Monastery of St. Just he commonly read the Works of S. Bernard that were not then translated which shews that at least he understood Latine it being unlikely that he would lose the time which he set apart wholly for working out his own Salvation and which he had bought with the price of so much worldly greatness willingly forsaken nor that he would pretend to jeer a Father of the Church in the sense of St. Jerom St. Jerom said on one Non vis intelligi neque ego te intelligere by reading him constantly without understanding him To be short That Juncture mentioned by the Spaniards where Charles was put to a stand in Germany for want of Latine and could neither conceive what was said to him nor make a positive answer to it bears more than one character of falshood For in the first place we see that he understood Latine In the second place they who bring him in conferring immediately with a German about important affairs know not that he never stooped the Imperial Majesty so low and it is so far from being true that he abased it as is pretended by positive answers given upon the spot and face to face in any matter of consequence that he carried it incomparably higher than any of his Predecessors had ever done before him or any of his Successors since He heard all sorts of business in the publick and private Audiences which he gave in Germany without any other answer at the time than that he would examine them and in truth he took time to speak of them to his Council or to resolve by himself what he was to do there being no instance that ever he did otherwise Afterward the answer was brought or sent in his name in writing to such affairs as could in that manner be dispatched and for others that required answers by word of mouth the Emperour sent for those who expected his answer and made his Chancellour always give it them even when he himself thought it convenient to be present If the Chancellour was absent or indisposed the Vice chancellour spake for him and both failing he employed a Counsellor of State. So that the passage related by the Spanish Writers would have been not only irregular but singular in its kind and seeing it is not mentioned in any Author of other Nations and that it hapned as they would have it in a Country far distant from theirs they ought not to think it strange if we question the truth of their information In the third place there is no instance in latter Ages that Emperours have spoken Latine when they treated of affairs and on the contrary it is very well known that Maximilian the Second who spake that Language as freely as high Dutch yet never made use of it in publick Affairs In a word all the Panegyricks of Charles and the most biting Satyrs against his Memory agree in giving him the testimony that if he did not gratisie Chievres as much as he deserved yet he rewarded him after his way by praising him upon all occasions and that he never let fall a word to his prejudice which wholly confutes the matter objected When Chievres by instructing the Archduke in History had given him those general lights that he needed for the conduct of his life he descended to particular Maxims in laying out to him his true Interests in relation to all the Powers of Europe He proposed to him two sorts of them which he represented as not only very different in themselves but likewise in some manner so opposite that he would run the risk of undoing himself by mistaking the one for the other That he had present interests and future and that the furure were the same with those of his Grandfathers by the Father and Mothers side which one day he was to inherit but that the present were directly contrary to them in that neither the Emperour Maximilian I. nor Ferdinand the Catholick King lived in good correspondence with Louis XII and that if Charles favoured them abroad he would draw into his Territories the Arms of France which would infallibly dispossess him of them before he could be succoured the Catholick King being too remote and the Emperour having neither Money nor Credit enough for the speedy raising of an Army in case of necessity Chievres drew from so true a Principle this Consequence that the Friendship of the French was absolutely necessary to Charles so long as he was no more but what he was that is so long as he enjoyed no more but the Succession of Burgundy That he ought to rest satisfied with external demonstrations of honour and civility respect and submission in reference to his Grandfathers in all affairs that they might have to dispute with France but at the bottom he should continue closely united with his most Christian Majesty That he should carry fair with the Emperour Maximilian because he could not succeed to him in the Empire if by his means he preserved not the long setled interests which the House of Austria had with the several Members that composed the body of the German Empire and that seeing the friendship of that Prince was to be bought and sold it was better his Grandson should purchase it than another That he should not therefore fail to send him as much money as he could and that his liberality would not be unprofitable provided it were managed with three precautions First That it should be frequent because of the continual need of him that received it Secondly That it should only consist in small Sums at a time seeing his Imperial Majesty was put into as good an humour by giving him but a little as by giving him much And lastly That it should be secret because it would be to be feared â—hat the People of the Low-Countries might mutiny if they came to know that what was raised from them served for no â—ther end but to feed and entertain the â—rodigality of Maximilian whose temâ—er they knew to be such that their moâ—ey would encrease rather than cure the â—isease of that Prince Chievres added â—hat since Charles had much more cause to â—e afraid of Ferdinand the Catholick King than of the Emperour he ought likewise to carry to him with greater Judgment and Policy That the young Ferdinand of Austria younger Brother to Charles was born in Spain and seemed to bring with him from his Mothers Womb all the Spanish Inclinations That the Catholick King was his Godfather and had given him his name that he loved him tenderly and that it was known from good hands that he had a design to make him King of Arragon and perhaps of Castile also That the Spaniards would the more willingly consent to it that they pretended to have a King who might constantly live in Spain In the mean time if Charles were their King the multitude of urgent Affairs that would happen to him in all parts of Europe would oblige him to lead his life
growing greater seeing he had the Pyrenean Mountains for a Barriere and crossing that Chain of Rocks which Nature seemed to have laid to hinder the two most powerful Kings of Christendom from marrying together he found on the other side France so powerful in that part where it bordered on him that there was much greater cause to fear that it might take from him his Territories of Biscay Arragon and Catalonia if he attacked France than there was hopes of conquering Guyenne and Languedock in it He resolved then to weaken it before he attacked it and seeing it had got footing in Spain by the acquisition that the most Christian King Louis the Eleventh had made of the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne from whence it might easily seize Catalonia the places whereof were not at all fortified at that time he made it his whole care to recover them and succeeded therein by a way not before practised Christian Princes having not been as yet accustomed to cheat under a pretext of Religion Louis the Eleventh had bought of John King of Arragon the Father of Ferdinand In the Contract of Engagement the two Counties by a Contract of Engagement which bore that his most Christian Majesty should lend upon the Counties three hundred thousand Livers that both should be put into his hands for security of the debt That the King of Arragon should have full liberty to redeem them within nine years to be reckoned from the Date of the Contract upon payment of the Principal and Interest but that if he failed upon any cause or pretext whatsoever to do it within the limited time he should lose his reversion and the propriety of Roussillon and Cerdagne should remain to France The King of Arragon let the time clapse through a mere inability of redeeming the Counties and Louis the Eleventh perceiving the ninth year almost expired without any offer from the King of Arragon of repaying his Money observed a formality which was not necessary and served only to give him what in Law is called abundantiam Juris He caused the King of Arragon to be summoned by a Herald to redeem the Counties and that Prince not having done it his most Christian Majesty united them to the French Monarchy and left them at his death to Charles the Eighth his only Son. Charles had been already nine years in peaceable possession of them and seeing by the Law of his State what had been united ten whole years successively could not for the future be dismembred Roussillon and Cerdagne were no more alienable than the other Provinces of France seeing two most Christian Kings had enjoyed them without molestation during the space of thirty years But it had pleased Louis the Eleventh to bring up Charles the Eighth in such a gross ignorance that he had no knowledge of his own affairs and Ferdinand taking that young Prince on his weak side corrupted as they say by money Oliver Maillard a Monk of the observance his Confessor That Cordelier represented to Charles that Christian Charity allowed not Christians of what quality soever they were to take advantage from the misfortunes of others and that notwithstanding that was a thing which the late King had done and which his most Christian Majesty continued to do That when Louis the Eleventh had caused the late King of Arragon to be summoned to repay the money lent upon the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne he found him in an utter incapacity of satisfying him and that nevertheless his Majesty had therefrom taken all the advantages that are allowed by the Law of Nations That the King of Arragon was at that time pestered in a Civil War and a Foreign War both at once seeing on the one hand the King of Castile incomparably stronger than he had entered his Dominions with an Army and on the other hand the Catalonians had revolted That his Majesty of Arragon died before these Affairs were concluded and that Ferdinand his Son was no more in a condition than he to redeem the two Counties since he was forced to employ all his own Revenue and that of the Queen of Castile his Wife for driving the Mahometan Moors out of the Kingdom of Granada and that by consequent the prescription expired not in respect of him because he was taken up in a Holy War That his most Christian Majesty therefore was no less obliged in conscience to restore him the Counties and that though in the Court of Man he had a very good right to demand the Money and the Interest of the Debt which his Predecessor had lent yet he had not so in the Court of Heaven since France had recovered more out of the same Counties than amounted to the first Sum lent That he must not neither make deduction of the Expences that the late most Christian King was forced to be at in raising an Army of forty thousand men even according to the account of Spanish Authors and sending them into Roussillon for the reduction of the Town of Perpignan that had revolted That the Rebellion of that important place ought neither to be imputed to the late King of Arragon who had no hand in it nor to Ferdinand his Son that had neither directly nor indirectly countenanced it and that so Roussillon and Cerdagne ought without farther delay to be restored to him Charles who was not sharp-sighted enough to distinguish the truth from the falshood in this Discourse of his Confessour obeyed the Father but not so implicitely as the Cordelier pretended he should His Majesty indeed restored the Counties without receiving either Principal or Interest of the money disbursed by his Father but in return he required two conditions of Ferdinand which would have been no less troublesom to him than the payment of the money had they been as faithfully performed as they were stipulated in a solemn Treaty * In the last Treaty of France for the Counties The first was that Ferdinand should enter into no League offensive or defensive against France the other that he should not marry any of his four Daughters neither in Germany England nor Flanders and that he should not give them any Husbands without the consent of the most Christian King or his Successours but before a year was over Ferdinand broke the first condition and made no more scruple afterward to violate the second Six months after he entered into the Pyrenean League of Italy against Charles his Benefactor and had the greatest hand in robbing him of his Conquests Not long after he formed the project of hedging in France on the side of Picardy Champagne and Burgundy as he bordered it already on the side of Guyenne and Languedock and made account of bringing into his Family the Low Countries and the ten Hereditary Provinces of the House of Austria That House was reduced to Maximilian the First the Emperour the Archduke Philip and the Archdutchess Margaret his Children The Archduke was so tender and had cost so
in a very short time it could not admit of a third because the impression that they must have made upon the body and the extreme violence that the same body must have been put to in supporting of them would have exhausted so many spirits that there could not remain enough for a fresh application of so large an extent In a word that Prince made a farther reflection that if the functions of the Soul were weakened in three violent exercises of the same force they would be much more weakened when these exercises were not only different but also contrary because then the distance would be greater and the obstacles more difficult to be surmounted From these three Principles Ferdinand concluded that to prevent Queen Isabella from expiring upon the news of her Sons death she must first be put into an extreme grief upon a false ground that then she must be carried from the extremity of sadness to that of joy by setting before her sight what she bewailed as lost and giving her by that means the speediest and most agreeable consolation that she could be capable of that lastly the person that was dearest to her next to her Son should come and tell her that God had removed him and should sweeten the bitterness of the tidings by so many reasons and examples that the grief occasioned thereby might produce no extraordinary effects So the Catholick King having taken such just measures that his Wife could not be informed of the death of her Son but from him caused some persons of credit to go and tell her that the King her Husband was dead of a sudden death She believed it the more easily that he had almost all the symptoms of those that are subject to that kind of death She was as deeply afflicted as she ought to be and in that condition she was let alone about an hour Her first transports of sorrow were hardly over when Ferdinand whom she expected to see no more appeared in her sight She was thereupon so ravished with joy that she could neither think of complaining of the trick that was put upon her nor of quarrelling those that had imposed it Her Husband let her alone in this fit of Joy almost as long as she had been in grief and then with very elaborate mollifying expressions told her that their Son was gone She was indeed moved at it but not so much as if it had been done in another manner and some days after she found her mind so much at ease again as to apply her self to Affairs of State. The most important Affair was to prevent the Successions of Castile and Arragon from devolving upon a foreign Family and not a Spanish and seeing their Catholick Majesties could not compass this design after the death of their only Son but by marrying again their eldest Daughter in Portugal they intimated to Manuel who had newly mounted the Throne of that Kingdom that if he sought her in marriage he should have her Manuel was too ambitious to refuse the Match that was offered him and seeing at that time he had a design of conquering the Indies and that he foresaw the advantage that the Alliance of the Catholick Kings would afford him in the execution thereof in the sole prospect of hastening his Marriage he neglected the usual Ceremonies in the Alliances of Kings He demanded no security for his going into Castile but appeared at the Court of the Catholick Kings sooner than he was expected and there married the Infanta Isabella to the extraordinary joy of the Spaniards passionate for the greatness of their Country who thereby saw all their Monarchies except that of Navarre united into one The new married Princes were acknowledged for Heirs apparent of * In Caramnel Castile and presumptive of Arragon and Ferdinand was so afraid lest the House of Austria into which his second Daughter was married might pretend any share in the Succession that he obliged the Queen his Wife forthwith to assemble the Estates of Castile in the City of Toledo where the Queen of Portugal received the Oath of all the Deputies Immediatly after he called the Estates of Arragon at Sarragossa where the same Ceremony was performed The joy of the People was redoubled by the Queen of Portugals being with Child which appeared before they were dismissed The Catholick Kings were afraid that some inconvenience might befal her if she accompanied the King her Husband who was upon his return into Portugal and would not suffer her to depart from Sarragossa before she was brought to bed They chose rather to stay there with her and divert her in expectation that she should give them an Heir and in the mean time the Castilian and Portuguese Nations conquered the Antipathy that had continued betwixt them for so many Ages and promiscuously spent their time at play Dancing Turnaments and running at the Ring The hopes that seemed almost certain of their being one day united contributed much to it but there have been few of such Festivals wherein the conclusion answered the beginning The Queen of Portugal had had no Children by the Infanto Alphonso her first Husband She was already twenty eight years of age when she was first with Child Physicians affirm that on such occasions the pains of Labour encrease proportionably as the woman who is brought to bed the first time is advanced in age and these three reasons with a fourth which modesty obliges me to suppress were the cause that her Portuguese Majesty could not be a Mother but at the cost of her life She was brought to bed in due time and of a Son but she died of it and all the hopes of the Catholick Kings were confined to their Grandson who was Christened by the name of Michael His Grandfather and Grandmother caused him to be acknowledged by the Estates of Castile and Arragon but he was so sickly that the Spaniards began to look upon the Archdutchess of the Low Countries and Philip of Austria her Husband as the Heirs apparent of their Monarchy The Catholick Queen was so persuaded of it when she was informed that the Archdutchess was on the four and twentieth of February One thousand five hundred brought to bed of a Son who was afterward the Archduke Charles to whom Chievres was Governour that by a spirit of Prophesie she applied upon the spot these words of the Acts of the Apostles The lot fell upon Matthias alluding to the Saint whose Feast was that day celebrated in the Church to signifie that the Child was born in so favourable a Juncture that he would succeed to her Crowns as well as to those of her Husband The event soon followed the Prediction and Charles was not as yet compleat five months old when the Infanto Michael died the twentieth of July the same year at the age of two years The regrate of the Catholick Kings therefore was not equal though on both sides it was great because Queen Isabella seeing an absolute
in that disposition contributed not a little as they say to keep him in it being assured to render himself necessary to his Master so long as it lasted There was no more Commerce betwixt the Father and Son in law but what could not civilly be discontinued and the Archduke to make a closer Union with the most Christian King against his Catholick Majesty made three agreements for the marriage of his eldest Son with Claude of France eldest Daughter to his Majesty But the Alliances which are most securely contracted in writing are not those which most frequently succeed best The death of Queen Isabella which happened the seventeenth of November One thousand five hundred and four was the cause or pretext that the three Contracts of marriage were not fulfilled and Ferdinand for all he was so politick a Prince could not ward a blow that was so disadvantageous to him and so favourable to his Son-in-law * In the Testament of Queen Isabella There was indeed a Testament of Queen Isabella found which ordained that the King her Husband during life should have the administration and Revenues of Castile but the Testament was no sooner examined than the Courtiers and Lawyers agreed in suspecting it to be forged The Archduke who had a mind to reign and saw himself excluded for a long time and perhaps for his whole life by an Act so inconsistent with Motherly affection had no regard to it and indeed it was hard to be believed that it could have been dictated and signed by Queen Isabella considering her humour all her life time in relation to her Husband for there hapned to that Princess what is but too common to Women who out of a Maxim of State marry Husbands as young again as themselves When Ferdinand and Isabella were married Ferdinand was but sixteen years old and Isabella two and thirty Her Jealousie of Ferdinand appeared soon after their marriage and it ought to be said here for her excuse that it was not without ground Ferdinand had slighted her and been often unfaithful though she was very beautiful and besides no woman living more scrupulous in the point of Chastity than her self He had loved other Ladies by whom he had the Archbishop of Sarragossa Don Alphonso d' Arragon and other Bastards who will be more properly mentioned in another place of this History Isabella had not therefore behaved her self the worse towards him but Injuries of that nature which are most patiently born with are not those for all that which make the smallest impressions in peoples minds and are soonest blotted out If Isabella had so much command over her self as during her life to dissemble the ramblings of her Husband it is not very likely that at her death she would reward him for them that is to say in a Juncture when there is no time for counterfeiting and when she was no longer to observe measures with him nor that she would have deprived her eldest Daughter of the enjoyment of the Kingdom of Castile which Nature Law Reason and the Custom of Spain gave to her to leave it to a fickle Husband who would not fail so soon as he should be a Widower to marry again nor to employ all sorts of means not only to secure to the Children of the second Marriage the Crowns of Arragon but also if possible to procure for them the Kingdoms of Castile in prejudice of the Children of his former bed Isabella had cause to fear it since the Father and Mother of Ferdinand had done as much for him and that the unfortunate Charles Prince of Vienne the Son of the first Wife of John King of Arragon had been poysoned to make way for the same Ferdinand who was only the Son of the second Be it as it will the Archduke was not amused by the Couriers whom his Father in law sent to stay him in Flanders under pretext that it might be prejudicial to the Archdutchess his Wife ready to lie in of a Daughter which was Mary Queen of Hungary He nevertheless departed with her for Spain in the month of January One thousand five hundred and seven and the new Queen of Castile had no prejudice by it Chievres was left Governour of the Low Countries and Manuel accompanied the Archduke Ferdinand was so ill informed of the course his Daughter and Son-in-law took that he went to wait for them at one end of Spain whilst they landed at the other All the great men of the Kingdom except two declared for them they were solemnly Crowned the People swore Allegiance to them without respect to the Testament of the late Queen and Ferdinand finding himself not to be the stronger caused an Accommodation to be proposed to his Son-in-law seeing he confided far more in his own management than in that of his Agents he sollicited with so much perseverance an interview with the King of Castile that he obtained it but it cost him dear and he must first pass through mortifications that were so much the more sensible to him as that he was the less accustomed to the like He was constrained to go to his Son-in-law trust himself in his hands to be satisfied with his bare word for a safe Conduct and to present himself in the posture of a Supplicant He appeared indeed in that manner accompanied with a small Retinue without Arms and mounted on Mules He could not have a private Conference with his Son-in-law and Manuel who was the man in the world he hated most because he imputed to him all the harshness he found in the King of Castile towards him made always a third person in the Conference Ferdinand at first lost his hopes of retaining the administration left him by his Wife and condescended at length to accept one half of the Revenues But he was positively denied any share and sent back extremely vexed that he had humbled himself in vain Cardinal Ximenes who was no less his Friend though he owed not his advancement to him mediated for him another interview with his Son-in law in the Vestry of the Church of Remedo a League from Vailladolid The two Kings discoursed alone without any other Witness but the Cardinal who kept the door They concluded at length that Ferdinand should absolutely renounce the administration of Castile upon two conditions The one that he should enjoy during life the three great Masteries of the Orders of St. James Callatrava and Alcantara The other that his Son-in-law should pay him yearly at Sarragossa whither he should immediately after the interview retire a moderate Pension which amounted but according to some to three Counts of Maravedis or to eight Counts at most according to others Ferdinand was no sooner in Arragon but that he laboured to be revenged for the pretended indignities received from his Son-in-law He supposed that the personal charms of that young Prince would indeed preserve to him the affections of the Castillians in time of Peace but he doubted that that
the late Queen Isabella and that it was she that had given him the command of the Spanish Army which he had conducted with so much success it was to be thought that he would have preserved the Kingdom of Naples for the Heiress of that Princess as sixteen years before he would have had the Kingdom of Granada which he had conquered united to Castile the Infidels having been chiefly subdued by the Castillian Forces If any thing could hinder him from doing it it must be the presence of Ferdinand and that Prince upon that very account alone did not stand deliberating if he should go to Naples He departed from Barcelona with his new Queen and his Voyage was more prosperous than he expected He found not in Italy the resistance which he expected and the Great Captain instead of fortifying himself in the Kingdom of Naples against Ferdinand who carried not along with him Forces enough to drive him out of it preferred the Grandeur of the Monarchy of Spain before his own interests merely upon the consideration that he had enlarged it by the accession of two Crowns He foresaw that Ferdinand would have no more Children and that his Grandson Charles of Austria succeeding to him would become the most powerful Monarch of Europe He also foresaw that if he resisted Ferdinand Spain would lose the Kingdom of Naples because the obstinate humour of that Prince would make him rather abandon it to France than leave it in the power of a revolted Subject Upon two such Metaphysical Principles the Great Captain of his own accord laid down the Vice-royalty of Naples He stayed not till Ferdinand should constrain him but reduced himself to the condition of a private man He came out of the Kingdom of Naples where he could do any thing went as far as Genoa to meet the Catholick King received him at the Harbour of that City and wholly submitted himself to his discretion That unexpected adventure was not the passage of the Reign of Frederick that most affected him he had two others which supervened so pat that he could not have drawn greater advantage from them though he had been the Author of the same The one was the death of the King of Castile * Philip of Austria his Son-in-law and the other the madness of the Queen of Castile †Jane of Arragon his Daughter The King of Castile remaining peaceable possessour of that Monarchy by his Father-in-laws retiring into Arragon minded nothing but his diversions and lived in too great a freedom with his principal Subjects not to give them occasion of abusing it The Government of Burgos the Capital City of old Castile was fallen void and the King gave it to his Favourite Manuel Manuel had no sooner taken possession of it but he invited his Master to a magnificent Feast It is not known whether the King of Castile eat and drank more than was fit whether any of his Enemies or Manuel found a way to convey Poyson into the choicest dainties of the entertainment or whether the great exercise which the King used immediately after so extraordinary a Dinner without giving his stomach time to concoct ruined the health of that young Prince which from his Infancy had never suffered any alteration but it is certain that he played long at Tennis after he rose from Table and that the same Evening which was the nineteenth of September One thousand five hundred and six he was taken ill of a Fever Seeing there appeared a Comet at that time and that the great men as well as the common people are persuaded that such Stars are not only the signs but also the causes of the death of Sovereigns it made so deep an impression upon the imagination of the King of Castile that during his sickness which lasted but seven days he complained at every moment of the Comet Nor did he lose the fancy of it in the height of a hot fit that seized him two days before he expired and and when he became light-headed he cried out in French even to his last gasp with a lamentable tone Ah Comet ah Comet He died the five and twentieth of September One thousand five hundred and six at the age of twenty eight years when he had only reigned two years and though he was a German by extraction and a Fleming by birth and that the Spaniards have a natural aversion to a Foreign Dominion yet they never lamented the death of any of their Kings so bitterly as they did his The shortness of his Reign was probably the cause of it and there is ground to think by what follows that if he had lived longer he had neither been so much nor so universally regretted He gave by handfuls and without distinction of persons In the distribution of his favours he had not so much regard to merit and services as to the diligence of those who first presented him their * In his Elogy Petitions and it is reported of him that his Council having one day asked him if he had granted the gift that they mentioned to him he made answer that he did not remember but that they might easily know it of him who they thought had received it if he had asked the same seeing in that case he was sure he had granted it Jane Queen of Castile loved him with too great a tenderness to be free from Jealousie She understood whilst she was in Flanders that he loved and was beloved of a Lady of Brabant That was enough to set her upon a revenge which was the first sign she gave of a distraction of mind She went to the place where her Rival was and called her before her She ordered two or three of her Servants to secure her hand and foot She fell upon her cut off her lovely head of hair and with her Scissors so disfigured the lovely traits of her face that the most charming beauty of the Low Countries durst not shew her self any more abroad The Archduke was extremely vexed at it but he was constrained to dissemble his displeasure when he perceived that the more he upbraided her with it the more enraged and furious she grew He carefully afterward avoided the giving her the least occasion of Jealousie By her he had two Sons who were both Emperours and three Daughters who were the Queens of Hungary France and Portugal he left her with Child of a third who was also Queen of Portugal and whether her grief for his death overcame her reason or that it only stirred up in her the dispositions to madness which were transmitted to her with the bloud of her maternal Grandmother Isabella of Portugal it is but too true that she lost her Judgment in so dreadful a manner that she never recovered a moments use of it during the whole fifty years that she lived after We leave it to Philosophers and Physicians to examine how the mad Isabella of Portugal could communicate to Jane of Arragon her
if he persisted resolute in the execution of a Treaty which he might break without being thought unfaithful since not only he was cheated in it more than the half of the just value but also he reserved not thereby the hundredth part of what belonged to him and would ruine the Family by dividing it in such a manner as it could never be re-united again That all Europe was persuaded that Ferdinand loved the younger Son incomparably better than the elder and that there were such evident marks of that preference that it could not be doubted seeing he had given his name to the younger That he took a particular care of his education that he visited him time after time in the Colledge of Alcala where he studied and that he brought him up in the hopes of being one day King of Castile and Arragon That it would be very hard to hinder that odd design if the Catholick King reigned in CAstile till the Archduke were five and twenty years of age compleat because that long space of time would be sufficient to settle the young Ferdinand so firm in Spain that though his elder Brother had a mind to force him thence yet he could not be able to do it and the hatred of the two Brothers would become indelible in that the elder would always lay claim to the Monarchies which his younger Brother had usurped from him and the younger would still be upon his guard against his elder Brother in the sole prospect of maintaining his Usurpation whereas if the Emperour had the administration of Castile during the Minority of the Archduke he would preserve that Monarchy for him and his Ministers would from thence so carefully watch all the actions of the Catholick King that it would be almost impossible for him to raise young Ferdinand to the Throne of Arragon If contrary to all appearance the Affair might still succeed yet young Ferdinand could not long sit on the Throne to which his Benefactor had raised him and there would be so little proportion betwixt his Forces and those of his elder Brother that he would be soon subdued which could not befall him if he possessed the two Monarchies of Castile and Arragon seeing in that case his elder Brother must cross over all France to which the most Christian King would never consent Maximilian had no more regard to the Remonstrances of Margarite of Austria than the most Christian King had to those of the Countess of Angoulesm whether it was that the word of his Imperial Majesty was already too far engaged or that he apprehended not the inconveniences which Chievres foresaw His Accommodation with the Catholick King was concluded he had his fifty thousand Crowns a year that were promised him duly payed and Ferdinand reigned so long as he lived with as much authority in Castile as Arragon though he had no right over the Castilians and was lawful King of the Arragonese But it seldom happens that private men concern themselves in the quarrels of their Sovereigns scotfree for if the Party they adhered to get the better of the other they seldom obtain a reward proportionable to the greatness of their services and if they succumb the unfortunate Prince for whom they declared abandons them to the discretion of the happy Prince whom they have offended or at least takes no care to comprehend them in his Articles of Agreement which is almost the same as if he abandoned them There was no mention neither of Chievres nor of Manuel made in the reconciliation of the Emperour and Catholick King but the Archdukes Governour sustained no prejudice thereby and all the storm broke upon the Favourite of his Father Ferdinand durst not attempt to remove Chievres from his Grandson Charles because Louis the Twelfth who had placed him there would have been concerned in honour to have maintained him and besides the People of the Low Countries would not have suffered him to have been deposed with what pretext soever that change had been coloured But Manuel who had not so good a back remained without a Protector Maximilian sacrificed him without scruple and Ferdinand made it a Principle of policy to drive him to the utmost extremity By that means he thought to over aw the more restless spirits of Castile and to render them so tractable that they would trouble him no more in the administration of their Monarchy It happened however that the People of the Low Countries where Manuel had taken sanctuary seconded but in half the violence of his Catholick Majesty They consented indeed that Manuel should be committed to Prison but they would not comply with Ferdinand to bring him to a Trial before the Supreme Court of Flanders In vain his Catholick Majesty declared himself Plaintiff and offered to make it out in lawful form that he had been the only cause of the mis-understanding that had been betwixt himself and the late King of Castile his son-in-law They shifted his Proposition by sending him this positive answer That it belonged not to the Subjects of the Archduke Charles such as were the Judges of the Low Countries to try an Affair that concerned another Subject of that Prince born in a Country far remote from theirs and over whom they had no Jurisdiction the Crimes in question not having been committed in Flanders That they were willing to believe upon the word of his Majesty that Manuel was guilty because he had been so unhappy as to give him occasion to think him so and that it was only upon that account that they had made sure of his Person that they would keep him in safe custody and be answerable for him But that seeing the Archduke was concerned in the Affair by reason of his Fathers reputation which might be blemished there was a necessity of staying till he was of age and that the Laws of Castile gave him Authority to assist at the Judgment of a Castilian Ferdinand was not satisfied with that excuse But it being impossible for him to obtain any more against Manuel he did not complain and the Flemings denied Manuel nothing which he desired to ease the irksomness of a Prison He continued there until the death of Ferdinand and came out immediately after * In the last Negotiation of Manuel His gratitude to the Archduke who went in Person with Chievres to take him out of Prison was such that thereafter he stirred up in his favours all the Princes of Italy against the French and gave him the occasion of taking from them the Dutchy of Milan The big belly of the Queen Germana was more than sufficient to comfort Ferdinand for that the sole Castilian whom he had proposed to undo had escaped from his revenge His Catholick Majesty had in the year One thousand five hundred and nine a Son who without dispute ought to disappoint the Archduke of the Kingdoms of Arragon Valencia Majorca Minorca Naples and Sicily The late King of Castile agreed to that and the
will but collecting of Manuscripts and setting up Libraries There was not a House of any note in Europe but he could upon the spot blazon its Coat of Arms and deduce the Genealogy thereof and though no man knew better than he that Nobility is only the reward of merit and that he could not more sensibly affront the Gentry of Navarre than by introducing amongst them persons altogether undeserving yet he did but too often give them occasion of vexing at his conduct in that particular whether it was that he suffered himself to be wheedled by flattery or that he could not resist long importunities He had learned in Guyenne to treat with his Vassals as a simple Gentleman and that familiarity which was reckoned a virtue in him so long as he continued in France became his greatest vice when he was in Spain the People of that Country esteeming none more enormous than that which is most inconsistent with gravity Royal Majesty was to him insupportable in all the actions that were not of Ceremony At other times he loved to live in an equallity which he called the Cement of Civil Society He went willingly to such places where he was invited to eat provided the company consisted only of Gentlemen of breeding and the first thing he did when he was come was to forget for some time that he was King and to be willing that the Master of the House and the Guests should forget it as well as he seeing he was very pleasant company he contributed at least as much to their mirth as they did to his and when he came to know of any feast made in Pampelona the chief City of Navarre whether out of respect they durst not invite him he invited himself and put the People to no charges for then he went commonly alone He loved dancing the more that in it he excelled all the Princes of his Age and when upon a Journey he found by the way companies of Towns or Country people who diverted themselves that way he struck in and danced with them He had so great antipathy against State affairs when he found them thorny that he abandoned them entirely to the care of his Ministers who not having the same interest in them as he had ordered them many times according to their fancy The greatest abuse that proceeded from thence was that the Magistracies Benefices Offices and Governments of Navarre were given to strangers and that the Remonstrances made thereupon by the Estates of the Kingdom were fruitless There is nothing Princes ought more to fear than the hatred and contempt of their Subjects However they may boast that they are not altogether unfortunate when they fall but into the aversion alone or into the contempt alone of the same Subjects because if they have only lost their affection the reverence that remains is sufficient to keep them in obedience and if they have only lost the reverence affection supplies the defect but when there is neither reverence nor affection it is impossible to prevent revolutions in States and to hinder them from growing universal when once they are begun John d' Albert was no more respected by the Navarrese by reason of his too familiar way of living and for all that reigned no less peaceably because he was no less beloved of the meaner sort whom he treated as his equals nor of the great men who well enough foresaw that a Prince of that temper would never invade their Priviledges but so soon as he attracted the hatred of both by preferring before them strangers and persons of mean virtue nothing was then able to support him and he succumbed under the first attack that was made against him For many Ages Navarre had been divided into two almost equal Factions in power the one was that of Beaumont the other that of Grammont according to the old Titles of the House which still retains that name and of Grammont according to the modern The chief of the House of Beaumont was the Count of Lerin hereditary Constable of Navarre and the chief of the House of Grammont was Lord of Tutelle and High Marshal of the Kingdom The Count of Lerin had all the Qualities or to say better all the Vices that ancient and modern Histories have observed in extraordinary men who have made themselves Heads of Parties His mind was the more malicious that neither Humanity nor Religion retained it upon any occasion within bounds He had killed the Father and only Brother of the Count of Tutelle and for killing them had profaned what is most holy in the Catholick Religion The Cardinal de Foix during the preceding Reign had interposed to reconcile the Families of Beaumont and Grammont and thought he had accomplished it when he had obliged the Constable and Marshal of Navarre to promise solemnly that they would forget what was past and for the future live in perfect friendship After that he celebrated Mass divided the Host into two and communicated both Parties and yet this hindered not but that the Constable as soon as he came out of the Church went and way-laid the Marshal with a purpose to assassinate him He missed his blow indeed but left not off searching occasions afterwards of putting it in execution The Marshal on the contrary was a frank man and who in all appearance departed not from the Maxims of Religion but because he was not sufficiently instructed in them He supposed it was lawful to revenge the death of his Father and Brother and the murder attempted upon his own Person provided it were done publickly and without treachery The Constable and Marshal had engaged into their quarrel all the Nobility of Navarre and their private difference was insensibly degenerated into a Civil War wherein their Neighbours had taken the part that interest or inclination suggested to them The French declared for the Faction of Grammont and the Castilians out of pure antipathy espoused that of Beaumont which was actually the most powerful in the City of Pampelona when John d' Albert made his first entry into it He favoured those of Grammont before he married the Heiress of Navarre and the effects of it were so visible that the Common People had as little cause to doubt of it as the Nobility Thus the Constable had cause more than enough to distrust the new King and to fear being born down by him if he received him at first and without Conditions into the Capital City of the Kingdom He had thereupon the boldness to shut the Gates upon him and not to open them till after a Capitulation wherein John d' Albert obliged himself in writing not to meddle in the quarrel betwixt those of Beaumont and Grammont upon any ground or pretext whatsoever John d' Albert granted all that the Constable demanded of him because otherwise he could not have been Crowned with the common consent of the Nobility of Navarre but the affront seemed to him afterward to be too great to be
make him desirous of returning home to the Low Countries but his Majesty did not foresee that his own life would be too short to tire out the Deans patience He had desired heretofore his Horoscope to be cast and God who punishes Sovereigns that are addicted to Judicial Astrology more severely and universally than private persons either because he is more Jealous upon their account for the attribute which according to Scripture raises him highest above them I mean the knowledge of things to come or that the scandal they give in that particular is more insupportable to him deferred not the punishment of it till the next World. He began it in this by blinding the understanding of King Ferdinand and permitting the Astrologers to tell him part of the truth They assured him that he should die at Madrigal and that Prediction which seemed not at all equivocal was by his Majesty interpreted in the most natural sense He thought it ought to be understood of the Town of Madrigal in Castile upon so much the better ground that there was no other Town of that name in all Spain This put such fancies in his head that he thought he should not die but when he had a mind to it and to express it plainly in his own meaning that he should live till he were weary of life One of his Courtiers had confirmed him in that opinion by telling him that he had visited a Lady in the City of Avila whom the Publick had Sainted in her life-time and who in Spain was honoured as the Saints in heaven That he had had the happiness of a quarter of an hours discourse with her and that he had not failed to recommend the Catholick King to her Prayers That the holy woman had answered him that his Majesty should not die till he had conquered the Kingdom of Jerusalem and that she had not enjoyned him to keep that revelation secret There needed no more for taking off Ferdinand from seriously thinking on his latter end and to compleat his blindness that which ought to have excited him to it served only to divert him from the same After the drinking of the Love-potion we mentioned he had been often taken with such terrible fits that the Physicians thought he was ready to expire Nevertheless he came to himself again so well that next day after he employed himself in Affairs of State as formerly He thereupon fancied that the fainting fits that now and then seized him would be of no dangerous consequence and when Father Martin of Matience a Monk of the Order of St. Dominick his Confessour came to attend him on Holy days he asked him if he had any Memoires to communicate to him and no sooner had the Confessour answered no but that Ferdinand presently dismissed him Being thus prepossessed he was informed that the best Commandery of the Knights of Callatrava was vacant by the death of Guttierez of Padilla and resolved immediately to confer it upon Ferdinand of Arragon lawful Son to the Archbishop of Sarragossa his natural Son. He could not do it according to the Constitutions without calling the Chapter in that sole prospect upon the place In the institution of the Order of Callatrava and therefore he set out upon his Journey thither But about the end of the month of January One thousand five hundred and sixteen when he was come to the Hamlet of Madrigalejo through which he must of necessity pass unless he went a great way about his dissentery grew so great that it was impossible for him to proceed any further That Hamlet the least in all Spain stood within the Precincts of the Town of Trugillo and that was all which rendered it considerable Ferdinand was no sooner informed of the name of it but that he found his mistake in the interpretation he put upon his Horoscope and that he had in vain with so much care shunned to go to the great Madrigal since he must end his days in the little one Madrigalejo in the Spanish Tongue being a diminutive of Madrigal He sent for the knowing men of his Retinue enquired of them whether that Hamlet where he was had not always gone by the same name since Castile was delivered from the Tyranny of the Moors and when they had made him answer that it had never changed name and that it was so inconsiderable that no man durst venture to put it into the Map he told them then Ferdinand is gone He sent for his Confessor and discoursed him in good earnest about the affairs of his conscience and having ordered them he called for three of his ancientest and ablest Counsellours of State who were the Licentiat Zapata Doctor Carvaial and the Treasurer Vargas He asked them what he had more to do for the good of the Spanish Monarchy and told them that they might speak with all freedom These Spaniards were so aged that they could have no interest in the affairs that might happen after the death of Ferdinand They expected not to out-live him long and therefore his Successour was a thing indifferent to them They had no cause to fear any change in their fortune because they knew that the beginnings of the most severe Reigns were always easie and they expected to die in the beginning Besides they foresaw that which soever of the two Grandsons of the Catholick King should succeed to him he would not turn them out of his Council seeing if it were the Archduke he could not for a long time do it because of his absence and if it were the Infanto Ferdinand he could less do it by reason of his minority Nothing then swayed with them but the inclination which in latter Ages had been so absolutely predominant and is still so predominant in the Spaniards that hardly does History mention one who hath been free from it And that is so violent a love for their Monarchy that it always prevails with them over the most natural and just considerations which is of so vast an extent that it comprehends the whole Earth so constant that it encreases rather than is diminished by bad success and so nice and Metaphysical that it makes always a distinction betwixt the Monarchy and the Monarch and never confounds the inclinations for the second with the interests of the first The Catholick King during the two and forty years that he had Reigned had so accustomed those whom he admitted into his Councils to lay down the universal Monarchy of Spain for the ground of all their deliberations that the three Ministers whom he consulted agreed in this sentiment that now was the Juncture when Spain was to Reign all over Europe and that if the opportunity was not then nicked whatever might happen perhaps it would never offer again That we may more clearly express their thoughts they supposed that if the Archduke should to the Monarchies of Castile and Arragon unite the Low Countries the Empire and the Hereditary Provinces of the House of
Austria in Germany it would be his own fault if he conquered not the Kingdom of France and that afterward the rest of Europe would make but a weak resistance whereas if the States to which the Archduke ought to succeed were divided and if the Testament of the Catholick King which continued him to the Inheritance of his Father and Paternal Grandfather held good in that particular If the Infanto Ferdinand had Spain and if by that means variance entred into the House of Austria not only the greatness of the Monarchy of Spain would be at a stand but also it would lose all that it held in Italy and in the Neighbourhood It was only then in that prospect and without any respect to the Archduke and his personal qualities that Zapata Carvaial and Vargas declared in his Favours and the advantage he reaped from it is no less singular for the causes of it than it is in it self The three Ministers represented to Ferdinand that seeing his Majesty thought fit that they should continue to speak to him with open heart as they had been wont to do He would still have the goodness to take in good part the liberty they took to tell him that he seemed to have changed his Conduct at the end of his life and by his last Will and Testament condemned his most considerable Actions and which had acquired him greatest Reputation That he had done them the honour to declare when he called them to his Council that his only intention in this World was the enlargement of his Territories and that though he had not expressed himself so plainly yet there needed no more but to study his past life to convince them of it That no Man in Europe was ignorant how Ferdinand the Catholick at the age of fifteen years had espoused the Party of the late Queen Isabella sister to Henry the fourth of Castile against the Infanta Jane the Daughter of that King in no other view but because Isabella by bestowing herself upn him had offered to unite the Crowns of Castile to those of Arragon and that if Jane had been so well advised as to have preferred his Alliance before that of the Prince of Portugal who sought her in Marriage her Party would not have succumbed and she had not past for a Bastard That after the union of Castile and Arragon for adding the Kingdom of Granada to them Division had been sown betwixt him who was King of it and his brother and the more powerful was so weakned by supporting the weaker against him that both at length were oppressed That for an accession also to Arragon by joyning thereto the Kingdom of Naples in the City of Tarento the Prince who carried the name of it and who was the only Son of the King of Naples was Besieged That he had been prevailed with to relie upon the Faith and Truth of the Spaniards whose General the Great Captain had sworn to him upon the Holy Sacrament to leave him in liberty and that notwithstanding he had been detained Prisoner and under a sure Guard sent into Spain where still he remained in Prison That in a word a pretended Bull from the Pope had been made use of for seizing the Kingdom of Navarre and for driving from thence John d' Albert who had Married the Heiress of it In the mean time his Catholick Majesty destroyed his own work by preferring the younger of his Grandsons before the elder and laid an everlasting impediment to the greatness that Spain began to be raised to by kindling betwixt the two Brothers a War which would not end but by the entire ruine of him that should be overcome and such a weakning of the Conqueror that Spain would be so far from expecting new Conquests under him that it would become a Prey to the first who should invade it That since the Spaniards had bestirred and delivered themselves from the Slavery of the Moors they had been oftener subject to Civil Wars than Foreign for no other reason but that the Nobles had been too powerful and more apt to give Laws to their Masters than to receive them from them That they had not behaved themselves more modestly nor reservedly under his Catholick Majesty but because after his Marriage with Queen Isabella the Nobility of Castile were apprehensive of succumbing under the Forces of Arragon which they doubted not but would pour in upon them and that the Nobles of Arragon had had a juster cause to fear their being run down by the Arms of those of Castile That if young Ferdinand were King one of the two would have time during his minority to take measures against him and would retain so little respect for his Person because he was but fourteen years of age and was not so well brought up as his elder brother that they would oblige him at least for some years to leave the publick administration to the Grandees of Castile and the chief of Arragon which would infallibly renew Civil Wars in Spain That if his Catholick Majesty suffering things to go according to their ordinary course called the Archduke to his Succession the Gentlemen of Castile and Arragon would want both a pretext and means of revolting A pretext in that the Archduke at sixteen years of Age was no less able to govern them than the wisest Kings of Spain have been And means seeing their Rebellion would instantly be crushed by the Forces which that Prince would raise in Flanders and Germany and might easily bring into Spain by occasion of the Treaty which he had ratified with the new King of France The Catholick King strangely surprized and nevertheless convinced with this discourse made answer that seeing he could not conveniently leave Castile and Arragon to the Infanto In the last Council given to Ferdinand He must at least resign to him the three great masteries of the Order of St. James Calatrava and Alcantara the Revenue whereof would be sufficient for the subsistence of a Prince of his quality That his Majesty at the same time he resolved to make him his Heir had written to the Court of Rome to have him invested into these three headships of Orders That the Affair had been negotiated first with Julius the second and since with Leo the tenth and that the chief difficulty that those two Popes had found in it proceeded from a Bull granted before by Julius to the Commander Padilla which assured him of succeeding to his Catholick Majesty in the great Mastery of Calatrava provided he outlived him That the Bull of Julius was insignificant since Padilla was dead and that so nothing now hindred the expedition of that which allowed his Majesty the resignation of the three Masteries in favour of the Infanto But the three Counsellors of State being encouraged by the success of their Remonstrances and perswaded that having obtained the chief point his Majesty would not long refuse to grant them what was but accessory replied to the Catholick
maternal Grandfather and alledged for his reasons that Alvaro de Gusman his Uncle was illegitimate that he was the odious off-spring of a monstrous conjunction That Divine and Humane Laws equally condemned the Marriage of two Sisters and that if they had been sometimes suffered in Christian Religion it was only for causes that concerned the publick certain and present good of the State and Royal Persons That there was no such thing in the case in question and that by consequence the Dispensation obtained from Rome was null But for all that the Catholick King gave his Grand-daughter to Alvaro Gusman and made answer to those who would have disswaded him from it that it belonged not to Pedro Giron to quarrel at the Dispensation obtained by his Grandfather and that though there might be ground to find fault with it yet the presence of his Majesty and of the Queen Isabelle who signed the contract had supplied all defects of Law and Fact that would have intervened The Duke of Medina Sidonia died sometime after the Marriage of Alvaro his Son who took possession of all the Estate of the Family without any other opposition than that of some protestations in writing made in behalf of Pedro Giron But after the death of the Catholick King when Alvaro had lost in him his greatest supporter Pedro Giron thought the time was come for him to take possession of the Estate of the Family of Medina Sidonia He got of his Friends what money they thought fit to lend him he implored the assistance of his nearest Relations his Father excusing himself to engage in the quarrel because of his great Age He found a great many young men who had known him in the Armies disposed to assist him and from those three stocks he procured Forces enough to lay a regular Siege before St. Lucar one of the most noted Towns of Andalusia because of the commodiousness of its Harbour Seeing it properly belonged to the Dukes of Medins Sidonia and that it was part of the Entail of their eldest Sons which could neither be sold nor morgaged the Kings of Castille had no Garrison in it and only kept one in the Castle which commanded the place nor had they done so till first they gave the Dukes of Medina Sidonia authentick Declarations that it was not for any pretensions they had to it but only for the security of the Coast of Andalusia the most important of their Monarchy Alvaro put himself into the Town to defend it and received there so great a re-inforcement by Pontio d'Arâ—os his Cousin German that Pedro Giron despairing to take it in a long time by the usual ways endeavoured to corrupt Gonez de Solis who commanded the Castle Solis was inflexible and all that Pedro Giron could draw from him was that â—he late Catholick King when he put â—im in St. Lucar had commanded him â—o live in good correspondence with the Duke Alvaro and to act joyntly with â—im in all things that were not contrary â—o the interest of the Monarchy of Spain â—n general and of Castille in particular He told him that he could not excuse himself from obeying that Order until â—e had another from Flanders or that â—he Cardinal commanded him to obey Pedro Giron and that there was no other â—xpedients but these for entering into St. Lucar unless he thought it better to â—orce his way in Thus the Siege drew in length and Kimenes being perswaded that the disposition of the late King must by all means â—e maintained wrote to Chievres that â—hat was the only way to hinder the Nobility of Spain from rising and that as â—hey were naturally inclined to Idleness so they would infallibly betake themselves to it again when they saw their first attempt suppressed with as much authority in the absence of the Catholick King as if his Majesty were present and acted in person The Cardinal then prayed Chievres to procure what he was about to do to be approved in the Council of Bruxelles and enclosed a Letter for the King In the Letters of Ximenes to Chievres which contained the same thing expressed only in more respectful terms and without any other caution in a few days he mustered together the old Troops which he kept in several places in a readiness and senâ— them so suddenly to St. Lucar that they fell upon Pedro Giron before he had notice that they were in the field The consternation which seized the Besiegeâ— at the sight of them in a moment broke all the measures that had been taken for carrying the Dutchy of Medina Sidoniâ— Don Pedro was abandoned of all his Soldiers and himself forced to flie to a Country-house where he was noâ— known to be there to continue till his Friends should make his peace with Ximenes The cause of so odd an adventure was because most of the Besiegers were Voluntiers and only served in hopes as they were made believe that the Cardinal would approve what they did They knew him to be extraordinarily jealous of his Authority and inexorable when once he had been constrained to come to force From thence they concluded that if the Besiegers were defeated those of them that remained would suffer by the hand of the Executioner By their small number in comparison of those who came to the assistance of Duke Alvaro they judged that the match was not equal and thereupon disbanded themselves expecting till Pedro Giron could make his party stronger They were not altogether mistaken in their conjecture and the Enemies of Ximenes laboured with so much application and success to make him receive an affront in the affair of Medina Sidonia that Giron thought having got his Uncle the Constable of Castille and many other Grandees to League with him that he had no more to fear and that he might securely brave the Cardinal He went to Madrid supposing that that Prelate extraordinarily nice in matter of offence and easie to be provoked by slights offered to his Dignity would send him Orders to be gone with all expedition thereby furnish him with a pretext as he desired to complain of him But the Cardinal who saw into Giron's thoughts carried himself as if he had not known of his arrival at Madrid or as if he had not been concerned at it He gave him time to try his patience and Giron finding his first trick baffled by the affected insensibility of Ximenes invented a second He sent word to the Cardinal that he was come to Madrid upon no other design but to visit his Relations and Friends and that he would return immediately after He expected that the Cardinal would have replied to the Gentleman who brought him that word That Giron was not so great a man but that he might have come himself and given him the first notice of his arrival But the Cardinal dissembled still and made no other reply but In a good time Nothing so much displeases those that seek for a quarrel as a moderation
practised most unseasonably as to them that is to say at the time when they are most exasperated Giron whom Ximenes punished more severely by neglecting him than if he had put him in prison resolved to have his turn and to be even with him by a third way He told before some who he knew would acquaint the Cardinal with it the true cause why he had not gone to see that Prelate saying that it was to put a difference betwixt the Catholick King and those who had the honour to represent his person because the Grandees of Castille as often as they passed by the place where their King was were accustomed to visit him and if they did so in respect of the Cardinal the Catholick King might have cause to find fault with them for it That was reported to Ximenes who wondering no more at that than at all the rest forced Giron to attack him in a fair way by making a great party against him upon the old pretexts of discontent which the high Nobility had against him The Constable of Castille was the first that engaged in it because there was a talk of taking from him a Royal right which he had upon the Coasts of Andalusia The Duke of Bonevento was drawn in next out of spight because he had been hindered to finish a Fort which he had begun in the Territory of Cigalez The Duke of Albuquerque and the Duke of Medina Coeli followed their example because of Rents which they had out of the Crown Lands and the Bishop of Signensca was the fifth upon the account that being born in Portugal he apprehended to lose his Bishoprick lying in Castille supposing the Cardinal might be inclined of himself or might be desired to re-establish the Castillians in the possession of one of their fairest Priviledges which consisted in that neither their Offices nor Benefices could be held by strangers There remained no more to raise the other Heads of the high Nobility but to gain the Duke of Infantado the chief of the Family of Mendosa to whom the other Lords of Spain yielded in Birth Estate Riches and Merit It seemed no difficult thing to dispose him to a Revolt by reason of what had passed betwixt Ximenes and him He had heretofore courted the Alliance of that Cardinal and had offered to him notwithstanding the extream disproportion of their Families to marry Diego de Mendosa his Brothers Son with Isabelle of Cisnero the Cardinals Niece It is not known whether or no the Duke was tempted with ambition or that he only intended to unite more closely with that Favorite or lastly if he acted in prospect of augmenting the vast Estates of his Family by joyning thereto the great Treasure which the Cardinal was thought to have with his Heiress But it is certain that the Duke himself one day made the proposition to the Cardinal and that he surprised at the honour that was done â—im incomparably greater than he durst â—ave hoped for and wanting time to â—…ok upon the reverse of the Medal which was shown him by the fair side granted the Duke's desire But he reâ—ented it so soon as going into his Closet â—nd calling to mind what had befallen â—im he found that he had made too much haste and that self-love had so far â—linded him as to make him guilty of a â—ross fault against the maxims of quainest policy He had exposed himself by â—iving his consent too soon to the jealouâ—e which Ferdinand the Catholick King â—is Master who was then alive had alâ—eady conceived of him when his Majesty â—hould perceive that he renounced his â—ncient maxims and that instead of â—ontinuing to declare himself against the â—igh Nobility he began at long run to Ally with them by giving his Niece â—nd Heiress to the Nephew and Heir of â—he Duke who had all the Lords of Spain for his Kinsmen or Allies Whence Kimenes concluded In the Elogies of the House of Mendosa that if is Majesty had endeavouâ—ed to depose him when he â—ad no reasonable cause for it he would for the future set about it with so much the more ground that all the Spaniards were perswaded that if the Treasure of the Cardinal which was given out to be sufficient to raise and maintain a formidable Army were joyned to the power and credit of the Duke of Infantado the Heirs of both together might render themselves Masters of Castille if they had the ambition That was enough to make the Cardinal eat his words and seeing he never wanted ways to retrieve a false step when he had time to do it he excused the irregularity of his word in so many different manners that if the Duke was noâ— fully satisfied yet he had no sufficient occasion to break with him They were then to speak properly neither Friend nor Enemies when Giron's party proposed to have the Duke to head them and the six afore mentioned Grandees wenâ— upon that design to wait on him in the Town of Guada Caira where he past the Winter in the year One Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen They represented to him that the Spanish Nobility had gained a great reputation in the World by delivering their Country from the Tyranny of the Mores but that they were about to lose it iâ— they persisted in the insensibility that at present they were in That they had already suffered but too long a man of base birth who had judged himself so incapable of commanding that he had made a vow of obedience so long as he lived and who having only learnt to govern in the Cloisters where Authority is wholly absolute imagined that the Grandees of Spain were to be Ruled as absolutely as Cordeliers of the strictest observance That if the power he took to himself had any ground in the Laws of Spain it ought to be submitted unto but that these Laws favoured not a Monk who had only raised and did maintain himself by violating them That he could shew no other title for his pretended Regency but the Article of the last Will and Testament of the late Catholick King which bequeathed it to him but that there were three things to be found fault with in that Article the least whereof was sufficient to evacuate the execution thereof First that it was suggested by Carvaial the Counsellor of State to whom the Cardinal for reward had promised the Bishoprick of Siguença so soon as he had outed the Portuguese Prelate who was provided to it contrary to the custom of Castille Secondly that the Cardinal stretched his power infinitely beyond what he said was given him which stood in need of no proof seeing it was a thing so publick that no body was ignorant of it and lastly that granting it were true that the late Catholick King had granted him the Regency in the full extent that he exercised it in yet he ought not to be suffered to enjoy it seeing by the fundamental Laws of the Monarchy of Castille the Royal
Authority devolved upon the high Nobility during the time of minority or infirmity of their Kings when they were of long continuance and if the Nobility condescended that the late King Ferdinand should retain the Government for life yet it followed not that they had given him leave to dispose of it after his death The Duke of Infantado answered that he had at least as much ground to complain of the Cardinal as any other Grandee of Castille and that his Ancestors having left him considerable Estates of that nature which was pretended to be Lands of the Crown by consequence he had occasion to be apprehensive that they would begin at him in retrieving them that others might think it the less strange when they were dispossessed next that no favour had been shown to the most considerable Lord of Spain But that notwithstanding he was not of the opinion that any thing should be attempted in prejudice of the last Will of the late King nor contrary to the orders of the Catholick King Reigning though it was known that they were only provisional in what concerned Ximenes That that Cardinal had more experience and more ready money than they and that there was no doubt to be made but that he would root them out altogether if they gave him occasion to put the people on his side by letting them know that the Lords of Castille struck at the memory of the late King who had chosen him for Regent and at the Authority of the new King who had confirmed the Regency unto him That it was then absolutely necessary to find out another expedient than that of violence for degrading of him and that when such an one were found the Duke of Infantado should willingly declare himself for the common cause against the Favourite That was not an expedient to be fallen upon at first In the Chronicle of the Mâ—ndosa's and the Lords of Castille after many days thinking of it found none other that could relish with the Duke of Infantado but a Petition to the new King Charles which all of them signed beseeching him to give them another Regent than Ximenes It was an easie matter to foresee that it would not be granted and that his Majesty would wave giving an answer to it untill his arrival in Spain whither he promised to go day after day The Cardinal was so sure of it that he did not give himself the trouble of writing about it neither to the King nor Chievres Nay his foresight went a little further and as he was exceeding watchful to make the best of occurrences that were capable to encrease his Power so the Conspiracy of the Nobles offered him two means for that which he did not let slip The first was to lay before Chievres in a long Letter the absolute necessity of his Catholick Majestie 's sending him anâ— unlimited power if it was expected that he should in a signal manner reduce so many malecontents to reason And secondly to put himself in a posture not only not to be surprised but also to stifle the Sedition so soon as it should begin to break out Seeing it had been chiefly by the valour of the Castillian Nobility that the Mores were driven out of Spain they â—ad for a long time enjoyed the priviledge of carrying Arms both for themselves and Attendants which Townsâ—eople and Peasants had not but when â—hey were employed by Gentlemen If â—hat custom had continued the Cardinal â—ad one time or other been opprest because he could not be able in all places â—hrough which he was to go to have Armed men enough in readiness to resist â—he frequent attempts of the Nobility upâ—n his person Whereas if he put Arms into the hands of the Plebeians he would â—repare for himself in all places a vast â—umber of Guards who would think themselves exceedingly obliged to him â—or that favour and would not be wanâ—ing to him in time of need He took â—he occasion from the descent that the â—amous Corsair Barbarossa had then made 〈◊〉 the Kingdom of Granada from whence he had carried away several â—housand Spaniards and thereupon he â—ublished an Edict in name of Queen â—ean and King Charles hearing that since â—he Nobility whose Lands were upon the Coasts of Spain and the Garrisons which â—he Catholick Kings were wont to mainâ—ain there were not sufficient to hinder â—he spoils of the Infidels it was necessaâ—y to remedy such surprises for the future by opposing so many men capable of resisting the Turkish Pirats that they should not dare to set foot on Shore in a Country which they should find so well guarded That their Catholick Majesties had not thought it fit to Arm the Peasants because that would take them off from labouring the Land nor all the Inhabitants of Towns neither by reason that Commerce might thereby be interrupted but that they had only chosen the honest Burghers who having much to lose would take the greater care to keep it That those who would list themselves in that Militia should be exempted from the harder offices of the State That they should afterwards have priviledges granted to them proportionable to the Services which they rendered That care should be taken to set Officers over them to instruct them and that all that was demanded of them at present was to perform exercise every Sunday The Nobility at first perceived the intention of Ximenes and with all their might opposed it The Towns where they had got greater credit than he would not suffer the Commissaries appointed for the Musters to put the Edict in execution and the others received them with open Arms for besides that they were acceptable to the Burghers for the novelty of the Order which they brought them they rendred them masters of the State and opened to them the fair way which was that of Arms of raising themselves above the condition wherein they were born and of meriting the most important charges in the Monarchy which in progress of time would have so debased the Nobility that scarcely would there have been any more talk of them Thus Castille was divided into two Factions and as there are Mountains that cut it almost into two equal parts so the other side of the Hills was almost wholly for the Nobility and this side for Ximenes The Cardinals party was not the least seeing he had the bravest and most expert Soldiers of his Country-men for him and the only circumspection he was to use was to hinder his Enemies from possessing the Court of Bruxelles with bad impressions of his design In prospect of that he wrote to Chievres praying him to represent to the Catholick King in full Council that there was no other expedient than what he had put in practice for preserving his two Monarchies entire for him and without a farthing charge until his arrival in Spain That it was no new thing in Castille to Arm the People and that the Kings his Predecessors had done it as often
clean to the end no offence might be given to their Eyes and Noses That they must be received by her in great pomp and by consequence with good company That her Majesty gave access but to too few people about her and that she must admit of a more numerous Train That she ought to Eat in publick at least once a day and that that was the time when the Musicians desired by their harmony to dispose her stomach to a more quick and easie digestion He made her afterwards accept of certain pleasant companies of both Sexes instructed to imitate her extravagancies and above all things to contradict her in nothing directly and not to cross her humours indirectly but by making her believe that they suited not with the Majesty of the greatest Queen in the World. He so tamed her by that means that she was checked with the least wink of an eye of Ferdinand Talavera whom the Cardinal placed about her instead of Leo Ferriera too old and grave for the discharge of the Commission of Governing her which the late King had given him and at length they accustomed her on Sundays and Holy-days to hear Mass in a Church at some distance from Tordesillas upon pretext that she would receive by the way and on the place the acclamations of God save the Queen from people who were drawn thither out of curiosity to see her or who were desired to be there on purpose to the end her weak mind might be convinced that these were undoubted signs that she was acknowledged for their Sovereign Ximenes received for this more acknowledgments of gratitude than for any other of his actions though it was not the most important of all The Catholick King thanked him for it in writing Chievres complemented him in the same manner Spain resounded his praises and the Grandees were so satisfied with it that they were not heard to murmur any more against him But shortly after there happened a revolt in the Kingdom of Granada the more difficult to be quelled because the Council oâ— Bruxelles fomented it when they thought of no such thing It was the Law oâ— Spain that the Admirals of each Kingdom which reached to the Mediterranean Sea or to the Ocean should have their Judicatures fixed in the most frequented Ports of their Coasts and that their Judges should there try all Criminal and Civil Causes that happened to Sea-men Soldiers on board of Ships Passengers and to the Militia appointed for the guard of the Sea-ports But in process of time an abuse had crept in which grew daily more and more insupportable The Coasts of Spain upon the Mediterranean Sea were not now so much exposed to the incursions of the Infidel Pirats after that Ximenes had taken Oran and the other places on the Coast of Barbary which we have mentioned and by consequence had no more need of so many Vessels nor Soldiers to guard them So the number of Justiceable persons in the Admiralties was diminished and the multitude of their Officers not having been proportionably supprest their Courts for most part had nothing to do They were therefore reduced to seek for practice if they had a mind to exercise their Jurisdictions and they found some by a means that tended to the establishment of Impunity for all sorts of Crimes in the Towns where it was in use Those who had been guilty of enormous Crimes and were by Royal Justice condemned to Death found ways to prove that they had been Seamen Soldiers Passengers or Coastguards and under that pretext demanded to be referred to the Courts of the Admiralty It durst not be refused them because the Admiral would have immediately interposed in the affair for the preservation of his Priviledges and would have had it examined in the Supream Council of Castille and Arragon Nevertheless so soon as the Prisoner was removed unto the Prisons of the Admiralty he was almost sure of his life seeing a little money could always bring him off In the complaints of the Malaguins The Town of Malaga in the Kingdom of Granada had the greatest Traffick of any because of its excellent Wines and as strangers came there in greatest numbers so the Officers of the Admiralty there absolved also more Criminals The Burghers had often complained of it to King Ferdinand and had besought him entirely to abolish the Courts of Admiralty or to diminish the number of the Judges But his Majesty had had no regard to their petitions whether he feared to disoblige all the Admirals of Spain whose cause in that particular was common with the Admiral of Granada or that he thought the Burghers of Malaga would be too free and by consequence grow insolent if the Court they complained of were abolished But after his death the Burghers of that Town applied themselves immediately to the new Catholick King without first addressing themselves to Ximenes They demanded of him no more the alternative of the suppression of the Offices of the Admiralty or of their reduction to a smaller number but purely the total suppression and by their Deputies whom they sent to the Court of Bruxelles maintained that since the reasons which heretofore obliged the Kings of Spain to enlarge the priviledges of Admirals ceased these priviledges ought to be reduced to Common Law. The new King caused their â—proposition to be examined in his Council and Chievres thought it not convenient either absolutely to grant their petition or yet to defer the answering of it The first seemed to him to be too severe and mortifying and the next too uncivil He gave advice to answer the Malaguins that his Majesty at such a distance could not determine what was to be reformed in the Admiralty of Granada but that he would quickly be upon the places and there endeavour to give satisfaction to his good Subjects of Malaga The advice was followed and the Cardinal had no sooner learnt it but he wrote positively to Chievres that he had committed a considerable Error and that it would not be long before he had cause to repent it That he was not well enough acquainted as yet with the Genius of the Spaniards and that that Nation haughty towards all kinds of men became infallibly insolent towards their Superiors when they seem to be afraid of them by managing them with too much circumspection That he thought he had only written a complement in the last words of his answer to the Malaguins but that he would sooâ— see them explain those words as seriously as if they were part of the chief Article of a Treaty nay and give them a more ample signification than he had intended The event was more troublesome that Ximenes had predicted and the Malsguins imagined that they had obtained what they desired for this only reason that on the one hand it had not been refused them and on the other that they had been civilly answered They thereupon made an Insurrection banished the Officers of the Admiralty they
which he had reserved to himself as a supply to his bounty and magnificence The End of the Fourth Book BOOK V. Containing the most memorable Affairs that happened in the Monarchy of Spain during the rest of the Year One Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen and the Years One Thousand Five Hundred and Eighteen and One Thousand Five Hundred and Nineteen THE Spaniards who for want of money had not obtained the Charges and Benefices which they had gone to Bruxelles to solicite for and those of the same Nation who had straitned themselves by purchasing them for ready money returned for most part both alike dissatisfied They conspired in like manner to revenge themselves of the repulse they had sustained and of the draining of their Purses by publishing that that which Jugurtha a King of Numidia said heretofore of the City of Rome in particular That it was to be sold was exactly true of the Monarchies of Castille and Arragon in general and that it was the good fortune of Rome that it found no buyers whereas to the ill luck of Spain it s own Inhabitants consumed their Revenues and impoverished themselves to purchase it That Benefices were no more granted to Piety and Learning In the first Manifesto of the Spaniards against the Flemings nor any favour depending on the Catholick King Charles of Austria given as a reward of Virtue and Merit That in the most eminent Functions of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy none for the future were to be seen but Simoniacal and Impious persons nor in the chief Magistracies but unworthy men and that the Flemings received too great profit from these counterband Goods that it should be hoped they would refrain from that infamous Traffick for the time to come That the Chancellor * John Savage of the Low-Countries alone had in the space of four months already got by it Five Hundred Thousand Crowns and that if the rest of the Courtiers of Flanders made their advantage accordingly Spain could not disagree about it but that they would be reduced to slavery That there was no other way to avoid that inconvenience but to oblige the Catholick King to make no more use of Flemings for Counsellors of State and Favourites and not to dispose of the Graces of Castille but by the advice of the Council of Spain These discourses at first whispered only in the Ear and afterwards spread in publick Assemblies and even in Sermons made so great impression upon the Cities of Leon Burgos and Vailladolid that they resolved to send Deputies to the Catholick King for the universal and absolute removing of Flemish Ministers and for the distribution of Grants by the advice of the Council of Madrid It was to no purpose for Cardinal Ximenes to represent to them that they offered too much for the first Essay by attempting to bind the hands of their Sovereign in such a manner as had never as yet been practised in Spain That if he had not the liberty to chuse those of his Council nor to do kindnesses to whom he pleased he would be more unhappy than the meanest of his Subjects who fully enjoyed both these priviledges and that it was not always necessary for remedying of publick no more than of natural evils to cut off even to the root So great was the obstinacy of the People that the Cardinal not being able to bend it imitated the skill of Pilots who yielding in part to the violence of the Winds make use of them for conveying them to the Ports they are bound for He wrote to Chievres that a Convocation of Estates must be allowed the Spaniards But that it behoved also to be in such a manner as that the Catholick King might receive no disadvantage thereby That it should be put off until his Majesties arrival in Spain which would not be before Autumn One Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen That his Catholick Majesty in all appearance would be ready to part about the middle of Summer and that upon that design a Fleet should be sent to expect him upon the Coast of Flanders That the pleasantness of the Season would infallibly shorten his Voyage and that on all hazards the Harvest Season was the most secure provided it were in the beginning of it That the Spaniards would be so charmed with the presence of their new King that they would have no more thoughts of limiting his power nor any thing else and that the Assembly of the Estates would be wholly taken up in reciprocal civilities of the Deputies to his Majesty and of his Majesty to the Deputies The Convocation was in effect proclaimed to be held in the end of September the same Year and the Spanish Fleet parted from the Coast of Galicia in July But the Grandees of Castille who did not foresee that the power of Ximenes would last no longer than till the comâ—ng of his Majesty resolved to rid themselves of that Cardinal beforehand and â—e of all others The Duke of Infantado who till â—hen had appeared most â—oderate put himself at â—he head of the rest We have mentionâ—d that Ximenes had disobliged the Duke â—f Infantado by refusing his Niece to â—is Nephew and it is to be subjoyned 〈◊〉 this place that a Law-suit having â—appened betwixt the Duke and the Count of Castro the Cardinal who â—ould not let slip the occasion of exerciâ—ng his Authority in so rare a juncture â—ould have the deciding of it The â—uke who took him for his Enemy â—rote to Flanders to the Catholick King â—aying him that he would suspend the â—…ecision of the cause until his Majesty â—ere present in Council where the matâ—r should be examined The King wilâ—…gly granted it But the Cardinal haâ—ng complained thereof as a contraâ—…ntion of the power which had been given him and Chievres being of the opinion that he should be permitted to act the case was decided and the Duke cast He did not presently resent it but sometime after he took the occasion when the Cardinal sent a Promoter from the Town of Alcala where he was to Guadalà jâ—a about some formalities of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Bernardin de Mendoza the Dukes Brother was Archdeacon of the place and the Duke took a pretext that the Promoter had invaded the Jurisdiction of his Brother He caused him to be cudgelled and threatned him with worse if he came again The Promoter complained to Ximenes who the more willingly promised him the Justice which he demanded for that the Duke in causing him to be abused had committed two crimes one in opposing the execution of Ecclesiastical Justice for which he had incurred the Censures and another in using uncivilly an Officer of the Regent of Spain in the execution of the Orders which he had received and in becoming thereby guilty of Treason The Duke exasperated that Ximenes haâ— threatned him with a double punishment sent his Chaplain to tell him what thâ— most envenomed Satyrs reviled him with It was a harder part to
the rest they forced through with Sword in hand and so saved themselves in the mountains of the Asturias Ximenes having missed the prey which had escaped from him turned his anger against Villa-fratre which he caused to be demolished to the very foundations By his orders the place where it stood was Ploughed up and Salt sown therein Seven of the chief Burghers were whipt for having affronted the Messenger whilst they were a beating of him and a Servant of the Admiral of Castille was served in the like manner for having carried Soldiers to his Masters Son. The Grandees of Spain incensed at this rigour wrote both publickly and privately to their King in Flanders importuning him by all means to deliver them from the tyranny of Ximenes They prayed Chievres to joyn his credit to their requests and this is a proper place to convict the Historians of Castille and Arragon of falshood who pretend that the Cardinal had not a greater Enemy at the Court of Bruxelles than Chievres Certainly if his aversion had been such as they set it forth to have been Chievres found the most favourable occasion that he could have wished for for supplanting of Ximenes seeing he needed not so much as to be seen in the disgrace of that Cardinal He had no more to do but to stand aside and leave him alone to defend his Cause against so many Enemies combined for his ruine He would infallibly have lost it and the Catholick King seeing himself reduced to the necessity of discontenting irreconcileably the Nobility of Castille or of sacrificing Ximenes unto them would have preferred the second before the first But Chievres forsook not the Cardinal at such a pinch where he absolutely stood in need of assistance to save him from an utter disgrace He represented to his Catholick Majesty that now it was his true interest more than ever to support Ximenes and if he yielded but the least in that point he would immediately have cause of repenting it That so long as the Cardinal was protected the Royal Authority was in no danger in Spain seeing on the one hand he would keep the Nobles in their duty by a strict observation of the Laws and on the other hand the People loved him too well and were too much obliged to him for the Justice he rendred them against the Nobles to make any Insurrection or to second the discontents of the great men But if it appeared that the Cardinal were no more in so great favour at Court the Nobility would instantly rise in Arms under pretext of deposing him but in reality to raise the Infanto Ferdinand to the Throne and the People beginning to despise the Regent as they commonly do those who are out of favour what way soever their misfortune befal them would be less reserved in following the example of the Gentlemen Chievres's discourse had the effect which he promised himself In the Letters of Charles the Fifth to Ximenes and the young King approved the Cardinals conduct so stedfastly that the Grandees of Castille having in vain solicited the Citizens of Leon Burgos and Vailladolid who remained in obedience were forced to receive the Law which the Cardinal was pleased to impose upon them It appears not neither by the Orders which at that time he received from the Court of Bruxelles nor by the Letters that Chievres wrote to him that he was enjoyned to manage the affair that then was upon the stage with more moderation than he was wont to do Nevertheless he did it and the clemency which he used was the more admired that he had never till then practised the like nor did ever any more for the future He at first rejected the overtures of accommodation which his friends made to him in favour of the four Criminals and seemed so inflexible to those who spake to him of pardoning that they despaired of disposing him to it The Criminals were forced by their own Fathers to go and deliver themselves up to prison in Vailladolid and to submit to what the Magistrate should order concerning their persons The Sentence of the Judges was conform to the severity of the Laws but Ximenes who had the Royal Authority in his hands grew milder when it was least expected He not only suspended the execution which would have drawn tears from all Castille but gave them an absolute pardon and did it in so noble a manner that the severity whereof he had given so many instances appeared not to be natural to him and that if he used not indulgence often it was because he thought it not possible to keep the Castillians from abusing it under a Regency He had the better on 't also of the Duke of Alva in a controversie they had together about the richest Priory of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem that was in all Spain Anthony of Zuniga had been provided to it in the usual forms but King Ferdinand had taken it from him by his own absolute power and given it to Diego of Toledo third Son to the Duke of Alva by reason of the services which that Duke had done him in the Conquest of Navarre Ximenes so much hated Injustice that he could not suffer it even in his Master though otherwise he was extreamly obliged to the Duke He heard favourably the complaint that Zuniga made to him of being contrary to all right turned out of his Benefice and promised to do him justice The Duke of Alva who was sufficiently perswaded that the Cardinal would be as good as his word would not suffer his Son to appear before the Council of Madrid at the day to which he was cited by his adverse party He evaded the decision of the Process by all the tricks of Law and in the mean time made friends with the Catholick King to have the Cause evocated to the Council of Bruxelles He could not indeed obtain it because his Majesty as hath been said was engaged to Ximenes not to allow any more evocations from Spain to Flanders But notwithstanding there was so great a faction for the Duke of Alva that the Kings of France and England wrote to the Catholick King in his favours and their Ambassadors in their Masters names solicited Chievres to use his interest that Diego of Toledo might not be molested The same Kings pressed Ximenes also to suspend the decision of the Suit till the arrival of King Charles in Spain But the Cardinal who made no doubt but that Zuniga as being the weaker would be cast by the Catholick King caused the Process to be tried before his Majesties coming and represented so strongly to the Judges that they ought to consider nothing but right that the Son of the Duke of Alva was cast by unanimous voice However it was not so easie a matter to put the Sentence in execution as to pronounce it because the Son of the Duke of Alva gathered together Forces and took the Field to preserve his Priory But the Militia
causes of misunderstanding which the change of time and the malice of men might for the future raise to disturb their friendship They met in the Town of Montpellier in Languedock in the beginning of Autumn one thousand five hundred and nineteen and it is not doubted but that they would have concluded a Peace of long duration betwixt the two Monarchies if God who thought fit to chastise the French by the Spaniards and the Spaniards by the French had not broken up the Negotiation by the death of Gousfier The Spanish writers who here do double their calumnies against the memory of Chievres have not been sensible that they wronged themselves more than him They blame him in the first place for having accepted a French Town for the interview and for not having stood upon it that the Conferences should be held upon the Frontiers of the two Kingdoms But it is easie to answer them that a neutral place had been good if there had been open War betwixt the two Crowns But seeing at that time they were in Peace and that a rupture betwixt them was only to be feared for the future it was not the custom to use any caution for the place of the Assembly and though it had been the question was decided in the preceding Negotiation The same Plenipotentiaries met in the Town of Noyon in Picardie for the same reason that obliged Henry the Fourth of Castille to pass the River Bidasloa and Treat in Guyenne with Louis the Eleventh of France that is to say by reason of the pre eminence of the French Monarchy before that of Spain and nothing had supervened since that which exempted Gouffier and Chievres from that rule For Charles was only Emperoâ— Elect and not Crowned and though he had the Imperial Dignity hindering not but that he held the Counties of Flanders Artois and Charolois in Fee of the most Christian King the least thing he owed to his Lord superior was to send his Plenipotentiary into his Country The same writers in the second place accuse Chievres of having imprudently trusted himself in a Town of Languedock where he was not in full liberty to Negotiate as was necessary But they mention not that Chievres could not take more security than he did and that it was so far from being violated that the Bishop of Badajox and Doctor Carvajal who seconded him in the Negotiation of Montpellier never complained of it Lastly they find fault in the third place that Chievres put himself in danger of being stopt when the Conferences ended by the death of Gouffier and their blindness in that particular is the more ridiculous that they see not that the fault which they impute to Chievres reflects upon Charles the Fifth who twenty years after put himself into the hands of Francis the First by crossing over all France upon the word of that Prince upon no other motive but the appeasing of the tumult of Ghent What the same writers add that Chievres had been Arrested in Montpellier if he had not left it at the very instant that he heard of the death of Gouffier and escaped with all diligence to Roussillon is no truer than the rest For it appears by the Journal of the Conferences written by the Secretary Robertet who was present at them that Chievres stayed in Montpellier some days after the death of Gouffier that he paid his last duties to his friend That he did not break up the Conferences but because the power of concluding for France was committed solely to Gouffier who was dead and that before he departed he took leave of Poucher Bishop of Orleans Robertet and the rest of the French who were concerned in the Treaty of Montpellier as Subaltern Ministers He had one cause to regret the death of Gouffier which he had not foreseen and which all the advantages that Charles obtained afterwards over France were not able to repair Gouffier promised Chievres to procure for him from the most Christian King peaceable possession of the Estate of Gaston de Foix which Queen Germana had made over to him and the thing had infallibly been accomplished after the separation of the Plenipotentiaries and the signing of the Articles But these well-grounded hopes so totally evanished by the death of Gouffier that whatever Chievres could do afterward the Estate that Gaston had possessed was given to his three Cousin-germans by the Fathers side Lautrec Asparant and the Mareschal de Foix without any recompence made to the Heirs of Chievres The unsuccessfulness of the Negotiation of Montpellier obliged the Catholick King to use as great caution before he departed out of Spain as if the French had already declared War against him He appointed a whole Army for the Guard of the Pyrenees and hastened his Voyage for Germany that he might engage in his interests Henry the Eight his Uncle by touching at England He durst not leave a Grandee of Spain to govern the Country in his absence for the same reasons which diverted his Grandfather upon his death-bed from chusing one of them and seeing he had occasion to make use of Chievres in England and Germany whither he was going and that he had already as hath been said cast his eyes upon the Cardinal of Tortosa for discharging that office in conjunction with Ximenes he thought it his best to continue him both in gratitude and civility He had no regard in that particular to the Remonstrances which were made to him thereupon by the Castillians on the one hand and the Arragonese on the other when he assembled them with design to bid them farewel and the Agents whom he entertained at the Court of England having given him advice that Henry the Eight would be at Calais the first of June one thousand five hundred and twenty for an interview with Francis the First near the Town of Ardres he apprehended and not without reason that these two Monarchs might unite against him In that case England would have cast the balance to the side of France and upon the account only to take the King of England off of that he hastened his departure out of Spain He embarked in the Port of Corugna the twentieth of May and was so happy as to make his Voyage into England with so much expedition as was necessary to break the most Christian Kings measures with Wolsey Cardinal of York the Favourite of Henry A favourable Wind in six days time brought him in the very nick to Dover where he found the Court of England making ready to go over into France He conferred two whole days with Henry none being present but Chievres and the Cardinal of York the two chief Ministers of the two Princes and the effects of extraordinary civilities in interviews appeared as much in that rencounter as ever It seemed that the Catholick King had forgot that he was chosen Emperor so respectful he was to his English Majesty and his complaisance condescended so far as to call the Cardinal
would have opposed him if the Count had not concerned himself in it There had been an ancient custom amongst the four chief Houses of Burgundy which were Neuchatel Vienne Vergy and Chalon which in some manner resembled the agreement of some Sovereign Families in Germany touching their reciprocal Succession The custom was that when any one of the four was in danger of being extinct it contracted no Alliance but with that of the three others which it liked best that the Estates of both might be joyned Now the Prince of Aurange thought himself obliged in down right honesty to follow the example of his Ancestors In the House of Vienne there was a young Lord who in all things almost sympathized with him in humour He loved him entirely and designed his Sister for him upon the same consideration that he would have made him his Heir if she died before him Nevertheless the Count of Angoulesm made his application to him in so taking a way and so dextrously insinuated the pleasure he would do him in giving him an opportunity of obliging the Archduke in a thing that he seemed cordially to be concerned in that the Prince of Aurange to comply with him strained himself extremely He broke the custom we have been speaking of and slighted the Lord of Vienne whom already he had treated as his Brother-in-law He consented to the Marriage of his Sister with Nassau and laid the foundation of the greatness to which that House has been since advanced The Archduke thereupon testified all the acknowledgment to the Count of Angoulesm that Goussier and Chievres expected from him He thanked him for it by Letters He sent time after time Gentlemen to entertain a commerce with him caressed extraordinarily those whom the Count sent to him again and that correspondence was not as yet interrupted when the Count succeeded to Louis the Twelfth but the cementing of that perfect intelligence we have been speaking of was not the chief business of Chievres out of the Low Countries There were two others which demanded his more assiduous care and troubled him most of any thing when the least irregularity was committed in them And that was the friendship of the two Grandfathers of the Archduke the more difficult to be entertained that seeing these Princes were of a quite contrary humour it was absolutely necessary to follow a different conduct with them and nevertheless from that diversity both took occasion at every turn to complain of their Grandsons Governour for though their Atipathy could not be greater than it was yet they expected to be treated after the same manner The Emperour Maximilian was insatiable as to money and pretended that men should find it for him as easily as he spent it Ferdinand the Catholick King husbanded his Revenues so frugally that he passed for covetous in the thoughts of those who knew not that he had not the fourth part of what was necessary for the carrying on of his vast designs He no sooner came to understand that the Emperour's wants were supplied with money from the Low Countries but that he represented his own to Chievres and desired his assistance It did not serve Chievres his turn to lay before him that the Revenues of the Low Countries could not suffice both the Emperour and him because then he spake no more of money indeed but instead of that desired the Archduke to engage in his quarrels It lay upon Chievres then to consider in the impossibilities he saw himself in to comply with their Imperial and Catholick Majesties at the same time which of the two Friendships it would be most important for the Archduke that his Governour entertained The Reasons for the Emperour were that if Chievres resolved not to live with him in a most strict union that Prince who could not endure to perplex his mind with the thoughts of what was to come and who forecast no farther for the future than what his present profit obliged him to would insensibly discontinue to entertain the Party made in the Empire for the election of his Grandson in his place and would give occasion to the Electors who favoured the House of Austria to change sides when they found themselves slighted Besides if some time or other the French should have a mind to attack the Low Countries it would be impossible for the Catholick King to hinder them from conquering them and the Emperour alone would be capable to cross their design In the mean while if he were slighted by the Archduke upon account of striking in elsewhere He would not do it considering the temper he was of easie to be disgusted and more easie still to push on to the utmost extremities the disgust which once he conceived and though he would do it yet he could not be any more in a condition seeing the Germans who esteemed him not so much for his personal qualities as for the profit they were sure to make of him when they were so happy as to be at Court when money came in would no sooner see the fountain head dried up by the cutting off his regular Supplies from Flanders but they would begin to slight him and take no more care of arming for him nor of bringing Forces to his service when he desired it whereas if his Grandson's Purse were kept open to him for the future as it had been formerly it would produce this odd effect that the vice of one man would be the virtue of the Family from which he sprung That the prodigality of Maximilian would become magnificence in the design of those of Austria in that it served to continue the Empire in their Family and that the Germans would list themselves as readily and with as little scruple mount on horseback to follow the Emperour into the Low Countries as they did when he sollicited them to accompany him in the War against the Republick of Venice The Reasons that made for the Catholick King in the mind of Chievres were that the Archduke had incomparably more to hope for and more to fear from him than from the Emperour His hopes were manifest grounded upon the Crowns annexed to that of Arragon as well in Spain as in Italy and the Coasts of Africa The fear was more hid but the subject of it was neither smaller nor less infallible It consisted in this That the Archduke indeed expected no other Inheritance of his Grandfather by the Fathers side but the ten Provinces of the House of Austria but that Inheritance was of such a nature that he could no ways be disappointed of it provided he out-lived his Grandfather and that that Prince never disposed of him to his prejudice neither by Donation Alienation nor Exchange The Laws of Germany confirmed by all the Emperours who reigned since Charles the Fourth and ratified in all the general Diets assembled since that time bore in express terms That the Imperial fees did so certainly belong to the Males of the House that held them and had once
received investiture of them that it was not in the power of the Feudatary for any cause or pretext that might be to frustrate his eldest Son or the Male Children of that eldest Son by giving them to his other Children nor to deprive the Paternal Cousins how remote soever of the same in favours of their own Daughters Constant and uninterrupted custom had exactly agreed with these Laws and no instance could be given that they had ever been violated as to that particular in whole or in part It was not so in the Succession which the Archduke expected from the Catholick King and he had more reasons than one to fear that he might be disappointed of it though at first view it appeared to be full as sure as that of the Emperour For in the first place Ferdinand had sufficiently testified his displeasure that his Dominions one day should fall to the House of Austria by omitting nothing that could naturally be done to prevent it He acted not with so much sincerity as the House of Austria in the marriage of his Son (1) John of Arragon Prince of Spain and Daughter (2) Joan of Arragon surnamed the Fool. with the Son (3) Marguerite of Austria and Daughter (4) The Archduke Philip. of the Emperour and whereas Maximilian had given him an only Daughter he had only given to Maximilian for Philip of Austria the second of his four Daughters The Eldest he married in Portugal shewing by so publick a preference that he had rather his Succession should descend upon a Prince whose Grandfather was a Bastard and great Grandmother the Daughter of a Shoomaker Jew than be wanting in circumspection to remove his Son-in-Law the Archduke Philip from the succession to the Crowns of Castile and Arragon His forecast nevertheless was vain and in a very few years the Emperours Sons Wife became Heir apparent of so many Kingdoms Any but the Catholick King would in so sudden a revolution have adored the Order of Divine Providence and wholly submitted to it Nevertheless that Prince opposed it by a longer and more steady obstinacy than that of Jonas in declining to go to Niniveh His Wife was no sooner dead but that he married another in the sole prospect of having a Son by her and because he drew towards fifty years of age and that the disorders of his youth gave him ground at that age to distrust his own vigour he had his recourse to Physick and took Potions that were thought fit to supply that defect In the second place the Catholick King had lusty handsome Bastards and if he preferred them before the Children of his lawful Daughter in succeeding to the Throne he would in that do nothing contrary neither to the Custom of Spain nor the inclination of the Spaniards It was no new thing in that Country the remotest of Europe on the Affrican side to promote Bastards to the Throne in exclusion of lawful Children and Ferdinand himself descended in right Line from Henry the Second who was a Bastard There was besides another instance of that irregularity in his Family For his Uncle Alphonso of Arragon Elder Brother to John of Arragon his Father dying without Children by Testament which in that part was executed frustrated John of Arragon of the Kingdom of Naples and left it to a Bastard whom he had by a Person of quality Educated in that prospect In the third place the Catholick King could not only take from the Archduke Arragon and the Crowns that depended upon it but also he might by the way we shall now treat of hinder him from reigning in Castile and in the Monarchies annexed to it This young Prince drew his Title to Castile from Queen Isabella his Grandmother by the Mothers side and yet that Princess had not inherited it without violence and encroaching upon the most sacred and inviolable Laws of Civil Society Henry the Fourth her Brother King of Castile married the Infanta of Portugal and that Infanta during his marriage with her was brought to bed of a Daughter the most beautiful as they say that ever was born in Spain This Daughter by the Fundamental Laws of the State excluded her Aunt from succeeeding to so many Kingdoms because she was nearest by a degree and represented her Father Nevertheless the Aunt pretended that her Brother was impotent and that the Daughter that was fathered on him was begotten by his Favourite Don Bertram de la Cueva Duke of Albuquerque For that reason or under that pretext she made a great Party and raised a War in Castile But the Party of the Daughter proving the stronger the Aunt had her recourse to Ferdinand and gave her self to him having no other way to engage him to espouse her interest against her Neece Ferdinand having married the Aunt transported all the Forces of Arragon into Castile He overcame them who favoured his Wives Neece and dispossessed her of the Kingdom But was now in a condition to repay the injury which he had done her by recalling her into Castile where he had the Power raising her to the Throne and marrying her to one of his Bastards Upon the Reasons we have been mentioning Chievres made the reflections they deserved He long considered with himself the prejudice that might befal the Archduke by not entertaining an entire correspondence with his maternal Grandfather Nevertheless having put into the balance together the hurt that might redound to that Prince by breaking with France during his minority if he Leagued too strictly with the Catholick King and the injury the Catholick King might do him if he united not so closely with him he found the first alone to weigh far more than all the others put together and by the boldest result of prudence that is to be found in the History of Spain he judged it to be avoided rather than the rest He kept the Archduke in friendship with the French and Germans He thought it enough not to give the Catholick King any cause or pretext to complain of him in particular and in the following Books we shall find that his conduct in that point was as fortunate as it had been judicious The End of the First Book THE HISTORY OF Monsieur De Chievres The Second BOOK CONTAINING The most remarkable Occurrences in the Monarchy of Spain during the years One thousand five hundred and thirteen and One thousand five hundred and fourteen THat we may conceive the motives which induced Chievres to prefer the Paternal Grandfather of Charles of Austria his Pupil before the Maternal and that we may understand the advantages which Charles drew from that preference we must necessarily presuppose that Ferdinand the Catholick King who was the Maternal Grandfather spoken of here bounded not his ambition within Spain after he had entirely driven the Moors from thence by the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada It troubled him to be confined to one of the extemities of Europe without any appearance of