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
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
He endeavours in conjunction with Gouffier Governour to the Count of Angouleme to root out of the hearts of their two Pupils the seeds of aversion which the Marriage of the Count with the Heiress of Bretagne who was promised to Charles had sow'd there and in the extreme difficulty that presented of remaining united with the Emperour or Catholick King Chievres wisely prefers the German before the Spaniard Of the Second BOOK Chievres takes all necessary measures for governing in the Low-Countries during the absence of the Archduke Philip of Austria who was gone to Spain to take possession of the Kingdoms of Castile fallen to his Wife But the Archduke dies not long after he had been Crowned King and Chievres is by the King of France made Governour of the Archduke Charles Eldest Son to Philip. He labours but in vain to hinder his Maternal Grandfather from the administration of Castile He endeavours to have it given to Maximilian the Paternal Grandfather of that Prince But Louis the Twelfth opposes it contrary to his own interests and thereby augments the power of his most dangerous enemy Manuel Secretary to Philip is persecuted by Ferdinand the Catholick King because he had too well served his Son-in-law Manuel withdraws to Flanders and Chievres receives him well in hopes that he 'll hinder Ferdinand from disposing of Castile at his pleasure But Ferdinand sets so many Engines at work that at length Chievres is forced to abandon the protection of Manuel and even to commit him to prison where he continues during the life of Ferdinand Cardinal Ximenes is no better treated for his having remained Neuter betwixt the Father-in-Law and Son-in-law Ferdinand resolves to take from him the Archbishoprick of Toledo and the Cardinal hath his recourse to Chievres who makes the Archduke his Pupil interpose He offers Ximenes a retreat in the Low-Countries and Ferdinand is so much afraid of it that he lets the Cardinal alone Of the Third BOOK FErdinand sets the Governour and Tutor of his Grandson against one another He perswades Dean Adrian that he will frustrate the Archduke of the Monarchies of Spain if Chievres be not deposed and the Dean possessed with the fear of that signs a Treaty whereby he engages himself to bring Chievres into disgrace But Chievres is informed of it and guards himself equally both against the Catholick King and the Dean He negotiates with the French a Treaty at Noyon and gives it so cunning a cast that he turns the accessory into the principal and the principal into the accessory He thereby secures to the Archduke the Succession of Spain and Ferdinand is so vexed at it that he joines with England for undoing him But in that particular the Archduke has no more regard to the offices of the King of England than to the exhortations of his Maternal Grandfather and Chievres remains in greater favour with him than before This puts Ferdinand out of all patience A dangerous design is formed against the life of Chievres He hath notice of it He acquaints the Archduke with the same and at the same time advises him most prudently to keep the thing secret The event made appear that the Council was good and Ferdinand at his death puts not in execution the design which he had formed of disinheriting the Archduke Of the Fourth BOOK CHievres being informed of the death of King Ferdinand resolved to have his Pupil declared King of Castile and Arragon during the life of the Queen his Mother and begins so difficult an Intrigue by obliging first the Emperour Maximilian and then the Court of Rome to give him the title of King. He writes immediately after to Cardinal Ximenes to assemble the States of the two Monarchies and there to cause the Archduke to be declared King jointly with the Catholick Queen Ximenes finds many more difficulties in it than he imagined but at length he overcomes them partly by policy and partly by his haughty way of acting There remains no more then but to take possession of the two Monarchies and the Archduke could not go thither without being in agreement with France He mediates a negotiation in the Town of Noyon where the Governour of Francis the first and of the Archduke in quality of Plenipotentiaries labour to unite their Pupils Gouffier Plenipotentiary of France acts sincerely but his candour succeeds not with him and Chievres signs a Treaty with him ambiguous enough to give the Archduke pretext of waving the execution of it when he might have a mind Francis provoked that his Governour had been over-reached favours the arming of John d' albert for the recovery of Navarre but the imprudence of that dispossest King makes him lose the occasion of re-establishing himself His forces having been unseasonably divided are cut in pieces and he loses his hopes of remounting the Throne by losing his life Chievres is moved at the oppression of the Indians whom the Spaniards forced to dig in the Mines He offers to perswade them to employ Negro-slaves in that toilsom labour but Cardinal Ximenes opposes it upon interest of State and the matter continues in suspence Of the Fifth BOOK XImenes having obliged the Catholick King to share with him his power in Castile enjoys not long the advantage of his Politicks The Grandees support him with so much the less patience that he continued to carry towards them with extraordinary haughtiness and not being able to dispatch him by open force they have recourse to artifice They give him a slow poyson and he takes it a minutes time before he who came to warn him of it arrived He takes Antidotes which do not serve his turn but only prolong his life for some Months For all he saw himself so near his end yet he undertook one of the boldest of all his actions by removing from the Infanto all his servants only one excepted The matter was carried on without tumult and the Catholick King arrives fortunately in Spain The Courtiers of his Majesty of whom Chievres was the most considerable resolve to acquire and preserve the friendship of Ximenes but his sternness makes it impossible for them He persists obstinately in solliciting the King his Master to exclude them all out of the Council of Spain and by that means obliges them to unite for procuring his disgrace They obtain it of the Catholick King and the news that the Cardinal received of it affects him so sensibly that a few hours after he expires After his death the weight of affairs lyes upon Chievres who discharges himself of his trust to a wonder in two occasions the one by all means to get the Infanto Ferdinand removed out of Spain and sent into Germany and the other in disposing the Emperour Maximilian who would have yielded the Empire to the Infanto to change his design and chuse the Catholick King for his Successor Of the Sixth BOOK THE greatest part of Spain conspire together for the disgrace of Chievres and this great man is
more facility that Maximilian the Emperour the Father of their late King desired no better than to be called in to supply the place of his Son during the minority of his Grandchild Thus Ferdinand more fortunate than he expected was invited to retake the Government of Castile which two and twenty months before had been ignominiously taken from him and did not lose so favourable an occasion The conjecture that had been made of his moderation proved to be exactly true and that politick Prince was so far from revenging himself on those who had thrust him out that he made it his particular care to gain them and the first places that fell void as well as the favours that came to be distributed were all for them So rare and judicious a procedure had the effect that Ferdinand expected from it The Castilians being persuaded that he generously pardoned because he affected to seem unmindful of their fault on their part remembred it no more neither but only to make amends for it and lived afterward in so exact a submission that during the Reign of Ferdinand they forbore to demand as it was their custom to do the Convocation of the Estates for regulating the Government of the Monarchy and if thereafter they were assembled it was at his desire None but Manuel who being more politick and by consequent more distrustful than the rest was of a contrary opinion to that of the publick and would never trust Ferdinand He thought that he had too highly offended him to refer himself absolutely to his diseretion without passing for an imprudent man and the instance of the Great Captain * Gonsalvo whom his Friends proposed to him as a signal proof of the clemency of the Catholick King wrought nothing at all upon him He chose rather to banish himself from Castile than to live under an offended Master and quitted the great preferments that he owed to the liberality of Philip of Austria that he might go live without employment in Flanders with the Archduke Charles Chievres who intended to make use of him for the execution of the designs that shall be related in the sequel of this History received him as the services which he had rendered to their common Master deserved and made him his intimate friend Ferdinand was the more incensed at the retreat of Manuel because he knew him to be a man capable of forming and keeping on foot dangerous intrigues against him in Castile though he was in the Low Countries and used all means to hinder him from doing so Nevertheless his Catholick Majesty thought it not fit to persecute him directly lest the other Castilians might take umbrage thereat but thought it enough to attack him by such ways as concealed private revenge under a cloak of publick good However he deprived him of what he had purchased in Spain and endeavoured as much as in him lay to reduce him to his first state The pretext which he took to impoverish him without startling the Castillians deserves to be known The profuseness of Philip of Austria had been so great that it had encroached upon the Crown-Rents of the Kings of Castile which till then had never been alienated In the revocations of Ferdinand Ferdinand took the occasion he sought for to revoke all the Grants made by that young Prince for what cause soever and reserved to himself the liberty of confirming those which should appear to him to be just The Castillians took no exceptions at that order because it excused them from supplying the ordinary charges of the State and Manuel thereby lost the great settlements that he had in Castile He thought it not convenient to make any attempt for retaining them for besides that he foresaw it would be fruitless he would not give Ferdinand the satisfaction of refusing him He suffered himself to be stript of all without complaining and revenged himself afterwards according to the manner of the most refined Politicians that is to say by the help and under the name of another He seconded Chievres in his design of thrusting Ferdinand once more out of Castile by opposing the Emperour Maximilian the First to him and the measures that were taken to bring that about were so just that had it not been for France they had succeeded The Emperour rejected no proposition that gave him occasion of getting much money with little pains and upon that weak side Chievres and Manuel attacked him They caused it to be represented to him by men that seemed zealous for his Interests that the Catholick King had doubly offended him first in putting upon him so great an affront that no ordinary Gentleman would sit down with without venturing his life to have satisfaction for it next in doing him a notorious piece of injustice equally contrary to the right of private men and to that of Sovereigns The affront consisted in this that the Catholick King struck at the Emperours reputation in supposing him incapable of the guardianship of the Children of the late King of Castilē his Son seeing he had taken from him the administration of the best part of their Inheritance which was the Monarchy of Castile that the injustice regarded the exclusion of the noble Sex and the substitution of the more ignoble in the most important of civil actions which was the Regency of States That all the Laws and Customs of Europe called the Fathers of young Sovereigns to that Regency even when their Sovereignties came by the Mother and that if there were no Father the Grandfather for the same reason was preferred before the Grandmother and the Paternal Grandfather before the Maternal Nevertheless the Catholick King was gone into Castile had received the Oath of the People had put himself into possession of the Guardianship of the Children and converted their Revenues to his own use That the People of the Low Countries had so universally acknowledged that they could not lawfully frustrate the Emperour of the Guardianship of his Grand-children that the seventeen Provinces had by common consent referred it to him and that if the Castillians had not imitated them the blame must be cast upon the cunning of Ferdinand who had over-reached them That there was no more needful to force him once more out of Castile but to represent to them that they were outwitted by him and that if notwithstanding they persisted to own him as Regent it was easie for his Imperial Majesty to bring him to reason by sending German Forces into the Kingdom of Naples by the Gulph of Venice The Emperour was so much the more sensibly moved with this discourse that it opened him a way of enjoying almost the whole revenues of his Grandsons the eldest being maintained by the Flemings and the younger needing only a small pension for maintaining him in the Colledge of Alcala where he was His Imperial Majesty sent Embassadours to Ferdinand to bid him leave the administration of Castile and to declare War against him if
he failed to do it within a time limited Ferdinand knew Maximilian too well to be afraid of him so long as none but he made War against him because he was sure that in that case his Imperial Majesty would do it but weakly and but for a short time too But he apprehended that when the French saw him once engaged in the Conquest of the Kingdom of Naples and reduced to an inability of pursuing his point through the want of money they might treat with him to buy the places he had taken and hire the Forces employed in forcing them for in such a Juncture it would be impossible for Spain to preserve that Kingdom In that prospect Ferdinand proposed to himself by the means of France to divert the storm that threatned him and had his recourse to the mediation of Louis the Twelsth to hinder Maximilian from making War once more in Italy Louis had received causes of dissatisfaction from the Republick of Venice that he could not think of pardoning It had hindered him from recovering the Kingdom of Naples wherein had it not been for that Republick he must have succeeded and they had plainly enough intimated by their Embassadours at Paris that they would engage in all Leagues that might be formed against the disturbers of the peace of Italy Since their politick resolutions were unalterable and that there was no other expedient to take them off from the execution of the Counsels taken in the Pregadi but by attacking them so powerfully that they should have business enough to defend themselves Louis laboured to turn against them the four most considerable Powers of Europe which were the Holy See France Germany and Spain In the causes of the League of Cambray The Union of so many Adversaries of so contrary humours and interests did not appear very difficult because there was none of them from whom the Republick did not keep Towns which they would be very glad to recover In the Ecclesiastical state they possessed the most Important places of the Province of Romania in the Dutchy of Milan the Towns lying upon the River of Adda Istria and Friuli the places which heretofore the House of Austria had held by engagement and in the Kingdom of Naples the maritime Towns of Apulia France secretly negotiated the Preliminaries of that League and they were almost agreed when Ferdinand represented to the most Christian King that if he prevented not the misunderstanding that was like to degenerate into an open War betwixt his Catholick Majesty and the Emperour the Union of the four Potentates would be interrupted and perhaps would not all be formed by reason of the distrust that Pope Julius the Second might have that if he joyned alone with the French seeing they had many more Forces than he they might alone make their prosit of all the spoils of the Venetians Louis assaulted on the weak side employed his Ministers to reconcile his two most inveterate enemies and bestirred himself in it so vigorously that by his patience and perseverance he surpassed the great dissiculties that he met with therein The Emperour and Catholick King by his mediation disposed of the Crowns of Castile to which neither the one or other had any other right but that of conveniency as if they had been uncontrovertibly their own and though the Laws of the Country called to the Government the eldest of their Grandchildren when he was compleat Eighteen years of age yet they put him off by their own private authority till he were five and twenty The Emperour rested content with a Pension of fifty thousand Crowns a year for all the pretensions he had to Castile in quality of Paternal Grandfather to the two young Princes who were the lawful Heirs of it and the Catholick King secured himself at so easie a rate to reign so long as he lived as absolutely in that Monarchy as he did in Arragon Chievres with extreme indignation received the news of the conclusion of so unreasonable a Treaty and laid two considerable intrigues to break it off before it began to be put in execution the one was at the Court of France by the Countess of Angoulesm the Mother of Francis presumptive Successour to Louis the other in Germany by Margarite of Austria whom we have mentioned before The Countess of Angoulesm represented to the most Christian King that the Accommodation which he had made betwixt Germany and Spain was equally contrary to the Justice which he owed to himself and to that which he owed to the most illustrious Feudatary of his Crown That the three attempts made by his most Christian Majesty for the recovery of the Kingdom of Naples in seven years time since he lost it were sufficient to convince him that he could not succeed in it so long as the Germans and Spaniards acted in concert to hinder him from entering it as on the contrary their dis-union would infallibly open to him the way and that notwithstanding his Majesty instead of taking all courses to set Maximilian and Ferdinand at variance and at least of taking the advantage of the division fallen out betwixt them without his having a hand in it as he might in Conscience have done had interposed to make them friends and that successfully too which was the more insupportable to all true Frenchmen that they were sensible that had it not been for that Mediation the Kingdom of Naples would have been entirely reunited to the French Monarchy That the late King of Castile had upon his death-bed left the disposition of his eldest Son to his most Christian Majesty that besides he held of him because of his Counties of Flanders Artois and Charolois that he had indeed provided for the Education of that young Prince but that it seemed at present he had repented of the good he had done unto him by procuring him at least as much hurt seeing he frustrated him for seven whole years of the possession of the Kingdoms of Castile which by nature and the Laws belonged to him These urgent reasons of the Countess made no impression upon the mind of Louis because his Majesty neither could nor would undo his own work and if Chievres was strangely troubled at it he had occasion to take comfort in that his Pupil had afterwards the Kingdom of Navarre which Ferdinand could never have seized had he not been King of Castile as well as of Arragon in the Juncture that offered four years after However he left not off to apply himself to the Emperour by the Mediation of Margarite of Austria whose third Marriage with the Duke of Savoy had neither been longer nor more happy than the former with the Dauphin of France and the Prince of Spain who represented to him that his Imperial Majesty had rendered the House of Austria the most powerful Family in Christendom first by his Alliance with the Heiress of Burgundy and since by the Alliance of his Son with the Heiress of Spain but that
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
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
he jumps with Chievres wherein the greatness of the Spanish Monarchy is concerned but he is always against him when the Low-Countries have any competition with the Monarchy of Spain Chievres as being a Fleming will have his Country to be the basis of the greatness to which the Archduke Charles aspires and that the others which he is to inherit by the distraction of his Mother and the death of his Grandfathers should only be the accessory Ximenes on the contrary pretends that Spain must always be the centre of the Archdukes Grandeur and the Low-Countries be reduced into bare Provinces Chievres represents to him in vain that they belong not to the Archduke by right of conquest and that if Philip his Father had not possessed them they would not have given him in Marriage the heiress of Spain Ximenes makes no satisfactory reply but he persists in his project and in that considers not that he thereby provokes the Governour of a young Prince who well quickly become his Master It is not easie to determine whether fortune did good or hurt to Doctor Adrian Florent in taking him out of the Colledg of Louvain whereof he was principal to raise him to all the Dignities of the Church not excepting the Papacy He had a Genius for the functions that render men famous in Vniversities but he went no farther and amongst the many employments that he had afterward there was not one that suited with him He had acquired reputation in the Schools and in the Pulpit His Commentary upon the Master of Sentences was admired and certainly if that Book was not the most subtil of the three hundred of the same nature which then were to be found in Libraries it was at least the clearest and most methodical His Harangues for the preservation of the priviledges of Scholars had had better success than he had promised himself and not only the Archduke Philip confirmed them but besides honoured the Vniversity of Louvain by being a member of it It was thereupon imagined that it would be a disgrace to the Flemings to suffer Adrian to continue longer in Louvain and it was not so much to do him justice as to satisfie the publick desire that Chievres took him to be Preceptor to the Archduke Charles He did not discharge his commission ill so long as his business was to instruct his Scholar But when he was sent into Spain to negotiate with the Catholick King he neither answered the expectation of Chievres nor of the Spaniards who took him for the ablest man of his Nation in Cabinet Councils He discovered at first that his Majesty was an irreconcileable enemy to Chievres and from that he concluded that it would do irreparable prejudice to the interests of the Archduke obstinately to defend his Governour how innocent soever he was for that reason alone he declared against Chievres and if he was not powerful enough to supplant him it was not his fault if he was not sent home to his house and the Spaniards intrusted with the supreme direction of the Council of the Low-Countries He shew'd his weakness asmuch after the death of the Catholick King when he had the occasion of making use of the Commission which he brought from Flanders for being Regent of Castile and Arragon in case of that death He suffered himself unseasonably to be prevented by Cardinal Ximenes who gained him by promising him the second place in the Councils of Spain He had indeed that place but he wanted the Authority that ought to have gone along with it He complained sometimes that the Cardinal consulted with him only about matters of small importance and that he dispatched the rest without him But that was all he did and thought not that he ought to fall out with him about the matter For that he had the Bishoprick of Tortosa and it was left to men to judg whether or not that was a recompence proportionable to the power that he was deprived of Death quickly rid him of Ximenes as it protected Ximenes from the Catholick King and he was afterward so happy that he ingenuously confessed he could not comprehend his own happiness Leo the Tenth made him a Cardinal in prospect only of gratifying Charles the Fifth and the Conclave having spent several Months without coming to agreement about the person who should succeed to Leo in spight chose him Pope whence it came to pass that the people of Rome loaded the Cardinals with reproaches as they came out and threw stones at them Till then the quality of common Father had been so respected that the Popes who had lived least exemplarily laid it not altogether aside and made a fair shew at least Adrian neglected it at first and when he went from Spain to go take possession of St. Peter's Chair he carried with him into Lumbardy the six thousand Soldiers who two years after took Francis the first before Pavia Instead of keeping the Balance even He took a side that he might rather cast it and if his Pontificate which lasted but two and twenty Months had been of longer duration it would have raised a schism in the Church more dangerous than that of Urban the Sixth and Clement the Seventh John Manuel was in reality the Politician of his age most crost by fortune but by his ability and patience he forced her at length to be favourable His extraction was low but his way of writing wonderfully well and yet very fast was the reason that when he was very young he was chosen under-Secretary of the Council of State of Castile He was not full eighteen years old when he grew weary of his Employment though at first he thought himself most happy in obtaining it He considered that the three chief Ministers of Spain Zapata Carvaial and Vargas were not much promoted and that the richest of them had not a thousand Crowns a year though they had long served the Catholick Kings Ferdinand and Isabelle with all imaginable zeal and that they had facilitated to them the conquest of the Kingdoms of Granada and Naples That was not a reward proportionable to the greatness of their services and the truth is it cannot be denied but that the Catholick Kings were too great Husbands in that particular if it be not pretended for their excuse that the Revenues of Castile and Arragon were not sufficient to gratifie the tenth part of their most faithful servants Manuel who saw nothing but Crowns above his ambition was satisfied to continue under-Secretary of State during the life of Queen Isabelle his Soveraign but he carried his desires higher when the Archduke Philip of Austria and Jane of Arragon his Wife went to Spain to get themselves declared apparent heirs of Castile Manuel was perswaded that that young Prince loved an easie life too well to trouble himself with the weight of affairs and that if he insinuated himself into his favour before all other Spaniards he might govern him at his pleasure and obtain
not to be confined in the choice of a Minister and Favorite by any thing without himself So that the earnest desire of promoting Philip of Croy was the thing that made him disagreeable and Charles the Terrible who in all appearance would have cast his eyes upon him had he not been spoke to about it would by no means do it because be had been recommended unto him In the causes of the disgrace of the Croyes He declared himself so briskly as to that that his Father thought it not convenient to press him any farther But the good Prince who had been only over sollicitous because of the extraordinary affection he had for the Croyes perceived that in respect of them he had made one of those politick steps which are irreparably hurtful when they do not succeed He was afraid that he had unseasonably given his Son an occasion of changing the indifference which he had shewed to the Croyes into an aversion and in prospect of that omitted nothing that he thought capable to insinuate them into his favours He was even of the mind that the young Prince his Son had too severely mortified the Croyes by his refusal and therefore that he might do what he could to please them he heaped favours and kindnesses upon them A Lady who was the last of the House of Bethune died not only without Children but also without any Kindred and without disposing of the vast Estate which she possessed By the right of ultimus haeres or Escheatage the whole Estate belonged to Philip the good and he made a Present of it to the Croys The liberality indeed was great but not extraordinary seeing that Prince had sometimes shewed the like nay and greater to those who had not served him so faithfully as the Croys had done however it passed for Prodigality and a piece of Injustice in the notion of Charles the Terrible He was already five and twenty years of age married Maria Heiress of Burgundy and the Father of one only Daughter which was all the Children he had In the mean time his Father who had no more Children neither but him had not as yet given him any thing in advance of the Low Countries which belonged to him in Succession He obliged him to live in the same Palace with himself to eat at Table with him follow the diversions that he did and to content himself with a small Pension for defraying his other Expences Charles who was to be one of the richest Princes in Christendom would not be more pinched nor stinted and omitted no opportunity of enlarging his Fortune Some Months before the death of the Lady of Bethune he had been informed that the fear of being poysoned by those to whom she might leave her vast Estate would infallibly hinder her from making a Will and therefore he begged the gift of it before-hand of his Father who freely granted it him But the good Prince had so wholly forgot it that he did not so much as remember even when his Son put him in mind of it He made answer to him in a positive manner that he had never promised in all his life time one and the same thing to two different persons and that seeing he had granted the Croys the Estate of the House of Bethune it must needs be that he never promised it to the Prince of Burgundy He continued so firm in that particular that the Croys had the gift But no sooner did those that envied them perceive how much the Prince of Burgundy was discontented thereat but that they inflamed his resentment by a rumour they raised in his Fathers Court that the Duke would not stop there and that he had only enriched the Croys with the Succession of Bethune that it might appear less strange in the World when he should devest himself and frustrate his only Son of the most important Province of the Low Countries by investing them in the Province of Namur in the same manner as he possessed it to wit in absolute sovereignty Thus affairs went already but bad enough at the Court of Burgundy for the Croys when an unexpected accident which at first was thought would retrieve all made every thing go worse and worse with them The Dauphin of France who was afterwards Louis the Eleventh stood in so bad terms with Charles the Seventh his Father that his Majesty drove him out of the Province of Dauphiné where he could not endure that whilst he was alive another should rule as a Sovereign Prince seeing there was no security for him in any other place in Europe but in the Low Countries no other State being in the humour to refuse the delivering him up to his Father in case he should demand him and that besides Philip the Good had sufficiently made it known to confirm the opinion that the Dauphin had of him that if he desired him to receive him at his Court he would not consent to it for fear of quarrelling with France but that if he entered the Low Countries without demanding permission Philip who gloried in Hospitality and had granted it to all sorts of People not excepting even the persons of Kings would not be so hard as to send him back again The Dauphin came as far as Brabant before it was known at the Court of Burgundy that he was upon his Journey His conjecture proved true and Philip though he was extremely troubled at his having such a Guest yet durst not desire him to depart out of the Low Countries His only care was how he might civilly send him back again and for that end chose the expedient of reconciling him to his Father He therein employed the Offices of his Agents and because so thorny a negotiation was not the business of one day he commanded the Croys to divert the Dauphin in the mean time and to link themselves in a strict friendship with him Obedience is never more readily performed than when the Orders of Sovereigns suit with the present interests of those who receive them The Croys were perswaded that there was no necessity of affecting any more a scrupulous complaisance for the Prince of Burgundy they had Estates in France they foresaw that the Dauphin would shortly be King and they stood absolutely in need of his prorection to secure them from the formidable Enemy whom they could not avoid but to have one day upon their backs In that prospect they omitted nothing that might win the Dauphin and succeeded therein the more easily that that Prince the most assiduous of his Age to make sure of those from whom he thought he might procure services on his part met them more than half way He had just before in some Conferences that he had had with the Prince of Burgundy experienced the strange Antipathy that was betwixt their two tempers He made no doubt but that it would one day be the cause of a War betwixt them that might last as long as they lived he thought it
as the ancient Patriarchs did in a continual Pilgrimage and so to distribute his cares time travels and presence that the Low-Countries Germany and Italy would have the better share oâ— them and Spain the least That there was no other way to ward so dangerous a blow than by insensibly bringing back the Catholick King into the course that Nature and the Law of Nations required of him and by convincing him by his own experience that the elder of his Grandsons deserved better to succeed to him than the younger and that so all that Charles had to do was to become more virtuous and better qualified than Ferdinand Chievres advised Charles in relation to the two other Crowns of Spain which were those of Navarre and Portugal that it would be convenient to continue the Project of the Catholick King for reuniting them to the â—est of the Spanish Monarchy by means of â—lliances but that there was but little appearance that that could be so soon accomplished seeing on the one hand Cathaâ—ine de Frix Queen of Navarre and â—ohn d' Albert her Son had such near Alliâ—nces with the Crown of France that â—ey would never dispose of their Children but with the consent and approbation of Louis the Twelfth And on the other hand Manuel King of Potugal had Five â—sty Sons by the Aunt of Charles his seâ—nd Wife and that by consequent the â—aughters of the same marriage could not â—pect to succeed so soon but that the â—gagement of the King of Navarre with tâ—e French might some time or other be â—…nare to him and that besides as the â—…sterity of Charlemain was extinct in the â—…ce of Eighteen years though it was so â—…merous that it consisted of thirty two â—…gorous Princes all married so that of Manuel might fail by a like or more unhappy Fate England was more important in all respects to Charles and his Governour advised him to look upon it at all times as a Kingdom able to do him great services and proportionably to hurt him for the Low-Countries in the condition they were then in needed not fear to succumb unless they had France for their Enemy and then they could not expect any assistance greater speedier more suitable to their necessity nor nearer at hand than that of the English That if the necessity of that assistance did not encrease after he came to the enjoyment of the Successions which he expected it would at least be as great seeing Spain would then become a Monarchy that might counterpoise France and none but England could be in a condition then to turn the balance to which side of the two it adhered That Charleâ— would always have the advantage of the French when he competed with them tâ— draw England over to his side since be sides the invincible antipathy betwixt the English and French Nation and the inveterate hatred fomented by so many Wars Henry the Eighth of England was marrieâ— to the last Infanta of Spain Sister to Charle his Mother and constantly favoured hâ— Father-in-law Ferdinand the Catholick against Louis the Twelfth In relation to Scotland it behoved Charles to reason from a quite opposite Maxime and that he must not expect upon any Juncture that could be offered to him to engage that King into his Interests The Alliance of that Nation with the French had without interruption continued seven hundred years from King to King and from Crown to Crown and though it had not been so old nor so strict yet it would be enough for the Scots that Spain courted the friendship of the English to make them declare against it for France though they had not as yet spoused any Party Italy came next in course into the thought of Chievres of which he only represented to the Archduke four principal Powers from whom the Inferiour were 〈◊〉 receive their influence to wit France â—pain the Holy See and the Republick of â—enice France held there the Dutchies of Genoa and Milan Spain the Kingdom of Naples â—…e Holy See ten Provinces besides the â—…ity of Rome and the Venetians the State â—hich is called Terra Firma The Italians â—…d no reason to fear that the Popes or â—enetians would trouble their repose because both had almost an equal interest to preserve it But if the French and Spaniards grew weary of Peace and took up Arms again they must infallibly have the same success which they already had that is to say that the Nation of the two which could get the Pope on their side would overcome and as the most Christian and the Catholick Kings did not conquer nor divide betwixt them the Kingdom of Naples but by the consent of Alexander the Sixth as the Spaniards had not driven the French from thence two years after but in pursuance of a secret Treaty concluded for that end betwixt the Great Captain and the same Alexander and as the Pope Julius the Second contributed most to hinder the most Christian King from recovering what he had lost by ruining the formidable Army of that Prince upon the side of the River of Garillan so the Spaniards in their turn would be driven out of the Kingdom of Naples whensoever it should be their misfortune to displease the same Julius or one of his Successours So that the Archduke in the sense of his Governour ought chiesly to apply himself to entertain his Holiness in the good disposition he was in in relation to Spain and if the matter was not difficult by reason that Julius hated Louis so much the more that formerly he loved him no more would it be in regard of succeeding Popes since on the one hand their State bordered immediately upon the Kingdoms of Naples and that they were next Neighbours whereas the Territories of divers Princes lay betwixt theirs and the Dutchy of Milan and that so the Court of Rome were not so much exposed to be surprised by an Invasion from the French as from the Spaniards and on the other hand it was not so much to be apprehended that the Spaniards would usurp all Italy if they retained the possession of Naples as it would be that France might reduce Italy into a Province if they added the Kingdom of Naples to the Dutchy of Milan because then they could march by Land into the Milanese having only the Alpes and Piemont to cross whereas the Spaniards could not go thither but by Sea and have a Voyage of five hundred Leagues to make The Republick of Venice according to Chievres was no less to be considered in matter of Politicks than the Court of Rome but for power it was not so much since the Holy See the Emperour France and Spain having entered into a League to ruine it Louis the Twelfth alone had defeated all its Forces at the Battel of Giaradadda and taken from it all it possessed in the Terra Firma It is true it afterward recovered part of that State but seeing it was not so easily regained as lost and that in all
sharp-sighted as to see at so great distance the mark he aimed at But it is a thing almost impossible long to conceal the manner how great Princes are Educated when it is not in all things conform to the Custom practised in their Age. The most Christian King Louis the Twelfth had an Affair to be concerted with the Archduke which required to be managed by so much the more skilful hands that the Emperour and Catholick King were concerned in it Hangist of Geulis one of the most noted and understanding Gentlemen of Picardy was chosen to negotiate it for two reasons one because his Person was acceptable to the Flemings and the other that being Chievres his Kinsman he might the more easily accord with him but Geulis was extremely surprised when he found himself obliged to treat hand to hand with Charles who was then but fourteen years old compleat He was glad of it nevertheless at first as hoping to make a better bargain of it but when he found that the Archduke at the Age and in the State he saw him in was already the ablest Prince of his time in the Art of Governing he began to suspect the evils that that might occasion to France and seeing it would not have been civil to have declared his thoughts as to that openly to Chievres he only told him that he did did not conceive why he put the Archduke upon so great an application to Affairs of State since it neither agreed with his tender age his quality constitution nor the profound Peace which the Low Countries enjoyed that the temper of that Prince was all fire and that his prodigious activity was a sufficient proof of it that nothing was so contrary to People of that constitution than a too long and serious meditation and seeing they spent incomparably more spirits than others in the exercise of their faculties they proportionably wore out the Organs they made use of and so hastened either their death or from a continual speculation ran into madness that the latter of these inconveniences was the more to be feared that in respect of Charles it was a Family distemper and that if his Mother was troubled with it without application he had reason to foresee that the excess of application might produce in him the most terrible and most ignominious of its effects Chievres gave Geulis an answer which the Spaniards have reason to match with the Apophthegms of Antiquity He replied that he had heretofore reflected upon all that he had said and often considered of it but that after all he was persuaded that it was the chief duty incumbent on him and to which he was most obliged in conscience according to the Commission given him to put Charles as soon as he could in a condition not to stand in need of a Tutor and nevertheless he must need one so long as he lived if he did not accustom him in his younger years to take cognizance of his own Affairs because if they expected till he was more advanced in age he would never apply himself to that so much as was necessary whether that he would find himself at first overcharged with the multitude of Affairs or that he would be discouraged by the pains he must take in determining them being but a novice therein and by the frequent impediments they would bring in the way of his pleasures and recreations However Chievres read in the thought of Guelis what care soever he took to conceal it that he feared the Archduke might become too knowing and laboured as much as he could to divert the prejudice that might redound to the Monarchy of France from the Education of the Prince Nay and at first he succeeded in it pretty fortunately and if after he was dead the affairs which he had well disposed changed countenance he is no more to be blamed for that than for the evils that hapned before he was born and those who out lived him gave him the testimony that if his life had been longer France and Spain had never engaged together in War. Louis the Twelfth had no Son and by consequent Francis Count of Angoulesm first Prince of the Bloud Royal was by the Law of the State next to succeed him This Prince was brought up at Coignac a Town of Angumeis but Louisia of Savoy his Mother was commonly at Court. She had quarrelled with the Queen for some reasons that make nothing for the clearing of this History and there could not be a greater misunderstanding betwixt two Princesses than when Louis was so ill that the Physicians despaired of his recovery His most Christian Majesty a few months before had concluded two Treaties the first with the Emperour Maximilian and the second with Ferdinand the Catholick King both Treaties carried in express terms That the Archduke Charles of Austria should marry Claudia of France eldest Daughter to the most Christian King. France in the present Juncture could not receive a greater prejudice than by that seeing the Marriage agreed upon would one day render it weaker than Spain and by consequent would infallibly expose it to succumb under the first War that might happen betwixt them Bretagne a Province of vast extent and important in situation had for many Ages been dismembred from the Monarchy of France and with extreme difficulty had been reunited to it again The Conduct of Philip Angust was signal in obliging the Dukes of Bretagne Princes of the Bloud and of the Branch of Dieux to perform a regular Homage to France and when the debate for that Fief arose betwixt John of Montfort and Charles of Blois King Charles the Fifth evocated the cause to his Parliament and decided it In a word when there was no Males in the House of Bretagne and that that Dutchy fell to Female France by an irregular Conduct of those who governed it under the Minority of Charles the Eighth was at the point of seeing that Dutchy fall into the House of Austria The French unseasonably declared War against the Bretons pressed them with extraordinary violence in a time when the Laws of War were as yet exactly enough observed attempted to seize the State of their Heiress without marrying of her and thereby constrained them to cast themselves into the Arms of Maximilian of Austria That young Prince by a strange good luck had married the Heiress of Burgundy and by that means deprived the French of their hopes of adding the Low Countries to their Monarchy His Wife lived no longer than was necessary to secure the property of the Low Countries to the House of Austria seeing she died within a few years after their Marriage leaving him only one Son and one Daughter He was therefore in a condition to engage in a second Marriage with the Heiress of Bretagne and again to border upon France by Normandy Maine Anjou Touraine and Poitou as he bordered upon it by Picardy Champagne and Burgundy That second Match the most considerable in Christendom
Father one of the most husbanding Princes that ever was refused to furnish him with Money and Forces for that purpose and that the Flemings his Sons Subjects would not engage in the quarrel of a Prince whom they look'd upon as a stranger since his Wife was dead and that he was no more but the Father of their Sovereign That after the death of Frederick when Maximilian had succeeded the occasion of revenge was lost by the Apoplexy which carried Charles out of the world at the age of twenty eight years but that the case was not alike neither in regard of the Archduke nor in regard of the Count of Angoulesm Towards the end of Philip de Comines That the Archduke was already Master of the Low Countries That his Subjects had so great a love for him that they would spend part of their Estates and their bloud in the quarrel That he would not want neither Spanish Gold nor German Soldiers and that in short the Count was of too strong a constitution to give any ground to fear that he would die before the Archduke had had the satisfaction he desired of him These discourses suiting with the revengeful humour of Charles and reiterated to him in an Age wherein the strong impressions that then are made commonly last as long as life had produced their effect and so animated the Archduke against the Count that he was impatient not to be in a condition of entering the Lists against his Adversary when Crievres foresaw the troublesom consequences that an enmity cultivated with so much care might have and thought it necessary to remedy it betimes though he made no doubt but that the Emperour and Catholick King would take it ill at his hands and prove his enemies if he succeeded in it He had formerly been acquainted in the Wars of Italy with Artas de Goussier Lord of Boisly Governour to the Count of Angoulesm and reckoned him the fittest man of the Kingdom for the Commission that was given him He was persuaded of his great integrity and promised himself from that to be seconded in the design of contracting a Friendship betwixt the Archduke and the Count which might procure to both a long repose and preserve to the Flemings and French the peace which they enjoyed He sollicited him to this by ways that are not known but it is to be believed that it was done without engaging the Archdukes honour and so prudently that neither the Count nor his Governour might draw any advantage from it in case the accommodation had not succeded Goussier on his part contributed thereto all that could be desired and laboured much to blot out of the Count's mind the dangerous impressions of the Archduke which were stamp'd in it as if he had been his most formidable enemy whilst Chievres on the other side acted efficaciously with the Archduke in convincing him by strong reasons that the injuries of Princes were not to be measured by the Standard of private persons and that he neither could nor ought to take it ill if the Count had done to him what he would have done to the Count if he had been in his place When the resentment was stifled on the one hand and diffidence removed on the other the two Governours sought an occasion to settle a commerce by Letters betwixt their two Princes which might entertain and encrease their good intelligence and took the first favourable opportunity that offered Mere chance brought it so about that it was on the Archdukes side and that he needed the offices of the Count in an affair of importance Henry Count of Nassau who possessed in the Provinces of Flanders Brabant Holland and Zealand fair remains of vast Estates which those of his Family had purchased there had so far insinuated himself into the favours of the Archduke that he would have been his Favourite if that Prince had been of an humour to have any and that to caution himself against that he had not taken the same measures almost which chast men commonly make use of to fortifie themselves against the lovely eyes of a Lady whom they are afraid to be smitten with he studied and played with his Master and Chievres was so far from opposing that he contributed to it because making it his business to place about the Archduke young Lords who might not corrupt the good seeds that he endeavoured to plant in him he thought Nassau not only one according to his mind but that also he might be useful in confirming the Archduke in the exercises of virtue by â—…ring him up by his example to the pracâ—… of it It was at that time the custom of the Low Countries to marry the eldest Sonâ— of Noble Families very young and Nassauâ— relations courted for him Elizabeth of Chalon Sister to the Prince of Aurange The Alliance was sutable and could not cause any umbrage for besides that the Families of France and of the Low Countries had full liberty to marry one with another without displeasing their Sovereigns if the House of Chalon had a great Estate in the Dutchy of Burgundy it had more in the French County and upon that account passed rather for a Flemish than French Family All the difficulty lay in the obtaining of the consent of the King Louis the Twelfth without which the Father of Elizabeth had discharged her to be given in marriage and there was but little probability that his Majesty would give it in favours of Nassau seeing it was contrary to the reason of State. Prince Philibert of Chalon the Brother of Elizabeth was the only Male of his Family He gave no promises of a long life in his youth though afterward be became very strong and Politicians looked upon his Sister already as the richest Heiress in Europe If Nassau married her he was a person powerfully setled in the Low Countries who would not change his Master though the Succession of Aurange should fall to his Wife and would spend in the Archdukes service the Revenue of the fair Estate of the House of Chalon in France whereas if the King gave to Elizabeth a French Husband the Estate would not go out of the Kingdom as neither to the rents nor property and the Husband would employ them in the service of his Majesty There needed then a strong recommendation to the King to prevail with him and Chievres advised Nassau to pray the Archduke that in this prospect he would employ the interest of the Count of Angoulesm with the King his Father-in-law The Archduke wrote obligingly to the Count about it and that Prince prepared by Goussier answered the Archduke in the same stile And seeing he already gloried in a generosity too high for the Age he lived in he granted more than was demanded of him and surmounted an obstacle which Nassau had not foreseen He thought it not enough to have obtained his Majesties consent but further won the Prince of Aurange in favours of Nassau who had and always
much pains in cockering him during his infancy that there was no great appearance he could live long enough to beget Children The Archdutchess on the contrary was the most vigorous and jolly Princess of her Age and the Physicians were free enough to say that she would carry with her the rich Successions of Burgundy and Austria to the Family she married into besides a numerous Off-spring of which she gave no small hopes Ferdinand grounded upon that to get her into his Family and for that end laid the most Artificious and selfish Scheme that can be found in the Records of Spain He had one Son and four Daughters the Sons name was John from the Grandfather by the Father's side his eldest Daughters name was Isabella the seconds Jane the thirds Mary and the youngests Catharine The fundamental Laws of Spain gave to the Son all the Kingdoms of Arragon which his Father possessed and all the Kingdoms of Castile that his Mother had brought with her in Marriage his four Sisters having no Pretensions to any part of them and if he died without Children the eldest of his Sisters was to succeed him in full without sharing any thing with the younger Ferdinand was very willing that the States of Burgundy and Austria might enter into his Family but he would not have his own and Wifes Kingdoms to go into a foreign House That inconvenience seemed terrible unto him and he thought to remedy it by offering only to Maximilian his second Daughter for the Archduke because in all humane probability the marriage of the Infanto of Spain with the Archdutchess could not be barren and though by the greatest mischance imaginable it should happen to be so yet that of the eldest of the Infanta's of Spain designed for Manuel King of Portugal might not be and by consequent if the Succession of Ferdinand and Isabella went out of the House of Arragon it would not go out of Spain which by that means would be almost united into one sole Monarchy His Catholick Majesty then caused a double Alliance to be proposed to the Emperour with this disproportion that his only Son should marry the only Daughter of his Imperial Majesty and that nevertheless the only Son of his Imperial Majesty should marry but the second of his Daughters The Proposition was in it self ridiculous as contrary to the rules of Decency the advantage not being equal to both sides and nothing as yet pressing Maximilian to marry his Children It was nevertheless accepted by an extraordinary disposition of Divine Providence which intended to raise the House of Austria by ways unknown to Maximilian and Ferdinand The Emperour thought he had in that double Alliance with the Catholick King such as we have mentioned it to be a present interest which he could find no where else and which was strong enough to determine him We have already spoken of his eager desire of money and how it could not stay with him He was assured of raising three considerable Sums out of the hereditary Provinces of the House of Austria and of the Low Countries The two first Sums were to be given him as a Present for the Marriages of the Archduke and Archdutchess and the last for the Portion of the said Archdutchess He got all clear to himself without disbursing a Penny seeing in the Affair then in agitation the Portions of the two Archdutchesses went in exchange for one another and that besides he had no charges almost at all to be put to there being but very little Magnificence at that time in the Court of Spain whereas if the Emperour settled his Son and Daughter in any other Family of Europe first he would not find a double Alliance to be made and besides nothing of what the Flemings and Austrians might give would come into his Coffers In the second place the Charges of the Weddings would not be spared and the Emperour could have no pretext to excuse him from it The Subjects of his Imperial Majesty and of the Archduke acted not indeed in so interested a view but a consideration of honour inspired the same thoughts into them The Princess Isabella the eldest of the Infanta's of Spain was married very young to Alphonso the Infanto of Portugal She was not full Eighteen years of age when she was left a Widow but that hindered not the Flemings and those of Austria from looking upon it as a thing undecent that the Archduke Philip who was to be their Sovereign should be content with the leavings of the Infanto of Portugal Besides they knew that the Infanto's Grandfather by the Father's side was a Bastard the Son of a Jewish Concubine and seeing the People of the Lower Germany conspired with those of the Upper not to suffer their Princes to Allie into Families and with Persons that had the least blemish though Maximilian would have desired the eldest Infanta of Spain for his Son his own and his Sons Subjects would have universally opposed it Nor would the Princes of Germany have willingly suffered that he should have brought into the Empire the pernicious example of base Alliances And Maximilian would have cut out work for himself that he could not be able to make an end of So the Proposition of the Catholick King was without difficulty accepted and the two Marriages were concluded There was nothing particular in the Contracts that were made of them except that Chievres had the care of seeing them drawn and the Portion as well as the Dowry of the two Spouses was very moderate The King of France Charles the Eighth complained in vain of the infraction of his Treaty * In the Contracts betwixt Spain and Austria with Ferdinand and the answer which the Spanish Embassadour Ayala made him thereupon seemed to add Railery to the Injury He maintained that his Master the Catholick King was free to dispose of his Son and Daughter and that the Treaty mentioned could not tie his hands because it was contrary to good manners as well as the Law of Nations and seeing it would not be taken ill in Spain that the most Christian King should dispense with such an Obligation if it had been put upon him no more ought his most Christian Majesty think it strange that the Catholick King did the like Both Marriages were compleated much about the same time but they were not alike happy neither in their beginning nor in their consequences It may be observed in the Life of Louis the Eleventh that by the last Treaty of that Prince with Maximilian it was stipulated that the Archdutchess Margarite so soon as she was out of the Cradle should marry the Dauphin of France who was Charles the Eighth That she should bring him in Portion the Counties of Burgundy and Artois and lastly that it should not be in the power neither of the Father of the Princess nor of the Flemings to break their Marriage before she was of age to consummate it and that she should immediately
necessity that her Succession must devolve upon a German Family readily submitted to the orders of Divine Providence and with her own hand wrote to the Archdukes to hasten over to Castile there to receive the Allegiance of the People as next and immediate Heirs since she was past the age of having any more Children On the contrary King Ferdinand who was sixteen years younger than his Queen hoped to survive her marry again and of a second ventre have Male Issue that might exclude the Archdutchess from his Succession Upon that account he delayed as much as he could to desire her to come into Spain and did not do it till the last push when his Wife told him that she would of necessity see her eldest Daughter recognized by the Estates of Castile The Union formed betwixt that Monarchy and the Monarchy of Arragon required that the recognition should be made in the Capital * Sarragossa City of Arragon immediately after it had been made in the Capital †Burgos of Castile and the Catholick King who for reasons that shall be mentioned by and by would not break it at length consented to what his Queen desired The Archdukes passed through France and arrived in Spain about the end of February One thousand five hundred and two They were extremely well received by the Catholick Queen but the reception was not so frank on the part of the Catholick King. The pretext that Prince had to cloak his indifferency was that the Archduke his Son-in-law brought with him to the Court of Spain a man that he did not like That was the famous John Manuel of whom we shall speak at large in the sequel of this History His birth was not illustrious and he owed only to the sharpness of his wit and the extraordinary talent he had of writing well and fast the choice that Ferdinand had made of him for his Secretary in those dispatches that required expedition He had not served long in that Station before he gave proofs that he was capable of something greater and his Master sent him Embassadour into Germany to the Court of Maximilian the Emperour where he concluded the double Alliance of the two Children of his Imperial Majesty with the two Children of the Catholick Kings He went afterward in the same Character to the * In the causes of the banishment of Manuel Low Countries where he so dextrously managed the Archduke that he became his Favourite This success put it in his mind to devote himself to that young Prince immediatly after the death of the Infanto Michael He demanded leave to do so from Queen Isabella his Sovereign who thought she ought not to refuse it him because it was more ways than one convenient for him to have a Castilian about him since after her death he was to Reign in Castile But Ferdinand who at that time began to make a distinction betwixt his own Interests and those of his Queen liked not that a man who knew his secrets and who besides was born a Subject of the Catholick Queens should have the entire confidence of the Heirs of that Princess because he foresaw that the desire of governing in his own Country as well as in Flanders would encline him immediately after the death of Isabella to persuade the Archdukes not to delay their taking possession of Castile till the death of their Father-in-law In that prospect he omitted nothing that might oblige the Queen to recall Manuel from Flanders but the Queen persisted in it that he should continue there and Manuel on his part neglected nothing that might render his abode necessary at the Court of the Archdukes He behaved himself there to the full content of his Sovereign and Ferdinand thereupon conceived an aversion to him which grew to that height that he could no longer dissemble it He made it appear upon several occasions and Manuel who looked upon the enmity of that Prince as a torrent of no long duration that would not overslow unless means were used to stem it pretended not to take notice of the same He made it only his business to inform the Archduke in those thirteen months that he was in Spain of the Grandees of Castile and Arragon whom he might win over from his Father-in-law to himself and to teach him the means how he might gain them The Archduke had all that was necessary for improving the Councils of Manuel He was the most affable Prince of his age and was accustomed to carress all the Flemings almost equally of what condition soever they were if they had the honour to approach him However he never made himself so familiar as to render himself contemptible to the Nobility of Spain and on no occasion stooped so low as to lose that gravity which they so much esteem He so tempered his civilities that they had all the success which he expected and that they who were honoured with them preferred his rule before that of Ferdinand And the truth is he left Spain so generally beloved that it was no more in the power of his Father-in-law to discredit him though he might have had a mind to do it Ferdinand suffered him to stay there but as short a while as he could and though the Archdutchess was brought to bed in the City of Alcala of a second Son who was afterwards Emperour Ferdinand the First they stayed not till she was up again to give her Husband the satisfaction of returning in company with her They would have him go before and the pretext that was made use of for sending him back with so much precipitation was the Commission he was charged with to negotiate at Blois where Louis the Twelfth was an accommodation of the clashing that had happened betwixt the French and the Spaniards about the dividing of the Kingdom of Naples The Archduke as hath been said in the former Book treated like a Gentleman and took all the care he ought in an Affair that nearly concerned him since he was already assured to reap advantage from it So soon as he set foot in France his most Christian Majesty and he vied in generosity The King sent into Flanders eight chief Lords of his Court there to remain as Hostages that no prejudice should be done to the Archduke in his passage and the Archduke that he might testifie an entire confidence in the Kings word wrote into Flanders that they should send back the Hostages The accommodation betwixt the two Nations was concluded and signed but Ferdinand disowned the proceedings of his Son in-law and thereby put an affront upon him which in the Maximes of the World was too great and too publick to be pardoned It was to no purpose for Ferdinand to represent to the Archduke that it was he who would reap all the fruit of the perfidious action he complained of and that thereby he would have the Kingdom of Naples entire The Archduke was nothing the less offended thereat and Manuel finding him
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
married not again Manuel and his Issue who were not next of kin to her would not inherit any thing of hers In the mean time seeing Ferdinand only demanded the Princess of Castile to hinder the House of Austria from settling in Spain If Manuel granted her he would raise a Civil War in Castile the success whereof it was impossible for him to foresee If the Arms of Ferdinand prevailed there his Majesty of Portugal would not be the better for it since his Father-in-law was neither liberal nor grateful but if Ferdinand succumbed Portugal would immediately after have upon its back besides the Forces of Castile those of Germany and the Low Countries which he would be the less able to resist that there was no communication betwixt the Kingdoms of Portugal and those of Arragon to receive Succours from thence So that the Princess of Castile was fairly * In the Manual of Osorio denied to Ferdinand who not being able to carry her despaired of having her for Wife At the same time he lost all hopes of getting the Kingdoms of Castile from the House of Austria but despaired not of excluding it from his own Succession and that he might compass that he chose rather to court the Neece of his greatest Enemy than to remain a Widower John de Foix Vicecount of Narbonne married Mary Magdalen of Orleans Sister to Louis the Twelfth King of France by whom he had two Children the incomparable Gaston de Foix who was afterward killed at the Battel of Ravenna and Germana de Foix whom the most Christian King caused to be brought up with his Daughters Ferdinand pitched upon her for his second Wife and seeing he commonly proposed to himself more than one end in his actions he had two in this as you shall see The first was that Germana might one day furnish him with a plausible pretext of usurping Navarre in that the Viscount of Narbonne the Father of that Princess was concerned in that famous case of conscience upon which Theology had always been consulted though the determinations thereof were never acquiesced unto but always decided by the Sword. This is not a proper place of giving instances of it and the business here is only to lay down plainly the matter of fact Gaston de Foix Prince of Bearn had a Son already of his own name Gaston by Leonora of Arragon his Wife at that time when she succeeded to the Crown of Navarre by the death of Charles Prince of Vienne her only Brother and of Isabella her eldest Sister without Children Leonora being settled in the Succession of Navarre was brought to bed of a second Son who was John Viscount of Narbonne John pretended to the Crown of Navarre in exclusion of his elder Brother as being the Son of a Queen and a King whereas his elder Brother was but the Son of a Count and Countess The difference could not be sifted to the bottom because the elder Brother having married Magdalen of France Sister to King Charles the Seventh was put into possession of Navarre and left it to his Children The Viscount left also his Pretensions to Gaston de Foix his Son and to Germana his Daughter Gaston was of so warlike a temper that it was easie to be foreseen that he would be slain and Ferdinand looked upon Germana as a presumptive Heiress that might bring him a Title to the Crown of Navarre which he well knew how to make the best of in time and place convenient The second end that Ferdinand proposed to himself in his marriage with Germana was to strike in with France in a Juncture when possessing no longer the Kingdoms of Castile he was not now strong enough to return what he had usurped upon Louis the Twelfth in Italy In the three views then that we have been mentioning he caused an offer to be made to his most Christian Majesty of treating with him upon two conditions the one that he would give him in Marriage Germana his Neece the next that if Male Children sprung from that Marriage that might live to be in a condition one day to Reign the Kingdom of Naples should belong to them with the consent of France which in that case should yield to them all the claim it had to it but if the Marriage were barren or at least as to Male Children capable of reigning that then the Kingdom of Naples should return to the Monarchy of France in exclusion of the Daughters of Ferdinand's first marriage and of their Posterity Louis accepted the offer of Ferdinand because he only considered it on the side it was advantageous to him His most Christian Majesty had been unfortunate in the Wars of Naples he had lost three great Armies there his Treasures were exhausted by the prodigious charges he had been at and his most courteous disposition hindered him from oppressing the People as must needs have been done to continue that War. The occasion that presented for recovering the Kingdom of Naples was favourable He had the greater reason to embrace it that it would not cost him one drop of bloud and though it was not altogether certain that it would succeed yet there was but little wanting to make it infallible The truth was Ferdinand was not old but his former incontinence had so weakened him that his Physicians durst not hope for any more Children from him He had entertained frequent and long correspondences with the Countess of Eboly by whom he had had the Archbishop of Sarragossa Alphonso d' Arragon and a Daughter married to Bernardin de Valesco Constable of Castile with the Lady Tole de Bibao by whom he had had a Daughter that was a Nun in the Monastery of Madrigal and with a Portuguese Lady of the House of Perreira by whom he had another Daughter that was a Nun as well as the former * In the Book of Mayerne It was to be presumed that that amorous inclination seconded by the plumpness and vigour of Germana would quickly send Ferdinand into the other world and that by consequent France would not long expect to enter again into the Kingdom of Naples In fine the interests of Arragon were for ever or at least for some time divided from those of Castile and France found its advantage in both these Junctures though it would have found it far more in the first than in the second The Marriage of Ferdinand and Germana was no sooner consummated but that Prince made a project of securing himself entirely in the possession of the Kingdom of Naples upon pretext of being in a better condition of fulfilling the Treaty which he had concluded with Louis the Twelfth That Crown had been partly conquered and partly usurped by the Castillians which gave them occasion to pretend that it was annexed to their Monarchy and not to that of Arragon The great Captain Gonsalvo de Cordova had not expelled King Frederick and the French from thence and seeing he was born a Subject of
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
to attempt the person of Ximenes * In the Life of Cardinal Ximenes for besides that he was more powerful than any one of them in particular not excepting the Dukes of Alva and Infantado and never went but well guarded the People who acknowledged him for their Protector were in all places so well affected towards him that the greatest Cowards in the place where he might have been attacked would have made no difficulty to hazard their lives to save his In this condition he continued till the death of the Queen his Benefactrice and thereafter became so useful during the Reign of Philip of Austria for accommodating him with his Father-in-law that Ferdinand durst not undertake to disgrace him but after the death of Philip and the Accommodation betwixt the Emperour Maximilian and King Ferdinand his Catholick Majesty thought that there was nothing wanting to gain the general good will of the Grandees of Spain but to sacrifice to them Ximenes He long considered how he might most securely disgrace him and at length pitched upon the following method He caused it to be represented to him that he had too much wit not to perceive that the hatred which the great men of Castile bore him was irreconcilable and that it would not fail to break out in time and place convenient That hitherto they had been restrained by the consideration they had for the late Queen and their affection to Philip of Austria but that now that Prince was dead that his Widow was distracted without any hopes of recovery and that Ferdinand only reigned in Castile with the Title of a precarious King that is to say as Administrator of that Monarchy during the nonage of his Grandchildren his Catholick Majesty durst not promise to protect him for the future against such a multitude of potent enemies that notwithstanding it would desperately afflict him to have failed in it for two reasons first because he was extremely obliged to Ximenes and then that his weakness would appear too evidently when it should come to be known in Europe that Ferdinand could not snatch his Chief Minister out of the hands of incensed Castilians That there was no other remedy for that inconvenience but the translation of Ximenes from the chief See of the Churches of Castile where the Royal Authority would be no more respected than as it pleased the Grandees to the first See of the Churches of Arragon where it was absolute and all that could be done for Ximenes was to oblige the Archbishop of Sarragossa to exchange with him Ximenes understood very well that Ferdinand had a mind to his Benefice and prudently judged that it behoved him at first to put him out of hopes of it He made answer to this purpose That for his life he valued it not much seeing he had taken and what in him lay executed the design of spending it wholly in the Cloysters of Cordeliers That the Catholick King knew very well how he was pulled out from thence to be made espouse of the Church of Toledo and that his Majesty might very well remember that oftener than once he had protested to Queen Isabella when she commanded him to take such a Wife that he would never forsake her till death that it was to no purpose then to speak to him of exchange nor to press him to resign since nothing would be got by it That if the great men of Castile attacked him separately they should meet with their match and if they united against him he had power enough to prevent himself from being run down at first till he might have assistance from the King his Master that if that assistance failed him not as he had ground to hope it would not he would easily bring his Enemies to reason and if it failed him at a pinch yet he would defend himself in his Archbishoprick as long as he could and if he were reduced to extremity take Shipping and cross the Seas that he might find fanctuary in another Country at least if he were not received there according to his quality Ferdinand at first understood not the true meaning of the last words of Ximenes which were faithfully reported to him but he understood them but too well in the sequel when that Prelate wrote to the Emperour and to the Archduke Charles of Austria that there was an apparent design of turning him out of his Archbishoprick as a punishment for having been the first of the Castilians that owned Philip of Austria for their King and because there was no hopes for raising to the Throne one of the natural Sons of Ferdinand in prejudice of the lawful Children so long as he was Primate of Spain The Letters of the Cardinal grounded thereupon chiefly the protection which he demanded from those two Princes But Ximenes wrote a third Letter to Chievres acquainting him that the Archduke was chiefly concerned that he should remain at the head of the Clergy and by consequent of the Estates of Castile seeing Ferdinand would no sooner lose his hopes of raising his natural Son to the Thrones of Castile and Arragon In the Letters of Ximenes to Chievres but that he would cast about to promote his younger Grandson in prejudice of the Elder That in that second attempt he would infallibly succeed if baffled in the first if he made sure of him whom he should prefer in the place of Ximenes to the Archbishoprick of Toledo because that new Prelate being the chief of the Estates would sway all the Propositions that might be made there That the Castilians and Arragonese agreed in one point though they had a terrible Antipathy in all things else and that that Point was not to admit of a Sovereign but of one that should always live in Spain That Ferdinand who knew their inclination needed do no more to dispose first the Castilians and then the Arragonese to subvert the order of Nature but to represent to them that if they took the Archduke for their King the Imperial Dignity that was like to descend upon him after the death of his Paternal Grandfather the hereditary Provinces of the House of Austria that he must necessarily enjoy as being the Eldest of the Family and the Low Countries which he already possessed would employ him so often and so long that very seldom he could come into Spain and so soon as he were there he would be pressed again to be gone That on the contrary if the two Monarchies of Spain took the Infanto Ferdinand for their King seeing he would have no other States to govern he would remain constantly in Spain and not go into Italy but once at most and that occasionally as his Maternal Grandfather had done That the Castilians and Arragonese being convinced by that only reason would prefer the younger before the elder Brother whereas if his Catholick Majesty were not sure of the Archbishop of Toledo he durst not propose his intention to the Estates of Castile because he
might suppose he would be baffled in it and that if the Affair passed not in Castile it would not be in a condition to pass in Arragon Ximenes thereupon renewed his Protestations of fidelity to the Archduke and so convincingly persuaded his Governour of the necessity of maintaining him in the Benefice to which he was provided that Chievres inclined the Emperour and Archduke to take infallible measures for protecting him against the Catholick King. And in effect these two Princes wrote in concert to Ferdinand that the reputation of Queen Isabella was concerned that the only person whom she had raised highest should not be depressed and that it struck also at the honour of the late King Philip seeing if Ximenes were deposed it would not fail to be said that it was for having given bad counsels to that young Prince That if his Catholick Majesty pretended Ximenes had offended him the Law was open to call him to an account for it and that neither the Emperour nor the Archduke would take it ill if he brought him to a fair Trial but that if he took a violent course seeing he could not do it without raising a Civil War in Castile and that it concerned the Emperour and Archduke to prevent it he ought not to take exceptions if they laboured to do it in the manner they judged most proper The threatning which was plainly enough intimated in the last words mentioned put Ferdinand to a stand and disarmed his resentment He foresaw that seeing he had no lawful Male Issue he would commit an irreparable fault if he contented not himself with the administration of Castile and in reigning peaceably during his life He made reflection that he was about to deprive himself of both these advantages if he drove Ximenes to extremity that in that case it would cost him more in Castile than he got out of it and that he would hamper himself in a quarrel that must at least last as long as he That he would indeed have the Nobility of Castile on his side but that on the other hand the People and honest men would declare for Ximenes and that so the Forces being almost equal the War would be long and the Issue without doubt unfortunate That if his Catholick Majesty were overcome the high reputation which he had acquired would be wholly blasted and the Spaniards would no more be obliged to him for the Conquests of Granada and Naples because he would have caused them more prejudice by dividing them than he had done them good by making them great besides the shame that would redound unto him by being beaten by a Cordelier So that the least inconvenience that could befall him would be to be confined to Arragon for the rest of his days and that he would have a continual vexation a thousand times worse than death to see his victorious Adversary possessing in Castile the place which by his own imprudence he had lost If he triumphed over Ximenes the glory of it would not be great and seeing the dignity and profession of his Adversary would excuse him from venturing his Person he would have no more to do after his Forces were defeated but to take Shipping and flie to Flanders That the Archdukes Letter gave sufficient intimation that he would be well received there and that nevertheless he would not fail to do Ferdinand as much mischief from thence as he would have done had he been victorious in Castile that by his intrigues he would cross all the Projects of his Catholick Majesty That he would raise him more business than he could make an end of That by infinite pains and labour he would make him purchase the pleasure of administring the Dominions of his Grandchildren and that perhaps he might dispose the Archduke who for all he was so young was already through the care of his Governour be come fit to reign not to stay till he were of age for going into Spain and for constraining Ferdinand to deliver up to him the possession of the Monarchy of Castile as quickly and easily as Philip of Austria had forced him to do it before Princes who comply best with the necessity of their affairs are such as comply soonest and so soon as Ferdinand was convinced that he must be reconciled to Ximenes he did it with good grace without employing a Mediator Ximenes surprised to find himself so soon contrary to all expectation rid of so troublesom an Affair and not trusting too much to Ferdinand considered long what course to take for his own security He sound no better expedient for avoiding the Jealousie of his Catholick Majesty than at his own charge and by his own credit to raise an Army of sixteen thousand men and to command them in person for conquering the Ports of Barbary that lay most conveniently for the Spaniards He supposed that by that means he would deserve the universal approbation of Christians and that if he appeased not the Nobility of Spain he would take from them even the pretext of doing him any hurt Ferdinand would have no more cause to envy his vast Revenues nor to accuse him of ill employing them and if nevertheless he did do so he would purchase to himself the indignation of all men The Vassals of the Archbishop of Toledo would be enured to War and their Prelate being in the midst of them would have no cause to fear any thing If his enterprise in Affrica succeeded no man in Spain would for the future have the boldness to attack him and if it succeeded not he would at least have this consolation that his design would meet with so much approbation that they would still respect the Author though they should hear that he had miscarried in the enterprise So Ximenes levied Forces fitted out Ships laid aside the Frock and Ecclesiastick Habit armed Cap-a-pee and crossed over fortunately into Barbary The Military Profession was a new thing to him and he understood no more of it but what he had heard discoursed of in the Council of Spain yet it happened to him as to Lucullus which the Roman History cannot sufficiently admire He became a Captain in the short time that he was passing over the narrow Streights which divide Spain from Affrica In the relation of that passage and at first discharged the most difficult duty of a General which is by his single Authority to quell seditions come to maturity He was hardly landed when the most resolute of his Soldiers who had thought it no small honour to be listed under his Colours were ashamed actually to serve under a Cordelier They took the first pretext that offered to decline it and desired to be carried back to Spain Ximenes was not startled neither at their multitude nor their revolt he rushed into the midst of them took the boldest of the company by the Collar caused him to be put to death upon the spot and so terrified the rest that they mutinied no more The City
of Oran the Capital of a Kingdom to which it gave the name was afterwards attacked and taken by storm Bugy where the University of the Moors was and the only place known in Affrica where they went to learn the little of Arts and Sciences which they have was as easily conquered The occasion that Ximenes had of seizing it deserves to be known were it for no other reason but to convince us that if Christians took as much care to be informed of the affairs of Infidels as Infidels take to learn what news happen amongst Christians we should get more by it than they and find a a great many favourable occasions which are lost for want of that application The Uncle of the King of Bugy by the Father a few days before the Spaniards drew near that Kingdom thought it not enough to dethrone his Nephew but also put out his eye-sight with a hot Iron that thereby he might render him incapable of reigning and prevent according to the Custom of the Country the designs of those who pretended afterward to re-establish him upon the Throne during the life of the Usurper or immediately after his death Ximenes accidentally was informed of so barbarous an action and presently resolved to make his advantage of it He sent word to the friends of the dispossessed King that he would exemplarily revenge the injury that was done if they would act in concert with him and there needed no more to raise in the Kingdom of Bugy a second revolution as great as the former The Party that was worsted took courage again and quickly setled secret correspondences with the Spaniards who they thought had offered themselves to them out of a principle of generosity They took so just measures with them that they facilitated the taking of places that were capable to hinder them from approaching the Capital City and then brought them into Bugy by means that were kept so secret after the execution of them that the Spanish Historians disagree about the manner This is certain that an accident supervened which was so much the more favourable to the Spaniards for winning that other Crown of Barbary that not being so skilful in medicine as they had been in the time of Averroes and Avienne they took it for a miracle The red-hot Iron that had been made use of to blind the King by holding it near his eyes a quarter of an hour had indeed deprived him of sight but had not wholly dried up the humours whether it was that the Ministers of the Usurpers cruelty had taken it out of the fire before it was hot enough for the intended operation or that it was not put near enough his eyes and held there a sufficient time for drying entirely up the humidity which serves to the functions of sight The Spanish Chirurgions perceived it and undertook to cure the Moorish King. The cure was long and difficult but at length it succeeded and was look'd upon as well by him upon whom it was wrought as by his Subjects as an evident mark that it was the purpose of heaven that they should be Tributaries to the Spaniards The Corsairs of Algiers In the relation of that Conquest who till then had with impunity destroyed the Christian Fleets and spoil'd the Commerce of Europe in Africa followed the example of those of Bugy and submitted to the payment of the same tribute In a word the Spaniards by an excess of good fortune which they have not had since in their Wars against the Barbarians made themselves Masters of the Kingdom of Tripoli and Ximenes returned to his Church of Toledo with so much glory and booty that Ferdinand durst think no more of molesting him In this manner the Archduke Charles reaped so much advantage from the quarrel of that Prelate and his Maternal Grandfather that three illustrious Kingdoms and a more famous Republick were thereby subjected to him and shortly after in the year One thousand five hundred and twelve the same good fortune brought under his Dominion the Kingdom of Navarre when neither he himself nor his Governour Chievres had any hand in it That Monarchy had often fallen to Daughters and by consequent had successively passed into several Families By that way it was transferred from the ancient House of Navarre to that of Leon from the House of Leon to that of Castile from the House of Castile to that of Champagne from the House of Champagne to that of France from the House of France to that of Evreux from the House of Evreux to the House of Arragon and from the House of Arragon to that of Foix-Grailly Gaston de Foix married Eleanor Queen of Navarre second Sister to the Father of Ferdinand the Catholick King by whom he had twelve Children of both Sexes The eldest Son died at two and twenty years of age he left a Son and a Daughter whom he had of Magdalen the youngest Daughter of Charles the Seventh The Son named Francis Phoebus reigned not long in Navarre and died before he was married The Daughter named Catharine became thereby the richest Heiress of Europe She remained under the Guardianship of her Mother who would never hear of marrying again though she was a Widow at the age of seventeen years There were but few Princes in Europe that courted not the Alliance of the young Queen of Navarre and the most considerable Husband that was proposed to her was the Insanto of Spain John the Son of Ferdinand who was much of the same age with her That Prince was the only Son of Ferdinand and Isabella and if he had married Catharine all the Monarchies of Spain had been reunited except that of Portugal Ferdinand and Isabella designed that chiefly by the Match But Magdalen of France had not so great an aversion to the House she was come of as to contribute to the raising in Spain a Power almost equal to that of France She absolutely refused her Daughter to the Prince of Spain but for all that she had not so much kindness for the House of France as to marry her Daughter into it as she had not so much affection for her Daughter as to marry her into a Sovereign Family She gave her to John Son of Alan d' Albert a powerful Lord indeed in Gascony but who possessed not a foot of Land but what held of the Kings of France in quality of Dukes of Guyenne Irregularities in Politicks are of more dangerous consequence than others and it is rare to be found in History that Queens of themselves have married Husbands inferiour to them in quality without having great occasions of repenting it John d' Albert seemed born to verisie the old Proverb That the best men are not always the best Kings He had all the qualities that could accomplish a private man but he wanted those which distinguish Sovereigns from those that are not and were not cut out for being so He delighted only in study and minded nothing by his good
at the appointed time there was a necessity he should march through Navarre with what Baggage and Artillery were needful for him to lay Siege to the City of Bourdeaux that the same passage was as necessary for his Armies marching back again to his own Territories and that for securing it in case he succeeded not in his enterprise as he expected their Majesties of Navarre must needs give him the places of Esteille Maye and St. John Pied de Port for Cautionary Towns that he promised upon his honour if they were freely granted him to restore them again faithfully so soon as his Forces were come back again into Castile and Arragon but if they were absolutely refused or not presently entrusted into his hands they must not take it ill if he endeavoured to put in execution the Bull of Excommunication which Pope Julius the Second had just then thundered out against their Majesties of Navarre as well as against Louis the Twelfth of France The Queen and King of Navarre gave Audience to the Herald in the Town of Tudelle where their Estates were assembled and made him answer That Navarre intended to observe an exact Neutrality betwixt the most Christian and Catholick Kings and as the Catholick King might have ground to complain of their Majesties of Navarre if they permitted the French to pass their Country for invading Arragon or Castile so would the most Christian King also have if they opened a passage through their States for the Spaniards to enter into Guienne The Duke of Alva who only waited for that answer marched streight to Pampelona and gave the signal to those of the Faction of Beaumont who made in one day an Insurrection in all the other Towns of Navarre in favours of the Spaniards the two and twentieth of July One thousand five hundred and twelve The Kings of Navarre hastened also to Pampelona but by another way where finding the Towns-people disposed to open the Gates to the Duke of Alva so soon as he appeared before their Walls they had no other course to take but to fly into the Territories which they had in France None accompanied them in their retreat but the chief of the Faction of Grammont because the others being assured that the Catholick King would receive them with open Arms stayed at home quietly in their houses What was very strange in so general a revolution there was not one Town that shewed their Loyalty to their Prince by enduring a Siege and the Duke of Alva had no more to do but to appear before them one after another to have the Keys delivered into his hands Ferdinand having conquered so important a Kingdom caused his Army to stay there for securing it and failed in his promise both alike to the Pope and to his Son-in-law Henry the Eighth of England suffered the English to lie hovering upon the Coast of Guyenne and did not send them word till the end of the Campagne that they should stay no longer for him and that if they pleased they might return home The End of the Second Book BOOK III. Containing the most memorable Affairs that pass'd in the Monarchy of Spain during the Year One thousand five hundred and fifteen and part of One thousand five hundred and sixteen THE Spanish Historians treating of the Invasion of Navarre put it off with a false Jest Their intention is to take their Readers off from observing too narrowly the manner how that Kingdom was united to their Monarchy by pleasantly amusing them whilst as tenderly as they can they touch so nice a point they say that John d' Albert being come to the most distant place from which he might still see his Capital City of Pampelona and turning about to take a full view of it sell a crying bitterly and that the Queen Catharine de Foix his Wife offended at so unseasonable an act of tenderness told him in a disdainful manner In the relation of the flight of John d' Albert. that he might very well cry like a woman for the loss of a Crown which he could not defend like a man. But these Authors have not taken notice That John d' Albert and his Queen departed not together from Pampelona That seeing the King was more hated there than she he was the first that consulted his own security by flying away about break of day and that the Queen followed not her Husband till two days after when he was already entered the Mountains of Aldude Ferdinand after the Conquest of Navarre had a greater desire than before to have Children by his second Wife He was not as yet superannuated and his failings were only imputed to the disorders of his youth The Physicians made no doubt but by their Art they might retrieve his former vigour for some time at least and taught the Queen Germana how to make a love Potion which in their opinion would prove infallible The Queen who would not venture upon any thing that she might be reproached with spoke of it to Ferdinand who bid her take the care of preparing it her self that it might be kept the more secret She only communicated it to her Ladies of Honour in whom she had greatest confidence and they presented it one Evening to Ferdinand when he was going to bed at Carrousillo a house of pleasure where he spent the spring of the year One thousand five hundred and thirteen Ferdinand drank up the Potion to the very dregs but whether the Dose was too strong for the weakness of his Constitution or that it was not carefully enough prepared it had a quite contrary effect to the intent of those that gave it Ferdinand fell immediately sick upon it and his Physicians who knew the cause of his distemper were at a stand as to the cure They caused him to be removed to Megorada where he was so long and so dangerously seized with all the symptomes that threatned an approaching end that Chievres thought it time seriously to mind the Succession to the Monarchy of Arragon and the possession of that of Castile He was persuaded that his Majesty would use his endeavours to disappoint the Archduke Charles and settle them upon the Infanto Ferdinand and since that was the chief thing which he had proposed to prevent he was of the opinion that the Archduke should send into Spain Adrian his Tutor who was as yet but Dean of Louvain The pretext of that Voyage was the Marriage which the People of the Low Countries desired for their own repose betwixt the Archduke and Renée of France second Daughter of Louis the Twelfth King of France but in reality the Dean had an Authentick Power and many blanks signed for taking possession of the two Monarchies in case the Catholick King should die and at least to preserve that of Castile for the Archduke supposing Arragon should be given by Testament to the younger Brother The dispatches were expeded with all imaginable secrecy but the Catholick King was too mistrustful
not to suspect the true reason of the intended Voyage and seeing what Princes on such occasions do fancy passes in their minds for certain truth the Catholick King received Adrian so very ill and so many ways tried his patience that he tired it out The Dean for his first essay had undertaken a Negotiation a little too difficult and he could not worthily acquit himself of it without continual attendance at the Court of the Catholick King. In the mean time his Majesty who looked upon him as a Spy would not permit him to wait upon him any whither Nay he would have him to return again to Flanders as often as he found himself any way better so that he was in a condition of travelling abroad in the Country which the Castilians took for an absolute cure Insomuch as the Dean having to remain at Court exhausted all the excuses that had been suggested to him in his Instructions found himself reduced to such streights as far surpassed the capacity of a man bred up in the Schools The Courtiers whom he knew to be well affected towards the Archduke augmented his trouble by acquainting him from time to time with fresh instances of kindness which the Catholick King shewed the Infanto They magnified them in their notes took them for so many demonstrations of an infallible preference persisted to press him that he would remedy it and threatned that if it were not done with all expedition they would abandon the Party of the Archduke and strike in with the Infanto In a word the Dean in the short converse that he had had with the Catholick King observed that that Prince had an extreme aversion to Chievres that he imputed to him the little Authority which he had in the Low Countries that he was persuaded that his Grandsons Governour had hindered him from Reigning there in the same manner as he did in Castile and that not being able to revenge himself upon the Governour he would do it upon the Pupil That that was truly the ground of the misunderstanding betwixt the Grandfather and Grandson and that Chievres was the Victim to be sacrificed to the reconciliation of the two That if he were removed from the Archduke it was certain that the Catholick King would more willingly listen to Nature which pleaded with him in favours of the elder of his Grandchildren that what he said to him suited exactly with his Ambition whereas if the Court of Flanders continued as it was that is in the inflexibility that it had always shewn in giving satisfaction to the Catholick King that Prince would compleat what he had begun and by his last Will settle the Infanto Ferdinand so firmly in the Monarchies of Castile and Arragon that it would be impossible for the Archduke to dispossess him This long train of reasonings engaged the Dean into a conduct equally contrary to his humour and to the gratitude which till then he had manifested to Chievres his Benefactor He thought at least that the Catholick King ought to be amused with the vain hopes of turning out the Archdukes Governour if he were not fully satisfied in the point and in that prospect caused it to be intimated to his Majesty that if he would act joyntly with him he promised himself to supplant Chievres and to put in his place the man whom his Majesty should design for the employment The Proposition was so acceptable to Ferdinand In the causes of the breach betwixt Chievres and Adrian that he sent for the Dean to discourse the matter with him hand to hand without Witnesses The Dean who was prepared to remove or at least to lessen the chief difficulties in the Affair delivered himself after his way and in Articles to his Majesty that Chievres was not so securely setled but that he might be shaken and that Louis the Twelfth who had given him the Commission which he discharged would not live long enough to maintain him in it That though his Pupil made a shew of a great deal of friendship for him that was not absolutely to be relied upon seeing that young Prince was known already to excel in the art of dissimulation and was besides resolved not to displease the Emperour Maximilian his Paternal Grandfather with whom Chievres had always entertained a strict correspondence but that at the bottom the Archduke was like other young people and that there was never any Governour who sincerely gained the friendship of his Pupil when he discharged his duty with all strictness as Chievres had done That many Flemish Gentlemen Heirs of Families took it impatiently that a younger Brother of the house of Croy should be preferred before them to the Education of their Prince and that they would not only be well pleased at the disgrace of Chievres but also with emulation contribute thereunto The Deans discourse produced but part of the effect which he promised to himself Ferdinand who had listened to him with all the attention of a prejudiced man to whom an expedient was offered of a revenge which till then he had in vain sought for conceived an extraordinary joy at it yet not without the allays of fear and diffidence He suspected part of the truth and guessed at the Politicks of the Deans conduct Nay he thought him an abler Politician than indeed he was and imagined that his design was not only to amuse him but also to oblige his Prince to whom he had preserved his birth-right and Chievres whom he had served most advantageously by cluding the most terrible effects of the hatred of the Catholick King under pretext of satisfying the same So Ferdinand replied to the Dean that he heartily accepted the offer he made him But seeing the affair in hand was very ticklish in it self it had need be seriously thought of before it was attempted to be put into execution and that there was no succeeding in it unless such measures were taken as might not easily be subject to change That the best way would be to put it down in writing by way of a Treaty betwixt his Catholick Majesty and the Archdukes Praeceptor to the end that each of them having an Authentick Copy of it they might have recourse to the same in all the doubts that might arise as to the particular circumstances that they should agree upon The Dean very well perceived the snare that Ferdinand laid for him in respect that the Writing which the Catholick King might give him would oblige him no more than his word the Dean being neither of birth nor condition to force him to the accomplishment of it whereas if Ferdinand had the Deans Writing in his hands he might make use of it when he pleased to undo him by shewing that he had without Orders negotiated and concluded the Deposition of Chievres Nevertheless since the Dean had proposed it and by consequent that if there were any crime in it he was the first that began to commit it he went on and treated with Ferdinand
in one and the same Family she had two Lovers that deserved her who offered to take her without putting her Brother to any trouble for a Portion We have taken notice before that Manuel King of Portugal Espoused in first marriage his Nephews Widow eldest Sister to the Mother of the Catholick King by whom he had a Son who if he had lived would have put by the Catholick King from the successions of Castille and Arragon But the Mother dying of her first Child and the Child not surviving her above two years Manuel for his second Wife married the Sister of his former younger than the Catholick Kings Mother by whom he had five Sons and four Daughters She also had left him a Widower at the Age of forty nine years and seeing he was not of the humour to spend the rest of his life in Widowhood he courted for a third Wife the elder Sister of the Catholick King and Niece to his two former Wives But he was rivall'd by his own eldest Son John Infanto of Portugal who pretended to the Infanta Leonora upon better ground as being of the same Age with her So that the Catholick King was to chuse Father or Son which he pleased and Chievres inclined him in favour of the Father by representing to him that if he took the Infanto of Portugal for his Brother-in-law he could draw no assistance from him when he stood in need of it for canvassing for the Empire it being the custom of Portugal that the eldest Sons of the Kings had no more subsistence but their Fathers Table with a small Pension until the Law of Nature and of the State called them to the Crown That in the mean time they ate with their Fathers their Servants of whom they had but a small number were payed with the Kings and that they received for Cloaths and their small pleasures but about a thousand Crowns a month Whereas Manuel being the King of Europe that had most money and having been governed by his two former Wives he would give the third no less dominion over him and would not have the power to refuse her when she should desire him to lend the King her Brother the vast summs of money that he would stand in need of for disposing the more scrupulous Electors to give him their Voices The Catholick King being prevailed upon by that Argument employed Chievres to perswade the Infanta his Sister to prefer the Father before the Son and Chievres for compleating what he had begun had no more to do but to take the Infanta by her weak side which was ambition He represented to her that Manuel Amongst the Pictures of Portugal who had always been reckoned the handsomest Monarch of his Age had not as yet lost any of his personal Charms That few men of his Age matched him in vigour That he had all the signs of a long life and by consequence the Prince of Portugal must wait long before he could come to the Crown That the Princess that should marry him would be in danger of never being Queen whereas she that married his Father would be sure of it the first day The Infanta Leonora was of the Age wherein Maids are only taken with what glisters to their Eyes She considered nothing but the outside of Royalty was charmed with it and fancied that she could not too soon be a Queen So she willingly fell into the snare that Chievres â—aid for her and consented to marry Manuel She was not long left in that inclination without giving her satisfaction for fear she might change her mind and she was Crowned the same day she was married by Proxy though it was still the custom to delay such Ceremonies till the Marriage were in effect consummated The Catholick King being thus discharged of his Brother and elder Sister went merrily into Arragon where he found a fresh the usefulness of the Council that Chievres had given him of removing with all expedition and by all means the Infanto Ferdinand out of Spain The Estates of Arragon assembled at Sarragossa in the Palace of the Archbishop made greater difficulty of acknowledging the Catholick King for their King during the life of the Queen his Mother than the Estates of Castille had done They demanded in the first place that they might be allowed to give their Oath at the same time to the Infanto Ferdinand as presumptive Heir of their Monarchy and it was the more positively refused them that it was seen that they thereby sought a pretext of revolting when they pleased by refusing to put in execution afterwards the Orders of the Catholick King that might in the least seem uneasie to them upon the only account that the concurrence of the Infanto might be wanting to them The Estates solicited that Article with so much zeal as made it visible that they would never have yielded in it had that young Prince been still in Spain And the truth is they yielded not till it was slily insinuated to them that their efforts were so far from recalling the Infanto back into Spain that they would hinder him from ever setting foot there again as it happened The second proposition which they added to the former had no better reception They condescended to acknowledge the Catholick King but they pretended it should be as Guardian and Administrator of the Estates of his Mother during her infirmity and not in quality of King. It was easie to be seen that their design was to Reign amongst themselves during the life of the Queen and the Grandees of Castille who had in honour to the Catholick King waited on him to Sarragossa were so scandalized at it that some of them went to words about it with the Deputies of Arragon and raised quarrels which occasioned bloud-shed But at length Chievres appeased them and the Catholick King was acknowledged for Monarch of Arragon without any other condition but that of confirming the priviledges of the Country as he had been acknowledged in Castille The ceremony of it was performed in the beginning of May one thousand five hundred and eighteen and six weeks after Chievres had much ado to ward the reverse blow of the Infanto's travels into Germany so hard a thing it is in Politicks to give good counsels in one sence which are not bad in another The Infanto Ferdinand being come to the Emperor Maximilian his Grandfather to Vienna in Austria moved him with pity at his misery and affected him with the same sentiments that Ferdinand the Catholick had heretofore had for him His Imperial Majesty resolved to make over to him the Territories which the house of Austria possessed in Germany and to assure to him the Succession to the Empire He needed the consent of the Catholick King for putting in execution the first of these projects but not of the second and that made him delay the one that he might mind the other The Diet was summoned at Ausbourg against the end of the year
Great Captain had approved for that end the transaction passed betwixt that Prince and his Father-in-law But it is in vain for men to strive to avoid the Decrees of Heaven Ferdinand's new Son lived but an hour and the Catholick King was more sensibly touched with grief at the loss of him than he had been affected with joy at his birth He turned his resentment against the Person in the world who had most obliged him and that Person defended himself in the way that ablest Courtiers take to avoid the indignation of their Masters which is that of a diversion Cardinal Francis de Cisneros Ximenes was the man of all the Spaniards whose outside best agreed with the inside and in whose countenance those who knew least of Physiognomy could very hardly have been deceived even though they would He was of a goodly stature a well proportioned body a healthful constitution steady gate strong voice grave countenance his countenance was long and withered his forehead large and so smooth that age wrinkled it not his eyes small and hollow but quick and piercing though they were always watery his nose long and aquiline his fore-teeth set so far outward that he went by the Nick-name of the Elephant his lips thick his chest long and his head without any future as it appeared to them who found his Skull forty years after his death when they were repairing the Vault where his body was laid to which are attributed those fearful headaches wherewith he was so frequently tormented contrary to Cardinal Richelieu who never felt any pain of the head because he had in his Crown two little holes through which the vapours exhaled The prudence of Ximenes carried it from that of the Cardinal of Amboise chief Minister of State to the most Christian King Louis the Twelfth It had always inclined the advantage to the Spanish side against France when those two Monarchies fell into competition The Spaniard was indeed slower in deliberation than the French-man but to make amends for that he prevented him in the execution when once he had taken his side and never remitted as he did till he had accomplished what he had begun difficulties enlivened instead of discouraging him Choler to which he was subject never so far transported him as to make him say any thing or do any action that he might have cause afterward to repent of He was so punctual in keeping of his word that it never went out of his mind till he had fulfilled it His deep Melancholy obliged him to delight in the company of those who used to make Jests but he himself never spake any and it was perhaps for fear of meeting with sharp repartees for he was but the Son of a Proctor of Tortelaguna in old Castile and he had spent his youth amongst the Cordeliers before that Order was reformed The sole consideration of his worth had advanced him to be Guardian and Provincial of his Order and he actually discharged the last of the two when it pleased Queen Isabella to chuse him for her Confessor He endeavoured to have excused himself and did not embrace it but because that Princess would needs have him to be the depositary of her greatest secrets Nevertheless one of his most intimate friends pleasantly complained of it as of a piece of Infidelity committed towards him and upbraided him that he forsook him to go to Court. Queen Isabella was sensible already of the reach and ability of his Genius when by the following accident she was excited to give him the chief Ecclesiastical Dignity of Spain Cardinal Hurtado de Mendoza was sick and the Physicians despaired of his recovery Ferdinand and Isabella who were extraordinarily obliged to him did him the honour to give him a visit and Isabella privately conjured him to tell her ingenuously if he had no thoughts of any who he desired might succeed to him The Cardinal answered that it was indifferent to him provided his Successour deserved the Archbishoprick of Toledo Isabella insisted She conjured him to name to her the Castilian whom he judged worthiest and the Cardinal without hesitation replied that Ximenes was the man. Isabella ravished at that Authentick testimony which gave her occasion to promote her Confessor to the Archbishoprick of Toledo without giving offence to her Husband caused his Brief to be expeded upon the death of the Cardinal and shortly after brought him into the Council of State. He acquired a prodigious reputation there in respect that all the Counsels which he moved or seconded hardly ever failed to succeed as on the contrary those which he rejected were commonly unsuccessful but in exchange he attracted the enmity of the greatest Nobility of Castile and Arragon No Minister of State in Spain that ever went before him possessed in so high a degree that so rare a virtue in a States-man which the holy Scripture calls hunger and thirst after righteousness He could not endure that great men should oppress their Vassals and when a poor Peasant applied himself to him to demand Justice for the oppression of his Lord he rendered it upon the spot if it depended solely on him and procured it by all his credit if it was not in his own power without caring for what might follow The murmurings of the persons of quality were so much the greater at that that for many ages they had been accustomed to treat their Inferiours according to their fancy That abuse proceeded from the priviledge the Nobles took to themselves because it was chiefly they who recovered the Country from the Moors Upon that ground alone they were persuaded that all Castile belonged to them by the right of Conquest and that they did no injury to Catholick Peasants who lived only there by their permission when they left them no more of the Crop they sowed and reaped but what they pleased The Kings of Castile and Arragon had always been indulgent to these petty Tyrants whether it was that they feared to excite the great men to revolt who otherwise were but too subject to it or that they themselves had an interest in the continuance of that disorder because in their own Lands they used the same violences that the Gentlemen committed in theirs Therefore the Great men of Castile complained to Queen Isabella oftener than once of the Cardinal and pressed her to send him home to his Church where they thought he would not be any more so troublesome to them But Isabella always cluded their desire by answering that that Prelate was so useful to her that though he were at Toledo she must of necessity dispatch a Courrier with Orders for him instantly to repair to Court. Thereupon she imparted to them in general the important affairs which required the presence of that Prelate and if she dismissed them not with satisfaction yet she took from them the pretext of making Insurrections upon the account their desire had been refused So they separated and returned to their Castles without daring