UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
G-IFT
HENRY DOUGLASS BACON.
1877.
Accessions No. __/_& <3_3:_. Shelf No....
CLOISTER LIFE OF THE
EMP. CHARLES V.
THE CLOISTER LIFE OF THE
EMPEROR CHARLES
THE FIFTH.
BY
WILLIAM STIRLING,
AUTHOR OF ' ANNALS OF THE ARTISTS OF SPAIN.
THIRD EDITION, ENLARGED $ CORRECT
LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER
WEST STRAND.
MDCCCLIII.
TO
EICHARD FOKD,
AS A MARK OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS WRITINGS,
AND AS A MEMORIAL OF FRIENDSHIP,
THIS WORK IS
INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS OF THE PREFACE.
Authorities cited in this work :
Fr. J. de Siguen^a p. vii
Fr. P. de Sandoval viii
J. A. de Vera, Fr. M. de Angulo and marquess of Valparaiso, viii, ix
Father P. Ribadeneira ix
M. Gachard and T. Gonzalez x, xi, xii
Doubts as to the self-performed obsequies of Charles V. examined, xiii-xvii
Notice of the portrait of Charles V. on the title-page xviii
Postscript for a second edition xix
Postscript for a third edition xix
M. Bakhuizen van den Brink's analysis of a MS. by a monk of
Yuste xix-xxi
M. Th. Juste xxii
M. Mignet xxii
UNIVERSITY
PREFACE.
THE first, and perhaps the best, printed account of the
cloister-life of Charles the Fifth, is to be found in Joseph
de Sigue^a's History of the Order of St. Jerome. The author
was born, about 1545, of noble parents, in the Aragonese city
from whence, according to the Jeromite custom, he afterwards
took his name. He became a monk about the age of twenty-
one, at El Parral, near Segovia, and having studied at the
royal college of the Escorial, he obtained great fame as a
preacher in and around Segovia, and was made prior of his
convent. Removing to the Escorial, he devoted himself to
literary labour in the library which was then being collected
and arranged by the learned Arias Montano. His reputation
for knowledge soon stood so high, that Philip the Second used
to say of him, that he was the greatest wonder of the new
convent, which was called the eighth wonder of the world.
The first of his literary works, a series of discourses on Eccle-
siastes, was denounced as heretical before the bar of the
inquisition at Toledo; but he defended it so well, that he
received honourable acquittal, and returned to the Escorial
with an unblemished character for orthodoxy, to write the
history of St. Jerome and his Order. The first volume, con-
taining the life of the saint, was published in 1595, in quarto,
at Madrid; the second and third, in folio, in 1600 and 1605.
The author died in 1606, of apoplexy, at the Escorial, having
been twice elected prior of the house.
One of the most able and learned of ecclesiastical historians,
Siguen9a, for the elegance and simple eloquence of his style,
has been ranked among the classical writers of Castille. Like
all monkish chroniclers, he has been compelled to bind up a
b 2
vili PREFACE.
vast quantity of the tares of religious fiction with the wheat of
authentic history ; but he writes with an air of sincerity and
good faith, and when he is not dealing with miracles and
visions, he seems to be earnest in his endeavour to discover and
record the truth. In relating the life of the emperor at Yuste,
he had the advantage of conversing with many eye-witnesses
of the facts; Fray Antonio de Yillacastin, and several other
monks of Yuste were his brethren at the Escorial ; the emperor's
confessor, Regla, and his favourite preacher, 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 oppor-
tunities 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 emperor's
retirement at Yuste. It was drawn up, as we are told by the
author, from a manuscript relation in his possession, written
by Fray Martin de Angulo, prior of Yuste, at the desire of the
infanta Juana, daughter of the emperor and regent of Spain at
the time of his death. As Angulo came to Yuste, on being
elected prior, only in the summer of 1558, his personal know-
ledge of the emperor's sayings and doings was limited to the
last few months of his life. There can be little doubt that his
relation was known to Siguenga, whose position as prior of the
Escorial must have given him access to all the royal archives.
Juan Antonio deYerayFigueroa, count of La Roca, printed
his Epitome of the Life of Charles the Fifth, in quarto, at Madrid,
in 1613. It contains little that Sandoval and others had not
already published; but there are a few anecdotes of the
emperor's retirement which the author may have picked up
from tradition. Being more than seventy years of age at his
death, in 1 658, he may have conversed with persons who had
known his hero. He also may have seen the narrative of the
prior Angulo.
Of that narrative a copy exists, or did lately exist, in the
PREFACE. ix
National Library at Madrid. It was seen there some years
a go by M. Gachard, of Bruxelles. 1 My friend Don Pascual
de Gayangos kindly undertook to search for it, but he
was not successful in discovering the original document, or
even an early copy. He found, however, a manuscript work of
the seventeenth century, which professed to embody the account
by Angulo. This work, entitled El perfecto Desengano, was
written in 1638, and dedicated to the count duke of Olivares j
and its author, in whose autograph it is written, was the mar-
quess del Valparaiso, a knight of Santiago and member of the
council of war. It is one of the countless treatises of that age,
on the virtues of princes, of which Charles the Fifth, in Spain
at least, was always held up as a model. The second part, of
which a copy is now before me, is entitled, Life of tlie emperor
in the convent of Yuste, taken from that which was written
by the prior Fray Martin de Angulo, by command of tJie prin-
cess 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 recognise a few
excerpts from Yera. Unless, therefore, we suppose that San-
doval and Yera, anticipating the process adopted by Valparaiso,
transferred the document of Angulo to their own pages, it
seems very doubtful whether the marquess had more than a
second-hand knowledge of the narrative of the prior.
The Jesuit Pedro Ribadeneira, in his Life of father Fran-
cisco Borja, printed in quarto, at Madrid, in 1592, gave a long
and circumstantial account of the interviews which took place
in Estremadura between that remarkable man and Charles the
Fifth. Born in 1527, and in very early life a favourite disciple
of Loyola, Ribadeneira had ample opportunities of gathering
the materials of his biography from the lips of Borja himself.
He is not always accurate in his dates and names of places, but
I do not think that his mistakes of this kind are sufficiently
important to discredit in any great degree the facts which he
relates.
1 Bulletins de V Academic Royale des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, torn,
xii. Premiere Partie : 1845.
X PREFACE.
These are the principal writers who have treated of the
latter days of Charles the Fifth, and who might have conversed
with his contemporaries. From their works, Strada, De Thou,
Leti, and later authors, writing on the same subject, have
drawn their materials, which, in passing from pen to pen, have
undergone considerable changes of form.
Our own Robertson has told the story of the emperor s life
at Yuste with much dignity and grace, and still more in-
accuracy. Citing the respectable names of Sandoval, Yera,
and De Thou, he seems to have chiefly relied upon Leti, one
of the most lively and least trustworthy of the historians of
his time. He does not appear to have been aware of the
existence of Siguenga the author, as we have seen, of the
only printed account of the imperial retirement which can
pretend to the authority of contemporary narrative.
A visit which I paid to Yuste in the summer of 1849, led
me to look into the earliest records of the event to which the
ruined convent owes its historical interest. Finding the subject
but slightly noticed, yet considerably misrepresented, by English
writers, I collected the results of my reading into two papers,
contributed to Frasers Magazine, in April and May, 1851.
An article by M. Gachard, in the Bulletins of the Royal
Academy of Bruxelles, 1 afterwards informed me that the
archives of the Foreign Office of France contained a MS.
account of the retirement of Charles the Fifth, illustrated with
original letters, and compiled by Don Tomas Gonzalez. Of
the existence of this precious document I had already been
made aware by Mr. Ford's Handbook for Spain; but my in-
quiries after it, both in Madrid and in Paris, had proved fruit-
less. During the past winter I have had ample opportunities
of examining it, opportunities for which I must express my
gratitude to the president of France, who favoured me with
the necessary order, and to lord Normanby, late British ambas-
sador in Paris, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who kindly interested
themselves in getting the order obeyed by the unwilling
1 Bulletins de I'Acad. Roy. des Sciences et des Belles Lettres, torn. xii.
lere Partie, 1845.
PREFACE. xi
officials of the archives. As the Gonzalez MS. has formed the
groundwork of the following chapters, it may not be out of
place here to give some account of that work and of its com-
piler.
At the restoration of Ferdinand the Seventh to the throne
of Spain, the royal archives of that kingdom, preserved in the
castle of Simancas, near Valladolid, were intrusted to the care
of Don Tomas Gonzalez, canon of Plasencia. They were in a
state of great confusion, owing to the depredations of the French
invader, subsequent neglect, and the partial return of the
papers which followed the peace. Gonzalez succeeded in re-
storing order, and he also found time to use his opportunities
for the benefit of historical literature. To the Memoirs of the
Eoycd Academy of History he contributed a long and elaborate
paper on the relations between Philip the Second and our
queen Elizabeth; and he had prepared this account of the
retirement of Charles the Fifth, and had had it fairly copied
for the press, when death brought his labours to a premature
close. His books and papers fell into the hands of his brother
Manuel, for whom he had obtained the reversion of his post at
Simancas. At the revolution of La Granja, in 1836, Manuel
being displaced and beggared, offered the memoir of Charles
the Fifth to the governments of France, Russia, Belgium, and
England, at the price of 10,000 francs, or about 400, re-
serving the right of publishing it for his own behoof, or of
15,000 francs without such reservation. No purchaser at
that price appearing, he at last disposed of it, in 1844, for
the sum of 4000 francs, to the archives of the French Foreign
Office, of which M. Mignet was then director. 1 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 destined it.
1 I am enabled to state the exact sum through the kindness of M. Van
de "Weyer, Belgian minister to the court of England, who obtained the
information from M. Gachard.
xii PREFACE.
By the terms of his bargain M. Mignet acquired both the
original MS. of Gonzalez, and the fair copy enriched with notes
in his own hand. The copy contains 387 folio leaves, written
on both sides, the memoir filling 266 leaves, and the appendix
121. There is also a plan of the palace, and part of the
monastery of Yuste.
The memoir is entitled The retirement, residence, and death
of the emperor Charles tJie Fifth in the monastery of Yuste ; a
historical narrative founded on documents.^ It commences
with an account of many political events previous to, and not
much connected with, the emperor's retirement j such as the
negotiations for the marriage of Philip the Second with the
infanta Mary of Portugal, and afterwards with queen Mary of
England ; the regency established in Spain during his absence ;
the deaths of queen Juana, mother of the emperor, and of popes
Julius the Third and Marcellus the Second ; the truce of
Vaucelles; and the diplomatic relations of pope Paul the
Fourth with the courts of France and Spain. But the bulk of
the memoir consists almost wholly of original letters, selected
from the correspondence carried on between the courts at
Yalladolid and Bruxelles, and the retired emperor and his
household, in the years 1556, 1557, and 1558. The principal
writers are Philip the Second, the infanta Juana, princess of
Brazil and regent of Spain, Juan Vazquez de Molina, secretary
of state, Francisco de Eraso, secretary to the king, and Don
Garcia de Toledo, tutor to Don Carlos; the emperor, Luis
Quixada, chamberlain to the emperor, Martin de Gaztelu, his
secretary, William Yan Male, his gentleman of the chamber,
and Mathys and Cornelio, his physicians. The thread of the
narrative is supplied by Gonzalez, who has done his part with
great judgment, permitting the story to be told as far as pos-
sible by the original actors in their own words.
The appendix is composed of the ten following documents
referred to in the memoir, and of various degrees of value and
interest.
1 Retiro estancia y muerte del emperador Cwrlos Quinto en el monastwio
de Yuste; relation historica documentada.
PREFACE. xiii
1 Instructions given by tJie emperor to his son at Augsburg,
on the Sth January, 1548.
2 )
3 1 Speeches pronounced by tJie emperor at Bruxelles during
4 [ the ceremonies of his abdication.
*J
6 Letter from the cardinal archbishop (Siliceo) of Toledo to
the princess-regent of Spain, 28th June, 1556.
7 Extract from the inventory of the furniture and jewels
belonging to the emperor at his death.
8 Protest of Philip the Second against the pope, 6th May,
1557.
9 Justification of the 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, some doubt still rests on the question whether
Charles did or did not perform his own obsequies. Gonzalez
treats the story as an idle tale : he laments the credulity
displayed even in the sober statement of Siguen^a; and he
pours out much patriotic scorn on the highly- wrought picture
of Robertson. The opinions of the canon, on all other
matters 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. 1 In
everything but style it is indeed very absurd. * The emperor
bent,' says the historian, 'on performing some act of
1 Vita delV invitissimo imp. Carlo V. da Gregorio Leti. 4 vols. 12mo.
Amsterdam: 1700, iv. 370-4.
XIV PREFACE.
' piety that would display his zeal, and merit the favour of
1 Heaven. The act on which he fixed was as wild and un-
1 common as any that superstition ever suggested to a weak
'and disordered fancy. He resolved to celebrate his own
1 obsequies before his death. He ordered his tomb to be
' erected in the chapel of the monastery. His domestics
' marched thither in funeral procession, with black tapers in
' their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. He was
' laid in his coffin, with much solemnity. The service for the
' dead was chanted, and Charles joined in the prayers which
' were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingling his tears
' with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been
' celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprink-
' ling holy water on the coffin in the usual form, and all the
' assistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then
' Charles rose out of the coffin, and withdrew to his apartment,
' full of those awful sentiments which such a singular solemnity
' was calculated to inspire. But either the fatiguing length of
1 the ceremony, or the impressions which the image of death
( left on his mind, affected him so much, that next day he
' was seized with a fever. His feeble frame could not long
'resist its violence, and he expired on the twenty-first of
' September, after a life of fifty-eight years, six months, and
' twenty-five days.'
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 spectators; holding
in his hand, like the others, a waxen taper, which, at a
certain point of the ceremonial, he delivered to the officiating
priest, in token of his desire to commit his soul to
the keeping of his Maker. There is not a word to justify
the tale that he followed the procession in his shroud, or
that he simulated death in his coffin, or that he was left be-
hind, shut up alone in the church, when the service was over.
In this story respecting an infirm old man, the devout son
PREFACE. xv
of a church where services for the dead are of daily occur-
rence, I can see nothing incredible, or very surprising. It is
surely as reasonable for a man on the brink of the grave to
perform funeral rites for himself, as to perform such rites for
persons who had been buried many years before. Super-
stition and dyspepsia have driven men into far greater
extravagances. Nor is there any reason to doubt Siguenga's
veracity in a matter in which the credit of his order, or the
interest of the church, is in no way concerned. He might
perhaps be suspected of overstating the regard entertained
by the emperor for the friars of Yuste, were his evidence
not confirmed by the letters of the friar-hating household.
But I see no reason for questioning the accuracy of his
account of the imperial obsequies. That account was written
while he was prior of the Escorial, and as such almost in
the personal service of Philip the Second, a prince who was
peculiarly jealous of what was written about his father. 1 And
it was published with the authority of his name, while men
were still alive who could have contradicted a mis-state-
ment.
The strongest objection urged by Gonzalez to the story,
rests on the absence of all confirmation of it in the letters
written from Yuste. We know, he says, that, on the 26th
of August, 1558, the emperor gave audience to Don Pedro
Manrique that on the 27th he spent the greater part of the
day in writing to the princess-regent; and that on the 28th
he held a long conference with Garcilasso de la Yega on the
affairs of Flanders. Can we therefore believe what is alleged
by Siguenga, that the afternoon of the 27th and the morning
of the 28th were given by Charles to the performance of his
funeral-rites j 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 Siguenga. He says 2 that the obsequies
1 See chap. xi. p. 293.
2 Siguen9a : Hist, de la Orden de S. Geron., torn. iii. p. 201.
xvi PREFACE
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
bearing either of those dates fell into the hands of Gonzalez.
The emperor's attack of illness, on the 30th, was ascribed by
the physician to his having sat too long in the sun in his
western alcove; and his being able to sit there tallies with
Siguen9a's statement, that he felt better after his funeral.
From the absence of allusion in the letters to a service so
remarkable, I infer, not that it never took place, but that the
secretary and chamberlain did not think it worthy of remark.
Charles was notoriously devout, and very fond of devotional
exercises beyond the daily routine of religious observance.
His punctuality in performing his spiritual duties may be
noted in the Yuste letters, where frequent mention is made
of his receiving the Eucharist at the hermitage of Belem,
a fact stated in proof, we may be sure, not of the warmth
of his piety, but of the robustness of his health. Of the
services performed in the church for the souls of his deceased
parents and wife, which both Siguen9a and Sandoval have
recorded, and which I see no reason to doubt, no notice what-
ever occurs in the letters, except a casual remark which fell
from the pen of secretary Gaztelu, on the 28th of April, 1558,
that ' Juan Gaytan had come to put in order the wax and
other things needful for the honours of the empress, which
his majesty was in the habit of celebrating on each May-day.'
The truth seems to be that the most hearty enmity prevailed
between the Jeromites and the imperial household ; and that
the chamberlain and his people abstained from all communi-
cations with the monks not absolutely necessary, and left the
religious recreations, as well as the spiritual interests of their
master, entirely in the hands of the confessor and the prior.
Keeping no record of the functions performed within the walls
of the convent, it is possible that the lay letter-writers of Yuste
might have passed over in silence even such a scene as that
fabled by Robertson ; while in the sober pages of Siguenca,
there really seems nothing that a Spaniard of 1558, living
next door to a convent, might not have deemed unworthy of
special notice.
PREFACE.
It is remarkable that Gonzalez, while so strenuously deny-
ing the credibility of the story, should have furnished, under
his own hand, a piece of evidence of some weight in its favour.
In an inventory of state-papers of Castille, drawn up by him in
1818, and existing at Simancas, and in duplicate in the Foreign
Office at Madrid, M. Gachard found the following entry :
No. 119, ann. 1557. Original letters of Charles V., written
from Xarandilla and Yuste to the infanta Juana, and Juan
Vasquez de Molina. * * * They treat of tlie public affairs
of tJie time : ITEM, OF THE MOURNING STUFFS ORDERED FOR
THE PURPOSE OF PERFORMING HIS FUNERAL HONOURS DURING
HIS LIFE. 1
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, 2 it is stated that
Charles ordered his obsequies to be performed during his life;
but it is not stated whether the order was fulfilled. Sandoval,
professing to take Angulo for his guide, is altogether silent
on the subject ; and as he can hardly be supposed to have
been ignorant of the work of Siguenfa, there is room for the
presumption that he rejected the evidence of that churchman.
But on a mere presumption, founded on the fact that a Bene-
dictine did not choose to quote the writings of a Jeromite, I
cannot agree to discard evidence otherwise respectable. I
have therefore followed prior Siguenca, of the Escorial, the
revival of whose version of the story will, I hope, in time,
counteract the inventions of later writers inventions which I
have more than once heard gravely recognised as instructive and
authentic history in the pulpit discourses of popular divines.
1 Item, de los lutos que encargd para hacerse las honras en rida. Bull.
de VAcad. roy. xii. Premiere Partie, p. 257.
2 Id., p. 259.
xviii PREFACE.
It may be a source of disappointment to my readers, as
it is to myself, that I have not been able to lay before them
any of the original letters of the emperor and his servants,
and their royal and official correspondents. In obtaining
access, however, to the manuscript of Gonzalez, I was subjected
to conditions which rendered this impossible. The French
government, I was informed, had entertained the design of
publishing the entire work a design which the revolution
of 1848 of course laid upon the shelf, but which, I trust,
will ere long be carried into effect. Meanwhile, I believe
that neither the memoir nor the letters contain any interest-
ing fact, or trait of character, which will not be found in the
following pages, with some illustrations of the emperor and
his history, gathered from other sources, which I hope may
not be found altogether without value.
The portrait of the emperor, on my title-page, is taken
from the fine print, engraved by Eneas Vico from his own
drawing, a head surrounded by a florid framework of archi-
tectural and emblematical ornament. This seems to have
been the portrait which Charles, according to Lodovico Dolce,
examined so curiously and approved so highly, and for which
he rewarded Vico with two hundred crowns. 1 The drawing
was probably made several years before the plate was engraved,
but I have been unable to find any satisfactory contemporary
portrait of the emperor in his latter days. Perhaps none
exists, as Charles, at the age of thirty-five, considered himself,
as he told the painter Holanda, already too old for limning
purposes. The eagle and ornaments around the present head,
are selected from woodcuts in Spanish books of 1545 2 and
1552. 3
KEIR; 3lst May, 1852.
1 Dialogo della Pittura de M. Lod. Dolce, sm. 8vo. Vinegia : 1557. fol. 1 8.
2 JE1. Ant. Nebrissensis ; Rerum a Fernando et Elizabeiha, gest., &c.,
fol. Granada: 1545.
3 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 Villafaue, the famous goldsmith, engraver,
and artistic-author of Valladolid.
XIX
POSTSCRIPT FOR A SECOND EDITION.
THE favour with which this work has been received having
rendered a second edition necessary, I have endeavoured to
acknowledge my sense of the kindness of the public, by
bestowing on its pages a careful revision, as well as some new
matter which I hope will be found to enhance its utility and
interest, without greatly increasing its size.
128, PARK STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE,
Dec. 21st, 1852.
POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION.
THIS edition had already gone to press, when I first saw a
paper communicated to the Royal Academy of Belgium, by
M. Bakhuizen van den Brink, and entitled La Retraite de
Charles Quint, analyse d'un manuscript Espagnol contempo-
rain, par un Rdigieux de Vordre de St. Jerome a Yuste. 1 The
manuscript, thus analysed with great care and ability, was
formerly in the archives of the Cour-feodale, and is now
in those of the Cour-d'appel at Bruxelles. It consists of
forty-five folio pages, written in a fine close hand of the end
of the sixteenth, or of the beginning of the seventeenth,
century. Its title is A brief and summary history of how
the emperor Don Charles the Fifth, our lord, determined to
retire to the monastery of St. Jerome of Yuste, in the Vera of
Plasencia, and to renounce his states in favour of the prince
Don Philip his son, and of the mode and manner in which he
lived for a year and eight months, all but eight days, in the
monastery until his death, and of the things which happened
1 Compte-rendu des seances de la commission royale d'histoire ou recueil
de ses bulletins. Deuxieme serie. torn. i. ler bulletin. 8vo. Bruxelles.
1850, p. 57. A few copies were struck off as a separate tract, and to
one of them my references are made.
XX POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION.
in his life and death. 1 The memoir is divided into fifty
chapters, of which the first tells How the prince Don Philip
was married in England, and the last treats of the afflic-
tion of the village of Quacos and all the Vera when the body
of the emperor was removed from Yuste. It was written,
says M. Bakhuizen, in or about 1574, soon after the removal of
the emperor's remains. The author informs us that he was
a monk of Yuste, and that he was one of four of the brother-
hood who were appointed to watch the corpse of Charles at
the time of his death, and one of eight who were sent to
attend it to the Escorial. But he has concealed his name,
which at this distance of time there is little hope of dis-
covering. M. Bakhuizen is inclined to identify him with
one of four persons the prior Angulo, the confessor Regla,
Fray Lorenzo de Losar, employed as purveyor of the imperial
household, and Fray Miguel de Torralva, who held the post
of obrero or master of works. The prior and the confessor,
he says, are spoken of in such terms in the memoir, that
it is very unlikely that either of them was the author of it ;
to which I may add that, in the case of the confessor, this
improbability is enhanced by the fact that Regla left Yuste
immediately after the emperor's death, and appears to have
resided afterwards either at court or at Zaragoza. Of the
two remaining friars, M. Bakhuizen is inclined to favour the
claim of Losar, his name appearing along with that of the
prior as a witness to the process- verbal which recorded the
deposit of the emperor's body at Yuste, and that document
being given at full length in the memoir.
Not having seen the manuscript, I am unable to judge
of the soundness of M. Bakhuizen's hypothesis. In the
absence of direct evidence I should be inclined to attribute such
a paper to the one monk of Yuste whom we know to have
been fond of reading and writing, Fray Hernando de Corral.
1 Sistoria breve y sumaria de como el emperador Don Carlos Quinto,
nuestro senor, trato de venir se d recojer al monasteno de S. ffieronimo de
Yuste, que es en la Vera de Plasencia, y renunciar sus estados en el prin-
cipe, Don Phelipe su hijo, y del modo y manera que vivio un ano y ocho
meses menos nueve dias, que estuvo en este monasteno, hasta que murio, y de
las cosas que acaecieron en su vida y muerte.
POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION. xxi
The narrative in the main confirms those of Sandoval and
Siguen9a. It is not improbable that the author, before he
wrote his reminiscences, may have refreshed his memory by
reading Angulo's memoir, which may account for minute
coincidences with the expressions of Sandoval, who borrowed
freely from Angulo. For example, Sandoval says the emperor
was contented to lead l the poor life of an honourable esquire, 1
la pobre vida de un escudero honrado, while the Bakhuizen
MS. compares the imperial household to that of a poor country
gentleman, un pobre hidalgo? The resemblance to Siguen^a's
account is still closer, so close that it seems likely that
Siguenfa, who does not avow any obligation to Angulo, may
have been indebted for some, at least, of his facts, to this
other monk of Yuste. To cite a few instances ; the monk
speaks of the retired emperor as a pobre hidalgo ; Siguenga calls
him an honesto hidalgo ; 3 the monk erroneously places the body
of queen Juana amongst the royal corpses brought in 1574
to the Escorial j 4 Siguen9a, although prior of the Escorial,
has fallen into the same error ; 5 the stories of the hyssop and
pyx, which I have related 6 on the authority of Siguenga, 7 are
also told by the monk; 8 and lastly, Siguenga's description of
the obsequies performed by Charles for himself is confirmed
in every particular by this anonymous eyewitness. 9 Who-
ever its author may have been, the manuscript is well worth
printing entire, and I trust that the Belgian government
may ere long be induced to give it to the world. Meanwhile,
1 have to acknowledge my obligations to M. Bakhuizen
van den Brink's paper for several fresh details of the emperor's
life and death, and to M. Yan de Weyer and M. Gachard for
their kindness in bringing that paper under my notice.
1 Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., 2 torn. fol. Pamplona: 1634, ii. p. 811.
2 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 20.
3 Siguen9a : Hist, de la ord. de S. Geronimo, iii. p. 291.
4 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 60.
5 Siguena : iii. p. 569. 6 Chap. viii. p. 184.
7 Siguen9a: iii. p. 194, 195.
8 Bakhuizen van den Brink. La Retraite, p. 39.
9 Id., p. 45.
C
xxii POSTSCRIPT FOR A THIRD EDITION.
To this edition I have also added a chapter on the emperor's
abdication and subsequent life at Bruxelles, in which I have
freely availed myself of information supplied by M. Th. Juste,
in his agreeable tract on that subject. 1
Soon after the appearance of my work, M. Mignet com-
menced a series of elaborate papers on Charles the Fifth, his
abdication and retirement, still in course of publication in the
Journal des Savants, at Paris. 2 Composed mainly of mate-
rials afforded by the MS. of Gonzalez, these papers explain
why that MS. was acquired by the Foreign Office of France,
and why it has been so zealously guarded by M. Mignet.
They are written in the able style with which M. Mignet's
other works have made the world familiar. The paucity of
extracts from the original documents is a matter of regret,
but this defect may perhaps be repaired when the completed
chapters are published in the form of a book.
128, PARK STREET, GROSVENOR SQUARE,
June 25th, 1853.
1 L' Abdication de Charles Quint, par Th. Juste, (extraite du Progr&s
Pacifique, ) 8vo. Liege, 1851. pp. 31.
8 Charles Quint, son abdication, sa retraite, son sejour, et sa mort au
monastere hieronomite de Yuste, par M. Mignet. These papers began in
the number for November, 1852, and were continued in December, and
in Jamiary and March, 1853.
CONTENTS.
The immediate ancestors and descendants of the Emperor Charles V.
and his brothers and sisters p.
CHAPTEE I.
First notices of the intention of
Charles V. to retire from the
world p. 1
Mary queen of England offers
him her hand 2
He transfers it to his son Philip,
who breaks off a match with
the infanta Mary of Portugal 2
Emperor's feeble health ... 3
Exaggerated reports of it . . . 4
Emperor recalls Philip from
Windsor to Bruxelles ... 4
Invests him with the grand mas-
tership of the Golden Fleece . 5
Abdicates in his favour the sove-
reignty of the Netherlands, on
the 25th October, 1555 . . 5
Company and ceremonial . 5, 6
Emperor's speech . . . 7, 8, 9
Jacques Maes's speech . . .10
Speeches of Philip and the bishop
of Arras 10
Speech of Mary, queen of Hun-
gary 11
J. Maes's rsply 11
Emperor abdicates his Sicilian
and Spanish crowns on the 16th
January, 1556 12
Executes a deed of renunciation
of the imperial crown on the
16th August 12
His wish to make Philip em-
peror 12
Opposed by his brother, Ferdi-
nand, king of Romans ... 12
Emperor's anxiety to lay aside
the title 13
He retires to a house in the park
at Bruxelles 13
He is visited by the admiral de
Coligny 14
Jests of Brusquet, the French
jester 15
The emperor at Grimberghe . 16
At Bruxelles and Ghent ... 16
Journey to the coast . . . .16
Emperor's letter to Ferdinand on
12th September 16
He embarks at Zuitburg for
Spain on 13th September . .17
CHAPTEE II.
Eleanor, queen dowager of
France and Portugal . . .18
Mary, queen dowager of Hungary 19
They sail on the 1 7th . . . .22
And land on the 28th September,
1556 23
Laredo 23
Want of preparations to receive
them 24
Arrival of Luis Quixada ... 24
They set out on the 6th of October 26
Journey to Medina de Pomar,
where they arrive on the 9th
of October 27, 28
Visitors 29
Arrival at Burgos on 13th Oct. ;
reception there .... 29, 30
Journey to Valladolid 16th-21st
October , 31
Don Carlos meets the emperor at
Cabezon 32
Valladolid
33
d
XXIV
CONTENTS.
Infanta Juana, princess-dowager
of Brazil, and regent of
Spain 34
Festivities at Valladolid . . .35
Perico de Sant Erbas .... 36
Don Constantino de Braganza,
and causes of ill-will between
Spain and Portugal . . 36, 37
Affairs submitted to the em-
peror 38
Anthony, duke of Vendome, pro-
poses to sell his rights to Na-
varre 38
Doubts as to the emperor's choice
of a retreat 39
Don Carlos . . 40
CHAPTER III,
The emperor sets out from Valla-
dolid on the 4th November . 42
Medina del Campo 43
Rodrigo de Duenas .... 43
Penaranda, Alaraz, Barco de
Avila, &c 44
Tornavacas 45
The pass of Puertonuevo . . .45
Reach Xarandilla on the 12th
November 46
The Vera of Plasencia . . .47
Reasons for the emperor's choice
of retreat examined .... 48
Village and castle of Xarandilla 49
The count of Oropesa .... 50
Bad weather 50
Public affairs 51
Pope Paul IV. and Henry II. of
France 51, 52
They combine against Philip II. ;
Coligny invades Flanders ;
duke of Guise invades Naples 52
Flanders defended by Emanuel
Philibert, duke of Savoy . . 53
Naples, by duke of Alba ... 53
The infanta Mary of Portugal 54, 55
Navarre 56
Barbary 56
Buildings at Yuste . . . . 56, 57
The emperor visits them . . .57
Discontent of his household . .58
Quixada ; Gaztelu . . . . 58, 59
The emperor's love of eating . 60
Partridges of Gama, and sausages
from Tordesillas, and presents
to his larder 61, 62
Quixada's fears 62
CHAPTER IV.
The household of the emperor . 63
The confessor, Fray Juan de
Regla 63
The chamberlain, Luis Quixada 64
His wife, Magdalena de Ulloa,
and Don John of Austria 66, 67, 68
The secretary, Martin de Gaztelu 69
William Van Male, gentleman of
the chamber 69
He translates the emperor's
Memoirs 70
Is made to print Acuna's trans-
lation of Le Chevalier Delibere 71
He puts the emperor's prayers
into Latin 72
His letters 73
Loss of his books 74
Marriage 75
Dr. Henry Mathys the phy-
sician 76
Dr. Giovanni Antonio Mole, and
Dr. Cornelio Mathys ... 76
Giovanni or Juanelo Torriano,
the mechanician 76
Visitors of the emperor . . .77
Father Francisco Borja, of the
company of Jesus . . . .77
His history 77, 80
Visits Xarandilla on the 17th
December, 1556 80
Conversations with the emperor,81, 85
Don Luis de Avila y Zuiiiga . . 5
His Commentaries on the War in
Germany 86
Visits Xarandilla on the 21st
January, 1557 88
The archbishop of Toledo, and
the bishop of Plasencia . .88
Emperor's health 89
An attack of gout 39
CONTENTS.
XXV
Senna wine 89
Neapolitan manna 90
Emperor's present of game to
the convent of Yuste at Christ-
mas 90
Lorenzo Pires 90
News from Italy 91
Emperor's disgust 91
His anxiety for the safety of Oran 91
Works at Yuste 92
Servants paid off, and take leave 93
Removal to Yuste on the 3rd
February, 1557 93
Blunder of the prior .... 94
Grief of the dismissed servants . 94
CHAPTER V.
Order of St. Jerome . . .95, 96
Yuste its site 97
Its foundation in 1408, and its
early history 98
Its remarkable monks ... 99
Fr. Hernando de Corral, the
literary friar 100
Fr. Ant. de Villacastin . 101
Fr. Juan de Ortega . . 102
The charities of Yuste . 103
The ' palacio' of Yuste . 103
Prospect from the windows 104
The great ' nogaP of Yuste 105
Domestic arrangements . 105
List of the chief members of
the household, with their sa-
laries 105, 106
Emperor's health, and employ-
ments of the physicians . .107
Furniture of the palace . . .107
Plate 108
Emperor's dress 109
Pictures and portraits . . .110
Books Ill
Music 112
The chaplains, Fr. Fran, de Vil-
lalva, Fr. Juan de A^oloras,
Fr. Juan deSantandres 113, 114
Emperor's day . . . . .114
Torriano and his clocks . . .115
His mechanical toys . . . .116
Emperor's pet birds, and his
shooting excursions . . .117
His last appearance on horseback 117
CHAPTER VI.
The household become more
reconciled to Yuste . . .118
Monsieur de La Chaulx . . .118
Improvement in the emperor's
health 119
Quixada complains of the soli-
tude of Yuste 119
Emperor's attention to business 119
His style and title .... 120
He accredits an ambassador to
Portugal 120
Petitioners 120
Refutation of the tale that he re-
pented of his retirement . . 121
His revenue . ..... 123
Punctually paid 124
The financial difficulties of Spain 124
The princess-regent seizes upon
the bullion belonging to the
traders of Seville, who resist
her officers with success . .125
The emperor's
against them
Foreign affairs :
de Silva .
He is lodged in the convent
indignation
. . . 125,126
Ruy Gomez
127
128
Emperor consulted as to send-
ing Don Carlos to Flanders . 128
War in the Netherlands and
Navarre 129
Affairs of Italy 129
Duke of Guise invades Naples . 129
Duke of Alba defends it . . .129
Solyman the Magnificent . .130
The pirates of the Mediter-
ranean 130, 131
Levies for the army in Flanders 132
The emperor appeals to the
church for a loan . . . .132
The archbishops of Toledo and
Zaragoza, and the bishop of
Cordova 132
XXVI
CONTENTS.
Archbishop Valdes of Seville . 132
His excuses 133
His discussion with Ochoa, and
its result 134
Second visit of Ruy Gomez de
Silva to Yuste 135
Anthony, king of Navarre, and
his agents .... 135, 136
Death of John III., king of
Portugal 136
Jealousy between Portugal and
Spain 137
Emperor condoles with his
sister, queen Catherine . .137
The princess of Brazil disap-
pointed of the regency of
Portugal 138
Battle of St. Quentin . . 138, 139
Joy occasioned by the news at
Yuste 139
The dilatory policy of Philip II. 140
Guise retreats from the Neapo-
litan frontier 141
Alba advances towards Rome 141
Shameful treaty between Philip
II. and the pope .... 141
Emperor's displeasure . 142, 143
Don Carlos 143
Letters from his tutor, D. Garcia
de Toledo, to the em-
peror 144
Opinion of the Venetian envoy
atBruxelles 145
CHAPTER VII.
Emperor's good health . . .146
Famine and sickness in the Vera 147
Emperor's garden and its im-
provements 147
His poultry and fishponds . .148
His care for his domestic com-
forts 148
Quixada obtains leave of absence 149
The friars become unruly . .149
Quixada's return 150
His dislike to Yuste .... 150
Death of Fr. Juan de Ortega 150, 151
Turbulent peasants of Quacos . 152
J. G. Sepulveda, the historian,
visits Yuste 153
D. Luis de Avila . ... 154
His house at Plasencia and its
frescoes 155
His opinion of the emperor re-
corded in his Commentaries on
the German War .... 155
Partiality of the emperor for him 156
Fresco-picture of the battle of
Renti, and the remark of the
emperor upon it . . 156, 157
Report of the emperor's removal
to Navarre 157
D. Francisco Bolivar .... 158
D. Martin de Avendano . . . 158
Message to Quixada from Mari-
quita de Eraso 159
Presents to the emperor's
larder from the friars of Gua-
dalupe, the bishop of Segovia,
&c., and the duchess of Bejar 159
Visits of queens Eleanor and
Mary 160
Their correspondence with the
duke of Infantado .... 161
The infanta Mary of Portugal . 161
Jealousy between Portugal and
Spain 162
The queens go to Badajoz . .163
Hurricane at Yuste . . . .163
Father Francisco Borja sent to
Lisbon by the princess-re-
gent 164
Returns by way of Yuste . .164
Emperor's confidence in him . 165
Borja's judgment between his
son and the admiral of Ara-
gon 165
Alms given to Borja .... 166
CHAPTER VIII.
The emperor's health declines . 167
Burglary at Yuste . . . .167
Dispute with the corregidor of
Plasencia 168
Don Juan de Acuna . . . .168
The treaty between Philip II. and
the pope, and the emperor's
dissatisfaction with it ... 169
Duke of Alba, and his share in
the business . . 169, 170, 171
Affairs in Flanders, and Spanish
171, 172
CONTENTS.
XXVll
Duke of Guise takes Calais . .172
The emperor's regret . . . .173
Reports of the pregnancy of
Mary Queen of England and
Spain, and her death . . .173
Emperor's gout 174
Meeting at Badajoz between the
queens and the infanta Mary
of Portugal ...... 174
Queen Eleanor taken ill at
Talaverilla 175
Dies leaving her fortune to
the infanta of Portugal . .176
Grief of queen Mary and the
emperor 177, 178
Luis de Avila visits him . . .178
Queen Mary at Yuste . . .178
Removes to Xarandilla . . .179
Goes to Valladolid, attended by
Quixada 179
Emperor requests that she may
be consulted in public affairs 180
The princess-regent refuses . .180
Emperor's scheme of finance . 180
Seville bullion case .... 181
The grand inquisitor Valdes
refuses to attend the body of
queen Juana to Granada . .182
Emperor's health and occupa-
tions 183
His fondness for religious cere-
monies 183
He gives the friars a pic-nic on
St. Bias's day, 1558 . . .184
His attention to religious forms
and to fasts 184
He flogs himself in the choir on
Fridays in Lent 185
His familiarity with the friars . 186
He dines in their refectory . . 187
His good-nature to his servants 188
He is disturbed by women at
the convent gate . . . .189
The remedy 189
The renunciation of the imperial
crown completed 3rd May,
1558 190
The emperor's joy at the intelli-
gence, and consequent orders 190
His dislike to royal insignia . 191
CHAPTEK IX.
Church in danger 192
Church abuses and reform move-
ment 192, 193
Heretical books . . . 194, 195
Spanish heretics not protestants 196
Causes of the suppression of
heresy in Spain . . . 197, 199
Measures of the grand inquisitor
Valdes 200
Dr. Aug. Cazalla 200
Letters and words of the em-
peror 201, 202
Fr. Domingo de Roxas . . . 202
Progress of the persecution . . 202
Anxiety of the emperor . . . 203
His letter to the regent . . . 203
His letter to the king, and its
autograph postscript . . . 204
The king's memorandum . . 204
Quixada's interview with the
grand inquisitor .... 204
The inquisitor's measures de-
tailed in letter to the emperor 205
Censure of books 205
Catalogue of prohibited books,
1559 206
Dr. Mathys burns his bible . . 207
Father Borja's son .... 207
Pompeyo Leoni 207
Fr. Domingo de Guzman . . 208
Arrest of Const. Ponce de la
Fuente 208
Execution of Dr. Cazalla, of Fr.
Fro. de Roxas, and D. de
Guzman 209, 210
Death of C. Ponce de la Fuente 210
The emperor's hatred of heresy,
and regrets for having spared
the life of Luther . . 210,211
Fr. Bart. Carranza de Miranda
made archbishop of Toledo . 212
Account of him . . . 212,213
Jealousy of Valdes .... 213
Carranza's reception at Valla-
dolid 214
War in Flanders 215
Duke of Guise takes Thionville 215
Battle of Gravelines gained by
the Spaniards 216
Turkish fleet on the coast of Spain 217
Menorca attacked, and Ciuda-
della sacked 218
Measures of defence . . . .219
Quixada returns to Yuste with
his wife and Don John of
Austria 220
XXV111
CONTENTS.
Illness of the regent .... 221
Her proposal for changing the
capital of Spain 221
Affair of the adelantado of
Canary 222
Death of the prior of Yuste . 222
Emperor refuses to interfere in
the election of his successor . 222
FT Martin de Angulo appointed 223
Visits of Don Luis de Avila,
the bishop of Avila, count
of Oropesa, Garcilasso de la
Vega, &c 223, 224
Father Fro. Borja 224
The emperor's Memoirs . . . 224
His anxiety as to his treatment
by historians 225
Ocampo and Sepulveda . 225, 226
Courtly reply of Borja . . .227
Recollections of him in the Vera 227
CHAPTER X.
Emperor's health during the
spring and summer of 1558 . 228
Meals and symptoms .... 228
The physician becomes alarmed
in August 229
Emperor's attention to religious
rites 230
Performs his own obsequies on
the 30th of August .... 231
Taken ill next day ..... 232
Meditations on his wife's por-
trait and other pictures . . 232
Laid on his death-bed . . .233
Details of his illness .... 233
Making of his will 233
Dr. Cornelio sent for . . . .233
Slight improvement in the case 234
Physic, delirium, and letters . 234
Codicil to the will 235
News of the defeat of the count
of Alcaudete in Africa . 235, 236
Emperor signs the codicil . . 237
Its recommendations to the
king to put down heresy . .237
Eegla's suggestion regarding
Don John of Austria . . . 237
Queen of Hungary consents to
go to Flanders 238
Emperor's illness increases . .238
He receives extreme unction . 241
His last private conference with
Quixada 242
He insists on receiving the
eucharist 242
His devoutness 243
Archbishop of Toledo arrives,
and sees the emperor . . . 243
Closing scene .... 244, 245
Death . . . , 246
The grief of Quixada .... 247
Four friars appointed to watch
beside the emperor's body . 247
Their curiosity 247
Preparations for the inter-
ment 247
Funeral sermons and rites . .248
Sermon by Fr. F. de Vil-
lalva 248, 249
Remarks on the character of
Charles 250, 251
On his abdication and its
causes 252, 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 dul-
ness of his writings . . . 259
His popular manners . . . .260
His religious moderation in the
world, and his bigotry in the
cloister 261
The Caroled of Sempere . . 262
The Carlo Famoso of Capata . 263
Extracts from the latter . . . 263
Mention of Don John of Austria
in the poem ,..*.. 264
CHAPTER XI.
Portents at the death of the
emperor 266
Contents of the codicil to his
will 267, 270
Paper relating to Don John of
Austria 270
The princess-regent's orders re-
specting the emperor's per-
sonal property 271
CONTENTS.
xxix
Quixada and his wife, and Don
Julm 271, 272
Note on the traditional origin
of the name of Quacos . . 272
Funeral honours of the emperor
atValladolid 272
At Bruxelles, &c 273
At Lisbon, Rome, and Lon-
don 274, 275
Emperor's body removed to the
Escorial in 1574 . . . 275, 277
Placed in the Pantheon by
Philip IV. in 1654 .... 278
Remark of Philip IV. . . . 279
The emperor's sarcophagus, said
to have been opened by
Charles III. for Mr. Beck-
ford
Queen Mary of Hungary
Third marriage of Philip II.
His return to Spain . .
The princess-regent Juana
LuisQuixada 285
Don John of Austria received
by Philip II 286
Quixada's death 288
Dona Magdalena de Ulloa . . 288
Extracts from letters of Don
John of Austria . . 288, 289
279
280
282
283
283
Don John's affection for her
Her Jesuits' church and college 289
at Villagarcia 290
Insolence of the visitor of the
company to her and her
friends . 291
Her other foundations and alms-
deeds 291
Her death 291
L. Quixada's disposition of his
estate . . 292
His portrait now at Madrid. . .292
William Van Male .... 292
Correspondence between Philip
II. and the bishop of Arras
respecting his papers . . . 293
Martin de Gaztelu .... 294
Guyon de Moron 294
Dr. Henry Mathys .... 295
Dr. Cornelio Mathys .... 295
Fr. Juan de Regla .... 295
Fr. Francisco de Villalva . .297
Fr. Juan de A^oloras . . . 298
Fr. Juan de Santandres . .298
Fr. Antonio de Villacastin . . 298
Giovanni Torriano .... 300
Father Francisco Borja . . . 302
His beatification 305
Archbishop Carranza of Toledo 306
CHAPTER XII.
Monastery of Yuste visited by
the duke of Alba and cardinal
Pachecoinl559 . . . .312
Visited by Philip.II. in 1570 . 312
Repaired by Philip IV. in
1638 314
The monks 314
Visited by D. Antonio Ponz . 315
Visited by M. Laborde . . .316
by the
The monastery burnt
French in 1809 . . . . .316
Visited by Lord John Russell in
1813 316
Robbed by the Constitutionalists
in 1820 317
Visited by Mr. Ford in 1832 . 318
Monasteries suppressed in 1837 318
My own visit to Yuste in 1849 319
State of the monastery . . . 320
APPENDIX.
Extracts from the Inventory of the effects of Charles the Fifth at Yuste, p. 322
Books 323
Plate * 324
Jewels 325
Crucifixes, paintings, &c * 326
Furniture of the emperor's chamber 327
Stable, &c 328
INDEX. .... .329
!^3
THE CLOISTER LIFE
OF THE EMPEROR
CHARLES ^0
UNIVERSITY
CHAPTER I.
THE IMPEEIAL ABDICATION.
IT is not possible to determine the precise time at
which the emperor Charles the Fifth formed his
celebrated resolution to exchange the cares and honours
of a throne for the religious seclusion of a cloister. It
is certain, however, that this resolution was formed many
years before it was carried into 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 convent of friars,
and she into a nunnery. In 1542, he confided his
design to the duke of Gandia; and in 1546, it had
been whispered at court, and was mentioned by Ber-
nardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared envoy of Venice, in
a report to the doge. 1
In 1548, Philip, heir-apparent of the Spanish
monarchy, was sent for by his father to receive the
1 Relatione, Luglio, 1546 ; printed in Correspondence of the Emperor
Charks V. Edited by Rev. W. Bradford. Svo. London: 1850. p. 475.
2 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
oath of allegiance from the states of the Netherlands ;
and in 1551, he invested him with the duchy of Milan.
When only in his eighteenth year, the prince had been
left a widower by the death of his wife, Mary, daughter
of John the Third of Portugal. On his return to
Spain, he entered into negotiations for the hand of a
second Portuguese bride, his cousin, the infanta Mary,
daughter of his father's sister Eleanor, by the late king,
Don Emanuel. After delays unusual even in Penin-
sular diplomacy, these negotiations had almost reached
a successful issue, when the emperor, on the thirtieth of
July, 1553, from Bruxelles, addressed Philip in a letter
which produced a very memorable effect on the politics
of Europe. Mary Tudor, he wrote, had inherited the
crown of England, and had given him an early hint of
her gracious willingness to become his second empress.
For himself, this tempting opportunity must be fore-
gone. ' Were the dominions of that kingdom greater
even than they are/ he said, 'they should not move me
from my purpose a purpose of quite another kind/ 1
But he desired his son to take the matter into his
serious consideration, and to weigh well the merits of
the English princess before he resolved to conclude any
other match. In her childhood, the lady Mary had been
betrothed to the emperor, and she was now eleven years
older than his son. But Philip, who was preparing to
marry an infanta of thirty-three, was quite willing to
transfer his affections to a queen of thirty-seven.
Usually slow to decide, he showed in this matter a
promptitude of decision which proves how early in life
he deserved the title, afterwards given to him by his-
torians, of the Prudent. Concurring in the emperor's
1 ' ?ero bien os puedo asegurar que otros muchos estados mas princi-
pales no me doblaran ni moveran del proposito en que estoi, que es bien
diferente.' Emp. to Philip II. 30th July, 1553.
1550-2.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 3
opinion, that one or other of them ought to marry the
queen of England, and seeing that matrimony was dis-
tasteful to his father, he professed his readiness to take
that duty on himself. He had, happily, not absolutely
concluded the Portuguese match, and he would therefore
at once proceed to break it off, on the plea that the dowry
promised was insufficient. Father and son being thus
of one mind, they opened the diplomatic campaign which
ended in adding another kingdom to the hymeneal con-
quests for which the house of Austria was already
famous, 1 and in placing Philip, as king-consort, on the
throne of England. On the same day when Charles
suggested to his son the propriety of breaking faith with
his favourite sister's only child, he signed the first order
for money to be spent in building his retreat at Yuste,
a Jeromite convent in Estremadura in Spain; and as
soon as the treachery had been completed and the prize
secured, he began seriously to prepare for a life of piety
and repose.
Rest and quiet were indeed urgently demanded by
the state of his health. His constitution, naturally
feeble, had long been undermined by violent attacks of
gout. In 1550 that disease, flying to his head, had
threatened him with sudden death. In 1552, when his
army of sixty thousand men lay before Metz, and all
his thoughts were bent on that celebrated siege, it was
with difficulty, when he visited the lines, that he could
sit his Turkish charger for a quarter of an hour at a
time ; his face was pale and thin, his eyes sunken, and
1 And so tersely celebrated in the epigram of Matthias Corvinus :
Bella gerant alii ; tu felix Austria nube !
Nam quse Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus.
Fight those who will ; let well starr'd Austria wed,
And conquer kingdoms in the marriage bed.
B 2
4 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
his hair and beard were observed to have whitened with
remarkable rapidity. Early in 1554 his health and
spirits were so much shaken, that there was some
colour for the deplorable report of them which the
French ambassador was instructed to make to the sultan
at Constantinople. Solyman the Magnificent was to be
told that his great Christian rival had lost the use of an
arm and a leg ; that he was utterly unfit for business,
and spent his time in taking watches to pieces and put-
ting them together again; that he was gradually going
out of his mind ; and that his sister, the queen of
Hungary, permitted him to be seen only at the far end
of a long gallery, where he showed himself sitting in his
chair, and looking more like a statue than a man. 1 In
spite, however, of gout, dyspepsia, and horological pur-
suits, he succeeded, greatly to the chagrin of France, in
adding the crown matrimonial of England to the many
diadems which were to be worn by his son Philip. But
had he much longer continued to bear the burden of
supreme power, there is little doubt that the hand of
death would soon have made Mary Tudor queen of
Castille.
That Philip might meet his English bride on equal
terms, the emperor ceded to him, in 1554, the title of
king of Naples. In the autumn of 1555 he recalled
him from Windsor to receive yet higher and more sub-
stantial honours, and to assist at the most remarkable
solemnities of a century prolific of great pageants as well
as of great events. The theatre of these solemnities
was the hall of the castle of Caudenberg, the ancient
palace of the dukes of Brabant, a mass of buildings of
various dates and styles, from the towering donjon
1 Ribier ; Lettres et Memoires d'etat sous les Regnes de Francois I.,
Henri II., et Francois II. 2 vols. fol. Paris : 1677. ii. p. 485.
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 5
keep of duke John the Second, 1 to the airy portal,
pierced and pinnacled in the richest Gothic of the
days of Charles the Bold. Here, on the twenty -third
of October, Charles held a chapter of the Golden Fleece,
and invested Philip with the grand mastership of that
illustrious order. Three days later, on the twenty-fifth
of October, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the states-
general of the Netherlands appeared in the same hall
by their deputies, to witness the emperor's abdication
of the dominions of the house of Burgundy. They
took their seats on benches placed in the form of a
half circle, in front of a decorated dais, on which
stood three chairs beneath a canopy of state. On each
side of this dais were rows of seats, those on the right
being reserved for the knights of the Golden Fleece,
and those on the* left for royal and noble guests.
Archers of the guard and halberdiers stood sentry at
the doors and kept order in the body of the hall, which
was densely crowded with spectators. The walls were
covered with magnificent tapestries, on which the rich
looms of Flanders had wrought the story of the Fleece
of Gold, and the institution of the order by Philip the
Good. When the deputies had taken their places accord-
ing to their rank, the doors which communicated with
the palace chapel were thrown open, and the emperor
appeared. The whole assembly rose and uncovered as
he approached. Supporting himself on the right with
a staff, and leaning with his left hand on the shoulder
of William prince of Orange, he slowly made his way
across the dais, and seated himself in the central chair.
1 The building was destroyed by a fire, which broke out on the night
of the 3rd or 4th of February, 1731. It occupied the site of the
present church of Caudenberg, and of the Place-royale. Th. Juste :
L Abdication de Charles Quint. 8vo. Liege: 1851 ; an agreeable work,
reprinted in a separate form from the Progres Pacifique.
6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
He was closely followed by his son Philip, by his sisters,
Mary queen of Hungary and Eleanor queen of France,
and by his nephew, Ferdinand archduke of Austria.
After these came his beautiful niece, Christina duchess
of Lorraine, his nephew the gallant Emanuel Philibert,
duke of Savoy, and the pope's nuncio, heading a splen-
did throng of cardinals, ambassadors, nobles, and knights
of the fleece. The king of England and Naples seated
himself in the chair on the emperor's right hand, while
the queen of Hungary took that on his left. When all
were placed, the usher of the council called over the
names of the deputies of the provinces, and asked if
they were furnished with the necessary powers. Their
answers made, the emperor ordered the councillor Phili-
bert de Bruxelles to state to the assembly the reasons
which had induced him to abdicate the throne. In a
pompous oration, that functionary set forth that ill-
health had rendered the burden of power intolerable to
their master, and compelled him to seek the milder cli-
mate of Spain ; and he expatiated on the good fortune of
the Netherlands in being thus called upon to transfer
their allegiance to a prince in all respects so admirable
as the heir-apparent of Castille. The emperor then rose,
slowly and painfully, leaning heavily on the arm of the
prince of Orange. Holding in his hand a paper of
notes, to which he occasionally referred, he delivered in
French, in the midst of the profoundest silence, a speech,
of which the substance, if not the exact words, has been
preserved. 1
1 The official account of the abdication, and various documents con-
nected with it, ten in all, preserved in the royal archives of Belgium, have
been published by M. Gachard, in his Analecfes Belgiques, vol. i. 8vo.
Bruxelles, 1830, pp. 70 106. The emperor's speech is unfortunately not
officially reported, nor do the original notes exist, but there is an account
of it drawn up ' par quelque bon personnaige estant a la dicte assemblee, '
which must have been esteemed a correct one, or it would hardly have
been placed in the archives.
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 7
' Some of you/ he said, e will remember that on the
fifth of January last, forty years had elapsed since the
day when, in this very hall, I received, at the age of
fifteen, from my paternal grandfather the emperor
Maximilian, the sovereignty of the Belgian provinces.
My maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, king Ferdinand
the Catholic, dying soon after, there devolved on me
the care of a heritage which the state of my mother's
health did not permit her to govern. At the age of
seventeen, therefore, I crossed the sea to take possession
of the kingdom of Spain. At nineteen, on the death
of the emperor, I ventured to aspire to the imperial *
crown, from a desire, not of extending my dominions
but, of the more effectually providing for the safety of
Germany, and of my other kingdoms, and especially of
the Belgian provinces, and in the hope of maintaining
peace amongst Christian nations, and of uniting their
forces in defending the catholic faith against the Turk.
' These designs I have not been able completely to
execute, owing, in part, to the outbreak of the German
heresy, and in part to the jealousy of rival powers.
But with God's help I have never ceased to resist my
enemies, and to endeavour to fulfil the task imposed on
me. In the course of my expeditions, sometimes to
make war, sometimes to make peace, I have travelled
nine times into High Germany, six times into Spain,
seven times into Italy, four times into France, twice
into England, and twice into Africa, accomplishing in
all forty long journeys, without counting visits of less
importance to my various states. I have crossed the
Mediterranean eight times, and the Spanish sea twice.
I will not now allude to my journey from Spain to the
Netherlands, undertaken, as you know, for reasons suf-
ficiently grave. 1 My frequent absence from these pro-
To suppress the insurrection at Ghent in 1540.
8 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
vinces obliged me to entrust their government to my
sister Mary, who is here present. I know, and the states-
general know also, how well she has discharged her duties.
Although I have been engaged in many wars, into none of
them have I gone willingly; and in bidding you farewell,
nothing is so painful to me as not to have been able to
leave you a firm and assured peace. Before my last expe-
dition into Germany, considering the deplorable state of
my health, I had already contemplated relieving myself
of the burden of public business; but the troubles
which agitated Christendom induced me to put off my
design, in the hope of restoring peace, and because, not
being so enfeebled as I now am, I felt it incumbent on
me to sacrifice to the welfare of my people what
remained to me of strength and life. I had almost
attained the end of my endeavours, when the sudden
attack made upon me by the king of France and some
of the German princes, forced me again to take up
arms. I have done what I can to defeat the league
against me; but the issue of war is in the hand of
God, who gives victory or takes it away at his pleasure.
Let us be thankful to Providence that we have not
to deplore any of those great reverses which leave deep
traces behind them, but on the contrary, have obtained
some victories of which our children may cherish the
remembrance. In entering on my retirement I entreat
you to be faithful to your prince, and to maintain a good
understanding amongst yourselves. Above all, resist
those new sects which infest the adjoining countries;
and if heresy should penetrate within your frontier,
hasten to extirpate it, or evil will overtake you. For
myself, I must confess that I have been led into
many errors, whether by youthful inexperience, or by
the pride of riper age, or by some other weakness
inherent in human nature. But I declare that never,
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 9
knowingly and willingly, have I done wrong or violence,
nor authorized such deeds in others. If, notwithstand-
ing, such offences may be justly chargeable upon me, I
solemnly assure you that I have committed them un-
known to myself and against my own desire; and I
entreat those whom I may thus have wronged, both
those who are present to-day and those who are absent,
to grant me their forgiveness/
Fatigued with standing and speaking, perhaps over-
come by his emotions, the emperor here sat down to
rest. Queen Eleanor brought him a small cup of
cordial. Having touched it with his lips, he again rose,
and turning to his son, who stood uncovered by his
side, addressed him to this effect.
' Were you put in possession of these provinces by
my death, so fair a heritage might well give me a claim
on your gratitude. But now that I give them up to
you of my own will, dying as it were before the time
for your advantage, I expect that your care and love of
your people will repay me in the way such a boon
deserves. Other kings reckon themselves fortunate to
be able, at the hour of death, to place their crowns
on their children's heads ; I wish to enjoy this happiness
in my life, and to see you reign. My conduct will
have few imitators, as it has few examples; but it will
be praised if you justify my confidence, if you do not
decline in the wisdom you have hitherto displayed, and
if you continue to be the strenuous defender of the
catholic faith, and of law and justice, which are the
strength and the bulwarks of empire. May you also have
a son to whom you may, in turn, transmit your power !'
With these words the emperor tenderly embraced his
son, who was now kneeling before him, and kissing his
hand. Placing his hand on the head of his successor,
Charles the Fifth, with tears in his eyes, bestowed on
10 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
him his paternal blessing, and committed him to the
protection of God. Philip's cold heart was melted at
this solemn moment, and he also shed tears, which
likewise flowed plentifully both in the ranks of the noble
and knightly spectators, and amongst the populace in
the centre of the hall.
The emperor and his son having resumed their seats,
Jacques Maes, an eminent lawyer and syndic of Antwerp,
stood up to answer the abdicating monarch in the name of
the states-general. His speech was remarkable for long-
winded magniloquence and gross adulation. Charles
was described as the greatest of monarchs, his Flemish
people, as the most devoted and peaceable of subjects.
*^ As for Philip, that worthy image of a great sire was
^r declared to be so marvellously endowed by nature, that
. ' r> had the states-general been free to choose their lord,
they must have preferred him to any other prince in
Christendom. Rising from his chair, the new sovereign
bowed to the assembly, replied in a few words expres-
sive of his regret for his imperfect French, which com-
pelled him to speak through the mouth of the bishop of
Arras, to whom however he had imparted his wishes and
his feelings.
Anthony Perrenot, bishop of Arras, was the able
statesman afterwards so powerful and so famous as
cardinal Granvelle. His address was well suited to the
occasion, being brief, clear, and dignified. In the king's
name, he assured the states-general that his majesty had
accepted the sovereignty only out of respect to the
express command of his father. He solemnly promised
to employ all his power in governing them and defend-
ing them well, and he hoped that he should find him-
self the ruler of a loyal people. He would remain among
them as long, and he would return to them as often, as
affairs required his presence. He would specially watch
1555.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 11
over the maintenance of the catholic religion justice, their
old laws, privileges, and immunities, and in all things
would show himself a good prince, as he hoped that
they would show themselves good subjects.
When the bishop ended his harangue, the third per-
sonage in the royal group beneath the canopy rose to
address the assembly. Mary, queen of Hungary, for
twenty-four years the able and indefatigable ruler of the
Netherlands, announced that she also was about to
resign the delegated authority which she had so long
wielded. The emperor and the king, said she, had
at last permitted her to pass into Spain, there to
serve God in the tranquillity which her age and her
fatigues demanded. Had her knowledge and capacity
been equal to the zeal and fidelity with which she
had devoted herself to her duties, never would sovereign
have been better served, nor country better governed.
While she begged for indulgence and forgiveness for
the errors which she had committed, she acknowledged
that these would have been far more numerous, but
for the assistance she had received from the counsellers
now around her, and from those who had gone before
them. Entreating the emperor, the king, and the
deputies to accept her services in the spirit in which
they had been rendered, she desired to carry with her
the goodwill of the Belgian people, and to assure them
of her affection, and of her earnest desire for their
welfare, to which, any power she might possess would
ever be directed. 1
The eloquence and flattery of Jacques Maes were
again put in motion. In his own diffuse style, and
in the name of the states - general, he assured the
1 Queen Mary's speech is printed by M. Gachard, from a minute in
her own handwriting, in the royal archives of Belgium.
12 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
queen of Hungary that her government had given uni-
versal satisfaction, and he thanked her for the affection
towards her late subjects which she had just expressed.
The emperor then signed and sealed the formal deed
of abdication; and declaring Philip invested with the
sovereignty of the Netherlands, he slowly retired from
the hall, followed by his family and court, and leaving
the audience deeply moved with a scene, which, more
than any other event of an eventful reign, is calculated
to affect the imagination and dwell in the remembrance
of distant posterity.
In the year following, on the sixteenth of January,
1556, in the same place, and with a similar ceremonial,
he signed and sealed the act of abdication of his
Sicilian and Spanish kingdoms, and their dependencies
in Africa and the New World; and on the sixteenth of
August he placed in the hands of the prince of Orange,
who received it with tears, a deed of renunciation of the
imperial crown to be laid before the diet of the empire.
It was already understood that the electors were to confer
the vacant dignity on Charles's brother Ferdinand, king
of the Romans, and actual sovereign of the archduchies
of Austria. To obtain the diadem of the Cresars for
his son Philip, had long been one of the dreams of
Charles's ambition. Ferdinand, however, would neither
waive his claims, nor even consent to the proposal that
Philip should succeed him, to be succeeded in his turn
by Ferdinand's son, Maximilian, king of Bohemia. The
discussion of the question had for some time caused a
coolness between the emperor and the king of the Romans;
and Charles was especially offended with Ferdinand for
seeking to strengthen his position by the support of the
protestant electors. But the design being abandoned as
hopeless, it was now the earnest wish of the abdicating
monarch that the subsequent formalities should be ac-
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 13
complished with all practicable speed. 'Should the
electors/ he wrote to Ferdinand/ 'refuse their consent to
the transfer of the title, which God forbid, my ambassadors
are instructed to demand that I be at least permitted to
resign to you the entire administration of affairs. My
conscience being thus discharged of its burden, I will
keep the title, although, if any way can be found of
laying even that aside, it is the thing which I most
desire, and in which your good offices will give me most
contentment/
When Charles laid down the sceptre, he also quitted
the palace, of his Burgundian ancestors. He chose for
his retreat a small house, where part of his childhood
had been spent, in the park of Bruxelles, not then
the trim urban pleasance which later times and taste
have made it, but a skirt of the wild forest of Soigne.
This pavilion, of one story and a few rooms, for a
century afterwards was known as the house of Charles
the Fifth; its site, near the Louvain-gate, is now
covered by the national or legislative palace of Belgium.
Here the retired monarch lived for many months,
much tormented with gout, but giving close attention
to the winding up of his affairs with the world. In
the previous autumn the king of the Romans had
negotiated at Augsburg a peace with the protestants of
Germany. In the spring of 1556, under the arbitration
of the English queen, the terms of a long truce be-
tween the house of Valois and the house of Austria were
agreed upon at the abbey of Vaucelles. In this truce
the emperor took the deepest interest and an active part;
hoping that it might be the foundation of that solid
1 On the 8th August, 1556. The letter occurs in the Correspondenz
des Kaisers Karl V. von Dr. Karl Lanz. 3 vols. 8vo. Leipzig: 1844.
iii. p. 708-9.
14 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
and lasting peace in which, as he told the states-
general, it had been his wish to retire from the world.
While thus engaged, he seemed to be rehearsing the
existence which he had so long planned for himself in
the distant convent in Spain. His sole counsellor and
confidant was the bishop of Arras. He was waited on
by a few gentlemen of grave and venerable aspect, and
clad in black ; and he inhabited only a couple of rooms
sombrely tapestried with black cloth.
Here, on Palm- Sunday, 1556, he received the admiral
de Coligny, ambassador of Henry the Second of France,
sent to Bruxelles to witness the ratification by the king
of Spain of the truce between the crowns. The
Frenchman and his brilliant following nearly filled the
small room in which they found the emperor dressed
in a citizen's black gown of Florence serge and a
Mantua bonnet, sitting beside his black writing-table.
When the most Christian king's letter was put into his
hand, it was with some difficulty that his gouty fingers
broke the broad official seal. ' What will you say of me,
my lord admiral/ said he; ' am I not a brave cavalier to
break a lance with, I, who can hardly open a letter ?'
After hearing the letter read by the bishop of Arras,
and discussing its contents, he asked the ambassador
about his master's health, and whether he was getting
grey. On learning that a few white hairs were already
visible on the head of Henry the Second, he said that
he well remembered the time when he had first observed
upon his own those unpleasant symptoms of decay.
It was at Naples, after his return from Tunis, when he
was being dressed and perfumed to pay his court to the
ladies. At first he ordered his barber to pluck out the
intruders. But for every white hair thus removed, he
soon found that three more made their appearance ; and
he doubted not that, if he had persevered in the de-
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 15
pilatory process, he would soon have been as white as
a swan.
Brusquet, the famous jester of four kings of France, 1
had come in the train of the admiral. Recognising
him, the emperor asked him how he did; to which
Brusquet replied that his majesty was too gracious
to notice one of the worms of the earth. ' Have you
forgotten/ said Charles, ' what passed between you
and the marshal de Strozzi on the day of spurs ?'
alluding to a battle in which that famous general had
found his spurs of more use than his sword. 'I re-
member it well/ retorted Brusquet ; 'it was at the very
time when your Majesty bought those fine rubies and
carbuncles which you wear on your fingers/ pointing
to the emperor's hands, knotted and disfigured with
gout. At this rough personal thrust Charles laughed
heartily a laugh in which all the company joined and
said, ' I would not for a good deal have lost the lesson
you have taught me, not to meddle with a man who
looks like a harmless idiot, as you look, and assuredly
are not/ He then courteously dismissed the admiral
and his companions; and, going to an open window,
stood there watching the cavalcade as it went glittering
through the park, a well-timed appearance which dis-
pelled a rumour that had been circulated of his being
at the point of death. 2
Sometime afterwards, a contagious malady breaking
out at Bruxelles, the emperor removed for awhile from
1 Francis I., Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX. Brantome gives an
account of Brusquet and his witticisms, in his Discours sur le mareschal
Strozzi; oeuvres, 8 torn. 8vo, Paris, 1787, iv. p. 435. He kept what he
called a book of fools, and he inscribed in it the name of his master,
Francis I., after Charles V. had been permitted to pass through France
on his way to Ghent. ' But what,' said Francis, ' if I allow him to return
as securely as he came ?' ' Nay,' said Brusquet, ' if he ventures himself
again in your power, I will erase your name, and put his in its place.'
a Ribier ; Lettres et Memoires d'etat : Voyage de M. I'Amiral. ii. p. 633.
16 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. i.
his home in the park to a still humbler retreat in the
village of Grimberghe, near Vilvorde. He continued to
linger in Flanders, partly on account of the difficulties
which lay in the way of his renunciation of the imperial
crown, but mainly from a desire to see his daughter,
Mary, wife of his nephew, Maximilian, king of Bohemia.
These royal personages being detained in Germany until
July, his departure for Spain, which had been fixed for
the month of June, was postponed until August. When
Maximilian and Mary arrived, Bruxelles became for a
few days the scene of tournays, banquets, and other
sumptuous festivities. These ended, the emperor began
his journey, and arrived on the thirteenth of August at
his favourite city of Ghent. There he was lodged, for
ten or twelve days, in the hotel of Ravenstein, the
mansion of an old historic race, standing opposite the
ancient palace of the counts of Flanders, in which he
had first seen the light.
On the twenty-sixth of August, he gave a farewell
audience to the foreign ambassadors who had followed
him from Bruxelles. He then took the road to Flushing,
where the fleet had assembled to convey him to Spain.
Besides the queens of France and Hungary, who were
to be the companions of his voyage, he was attended to
the coast by Philip the Second, Mary queen of Bohemia,
and many of the nobles of the Netherlands. A good
many days were spent at Flushing, or at Zuitburg, in
waiting for favourable weather. Amongst the last things
done on shore by the emperor was to write to his
brother Ferdinand a long letter of advice as to the
manner of dealing with the electoral diet in order to
procure its unconditional acceptance of the act of ab-
dication. He concluded it in these words : ' I am all
ready, waiting with the queens my sisters, until it shall
please God to send us a fair wind to set sail, being
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 17
determined to let no opportunity slip, but to take the
curliest occasion of proceeding on our voyage, which I
pray God to prosper. From Zuitburg, the twelfth of
September, 1556.' 1 The royal party embarked on the
following day.
1 Lanz : Correspondenz, iii. p. 712. The place is supposed to be the
village now called Wester-Souburg, near Flessingue, or Flushing.
Juste : L' Abdication, p. 30, note.
18 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP.
CHAPTER II.
THE BAY OF BISCAY; LAREDO; BURGOS;
AND VALLADOLID.
OF the royal ladies who were now about to accompany
their imperial brother in his voyage, and, like him,
to seek retirement in Spain, the elder was the gentle and
once beautiful Eleanor, queen dowager of Portugal and
of France. She was now in her fifty-eighth year, and
much broken in health. In youth the favourite sister
of the emperor, and in later days always addressed
by him as madame ma meilleur sceur, 1 she had never-
theless 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
was used by her brother, first as a bait to flatter the
hopes and fix the fidelity of the unfortunate constable
de Bourbon, and next as a means of soothing the
wounded pride and obtaining the alliance of his captive,
the constable's liege lord. The French marriage was
probably the more unhappy of the two. Francis the
First never forgot that he had signed the contract in
1 See his letters to her amongst the Papiers d'etat du Cardinal de
Granvelle d'apres les manuscrits de la Biblioth. de JBesan$on, torn. i. viii.
4to, Paris: 184050.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V 10
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 influence extended, an
unwearied peace-maker between the houses of Valois
and Austria. Since 1547, the year of her second
widowhood, she had lived chiefly at the court of the
emperor, whose last 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 per-
petual widowhood, a vow from which she never sought
a dispensation. In spite of this act of feminine devo-
tion, she was, even in that age of manly women, re-
markable for her intrepid spirit and her iron frame.
To much of the bodily strength of her Polish ancestress,
Cymburgis of the hammer-fist, she united the cool head
and the strong will of her brother Charles. Hunting
and hawking she loved like Mary of Burgundy, and her
horsemanship must have delighted the knightly heart of
her grand sire Maximilian. Not only could she bring
down her deer with unerring aim, but tucking up her
sleeves, and drawing her knife, she would cut the animal's
throat, and rip up its belly in as good style as the best
c 2
20 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
of the royal foresters. 1 It was to her that the imperial
ambassador in England made known Mary Tudor's
desire for some ' wild-boar venison/ to grace the feasts
which followed her coronation a desire which was forth-
with gratified by the arrival in London of the lieutenant
of the royal venery of Flanders, with a prime six-year-
old boar, as a gift from the queen of Hungary. 2 Roger
Ascham, meeting the sporting dowager as she galloped
into Tongres, far ahead of her suite, although it was her
tenth day in the saddle, recorded the fact in his note-
book, with a remark which briefly summed up the
popular opinion of her character. ' She is/ says he,
' a virago ; she is never so well as when she is flinging
on horseback and hunting all the night long/ 3 To the
firm hand of this Amazon-sister the emperor very
wisely committed the government of the turbulent Low
Countries. For twenty-four stormy years she adminis-
tered it with much vigour and tolerable success ; now
foiling the ambitious schemes of Denmark and of
France ; now repressing Anabaptist or Lutheran risings ;
and always gathering as she could the sinews of war for
the imperial armies abroad. While she conducted in
her cabinet a vast correspondence, she was also at
all times ready for a gallop to any corner of her states,
where there was need of her quick eye and bold hand.
Guarding the northern outpost of the dominion of
Austria, her experience in watching the designs of
France on the one side, and England on the other,
had sharpened to the finest acuteness her political
sagacity. She it was who first penetrated the secret
1 Libro de la Monteria del Rey D. Alonso ; fol. Sevilla : 1582. See
the Discwrso de G. Argote de Molina, fol. 19.
* Papiers de Granvelle. iv. 121 135.
8 P. Fraser Tytler's Orig. Letters of the reigns of K. Edward VI. and
Q. Mary, 2 vols. 8vo, London : 1839, ii. p. 127.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 21
counsels of Maurice of Saxony, and obtained proof of
his treason to the imperial cause. Charles, who soon
discovered the value of her advice and assistance, was
wont to call her his other self. In spite of the troubled
times in which she reigned, her vice-regal court was
not wanting in the splendour which had long distin-
guished the old court of Burgundy. The palace which
she built at Binche in Hainault, and her beautiful
adjacent gardens of Mariemont, with their marbles
and fountains, were the pride of the Netherlands;
and the festivities with which she had there enter-
tained the emperor and prince Philip in the summer
of 1549, 1 were long remembered for their surpassing
magnificence by the old courtiers of Vienna and
Madrid. Binche was soon afterwards burned to the
ground by the French, an injury for which Mary vowed
to make all France do penance, and to leave no stone
standing at Fontainebleau. 2 Although she did not live to
accomplish the latter threat, her latest exploit in arms was
a foray, during the siege of Metz, which she led with so
much spirit into Picardy, that Henry the Second found
it necessary to come to the rescue of his province. She
had, indeed, no reason to love the French, who not only
carried fire and sword into her favourite bowers, but
assailed her reputation with the poisoned arrows of their
satire. The epigrammatists of Paris loved to rhyme of
her as the huntress Dian, and to insinuate that in spite
of her professed fidelity to her husband's memory, a love
of the chase formed her sole title to the name of the
chaste goddess. She was now in her fifty-second year
bronzed rather than broken by her toils, and though
1 A full and entertaining account of the 'Fiestas de Bins,' for so the
Spaniards called the place, will be found in J. C. Calvete ; Viaje del
principe D. Philippe, fol. 182-205.
2 Brantome ; (Euvres, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris: 1787, ii. p. 547.
22 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
seeking retirement and repose, still fit for the council or
the saddle. The reason for which she had demanded
her release from power was a palpitation of the heart,
to which she had been subject for many years. It was
much against his will that the emperor accepted her
resignation; and more than once before their departure
both he and Philip the Second hinted their wish that
she should resume the helm in the Netherlands, which
had been meanwhile entrusted to the duke of Savoy.
To these hints she not only turned a deaf ear, but she
even refused to take any part in obtaining the supplies
from the states-general, who had already displayed a
disposition to economy extremely inconvenient to the
paragon prince who now claimed their allegiance and
their bounty. It is probable, therefore, that an un-
favourable opinion of her nephew had as much weight
in determining her retirement, as the state of her health
and her advancing age. 1
The fleet which had assembled at Flushing numbered
fifty-six Spanish and Flemish sail, and was commanded
by Don Luis de Carvajal. The vessel prepared for the
emperor was a Biscayan ship of five hundred and sixty-
five tons, the Espiritu Santo, but generally called the
Bertendona, from the name of the commander. The
cabin of Charles was fitted up with green hangings, a
swing bed with curtains of the same colour, and eight
glass windows. His personal suite consisted of one
hundred and fifty persons. The queens were accom-
modated on board a Flemish vessel. Although the royal
party embarked at Zuitburg on the thirteenth of Sep-
tember, the state of the weather did not allow them to
put to sea until the seventeenth. The next day, as
1 An excellent notice of queen Mary of Hungary, from the pen, I
believe, of M. Th. Juste, will be found in the Revue Nationale de Bel-
gique, torn. xvii. p. 13, 8vo, 1847.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 23
they passed between the white cliffs of Kent and Artois,
they fell in with an English squadron of five sail, of
which the admiral came on board the emperor's ship,
and kissed his hand. On the twentieth, contrary winds
drove them to take shelter under the isle of Portland
for a night and a day. The weather continuing un-
favourable, on the twenty-second the emperor ordered
the admiral to steer for the isle of Wight, but a fair
breeze springing up as they came in sight of that island,
the fleet once more took a westerly course, and gained
the coast of Biscay without further adventure. On the
afternoon of Monday, the twenty-eighth of September, the
good ship Bertendona cast anchor in the road of Laredo.
The gulf of Laredo is a forked inlet of irregular form,
opening towards the east, and walled from the north-
western blast by the craggy and castled headland of
Santoiia. Laredo, with its fortress, stands at the mouth of
the gulf on the south-eastern shore. Once a commercial
station of the Romans, it became an important arsenal
of St. Ferdinand of Castille. From Laredo, Ramon
Bonifaz sailed to the Guadalquivir and the conquest of
Seville ; and a Laredo-built ship struck the fatal blow to
the Moorish capital, by bursting the bridge of boats and
chains which connected the Golden Tower with the
suburb of Triana, an exploit commemorated by St.
Ferdinand in the augmentation, of a ship, to the muni-
cipal bearings of Laredo. After some centuries of
prosperity, the town was cruelly sacked, in 1639, by the
archbishop of Bordeaux, the apostolic admiral of Louis
the Thirteenth. Santander rose upon its ruins; its
population dwindled from fourteen, to three, thousand ;
fishing craft only were found in its sand-choked haven ;
yet, true to its martial fame, it sent a gallant band of
seamen to die at Trafalgar.
This ancient seaport was now the scene of a debarka-
24 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
tioii more remarkable than any which Spain had known
since Columbus stepped ashore at Palos, with his red
men from the New World. Landing on the evening
of the twenty-eighth of September, 1556, 1 the emperor
was received by Pedro Manrique, bishop of Salamanca,
and Durango, an alcalde of the court, who were in
waiting there by order of the infanta Juana, regent of
Spain. He was joined on the following morning by
the two queens. The arrival of the royal party seemed
to take the bishop and the town by surprise, for few
preparations had as yet been made for its reception.
The admiral Carvajal instantly despatched his brother
Alonso to court with the intelligence, which he delivered
at Valladolid on the first of October.
The princess-regent, the infanta Juana, had already
issued instructions to the primate, prelates, and chap-
ters of Spain to cause prayers to be said in their
respective cathedrals for the prosperity of her father's
voyage. She had also given orders to colonel Luis
Quixada, the emperor's chamberlain, who had preceded
him to Spain, to prepare a residence for the emperor at
Valladolid. These arrangements completed, Quixada had
returned to his country house at Villagarcia, six leagues
to the north-west of Valladolid, whither a courier was
now sent with a command for him to repair with all
speed to the coast. The active chamberlain was in the
saddle by two in the morning of the second of October,
and making the best of his way, on his own horses, to
Burgos, he there took post, and accomplished the entire
1 De Thou (Hist, sui Temp., lib. xvii.) says, that Charles on landing
knelt down and kissed the earth, ejaculating, ' I salute thee, common
mother ! Naked came I forth from the womb to receive the treasures of
the earth, and naked am I about to return to the bosom of the universal
mother.' Had the emperor really done or spoken so, it is most unlikely
that his secretary would have failed to mention it in his letters none
of which contain any hint that can justify the tale.
i:>56.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 25
distance (fifty-six leagues, or about two hundred and ten
English miles,) in three days, dismounting on the night
of the fourth at Laredo.
The presence of the stout old soldier was much wanted.
Half of the emperor's people were ill; Monsieur de
La Chaulx and Monsieur d'Aubremont had tertian and
quartan fevers; seven or eight of the meaner at-
tendants were dead ; yet there were no doctors to give
any assistance. There was even a difficulty in finding
a priest to say mass, the staff of physicians and chaplains
which had been ordered down from Valladolid not having
yet been heard of. But for the well-stored larder of the
bishop of Salamanca, there would have been short
commons at the royal table. When the secretary, Martin
Gaztelu, wrote to complain of these things, there was
no courier at hand to carry the letter. The weather
was wet and tempestuous, and of a fleet of ships, laden
with wool, which the royal squadron had met at sea,
some had returned dismasted to port, and others had
gone to the bottom, 1 The Flemings were loud in their
discontent, and very ill-disposed to penetrate any further
into a country so hungry and inhospitable. The alcalde
who was charged with the preparations for the journey,
was at his wit's end, though hardly beyond the beginning
of his work. The emperor himself was ill, and out of
humour with the badness of the arrangements ; but he
was cheered by the sight of his trusty Quixada, and
welcomed him with much kindness.
1 The loss of the vessel of Francis Cachopin, with eighty men, and a
cargo worth 80,000 ducats, is particularly mentioned by Gaztelu, in his
letter to Juan Vazquez de Molina, dated 6th of October. This storm
seems to be the sole foundation for Sandoval's story (Hist, de Carlos V.,
Lib. xxxii. c. 39, 2 vol. Pamplona : 1634, ii. p. 820, and repeated by
Strada, De Bello Belgico, 2 torn. sm. 8vo. Antv. 1640, i., p. 10) that the
emperor's ship went down a few hours after he had quitted her. No
trace of such an accident is to be found in the Gonzalez MS.
26 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
From the moment that the old campaigner took the
command, matters began to wear a more hopeful aspect.
The day after his arrival was spent in vigorous prepa-
ration ; and in the morning of the sixth of October, a
messenger came from Valladolid with a seasonable supply
of provisions. That morning, while Gaztelu penned a
somewhat desponding account of the backwardness of
things in general, Quixada wrote a cheerful announce-
ment that they were to begin their march that day at
noon, after his majesty had dined a promise which he
managed to fulfil.
The emperor, in spite of the discomforts of his sojourn
at Laredo, is said to have left to the town some marks
of his favour. The parish church of the Assumption of
the Virgin a fine temple of the thirteenth century,
grievously marred by the embellishments of the eigh-
teenth was happy in the possession of a holy image,
Our Lady of the Magian kings, full of miraculous power,
and of benevolence to sailors. Two lecterns of bronze,
in the shape of eagles with expanded wings, and an
altar-ternary of silver, which still adorn her shrine, are
prized as proofs that Charles the Fifth enjoyed and valued
her protection. 1
The feeble state of the emperor's health required that
he should travel by easy stages. His first day's march,
along the rocky shore of the gulf, and up the right bank
of the Ason, was hardly three leagues. The halting
place was Ampuero, a village, hung on the wooded side
of Moncerrago. Next day, about four leagues were
accomplished, on a road which still kept along the
sylvan valley of the Ason a mountain stream, renowned
for its salmon, and for the grand cataract in which it
1 Madoz : Diccionario geografico estadistico historico de Espana, 17 vols.
roy. 8vo. Madrid : 1850, art. Laredo, a work of the greatest value and
importance.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 27
leaps from its source high up in the sierra. La Nestosa,
a hamlet in a fertile hill-embosomed plain, was the second
day's bourne. The third journey, of four leagues, was
on the ridge of Tornos, to Aguera, a village buried among
the wildest mountains of the great sierra which divides
the woods and pastures of Biscay from the brown plains
of Old 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 windswept plain.
Here the emperor paused a day to repose.
He had performed the journey with tolerable ease,
in a horse-litter, which he exchanged, when the road was
rugged or very steep, for a chair carried by men* Two
of these chairs, and three litters, in case of accident in
the wild highland march, formed his travelling equip-
ment. By the side of the litter rode Luis Quixada;
or, in case the chamberlain, who was also marshal and
quarter-master, was needed elsewhere, his place was
taken by La Chaulx, an old and faithful servant, who,
thirty years before, had had the honour of appearing
as the emperor's marriage-proxy at the court of Portu-
gal. 1 The rest of the attendants followed on horse-
back, and the cavalcade was preceded by the alcalde
Durango, and five alguazils, with their wands of office
a vanguard which Quixada said made the party look
like a convoy of prisoners. These alguazils, and the
general shabbiness of the regiment under his command,
were matters of great concern to the colonel; but his
remonstrances met with no sympathy from the em-
peror, who said the tipstaves did very well for him, and
1 His long and interesting account of his proceedings there, is in the
Correspondenz des Kaisers Karl V., von Dr. Karl Lanz, i. p. 169. The
name is usually spelt by Sandoval and other Spaniards Laxao.
28 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
that lie did not mean for the future to have any guards
attached to his household.
On the road, between Ampuero and La Nestosa, they
met Don Enrique de Guzman, coming from court, charged
with a large stock of provisions and ample supply of con-
serves. These latter dainties the emperor immediately
desired to taste, and finding their quality good, he gave
orders that they were to be kept sacred for his peculiar
eating. Guzman was accompanied by Don Pedro Pimen-
tel, gentleman of the chamber to the young prince, Don
Carlos, bearing letters of compliment from his master,
who desired that the emperor would indicate to his
ambassador, as he called Pimentel, the place on the
road where he was to meet him. Without settling
this point, Quixada wrote, by the emperor's orders, to
court, commanding a regular supply of melons to be
sent for the imperial table, and some portable glass
windows to be got ready for use on the journey be-
yond Valladolid, as the nights were already becoming
chilly. He asked also for the dimensions of the apart-
ments prepared at Valladolid for the queens, that he
might send forward fitting tapestry for their decoration;
and he begged that the measurements might be taken
with great exactness, as their majesties, especially the
queen of Hungary, could not bear the slightest mistake
in the execution of their behests. The royal dowagers
had brought with them from Flanders a profusion of
fine tapestry of all kinds, much of which still adorns
the walls of the Spanish palaces. They did not travel
in company with their brother, but kept one day's
march in the rear, as it would have been difficult to
lodge their combined followers. The management of
their journey, and the selection of their quarters, rested
with the all-provident Quixada ; who had found time to
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 29
make general arrangements on these heads as he gal-
loped down the road from Villagarcia.
During the day of rest at Medina, the imperial
quarters were thronged with noble and civic visitors,
who rode into the town from all points of the compass.
Addresses came from the corporations of Burgos,
Salamanca, Palencia, Pamplona, and other cities ; from
the archbishop of Toledo, and other prelates. On the
eleventh of October, Charles again mounted his litter,
and travelled five leagues to Pesadas, a poor town, on a
bleak table-land swept by the merciless north wind, where
he was met by the constable of Navarre. After a brief
audience, he dismissed that nobleman, with a request
that he would go forward and welcome the two queens.
The night of the twelfth of October was passed, after a
five leagues' march, at Gondomin j 1 and the next day, a
journey of about the same length, still over vast undu-
lating heaths, rough with thickets of dwarf oak, led to
the domains of the Cid, beyond which rose the ancient
gate and beautiful twin spires of Burgos.
Two leagues from the city, the emperor was met by
the constable of Castille, Don Pedro Fernandez deVelasco,
and a gallant company of loyal gentlemen. The con-
stable, whom age and infirmities had compelled to ex-
change, like his lord, the saddle for the litter, conducted
him with all honour to the noble palace of the Velascos,
popularly known as the Casa del Cordon, from the mas-
sive stone-carved cord of St. Francis, which enfolds and
protects the great portal. He oifered hospitality to the
whole of the imperial train, but this Luis Quixada was
instructed to decline. While the emperor made his
entry into the city, the bells of the cathedral rang a peal
Hontamin is the present name.
30 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
of welcome ; and at night, the chapter made a still finer
display of loyalty, in a grand illumination of its steeples.
For once, sombre Burgos, which was said to wear mourn-
ing for all Castille, 1 seems to have laid aside its weeds.
The privations, spiritual and temporal, endured by
Charles at Laredo, and arising, as it appears, from mis-
calculation of time, are the sole evidence furnished by
his servants of that neglect which even Spanish historians
have long been in the habit of depicting, as if to deter
princes from the dangerous experiment of abdication.
Had the emperor really been exposed to this mortifica-
tion, perhaps his pride would have led him to suffer in
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- Celi,
Medina- Sidonia, Maqueda, Najera, Infantado, and many
other grandees. The royal councils of state, the royal
chancery of Valladolid, and other public bodies, sent
deputations with loyal addresses. Amongst the lesser
nobles who came in crowds to the Casa del Cordon, not
the least noticeable was Don Gutierre de Padilla, brother
of the gallant Juan de Padilla, with whom, thirty-five
years before, the constitutional liberties of Castille had
perished in the disastrous wars of the Commons. For
fighting on the winning side in that heroic struggle,
Gutierre had been rewarded with a commandery, and
at this time he held the honorary post of gentleman of
the imperial chamber.
1 And. Navagiero : II Viaggio fatto in Spagna. sm. 8vo. Vinegia :
1563, fol. 35.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 31
From Burgos the emperor set out for Valladolid on
the sixteenth of October. In spite of his infirmities, the
constable offered to accompany him part of the first
day's journey an offer which, however, his guest would
not accept. But to the great contentment of Quixada,
Don Francisco de Beaumont insisted on joining the
cavalcade with an escort of cavalry, thus superseding
the alcalde and his alguazils. Their road lay along the
rich vale and near the right bank of the Arlanzon, a
river sometimes rolling its muddy waters in a deep and
rapid stream, sometimes expanding them into broad
shallows. The first resting place was about four leagues
from Burgos, at the village of Celada, the second, seven
leagues further, at Palenzuela, where the emperor was
pleased to find a supply of flounders, newly arrived from
court. Fish was his favourite food, yet it never agreed
with him ; so these flounders were probably the cause of
the indisposition of which he complained at Torquemada,
where, after a journey of four leagues, he passed the
night. In this town of vine- dressers, seated amongst
productive gardens and orchards, near the confluence of
the Arlanzon, the Arlanza, and the Pisuerga, he was
met by the bishop of the neighbouring city of Palencia.
This prelate, Pedro de la Gasca, was a man of some
distinction; his skilful diplomacy in repressing a for-
midable rebellion had saved Peru to Castille; and he
had very lately received from the emperor his present
mitre, as the reward of his services. 1 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
1 F. Fernandez de Pulgar : Historia de Palencia, 4 vols. fol. Madrid :
1679, iii. p. 201.
32 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
further on, at Duenas, where Ferdinand of Aragon first
met Isabella the Catholic, and where the count of
Buendia now received their descendant in his feudal
castle on the adjacent height, overlooking the broad
valley of the Pisuerga. Some gentlemen from Valla-
dolid meeting him here, advised him to enter the capital
by way of Cigales, and the Puente-mayor, by which
means he would at once reach the palace, without noise
and without a crowd. ' No/ said he ; ' I will go the
usual way, by the gate of San Pedro ; for it would be a
shame not to let my people see me.' 1 The fifth day, his
journey was again a short one, of three leagues ; and
the halting-place was Cabezon, a village within two
leagues of the capital, and boasting of a fine bridge over
the Pisuerga. Here the infant Don Carlos was in
waiting, by his grandfather's directions. It was the
first time that the emperor had seen the unhappy heir
of his name and his honours. He embraced him with
much appearance of affection, and made him sup at his
table. During the meal, the prince took a fancy to a
little portable chafing dish, which the emperor carried
in his hand for warmth, and begged to have it for his
own; to which the proprietor replied, that he should
have it as soon as he was dead, and had no further use
for it.
Early next day, the twenty-first of October, Juan
Vasquez de Molina, secretary of state, came to Cabezon,
and had a long conference with the emperor, of whom
he had been an old and approved servant. He found
him in good health and spirits, not at all fatigued with
his journey, and in all respects better than his attend-
ants had known him for several years. Charles would
1 'Ruindad no dejarse ver por los suyos/ are the words given by
Gonzalez.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 33
not, however, accept the honours of a public reception,
which it had been proposed to give him at Valladolid ;
but desired that the pomps prepared for the occasion
might be reserved until the arrival of the queens, who
were also on the road. Accordingly, he made his entry
that same afternoon, by the gate of San Pedro, or of
the Chancery, without parade of any kind, and was
received in the court of the palace by his grandson, Don
Carlos, and by his daughter, the princess-regent. 1
Valladolid was at this time at the height of its pro-
sperity, as the wealthy and nourishing capital of the
Spanish monarchy. It possessed a noble palace standing
in delicious gardens ; a splendid college erected by car-
dinal Mendoza and built all of white marble in the
florid Gothic of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and some reli-
gious houses, such as San Benito and San Pablo,
unexcelled as examples of the rich and fantastic tran-
sition style of architecture. Other churches and con-
vents, and many mansions of the nobility adorned the
1 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.
Oct. 6, Monday, Laredo to Ampuero 3
7, Tuesday, La Nestosa 4
8, Wednesday, Aguera 4
9, Thursday, Medina de Pomar. . . 5
11, Saturday, Pesadas 5
12, Sunday, Gondomin 5
13, Monday, Burgos 5
16, Thursday, Celada 4
17, Friday, Palenzuela 7
18, Saturday Torquemada 4
19, Sunday, Duenas 3
20, Monday, Cabezon 3
21, Tuesday, Valladolid 2
In all about 54 leagues.
D
34 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
streets and squares, spread tlieir long fronts to the great
parade-ground known as the Campo Grande, or rose
amongst the gardens which fringed the Pisuerga.
The princess-regent Juana was the second daughter
of the emperor, and widow of Juan, prince of Brazil,
heir-apparent of the Portuguese crown. Her married
life had been no less brief than bright; the prince, who
loved her tenderly, dying in less than thirteen months
after their union. Juan was the only son, not only
of his parents, but of the decaying house of Avis ; and
therefore, on his pregnant widow of nineteen, were
centered all the hopes of the Portuguese nation. In
spite, however, of the prayers which rose in every
church, and the processions which glittered through
every town between the Minho and cape St. Vincent,
alarming portents preceded the royal birth. A woman,
clad in black, was seen to stand by the bed of Juana,
snapping her fingers, and blowing into the air, as
if in prediction of the futility of the national hope ;
and Moorish figures, with torches in their hands, rushed
at night by the palace windows, in full view of the
princess and her ladies, riding on the wintry blast, and
uttering doleful cries as they descended into the sea.
But in the night of the fifteenth of January, 1554, a
shout of joy rung through the broad square between
the palace and the Tagus, when it was announced to
the expectant crowd that the prince was born whose
romantic fate has made the name of Sebastian so
famous in song and story. From the pangs of travail
the young mother, who had been kept ignorant of her
husband's death, passed to the sorrows of widowhood ;
she wept for the father of her child as Rachel for her
children, and would not be comforted; and but for the
king, who forbade the cutting off of her fine auburn
hair, she would have retired with her grief to a nun-
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 35
iKTV. 1 Having repaid to the house of Avis the debt
incurred by the house of Austria at the birth of Don
Carlos, she was soon recalled to Spain, to govern that
country, as regent, first for her father, the emperor, and
now for her brother, Philip the Second. This high
post she filled with firmness and moderation, displaying
no want of sagacity, except in her policy towards the
enthusiasts for 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 personal am-
bition she appears to have been entirely free. For many
months before her brother returned to Spain, she was
constantly urging him to come back and ease her of the
burden of power. To her father her deference was ever
most readily and affectionately paid. Devotion was the
ruling passion of her widowed life; her recreation
during her regency was to retire, for prayer and scourg-
ing, to the convent which the Franciscans called their
Scala C&li, amongst the gloomy rocks and tall pines of
Abrojo. She encouraged her ladies to become nuns,
but dissuaded them from becoming wives; and she
would never give audience to foreign ambassadors without
being covered from head to foot with a veil, drawing/- it
aside for a moment only when some envoy, more curious
than his fellows, desired permission to identify her pale
and melancholy face.
While at Valladolid, the emperor and his suite were
lodged in the house of Don Gomez Perez de las Marinas.
Another residence was assigned to the queens, who
arrived on the twenty-second of October, the day after
1 M. de Meneses : Chronica de D. Sebastiao, fol. Lisboa : 1730, pp.
2730.
D 2
36 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. IT.
their brother. The grandees, the dignitaries of the church
and the law, the council of state in their robes of cere-
mony, and the college doctors in their scarlet hoods, met
them in grand procession, and conducted them into the
city in triumph. They were charmed with their recep-
tion; Quixada and his people had made no mistake about
the tapestries; and queen Mary, at the banquet in the
evening, remarked that every day she found new cause
to rejoice that she had come to Spain. The banquet
was followed by a ball, at which the emperor also
was present. The admiral of Castille, the duke of Sesa,
heir of the great captain, the count of Benevente, and
the marquess of Astorga were amongst the chief
nobles who came to do homage to their ancient lord,
whose hand was also kissed by the members of the
council of Castille. It was probably at this ball that
Charles caused the wives of all his personal attendants
to be assembled around him, and bade each in par-
ticular farewell. Perico de Sant Erbas, a famous jester
of the court, passing by at the moment, the emperor
good humouredly saluted him by lifting his hat.
This buffoon had formerly been wont to make the
emperor laugh by calling his son Philip Sefior de Todo,
lord of All, 1 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/ 2
On the twenty-seventh of October, Don Constantino de
Braganza arrived from Lisbon to congratulate the em-
1 Bradford's Correspondence of Charles V. Rdatione di Navayiero,
p. 439.
2 J. A. de Vera : Vida del Emp. Carlos V. 4to. Bruxelles : 1656. p. 246.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 37
peror, 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 per-
fect graciousness with which he knew well how to meet
the advances of a rival who had just cause for dis-
satisfaction. For the courts of Lisbon and Valladolid,
though friendly in appearance, were really upon terms
far from cordial. Not only had Philip the Second
broken his faith to an infanta of Portugal, but his father
had aided him in foiling the designs of a Portuguese
infant upon the crown matrimonial of England. For
that splendid prize the gallant Don Luis of Portugal
had been one of the earliest candidates. Knowing that
the prince of Spain was already betrothed to his half-
sister, and being himself a brother-in-law, as well as a
brother in arms, of his sire, he at once confided his
plan to the emperor, and asked for his aid in its execu-
tion. Charles received his confidence graciously, and
affected to favour his pretensions, until Philip had made
his election sure. Don Luis was lately dead, leaving
a bastard son, who, as prior of Crato, afterwards became
famous for a time as Philip's most formidable rival for
the crown of Portugal. But the affronts which the
house of Avis had received in the persons of Don Luis
and the infanta, were still too recent to be forgotten,
and may have been partly the cause why the princess
Juana so soon forsook her baby-son, and the kingdom
which was his heritage. The national enmities which
burned on the opposite shores of the Guadiana were
not extinct in royal bosoms at Lisbon and Valladolid;
France was careful to fan the useful flame ; and it was
suspected that the moidores of Brazil were not unknown
to the troops which soon began to plant the lilied banner
on fortress after fortress along the ever-fluctuating
frontier of French and Austrian Flanders.
38 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
During his stay at Valladolid, the emperor every day
held long conferences on public affairs with the princess-
regent and the secretary Vazquez. He could not
approach the machine of government which he had so
long directed without examining with lively interest its
condition and its movements. He was anxious now to
give its present guides the benefit of his parting advice,
advice which, as the event proved, he continued to
transmit from Yuste by every post, and which was
ended only with his powers of hearing and dictating
despatches. But that he now intended to abstain from
further interference with business of state is plain, from
a letter which he wrote to Philip the Second on the
thirtieth of October.
This letter relates chiefly to certain overtures which
had been made to the emperor by Anthony de Bour-
bon, whom he called duke of Vendome, but who was
known in France by the title of king of Navarre.
Since Ferdinand the Catholic had driven John the
Third across the Pyrenees, the dominions of the house
of D'Albret hardly extended beyond the horizon of its
fair castle of Pau. The chains in which 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, husband of
the story-loving pearl of Margarets, had willed himself
a provisional tomb, until fortune should permit him to be
laid in the cathedral of Pamplona. His son-in-law, the
chief of the Bourbons, was, however, neither very soli-
citous nor very hopeful of disturbing Henry's repose at
Lescar. To the courage, courtesy, and good humour
which seldom desert a Bourbon in high or low estate, the
first king of the name added, in full measure, that laxity
of principle and instability of purpose which seem to
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 89
belong to the blood. Protestant and catholic, huguenot
and leaguer by turns, he anticipated in his career all
that tarnished, little that ennobled, the name of his
son Henry the Fourth; and he died detested by the
party which he had forsaken, and described, by the party
to which he had attached himself, as a man without
heart and without gall. As governor of Picardy, he
had lately commanded against the imperial troops in
Flanders; but he had now joined his strong-minded
wife, Jane D'Albret, in her principality of Bearne.
Menaced even in that modest domain by the all-powerful
Guises, who recommended its annexation to the realm
of France, they were desirous of securing the protection
of their other great neighbour beyond the Pyrenees.
Anthony had therefore proposed to cede to the king of
Spain, for a suitable consideration, all his wife's rights
to coronation or to interment at Pamplona.
Writing to Philip the Second, the emperor informed
him that this matter had been brought under his notice
at Burgos, by the duke of Alburquerque, viceroy of
Navarre, and that he had given audience to Monsieur
Ezcurra, the confidential agent of the duke of Vendome.
The subject had also been discussed at 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 Romans, as to the last
formalities of his renunciation of the empire ; and he
entreated Philip to hasten the settlement by all the
means in his power, being anxious to enter his monastery
' free from this, as from other cares/
While Charles was thus bent on conventual quiet,
he was so reserved in his communications with his
attendants, that they were still in doubt whether he
40 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. n.
really intended to shut himself up for life in the dis-
tant cloister of Yuste, From Burgos, Gaztelu wrote,
that in spite of his constant opportunities, he was unable
to penetrate the emperor's intentions the expressions
which he let fall being always, as it seemed, purposely
equivocal. At Valladolid, however, he had commanded
the attendance of the prior of Yuste, and the general of
the order of Jerome, Fray Francisco de 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 grandson,
Don Carlos, which commenced at Cabezon, was of course
improved at Valladolid. On the grandfather's side,
there seems to have been little of the fondness which
usually belongs to the relationship. Although only
eleven years old, Carlos had already shown symptoms
of the mental malady which darkened the long life of
queen Juana, his great grandmother by the side both
of his father, Philip of Spain, and of his mother, Mary
of Portugal. Of a sullen and passionate temper, he lived
in a state of perpetual rebellion against his aunt, and
displayed in the nursery the weakly mischievous spirit
which marked his short career at his father's court. His
sad and early death, still mysterious both in its cause
and its circumstances, has made him the darling of
romance; and in that fairy realm, he goes crowned
with immortal garlands, such as certainly have never
been won in the battle-fields of life by any son or
descendant of his sire. He might possibly have become
the champion of the people's rights, and of liberty of
conscience ; but it was scarcely probable that a hero of
that order should be borne in the purple of the house of
Hapsburg. His shadowy claims to the title have been
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 41
maintained by several Schiller-struck champions. 1 But
his high faculties for good or evil, if he possessed them,
certainly escaped the shrewd insight of his grandfather,
who regarded him merely as a froward and untractable
child, whose future interests would be best served by a
present unsparing use of the rod. Recommending, there-
fore, to the princess an increased severity of discipline
in the management of her nephew, the emperor re-
marked to his sisters that he had observed with concern
the boy's unpromising conduct and manners, and that
it was very doubtful how the man would grow up. This
opinion was conveyed by queen Eleanor to Philip the
Second, who had requested his aunt to note carefully
the impression made by his son ; and it is said to have
laid the foundation for the aversion which the king
entertained towards Carlos.
1 Of these, one of the latest and most plausible in his view is Don
Adolfo de Castro. See his agreeable work, Historia de los Protestantes
Espanoles, 8vo, Cadiz, 1851, pp. 243319, or The Spanish Protestants,
translated by T. Parker, fcap. 8vo. London : 1851, pp. 278 to 339, in
which, however, I cannot admit that he makes out his case.
42 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
CHAPTER III.
THE CASTLE OF XARANDILLA.
SINCE the emperor had turned fifty and had begun
to lose his teeth, he had ceased to eat in public, or
at least performed that royal function in private as
often as good policy permitted. 1 On the fourth of No-
vember he exhibited himself at table to his subjects for
the last time, dining about noon before as many of the
citizens of Valladolid as chose to attend and could find
standing room in the apartment. Immediately after-
wards he bade farewell to the princess-regent and her
nephew, and set forward on his journey to Estremadura,
dismissing, at the Campo-gate, a crowd of grandees who
had wished to ride for some miles beside his litter.
The followers whom he had brought from Burgos
continued to attend him, with a small escort of horse
and a company of forty halberdiers commanded by a
lieutenant. They had not gone far over the naked
plain, patched here and there with stubby vineyards,
when the emperor complained of illness, and halted his
litter. His servants retired with him into a wayside
garden, and by the application of hot cushions to his
stomach, he was soon sufficiently restored to proceed.
At the ferry of the broad Duero he looked towards the
fortress of Simancas, which rose on its round hill top
out of the plain a few miles higher up the river, and
1 Joan Gin. Sepulveda ; De Rebus gestis Caroli V. Lib. xxx. c. 25.
Opera, 4 torn. 4 Madriti 1780, ii. p. 528.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 43
remarked to Quixada that he hoped the thirty thousand
ducats, with \vhich he counted upon paying his people,
had been lodged there in safety. The day's march of
four leagues closed at Valdestillas, a village seated
amongst low woods of melancholy pine.
The next day's journey, which was somewhat shorter,
brought the party to Medina del Campo, a fine old
historical town in a singularly bad site, with a grand
collegiate church presiding over many other religious
buildings, and a noble hospital, well supplied with
patients by the miasma which rose from the stagnating
Zapardiel that crept beneath the walls. Here was an
ancient residence of the crown of Castile, called La
Mota, a stately pile hallowed by the death-bed of
Isabella the Catholic. The emperor, however, was not
lodged there, but in the house of one Rodrigo de Duenas,
a rich money-broker, whither he was conducted by the
authorities and by most of the inhabitants, who had
met him at the gate. His host, imitating, perhaps, un-
consciously, the splendid Fuggers of Augsburg, had
provided, amongst other luxuries for the emperor's use,
a chafing-dish of gold, filled, not with the usual charred
vine-tendrils, but with the finest cinnamon of Ceylon.
Charles was so displeased with this piece of ostentation,
that he refused, very uncourteously and unreasonably as
it seems, to allow the poor capitalist to kiss his hand,
and on going away next day, ordered his night's lodging
to be paid for. 1 From Medina he privately sent one of
his chaplains to Tordesillas to observe the state and
service of the chapel which he had endowed there for
the benefit of the souls of his parents.
In the course of the third day's march he remarked
to his attendants that, thank God ! they were now
1 This story is told by Gonzalez ; but whether on the authority of a
letter does not appear.
44 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
getting beyond the reach, of state and ceremony, and
that there would be now no more visits to make or
receive, or receptions to undergo. Six or seven leagues,
still over vast bare undulating plains, where the plough
feebly contended with the waste, brought them to
Horcajo de las Torres, a lone village, built on a wind-
swept table land. The fourth day was marked by an
improvement in the weather, which had hitherto been
rainy, and by the arrival of a courier from court with a
supply of potted anchovies and other favourite fish for
the emperor. He also was presented with an offering
of eels, trouts, and barbel, by the townspeople of Pene-
randa, where he rested for the night in the mansion
of the Bracamontes. The road now approached the
southern hills and entered the straggling woods of ever-
green oak which clothe the base, and become dense on
the lower slopes, of the wild sierra of Bejar, the centre
of that mountain chain which forms the backbone of the
Peninsula, stretching from Moncayo in Aragon to the
rock of Lisbon on the Atlantic.
In the fifth day's march the emperor began to feel
the keenness of the mountain air; the little chafing-dish
was constantly in his hand; and the previous night having
been chilly, he sent forward a messenger to superintend
the warming of his room at Alaraz, a village sweetly nestled
in the valley of the Gamo. Here he wrote to the king on
the morning of the ninth of November; and sleeping that
night at Gallegos de Solmiron, he arrived on the tenth
at Barco de Avila, a small walled town, finely placed in
a rich vale, overhung by the lofty sierras of Bejar and
Gredos, and watered by the fresh stream of the Tormes,
dear to the angler and to the lyric muse of Castille. A
second courier from court here overtook the party, with
some eider-down cushions for the emperor, who was
much pleased with their warmth and lightness, and said
he would have them made into jackets and dressing-
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 45
gowns for his own use. The eighth day's march, of six
or seven mountain leagues, was the hardest they had yet
encountered. The road, constantly ascending the rocky
and wood-clad steeps, was extremely bad ; and although
the country people, whom they met, aided in overcoming
the difficulties of the way, the cavalcade did not reach
the halting place at Tornavacas until after dark. The
emperor, however, bore the fatigue with all the spirit
and somewhat of the strength of his younger days ; he
was even able, on his arrival, to go out to see the
villagers fish the pools of the Xerte by torchlight; and
he afterwards supped heartily on the fine trout taken
in the course of this picturesque sport.
He was now within six or seven leagues of Xarandilla,
the village in the neighbourhood of Yuste where he'
proposed to remain until his conventual abode was
ready. His original intention had been to go thither by
way of Plasencia, and thence along the Yera, or valley,
in which the village stood. But from Tornavacas there
led to Xarandilla a track across the mountains, by which
a day's journey could be saved, and Plasencia, with its
episcopal and municipal civilities, avoided. This shorter
but far rougher road, the emperor determined to face.
He set out on his last march in good time in the morn-
ing of the twelfth of November, his cavalcade being
swelled by a great band of the last night's fishermen, and
other peasants, who carried planks and poles, relieved
the bearers of the chairs, led the mules, and pointed
out the way. This assistance was not only useful but
necessary, the road being as wild a mountain path as
mule ever traversed. Overhung, for the most part, with
the bare boughs of great oaks and chestnuts, the narrow
and slippery track sometimes followed, sometimes crossed
torrents swollen with the late rains, wound beneath
toppling crags, climbed the edge of frightful precipices,
46 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
and reached the culminating horror in the pass of Puerto-
nuevo, a chasm rugged and steep as a broken staircase,
which cleft the topmost crest of the sierra. On this
airy height, the traveller, pausing to take breath, sud-
denly sees the fair Vera unrolled, in all its green length,
at his feet. Girdled with its mountain wall this nine-
league stretch of pasture and forest, broken here and
there with village roofs and convent belfries, slopes
gently to the west, where beautiful Plasencia, crowned
with cathedral towers and throned on a terrace of rock,
sits queenlike amongst vineyards and gardens and the
silver windings of the Xerte.
The emperor was charmed with the aspect of his
promised land. ' Is this indeed the Vera !' said he,
gazing intently at the landscape at his feet. He then
turned his eye to the north, into the forest-mantled
gorge, between the beetling rocks of the Puertonuevo ;
'Now/ he said, looking back, as it were, through the
gates of the world he was leaving, ' 'tis the last pass I
shall ever go through/ Ya no pasare otro puerto. 1
During the ascent and descent, he was carried in a
chair, the stout and vigilant Quixada marching at his
side, pike in hand. They reached Xarandilla before
sunset, and alighted at the castle of the count of
Oropesa, the great feudal lord of the vicinity, and
head of an ancient branch of the Toledos. The
Flemings were overcome with fatigue and with disgust
at the obstacles which every step had put between
themselves and home. But all agreed that the emperor
bore the journey remarkably well, and did not appear
greatly wearied at its close. He chose a bed-room
different from that allotted to him by his host ; and re-
1 Puerto has in Spanish the double signification of ' gate' and ' moun-
tain pass.'
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 47
quested that a fire-place might be immediately added to
the chamber which he was afterwards to occupy. 1
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
f pleasantness to saints and men/ Walled to the north
by lofty sierras, and watered with abundant streams, its
mild climate, rich soil, and perpetual verdure, led some
patriotic scholars of Estremadura to identify this beau-
tiful valley with the Elysium of Homer 'the green
land without snow, or winter, or showers' in spite of
the f soft-blowing sea-breeze' which refreshed the one,
and the torrents of rain which sometimes deluged the
other. With greater plausibility the Vera was conjec-
tured to have been the scene where Sertorius fell by
the traitor-hand of Perperna. 2 Saintly history also
deemed it hallowed, in the seventh century, by the last
labours of St. Magnus of Ireland, 3 and, in the eighth
century, by the martyrdom of fourteen Andalusian
bishops slain in one massacre by the Saracen. The fair
valley was unquestionably famous throughout Spain for
its wine, oil, chestnuts, and citrons, for its magnificent
1 In this itinerary, from Valladolid to Xarandilla, I am without means
of computing the distances with any certainty :
Leagues.
Nov. 4, Tuesday, Valladolid to Valdestillas 4
5, Wednesday, Medina del Campo 3^
6, Thursday, Horcajo de las Torres. . . 3
7, Friday, Penaranda 4
8, Saturday, Alaraz 4
9, Sunday, Gallegos de Solmiron... 3
10, Monday, Barco de Avila 3
11, Tuesday, Tornavacas 6 or 7
12, Wednesday Xarandilla 6 or 7
In all 36 to 38 leagues.
2 Strada : De Bello Belgico, lib. i.
8 He was a prior of a convent at Garganta la Olla. J. de Tamayo
Salazar : San Epittwo de Tui, 4to. Madrid : 1646, p. 42 ; and Sancti
Hispani, 6 vols. fol. Lugd. : 1657, v. p. 68. The fact, however, is dis-
48 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
timber, for the deer, bears, wolves, and all other animals
of the chase, which abounded in its woods, and for the
delicate trout which peopled its mountain waters.
The reasons which guided Charles the Fifth in his
choice of a retreat have never been satisfactorily ex-
plained. There is no direct evidence that he had even
visited the Vera before he came there to die. 1 It
is possible that the patriotism of some Estremaduran
companion in arms, and his talk on the march or by the
camp fire, may have obtained for his native province the
honour of being the scene of the emperor's evening of
life. While making the pilgrimage to the shrine of Our
Lady of Gruadalupe, in April, 1525, 2 or during the few
days which he spent at Oropesa on his way to Seville, in
February, 1526, 3 it is not improbable that love of the
chase may have tempted Charles to penetrate the sur-
rounding forests, and that the sylvan valley may have
puted and the honour claimed for the Alps, and a place called Fuesscn,
supposed to be derived from fauces, of which Garganta is also a transla-
tion. Theodore of St. Gall, who wrote the life of St. Magnus (printed
by J. Messingham, Florilegium Sanct. Hibernice,kto. Paris: 1624, p. 296]),
is entirely silent as to the claims of the Vera.
1 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
attendants that this was a spot to which Diocletian might have retired
with pleasure. The impression had remained so strong on his mind that
he pitched upon it as the place of his own retreat.' M. Juste, L' Abdica-
tion, repeats the story, and assigns the incident to the date 1542. but
like Robertson, gives no authority either for the story or the date. From
the Itinerary of the emperor by Vandenesse, from 1519 to 1551, printed
in Bradford's Correspondence, we learn (pp. 531-5) that in 1542 Charles
was never nearer to Yuste than Valladolid.
8 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.
3 Itinerary of the emperor, by Vandenesse, in Bradford's Correspondence,
p. 490. He remained at Oropesa (erroneously written Aropesa) from
the 25th to the end of February.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 49
remained pictured in his memory as the very solitude
for some future Diocletian. In 1534 he was at Sala-
manca, visiting his old tutor, bishop Luis Cabeza de Vaca,
and undergoing the pompous and pedantic civilities of
the university; 1 and it is also possible that in that
journey he may have had a glimpse of his final resting-
place. But there was no palace or hunting-seat of the
crown near enough to the Vera to have made him natu-
rally familiar with so remote a spot ; nor do the annals
of Yuste, or even of Plasencia, contain any record of
an imperial visit either to the sequestered convent or to
the pleasant city. Of the natural charms of the place
he may have heard enough to attract him thither ; but
the reputation of the valley for salubrity, which seems
to have been scarcely deserved, 2 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 Penanegra.
Its chief feature is the parish church of Our Lady of
the Tower, perched on a mass of rock forty feet high,
and approached by steep and narrow stairs, which give it
the appearance of a place rather of defence than devotion.
The mansion of the Oropesas, built in the feudal style,
with corner towers, has long been in ruins ; and of its
imperial inmate the village has preserved no other me-
1 Gil Gonzalez de Avila : Historia de Salamanca; 4to. Salamanca,
1606, p. 475.
2 Mariana (De Reb. ffisp. Lib. xi. cap. 14. fol. Toleti, 1582, p. 533)
gives the city of Plasencia an opposite character. The site was called
Ambroz, but Alonso VIII. changed the name ' quod nomen Placentiae
appellatione mutari placuit, orninis caussa quasi divis et ho minibus pla-
citurae et ex regionis amaenitate, quamvis cceli salubritate non eadem/
This passage is cited by Fr. Alonso Fernandez, in his Historia y Anales
de Plasencia, fol. Madrid, 1627, p. 6, with the suppression, rather
patriotic than honest, of the latter damaging clause.
E
50 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
morial than a fountain, which is still called the fountain
of the emperor, in the garden of a deserted monastery
once belonging to the order of St. Augustine.
Here Charles remained for nearly three months,
awaiting the completion of the works at Yuste. His
abode, though only an occasional residence of his host,
Fernando, fourth count of Oropesa, was commodious in
all save fire-places, and in the opinion of his attendants,
was handsomely furnished and fitted up. He installed
himself in a room with a southern aspect, opening upon a
covered gallery, and overlooking a flower-garden planted
with orange-trees. For a few days he lived as the
count's guest, but finding that his stay might be inde-
finitely prolonged, he afterwards commenced house-
keeping on his own account. On the eighteenth of
November, therefore, Oropesa and his brother, Francisco
Alvarez de Toledo, who had been viceroy of Peru, 1 and
ambassador to the council of Trent, took their leave,
and returned to their usual home, somewhere on their
adjoining estates, which extended far into the Vera on one
side, and across the mountain to Tornavacas on the other.
During the whole month of November the weather
was cold and stormy, giving a cheerless prospect of the
winter climate of Estremadura. Rain fell every day,
sometimes in torrents, and was followed by fogs, some-
times so thick, that a man became invisible at the dis-
tance of twelve paces. Yuste, on its wooded hill side,
was wrapped in a mantle of perpetual and impenetrable
mist. For whole days it was scarcely possible for an
invalid to leave the house, the streets of Xarandilla
being canals of muddy water, through which Luis
Quixada waded from his lodging to his daily duties, in
fisherman's boots made of felt and cow-hide.
1 P. de Rojas : Discursos Genealogicos, 4to. Toledo: 1636, p. 111.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 51
Meanwhile the emperor, wrapped in a robe of eider-
down made from the princess's cushions, sat by the fire-
side, in good health and spirits, attended by the secretary
Gaztelu, who read to him the despatches which arrived
almost daily from Valladolid, and wrote replies from his
dictation. The course of events in Flanders was watched
by Charles with especial interest; he was always eager
for intelligence, and Gaztelu never finished reading a
letter without being asked if there was no more.
By a remarkable coincidence the year which saw the
emperor descend from his throne, at the age of fifty- six,
to prepare for his tomb, likewise saw a newly-elected
pope plunging, at the age of eighty, into the vortex of
political strife, with all the reckless ardour of a boy.
The two men seemed to have changed characters as well
as places. Charles, the most ambitious of princes, was
about to turn monk; Caraffa, the most studious and
ascetic of monks, bursting from that chrysalis state,
shone forth as the most splendid and restless sovereign
in 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 prudence to
the winds. Hating Spain with the hatred of an here-
ditary bondsman, the old volcanic Neapolitan poured forth
against her torrents of the foulest abuse, and, sitting in
the pastoral chair of St. Peter, he denounced the Spanish
portion of his Christian flock as f heretics, schismatics,
accursed of God, the spawn of Jews and Moors, the off-
52 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. in.
scouring of the earth/ 1 He had, besides, an ancient
feud with the house of Austria, on account of the
punishments inflicted on the Caraffas who had joined the
French during the foray of Lautrec, and also a personal
grudge, for opposition made to his own elevation to the
archbishopric of Naples. 2 War seemed to offer a pro-
spect, not only of gratifying his hatred with sharper
weapons than words, but of paying off old scores and of
providing his needy nephews with desirable duchies.
The antiquated claims of the papacy on Naples as a
church-fief furnished a ready cause of quarrel; and
Paul at once invited the Grand Turk to land in Sicily,
and lured France across the Alps, by holding out such
hopes of an Italian crown as no French king has ever
been able to realize or resist. Henry the Second, only
a few months before, had concluded a truce for five
years with the king of Spain. But at the call of the
minister of truth and peace, whose hereditary device
happened to bear the canting motto, Cara Fe, he was
ready to commit any profitable perfidy and undertake
any promising war. The admiral Coligny was therefore
sent to carry fire and sword into Flanders ; and the
gallant Francis of Lorraine, duke of Guise, the ablest
general in France, led twenty thousand of her best
troops into Italy.
Philip the Second, too faithless himself to be sur-
prised at the bad faith of his royal brother, took vigor-
ous measures to frustrate his endeavours. He gave the
1 ' Heretic!, scismatici, et maladetti de Dio, seme de' Giudei et de'
Marrani, feccia del raondo.' Cited by Federigo Badovaro in his Relatione
1557, made to his government as ambassador from Venice to the king of
Spain, of which an account is given in an interesting paper by M. Marchal
in the Bulletins de V Academic royale des sciences et belles lettres de
Bruxelles ; torn. xii. l er partie, 1845, p. 63.
2 Dom. Ant. Parrino : Teatro de' governi de' Vicere di Napoli : 2 vols.
4to. Napoli, 1770. i. pp. 142-143. Bat. Platina; Historia dei sonnui
Pontifiti, 4to. Venetia, 1592, fol. 356.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. T,:{
military command, as well as the civil government, of
the Netherlands to duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy ;
he entrusted the duke of Alba with the defence of
Naples ; and he himself passed into England, and secured
the co-operation of the love-sick Mary, in the teeth of
her distrustful and Spain-hating ministers and people.
After a lapse of three centuries, Emanuel Philibert
still ranks as the most able and honest prince of that
royal line of Savoy, in which, although ability has seldom
been wanting, geography seems to have rendered honesty
almost impossible. 1 His father, duke Charles, in the
long wars between Francis the First and Charles the
Fifth, had been nearly stripped of his territory. Part
was conquered by his nephew and enemy, the king ; and
part was held for security's sake, in the strong grasp of
his brother-in-law and friend, the emperor. When his
life and injuries were ended, his son Emanuel Philibert
found the port of Nice and a few remote valleys of high-
land Piedmont the sole dominion of the house which
claimed the crowns of Cyprus and Jerusalem. Happily
the young Ironhead, as he was called, had early foreseen
that the career of a soldier of fortune was the one path
by which he could hope to regain his position among the
princes of Europe. He therefore gave himself, heart
and soul, to the profession of arms, and, having served
with distinction under his imperial uncle in Germany and
Flanders, he was already, though still under thirty,
reckoned one of the best captains in the service of Spain. 2
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 father
1 f La Geographic les empeche d'etre honnetes gens.' Prince de
Ligne ; Melanges, 5 torn. 8vo. Paris, 1829, v. p. 29.
- Histoire d'JSmanue Philibert. 12mo, Amsterdam, 1693, p. 5.
54 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. in.
had left his bones among the Moors in the African isle
of Zerbi ; and he himself had fought by the side of the
emperor on the banks of the Danube, beneath the walls
of Tunis, in Provence and Dauphiny, and in the Pro-
testant electorates. He had held independent com-
mands of importance in Catalonia and Navarre, and he
had commanded in chief in the campaign which closed
with the victory at Muhlberg and the capture of the
duke of Saxony. These triumphs had been clouded by
his repulse from Metz, and his late reverses in the Mi-
lanese; but the stern disciplinarian was still hardly
past the prime of life, and in full favour with his sove-
reign; and he joined the army of Naples, resolved to
win back on the Roman campagna the laurels which he
had lost on the plains of the Po. 1
Besides the momentous affairs of Italy and the
Netherlands, several minor matters claimed and obtained
the emperor's attention. Foremost amongst them stood
the negotiations with the court of Portugal, touching
the infanta Mary. Queen Eleanor, the mother of this
princess, had not seen her since the time when she
herself had been recalled, in her first widowhood, to
Castille by the emperor, and had left her baby under
1 J. V. Rustant; Historia del duque de Alva; 2 torn. 4 to. Madrid :
1751 ; a book which seems to be little more than a translation of the
rare Latin life by Osorio. This famous leader is held very cheap by
Badovaro in his Relatione already quoted at p. 37. He accuses him not
only of ignorance of military aifairs, but of cowardice, and asserts that
his appointment to the chief command in Germany astonished the whole
army, and was a mere job to please the Spaniards, which the emperor
consented to, because he had made up his mind to do the whole work
himself. As regards Charles, this statement is so improbable, that it
may well be supposed to rest on the authority of some of the numerous
enemies of Alba, who hated him for his haughty manners and severe
discipline. Ic is certain that he had every opportunity of learning
his profession in all the imperial wars, that the emperor himself em-
ployed him at Metz, and that in his old age he was so far superior to
any other general in the Spanish service, that Philip II. entrusted him,
though in disgrace at the time, with the conquest of Portugal.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 55
the care of her half-brother, John the Third. She
parted with her sadly against her will, and only because
the usages of Portugal and the clamours of the city of
Lisbon did not permit an infanta to leave the kingdom.
It had since been the main object of the fond mother's
heart to negotiate for her daughter such a marriage as
should set her free from this thraldom, and once more
reunite them. She had first affianced her to the
Dauphin, who did not live to fulfil his engagement;
and she afterwards vainly endeavoured to match her
with Maximilian, king of Bohemia, and Philip of Cas-
tille. 1 In following her brother and sister to Spain,
Eleanor was much influenced by the hope of inducing
her daughter to come and reside with her in that
country. 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 likewise solicitous to pro-
vide her with a husband, and had offered her hand, not
only to the archduke, but also to the emperor Ferdinand
his father, and to the duke of Savoy, without success. 2
Dispirited by these mortifications, Mary herself turned
her thoughts to the natural refuge of a love-lorn damsel
of thirty-six the cloister; and the falseness of Philip
had filled her heart with bitterness towards Spain and
her Spanish kindred, and with distrust of any proposal
which came from beyond the Guadiana. She even de-
murred about complying with the desire of her mother,
that they should meet on the frontier of the two king-
doms; and the king of Portugal sustained her objec-
1 Datniam de Goes : Chronica do Rd Dom Emanuel, 4 torn. fol. Lisbon :
1566-7, iv. p. 84.
2 Meneses : Chronica de D. Sebastiao, p. 69.
5ft CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
tioDs on the ground that he did not wish her to be in-
veigled into taking the veil in a Spanish nunnery. The
emperor had already declined his son's invitation to in-
terfere, but he now found it impossible to resist the
entreaties of his sisters and the princess-regent. He
therefore allowed the Portuguese ambassador, Don
Sancho de Cordova, to come to Xarandilla on the
twenty-ninth of November, and gave him several au-
diences during his two days' stay.
King Anthony of Navarre, as he was called in France,
in right of his wife, or the duke of Vendome, as he was
styled in Spain, had also contrived to gain the emperor's
attention to his proposals. 1 His emissary, M. Ezcurra,
therefore presented himself at Xarandilla, on the third of
December, and was dismissed with a letter, written in
cipher, to the secretary Vazquez.
On the eighth of December there arrived a Jew of
Barbary, bringing with him papers to prove that the
king of France was negotiating a secret treaty at Fez,
by which it was rendered probable that Moorish rovers
would soon revenge on the coasts of Spain the ravages
committed by the Spanish troops on the frontiers of
Picardy. The informer was sent on to Valladolid, on
the ninth, with a letter to the secretary of state.
The progress of the works at Yuste, and the prepara-
tions for removal. thither, were subjects of every-day dis-
cussion. The new buildings had been commenced more
than three years before, the first money being paid for
the purpose on the thirtieth of July, 1553. Gaspar de
Vega, one of the best of the royal architects, gave the
plans, working, however, it is said, from a sketch drawn
by the emperor's own hand. Yuste was visited on the
twenty-fourth of May, 1554, by Philip, at the desire of
Chap. ii. p. 39.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 57
his father, as he was on his road to England. He
assisted at the procession of Corpus Christi, inspected
the works with great minuteness, and slept a night in
the convent. The control of the cash and the general
superintendence of the building was entrusted to Fray
Juan de Ortega, general of the Jeromites, and Fray
Melchor de Pie de Concha. Ortega was a man of
ability and learning, who enjoyed for a time the reputa-
tion of having written Lazarillo de Tormes, the charm-
ing parent of those picaresque stories in which modern
fiction had its birth. Certain reforms which he at-
tempted to introduce into the rule of his order, met
with so much opposition and odium, that he was de-
posed from the generalship, when his successor, Tofino,
thought fit to remove him and his assistant, Concha,
from their functions at Yuste. The emperor, however,
was highly indignant at this interference, and imme-
diately replaced them in their duties, which they con-
tinued to discharge at the time of his arrival at Xaran-
dilla.
The greatest secrecy had been enjoined as to the
purpose of these architectural operations, and Charles
had evinced much displeasure on learning that his
intention of retiring to the monastery had been spoken
of in the country, owing to the indiscreet tattling of the
friars. Ortega, as well as the general Tofino, had been
summoned to meet him at Valladolid, and now at Xaran-
dilla they and the prior of Yuste had long and frequent
audiences. On the twenty-second of November, in spite
of the rain and fog, the emperor got into his litter, and
went over to the convent, to inspect the state of the
works for himself. It being the feast of St. Cathe-
rine, it was his first care to perform his devotions
in the church. Notwithstanding the gloom of the
weather and the wintry forest, he declared himself
58 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. in.
satisfied with what he saw, and ordered forty beds to be
prepared, twenty for masters atid twenty for servants,
as speedily as possible. His intention was to remain
at Xarandilla until the arrival of certain books and
papers, which it was necessary to consult before settling
with the domestics whom he was about to discharge ;
but he hoped to remove to the convent in the middle of
December.
Meanwhile, the household, especially the Flemish
and more numerous portion of it, was in a state of dis-
content, bordering on mutiny. The chosen paradise of
the master was regarded as a sort of hell upon earth by
the servants. To all that they could urge against
the salubrity of Yuste, Charles either was wholly
deaf, or replied with the proverb, f The lion is not
so fierce/ or, as we say, the devil is not so black, ' as
he is painted V No es tan bravo el leon como le
pintan. The mayordomo and the secretary therefore
poured, by every post, their griefs into the ear of the
secretary of state. The count of Oropesa, wrote Luis
Quixada, had been driven away from Xarandilla by the
damp, and Yuste was well known to be far damper than
Xarandilla. His majesty had been pleased to approve
of the abode prepared for him, but he himself had like-
wise been there, and knew that it was full of defects
and discomfort. The rooms were too small, the windows
too large ; the window which opened from the emperor's
bed-room into the church would not command the ele-
vation of the host at the high altar; and if service were
performed at one of the side altars, where the officiating
monk could be seen by his majesty in bed, his majesty
in bed would be seen by the monk. In spite of the
glass and the shutters, he feared that the emperor would
be disturbed during the night when the hours were
chanted. The apartments on the ground floor were in
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 5f)
utter darkness, and reeking with moisture; the garden
was paltry, the orange-trees few, and the boasted prospect,
what was it, but a hill and some oak trees? Neverthe-
less, he hoped the place might prove better than it
promised; and he entreated the secretary not to show
his letter to her highness, nor to tell her of the dispa-
raging tone in which he had written about Yuste.
Gaztelu was equally desponding. Some of the friars
were to be drafted off into other convents, to make
room for the new comers; and none being willing to
forego the chances of imperial favour, fierce dissensions
had arisen on this point, and had even reached the
emperor's ears. It seemed as if his majesty must adjust
these quarrels himself, or seek another retreat, which
would be much against his inclination; but, indeed,
what good could be expected to come of wishing to live
among friars? The quartermaster, Ruggier, in re-
porting progress, had ventured to complain of the want
of servants' accommodation. At this the emperor was
very angry, and 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, l worse than
Xarandilla/ Still more was the emperor exasperated
at a letter which he received from the queen of Hun-
gary, entreating him to think twice before he settled in
a spot ' so unhealthy as Yuste ;' and he expressed great
wrath against those who had given her such informa-
tion, and whom he suspected to be Monsieur de La Chaulx
and the doctor Cornelio, who had lately come from court.
Poor La Chaulx might well be excused if he had given
an unfavourable report of the climate ; he was not the
man he had been when he led the ball at the emperor's
wedding, in the Alcazar at Seville ; and he continued to
burn and shiver with violent ague fits. The doctor
60 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. m.
found a good many patients in the lower ranks of the
household. In spite, however, of these various dis-
tresses, the Flemings, according to the testimony of the
Castillians, looked fair and fat, and fed voraciously on
the ' hams and other bucolic meats' of Estremadura, a
province still unrivalled in swine and savoury prepara-
tions of pork.
In this matter of eating, as in many other habits, the
emperor was himself a true Fleming. His early ten-
dency to gout was increased by his indulgences at table,
which generally far exceeded his feeble powers of diges-
tion. 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/ drink-
ing, also, says the fellow of St. John's, 'the best that
ever I saw ; he had his head in the glass five times as
long as any of them, and never drank less than a good
quart at once of Rhenish wine/ 1 Even in his worst
days of gout and dyspepsia, before setting out from
Flanders, the fulness and frequency of the meals which
occurred between his spiced milk in the morning and his
heavy supper at night, so amazed an envoy of Venice, 2
that he thought them worthy of especial notice in his
despatch to the senate. The emperor's palate, he re-
ported, was, like his stomach, quite worn out ; he was
ever complaining of the sameness and insipidity of the
meats served at his table ; and the chamberlain, Monfal-
conet, protested, in despair, that he knew not how the
cook was to please his master, unless he were to gratify
his taste for culinary novelty and chronometrical mecha-
nism, by sending him up a pasty of watches.
1 Works of Roger Ascham, 4to. London : 1761, p. 375.
2 Badovaro. See p. 52.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. Cl
Eating was now the only physical gratification which
he could still enjoy, or was unable to resist. Like
Frederick the Great, who died of his polenta, he con-
tinued, therefore, to dine to the last upon the rich dishes,
against which his ancient and trusty confessor, cardinal
Loaysa, had protested a quarter of a century before. 1
The supply of his table was a main subject of the corre-
spondence between the raayordomo and the secretary of
state. The weekly courier from Valladolid to Lisbon
was ordered to change his route that he might bring,
every Thursday a provision of eels and other rich fish
(pescado grueso) for Friday's fast. There was a constant
demand for anchovies, tunny, and other potted fish, and
sometimes a complaint that the trouts of the country
were too small ; the olives, on the other hand, were too
large, and the emperor wished, instead, for olives of
Perejon. One day, the secretary of state was asked for
some partridges from Gama, a place from whence the
emperor remembered that the count of Osorno once sent
him, into Flanders, ' some of the best partridges in the
world/ 2 Another day, sausages were wanted f of the kind
which the queen Juana, now in glory, used to pride
herself in making, in the Flemish fashion, at Tordesillas/
and for the receipt for which the secretary is referred to
the marquis of Denia. Both orders were punctually
executed. The sausages, although sent to a land
supreme in that manufacture, gave great satisfaction.
Of the partridges, the emperor said that they used to be
better, ordering, however, the remainder to be pickled.
1 Cartas al Emp. Carlos V. escritas en los anos de 1530-32. Copiadas de
las autografas en el archivo de Simancas. Par G. Heine. 8vo. Berlin,
1848, p. 69.
2 The count managed that they should reach Flanders in perfect con-
dition by putting rust in their mouths, ' echandoles orin en la boca.' The
emperor considered that this singular preservative would not be neces-
sary in the present journey.
62 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. in.
The emperor's weakness being generally known or
soon discovered, dainties of all kinds were sent to him
as presents. Mutton, pork, and game were the pro-
visions most easily obtained at Xarandilla; but they
were dear. The bread was indifferent, and nothing was
good and abundant but chestnuts, the staple food of
the people. But in a very few days the castle larder
wanted for nothing. One day the count of Oropesa sent
an offering of game; another day, a pair of fat calves
arrived from the archbishop of Zaragoza; the arch-
bishop of Toledo and the duchess of Frias were constant
and magnificent in their gifts of venison, fruit, and
preserves ; and supplies of all kinds came at regular
intervals from Seville and from Portugal.
Luis Qnixada, who knew the emperor's habits and
constitution well, beheld with dismay these long trains of
mules laden, as it were, with gout and bile. He never
acknowledged the receipt of the good things from Val-
ladolid without adding some dismal forebodings of con-
sequent mischief; and along with an order he sometimes
conveyed a hint that it would be much better if no
means were found of executing it. If the emperor made
a hearty meal without being the worse for it, the mayor-
domo noted the fact with exultation ; and he remarked
with complacency his majesty's fondness for plovers,
which he considered harmless. But his office of pur-
veyor was more commonly exercised under protest ; and
he interposed between his master and an eel-pie as, in
other days, he would have thrown himself between the
imperial person and the point of a Moorish lance.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. C3
CHAPTER IY.
SERVANTS AND VISITORS.
IT was during the emperor's stay at Xarandilla, that
his household was joined by the friar of the order
of St. Jerome, whom he had chosen as his confessor.
To this important post Juan de Regla was perhaps
fairly entitled, by his professional distinction; and he
was certainly one of those monks who knew how to
make ladders, to place and favour, of the ropes which
girt their ascetic loins. An Aragonese by birth, he first
saw the light in a peasant's hut on the mountains of
Jaca, in 1500, the same year in which the future Caesar,
who was destined to be his spiritual son, was born, in
the halls of the house of Burgundy, in the good city of
Ghent. At fourteen, he was sent to Zaragoza, to make
one of the motley crew of poor scholars, so often the
glory and the shame of the Spanish church, and the
delight of the picaresque literature. Obtaining as he
could the rudiments of what was then held to be learn-
ing, he lived on alms and the charity-soup dispensed by
the Jeromites of Santa Engracia. 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 know-
ledge having attracted the notice of the fathers of Santa
Engracia, their favour obtained for him the post of
domestic tutor to two lads of family, who were about to
enter the university of Salamanca. In that congenial
64 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
abode he remained for thirteen years, in the last six of
which he was released from the duties of pedagogue, and
free to pursue his private reading of theology, canon-
law, and the biblical tongues. With his mind thus
stored, he returned, in his thirty-sixth year, to Zaragoza,
and received the habit of St. Jerome in the familiar
cloisters of Santa Engracia. Ere long, he had made
himself the most popular confessor within its walls,
young and old nocking to his chair in such crowds, that
it seemed as if perpetual holy- week were kept in the
convent-church. As a preacher, his success was not so
great; and the critics considered his discourses to be
deficient in learning, of which, nevertheless, he had
enough to be chosen as one of the theologians, sent in
1551 by Charles the Fifth to represent the doctors of
Aragon at the council of Trent. At his return from
this honourable, but fruitless mission, he became prior
of the convent whose broken meat he had once eaten ;
and he would have been elected to that office a second
time, had not the emperor summoned him to Xarandilla
to commence a higher career of ambition, and to enter
political life at the precise age at which Charles himself
was retiring from it. On being introduced into the
imperial presence, Regla chose to speak, in the mitre-
shunning cant of his cloth, of the great reluctance which
he had felt in accepting a post of such weighty responsi-
bility. ' Never fear/ said Charles, somewhat maliciously,
as if conscious that he was dealing with a hypocrite;
' before I left Flanders, five doctors were engaged for a
whole year in easing my conscience ; so you will have
notliing to answer for but what happens here/
It may be as well now to sketch the portraits of the
other members of the imperial household, who after-
wards formed the principal personages of the tiny
court of Yuste. Foremost in interest as in rank stands
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 65
the active mayordomo, who has already figured so fre-
quently in this narrative, Luis Guixada, or to give him
his full Castillian appellation, Luis Mendez Quixada
Manuel de Figueredo y Mendoza. He was the last of
a knightly race of Old Castille, whose martial achieve-
ments, says one of its admirers, ' deserve to be written
with a pen plucked from the wing of the eagle that
soared, in battle, over the head of Alexander/ * The
first recorded warrior of the line was Ruy Arias Quixada,
who fought in 1085 under the king Don Alonso the Sixth,
at the taking of Toledo. From that siege to Isabella's
crowning conquest of Granada, there was hardly a field
fought in Spain where the pennon, chequered azure and
argent, of a Quixada, was not displayed among the fore-
most banners of the Christian host. Gutierre Gon9alez
Quixada,, lord of Villagarcia, was distinguished by his
prowess in the tournays, and his favour at the court of
Philip the First, or the Handsome. He served with dis-
tinction in the conquest of Navarre, and in the wars of
the Commons of Castille ; and as a leader of the famous
infantry of Spain, he became so renowned, that it was
sufficient praise for soldiers in that service to be called
as well trained and as well appointed as the soldiers of
Gutierre Quixada. By his wife, Maria Manuel, lady
of Villamayor, he had four sons and a daughter. Of
these children, three embraced the profession of arms ;
Alvaro entered the church, and died in 1554, a dignitary
of Santiago ; and Anna was for many years abbess of
Las Huelgas, at Valladolid. Pedro, the eldest son,
being slain before Tunis, in 1535, the family estates
passed shortly afterwards, on the death of his father,
1 Juan de Villafane : Vida de Dona Magdakna de Ulloa, 4to. Sala-
manca: 1728. p. 16.
G6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
to the second son Luis. Commencing his career as a
page in the imperial household, Luis had likewise served
with distinction in the same campaign as a captain of
foot. His sagacity allayed the discord which had
arisen between the Spanish and Italians about the
post of honour before Goleta; 1 and he was wounded
while leading his company to the assault of its
bastions. 2 At Terouanne, in the Netherlands, he
was again at the head of a storming party, when his
younger brother Juan fell at his side, slain by a ball
from a French arquebus. 3 His services soon raised
him to the grade of colonel, and he was also pro-
moted, in the imperial household, to the post of deputy
mayordomo, under the duke of Alba, and in that capacity
constantly attended the person and obtained the entire
confidence of the emperor. In 1549, he married Dona
Magdalen a de Ulloa, a lady of blood as blue and nature
as gentle as any in Castille. 4 The marriage took place
at Valladolid, the bridegroom appearing by proxy, b.ut
he soon after obtained leave of absence from Bruxelles,
and joined his bride in Spain. They retired for awhile
to his patrimonial mansion at Villagarcia, a small town
lying six leagues from Yalladolid, beyond the heath of
San Pedro de la Espina, in the vale of the Sequillo.
To Quixada's care the emperor afterwards confided
his illegitimate son, in later years so famous as Don
John of Austria. The boy was sent to Spain in 1550,
in his fourth year, under the name of Geronimo, in the
charge of one Massi, a favourite musician of the
emperor, who was told that he was the son of Adrian
1 Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., lib. xxii. c. 17. 2 /&. c. 27.
3 J. G. Sepulveda : De Rebus gestis Caroli V., lib. xxviii. c. 27.
4 ViUafane : Vida de Dona Mag. de Vttoa. p. 43.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. G7
de Bues, one of the gentlemen of the imperial chamber. 1
At this man's death, he remained for some time with
his widow at Leganes, near Madrid, learning his letters
from the curate and sacristan, running wild among the
village children, or with his cross-bow ranging the corn-
clad plains in pursuit of sparrows. It was not until
1554 that he was transferred to the more fitting guar-
dianship of the lady of Villagarcia ; the imperial usher
who brought him, bringing her also a letter from
Quixada, commending the young stranger to her care as
' the son of a great man, his dear friend/ Magdalena,
who had no children of her own, took the pretty sun-
burnt boy at once to her heart, and watched over him
with the tenderest solicitude ; 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. 2 But as long as the emperor lived,
1 "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 hand-writing, ' If I die before his
majesty, to be returned to him ; if after him to be given to my son ; or,
failing him, my next heir.' In the first of these papers, the contents of
which will be noticed more particularly in another place, the emperor
acknowledged Geronimo to be his son, begotten, during his widowhood,
of an unmarried woman in Germany, and referred his heir for further
information concerning him to Adrian de Bues ; or, in case of his death,
to Oger Bodoarte, porter of the imperial chamber. Inside this document
was the receipt granted by Massi, his wife Ana de Medina, and their
son Diego, for the son of Adrian de Bues ; and a sum of one hundred
crowns to defray his travelling expenses to Spain, and one year's board
and lodging, calculated from the 1st of August, 1550, and binding
themselves to accept fifty ducats for his annual keep in future, and to
preserve the strictest secrecy as to his parentage. This curious receipt
is dated Bruxelles, 13 June, 1550, and is signed by the parties, Oger
Bodoarte signing for the woman, at her husband's request, she being
unable to write. The documents are printed at full length in the
Papiei's de Qranrelle, iv. 496.
8 Villafane : Vida de M. de Ulloa, p. 43.
68 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
the mayordomo never suffered her to penetrate the
mystery. Amongst the neighbours Don John passed
for a favourite page. The parental care of his guardians,
whom he called, according to a usual mode of Castillian
endearment, his uncle and aunt, he returned with the
affection of a son. Dona Magdalena used to make him
the dispenser of the alms of bread and money, which
were given at her gate on stated days to the poor ; and
her efforts to imbue him with devotion towards the
Blessed Virgin are supposed by his historians to have
borne good fruit, in the banners, embroidered with Our
Lady's image, which floated from every galley in his
fleet at Lepanto. In the early part of his education,
Quixada had but 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, flying his
hawks and carrying on a tedious plea with his tenants
about manorial rights, in which he was ultimately de-
feated. Strongly attached to his paternal fields on the
naked plains of Old Castille, although he may have
been content to exchange them for the active 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. Unconsciously portrayed in his own
graphic letters, the best of the Yuste correspondence,
he stands forth the type of the cavalier, and ( old rusty
Christian/ x of Castille spare and sinewy of frame, and
somewhat formal and severe in the cut of his beard and
the fashion of his manners; in character reserved and
punctilious, but true as steel to the cause espoused or
the duty undertaken ; keen and clear in his insight into
1 e Cristiano viejo rancioso/ Don Quixote, p. i. cap. xxvii., so trans-
lated by Shelton.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. C9
imm and things around him, yet devoutly believing his
master the greatest prince that ever had been or was to
be ; proud of himself, his family, and his services, and
inclined, in a grave decorous way, to exaggerate their
importance ; a true son of the church, with an instinc-
tive distrust of its ministers ; a hater of Jews, Turks,
heretics, friars, and Flemings; somewhat testy, some-
what obstinate, full of strong sense and strong prejudice;
a warm-hearted, energetic, and honest man.
Martin Gaztelu, the secretary, comes next to the
mayordomo in order of precedence, and in the import-
ance of his functions. His place was one of great trust.
The whole correspondence of the emperor passed through
his hands. Even the most private and confidential
communications addressed to the princess-regent by
her father, were generally written, at his dictation, by
Gaztelu ; for the imperial fingers were seldom suffi-
ciently free from gout to be able to do more than add
a brief postscript, in which Dona Juana was assured of
the 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 epistolary style was
clear, simple, and business-like, but inferior to that of
Quixada in humour, and in careless graphic touch, and
more sparing in glimpses of the rural life of Estremadura
three hundred years ago.
William Yan Male, or, as the Spaniards called him,
Malines, or, in that Latin form in which his name still
lingers in the bye- ways of literature, Malineus, was the
scholar and man of letters of the society. Born at
Bruges, of a noble but decayed family, and with a
learned education for his sole patrimony, he went to
seek his fortune in Spain, and the service of the duke
of Alba, an iron soldier, who cherished the arts of
70 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
peace with a discerning love very rare in his profession
and his country. He afterwards turned his thoughts
towards the church, but not obtaining any preferment,
he did not receive the tonsure. About 1548, Don Luis
de Avila, grand-commander of Alcantara, and a soldier,
historian, and court favourite of great eminence, engaged
him to put into Latin his commentaries on the wars in
Germany, holding out hopes of placing him, in return,
in the imperial household. Van Male executed his task
with much elegance, 1 but Avila failed to fulfil the hopes
he had excited, although the modest ambition of his
translator did not soar beyond the post of historio-
grapher, and two hundred florins a year. Another and
a better friend, however, the Seigneur de Praet, obtained
for Van Male, in 1550, the place of barbero, or gentle-
man of the imperial chamber of the second class.
His learning, intelligence, industry, cheerful disposi-
tion, and simple nature, made him a great favourite with
the emperor, who soon could scarcely dispense with his
attendance by day or night. With a strong natural
taste for arts and letters, Charles, often during his busy
life, regretted that his imperfect early education debarred
him from many literary pursuits and pleasures. In
Van Male he had found a humble instrument, ever
ready, able, and willing to supply his deficiencies.
Sailing up the Rhine in 1550, he beguiled the tedium
of the voyage by composing a memoir of his campaigns
and travels. The new gentleman of the chamber was
employed on his old task of translation ; and he accord-
ingly turned the emperor's French, which he likewise
pronounced to be terse, elegant, and eloquent, into Latin,
1 Ludov. de Avila Commentariorum de Bello Germanico a Cavoli Ccesare
c/esto lib. ii. 8vo, Antverpise, 1550. It was printed by Steels, who
reprinted it the same year ; and another edition was published in 12mo,
cat Strasburg, in 1620.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 71
in which he put forth his whole strength, and combined,
as he supposed, the styles of Livy, Caesar, Suetonius,
and Tacitus.
Another of the emperor's literary recreations was to
make a version, in Castillian prose, of the old and
popular French poem, called Le Chevalier Delibere, an
allegory, composed some twenty years before, by Oliver
de la Marche, in honour of the ducal house of Bur-
gundy. Fernando de Acufia, a soldier-poet, and at that
time keeper of the captive elector, George Frederick of
Saxony, was then commanded to turn it into rhyme, a
task which he performed very happily, working up the
emperor's prose into spirited and richly-idiomatic verse,
retouching and refreshing the antiquated flattery of the
last century, and stealing, here and there, a chaplet'
from the old Burgundian monument to hang upon the
shrine of Aragon and Castille. The manuscript was
finally given to Van Male, in order to be passed through
the press, the emperor telling him that he might have
the profits of the publication for his pains, but forbidding
that the book should contain any allusion to his own
share in its production. Against this condition Van
Male remonstrated, knowing, no doubt, that the name
of the imperial translator would sell the book far more
speedily and certainly than any possible merit of the
translation, and alleging that such a condition was an
injustice both to the honourable vocation of letters and
to the world at large. The emperor, however, was
inflexible, and the Spanish courtiers wickedly affected
the greatest envy at the good fortune of the Fleming.
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
72 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
part of the sweat, should reap the harvest/ Poor Van
Male saw no prospect of reaping anything but chaif ; he
timidly hinted at the risk of the undertaking, and did
his best to escape the threatened boon. But hints were
thrown away on the emperor; he was eager to see him-
self in type ; and he accordingly ordered Jean Steels to
strike off, at Van Male's expense, two thousand copies
of a book which is now scarce, perhaps because the
greater part of the impression passed at once from the
publisher to the pastrycook. The pecuniary results
have not been recorded, but there is little doubt that
the Fleming's fears were justified rather than the hopes
of the malicious companions, whom he called, in his
vexation, ' those windy Spaniards/
During the six harassed and sickly years which pre-
ceded the emperor's abdication, Van Male was his con-
stant attendant, and usually slept in an adjoining room,
to be ever within call. Many a sleepless night Charles
beguiled by hearing the poor scholar read the Vulgate,
and illustrate it by citations from Josephus or other
writers; and sometimes they sang psalms together, a
devotional exercise of which the emperor was very fond.
He had composed certain prayers for his own use, which
he now required Van Male to put into Latin, and other-
wise correct and arrange. The work was so well
executed that Charles several times spoke, in the hearing
of some of the other courtiers, of the comfort he had
found in praying in Van Male's terse and elegant
Latinity instead of his own rambling French. This
praise from the master produced the usual envy among
the servants; the chaplains, especially, were indignant
that a layman should have thus poached upon their
peculiar ground and be praised for it, and they assailed
him with all kinds of coarse jests, and saluted him by a
Greek name signifying praying-master. They did not,
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 73
however, undermine his credit; the emperor treated
him with undiminished confidence; he alone was pre-
sent when the doctors Vesalius and Baersdorp were
wrangling over the symptoms and diseases of his
master's shattered frame; and, as he watched through
the long winter nights by the imperial couch, he was
admitted to a nearer view than any other man had ever
attained of the history and the workings of that ardent,
reserved, and commanding mind. ' I was struck dumb/
he wrote to his friend, De Praet, after one of these
mysterious confidences, ' and I even now tremble at the
recollection of the things which he told me/
The small collection of letters to De Praet 1 contain
nearly all that is known of the life of Van Male. These
letters were written for the most part in 1550, 1551,
and 1552, sometimes by the emperor's bedside, and
often long after midnight, when his tossings had sub-
sided into slumber. Lively and agreeable as letters,
they are invaluable for the glimpses they aiford of the
everyday life of Charles. In them we can look at the
hero of the sixteenth century with the eyes of his valet.
We can see him in his various moods now well and
cheerful, now bilious and peevish ; ever suffering from
his fatal love of eating, (edacitas damnosa,) yet never
able to restrain it ; rebelling against the prudent rules
of Baersdorp and the great Vesalius, and appealing to
one 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 warn-
1 Lettres sur la vie interieure de VEmpereur Charles Quint., ecrites par
Guillaume Van Male, publiees par le Baron de Beiffenberg, 8vo. Brux-
elles : 1843. M. Reiffenberg has fallen into an error in supposing
(p. xxiii.) that Van Male retired from the emperor's service at the time of
the abdication.
74 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
ings of Van Male and the dysentery ; now listening to
the book of Esdras, or criticising the wars of the Mac-
cabees, and now laughing heartily at a filthy saying of
the Turkish envoy ; groaning in his bed, in a complica-
tion of pains and disorders ; or mounting his favourite
genet, matchless in shape and blood, to review his
artillery in the vale of the Moselle.
In spite of his busy life, Van Male found time for
his beloved books, and De Praet being also a book-
collector, the letters addressed to him are full of notices
of borrowings and lendings, buyings and exchangings,
of favourite authors, generally the classics. At the
memorable flight from Innspruck, when the emperor in
his litter was smuggled by torchlight through the passes
into Carinthia, the 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 V When the emperor' s great army lay before
Metz, sanguine of success and plunder, the afflicted
scholar prepared for his revenge, and engaged some
Spanish veterans, masters in the art of pillage, to assist
him in securing the cream of the literary spoil. ' Non
ultra metaSj however, was the new reading which the
gallantry of Guise enabled the wits of Metz to offer of
the famous f Plus ultra 3 of Austria ; and Van Male was
balked of the hours of delicious rapine to which he
looked forward amongst the cabinets of the curious.
But if he were willing on an occasion to make free
with other men's book-shelves, he was also willing that
other men should make free with the produce of his
own brains. The emperor having read Paolo Giovio's
account of his expedition to Tunis, was desirous that
certain errors should be corrected. Van Male was
therefore desired to undertake the task, and he com-
155G.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 75
menced it, so new was the art of reviewing, by reading
the work four times through. He then drew up, with
the assistance of hints from the emperor, a long letter
to the author, in a style soft and courtly as the bishop's
own, which was signed and sent by Luis de Avila, who,
having served in the war, was judged more eligible as
the ostensible critic.
Under the pressure of duties at the desk and in the
dressing-room, the health of Van Male gave way, and
he was sometimes little less a valetudinarian than the
great man to whom he administered Maccabees, physic,
or iced-beer. He had seized the opportunity of a short
absence on sick-leave to crown a long attachment by
marriage ; and sometime before his master's abdication,
he had applied for a place in the treasury of the Nether-
lands, under his friend, De Praet. The emperor, on
hearing of his entrance into the wedded state, ex-
pressed the warmest approbation of the step, and interest
in his welfare. 'You will hardly believe/ wrote the
simple-minded good man, ' with what approval Cresar
received my communication, and how when we were
alone, not once, but several times, he laid me down
rules for my future guidance, exhorting me to frugality,
parsimony, and other virtues of domestic life/ His
majesty, however, gave him nothing but good advice,
unwilling, perhaps, to diminish the value of his precepts
by lessening the necessity of practising them. Getting
no place, therefore, Van Male was forced, with his dear
Hippolyta and her babes, to encounter the bay of Biscay,
and the mountain roads of Spain.
The emperor, indeed, could not do without him.
Peevish with gout, and wearied by the delays at Yuste,
and the discontent among his people, he one day scolded
him so harshly for being out of the way when he called,
that Van Male tendered his resignation, which was
76 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
accepted. But, ere a week had elapsed, both parties
had cooled down ; and the Spanish secretary remarked
that William had not only been forgiven, but was as
much in favour as before. His temper must have been
excellent, for he contrived to be a favourite with his
master without being the detestation of his Castillian
fellow- servants.
The doctor of the court was a young Fleming, named
Henry Mathys, or, in the Spanish form, Mathisio. He
had not held the appointment long, and there being
much sickness at Xarandilla, it was thought advisable
to summon to his aid Dr. Giovanni Antonio Mole, from
Milan. Another Mathys, Cornelius Henry, or as he
was generally called doctor Cornelio, who had long been
physician to the queen of Hungary, was also sent for to
Valladolid. They remained, however, only a few weeks
in attendance, and Henry Mathys was again left in sole
charge of the health of the emperor and his people.
He appears to have discharged his functions creditably;
and with the pen, at least, he was indefatigable, for
every variation in the imperial symptoms, and every pill
and potion with which he endeavoured to neutralize
the slow poisons daily served up by the cook, he duly
chronicled in Latin despatches, usually addressed to the
king, and written with singular dulness and prolixity.
Giovanni, or, as he was familiarly called, Juanelo
Torriano, was a native of Cremona, who had attained
considerable fame as a mechanician, and in that capacity
had been introduced into the emperor's service many
years before, by the celebrated Alonso de Avalos,
marquess del Vasto. A curious old clock, made in
1402, by Zelandin, for Giovanni Galeazzo Visconti, was
brought from Paris as a present to Charles at his coro-
nation, in 1530, at Bologna. Being much out of repair, it
was put into the hands of Torriano, who so skilfully
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 77
restored it, or rather made a new clock with the help
of its materials, that the emperor took him with him to
Spain. 1 He had now brought him to Estremadura
to take care of his clocks and watches, and to construct
these and other pieces of mechanism for the amusement
of his leisure hours.
Besides the envoys and other official people whom
state affairs called to Xarandilla, there were several
ancient servants of the emperor who came thither to
tender the homage of their loyalty. One of these
deserves especial notice for the place he holds in the
history, not only of Spain, but of the religious struggles
of the sixteenth century Francisco Borja, who, a few
years before, had exchanged his dukedom of Gandia for
the robe of the order of Jesus. In his brilliant youth
this remarkable man had been the star and pride of the
nobility of Spain. He was the heir of a great and
wealthy house a branch of the royal line of Aragon,
which had 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, 2 ' is full of Borja ; there are Borjas famous by
sea, Borjas great by land, Borjas enthroned in heaven /
and he might have added, with equal truth, that in the
lower regions also, the house of Borja was fairly repre-
sented. Francisco was distinguished no less by the
favour of the emperor than by the splendour of his
J Falconnet : Memoires del' Academic, 4 to. Paris, 1753, vol. xx. pp. 440.
He quotes as his authority, Bernard. Saccus, De Italicarum rerum
rarietate. Leb. vii. c. 1 7, 4to. Papise, 1565 ; and he calls Torriano, Joannes
Janellus.
* Epitome de la Eloquencia Espanola, par D. Francisco Josef Artiga,
12rao. Huesca : 1692. See dedication to the duke of Gandia, by Fr.
Man. Artiga, the author's son.
78 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
birth, the graces of his person, and the endowments of
his mind. Born to be a courtier and a soldier, he
was also an accomplished scholar and no inconsiderable
statesman. He broke horses and trained hawks as well
as the most expert master of the manage and the mews ;
he composed masses which long kept their place in the
choirs of Spain ; he was well versed in polite learning,
and deeply read in the mathematics ; he wrote Latin and
Castillian, as his works still testify, with ease and grace ;
he served in Africa and Italy with distinction ; and as
viceroy of Catalonia, he displayed abilities for adminis-
tration which in a few years might have placed him high
amongst the Mendozas and De Lannoys. The pleasures
and honours of the world, however, seemed from the
first to have but slender attraction for the man so rarely
fitted to obtain them. In the midst of life and its
triumphs, his thoughts perpetually turned upon death
and its mysteries. Ever punctilious in the performance
of his religious duties, he early began to delight in
spiritual contemplation and to discipline his mind by
self-imposed penance. Even in his favourite sport of
falconry he found occasion for self-punishment, by
resolutely fixing his eyes on the ground at the moment
when he knew that his best hawk was about to stoop
upon the heron. These tendencies were confirmed by
an accident which followed the death of the empress
Isabella. As her master of the horse, it was Borja's
duty to attend the body from Toledo to the chapel-royal
of Granada, and to make oath to its identity ere it was
laid in the grave. But when the coffin was opened and
the cerements drawn aside, the progress of decay was
found to have been so rapid that the mild and lovely
face of Isabella could no longer be recognised by the
most trusted and the most faithful of her servants. His
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 79
conscience would not allow him to swear that the mass
of corruption thus disclosed was the remains of his royal
mistress, but only that, having watched day and night
beside it, he felt convinced that it could be no other than
the form which he had seen 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 snapping the dearest tie
which bound him to the world. Having erected a
Jesuits' college at Gandia, their first establishment of
that kind in Europe, and having married his eldest son
and his two daughters, he put his affairs in order, and
retired into the young and still struggling society of
Ignatius Loyola. In the year 1548, the thirty-eighth
of his age, he obtained the emperor's leave to make his
son fifth duke of Gandia, and he himself became father
Francis of the company of Jesus.
He was admitted to the company, and received eccle-
siastical tonsure at Rome, from whence, to escape a
cardinal's hat, he soon returned to Spain, and retired to
a severe course of theological study, in a hermitage near
Loyola, the Mecca of the Jesuits. Plenary indulgence
having been conceded by the pope to all who should
hear his first mass, he performed that rite, and preached
his first sermon, in the presence of a vast concourse in
the open air, at Vergara. As provincial of Aragon and
Andalusia, he afterwards laboured as a preacher and
teacher in many of the cities of Spain ; he had procured
and superintended the foundation of colleges at Alcola
and Seville ; and he was now engaged in instituting and
organising another at Plasencia.
In the Avorld, Borja had been the favourite and
80 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
trusted friend of most of his royal cousins of Austria and
Avis. When he had joined the society of Jesus, the
infant Don Luis of Portugal for some time entertained
the design of assuming the same robe ; and when the
queen Juana lay dying at Tordesillas, it was father Borja
who was sent by the princess-regent to administer the
last consolations of religion, and who began to acquire
a reputation for miraculous powers, because the crazy
old woman gave some feeble sign of returning reason,
as she came face to face with death. Charles himself
seems to have regarded him with affection as strong as
his cold nature was capable of feeling. It can have
been with no ordinary interest that he watched the
career of the man whom alone he had chosen to make
the confidant of his intended abdication, and who had
unexpectedly forestalled him in the execution of the
scheme. They were now in circumstances similar, yet
different. Both had voluntarily descended from the
eminence of their hereditary fortunes. Broken in health
and spirits, the emperor was on his way to Yuste, to
spend the evening of his days in repose. The duke, on
the other hand, in the full vigour of his age, had entered
the humblest of religious orders, to begin a new life of
the most strenuous toil. In Spain, many a stout soldier
died a monk; his own ancestor, the infant Don Pedro
of Aragon, had closed a life of camps and councils, in
telling his beads amongst the Capuchins of Barcelona. 1
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
1 ^urita : Anales de Aragon, an. 1358, lib. ix. c. 18.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 81
emperor had been frequently inquiring about him, father
Francis the Sinner, for so Borja called himself, arrived
at Xarandilla on the seventeenth of December. He
was attended by two brothers of the order, father Marcos,
and father Bartolome Bustamente. The latter, an aged
priest, who had been secretary to cardinal Tavera, was
known to fame as a scholar and as architect of the
noble hospital of St. John Baptist, at Toledo, a structure
on which the cardinal-archbishop had so lavished his
wealth, that his enemies said it would certainly procure
him and Bustamente warm places in purgatory. 1 The
emperor received Borja with a cordiality which was
more foreign to his nature than his habits, but which,
on this occasion, was probably sincere. Both he and his
Jesuit guest had withdrawn from the pomps and vanities
of life ; but custom being stronger than reason or faith,
their greeting was as ceremonious as if it had been ex-
changed beneath the canopy of estate at Augsburg or
Valladolid. Not only did the priest, lapsing into the
ways of the grandee, kneel to kiss the hand of the
prince, but he even insisted on remaining upon his
knees during the interview. Charles, who addressed
him as duke, finally compelled him to assume a less
humble attitude, only by refusing to converse with him
until he should have taken a chair and put on his hat. 2
Borja had been warned, by the princess-regent, say
1 Salazar de Mendo^a : Chronica del Card. Juan de Tavera, 4to.
Toledo : 1603, p. 310.
2 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
G
82 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
the Jesuits, that the emperor intended to urge him to
pass from the company to the order of St. Jerome. He
therefore anticipated his design, by asking leave to give
an account of his life since he had made religious pro-
fession, and of the reasons which had decided his choice
of a habit, ( of which matters/ said he, ' I will speak to
your majesty as I would speak to my Maker, who
knows that all I am going to say is true/ Leave being
granted, he told, at great length, how, having resolved to
enter a monastic order, he had prayed and caused many
masses to be said for God's guidance in making his
election; how, at first, he inclined to the rule of St.
Francis, but found that whenever his thoughts went in
that direction, he was seized with an unaccountable
melancholy : how he turned his eyes to the other orders,
one after another, and always with the same gloomy
result : how, on the contrary, when last of all, he
thought of the company of Jesus, the Lord had filled
his soul with peace and joy : how it frequently happened,
in the great orders, that monks arrived at higher honour
in this life than if they had remained in the world, a
risk which he desired by all means to avoid, and
which hardly existed in a recent and humble fraternity,
still in that furnace of trial through which the others
had long ago passed : how the company, embracing in
its scheme an active as well as a contemplative life,
provided for the spiritual welfare of men of the most
conversation, as reported by Ribadeneira, appears very probable, and his
report is so circumstantial, that we may well suppose it to have been
drawn up either from Borja's own recital, or from notes found amongst
his papers. In the letters of Quixada, in the Gonzalez MS., we are told
that Borja was admitted to long audiences of the emperor on the 17th,
21st, and 22nd of December, and we may conjecture that he likewise
saw him on the 18th, 19th, and 20th, days on which the mayordomo did
not happen to be writing to the secretary of state. Quixada throws no
light whatever on the subject of their conversations, and therefore no
discredit on Ribadeneira's statement.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. S(j
opposite characters, and of each man in the various
stages of his intellectual being ; and lastly, how he had
submitted these reasons to several grave and holy
fathers of the other orders, and had received their
approval and their blessing, ere he took the vows which
had now for ten years been the hope and the consola-
tion of his life.
The emperor listened to this long narrative with
attention, and expressed his satisfaction at hearing his
friend's history from his own lips. ' For/ said he, ' I
felt great surprise when I received at Augsburg your
letters from Eome, notifying the choice which you had
made of a religious brotherhood. And I still think that
a man of your weight ought to have entered an order
which had been approved by age, rather than this new
society, in which no white hairs are found, and which
besides, in some quarters, bears but an indifferent repu-
tation.' To this Borja replied, that in all institutions,
even in Christianity itself, the purest piety and the
noblest zeal were to be looked for near the source ; that
had he known of any evil in the company, he would
never have joined, or would already have left it; and
that in respect of white hairs, though it was hard to
expect that the children should be old while the parent
was still young, even these were not wanting, as
might be seen in his companion, the father Bustamente.
That ecclesiastic, who had begun his novitiate at the
ripe age of sixty, was accordingly called into the pre-
sence. The emperor at once recognised him as a priest
who had been sent to his court at Naples, soon after the
campaign of Tunis, charged with an important mission
by cardinal Tavera, primate and governor of Spain.
Three hours of discourse with these able, earnest,
and practised champions of Jesuitism had some effect
even upon a mind so slow to be convinced as that
G 2
84 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
of Charles. He hated innovation with the hatred of a
king, a devotee, and an old man; and having fought
for forty years a losing battle with the terrible monk of
Saxony, he looked with suspicion even upon the great
orthodox movement led by the soldier of Guipuzcoa.
The infant company, although, or perhaps because, in
favour at the Vatican, had gained no footing at the im-
perial court ; and as its fame grew, the prelates around
the throne, sons or friends of the ancient orders, were
more likely to remind their master how its general had
once been admonished by the holy office of Toledo,
than to dwell on his piety and eloquence, or the splen-
did success of his missions in the east. In Bobadilla,
one of the first followers of Loyola, the emperor had
seen something of the fiery zeal of the new society; he
had admired him on the field of Muhlberg, severely
wounded, yet persisting in carrying temporal and spi-
ritual aid to the wounded and dying; but on the publi-
cation of the unfortunate Interim, meant to soothe, but
active only to inflame the hate of catholics and re-
formers, he had been compelled to banish this same
good Samaritan from the empire for his virulent attacks
upon the new decree. 1 This unexpected opposition
strengthened Charles's natural dislike to the company;
and he afterwards rewarded with a colonial mitre the
blustering Dominican Cano, who announced from the
pulpits of Castille the strange tidings that the Jesuits
were the precursors of antichrist foretold in the Apoca-
lypse. His new confessor, Fray Juan de Regla, with
monkish subserviency and rancour, espoused the same
cause, and openly spoke of the company as an apt in-
strument of Satan or the great Turk. 2 Latterly, how-
1 Nieremberg : Vidas de Ig. Loyola y otros hijos de la Compania, fol.
Madrid : 1645, p. 649-50.
2 Nieremberg: Vida de F. Borja, p. 173.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 85
ever, 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
favourable eye. His prejudices, in fact, at last yielded
to the earnest and temperate reasonings of his ancient
servant arid brother-in-arms; and his*feelings towards
the Jesuits leaned from that time to approval and friendly
regard.
The talk of the emperor and his guest sometimes
reverted to old days. ' Do you remember/ said Charles,
' how I told you, in 1542, at Mon9on, during the holding
of the Cortes of Aragon, of my intention of abdicating
the throne ? I spoke of it to but one person besides/
The Jesuit replied that he had kept the secret truly,
but that now he hoped he might mention the mark of
confidence with which he had been honoured. ' Yes,'
said Charles; 'now that the thing is done, you may say
what you will/
After a visit of five days at Xarandilla, Borja took
his leave, and returned to Plasencia. The emperor
appears usually to have given him audience alone, for
no part of their conversations was reported either by
the secretary or by the mayordomo. Nor is any notice
taken of Borja in their correspondence, beyond the bare
mention of his arrival and departure, and of the em-
peror's remark, that ' the duke was much changed since
he first knew him as marquess of Lombay/
Of the emperor's few intimate friends, it happened
that one other, Don Luis de Avila y Zuiiiga, was now
his neighbour in Estremadura. This shrewd politician,
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 dis-
tinguished of that remarkable band of soldier-statesmen
who shed a lustre round the throne of the Spanish
86 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
emperor and maintained the honour of the Spanish
name for the greater part of the sixteenth century. At
the holy see, under Pius the Fourth and Paul the
Fourth, he had twice represented his master, and had
attempted to urge on the lagging deliberations of the
council of Trent f he had served with credit at Tunis ;
and he commanded the imperial cavalry during the
campaigns of 1546 and 1547 in Germany, and at the
siege of Metz. These services obtained for him the post
of chamberlain, and the emperor's full confidence; and
he was also made grand commander, or chief member
after the sovereign, of the order of Alcantara. With
these honours, and six skulls of the Virgins of Cologne,
presented to him by the grateful elector, he returned to
Plasencia, to share the honours with the wealthy heiress
of Fadrique de Zuiiiga, marquess of Mirabel, and to
place the skulls in the rich Zuniga chapel in the church
of San Vicente. 1 He was now living in laurelled and
lettered ease in the fine palace of the Mirabels, which is
still one of the chief architectural ornaments of king
Alonzo's pleasant city.
Avila's literary tastes and acquirements had been
acknowledged fifteen years before by the learned Florian
de Ocampo, who had selected him from the herd of
Castillian nobles, to honour him with the dedication of
the first four parts of his edition of the Chronicle of
Spain. 2 This compliment was afterwards justified by
the publication of AvnVs own commentaries on the war
of the emperor with the Protestants of Germany, a work
by which he earned a high rank amongst the historians
1 A. F. Fernandez : Historia de Plasencia, fol. Madrid : 1627, p. 113.
2 Los quatro paries enteras de la cronica de Espana, que mando com-
poner el Ser. Rey Don Alonso llamado et Sabio, fol. Zamora, 1541.
See Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. 4to. London : 1808, p. v.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. *7
of his time. His Castillian was pure and idiomatic;
and his style, for clearness and rapidity, was compared
by his admirers to that of Csesar. Besides these lite-
rary merits, the book, from the intimate relation exist-
ing between the author and the chief actor in the story,
was invested with something of an official authority.
It was accepted as a record, not merely of what the
green-cross knight had seen, but of what the catholic
emperor wished to be believed. At this time, there-
fore, it had already passed through several editions/
and had been translated into Latin, 2 Flemish, 3 and
English, 4 into Italian 5 by the author himself, and twice
into French, at Antwerp 6 and at Paris. 7 In Germany
it had created a great sensation ; the duke of Bavaria
and the count-palatine were enraged beyond measure
at the free handling displayed in their portraits by this
Spanish master ; the diet of Passau presented a formal
remonstrance to the emperor against the libels of his
chamberlain; and Albert, margrave of Brandenburg,
who, by changing sides during the war, had peculiarly
exposed himself to castigation, proposed that the author
should maintain the credit of his pen by the prowess of
his sword. 8 The emperor, however, who approved the
history and loved the historian, interposed to soothe the
1 It appeared, says Nic. Antonio, first in Spain (without mentioning
any town) in 1546, and again in 1547.
* By Van Male. See p. 70.
3 In 8vo. (Steels) : Antwerp, 1550.
4 The Commentaries of Don Lewes de Avila and Suniga, great Master of
Acanter, which treateth of the great wars in Germanic, made by Charles
the Fifth, maxime Emperoure of Rome, &c. Sm. 8vo. London : 1555
(Black letter). The translator was John Wilkinson.
5 In 12mo. Venice : 1549.
By Mat. Vaulchier. 8vo. 1550.
7 By G. Boilleau de Buillon. 1550.
8 R. Ascham : Discourse of Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court.
4to. London (Black letter) : N. D. fol. 14.
88 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. IY.
electors, cajole the diet, and forbid the duel ; and a
duke of Brunswick, some years after, did the obnoxious
volume the honour of translating it into German.
Pleased with his success, the author was probably
employing his leisure at Plasencia in composing those
commentaries on the war in Africa which, though
perused and praised by Sepulveda, have not yet been
given to the press.
His first visit to the emperor was paid on the twenty-
first of January, 1557. He spent the night at Xaran-
dilla, and returned home next day. Some weeks before,
on the sixth of December, his father-in-law, the marquess
of Mirabel, had likewise been graciously received. Early
in January, the archbishop of Toledo and the bishop of
Plasencia sent excuses for not paying their respects,
both prelates pleading the infirm state of their health.
The primate was the cardinal Juan Martinez Siliceo, to
whom, eleven years before, the emperor had given that
splendid mitre, not quite in accordance, it was said, with
his own wish, but at the request of his son Philip, whose
tutor the fortunate 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. 1 Charles received the excuses of
both prelates with perfect good humour, entreating them
not to put themselves to any inconvenience on his ac-
count, and remarking to Quixada, that neither of them
were persons much to his liking.
1 P. de Salazar : Ckronica de el Card. D. Juan de Tavera, 4to.
Toledo : 1603, p. 355. A. Fernandez : ffistoria de Plasencia, p. 191.
1556.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 89
Until the close of the year 1556, the emperor had
enjoyed, what was for him remarkably good health
and spirits. In the latter weeks of the year he had
been able to devote two hours a day to his accounts,
and to reckoning with Luis Quixada the sums due to
the servants whom he was about to discharge. When
the weather was fine, he used to go out with his fowling-
piece, and even walked at a tolerably brisk pace. His
chief annoyance was the state of his fingers, which were
so much swollen and disabled by gout, that he remarked,
on receiving from the duchess of Frias a present of a
chased silver saucepan and a packet of perfumed gloves,
' If she sends gloves, she had better also send hands to
wear them on/ But on the twenty-seventh and twenty-
eighth of December, he felt several twinges of gout in his
knees and shoulders, and kept his bed for a week, lying
in considerable pain, and wrapped in one of his eider-
down robes, beneath a thick quilted covering. For some
days he was entirely deprived of the use of his right arm,
and could neither raise a cup to his lips, nor wipe his
mouth. Nevertheless, his appetite continued keen ; and
he one day paid the wife of Quixada the compliment of
committing an excess upon sausages and olives, which
the good lady had sent to him from Villagarcia. As
the attack subsided, he complained of a sore throat,
which made it difficult for him to swallow, an inconve-
nience which the majordomo did not much deplore,
saying, sententiously, ' shut your mouth, and the gout
will get well.' 1
Barley-water, with yolks of eggs, formed his frequent
refreshment in his illness, and his medicine was given in
the shape of pills and senna wine. This beverage was
one which he had long used, and about the concoction
' La gota se cura tapando la boca.'
90 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
of which very precise directions had been transmitted in
the autumn, from Flanders, to the secretary of state. A
quantity of the 'best senna-leaves of Alexandria' were
to be steeped, in the proportion of about a pound to a
gallon, in a jar of good light wine, for three or four
months ; the liquor was then to be poured off into a
fresh jar; and after standing for a year, it was fit for use.
The white wine of Yepes was mentioned as the best for
the purpose ; but the selection was left to the general of
the Jeromites, an order famous for its choice cellars.
The emperor asked likewise for manna, and there being
none amongst the doctor's stores, he ordered some to be
procured from Naples, observing, at the same time, that
no supply had been sent since his abdication the single
trivial incident and remark which lend support to the
common story that the change in his position had made
a change in the attention with which he was treated.
Loving good cheer himself, Charles knew that to
provide good cheer was to take a straight and easy way
to the good will of other men, and especially of church-
men. At Christmas, therefore, he selected from his
well-stored larder an ample and various supply of
game as a present to the Jeromites of Yuste. That
festival happening to fall upon a Friday, he took the
precaution of first asking the prior whether it was to be
observed as a feast or a fast. Learning that the rule
respecting meagre-days admitted of no relaxation, he
considerately withheld until Saturday the dainties for
Sunday's feast. 1
On the sixth of January, though still in bed, the em-
peror was able to see Lorenzo Pires, the Portuguese
envoy, on the affairs of the infanta ; when he also ex-
1 M. Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite de Charles Quint ;
Analyse d'un manuscrit Espagnol contemporain par un religieux de
I'ordre de Saint- Jerome a Yuste. 8vo. Bruxelles : 1850. p. 24.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 9i
pressed his hearty approval of king John's choice of
the good Aleixo de Meneses as governor of their grand-
son, Don Sebastian. 1 On the seventh he got up, com-
plaining only at intervals of a heat in his legs, which
were relieved by being bathed with vinegar and water.
In spite of his omelettes of sardines, and the beer which
no medical warnings could induce him to forego, he was
soon restored to his usual health.
Despatches now came in from Italy, announcing the
truce of forty days, which the duke of Alba had made
with the pope and his nephew, after driving the papal
troops out of the town and citadel of Ostia. The
emperor was very angry that he had not pushed on to
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 after-
wards wrote to the king, expressing the greatest dis-
pleasure at the conduct of Alba, who, he feared, had
suffered himself to be bribed by the concession of
certain patronage enjoyed by the pope in the duke's
marquessate of Coria. The conditions of the truce
despatched to Flanders by Alba, were not ratified by
the king, and the war recommenced early in 1557.
Some days later, on the thirty-first of January, the
emperor addressed a very earnest and anxious letter to
the princess-regent on the alarming aspect of affairs both
in Flanders and the Mediterranean, urging her to use
all diligence in raising men and money to carry on the
wars, and especially to provide for the defence of Oran,
which was then threatened by the Moors. ' If Oran
be lost/ he wrote, ' I hope I shall not be in Spain or
the Indies, but in some place where I shall not hear of so
great an affront to the king, and disaster to these
1 Menezes : Chronica, p. 68.
92 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
realms/ On the second of February, he again entreated
the princess to keep a watchful eye on the frontiers of
Navarre, and remarked that it was a pity the king
should have ordered the duke of Alburquerque to Eng-
land at a time when the probable movements of the
French forces rendered his presence of so much im-
portance in that viceroyalty. In consequence of this
remonstrance, the duke was suffered to remain at Pam-
plona, to foil any attempts at violent resumption of the
kingdom by the court of Pau.
Meanwhile the long-delayed buildings at Yuste had
almost arrived at a conclusion. Their slow progress
had caused the emperor repeated disappointments. So
far back as the sixteenth of December he was so confident
of being able to quit Xarandilla that the post was de-
tained beyond the usual time, that the removal to the
convent might be announced at Valladolid. His depar-
ture was still further postponed by his illness; and
the fathers of Yuste began to despair of his ever coming
to them at all. On the twenty-first of January, a
remittance of money arriving from court, Quixada
began to pay the servants their wages ; and on the
twenty-third, he went over to Yuste to make a final
inspection, and to look for a house for himself in the
village of Quacos. On the twenty-fifth, Monsieur
d'Aubremont, one of the chamberlains, took his leave
of the emperor, who bade him farewell very graciously,
and presented him with letters to the king, and set
forth on his return to Flanders with his private train
of twelve servants. On the twenty-sixth, all claims
against the privy purse were settled, and by the end of the
month the new household was definitely formed, on a
reduced scale. The emperor at first wished to discharge
many more of his followers than Quixada thought could
be dispensed with; and it was finally resolved to send
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 93
back ninety-eight to Flanders free of cost, and to trans-
fer about fifty-two to Yuste. The lieutenant and his
halberdiers were dismissed, and also the alguazils, with
the alcalde Durango, to whom the emperor presented
the horses for which he had no further use. Thirty
mules were sent away to Valladolid ; and eight mules,
a small one-eyed horse, two litters, and a hand-chair,
were reserved for the reduced stable establishment of
the emperor.
All was ready at Xarandilla for departure on the first
of February. But at the last moment it was found
that the friars, who had undertaken to lay in provisions
for the first day's consumption at Yuste, had provided
nothing at all. The business, therefore, devolved on
Quixada, and the removal was postponed for two days
more. After dinner on the third, the emperor received
all the servants who were going away, saying a kind
word to each as he was presented by the mayordomo.
' His majesty/ wrote Quixada, ' was in excellent health
and spirits, which was more than could be said of the
poor people whom he was dismissing/ All of them,
he said, had received letters of recommendation ; but it
was a sad sight, this breaking up of so old a company
of retainers ; and he hoped the secretary of state would
do what he could for those who went to Valladolid, not
forgetting the others who remained in Estremadura. At
three o'clock the emperor was placed in his litter, and
the count of Oropesa and the attendants mounted their
horses ; the lieutenant put his pikemen in motion ; and,
crossing the leafless forest, in two hours the cavalcade
halted at the gates of Yuste.
There the bells were ringing a peal of welcome, and
the prior was waiting to receive his imperial guest, who,
on alighting, was placed in a chair and carried to the
door of the church, Oropesa walking at his right hand,
94 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. iv.
and Quixada at his left. At the threshold he was
met by the whole brotherhood in procession, chant-
ing the Te Deum to the music of the organ. The altars
and the aisle were brilliantly lighted up with tapers, and
decked with their richest frontals, hangings, and plate.
Borne through the pomp to the steps of the high altar,
Charles knelt down and returned thanks to God for the
happy termination of his journey, and joined in the
vesper service of the feast of St. Bias. This ended,
the prior stepped forward with a congratulatory speech,
in which, to the scandal of the courtiers, he 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 pre-
sented his J eremites to their new brother, each kissing
his hand and receiving his fraternal embrace. Some of
the friars bestowed on his gouty fingers so cordial a
squeeze, that the pain compelled him to withdraw his
hand, and say, ' Pray don't, father ; it hurts me/ 1
During this ceremony the retiring retainers, who had
all of them attended their master to his journey's close,
stood round, expressing their sorrow by tears and lamen-
tations. As their master entered the church, one of the
Flemish women in the crowd shrieked and swooned
away. The forty halberdiers, who had marched beside
his litter from Valladolid, flung their pikes on the
ground, as if to denote that their occupation was gone.
Sounds of mourning were heard, until late in the
evening, round the gate. Meanwhile the emperor, at-
tended by Oropesa and conducted by the prior, made
an inspection of the convent, and finally retired to sup
in his new home, and enjoy the repose which had so
long been the dream of his life.
1 Bakhuizen van den Brink : Retraite de Charles V. p. 25.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V.
CHAPTER V.
THE MONASTERY OF ST. JEROME OF YUSTE.
THE Spanish order of St. Jerome was an offshoot
from the great Italian order of St. Francis of Assisi.
St. Bridget, a princess of Sweden, who, anticipating queen
Christina by three centuries, had taken up her abode
at Home, foretold that there would soon arise in Spain
a society of recluses to tread in the footsteps of the
great doctor of Bethlehem. The very next year, in
1374, two hermits who had been living a Franciscan
life in the mountains of Toledo, presented themselves
at Avignon, and kneeling at the feet of Gregory the
Eleventh, obtained the institution of the order of St.
Jerome. The first monastery, San Bartolome of Lu-
piana, was built by the hands of the first prior and his
monks, on the north side of a bleak hill near Guada-
laxara, in Old Castille. From this highland nest the
new religion spread its austere swarms far and wide over
Spain. Its houses, humble indeed at first, arose in the
Vega of Toledo, and in the pine-forest of Guisando;
a devout duke of Gandia planted another in the better
land of Valencia ; and in pastoral Estremadura, ere the
fourteenth century closed, the shrine of Our Lady of
Guadalupe which rivalled Loretto itself in miracles, in
pilgrims, and in wealth was committed to the keeping
of a colony from Lupiana. Each year the new habit
a white woollen tunic, girt with leather, and a brown
woollen scapulary and mantle, of which the fashion and
90 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
material had been revealed to St. Bridget and conse-
crated by the use of St. Jerome and of the blessed
Mary herself became more familiar and more favoured
in city and hamlet, among the motley liveries of the
church. At Madrid and Segovia, at Seville and Valla-
dolid, stately cloisters and noble churches, in the
beautiful pointed architecture of the fifteenth century,
were built for St. Jerome and his flock. A Jeromite
monastery was one of the first works undertaken at
Granada by the Catholic conquerors, and a Jeromite
friar was enthroned as the first archbishop in the purified
mosque. The completion of the superb cloister of St.
Engracia, begun by Ferdinand for the Jeromites of
Zaragoza, was the first architectural work of Charles the
Fifth, on taking possession of his Spanish kingdoms.
On the Tagus, the Jeromite convent of Belem, the
burial-place of the royal line of Avis, and a miracle of
jewellery in stone, is one of the few surviving glories of
Don Emanuel. The town-like vastness of Guadalupe,
its fortifications, treasure- tower, and cellars, its orange-
gardens, and cedar- groves, and its princely domains,
astonished a far-travelled and somewhat cynical mag-
nifico of Venice 1 into a tribute of hearty admiration.
In Spain its wealth and importance has passed into a
proverb, which thus pointed out the path of preferment,
He who is a count, and to be a duke aspires,
Let him straight to Guadalupe, and sing among the friars.*
The order reached the climax of its greatness when its
monks were installed by Philip the Second in the palace
convent of San Lorenzo of the Escorial.
1 Navagiero : Viaggio fatto in Spagna. sm. 8vo. Vinegia : 1563, pp.
11-12.
2 Quien es conde, y dessea ser duque,
Metase fraile en Guadalupe,
Hern. Nunez : JRefranes, fol. Salamanca, 1555, fol. 106.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 07
The Escorial and Guadalupe, his houses, lands, and
flocks, were the best endowments of the Jeromite. He
could rarely boast of such eloquence and learning as
sometimes lay beneath the white robe of the Dominican
preacher, or the inky cloak of the bookish Benedictine.
In his schools, he was taught no philosophy but that of
Thomas Aquinas ; and even if he did not wholly lack
Latin, he was altogether guiltless of that Cicero-worship
for which St. Jerome, in his memorable dream, was
flogged by seraphim before the judgment- seat of heaven.
But to none of his rivals, white, black, or grey, did he
yield in the rigour of his religious observance, in the
splendour of his services, in the munificence of his alms,
and in the abundant hospitality of his table. In his con-
vents, eight hours always, and on days of festival, twelve
hours out of the twenty-four were devoted to sacred
offices; and the prior of the Escorial challenged com-
parison between the ordinary service of his church and the
holyday pomp of the greatest cathedrals of Spain. In
houses like Guadalupe, large hospitals were maintained
for the sick, vast quantities of food were daily dispensed
to the poor, and the refectory-boards were spread, some-
times as often as seven times a day, for the guests of all
ranks who came in crowds to dine with St. Jerome.
The crder early planted its standard in the Vera of
Plasencia; choosing for its camp one of the sweetest
spots of the sweet valley. Yuste stands on its northern
side, and near its eastern end, about two leagues west of
Xarandilla, and seven leagues east of Plasencia. The site
is a piece of somewhat level ground, on the lower slope
of the mountain, which is clothed, as far as the eye can
reach, with woods of venerable oak and chestnut. About
an English mile to the south, and lower down the hill,
the village of Quacos nestles unseen amongst its orchards
and mulberry gardens. The monastery owes its name,
H
98 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
not to a saint, but to a streamlet 1 which descends from
the sierra behind its walls, and its origin, to the piety
of one Sancho Martin of Quacos, who granted, in 1402,
a tract of forest land to two hermits from Plasencia.
Here these holy men built their cells, and planted an
orchard; and obtained, in 1408, by the favour of the
infant Don Fernando, a bull, authorizing them to found
a religious house of the order of St. Jerome. In spite,
however, of this authority, while their works were still
in progress, the friars of a neighbouring convent,
armed with an order from the bishop of Plasencia, set
upon them, and dispossessed them of their land and
unfinished walls, an act of violence, against which the
Jeromites appealed to the archbishop of Santiago. The
judgment of the primate being given in their favour, they
next applied for aid to their neighbour, Garci Alvarez de
Toledo, lord of Oropesa, who accordingly came forth
from his castle of Xarandilla, with his azure and argent
banner, and drove out the intruders. Nor was it only
with the strong hand that this noble protected the new
community ; for at the chapter of St. Jerome, held at
Guadalupe in 1415, their house would not have been
received into the order, but for his generosity in guaran-
teeing a revenue sufficient for the maintenance of a prior
and twelve brethren, under a rule in which mendicancy
was forbidden. The buildings were also erected mainly
at his cost, and his subsequent benefactions were muni-
ficent and many. He was therefore constituted, by the
grateful monks, protector of the convent, and the dis-
tinction became hereditary in his descendants, the counts
of Oropesa.
1 Siguen9a : Hist, de S. Geronimo. Parte ii. p. 191. Some Spanish
writers, and almost all foreign writers, have called it San Yoste, or St.
Just, or St. Justus, as if the place had been called after one of the three
saints of that name, of Alcala, Lyons, or Canterbury.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 99
These early struggles past, the Jeromites of Yuste
grew and prospered. Gifts and bequests were the chief
events in their peaceful annals. They became patrons
of chapelries and hermitages ; they made them orchards
and olive groves; and their corn and wine increased.
The hostel, dispensary, and other offices of their convent,
were patterns of monastic comfort and order; and in
due time they built a new church, a simple, solid, and
spacious structure, in the pointed style. A few years
before the emperor came to dwell amongst them, they
had added to their small antique cloister a new quad-
rangle of stately proportions, and of the elegant classical
architecture which Berruguete had recently introduced
into Castille.
Although more remarkable for the natural beauty
which smiled around its walls, than for any growth of
spiritual grace within them, Yuste did not fail to boast
of its worthies. Early in the sixteenth century one of
its sons, Fray Pedro de Bejar, was chosen general of the
order, and was remarkable for the vigour of his adminis-
tration and the boldness and efficacy of his reforms.
The prior Geronimo de Plasencia, a scion of the great
house of Zuriiga, was cited as a model of austere and
active holiness. The lay brother Melchor de Yepes,
after twice deserting the convent to become a soldier,
being crippled in felling a huge chestnut-tree in the
forest, became for the remainder of his days a pattern
of bed-ridden patience and piety. Fray Juan de Xeres,
an old soldier of the great captain, was distinguished by
the gift of second sight, and was nursed upon his death-
bed by the eleven thousand virgins. Still more favoured
was Fray Rodrigo de Ca9eres, for the blessed Mary
herself, in answer to his repeated prayers, came down in
visible beauty and glory, and received his spirit on the
eve of the feast of her assumption. The pulpit popularity
H 2
100 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
of the prior, Diego de San Geronimo, a son of the old
Castillian line of Tovar, was long remembered in the
Vera, in the names of a road leading to Garganta la
Olla, and of a bridge near Xaraiz, constructed, when he
grew old and infirm, by the people of these places, to
smooth the path of their favourite preacher to their
village pulpits. 1
The fraternity now numbered amongst its members
a certain Fray Alonso Mudarra, who had been in the
world a man of rank, and employed in the civil service
of the emperor. Fray Hernando de Corral was the man
of letters of the band ; and it was perhaps partly on
account of this strange taste, that those who did not
think him a saint considered him & 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 do it. Amongst his
other eccentricities, were noted his not returning to bed
after early matins, but roaming through the cloisters,
praying aloud, and telling his beads; his buying, beg-
ging, and reading every book that came in his way ;
and the want of due regard for the refectory-cheer, which
he sometimes evinced by dividing amongst beggars at
the gate the entire contents of the conventual larder.
He was also particularly fond of the choral service, and
careful in compelling the attendance of his brethren ;
and, observing that the vicar chose frequently to absent
himself from his duty, he one day left his stall, and re-
turned with the truant, like the lost sheep in the para-
ble, struggling in his stalwart arms. The greater part
of his leisure being spent in reading, he was consulted
by the whole convent as an oracle of knowledge ; and
he likewise was supposed to be frequently visited in his
A. Fernandez, Hist, de Plasencia, p. 196.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 101
cell by the spirits of the departed. He wrote much, it
is said, but on what subjects, or with what degree of
merit, no evidence remains. The black letter folios in
the library of the convent were frequently enriched with
his notes, and of these a few have survived the neglect
of three centuries, and the violence of three revolutions. 1
Such were the friars of Yuste whose names have sur-
vived in the records of the order; but there was one
among them who likewise belongs to the nobler history
of art. Fray Antonio de Villacastin was born, about
1512, of humble parents, in the small town of Castille,
whence, according to Jeromite usage, he borrowed his
name. Early left an orphan, he was brought up, or
rather suffered to grow up, in the house of an uncle,
without prospect of future provision, and without any
preparation for gaining his bread except a slight know-
ledge of reading and writing. When about seventeen
years old, being sent one day with a jug and a real to
fetch some wine, the necessity of seeking his fortune
struck him so forcibly as he walked along, that by the
time his errand was done, his mind was made up.
Meeting his sister in the street, he handed her the jug
and the copper change, and taking the road at once,
begged his way to Toledo, where he slept for the first
night under the market tables in the square of Zocodover.
He was found there next morning by a master tiler,
who, pitying his forlorn condition, took him home, and
taught him his trade of making wainscots and pavements
of coloured tiles, at which he wrought for ten years for
his food and clothing. At the end of this long appren-
1 In the fine and curious Spanish library of Mr. Ford, there is a copy of
the Chronica del Rey D. Alonzo el Onfeno, fol. Valladolid : 1551, which
has the following entry on the back of the last leaf : En veinte y dos de
Mayo del ano de m.d.lii, (?) compre yofrai Hernando de Cwral este libro
en trugillo costome xx reales. He then goes on to state the dates of the
emperor's arrival at the convent and death, and of the deaths of queen
Eleanor of France and queen Mary of Hungary.
L02 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
ticeship, becoming enamoured of the monastic state, he
begged a real the only one he ever possessed from his
master's son, and entered the Jeromite convent at La
Sisla, without the walls of Toledo. In assuming the
cowl, however, he by no means laid aside the trowel,
which was ever in his hand when the house stood in
need of repair. Being a master of the practical part of
building, he was also frequently employed in other
monasteries of the order. In the Toledan nunnery of
San Pablo, the operations were so extensive that he was
at work there for several years; and his biographer
mentions, in his praise, that when his duties ended he
maintained no connexion with the nuns, ' nor ever re-
ceived any billets from them, a snare from which a friar
so placed seldom escapes/ 1 His architectural reputa-
tion, after fifteen or sixteen years' practice in the cloister,
stood so high, that the general Ortega selected him, in
1554, as master of the works at Yuste, which he had
now completed to the entire satisfaction of the emperor.
In these secular occupations he strengthened and im-
proved the secular virtues of good temper and good
sense, and yet maintained a high character for zeal and
punctuality in the religious business of his cloth; un-
conscious that he was training himself for one of the
most important posts ever filled in the world of art by
a Spanish monk that of master and surveyor of the
works at the palace-monastery of the Escorial.
Fray Juan de Ortega, late general of the order, 2 con-
tinued to reside with the fraternity of Yuste, although
he still remained a member of his own convent at Alba
de Tormes. In intelligence and manners he was greatly
above the vulgar herd of friars, and was much esteemed
1 Siguenp : Hist, de la orden de S. Geron. P. iii., p. 893.
2 Chap. iii. ; p. 57-
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 103
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 fifteen hun-
dred fanegas, or three hundred quarters, were distributed
at the convent-gate ; large donations of bread, meat, oil,
and a little money, were given, publicly or in private, by
the prior, at Easter, Christmas, and other festivals ; and
the sick poor in the village of Quacos were freely sup-
plied with food, medicine, and advice.
The emperor's house, or palace, as the friars loved to
call it, although many a country notary is now more
splendidly lodged, was more deserving of the approba-
tion accorded to it by the monarch, than of the abuse
lavished upon it by his chamberlain. Backed by the
massive south wall of the church, the building presented
a simple front of two storys to the garden and the
noontide sun. Each story contained four chambers,
two on either side of the corridor, which traversed the
structure from east to west, and led at either end into a
broad porch, or covered gallery, supported by pillars and
open to the air. Each room was furnished with an
ample fireplace, in accordance with the Flemish wants
and ways of the chilly invalid. The chambers look-
ing upon the garden were bright and pleasant, but
those on the north side were gloomy, and even dark, the
light being admitted to them only by windows opening
on the corridor, or on the external and deeply shadowed
porches. Charles inhabited the upper rooms, and slept
in that at the north-east corner, from which a door, or
window, had been cut in a slanting direction into the
church, through the chancel wall, and close to the high
104 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
altar. The shape of this opening appears to have been
altered after the strictures passed on it by Quixada, for
it now affords a good view of the space where the high
altar once stood. The emperor's cabinet, in which he
transacted business, was on the opposite side of the
corridor, and looked upon the garden. From its window,
his eye ranged over a cluster of rounded knolls, clad in
walnut and chestnut, in which the mountain died gently
away into the broad bosom of the Vera. Not a building
was in sight, except a summer-house peering above the
mulberry tops at the lower end of the garden, and a
hermitage of Our Lady of Solitude, about a mile dis-
tant, hung upon a rocky height, which rose like an isle
out of the sea of forest. Immediately below the win-
dows the garden sloped gently to the Vera, shaded here
and there with the massive foliage of the fig, or the
feathery boughs of the almond, and breathing perfume
from tall orange-trees, cuttings of which some of the
friars, themselves transplanted,-in after days vainly strove
to keep alive at the bleak Escorial. The garden was
easily reached from the western porch or gallery by an
inclined path, which had been constructed to save the
gouty monarch the pain and fatigue of going up and
down stairs. This porch, which was much more spacious
than the eastern, was his favourite seat when filled with
the warmth of the declining day. Commanding the
same view as the cabinet, it looked also upon a small
parterre, surrounding a fountain, of which the basin was
formed of a single block of fine stone, brought, with
infinite labour, along the rugged woodland tracks, from
a quarry five leagues off, in the Sierra. 1 A short alley
of cypress led from the parterre to the principal gate of
the garden. Beyond this gate and wall was the luxuriant
forest ; a wide space in front of the convent being covered
1 Bakhuizen van den Brink : Retraite de Charles V. p. 21,
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 105
by the shade of a magnificent walnut-tree, even then
known as the great walnut-tree of Yuste, a Nestor of the
woods, which has seen the hermit's cell rise into a royal
convent and sink into a ruin, and has survived the Spanish
order of Jerome, and the Austrian dynasty of Spain.
The emperor's attendants were lodged in apartments
built for them near the new cloister, and in the lower
rooms of that cloister ; and the hostel of the convent was
given up to the physician, the bakers, and the brewers.
The remainder of the household were disposed of in the
village of Quacos. The emperor's private rooms being
surrounded on three sides by the garden of the convent,
that was resigned to his exclusive possession, and put
under the care of his own gardeners. The ground near
the windows was planted with flowers, under the citron-
trees; and further off, between the shaded paths which
led to the summer-house, vegetables were cultivated
for his table, which was likewise supplied with milk
from a couple of cows that pastured in the forest. The
Jeromites removed their pot-herbs to a piece of ground
to the eastward, behind some 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 communications
between the region of the friars and the settlement of
the Flemings were carefully closed or built up.
The household of the emperor consisted in 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 attached
to their names.
* r\ A \ Chamberlain (mayor-
Luis Quixada, ' domo) ....
Henrique Mathys . . Physician . . .
Guyon de Moron . j Kee P er . of th f ward ;
( robe (guardaropa),
189,000 maravedis,
or 54.
400 florins, or j40.
106
CLOISTER LIFE OF
[CHAP. v.
Martin de Gaztelu . .
William Van Male . .
Charles Prevost 1 . .
Ogier Bodart 2 . . .
Martin Donjart . . .
Giovanni Torriano . .
Nicholas Beringuen .
William Wykerslooth . .
Dirk
Gabriel De Suet . . '
Peter Van Oberstraaten,
Peter Guillen
Secretary
150,000 maravedis,
n ,, f ,, ( 300 florins, or 30.
Gentlemen of the >
chamber (a^o^
de Camara ^ '" ' ( 300 or 30.
Watchmaker . .
Gentlemen of the
chamber of the se-
cond class, (bar-
beros)
Apothecary. . . .
Assistant-apothecary,
each 250 florins, or
25.
280 florins, or 28.
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, 3 it appears that he considered the
mayordomo's rank entitled him to the same salary as
that which had been enjoyed by the chamberlain of
queen Juana, or that which was still paid to the tutor
of Don Carlos. Nevertheless, the question remained
unsettled, and it was one of the points to be arranged
by Archbishop Carranza, who, however, did not arrive
at Yuste, until the emperor's accounts with the world
were on the eve of being closed.
Quixada, Moron, Gaztelu, and Torriano, lived at
1 The spelling of these Flemish names, both in the printed pages of
Sandoval and the MS. of Gonzalez is most inaccurate and perplexing.
' Prevost' is, in many cases, turned into Pubest, Dirk is Ckvriqite, and
others are disguised beyond the powers of detection of any one but a
Fleming. Even the Italian Torriano, whose name, in its Spanish fami-
liar form, was Juanelo Torriano, sometimes figures as Juan el Lotoriano.
In turning the maravedis and florins into English money, I have been
guided chiefly by Josef Garcia Cavallero : Breve Cotejo y Valance de las
pesas y medidas de varias naciones, 4to. Madrid : 1731.
2 No doubt the person alluded to in chap, iv , p. 67, note, as Bodoarte.
8 Gaztelu to Vazquez, twenty-fourth of August, 1587.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLIj ^. f lUY N
Quacos, where lodgings were likewi^ provided for the
laundresses, the only female portion of the household,
and many of the inferior servants. So many
being Flemings, a Flemish capuchin, Fray John Alis,
was established at Xarandilla for the convenience of
those who wished to confess.
On the fourth of February, the emperor awoke in
his new home, in excellent health and spirits. He sperit
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 Valladolid.
Meanwhile the symptoms of the disease abated so much,
that when, in about a fortnight, the plants arrived, the
emperor ordered them to be planted in the garden, and
even dispensed with the attendance of the consulting
doctors, dismissing them with all courtesy, and letters
to the princess-regent.
A great monarch, leaving of his own free will his
palace and the purple for sackcloth and a cell, is so fine
a study, that history, misled, nothing loth, by pulpit
declamation, has delighted to discover such a model
ascetic in the emperor at Yuste. ' His apartments,
when prepared for his reception/ says Sandoval, ' seemed
rather to have been newly pillaged by the enemy, than
furnished for a great prince ; the walls were bare, except
in his bed-chamber, which was hung with black cloth ;
the only valuables in the house were a few pieces of plate
of the plainest kind ; his dress, always black, was usually
108 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
very old ; and lie sat in an old arm chair, with but half
a seat, and not worth four reals/ 1 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, 2 was probably not worse fur-
nished than many of the palaces in which his reigning
days had been passed. He was not surrounded at
Yuste with the splendours of his host of Augsburg ; but
neither did the fashions of the sumptuous Fugger pre-
vail at Ghent or Innsbruck, Valsain or Segovia. For
the hangings of his bed-room he preferred sombre black
cloth to gayer arras ; but he had brought from Flanders
suits of rich tapestry, wrought with figures, landscapes,
or flowers, more than sufficient to hang the rest of the
apartments ; the supply of cushions, eider-down quilts,
and linen, was luxuriously ample; his friends sat on
chairs covered with black velvet ; and he himself reposed
either on a chair with wheels, or in an easy chair to
which six cushions and a footstool belonged. Of gold
and silver plate, he had upwards of thirteen thousand
ounces ; he washed his hands in silver basins with water
poured from silver ewers ; the meanest utensil of his
chamber was of the same noble material ; and from the
brief descriptions of his cups, vases, candlesticks, and
salt-cellars, it seems probable that his table was graced
with several masterpieces of Tobbia and Cellini.
In his dress he had ever been plain to parsimony,
1 Sandoval, torn. ii. p. 825. "Wilhelm Snouckaert, who had been the
emperor's librarian at Brussels, and who, under the more euphonious
name of Zenocarus, wrote De republica vita, &c. Cces. Aug. Qtiinti Caroli
max monarchce, 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 J)on filippo de Austria, 3 vols.
4to. (Vicenza : 1605,) part ii. fol. 151, reduces this slender retinue to
four.
9 Drawn up after his decease, by Quixada, Gaztelu, and Regla. An
abstract of the document will be found in the Appendix.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. J09
and therefore it was not very likely that he should turn
dandy in the cloister. His suit of sober black was no
doubt the same, or such another, as that painted by
Titian in the fine portrait wherein the emperor still
sits before us, pale, thoughtful, and dignified, in the
Belvidere palace at Vienna and he probably often gave
audience in such a ' gowne of black taffety and furred
nightcap, like a great codpiece/ as Roger Ascham saw
him in, f sitting sick in his chamber ' at Augsburg, and
looking so like Roger's friend, ' the parson of Epurstone/ 1
In his soldier-days he would knot and patch a broken
sword belt, until it would have disgraced a private
trooper ; 2 and he even carried his love of petty economy
so far, that being caught near Naumburg in a shower,
he took off his velvet cap, which happened to be new,
and sheltered it under his arm, going bareheaded in the
rain until an old cap was brought him from the town. 3
His jewel-case was, as might be supposed, rather mis-
cellaneous than valuable in its contents, amongst which
may be mentioned a few rings and bracelets, some
medals and buttons to be worn in the cap, several collars
and badges of various sizes of the Golden Fleece, 4 some
crucifixes of gold and silver, various charms, such as the
1 Eng. Works, p. 375.
2 Salazar de Mendoza : Origen de las dignidades de Castillo,, fol.
Toledo : 1618, p. 161.
3 Ranke : Ottoman and Spanish Empires. Kelly's translation. 8vo.
London : 1843, p. 30.
4 The collar of this order, given by Ferdinand VII. to the late duke
of Wellington, was believed in Spain to have belonged to Charles V. ;
and the same story was told of the Fleece sent, in 1851 or 1852, to the
president, now ' par la grace de Dieu et la volonle nationale,' emperor
Napoleon III., of France. It is a compliment which the Spanish crown
very likely has in its power to pay ; as the emperor in the course
of his life must have possessed many badges of the order. In our
duke's case, the collar and badge may have been authentic ; but the con-
necting ornament, as figured in lord Downes's Orders and Batons of the
D. of Wellington, obi. fol. : London, 1852, is plainly modern and spurious.
No such ornament is found on the medals or contemporary prints of
Charles V.
110 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP v.
bezoar-stone against the plague, and gold rings from
England against cramp, a morsel of the true cross, and
other reliques, three or four pocket-watches, and several
dozen pairs of spectacles.
If the emperor despised the vulgar gew-gaws of
wealth and power, his retreat was adorned with some
pictures, few, but well chosen, and worthy of a discern-
ing lover of art, and of the patron and friend of Titian.
A composition on the subject of the Trinity, and three
pictures of Our Lady, by that great master, filled the
apartments with poetry and beauty; and as specimens
of his skill in another style, there were portraits of the
recluse himself and of his empress. Our Lord bearing
his cross, and several other sacred pictures, came from
the easel of ' Maestro Miguel' probably Michael Cock,
of Antwerp, famous for his skill in copying, and his
dishonesty in appropriating the works of 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
gold or silver medallions, likewise helped by their effigies
to enliven the apartments of the emperor, as well as by
their policy to occupy his daily thoughts and nightly
dreams. Long tradition, 1 which there seems little
reason to doubt, adds, that over the high-altar of the
i F r . Fran, de Los Santos : Description del Esconal, fol. Madrid :
1657, fol. 71.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. Ill
convent, and in sight of his own bed, he had placed that
celebrated composition called the ' Glory of Titian/ a
picture of the last judgment, in which Charles, his wife,
and their royal children were represented in the master's
grandest style, as conducted by angels into life eternal.
And another masterpiece of the great Venetian St.
Jerome praying in his cavern, with a sweet landscape in
the distance is also reputed to have formed the appo-
site altar-piece in the private oratory of the emperor.
The palace of Yuste was less rich in books than in
pictures. The library indeed barely exceeded thirty
volumes, chiefly of works of devotion or science. Amongst
the religious books were the treatises on Christian doc-
trine, by Dr. Constantine de la Fuente, 1 who died soon
after, a prisoner for heresy in the dungeons of Seville,
and by Fray Pedo de Soto, 2 a luminary of Trent, and
long the emperor's confessor, and now employed by
Philip to preach the Roman superstition in the not
unwilling halls of Oxford.
Divine philosophy was represented by the writings of
Ptolemy and Appian, and by Italian, French, and Cas-
tillian 3 versions of Boethius De Consolations, a work
which had the honour of being translated into our
English tongue by Alfred and by Chaucer; and which
for a thousand years was pre-eminently the book which
no gentleman's library could be without. For historical
reading, there were Caesar's Commentaries in Italian, the
German Wars, by the grand-commander of Alcantara, 4
and some sheets in manuscript of the great chronicle
upon which the canon Ocampo was now at work at
Zamora. Besides the Psalter , the only poetry in the
1 Doctrina Christiana, 8vo. Antwerp : s. a.
2 Institutionum Christianarum, libri iii. 16mo. August, 1548.
3 Probably that by Fr. Alberto de Aguayo, 4to. Sevilla : 1521.
4 Chap. iv. p. 86.
112 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
collection was the Chevalier Delibere of Ollivier de la
Marche, and the Castillian translation, versified from
the emperor's prose by Acuiia, 1 the latter being in
manuscript, and both adorned with coloured plates and
drawings. 'A large volume, filled with illuminated
drawings on vellum/ seems to imply that Charles brought
with him to the woods some memorials of Clovio and
Holanda, as well as of the bolder pencil of Titian ; and
there were also several illuminated missals and hours,
and a quantity of maps of Italy, Flanders, Germany,
and the Indies. Most of the books were bound in
crimson velvet, with clasps and corners of silver, the
sumptuous dress in which the early bibliomaniacs loved
to array their treasures, but which the ever-teeming
press was fast turning into a more sober garb of goat-
skin or hogskin.
Music, ever one of the favourite pleasures of Charles,
here also lent its charms to soothe the cares which
followed him from the world, and the dyspepsia from
which he would not even try to escape. A little organ,
with a silver case and of exquisite tone, was long kept
at the Escorial, with the tradition, 2 that it had been the
companion of his journeys, and the solace of his evenings
when encamped before Tunis. The order of St. Jerome
being desirous to gratify the taste of their guest, the
general had reinforced the choir of Yuste with fourteen
or fifteen friars, chosen from the different monasteries
under his sway, for their fine voices and musical skill.
In the management of the choir and organ, the emperor
took a lively interest ; and from the window of his bed-
room his voice might often be heard to accompany the
chant of the friars. His ear never failed to detect a
wrong note, and the mouth whence it came ; and he
1 Chap. iv. p. 71.
2 Beckford's/taZy, Spain, and Portugal ; fcap. 8vo. Lond. : 1840, p. 323.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 113
would frequently mention the name of the offender,
with the addition of hideputa bermejo, or some other
epithet savouring more of the camp than the cloister.
A singing-master from Plasencia being one day in the
church, ventured to join in the service ; but he had not
sung many bars before orders came down from the
palace that the interloper should be silenced or turned
out. Guerrero, a chapel-master of Seville, having com-
posed and presented to the emperor a book of masses and
motets, one of the former was soon selected for per-
formance at Yuste. When it was ended, the imperial
critic remarked to his confessor that Guerrero, the hide-
puta I was a cunning thief; and going over the piece, he
pointed out the stolen passages, and named the masters
whose works had suffered pillage. 1
Eloquence was likewise an art which the emperor
loved, and of which the order desired to provide him
with choice specimens. Three chaplains, who were
esteemed the best preachers in the fold of Jerome, were
ordered to repair to Yuste for his delectation. The fore-
most of these, Fray Francisco de Villalva, had entered
the convent of Montamarta, near Zamora, about 1530.
Being a promising youth, the prior sent him to the
college of the order at Siguen9a, whence he came forth
an expert dialectician, and soon rose to be the most
popular teacher in Castille. His theological professor
being appointed archbishop of Granada, took him
into his service, and in that capacity Villalva had an
opportunity of studying for a year the best Italian
orators at the council of Trent. He was afterwards
preacher to the great hospital at Zaragoza, whence he
was summoned to Yuste. There his eloquence charmed
the emperor, as it had charmed the peasants of Zamora ;
1 Sandoval, ii. p. 828.
I
Ill CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
and he so eclipsed his colleagues, that they seem to have
been seldom called to the pulpit except during a few
weeks when Charles, at the urgent request of the city
of Zaragoza, spared him for awhile to his old admirers.
Fray Juan de A9oloras, a monk from the great con-
vent of Our Lady of Prado, near Valladolid, was also an
eminent divine and schoolman, and he had so success-
fully combatted the harsh tone and accent of his native
Biscay, that his delivery in the pulpit was considered as
a model of grace. Fray Juan de Santandres, from the
convent of Santa Catalina, at Talavera, was less eloquent
than his compeers, but highly esteemed for purity of
doctrine and life. Besides these regular and retained
ministers, any Jeromite with a reputation for preaching
who chanced to pass that way, was sure of an invita-
tion to display his powers before the emperor at Yuste.
The simple and regular habits of Charles accorded
well with the monotony of monastic life. Every morn-
ing, father Regla appeared at his bed-side to inquire how
he had passed the night, and to assist him in his private
devotions. Mathys, the doctor, was next admitted ; and
Torriano the mechanician was also an early visitor. 1
The emperor then rose and was dressed by his valets ;
after which he heard mass, going down, when his health
permitted, into the church. According to his invariable
custom, which in Italy was said to have given rise to the
saying, dalla messa, alia mensa, from mass to mess, he
went from these devotions to dinner about noon. The
meal was long ; for his appetite was voracious; his hands
were so disabled with gout, that carving, which he never-
theless insisted on doing for himself, was a tedious
1 M. Bakhuizen van den Brink, Retraite de Charles V., p. 33, says that
Torriano was the first person who entered the imperial bed-chamber :
but I prefer the more probable account of Siguenya.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 115
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 em-
peror's favourite divines, Augustine, Jerome, or Bernard,
an exercise which was followed by conversation, and an
hour of slumber. At three o'clock the monks were
mustered in the convent to hear a sermon delivered by
one of the imperial preachers, or a passage read by Fray
Bernardino de Salinas from the Bible, frequently from
the epistle to the Romans, the book which the emperor
preferred. To these discourses or readings Charles
always listened with profound attention ; and if sickness
or business compelled him to be absent, he never failed
to send a formal excuse to the prior, and to require
from his confessor an account of what had been preached
or read. The rest of the afternoon was devoted to seeing
the official people from court, or to the transaction of
business with his secretary.
Sometimes the workshop of Torriano was the resource
of the emperor's spare time. He was very fond of
clocks and watches, and curious in reckoning to a frac-
tion the hours of his retired leisure. The Lombard had
long been at work upon an elaborate astronomical time-
piece, which was to perform not only the ordinary duties
of a clock, but to tell the days of the month and year,
and to denote the movements of the planets. In this
delicate labour the mechanician advanced as slowly as
the doctors of Trent in the construction of their system
of theology. Twenty years had elapsed since he had
i 2
1 1 6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. v.
first conceived the idea, and the actual execution cost
him three years and a half. Indeed, the work had not
received the last touches at the time of the emperor's
death. Of wheels alone it contained eighteen hundred ;
the material of the case was gilt bronze, and its form
round, about two feet in diameter, and somewhat less in
height, with a tapering top, which ended in a tower con-
taining the bell and hammer. Charles was greatly
pleased with the ingenious toy; he inquired what in-
scription the maker intended to put upon it ; and being
told that nothing had been contemplated beyond the words,
IANNELLVS . TVRRIANVS . CREMONENSIS . HOROLOGIORVM .
ARCHITECTOR . added FACILE . PRINCEPS . which accordingly
made part of the epigraph. On the back of the clock
Juanelo caused his own portrait to be graven, 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
inclosed in a case of crystal, which allowed the working
of the machinery to be seen, and suggested the motto
VT . ME . FVGIENTEM . AGNOSCAM.
He also constructed a self-acting mill, which, though
small enough to be hidden in a friar's sleeve, could grind
two pecks of corn in a day ; and the figure of a lady who
danced on the table to the sounds of her own tam-
bourine. 1 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
1 Ambrosio de Morales : Antiguedades de Espana, 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.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 117
as if alive ; toys which, at first, scared the prior and his
monks out of their wits, and for awhile gained the
artificer the dangerous fame of a wizard. 1
Sometimes the emperor fed his pet birds, which
appear to have succeeded in his affections the stately
wolf-hounds that followed at his heel in the days when
he sat to Titian; or he sauntered among his trees and
flowers, down to the little summer-house looking out
upon the Vera; or sometimes, but more rarely, he
strolled into the forest with his gun, and shot a few of
the wood-pigeons which peopled the great chestnut trees.
His out-door exercise was always taken on foot, or, if
the gout forbade, in his chair or litter; for the first time
that he mounted his pony he was seized with a violent
giddiness, and almost fell into the arms of his attendants. 2
Such was the last appearance in the saddle of the accom-
plished 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/ 3 and whose seat and hand on
the bay charger presented to him by our bluff king Hal, 4
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.
1 Strada : De Hello Belg., lib. i.
2 Sandoval : Hist, de Carlos V., ii. p. 825. and Siguen9a, iii. p. 192,
whence many of these details are taken.
3 J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Vida del Emp, Carlos 7., 4to. Brussels :
1656, p. 263.
* Stow's Annals, fol. London : 1631, p. 511.
118 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP, vi
CHAPTER VI.
STATE-CRAFT IN THE CLOISTER.
DIMLY seen over the wintry woodlands, and through
a November mist, Yuste had appeared to the
household at Xarandilla a place of penance; but their
dismal forebodings were by no means realized in their
new quarters on the fresh hill-side, bright with the
sunshine of the budding spring. Writing on the day of
the emperor's arrival there, Monsieur de La Chaulx com-
plained of nothing but the Jeromite neighbours. ' His
majesty/ he said, 'was delighted with the place, and
still more were the friars 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 en-
durable, for they are ever apt to be importunate, espe-
cially those who are such blockheads as some of the
fraternity here seem to be/ La Chaulx himself had
apparently recovered from his ague, and become recon-
ciled to the climate of Estremadura, for being one of
the chamberlains who had been placed on the retired
list, he made the pilgrimage to Guadalupe, and after-
wards resided for a few weeks on a commandery of
Alcantara which he enjoyed in the province. He was
afterwards chosen by the emperor as his envoy to 'the
queen of England, and set out on that mission about the
middle of March, with letters in which Charles assured
Mary ' that although his retreat was all he could wish
it, he would not, in taking his own ease, fail to assist by
word and deed such measures as might be necessary for
LV.7.J EMPEROR CHARLES V. 1 1 <J
the furtherance of those great affairs of which the king,
his son, now had his hands full/
Instructions had come from Valladolid to the local
authorities of Plasencia and the Vera, requiring their
implicit obedience to the order of the emperor; and con-
tentment, or an approach to contentment, returned to
the troubled minds of the household. Secretary Gaztelu
candidly avowed that he had become reconciled to Yuste,
and that as a residence it was far better than Xaran-
dilla. Quixada admitted that the place seemed to agree
with his master, and that his general health was excel-
lent. While acknowledging the receipt of salmon from
Valladolid, lampreys from the Tagus, and pickled soles
sent by the duchess of Bejar, he nevertheless owned
that his majesty's twinges of gout had lately been less
frequent and less severe. On St. Martin's day, he
said, he walked without assistance to the high altar to
make his offering. 'You cannot think/ writes he to
Vazquez, ' how well and plump he looks ; and his fresh
colour is to me quite astonishing. But/ he adds mourn-
fully, ' this is a very lonely and doleful existence; and if
his majesty came here in search of solitude, by my faith !
he has found it/ In another letter he says, ' This is
the most solitary and wretched life I have ever known,
and quite insupportable to those who are not content to
leave their lands and the world, which I, for one, am
not content to do/
Philip the Second assured the Venetian envoy at
Bruxelles that his father's health seemed as completely
restored by the air of Yuste as if he had been there for
ten years. 1 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
Rdatione of Badovaro. See chap. iii. p. 52.
120 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
greater part of his residence in Spain, from his landing
at Laredo in September 1556, to the third of May 1558,
his public despatches were always headed ' the emperor/
and addressed to ' Juan Vazquez de Molina, my secre-
tary/ He wrote not only with the authority, but in the
formal style, of a sovereign, and until his abdication of
the imperial throne had been accepted by the diet, he
considered himself, as in fact he was, emperor of the
Romans. A dispute about precedence, the great question
of diplomacy until the first French revolution, arising
at the court of Lisbon between the ambassadors of
France and Spain, he accredited the Spaniard as am-
bassador from himself as well as from his son, and so
foiled the pretensions of the Frenchman. It soon be-
came known that the recluse at Yuste had as much
power as the regent at Valladolid, and the gate was
therefore besieged with suitors. Women presented
themselves, asserting that they were widows of veterans
who had fought in Germany, in Italy, or in Africa,
'a class of petitioners/ said Gaztelu, 'very prone to
imposture/ which was therefore civilly referred to Val-
ladolid. One Anton Sanchez, a venerable countryman
from Criptana, came to complain of the maladministra-
tion of the villages and lands of the order of Santiago ;
he seemed respectable as well as venerable, and was
kindly received and dismissed with letters of recom-
mendation to the council of the orders. A fiery English
courier, who had been kept waiting a whole month at
court for the answer to his despatches, losing all
patience, made his way across the mountains to lodge
his complaint at Yuste. The emperor received him
with perfect courtesy, and transmitted orders to Valla-
dolid that his business should be concluded, and he sent
home forthwith.
It has been frequently asserted that the emperor's
life at Yuste was a long repentance for his resignation
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 121
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. 1 This idle tale can
be accounted for only by the melancholy fact, that histo-
rians have found it easier to invent than to investigate.
An opinion certainly prevailed, even among those who
had access to good political information, 2 that Charles
would resume power when his health was sufficiently
re-established, an opinion founded, perhaps, on the fact
that the cession of the imperial crown was still incom-
plete, and on the difficulty which the world found in
believing that the first prince in Christendom had, of
his own free will, descended for ever from the first throne
in the world. But, however it may have arisen, the
notion was justified by no word or deed of the emperor.
So far from regretting his retirement, Charles refused
to entertain several proposals that he should quit it.
Although he had abdicated the Spanish crowns, Philip
had not yet formally taken possession of them, and the
princess-regent, fearing that the turbulent and still free
people of Aragon might make that a pretext for refusing
the supplies, was desirous that her father should summon
and attend a Cortes at Mon9on, in which the oath might
be solemnly taken to the new king. The emperor's dis-
inclination to move obliged her to find other means of
meeting the difficulty, which was finally surmounted
without disturbing his repose. Later in the year, in the
autumn of 1557, it was confidently reported that the old
cloistered soldier would take the command of an army
which it was found necessary to assemble in Navarre,
and at one mournful moment he had actually taken it
into consideration whether he should leave his choir, his
1 G. Leti : Vita del' Imp. Carlo V., 4 vols., 12mo. Amsterd. : 1700,
iv. 362-3. Araelot de la Houssaye : Memoires, 2 vols., 12mo. Amst. :
1700, i. 294.
8 Relations of Badovaro.
122 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
sermons, and his flowers, for the fatigues and privations
of a camp. He was often urged, both by the king and
the princess-regent, directly by letters, and covertly
through his secretary and chamberlain, to instruct the
prince of Orange to keep in abeyance as long as possible
the deed of imperial abdication ; the reasons alleged
being that when the sceptre had absolutely departed,
the pope would find fresh pretexts for interference in
the internal affairs of the empire, and Spanish influence
would be wofully weakened, in the duchy of Milan
especially, and generally throughout Europe. But on
this point Charles would listen neither to argument nor
to entreaty : he was willing to exercise his imperial rights
so long as they remained to him; but he would not
retard by an hour the fulfilment of the exact conditions
to which he had subscribed at Bruxelles. Philip, on his
side, seems to have been as free from jealousy as his
father was free from repentance. Although frequently
implored by his sister to return to Spain and relieve her
of the burden of power, he continued in Flanders, main-
taining that his presence was of greater importance near
the seat of war, and that so long as their father lived and
would assist her with his counsel, she would find no great
difficulty in conducting the internal affairs of Castille.
In truth, Philip's filial affection and reverence shines like
a grain of fine gold in the base metal of his character :
his father was the one wise and strong man who crossed
his path whom he never suspected, undervalued, or used
ill. The jealousy of which he is popularly accused,
however, seems at first sight probable, considering the
many blacker crimes of which he stands convicted before
the world. But the repose of Charles cannot have been
troubled with regrets for his resigned power, seeing that
in truth he never resigned it at all, but wielded it at
Yuste as firmly as he had wielded it at Augsburg or
Toledo. He had given up little beyond the trappings of
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V.
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, 1 and a share of the profits of the
silver mines of Guadalcanal. The sum thus raised must
have fluctuated from year to year; nor has the amount
been ascertained with any approach to exactness. Some
writers 2 have estimated it as high as one hundred thou-
sand crowns; others 3 have fixed it as low as twelve
thousand ducats, or about fifteen hundred pounds ster-
ling, a provision scarcely amounting to the half of that
which his will directed to be made for his natural son,
Don John. The truth probably lies between the two
statements. A sum of thirty thousand ducats was at the
emperor's disposal in the fortress of Simancas. Soon after
he had settled himself at Yuste, he sent Gaztelu to Valla-
dolid to arrange with Vazquez about the time and mode
of paying the instalments of his revenue. He was like-
wise instructed to provide for the regular payment of
certain alms to the convents in which daily prayers
were to be said for the emperor's soul, the list being
headed by the name of the great Dominican house of
Our Lady of Atocha, the miraculous image which is still
the favourite idol of Madrid. The envoy returned from
Valladolid on the eighth of March, bringing the good
news that the mines of Guadalcanal were producing in
great and unusual abundance, and that the king of
1 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-^y per cent, of the crown rents, the
word ' on^a,' or ounce, the T ^ of a pound being frequently used to de-
note that fraction.
- Th. Juste: L' Abdication, p. 29.
3 Sandoval, Hint, de Carlos V., Lib. xxxii., c. 39, p. 820.
124 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP vi.
Portugal had consented that the infanta Mary should
visit her mother in Spain. The despatches from Yuste
make no complaints of that unpunctuality of the treasury
remittances on which historians have frequently had to
moralize. Gaztelu, indeed, once cautioned the secretary
of state against delays in making his payments, the
emperor, he wrote, being most particular in requiring
the exact performance of each part of the service of his
household. 1 The advice appears to have been followed ;
for the only other remark on the subject is one made by
Charles himself, ' the money for the expenses of my
house always comes to hand in very good time/ 2
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
1 Gaztelu to Vazquez, June 15th, 1557.
8 ' La provision de dinero para mi casa llega siempre a muy bien
tiempo.' Emperor to Vazquez, Sept. 22nd, 1557.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 125
regions was embodied in the proverb, used by expectants
heartsick with deferred hope, who said that the event
despaired of ' would come with the Indian revenue/ 1
The war in Italy and the war in Flanders, the fleets in
the Mediterranean, the fortresses on the shores of
Africa, now demanded such vast and increasing supplies,
that the princess-regent was almost at her wit's end for
ways and means of obtaining them. Many a hint did
she drop, in her despatches, of the good use she could
make of the money at Simancas, But the emperor would
take no hints, and, like another Shylock, preferred keep-
ing his ducats to pleasing his daughter.
Necessity, which has no law and respects none, at
length drove the princess and her council to a step con-
trary to every principle of justice. The plate-fleet having
arrived at Seville, orders were sent down to the Indian
board to take possession of the whole bullion, not only
of that which belonged to the crown, but also of that
which was the property of private adventurers, who were
to be paid its value in places under government, in
orders on the land-revenue, or in treasury-bonds bearing
interest. As might be expected, the robbers who proposed
to buy, and the victims who were required to sell,
differed widely about the price. The places were refused,
the bonds scoffed at ; and finally the traders, aided by
the wanderers from whom the gains of their wild lives
were about to be wrested, attacked the royal 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
1 ' No se logra mas que hazienda de las Indias :' Mtmoires curieux
envoyez de Madrid, sm. 8vo. Paris : 1670.
126 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
of the matter was entirely royal and wrong. He would
not, perhaps he could not, see the injustice which had
been done to the subject ; but he felt most keenly the
indignity which had been suffered by the crown. The
rough gold-seekers who had thus boldly defended their
hard-earned wealth, repelling violence by violence, ap-
peared to him no better than pirates who had boarded
a royal galleon on the high seas, or brigands who had
rifled a train of royal mules on the king's highway. Were
his health sufficiently strong, he said, he would go down
to Seville himself, and sift the matter to the bottom;
he would not be trammelled by the ordinary forms of
justice, but would at once confiscate the goods of the
offenders, and place their persons in durance, there to
fast and do penance for their crime. Unjust as this
view of the affair was, it was precisely the view which
the traders expected the government to take, and which
they would themselves have taken had they been the
government. Alarmed for the consequences, the prior
and consuls of the merchants of Seville the chairman
and chamber of commerce of their day raised a sum
of money by subscription, and set out to Valladolid
with their 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/ 1 A commission appointed to examine the matter
began its sittings in March, and continued them, with
but slender results, through the summer and autumn,
1 ' Soy bueno por ello aunque tengo la muerte entre los dientes,
holgare de hacerlo :' Einp. to Princess -regent, 1st April, 1557-
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 127
urged at intervals to despatch by the impatient inquiries
transmitted from Yuste. It was not till September that
the emperor showed any symptoms of being reasonable
on the matter ; nor till he had heard that the most serious
discontent prevailed among the commercial men of
Seville, would he allow Gaztelu to write that, for the
sake of public credit, it might be proper for the regent
to alter her policy towards them, and take such a course
as would keep them in good humour. One of the
arrested culprits, Francisco Tello, however, died, after
having been twice submitted to the torture, in the
dungeons of Simancas, merely for refusing his gold to
that exigency of state against which the neighbouring
strong-box of the emperor was inexorably shut.
In the spring of 1557, the foreign affairs of Spain had
assumed so grave an aspect, that the king determined to
lay them before his father for his consideration and
advice. For this important mission he selected Huy
Gomez de Silva, count of Melito, afterwards so well
known as prince of Eboli. This celebrated favourite,
now in his fortieth year, was head of a considerable Portu-
guese branch of the great house of Silva which traced its
heroic lineage to the kings who reigned in Alba Longa.
At the marriage of the emperor he had held the bride's
train as one of her pages ; attached to the person of
Philip from the cradle, he had been the playmate of his
childhood, and the friend of his youth ; he had accompa-
nied the prince on his travels, and had supported the
timid and awkward knight at the 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 heiress who was,
or was to be, his master's imperious mistress. Strong in
these various relations, as in capacity and experience, he
was every day gaining ground upon his rival, the mag-
128 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
nificent bishop of Arras, and he now ranked as one of
the most important personages who stood near the
Spanish throne. 1 Charles had a high opinion of the
favourite's prudence and abilities ; he had for some days
looked with anxiety for his arrival, and he now received
him with every demonstration of 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 favoured envoy arrived there early on the twenty-
third of March, and was closeted for five hours with the
emperor. Part of his message was an entreaty on
behalf of the king, that the emperor, if his health per-
mitted, and state affairs rendered it expedient, would
remove from the monastery to some other residence
nearer the seat of government. 2 Philip also desired his
father's opinion on the policy of carrying Don Carlos to
Flanders to receive the oath of allegiance as heir ap-
parent to the dominions of the house of Burgundy ; and
if the emperor approved the design, the count was in-
structed to bring the prince with him when he returned. 3
The journey, however, was never made by Don Carlos,
his grandfather considering that his fitful and passionate
temperament rendered it as yet unsafe to produce him
to the world. 4 Next day, the count had a second
audience as long as the first; and the day following,
the twenty-fifth of March, after hearing mass at day-
break, he mounted his horse and took the road to Toledo.
1 Luis de Salazar: Historia de la Casa de Silva, 2 vols., fol. Madrid :
1685, ii. 456.
2 Philip's original letter of the second February, 1557, to Ruy Gomez
de Silva, is given in the MS. of Gonzalez.
3 Salazar : Hist, de la Casa de Silva, ii. 473.
4 Luis Cabrera de Cordova : Filipe Segundo, fol. Madrid : 1619,
p. 144.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 129
The external affairs of the kingdom certainly required
at this time counsel of the greatest sagacity, and action
of the greatest promptitude and courage. War was
raging on the frontier of the Netherlands, and it was
threatened on the frontier of Navarre. Coligny, at the
head of a considerable army, was laying waste Flemish
Artois ; and Henry the Second was preparing forces for
still greater operations. Although Anthony of Navarre
was still engaged in treating about an amicable cession
of his rights to the actual possessor of his kingdom, he
was suspected to be secretly treating with France for
aid to enable him to regain Pamplona by the strong
hand. The duke of Alburquerque was charged with
the defence of Navarre; and in Flanders, where the
more important battles were to be fought, Philip the
Second had wisely committed his cause to the military
genius of the duke of Savoy.
Italy also presented grave causes for anxiety. Had
the power of the Roman see equalled the fury of Paul
the Fourth, the house of Austria would long ago have
found its neck beneath the heel of that fierce old pontiff.
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 prepara-
tions, had not as yet cooled the ardour of their French
allies, nor become fully evident to their antagonist, the
duke of Alba. At the beginning of this year's campaign,
fortune had frowned on the Spanish arms. The papal
forces, led by Strozzi, had recovered Ostia, and had
driven the 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 he was, had stormed
K
130 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
Vicovaro and put the Spanish garrison to the sword. 1
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/ 2
The aid of the great Turk enabled the most Christian
king to attack his most catholic brother by sea as well
as by land, and to harass him at many points of his
extended shores. For the second time within a few
years, Christendom was scandalized by seeing St. Denis,
St. Peter, and Mahomet leagued against St. James.
Solyman the Magnificent had ascended the throne of
the east in the same year when Charles the Fifth
became emperor of the west. His reign was no less
active and eventful, and far more uniform in its pros-
perity. By the capture of Rhodes, he had driven back
the outpost of Christendom to Malta ; he had performed
moslem worship in the cathedral of Buda, and had pushed
his ravages to the gates of Vienna ; his power was now
acknowledged far up the Adriatic ; and by his judicious
protection of the pirates of Africa and the Egean isles,
his influence was paramount in the Mediterranean.
The growth which this piracy was permitted to attain
is a striking proof of the mutual jealousy and distrust
which rendered the Christian powers incapable of any
combined and sustained effort for the common 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.
1 Alex. Andrea : De la guerra de Roma y de Napoles, Aiio de MD. LVI
y LVII, 4to. Madrid : 1589, pp. 146, 151.
2 J. A. Vera y Figueroa : Resultas de la vida de Don Fern. Alvarez
de Toledo, dugue de Alba, 4to. Milan : 1643, p. 66.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 131
Better built, and better manned and equipped than any
other vessels on the ocean, their light galleots and brigan-
tines were ready at all seasons, put out in all weathers,
and stooping on their prey with the swiftness and pre-
cision of the cormorant, overbore resistance or baffled
pursuit. Sailing in great fleets, they laid waste entire
districts and carried off whole populations. A few years
before, Barbarossa had sold at one time, at his beautiful
home on the Bosphorus, where his white tomb still gleams
amongst its cypresses, no less than sixteen thousand
Christian captives into slavery. It was not only the sea-
man, the merchant, or the traveller who was exposed to
this calamitous fate. The peasant of Aragon or Provence,
who returned at sunset from pruning his vines or his
olives far from the sound of the waves, might on the
morrow be ploughing the main, chained to a Barbary oar.
Sometimes a whole brotherhood of friars, from telling
their beads at ease in Valencia, found themselves hoeing
in the rice-fields of Tripoli ; sometimes the vestals of a
Sicilian nunnery were parcelled out amongst the harems
of Fez. The blood-red flag ventured fearlessly within
range of the guns of St. Elmo or Monjuich; it had
actually floated on the walls of Gaeta ; and when it ap-
peared off the Ligurian shore, the persecuted duke of
Savoy wisely fled inland from his castle of Nice. Yet
Europe continued to endure these outrages, as it might
have endured a visitation of earthquakes or of locusts ;
and the white-robed fathers of mercy annually set forth
on their beneficent pilgrimages with a ransom of itself
sufficient to perpetuate the evils which the order of re-
demption was intended to relieve. Meanwhile, with such
a navy at his disposal as that of Tunis, and Tripoli, and
Algiers, and such commanders as Barbarossa, Sala_, or
Mami the Arnaut, the sultan wielded the greatest mari-
time power in the Mediterranean, and was the most
K2
132 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
formidable of the foes against whom the wisdom of
Charles was now called to defend Spain.
Flanders, however, appeared to be the point upon
which it was advisable that the strength of the crown
should be first concentrated. Ruy Gomez de Silva had
been instructed to raise eight thousand Castillians for
the army of the duke of Savoy. But the treasury of
Yalladolid being already drained to its last ducat, it
became necessary to look elsewhere for the sinews of
war. The emperor was of opinion that it was now time
to apply for aid to the church. The primate of Spain,
cardinal Siliceo, was very infirm and very loyal, and his
tenure of the second wealthiest see in Europe had been
sufficiently long to make him very rich. To his money
bags it was therefore determined first to apply the lancet,
and the operator at once set off for Toledo.
The good old prelate bled freely, and without a
murmur, pouring into the royal coffers, in the shape of
a benevolence, or loan which had but slender chance of
being paid, no less a sum than four hundred thousand
ducats. The archbishop of Zaragoza, who was next
applied to, was also tolerably generous, contributing,
from revenues of no great magnificence, twenty thousand
ducats. The bishop of Cordova was less tractable.
Although his see was very rich, and he himself an ille-
gitimate scion of the house of Austria, it was not until
he had received several hints from the emperor himself
that he consented to advance one hundred thousand
ducats. Fernando de Valdes, archbishop of Seville,
was, however, the prelate who strove with most spirit
against the spoliations of the king's envoy. Magnificent
to the church, and mean to all the rest of the world,
profligate, selfish, and bigoted, with some refinement
of taste, and much dignity of manner, he was a fair
specimen of the great ecclesiastic of the sixteenth
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 133
century. In spite of his seventy-four years, his abilities
and energies were unimpaired, while his selfishness and
bigotry were daily becoming more intense. The splendid
mitre of St. Isidore was the sixth that had pressed his
politic brows ; for beginning his episcopal career in the
little Catalonian see of Helna, he had intrigued his way
not only to the throne of Seville, but to the chair of
grand inquisitor at Valladolid. 1 He left, as the prin-
cipal memorials of his name, as archbishop, the crown
of masonry and the weather- cock Faith on the beautiful
belfry of his cathedral at Seville ; and as inquisitor, two
thousand four hundred death-warrants in the archives of
the holy office of Spain.
When this astute prelate received from Ruy Gomez
de Silva the unwelcome notice that the king expected
his aid in the shape of mundane coin as well as of
spiritual fire, he adopted the truly Castillian tactics of
delay, and allowed two months to elapse without return-
ing any definite reply. At length the emperor himself
addressed him in a letter similar in style to that which
had opened the purse-strings of the bishop of Cordova.
It was with much surprise, said Charles, that he found
an old servant of the crown, who had held great prefer-
ment for so many years, thus backward with his offering
when the emergency was so grave and the security so
good. The archbishop, seeing the affair growing
serious, now left the court and retired to the monastery,
a few leagues off, of St. Martin de la Fuente. From
this retreat he penned a reply, than which nothing could
be more temperate, plausible, dignified, and evasive.
Professing the profoundest reverence for his catholic
Caesarean majesty, and gratitude for his past favours, he
1 D. Ortiz de Zuniga : AnndLes de SeviMa, fol. Madrid : 1677, pp. 503,
632.
134 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
assured him that he never had had the good fortune to
possess four hundred thousand ducats in his 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 portion
of the money which he had already allotted to these
charities, trusting that, small as it would be, the emperor
would accept it, and make provision for its restitution
in due time.
Meanwhile, unfortunately for the prelate's case, six
mules laden with silver were seen to arrive from the
south at his palace at Valladolid. The princess-regent,
therefore, directed Hernando de Ochoa, one of the royal
accountants, to proceed to St. Martin de la Fuente, and
reason the archbishop into compliance. The details of
the interview are given in a letter from Ochoa to the
emperor. 1 Poverty was still the plea urged by the pre-
late, but in a style very different from the courtly tone
of his letters to Yuste. How could he find so much
money ? Where was it to come from ? He had never
had one hundred thousand ducats in his possession at
one time in his life, nor eighty thousand, nor sixty
thousand; no, nor even thirty thousand. Might all the
devils take him if he ever had ! He would also swear
it, if needful, on the most holy sacrament. Nothing
daunted, the cool accountant assured his lordship that
he laboured under a mistake; taking his archbishopric
at the admitted annual value of sixty thousand ducats,
he proceeded to anatomize the prelate's annual expendi-
May 20th.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 135
ture, and compare it with his revenue ; and considering
that it was notorious that his lordship never gave din-
ners or bought plate, he ended by advising him to offer
as a compromise the sum of one hundred and fifty
thousand ducats. But he also recommended him to
return to court, and attend to the business at once, or
else the emperor would infallibly find some means of
helping himself to the larger sum which he might fairly
demand.
Reasoning of the same kind was also used by the
archbishop' s brother, who was afterwards sent to him by
the princess. Last of all came a second letter from
Yuste, in which the emperor plainly told his ' reverend
father in Christ/ that it was well known that his coffers
had lately been replenished with as much silver as six
mules could carry, and that he hoped therefore that he
would pay quietly, as it would be very unpleasant to
have to use stronger means of compulsion. The old
fox, however, was a match for them all; he continued
to fence for a week or two more ; and he finally induced
the princess to accept of one third of the sum named
by her accountant, or fifty thousand ducats, of which
only one half was to be paid down in ready money.
Ruy Gomez de Silva was again at Yuste on the
fourteenth of May, and on the fifteenth of July. On
each occasion he had a long interview with the emperor
to report his progress in the king's affairs. In his last
visit he was accompanied by Monsieur Ezcurra and
Monsieur Burdeo, agents of the duke of Vendome ; and
the emperor gave a patient hearing to their proposal
that their master should cede his claims on Navarre on
receiving the investiture of the duchy of Milan. It
cannot be supposed that Charles ever dreamed of paying
such a price for a province which was already his own,
and which had been part of the dominions of his house
136 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
for fifty years. 1 But it was of great importance to keep
alive the hopes of the pretender, who, like a true Bour-
bon, was intriguing both with France and Spain, and
capable of any treachery to either for the slightest gain
to himself. In August, he was reported to have gone
down to Rochelle to inspect the squadron which Henry
the Second was fitting out to attack the annual plate
fleet, iiow on its homeward voyage to the Guadalquivir.
It was thought necessary, therefore, to strengthen the
forces of Alburquerque, and to use double vigilance in
guarding the passes into Navarre ; and it was now that
the rumour arose of the emperor's intention to take the
command there in person. During the summer, a con-
siderable body of troops had been embarked at Laredo,
for Flanders. Ruy Gomez de Silva followed, probably
about the end of July, taking with him a second detach-
ment, and the money which he, the regent, and the
emperor had succeeded in wringing from the poverty of
the state and the avarice of the church.
The king of Portugal died at Lisbon, on the eleventh
of June, and on the fifteenth the tidings reached Yuste.
John the Third was a prince of but slender capacity,
but the mantle of his father's good fortune remained
with him for awhile ; and his reign belongs to the golden
age of Portugal, being illustrated with the great names
of De Gama and Noronha, De Castro and Xavier. But
disasters abroad and misfortune at home clouded the
close of his career. The death of his only son, Don Juan,
was closely followed by that of his brother, the gallant
Don Luis, to whom the nation looked as natural guardian
1 In one of the papers mentioned in chap. iv. p. 67, note, Charles,
while he recorded his belief that Navarre had been justly conquered by
his grandfather, nevertheless charged Philip carefully to consider whether
it ought to be restored, or compensation allowed to any of the claimants
a clear proof that he himself did not intend to settle the matter.
Papiers de Granvelle, iv. 500.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 137
of the baby-heir. The king himself fell into premature
decrepitude, both of body and mind. The little Sebas-
tian, his grandson, was sitting one day by his bedside,
when something was brought to the king to drink. The
child, asking for something too, began to cry, because
the cup offered him had not a cover, like that which had
been given to his grandfather, a mark of early ambition
which the old man took very much to heart, and
ordered the boy out of the room for thus desiring to be
treated like a king before his time. 1
First cousin to Charles the Fifth, John was also
brother of his empress, husband of his sister, and
father-in-law of two of his children. But, in spite of
these intricately-entwined ties, they were not on the
most cordial terms ; and the plans and policy of one
court were studiously kept secret from the other. When
secretary Gaztelu, therefore, wrote to the secretary of
state to send a speedy and ample supply of the best and
deepest mourning for the imperial household, he also
required him to find out what had passed in the
Portuguese council of state, at a meeting at which it
was understood the late king had expressed a wish to
abdicate, and to appoint the princess of Brazil as
guardian of her son and regent of his kingdom. But
in making these inquiries, he was to be especially careful
that the emperor's name was not connected with the
affair. Don Fadrique Henriquez de Guzman, mayor-
domo of Don Carlos, was soon after despatched to
Yuste, to be the bearer of the emperor's condolences to
his sister, the widowed queen Catherine. He arrived,
with the mourning for the household, on the third of
July, was admitted to a long audience on the fourth,
and at daybreak on the fifth, set out for Lisbon. He
1 Menezes : Chronica, p. 43.
138 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
was furnished with very minute instructions, and was spe-
cially charged to make no mention of the princess of Brazil
in his conversations with the queen or the ministers. But
while the emperor wished to avoid all apparent interference,
he was nevertheless very desirous that his daughter
should be appointed to the Portuguese regency. The
princess herself was naturally most anxious to have the
guardianship of her son and his interests ; and it was
perhaps with a view to Portugal that she so frequently
implored her brother to relieve her from her duties in
Spain. But weeks passed away without any certain
intelligence, and although there were two Spanish
envoys at Lisbon, the princess determined to send a
third, in the person of father Francisco Borja. Neither
Portugal nor the house of Avis, however, would submit
to the rule of a sister of the king of Spain. The regency
was therefore given to the queen dowager, who closed
her able administration with the brilliant defence of
Mazagaon against the Moors. The reins then passed
to the feebler hands of the cardinal Henry, nor was
Juana ever permitted to hold any share of power, or
even to embrace her son.
For disappointments in Portugal the emperor was
consoled by glorious news from Flanders. Philip had
landed there in July with eight thousand troops, en-
trusted to him by his fond queen and her reluctant
people. Emboldened by this accession of strength, and
reinforced by the new levies from Spain, the duke of
Savoy was now able to carry on the war with greater
vigour. He held Coligny blockaded in St. Quentin,
a place of some strength on the steep bank of the
Somme. The constable de Montmorency, who com-
manded the main French army, was ordered by the
king of France to throw some troops into the place.
Permitting this movement to be effected with but little
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 139
opposition, the duke seized that opportunity of passing
the river with his whole force. By a succession of
skilful manoeuvres, he succeeded in surprising Mont-
morency, and compelling him to give battle, when count
Egmont, at the head of seven thousand cavalry, obtained
in one brilliant charge the most complete victory ever
won by the lions and castles of Spain from the lilies of
France. The army of the constable suffered utter
annihilation, while the loss of the duke was said not to
exceed one hundred men. The duke d'Enghien, Tu-
renne, and other French leaders of note, were slain ; and
the constable and four princes of the blood, the Rhine-
grave, and a host of the French nobility, with cannon,
munition, and countless banners, fell into the hands of
the Spaniard.
This great battle was fought on the tenth of August.
The first news was conveyed to the emperor in a brief
despatch from Vazquez, dated on the twentieth, and pro*
bably reached Yuste about the twenty-third. A more
detailed account, which was afterwards printed at Val-
ladolid, soon arrived, brought or closely followed by a
courier sent by the king from Flanders. The emperor
listened to the intelligence with the greatest interest, and
ordered the messenger to be rewarded with a gold chain
and a handsome sum of money. 1 On the seventh of
September a solemn mass was celebrated in the con-
ventual church in token of thanksgiving, and consi-
derable alms were distributed from the imperial purse to
the neighbouring poor. The emperor was much disap-
pointed to learn that his son had not been present in
1 Gonzalez says 150,000 ducats, which is probably a slip of the pen
for mararedis. 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.
140 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
the field, and bestowed his malediction upon the English
troops, for whom the king was reported to have been
waiting in the rear. For some weeks he continued
impatient for news, counting the days, as Quixada wrote,
which must elapse before the king could be at the gates
of Paris. The citizens of Paris, like the emperor, also
took it for granted that the Spaniards would march
directly upon their capital, and many of the wealthier
families fled southward into the heart of the kingdom.
But the hopes of Yuste and the fears of the Louvre
were equally foiled of their fulfilment ; for Philip, ever
timid and procrastinating, wasted the golden moments
and the enthusiasm of his troops on the capture of a few
insignificant fortresses in Picardy.
The triumph of the duke of Savoy in the Nether-
lands had a signal effect upon the war in Italy. No
sooner had Guise commenced offensive operations against
the kingdom of Naples, than he discovered that no aid
was to be expected from the pope or his nephews, and
no reliance to be placed on their promises. They had
already exasperated him by refusing him Ostia or
Ancona, which he wished to garrison, as a retreat for
his troops in case of the failure of the enterprise.
These robber-churchmen, indeed, treated their French
knight-errant very much as Gines de Passamonte and
his gang treated the good knight of La Mancha, after
he had rescued them, at the expense of his bones, from
the lash and the oar. 1 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 advanced far into the enemy's territory
before the insolence of the Roman leader, the marquess
of Montebello, compelled him to turn that Caraffa
1 Don Quixote, part i. cap. 22.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 141
ignominiously out of his camp. With zeal thus cooled,
and with forces quite inadequate to effect any per-
manent conquest for France, Guise therefore confined
his operations to the capture of some paltry places in
the Abruzzi, and to an unsuccessful siege of Civitella,
from which he was driven with considerable loss both
of men and time. Retreating towards Rome, he
threatened to evacuate the ecclesiastical states, and join
the duke of Ferrara in an attack upon Parma and the
Milanese. Alba in his turn now crossed the Tronto,
marched into the Campagna, and took up a position
within sight of Rome. The pope and the Caraffas, no
less cowardly than rash, humbled themselves before
Guise, and bribed him to assist them by fresh promises ;
and the war might have been again renewed but for the
tidings of St. Quentin. Happily for art and its monu-
ments, the panic of the king of France, the baseness of
the king of Spain, and the supple treachery of Christ's
vicar, saved Rome from a second sack. Guise and his
army were instantly recalled : Alba was instructed that
his master valued his great victory chiefly because it
might restore him to the good graces of the pope; 1
and the holy father himself made haste to sacrifice his
friend, and conclude a close bargain with his foe. The
terms obtained were no less disgraceful to Paul and to
Philip than advantageous to the Roman see. The pope
was bound not to take part against Spain during the
present war, and not to assist the duke of Guise with
provisions or protection. The king, on his side, en-
gaged to restore all the places he had taken from the
pope, and raze the fortifications with which he had
strengthened them; to do homage for the crown of
Naples ; and, while he claimed an amnesty for the
1 J. V. Rustant : Historia del dugue de Alba, 2 torn. 4to. Madrid :
1751, ii. 59.
142 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ri.
papal rebels, he permitted the pontiff to except from it
Marc Antonio Colonna and the chief Roman magnates
who had been the most active of Alba's allies, and whose
fortunes were best worth the acceptance of the plunder-
ing Caraffas. 1
The emperor had ever regarded PauFs policy with
indignation, which had lately become mingled with
scorn. He was for meeting his fury with calm firm-
ness ; and it was by his advice that the bulls of excom-
munication, which were frantically fulminated against
his son, were forbidden to be 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 rigour; the quarrel was
none of his seeking ; and in his endeavours to avoid it
he had done all that was required of him before God
and the world. Had the matter been left in the hands
of the emperor, Paul would have been dealt with in
the stern fashion which brought Clement to his senses :
Alba would have been directed to advance, Rome would
have been stormed, the pontiff made prisoner ; and the
primate of Spain and the prior of Yuste would have
been directed to put their altars into mourning, and say
many masses for the speedy deliverance of the holy
father of the faithful.
It is not very clear why Philip the Second dealt
thus gently with the foolish and wicked old man who
was now at his mercy. Certain it is that no sentiment
of generosity towards a fallen foe ever found place in
that cold and selfish heart. His moderation may have
been dictated by pure superstition, or it may have
arisen from his secret desire to obtain, at some future
time, the pope's sanction for his scheme of dividing the
great sees and abbeys of the Low Countries a scheme
J. V. Rustant : Hist, del D. de Alba, ii. 61.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 143
which lie afterwards executed at the cost of so much
blood, treasure, and territory.
The Roman treaty was almost the sole affair of im-
portance transacted during the emperor's sojourn at
Yuste, without his opinion having been first asked and
his approval obtained. About the middle of October,
he heard with some anxiety that Alba had concluded a
treaty with the pope, but the precise conditions being
probably still unknown at Valladolid, did not then reach
Yuste. Writing by his master's desire for fuller infor-
mation, Quixada confided to the secretary of state that
the emperor was very much afraid that the terms obtained
were bad, having generally observed that a treaty was
sure to prove unfavourable when it was reported to be
completed and yet the specification of the particular
clauses withheld. The next instalment of news, that
the French army had effected their retreat, only in-
creased the misgivings of the emperor. At length there
came a detailed account of the negotiations, and a copy
of the treaty, which the secretary of state said had
given satisfaction both at Rome and Valladolid. At
each paragraph that was read, the emperor's anger grew
fiercer ; and before the paper had been gone through he
would hear no more. He was laid up next day with
an attack of gout, which the people about him ascribed
to the vexation which he had suffered ; and so deep an
impression did the affair make upon his mind, that for
weeks after he was frequently overheard muttering to
himself, through his shattered teeth, broken sentences
of displeasure.
One of the subjects which lay nearest the emperor's
heart was the education of his grandson, Don Carlos.
The impression made upon him by the boy during his
brief stay at Valladolid had been, as we have seen,
unfavourable. The prince's governor, Don Garcia de
144 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vi.
Toledo, was ordered to transmit to Yuste regular
accounts of his pupil's progress. His letters, though
few of them are in existence, were probably frequent,
and they are so minute in their details of the prince's
health and habits, that there is no doubt but the
emperor took a lively interest in his grandson. Carlos
is painted by his tutor as a sickly, sulky, and backward
boy, certainly very unlikely to grow up the patriot hero
into which the poet's licence and the historian's paradox
have turned him at a later period of his unhappy life.
On the thirtieth of July, Don Garcia complained to the
emperor that his pupil was lazy at his books, and con-
stipated in his bowels. The king, he said, had ordered
him down to Tordesillas, as a place better suited for
study than the court; but he, for his part, thought
that if they were to leave Valladolid at all, the prince
would be nowhere so well as at Yuste, under the eye of
his grandfather.
A month later, on the twenty-seventh of August, he
wrote that Don Carlos was better in health, but so
cholerick in temper, that they were thinking of putting
him under a course of physic for that disorder; but that
they would wait until the emperor's pleasure were known.
He then described the prince's mode of passing the day.
Rising somewhat before seven, he prayed, breakfasted,
and went to hear mass at half-past eight ; after which
came lessons until eleven, when he dined. A few hours
were then given to amusement with his companions,
with whom he played at trucos (a game somewhat like
bowls) or quoits; at half-past three he partook of a
light meal (merienda), which was followed by reading,
and an hour of out-door exercise, before or after supper,
according to the weather. By half-past nine he had gone
through the prayers of his rosary, and was in bed, where
he soon fell fast asleep. The poor tutor was compelled
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 145
still to acknowledge that he had failed to imbue him
with the slightest love of learning, in which he conse-
quently 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 horseback,
that they were afraid of letting him ride much, for fear
of accidents. To the emperor, who had loved and prac-
tised all manly sports with the ardour and the skill of a
true Burgundian, it must have been a disappointment to
learn that the prowess of duke Charles and kaiser Max,
which had dwindled woefully in his son Philip, seemed
altogether extinct in the next generation.
These notices of the character of the heir- apparent
are confirmed by the account of him which the Venetian
ambassador at the court of Bruxelles transmitted to his
republic. He reported that Don Carlos was a youth of
a haughty and turbulent temper, which his tutors vainly
endeavoured to tame by making him read Cicero' s
treatise De Officiis ; and that, upon being told that the
Low Countries were settled upon the issue of his step-
mother, Mary of England, he declared that he would
maintain his right to those states in single combat
with any son who might be born to his father in that
marriage. 1
1 Relatione of Badovaro.
146 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
CHAPTER VII.
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
toTorriano, and supposed to have been the result of his
astrological researches, that the Vera was the most salu-
brious place in the world, and Yuste the most salubrious
spot in the Vera. 1 In spite of generally eating too much,
Charles slept well, and his gout made itself felt only in
occasional twinges; so effectually did the senna wine
counteract the syrup of quinces which he drank at
breakfast, the Rhine wine which washed down his mid-
day meal, and the beer which, though denounced by the
doctor, was the habitual beverage 'of the patient when-
ever he was thirsty. He had suffered, in September, a
slight attack of dysentery from eating too much fruit.
Towards the end of October, he was troubled by an
inflammation in his left eye, and while waiting one day
for a draught of senna wine, fell down in a fainting-fit,
from which, however, he was soon recovered by a little
vinegar sprinkled on his face, and suffered no subsequent
ill effect. About the middle of December, he com-
plained of feebleness, and of phlegm in his throat ; and,
1 Siguen9a, iii. 200.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 147
for awhile, forewent wine and beer, and drank hippocras,
a kind of spiced wine, mixed with hot water. With
these exceptions, he was in very tolerable health; he
was able to go out with his gun, though not always
able to take a steady aim without help : he passed a
good deal of time in the open air ; and frequently went
to confess and take the sacrament at the hermitage .of
Bethlehem a dependency of the convent, and about a
quarter of a mile off in the forest.
In the Vera, the year was very unhealthy, the
spring having been marked by a famine, which ex-
tended over the greater part of Estremadura. So severe
was the scarcity, that the emperor's sumpter mules,
laden with dainties, on their way to the convent, were
pillaged by the hungry peasants; and, in the Campo de
Aranuelo, almost the whole population of several villages
perished of starvation. In the autumn,, severe colds and
fevers prevailed at Yuste and Quacos ; and William Van
Male lost two children, and was in great apprehension
for the life of his wife.
The emperor gave much of his leisure time and un-
employed thought to his garden. He had ever been
a lover of nature, and a cherisher of birds and flowers.
In one of his campaigns, the story was told, that a
swallow having built her nest and hatched her young upon
his tent, he would not allow the tent to be struck when
the army resumed its march, but left it standing for the
sake of the mother and brood. 1 From Tunis he is said
to have brought not only the best of his laurels, but the
pretty flower called the Indian pink, sending it from the
African shore to his gardens in Spain, whence, in time,
1 Vieyra : Sermoens, vol. xv. p. 195. Quoted in Southey's Common
Place Book, i. p. 408.
L 2
148 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP, vn
it won its way into every cottage garden in Europe. 1
Yuste was a very paradise for these simple tastes and
harmless pleasures. The emperor spent part of the
summer in embellishing the ground immediately below
his windows ; he raised a terrace, on which he placed a
fountain, and laid out a parterre; and beneath it he
formed a second parterre, planted like the first, with
flowers and orange-trees. Under his supervision, Tor-
riano constructed a sun-dial, which became an appro-
priate ornament of the garden. 2 Amongst his poultry were
some Indian fowls, sent him by the bishop of Plasencia.
Of two fish-ponds which he caused to be formed with
the water of the adjacent brook, he stored one with
trout, and the other with tench. It was evidently
his wish to make himself comfortable in the retreat
where he had a reasonable prospect of passing many
years. In the autumn, he sent for an additional game-
keeper to kill game for his table ; and in winter, for a
new stove for his apartments; and he also received from
Flanders a large box of tapestry, amongst which was a
set of hangings wrought with scenes from his campaigns
at Tunis, which still exist in the queen of Spam's palace
at Madrid. He also contemplated an addition to his
little palace, and he had made several drawings with his
own hands of an intended oratory, and a new wing for
the accommodation of the king, his son, who was to
visit him as soon as public affairs permitted him to
return to Spain. The plans never proceeded farther
than the paper stage ; nor was Philip's visit to Yuste paid
until the emperor's own rooms were vacant.
1 Rene Rapin, in his Hortorum libri, iv. 4to. Paris, 1665, lib. i. v.
952-4, thus celebrates the event :
Hunc primus, poeno quondam de litore florem,
Dum premeret victor dura obsidione Tunetum ;
Carolus Austriades terrae transmisit Iberae.
* Bakhuizen van den Brink : Retraite de Charles V., p. 23.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 149
During the spring, Luis QuixadVs home-sick heart
was gladdened by leave of absence, a favour accorded
of the emperor's own free will, and unasked, as the
honest chamberlain was careful to observe in his next
letter to the secretary of state. He would have been
very glad, he added, if he were not coming back any
more, to eat asparagus and truffles in Estremadura. 1
He set out on the third of April, and the impatient
English courier who had come the day before with his
complaints of Castillian dilatoriness, 2 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 coun-
sel with the mayordomo in the affair of the meeting
with her daughter, the impracticable infanta of Portugal.
At court or at his house at Villagarcia, Quixada re-
mained until August, when the emperor, who missed him
more each day, sent for him back. In the absence of
the chief of his household, he seems to have fallen in
some degree into the hands of the friars, and by that
circumstance to have partially lost his prepossession in
favour of the Jeromite robe. ' The friars/ writes Gaztelu,
in undisguised glee, ' do not understand his majesty ;
1 ' Bien me alegrara, no volver a Estremadura a comer esparragos y
turmos de tierra.' To Juan Vazquez, March 28th, 1557.
* Chap. vi. p. 120.
150 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
and now at last he has found out, I think, his mistake
in supposing that they are fit to be employed in his ser-
vice in any way whatever/ It was high time, there-
fore, that Quixada should resume the command, and
drive the monks back over the frontier. He arrived at
Yuste on the twenty-first of August, having ridden post
to Medina del Campo, and thence on what he called
beasts of the country. The emperor was very glad to see
him ; and he was also glad to find the emperor very
well, paler perhaps, but fatter than when he took his
leave. Rumours had reached Valladolid, probably in
consequence of the alarm raised in Navarre, that Charles
intended to leave the convent, but the chamberlain now
assured the secretary that they were unfounded. ' His
majesty/ he wrote, ' is the most contented man in the
world, and the quietest, and the least desirous of moving
in any direction whatsoever, as he tells us himself/ 1
After thirty-five years of service, and being by the death
of his brother the last of his house, Quixada had much
wished to be relieved of his official duties, and settle at
home. But the emperor having so urged him to remain
that it was impossible to refuse, he had now resolved,
he said, to move his wife and household into Estrema-
dura, in spite of the expense and inconvenience to which
it must put him, and his great dislike to the country.
The letter in which this determination was conveyed to
Vazquez ended, as usual, with the date, ( In Yuste/ to
which the writer in this case added the words, ' evil to
him who built it here; thirtieth of August, 1557/ 2
During the summer, in Fray Juan de Ortega 3 the
convent lost one of its best inmates, and the emperor
1 ' Esta el hombre el mas contento del mundo, y con mas reposo y con
menor gana para salir para ninguna parte y ansi lo dice.'
2 En Yuste : mal haya quien aqui lo edifice ; a los 30 de Augusto,
1557.
s Chap. iii. p. 57 ; chap. v. p. 102.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 151
and his household their favourite amongst the friars.
Having been ailing for some time, he obtained leave, at
the end of May, to retire to his own convent at Alba de
Tormes. On the twenty-fourth of August, the whole
community of Yuste were saddened by the news of his
death. Finding himself no better, and getting weary of
his doctor, he put himself into the hands of a gatherer
of simples, the quack of the district, who very speedily
relieved him from his sufferings, and from further need
of physic. Ortega is one of those men of whose life
the remaining fragments make us wish for more. As
general, having suffered a vote of censure for attempting
to reform the order, the decree of the chapter had
likewise declared him and his associates incapable of
afterwards bearing any rule within the domain of St.
Jerome. The emperor must have approved of his policy,
or at least must have considered him unjustly treated,
for he almost immediately afterwards offered him a
mitre in the Indies. But Ortega declined the honour,
saying that the friar whom his superiors had pronounced
unfit to hold a priory, must be unfit to preside over a
diocese, and that he considered it to be his duty to
submit, as a private monk, to the penance imposed
upon him. In 1553, while he was still general, there
issued from an Antwerp press the charming story of
Lazarillo de Tormes, destined to be a model of racy
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
humour, keen satire, and vivid pictures of Spanish life,
and to win a popularity which was not equalled until
the great knight of La Mancha took the field. The
authorship, however, remained unacknowledged and un-
known; and it was not until after the death of Diego
152 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
Hurtado de Mendoza that it came to be generally ascribed
to that accomplished statesman, soldier, and historian.
But at the decease of Ortega there was found in his cell
a manuscript of the work, from which the fathers of Alba
conjectured that it must have been written in his col-
lege-days at Salamanca. 1 Whether the glory belong
to the layman or the churchman, the monk who was
capable of so chivalrously refusing a mitre, and who was
supposed to be capable of writing the first and one of the
best of modern fictions, must have been a man of noble
character, and of remarkable powers.
The ignorance and gossiping of the friars were not
the sole local annoyances suffered by the emperor and
his household. The villagers of Quacos were the unruly
protestants who troubled his reign in the Vera. Although
these rustics shared amongst them the greater part of
the hundred ducats which he dispensed every month in
charity, they teazed him by constant acts of petty
aggression, by impounding his cows, poaching his fish-
ponds, and stealing his fruit. One fellow having sold
the crop on a cherry-tree to the emperor's purveyor at
double its value, and for ready money, when he found
that it was left ungathered, resold it to a fresh purchaser,
who of course left nothing but bare boughs behind him.
Weary of this persecution, Charles at last sent for Don
Juan de Vega, president of Castille, who arrived on the
1 The story is told by Siguena, ii. p. 184. N. Antonio includes Laza-
rillo among the works of Mendoza, but he says that some people still
ascribed it to Ortega. Mr. Ticknor, in his excellent and discerning
criticism on Mendoza (History of Spanish Literature, 3 vols. 8vo. New
York : 1849, i. 513) raises no doubt as to the authorship, without, how-
ever, stating on what, besides internal evidence, Mendoza's claim rests.
The first edition was printed at Antwerp, 1553 ; another appeared at
Burgos, in 1554, and a third at Antwerp, in the same year ; yet the first
mentioned by Antonio is that of Tarragona, 1586 ; so ignorant was the
laborious bibliographer of Spain being also a churchman of one of the
most curious and valuable portions of her literature, the novels.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 153
twenty-fifth of August at Luis Quixada's house, in the
guilty village. Next morning he had an interview of
an hour and a half with the emperor ; and spent the day
following in concerting measures with the licentiate
Murga, the rural judge, to whom he administered a sharp
rebuke, which that functionary in his turn visited upon
the unruly rustics. The president returned to Valladolid
on the twenty-eighth ; and a few days afterwards several
culprits were apprehended. But whilst Castillian justice
was taking its usual deliberate course, some of them
who had relatives amongst the Jeromites of Yuste, by
the influence of their friends at court, wrought upon the
emperor's good nature so far, that he himself begged
that the sentence might be light. 1
Of the unofficial visitors who paid their respects during
this year at Yuste, one of the earliest and certainly the
most remarkable was Juan Gines Sepulveda, the his-
torian, whose flowing style and pure Latinity gained him
the title of the Livy of Spain. This able writer had
formerly held the posts of chaplain to the emperor, and
tutor- to prince Philip ; and was now one of the historio-
graphers-royal, in which capacity he had retired to his
estate at Pozoblanco, near Cordova, to compose his
annals of the emperor's reign, and cultivate his flower-
garden. Amongst other pieces of sinecure church pre-
ferment which had fallen to his lot, was the archpriest-
hood of Ledesma, to which he had been recently presented.
The fine weather early in March had tempted him to
set out for this new benefice; but being overtaken in
the mountains of Guadalupe by storms, which even the
tempest-stilling bells of Our Lady's holy church 2 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
1 Siguen9a : iii. 198.
2 Talavera : Hist, de Na. Sena, de Guadalupe, fol. 16.
154 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vir.
Van Male. Charles, who had not seen him for eighteen
years, received him with great cordiality, and conversed
with him with much interest on the progress of his his-
tory. The learned traveller was highly delighted with
his patron's kindness, the beauty of the place, and his
few days of repose in Van Male's house at Quacos. He
had taken the mountain road by which Charles had come
to Yuste. The first part of his journey, although toilsome,
was ease itself to what was now before him. Crossing
the Puertonuevo in a storm would try the nerve and
task the endurance of a smuggler in his prime ; and
it is therefore not surprising that it nearly killed
the sedentary doctor of sixty-seven. The ascent, he
said, was like the path of virtue, as described by
Hesiod, inasmuch as it was long, and steep, and
rugged ; but very unlike it, inasmuch as it led, not
to an easy plain, but to a yet more frightful descent. 1
He had ridden up ; but the rocks which now frowned
over his head, and the chasms which yawned at every
turn beneath him, so terrified him that he dismounted
from his mule, and walked eight miles in the mud,
through alternate rain and snow. He arrived at Alba
more dead than alive ; and in spite of good nursing in
the house of a warm canon of Salamanca, the month of
June found him in his parsonage at Ledesma, still com-
plaining of the cold which he had caught in that wild
mountain march. 2
Don Luis de Avila was a frequent visitor at Yuste.
Charles had always been fond of the society of his
lively Quintus Curtius ; and the historian regarded the
emperor with that enthusiastic admiration with which a
1 The Works and the Days, v. 288.
2 He calls it ' iter totius Hispanise difficillimum ;' describing it in the
letter to Van Male, in his JEpistolce, sm. 8vo Salaraant. 1557, ep. cii.
fol. 274, or Opera, 4to, Madrid, 1780, iii. p. 351.
1.557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 155
great man seldom fails to inspire his followers. The
lords of Mirabel religiously preserve an heir-loom
brought into the Zuniga family by Avila a marble
bust of his favourite hero, chiselled by the masterly
hand of the elder Leoni, and inscribed with this loyal
doggrel
Carolo quinto et e assai questo,
Perche si sa per tutto il mondo il resto.
Avila likewise caused some of the battles of the imperial
captain to be painted in fresco on various ceilings of the
noble mansion, and they were now actually in progress
under his own superintendence. The name of the artist
has not survived, and his work, long since faded, has
proved the truth of the adage which the old marquess
of Mirabel had shortly before written over one of the
windows todo pasa all things pass away. 1
There is a heartiness in Avila's flattery which says much
for its honesty and somewhat excuses its extravagance.
The bold dragoon concludes his German commentaries
with this blast of the true 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 vindicate the power and dignity of the
nation which ruled the world. In less than a year our
emperor conquered this province, whose matchless valour
has been confessed both by ancient and modern times.
In thirty years Charlemagne subjugated Saxony; our
emperor was master of it all in less than three months.
The greatness of this war demands a nobler pen than
mine, which tells nothing but the naked truth, and
what I have seen with my own eyes of the exploits of
1 A. Ponz: Fiacre en JEspana, 18 vols. sm. 8vo. Madrid: 1784, vii.
117, 118, 122.
156 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
him who ought as far to excel in fame the great captains
of past ages as he excels them all in valour and in
virtue/ 1
The adulation of bishop Giovio was as distasteful to
Charles as the protestant abuse of Sleidan ; and he was
wont to call them his two liars. But Avila's volume,
bound in crimson velvet and silver, adorned his book-
shelf, and the door of his cabinet was ever open to the
author. It is characteristic of the times, that it was
remarked as a singular favour that the emperor one day
ordered a capon to be reserved for the grand-commander
from his own well-supplied board. 2 It may seem strange
that a retired prince, who had never been a lover of
pomp, should not have broken through the ceremonial
law which enjoined a monarch to eat alone, and which,
when on the throne, he had broken through once,
though once only, in favour of the duke of Alba. 3 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, preferred that the Spanish fleet should
retire from the blockade of Rochelle, rather than that
its admiral should wear his grandee-hat in the most
Christian presence.
The emperor was fond of talking over his campaigns
with the veteran who had shared and recorded them.
One day, in the course of such conversation, Don Luis
spoke of the frescoes which were in progress in his house
at Plasencia, and said that on one of the ceilings was to
be painted the battle of Renti, and the Frenchmen flying
1 Avila: Comentario de la Guerra de Alemana, sm. 8vo. Anvers:
1549, p. 180.
2 Vera : Vida de Carlos V., p. 251.
3 Bustant : Vida del D. de Alia, i. 182.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 157
before the soldiers of Castille. ' Not so/ said the em-
peror, ' let the painter modify this if he can, for it was
no headlong flight, but an orderly retreat/ 1 This was
not the less candid because French historians claimed the
victory for France, and recounted with pride the cap-
tured colours and cannon, amongst which were the two
huge pieces known as the emperor's pistols. 2 Con-
sidering that the action had been fought only three or
four years before it is reported to have been thus
grossly misrepresented, it is possible that Renti may
have been substituted by mistake for the name of some
less doubtful field. But Avila was of easy faith when
the honour of Castille and the emperor were concerned ;
and he may well be supposed capable of some such
loyal and patriotic inaccuracy in fresco, when he did
not hesitate to print his belief that the miracle which
had been wrought for Joshua and the chosen people in the
valley of Ajalon, had been repeated on behalf of Charles
and his Spaniards on the banks of the Elbe.a Some
years after, the duke of Alba, who had also been at
Muhlberg, was asked by the king of France whether he
had observed that the snn stood still. f I was so busy
that day/ said the cautious soldier, 'with what was
passing on earth, that I had no time to notice what
took place in heaven/
A visit which Avila paid to the convent in August,
seems to have been prompted by an official letter
addressed by the princess-regent to the authorities of
Plasencia, and containing, or supposed to contain, a
hint that the emperor proposed soon to set out for
Navarre. The city being greatly excited by the rumours
thus raised, the grand-commander mounted his horse
1 Vera : Vida de Carlos V., p. 252.
2 L. Favyn : Hist, de Navarre, fol. Paris : 1612, p. 814.
3 Avila: Comentario, fol. 70.
158 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
and rode up the Vera to make inquiries into the state
of matters at Yuste. The recluse was disposed rather
to pique than to gratify the curiosity of the knight of
the green cross. Writing on his return to the secretary
of state, Avila said, ' I have left Fray Carlos in a very
calm and contented mood, not at all mistrusting his
strength, but believing himself quite equal to the exertion
of moving from his retreat. Since I was there last, all
his ideas on this head may have changed; and I
could believe his undertaking anything from love to his
son, knowing as I do his brave spirit and his ancient
habits, having been reared, as he was, in war, like the
salamander in the furnace. The 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/ 1
Amongst other visitors at Yuste was Don Francisco
Bolivar, paymaster of the navy, who came on the six-
teenth of September and had a long audience next
day, to lay before the emperor certain information about
the Turkish naval force, and to tell him that the fleet
of Solyman which had been menacing the western
shores of the Mediterranean, had now steered for the
Levant. For this good news Charles presented him,
when he took leave, with a gold chain. A few weeks
later, on the sixth of October, Don Martin de Aven-
dano, who had commanded a squadron newly arrived
from Peru, was received with a welcome so hearty, that
1 Luis de Avila to Vazquez : Plasencia, 24th August, 1557. Gonzalez
MS.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 159
Quixada noted it in writing to the secretary Eraso. In
taking leave, the admiral was also furnished with a
strong letter of recommendation to the king. Perhaps
the excellent health which the emperor at that time
enjoyed might have been partly the cause of this cor-
diality, for the chamberlain said, in the same letter,
that he was unusually well, ' very plump and fresh-
coloured, and ate and slept better than he did himself/
He added that his majesty had been pleased to rally
him on a message, conveyed to him by Eraso from his
little daughter Mariquita, that she would like to marry
his son, had there been an heir in the family of
Quixada. 1
The visitors at Yuste were generally envoys, or official
personages. Avila and the count of Oropesa and his bro-
ther, were amongst the few exceptions. The neighbour-
ing prelates and grandees continued to send their con-
tributions to the imperial larder. Oropesa kept it sup-
plied with game from the forest and the hill; the
Jeromites of Guadalupe, rich in lands and beeves, pre-
sented calves, lambs fattened on bread, and delicate
fruits; and the bishops of Segovia, Mondonedo, and
Salamanca were careful to put in similar evidence
that they had not forgotten the giver of their mitres.
Occasionally, the donors of these dainties appear to have
nourished a hope of being recompensed with the loaves
and fishes of court patronage and favour. A few leagues
north of the convent, at the Alpine town of Bejar, was
a noble castle of the chief family of 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
1 Quixada to Francisco de Eraso. 6th Oct. 1557.
100 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
lady's chaplain, charged with a request that the emperor
would graciously assist the family in obtaining a boon
for which they had long been soliciting the crown, the
restoration of the older dukedom of Plasencia. Charles
answered his fair suitor somewhat bluntly, that he con-
sidered the claim unfounded, and that he would burden
his conscience with no such matter.
Towards the end of September, the queens of France
and Hungary were expected in the Vera on a visit to
their brother. The castle of Xarandilla was placed at
their disposal by Oropesa, and prepared for their recep-
tion under the superintendence of Quixada and Van
Male. The queens set out from Valladolid on the
eighteenth of September, accompanied by their niece,
the regent, who was going to her pious retreat at Abrojo ;
and travelling by easy stages, they reached Xarandilla in
ten days. On the twenty-eighth they came to Yuste,
attended by the bishop of Plasencia, and saw the
emperor for about an hour. During their stay of ten
or eleven weeks in the Vera, queen Eleanor, being in
very feeble health, and easily fatigued, even by the
motion of her litter, was able to visit Yuste only three
times. On one of these occasions, she and her sister
came over in the morning to Quacos, and having dined
there, spent some hours at the convent, and returned
to the village to sleep. Quixada was somewhat scan-
dalized at this arrangement, and proposed an attempt
to lodge the royal ladies for one night at Yuste ; but
Charles would not hear of it, nor would he even oifer
them a dinner. The queen of Hungary was still robust
enough for the saddle; she delighted in the exercise of
her limbs and tongue ; and she was therefore frequently
on horseback, riding through the fading forest to her
brother's inhospitable gate.
The queens had not yet determined where to esta-
i;>:,7.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 1 r; ]
blish 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 decided negative.
They next cast their eyes upon Guadalaxara, in Castille;
the crown having a great extent of land in and around
that town, the rights and privileges of which the king
was willing to make over to them for their lives. The
town boasting of no mansion suitable to their rank
but the palace of the duke of Infantado, they 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 Men-
doza by Isabella the Catholic, it was scarcely polite to
refuse to lend it for a time to her grand-daughters, he
continued to urge this plea in a number of letters,
equally courtly, copious, and tiresome. At the close of
the year, Quixada, writing to his friend the secretary
Eraso, hinted to that functionary that as the queens
still thought of residing at Guadalaxara, it would be
well for him to place at their disposition a grange which
he possessed in the neighbourhood, where they might
amuse themselves in fishing or in the chase. Both of
the royal widows, however, died before it was settled
where they were to live.
Their chief business at Yuste, at this time, was the
long-talked-of meeting between queen Eleanor and the
infanta of Portugal. To see this daughter once more,
was the sole wish of the poor mother's heart. The
daughter, on the other hand, seemed hardly less anxious
to avoid the interview. Long after the king of Por-
tugal had given his consent, and even after his death,
she continued to raise up obstacles in the way, in
which she was countenanced by her uncle, the cardinal
M
162 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vii.
Henry. Father Francis Borja used his influence in vain.
The Spanish ambassador at Lisbon, Don Sancho de
Cordova, who met the queens at Xarandilla and Yuste,
gave so unfavourable an account of her intentions, that
Eleanor began to despair altogether of realizing her
long cherished hope. The emperor, at her request,
himself wrote to his niece, urging compliance with her
mother's very reasonable wishes ; and, after many delays
and a sham illness, the reluctant damsel consented. Pre-
parations were immediately set on foot for receiving her
at Badajoz with due honour, and sixteen nobles and
prelates were chosen to wait upon her at the frontier.
Among them were the duke of Escalona, the count of
Oropesa, the grand commander of 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 negotiations
were pending, a Portuguese courier was arrested on sus-
picion of being a French spy, and on his person was
found an autograph letter from the king of France, in
which the queen-regent was informed of the state of
the war in the Netherlands, and entreated to lend her
assistance against Spain. This letter was forwarded to
Yuste by secretary Vazquez, with a remark that it was
better to trust even Frenchmen than some Portuguese.
The emperor, on the other hand, told Quixada that he
thought the letter might have been written for the
purpose of being intercepted, and of exciting suspicion
and discord, and that the boasting of a Frenchman
ought never to be taken seriously. But he clearly in-
dicated his own feelings of the ill-will entertained at
Lisbon towards his son's government, in conveying to
Vazquez the official information which he had received
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 103
from thence of a revolt in Peru, and the death of the
viceroy, the marquis of Caiiete. 'Although I well
know/ he wrote, ' that the court of Portugal would not
have sent me this news, had it been true, I should
wish to ascertain the ground whereon such a rumour
rests/ 1
The queens took leave of the emperor on the four-
teenth of December, and the next day set out for
Badajoz. Their departure was a great relief to Luis
Quixada, who had to attend to their comforts at Xarau-
dilla, in addition to his daily task of governing the
emperor's Flemings, and keeping on good terms with
his friars. The supplies required by their numerous
retinue had also produced a sort of famine in the Vera,
and had raised the price of mutton to a real, or two-
pence-halfpenny, a pound. The licentiate Murga, of
Quacos, was entrusted with the arrangements on the
road, and the queens were everywhere received with public
attention and respect. At Truxillo the authorities
wished to give a public festival in their honour, which,
however, the royal ladies graciously declined ; and resting
on the feast of St. Thomas, at Merida, they arrived on
Christmas-eve at Badajoz, where Don Luis de Avila was
waiting to receive them.
They were fortunate in the weather, which was clear
and calm, except on the day which they spent in the
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 chimneys were
blown down, and one took fire ; and many of his cedars
and citrons measured their length upon the discomfited
parterres. Two houses fell at Xarandilla, and another
was overthrown at Quacos.
1 Emperor to Vazquez, 22nd Sept. 1557. Gonzalez MS.
M 2
164 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
Father Borja had been selected by the princess-regent
for a special and secret mission to Lisbon in the autumn,
on the delicate subject of the regency of Portugal. He
received her summons at Simancas, where he had founded
a small Jesuits' house, and whither he loved to escape
from the distractions of the court, to unstinted penance
and prayer. The sun of September was scorching the
naked plains of the Duero, and the good Jesuit was in
feeble health. Nevertheless, he immediately obeyed
the regent's mandate, and repaired to Yuste, by her
direction, to hold counsel with the emperor ;* after which,
scorning repose in the cool woodlands, he at once took
the road to Portugal across the charred wastes of Estre-
madura. This haste and the heat together, threw him
into a fever, of which he nearly died in the town of
Evora ; and when once more able to resume his journey,
he was nearly drowned in a squall in crossing the Tagus
to Lisbon. The queen Catherine, the cardinal Henry,
and the infanta Mary, all vied with each other in nursing
him; but he did not succeed in the objects of his mission,
for he obtained no promise of the regency for the
Spanish princess; nor could he even prevail upon the
Portuguese infanta to perform the very simple duty of
setting out to meet her widowed mother. He was again
at Yuste about the twentieth of December. The
emperor paid him the unusual compliment of lodging
him in the palace, and even entered into the prepara-
tion which Luis Quixada was making for his reception.
1 Bibadeneira : 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-
tremely probable that the Jesuit would have been instructed to see the
emperor on his way to Portugal, and as there are several gaps in the
correspondence in September, I am inclined to suppose that some letters
may have been lost, and I have therefore followed Ribadeneira.
1557.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 165
The mayordomo having hung the walls of his chamber
with tapestry, the emperor, judging that it would rather
offend than please the Jesuit, ordered it to be taken
down, and its place to be supplied with some black
cloth of which he despoiled his own ante-room. 1
Borja remained at the convent for some days, and of
course had frequent interviews with the emperor. It
was probably now that Charles returned to him a number
of letters, written at his request by the Jesuit, on the
politics and politicians of the court of Valladolid. ' You
may be sure/ said he, on restoring them, ' that no one
but myself has seen them/ The confidence thus reposed
by the shrewdest of princes in Borja's judgment and
observation, shows how keenly the things of earth may
be scanned by eyes which seem wholly fixed upon
heaven. 2
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 reverend biographers. ' I know not/ he said,
' whose cause is the just one, but I pray your majesty
not only not to allow the admiral to be wronged, but to
show him all the favour compatible with equity/ When
the emperor expressed some not unnatural surprise, the
1 Nieremberg: Vida de Borja, p. 136. This story is somewhat doubt-
ful, not because it is in itself improbable, but because, if true, it would
have been probably mentioned in the letters of Quixada to Vazquez.
8 Sandoval, ii. p. 833.
166 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vn.
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. 1
During his stay at Yuste, Borja was treated with
marked distinction. Not only had his host arranged
the upholstery of his chamber, but he also sent him
each day the most approved dish from his well-supplied
board. When duty once more required the father to
take his staff in his hand, he carried with him two
hundred ducats for alms, which Quixada had been
directed by the emperor to force upon his acceptance.
' It is a small sum/ said the chamberlain, ' but in com-
parison with my lord's present revenues, it is perhaps
the largest bounty he ever bestowed at one time/ 2
1 Nieremberg : Vida de Borja, p. 155.
2 Ribadeneira : Vida de Borja, p. 99.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 107
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELEANOR.
THE year 1558 did not open auspiciously at Yuste.
The emperor continued to be troubled with flying
gout : he complained of itching and tingling in his legs,
from the knees downwards; and he was sometimes seized
with fits of vomiting. On the seventh of January he
was unable to leave his bed, or to see the admiral of
Aragon, who had come to state certain grievances which
he had against the master of Montesa, and who was
therefore dismissed to spend a few days in the pilgrimage
to Guadalupe. The season itself was unhealthy, and so
many members of the household were ill that Gaztelu
proposed to reinforce the medical staff with another
doctor, one Juan Munoz, a good physician and surgeon,
who had been sent by the regent to attend upon her
father at Laredo.
On the night of the eighth of January, the palace
was broken into, and a sum of eight hundred ducats,
set apart for charitable uses, stolen from a box in the
emperor's wardrobe. The licentiate Murga was imme-
diately set to discover the robbers, but his perquisitions
attained no satisfactory end. It was evident that the
household was not free from blame, but the emperor
would not permit the persons suspected to be subjected
to the torture, the usual mode of compelling evidence in
those days, 'fearing/ said Gaztelu, mysteriously, 'that
certain things might come out which had better remain
168 CLOISTER LIFE OF' [CHAP. vra.
concealed/ 1 The culprits were never detected, nor was
the cash recovered. It is somewhat remarkable that a
few weeks afterwards the emperor divided two thousand
ducats, as a largesse, among his attendants, each re-
ceiving a sum proportioned according to the amount of
his salary.
While plagued by the depredations of thieves, the
emperor was also teased by the contentions of thief-
takers. The corregidor of Plasencia came over to
Quacos and arrested one Villa, an alguazil under Murga,
on pretence that he had exceeded his powers by exer-
cising his office within the city jurisdiction, which, as
the Plasencian affirmed, extended to the limits of the
village. Charles was much displeased, and caused a
complaint to be lodged at Valladolid, the result of which
was that the corregidor was suspended from his func-
tions, and the jurisdiction of Quacos enlarged by a fresh
official act. The offender, however, was forgiven, and
reinstated in a few weeks.
On the tenth of January, the emperor, though still in
bed, gave audience to Don Juan de Acuna, who had
recently come from Flanders; and the same day a
rumour was brought by the count of Oropesa, that the
duke of Alba had lately arrived at Bruxelles, and proposed
resigning the viceroyalty of Naples, and the command
of the army in Italy. At this rumour Charles displayed
more displeasure than Quixada thought good for his
health ; and he refused to listen to the despatches from
court relating to the Italian affairs until some days after
they had arrived. When at last he permitted them to
be read, and heard the secret articles of the treaty with
1 ' Pues no se permite a Murga que ponga a question de tormento a los
que se sospecha que podrian tener culpa, en lo que ban pasado cosas que
es mejor callarlas.' Gaztelu to Vazquez, 17th January, 1558.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 109
the pope, he only remarked 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 knowledge
or consent. Philip's love of temporizing was notorious ;
' Time and I against two/ 1 was his favourite adage ; and
he often bought time at the price of golden opportunity.
When the victory of St. Quentin had compelled the
recal of Guise, Rome was so completely in the power
of Alba, that there was no visible motive for hastening
the pope's deliverance. Had the king wished to consult
his father, an armistice of a few weeks would have given
sufficient time for communication between Bruxelles
and Yuste. It is therefore most probable that Philip,
making, for reasons which he did not wish to explain,
a peace which he felt the emperor must disapprove,
purposely withheld from him any knowledge of the
treaty until it was actually signed and sealed. It is
certain that great and unaccountable delay took place
in laying before him some of the subsequent transactions
in Italy. Thus, although a rumour of Alba's departure
had reached Yuste on the tenth of January, it was not
until the twenty-seventh, that a letter, addressed to the
emperor by Alba himself, and dated so far back as the
twenty-third of September, 1557, reached Yuste by the
hands of Luis de Avila. This letter announced that
peace had been concluded, and described the state of
matters at Home ; and further said that as the king's
affairs were now in a prosperous condition, the duke
intended soon to avail himself of his majesty's promise
that his term of service in Italy should be short, and to
embark for Lombardy ; after which he trusted ere long
' Tiempo y yo para otros dos.'
170 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
to kiss the emperor's hand, and ask for^some repose
from his fatigues of twenty-five years. To this letter
Charles deigned no answer, nor did he make any remark
upon it, but refused to 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 entrusted the duty
of driving a bargain with the king of Spain about the
money or territory with which the pontifical family
were to be bribed over to keep the peace, 1 a negotia-
tion which the greedy churchman prolonged until far
into the spring. Philip received the duke with all de-
monstrations of favour and gratitude, and was about to
appoint him to an important post in Spain. A turn in
the tide of events, however, induced him to alter this
resolution, and to keep him about his own person in the
capacity of president of the council of war.
The emperor, on the other hand, remained unrecon-
ciled to the shameful peace with the Caraifas, nor did
he ever forgive Alba his share in the transaction. The
duke was anxious to ascertain his opinion of his conduct
in remaining at court, and to obtain permission to visit
him at Yuste; and Gaztelu was therefore privately desired
by Vazquez to note whatever fell from him on these
topics. But Charles would neither express his opinion,
nor record the permission required, showing a disposi-
tion, when 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 thousand ducats, he re-
marked that the king of Spain did more for the duke
1 A. Andrea : Guerra de Roma, &c , p. 315.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 171
of Alba thai* the duke of Alba had ever done for the
king of Spain.
But, on the whole, the emperor's displeasure, though
very mortifying, was rather creditable to the duke. In
his conduct towards the pope, Alba had exactly fulfilled
his sovereign's commands, though he never approved of
his policy. To kiss the toe of Paul, in the name of his
master, he felt like an act of personal dishonour; and he
said, even in the pontiff's presence-chamber^ to some of
the 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/ 1 The
shameful homage paid, the pontiff loaded him with
honours and caresses ; he invited him to dinner ; and he
offered to make over to him all the church patronage of
the holy see on his estates in Spain. But this offer
Alba declined, saying that the concession and the ac-
ceptance of such a boon would be liable to suspicion,
which it was better to avoid. 2 Had the emperor known
of this noble act of self-denial, and of the reluctance
with which his old comrade in arms had signed the
treaty, he would surely have regarded him with different
feelings ; and, as it would have been easy for Alba to
bring these facts under his notice, it is fair to conclude
that he bore the undeserved blame from a sense of
chivalrous honour to the king whom he served.
For the chagrin suffered by the emperor in Italian
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
1 A. de Castro : Los Protestamtes Espanoles, i. p. 131.
2 J. A. de Vera : Vida del duque de Aha, p. 73. See also chap. iii.
p. 68.
172 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
the war. The timid and procrastinating policy of Philip
the Second had already let slip the opportunities afforded
by that battle, as his blind bigotry afterwards doomed
to death the gallant Egmont, whose prowess had car-
ried the day. The French king had been allowed not
only to rally his forces, but once more to cross the
frontiers of Flanders. The duke of Nevers retook Ham:
Genlis put twelve hundred Spaniards to the sword at
Chaulny. Guise, burning to wipe away his disgraces
in the Abruzzi and the Roman plains, suddenly appeared
before Calais on the first night of the new year. Trust-
ing to the strength of the fortifications, and to the sur-
rounding marshes, which made the place almost an
island in winter, the English government had for some
years past, in a spirit of fatal economy, withdrawn great
part of the garrison at that season. The only approaches
by land were guarded by the forts of Risbank and
Newnham-bridge. These Guise attacked at night, and
was master of in the morning. The roar of his artillery
was heard at Dover ; but a storm dispersed the squadron
which put out with relief. After some days of desultory
and desperate fighting, lord Wentworth struck his flag ;
the English troops filed off under a guard of Scottish
archers; and the key of France, which, two centuries
before had resisted, for eleven months, Edward the
Third, fresh from Cressy, was restored in one week to the
house of Valois. The honour of having first conceived
and planned the enterprise belonged to the admiral
Coligny, still a prisoner of war in the hands of the duke
of Savoy. But Guise had nobly retrieved his laurels ;
and it would have been sufficient for his military glory,
had he been victor only in his two sieges the most
remarkable of the age the heroic defence of Metz, and
the dashing capture of Calais. France was in an uproar
of exultation ; St. Quentin was forgotten ; and loud and
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 173
long were the paeans of the Parisian wits, ' replenished
with scoffs and unmeasured terms against the English/
who, in falling victims to a daring stratagem, gave, as it
seemed to these poetasters, a signal proof of the imme-
morial ' perfidy' of Albion. 1
The news of the loss of Calais reached Valladolid at
the end of January, and Yuste on the second of Fe-
bruary. In both places they were received with little
less sorrow and alarm that they had caused in London.
In the exploit of Guise the emperor lamented not only
a loss and an affront suffered by the nation of which
his son was king, but an important accession to the
strength of the most formidable neighbour of the Spanish
Netherlands. The word Calais, which Mary Tudor
dolefully declared to be written on her heart, was also
ever on the tongue of her kinsman Charles. For days
he spoke of nothing else, recurring perpetually to the
sore subject, and saying that now there was nothing but
the castle of Ghent between the French and Bruxelles.
To his secretary Gaztelu he confessed that he had never
in his life received so painful a blow ; and he wrote in
the most urgent terms to the princess-regent, telling her
that every nerve must now be strained to raise money
to repair the loss, and reinforce the king's army. The
chamberlain shared his master's feelings; and in his letter
on the occasion to Vazquez, severely criticised the Cas-
tillian leaders for their remissness, and prophesied that
Gravelines, Nieuport, and Dunkirk, would likewise soon
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 pregnancy in
which, however, few people believed except poor Mary her-
Hollinshed : Chronicles, 6 vols. 4 to. London : 1808, iv. 93.
174 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
self, 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 noble path of civil and religious freedom.
In this gloomy time of disaster, the emperor continued
to suffer from gout, which sometimes so completely dis-
abled his fingers, that instead of signing the necessary
despatches, he was obliged to seal them with a small
private signet. In spite of his eider-down robes and
quilts, he lay in bed shivering, and complaining of cold
in his bones. His appetite was beginning to fail him,
but his repasts, though diminished in quantity, were
still of a quality to perplex the doctor, consisting prin-
cipally of the rich fish which he would not forego
and could not digest. His favourite beverage at this
time was vino bastardo, a sweet wine made from raisins,
and brought from Seville, and long popular in England. 1
"When he got a little better, he ate, in spite of all re-
monstrances, some raw oysters, a rash act upon which
Quixada remarked despairingly to the secretary of state,
' Surely kings imagine that their stomachs are not made
like other men's/
Meanwhile the queens of France and Hungary effected
their meeting with their daughter and niece, the infanta
Mary of Portugal. Early in January, that princess
arrived at Elvas in great state, attended by a gallant
following of the Portuguese nobility. After some points
of etiquette had been argued and adjusted, she crossed
the plains of the Guadiana, and having been received in
due form by a party of Spanish nobles at the border
rivulet of Caya, she finally reached the longing arms of
1 Prince Hal (Henry IV. Act ii. sc. 4), remarks, ' why then your
brown bastard is your only drink.'
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 175
her mother. Don Antonio Puertocarrero was sent down
from 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 exhausted all their arguments and caresses in
the attempt to induce her to settle in Spain. Queen
Eleanor gave her jewels to the value of fifty thousand
ducats, and queen Mary added a quantity of rich dresses
and household plenishing. But her heart was sealed
against the land of which she had hoped to be queen,
and against the nearest and tenderest ties of her Spanish
blood. She therefore remained inflexible in her determi-
nation to return to Portugal, and bade an eternal farewell
to her weeping mother with no visible marks of concern.
During her stay at Badajoz, however, she was careful to
fulfil the laws of etiquette to the letter, and accordingly
despatched Don Emanuel de Melo to present her com-
pliments to the regent and the emperor. Her am-
bassador travelled with unusual magnificence, and with
his cavalcade of fifty horsemen excited great stir in
Quacos and at Yuste.
On the eleventh of February the queens set out from
Badajoz, and the emperor sent Gaztelu down to Truxillo
to meet them on the road. But they had accomplished
only three leagues of their journey, when Eleanor, who
had been suffering at Badajoz with her usual asthma, and
a slight attack of fever, was taken seriously ill at Talave-
rilla, a small ague-stricken town on a melancholy plain.
Dr. Cornelio, who was in attendance, had the worst
opinion of her case. Intelligence of her danger was
immediately sent off to the infanta, who was still on the
frontier of Portugal, but who, nevertheless, refused to set
foot again in Spain. A courier was likewise despatched
176 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
to Yuste, whence Quixada was ordered instantly to ride
post to Talaverilla. Gaztelu, who had probably met the
courier on the road, as he was going to Truxillo, arrived
first, on the morning of the eighteenth of February. He
found the queen sitting in her chair, panting for breath,
and suffering much pain ; but in full possession of her
faculties, and listening with eager interest to some busi-
ness of her daughter's. At six in the evening, however,
he was hastily sent for to take leave of her ; her strength
was then utterly exhausted, and she was lying in a state
of stupor; the bishop of Palencia standing at her side
in his robes, ready to administer the last solemn rite
of the church. On hearing the secretary announced,
she roused herself for a moment, and said, ' Tell my
brother, the emperor, that he must take care of my
daughter, the infanta/ With her last thoughts thus fixed
upon the thankless child who had been the idol of her
life, she sank again into unconsciousness; and within
an hour, her loving heart had ceased to beat ; and the
long account of her gentle deeds, her womanly self-
sacrifices, and her meekly-borne sorrows, was closed for
ever. Luis de Avila, who stood by her dying bed, truly
described her ' as the gentlest and most guileless crea-
ture he had ever known, and as one who left no better
being in the world/ Quixada galloped into the town
just in time to see her before she expired, and imme-
diately, in a few simple lines of honest emotion, com-
municated the event to his master at Yuste.
The remains of the queen were deposited at Merida,
and afterwards gathered to those of her kindred at the
Escorial. Her desire was that the interment should be
simple and private, and the money which more sumptuous
obsequies would have cost should be given to the poor.
Under her will, her undutiful daughter became her
universal legatee, and inherited a vast quantity of plate,
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 177
jewels, and tapestry, sundry large suras due to the queen
by the crowns of France and Spain, and various lord-
ships in Castille and Languedoc ; a heritage which, with
her patrimonial portion and her towns of Viseu and
Torres Vedras, made her one of the greatest matches in
Europe. 1 On the death of his English queen, Philip the
prudent once more turned his thoughts to his forsaken
love, and for a brief moment the Portuguese infanta was
again destined for the Spanish throne. A successful rival,
however, again intervened in the shape of peace with
France, and a young, lovely, and well-dowered daughter
of Valois. Fate had marked Mary of Avis for single
blessedness ; and in spite of all the attempts made on her
behalf, she died unmarried, a fact which Portuguese his-
torians patriotically ascribe to her unwillingness to de-
prive Portugal of her splendid dowry. Her grand-nephew,
Don Sebastian, became heir to the residue of her fortune
which remained after the completion of her splendid mau-
soleum, in the chapel of Our Lady of Light, and of the
nunneries and other religious edifices, which her lavish
piety had founded in all parts of the kingdom. 2
Queen Mary mourned for her sister with the mourn-
ing of true sorrow and affection. Tenderly attached to
each other, they had been for ten years inseparable
companions. Notwithstanding her desire to see her
daughter, Eleanor had refused to leave the Netherlands
until Mary was also free to seek for repose in Spain ; 3
and Mary had made the care of Eleanor's declining
health the chief occupation of her retirement. After
the funeral rites were over, when Gaztelu and Quixada
were setting out to Yuste, the queen of Hungary, in
1 Dam. de Goes : Chronica do Rel D. Emanuel, iv. fol. 84.
1 Pedro de Mariz : Dialogos de varia historia, sm. 8vo. Lisbon 1594.
fol. 205.
* Papiers de Granvelle, iv. p. 477.
N
] 78 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
giving them a parting audience, was so overcome with
grief, that her messages to her brother were drowned
in sobs and tears. The emperor, on receiving the news,
likewise wept bitterly, and displayed an emotion which
he rarely felt, or, at least, rarely permitted to be
seen. For Eleanor, although her happiness never stood
in the way of his policy, had ever been his favourite
sister. ' There were but fifteen months/ he said,
' between us in age, and in less than that time I
shall be with her once more/ a prophecy which was
exactly fulfilled. The shock increased the violence of
his disorders, and his strength was so much pros*
trated, that Gaztelu did not venture to tell him the
intelligence which had just come, that Oran was again
menaced by a Turkish fleet. Nevertheless the invalid
gave his orders about mourning for the household, and
about the masses to be said for the deceased in the con-
vent church. For many days he lay in bed, sometimes
tossing restlessly, sometimes unable to move for pain,
eating very little and sleeping still less. It was not 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 conversation passed to war and politics,
when the emperor, recurring to the loss of Calais, said
that he regretted it like death itself.
The queen of Hungary arrived on the third of March,
and on this occasion was lodged for some nights in the
convent. When she visited her brother next morning, he
was much affected on seeing Mary enter his room alone ;
and he afterwards said to Quixada, that until then he
had not felt the reality of queen Eleanor's death.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 179
Observing the effect she had produced, queen Mary
avoided it in future by going attended either by the
chamberlain, or by Avila, or by the bishop of Palencia.
The course of their genuine natural sorrow was inter-
rupted by the official semblance of woe in the shape of
Don Hernando de Roxas, sent from Yalladolid to con-
dole with the court of Lisbon, and of Don Bernardino de
Tavora, on a similar 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 uncom-
fortable intelligence of a Turkish descent on the African
possessions of the house of Avis, and of the accession to
power of a new sultan of Fez, who was likely to be
troublesome both to Spain and Portugal. 1
Queen Mary moved in a few days from Yuste to her
old abode at Xarandilla. On the fifteenth of March
she came to take leave of the emperor and found him
again in bed, and suffering much pain from an ulcerated
finger. It was the last time that they met in this
world. She passed the night at Quacos, and set off
next day at noon for Valladolid, preceded by Luis
Quixada, who had started at dawn to provide for the
evening's repose. Some months afterwards she sent
some illuminated choir books to the monks of Yuste, as
an offering to their church and a memorial of her visit
to the convent. For Mary shared her brother's tastes,
and was both a collector and a lover of works of art.
Evidence of her feeling on these matters is preserved in
the letter relating to a portrait of her nephew Philip,
painted by Titian, and lent by her to Philip's longing
bride, Mary of England, in which she displays the greatest
1 Menezes : Chronica, p. 75.
N 2
180 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vra.
solicitude not only that the picture should be safely and
speedily returned, but that it should also be seen at a
due distance, and in an advantageous light. 1
Quixada attended the queen not solely for her con-
venience, but partly to communicate to the princess-
regent some confidential instructions from the emperor,
and partly that he might now superintend the removal
of his own household from Villagarcia to Quacos. He
arrived at court at noon on the nineteenth, and imme-
diately saw the regent. His business was to explain the
emperor's views as to the best means of raising money,
the great end of all Spanish government, and to per-
suade the princess to consult queen Mary in all state
affairs of importance, and especially on topics connected
with Flanders, which she had ruled so long and so
wisely. With whatever deference Juana may have
received her father's financial advice, she showed no
deference whatever to his second proposal. She was
desirous to resign the government to her brother, but
she would on no account share it with her aunt.
She would not even permit Quixada to mention the
emperor's wish to the council of state. She was 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
Papiers d'ttat de Granvelle; iv. p. 150.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 181
insisted on, she would resign the government. 1 The
point was not insisted on, and queen Mary fixed her
residence at Cigales, a hamlet near which there was a
small royal seat, about two leagues from the capital,
crowning a vine-clad height on the western side of the
vale of the Pisuerga.
The emperor's scheme of finance seems to have been
submitted by the princess to the council, for a memorial
was immediately prepared by that body on the subject,
and forwarded for approval to Yuste. This document
suggested, as a means of raising funds, an increase in
the price of salt, the sale of certain lands belonging to
the military orders, the sale of certain honorary offices
and of patents of nobility (hidalguias), and the sale of
acts or patents conferring legitimacy on the children of
the clergy.
The inquiry into the Seville bullion case continued to
drag its slow length along, with results which were
submitted at intervals to the emperor. Some of the
merchants, accused of being averse to the seizure of their
property, having informed on each other, he advised that
free pardon should be offered to all shipmasters and
sailors who should give evidence leading to further dis-
coveries. Nothing worthy of note was elicited, but the
facts that there was hardly a trader in Seville who was
not guilty of 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 re-
duced is found in a fresh skirmish which took place
1 Quixada to emp., 19th of March, and princess to emp., 22nd of
March, 1558. Gonzalez MS.
182 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vin.
between the self-willed grand inquisitor, Valdes, and
the court. Some months before the emperor had
written to the princess that so soon as the body of his
mother, the late queen Juana, should be considered
sufficiently dry, it was to be transferred with proper
state from Tordesillas to Granada, and there laid beside
her husband, Philip the handsome, in the magnificent
tomb of white marble, wrought by the delicate chisel of
Vigarny, in the chapel-royal of the cathedral. Towards
the end of March, the weather being favourable, and
the royal corpse being pronounced ripe for removal,
the marquess of Comares and the grand-inquisitor were
ordered to hold themselves in readiness to escort it on
the journey. But the prelate excused himself, on the
plea that he must attend to the business of the holy
office, and to the souls of the Moriscos of Valladolid.
The princess, on the other hand, not only refused to
admit this excuse, but said that it was an excellent
opportunity for him to visit his diocese, from which he
had been long absent, and she therefore ordered him to
proceed on the journey, and return by way of Seville.
With this new order the archbishop flatly refused to
comply, alleging that since a certain decree of the
council of Trent, which had greatly extended the powers
of chapters, he had been waging such a war with his
canons that it was utterly impossible for him to honour
them with his presence. The infanta, finding him thus
stubborn, referred the matter to the council, which at
once decided against the recusant. Still the archbishop
held out, setting forth the hardship of his case in letters,
each of which was more cool, plausible, and copious
than the one before it ; and at last, hinting that if he
were left to choose his own time, he would go down to
Granada, and find means of levying on the Moriscos
there a fine of one hundred thousand ducats for the
1553.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 183
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
coifin as it journeyed to the tomb.
Under a course of sarsaparilla and an infusion of
liquorice the emperor's health improved as the genial
spring weather came on. But his attack of gout had
shaken him considerably, and for many weeks painful
twinges were apt to revisit his arms and knees. Nor
was he so fit for exercise as he had been during the
previous year; and his gun ceased to persecute the
wood-pigeons in the walnut-trees. But he was still
able to sit or saunter among his new parterres, bright
and fragrant with vernal flowers, and to superintend the
progress of his fountain and summer-house, which were
ready in summer to shed their coolness and offer their
shade. To his family of pets the queen of Portugal
added in April a pair of very small Indian cats, and a
parrot, gifted with wonderful faculties of speech, which
soon became the favourite of the palace.
The emperor's punctual attendance, whenever his
health permitted, on religious rites in church, and his
fondness for finding occasion for extraordinary functions
there, won him golden opinions among the friars. On
each first of May, during his stay at the convent, he
caused funeral honours to be celebrated for his empress
with great pomp, and a liberal allowance of tapers.
When he himself had completed a year of residence,
some good-humoured bantering passed between him and
the master of the novices, about its being now time for
him to make profession : and he afterwards declared, as
the friars averred, that he was prevented from taking
the vows, and becoming one of themselves, only by the
state of his health.
184 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
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 Yillalva. In the
afternoon, the emperor, who was unfortunately confined
to bed, and unable to appear, 1 provided a sumptuous re-
past for the whole convent out of doors, it being the
custom of the fraternity to mark any accession to their
numbers by a pic-nic. The country people of the Vera
sent a quantity of partridges and kids to aid the feast,
which was also enlivened by the presence of many of the
Flemish retainers, male and female, from the village of
Quacos. The prior provided a more permanent memo-
rial of the day by opening a new book for the names of
brethren admitted to the convent, on the first leaf of
which the emperor inscribed his name, an autograph
which was the pride of the archives until they were de-
stroyed by the dragoons of Buonaparte.
On the first Sunday after he came to the convent, as
he went to mass, he observed the friar, who was sprinkling
the holy water, hesitate as he approached to be aspersed.
Taking the hyssop, therefore, from his hand, he bestowed
a plentiful shower upon his own face and clothes, saying,
as he returned the instrument, ' This, father, is the way
you must do it next time/ Another friar offering the
pyx containing the holy wafer to his lips, in a similar
diffident manner, he took it into his hands, and not only
kissed it fervently, but applied it to his forehead and
eyes with true oriental reverence.
Feasting being his greatest pleasure, he considered
fasting at due times and seasons the first of human
duties; and during his last lent in Flanders, he had
specially charged the papal nuncio to grant licences for
the use of meat to no member of his household, except
1 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retmite, p. 39.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 185
the sick whose lives were in danger. 1 Although pro-
vided with an indulgence for eating before communion,
he never availed himself of it but when suffering from
extreme debility; and he always heard two masses on
the days when he partook of the solemn rite.
He usually heard mass from the window of his
bed-chamber, which looked into the church; but
at complines he went up into the choir with the
fathers, and prayed in a devout and audible voice in
his tribune. During the season of Lent, which came
round twice during his residence at Yuste, he regularly
appeared on Fridays in his place in the choir, and, at the
end of the appointed prayers, extinguishing the taper
which he, like the rest, held in his hand, he flogged him-
self with such sincerity of purpose that the scourge was
stained with blood, and the pious singularly edified.
Some of these ensanguined scourges, found in his
chamber after his death, became precious heir-looms in
the house of Austria, and honoured relics at the Es-
corial. 2 Ever strict in requiring his Flemish servants
to assemble for confession on the stated days when
their countryman, the Flemish chaplain, came over from
Xarandilla, 3 he was especially strict in causing them all,
down to the meanest scullion, to communicate on Ash
Wednesday; and on that occasion, he would stand on
the highest step of the altar, to observe if the muster
was complete. On Holy Thursday, his infirmities did
not permit him to perform the royal rite of washing
the feet of thirteen poor men; but it was performed
1 Relatione of Badovaro. See chap, iii., p. 52, note.
* They were seen and handled there in the next century by Caspar
Scioppius, as he relates in his caustic book against Strada : Infamia
Famiani, 12mo. Amsterd. : 1663, p. 18. He adds that, being still
stained with the blood of Charles, they could have ' given little pain to
the backs' of the Philips, his descendants, p. 19.
3 Chap, v., p. 107.
180 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vra.
in his presence by his chaplain, and was followed by the
usual distribution of food and alms. 1
On Good Friday, he went forth at the head of
his household to adore the holy cross; and, although
he was so infirm that he was almost carried by the
men on whom he leaned, he insisted upon prostrating
himself three times upon the ground, in the manner of
the friars, before he approached the blessed symbol with
his lips.
The feast of St. Matthias, a saint whose name he
bore, he always celebrated with peculiar devotion as a
day of great things in his life, being the day of his
birth, his coronation, the victories of Bicocca and Pavia,
and the birth of his son Don John of Austria. On
this festival, therefore, he appeared at mass in a dress
of ceremony, and wearing the collar of the Golden fleece,
and at the offertory expressed his gratitude by an obla-
tion of as many crowns as his life numbered years.
The church was thronged with strangers, and the crowd
from distant villages was so great, that a second office
and sermon took place outside, beneath the shadow of
the great walnut-tree of Yuste. The concourse was
attracted by a plenary indulgence granted on that day
by special papal decree, and enjoyed by the convent
until the privilege was transferred with the emperor's
bones to the Escorial. 2
The emperor lived with the friars on terms of friendly
familiarity, of which they were very proud, and his
household somewhat ashamed. He always insisted on
his confessor being seated in his presence, and would
never listen to the entreaties of the modest divine, that
he should at least be allowed to stand when the cham-
1 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 39.
2 TKirl
Ibid.
155S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 187
berlain or any one else came into the room. ' Have no
care of this matter, Fray Juan/ he would say, ' since
you are my father in confession, and I am equally pleased
by your sitting in my presence, and by your blushing
when caught in the act/ He knew all the friars by
sight and by name, and frequently conversed with them,
as well as with the prior; and he received their pre-
sents of fruit with a courtesy as punctilious as the
gifts of a prelate or a duchess. When the visitors
of the order paid their triennial visit of inspection
to Yuste, they represented to him with all respect,
that his majesty himself was the only inmate of the
convent with whom they had any 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 favourites was the lay-brother,
Alonso Mudarra, who, after having filled offices of trust
in the state, was now working out his own salvation as
cook to the convent. This worthy had an only daughter,
who did not share her father's contempt for mundane
things. When she came with her husband to visit him
at Yuste, emerging from among the pots in his dirtiest
apron, he thus addressed her: ' Daughter, behold my
gala apparel ; obedience is now my pleasure and my
pride ; for you, with your silks and vanities, I entertain
a profound pity P So saying, he returned to his cook-
ing, and would never see her again, an effort of holiness
to which he appears to owe his place in the chronicles
of the order.
Once the emperor honoured the friars with his com-
pany at dinner in their refectory. It was on the sixth
of June, 1557, being St. Vincent's-day; and the illus-
trious guest was observed to be in particularly good
spirits. A table was laid for him apart, near a side-
188 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
board, on which Van Male, his sole attendant, carved
the meats as they came. The cookery of the austere
Fray Alonso did not seem to be to the taste of his im-
perial friend, who ate little, and left several of the
dishes untouched. The prior, expressing his regret
that the fare did not please, Charles assured him that
everything was excellent, and that he expected that
the untasted meats would be put aside for him for
another meal. 1
While the emperor's servants were surprised by his
familiarity with the stupid friars, the friars marvelled at
his forbearance with his careless servants. They noted
his patience with Adrian the cook, although it was
notorious that he left the cinnamon, which his master
loved, out of the dishes whereof it was the proper
seasoning : and how mildly he admonished Pelayo the
baker, who, getting drunk and neglecting his oven, sent
up burnt bread, which must have sorely tried the tooth-
less gums of the emperor. Nevertheless, the old military
habits of the recluse had not altogether forsaken him ;
and there were occasions in which he showed himself
something of a martinet in enforcing the discipline of
his household and the convent. Observing in his walks,
or from his window, that a certain basket daily went
and came between his garden and the garden of the
friars, he sent for Moron, minister of the horticultural
department, and caused him to institute a search, of
which the result was the harmless discovery that the
cepevorous Flemings were in the habit of bartering egg-
plants with the friars for double rations of onions.
The confessor Regla had gone one day, without ask-
ing leave, to borrow some books of a friend at Pla-
sencia. The emperor happening to call for him, and
1 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 37.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V.
learning his absence, immediately despatched a mounted
messenger in pursuit, to order him back. The order
reached the poor monk just as he alighted at his friend's
door, after a ride of twenty-five miles; but he thought
it prudent to obey it forthwith, and retrace his steps to
Yuste. ' I would have you know, Fray Juan/ said his
imperial charge, ' that it is my pleasure that you do
not stir from the convent without my consent/ 1 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. 2 In his secular life,
Charles was accused by one contemporary 3 of following
the ways of pious times ' before polygamy was made a
sin/ and praised by another for being so severely virtuous
as to shut his window when he saw a pretty woman pass
along the street. 4 Here, however, he was determined
that neither he himself, nor his servants, nor his Jero-
mite hosts should be led into temptation. His complaint
to the superior not sufficiently suppressing the evil, it
was repeated to the visitors when they came their
rounds. An order was then issued that the conventual
dole, instead of being divided at the door, should be
sent round in certain portions to the villages of the
Vera, for distribution on the spot. And although it was
well known that St. Jerome had sometimes miracu-
1 M. Bakhuizen van den Brink : Eetraite de Charles V., p. 31.
2 Fr. Pedro de la Vega : Cronica de los frayles de Sant Hieronymo, fol.
Alcala : 1539 ; Uack letter, fol. xli.
3 Badovaro. See chap, iii., p. 52, note.
4 Zenocams : Vita Caroli 7., p. 268.
190 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. vm.
lously let loose the lion, which always figures in his
pictures, against the women who ventured themselves
within his cloisters, 1 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 third of May, 1558, the emperor received an
intimation from the secretary of state that all the forms
of his renunciation of the imperial crown had been gone
through, and that the act against which Philip and the
court had so frequently remonstrated, was now com-
plete. He expressed the greatest delight at this intelli-
gence, and sending for his chaplain, gave orders that his
name should henceforth be omitted from the mass and
other prayers, and the name of his brother Ferdinand
used in its place. In notifying the fact to his attendants,
he said, ' The name of Charles is now enough for me,
who henceforward am nothing/ 2 In his next com-
munication with Valladolid, he instructed Gaztelu to inti-
mate that in future he was to be addressed, not as em-
peror, but as a private person, and that a couple of seals,
' without crown, eagle, fleece, or other device/ were to be
made and forthwith sent for his use. In this letter the usual
heading ' the emperor/ was left out, and it was addressed
to Juan Vazquez de Molina, not as before, ( my secre-
trary/ but ' secretary of the council of the king, my son/
The blank seals were made and sent ; but, in spite of
Charles's injunctions, the princess-regent and all his
other correspondents continued to address him by his
ancient style and title of ' sacred Csesarean Catholic
1 P. de la Vega : Cronica, fol. xli.
2 Bakhuizen van den Brink : La Retraite, p. 43.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 191
majesty/ which indeed it would have been no less diffi-
cult than absurd to change. Once he made a practical
protest against being any longer considered as a royal
personage. The women of Quacos having sent him a
nosegay of fine pinks, the offering was conveyed in a
basket which the maker had adorned with an imperial
crown of wicker-work and flowers. This decoration he
ordered to be taken away, before he would receive the
pinks.
192 CLOISTER LIFE OF PCHAP. ix.
CHAPTER IX.
THE INQUISITION, ITS ALLIES AND ITS VICTIMS.
THE year 1558 is memorable in the history of Spain.
In that year was decided the question whether she
was to join the intellectual movement of the north, or lag
behind in the old paths of 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 Protest-
antism, out of which were to come the Thirty years' war,
the English commonwealth, French revolutions, and mo-
dern republics. The effect was visible and palpable, yet
transient as the effect produced by the great Lisbon
earthquake on the distant waters of Lochloniond. But
to the powers that were it was sufficiently alarming.
For some weeks a church-in-danger panic pervaded the
court at Valladolid and the cloister of Yuste ; and it
was feared that while the most catholic king was bring-
ing back his realm of England to the true fold, Castille
herself might go astray into the howling wilderness of
heresy and schism.
The harvest of church abuses into which Luther and
his band thrust their sharp sickles in Germany had long
been rank and rife to the south of the Pyrenees. Nor
were reapers, strong, active, and earnest, wanting to the
field. From the beginning of the sixteenth century, not
only laymen, but even friars, priests, and dignitaries of
the church, had stood forth with voice and pen to make
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 193
solemn protest against the vices of the various orders of
the priesthood; against the greedy avarice and disso-
lute lives of monks; against the regular clergy, who
preferred their hawks and hounds to their cures of
souls; against oppressive prelates and chapters, who
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 Europe was irrigated with ecclesiastical
pollution. In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, and
during the infamous papacy of Alexander the Sixth,
the disorders of the Franciscan mendicants had reached
such a pitch of public scandal in Spain, that those of them
who adhered to the party which was called cloisteral,
in opposition to the reformed party of the observants,
were suppressed by law, and actually expelled from their
monasteries. But although this just and necessary
measure was enforced by the strong hand of Ximenes,
then provincial of the order and afterwards cardinal-pri-
mate, the cowled vagabonds who, refusing to purge and
live cleanly, were driven from Toledo, had the audacity
to file out of the Yisagra gate in long procession,
headed by a crucifix, and chanting the psalm which
celebrates the exodus of the people of God from the
bondage of Egypt. 1 Abundant proof of the demoralized
state of the Spanish clergy, regular and secular, may be
found in those collections of obscene songs and poems,
still preserved as curiosities in libraries, and com-
posed chiefly in the cloister, in an age when none
but churchmen wrote, and few but churchmen read. 2
1 Psalm cxiii. (in our version cxiv.) : 'In exitu Israel de Egypto,' &c.
See Eugenio de Robles : Vida del cardenal D. From. Ximenes de C'isneros,
4to. Toledo : 1604, p. 68, and Alvar. Gomez ; De rebus gestis a F.
Ximenio Cisnerio : 4to. Compluti : 1569, fol. 7-
2 See the curious essay on this subject, by Don Luis de Usoz y Rio,
prefixed to the Cancionero de obras de bwlas, 4to. Valencia : 1519 ; re-
printed sm. Svo. London : 1841.
O
1 94 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
Similar evidence, perhaps still more convincing, exists
in the proverbial philosophy of Spain, that old and
popular record in which each generation noted its expe-
rience, where clerical cant, greed, falsehood, gluttony,
and uncleanness are so frequently lashed, as to leave
no doubt of the wisdom of the precept which said,
'Parson, friar, and Jew, friends like these eschew/ 1
These evils were so monstrous and so crying, that
those who denounced them enjoyed for awhile the
support of popular feeling, and even the good will of the
secular power. But while all good men, both lay and
ecclesiastic, deplored and even denounced the wickedness
of churchmen, there is no reason to believe that they
were shaken in their faith in the infallible church.
They abhorred the hireling shepherd, not only because
he was hateful in himself, but because they loved the
true fold, of which he was the danger and the disgrace.
Even the Inquisition was no enemy to reform, and
although its chief business was to keep the Jew and
the Moor under the yoke of enforced Christianity, it
occasionally took cognizance of the grosser cases of
clerical profligacy. Under the rule of Adrian of Utrecht,
afterwards pope, and of cardinal Manrique, the holy
office issued some decrees against the heresy of Luther
and against the importation of heretical books into
Spain. But the offenders condemned under these laws
were few, and principally foreigners ; and the fires were
usually kindled for victims who were supposed to pray
with their faces turned to the east, to deal in astrology,
and witchcraft, to keep the Sabbath, to circumcise their
children, to hate the Christian sound of bells, or to use
the heathen luxury of the bath.
It was not until near the middle of the century that the
1 'Clerigo, frayle, 6 Judio, no lo tengas por amigo.' A de Castro ; Los
Protestcmtes fispanoles : p. 39.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 195
seed cast by the wayside took root in the stony ground of
Castille. Then it was that Spanish pens began to be
busy with translations of the Scriptures. That such
translations were as yet not forbidden, may be in-
ferred from the fact that the first work of the kind,
the Castillian new testament of Enzinas, printed at
Antwerp in 1543, was dedicated to the emperor
Charles the Fifth. In spite, however, of this judicious
choice of a patron, the poor author very shortly found
himself in prison at Bruxelles, as a heretical perverter
of the text. Notwithstanding his ill-fortune, several
versions of the psalms and other sacred books, and
a new testament in verse, were put forth from the
presses of Antwerp and Venice. Commentaries, glosses,
dialogues, and other treatises of questionable orthodoxy,
followed in rapid succession. Their circulation in Spain
became so extensive that the inquisition interfered with
fresh laws and increased severities. The stoppage of the
regular traffic only stimulated public curiosity, and the
forbidden tracts were soon smuggled in bales by the mule-
teers over the mountains from Huguenot Bearne, or run
in casks by English or Dutch traders, on the shores of
Andalusia. 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 Seville
and Valladolid. No longer contented with pointing out
the weather-stains and rents in the huge ecclesiastical
fabric, reformers began to pry with inconvenient curiosity
into the nature of its foundations. But no sooner had
the first stroke fallen upon that venerable accumu-
lation of ages than the chiefs of the black garrison
196 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
at once saw the full extent of their danger. To
them the rubbish on the surface being far more pro-
ductive, was at least as sacred as the eternal rock
beneath. Wisely therefore, postponing their private
differences to a fitter season of adjustment, they sallied
forth upon the foe, armed with all the power of the state
as well as with all the terror of the keys. The unhappy
inquirers, uncertain of their own aims and plans, were
not supported by any of those political chances and
necessities which aided the triumph of religious reform
in other lands. The battle was therefore short, the
carnage terrible, and the victory so signal and decisive,
that it remains to this day a source of shame or of pride
to the zealots of either party, who still love the sound of
the polemic trumpet. The protestant must confess that
the new religion has never succeeded in eradicating the
old, even amongst the freest and boldest of the Teutonic
people. The catholic, on the other hand, may fairly
boast, that in the Iberian peninsula the seeds of reform
were crushed by Rome at once and for ever.
What the new tenets were can hardly be made clear
to us, since they were not clear to the unhappy persons
who were burned for holding them. Protestant divines
have assumed that these tenets were protestant, on
account of the savage vengeance with which they were
pursued by the church. In one feature these dead and
forgotten dogmas have some interest for the philosopher,
in the glimmering perception which appears in them,
that tolerance is a Christian duty; that honesty in
matters of 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 punish-
ment. Yet none of the so-called Spanish protestants
have enunciated these sentiments so clearly as the
Benedictine Virues in his treatise against the opinions
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 107
of Luther and Melancthon. 1 Had time been given for
the new spirit of inquiry to shape itself into some de-
finite form, it would doubtless have greatly modified the
character of Spanish religion; although it is scarcely
probable that it would have led the children of the
south, with their warm blood and tendency to sensuous
symbolism, into that track of severe and progressive
speculation, into which reform conducted the people of
the north. But inquiry demands time ; and the church
being too wise to trifle with so deadly a foe, it was
strangled in the cradle by the iron gripe of the inquisitor.
Fines, confiscation, the dungeon, the galleys, the rack,
and the fire, admonished men to believe without ques-
tioning : and engendered the popular feeling that learning
was indeed a dangerous thing, a feeling which early
embodied itself in the form of a proverb, often cast by
serene ignorance in the teeth of the toiling student,
'He is so learned that he runs the risk of turning
Lutheran/ 2
It would be curious to investigate the causes to which
this repressive policy owed its success; and to discover the
reasons why the Spaniard thus clung to a superstition
which the Hollander cast away ; why the strong giant
whose flag was on every sea, and whose foot was on every
shore, shrank to a pigmy in the field of theological specu-
lation. But the germs of a popular faith must be sought
for far and wide in the moral and physical circum-
stance of a people; and it lies beyond the scope of a
biographical fragment, to analyze the mixed blood of
the Spaniard, the moral atmosphere of his beautiful
land, and the texture of his national history. Suffice it,
1 Quoted by A. de Castro : Los Protestantes Espanoles : p. 62.
2 ' Es tan docto que esta en peligro de ser Lutherano.' Cyprian Valera,
Exhortation prefixed to his Castillian Bible ; Amsterdam : 1602, and
quoted by A. de Castro ; Los Protestantes Espanoles ; p. 84.
198 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
therefore, to notice two points wherein the victorious
church possessed advantages in Spain, which were want-
ing to her in the countries where she was vanquished.
The first of these was the existence of a spiritual police
claiming unlimited jurisdiction over thought, long es-
tablished, well organized, well trained, untrammelled by
the forms of ordinary justice, and so habitually merci-
less, as to have accustomed the nation to see blood shed
like water on account of religious error. Before this
terrible machinery the recruits of reform, raw, wavering,
doubting, without any clear common principle or habits
of combination, were swept away like the Indians of
Mexico, before the cavalry and culverins of Cortes.
The second advantage of the Spanish church was her
intimate connexion with the national glory, and her
strong hold, if not on the affections, at least on the
antipathies of the people. The Moorish wars, which had
been brought to a close within the memory of men still
alive, had been eminently wars of religion and of race ;
they were domestic crusades, which had endured for
eight centuries, and in which the church had led the
van ; and in which the knights of Castille deemed it no
disloyalty to avow that they had been guided to victory
rather by the cross of Christ than by the castles and lions
of their beloved Isabella. Deeply significant of the spirit
of the enterprise and the age was the fact, that it was
the sacred cross of Toledo, the symbol of primacy borne
before the grand-cardinal Mendoza, which was solemnly
raised, in the sight of the Christian host, in the place
of the crescent, on the red towers of the Alhambra. 1
Since that proud day, the church, once more militant
under cardinal Ximenes, had carried the holy war into
1 Pedro de Salazar : Cronica de el gran Cardetial D. Pedro Gonzalez de
Mendofa, fol. Toledo : 1625, p. 256.
1....S.J EMPEROR CHARLES V. 109
Africa, and gained a footing in the land of Tarik and
the Saracen. All good Christians devoutly believed, with
the chronicler, 1 that ' powder burned against the infidel
was sweet incense to the Lord/ In Spain itself there
was still a large population of Moorish blood, which
made a garden of many a pleasant valley, and a fortress
of many a mountain range, and which, although Chris-
tian in name, was well known to be Moslem in heart
and secret practice, and to be anxiously looking to the
great Turk for deliverance from thraldom. Every city,
too, had its colony of Hebrews, wretches who accumu-
lated untold wealth, eschewed pork and holy water, and
ate the paschal lamb. Against these domestic dangers
the church kept watch and ward, doing, with the full
approval of the Christian people, all that cruelty and
bad faith could do to make Judaism and Islamism eternal
and implacable. When the Barbary pirates sacked a
village on the shores of Spain, or made a prize of a
Spanish galley at sea, it was the church who sent forth
those peaceful crusaders, the white-robed friars of the
order of Mercy, to redeem the captives from African
bondage. In Spain, therefore, heresy, or opposition to
the authority of the church, was connected in the popular
mind with all that was most shameful in their annals of
the past, and all that was most hated and feared in the
circumstances of the present, and in the prospects of the
future. In northern Europe, the church had no mar-
tial achievements to boast of, and few opportunities
of appearing in the beneficent character of a protector
or redeemer. She was known merely in her spiritual
capacity ; or as a power in the state no less proud and
oppressive than king or count; or as the channel through
J Gonz. Fernandez de Oviedo : Quincuagenas ; quoted by Prescott ;
Hist . oj Ferdinand and Isabella.
200 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
which the national riches were drained off into the
papal treasury at Rome. In the north, the reformer
was not merely the denouncer of ecclesiastical abuses,
but the champion of the people's rights, and the re-
dresser of their wrongs. But in Spain, the poor enthu-
siast, to his horror, found himself associated in popular
esteem, as well as in the inquisition dungeons, with the
Jew, the crucifier of babies, and the Morisco, who plotted
to restore the caliphate of the west. Men's passions
became so inflamed against the new doctrines, that an
instance is recorded of a wretched fanatic, who asked
leave, which was joyfully granted, to light the pile
whereon his young daughters were to die. Long after
the excitement had passed away, a mark of the torrent
remained in the proverbial phrase, in which the aspect
of poverty was described as being ' ugly as the face of a
heretic/ 1
The inquisitor general, archbishop Valdes, had for
some months past been watching the movement party
in the church with anxiety, not unmingled with alarm.
He had even applied to the pope for extended powers.
In February he received a brief, in which were renewed
and consolidated all the decrees ever issued by popes
or councils against heresy a document in which Paul,
unable to resist the temptation of insulting Philip the
Second, even while he was treating with him, conferred
upon the inquisition the power of deposing from their
dignities heretics of whatever degree, were they bishops,
archbishops, or cardinals, dukes, kings, or emperors. 2
The first heretic of note who was arrested at Valla-
dolid, was Dr. Augustin Cazalla, an eminent divine who
1 A. de Castro : Hist, de los Protestantes Espanoles, pp. 218, 311.
9 Llorente : Hist, de la Inquisition, 8 vols. sm. 8vo. Barcelona : 1835,
iii. 264.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 201
h:id for ten years attended Charles the Fifth in Germany
and the Netherlands as his preacher, and in that capacity
had distinguished himself by the force and eloquence with
which he had denounced Luther and his errors. But
while he saved others, the doctor himself became a cast-
away. Having been for some time suspected of holding
the new opinions, he was arrested on the twenty-third
of April, as he was going to preach beyond the walls of
the city, and was lodged in the prison of the inquisition.
His sister, and several other noble ladies, were likewise
taken at the same time ; and orders were given to search
for an important member of the party, Fray Domingo
de Roxas, son of the marquess of Poza, a Dominican of
high reputation for sanctity,
Notice of these events was immediately sent to
Yuste. The emperor heard of them with much emotion
emotion not of pity for the probable fate of his chap-
lain, but of horror of the crime laid to his charge. He
soon afterwards addressed two letters to the princess-
regent, one a private and tender epistle, the other a public
despatch to be laid before the council. In both of them
he entreated her to lose no time and spare no pains to
uproot the dangerous doctrine; and in the second, he
advised that all who were found guilty should be punished,
without any exception ; and said that if the state of his
health permitted, he would himself undertake any toil for
the chastisement of so great a crime, and the remedy of
so great an evil. Talking of the same matter with the
prior of Yuste, he again expressed the same opinion
and the same wish. ' Father/ said he, 'if anything
could drag me from this retreat, it would be to aid in
chastising these heretics. For such creatures as those
now in prison, however, this is not necessary, but I have
written to the inquisition to burn them all, for none of
CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
them will ever become true catholics, or are worthy to
live/ 1
His advice was taken, though not with the prompti-
tude he desired. But the alguazils of the holy office knew
no repose from their labour of capturing the culprits.
In a few days Fray Domingo de Roxas was taken, with
several other members of the Roxas family, and several
noble ladies of the family of the marquess of Alcani9es, a
branch of the great house of Henriquez. New arrest-
ments, and new informations followed so fast upon each
other, that the inquisition was overwhelmed with busi-
ness, and its prisons filled to overflowing. The extra-
vagant alarm of the orthodox party was roused to fury
by the extravagant boasts of some of the arrested
preachers. ' Let us alone/ cried Cazalla, ' but for
four months, and we shall equal you in numbers/ 2
Rumours were rife of a rising among the Jews of
Murcia, and of a general emigration of the Moriscos
of Aragon towards the frontiers of France. The regent
and her minister were at their wits' ends at the dangers
which were thus thickening around them.
The crafty old inquisitor-general alone rejoiced in
the public panic and confusion. He was now secure
from all chance of being sent to attend a royal corpse
across the kingdom ; of being ordered into exile amongst
his refractory canons ; or of being fleeced of his savings
by the crown. So long as the faithful were menaced by
this flood of Lutheran heresy, so long would he be the
greatest man in the ark of safety the church. He
therefore took his measures rather to direct than to lull
the storm. Visiting Salamanca, he made there a large
seizure of bibles and other heretical books, and convened
1 Sandoval, ii. 829.
9 A. de Castro : Los Protestantes Espanoles, p. 312.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 203
a council of doctors, with whose assistance he drew up
a censure on the new doctrines, which he caused to be
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 suspected Lutherans, under pretence of being
inquirers or converts, and thus to make themselves
acquainted with their numbers, principles, hopes, and
designs. Lured to destruction by these wretches, many
persons of all ranks were arrested at Toro and Zamora,
Palencia and Logroiio. Seville was the great southern
seat of heresy, and in the neighbouring convent of St.
Isidro del Campo, the Jeromite friars almost to a man
were tainted with the new opinions. Valladolid, how-
ever, was the stronghold of the sect, and in spite of the
odour of sanctity which surrounded the pious regent,
the brimstone-savour of false doctrine offended the
orthodox nostril in the very precincts of the palace.
So engrossed was the emperor with the subject, that
he postponed to it for awhile all other affairs of state.
He urged the princess to remember that the welfare of
the kingdom and of the church of God was bound up in
the suppression of heresy, and that therefore it demanded
greater diligence and zeal than any temporal matter.
He had been informed that the false teachers had been
spreading their poison over the land for nearly a year ; a
length of time for which they could have eluded dis-
covery only through the aid or the connivance of a great
mass of the people. If it were possible, therefore, he
would have their crime treated in a short and summary
manner, like sedition or rebellion. The king his son
had executed sharp and speedy justice upon many
heretics, and even upon bishops in England ; how much
more, then, ought his measures to be swift and strong
in his own hereditary and catholic realms? He re-
204 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
commended the princess to confer with Quixada, and
employ him in the business according as she judged
best.
To the king in Flanders he wrote in a similar strain,
insisting on the necessity of vigour and severity. And
as if the letter, penned by the secretary, were not suffi-
ciently forcible and distinct, he added this postscript in
his own hand :
' Son the black business which has risen here has
shocked me as much as you can think or suppose.
You will see what I have written about it to your sister.
It is essential that you write to her yourself, and that
you take all the means in your power to cut out the
root of the evil with rigour and rude handling. But
since you are better disposed, and will assist more
warmly, than I can say or wish, I will not enlarge
further thereon. Your good father Charles/ 1
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/ 2
At the end of May, Quixada, by the emperor's order,
saw the inquisitor-general, and urged on him the expe-
1 ' 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
procurers cortar de raiz y con mucho rigor y recio castigo. Y porque se
teneis mas voluntad y asistereis de mas hervor que yo lo sabria ni podra,
decir ni desear no me alargare mas en esto. De vuestro buen padre,
Carlos.' Emperor to Philip the Second, 25th of May, 1558. Gonzalez
MS.
* Besalle los manos por lo que en esto ha mandado y suplicarle lo lleve
adelante, que de aca se hara lo mismo y avisarle de lo que se ha hecho
hasta agora.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 205
diency 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 everything else,
archbishop Valdes would take his own way and no
other. With his usual plausibility he assured the
chamberlain that the roots of the disease could not be
laid bare more thoroughly than by the ordinary opera-
tions of inquisitorial surgery. Besides, so many people
were crying out for quick and condign punishment to
fall upon the criminals, that there was every reason to
hope that the greater part of the nation still stood fast
in the faith. He had, however, sent for the bishop of
Tarazona and the inquisitor of Cuenca to assist him in
hearing cases, and would use every prudent method of
shortening the proceedings.
A few days later, on the second of June, the arch-
bishop himself wrote to the emperor, and submitted to
him various new measures which appeared to him likely
to be useful. First of all, he would extend the holy
office to Galicia, Biscay, and Asturias, provinces which
had not as yet benefited by its paternal care. He next
proposed to make confession and communion obligatory
upon all the king's subjects, and to open a register of
such persons as habitually absented themselves from
those sacraments. A third suggestion was, that no
schoolmaster should be allowed to exercise his calling
until he had been licensed by a lay and a clerical ex-
aminer. And lastly, the book-trade was to be placed
under the severest restrictions. It was to be declared
unlawful to print any book without the author's and
printer's names, and without the permission of the holy
office, a permission which was also to be obtained be-
fore any book could be imported into the kingdom.
Foreigners were to be forbidden to sell books; and
Spanish books printed abroad were to be totally prohi-
206 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
bited. Booksellers were to be compelled to hang up in
their shops lists of all the books which they kept for
sale. Lastly, informers were to be rewarded with the
third or fourth part of the property of such persons as
might be convicted through their means of breaches of
any of these laws.
Unwise, unjust, and impracticable as these measures
were, it does not appear that they were so considered by
the emperor, or that he withheld his approval from any
of their absurd provisions. The inquisitor-general there-
fore proceeded to enforce them. One of his first steps
was to prepare a catalogue of books prohibited by the
church, which was published at Valladolid in the follow-
ing year, and became the harbinger and model of the
famous expurgatory index, opened by Paul the Fourth, in
which the Vatican continues to record its protest against
the advancement of knowledge. 1 Thus it came to pass
that Mariana and Solis, Cervantes and Calderon, were
forced to wait upon the pleasure and tremble at the
caprice of licenser after licenser ; that the beauty, the in-
tegrity, and even the existence of some of the finest works
of the human mind were so long jeoparded in the dirty
hands of stupid friars. There were ages in which the
church, as the sanctuary of art, and knowledge, and let-
ters, deserved the gratitude of the world ; but for the last
three centuries she has striven to cancel the debt, in the
noble offspring of genius which she has strangled in the
birth, and in the vast fields of intellect which her dark
shadow has blighted.
For a time, at least, the vigilance exercised over book-
* Cdthalogus librorum qui prohibentur mandato illustriss. et reverendiss.
D. D. Fernandi de Valdes Hispalen. archiepis. inquisitoris generalis
HispanicB necnon et supremi sanctce ac generalis inquisitionis senatus.
Hie anno MDLIX. editus Pincice, 4to. of 28 leaves, or 56 pages, including
title. It is extremely rare, and seems to have been unknown to Brundt.
A copy is in the possession of Don Pascual de Gayangos, at Madrid.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 207
shop and library was very strict. At Yuste, Dr. Mathys
had a small bible, in French and without notes, which,
in these times of doubt and danger, he feared might get
him into trouble. He therefore asked the secretary of
state to procure him a licence to retain and read the
volume. Vazquez replied that the inquisitors demurred
about granting this request; and the prudent doctor,
therefore, soon after intimated that he had burned the for-
bidden book in the presence of the emperor's confessor.
The physician judged wisely. When court ladies and
Jeromite friars were attacked with the plague of heresy,
and carried off to the hospitals of the inquisition, who
could feel certain of escaping the epidemic, or the cure ?
The most catholic horror of the new doctrines was there-
fore professed at Yuste; and Gaztelu, reporting at the
beginning of June, that ceaseless rain had been falling
for nearly twenty days, remarked, that such weather
would do much damage in the country, but that the
errors of Luther would do far more. The emperor was
much distressed by a rumour that a son of father Borja
had been arrested at Seville. He immediately wrote to
the secretary of state to send him a statement of the
fact, and was relieved by learning that it was not known
at court. It turned out to be a fiction of the friars of
Yuste, who, thinking it hard that the fold of Jerome
alone should have the shame of harbouring wolves in
sheep's clothing, were nothing loath to cast a stone at the
austerely orthodox and rapidly rising company of Jesus.
On discovering the story's source the emperor was not
greatly surprised; for, said Gaztelu, 'the friars and
Flemings are ever filling his ears with fables, and I
myself stink in their nostrils by reason of the many lies
I have brought home to them/
Another rumour, which was better founded, spoke of
the arrest of Pompeyo Leoni, one of the royal artists.
208 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
Much annoyed, the emperor 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 answered that the sculptor
was in prison for maintaining certain Lutheran proposi-
tions ; and that he was sentenced to appear at an auto-
de-fe, and afterwards suffer a year's imprisonment in a
monastery ; but that the busts were in safety.
At Seville, Fray Domingo de Guzman, also a new-made
prisoner, was likewise known to the emperor. Of him,
however, on hearing of his arrest, Charles merely re-
marked that he might have been locked up as much for
being an idiot as for being a heretic. 1 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. 2
For him Charles entertained more respect, and upon
hearing that he had been committed to the castle of
Triana, observed, ' If Constantino be a heretic, he will
prove a great one. ' Like Cazalla, the canon, after
thundering against reform in the land of reform, had
returned to Spain a reformer. His immediate ( merits/
for so the inquisition, with grim irony, called the acts
or opinions which 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
1 Sandoval, ii. 829. * Chap. v. p. 111.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 209
monotony of the bull-fights by indulging the people
with an auto-de-fe. The emperor was therefore dead
before the unhappy clergymen, who had stood by his
bed in sickness and conversed with him at table in
health, were sent to expiate with their blood their
speculative offences against the church. Dr. Cazalla
was one of fourteen heretics who were ' relaxed/ or, in
secular speech, burnt, in May, 1559, at Valladolid, be-
fore the regent and his court. Unhappily for his party
and for his own fair fame, the poor chaplain behaved,
with a pusillanimity very rare amongst Spaniards when
brought face to face with inevitable death, or amongst
men who suffer for conscience sake. Denying the crime
of ' dogmatizing/ as the inquisition well called preach-
ing, he confessed that he had held heretical opinions,
and abjectly abjured them all. His tears and cries, as
in his robe, painted with devils, he walked in the sad
procession and stood upon the fatal stage, moved the
contempt of his companions, amongst whom his brother
and sister had also come calmly to die. At the price
of this humiliation he obtained the grace of being
strangled before he was cast into the flames. A report
had spread amongst the populace that he had declared
that, if his penitence and sufferings should obtain him
salvation, he would appear the day after his death riding
through the city on a white horse. The inquisitors,
availing themselves of a rumour of which they perhaps
were authors, next day turned a white horse loose in the
streets, and caused it to be whispered that the steed was
indeed ridden by the departed doctor, although not in
such shape as to be visible to every carnal eye. 1 Fray
Francisco de Roxas, amidst a band in which the shep-
herd and the muleteer were associated in suffering and
1 A. de Castro : Spanish Protestants, 98.
P
210 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
in glory with the noble knight and the delicate lady,
died bravely, in October 1559, at Valladolid, in the
presence of Philip the Second. Fray Domingo de Guz-
man suffered at Seville in 1560, in that auto-de-fe in
which English Nicholas Burton also perished, and in
which Juana Bohorques, a young mother who had been
racked to death a few weeks before, was solemnly de-
clared to have been innocent by her murderers them-
selves. Constantino Ponce de la Fuente, confessing to
the proscribed doctrines, but refusing to name his dis-
ciples, had been thrown into a dungeon, dark and
noisome as Jeremiah's pit, far below the level of the
Guadalquivir, where a dysentery soon delivered him
from chains and the hands of his tormentors. 'Yet
did not his body/ says a churchman, writing some ages
after, in the true spirit of orthodoxy, and with all the
bitterness of contemporary gall, 1 ' for this escape the
avenging flames/ At this same auto-de-fe of 1560,
they burned the exhumed bones of Constantino, together
with his effigy, modelled with some care, and imitating,
with outstretched arms, the attitude in which he was
wont to charm the crowds that gathered beneath his
pulpit at Seville.
During the progress of the hunt after heretics Charles
frequently conversed with his confessor and the prior
on the subject which lay so near his heart. So keen
was his hatred of the very name of heresy, that he once
reproved Regla for citing, in his presence, in proof of
some indifferent topic, a passage from a book by one
Juan Fero, because that forgotten writer was then
known to have been no catholic. 2 In looking back on
the early religious troubles of his reign, it was ever his
1 Nicolas Antonio : art., Constantino Ponce de la Fuente.
2 Salazar de Mendo9a : Dignidades de CastiLla, fol. Madrid : 1617,
fol. 161.
1553.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 211
that he did not put Luther to death when lie
had him in his power. He had spared him, he said, on
account of his pledged word, which, indeed, he would
have been bound to respect in any case which concerned
his own authority alone; but he now saw that he had
greatly erred in preferring the obligation of a promise
to the higher duty of avenging upon that archheretic his
offences against God. Had Luther been removed, he
conceived that the plague might have been stayed, but
now it seemed to rage with ever-increasing fury. He
had some consolation, however, in recollecting how
steadily he had refused to hear the points at issue
between the church and the schismatics argued in his
presence. At this price he had declined to purchase
the support of some of the protestant princes of the
empire, when he first took the field against the Saxon
and the Hessian : he had refused to buy aid at this
price, even when flying with only ten horsemen before
the army of duke Maurice. He knew the danger,
especially for the unlearned, of parleying with heretics
who had their quivers full of reasons so apt and so well
ordered. Suppose one of their specious arguments had
been planted in his soul, how did he know that he could
ever have got it rooted out ?* Thus did a great man
misread the spirit of his time ; thus did he cling, to the
last, to the sophisms of blind guides who taught that
crass ignorance was saving faith, and that the delectable
mountains of spiritual perfection were to be climbed
only by those who would walk with stopped ears and
hoodwinked eyes.
In this year, cardinal Siliceo having gone to St.
Ildefonso's bosom, the vacant archiepiscopal throne of
Toledo became a mark for the intrigues of every ambi-
1 Sandoval, ii. 829.
p 2
2 1 a CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
tious churchman within the dominions of Spain. The
grand -inquisitor, busy as he was with his massacre of
the innocents,, of course found time to urge his claim to
a seventh mitre. But his niggard responses to the
appeals of the needy crown were still remembered both
at Bruxelles and at Yuste ; so for him promotion came
neither from the north nor from the west.
The golden prize was given to Fray Bartolome
Carranza de Miranda, a name which stands high on the
list of the Wolseys of the world, of men remembered
less for the splendid heights to which they had 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 -adviser of Philip the
Second in that short-lived return to popery which
Spanish churchmen loved to call the restoration of
England. In England the ruthless black friar had been
a mark for popular vengeance ; and Oxford, Cambridge,
and Lambeth long remembered how he had preached
the sacrifice of the mass, how he helped to dig up the
bones of Bucer, and how he had aided at the burning of
Cranmer. For these services his master had rewarded
him with the richest see in Christendom ; and he came
to Spain in the summer to take possession of his throne,
little dreaming that his implacable and indefatigable
rival, the inquisitor Valdes, was already preparing the
indictment which was to make his primatical reign a
long disgrace.
Carranza had been well known to the emperor, who
had given him his first step on the ladder of promotion
by sending him to display** his lore and his eloquence at
the council of Trent. There he acquitted himself so
well, that Charles offered him, first the Peruvian
bishopric of Cuzco, next the post of confessor to prince
ir,f>8.] EMPEROR CHARLES V.
Philip, and lastly the bishopric of the Canaries. His
refusal of all these dignities somewhat surprised his
patron ; and this surprise became displeasure when he
learned that the refuser had accepted the mitre of
Toledo. William, one of the emperor's barbers, related
that he had heard his master say, 'When I offered
Carranza the Canaries he declined it; now he takes
Toledo. What are we to think of his virtue ?' These
feelings were doubtless fostered by his confessor, Regla,
who, as a Jeromite, naturally hated a Dominican, and
afterwards proved himself one of the bitterest enemies
of the persecuted prelate. The truth is, that Carranza,
though a priest, seems to have been an honest and un-
ambitious man ; he carried his reluctance so far beyond
the bounds of decent clerical coyness as to recommend
to the king three eminent rivals as better qualified than
himself for the primacy; 1 and the great crosier was
thrust by Philip into his unwilling hand on the ground
that he was of all men best fitted to keep the wolf of
heresy from the door of the true fold.
The emperor had given away, in his time, too many
mitres to wonder long at the worldly-mindedness of a
churchman. Valdes, also, was too astute to attempt to
injure his rival merely by alleging against him a vice
inherent in their common cloth. He stabbed, there-
fore, at what was then the tenderest spot in any repu-
tation, priestly or laic, by casting a suspicion on his
orthodoxy. Before the unconscious archbishop arrived
at court, the inquisitor secretly informed the regent
that many of the captive heretics had made very un-
pleasant confessions respecting the opinions of the new
primate; and that the king ought to be put on his
1 Salazar de Miranda : Vida de Fr. Bart, de Carranza y Miranda,
12mo. Madrid: 1788, p. 34.
214 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
guard against him; and he gave a glimpse into the
ways of his tribunal, by adding, that although nothing
substantial had yet been advanced, still, had as much
been said of any other person, that person would already
have been taken into custody. The infanta of course
forwarded this intelligence to Yuste, and the emperor
expressed a wish to hear more of the matter, desiring,
however, that it should be handled with the greatest
caution and reserve.
Carranza sailed from Flanders on the twenty-fourth
of June, but being detained by contrary winds on the
English shore, he did not land at Laredo until the
beginning of August. On the thirteenth of that month
he kissed the regent's hand at Valladolid, where he
resided for some weeks in great honour in the noble
convent of San Pablo, with his brethren of the order of
St. Dominick. Caressed and consulted both by the
princess and by the knot of priests who were plotting
his ruin, he took his seat several times in the council of
state, and also at the council-board of the inquisition.
To the latter tribunal he gave an account of his pro-
ceedings against heresy in Flanders, and against the
Spaniards who had fled thither from spiritual justice ;
and he assisted the inquisitor-general with advice upon
the new laws to be promulgated against the press. He
was, however, desirous of proceeding to his diocese, being
unwilling to break, at the outset of his episcopal career,
the rules which he had laid down in his tract, written
when he was a simple monk, on the residence of bishops,
a tract which gained him many enemies among the
hierarchy, 1 and which must have been peculiarly dis-
tasteful to the absentee of Seville. It was determined,
1 Noticia de la vida deEart. Carranza de Miranda, par D. M. S., 8vo.
Madrid : 1845, p. 7.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 215
therefore, that he should visit Yuste, as he went to
Toledo, in order to lay before the emperor some evidence
on the quarrel between his eldest daughter Mary and
her husband, Maximilian, king of Bohemia, whom she
charged with inconstancy, and wished to be parted
from. This affair being referred to the decision of
Charles, he was desirous of having an account of it from
a prudent and impartial witness.
The war in Flanders had continued to smoulder on
during the spring with few actions worthy of record, and.
little loss or gain to either party. At the end of April
the French must have made a movement causing some
alarm at Bruxelles, for on the third of May a cabinet
courier, named Espinosa, was sent off by land to Spain,
with a cipher-despatch concealed in his stirrup-leathers.
Galloping across the enemy's country without let or
hindrance, he reached Valladolid on the tenth, and was
sent on by the princess to carry his news, and tell his
story at Yuste. The emperor gave him a long audience,
and overwhelmed him with questions about the king's
measures of defence, which appeared to the old soldier
to be better than usual. ' He asked/ wrote the secre-
tary, 'more questions than were ever put to the damsel
Theodora/ 1 a Christian slave, whose beauty and various
erudition charmed a king of Tunis, in an old and popular
Spanish tale. 2 In a few weeks, however, the duke of
Guise marched upon the Moselle, and stormed the im-
portant and strongly fortified town of Thionville, putting
1 * Le hizo,' said Gaztelu, ' mas preguntas que se pudieran hacer a la
donzella Theodor.' Gaztelu to Vazquez, 18th of May, 1558. Gon-
zalez MS.
8 The Historic de la donzella Theodora was a popular story, written,
no one seems to know when, by one Alfonso, an Aragonese. Antonio
assigns a date neither to the book nor the author. The earliest edition
cited by Brunet is that of 1607. The tale was afterwards dramatized
by Lope de Vega. Ticknor : Hist, of Span. Lit. ii. 312.
2 1 6 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
the greater part of the garrison to the sword, and ex-
pelling the inhabitants in order to give their homes to a
colony of his old clients of Metz. This loss was severely
felt by the emperor, who continued to deplore it, until
he was comforted by the tidings of the victory at
Gravelines.
The marechal de Thermes, governor of Calais, wishing
to illustrate his new baton by some gallant service, had
undertaken a foray into the Spanish Netherlands.
Having carried fire and sword, rapine and rape, along
a considerable length of coast, he was at last met by
Egmont, near the town of Gravelines, on the banks of
the Aa. The battle, fought for several hours with
great obstinacy, was at last turned against the lilies by
the sudden appearance of an English sailor, who mingled
in the fray with all the effect of Neptune in an Homeric
field. Cruising along the coast with twelve small
vessels, admiral Malin, hearing the firing, put into the
river, and galled the flank of the French with broadsides
so unexpected and severe, that they were soon in head-
long flight. Two hundred prisoners were reserved as
curious trophies by the English tars ; the greater part
of the army was cut off in detail by the furious peasantry;
the marechal and his chief officers fell into the hands of
Egmont ; and the battle, which was the last event of
any importance in the war, had a considerable influence
in bringing about the peace of Cateau-Cambresis in the
following winter. But the emperor had, as usual, to
lament the opportunities wasted by his son ; and often
observed, that now was the time to have invested Calais
when the enemy was disheartened, the garrison weakened,
and the governor taken. Luis Quixada entertained the
same idea, which, however, does not appear to have
struck any of the leaders in Flanders. The chamberlain
was especially delighted to hear of the capture of
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 217
Monsieur de Villebon, one of the marechal's lieutenants.
1 1 knew him very well/ he wrote to Vazquez, ( when he
served under the duke of Vendome in Picardy; and
when we were at Hesdin, he was quartered in a town
only two or three leagues off, so that we frequently cor-
responded by letters. I should have taken him myself
one day, had a spy given me intelligence two hours
sooner. He is a man quite able to pay a ransom of
twelve or fifteen thousand crowns/ 1
Meanwhile, the dreaded navy of Solyman was again
menacing the shores of Spain. Early in spring a cloud of
Turkish sail had been seen so far in the west that it was
thought necessary to victual and strengthen the garrison
of Goleta. On the fifth of May, Don Luis de Castelvi
came to Yuste to report on the affairs of Italy, and
brought with him such intelligence of a treaty which
was said to be then forming between France and the
pope, the Venetian and the Turk, that the emperor
ordered him to proceed at once to the king at Bruxelles.
A squadron of Algeriue galleys soon afterwards gave
chase to a line of battle ship sent by the viceroy of
Sicily with further munitions to Goleta, and forced her
to put back and run for Sardinia. The Turkish navy
was known to be assembling at Negropont, and it was at
one time supposed, though erroneously, that a French
ambassador was on board, for the purpose of directing a
descent on the dominions of Spain. The government
of Valladolid, therefore, congratulated itself on having
taken the advice of the emperor, and having sent eight
thousand men and four hundred lances to Oran, under the
count of Alcaudete. At Naples the new viceroy, Don
Juan Manrique de Lara, had hardly assumed the reins
of power, ere he was called on to defend that kingdom
1 Quixada to Vazquez, 17th August, 1558.
218 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
against one of the most formidable fleets ever fitted out
by sultan Solyman. Early in June Reggio was sacked,
and towards the middle of the month, a hundred and
thirty Ottoman sail appeared in the Bay of Naples.
Sorrento was surprised and pillaged, and several
thousands of the inhabitants of that beautiful shore,
including the whole sisterhood of the nunnery of St.
George, were sent as prisoners to the Levant. 1 Holding
a westerly course, Mustapha pacha was joined by a
French fleet, which had put out from Marseilles
to supply him with provisions ; and at the end of
June the crescent flag was flying proudly among the
islands of Spain. On hearing of this pressing danger,
the emperor, who looked on the infidel fleet as the
instrument of French vengeance and ambition, urged
upon the regent the importance of providing for the
defence of Ratas, a Catalonian fortress long coveted by
France. The Turk, however, had other designs, for,
after threatening Mallorca, and finding it too strong,
he steered for the smaller island of Menorca, and
cast anchor, with a hundred and forty sail, before the
town of Ciudadella. Landing fifteen thousand men
and twenty-four pieces of cannon, he battered the
place for seven days, and made several attempts to
storm it; but the obstinate valour of the Menorcans
would probably have baffled his 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 accom-
plished, though not without severe loss. The disap-
pointed pacha sacked and pillaged the town, and having
Parrino ; Vicere di Napoli ; i. pp. 160, 161.
1558.J EMPEROR CHARLES V.
collected his booty and a few prisoners, put to sea the
same night. 1 Taking a northerly course, he was sup-
posed to have gone to Marseilles to water and victual
his fleet.
Meanwhile, all precautions were taken to strengthen
the defences of the eastern coast. Twelve hundred men
were thrown into Perpignan, and Don Garcia de Toledo
was sent to take the command of that important frontier
post. The defence of the coast of Andalusia was en-
trusted to the count of Tendilla. The duke of Maqueda
was ordered to exercise the closest vigilance over the
Moriscos of Catalonia and Valencia, especially at Denia
and Alicante ; a force of five or six hundred men was
appointed to guard the sierras of Espadon and Bernia,
strongholds of the suspected race; and a few watch-
towers were repaired and entrenched for rallying posts,
strict orders being also issued to the commanders to
destroy them as soon as the danger was past, lest the
defences of the Christian should become offensive posi-
tions of the Moor. The emperor was much distressed
at the fall of Ciudadella. His anxiety made him forget
his ailments ; and such was his eagerness for news, that
he gave orders that he was to be called at whatever hour
of the night a courier should arrive from the Mediter-
ranean. The alarm did not subside until the seven-
teenth of August, when tidings came from Catalonia
that the Ottoman flag had disappeared from that part
of the sea, and that Don Francisco de Cordova, son of
the governor of Oran, who had been hovering on the
pacha's wake with two galleys of the order of St. John,
reported that the fleet had at last steered for the Levant.
On the same day it was also announced at Yuste that
1 V. Mut. : Historia del reyno de Mallorca, fol. Mallorca. 1650. Lib. x.
cap. 7, p. 453, which ought to be 436, there being an error in the paging
of this very rare volume from p. 69 to the end.
220 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
some reprisal for the damage done at Menorca had been
made by the duke of Alburquerque on the infidel's most
Christian brother of France, by crossing the Bidassoa
and burning St. Jean de Luz.
While the Turk was thus spreading terror along th*e
coast of Spain, and 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 Villagarcia, bringing with
him his wife and household, and the future victor of
Lepanto. During the journey, Dona Magdalena suffered
greatly from the summer heat ; but she was consoled
for her fatigues by the kindness and courtesy of the
emperor. Immediately on her arrival, he sent one of
his attendants to call upon her with presents, and to
bid her welcome to her new home : and some days
after, when she came to Yuste to kiss his hand, he
received her with marked favour. In this visit she was
doubtless attended by Don John of Austria, who passed
for her page, and the emperor was said to be much
pleased with the beauty and manners of his boy. But
so strictly was the secret of his birth kept, that no men-
tion of his existence is to be found in any extant corre-
spondence between Yuste, Valladolid, and Bruxelles,
during the lifetime of the emperor. Yet his real pa-
rentage was suspected in the country, probably on
account of the attention which he met with at Yuste,
and which was not likely to escape the notice of the idle
and gossiping friars and Flemings. The crossbow with
which the future admiral had dealt destruction amongst
the sparrows and larks in the cornfields about Leganes,
found ampler and nobler game in the woodlands of the
Estremaduran hills. But he sometimes varied his sport
by making forays upon the gardens of Quacos, which
the peasants, nothing daunted by his whispered rank,
1G5S.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 221
resented by pelting him with stones when they caught
him in their fruit trees. 1
Early in July the emperor was alarmed by hearing
of the illness of his daughter, the princess-regent, who
was attacked by a fever, which prevented her attention
to business for a few days. He expressed great anxiety
on her account, and ordered frequent couriers to bring
him intelligence of her state, which, however, was never
dangerous, and soon approached convalescence. Amongst
the last public measures which Juana brought under the
notice of her father, was a scheme for changing the seat
of government. She was in favour of a change, as she
considered Valladolid neither healthy nor conveniently
situated. Many members of the council of state were,
however, opposed to it, t but you know/ wrote the in-
fanta, ( how these gentlemen prefer their ease and good
lodging before all things/ Madrid appeared to her the
fittest place, were it not so disliked by the king ; and she
also mentioned the names of Toledo, Burgos, and Gua-
dalaxara. The plan was not executed until some years
after the return of Philip to Spain. The king having
agreed that Don Carlos and his tutor should be sent to
Yuste, and the emperor being willing to receive them,
the princess proposed that she should accompany her
nephew thither, in order to visit her father, and confer
with him on this question of the capital, and other busi-
ness of state. The queen of Hungary was likewise to
be of the party, it being the wish of 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
1 Ponz : Yiage de Espana, vii. p. 140.
222 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
princess at this time, was a dispute between her and
the council of state. A young courtier, the adelantado
of Canary, after making love to one of her ladies, finally
proposed for her hand, and was accepted. But failing
in the performance of his promise, he met the complaint
made by the fair one to the regent, by protesting that
the matter was a joke, and that he had never considered
it as serious. The princess, though she preferred her
ladies to become brides of heaven rather than wives of
mortals, was highly indignant with the lord of Canary,
and caged him in the tower of Medina del Campo. The
council of state here interfered, alleging that it had a
right to be consulted in any similar case of imprisonment.
The regent therefore remitted the affair to the emperor,
entreating him, however, to decide in her favour ; for it
much concerned, as she conceived, the dignity of her
household, that young men should not be permitted to
plight their troth to her ladies, before witnesses and
in her very antechamber, and then nutter off on the plea
that the thing was a jest. The award of the emperor,
and the after-fate of the false wooer and forsaken damsel,
have not been recorded.
In the spring of this year the monotony of the con-
ventual life at Yuste was broken by the death of the
prior. He died at Lupiana, where he had gone to
attend the chapter of his order. That chapter had
elected as general the prior of Cordoba, who likewise died
before the electors separated. The new general being
Fray Juan de A9aloras, one of the emperor's preachers,
the friars of Yuste petitioned the emperor to request
him to wave his privilege, and permit them to choose
their new prior. But Charles, to the great delight of
his household, at once, and rather drily, refused to
meddle in the matter, or to interfere with the rules of
their order; and the vacant post was therefore given, in
1.558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 223
the usual way, to Fray Martin de Angulo, a monk of
Guadalupe.
Don Luis de Avila was, as usual, a frequent guest
at Yuste. During this year he had a law-suit in hand,
regarding his jurisdiction as lieutenant of the castle
of Plasencia ; and he of course attempted to enlist in
his cause the favour of the emperor, who would, how-
ever, say nothing until he had heard the other side of
the story from the secretary of state. The grand-com-
mander seems also to have been applying for employ-
ment; and a false report was spread in July that he
had actually set out for Flanders by order of the king.
The bishop of Avila paid a visit in April, which was
followed in May by his translation to the wealthy see of
Cordoba ; and in June the bishop of Segovia offered to
come and give thanks for his promotion to the arch-
bishopric of Santiago, but was excused the journey by
the emperor. Oropesa spent part of the summer at
Xarandilla, where he, his brother, and his two sons, had
the misfortune to be attacked with fever all at one time.
The count and the other Toledos were frequently at
Yuste. Garcilasso de la Vega, probably a nephew of
the poet, came about the middle of August. Having
been sent as ambassador to the holy see, on the accession
of Philip the Second, the hasty old pontiff arrested him,
because of a letter addressed by him to the duke of
Alba, and found, or pretended to be found, by Paul in
the boot-sole of an intercepted courier. This outrage had
been the first signal for hostilities. The emperor's wrath
with the Roman policy of Alba and Philip having cooled
down, he received Garcilasso with much courtesy, ques-
tioned him minutely about Italian politics during two
long audiences, listened with great interest to his relation,
and afterwards said he was greatly pleased by the envoy's
way of telling his story. He kept him at Yuste for ten
CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
days, and sent him to Valladolid charged with messages
to the queen of Hungary, and the task of explaining
her brother's reasons for desiring her return to the
government of the Netherlands. This mission fulfilled,
he was ordered to come back and report the queen's
decision. Don Pedro Manrique, procurator to the cortes
from the city of Burgos, came on the twenty-sixth
of August, and was likewise graciously received, and dis-
missed with a letter to the king, one of the latest which
the emperor signed. The last visitor who found him
in health was the count of Uruefia, Don Pedro Giron,
afterwards first duke of Ossuna, and as viceroy of Naples,
and in other posts a personage of some importance at
the court of Philip the Second. This grandee, who
had but lately succeeded to the honours of his great
house, 1 arrived on the night of the twenty-sixth, at ten
o'clock, 'with a world of horses and servants/ for whom
Quixada found it very difficult to provide lodging. The
emperor received him very kindly, and the young noble
took his departure immediately after having kissed
hands to be allowed to perform that ceremony being,
as the chamberlain noted with wonder, ' his sole business
and only request.'
Father Borja paid his last visit to Yuste this summer,
probably in July or August. He came, it is said, at the
request of Charles, who desired the benefit of his spiritual
counsels. It was, perhaps, at this time that the em-
peror spoke to him of the memoirs which he had
drawn up of his journeys and campaigns. 2 They were
not written, he said, for the sake of magnifying his own
1 His father, Don Juan Tellez Giron, fourth count of Uruena or
Urena, as it was afterwards written, died on the 19th May, 1558. Dr.
Geronymo Gudiel : Compendia de la familia de los Girones : fol. Alcala,
1577, fol. 121-122.
2 Chap. iii. p. 54.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 225
deeds, but for the sake of recording the truth ; because
he had observed in the histories of his time, that the
authors erred as often from ignorance of the facts as
from prejudice and passion. But he desired to know if
his friend thought that a man's writing about his own
actions at all, savoured too much of carnal vanity. The
judgment of Borja on this case of conscience, if it were
ever delivered, has not been preserved. Nor is the fate
of the memoirs 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 world. 1 Brantome, at a later date, ex-
pressed an author's surprise that a literary venture so
safe and so inviting, had been so long neglected by the
booksellers. 2 It is not plain, therefore, that Borja is to
be blamed for the loss, if indeed they are lost, of these
precious commentaries of the Caesar of Castille.
Charles neither felt nor affected that indifference
about his place in history which many remarkable men
have affected, and a few, perhaps, have felt. This
very year, he had given a proof of the opposite senti-
ment. Florian de Ocampo, his veteran chronicler, was
still at work, in his study at Zamora, on his general
chronicle of Spain. Anxious for its preservation, the
emperor induced the regent to address letters to the
bishop, the dean, and the corregidor of that city, re-
quiring them, in the event of the old man's death, to
take possession of his papers, amounting to three thou-
sand sheets, and to hold themselves responsible for their
safety. 3 Similar steps were taken to preserve the
1 Published by Belle-Forest. See Bayle's Dictionary, art. Charles V.
2 Brantome: Discours sur Charles V. (Euvres, 8 vols. 8vo. Paris: 1787.
iv. 37.
3 Benito Cano, in his life of Ocampo, prefixed to the fine edition of
the Cronica, 4to. (Madrid : 1791), gives the end of March, 1555, as the
Q
226 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. ix.
writings of Sepulveda, on whom the emperor had him-
self urged the necessity of adopting such precautions
when he visited Yuste the year before. 1 In the work
of Ocampo, Charles, although perhaps he did not know
it, had no personal interest; for the good canon, pur-
posing to write the history of his patron, had begun his
chronicle at Noah's flood, and after some thirty or forty
years' labour was surprised by death, while narrating
the exploits of the Scipios. Sepulveda had more judi-
ciously broken ground nearer Ghent and the last year
of the last century, and so left his Latin history of the
emperor completed. The fruit of Charles's foresight
was therefore found after many days in 1780, when
the work was first given to the world.
Borja might, perhaps, have rejoiced in mortifying his
own lust of literary fame, or even in undergoing the
penance of historical slander. But he was hardly
capable of advising the imperial author to put his manu-
script into one of his Flemish fireplaces. In his dealings
with royalty the stern Jesuit had not quite cast off,
or on occasion he could resume, ways and language
befitting the chamberlain's gold key. To one of the
emperors devout queries he replied in a style of courtly
gallantry, which sounds strange in the mouth of father
Francis the Sinner, and which would have done credit
to some later Jesuit, appointed to labour in the vine-
date of the chronicler's death, which date has been adopted by Rezabel
in his Bibliot. de Escritores individuos de los colegios mayores, 4to.
(Madrid : 1805, p. 234) and by Mr. Ticknor in his Hist, of Span. Litera-
ture, i. p. 555. But Gaztelu, in his letter in the Gonzalez MS., ad-
dressed to Vazquez on the 30th of May, 1558, orders precautions
to be taken about the cronica of Ocampo, ' in case of the old man's
death' ' si occurria sufallecimiento, estando ya tan mejo. ' Another letter
(9th of July) suggests that the measures taken by the regent respect-
ing Ocampo's papers should also be taken respecting Sepulveda's, both
writers being so old. Ocampo must therefore have been alive for some
time after May, 1558.
1 Chap. vi. p. 124.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 227
yard of Versailles. Narrating the course of his penances
and prayers, Charles asked him whether he could sleep
in his clothes ; ' for I must confess/ added he, con-
tritely, ' that my infirmities, which prevent me from
doing many things of the kind that I would gladly do,
render this penance impossible in my case/ Borja,
who practised every kind of torment on his body, or, as
he called it, his ' beast/ and who in early life had in one
year fasted down a cubit of his girth, eluded the ques-
tion, by an answer no less modest than dexterous. ( Your
majesty/ said he, ' cannot sleep in your clothes, because
you have watched so many nights in your mail. Let us
thank God that you have done better service by keep-
ing those vigils in arms than many a cloistered monk
who sleeps in his shirt of hair/
During his brief stay at Yuste, the Jesuit won a new
ally to his cause in Dona Magdalena de Ulloa, whose
mind was deeply touched by his pious walk and con-
versation. The seed thus sown by the way-side sprang
up long afterwards in the substantial shape of three
colleges built and endowed for the company by that
good and devout lady. Almost a hundred years later,
the fame of the third general of Jesus still lingered in
the Vera. In 1650, the centenarian of Guijo used to
tell how he had seen the emperor, the count of Oropesa,
and father Francis in the woods between that village
and Xarandilla, and point out a great tree under which
they had made a repast, of which he, a loitering urchin,
had been permitted to gather up the crumbs. But
of the individual aspect of that remarkable group his
memory had preserved nothing for the third generation
except the dark robe and the ( meek and penitent ftice
of him whom we called the holy duke/ 1
1 Cienfuegos : Vida de F. Borja, fol. Madrid : 1726, p. 270.
Q 2
228 CLOISTER LIFE OF FCHAP. x.
CHAPTER X.
THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR.
DURING the spring of 1558,, the emperor's health
recovered from its winter's decline. At the end
of March, Dr. Mathys, in his usual solemn style, in-
formed the secretary of state that he considered his
majesty well enough to leave off his sarsaparilla and
liquorice-water. In May he was 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 pasty; and next
the principal dish of the repast, which was frequently a
ham, or some preparation of rashers, the emperor being
very fond of the staple product of bacon-curing Estre-
madura. ' His majesty/ said the doctor, ' considers
himself in very good health, and will not hear of chang-
ing his diet or mode of living ; trusting too much to the
force of habit^ and to the strength of his constitution,
which, in bodies full of bad humours, like his, frequently
breaks down suddenly, and without warning/ 1 His
hands occasionally troubled him, and his fingers were
sometimes ulcerated. But his chief complaint was of
the heat and itching in his legs at night, which he en-
deavoured to relieve by sleeping with them uncovered ;
a iaeasure whereby temporary ease was purchased at
the expense of a chill, which crept into the upper part
Mathys to Vazquez, 18th May, 1558,
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 229
of his body, in spite of blankets and eider-down quilts.
Later in the summer he had some threatenings of gout,
and his appetite diminished so much, that he sometimes
lived for days on bread and conserves. It is evident,
however, that Quixada, an excellent judge of his master's
symptoms, not only apprehended no danger, but con-
sidered that his life might be prolonged for years; else
he would never have put himself to the trouble and
expense of bringing his family down to Estremadura.
On his arrival he reported favourably of the emperor's
health, spirits, and looks. Yet Dofia Magdalena had not
been many weeks in her new abode at Quacos, when a
bell, tolling from amongst the woods of Yuste, announced
that she might prepare for her return to Villagarcia.
It was not until the ninth of August that the phy-
sician became seriously alarmed about the state of his
patient. To cure the uneasy sensations in his legs at
night, Charles had had recourse to cold bathing, by way
of a repellant, regardless of the remonstrances of Mathys.
'I would rather/ he said, 'have a slight fever, than
suffer this perpetual itching/ In vain the doctor ob-
served that men were not allowed to choose their own
maladies, and that some worse evil might happen to him
if he used so dangerous a remedy. The repellant system
did not answer; the patient's legs continuing to itch,
and his throat being choked with phlegm. Still he was
able to attend to business, and sufficiently alive to minor
matters to be much annoyed at a frost which killed some
melons of a peculiarly choice kind, that were ripening
for his table. On the sixteenth and seventeenth of
August he was seized with violent purgings and with
pains in the head, which bore a suspicious resemblance
to gout. But as these symptoms soon subsided, he
was supposed to have caught cold by sleeping, as the
nights were getting chilly, with open doors and windows.
230 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
Much illness prevailed in the Vera, and so many of the
household were on the sick list, that Quixada was
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 was suc-
ceeded by terrific storms of wind and thunder, in which
twenty-seven cows were struck dead by lightning, as
they pastured in the forest.
About this time, according to the historian of St.
Jerome, the emperor's thoughts seemed to turn more
than usual upon religion and its rites. Whenever,
during his stay at Yuste, any of his friends, of the degree
of princes or knights of the fleece, had died, he had
ever been punctual in doing honour to their memory,
by causing their obsequies to be performed by the friars;
and these lugubrious services may be said to have
formed the festivals of his gloomy life in the cloister.
The daily masses said for his own soul were always ac-
companied by others for the souls of his father, mother,
and wife. But now he ordered further solemnities of
the funeral kind to be performed in behalf of these rela-
tions, each on a different day, and attended them himself,
preceded by a page bearing a taper, and joining in the
chaunt, in a very devout and audible manner, out of a
tattered prayer-book.
These rites ended, he asked his confessor whether
he might not now perform his own funeral, and so do
for himself what would soon have to be done for him
by others. Regla replied that his majesty, please God,
might live many years, and that when his time came
these services would be gratefully rendered, without his
taking any thought about the matter. ' But/ persisted
Charles, 'would it not be good for my soul?' The
monk said that certainly it would; pious works done
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 231
(luring life being far more efficacious than when they were
postponed till after death. Preparations were therefore at
once set on foot; a catafalque which had served before
on similar occasions was erected; and on the following
day, the thirtieth of August, as the monkish historian
relates, this celebrated service was actually performed, 1
The high altar, the catafalque, and the whole church
shone with a blaze of wax lights; the friars were all in
their places, at the altars, and in the choir, and the
household of the emperor attended in deep mourning.
f The pious monarch himself was there, attired in sable
weeds, and bearing a taper, to see himself interred and
to celebrate his own obsequies/ 2 While they were
singing the solemn mass for the dead he came forward
and gave his taper into the hands of the officiating
priest, in token of his desire to yield his soul into the
hands of his Maker. High above, over the 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
pictured Charles kneeling on the threshold of the
heavenly mansions prepared for the blessed.
Many years before self-interment had been practised
by a bishop of Liege cardinal Erard de la Marck,
Charles's ambassador to the diet during his election to
the imperial throne; an example which may perhaps
have led to the ceremonies at Yuste. For several years
before his death, in 1528, did this prelate annually re-
hearse his obsequies and follow his coffin to the stately
tomb which he had reared in his cathedral at Liege. 3
1 Gonzalez denies this, as it seems to me, on insufficient grounds,
which I have discussed in the preface to these chapters.
* Siguensa : iii. p. 201.
3 On the tomb were these words : ERARDUS A MAKKA, MORTEM HABENS
R^E OCULIS VIVENS posuiT. Am. de la Houssaye : Memoires Historiques,
&c. 2 vols. 12mo. Amsterd.: 1722, p. 186.
232 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
The funeral-rites ended, the emperor dined in his
western alcove. He ate little, but he remained for a
great part of the afternoon sitting in the open air, and
basking in the sun, which, as it descended to the horizon,
beat strongly upon the white walls. Feeling a violent
pain in his head, he returned to his chamber and lay
down. Mathys, whom he had sent in the morning to
Xarandilla to attend the count of Oropesa in his illness,
found him, when he returned, still suffering consider-
ably, and attributed the pain to his having remained
too long in the hot sunshine. Next morning he was
somewhat better, and was able to get up and go to
mass, but still felt oppressed, and complained much of
thirst. He told his confessor, however, that the funeral
service of the day before had done him good. The
sunshine again tempted him into his open gallery. As
he sat there, he sent for a portrait of the empress, and
hung for some time, lost in thought, over the gentle
face, which, with its blue eyes, auburn hair, and pensive
beauty, somewhat resembled the noble countenance of
that other Isabella, the great queen of Castille. He
next called for a picture of Our Lord praying in the
garden, and then for a sketch of the Last Judgment, by
Titian. Having looked his last upon the image of the
wife of his youth, it seemed as if he were now bidding
farewell, in the contemplation of these other favourite
pictures, to the noble art which he had loved with a love
that cares, and years, and sickness could not quench,
and that will ever be remembered with his better fame.
Thus occupied, he remained so long abstracted and
motionless, that Mathys, who was on the watch, thought
it right to awake him from his reverie. On being
spoken to, he turned round and complained that he was
ill. The doctor felt his pulse, and pronounced him in
a fever. Again the afternoon sun was shining over the
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 283
great walnut-tree, full into the gallery. From this
pleasant spot, filled with the fragrance of the garden
and the murmur of the fountain, and bright with
glimpses of the golden Vera, they carried him to the
gloomy chamber of his sleepless nights, and laid him on
the bed from which he was to rise no more.
The minute particulars of his last illness, which have
been preserved by eye-witnesses, or by persons who had
conversed with them, will be most conveniently grouped
under the dates to which they belong. It was on the
thirty-first of August that the fever declared itself, but
after going to bed that evening, his thirst subsided, and
he felt easier.
September the first. No great change took place in
his condition. But he was aware that the hand of
death was upon him, and wishing to finish his will, he
ordered that the secretary of state should be immediately
applied to for a royal licence empowering Gaztelu to act
on the occasion as a notary. Directions were at the
same time given that couriers and horses should be kept
in readiness along the road, to ensure despatch in the
communications between Valladolid and Yuste.
September the second. The emperor awoke, com-
plaining of violent thirst, and attempted to relieve it by
drinking barley-water and sugar. Quixada begged leave
to send for more doctors; the patient said he did not
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 wander ; but in the
evening he had rallied sufficiently to confess and receive
the eucharist, after which, at half-past eight, the physi-
cian took from him nine or ten ounces of very black bad
blood, which afforded considerable relief.
September the third. He awoke refreshed, and alto-
234 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
gether rather better. At eleven he took some refresh-
ment, and drank some wine and water, and a little
beer; and then he heard Gaztelu read that part of his
will which related to his household. In the afternoon
he was again bled in the hand. This evening Quixada
determined to pass the night in the palace, which he did
not again quit while his master continued to breathe.
September the fourth. The pain had left the em-
peror's head, but the fever was still high. He regretted
that more blood had not been taken from him, feeling
too full of it an opinion from which the doctors dis-
sented. During the whole day he was very restless.
He had stripped off the jacket, under-waistcoat, and
drawers which he usually wore in bed, and lay tossing
in his shirt under a single silken coverlet ; and he in-
sisted on the door and windows of his room being kept
open. He complained bitterly of thirst, which the per-
mitted syrup-vinegar and manna seemed to aggravate
rather than allay ; and the doctors were obliged to allow
him nine ounces of his favourite beer, which he drank
eagerly, with apparent relief. Vomiting and a slight
perspiration followed. Quixada was looking anxiously
for Dr. Cornelio, and had sent on horses to wait on the
road for his litter.
September the fifth. Dr. Mathys administered to the
emperor a strong dose of rhubarb in three pills. He
felt so much better that he gave orders that if the post-
courier, who went out every afternoon at four, should
meet Cornelio before he had 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 sixth. The patient was worse again ;
very feverish all day, and in the afternoon delirious;
but in the evening he was easier, and again sensible.
1553.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 235
An express arrived with a notary's licence for Gaztelu,
and letters from the regent and the great officers of
state full of grief for the emperor's illness. The princess
was very anxious for leave to visit her father, but he
would not consent to it. In the afternoon there was a
storm, so violent, and accompanied with such unusual
darkness, that the post could not be despatched.
September the seventh. No change. The post sent
off with a double bag.
September the eighth. Dr. Cornelio arrived, ancl
with him Garcilasso de la Vega. The emperor was
neither better nor worse ; Dr. Mathys stating the fact
in a very long letter, which ended with the remark that
the fever was not in itself dangerous, and might even
prove beneficial, but that, the constitution of the patient
considered, the result must be regarded with much
doubt and apprehension. The sick man, however, was
sufficiently easy and collected to receive Garcilasso, who
had come laden with a heap of despatches, which were
destined to remain unread; and to express the greatest
satisfaction at learning that his sister, the queen of
Hungary, had accepted the government of the Nether-
lands. Gaztelu employed the day in drawing out in
due form a codicil to be added to the will. In the
afternoon the wind and rain again roared round the
convent, and the post was once more detained by the
violence of the tempest.
September the ninth. The emperor remained as be-
fore. A new gloom overspread the household in conse-
quence of tidings from Africa, that Don Martin de
Cordova, count of Alcaudete, and the army of Oran, had
been cut to pieces by the infidels. For many years
viceroy of the Spanish dominions in Africa, and well
skilled in the ways of the Moors both in policy and war,
the ill-fated veteran was one of the most trusted coun-
236 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
sellers of the crown. During the spring and summer,
the fortunes of a war between Hassan, pacha of Algiers,
son and heir of Barbarossa, and Halif, the new kiisg of
Fez, gave him hopes of turning Moslem quarrels to
Christian advantage. Mostagan, a fortified town about
twelve leagues to the east of Oran, was a prize upon
which his hopes had been long fixed. About the middle
of August, therefore, at the head of six thousand four
hundred men, and a considerable train of artillery, he
marched thither, sending along the coast nine brigan-
tines laden with munitions, and relying on promises of
further aid from the king of Fez. But the expedition,
which ought to have been a surprize, was ruined by
the undue caution of its movements. The convoy was
captured by an Algerine fleet ; the Moorish ally proved
faithless; the attack on Mostagan failed; and in their
hasty retreat the weary, thirsty, and famished Christians
were overtaken by the army of Hassan. At Mazagran
the old count, who had completely lost his head, was
trampled to death in the gateway by his own terrified
troops, and the greater part of his army fell beneath the
Turkish scimitar and the Arab spear, or was sent to
row in the galleys of Algiers. His son, Don Martin
de Cordova, was taken prisoner, and only a handful of
fugitives escaped to tell their tale of disaster at Oran.
With Alcaudete, who had been looked upon as a leader
no less prudent than brave, fell many knights and nobles
of Andalusia ; and the fate of his expedition caused such
mourning as had been unknown in Spain since the fatal
day when that other Cordova, the good knight of
Aguilar, fell with his gallant band in the pass of the
Red Sierra. 1 Quixada and Garcilasso, friends of many
1 L. de Marmol Carvajal : Description de Africa, 3 torn. fol. Granada :
1573-99, ii. p. 197-9. Fr. Diego de Haedo : Historic/, de Argel, fol.
Valladolid : 1612, p. 174. Don Martin de Cordova was ransomed, and
lived to be governor of Oran, and to revenge his father's death. A. Lopez
de Haro : Nolilario de Espana, 2 torn. fol. Madrid : 1622, ii. 153.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 237
of the victims, were greatly astonished that a commander
of so much experience should have put any trust in the
Punic promises of a Moor. They did not venture to
break the news to the emperor, knowing how keenly he
would feel the reverse suffered by his son in the land of
his own glory and misfortune. 1 He therefore went to
the grave unconscious of the calamity which had be-
fallen Spain. No visible change had taken place in his
condition ; but he was able to hear the codicil of his will
read, and to sign and seal it.
Charles had made his will on the sixth of June, 1554,
at Bruxelles. The codicil, from its great length, its
minuteness, and the frequent recurrence of provisions to
be observed in case he died before he should see his
son, there being now no hope of such a meeting, appears
to have been prepared some time before. But as it
was read to him ere his trembling hand affixed the
last stamp of his authority, it remains as a proof
that one of his latest acts was to charge Philip,
by his love and allegiance, and by his hope of salva-
tion, ' to take care that the heretics were repressed and
chastised with all publicity and rigour, as their faults
deserved, without respect of persons, and without regard
to any plea in their favour/ The rest of the paper is
filled with directions for his interment, and with a list
of legacies to forty-eight servants, and many thought-
ful arrangements for the comfort of those who had
followed him from Flanders. Although willing to send
all his protestant subjects to martyrdom, he watched
with fatherly kindness over the fortunes of grooms and
scullions. It is said that Fray Juan de E/egla proposed
that Don John of Austria should be named in the will
as next heir to the crown, failing the emperor's grand-
children; but if this incredible advice were given by
Chap. iv. p. 91.
238 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
the confessor, the dying man had energy enough left to
reject it with indignation. 1
September the tenth. He was somewhat easier, al-
though very weak, and able to take no nourishment,
except a few spoonfuls of mutton-broth. He once more
received the eucharist, and confessed with great devout-
ness. Garcilasso was admitted to his bedside to take
leave, and again was assured of the relief he felt in
knowing that the Netherlands were to be governed by
queen Mary. Gaztelu wrote that it was his majesty's
particular desire that a safe-conduct should be imme-
diately prepared for Dr. Cornelio and ten or twelve
persons, who were to go to Flanders, but that it was to
be kept secret for the present from the queen, for good
and sufficient reasons. Quixada, in his letter to Vazquez,
said that it would be well that orders should be sent to
him for his guidance, in case it should please God to
make the sickness of his majesty mortal.
September the eleventh. A crisis in the fever had
been looked for on this day; and the doctors were of
opinion that it was changing into what they called a
double tertian. Don Luis de Avila came, and remained
at Quacos.
September the twelfth. The patient had passed a
better night, and was able to take some food; and
hopes of a recovery began to be entertained.
September the thirteenth. These hopes faded. He
was decidedly worse. Nothing would remain on his
stomach, and his weakness, and the state of his pulse,
greatly alarmed the two physicians. His throat was
constantly choked with phlegm, which, being too feeble
to expectorate, he endeavoured to remove with his finger.
1 Salazar de Mendo^a (Dign. de Castilla, fol. 161) says that Regla
used to tell the story himself.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 239
Letters from the regent and the queen of Hungary con-
tinued to express their wish to go to Yuste. Quixada,
writing in reply, said that his majesty had always, since
the beginning of his illness, been averse to this proposal,
and that when he himself spoke of it again to-day, the
emperor shook his head, as if to say no. Had his
majesty been equal to any exertion, he would have also
ventured to remind him that he ought formally to thank
the queen for consenting to return to Flanders, knowing,
as he did, how glad and how grateful he had been on
receiving the intelligence. But in truth he was unfit
not only to write, but even to dictate a letter, or to
attend to any business whatsoever. If the archbishop
of Toledo, therefore, was on the road to Yuste, he need
not hurry himself. When he arrived, he must lodge
either at a Dominican monastery, about a league off, or
at Quacos; as no stranger could be put up at Yuste
without the express orders of his majesty.
September the fifteenth. Rhubarb pills had been
again administered with good effect, and hope was not
yet extinguished. ' But/ adds Quixada, ' you can hardly
imagine how weak his majesty is. We all of us do
our best to anticipate his wants ; and if our blood would
do him good, we would give it most joyfully/
September the sixteenth. The doctors considered
him in a 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 Por-
tugal, and to carry back news of the emperor's health.
Catherine was aware of the dangerous state of her
brother, and she had given great alms for the benefit of
his soul, and had ordered masses to be said for him in
every church in the kingdom.
September the seventeenth. Mathys wrote that the
emperor had been seized with ague fits, the cold fits
240 CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
lasting much longer than the hot; that he vomited
frequently and violently, ' after which his majesty lies
unable to speak or move, and does not even ask for
water to wash his mouth/ Gaztelu informed the secre-
tary of state that he was no better ; and that certain
moneys had arrived from Seville. Quixada wrote not
only to Vazquez, but to the regent and to the king.
In each of the letters he said that the doctors now
entertained little hope, and that the emperor's state was
truly deplorable. To the king he gave a brief sketch
of the codicil which had been added to the will. ' The
emperor/ he wrote, ( having once expressed a desire to
be buried here, and that the empress should be brought
from Granada to be laid beside him, I ventured to
observe that this house was not of sufficient quality to
be made the resting-place of such great sovereigns ; upon
which he said he would leave the matter in the hands
of your majesty/ The chamberlain concluded by
assuring the king that in the matter he knew of per-
haps alluding to Don John he would use every pre-
caution in the world until his majesty came to Spain.
September the eighteenth. The emperor, wrote
Mathys, touched nothing to-day but a little chicken
broth, and some watered wine ; the phlegm in his throat
was very troublesome. Quixada said that he had not
spoken a word for twenty-four hours ; and Avila gave it
as his opinion that he was certainly worse, whatever the
doctors might say.
September the nineteenth. Mathys announced that
the hot and cold fits continued with great violence, and
that his pulse was getting feebler and feebler. Dr.
Cornelio had been ill and feverish all yesterday, and was
no better to-day. At eight in the evening, Quixada
wrote that a servant of the archbishop of Toledo was
just come to say that the primate might be looked for
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 241
immediately; but it was now of no consequence when
he arrived, as all hope of the emperor being able to
attend to business was past. Called to the sick room,
the writer laid his pen down, and resumed it in three-
quarters of an hour. He wrote thus : ' The doctors
say, the fever rises and his strength sinks. Ever since
noon, I have been keeping them from giving him
extreme unction. They have been with me again to
say it is time, but I have sent them to feel his pulse
once more ; for I will not allow the thing to be done
until the necessity for it is quite plain. Thrice have
they thus tried to bury him, as it were, and it goes to
my very soul to see uV The course of the pen was
once more checked. ( I had written thus far, when
the doctors came, and urged me to make haste. We
have therefore given his majesty extreme unction. It
seemed to me premature, but I yielded to the opinion
of those who ought to know best. You will under-
stand how I, who have served him thirty-seven years,
feel at seeing him thus going. May God take him to
heaven ! But I say again that, to my thinking, the
end will not be to-night. God be with him, and with
us all ! The ceremony is just now over, nine at night,
Monday, September the nineteenth/
There were two forms of administering this crown-
ing rite, a longer form for churchmen and a briefer one
for the laity. At the request of the prior, the emperor
was asked, by Quixada, which of the two he pre-
ferred, and he chose to be treated in the ecclesiastical
fashion. This involved the reading of the seven peni-
tential psalms, a litany, and several passages of scrip-
ture; through all of which the emperor made the
proper responses in an audible voice. After the ser-
vice was over, he appeared rather revived than exhausted
by it.
R
CLOISTER LIFE OF [CHAP. x.
September the twentieth. During the whole of the
past night he had been attended by his confessor, and by
the preacher Villalva, who frequently read aloud, at his
request, passages from scripture usuallyfrom the psalms.
The psalm which he liked best was that beginning
Domine ! refugium factum es nobis. 1 Soon after day-
break, he signified his wish to be left alone with his
chamberlain. When the door was shut upon the re-
tiring clergy, he said ; ' Luis Quixada, I feel that I am
sinking little by little, for which I thank God, since it
is his will. Tell the king, my son, that I beg he will
settle with my servants who have attended me to my
death ; that he will find some employment for William
Van Male ; and that he will forbid the friars of this
convent to receive guests in the house.' He then ex-
pressed his great regret at not being able to confer with
the archbishop of Toledo, about the affair between the
king and queen of Bohemia; and said he had intended
to send an envoy to convey his opinion of the matter
to Maximilian, but had waited until he should have
heard the primate's story. ' As for what he told me
to say of myself/ said Quixada, in writing to Philip
the Second, ' I do not repeat it, being so nearly con-
cerned in it ; and other things I will also leave untold
until it pleases God to bring your majesty hither/ The
emperor afterwards asked for the eucharist. Fray Juan
de Regla reminded him that after having received
extreme unction, that sacrament was no longer neces-
sary. ' It may not be necessary/ said the dying man,
( but it is good company on so long a journey/ About
seven in the morning, therefore, the consecrated wafer
was brought from the high altar of the church, fol-
lowed by the friars in solemn procession. The patient
Lord ! thou hast been our refuge.' Psalm xc. of our version.
1558.] EMPEROR CHARLES V. 243
received it, with great devoutness, from the hands of his
confessor ; but he had great difficulty in swallowing the
sacred morsel, and afterwards opened his mouth, and
made Quixada see if it had all gone down. In spite of
his extreme weakness, he followed all the responses as
usual, and repeated, with much fervour, the whole verse,
In manustuasDomine! commendospiritummeum; redimisti
nos Domine! Deus veritatis; 1 and he afterwards remained
kneeling in his bed for some time, and uttering ejacu-
lations in praise of the blessed sacrament, so pious and so
apposite that the friars conceived them to be prompted
by the Holy Ghost. He was soon, however, seized with
violent vomitings; and, during the greater part of the
day, lay motionless, with closed eyes, but not uncon-
scious of what went on around him.
About noon the archbishop arrived, and was imme-
diately admitted to the sick room, where he was re-
cognised by the patient, who addressed a few words to
him, and told him to go and repose himself. 2 The 
