Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 03: 1555
Author: Motley, John Lothrop
Language: English
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THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.

1855



PHILIP THE SECOND IN THE NETHERLANDS

1555  [CHAPTER I.]

     Abdication of Charles resolved upon--Brussels in the sixteenth
     century--Hall of the palace described--Portraits of prominent
     individuals present at the ceremony--Formalities of the abdication--
     Universal emotion--Remarks upon the character and career of Charles
     --His retirement at Juste.

On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the Netherlands
were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels.  They had
been summoned to be the witnesses and the guarantees of the abdication
which Charles V. had long before resolved upon, and which he was that day
to execute.  The emperor, like many potentates before and since, was fond
of great political spectacles.  He knew their influence upon the masses
of mankind.  Although plain, even to shabbiness, in his own costume, and
usually attired in black, no one ever understood better than he how to
arrange such exhibitions in a striking and artistic style.  We have seen
the theatrical and imposing manner in which he quelled the insurrection
at Ghent, and nearly crushed the life forever out of that vigorous and
turbulent little commonwealth.  The closing scene of his long and
energetic reign he had now arranged with profound study, and with an
accurate knowledge of the manner in which the requisite effects were to
be produced.  The termination of his own career, the opening of his
beloved Philip's, were to be dramatized in a manner worthy the august
character of the actors, and the importance of the great stage where they
played their parts.  The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that
day towards Brussels; for an imperial abdication was an event which had
not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom.

The gay capital of Brabant--of that province which rejoiced in the
liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the "joyful
entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing show.  Brussels had
been a city for more than five centuries, and, at that day, numbered
about one hundred thousand inhabitants.  Its walls, six miles in
circumference, were already two hundred years old.  Unlike most
Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, it was built
along the sides of an abrupt promontory.  A wide expanse of living
verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields, flowed
round it like a sea.  The foot of the town was washed by the little river
Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep
sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an amphitheatre.
Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely
embroidered tower of the townhouse, three hundred and sixty-six feet in
height, a miracle of needlework in stone, rivalling in its intricate
carving the cobweb tracery of that lace which has for centuries been
synonymous with the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely
decorated and brocaded architecture.  The crest of the elevation was
crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its
extensive and thickly-wooded park on the left, and by the stately
mansions of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemburg, and other Flemish
grandees, on the right..  The great forest of Soignies, dotted with
monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither
the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where the nobles chased
the wild boar and the stag, extended to within a quarter of a mile of the
city walls.  The population, as thrifty, as intelligent, as prosperous as
that of any city in Europe, was divided into fifty-two guilds of
artisans, among which the most important were the armorers, whose suits
of mail would turn a musket-ball; the gardeners, upon whose gentler
creations incredible sums were annually lavished; and the tapestry-
workers, whose gorgeous fabrics were the wonder of the world.  Seven
principal churches, of which the most striking was that of St. Gudule,
with its twin towers, its charming facade, and its magnificently painted
windows, adorned the upper part of the city.  The number seven was a
magic number in Brussels, and was supposed at that epoch, during which
astronomy was in its infancy and astrology in its prime, to denote the
seven planets which governed all things terrestrial by their aspects and
influences.  Seven noble families, springing from seven ancient castles,
supplied the stock from which the seven senators were selected who
composed the upper council of the city.  There were seven great squares,
seven city gates, and upon the occasion of the present ceremony, it was
observed by the lovers of wonderful coincidences, that seven crowned
heads would be congregated under a single roof in the liberty-loving
city.

The palace where the states-general were upon this occasion convened,
had been the residence of the Dukes of Brabant since the days of John
the Second, who had built it about the year 1300.  It was a spacious and
convenient building, but not distinguished for the beauty of its
architecture.  In front was a large open square, enclosed by an iron
railing; in the rear an extensive and beautiful park, filled with forest
trees, and containing gardens and labyrinths, fish-ponds and game
preserves, fountains and promenades, race-courses and archery grounds.
The main entrance to this edifice opened upon a spacious hall, connected
with a beautiful and symmetrical chapel.  The hall was celebrated for its
size, harmonious proportions, and the richness of its decorations.  It
was the place where the chapters of the famous order of the Golden Fleece
were held.  Its walls were hung with a magnificent tapestry of Arran,
representing the life and achievements of Gideon, the Midianite, and
giving particular prominence to the miracle of the "fleece of wool,"
vouchsafed to that renowned champion, the great patron of the Knights of
the Fleece.  On the present occasion there were various additional
embellishments of flowers and votive garlands.  At the western end a
spacious platform or stage, with six or seven steps, had been
constructed, below which was a range of benches for the deputies of the
seventeen provinces.  Upon the stage itself there were rows of seats,
covered with tapestry, upon the right hand and upon the left.  These were
respectively to accommodate the knights of the order and the guests of
high distinction.  In the rear of these were other benches, for the
members of the three great councils.  In the centre of the stage was a
splendid canopy, decorated with the arms of Burgundy, beneath which were
placed three gilded arm-chairs.

All the seats upon the platform were vacant, but the benches below,
assigned to the deputies of the provinces, were already filled.  Numerous
representatives from all the states but two--Gelderland and Overyssel--
had already taken their places.  Grave magistrates, in chain and gown,
and executive officers in the splendid civic uniforms for which the
Netherlands were celebrated, already filled every seat within the apace
allotted.  The remainder of the hall was crowded with the more favored
portion of the multitude which had been fortunate enough to procure
admission to the exhibition.  The archers and hallebardiers of the body-
guard kept watch at all the doors.  The theatre was filled--the audience
was eager with expectation--the actors were yet to arrive.  As the clock
struck three, the hero of the scene appeared.  Caesar, as he was always
designated in the classic language of the day, entered, leaning on the
shoulder of William of Orange.  They came from the chapel, and were
immediately followed by Philip the Second and Queen Mary of Hungary.  The
Archduke Maximilian the Duke of Savoy, and other great personages came
afterwards, accompanied by a glittering throng of warriors, councillors,
governors, and Knights of the Fleece.

Many individuals of existing or future historic celebrity in the
Netherlands, whose names are so familiar to the student of the epoch,
seemed to have been grouped, as if by premeditated design, upon this
imposing platform, where the curtain was to fall forever upon the
mightiest emperor since Charlemagne, and where the opening scene of the
long and tremendous tragedy of Philip's reign was to be simultaneously
enacted.  There was the Bishop of Arras, soon to be known throughout
Christendom by the more celebrated title of Cardinal Granvelle, the
serene and smiling priest whose subtle influence over the destinies of so
many individuals then present, and over the fortunes of the whole land,
was to be so extensive and so deadly.  There was that flower of Flemish
chivalry, the, lineal descendant of ancient Frisian kings, already
distinguished for his bravery in many fields, but not having yet won
those two remarkable victories which were soon to make the name of Egmont
like the sound of a trumpet throughout the whole country.  Tall,
magnificent in costume, with dark flowing hair, soft brown eye, smooth
cheek, a slight moustache, and features of almost feminine delicacy; such
was the gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont. The Count of Horn; too,
with bold, sullen face, and fan-shaped beard-a brave, honest,
discontented, quarrelsome, unpopular man; those other twins in doom--the
Marquis Berghen and the Lord of Montigny; the Baron Berlaymont, brave,
intensely loyal, insatiably greedy for office and wages, but who, at
least, never served but one party; the Duke of Arschot, who was to serve
all, essay to rule all, and to betray all--a splendid seignor,
magnificent in cramoisy velvet, but a poor creature, who traced his
pedigree from Adam, according to the family monumental inscriptions at
Louvain, but who was better known as grand-nephew of the emperor's famous
tutor, Chiebres; the bold, debauched Brederode, with handsome, reckless
face and turbulent demeanor; the infamous Noircarmes, whose name was to
be covered with eternal execration, for aping towards his own compatriots
and kindred as much of Alva's atrocities and avarice, as he was permitted
to exercise; the distinguished soldiers Meghen and Aremberg--these, with
many others whose deeds of arms were to become celebrated throughout
Europe, were all conspicuous in the brilliant crowd.  There, too, was
that learned Frisian, President Viglius, crafty, plausible, adroit,
eloquent--a small, brisk man, with long yellow hair, glittering green
eyes, round, tumid, rosy cheeks, and flowing beard.  Foremost among the
Spanish grandees, and close to Philip, stood the famous favorite, Ruy
Gomez, or as he was familiarly called "Re y Gomez" (King and Gomez), a
man of meridional aspect, with coal-black hair and beard, gleaming eyes,
a face pallid with intense application, and slender but handsome figure;
while in immediate attendance upon the emperor, was the immortal Prince
of Orange.

Such were a few only of the most prominent in that gay throng, whose
fortunes, in part, it will be our humble duty to narrate; how many of
them passing through all this glitter to a dark and mysterious doom!--
some to perish on public scaffolds, some by midnight assassination;
others, more fortunate, to fall on the battle-field--nearly all, sooner
or later, to be laid in bloody graves!

All the company present had risen to their feet as the emperor entered.
By his command, all immediately afterwards resumed their places.  The
benches at either end of the platform were accordingly filled with the
royal and princely personages invited, with the Fleece Knights, wearing
the insignia of their order, with the members of the three great
councils, and with the governors.  The Emperor, the King, and the Queen
of Hungary, were left conspicuous in the centre of the scene.  As the
whole object of the ceremony was to present an impressive exhibition, it
is worth our while to examine minutely the appearance of the two
principal characters.

Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months old; but he
was already decrepit with premature old age.  He was of about the middle
height, and had been athletic and well-proportioned.  Broad in the
shoulders, deep in the chest, thin in the flank, very muscular in the
arms and legs, he had been able to match himself with all competitors in
the tourney and the ring, and to vanquish the bull with his own hand in
the favorite national amusement of Spain.  He had been able in the field
to do the duty of captain and soldier, to endure fatigue and exposure,
and every privation except fasting.  These personal advantages were now
departed.  Crippled in hands, knees and legs, he supported himself with
difficulty upon a crutch, with the aid of, an attendant's shoulder.  In
face he had always been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not
improved his physiognomy.  His hair, once of a light color, was now white
with age, close-clipped and bristling; his beard was grey, coarse, and
shaggy.  His forehead was spacious and commanding; the eye was dark blue,
with an expression both majestic and benignant.  His nose was aquiline
but crooked.  The lower part of his face was famous for its deformity.
The under lip, a Burgundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as the
duchy and county, was heavy and hanging; the lower jaw protruding so far
beyond the upper, that it was impossible for him to bring together the
few fragments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence
in an intelligible voice.  Eating and talking, occupations to which he
was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in
consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human,
but rather an original deformity.

So much for the father.  The son, Philip the Second, was a small, meagre
man, much below the middle height, with thin legs, a narrow chest, and
the shrinking, timid air of an habitual invalid.  He seemed so little,
upon his first visit to his aunts, the Queens Eleanor and Mary,
accustomed to look upon proper men in Flanders and Germany, that he was
fain to win their favor by making certain attempts in the tournament, in
which his success was sufficiently problematical.  "His body," says his
professed panegyrist, "was but a human cage, in which, however brief and
narrow, dwelt a soul to whose flight the immeasurable expanse of heaven
was too contracted." [Cabrera]  The same wholesale admirer adds, that
"his aspect was so reverend, that rustics who met him alone in a wood,
without knowing him, bowed down with instinctive veneration."  In face,
he was the living image of his father, having the same broad forehead,
and blue eye, with the same aquiline, but better proportioned, nose.
In the lower part of the countenance, the remarkable Burgundian deformity
was likewise reproduced.  He had the same heavy, hanging lip, with a
vast mouth, and monstrously protruding lower jaw.  His complexion was
fair, his hair light and thin, his beard yellow, short, and pointed.
He had the aspect of a Fleming, but the loftiness of a Spaniard.  His
demeanor in public was still, silent, almost sepulchral.  He looked
habitually on the ground when he conversed, was chary of speech,
embarrassed, and even suffering in manner.  This was ascribed partly to a
natural haughtiness which he had occasionally endeavored to overcome, and
partly to habitual pains in the stomach, occasioned by his inordinate
fondness for pastry. [Bodavaro]

Such was the personal appearance of the man who was about to receive into
his single hand the destinies of half the world; whose single will was,
for the future, to shape the fortunes of every individual then present,
of many millions more in Europe, America, and at the ends of the earth,
and of countless millions yet unborn.

The three royal personages being seated upon chairs placed triangularly
under the canopy, such of the audience as had seats provided for them,
now took their places, and the proceedings commenced.  Philibert de
Bruxelles, a member of the privy council of the Netherlands, arose at the
emperor's command, and made a long oration.  He spoke of the emperor's
warm affection for the provinces, as the land of his birth; of his deep
regret that his broken health and failing powers, both of body and mind,
compelled him to resign his sovereignty, and to seek relief for his
shattered frame in a more genial climate.  Caesar's gout was then
depicted in energetic language, which must have cost him a twinge as he
sat there and listened to the councillor's eloquence.  "'Tis a most
truculent executioner," said Philibert: "it invades the whole body, from
the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, leaving nothing
untouched.  It contracts the nerves with intolerable anguish, it enters
the bones, it freezes the marrow, it converts the lubricating fluids of
the joints into chalk, it pauses not until, having exhausted and
debilitated the whole body, it has rendered all its necessary instruments
useless, and conquered the mind by immense torture." [Godelaevus]

     [The historian was present at the ceremony, and gives a very full
     report of the speeches, all of which he heard.  His imagination may
     have assisted his memory in the task.  The other reporters of the
     councillor's harangue have reduced this pathological flight of
     rhetoric to a very small compass.]

Engaged in mortal struggle with such an enemy, Caesar felt himself
obliged, as the councillor proceeded to inform his audience, to change
the scene of the contest from the humid air of Flanders to the warmer
atmosphere of Spain.  He rejoiced, however, that his son was both
vigorous and experienced, and that his recent marriage with the Queen of
England had furnished the provinces with a most valuable alliance.  He
then again referred to the emperor's boundless love for his subjects, and
concluded with a tremendous, but superfluous, exhortation to Philip on
the necessity of maintaining the Catholic religion in its purity.  After
this long harangue, which has been fully reported by several historians
who were present at the ceremony, the councillor proceeded to read the
deed of cession, by which Philip, already sovereign of Sicily, Naples,
Milan, and titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem, now received
all the duchies, marquisates, earldoms, baronies, cities, towns, and
castles of the Burgundian property, including, of course, the seventeen
Netherlands.

As De Bruxelles finished, there was a buzz of admiration throughout the
assembly, mingled with murmurs of regret, that in the present great
danger upon the frontiers from the belligerent King of France and his
warlike and restless nation, the provinces should be left without their
ancient and puissant defender.  The emperor then rose to his feet.
Leaning on his crutch, he beckoned from his seat the personage upon whose
arm he had leaned as he entered the hall.  A tall, handsome youth of
twenty-two came forward--a man whose name from that time forward, and as
long as history shall endure, has been, and will be, more familiar than
any other in the mouths of Netherlanders.  At that day he had rather a
southern than a German or Flemish appearance.  He had a Spanish cast of
features, dark, well chiselled, and symmetrical.  His head was small and
well placed upon his shoulders.  His hair was dark brown, as were also
his moustache and peaked beard.  His forehead was lofty, spacious, and
already prematurely engraved with the anxious lines of thought.  His eyes
were full, brown, well opened, and expressive of profound reflection.
He was dressed in the magnificent apparel for which the Netherlanders
were celebrated above all other nations, and which the ceremony rendered
necessary.  His presence being considered indispensable at this great
ceremony, he had been summoned but recently from the camp on the
frontier, where, notwithstanding his youth, the emperor had appointed him
to command his army in chief against such antagonists as Admiral Coligny
and the Due de Nevers.

Thus supported upon his crutch and upon the shoulder of William of
Orange, the Emperor proceeded to address the states, by the aid of a
closely-written brief which he held in his hand.  He reviewed rapidly the
progress of events from his seventeenth year up to that day.  He spoke of
his nine expeditions into Germany, six to Spain, seven to Italy, four to
France, ten to the Netherlands, two to England, as many to Africa, and of
his eleven voyages by sea.  He sketched his various wars, victories, and
treaties of peace, assuring his hearers that the welfare of his subjects
and the security of the Roman Catholic religion had ever been the leading
objects of his life.  As long as God had granted him health, he
continued, only enemies could have regretted that Charles was living and
reigning, but now that his strength was but vanity, and life fast ebbing
away, his love for dominion, his affection for his subjects, and his
regard for their interests, required his departure.  Instead of a
decrepit man with one foot in the grave, he presented them with a
sovereign in the prime of life and the vigor of health.  Turning toward
Philip, he observed, that for a dying father to bequeath so magnificent
an empire to his son was a deed worthy of gratitude, but that when the
father thus descended to the grave before his time, and by an anticipated
and living burial sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the
grandeur of his son, the benefit thus conferred was surely far greater.
He added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, should
Philip conduct himself in his administration of the province with a wise
and affectionate regard to their true interests.  Posterity would applaud
his abdication, should his son Prove worthy of his bounty; and that could
only be by living in the fear of God, and by maintaining law, justice,
and the Catholic religion in all their purity, as the true foundation of
the realm.  In conclusion, he entreated the estates, and through them the
nation, to render obedience to their new prince, to maintain concord and
to preserve inviolate the Catholic faith; begging them, at the same time,
to pardon him all errors or offences which he might have committed
towards them during his reign, and assuring them that he should
unceasingly remember their obedience and affection in his every prayer to
that Being to whom the remainder of his life was to be dedicated.

Such brave words as these, so many vigorous asseverations of attempted
performance of duty, such fervent hopes expressed of a benign
administration in behalf of the son, could not but affect the
sensibilities of the audience, already excited and softened by the
impressive character of the whole display.  Sobs were heard throughout
every portion of the hall, and tears poured profusely from every eye.
The Fleece Knights on the platform and the burghers in the background
were all melted with the same emotion.  As for the Emperor himself, he
sank almost fainting upon his chair as he concluded his address.  An ashy
paleness overspread his countenance, and he wept like a child.  Even the
icy Philip was almost softened, as he rose to perform his part in the
ceremony.  Dropping upon his knees before his father's feet, he
reverently kissed his hand.  Charles placed his hands solemnly upon his
son's head, made the sign of the cross, and blessed him in the name of
the Holy Trinity.  Then raising him in his arms he tenderly embraced him.
saying, as he did so, to the great potentates around him, that he felt a
sincere compassion for the son on whose shoulders so heavy a weight had
just devolved, and which only a life-long labor would enable him to
support.  Philip now uttered a few words expressive of his duty to his
father and his affection for his people.  Turning to the orders, he
signified his regret that he was unable to address them either in the
French or Flemish language, and was therefore obliged to ask their
attention to the Bishop of Arras, who would act as his interpreter.
Antony Perrenot accordingly arose, and in smooth, fluent, and well-turned
commonplaces, expressed at great length the gratitude of Philip towards
his father, with his firm determination to walk in the path of duty, and
to obey his father's counsels and example in the future administration of
the provinces.  This long address of the prelate was responded to at
equal length by Jacob Maas, member of the Council of Brabant, a man of
great learning, eloquence and prolixity, who had been selected to reply
on behalf of the states-general, and who now, in the name of these;
bodies, accepted the abdication in an elegant and complimentary harangue.
Queen Mary of Hungary, the "Christian widow" of Erasmus, and Regent of
the Netherlands during the past twenty-five years, then rose to resign
her office, making a brief address expressive of her affection for the
people, her regrets at leaving them, and her hopes that all errors which
she might have committed during her long administration would be forgiven
her.  Again the redundant Maas responded, asserting in terms of fresh
compliment and elegance the uniform satisfaction of the provinces with
her conduct during her whole career.

The orations and replies having now been brought to a close, the ceremony
was terminated.  The Emperor, leaning on the shoulders of the Prince of
Orange and of the Count de Buren,  slowly left the hall, followed by
Philip, the Queen of Hungary, and the whole court; all in the same order
in which they had entered, and by the same passage into the chapel.

It is obvious that the drama had been completely successful.  It had been
a scene where heroic self-sacrifice, touching confidence, ingenuous love
of duty, patriotism, and paternal affection upon one side; filial
reverence, with a solemn regard for public duty and the highest interests
of the people on the other, were supposed to be the predominant
sentiments.  The happiness of the Netherlands was apparently the only
object contemplated in the great transaction.  All had played well their
parts in the past, all hoped the best in the times which were to follow.
The abdicating Emperor was looked upon as a hero and a prophet.  The
stage was drowned in tears.  There is not the least doubt as to the
genuine and universal emotion which was excited throughout the assembly.
"Caesar's oration," says Secretary Godelaevus, who was present at the
ceremony, "deeply moved the nobility and gentry, many of whom burst into
tears; even the illustrious Knights of the Fleece were melted."  The
historian, Pontus Heuterus, who, then twenty years of age, was likewise
among the audience, attests that "most of the assembly were dissolved in
tears; uttering the while such sonorous sobs that they compelled his
Caesarean Majesty and the Queen to cry with them.  My own face," he adds,
"was certainly quite wet."  The English envoy, Sir John Mason, describing
in a despatch to his government the scene which he had just witnessed,
paints the same picture.  "The Emperor," he said, "begged the forgiveness
of his subjects if he had ever unwittingly omitted the performance of any
of his duties towards them.  And here," continues the envoy, "he broke
into a weeping, whereunto, besides the dolefulness of the matter,
I think, he was moche provoked by seeing the whole company to do the lyke
before; there beyng in myne opinion not one man in the whole assemblie,
stranger or another, that dewring the time of a good piece of his oration
poured not out as abundantly teares, some more, some lesse.  And yet he
prayed them to beare with his imperfections, proceeding of his sickly
age, and of the mentioning of so tender a matter as the departing from
such a sort of dere and loving subjects."

And yet what was the Emperor Charles to the inhabitants of the
Netherlands that they should weep for him?  His conduct towards them
during his whole career had been one of unmitigated oppression.  What to
them were all these forty voyages by sea and land, these journeyings back
and forth from Friesland to Tunis, from Madrid to Vienna.  What was it to
them that the imperial shuttle was thus industriously flying to and fro?
The fabric wrought was but the daily growing grandeur and splendor of his
imperial house; the looms were kept moving at the expense of their
hardly-earned treasure, and the woof was often dyed red in the blood of
his bravest subjects.  The interests of the Netherlands had never been
even a secondary consideration with their master.  He had fulfilled no
duty towards them, he had committed the gravest crimes against them.  He
had regarded them merely as a treasury upon which to draw; while the sums
which he extorted were spent upon ceaseless and senseless wars, which
were of no more interest to them than if they had been waged in another
planet.  Of five millions of gold annually, which he derived from all his
realms, two millions came from these industrious and opulent provinces,
while but a half million came from Spain and another half from the
Indies.  The mines of wealth which had been opened by the hand of
industry in that slender territory of ancient morass and thicket,
contributed four times as much income to the imperial exchequer as all
the boasted wealth of Mexico and Peru.  Yet the artisans, the farmers and
the merchants, by whom these riches were produced, were consulted about
as much in the expenditure of the imposts upon their industry as were the
savages of America as to the distribution of the mineral treasures of
their soil.  The rivalry of the houses of Habsburg and Valois, this was
the absorbing theme, during the greater part of the reign which had just
been so dramatically terminated.  To gain the empire over Francis, to
leave to Don Philip a richer heritage than the Dauphin could expect, were
the great motives of the unparalleled energy displayed by Charles during
the longer and the more successful portion of his career.  To crush the
Reformation throughout his dominions, was his occupation afterward, till
he abandoned the field in despair.  It was certainly not desirable for
the Netherlanders that they should be thus controlled by a man who forced
them to contribute so largely to the success of schemes, some of which
were at best indifferent, and others entirely odious to them.  They paid
1,200,000 crowns a year regularly; they paid in five years an
extraordinary subsidy of eight millions of ducats, and the States were
roundly rebuked by the courtly representatives of their despot, if they
presumed to inquire into the objects of the appropriations, or to express
an interest in their judicious administration.  Yet it maybe supposed to
have been a matter of indifference to them whether Francis or Charles had
won the day at Pavia, and it certainly was not a cause of triumph to the
daily increasing thousands of religious reformers in Holland and Flanders
that their brethren had been crushed by the Emperor at Muhlberg.  But it
was not alone that he drained their treasure, and hampered their
industry.  He was in constant conflict with their ancient and dearly-
bought political liberties.  Like his ancestor Charles the Bold, he was
desirous of constructing a kingdom out of the provinces.  He was disposed
to place all their separate and individual charters on a procrustean bed,
and shape them all into uniformity simply by reducing the whole to a
nullity.  The difficulties in the way, the stout opposition offered by
burghers, whose fathers had gained these charters with their blood, and
his want of leisure during the vast labors which devolved upon him as the
autocrat of so large a portion of the world, caused him to defer
indefinitely the execution of his plan.  He found time only to crush some
of the foremost of the liberal institutions of the provinces, in detail.
He found the city of Tournay a happy, thriving, self-governed little
republic in all its local affairs; he destroyed its liberties, without a
tolerable pretext, and reduced it to the condition of a Spanish or
Italian provincial town.

His memorable chastisement of Ghent for having dared to assert its
ancient rights of self-taxation, is sufficiently known to the world, and
has been already narrated at length.  Many other instances might be
adduced, if it were not a superfluous task, to prove that Charles was not
only a political despot, but most arbitrary and cruel in the exercise of
his despotism.

But if his sins against the Netherlands had been only those of financial
and political oppression, it would be at least conceivable, although
certainly not commendable, that the inhabitants should have regretted his
departure.  But there are far darker crimes for which he stands arraigned
at the bar of history, and it is indeed strange that the man who had
committed them should have been permitted to speak his farewell amid
blended plaudits and tears.  His hand planted the inquisition in the
Netherlands.  Before his day it is idle to say that the diabolical
institution ever had a place there.  The isolated cases in which
inquisitors had exercised functions proved the absence and not the
presence of the system, and will be discussed in a later chapter.
Charles introduced and organized a papal inquisition, side by side with
those terrible "placards" of his invention, which constituted a masked
inquisition even more cruel than that of Spain.  The execution of the
system was never permitted to languish.  The number of Netherlanders who
were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive, in obedience to his
edicts, and for the offences of reading the Scriptures, of looking
askance at a graven image, or of ridiculing the actual presence of the
body and blood of Christ in a wafer, have been placed as high as one
hundred thousand by distinguished authorities, and have never been put at
a lower mark than fifty thousand.  The Venetian envoy Navigero placed the
number of victims in the provinces of Holland and Friesland alone at
thirty thousand, and this in 1546, ten years before the abdication, and
five before the promulgation of the hideous edict of 1550!

The edicts and the inquisition were the gift of Charles to the
Netherlands, in return for their wasted treasure and their constant
obedience.  For this, his name deserves to be handed down to eternal
infamy, not only throughout the Netherlands, but in every land where a
single heart beats for political or religious freedom.  To eradicate
these institutions after they had been watered and watched by the care of
his successor, was the work of an eighty years' war, in the course of
which millions of lives were sacrificed.  Yet the abdicating Emperor had
summoned his faithful estates around him, and stood up before them in his
imperial robes for the last time, to tell them of the affectionate regard
which he had always borne them, and to mingle his tears with theirs.

Could a single phantom have risen from one of the many thousand graves
where human beings had been thrust alive by his decree, perhaps there
might have been an answer to the question propounded by the Emperor amid
all that piteous weeping.  Perhaps it might have told the man who asked
his hearers to be forgiven if he had ever unwittingly offended them, that
there was a world where it was deemed an offence to torture, strangle,
burn, and drown one's innocent fellow-creatures.  The usual but trifling
excuse for such enormities can not be pleaded for the Emperor.  Charles
was no fanatic.  The man whose armies sacked Rome, who laid his
sacrilegious hands on Christ's vicegerent, and kept the infallible head
of the Church a prisoner to serve his own political ends, was then
no bigot.  He believed in nothing; save that when the course of his
imperial will was impeded, and the interests of his imperial house in
jeopardy, pontiffs were to succumb as well as anabaptists.  It was the
political heresy which lurked in the restiveness of the religious
reformers under dogma, tradition, and supernatural sanction to temporal
power, which he was disposed to combat to the death.  He was too shrewd a
politician not to recognize the connection between aspirations for
religious and for political freedom.  His hand was ever ready to crush
both heresies in one.  Had he been a true son of the Church, a faithful
champion of her infallibility, he would not have submitted to the peace
of Passau, so long as he could bring a soldier to the field.  Yet he
acquiesced in the Reformation for Germany, while the fires for burning
the reformers were ever blazing in the Netherlands, where it was death
even to allude to the existence of the peace of Passau.  Nor did he
acquiesce only from compulsion, for long before his memorable defeat by
Maurice, he had permitted the German troops, with whose services he could
not dispense, regularly to attend Protestant worship performed by their
own Protestant chaplains.  Lutheran preachers marched from city to city
of the Netherlands under the imperial banner, while the subjects of those
patrimonial provinces were daily suffering on the scaffold for their
nonconformity.  The influence of this garrison-preaching upon the
progress of the Reformation in the Netherlands is well known.  Charles
hated Lutherans, but he required soldiers, and he thus helped by his own
policy to disseminate what had he been the fanatic which he perhaps
became in retirement, he would have sacrificed his life to crush.  It is
quite true that the growing Calvinism of the provinces was more dangerous
both religiously and politically, than the Protestantism of the German
princes, which had not yet been formally pronounced heresy, but it is
thus the more evident that it was political rather than religious
heterodoxy which the despot wished to suppress.

No man, however, could have been more observant of religious rites.  He
heard mass daily.  He listened to a sermon every Sunday and holiday.  He
confessed and received the sacrament four times a year.  He was sometimes
to be seen in his tent at midnight, on his knees before a crucifix with
eyes and hands uplifted.  He ate no meat in Lent, and used extraordinary
diligence to discover and to punish any man, whether courtier or
plebeian, who failed to fast during the whole forty days.  He was too
good a politician not to know the value of broad phylacteries and long
prayers.  He was too nice an observer of human nature not to know how
easily mint and cummin could still outweigh the "weightier matters of
law, judgment, mercy and faith;" as if the founder of the religion which
he professed, and to maintain which he had established the inquisition
and the edicts, had never cried woe upon the Pharisees.  Yet there is no
doubt that the Emperor was at times almost popular in the Netherlands,
and that he was never as odious as his successor.  There were some deep
reasons for this, and some superficial ones; among others, a singularly
fortunate manner.  He spoke German, Spanish, Italian, French, and
Flemish, and could assume the characteristics of each country as easily
as he could use its language.  He could be stately with Spaniards,
familiar with Flemings witty with Italians.  He could strike down a bull
in the ring like a matador at Madrid, or win the prize in the tourney
like a knight of old; he could ride at the ring with the Flemish nobles,
hit the popinjay with his crossbow among Antwerp artisans, or drink beer
and exchange rude jests with the boors of Brabant.  For virtues such as
these, his grave crimes against God and man, against religion and
chartered and solemnly-sworn rights have been palliated, as if oppression
became more tolerable because the oppressor was an accomplished linguist
and a good marksman.

But the great reason for his popularity no doubt lay in his military
genius.  Charles was inferior to no general of his age.  "When he was
born into the world," said Alva, "he was born a soldier," and the Emperor
confirmed the statement and reciprocated the compliment, when he declared
that "the three first captains of the age were himself first, and then
the Duke of Alva and Constable Montmorency."  It is quite true that all
his officers were not of the same opinion, and many were too apt to
complain that his constant presence in the field did more harm than good,
and "that his Majesty would do much better to stay at home."  There is,
however, no doubt that he was both a good soldier and a good general.
He was constitutionally fearless, and he possessed great energy and
endurance.  He was ever the first to arm when a battle was to be fought,
and the last to take off his harness.  He commanded in person and in
chief, even when surrounded by veterans and crippled by the gout.  He was
calm in great reverses.  It was said that he was never known to change
color except upon two occasions: after the fatal destruction of his fleet
at Algiers, and in the memorable flight from Innspruck.  He was of a
phlegmatic, stoical temperament, until shattered by age and disease; a
man without a sentiment and without a tear.  It was said by Spaniards
that he was never seen to weep, even at the death of his nearest
relatives and friends, except on the solitary occasion of the departure
of Don Ferrante Gonzaga from court.  Such a temperament was invaluable in
the stormy career to which he had devoted his life.  He was essentially a
man of action, a military chieftain.  "Pray only for my health and my
life," he was accustomed to say to the young officers who came to him
from every part of his dominions to serve under his banners, "for so,
long as I have these I will never leave you idle; at least in France.
I love peace no better than the rest of you.  I was born and bred to
arms, and must of necessity keep on my harness till I can bear it no
longer."  The restless energy and the magnificent tranquillity of his
character made him a hero among princes, an idol with his officers, a
popular favorite every where.  The promptness with which, at much
personal hazard, he descended like a thunderbolt in the midst of the
Ghent insurrection; the juvenile ardor with which the almost bedridden
man arose from his sick-bed to smite the Protestants at Muhlberg; the
grim stoicism with which he saw sixty thousand of his own soldiers perish
in the wintry siege of Metz; all ensured him a large measure of that
applause which ever follows military distinction, especially when the man
who achieves it happens to wear a crown.  He combined the personal
prowess of a knight of old with the more modern accomplishments of a
scientific tactician.  He could charge the enemy in person like the most
brilliant cavalry officer, and he thoroughly understood the arrangements
of a campaign, the marshalling and victualling of troops, and the whole
art of setting and maintaining an army in the field.

Yet, though brave and warlike as the most chivalrous of his ancestors,
Gothic, Burgundian, or Suabian, he was entirely without chivalry.
Fanaticism for the faith, protection for the oppressed, fidelity to
friend and foe, knightly loyalty to a cause deemed sacred, the sacrifice
of personal interests to great ideas, generosity of hand and heart; all
those qualities which unite with courage and constancy to make up the
ideal chevalier, Charles not only lacked but despised.  He trampled on
the weak antagonist, whether burgher or petty potentate.  He was false as
water.  He inveigled his foes who trusted to imperial promises, by arts
unworthy an emperor or a gentleman.  He led about the unfortunate John
Frederic of Saxony, in his own language, "like a bear in a chain," ready
to be slipped upon Maurice should "the boy" prove ungrateful.  He
connived at the famous forgery of the prelate of Arras, to which the
Landgrave Philip owed his long imprisonment; a villany worse than many
for which humbler rogues have suffered by thousands upon the gallows.
The contemporary world knew well the history of his frauds, on scale both
colossal and minute, and called him familiarly "Charles qui triche."

The absolute master of realms on which the sun perpetually shone, he was
not only greedy for additional dominion, but he was avaricious in small
matters, and hated to part with a hundred dollars.  To the soldier who
brought him the sword and gauntlets of Francis the First, he gave a
hundred crowns, when ten thousand would have been less than the customary
present; so that the man left his presence full of desperation.  The
three soldiers who swam the Elbe, with their swords in their mouths; to
bring him the boats with which he passed to the victory of Muhlberg,
received from his imperial bounty a doublet, a pair of stockings, and
four crowns apiece.  His courtiers and ministers complained bitterly of
his habitual niggardliness, and were fain to eke out their slender
salaries by accepting bribes from every hand rich enough to bestow them.
In truth Charles was more than any thing else a politician,
notwithstanding his signal abilities as a soldier.  If to have founded
institutions which could last, be the test of statesmanship, he was even
a statesman; for many of his institutions have resisted the pressure of
three centuries.  But those of Charlemagne fell as soon as his hand was
cold, while the works of many ordinary legislators have attained to a
perpetuity denied to the statutes of Solon or Lycurgus.  Durability is
not the test of merit in human institutions.  Tried by the only
touchstone applicable to governments, their capacity to insure the
highest welfare of the governed, we shall not find his polity deserving
of much admiration.  It is not merely that he was a despot by birth and
inclination, nor that he naturally substituted as far as was practicable,
the despotic for the republican element, wherever his hand can be traced.
There may be possible good in despotisms as there is often much tyranny
in democracy.  Tried however according to the standard by which all
governments may be measured, those laws of truth and divine justice which
all Christian nations recognize, and which are perpetual, whether
recognized or not, we shall find little to venerate in the life work of
the Emperor.  The interests of his family, the security of his dynasty,
these were his end and aim.  The happiness or the progress of his people
never furnished even the indirect motives of his conduct, and the result
was a baffled policy and a crippled and bankrupt empire at last.

He knew men, especially he knew their weaknesses, and he knew how to
turn them to account.  He knew how much they would bear, and that little
grievances would sometimes inflame more than vast and deliberate
injustice.  Therefore he employed natives mainly in the subordinate
offices of his various states, and he repeatedly warned his successor
that the haughtiness of Spaniards and the incompatibility of their
character with the Flemish, would be productive of great difficulties
and dangers.  It was his opinion that men might be tyrannized more
intelligently by their own kindred, and in this perhaps he was right.
He was indefatigable in the discharge of business, and if it were
possible that half a world could be administered as if it were the
private property of an individual, the task would have been perhaps as
well accomplished by Charles as by any man.  He had not the absurdity of
supposing it possible for him to attend to the details of every
individual affair in every one of his realms; and he therefore intrusted
the stewardship of all specialities to his various ministers and agents.
It was his business to know men and to deal with affairs on a large
scale, and in this he certainly was superior to his successor.  His
correspondence was mainly in the hands of Granvelle the elder, who
analyzed letters received, and frequently wrote all but the signatures
of the answers.  The same minister usually possessed the imperial ear,
and farmed it out for his own benefit.  In all this there was of course
room for vast deception, but the Emperor was quite aware of what was
going on, and took a philosophic view of the matter as an inevitable part
of his system.  Granvelle grew enormously rich under his eye by trading
on the imperial favor and sparing his majesty much trouble.  Charles saw
it all, ridiculed his peculations, but called him his "bed of down."  His
knowledge of human nature was however derived from a contemplation mainly
of its weaknesses, and was therefore one-sided.  He was often deceived,
and made many a fatal blunder, shrewd politician though he was.  He
involved himself often in enterprises which could not be honorable or
profitable, and which inflicted damage on his greatest interests.  He
often offended men who might have been useful friends, and converted
allies into enemies.  "His Majesty," said a keen observer who knew him
well, "has not in his career shown the prudence which was necessary to
him.  He has often offended those whose love he might have conciliated,
converted friends into enemies, and let those perish who were his most
faithful partisans."  Thus it must be acknowledged that even his boasted
knowledge of human nature and his power of dealing with men was rather
superficial and empirical than the real gift of genius.

His personal habits during the greater part of his life were those of an
indefatigable soldier.  He could remain in the saddle day and night, and
endure every hardship but hunger.  He was addicted to vulgar and
miscellaneous incontinence.  He was an enormous eater.  He breakfasted at
five, on a fowl seethed in milk and dressed with sugar and spices.  After
this he went to sleep again.  He dined at twelve, partaking always of
twenty dishes.  He supped twice; at first, soon after vespers, and the
second time at midnight or one o'clock, which meal was, perhaps, the most
solid of the four.  After meat he ate a great quantity of pastry and
sweetmeats, and he irrigated every repast by vast draughts of beer and
wine.  His stomach, originally a wonderful one, succumbed after forty
years of such labors.  His taste, but not his appetite began to fail, and
he complained to his majordomo, that all his food was insipid.  The reply
is, perhaps, among the most celebrated of facetia.  The cook could do
nothing more unless he served his Majesty a pasty of watches.  The
allusion to the Emperor's passion for horology was received with great
applause.  Charles "laughed longer than he was ever known to laugh
before, and all the courtiers (of course) laughed as long as his
Majesty." [Badovaro]  The success of so sorry a jest would lead one to
suppose that the fooling was less admirable at the imperial court than
some of the recorded quips of Tribaulet would lead us to suppose.

The transfer of the other crowns and dignitaries to Philip, was
accomplished a month afterwards, in a quiet manner.  Spain, Sicily, the
Balearic Islands, America, and other portions of the globe, were made
over without more display than an ordinary 'donatio inter vivos'.  The
Empire occasioned some difficulty.  It had been already signified to
Ferdinand, that his brother was to resign the imperial crown in his
favor, and the symbols of sovereignty were accordingly transmitted to him
by the hands of William of Orange.  A deputation, moreover, of which that
nobleman, Vice-Chancellor Seld, and Dr. Wolfgang Haller were the chiefs,
was despatched to signify to the electors of the Empire the step which
had been thus resolved upon.  A delay of more than two years, however,
intervened, occasioned partly by the deaths of three electors, partly by
the war which so soon broke out in Europe, before the matter was formally
acted upon.  In February, 1553, however, the electors, having been
assembled in Frankfort, received the abdication of Charles, and proceeded
to the election of Ferdinand.  That Emperor was crowned in March, and
immediately despatched a legation to the Pope to apprize him of the fact.
Nothing was less expected than any opposition on the part of the pontiff.
The querulous dotard, however, who then sat in St. Peter's chair, hated
Charles and all his race.  He accordingly denied the validity of the
whole transaction, without sanction previously obtained from the Pope,
to whom all crowns belonged.  Ferdinand, after listening, through his
envoys, to much ridiculous dogmatism on the part of the Pope, at last
withdrew from the discussion, with a formal protest, and was first
recognized by Caraffa's successor, Pius IV.

Charles had not deferred his retirement till the end of these disputes.
He occupied a private house in Brussels, near the gate of Louvain, until
August of the year 1556.  On the 27th of that month, he addressed a
letter from Ghent to John of Osnabruck, president of the Chamber of
Spiers, stating his abdication in favor of Ferdinand, and requesting
that in the interim the same obedience might be rendered to Ferdinand,
as could have been yielded to himself.  Ten days later; he addressed a
letter to the estates of the Empire, stating the same fact; and on the
17th September, 1556, he set sail from Zeland for Spain.  These delays
and difficulties occasioned some misconceptions.  Many persons who did
not admire an abdication, which others, on the contrary, esteemed as an
act of unexampled magnanimity, stoutly denied that it was the intention
of Charles to renounce the Empire.  The Venetian envoy informed his
government that Ferdinand was only to be lieutenant for Charles, under
strict limitations, and that the Emperor was to resume the government so
soon as his health would allow.  The Bishop of Arras and Don Juan de
Manrique had both assured him, he said, that Charles would not, on any
account, definitely abdicate.  Manrique even asserted that it was a mere
farce to believe in any such intention.  The Emperor ought to remain to
protect his son, by the resources of the Empire, against France, the
Turks, and the heretics.  His very shadow was terrible to the Lutherans,
and his form might be expected to rise again in stern reality from its
temporary grave.  Time has shown the falsity of all these imaginings,
but views thus maintained by those in the best condition to know the
truth, prove how difficult it was for men to believe in a transaction
which was then so extraordinary, and how little consonant it was in their
eyes with true propriety.  It was necessary to ascend to the times of
Diocletian, to find an example of a similar abdication of empire, on so
deliberate and extensive a scale, and the great English historian of the
Roman Empire has compared the two acts with each other.  But there seems
a vast difference between the cases.  Both emperors were distinguished
soldiers; both were merciless persecutors of defenceless Christians; both
exchanged unbounded empire for absolute seclusion.  But Diocletian was
born in the lowest abyss of human degradation--the slave and the son of
a slave.  For such a man, after having reached the highest pinnacle of
human greatness, voluntarily to descend from power, seems an act of far
greater magnanimity than the retreat of Charles.  Born in the purple,
having exercised unlimited authority from his boyhood, and having worn
from his cradle so many crowns and coronets, the German Emperor might
well be supposed to have learned to estimate them at their proper value.
Contemporary minds were busy, however, to discover the hidden motives
which could have influenced him, and the world, even yet, has hardly
ceased to wonder.  Yet it would have been more wonderful, considering the
Emperor's character, had he remained.  The end had not crowned the work;
it not unreasonably discrowned the workman.  The earlier, and indeed the
greater part of his career had been one unbroken procession of triumphs.
The cherished dream of his grandfather, and of his own youth, to add the
Pope's triple crown to the rest of the hereditary possessions of his
family, he had indeed been obliged to resign.  He had too much practical
Flemish sense to indulge long in chimeras, but he had achieved the Empire
over formidable rivals, and he had successively not only conquered, but
captured almost every potentate who had arrayed himself in arms against
him.  Clement and Francis, the Dukes and Landgraves of, Clever, Hesse,
Saxony, and Brunswick, he had bound to his chariot wheels; forcing many
to eat the bread of humiliation and captivity, during long and weary
years.  But the concluding portion of his reign had reversed all its
previous glories.  His whole career had been a failure.  He had been
defeated, after all, in most of his projects.  He had humbled Francis,
but Henry had most signally avenged his father.  He had trampled upon
Philip of Hesse and Frederic of Saxony, but it had been reserved for one
of that German race, which he characterized as "dreamy, drunken, and
incapable of intrigue," to outwit the man who had outwitted all the
world, and to drive before him, in ignominious flight, the conqueror of
the nations.  The German lad who had learned both war and dissimulation
in the court and camp of him who was so profound a master of both arts,
was destined to eclipse his teacher on the most august theatre of
Christendom.  Absorbed at Innspruck with the deliberations of the Trent
Council, Charles had not heeded the distant mutterings of the tempest
which was gathering around him.  While he was preparing to crush,
forever, the Protestant Church, with the arms which a bench of bishops
were forging, lo! the rapid and desperate Maurice, with long red beard
streaming like a meteor in the wind, dashing through the mountain passes,
at the head of his lancers--arguments more convincing than all the dogmas
of Granvelle!  Disguised as an old woman, the Emperor had attempted on
the 6th April, to escape in a peasant's wagon, from Innspruck into
Flanders.  Saved for the time by the mediation of Ferdinand, he had,
a few weeks later, after his troops had been defeated by Maurice,
at Fussen, again fled at midnight of the 22nd May, almost unattended,
sick in body and soul, in the midst of thunder, lightning, and rain,
along the difficult Alpine passes from Innspruck into Carinthia.
His pupil had permitted his escape, only because in his own language,
"for such a bird he had no convenient cage."  The imprisoned princes now
owed their liberation, not to the Emperor's clemency, but to his panic.
The peace of Passau, in the following August, crushed the whole fabric
of the Emperor's toil, and laid-the foundation of the Protestant Church.
He had smitten the Protestants at Muhlberg for the last time.  On the
other hand, the man who had dealt with Rome, as if the Pope, not he, had
been the vassal, was compelled to witness, before he departed, the
insolence of a pontiff who took a special pride in insulting and humbling
his house, and trampling upon the pride of Charles, Philip and Ferdinand.
In France too, the disastrous siege of Metz had taught him that in the
imperial zodiac the fatal sign of Cancer had been reached.  The figure of
a crab, with the words "plus citra," instead of his proud motto of "plus
ultra," scrawled on the walls where he had resided during that dismal
epoch, avenged more deeply, perhaps, than the jester thought, the
previous misfortunes of France.  The Grand Turk, too, Solyman the
Magnificent, possessed most of Hungary, and held at that moment a fleet
ready to sail against Naples, in co-operation with the Pope and France.
Thus the Infidel, the Protestant, and the Holy Church were all combined
together to crush him.  Towards all the great powers of the earth, he
stood not in the attitude of a conqueror, but of a disappointed, baffled,
defeated potentate.  Moreover, he had been foiled long before in his
earnest attempts to secure the imperial throne for Philip.  Ferdinand and
Maximilian had both stoutly resisted his arguments and his blandishments.
The father had represented the slender patrimony of their branch of the
family, compared with the enormous heritage of Philip; who, being after
all, but a man, and endowed with finite powers, might sink under so great
a pressure of empire as his father wished to provide for him. Maximilian,
also, assured his uncle that he had as good an appetite for the crown as
Philip, and could digest the dignity quite as easily.  The son, too, for
whom the Emperor was thus solicitous, had already, before the abdication,
repaid his affection with ingratitude.  He had turned out all his
father's old officials in Milan, and had refused to visit him at
Brussels, till assured as to the amount of ceremonial respect which the
new-made king was to receive at the hands of his father.

Had the Emperor continued to live and reign, he would have found himself
likewise engaged in mortal combat with that great religious movement in
the Netherlands, which he would not have been able many years longer to
suppress, and which he left as a legacy of blood and fire to his
successor.  Born in the same year with his century, Charles was a
decrepit, exhausted man at fifty-five, while that glorious age, in which
humanity was to burst forever the cerements in which it had so long been
buried, was but awakening to a consciousness of its strength.

Disappointed in his schemes, broken in his fortunes, with income
anticipated, estates mortgaged, all his affairs in confusion; failing in
mental powers, and with a constitution hopelessly shattered; it was time
for him to retire.  He showed his keenness in recognizing the fact that
neither his power nor his glory would be increased, should he lag
superfluous on the stage where mortification instead of applause was
likely to be his portion.  His frame was indeed but a wreck.  Forty years
of unexampled gluttony had done their work.  He was a victim to gout,
asthma, dyspepsia, gravel.  He was crippled in the neck, arms, knees, and
hands.  He was troubled with chronic cutaneous eruptions.  His appetite
remained, while his stomach, unable longer to perform the task still
imposed upon it, occasioned him constant suffering.  Physiologists,
who know how important a part this organ plays in the affairs of life,
will perhaps see in this physical condition of the Emperor A sufficient
explanation, if explanation were required, of his descent from the
throne.  Moreover, it is well known  that the resolution to abdicate
before his death had been long a settled scheme with him.  It had been
formally agreed between himself and the Empress that they should separate
at the approach of old age, and pass the remainder of their lives in a
convent and a monastery.  He had, when comparatively a young man, been
struck by the reply made to him by an aged officer, whose reasons he had
asked for, earnestly soliciting permission to retire from the imperial
service.  It was, said the veteran, that he might put a little space of
religious contemplation between the active portion of his life and the
grave.

A similar determination, deferred from time to time, Charles had now
carried into execution.  While he still lingered in Brussels, after his
abdication, a comet appeared, to warn him to the fulfilment of his
purpose.  From first to last, comets and other heavenly bodies were much
connected with his evolutions and arrangements.  There was no mistaking
the motives with which this luminary had presented itself.  The Emperor
knew very well, says a contemporary German chronicler, that it portended
pestilence and war, together with the approaching death of mighty
princes.  "My fates call out," he cried, and forthwith applied himself to
hasten the preparations for his departure.

The romantic picture of his philosophical retirement at Juste, painted
originally by Sandoval and Siguenza, reproduced by the fascinating pencil
of Strada, and imitated in frequent succession by authors of every age
and country, is unfortunately but a sketch of fancy.  The investigations
of modern writers have entirely thrown down the scaffolding on which
the airy fabric, so delightful to poets and moralists, reposed.  The
departing Emperor stands no longer in a transparency robed in shining
garments.  His transfiguration is at an end.  Every action, almost every
moment of his retirement, accurately chronicled by those who shared his
solitude, have been placed before our eyes, in the most felicitous
manner, by able and brilliant writers.  The Emperor, shorn of the
philosophical robe in which he had been conventionally arrayed for
three centuries, shivers now in the cold air of reality.

So far from his having immersed himself in profound and pious
contemplation, below the current of the world's events, his thoughts,
on the contrary, never were for a moment diverted from the political
surface of the times.  He read nothing but despatches; he wrote or
dictated interminable ones in reply, as dull and prolix as any which ever
came from his pen.  He manifested a succession of emotions at the course
of contemporary affairs, as intense and as varied, as if the world still
rested in his palm.  He was, in truth, essentially a man of action.  He
had neither the taste nor talents which make a man great in retirement.
Not a lofty thought, not a generous sentiment, not a profound or acute
suggestion in his retreat has been recorded from his lips.  The epigrams
which had been invented for him by fabulists have been all taken away,
and nothing has been substituted, save a few dull jests exchanged with
stupid friars.  So far from having entertained and even expressed that
sentiment of religious toleration for which he was said to have been
condemned as a heretic by the inquisition, and for which Philip was
ridiculously reported to have ordered his father's body to be burned,
and his ashes scattered to the winds, he became in retreat the bigot
effectually, which during his reign he had only been conventionally.
Bitter regrets that he should have kept his word to Luther, as if he had
not broken faith enough to reflect upon in his retirement; stern self-
reproach for omitting to put to death, while he had him in his power,
the man who had caused all the mischief of the age; fierce instructions
thundered from his retreat to the inquisitors to hasten the execution of
all heretics, including particularly his ancient friends, preachers and
almoners, Cazalla and Constantine de Fuente; furious exhortations to
Philip--as if Philip needed a prompter in such a work--that he should
set himself to "cutting out the root of heresy with rigor and rude
chastisement;"--such explosions of savage bigotry as these, alternating
with exhibitions of revolting gluttony, with surfeits of sardine
omelettes, Estramadura sausages, eel pies, pickled partridges, fat
capons, quince syrups, iced beer, and flagons of Rhenish, relieved by
copious draughts of senna and rhubarb, to which his horror-stricken
doctor doomed him as he ate--compose a spectacle less attractive to the
imagination than the ancient portrait of the cloistered Charles.
Unfortunately it is the one which was painted from life.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive (100,000)
Despot by birth and inclination (Charles V.)
Endure every hardship but hunger
Gallant and ill-fated Lamoral Egmont
He knew men, especially he knew their weaknesses
His imagination may have assisted his memory in the task
Little grievances would sometimes inflame more than vast
Often much tyranny in democracy
Planted the inquisition in the Netherlands





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