor listened to this long narrative with at-
tention, 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 en-
tered 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 reputation." 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 com-
pany, he would never have joined, or would already
have left it ; and that in respect of white hairs, though
it \v"as 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 be-
gun his novitiate at the ripe age of sixty, was accord-
ingly called into the presence. The emperor at once
recognized 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 Ta-
vera, 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
of Charles. He hated innovation with the hatred of
a king, a devotee, and an old man ; and having fought
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 73
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 Gui-
puzcoa. The infant company, although, or perhaps
because, in favor of the Vatican, had gained no foot-
ing at the imperial court; and, as its lame grew, the
prelates around the throne, sons or friends of the an-
cient 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 splendid 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 spiritual aid to the wounded
and dying; but on the publication of the unfortunate
Interim, meant to soothe^ but active only to inflame
the hate of Catholics and Reformers, 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
Charles's natural dislike to the company ; and he after-
wards 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 Apocalypse.
His new confessor, Fray Juan de Regla, with monkish
subserviency and rancor, espoused the same cause,
and openly spoke of the company as an apt instru-
t Nieremberg: Vldas de Jg. Loyola y otros Bijos de la Compania, fol.,
Madrid, 1645, pp. 649, 650.
7
74 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ment of Satan or the great Turk.* Latterly, however,
the vehement old pope, having frowned on the order
as a thing of Spain and perdition, may perhaps have
prepared his imperial rival to view it with a more fa-
vorable 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 Monc.on, dur-
ing the holding of the Cortes of Aragon, of my inten-
tion 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 honored. " 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 give him audience alone, for no
part of their conversation 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
emperor's remark, that " the duke was much changed
since he first knew him as marquis of Lombay."
Of the emperor's few intimate friends it happened
that one other, Don Luis de Avila y Zuniga, was now
his neighbor in Estremadura. This shrewd politician,
Nieretnberg : Vida de F. Borja, p. 1 73.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 75
lively writer, and crafty courtier, a very different per-
sonage from father Francis the Sinner, was no less
welcome at Xarandilla. He was one of the most
distinguished of that remarkable band of soldier-states-
men who shed a lustre round the throne of the Span-
ish emperor and maintained the honor 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; 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 honors, and six skulls of the virgins of
Cologne, presented to him by the grateful elector, he
returned to Plasencia, to share the honors with the
wealthy heiress of Fadrique de Zuniga, marquis of
Mirabel, and to place the skulls in the rich Zuniga
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 archi-
tectural ornaments of king Alonso's pleasant city.
By his commentaries, on the war of the emperor
with the Protestants of Germany, Avila earned a high
rank amongst the historians of his time. His Castil-
lian was pure and idiomatic ; and his style, for clear-
ness and rapidity, was compared by his admirers to
* A. F. Fernandez : Historia de Plasencia, fol., Madrid. 1627, p. 113.
76 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
that of Csesar. Besides these literary merits, the book,
from the intimate relation existing 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, therefore, it had already
passed through several editions,* and had been trans-
lated into Latin, f Flemish, $ and English, into Ital-
ian || by the author himself, and twice into French, at
Ant\verp^[ and at Paris.** In Germany it had cre-
ated 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 Span-
ish master ; the diet of Passau presented a formal re-
monstrance 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, f f The emperor, however, who
approved the history and loved the historian, inter-
posed to soothe the electors, cajole the diet, and forbid
* It appeared, says Xic. Antonio, first in Spain (without mentioning
any town) in 1546, and again in 1547.
t By Van Male. See p. 53.
J In 8vo (Steels) : Antwerp, 1550.
The Comentaries of Don Lewes de Avila and Suniga, great Master of
Acanter, which treattth of the great wars in Germanie, made by Cliarlts the
Fifth, marline Einperoure of Koine, &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.
tt R. Ascham : Discourse of Germany and the Emperor Charles his
Court, 4to, London (Black letter), N. D. fol. 14.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 77
the duel ; and a duke of Brunswick, some years after,
did the obnoxious volume the honor of translating it
into German. Pleased with his success, the author
was probably employing his leisure at PJasencia 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 21st
of January, 1557. He spent the night at Xarandilla,
and returned home next day. Some weeks before,
on the 6th of December, his father-in-law, the marquis
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
cardinal 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 palates with perfect good humor, entreating
them not to put themselves to any inconvenience on
* P. de Salazar : Clironica de el Card. D. Juan de Tavera, 4to, Tole-
do, 1603, p. 355. A. Fernandez : Historia de Plasencia, p. 191.
7*
78 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
his account, and remarking to Quixada, that neither
of them were persons much to his liking.
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 fin-
gers, 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 27th and 28th 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 en-v
tirely 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 com-
mitting 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 s wallow, ^m incon-
venience which the mayordomo did not much deplore,
saying sententiously, " Shut your mouth, and the
gout will get well." *
* " La gota se cura tapando la boca."
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 79
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 con-
coction 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 pro-
portion 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 stand-
ing 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 Jero-
mites, an order famous for its choice cellars. The em-
peror asked likewise for manna, and there being none
amongst the doctors stores, he ordered some to be pro-
cured 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.
On the 6th of January, though still in bed, he was
able to see Lorenzo Fires, the Portuguese envoy, on
the affairs of the infanta; when he also expressed his
hearty approval of king John's choice of the good
Aleixo de Meneses as governor of their grandson, Don
Sebastian.* On the 7th he got up, complaining only
at intervals of a heat in his legs, which were relieved
by being bathed with vinegar and water. In spite of
* Menezes : Chronica, p. 68.
80 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
his omelettes of sardines, and the beer which no med-
ical 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 Rome, 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 afterwards wrote to the king, expressing the great-
est displeasure 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
marquisate 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 31st of January, the em-
peror 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 realms." On the 2d of
February, he again entreated the princess to keep a
watchful eye on the frontiers of Navarre, and re-
marked that it was a pity the king should have or-
dered the duke of Alburquerque to England at a time
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 81
when the probable movements of the French forces
rendered his presence of so much importance in that
viceroyalty. In consequence of this remonstrance, the
duke was suffered to remain at Pamplona, 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 prog-
ress had caused the emperor repeated disappoint-
ments. So far back as the 16th of December he was
so confident of being able to quit Xarandilla, that the
post was detained beyond the usual time, that the re-
moval to the convent might be announced at Yalla-
dolid. Hi0 departure 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 21st of
January, a remittance of money arriving from court,
Quixada began to pay the servants their wages; and
on the 23d, 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 25th, Monsieur d'Aubre-
mont, 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 26th, all claims against the
privy purse were settled, and by the end of the month
the new household was definitely formed, on a re-
duced 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 back ninety-eight to Flanders free of cost,
and to transfer about fifty-two to Yuste. The lieu-
82 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
tenant 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 Valla-
dolid ; 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
1st 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 post-
poned for two days more. After dinner*on the 3d,
the emperor received all the servants who were going
away, saying a kind word to each as he was present-
ed by the mayordomo. " His majesty," wrote Quixa-
da, "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 ofOropesa and the attendants mounted their
horses ; and, crossing the leafless forest, in two hours
the cavalcade halted at the gates of Yuste.
There 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. At the threshold
he was met by the whole brotherhood in procession,
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 83
chanting 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 re-
turned 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 for-
ward with a congratulatory speech, in which, to the
scandal of the courtiers, he addressed 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 presented his friars
to their new brother, each kissing his hand and re-
ceiving his fraternal embrace. During this ceremony,
the retiring retainers, who had all of them attended
their master to fflre journey's close, stood round, ex-
pressing their emotion by tears and lamentations,
which were still heard, late in the evening, round the
gate. Attended by Oropesa and conducted by the
prior, the emperor then 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.
84
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER IV.
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 ^d been living a
Franciscan life in the mountains oFToledo 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 Barto-
lome of Lupiana, was built by the hands of the first
prior and his monks, on the north side of a bleak hill,
near Guadalaxara, in Old Castille. From this high-
land 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 Guadalnpe 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 wool-
len tunic, girt with leather, and a brown woollen scap-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 85
ulary and mantle, of which the fashion and material
had been revealed to St. Bridget, and consecrated by
the use of St. Jerome and of the blessed Mary herself
became more familiar and more favored in city and
hamlet, among the motley liveries of the church. At
Madrid and Segovia, at Seville and Valladolid, 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 Cath-
olic conquerors, and a Jeromite friar was enthroned
as the first archbishop in the purified mosque. The
completion of the superb cloister of St. Engracia, be-
gun 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 jewel-
lery 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 have passed into
a proverb, which thus pointed out the path of prefer-
ment:
He who is a count, and to be a duke aspires,
Let him straight to Guadalupe, and sing among the friars. t
* Xavagiero : Vtaggio fatto in Spagna, sm. 8vo, Vinegia, 1563, pp.
11, 12.
t " Quien es conde, y dessea ser duque,
Metase fraile en Guadalupe."
Hern Nunez: Refranes, fol., Salamanca, 1555, fol. 106.
8
86 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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.
The Escorial and Guadalupe, his houses, land?,
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 Do-
minican preacher, or the inky cloak of the bookish Ben-
edictine. 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 his memora-
ble dream, was flogged by seraphim before the judg-
ment-seat of Heaven. But to none of his rivals, white,
black, or gray, did he yield in the rigor of his religious
observance, in the splendor of his services, in the mu-
nificence of his alms, and in the abundant hospitality
of his table. In his convents, eight hours always, and
on days of festival twelve hours, out of the twenty-
four, were devoted to sacred offices ; and the prior of
the Escorial challenged comparison between the ordi-
nary 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 carrfe in crowds to dine \vith St. Jerome.
The order early planted its standard in the Vera of
Plasencia ; choosing for its camp one of the sweet-
est spots of the sweet valley. Yuste stands on its
northern side, and near its eastern end, about two
leagues west of Xarandilla, and seven leagues east of
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH.
87
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 mul-
berry gardens. The monastery owes its name, 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 favor 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 neighboring con-
vent, armed with an order from the bishop of Plasen-
cia, set upon them, and dispossessed them of their
land and unfinished walls, an act of violence, against
which the Jeromit.es appealed to the archbishop of
Santiago. The judgment of the primate being given
in their favor, they next applied for aid to their neigh-
bor, 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,
* Siguen<;a : Hist, de S. Geronimo, Parte II. p. 191. Some Spanish
writers, and almost all foreign writers, have called it San Yuste, 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.
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
their house would not have been received into the or-
der, but for his generosity in guaranteeing a revenue
sufficient for the maintenance of a prior and twelve
brethren, under a rule in which mendicancy was for-
bidden. The buildings were also erected mainly at
his cost, and his subsequent benefactions were mu-
nificent and many. He was therefore constituted, by
the grateful monks, protector of the convent, and the
distinction became hereditary in his descendants, the
counts of Oropesa.
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 quadrangle 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. Early in the sixteenth century
one of its sons, Fray Pedro de Bejar, was chosen g^n-
eral of the order, and was remarkable for the vigor of
his administration and the boldness and efficacy of
his reforms. The prior Geronimo de Plasencia, a scion
of the great house of Zufiiga, was cited as a model of
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 89
austere and active holiness. The lay brother Melchor
de Yepes, after twice deserting the convent to be-
come a soldier, being crippled in felling a huge chest-
nut tree in the forest, became for the remainder of
his days a pattern of bedridden patience and piety.
Fray Juan de Xeres, an old soldier of the great cap-
tain, was distinguished by the gift of second-sight,
and was nursed upon his death-bed by the eleven
thousand virgins. Still more favored was Fray Rod-
rigo de Ca<jeres, for the blessed Mary herself, in an-
swer 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 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 favorite 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 ser-
vice 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 affront if he was not called to
* A. Fernandez, Hist, de Plasencia, p. 196.
90 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
do it. Amongst his other eccentricities were noticed
his not returning to bed after early matins, but roam-
ing through the cloisters, praying aloud, and telling
his beads ; his buying, begging, 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 this duty, he one day left his stall, and
returned with the truant, like the lost sheep in the
parable, struggling in his stalwart arms. The greater
part of his leisure being spent in reading, he was con-
sulted by the whole convent as an oracle of knowl-
edge ; and he likewise was supposed to be frequently
visited in his 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
survived in the records of the order; but there was
* In the fine and curious Spanish library of Mr. Ford, there is a copy
of the Chronica del R?y D. Alonzo el On^eno, fol., Valladolid, 1551, which
has the following entry on the back of the last leaf: En veinte y dos de
Miyo dd ano de m d.lii. (?) compre yo frai Hernando de Corral este libra
c tntr<Ulo 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 91
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 bor-
rowed 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 with-
out any preparation for gaining his bread except a
slight knowledge 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, \vhere he
slept for the first night under the market tables in the
square of Zocodover. He was found there next morn-
ing by a master tiler, who, pitying his forlorn con-
dition, took him home, and taught him his trade of
making wainscots and pavements of colored tiles, at
which he wrought for ten years for his food and cloth-
ing. At the end of this long apprenticeship, becoming
enamored 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 w r hen the house stood in need of
repair. Being a master of the practical part of build-
ing, he was also frequently employed in other monas-
teries of the order. In the Toledan nunnery of San
Pablo, the operations were so extensive that he was
92 THE CLOISTER LIFE' OF
at work there for several years ; and his biographer
mentions, in his praise, that when his duties ended he
maintained no connection with the nuns, "nor ever
received any billets from them, a snare from which a
friar so placed seldom escapes." ' His architectural
reputation, 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 satisfac-
tion of the emperor. In these secular occupations he
strengthened and improved 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 ; unconscious that he was train-
ing 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,f
continued to reside with the fraternity of Yuste, al-
though he still remained a member of his own con-
vent at Alba de Tormes. In intelligence and man-
ners he was greatly above the vulgar herd of friars,
and was much esteemed 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 diligent
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
* Siguenga: Hist, de la Orden de S. Geron., Partc III. p. 893.
t Chap. II. p. 44.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 93
fifteen hundred 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, Christ-
mas, and other festivals ; and the sick poor in the vil-
lage of Quacos were freely supplied with food, medi-
cine, 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
approbation 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 stories to the
garden and the noontide sun. Each story contained
four chambers, two on either side of a corridor, which
traversed the structure from east to west, and led at
either end into a broad porch, or covered gallery, sup-
ported 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 inva-
lid. The chambers looking 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
northeast 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 altar.
The shape of this opening appears to have been al-
tered after the strictures passed on it by Quixada, for
r it now affords a good view of the space where the
94
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 dies 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 distant, hung upon a rocky
height, which rose like an isle out of the sea of forest.
Immediately below the windows 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 mon-
arch the pain and fatigue of going up and down
stairs. This porch, which was much more spacious
than the eastern, was his favorite seat when filled with
the warmth of the declining day. Commanding the
same view as the cabinet, it looked also upon a small
parterre with a fountain in the centre, and a short cy-
press-alley leading 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 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 EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 95
the Spanish order of Jerome, and the Austrian dy-
nasty of Spain.
The emperor's attendants were lodged in apart-
ments 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 em-
peror'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 far-
ther 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 Je-
romites removed their pot-herbs to a piece of ground
to the eastward, behind some tall 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 commu-
nications 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 all 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 at-
tached to their names.
( Chamberlain (mayor- )
Luis Quixada, <
I domo), J
96
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
189 - 000
54.
Henrique Mathys, Physician, \
I
Guyon de Moron, 5 Kee P er of the ward ' } 400 florins, or 40.
( robe (guardaropa), )
Martin de Gaztelu, Secretary, j
or
William Van Male, f 1 300 florins, or 30.
Charles Prevost," Gentlemen of the i 300 ' Qr 3Q
0-ricr BodarM } chamber (ayndas de K OQ or20 .
Martin Donjart, [ Comoro), j 300
O] .
Giovanni Torriano, Watchmaker, J 75 ' 000 maravedis, or
i 21 10s.
each 250 florins, or
21 10s.
Nicholas Beringuen, f Gentlemen of the
William Wykerslooth, I chamber, of the sec-
--- r 25.
Gabriel De Suet, [
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, J it appears that he considered
* The spelling of these Flemish names, both in the printed pages of
Sandoval and the MS. of Gonzalez is most inaccurate and perplexing. '
"Prevost 1 ' is, in many cases, turned into Pul>cst, Dirk is Chirique, and
others are disguised beyond the powers of detection of any one but a
Fleming. Even the Italian Torriano, whose name, in its Spanish famil-
iar form, was Juanelo Torriano, sometimes figures as Juan el Latormno.
In turning the maravcclis and florins into English money, I have been
guided chiefly by Josef Garcia Cavallero : Breve Cotejo y Valance de
las Pesas y Medidas de rarias Naciones. 4to, Madrid, 1731.
t Xo doubt the person alluded to in Chap. III., p. 54, note, as Bodo-
arte.
t Gaztelu to Vazquez, 24th of August, 1587.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE ^FTH. 97
the mayordomo's rank entitled him to the same sal-
ary as that which had been enjoyed by the chamber-
lain 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
Quacos, where lodgings were likewise provided for
the laundresses, the only female portion of the house-
hold, and many of the inferior servants. So many of
them being Flemings, a Flemish capuchin, Fray John
Alis, was established at Xarandilla for the conven-
ience of those who wished to confess.
On the 4th of February, the emperor awoke in his
new home, in excellent health and spirits. He spent
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 obliged to procure a supply from Val-
ladolid. 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 attend-
ance of the consulting doctors, dismissing them with
all courtesy, and letters to the princess-regent.
9
98 ^THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 loath, by
pulpit declamation, has delighted to discover such a
model ascetic in the emperor at Yuste. " His apart-
ments, when prepared for his reception," says Sando-
val, " seemed rather to have been newly pillaged by
the enemy, than for a great prince; the walls were
bare, except in his bedchamber, which was hung with
black cloth ; the only valuables in the house were a
few pieces of plate of the plainest kind ; his dress, al-
ways black, was usually 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 effect. The
emperor's conventual abode, judging by the inventory
of its contents,! was probably not worse furnished than
many of the palaces in which his reigning days had
been passed. He was not surrounded at Yuste with
the .splendors of his host of Augsburg; but neither
did the fashions of the sumptuous Fugger prevail at
Ghent or Innsbruck, Valsain or Segovia. For the
hangings of his bed-room he preferred sombre black
* Sandoval, Tom. II. p. 825. Wilhelm Snouekaert, who had been
the emperor's librarian at Brussels, and who, under the more euphoni-
ous name of Zcnocarus, wrote De Republica Vita, $~c. Cces. Aug. Quinti
Curoli A/.r. Monarch^, fol., Bruges, 1559, says (p. 289) that Charles had
only twelve 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 Filifjjx) de
Austria, 3 vols , 4to, (Vicenza, 1605,) Part II. fol. 151, reduces this
slender retinue to four.
t Drawn up after his decease, by Quixada, Gaztelu, and Regla. An
abstract of the document will be found in the Appendix.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 99
cloth to gayer arras; -but he had brought from Flan-
ders 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 foot-
stool belonged. Of gold and silver plate, he had up-
wards 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,
and therefore it is 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 tbe 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 taffety and
furred nightcap, like a great codpiece," as Roger As-
cham 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
krfot and patch a broken sword-belt, until it would
have disgraced a private trooper ; f and he even car-
* Eng. Works, p. 375.
t Salazar de Mendoza : Origen de las Dignidades de Castilla, fol., To-
ledo, 1618, p. 161.
100 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ried 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 miscel-
laneous 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 col-
lars and badges of various sizes of the Golden Fleece,f
some crucifixes of gold and silver, various charms,
such as the bezoar-stone against the plague, and gold
rings from England against cramp, a morsel of the
true cross, and other relics, three or four pocket-
watches, and several dozen pairs of spectacles.
If the emperor despised the vulgar gewgaws of
wealth and power, his retreat was adorned with some
pictures, few, but well chosen, and worthy of a dis-
cerning 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,
* Rankc : Ottoman and Spanish Empires, Kelly's translation, 8vo,
London, 1843, p. 30.
t 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, " jiar la grace de Dieu et la volonte nationale" emperor
Napoleon III., of France. It is a compliment which the Spanish crown
very likely lias it in its power to pay ; as the emperor in the cours^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 connecting
ornament, as figured in Lord Downes's Orders and Batons of the Dnke of
]\'<//in(jton, obi. fol., London, 1852, is plainly modern and spurious.
No such ornament is found on the medals or contemporary prints of
Charles V.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH.
101
filled the apartments with poetry and beauty ; and, as
specimens of his skill in another style, there were por-
traits of the recluse himself and of his empress. Our
Lord bearing his cross, and several other sacred pic-
tures, 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 Raphael. 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 plain medallions, likewise helped by
their effigies to enliven the apartments of the empe-
ror, 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 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 conduct-
ed by angels into life eternal. And another master-
piece of the great Venetian St. Jerome praying in
his cavern, with a sweet landscape in the distance
* Fr. Fran, de Los Santos : Description del Escorted, fol., Madrid, 1657,
fol. 71.
9*
102 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
is also reputed to have formed the apposite 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 doctrine, by Dr. Constantine de la Fuente,*
who died soon after, a prisoner for heresy in the dun-
geons of Seville, and by Fray Pedro de Soto,f a lumi-
nary of Trent, and long the emperor's confessor, and
now employed by Philip to preach the Roman super-
stition in the not unwilling halls of Oxford.
Divine philosophy was represented by the writings
of Ptolemy and Appian, and by Italian, French, and
CastillianJ versions of Boethius De Consolatione, a
work which had the honor of being translated into
our English tongue by Alfred and by Chaucer ; and
which for a thousand years was preeminently the
book which no gentleman's library could be without.
For historical reading, there were Caesar's Commen-
taries in Italian, the German Wars, by the grand
commander of Alcantara, and some sheets in manu-
script of the great chronicle upon which the canon
Ocampo was now at work at Zamora. Besides the
Psalter, the only poetry in the collection was the
Chevalier Delibere of Ollivier de la Marche, and the
Castillian translation, versified from the emperor's
prose by Acuna,|| the latter being in manuscript, and
* Doctrina Christiana, 8vo, Antwerp, s. a.
t Institntionum Christianarum, Libri III., 16mo. August, 1548.
J Probably that by Fr. Alberto de Aguayo, 4to, Sevilla, 1521.
Chap. III. p. 75.
|| Chap. III. p. 59.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 103
both adorned with colored 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 Ho-
landa. as well as of the bolder pencil of Titian ; and
there were also several illuminated rnissals and hours,
and a quantity of maps of Italy, Flanders, Germany,
and the Indies. Most of the books were bound in crim-
son velvet, with clasps and corners of silver, the sump-
tuous 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 hog-skin.
Music, ever one of the favorite 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 sol-
ace 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 manage-
ment of the choir and organ, the emperor took a lively
interest^ and from the window of his bedroom 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 would
* BeckforcTs Italy, Spain, and Portugal, fcap. 8ro, London, 1840, p. 323.
104 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
frequently mention the name of the offender, with the
addition of hideputa bermejo, or some other epithet
savoring more of the camp than the cloister. A sing-
ing-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 composed and presented to the emperor a
book of masses and motets, one of the former was
soon selected for performance at Yuste. When it
was ended, the imperial critic remarked to his confes-
sor that Guerrero, the hidepula! 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 ernperor
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 foremost 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 Siguenca, whence
he came forth an expert dialectician, and soon rose to
be the most popular preacher in Castille. His theo-
logical professor being appointed archbishop of Gran-
ada, took him into his service, and in that capacity
Villalva had an opportunity of studying for a year
.the best Italian orators at the council of Trent. He
* Sandoval, II. p. 828.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 105
was afterwards preacher to the great hospital at Za-
ragoza, whence he was summoned to Yuste. There
his eloquence charmed the emperor, as it had charmed
the peasants of Zamora ; and he so eclipsed his col-
leagues, 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 a while to his old admirers.
Fray Juan de A^oloras, a monk from the great
convent of Our Lady of Prado, near Valladolid, was
also an eminent divine and schoolman, and he had so
successfully combated 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 San-
tandres, from the convent of Santa Catalina, at Tala-
vera, was less eloquent than his compeers, but high-
ly 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 invitation 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
morning, father Regla appeared at his bedside to in-
quire how he had passed the night, and to assist him
in his private devotions. He 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
106 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
hands were so disabled with gout, that carving, which
he nevertheless insisted on doing for himself, was a
tedious 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 Regla was sent for to settle the point
out of Pliny. The cloth being drawn, the confessor
usually read aloud from one of the emperor's favorite
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 Bernar-
dino 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 listened with profound attention ; and if sick-
ness or business compelled him to be absent, he never
failed to send a formal excuse to the prior, and to re-
quire from his confessor an account of what had been
preached or read. The rest of the afternoon was de-
voted to seeing the official people from court, or to
the transaction of business with his secretary.
Sometimes the workshop of Torriano was the re-
source of the emperor's spare time. He was very
fond of clocks and watches, and curious in reckoning
to a fraction the hours of his retired leisure. The
Lombard had long been at work upon an elaborate
astronomical timepiece, which was to perform not
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 107
only the ordinary duties of a clock, but to tell the
days of the month and year, and to denote the move-
ments of the planets. In this delicate labor, 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 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
containing the bell and hammer. Charles was great-
ly pleased with the ingenious toy ; he inquired what
inscription the maker intended to put upon it; and
being told that nothing had been contemplated be-
yond the words, IANNELLVS . TVRRIANVS . CREMONENSIS .
HOROLOGIORVM . ARCHITECTOR . added FACILE . PRIN-
CEPS . which accordingly made part of the epigraph.
On the back of the clock Juanelo caused his own por-
trait to be graven, encircling 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 . FACERE . CONABERIS.
He likewise made for the emperor a smaller clock,
less multiform and ambitious in its functions, and in-
closed 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
108 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
lady who danced on the table to the sound of her own
tambourine.* 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 as if alive ; toys which, at first,
scared the prior and his monks out of their wits, and
for a while gained the artificer the dangerous fame
of a wizard.f
Sometimes the emperor fed his pet birds, which ap-
pear to have succeeded in his affections the stately
wolf-hounds that followed at his heels 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 accomplished cavalier,
of whom his soldiers used to say, " that, had he not
been born a king, he would have been the prince of
light-horsemen," and whose seat and hand on the
* Ambrosio de Morales : Antiguedades de Esjmna, fol., Alcala de
Henares, 1575, fol. 93. Morales knew Torriano well, and appears to
have seen the clock which he so minutely describes, although he does
not say where it was ultimately placed.
t Strada : De Bella Bely., Lib. I.
t Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., II. p. 825, and Siguen^a, III. p. 192,
whence many of these details are taken.
J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Vida del Emp. Carlos V., 4to, Brussels,
1656. p. 263.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 109
bay charger presented to him by our bluff king Hal,*
won, at Calais gate, the applause of the English
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.
* Stow's Annals, fol., London, 1631, p. 511.
10
110 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER V.
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 Lachaulx
complained of nothing but the Jeromite neighbors.
" His majesty," he said, " was delighted with the
place, and still more were the friars delighted to see
him among them, an event which they had almost
ceased to hope for. May it please God that he shall
find them endurable, for they are ever apt to be im-
portunate, especially those who are such blockheads
as some of the fraternity here seem to be." Lachaulx
himself had apparently recovered from his ague, and
become reconciled to the climate of Estremadura, for
being one of the chamberlains who had been placed
on the retired list, he made the pilgrimage to Guada-
lupe, and afterwards 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. Ill
retreat was all he could wish it, he would not, in tak-
ing his own ease, fail to assist by word and deed such
measures as might be necessary for the furtherance
of those great affairs of which the king, his son, had
now 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
contentment, or an approach to contentment, returned
to the troubled minds of the household. Secretary
Gaztelu candidly avowed that he had become recon-
ciled to Yuste, and that as a residence it was far bet-
ter than Xarandilla. Quixada admitted that the place
seemed to agree with his master, and that his general
health was excellent. While acknowledging the re-
ceipt 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 as-
sistance to the high altar to make his offering. " You
cannot think," writes he to Vasquez, " how well and
plump he looks ; and his fresh color is to me quite
astonishing. But," he adds mournfully, " 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 complete-
112 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ly restored by the air of Ynste 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 greater part of his residence in Spain,
from his landing at Laredo in September, 1556, to the
3d of May, 1558. his public despatches were always
headed " the emperor," and addressed to " Juan Vaz-
quez de Molina, my secretary." He wrote not only
with the authority, but in the formal style, of a sover-
eign, 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 dis-
pute about precedence, the great question of diplo-
macy until the first French revolution, arising at the
court of Lisbon between the ambassadors of France
and Spain, he accredited the Spaniard as ambassador
from himself as well as from his son, and so foiled
the pretensions of the Frenchman. It soon became
known that the recluse at Yuste had as much power
as the regent at Valladolid, and the gate was there-
fore besieged with suitors. Women presented them-
selves, 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
Valladolid. One Anton Sanchez, a venerable coun-
tryman from Criptana, came to complain of the mal-
administration of the villages and lands of the order
of Santiago ; he seemed respectable as well as vener-
able, and was kindly received and dismissed with let-
* Relations of Badovaro. See Chap. II. p. 39.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 113
ters of recommendation 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 despatch-
es, losing all patience, made his way across the moun-
tains to lodge his complaint at Yuste. The emperor
received him with perfect courtesy, and transmitted
orders to Valladolid that his business should be con-
cluded, and he sent home forthwith.
It has been frequently asserted that the emperor's
life at Yuste was a long repentance for his resignation
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
historians have found it easier to invent than to inves-
tigate. An opinion certainly prevailed, even among
those who had access to good political information,!
that Charles would resume power when his health
was sufficiently reestablished, an opinion founded,
perhaps, on the fact, that the cession of the imperial
crown was still incomplete, and on the difficulty
which the world found in believing that the first
prince in Christendom had, of his own free will, de-
scended for ever from the first throne in the world.
But, however it may have arisen, the notion was jus-
tified by no word or deed of the emperor. So far
from regretting his retirement, Charles refused to en-
tertain several proposals that he should quit it. Al-
though he had abdicated the Spanish crowns, Philip
* G. Leti : Vita dele Emp. Carlo V., 4 vols., 12mo, Amsterd., 1700,
IV. 362, 363. Amelot de la Houssaye : Memoires, 2 vols., 1 2mo, Amst.,
1700,1. 294.
t Relaiioiie of Badovaro.
10*
114 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 re-
fusing the supplies, was desirous that her father should
summon and attend a Cortes at Monzon, in which
the oath might be solemnly taken to the new king.
The emperor's disinclination 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 necesssary to assemble in Navarre, and at one
mournful moment he had actually taken it into con-
sideration whether he would leave his choir, his ser-
mons, 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 covert-
ly 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 inter-
ference in the internal affairs of the empire, and Span-
ish influence would be wofully weakened, in the
duchy of Milan especially, and generally throughout
Europe. But on this point Charles would listen nei-
ther 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 ful-
filment of the exact conditions to which he had sub-
scribed at Brussels. Philip, on his side, seems to have
been as free from jealousy as his father was free from
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 115
repentance. Although frequently implored by his sis-
ter to return to Spain and relieve her of the burden of
power, he continued in Flanders, maintaining 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 char-
acter: his father was the one wise and strong man
who crossed his path whom he never suspected, un-
dervalued, or used ill. The jealousy of which he is
popularly accused, however, seems at first sight prob-
able, 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 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 mines of Guadalcanal. The sum thus raised must
have fluctuated from year to year, but it was estimat-
* The technical words of Gaztelu are, ' ; derechos de once y seis al
millar," " 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 millar," meaning one
sixteenth of a thousand, or about 6^ per cent, of the crown rents, the
word " on^a," or ounce, the j 6 of a pound, being frequently used to denote
that fraction.
116 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ed by one writer* at twelve thousand ducats, or about
fifteen hundred pounds sterling, a provision scarcely
amounting to the half of that which his will directed
to be made for his natural son, Don John. A sum of
thirty thousand ducats was also lying at his disposal
in the fortress of Simancas. Soon after the emperor
had settled himself at Yuste, he sent Gaztelu to Valla-
dolid to arrange with Vazquez about the time and
mode of paying the instalments of his revenue. He
was likewise instructed to provide for the regular pay-
ment of certain alms to the convents in which daily
prayers were to be said for the emperors 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 favorite idol of Madrid. The envoy returned
from Valladolid on the 8th of March, bringing the
good news that the mines of Guadalcanal were pro-
ducing in great and unusual abundance, and that the
king of Portugal had consented that the infanta Mary
should visit her mother in Spain. The despatches
from Yuste make no complaints of that unpunctuali-
ty 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 ad-
vice appears to have been followed ; for the only other
remark on the subject is one made by Charles him-
self, " the money for the expenses of my house al-
ways comes to hand in very good time." $
* Sandoval. t Gaztelu to Vazquez, June 15th, 1557.
1 "La provision de dinero para mi casa llega siempre a muy bien
tiempo." Emperor to Vazquez, September 22d, 1557.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 117
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 Olivares, 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 regions was embodied
in the proverb, used by expectants heart-sick with de-
ferred 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 Shy-
* " No se logra mas que ha/.ienda de las IndJas." Mtmoires curieux
envoyez de Madrid, sin. 8vo, Paris, 1670.
118 THE CLOISTER LIFE OP
lock, preferred keeping 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
contrary 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 adven-
turers, 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 expect-
ed, the robbers who proposed to buy, and the victims
who were required to sell, differed widely about the
price. The places were refused, the assignats 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 officers 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 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 119
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 offenders, and place their persons in du-
rance, 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 con-
sequences, 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 offering, 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,
urged at intervals to despatch by the impatient inqui-
ries transmitted from Yuste. It was not till Septem-
ber 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 com-
mercial 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,
* t; Soy bueno por ello aunque tengo la muerte entre los dientes,
holgarc dc hacerlo." Einp. to Princess-regent, 1st April, 1557.
120 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
and take such a course as would keep them in good
humor. 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 neighboring 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 deter-
mined to lay them before his father for his consid-
eration and advice. For this important mission he
selected Ruy Gomez de flilva, count of Melito, after-
wards so well known as prince of EbolL This cele-
brated favorite, now in his fortieth year, was head
of a considerable Portuguese 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 Philip from the cra-
dle, he had been the playmate of his childhood, and
the friend of his youth ; he had accompanied the
prince on his travels, and had supported the timid and
awkward knight at the tournay 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 heir-
ess 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 magnificent bishop of Ar-
ras, and he now ranked as one of the most important
personages who stood near the Spanish throne.*
* Luis de Salazar: Historia de la Casa de Silva, 2 vols, fol., Madrid,
1685. II. 456.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 121
Charles had a high opinion of the favorite's prudence
and abilities ; he had for some days looked with anx-
iety for his arrival, and he now received him with
every demonstration of cordiality. 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 favored envoy arrived there early on the 23d of
March, and was closeted for five hours with the em-
peror. Part of his message was an entreaty on behalf
of the king, that the ernperor, if his health permitted,
and state affairs 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 Flan-
ders to receive the oath of allegiance as heir apparent
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 re-
turned.f The journey, however, was never made by
Don Carlos, his grandfather considering that his fitful
and passionate temperament rendered it as yet un-
safe to produce him to the world. J Next day, the
count had a second audience as long as the first; and
the day following, the 25th of March, after hearing
mass at daybreak, he mounted his horse and took the
road to Toledo.
The external affairs of the kingdom certainly re-
quired at this time counsel of the greatest sagacity,
* Philip's original letter of the 2d February, 1557, to Ruy Gomez de
Silva, is given in the MS. of Gonzalez,
t Salazar: Hist, de la Casa de Silva, II. 473.
J Luis Cabrera de Cordova : Filipe Segundo, fol., Madrid, 1619, p. 144.
11
122 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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. Co-
ligny, 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 se-
cretly 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 Na-
varre ; 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 pon-
tiff. 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 Caraffas and the inefficiency of their warlike prep-
arations, had not as yet cooled the ardor of their
French allies, nor become fully evident to their antag-
onist, 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 Castillians 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 123
he was, had stormed Vicovaro and put the Spanish
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."f
The aid of the great Turk enabled the Most Chris-
tian 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 prosperity. 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 at-
tain is a striking proof of the mutual jealousy and
distrust which rendered the Christian powers incapa-
ble of any combined and sustained effort for the com-
* Alex. Andrea : De la Guerra de Kama y de Napoles, Ano de MD. LTI
y LVII, 4to, Madrid, 1589, pp. 146, 151.
t J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Hesultas de la Vida de Don Fern. Alvarez
de Toledo, Duque de Alba, 4to, Milan, 1643, p. 66.
124 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
mon interests of Christendom. From Cadiz to Patras
there was hardly a spot which had not suffered, and
none which felt itself safe, from the wild marauders
from the shores of Numidia. Better built, and better
manned and equipped, than any other vessels on the
ocean, their light galiots and brigantines were ready
at all seasons, put out in all weathers, and, stooping
on their prey with the swiftness or precision of the
cormorant, overbore resistance or baffled pursuit.
Sailing in great fleets, they laid waste entire districts
and carried oft' whole populations. A few years be-
fore, Barbarossa had sold at one time, at his beautiful
home on the Bosphorus, where his white totnb still
gleams amongst its cypresses, no less than sixteen
thousand Christian captives into slavery. It was not
only the seaman, 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 nun-
nery 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 appeared
off the Ligurian shore, the persecuted duke of Savoy
wisely fled inland from his castle of Nice. Yet Eu-
rope 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 125
forth on their beneficent pilgrimages with a ransom of
itself sufficient to perpetuate the evils which the order
of redemption was intended to relieve. Meanwhile,
with such a navy at his disposal as that of Tunis, and
Tripoli, and Algiers, and such commanders as Barba-
rossa, Sala, or Mami the Arnaut, the Sultan wielded
the greatest maritime power in the Mediterranean,
and was the most 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 hun-
dred 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
11*
126 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
was less tractable. Although his see was very rich,
and he himself an illegitimate scion of the house of
Austria, it was not until he had received several hints
from the emperor himself that he consented to ad-
vance one hundred thousand ducats. Fernando de
Valdes, archbishop of Seville, was, however, the prel-
ate 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 century. In spite of his
seventy-four years, his abilities and energies were un-
impaired, 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 Valladolid.* He left, as the principal
memorials of his name, as archbishop, the crown of
masonry and the weathercock Faith on the beautiful
belfry of his cathedral at Seville ; and as inquisitor,
two thousand four hundred death-warrants in the ar-
chives of the holy office of Spain.
When this astute prelate received from Ruy Go-
mez de Silva the unwelcome notice that the king ex-
pected 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
* D. Ortiz de Zuiiiga: Annales de Sevilla, fol., Madrid, 1677, pp. 503,
632.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 127
without returning any definite reply. At length the
emperor himself addressed him 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 preferment 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 pro-
foundest reverence for his Catholic Caesarean majesty,
and gratitude for his past favors, he assured him that
he never had had the good fortune to possess four
hundred thousand ducats in his life. 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 por-
tion 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-re-
gent, therefore, directed Hernando de Ochoa, one of
the royal accountants, to proceed to St. Martin de la
Fuente, and reason the archbishop into compliance.
128 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
The details of the interview are given in a letter from
Ochoa to the emperor.* Poverty was still the plea
urged by the prelate, but in a style very different from
the courtly tone of his letters from Yuste. How could
he find so much money? Where was it to come
from ? He had never had one hundred thousand du-
cats 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 ac-
countant assured his lordship that he labored under a
mistake ; taking his archbishopric at the admitted an-
nual value of sixty thousand ducats, he proceeded to
anatomize the prelate's annual expenditure, and com-
pare it with his revenue; and considering that it was
notorious that his lordship never gave dinners or
bought plate, he ended by advising him to offer as a
compromise the sum of one hundred and fifty thou-
sand ducats. But he also recommended him to re-
turn 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
* May 20th.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 129
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
14th of May, and on the 15th of July. On each occa-
sion he had a long interview with the emperor to re-
port his progress in the king's affairs. In his last visit
he was accompanied by Monsieur Ezcurra and Mon-
sieur 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 for fifty years.* But it was of great impor-
tance to keep alive the hopes of the pretender, who,
like a true Bourbon, was intriguing both with France
and Spain, and capable of any treachery to either for
the slightest gain to himself. In August, he was re-
ported 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
* In one of the papers mentioned in Chap. III. p. 54. 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. Pa-
piers de Granuelle, IV. 500.
130 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
voyage to the Guadalquivir. It was thought neces-
sary, therefore, to strengthen the forces of Albur-
querque, and to use double vigilance in guarding the
passes into Navarre ; and it was now that the rumor
arose _of the emperor's intention to take the command
there in person. During the summer, a considerable
body of troops had been embarked at Laredo, for
Flanders. Ruy Gomez de Silva followed, proba-
bly about the end of July, taking with him a sec-
ond detachment, 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 llth
of June, and on the 15th 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 a while ; 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 of the baby heir. The
king himself fell into premature decrepitude, both of
body and mind. The little Sebastian, 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 of-
fered 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 or-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 131
dered the boy out of the room for thus desiring to be
treated like 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 secre-
tary of state to send a speedy and ample supply of
the best and deepest mourning for the imperial house-
hold, 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 king-
dom. 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, mayordomo of Don Carlos, was soon
after despatched to Yuste, to be the bearer of the em-
peror's condolences to his sister, the widowed queen
Catherine. He arrived, with the mourning for the
household, on the 3d of July, was admitted to a long
audience on the 4th, and at daybreak on the 5th set
out for Lisbon. He was furnished with very minute
instructions, and was specially charged to make no
mention of the princess of Brazil in his conversations
with the queen or the ministers. But while the ern-
peror wished to avoid all apparent interference, he
was nevertheless very desirous that his daughter
* Menezes : Chronica, p. 43.
132 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 fre-
quently 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 car-
dinal 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, in-
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 vigor. He held Coligny blockaded in St.
Quentin, a place of some strength on the steep bank
of the Somme. The constable de Montmorency, who
commanded 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
opposition, the duke seized that opportunity of pass-
ing the river with his whole force. By a succession
of skilful manoeuvres, he succeeded in surprising
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 133
Montmorency, 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, Turenne, and other French
leaders of note, were slain ; and the constable and
four princes of the blood, the Rhinegrave, and a host
of the French nobility, with cannon, munition, and
countless banners, fell into the hands of the Span-
iard.
This great battle was fought on the 10th of August.
The first news was conveyed to the emperor in a brief
despatch from Vazquez, dated on the 20th, and prob-
ably reached Yuste about the 23d. A more detailed
account, which was afterwards printed at Vallado-
lid, soon arrived, brought or closely followed by a
courier sent by the king from Flanders. The empe-
ror listened to the intelligence with the greatest inter-
est, and ordered the messenger to be rewarded with
a gold chain and a handsome sum of money.* On
the 7th of September, a solemn mass was celebrated
in the conventual church, in token of thanksgiving,
and considerable alms were distributed from the im-
perial purse to the neighboring poor. The emperor
was much disappointed to learn that his son had not
been present in the field, and bestowed his maledic-
* Gonzalez says 150,000 ducats, which is probably a slip of the pen
for maravedis. 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. Relatione of Badovaro.
12
134 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
tion 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 capi-
tal, 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 procras-
tinating, wasted the golden moments and the enthu-
siasm of his troops on the capture of a few insignifi-
cant fortresses in Picardy.
The triumph of the duke of Savoy in the Nether-
lands had a singular 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 prom-
ises. 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
little more than one half of the papal auxiliaries
which had been promised him ; and he had not ad-
* Don Quixote, Part I. Cap. 22.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 135
v a need far into the enemy's territory before the inso-
lence of the Roman leader, the marquis of Monte-
bello, compelled him to turn that Caraffa ignominious-
ly out of his camp. With zeal thus cooled, and with
forces quite inadequate to effect any permanent con-
quest for France, Guise therefore confined his opera-
tions 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 them-
selves 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 monuments, 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 re-
called ; 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 con-
clude a close bargain with his foe. The terms ob-
tained were no less disgraceful to Paul and to Philip
than advantageous to the Roman see. The Pop'e
was bound not to take part against Spain during the
* J. V. Rustant: Historic, del Duque de Alba, 2 torn., 4to, Madrid,
1751,11.59.
136 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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
papal rebels, he permitted the pontiff to except from
it Marc Antonio Colonna and the chief Roman mag-
nates who had been the most active of Alba's allies,
and whose fortunes were best worth the acceptance
of the plundering Caraffas.*
The emperor had ever regarded Paul's 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 ex-
communication, which were frantically fulminated
against his son, were forbidden to be published 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
rigor; the quarrel was none of his seeking; and in
his endeavors to avoid it he had done all that was re-
quired 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 pri-
mate 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.
* J. V. Rustant : Hist. delD.de Alba, II. 61.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 137
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 senti-
ment 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 a 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 which he 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 con-
ditions, being probably still unknown at Valladolid,
did not then reach Yuste. Writing by his master's
desire for fuller information, Quixada confided to the
secretary of state that the emperor was very much
afraid that the terms obtained were bad, having gener-
ally observed that a treaty was sure to prove unfavor-
able 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 increased 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 at 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
12*
138 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
more. He was laid up next day with an attack of
gout, which the people about him ascribed to the vex-
ation which he had suffered; and so deep an impres-
sion 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,
unfavorable. The prince's governor, Don Garcia de
Toledo, was ordered to transmit to Yuste regular ac-
counts 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 em-
peror took a lively interest in his grandson. Carlos
is painted by his tutor as a sickly, sulky, and back-
ward boy, certainly very unlikely to grow up the pa-
triot into which the poet's license and the historian's
paradox have turned him at a later period of his un-
happy life. On the 13th of July, Don Garcia com-
plained to the emperor that his pupil was lazy at his
books, and constipated 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 27th of August, he wrote
that Don Carlos was better in health, but so choleric
in temper, that they were thinking of putting him un-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 139
der a course of physic for that disorder ; but that they
would wait until the emperor's pleasure was 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 Iru-
cos (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 still to
acknowledge that he had failed to imbue him with the
slightest love of learning, in which he consequently
made but little 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 horse-
back, that they were afraid of letting him ride much,
for fear of accidents. To the emperor, who had loved
and practised all manly sports with the ardor 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 wofully
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 Ve-
netian ambassador at the court of Bmxelles transmit-
ted to his republic. He reported that Don Carlos was
140 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
a youth of a haughty and turbulent temper, which his
tutors vainly endeavored 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.*
* Relatione of Badovaro.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 141
CHAPTER VI.
THE VISIT OF THE QUEENS.
DURING the whole of the year 1557 the emperor's
health gave him but 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 salubrious place in the world, and Yuste the
most salubrious spot in the Vera.* In spite of gener-
ally eating too much, Charles slept well, and his gout
made itself felt only in occasional twinges ; so effec-
tually did the senna-wine counteract the syrup of
quinces which he drank at breakfast, the Rhine-wine
which washed down his midday meal, and the beer
which, though denounced by the doctor, was the habit-
ual beverage of the 'patient whenever 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 lit-
tle vinegar sprinkled on his face, and suffered no sub-
sequent ill effect. About the middle of December, he
* Siguen^a, III. 200.
142 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
complained of feebleness, and of phlegm in his throat ;
and, for a while, forewent wine and beer, and drank
hypocras and hot water. With these exceptions, he
\vas 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 extended
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 pil-
laged by the hungry peasants ; and, in the Campo de
Aranuelo, almost the \vhole population of several
villages perished of starvation. In the autumn, se-
vere 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
* Yieyra : 6Vmoens, Vol. XV. p. 195. Quoted in Southey's Common-
place Book, I. p. 408.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 143
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, it won its way into every
cottage garden in Europe.* Yuste was a very para-
dise for these simple tastes and harmless pleasures.
The emperor spent part of the summer in embellish-
ing 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. 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 gamekeeper
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 cam-
paigns 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 af-
* Eene Rapin, in his Hortorum Libri, IV., 4to, Paris, 1665, Lib. I.
ver. 952 - 954, thus celebrates the event :
" Hunc primus pceno quondam de littore florem,
Dum premeret duro obsidione Tunetum
Carolus Austriades terne transmisit Ibere."
144 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
fairs 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.
During the spring, Luis Quixada's home-sick heart
was gladdened by leave of absence, a favor accord-
ed 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 com-
ing back any more, to eat asparagus and truffles
in Estremadura.* He set out on the 3d of April, and
the impatient English courier who had come the day
before with his complaints of Castillian dilatoriness f
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 on 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 counsel
with the mayordomo in the affair of the meeting
with her daughter, the impracticable infanta of Por-
tugal.
* " Bien me alegrara, no volver a Estremadnra a comer esparragos y
tarmos de tierra." To Juan Vazquez, March 28th, 1557.
t Chap. V. p. 113.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 145
At court and at his house at Villagarcia, Quixa-
da remained 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 favor of the Jeromite robe. " The
friars," writes Gaztelu, in undisguised glee, " do not
understand his majesty ; and now at last he has found
out, I think, his mistake in supposing that they are
fit to be employed in his service in any way what-
ever." It was high time, therefore, that Quixada
should resume the command, and drive the monks
back over the frontier. He arrived at Yuste on the
21st 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.
Rumors had reached Valladolid, probably in conse-
quence 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 de-
sirous 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 em-
* " 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."
13
146 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
peror having so urged him to remain, that it was im-
possible to refuse, he had now resolved, he said, to
move his wife and household into Estremadura, 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 ; 30th of Au-
gust, 1557." *
During this summer, in Fray Juan de Ortega f the
convent lost one of its best inmates, and the emperor
and his household their favorite 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 24th 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 asso-
ciates 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 consid-
ered him unjustly treated, for he almost immediately
* En Yuste : mal haya quien aqui lo edifice ; a. los 30 de Augusto,
1557.
t Chap. II. p. 44 ; Chap. IV. p. 92.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 147
afterwards offered him a mitre in the Indies. But Or-
tega declined the honor, 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 consid-
ered 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 Castillian, 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 humor, keen satire, and vivid pic-
tures 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 unknown ; and it was not until
after the death of Diego 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 conjec-
tured that it must have been written in his college
days at Salamanca.* Whether the glory belong to
* The story is told by Siguenca, II. p. 184. N. Antonio includes
Lazarillo 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., 8vo, New
York, 1849, 1. 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
148 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
the layman or the churchman, the monk who was ca-
pable of so chivalrously refusing a mitre, and who
was supposed to be capable of writing the first and
one of the best 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 teased 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, re-
sold it to a fresh purchaser, who of course left nothing
but bare boughs behind him. Weary of this persecu-
tion, Charles at last sent for Don Juan de Vega, pres-
ident of Castille, who arrived on the 25th 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 28th ; and a few days afterwards several cul-
prits were apprehended. But whilst Castillian jus-
laborious bibliographer of Spain being also a churchman of one of
the most curious and valuable portions of her literature, the novels.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 149
\
tice 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 light.*
Of the unofficial visitors who paid their respects
during this year at Yuste, one of the earliest and cer-
tainly the most remarkable was Juan Gines Sepul-
veda, the historian, whose flowing style and pure La-
tinity gained him the title of the Livy of Spain. This
able writer had formerly held the post of chaplain to
the emperor, and tutor to prince Philip ; and was now
one of the historiographers-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 preferment which had fallen to his lot,
was the archpriesthood of Ledesma, to which he had
been recently presented. The fine weather early in
March had tempted him to set out for this new bene-
fice ; but being overtaken in the mountains of Gua-
dalupe by storms, which even the tempest-stilling bells
of Our Lady's holy church f 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 Van Male.
Charles, who had not seen him for eighteen years, re-
ceived him with great cordiality, and conversed with
him with much interest on the progress of his history.
The learned traveller was highly delighted with his
patron's kindness, the beauty of the place, and his
* Siguenqa, III. 198.
t Talavera, Hist, de Na. Sera, de Guadalupe, fol. 16.
13*
150 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 sur-
prising that it nearly cost the sedentary doctor of sixty
his life. He said the ascent was like the path of vir-
tue, 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 descent yet
more frightful than the acclivity.* 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 al-
ternate 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. f
Don Luis de Avila was a frequent visitor at Yuste.
Charles had always been fond of the society of his
lively Quintius Curtius ; and the historian regarded
the emperor with that enthusiastic admiration with
which a great man seldom fails to inspire his follow-
ers. The lords of Mirabel long preserved, probably
* The Works and the Days, V. 288.
t He calls it " iter totius Hispanise diflicillimum " ; describing it in
the letter to Van Male, in his Epistolce, sm. 8vo, Salamant. 155", Ep.
CII., fol. 274, or Opera, 4to, Madrid, 1780, III. p. 351.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 151
still possess, an heirloom brought into the Zufiiga
family by Avila, a marble bust of his favorite hero,
chiselled by the masterly hand of the elder Leoni, and
inscribed with this loyal doggrel,
Carolo quinto et c assai questo,
Perche si sa per tutto il mondo il resto.
Avila likewise caused some of the battles of the im-
perial captain to be painted in fresco on various ceil-
ings 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 marquis 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 ex-
travagance. The bold dragoon concludes his German
commentaries with this blast of the true Castillian
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 vindi-
cate the power and dignity of the nation which ruled
the world. In less than a year our emperor conquered
this province, whose matchless valor has been con-
fessed both by ancient and modern times. In thirty
years Charlemagne subjugated Saxony ; our emperor
was master of it ah 1 in less than three months. The
greatness of this war demands a nobler pen than mine,
* A. Ponz: Viageen Espana, 18 vols., sm. 8vo, Madrid, 1784, VII.
117, 118, 122.
152 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
which tells nothing but the naked truth, and what I
have seen with my own eyes of the exploits of him
who ought as far to excel in fame the great captains
of past ages, as he excels them all in valor 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 favor that the em-
peror one day ordered a capon to be reserved for the
grand commander from his own well-supplied board."f
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 mon-
arch to eat alone, and which, when on the throne, he
had broken through once, though once only, in favor
of the duke of Alba. J 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 still so strong, that
Richelieu himself, when most wanting in ships, pre-
ferred that the Spanish fleet should retire from the
blockade of Rochelle rather than its admiral should
wear his grandee-hat in the Most Christian presence.
The emperor was fond of talking over his cam-
paigns with the veteran who had shared and recorded
* Avila: Comentario de la Guerra de Alemdna, sra. 8vo, Anvers,
1549, p 180.
t Vera: Vidade Carlos V., p. 251.
} Kustant : Vida del D. de Albti, I. 182.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 153
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 before the soldiers of Castille.
" Not so," said the emperor, " let the painter modify
this if he can, for it was no headlong flight, but an
orderly retreat." * This was not the less candid be-
cause French historians claimed the victory for France,
and recounted with pride the captured colors and can-
non, amongst which were the two huge pieces known
as the emperor's pistols.f Considering that the ac-
tion had been fought only three or four years before it
is reported to have been thus grossly misrepresented,
it is possible that Renti may have been substituted
by mistake for the name of some less doubtful field.
But Avila was of easy faith when the honor of Cas-
tille and the emperor were concerned ; and he may
well be supposed capable of some such loyal and pa-
triotic 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 val-
ley of Ajalon, had been repeated on behalf of Charles
and his Spaniards on the banks of the Elbe.ij: 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 sun 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."
* Vera : Vida de Carlos V., p. 252.
t L. Favyn : Hist, de Navarre, fol., Taris, 1C12, p. 814.
+ Avila : Comentario, fol. 70.
154 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
A visit which Avila paid to the convent in August
seems to have been prompted by an official letter ad-
dressed by the princess-regent to the authorities of Pla-
sencia, 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 rumors thus
raised, the grand commander mounted his horse and
rode up to 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 secre-
tary of state, Avila said, " I have left Fray Carlos in
a very calrrr and contented mood, not at all mistrust-
ing his strength, but believing himself quite equal to
the exertion of moving from his retreat. Since I was
there last, all his ideas on this head have been
changed ; and I could believe his undertaking any
thing 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 princess's 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 16th
of September, and had a long audience next day, to
* Luis de Avila to Vazquez ; Plascncia, 24th August, 1557. Gonza-
lez MS.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 155
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 6th of October, Don Martin de Aven-
dano, who had commanded a squadron newly ar-
rived from Peru, was received with a welcome so
hearty that Quixada noted it as remarkable in his let-
ter to the secretary of state. Perhaps the excellent
health which the emperor at that time enjoyed might
have been partly the cause of this cordiality, for the
chamberlain said, in the same letter, that he was un-
usually well, " very plump and fresh-colored, and ate
and slept better than he did himself." The admiral
was sent on his way rejoicing, with a strong letter of
recommendation to the king.
The visitors at Yuste were generally envoys, or
official personages. Avila and the count of Oropesa
and his brother were amongst the few exceptions.
The neighboring prelates and grandees continued to
send their contributions to the imperial larder. Oro-
pesa kept it supplied with game from the forest and
the hill; the Jeromites of Guadalupe, rich in lands
and beeves, presented calves, lambs fattened on bread,
and delicate fruits ; and the bishops of Segovia, Mon-
donedo, and Salamanca were careful to put in simi-
lar evidence that they had not forgotten the giver of
their mitres. Occasionally, the donors of these dain-
ties appeared to have nourished a hope of being rec-
ompensed with the loaves and fishes of court patron-
age and favor. A few leagues north of the convent,
156 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
at the Alpine town of Bejar, was a noble castle of the
chief family of Zuniga, 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 lady's chap-
lain, 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
considered 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 reception under the superintendence of Quixada
and Van Male. The queens set out from Vallado-
lid on the 18th 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 28th 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, be-
ing 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 hav-
ing dined there, spent some hours at the convent, and
returned to the village to sleep. Quixada was some-
what scandalized at this arrangement, and proposed
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 157
an attempt to lodge the 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 \>f her limbs and tongue ; and she was there-
fore frequently on horseback, riding through the fad-
ing forest to her brother's inhospitable gate.
The queens had not yet determined where to estab-
lish their permanent abode, and wished to be guided
by the emperor's advice. They had at one time
thought of Plasencia, but upon this he put his decid-
ed negative. They next cast their eyes upon Guada-
laxara, in Castille ; the crown having a great extent
of land in and around that town, the rights and privi-
leges of which the king was willing to make over to
them for their lives. The town boasting of no man-
sion suitable to their rank but the palace of the duke
of Infantado, they applied 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 Mendoza by Isabella the Cath-
olic, it was scarcely polite to refuse to lend it for a
time to her granddaughters, 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 Erase, 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 neighborhood, where they might amuse them-
selves in fishing or in the chase. Both of the royal
14
158 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 Portugal 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 uncle, the car-
dinal Henry. Father Francis Borja used his influ-
ence in vain. The Spanish ambassador at Lisbon,
Don Sancho de Cordova, who met the queens at
Xarandilla and Yuste, gave so unfavorable an account
of her intentions, that Eleanor began to despair alto-
gether of realizing her long-cherished hope. The em-
peror, at her request, himself wrote to his niece, urg-
ing compliance with her mother's very reasonable
wishes ; and, after many delays and a sham illness,
the reluctant damsel consented. Preparations were
immediately set on foot for receiving her at Badajoz
with due honor, and sixteen nobles and prelates were
chosen to wait upon her at the frontier. Among
them were the duke of Escalona, the count of Oro-
pesa, the grand commander of Alcantara, 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 nego-
tiations were pending, a Portuguese courier was ar-
rested on suspicion of being a French spy, and on his
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 159
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 re-
mark 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 boast-
ing of a Frenchman ought never to be taken serious-
ly. But he clearly indicated his own feelings of the
ill-will entertained at Lisbon towards his son's govern-
ment, in conveying to Vazquez the official informa-
tion which he had received 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 rumor rests." *
The queens took leave of the emperor on the 14th
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 Xarandilla, 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 twopence-half-
penny, a pound. The licentiate Murga, of Quacos,
was intrusted with the arrangements on the road, and
* Emperor to Vazquez, 22d September, 1557. Gonzalez MS.
160
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
the queens were everywhere received with public at-
tention and respect. At Truxillo the authorities
wished to give a public festival in their honor, 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 old Roman 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 chim-
neys 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 Xaran-
dilla, and another was overthrown at Quacos.
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 em-peror ; * after which, scorn-
* Eibadeneira : Vida de P. F. 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-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 161
ing 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 jour-
ney, he was nearly drowned in a squall in crossing
the Tagus to Lisbon. The queen Catherine, the car-
dinal 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 wid-
owed mother. He was again at Yuste about the
20th of December. The emperor paid him the unu-
sual compliment of lodging him in the palace, and
even entered into the preparation which Luis Quixa-
da was making for his reception. 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 anteroom.*
Bo ja 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,
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.
* Nieretnberg : 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.
14*
162 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
on the politics and politicians of the court of Valla-
dolid. " 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 indifference to the voice of blood, which,
while it shocked some of his lay admirers, never
fails to command the loud applause of his rev-
erend 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 favor compatible with equity."
When the emperor expressed some not unnatural sur-
prise, the 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
* Sandoval, II. p. 833.
t Niereraberg : Vida de Borja, p. 155.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 163
the upholstery of his chamber, but he also sent him
each day the most approved dish from his well-sup-
plied 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 chamber-
lain ; " but in comparison with my lord's present reve-
nues, it is perhaps the largest bounty he ever bestowed
at one time." f
] Kibadeneira : Vida de Borja, p. 99.
164 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER VII.
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 tingling in his
legs, from the knees downwards ; and he was some-
times seized with fits of vomiting. On the 7th 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 Mon-
tesa, and who was therefore dismissed to spend a few
days in the pilgrimage to Guadalupe. The season
itself seemed to be unhealthy, for so many members
of the household were ill that Gaztelu proposed to
reinforce the medical staff with another doctor, one
Juan Munos, a good physician and surgeon, who had
been sent by the regent to attend upon her father at
Laredo.
On the night of the 8th of January, the palace was
broken into, and a sum of eight hundred ducats, set
apart for charitable uses, stolen from the emperors
wardrobe. The licentiate Murga was immediately
set to discover the robbers, but his perquisitions at-
tained no satisfactory end. Some of the household
were supposed to have been concerned, but the em-
peror would not permit the persons suspected to be
subjected to the torture, the usual mode of compelling
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 165
evidence in those days, "fearing," said Quixada, mys-
teriously, " that certain things might come out which
had better remain concealed." The culprits were
never found, nor was the cash recovered. It is some-
what remarkable that a few weeks afterwards the em-
peror divided two thousand ducats, as a largesse,
among his attendants, each receiving a sum propor-
tioned 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 exercising 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 sus-
pended from his functions, and the jurisdiction of
Quacos enlarged by a fresh official act. The offend-
er, however, was forgiven, and reinstated in a few
weeks.
On the 10th of January, the emperor, though still
in bed, gave audience to Don Juan de Acufia, who
had recently come from Flanders ; and the same
day a rumor 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 rumor
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
166 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
at last he permitted them to be read, and heard the
secret articles of the treaty with the pope, he only re-
marke'd that the reserved conditions were as bad as
those which had been made public.
Disgraceful as the treaty was, the anger felt by the
emperor may perhaps have arisen partly because the
negotiations had been conducted without his knowl-
edge or consent. Philip's love of temporizing was
notorious ; " Time and I against two," * was his favor-
ite adage ; and he often bought time at the price of
golden opportunity. When the victory of St. Quen-
tin had compelled the recall of Guise, Rome was so
completely in the power of Alba, that there was no
visible motive for hastening the pope's deliverance.
Had the king wished to consult his father, an armis-
tice of a few weeks would have given sufficient time
for communication between Bruxelles and Yuste. It
is therefore most probable that Philip, making, for rea-
sons which he did not wish to explain, a peace which
he felt the emperor must disapprove, purposely with-
held 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 be-
fore him some of the subsequent transactions in Italy.
Thus, although a rumor of Alba's departure had
reached Yuste on the 10th of January, it was not
until the 27th that a letter, addressed to the emperor
by Alba himself, and dated so far back as the 23d 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
* " Tiempo y yo para otros dos."
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 167
Rome ; 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 to kiss the
emperor's hand, and ask for some repose from his fa-
tigues of twenty-five years. To this letter Charles
deigned no answer, nor did he make any remark
upon it, but refused to listen 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 intrusted 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
demonstrations of favor 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 con-
duct in remaining at court, and to obtain permission
to visit him atYuste; and Gaztelu was therefore pri-
vately desired by Vazquez to note whatever fell from
* A. Andrea : Guerra de Roma, &c., p. 315.
168 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
him on these topics. But Charles would neither ex-
press his opinion, nor record the permission required,
showing a disposition, when his 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 thou-
sand ducats, he remarked that the king of Spain did
more for the duke of Alba than 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
dishonor ; and he said, even in the pontiffs presence-
chamber, to some of the Italian 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 honors and caresses ; he
invited him to dinner ; and he offered to make over to
him ah 1 the church patronage of the holy see on his
estates in Spain. But this offer Alba declined, saying
that the concession and the acceptance of such a boon
would be liable to suspicion, which it was better to
avoid.f 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
5
* A. de Castro : The Spanish Protestant, translated by F. Parker, sin.
8vo, London, 1851, p. 57.
t J. A. de Vera : Vtda del Duque de Alva, p. 73. See also Chap.
III. p. 80.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 169
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
honor to the king whom he served.
For the chagrin suffered by the emperor in Italian
politics, 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 slight and transitory effect upon the
fortune of the war. The timid and procrastinating
policy of Philip the Second had already let slip the
opportunities afforded by that battle, as his blind big-
otry afterwards doomed to death the gallant Egmont,
whose prowess had carried 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 hun-
dred Spaniards to the sword at Chaulny. Guise,
burning to wipe away his disgraces in the Abruzzi
and the Roman plains, suddenly appeared before Cal-
ais on the first night of the new year. Trusting to the
strength of the fortifications, and to the surrounding
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 ap-
proaches by land were guarded by the forts of Ris-
bank 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,
15
170 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
lord Went worth struck his flag ; the English troops
filed off under a guard of Scottish archers ; and the
key of France, which two centuries before had re-
sisted, for eleven months, Edward the Third, fresh
from Cressy, was restored in one week to the house
of Valois. The honor of having first conceived and
planned the enterprise belonged to the admiral Co-
ligny, 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 forgot-
ten ; and loud and long were the paeans of the Parisian
wits, " replenished with scoffs and unmeasured terms
against the English," who, in falling victims to a dar-
ing stratagem, gave, as it seemed to these poetasters, a
signal proof of the immemorial " perfidy " of Albion.*
The news of the loss of Calais reached Valladolid
at the end of January, and Yuste on the 2d of Feb-
ruary. In both places they were received with little
less sorrow and alarm than they had caused in Lon-
don. 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 acces-
sion to the strength of the most formidable neighbor
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, re-
* Hollinshed : Chronicles, 6 vols., 4to, London, 1808, IV. 93.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 171
curring 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 re-
ceived 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 criticized
the Castillian leaders for their remissness, and prophe-
sied that Gravelines, Nieuport, and Dunkirk would
likewise soon fall 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 preg-
nancy in which, however, few people believed except
poor Mary herself, and which was in truth nothing
more than the crisis of the dropsy, which in a few
months gave her crown to Elizabeth, released her
people from the hateful yoke of Philip, and enabled
the mind of England once more to march on the no-
ble path of civil and religious freedom.
In this gloomy time of disaster, the emperor con-
tinued to suffer from gout, which sometimes so com-
pletely disabled 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 dimin-
ished in quantity, were still of a quality to pWplex the
doctor, consisting principally of the rich fish which
172 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
the patient could neither dispense with nor digest.
His favorite beverage at this time was vino bastardo,
a sweet wine made from raisins, and brought from
Seville. When he got a little better, he ate, in spite
of all remonstrances, 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 ef-
fected 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 ad-
justed, she crossed the plains of the Guadiana, and
having been received in due form by a party of Span-
ish nobles at the border rivulet of Caya, she finally
reached the longing arms of her mother. Don Anto-
nio Puertocarrero was sent down from Valladolid to
offer her the congratulations of the princess-regent, to
which were added those of the emperor, the emperor
having likewise received, as he passed, credentials at
Yuste. At Badajoz the infanta remained for twenty
days, during which time her mother and aunt ex-
hausted all their arguments and caresses in the at-
tempt to induce her to settle in Spain. Queen El-
eanor 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 Spairreh blood. She therefore remained inflexible
in her determination to return to Portugal, and bade
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 173
an eternal farewell to her weeping mother with no
visible marks of concern. During her stay at Bada-
joz, however, she was careful to fulfil the laws of eti-
quette to the letter, and accordingly despatched Don
Emanuel de Melo to present her compliments to the
regent and the emperor. Her ambassador travelled
with unusual magnificence, and with his cavajcade of
fifty horsemen excited great stir in Quacos and at
Yuste.
On the llth of February, the queens set out from
Badajoz, and the emperor sent Gaztelu down to Tru-
xillo to meet them on the road. But they had ac-
complished 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 Talaverilla, a small ague-stricken town
on a melancholy plain. Dr. Cornelio, who was in at-
tendance, had the worst opinion of her case. Intelli-
gence 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 likewise despatched to Yuste, whence
Quixada was ordered instantly to ride post to Tala-
verilla. Gaztelu, who had probably met the courier
on the road, as he was going to Truxillo, arrived first,
on the morning of the 18th 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
business 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
15*
174 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 again sank into un-
consciousness ; and within an hour, her loving heart
had ceased to beat ; and the long account of her gen-
tle 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 creature 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 immediately, in a
few simple lines of honest emotion, communicated
the event to his master at Yuste.
The remains of the queen were deposited at Meri-
da, 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, jewels, and tapestry, sundry
large sums due to the queen by the crowns of France
and Spain, and various lordships in Castille and Lan-
guedoc ; a heritage which, with her patrimonial por-
tion and her towns of Viseu and Torres Vedras, made
her one of the greatest matches in Europe.* On the
* Dam. de Goes : Chronica do Rci D. Emanucl, IT. fol. 84.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 175
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 daugh-
ter of Valois. Fate had marked Mary of Avis for sin-
gle blessedness ; and in spite of all the attempts made
on her behalf, she died unmarried, a fact which Por-
tuguese historians patriotically ascribe to her unwill-
ingness to deprive 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 mausoleum, in a chapel of
Our Lady of Light, and of the nunneries and other
religious edifices which she had founded with lavish
piety in various parts of the kingdom.*
On the death of queen Eleanor, Gazteluand Quixa-
da set out for Yuste. Queen Mary, who was to fol-
low them slowly, in giving them audience on their
departure, was so overcome with grief for her loss,
that her messages to her brother were drowned in sobs
and tears. The emperor, on receiving the news, like-
wise wept bitterly, and displayed an emotion which
he rarely felt and still more rarely permitted to be
seen. For Eleanor, although her happiness never
stood in the way of his policy, had ever been his fa-
vorite 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 vio-
* Pedro lie Marix : Dialtfjos de varla Historic/, sm. 8vo. Lisbon, 1594,
fol. 205.
176
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
lence of his disorders, and his strength was so much
prostrated, 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 house-
hold, and about the masses to be said for the deceased
in the convent 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 till 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 Talaverilla, their conver-
sation 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 3d of March,
and on this occasion was lodged for some nights in
the convent. Coming next morning to visit her
brother, 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. Observing the effect she had pro-
duced, queen Mary avoided it in future by going at-
tended either by the chamberlain, or by Avila, or by
the bishop of Palencia. The course of their genuine
natural sorrow was interrupted by the official sem-
blance of woe in the shape of Don Hernando de
Roxas, sent to Valladolid to condole with the court of
Lisbon, and of Dr. Bernardino de Tavora, on a simi-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 177
lar mission from Lisbon to the courts of Valladolid
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 uncomfortable
intelligence of a Turkish descent on the African pos-
sessions of the house of Avis, and of the accession to
power of a new Sultan of Fez, who was likely 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 15th of March
she carne to take leave of, the emperor, and found him
again in bed, and suffering much pain from an ulcer-
ated 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 at 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 dis-
plays the greatest 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 ad-
vantageous light.f
Quixada attended the queen not solely for her con-
venience, but partly to communicate to the princess-
* Meneze* : Chronica, p. 75. t Pupifrs d'Etat de Granvelle, IV. p. 150.
178 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
regent some confidential instructions from the empe-
ror, 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 19th,
and immediately 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 gov-
ernment, and to persuade 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 what-
ever 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 willing 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 insisted on, she would resign the
government.* The point was not insisted on, and
* Quixada to cmp., 19th of March, and princess to emp., 22d of
March, 1558. Gonzalez MS.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 179
queen Mary fixed her residence at Cigales, a ham-
let 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 Pisu-
erga.
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 cer-
tain lands belonging to the military orders, the sale of
certain honorary offices and of patents of nobility
[liidalguias] , 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 ad-
vised that free pardon should be offered to all ship-
masters and sailors who should give evidence leading
to further discoveries. Nothing worthy of note was
elicited, but the facts, that there was hardly a trader
in Seville who was not guilty of concealing 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
reduced is found in a fresh skirmish which took place
between the self-willed grand inquisitor Valdes, and
180 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 be-
side her husband, Philip the handsome, in the mag-
nificent tomb of white marble, wrought by the deli-
cate chisel of Vigarny, in the chapel-royal of the ca-
thedral. Towards the end of March, the weather
being favorable, and the royal corpse being pro-
nounced ripe for removal, the marquis of Comares
and the grand inquisitor were ordered to hold them-
selves in readiness to escort it on the journey. But the
prelate excused himself, on the plea that he must at-
tend 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 jour-
ney, 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 honor them with his
presence. The infanta, finding him thus stubborn,
referred the matter to the council, which at once de-
cided 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 181
to Granada, and find means of levying on the Moris-
cos there a fine of one hundred thousand ducats for
the 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 this family of pets, the queen of Por-
tugal added in April a pair of very small Indian cats,
and a parrot, gifted with wonderful faculties of speech,
which soon became the favorite 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 func-
tions there, won him golden opinions among the
friars. On each 1st of May, during his stay at the
convent, he caused funeral honors 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-humored bantering passed be-
tween him and the master of the novices, about its
16
182 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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.
St. Bias's 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 Villalva.
In the afternoon, the emperor provided a sumptuous
repast for the whole convent out of doors, it being the
custom of the fraternity to mark any accession to
their numbers by a picnic. 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 memorial 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 in-
scribed his name, an autograph which was the pride
of the archives until they were destroyed by the dra-
goons of Bonaparte.
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 in-
strument, " This, father, is the way you must do it
next time." Another friar offering the pyx containing
the holy wafer to his lips, in a similar diffident man-
ner, he took it into his hands, and not only kissed it
fervently, but applied it to his forehead and eyes with
true oriental reverence.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 183
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 licenses
for the use of meat to no member of his household,
except the sick whose lives were in danger.* Al-
though provided 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 sol-
emn rite. On Ash Wednesday he required his entire
household, down to the meanest scullion, to commu-
nicate; and on these occasions he would stand on
the highest step of the altar to observe if the muster
was complete. He was likewise particular in causing
the Flemings to be assembled for confession on the
stated days when their countryman, the Flemish
chaplain, came over from Xarandilla.f
The emperor himself usually heard mass from the
window of his bedchamber, 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 himself with such sincerity of
purpose, that the scourge was stained with blood, and
the pious singularly edified. Some of these scourges
were found, after his death, in his chamber, stained
* Relatione of Badovaro. See Chap. II. p. 39, note,
t Chap. IV. p. 97.
184 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
with blood, and became precious heirlooms in the
house of Austria, and honored relics at the Escorial.*
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 him-
self 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 he always
celebrated with peculiar devotion, as a day of great
things in his life, being the day of his birth, his coro-
nation, 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
offertory expressed his gratitude by a large oblation.
The church was thronged with strangers, and the
crowd who could not gain admittance was so great,
that, while one sermon proceeded within, another was
pronounced outside, beneath the shadow of the great
walnut-tree of Yuste.
The emperor lived with the friars on terms of friend-
ly 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
chamberlain or any one else came into the room.
" Have no care of this matter, Fray Juan," he would
* They were seen and handled there in the next century by Gaspar
Scioppius, as he relates in his caustic hook 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 185
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 sometimes honored them with his company at
dinner in the refectory.* When the visitors of the
order paid their triennial visit of inspection to Yuste,
they represented to him with all respect, that his maj-
esty himself was the only inmate of the convent with
whom they had any fault 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 favorites 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, be-
hold 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 cooking, and would never see her again, an
effort of holiness to which he appears to owe his place
in the chronicles of the order.
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
* He dined with them on the 6th of June, St. Vincent's day, 1557,
and was observed to be in peculiarly good spirits.
16"
186 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 toothless gums of the emperor. Neverthe-
less, the old military habits of the recluse had not al-
together forsaken him ; and there were occasions in
which he showed himself something of a martinet in
enforcing the discipline of his household and the con-
vent. 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 Flem-
ings were in the habit of bartering egg-plants with
the friars for double rations of onions. 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 con-
temporary f of following the ways of pious times " be-
fore polygamy was made a sin," and praised by an-
* Fr. Pedro de la Vega : Cronica de los Frayles de Sant Hieronymo, fol.,
Aloala, 1539, black letter, fol. xli.
t Badovaro. See Chap. II p. 39, note.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 187
other 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 Jeromite hosts should be
led into temptation. His complaint to the superior
not sufficiently suppressing the evil, it was repeated
to the visitors when they came their rounds. An or-
der 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 distri-
bution on the spot. And although it was well known
that St. Jerome had sometimes miraculously let loose
the lion, which always lies at his feet 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 straggling 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 3d 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 complete. He expressed the greatest de-
light at this intelligence, and caused Gaztelu to reply
that in future he was to be addressed, not as emperor,
but as a private person, and that a couple of seals,
" without crown, eagle, fleece, or other device," were
* Zenocarns : Vita Caroti V., p. 268.
t P. de la Vega : Cronica, fol. xli.
188 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 secretary," but " secretary of the coun-
cil 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 con-
tinued to address him by his ancient style and title of
" sacred Caesarean Catholic majesty," which indeed
it would have been no less difficult than absurd to
change.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 189
CHAPTER VIII.
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 mediaeval 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 Protestantism, out of which was to
come the Thirty Years' War, the English common-
wealth, French revolutions, and modern republics.
The effect was visible and palpable, yet transient as
the effect 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
bringing back his realm of England to the true fold,
Castille herself might go astray into the howling wil-
derness 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 ^he Pyre-
190 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
nees. Nor were reapers, strong, active, and earnest,
wanting to the field. From the beginning of the six-
teenth century, not only laymen, but even friars, priests,
and dignitaries of the church, had stood forth with
voice and pen to make solemn protest against the
vices of the various orders of the priesthood ; against
the greedy avarice and dissolute lives of monks ;
against the regular clergy, who preferred their hawks
and hounds to their cures of souls ; against oppressive
prelates and chapters, who lived 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 Eu-
rope was irrigated with ecclesiastical pollution. In
the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and during the
infamous papacy of Alexander the Sixth, the disor-
ders 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 neces-
sary measure was enforced by the strong hand of
Ximenes, then provincial of the order, and afterwards
cardinal-primate, the cowled vagabonds who, refusing
to purge and live cleanly, were driven from Toledo,
had the audacity to file out of the Visagra 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
* Psalm cxiii. (in our version cxiv.) : " In exltu Israel de Egypto" &c.
See Eugenio de Robles : Vida del Cardenal D. Fran. Ximenes de Cisneros,
4to, Toledcy 1604, p. 68, and Alvar. Gomez : De Rebus Gestis a F. Xi-
menio Cisnerio, 4to, Compluti, 1569, fol. 7.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 191
of the demoralized state of the Spanish clergy, regu-
lar and secular, may be found in those collections of
obscene songs and poems, still preserved as curiosities
in libraries, and composed, chiefly in the cloister, in
an age when none but churchmen were writers, and
few but churchmen were readers.* Similar evidence,
perhaps still more convincing, exists in the proverbial
philosophy of Spain, that old and popular record in
which each generation noted its experience, where
clerical cant, greed, falsehood, gluttony, and unclean-
ness 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." f
These evils were so monstrous and so crying, that
those who denounced them enjoyed for a while 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 be-
lieve that they were shaken in their faith in the infal-
lible church. They abhorred the hireling shepherd,
not only because he was hateful in himself, but be-
cause they loved the true fold, of which he was the
danger and the disgrace. Even the Inquisition itself
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.
* See the curious essay on this subject, by Don Luis de Usoz y Eio,
prefixed to the Cancionero de Obrus de Burlas, 4to, Valencia, 1519 ; re-
printed, sra. 8 vo, London, 1841.
t " Clerigo frayle, o Judio, no le tengas por aniigo." See Essay by
Usoz, p. 27, cited in preceding note.
192 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Under the rule of Adrian of Utrecht, afterwards pope,
and of cardinal Manrique, the holy office issued a few
decrees against the heresy of Luther and against the
importation of heretical books into Spain. But the
offenders condemned under these laws were few, and
principally foreigners ; and the fires were usually kin-
dled 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, or to use the unchristian luxury of the bath.
It was not until near the middle of the century that
the seed cast by the way-side 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 inferred from the fact, that the first work of the
kind, the Castillian New Testament of Enzinas, print-
ed 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 an 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 circu-
lation in Spain became so extensive, that the Inqui-
sition interfered with fresh laws and increased sever-
ities. The stoppage of the regular traffic only piqued
public curiosity, and the forbidden tracts were soon
smuggled in bales by the muleteers over the moun-
tains from Huguenot Beam, or run in casks, by Eng-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 193
lish or Dutch traders, on the shores of Andalusia.
Something 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 Se-
ville and Valladolid. No longer contented with
pointing out the weather-stains and rents in the huge
ecclesiastical fabric, reformers began to pry with in-
convenient curiosity into the nature of its foundations.
But no sooner had the first stroke fallen upon that
venerable accumulation of ages, than the chiefs of the
black garrison at once saw the full extent of their dan-
ger. To them the rubbish on the surface, being far
more productive, was at least as sacred as the eternal
rock beneath. Wisely, therefore, postponing their pri-
vate 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 polit-
ical 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 trum-
pet. The Protestant must confess that the new re-
ligion has never succeeded in eradicating the old, even
amongst the freest and boldest of the Teutonic peo-
ple. The Catholic, on the other hand, may fairly
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194 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
boast, that in the Iberian peninsula the seeds of re-
form 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. Protes-
tant divines have assumed that these tenets were
Protestant, on account of the savage vengeance with
which they were pursued by the church. In one fea-
ture these dead and forgotten dogmas have some in-
terest for the philosopher, in the glimmering perception
which appears in them, that tolerance is a Christian,
duty ; that honesty in matters of belief 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 punishment. Yet none of the so-
called Spanish Protestants have enunciated these sen-
timents so clearly as the Benedictine Virues in his
treatise against the opinions of Luther and Melanc-
thon.* Had time been given for the new spirit of in-
quiry to shape itself into some definite form, it would
doubtless have greatly modified the character of Span-
ish 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 specula-
tion, 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.
* A. de Castro : Spanish Protestants, translated by T. Parker ; sm.
8vo, London, 1851, p. liv., where a passage is quoted from the Dis-
pittat tones of Virues.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 195
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 speculation. But the germs
of a popular faith must be sought for far and wide in
the moral and physical circumstances of a people ;
and it would be far beyond the scope of a biographi-
cal fragment, to analyze the mixed blood of the
Spaniard, the air he breathes, the shape and soil of
his beautiful land, and the texture of his national his-
tory. Suffice it, therefore, to notice two points where-
in the victorious church possessed advantages in
Spain, which were wanting to her in the countries
where she was vanquished. The first of these was
the Inquisition, a police claiming unlimited jurisdic-
tion over thought, long established, well organized,
well trained, untrammelled by thew forms of ordinary
justice, and so habitually merciless, as to have accus-
tomed the nation to see blood shed like -water on ac-
count of religious error. Before this terrible machin-
ery the recruits of reform, raw, wavering, doubting,
without any clear common principle or habits of com-
bination, were swept away like the Indians of Mexico
before the cavalry and culverins of Cortes. The
second advantage of the Spanish church was her inti-
mate connection 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 still alive, had been eminently wars of religion
196 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 cres-
cent, on the red towers of the Alhambra.* Since that
proud day, the church, once more militant under car-
dinal Ximenes, had carried the holy war into 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 infi-
del 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, al-
though Christian in name, was well known to be
Moslem in heart and secret practice, and to be anx-
iously looking to the great Turk for deliverance from
thraldom. Every city, too, had its colony of Hebrews,
wretches who accumulated untold wealth, eschewed
pork, and continued to eat the paschal lamb. Against
these domestic dangers the church kept watch and
ward, doing, with the full approval of the Christian
* Pedro de Salazar : Cronica de el gran Cardenal D. Pedro Gonzalez de
Alendow, fol., Toledo, 1625, p. 256.
t Gonz. Fernandez de Oviedo : Quincuagenas ; quoted by Prescott,
Hist, of Ferdinand and Isabella.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 197
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 that sent forth those peaceful crusad-
ers, 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 circum-
stances 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 spir-
itual capacity ; or as a power in the state no less
proud and oppressive than king or count ; or as the
channel through 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 redresser of their wrongs. But in
Spain, the poor enthusiast, to his horror, found him-
self 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 ex-
citement had passed away, a mark of the torrent re-
198 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
mained in the proverbial phrase, in which the aspect
of poverty was described as being " ugly as the lace
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 pow-
ers. 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 insult-
ing Philip the Second, even while he was treating
with him, conferred upon the Inquisition the power of
deposing from their dignifies heretics of whatever
degree, were they bishops, archbishops, or cardinals,
dukes, kings, or emperors, f
The first heretic of note who was arrested at Valla-
dolid was Dr. Augustin Cazalla, an eminent divine
who 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 castaway. Having been for some
time suspected of holding new opinions, he was ar-
rested on the 23d 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 sev-
eral other noble ladies, were likewise taken at the
same time ; and orders were given to search for an
* A. de Castro: Hist, de los Protestantes Espanoles, pp. 218, 311.
t Llorente : Hist, de la Inquisition, 8 vols , sm. 8vo, Barcelona,
1835. III. 204.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 199
important member of the party, Fray Domingo de
Roxas, son of the marquis 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 emo-
tion, emotion not of pity for the probable fate of
his chaplain, 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 coun-
cil. 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 any thing could
drag me from this retreat, it would be to aid in chas-
tising 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
them will ever become true Catholics, or are worthy to
live." *
His advice was taken, though not with the promp-
titude he desired. But the alguazils of holy office
knew no repose from their labor of capturing the cul-
prits. In a few days Fray Domingo de Roxas was
taken, with several other members of the Roxas fami-
* Sandoval, II. p. 829.
200 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ly, and several noble ladies of the family of the mar-
quis of Alcani9es, a branch of the great house of
Henriquez. New arrestments and new informations
followed so fast upon each other, that the Inquisition
was overwhelmed with business, and its prisons filled
to overflowing. Rumors 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 court 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 safe-
ty, the church. He therefore took his measures
rather to direct than to lull the storm. Visiting Sala-
manca, he made there a large seizure of Bibles and
other heretical books, and convened a council of doc-
tors, with whose assistance he drew up a censure on
the new doctrines, which he caused to be published 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 sus-
pected 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, Pa-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 201
lencia and Logrono. Seville was the great southern
seat of heresy, and in the neighboring convent of St.
Isidro del Campo, the Jeromite friars almost to a man
were tainted with the new opinions. Valladolid,
however, was the stronghold of the sect, and in spite
of the odor of sanctity which surrounded the pious
regent, the brimstone savor 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 a while 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 tempo-
ral 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 discovery 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 recommended the princess
to confer with Quixada, and employ him in the busi-
ness according as she judged best.
To the king in Flanders he wrote in a similar strain,
insisting on the necessity of vigor 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 :
202 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
" 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 sis-
ter. 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 rigor 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." f
At the end of May, Quixada, by the emperor's or-
der, saw the inquisitor-general, and urged on him the
expediency of despatch in his dealings with heretics,
and of even dispensing in their cases with the ordinary
forms of his tribunal. But in this, as in every thing
else, archbishop Valdes would take his own way and
no other. With his usual plausibility, he assured the
* " Hijo, este negro negocio que aca se ha levantado, me tiene tan
escandalizado cuanto lo podeis pensar y juzgar. Vos vereis lo que escribo
sobre ello a vuestra hermana. Es menester que escribais y que lo pro-
cureis cortar de raiz y con mucho rigor y recio castigo. Y porque se
tcneis mas voluntad y asistereis de mas hervor que yo lo sabira ni podria
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.
I 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 203
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 peo-
ple 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 Tarafcona 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 2d of June, the archbish-
op 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 them-
selves from those sacraments. A third suggestion
was, that no schoolmaster should be allowed to exer-
cise his calling until he had been licensed by a lay
and a clerical examiner. And lastly, the book trade
was to be placed under the severest restrictions. It
was to be declared unlawful to print any book with-
out the author's and printer's names, and without the
permission of the holy office, a permission which was
also to be obtained before any book could be imported
into the kingdom. Foreigners were to be forbidden
from selling books ; and Spanish books printed abroad
were to be totally prohibited. Booksellers were to be
compelled to hang up in their shops lists of all the
books which they kept for sale. Lastly, informers
204 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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
therefore 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 following year, and became the harbinger and
model of the famous expurgatory index, opened by
Paul the Fourth, in which the Vatican continues to re-
cord its protest against the advancement of knowl-
edge.* 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 integrity, 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 letters,
deserved the gratitude of the world ; but for the last
three centuries she has striven to cancel the debt, in
the noble offspring of genius which she has strangled
in the birth, and in the vast fields of intellect which
her dark shadow has blighted.
* Cathalogus Lilrorum rjui prohibentur Mandate Uhisfriss. ft revcrendiss.
D. D. Fernandi de Guides Hispalen. Archiepis. Inquisitoris Generalis His-
panice necnon et Snpremi Sanctce ac Generalis Inuuisitionis Senatus. Hie
Anno MDLIX. editus Pincia, 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 D. Pascual de Gayangos, at Madrid.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 205
For a time, at least, the vigilance exercised over
bookshop 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 license
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 forbidden 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 Inquisi-
tion, who could feel certain of escaping the epidemic, or
the cure? The most catholic horror of the new doc-
trines was therefore 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 rumor
that a son of father Borja had been arrested at Se-
ville. 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 harboring 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 sur-
prised ; for, said Gaztelu, " the friars and Flemings
18
206 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
are ever filling his ears with fables, and I myself stink
in their nostrils by reason of the many lies I have
brought home to them."
Another rumor, which was better founded, spoke of
the arrest of Pompeyo Leoni, one of the royal artists.
Much annoyed, the emperor applied 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 an-
swered that the sculptor was imprisoned for main-
taining certain Lutheran propositions; and that he
was sentenced to appear at an auto-de-fe, and after-
wards 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 remarked 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
* Sandoval, II. p. 829.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 207
great one." * Like Cazalla, the canon, after thunder-
ing 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 qualified 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 monotony of the bull-fights by indulging the peo-
ple 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,
before the regent and his court. Unhappily for his
party and for his own fair fame, the poor chaplain be-
haved with a pusillanimity very rare amongst Span-
iards when brought face to face with inevitable death,
or amongst men who suffer for conscience' sake.
Denying the crime of "dogmatizing," as the Inquisi-
tion well called preaching, 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 com-
panions, amongst whom his brother and sister had
also come calmly to die. At the price of this humili-
ation he obtained the grace of being strangled before
* Chap. IV. p. 102.
208 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 salva-
tion, he would appear the day after his death riding
through the city on a white horse. The inquisitors,
availing themselves of a rumor 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, al-
though not in such shape as to be visible to every
carnal eye.* Fray Francisco de Roxas, amidst a band
in which the shepherd and the muleteer were asso-
ciated in suffering and in glory with the noble knight
and the delicate lady, died bravely, in October, 1559,
at Valladolid, in the presence of Philip the Second.
Fray Domingo de Guzman suffered at Seville in
1560, in that auto-de-fe in which English Nicholas
Burton also perished, and in which Juana Bohorques,
a young mother who had been racked to death a few
weeks before, was solemnly declared to have been
innocent by her murderers themselves. Constantino
Ponce de la Fuente, confessing to the proscribed doc-
trines, but refusing to name his disciples, had been
thrown into a dungeon, dark and noisome as Jere-
miah'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 time after, in
the true spirit of orthodoxy, and with all the bitterness
of contemporary gall,f " for this escape the avenging
* A. de Castro : Sjxinish Protestants, p. 98.
t Nicolas Antonio : art. Constantino Ponce de la Fuente.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 209
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 imitat-
ing, 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 pres-
ence, 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 regret that he did not put Luther to
death when he 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 aveng-
ing upon that arch-heretic 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 conso-
lation, 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
* Salazar de Mendosa: Dignidades de Castilla, fol., Madrid, 1617,
fol. 161.
18"
210 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 un-
learned, of parleying with heretics who had their quiv-
ers full of reasons so apt and so well ordered. Sup-
pose 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
ambitious churchman within the dominions of Spain.
The grand inquisitor, busy as he was with his massa-
cre 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 remem-
bered 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 list of the Wolseys of the world, of men remem-
bered less for the splendid heights to which they had
* Sandoval, II. p. 829.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 211
climbed, 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 ad-
viser 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 remem-
bered 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 dream-
ing that his implacable and indefatigable rival, the
inquisitor Valdes, was already preparing the indict-
ment 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 pro-
motion by sending him to display his lore and his
eloquence at the council of Trent. There he acquit-
ted himself so well, that Charles offered him, first the
Peruvian bishopric of Cuzco, next the post of confes-
sor to prince Philip, and lastly the bishopric of the
Canaries. His refusal of all these dignities some-
what surprised his patron ; and this surprise became
displeasure when lie learned that the refuser had ac-
cepted the mitre of Toledo. William, one of the
emperor's barbers, related that he had heard his mas-
ter say, " When I offered Carranza the Canaries he
declined it; no\v he takes Toledo. What are we to
212 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
think of his virtue ? " 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 unambitious 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-minded-
ness 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, therefore, at what was then the tenderest
spot in any reputation, prieslly or laic, by casting a
suspicion on his orthodoxy. Before the unconscious
archbishop arrived at court, the inquisitor secretly in-
formed the regent that many of the captive heretics
had made very unpleasant confessions respecting the
opinions of the new primate; and that the king ought
to be put on his guard against him ; and he gave a
glimpse into the ways of his tribunal, by adding, that
although nothing substantial had yet been advanced,
still, had as much been said of an^ other person, that
person would already have been taken into custody.
* Salazar dc Miranda: Vidt Je Fr. Bart, de Carranza y Miranda,
12mo, Madrid, 1788, p. 34.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 213
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 24th of June,
but being detained by contrary winds on the English
shore, he did not land at Laredo until the beginning
of August. On the 13th of that month he kissed the
regent's hand at Valladolid, where he resided for
some weeks in great honor in the noble convent of
San Pablo, with his brethren of the order of St. Dom-
inick. 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 proceed-
ings against heresy in Flanders, and against the Span-
iards 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 dio-
cese, 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 distasteful to the absentee of Seville.
It was determined, 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
* Noticia de la Vida de Bart Carranza de Miranda, par D. M. S-, 8vo,
Madrid, 1845, p. 7.
214 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
eldest daughter Mary and her husband, Maximilian,
king of Bohemia, whom she charged with inconstan-
cy, 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 caus-
ing some alarm at Bruxelles, for on the 3d 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 coun-
try without let or hindrance, he reached Valladolid
on the 10th, 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 secretary, " more
questions than were ever put to the damsel Theo-
dora,"* a Christian slave whose beauty and various
erudition charmed a king of Tunis, in an old and pop-
ular Spanish tale.f In a few weeks, however, the
duke of Guise marched upon the Moselle, and stormed
* " Le hizo," said Gaztelu, " mas preguntas qne se pudieran hacer a
la donzella Theodor." Gazteln to Vazquez, 18th of May. 1558. Gon-
zalez MS.
t The Historia de la Donzdla Theodora was a popular story, written,
no one seems to know when, by one Alfonso, an Aragonese. Antonio
ji"ii:ns a date neither to the hook nor the author. The earliest edition
cited by Brunei is that of 1607. The tale was afterwards dramatized by
Lope de Vega. Ticknor, Hist, of Sjxin. Lit^ II. 312.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 215
the important and strongly fortified town of Thion-
ville, putting the greater part of the garrison to the
sword, and expelling 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 con-
tinued to deplore it, until he was comforted by the
tidings of the victory at Gravelines.
The marechal de Thermes, governor of Calais, wish-
ing to illustrate his new baton by some gallant ser-
vice, had undertaken a foray into the Spanish Nether-
lands. 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 effect of
Neptune in an Homeric field. Cruising along the
coast with twelve small vessels, admiral Milan, hear-
ing the firing, put into the river, and galled the flank
of the French with broadsides so unexpected and se-
vere, that they were soon in headlong 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 mare-
chal and his chief officers fell into the hands of Eg-
mont ; 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 invest-
ed Calais, when the enemy was disheartened, the gar-
216 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
rison weakened, and the governor taken. Luis Quixa-
da entertained the same idea, which, however, does
not appear to have struck any of the leaders in Flan-
ders. The chamberlain was especially delighted to
hear of the capture of 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 corresponded 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 garrision of Goleta. On the 5th of
May, Don Luis de Castelvi came to Yuste to report
on the affairs of Italy, and brought with him such in-
telligence of a treaty which was said to be then form-
ing between France and the pope, the Venetian and
the Turk, that the emperor ordered him to proceed at
once to the king at Bruxelles. In June a squadron
of Algerine galleys 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 Sar-
dinia. The Turkish navy was known to be assem-
bling at Negropont, and it was at one time supposed,
though erroneously, that a French ambassador was
Vazquez, 17th August, 1558.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 217
.
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. Towards the middle of June an
Ottoman fleet of one hundred and thirty sail was de-
scried from the watch-towers of Naples ; a French
squadron put out to meet them with provisions; and
at the end of the month the Turkish flag was flying
proudly on Christian waters among the islands of
Spain. Charles considered that the first point of at-
tack was very likely to be Rosas, a Catalonian fortress
on which France had long looked with a covetous
eye, and he therefore urged upon the regent the im-
portance of making its defences secure. Mustapha
pacha did not long leave the matter in suspense, 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 valor of the Menorcans would
probably have baffled his efforts, 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 accomplished,
though not without severe loss. The disappointed
Turk sacked and pillaged the town, and having col-
lected his booty and a few prisoners, put to sea the
19
218 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 strength-
en 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 impor-
tant frontier post. The defence of the coast of Anda-
lusia was intrusted to the count of Tendilla. The
duke of Maqueda was ordered to exercise the closest
vigilance over the Moriscos of Catalonia and Valen-
cia, 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 in-
trenched 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 positions 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 Mediterranean. The
alarm did not subside until the 17th 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
* V. Mut: Historia del Reyno deMallorca, fol., Mallorca, 1650, Lib. X.
Cap. 7, p. 453, which ought to be 436, there being an error in the paging
of thi* very rare volume from p. 69 to the end.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 219
that the fleet had at last steered for the Levant. On
the same day it was also announced at Yuste that
some reprisal for the damage done at Menorca had
been made by the duke of Alburquerque on the infi-
del's most Christian brother of France, by crossing
the Bidassoa and burning St. Jean de Luz.
While the Turk was thus spreading terror along
the coast of Spain, and troubling 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 Villa-
garcia, 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
favor. 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 mention of his
existence is to be found in any extant correspondence
between Yuste, Valladolid, and Bruxelles, during the
lifetime of the emperor. Yet his real parentage 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
220 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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, 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 favor 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 infanta,
" how these gentlemen prefer their ease and good lodg-
ing 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
Guadalaxara. 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 unwilling to
* Ponz: Viage de Espana, VII. p. 140.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 221
receive them, the princess proposed ^;hat she should
accompany her nephew thither, in order to visit her
father, and confer with him on this question of the
capital, and other business of state. The queen of
Hungary was likewise to be of the party, it being
the wish of Philip 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
princess at this time was a dispute between her and
the council of state. A young courtier, the adelan-
tado 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 pro-
testing 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 favor ; for it much con-
cerned, as she conceived, the dignity of her house-
hold, that young 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
19 *
222 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
emperor, and the after-fate of the false wooer and for-
saken 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 A^aloras, 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, re-
fused to meddle in the matter, or to interfere with the
rules of their order; and the vacant post was therefore
given, in 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 lawsuit in
hand, regarding his jurisdiction as lieutenant of the
castle of Plasencia ; and he of course attempted to
enlist in his cause the favor of the emperor, who
would, however, say nothing until he had heard the
other side of the story from the secretary of state.
The grand commander seems also to have been ap-
plying for employment ; 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 transla-
tion to the wealthy see of Cordoba; and in June the
bishop of Segovia offered to come and give thanks
for his promotion to the archbishopric of Santiago,
but was excused the journey by the emperor. Oro-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 223
pesa 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. Gar-
cilasso 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 acces-
sion of Philip the Second, the hasty old pontiff ar-
rested 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 Philip having cooled down, he received Garci-
lasso with much courtesy, questioned him minutely
about Italian politics during two long audiences, lis-
tened with great interest to his relation, and after-
wards said he was greatly pleased by the envoy's way
of telling his story. He kept him at Yuste for ten
days, and sent him to Valladolid charged with mes-
sages to the queen of Hungary, and the task of ex-
plaining 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
26th of August, and was likewise graciously received,
and dismissed with a letter to the king, one of the
latest which the emperor signed. The last visitor
who found him in health was the old count of Uruefia.
This grandee arrived on the night of the 26th, at ten
o'clock, " with a world of horses and servants," for
whom Qubcada found it very difficult to provide lodg-
224 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ing. The emperor received him very kindly, and the
old noble took his departure immediately after having
kissed hands, to be allowed to perform that ceremo-
ny being, as the chamberlain noted with wonder, " his
sole business and only request."
Father Borja paid his last visit to Yuste this sum-
mer, 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 emperor spoke to him of the memoirs which
he had drawn np of his journeys and campaigns.*
They were not written, he said, for the sake of mag-
nifying his own 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 igno-
rance 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, savored
too much of carnal vanity. The judgment of Borja
on this case of conscience, if it were ever delivered,
has not been preserved. Nor is the fate of the me-
moirs known. In a letter addressed to Philip 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 w"orld.t Brantome, at a later date,
expressed an author's surprise that a literary venture
so safe and so inviting had been so long neglected by
the booksellers. J It is not plain, therefore, that Borja
is to be blamed for the loss, if indeed they are lost,
* Chap III. p. 58.
t Published by Belle-Forest. See Bayle's Dictionaiy, art. Charles V.
f Brantome : Discours sur Charles V., (Euircs, 8 vols., 8vo, Paris,
1787, IV. 37.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 225
of these precious commentaries of the Caesar of Cas-
tille.
Charles neither felt nor affected that indifference
about his place in history which many remarkable
men have affected, and few, perhaps, have felt. This
very year he had given a proof of the opposite senti-
ment. Florian de Ocampo, his veteran chronicler,
was still at work, in his study at Zamora, on his gen-
eral chronicle of Spain. Anxious for the preservation
of the work, the emperor induced the regent to ad-
dress letters to the bishop, the dean, and the corregidor
of that city, requiring them, in the event of the old
man's death, to take possession of his papers, amount-
ing to three thousand sheets, and to hold themselves
responsible for their safety.* Similar steps were taken
to preserve the writings of Sepulveda, on whom the
emperor had himself urged the necessity of adopting
such precautions, when he visited Yuste the year be-
fore.! I n the work of Ocampo, Charles, although
perhaps he did not know it, had no personal interest ;
for the good canon, purposing to write the history of
his patron, had begun his chronicle at Noah's flood,
* 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
date of the chronicler's death, which date has been adopted by Rezabel
in his BiUiot. de Escritores Individuos de los C'olegios Mayores, 4to (Madrid,
1805, p. 234), and by Mr. Ticknor in his Hist, of Span. Literature, I. p.
555. But Gaztelu, in his letter in the Gonzalez MS., addressed to Vaz-
quez 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 occurria su
fallecimiento, estandoya tan i-fejo." Another letter (9th of July) suggests
that the measures taken by the regent respecting 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.
t Chap. VI. p. 149.
226 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
and after some thirty or forty years' labor was sur-
prised by death, while narrating the exploits of the
Scipios. Sepulveda had more judiciously broken
ground nearer Ghent and the last year of the last cen-
tury, and so left his Latin history of the emperor com-
pleted. 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
manuscript 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
labor in the vineyard 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, contritely, " that my infirmities,
which prevent me from doing many things of the
kind that I would gladly do, render this penance im-
possible in my case." Borja, who practised every
kind of self-torment, 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 227
better service by keeping 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 conversation. 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 lingered in the Vera. In 1650, the cente-
narian of Guijo used to tell how he had seen the em-
peror, 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 face of him whom we
called the holy duke." *
* Cienfuegos : Vlda de F. Borja, fol., Madrid, 1726, p. 270.
228 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER IX.
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 living 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 pastry; and
next the principal dish of the repast, which was fre-
quently a ham, or some preparation of rashers, the
emperor being very fond of the staple product of ba-
con-curing Estremadura. "His majesty," said the
doctor, " considers himself in very good health, and
will not hear of changing his diet or mode of living ;
trusting too much to the force of habit, and to the
strength of his constitution, which, in bodies full of
bad humors, like his, frequently breaks down suddenly,
and without warning." * His hands occasionally
troubled him, and his fingers were sometimes ulcer-
ated. But his chief complaint was of the heat and
itching in his legs at night, which he endeavored to
relieve by sleeping with them uncovered ; a measure
* Mathys to Vazquez, 18th May, 1558.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 229
whereby temporary ease was purchased at the expense
of a chill, which crept into the upper part 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 mas-
ter's symptoms, not. only apprehended no danger, but
considered 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 Estrema-
dura. On his arrival he reported favorably of the
emperors health, spirits, and looks. Yet Dona Mag-
dalena 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 9th of August that the physi-
cian 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 repellent, regardless of the remonstrances of
Mathys. " I would rather," he said, "have a slight
fever, than suffer this perpetual itching." In vain the
doctor observed 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 repellent 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 an-
noyed at a frost which killed some melons of a pecu-
liarly choice kind, that were ripening for his table.
20
230 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
On the 16th and 17th 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
chill, with open doors and windows. Much illness
prevailed in the Vera, and so many of the household
were on the sick list, that Quixada was obliged 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 \vas
succeeded by terrific storms of wind and thunder, in
which twenty-seven cows were struck dead by light-
ning, 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 de-
gree of princes or knights of the fleece, had died, he
had ever been punctual in doing honor to their memo-
ry, 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 accompanied 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 be-
half of these relations, each on a different day, and at-
tended them himself, preceded by a page bearing a
taper, and joining in the chant, in a very devout and
audible manner, out of a tattered prayer-book.
These rites ended, he asked his confessor whether
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 231
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 during life being far more effica-
cious than when they were postponed till after death.
Preparations were therefore at once set on foot; a
catafalque which had served before on similar occa-
sions was erected ; and on the following day, the
30th 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 pla-
ces, 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." f While the
mass for the dead was sung, 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 kneeling throng
and the gorgeous vestments, the flowers, the curling
incense, and the glittering altar, the same idea shone
forth in that splendid canvas whereon Titian had pic-
tured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the heav-
enly mansions prepared for the blessed.
* Gonzalez denies this, as it seems to me, on insufficient grounds,
which I have discussed in the preface to these chapters,
t Siguen<;a, III. p. 201.
232 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Many years before, self-interment had been prac-
tised 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 rehearse his obsequies and follow his
coffin to the stately tomb which he had reared in his
cathedral at Liege.*
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 hori-
zon, beat strongly upon the white walls. Feeling a vio-
lent 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, still suffering
considerably, and attributed the pain to his having
remained too long in the hot sunshine. Next morn-
ing he was somewhat better, and was able to get up
and go to mass, but still felt oppressed, and com-
plained much of thirst. He told his confessor, how-
ever, 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 re-
sembled the noble countenance of that other Isabella,
* On the tomb were these words : EKARDUS A MARKA, MORTEM
IIABENS R..E ocuns viVExs rosuiT. Am. de la Houssaye : Memoires
Historiques, &c., 2 vols., 12mo, Amsterd., 1722, p. 186.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 233
the great queen of Castille. He next called for a pic-
ture 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 favorite 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 pro-
nounced him in a fever. Again the afternoon sun
was shining over the great walnut-tree, full into the
gallery. From this pleasant spot, filled with the fra-
grance 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 eyewitnesses, or by persons
who had conversed with them, will be most conven-
iently grouped under the dates to which they belong.
It was on the 31st of August that the fever declared
itself, but after going to bed that evening, his thirst
subsided, and he felt easier.
September the 1st. 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 imme-
20*
234 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
diately applied to for a royal license empowering
Gaztelu to act on the occasion as a notary. Direc-
tions were at the same time given that couriers and
horses should be kept in readiness along the road,
to insure despatch in the communications between
Valladolid and Yuste.
September the 2d. 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 like to have many of them about him ; but he
at last agreed that Cornelio might be called in, from
Cigales. During the day he dozed at intervals, and
towards the afternoon his mind was observed to wan-
der; but in the evening he had rallied sufficiently to
confess and receive the eucharist, after which, at half
past eight, the physician took from him nine or ten
ounces of very black, bad blood, which afforded con-
siderable relief.
September the 3d. He awoke refreshed, and alto-
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 Quixa-
da determined to pass the night in the palace, which
he did not again quit while his master continued to
breathe.
September the 4th. The pain had left the empe-
ror'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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 235
He had stripped off the jacket, under-waistcoat, and
drawers which he usually wore in bed, and lay toss-
ing in his shirt under a single silken coverlet; and he
insisted on the doors and windows of his room being
kept open. He complained bitterly of thirst, which
the permitted syrup-vinegar and manna seemed to
aggravate rather than allay; and the doctors were
obliged to allow him nine ounces of his favorite beer,
which he drank eagerly, with apparent relief. Vomit-
ing 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 5th. Dr. Mathys administered to
the emperor a strong dose of rhuburb 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 accomplished 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 6th. The patient was worse again ;
very feverish all day, and in the afternoon delirious;
but in the evening he was easier, and again sensible.
An express arrived with a notary's license for Gazte-
lu, 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 the post could not be
despatched.
September the 7th. No change. The post sent
off with a double bag.
236 THE CLOISTER LIFE OP
September the 8th. Dr. Cornelio arrived, and with
him Garcilasso de la Vega. The emperor was nei-
ther 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 pa-
tient considered, the result must be regarded with
much doubt and apprehension. The sick man, how-
ever, was sufficiently easy and collected to receive
Garcilasso, who had come laden with a heap of de-
spatches, 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 Netherlands. 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 tem-
pest.
September the 9th. The emperor remained as
before. A new gloom overspread the household in
consequence of tidings from Africa, that Don Man in
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 counsellors 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 king of Fez, gave him hopes
of turning Moslem quarrels to Christian advantage.
Mostagan, a fortified town about twelve leagues to
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 237
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 brigantines laden
with munitions, and relying on promises of further
aid from the king of Fez. But the expedition, which
ought to have been a surprise, was ruined by the un-
due caution of its approach. The convoy was cap-
tured by an Algerine fleet; the Moorish ally proved
faithless; the attack on Mostagan failed; and in their
hasty retreat the weary, thirsty, and famished Chris-
tians 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 scymitar 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 un-
known 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 of the victims, were
* L. de Marmol Carvajal: Description de Africa, 3 torn., fol., Granada,
1573-99, II. pp. 197- 199. Fr. Diego de Haedo : Uistoriade Argel, fol.,
Valladolid, 1612, p. 174. Don Martin de Cordova was ransomed, and
lived to be governor of Oran, and to revenge his father. A. Lopez de
Haro: Nobilario de Esparia, 2 torn., fol., Madrid, 1622, II. 153.
238
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
greatly astonished that a commander of so much ex-
perience 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
befallen 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 6th 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 salvation, " to
take care that the heretics were repressed and chas-
tised with all publicity and rigor, as their faults de-
served, without respect of persons, and without regard
to any plea in their favor." 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
* Chap. III. p. 80.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 239
Regla proposed that Don John of Austria should be
named in the will as next heir to the crown, failing
the emperor's grandchildren ; but if this incredible ad-
vice were given by the confessor, the dying man had
energy enough left to reject it with indignation.*
September the 10th. He was somewhat easier,
although 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
devoutness. 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 gov-
erned by queen Mary. Gaztelu wrote that it was his
majesty's particular desire that a safe-conduct should
be immediately 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 let-
ter 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 llth. 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 re-
mained at Quacos.
September the 12th. The patient had passed a
better night, and was able to take some food; and
hopes of a recovery began to be entertained.
* Salazar de Mendoqa (Dign. de Castillo, fol. 161) says that Regla
used to tell the story himself.
240 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
September the 13th. 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 fee-
ble to expectorate, he endeavored to remove with his
finger. Letters from the regent and the queen of
Hungary continued to express their wish to go to
Yuste. Quixada, writing in reply, said that his maj-
esty 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 consent-
ing 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 Qua-
cos; as no stranger could be put up at Yuste without
the express orders of his majesty.
September the 15th. Rhubarb pills had been
again administered with good effect, and hope is 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 joy-
fully."
September the 16th. The doctors considered him
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 241
in a slight 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 Portugal, 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 17th. Mathys wrote that the em-
peror had been seized with ague fits, the cold fits
lasting much longer than the hot; that he vomited
frequently and violently, " after which his majesty lies
unable to speak or move, and does not even ask for
water to wash his mouth." Gaztelu informed the
secretary of state that he was no better ; and that cer-
tain 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 doc-
tors now entertained little hope, and that the empe-
ror's state was truly deplorable. To the king he gave
a brief sketch of the codicil w r hich had been added to
the will. " The emperor," he wrote, "having once ex-
pressed a desire to be buried here, and that the em-
press should be brought from Granada to be laid be-
side him, I ventured to observe that this house was
not of sufficient quality to be made the resting-place
of so 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 perhaps alluding to Don
John he would use every precaution in the world
until his majesty came to Spain.
September the 18th. The emperor, wrote Mathys,
21
242 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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-two hours ; and Avila gave
it as his opinion that he was certainly worse, what-
ever the doctors might say.
September the 19th. Mathys announced that the
hot and cold fits continued with great violence, ancl
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 immediately ; but it was now of no con-
sequence 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 re-
sumed 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 ; and 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 maj-
esty extreme unction. It seemed to me premature,
but I yielded to the opinion of those who ought to
know best. You will understand how I, who have
served him thirty-seven years, feel at seeing him thus
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH.
243
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 cere-
mony is just now over, nine at night, Monday, Sep-
tember the 19th."
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 em-
peror was asked, by Quixada, which of the two he
preferred, and he chose to be treated in the ecclesias-
tical fashion. This involved the reading of the seven
penitential psalms, a litany, and several passages of
Scripture; through all of which the emperor made
the proper responses in an audible voice. After the
service was over, he appeared rather revived than ex-
hausted by it.
September the 20th. 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 ! refugium factum est nobis* Soon
after daybreak, he signified his wish to be left alone
with his chamberlain. When the door was shut upon
the retiring 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 at-
tended me to my death ; that he will find some em-
ployment for William Van Male ; and that he will
forbid the friars of this convent to receive guests in the
* " Lord! thou hast been our refuge." Psalm xc of our version.
244 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
house." He then expressed his great regret at not
being able to confer with the archbishop of Toledo,
about the affair between the king and queen of Bo-
hemia ; and said he had intended to have sent an en-
voy to convey his opinion of the matter to Maximilian,
but had waited until he should have heard the pri-
mate's story. " As for what he told me to say of
myself," said Quixada, in writing to Philip the Sec-
ond, " I do not repeat it, being so nearly concerned in
it; and other things I will also leave untold until it
pleases God to bring your majesty hither." The em-
peror afterwards asked for the eucharist. Fray Juan
de Regla reminded him that, after having received ex-
treme 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,
followed by the friars in solemn procession. The pa-
tient received it, with great devoutness, from the hands
of his confessor; but he had great difficulty in swal-
lowing 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 fervor,
the whole verse, In manus luas, Domine ! commendo
spiritum meum ; redimisti nos, Domine ! Deus veriln-
tis;* and he afterwards remained kneeling in his bed
for some time, and uttering ejaculations in praise of
the blessed sacrament, so pious and so apposite that
* Into thy hands, Lord, I commend my spirit ; thou hast redeemed
us, O Lord God of truth.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 245
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 unconscious
of what went on around him.
About noon the archbishop arrived, and was imme-
diately admitted to the sick-room, where he was rec-
ognized 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 re-
covered from their illness. In the afternoon it was
supposd that the emperor's strength was ebbing fast,
and all his friends assembled at the palace. They
found him perfectly 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 Inqui-
sition. 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 impa-
tience so unmistakable, 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 ; and he was evi-
dently sinking rapidly. The physicians acknowledged
that the case was past their skill, and that all hope
was over. Cornelio retired ; Ma thy s remained by the
bedside, occasionally feeling the patient's pulse, and
21
243 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
whispering 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 stu-
por, seemingly unconscious, but now and then mur-
muring a prayer and turning his eyes to heaven. At
length he raised himself, and called for "William."
Van Male was instantly at his side, and understood
that he wished to be turned in bed, during which op-
eration the emperor leaned upon him heavily, and ut-
tered a groan of agony. The physician now looked
towards the door, and said to the archbishop, who
was standing in its shadow, " Domine^jam moritur!"
" My lord, he is now dying!" The primate came for-
ward with the chaplain Villalva, to whom he made a
sign to speak. It was now nearly two o'clock in the
morning of the 21st of September, St. Matthew's day.
Addressing the dying man, the favorite 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, say-
ing, " The time is come : bring me the candles 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 Monster-
rate, 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 247
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, Senor" " 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, with his eyes fixed on
the cross, and with a voice loud enough to be heard
outride 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 Sotomayer ; Quixada and
Gaztelu, and the two physicians; the count of Orope-
sa, his brother Don Francisco, 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 after-
wards so proud to call <Ks sire. The count, the pri-
mate, the grand commander, the doctor, the secretary,
and the chamberlain immediately retired to write let-
ters to Valladolid. 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
live, in the world." *
* " El hombre mas principal que jamas ay o habria." Quixada to
248 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
On the day of the emperor's death, his body was
washed, anointed, and embalmed. 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 23d of September, the licentiate
Murga, of Quacos, being disabled by illness, the cor-
regidor of Plasencia, Don Pedro Osorio Zapata, ar-
rived, and in his presence the will was read, and a
certificate of the death properly drawn up and signed.
The body, in a lead coffin, inclosed in a massive outer
case of chestnut-wood, and covered with a black vel-
vet pall, was then lowered through the bedroom win-
dow into the church, and placed on a canopied cata-
falque in front of the high altar.f The funeral ser-
vices lasted for three days, and the monks of three
neighboring convents swelled the company of mourn-
ers, and the solemn dirges for the dead. Each day
mass was said by the primate, assisted by the prior as
the king : Gonzalez MS. A few particulars of the death-bed scene I
have gleaned from a letter, written on ^e 27th of September, 1558, by
one of the monks of Yuste, which forms^art of the Collecion de Documen-
tos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana. par P. Martin Fernandez de Na-
varete, 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 pro-
ceeded from the pen of Fray Hernando Corral ; see Chap. IV. p. 89.
t 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 coffin, 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 Gonza-
lez MS., and not mentioned by Siguenca, I have rejected it.
Another better known fable seems to be indebted for general circula-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 249
deacon, and the prior of Granada as sub-deacon. 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;* and these he now wrought into
a discourse so impassioned, that some of the hearers
declared that it made their flesh creep and their hair
stand on end. 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 An-
gulo, prior of Sta. Engracia, at Zaragoza. The im-
perial dust was then mingled with the common earth.
u 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, the high 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 odor of sanctity, the matter
tion to Dr. Salazar de Mendoqa. In his Dignidades de Castillo,, p. 158,
he tells us that Charles, five years before his death, had caused his cof-
fin 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 retir-
ing to rest. People who saw the box thought it must be filled with treas-
ures, 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 Repub-
lica, 2 torn., fol, Lugduni, 1609, Lib. VI. Cap. III. Sect. 8, Tom. 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.
* Los Santos : Hist, de la Orden de S. Geronimo, quarta parte, fol.,
Madrid. 1680, p. 516.
250 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 great-
est 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.
Preeminently the man of his time, his name is seldom
wanting to any monument of the age. He stood be-
tween the days of chivalry, which were going out, and
the days of printing, which were coming in; respect-
ing 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 re-
spect him as an astute and consummate politician.
Like his ancestors, Don Jayme, or Don Sancho, with
lance in rest, and shouting Santiago 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-colored genet of the emperor was
ever in the van of battle, like the famous piebald
charger of Turenne in later fields of the Palatinate.
Some historians have contrasted Charles with his
more showy and perhaps more amiable rival, Francis
the First, making the two monarchs the impersona-
tions of opposite qualities and ideas ; the ernperor of
state craft and cunning, the king of soldiership and
gallantry. Francis was, no doubt, oftener to be seen
glittering in armor, and adorning the pageants of roy-
alty and war ; but Charles was oftener in the trench
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 251
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 all comers ; with the Northern
envoy who claimed liberty of conscience for the Prot-
estant princes ; with the magnifico who excused the
perfidies of Venice ; or the still subtler priest, who
stood forth in red stockings to gloze in defence of the
still greater iniquities of the holy see. In the prose-
cution of his plans, and the maintenance of his influ-
ence, Charles shrank from no labor of rnind, or fa-
tigue of body. When other sovereigns would have
sent an ambassador, and opened a negotiation, he
paid a visit, and concluded a treaty. From Gron-
i^gen 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 Ant-
werp and Toledo.
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, abdica-
tion has been so frequently the refuge of weak men,
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
fallen in 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
the sins of themselves and their sires ; perhaps the
sole nation whose royal house has no member who
has put off, 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 impossible to look upon the solemn cere-
mony 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 Ca?sar, 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 bowstring; that
a Lothaire had led a hermit's life in the forest of Ar-
dennes ; that a Carloman had milked the ewes of the
Benedictines at Monte Cassino. Spanish history
afforded several examples of abdications, but they
belonged to the misty ages of the Goth, and the Cas-
tillian who was in the habit of alluding to very re-
mote antiquity as "the days of king Wamba," per-
haps seldom knew that the example set by that mar-
tial monarch had been followed by Bermudo, and
Alonso, and Rarniro, when they, in their turns, ex-
changed the diadem for the cowl. The act of Charles,
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 253
therefore, was fitted to strike the imagination of men,
by the novelty of the occasion, by the solemnity of
the circumstances, by the splendor of the abdicated
crowns, and by the world-wide fame with which they
had been won.
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 fulfilling 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
will had been as wax in the hands of other men. Up
to that time, the most laborious, reserved, and inflexi-
ble of princes was the most docile subject of his min-
isters. His mind ripened slowly, and his body de-
cayed prematurely. By nature and hereditary habit
a keen sportsman, in his youth he was unwearied in
tracking the bear and the wolf over the hills of Tole-
do and Granada ; and he was distinguished for his
prowess against the bull 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 yielded the lance, and
curbed the charger, was so enfeebled with gout, that
* Libra de la Monteria : Discurso de G. Argote de Molina, p. 6. Rankc's
Ottoman and Spanish Empires, translated jby Kelly, 8vo, London, 1843,
p. 30.
22
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
it was sometimes unable to break the seal of a letter.
Declining fortune combined with decaying health to
maintain him in that general vexation of spirit which
he shared with 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. While the doctors
of the church assembled at Trent, in that council
which had cost so much treasure and intrigue, con-
tinued their solemn quibblings, the Protestant faith
was spreading itself even in the dominions of the or-
thodox house of Hapsburg. The emperor's well-
known device, 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
townsmen of Metz, furnished a new reading, NON
ULTRA METAS, for the motto ; f 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
* 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: De Rebus Gestis, fol. 151), and afterwards with
that of Ciudad Rodrigo. Rod. Mendez Silva : Catalago Real, 4to,
Madrid, 1656, fol. 136.
t Le Moyne : De i Art des Devises, 4to, Paris, 1666, p. 215.
} Strada : De Bello Belgico, Lib. I., 2 torn., sm. 8vo, Antwerp, 1640,
T. 17.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 255
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 no wonder, therefore, that
Charles seized the first gleam of sunshine and return-
ing calm to make for the long-desired haven of ref-
uge ; that he relieved his brow of its thorny crowns
as soon as he had obtained an object dear to him as a
father, a politician, and a devotee, by placing his son
Philip on the rival throne of the heretic Tudors.
His habits and turn of mind made a religious 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 the charm, vague yet power-
ful, such as soldiership has for the young ; and he was
ever fond of catching glimpses of the life \vhich 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 commemo-
rated 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 prepared for
him, but insisted on sitting with the canons, saying
256 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
that he never could be better placed than among rev-
erend and learned divines.*
These church predilections, colored with religious
melancholy, Charles inherited from his ancestors on
both sides of the house, and transmitted to his de-
scendants. 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 preeminently the friend of friars : in
his wretched cell adjoining the church of the Escorial
he lived a life of the severest asceticism ; and, ever reck-
less 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 sick-
ening 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 ; they long remembered, at Mont-
serrate, 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 fascinat-
ing folio.f 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
* Alf. Sanctii : De Rebus Hispanice anacephaleosis, 4to, Compluti,
1634, p. 327.
t Porreno : Hechos y Dichos de Felipe III., 4to, Madrid, 1723,
pp. 332-334.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 257
to descend into the pantheon of their palace-convent,
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
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 re-
fused the hand of her uncle, Philip the Second, and,
as sister Margaret of the Cross, was famous for near
half a century 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 Franciscan 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 Mar-
garet, wife of Philip the Third, was divided between
childbed and church.f 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
* C. de Benavente : Advertencias para Reyes, 4to, Madrid, 1643
pp. 228, 229.
t See her life, Vida y Muerte de Dona Margarita de Austria, por Diego
de Guzman, 4to, Madrid, 1617.
22
S58 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 honors of Orleans between the profligate
regent and the infamous Egalite.
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 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 solitude and repose ; but
although his chamberlain complained bitterly that he
had indeed found the one, his own long and labored
despatches prove that he enjoyed but little of the other.
He began by attempting 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 termina-
tion ; 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 Flan-
ders he would turn to the diplomacy of Italy or Por-
tugal ; 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
* Fr. Juan B. de Soria : Historia de Dona Hlgria Teresa de Austria,
Reina de Francia, sin. 8vo, Madrid, 1684, p. 11.
t Phil. Camerarii Mtditationes Historical, 3 torn., 4to, Francofurti,
1602-9, I. p. 210.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 259
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. Unfortu-
nately, in 1557 and 1558, the disasters greatly out-
numbered and outweighed the successes. On one
side of the account stood the brilliant but barren vic-
tory of St. Quentin, and the less signal but better
employed victory of Gravelines ; on the other, there
were 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 of each courier ; and the
destruction of the army 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 negotiations 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 favorites 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 Olivares,
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
260 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
which they were addressed, tend to diminish their
value as materials for his biography. A close rea-
soner, careful in analyzing facts, and subtle in pene-
trating motives, Charles was nevertheless one of the
most tiresome writers who ever drove the quill of po-
litical or diplomatic correspondence. Heavy and re-
dundant in style, his pictures of men and events are
flat and colorless ; and even in argument, 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; of hopes and fears, to which a generous
heart can seldom respond ; of selfish intrigues and ig-
noble rivalries ; and of all the dusty plans of an ambi-
tion which never soared above the family tree of
Hapsburg. ,
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 inde-
scribable charm which wins the favor of the multi-
tude. A little book, of no literary value, but frequent-
ly printed both in French and Flemish, sufficiently
indicates in its title the qualities which colored the
popular view of his character. The Life and Actions,
Heroic and Pleasant, of the Invincible Emperor, Charles
the Fifth, was long a favorite chap-book in the Low
Countries. It relates how he defeated Solyman the
Magnificent, and how he permitted a Walloon boor
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 261
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 affability and
good humor, heightened by the added quality of sanc-
tity, he left behind him in the sylvan monastery of
Estremadura. Doomed by royal etiquette to eat
alone, he sometimes broke through the rule in favor
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 imperial guest won
the hearts of his hosts by taking in perfectly -good
part.* At Yuste he occasionally dined in the refec-
tory, improving the conventual cheer by the good hu-
mor of his conversation no less than by the science of
his cook.
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 even 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 vic-
* Vida que el Emperador tuvo en el Convento de Yuste: in the MS. en-
titled El Perfecto Desengano por el Marques de Valparaiso, 1638, of
which I have given an account in my preface.
262 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
torious zealots of the church. At Wittenberg he set
a fine example of moderation, in forbidding the de-
struction 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 Bruxelles, 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 philosophical freedom.f
But once within the walls of Yuste, he assumed all
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 plighted word to a her-
etic. Religion 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 timepieces could be made to go alike, re-
marked 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 Jovius, 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.:}:
* Juncker: ] r ita Mart. Luteri, sm. 8vo, Francofurti. 1699, p. 219.
Sleidan: De Statu Rdiy. et Reip., Lib. XIX., is cited as his authority,
t Rekitione of Badovaro.
f I have sought in vain for the inventor of this popular fiction, of
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 263
It would have been well for his own fame, well, per-
haps, 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 clois-
ter 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
Valencia, was first in the field, in 1560, with his
Carolea, of which the thirty printed cantos bring the
hero's history down only to his coronation at Bologna.
The huge and worthless fragment was never com-
pleted.* In 1568, Luis Capata, a soldier, published,
likewise at Valencia, his Carlo Famoso, in fifty can-
tos, to which he had given the labor of thirteen years.
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
last twelve years of his hero's life. From this wilder-
which I can find no trace in books of the sixteenth century. Strada,
De Bella Bely., Lib. I. p. 13, speaking of the emperor's love of watch-
making and watches, adds, " quorum videlicit rotas multo quam fortunse
facilius 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, pp. 70-72, 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 Sandoral, ought to have
rejected it on internal evidence.
* Ticknor's Hist, of Spanish Literature, II. p. 456.
264 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ness 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,
En Yuste, en nuestra Espana un abadia,
Se recogio & la fin a un aposento :
Y alii (puesto en el del un pie) bivia,
Mas qu'en su cielo Jupiter contento,
En religion sin habito biviendo
A quantos havia monges excediendo.
" Otros se ban del imperio descargado,
Mas que no de virtud de miedo lleno,
Qu'en la una mano vian el hierro ayrado,
Y en el otra el vaso oculto de veneno ;
Imitando al castor, y aun tan loado
Les fue, que de sn fama hoy dura el trueno,
Mas el dexo un imperio, 6 caso duro,
Glorioso, dulce, en paz, quieto y seguro.
" Carlo que como cisne su fin siente
Al nino Don Juan de Austria ante si llama,
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 a su alto assierto." *
" 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 sovran glories crown'd ;
In all things save the hood a holy friar,
In Christian graces peerless in the choir.
Carlo Famoso de Don Luys Capata, 4to, Valencia, 1566, fol. 287.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 265
" 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 nickering 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. Capata wrote while the events were fresh
in men's memories ; in his dedication to the king he
challenged comparison for accuracy with any prose
historian ; and he professed to mark with an asterisk
every passage in which he had ventured to embellish
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, 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 correspondence 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.
23
266 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
CHAPTER X.
FINAL NOTICES OF THE COURT AND MONASTERY
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 opera-
tions of external nature. A comet appeared over
Yuste at the beginning of his last illness, and was last
seen in the night on which he died. In the spring, a
lily 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 astonishment of the
gardeners and the friars. But on the night of the
20th of September it burst into full bloom, as an em-
blem of the whiteness of the parting spirit, and of the
sure and certain hope of its reception into the man-
sions of bliss. Reverently gathered in the morning,
this wondrous lily was fastened upon the black veil
which covered the sacramental shrine in the convent-
ual church, 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 267
at the same hour, and always arriving from the east
and flying away towards the west. And four years
later, a holy capuchin of the new world, Fray Gon-
c^alo 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 de-
mons, and with so much success that he received
honorable acquittal, and was in the end borne off to
heaven by the angels of light. *
The codicil of the will of Charles, the only part of
the document which properly belongs to his life 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 al-
abaster, 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 sacramental tabernacle, was likewise
to be made of alabaster and marble, and placed be-
tween 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 penitents. For further
particulars he referred the I3ng to Luis Quixada and
the confessor Regla, who were fully instructed in his
meaning and wishes. In case of the removal of his
268 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 punc-
tual payment for the future. He directs that the friars
of Yuste, and the friars from other convents, who had
been specially emplo^d in his service as readers,
preachers, musicians, or in other capacities, shall re-
ceive such gratuities as shall appear sufficient to
father Regla and Quixada. To the confessor himself
he bequeathes an annual pension of four hundred du-
cats, (about 80 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 ex-
pense and inconvenience of removing his wife and
household to Quacos. Lamenting that he has done
so little to promote his interest, he earnestly recom-
mends him to the king's favor, and leaves him a leg-
acy of two thousand ducats, (400 sterling,) and a
pension of the value of his present emoluments, with-
out mentioning the amount, until he shall be provided
with a better appointment. He also desires the in-
fanta 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 distribution
amongst the poor of the village. The contents of his
larder and cellar, and his stores of provisions in gen-
eral, at the day of his decease, and likewise the dis-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 269
pensary, with its drugs and vessels, he leaves to the
brotherhood 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
gratuities are given, it being explained that previous
provision has been made for them. The pensions
range from four hundred florins, (32 sterling,) con-
ferred on the doctor, Mathys, to ninety florins, which
requite the services of Isabel Plantin, laundress of the
table linen. 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 workshop of Torriano. That mecha-
nician himself, being already pensioned to the amount
of two hundred crowns, receives only fifteen thousand
maravedis ; and he is likewise reminded 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 Flem-
ings 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
23
270 THE CLOISTER LIFE
eleven hundred and ninety ducats in gratuities. The
largest of these gratuities was a sum of two hundred
ducats to the preacher Villalva. Fray Lorenzo de
Losar received one hundred and fifty ducats, for act-
ing as purveyor to the emperor's household; the friars
from Zaragoza and Granada, who had been in attend-
ance as preachers for three months, had forty each ;
Fray Marcos de Cardona, counter-bass, and an assist-
ant 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 be-
fore in the post of chapel-master. Strict injunctions
were laid upon the prior of Yuste that no one was to
be permitted, under any pretext 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 decla-
ration of his father's intentions with regard to him,
were contained in a separate paper executed at Brux-
elles, on the 6th of June, 1554, and already deposited
in the custody of the king.* By this document
Charles acknowledged that he required that Geroni-
rno, for so Don John was called, his natural son
born to him in his widowhood of a German unmarried
woman, should be educated in a manner befitting his
rank ; and he intimated his wish that he should after-
wards 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
* Papiers de Cranvdle, IV. 496. See also Chap. III. p. 54, note.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 271
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 in superintending their removal to Valla-
dolid. The regent was very minute in the instruc-
tions which she sent down for their guidance. On
rinding that the physician Cornelio, and some of the
other attendants, had asked for the mules in the im-
perial stable, and that the old one-eyed pony had been
actually made over to the doctor, she issued a man-
date, that nothing which had been used by her father,
or in his service, should be given away. She likewise
required that his favorite cat and talking parrot should
be sent to her; and these pets were accordingly forth-
with despatched to Valladolid by Quixada, in one of
the imperial litters, attended by a trusty servant.*
Dona Magdalena de Ulloa 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
* The litter in which these incongruous passengers travelled was prob-
ably that which is now preserved in the royal armory at Madrid. De-
scribed in the catalogue (Catalogo de la Armeria Real, No. 2425, Svo,
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 Jubi-
nal : La Armeria Real de Madrid, 2 vol., fol., Paris, 8. A. II. pi. 30. In
the same armory (Cat., No. 1931. p. 121) are four iron trenchers, which
belonged to the emperor's campaigning canteen, and which are causti-
cally contrasted, in the Hand-book for Sfxiin, p. 450, with the "golden
necessaires'" left behind by the runaway Bonapartes at Vittoria and
Waterloo.
272 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
day to add the brightest star, in the beautiful " fanal "
taken from the galley of the Turkish admiral at Le-
panto.* The chamberlain and secretary had much
difficulty in settling various small and unexpected
claims brought against the emperor's estate by the
neighboring peasants, and supported by their friends
the friars. At length, however, these quibblings were
disposed of, and Quixada was able to bid farewell to
Quacosf and to Estremadura early in the month of
December.
At Valladolid, funeral honors were performed for
the emperor, in the presence of the regent and her
court, in the beautiful church of the royal Benedic-
tines. A sermon was preached on the occasion by
Francisco Borja, from the text, Ecce longavifugiens
et mansi in solitudine, " Lo ! then would I wander afar
* Fr. Gabriel de Talavera : Historia de Na. Senora de Guadalupe, 4to,
Toledo, 1597, fol. 156.
t To the Hon. Colonel Percy, who spent some days during the last
winter (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 Qua-
cos, says the legend, was originally called by the more euphonious name
of Villaflor del Key. 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.
AVhatever the origin of the name, there is some traditionary reproach at-
tached 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 per-
don," " 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 273
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
o
taken leave of him, praise which, in the mouth of a
Jesuit, who had once been a wealthy grandee, must
have savored 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 em-
peror in all the convents of the order of Jerome ; and
the great fraternity of Guadalupe, in their noble
Gothic church, displayed peculiar magnificence in
honor of the imperial devotee, to whom, when a pil-
grim 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. f 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 all the cities of the Austrian
dominion in the splendor with which she did honor to
the emperor's memory. The ceremonies took place
on the 29th and 30th of December. The procession,
in which walked Philip 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, Ger-
* Psalm liv. 7, in the Vulgate ; or in our translation, Iv. 7.
t Talavera : Hist, du Guadalupe, fol. 210.
274 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
many, 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 cun-
ningly devised ocean, which answered the double pur-
pose of supporting some islands emblematic of the
Indies, and of concealing the power which rolled the
huge structure along. FaiJh, 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 bear-
ing on its housings the blazon of one of the states of
the emperor. They were led up the aisle of the
church, 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 pro-
nounced by Francis Richardot, afterwards bishop of
Arras, an eminent scholar and divine, and esteemed
the most eloquent preacher within the dominions of
, Burgundy.f
Funeral honors were also performed in most of the
* An elaborate account of it, with many curious plates, came from the
press of Ch. Plantin. La magnified e somtuosa Pompa Funerale fatta in
Burselle, il di xxix di Decembre, MDLVIII, nell' essequie dello invitissimo
Carlo Quinto, fol., An versa, 1559.
t Papiers de Granvelle, IV. p. 510 ; V. p. 4, note. This oraison funtbre,
and those on Mary Queen of Hungary and Mary Queen of England, form
a very rare volume, fol., Antwerp, 1558.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 275
foreign capitals, and those at Lisbon and Rome were
peculiarly splendid. They were celebrated in several
places in France, after peace had been concluded be-
tween the crowns ; and even our Protestant Elizabeth
caused a solemn dirge and mass of requiem to be
sung for the emperor's soul in her abbey of Westmin-
ster.* It was computed that throughout Europe his
obsequies were performed in upwards of three thou-
sand churches, at a cost of six millions of ducats.f
The church of Yuste was merely a temporary rest-
ing-place of the imperial dead. The emperor, in his
will, had confided the care of his bones to his son, ex-
pressing 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 tro-
phies 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 monument of
the power and the piety of the house of Hapsburg.
At the Escorial, therefore, he united the bones of his
father and mother, and placed them, on the 4th of
February, 1574, in a vault in front of the high altar,
beneath the jasper shrine which yet contains their fine
effigies kneeling in emblazoned mantles, and wrought
in bronze by Leoni. THOU, OF THE CHILDREN OF
CHARLES THE FIFTH, says the inscription, WHO SHALT
* On the 24t!i of December, 1558. Queen Mary's funeral had been
celebrated there on the 13th.
t Gregorio Leti (Vita de Carlo V., 4 torn., 12mo, Amsterdam, 1700,
IV. 412, 413), quoting, without saying where he found it, an account of
the emperor's life and death, by father Regla, says that Eegla computed
the number of services at 3,700, while Saavedra made them only 2,400.
276 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
SURPASS THE GLORY OF HIS ACTIONS, TAKE THIS PLACE :
LET THE REST REVERENTLY FORBEAR.* The OCCasioil
of this first funeral solemnity in the new temple was
marked by one of those terrific storms, which visit
the bleak sierra, and which were sent, as the monks
supposed, by the devil, in the hope of overthrowing
the new fortress of piety.f A grand arch of timber,
erected at the portal of the still unfinished church, was
blown away before the eyes of the trembling worship-
pers, and its hangings of rich brocades, rent into minute
shreds, were scattered far and wide over the surround-
ing chase. The ceremonies lasted for three days ; the
emperor's body, which had been brought from Yuste
by the duke of Alcala and the bishop of Jaen, was
once more laid in the tomb, with all the rites used at
the interment of a Jeromite friar ; and his funeral ora-
tion was pronounced for the second time by his favor-
ite preacher, Villalva.
Eighty years afterwards, the repose of Charles was
again disturbed by his great-grandson, Philip the
Fourth. For thirty-three years, that prince was en-
gaged in building the celebrated pantheon, begun by
his father, Philip the Third, at the Escorial. On the
16th of March, 1654, the dust of the Austrian kings
of Spain, and of their consorts who had continued the
royal line, was translated from the plain vault of
Philip the Second to this splendid sepulchral chamber.
Fray Juan de Avellanada pronounced a discourse on
Ezekiel's text, " O ye dry bones, hear the word of the
* HUXC LOCUM SI QUIS POSTER. CAROLO V. HABITAM G LORI AM
RERUM GESTARUM SPLENDORE SUPERAVERIS, IPSE SOLCS OCCCPATO,
CETERI KEVEREXTER ABSTINETE.
t Siguen<ja, III. p. 569.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 277
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 advocates
before the throne of the Almighty.f Each of the
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, like 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 marquis of Aytona. As the body
was deposited in the marble sarcophagus, the cover-
ings were removed to enable Philip 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, as
the friars averred, 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, " Cuer-
po honrado, honored body, Don Luis." " Very hon-
* Ezek. xxxrii. 4.
t Los Santos : Description del Escorial, fol. 183, 184.
24
278 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ored," replied the minister; words brief, indeed, but
very pregnant, for the prior of the Eseorial has re-
corded that they comprehended all that a Christian
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 scoffed, and
whose posterity had wrested from the house of Aus-
tria the sceptre of Spain and the Indies. Mr. Beck-
ford used to relate, that when he was leaving Madrid,
Charles the Third, as a parting civility, desired to
know what favor 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 Eseorial.
The marble sarcophagus being moved from its niche,
and the lid raised, the lights 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 un-
changed since the eyelids had been closed by Quixa-
da. There, too, were the sprigs of thyme, seen by
Philip the Fourth, and gathered seven ages before in
the woods of Yuste.f
* " Exprimiendo Su Magestad en breves palabras todo aquel sentir, a.
que se puede alargar la piedad Christiana en caso semejante." Lo3
Santos: Descrip. del Eseorial, fol., Madrid, 1657, fol. 156.
t For this curious anecdote I am indebted to the kindness of Mr.
Beckford's daughter, the duchess of Hamilton. He had left, unfortu-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 279
Those who have read this record of the last years
of Charles the Fifth may perhaps desire to know
somewhat of the subsequent fortunes, both of the per-
sonages 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. To-
wards the close of July she had had a slight attack of
small-pox ; but early in August she was sufficiently
recovered to propose to accompany her niece, the
princess-regent, in her visit to Yuste. Perhaps her
active mind and frame, filled with an energy which
astonished the slow officials at Valladolid, after a life
spent in stormy councils and rapid marches, sunk un-
der the fatigues of her enforced leisure. She died at
Cigales, on the 28th of October, 1558, five weeks after
the death of her brother. So passed away, in the
same year, and within a few months of one another,
the royal personages of the remarkable group which
landed at Laredo. Sixteen years afterwards, their
ashes were united at the Escorial, queen Eleanor
being brought from her provisional 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 prayerful faces, turned to the
magnificent high altar.
nately, 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 cor-
roborative evidence from Spain, and therefore the story must be taken
simply as told by Mr. Beckford.
280 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 Eliz-
abeth of Valois, already betrothed to his son, Don
Carlos, daughter of the king of France. 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 honor of this double
alliance, that the eye of Henry was pierced by the
fatal splinter of Montgomery's lance. Pope Paul the
Fourth, who had meanwhile quarrelled with the
worthless nephews for whose sakes he had set Chris-
tendom 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
8th of September ; and the auspicious event was cel-
ebrated by an auto-de-fe, at which the galleries and
the scaffold were brilliantly filled with orthodox gran-
dees and heretic victims. Among the courtiers ap-
peared 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 arid 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
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 281
to die. " I would myself," said Philip, " carry the
wood to burn my own son, were he a heretic like
you." *
The infanta Juana, princess of Brazil, relieved of
her regency by the arrival of the king, and still disap-
pointed in her hopes of obtaining the regency of Por-
tugal, 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 re-
cluses, by the advice of father Borja, from the Francis-
can 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 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 be-
came one of the finest in Madrid, and no less remark-
able for its stately cloister and pleasant gardens, than
for the piety of its noble virgins, who for a while had
for their confessor Fray Nicolas Factor, the canonized
capuchin and painter of Valencia. Here Dona Juana
devoted herself, for the remainder of her days, to re-
ligious exercises, not assuming the veil, yet becoming
every year more strict in her self-imposed rule of life.
Her favorite relaxation was to take the air at the
* Cabrera: D. Filipe It, p. 236.
24*
282 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 em-
broidering scarfs and handkerchiefs, which she like-
wise 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 penitents 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 biog-
rapher called it, "the Aranjuez of her devout pleas-
ures, 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 felt it as a bitter
disappointment when her niece, the archduchess Eliz-
abeth, came as a bride to the Tuileries.* Dying after
a short illness at the Escorial, in 1573, Dona Juana
was buried in her favorite convent at Madrid, five
years before her son, Don Sebastian, was slain in
battle by 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
* Brantome: (Euvres, 8 vols., 8vo, Paris, 17S7, II. p. 541.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 283
pains of purgatory.* Her sister, the widowed empress
Mary, came to Madrid, in 1580, and took up 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 shin-
ing light 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 30th
of September, the principal circumstances of the im-
perial 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 pow-
er, for thirty-seven years, and that I will serve you to
my life's end." Philip had an early occasion to ob-
serve 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 Valla-
dolid that there lived in Quixada's family a lad who
was supposed to be his master's son ; and the rumor
reaching the ear of the regent, secretary Vazquez, by
her desire, wrote confidentially to the chamberlain, to
inquire if it was true. Quixada replied, that a boy,
who had been committed to his care, some years be-
fore, by a friend whom he could not name, certainly
resided in his house ; but what reason was there for
* 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, Relation historica de la real Fundacion del Monasterio de
las Descalzas de Sta. Clara de Madrid, de las Vidas de Da. Juana de Aus-
tria sit Fitndadora. y de la Etnperatriz Maria su Hermana, c., 4to, Ma-
drid, 1616. See also GIT. de Quintana : Ilistoria de Madrid, fol.,
Madrid, 1629, fol. 412.
284 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
supposing that his parentage had been correctly sur-
mised, 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 13th of December, from Valladolid, saying that
the matter was much discussed, but that he always
denied any knowledge 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 se-
crecy ; 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 Villagarcia. When Philip the Second
came to Spain, in 1559, he appointed his brother and
his guardian to meet him near the neighboring con-
vent of San Pedrq de la Espina. Quixada assem-
bled his vassals, and rode forth in state with his charge,
having first made the secret of his birth known to
Dona Magdalena, 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 un-
der pretext of hunting, remarking that he had never
captured game which had given him so much pleas-
ure.* They afterwards followed the court to Madrid,
* VillafaSe : Vida de Da. Mnjd. de Ulloa, pp. 49, 50, 52.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 285
where Quixada had an opportunity of once more sig-
nalizing 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 Mag-
dalena. 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, besides, the commanderies of Viso, El
Moral, and Santa Cruz de Argamasilla, considerable
benefices in the order of Calatrava.*
When Don Juan was sent, in 1569, to command
against the Moriscos, whom Christian oppression and
bad faith had driven to a revolt in the Alpuxarras, the
old mayordomo went with him as a military tutor,
with the rank of general of infantry. Luis de Avila
served in the same expedition. They were reconnoi-
tring 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 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 hemlet a ball glanced as he covered the
retreat of the party who bore the wounded veteran
from his last field.f Carried to Canilles, Quixada
* El Moral was worth, in 1669, 7,500 ducats annually; Journal du
Voyage en Espagne, 4to, Paris, 1682, p. 369. Argamasilla had been
previously held by the favorite Ruy Gomez de Silva ; Hist, de la Oasa de
Silva, II. 464.
i Luys de Marmol Carvajal : Hisforia del Rtbdion y Casllgo de los
Mvriscos de Granada, fol., Malaga, 1600. fol. 195.
286 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
died there on the 25th 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 honors, in the church of
the Jeromite friars at Baza, whence his bones were
afterwards removed to Villagarcia.
When the good Dofia Magdalena left the Christian
camp, Don John rode for some miles beside her litter,
and embraced her tenderly when they parted. Dur-
ing 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 affectionate words: "Luis died as became
him, fighting for the glory and safety of his son, and
covered with immortal honor. Whatever I am, what-
ever 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 honored
mother ! and pray to God to send back your son from
these wars to your bosom."f "We may be sure Mag-
dalena's oratory was the scene of many such prayers.
Her childless widowhood was passed at her husband's
house of Villagarcia, and was chiefly spent in works
* VillafaHe, Vida de Da. Magd. de Ullod, p. 78.
t 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.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 287
of charity and devotion, performed 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
wh.at 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 checkered history ; he never came back to Spain
without paying her a visit, or went to the wars with-
out bidding her farewell.* When she was founding
her college at Villagarcia, in 1576, he wrote to the
pope's secretary to ask for the necessary licenses, en-
forcing his request 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."! I n 1577,
as he took leave of her, on going to govern the Neth-
erlands, she was seized with a presentiment of evil,
and instituted daily masses for his health. Her fore-
bodings were just; for within two years, into which
had been compressed an age of toil, anxiety, and mor-
tification, 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 his sire at the Escorial.J
Doiia Magdalena's chief tie to the world was now
broken. For a while she adopted Don John's natural
daughter Anna, but she placed the child, at the age
of seven years, in a convent, at Madrid, where she
afterwards took the veil. Religion had then no rival
in the widow's heart ; and her days were passed in
* Vanderhammen : Vida de D. Juan de Austria, fol. 292.
t Villafane : Vida de Da. Magd. de Ulloa, p. 284.
J Vanderhammen : Vida de D. Juan de Austria, fol. 324.
288 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
doing good, after the fashion prescribed by her Jesuit
counsellors. For the company, she built and endowed
colleges, not only at Villagarcia, but at Oviedo and
Santander ; 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 en-
thusiasm came to an end in 1598, when she was laid
beside her lord in the collegiate church of 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.*
William Van Male, the amiable and scholarly gen-
tleman of the emperor's chamber, returned to Flan-
ders, with the slender annual pension of one hundred
and fifty florins, which was to be reduced to one half
on his succeeding to the keepership of the palace of
Bruxelles, a post of which the king had granted him
the reversion. On the 17th 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 write some history of his
majesty, now in glory ; that it was possible such a
work might contain some things either untrue or un-
worthy of the merits of the deceased ; and that there-
fore the bishop had better institute a search, as if for
some other purpose, amongst Van Male's papers, and
if any such writings were found, send it to him to
Spain, that it might be burned as it deserved. 1 The
emperor's poor scholar and faithful servant was hap-
* VillafaSe : Vida de M. de Ulloa, pp. 78, 443.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 289
pily saved this indignity by the protecting hand of
death. On the 7th of March, Arras replied from
Bruxelles, that Van Male having died before the re-
ceipt of the king's letter, he himself had already taken
the precaution of searching amongst his papers for
historical 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, how 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 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 buried 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.f Their son Charles
* Papiers de Gram-die, VI. p. 291 .
t It is cited by M. de Reiffenberg (Lettres de G. Van Male, p. 23)
and gives January 1st, 1560, as the date of Van Male's death, which
M. Gachard thinks reconcilable with the date in the Granvelle Papers,
25
290 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 archduch-
ess infanta Isabella ; their grandson, Aurelius Au-
gustus, 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 discov-
ered no farther trace, beyond the fact that he assisted
at the final obsequies of his late master at the Esco-
rial, in 1574.
From the vigils and dirges of Yuste, Fray Juan de
E-egla hastened to court to await the arrival of the
king. Philip received him graciously and gave him
a long audience, for the purpose of hearing his ac-
count of the emperor's retirement and death, and cer-
tain secrets respecting Don John of Austria, confided
to him by the dying man for the ear of his successor.
It may be fairly 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 favor: 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.
He was afterwards elected prior of the Jeromite con-
by allowing for the two ways of counting the years, from the 1st January
or from Easter. See the Bulletin de fAcad. Roy. de Bruxelles, llth Jan-
uary, 1845.
* Reiffenberg : Lettres de G. Van Male. pp. xxiii., xxx.. xxxii.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 291
vent at Madrid, a house rich with the gifts of' kings
and queens, and much frequented and favored by the
royal family; and ere long, in spite of his repugnance
to the custody of a royal conscience, he accepted the
post of confessor to his majesty. We are assured by
his panegyrist that he bore these honors with exem-
plary meekness and moderation, asking for favors only
for his convent, and referring all petitioners who
besought his influence in the closet, either to the tri-
bunals of justice or to the ministers of state. Of his
annual pension he gave one fourth to the poor of Ca-
lahorra, and the rest to his Jeromite brethren at Zara-
goza. But if he were free from avarice and political
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.* Dur-
ing his long life he had formed a considerable col-
lection of books, which he bequeathed, as a last token
of filial love, to his mother convent of Sta. Engracia,
and which was accordingly added to its noble library,
famous for literary treasures, and for the lovely pros-
pect commanded by its grand windows, extending
over the garden of the Ebro to the snowy peaks of
the Pyrenees.f
Fray Francisco de Villalva, on the return of Philip
the Second to Spain, was appointed one of his preach-
* Signer^, III. p. 448.
t Vine. Blasco de Lanuza: Historia de Aragon, 2 torn., 4to, Zaragoza,
1622, I. 110.
292 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
ers, and was ever afterwards much in his confidence in
ecclesiastical affairs. 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 constantly consulted. He was likewise em-
ployed to report on the claim of the metropolitan
church of Toledo to retain a missal and breviary of
its own in spite of a 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 ill-
ness of which he died in a few days. Notwithstand-
ing his fame as a preacher, none of his sermons ap-
pear 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 A^alores, 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 arch-
bishop Carranza; and he eventually harangued his
way to the patriarchal chair and the mitre of the
Canaries.f
Fray Juan de Santandres, the third preacher, ended
* Los Santos : Hist, de San Geron., p. 515.
1 Siguen^a, III. pp. 207, 370.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 293
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 foretell, 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 hum-
bler functions 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 superintended the execution of every detail
of the mighty 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 practi-
cal 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
labors he directed. Philip the Second was very fond
of him ; being attracted at first, it is said, by the retir-
ing habits of the friar, who always retreated at his
approach, and was caught in the end only by a strat-
agem, the king following him along the top of an
unfinished wall, which afforded no way of escape. In
the course of his duties, he had his share of the hard
knocks, and hair-breadth escapes, of which scaffold-
ings and cranes offer so many occasions. Later in life,
he was afflicted with a dangerous swellmg in the arm,
for which the surgeon threatened amputation. But
one night, as he lay awake with the pain, he felt a
* Siguciuja. III. p. 193.
25*
294 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
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 con-
fided the fact to the prior Siguen^a, who agreed with
him in believing that the mysterious manipulator
was none other than the blessed St. Lawrence him-
self. When the huge monastery was completed, the
eyes of Villacastin 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 pavement, at the door of
the cell in which he had so long lived and labored.
In the church of the Escorial, Luca Cambiaso has in-
troduced the pale grave face of Villacastin, 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.
From Yuste, Juanelo Torriano went to Toledo,
where he was employed by the corporation to supply
the city with water from the Tagus, which flows be-
neath its rock-built walls. Of this work he had, many
years before, in Italy, constructed a model, at the sug-
gestion of his patron, the Marques 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 Valtujio, but many improvements were add-
ed 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 descrip-
THE EMPEKOR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 295
tion of the work, or artificio, as it was called, and
lauded it as a miracle of mechanical genius. He like-
wise 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 con-
clude with these extravagant lines :
" Aerias rapes jubet hunc transcendere ; paret ;
Atque hie sideribus proximus ecce fluit" *
" He bids the Tagas 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." t
" 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 labors condemning ! "
The Tagus stream, however, soon rested from its
labors ; for the mechanism falling 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
* Morales : Antig. de Espana, fol. 92.
t Itinerarlo desde Madrid a su Torre, Obras, 3 torn., 4to, Brussels,
1600-1. Poesias, p. 420.
296 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
Madrid, in making some draw-wells on an improved
principle. But Toledo continued to be his home, and
he died there, leaving a daughter behind him, 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 pato" in
memory, says tradition, of a puppet, of his making,
which used to walk daily to the archiepiscopal palace,
and return laden with allowance of bread and meat,
after doing ceremonious obeisance to the donor.* The
city of Toledo honored Torriano with a medal, bear-
ing his head, shaggy, bearded, and stern ; on the re-
verse was a gushing fountain, supported on the head
of a nymph, and surrounded by thirsty ancients, with
the inscription, VIRTVS . NVNQVAM .DEFICIT, the mech-
anician's favorite motto. His bust, finely executed
in marble, perhaps by Berruguete, still adorns the
cabinet of natural history in the archbishop's palace
at Toledo.f His portrait, inscribed with his name
and the medal motto, likewise hangs in the smaller
cloister of the Escorial.J
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 Jhe
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.
* Ponz: Viage, I. 161, 162. where the medal is engraved.
t J. Amador de los Rios : Toledo Pintoresca, 8vo, Madrid, 1845. p. 201.
t Description del Escorial, sm. 8vo, Madrid, 1843, p 225.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 297
He had communicated, it was said, with Fray Do-
mingo de Roxas, and he was summoned by arch-
bishop Carranza to bear witness on his behalf before
the Inquisition. Reports injurious to his orthodoxy
and to that of the company for a while 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 cata-
logue 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 polemic war, in which
men who confound friends with foes pretend to judge
of the subtile distinctions 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 Fourth, to advise on the
affairs of the church, he was twice chosen vicar-gen-
eral of the company, and finally, on the death of
Laynez, in 1567, received the staff of Loyola. Dur-
ing 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 con-
ditipn of mankind. Jesuit politicians gained the
ear of princes and prelates who had hitherto re-
garded the society with coldness or enmity ; Jesuit
scholars and thinkers, no less elegant than profound,
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,
298 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
and Brazil were watered with the blood of Jesuit mar-
tyrs ; and Jesuit ministers of mercy moved arnid 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 were the minds of
many 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 followers 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
delivery 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 and of ill savor,
and of none effect until it is touched with the fire of
the Holy Spirit." * In spite of the duties of his com-
mand, 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, filling a folio of goodly dimensions.
The general of Jesus visited Spain for the last time
in 1571, being specially sent thither by pope Pius^he
Fifth as the companion of the cardinal-legate who
was commissioned to preach a new crusade against
the Turk in the courts of Western Christendom. From
the moment when Borja stepped ashore at Barcelona
his progress was a perpetual triumph. His son Fer-
* Tratado para los predicadores. Kibadeneira : Vida de F. Borja,
p. 233.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 299
nando 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 Valencian nobility ; at Madrid he held an in-
fant of Spain at the baptismal font; and he was
treated by the king, not only as an old and trusted
counsellor, but with the honor due to a bearer of a
morsel of the true cross, presented by the pope -to the
splendid reliquary of the Escorial. Of the offers of
new houses for the company which now poured in,
the last which Borja accepted was that of Dona Mag-
dalena de Ulloa to build a college at Villagarcia, a
pious work in which he found, after many days, the
bread which he had cast upon the waters at Yuste.
In Portugal the usual honors awaited him ; the young
king, Sebastian, imploring his benediction, and the
cardinal-infant, Henry, busying himself about the re-
pair of his travel-worn wardrobe. 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
to 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 tapes-
tried chambers. He suffered no day to pass without
saying mass ; and it was during the performance of
300 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
this rite on a cold winter's morning, in a church lately
sacked by the Huguenots, that the seeds of deadly
disease were sown in his enfeebled frame. The icy
air of Mont Cenis accelerated the progress of the dis-
order, 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. Rallying
somewhat in the summer of 1572, he proceeded to
Loretto to pay his last devotions at Our Lady's shrine.
Thenee, feeling the hand of death upon him, he hur-
ried forward to Rome, travelling night and day, with-
out moving from his litter. For two days after his
arrival at the house of the company, his bedchamber
was besieged by ambassadors, anxious to do honor to
the friend of their sovereigns, and by cardinals desir-
ous 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 compan-
ions 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 ; earthquakes, both in Italy and New
Spain, were assuaged by his invocation ; and his por-
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 301
trait, 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 relieved the parturient pangs of
the duchess of Uzeda ; another cured 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 canonization ; and
his claim being examined and the devil's 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 Ma-
drid, 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, bis enemy, the inquisitor Valdes, was
leaving no stone unturned to establish a case of heresy
against him. Soon after his appointment to the pri-
macy, Carranza had published, at Antwerp, a folio
catechism of Christianity, or an account of all that
is professed in receiving the sacrament of baptism.*
* Comentarios del reverendissimo Senor Frai Bartholonie Carranqa de
Miranda, Arqobispo de Toledo, sobre el Catechismo Christiana, 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 :
" Sn precio de este examplar dos onzas de oro o seis guineas."
26
302 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
To the Protestant, who in these days looks into this
very rare and still more tedious volume, the work ap-
pears to breathe the fiercest spirit of intolerant Ro-
manism. Heresy is reprobated ; Bibles in the vulgar
tongue are condemned ; Spain is praised as the one
land where the fountain of truth is still unpolluted ;
Philip the Second is exhorted to further persecutions ;
Mary Tudor is extolled as the saviour of the soul of
England. " In these dangerous times," says the pre-
late, in his dedication to the king, " when heretics 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 which the sharp-eyed in-
quisitor contrived to find materials sufficient for the
ruin of his rival. The rack, which often agonized its
victims into the wildest accusations against them-
selves, easily obtained a large mass of evidence against
the primate from heretics who pretended that he was
the author or- the accomplice of their sins against the
true faith. Hope or fear also brought many free aux-
iliaries 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 procured the ratification, by pope
Pius the Fourth, of his predecessor's briefs, which em-
powered the Inquisition to arrest even prelates who
were suspected of heresy.
The snare being thus laid, the princess-regent, who
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 303
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 dis-
position 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 per-
sonal animosity with which that prelate regarded
him. The matter being referred to the pope, he au-
thorized the king to choose a 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 ad-
vocate that it was useless to appeal against injustice
so manifest and wilful, Carranza permitted the trial
to proceed ; and at first he had some hope of an ac-
quittal, on the ground that his book had been declared
orthodox by commissioners appointed to examine it
by the council of Trent. His enemies, however, had
the art to prevent the opinion of the commission from
being ratified by the council, although they failed in
obtaining a decree of condemnation, and although
eleven dignitaries of the church expressed their appro-
bation 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
the purpose a legate and two other judges to Spain.
Pius, however, died soon afterwards, and his successor
304 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
insisted that the trial should be adjourned to Rome.
Pius the Fifth, an honest man, though a bigot, re-
membered the good service which had been done by
Carranza in England, and was indignant at the in-
justice 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 favor of the prisoner.
But he, too, was called to his account before pronoun-
cing 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 judgment, drawn up
in 1576, he therefore took a middle course, very differ-
ent from that which the king desired, and from that
which justice dictated. The catechism was declared
to contain sixteen heretical propositions, which the
author was required publicly 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 pen-
ances, 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 imprisonment at Valladolid, and in the castle of
St. Angelo, had broken his health and enfeebled his
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 305
constitution. The unwonted excitement and exer-
tion, therefore, produced an attack of inflammation,
of which he died on the 2d of May, 1576, in the con-
vent of Minerva. He was buried with great pomp in
the conventual church, and the pope made a wretched
atonement for his injustice, by inscribing his tomb
with an epitaph in which he was praised as a man
illustrious by his lineage, his life, his almsdeeds, his
eloquence, and his doctrine. His sad and anxious
countenance, 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
the cause which turned $he 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 sup-
ported by evidence that would have been admitted
only before a tribunal of unscrupulous enemies. The
single expression which a cursory perusal of the cate-
chism has enabled me to detect as being likely to
* It was known to Antonio Perez, who says he had stated it in one of
his twelve memorials, which are unfortunately lost.
26*
306 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
alarm those who benefited by supporting every exist-
ing 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 Germany, 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 Carran-
za's printed theology contains (what theology does
not?) passages capable of an interpretation 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 keep-
ing 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 proposi-
tions, upon which the po^fe pronounced sentence of
condemnation, a sentence wrung from the pontiff,
with much difficulty, even by the immense influence
of the crown 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 reputa-
tion ; that both in England and the Netherlands he
had been a vigilant shepherd of the faithful and un-
sparing 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, there-
* Catechismo, Prologo, fol. 2.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 307
fore, but reasonable to believe that he spoke the plain
truth when he made his dying declaration that he had
never held any of the heretical opinions of which he
had been accused.*
In memory of the emperor, the monastery of Yuste
was dignified with the title of royal. Philip the Sec-
ond confirmed its privileges in 1562, and honored it in
1570 with a visit of two days. As he approached the
precincts, he stopped his coach, in order to read the
inscription which the monks, or perhaps Quixada, had
caused to be carved beneath the imperial arms upon
the corner-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 21st of September,
1558." f
On the wall of the open gallery, on 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
* Don Adolfo de Castro considers Carranza a Protestant, and com-
bats the position of Llorente, but without showing that any one of the
sixteen propositions are found in the catechism, or in any other way, as
it appears to me, proving what he asserts. Spanish Protestants, pp. 126
to 189.
t En esta santa casa de Hieronimo de Ynste se retiro a acabar su
vida, el que toda la gasto en defensa de la fe, y conservation de la jus-
ticia, Carlos V. cmperador, rev de las Espafias, Christianissimo, invic-
tissimo. Murio 11 21 de Setieinbrc de 1558.
308 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
seized him on the 31st of August, at four o'clock in
the afternoon ; he died on the 21st of September, 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 camp-bed.f He presented the
fraternity with some relics and a gilt cup ; and he
provided 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 architec-
tural decorations were also designed for Yuste, by
Juan de Herrera, the architect of the Escorial, and
finished in 1583, by Juan de Segura. Some further
statues and embellishments, which were probably
disfigurements, were added by Juan Gomez de Mora,
in the reign of Philip the Third 4 The top was
adorned with the imperial eagle of Hapsburg, and the
armorial bearings of the emperor ; bearings which the
* Su magestad el empcrador don Carlos quinto nuestro sefior, en este
lugar estava Jasentado quando le dio el mal, a los treinta y uno de
Agosto a las quatro de la tarde ; fallecio a los 21 de Setiembre a los dos
y media de la manana ano de No. Sr., 1558.
t These particulars are mostly taken from the HancR^ook 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 Historique ((Euvres, 8 vol., 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. I., 12mo, London, 1674," as a piece of authen-
tic history ; and, more extraordinary still, was cited as such by Bayle,
art. Charles V.
t Ponz : Viage, VII. 136.
THE 'EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 309
monks also planted in box in the centre of their prin-
cipal 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 sufficient 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 An-
dalusia. Fray Juan de los Santos evinced sufficient
taste for study to be sent by the community to the
college of Siguenca. 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, dying of the fever of which
he had signally cured one of his brethren. At the
Escorial, Fray Bernardino deJ3alinas became a favor-
ite of Philip the Second; and Fray Miguel de Ala-
exos enjoyed the dignity of prior 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 honorable notice as an agriculturalist by cer-
tain improvements effected on the conventual farm of
Valmorisco. Some were revered for benefactions to
the house ; others for their austerities ; and a few for
* Valparaiso MS. See page 220, note.
310
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
the visions which had brightened or darkened their
cells. Strangers were desired to observe the silver
candlesticks 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
friars 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 famine thus produced had much dimin-
ished the population, and the owners of the soil were
endeavoring to restore prosperity by encouraging agri-
culture and the growth of silk.
Early in the present century, Yuste was visited by
M. Alexandre Laborde, the well-known French travel-
ler, and became the subject of an inaccurate sketch
and ground plan by M. Liger, his artist, and of a
meagre description by himself.*
* A. Laborde : Voyage Pittoresque et Historique (FEsfxigne, 2 vol.
(2 parts in each), fol., Paris, 1806, Vol. I. 2 eme Partie, p. 118. His
view has been reproduced in a wood-cut in Jubinal's Armcria Heal de
Madrid, II. p. 111. There is also a wretched wood-cut view of the
" palacio " of Yuste, with letter-press still more absurd, in the Semanario
Pintoresco Espanol, No. 38, 18th December, 1836, p. 312.
THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 311
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 9th 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 documents, written in 1620, by Fray Luis de Sta.
Maria, which the prior happened to be consulting
about some rights disputed by the peasants of Qua-
cos, when the Frenchmen burst in, and which he
saved by throwing into a thicket in the garden. The
/ o
church was saved 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.
Here some of the friars continued to dwell, and in the
spring of 1813 they had the honor of receiving an
English traveller, perhaps the first who had set foot
within their precincts since the courier who came to
complain to Charles the Fifth of the dilatory habits
of the ministry at Valladolid.* Certain it is, that
since the time when Avila and Sepulveda discussed
the literature of the day with Van Male, and Ruy
Gomez and Garcilasso discoursed on affairs of state
with the emperor, Yuste had received no statesman
or man of letters so distinguished as Lord John
Russell.
* Chap. V. p. 113.
312 THE CLOISTER LIFE OF
The brief triumph of the constitutionalists in 1820
was a signal for the first dispersion of the friars.
During the vacancy of the monastery, the work of
destruction went on briskly. The few vases belong-
ing to the dispensary of Charles the Fifth which had
escaped the French, were carried off by one Morales,
an apothecary of liberal opinions, to his shop at Xa-
randilla. 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 refec-
tory. But they were unable to raise money enough
to pay for bringing their altar-piece back from Texe-
da. 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 Cavallero, 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 EMPEROR CHARLES THE FIFTH. 313
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.
When I visited it in 1849, it was inhabited only by
the peasant bailiff of the lay proprietor, who eked out
his wages by showing the historical site to the pass-
ing 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 the luxuriant mantle of wild
shrubs and flowers. Two sides of the smaller and
older cloister were still standing, with blackened 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 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
coloring of Titian. In a vault beneath, approached
* Handbook, 1845, pp. 551 - 553. The account of Yuste is one of the
best travelling sketches in that charming book.
27
314 CLOISTER LIFE OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.
by a door of which the key could not be found, I was
told that the coffin of chestnut-wood, in which the
emperor's body had lain for sixteen years, was still
kept as a relic. Of his palace, the lower chambers
were used as a magazine for fuel ; and in the rooms
above, where he lived 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 pot-herbs, and here and there an orange-
tree, or a cypress, to mark where once the terrace
smiled with its blooming parterres. Without the gate,
the great walnut-tree, sole relic of the past with which
time had not dealt rudely, spread forth its broad and
vigorous boughs to shroud and dignify the desolation.
Yet in the lovely face of nature, changeless in its
summer 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 GON-
ZALEZ FROM THE INVENTORY OF THE JEWELS, WARDROBE,
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 por-
trait 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 Van Male,
his gentleman of the chamber, being sick, as it was sus-
pected, of the plague.
Various quadrants, astrolabes, and other mathematical in-
struments.
* The bezuar, bezoar, or beza, was a stone found in the kidneys of
the cervicabra, 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 her
producer, combined with the counteracting matter with which nature had
furnished it. It was a charm against plague and poison. For marvel-
lous properties, see Gaspar de Morales : Libra de las Virtudcs y Proprie-
dades maravillosas de Piedras preciosas, sm. 8vo, Madrid, 1605, fol. 202-
211.
316 APPENDIX.
A sand-glass, set in ebony, with its box.
Twenty-seven pairs of spectacles:
Thirty-nine pairs of gold and enamelled clasps (clavos) to be
worn in the cap.
A cameo medal (medallade camafeo), with its gold mounting.
A number of gold toothpicks.
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 Caballero 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).t
A large book of vellum ; containing many drawings and
illuminations.
Several missals and books of hours, with illuminations.
The Christian Doctrine, by Dr. Constantino. f
The Meditations of Fray Luis de Granada.
The Christian Doctrine, by Fray Pedro de Soto.
Csesar'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.
* Chap. HI. p. 59. t Chap. III. p. 75. J Chap. VIII. p. 206.
APPENDIX. 317
Two books of Meditation.
Titelman's Exposition of the Psalms.* 2 vols.
A book of Memorias, with its gold pen. Probably a note-
book, but possibly the emperor's Memoirs. t
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 (arcabuz) used by his majesty, and various
crossbows (ballestas), quivers (carcajos), and other trap-
pings and furniture of the chase (arreos y muebles de
PLATE.
Approxi mate
weight
PLATE OF THE CHAPEL. in marks.
A variety of chalices,' candlesticks, crucifixes, mon-
strances, &c. ....... 100
PLATE OF THE CHAMBER.
Cups, basins, jugs, bottles, pitchers, candlesticks ; a
warming-pan with its handle (calentador con man-
go} ; a " pizpote " ; a basin in the shape of a tor-
toise, used by his majesty in washing his teeth
(fuente a mantra de galapago en que S. M. lavaba
Jos dientes) ; a salt-box of Moorish workmanship
(caja para sal labrada a la morisca), &/c. . . 150
PLATE OF THE PANTRY.
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
* Commentarii paraphrastic} 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 Keiffenberg; Ep. XXXII. p. 87.
t Chap. in. p. 58, and Chap. X. p. 289.
27*
318 APPENDIX.
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 5|
ounces).*
Jars, mugs, and bottles, of various shapes (jarros,
tarros, fiascos, cubiletes).
Silver mouth-pieces (brocales con tornillos), to screw
on to leathern hunting-bottles ; tubes (canutos),
with which his majesty drank when he had the
gout ; spoons, &c 400
PLATE OF THE LARDER.
Two large }
Thirty-six middle-sized > dishes.
Thirty-six smaller )
Two dishes for serving sucking-pigs (lechones),
saucers, &.c. . . . . . . 650
PLATE OF THE DISPENSARY.
Cups, mugs, pans, pots, boxes, phials ; box for carry-
ing preserved lemon-peel or candied pumpkin (dia-
citron o calabazate), &c. ..... 65
PLATE OF THE WAX-ROOM.
Six wrought candlesticks, ..... 26
Weight, in marks, about 1561
or 12,488 ounces t
* Liquor, in which hot metal was quenched, was held to possess valu-
able astringent properties. See Bacon's remarks on the subject, in his
Historia Vitas et Mortis, V. 7 ; Works, 10 vols., 8vo, London, 1803, Vol.
VIII. p. 422. His New Advices in Order to Health, Vol. II. p. 224. con-
tains the following memorandum : " To use once during sapper wine
in which gold is quenched."
t 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.
APPENDIX. 319
PLATE AND JEWELS IN THE CARE OF THE KEEPER OF,
THE JEWELS.
A reliquary full of reliques.
A piece of the true cross.
Another piece, set in a cross of gold.
Several vessels for sprinkling perfumes (almarras) of silver.
Two bracelets, and two rings of gold, and one of bone, all
good for hemorrhoids (almorranas).
A blue stone, with 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. Veronica, 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.
* Chap. IV. p. 101.
320 APPENDIX.
A picture of Our Lady, on wood, by Titian.
A picture of Our Lady with Our Lord in her arms, on can-
vas, by Titian.
Portraits of the emperor and the empress, on canvas, by
Titian.
A portrait of the emperor in armor, 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.
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, por-
traits 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).
Fine coverings for seats (ianca/es), with foliage.
Twelve hangings of fine black cloth for the apartments of the
emperor (in the monastery).
APPENDIX. 321
Four door-curtains (ante-puertas) of black cloth.
Seven carpets (alfombras), four Turkish, and three of Al-
carez.
Canopies (dosels) of fine black velvet.
A quantity of linen.
IN HIS MAJESTY'S CHAMBER.
Two beds, of different sizes.
Six blankets of white cloth.
Fourteen feather bolsters (colchones de pluma).
Thirty-seven pillows (almohadas] , with much holland bed-
linen (ropa de holanda) of all kinds.
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 (andas
de brazo).
Twelve chairs of walnut- wood, garnished with nails (tacho-
nadas).
IN THE WARDROBE.
Sixteen long robes, lined with eider-down, ermine, Tunis kid-
skin, or velvet.
Six bornooses (albornoces), one of them presented to his
majesty at Tunis.
IN THE STABLE.
Four mules of burden, one of them chestnut and named
" Cardenala."
A gray horse.
Two other mules.
IN THE HARNESS-ROOM.
A litter lined with black velvet, and mounted outside with
steel. Delivered at Valladolid on the 26th of October,
1558.
322 APPENDIX.
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 monas-
tery, was given over to the charge of Juan Esteque, keeper
of his majesty's jewels, on the 1st of November, 1558.
THE END.
CAMBRIDGE:
SIETCALF AND COMPAXT, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
Date
A 000660181 9