History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 48 (1/2)

But the recovery of Carlos does not seem to have been so complete as was at first thought. There is good reason to suppose that the blow on his head did some permanent injury to the brain. At least this may be inferred from the absurd eccentricities of his subsequent conduct, and the reckless manner in which he abandoned himself to the gratification of his pa.s.sions. In 1565, on his recovery from one of those attacks of quartan-fever which still beset him, Philip remarked, with a sigh, to the French minister, St. Sulpice, ”that he hoped his repeated warnings might restrain the prince, for the future, from making such fatal inroads on his health.”[1422] But the unfortunate young man profited as little by such warnings as by his own experience. Persons about the court at this period have left us many stories of his mad humors, which formed the current scandal at Madrid. Brantome, who was there in 1564, says that Carlos would patrol the streets with a number of young n.o.bles, of the same lawless habits with himself, a.s.saulting the pa.s.sengers with drawn swords, kissing the women, and insulting even ladies of the highest rank with the most opprobrious epithets.[1423]

It was the fas.h.i.+on for the young gallants of the court to wear very large boots. Carlos had his made even larger than usual, to accommodate a pair of small pistols. Philip, in order to prevent the mischievous practice, ordered his son's boots to be made of smaller dimensions. But when the bootmaker brought them to the palace, Carlos, in a rage, gave him a beating; and then, ordering the leather to be cut in pieces and stewed, he forced the unlucky mechanic to swallow this unsavory frica.s.see--as much as he could get down of it--on the spot.[1424]

On one occasion, he made a violent a.s.sault on his governor, Don Garcia de Toledo, for some slight cause of offence. On another, he would have thrown his chamberlain, Don Alonzo de Cordova, out of the window. These n.o.blemen complained to Philip, and besought him to release them from a service where they were exposed to affronts which they could not resent.

The king consented, transferring them to his own service, and appointed Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli, his favorite minister, the governor of Carlos.[1425]

[Sidenote: HIS DISPOSITION.]

But the prince was no respecter of persons. Cardinal Espinosa, president of the Council of Castile, and afterwards grand-inquisitor, banished a player named Cisneros from the palace, where he was to have performed that night for the prince's diversion. It was probably by Philip's orders. But however that may be, Carlos, meeting the cardinal, seized him roughly by the collar, and, laying his hand on his poniard, exclaimed, ”You scurvy priest, do you dare to prevent Cisneros from playing before me? By the life of my father, I will kill you!”[1426] The trembling prelate, throwing himself on his knees, was too happy to escape with his life from the hands of the infuriated prince. Whether the latter had his way in the end, in regard to the comedian, is not stated. But the stuff of which a grand-inquisitor is made is not apt to be of the yielding sort.

A more whimsical anecdote is told us by n.o.bili, the Tuscan amba.s.sador, then resident at the court. Carlos, having need of money, requested a merchant, named Grimaldo, to advance him the sum of fifteen hundred ducats. The money-lender readily consented, thanking the prince for the favor done him, and adding, in the usual grandiloquent vein of the Castilian, that ”all he had was at his disposal.”[1427] Carlos took him at his word, and forthwith demanded a hundred thousand ducats. In vain poor Grimaldo, astounded by the request, protested that ”it would ruin his credit; that what he had said was only words of compliment.” Carlos replied, ”he had no right to bandy compliments with princes; and if he did not in four and twenty hours pay the money to the last _real_, he and his family would have cause to rue it.” It was not till after much negotiation that Ruy Gomez succeeded in prevailing on the prince to be content with the more modest sum of sixty thousand ducats, which was accordingly furnished by the unfortunate merchant.[1428] The money thus gained, according to n.o.bili, was squandered as suddenly as it was got.

There are happily some touches of light to relieve the shadows with which the portrait is charged. Tiepolo, who was amba.s.sador from Venice at the court of Madrid in 1567, when Carlos was twenty-two years old, gives us some account of the prince. He admits his arrogant and fiery temper, but commends his love of truth, and, what we should hardly have expected, the earnestness with which he engaged in his devotions. He was exceedingly charitable, asking, ”Who would give, if princes did not?”[1429] He was splendid in his way of living, making the most liberal recompense, not only to his own servants, but to the king's, who were greatly attached to him.[1430] He was ambitious of taking part in the conduct of public affairs, and was sorely discontented when excluded from them--as seems to have been usually the case--by his father.[1431]

It was certainly to the prince's credit, that he was able to inspire those who approached him most nearly with strong feelings of personal attachment. Among these were his aunt Joanna, the regent, and the queen, Isabella, who, regarding him with an interest justified by the connection, was desirous of seeing him married to her own sister. His aunt Mary and her husband, the Emperor Maximilian, also held Carlos, whom they had known in early days, in the kindest remembrance, and wished to secure his hand for their eldest daughter. A still more honorable testimony is borne by the relations in which he stood to his preceptor, Honorato Juan, who, at the prince's solicitation, had been raised to the bishopric of Osma. Carlos would willingly have kept this good man near his own person. But he was detained in his diocese; and the letters from time to time addressed to him by his former pupil, whatever may be thought of them as pieces of composition, do honor to the prince's heart. ”My best friend in this life,” he affectionately writes at the close of them, ”I will do all that you desire.”[1432]

Unfortunately, this good friend and counsellor died in 1566. By his will, he requested Carlos to select for himself any article among his effects that he preferred. He even gave him authority to change the terms of the instrument, and make any other disposition of his property that he thought right![1433] It was a singular proof of confidence in the testator, unless we are to receive it merely as a Spanish compliment,--somewhat perilous, as the case of Grimaldo proves, with a person who interpreted compliments as literally as Carlos.

From all this, there would seem to have been the germs of generous qualities in the prince's nature, which, under a happier culture, might have been turned to some account. But he was placed in that lofty station which exposed him to the influence of parasites, who flattered his pride, and corrupted his heart, by ministering to his pleasures.

From the eminence which he occupied, even the smallest errors and eccentricities became visible to the world, and the objects of unsparing criticism. Somewhat resembling his father in person, he was different from him both in his good qualities and his defects, so that a complete barrier was raised between them. Neither party could comprehend the other; and the father was thus dest.i.tute of the means which he might else have had of exerting an influence over the son. The prince's dissipated way of life, his perpetual lapses from decorum, or, to speak more properly, his reckless defiance of decency, outraged his father, so punctilious in his own observance of the outward decencies of life. He may well have dwelt on such excesses of Carlos with pain; but it may be doubted if the prince's more honorable desire to mingle in public affairs was to the taste of Philip, who was too tenacious of power willingly to delegate it, beyond what was absolutely necessary, to his own ministers. The conduct of his son, unhappily, furnished him with a plausible ground for distrusting his capacity for business.

[Sidenote: HIS CONNECTION WITH THE FLEMINGS.]

Thus distrusted, if not held in positive aversion, by his father; excluded from any share in the business of the state, as well as from a military life, which would seem to have been well suited to his disposition; surrounded by Philip's ministers, whom Carlos, with too much reason, regarded as spies on his actions,--the unhappy young man gave himself up to a reckless course of life, equally ruinous to his const.i.tution and to his character; until the people, who had hailed with delight the prospect of a native-born prince, now felt a reasonable apprehension as to his capacity for government.[1434]

But while thus an object of distrust at home, abroad more than one sovereign coveted an alliance with the heir of the Spanish monarchy.

Catharine de Medicis would gladly have secured his hand for a younger sister of Isabella, in which project she was entirely favored by the queen. This was in 1565; but Philip, in his usual procrastinating spirit, only replied, ”They must reflect upon it.”[1435] He looked with a more favorable eye on the proposals warmly pressed by the emperor and empress of Germany, who, as we have seen, still cherished a kindly remembrance of Carlos, and wished his union with their daughter Anne.

That princess, who was a year younger than her cousin, claimed Spain as her native land, having been born there during the regency of Maximilian. But although the parties were of suitable age, and Philip acquiesced in the proposals for their marriage, his want of confidence in his son, if we may credit the historians, still moved him to defer the celebration of it.[1436] Anne did indeed live to mount the throne of Castile, but as the wife, not of Carlos, but of Philip, after the death of Isabella. Thus, by a singular fatality, the two princesses who had been destined for the son were each of them married to the father.

The revolutionary movement in the Netherlands was at this time the great subject that engaged the attention of the Spaniards; and Carlos is reported to have taken a lively interest in it. According to Antonio Perez, the Flemings then at the court made positive overtures to the prince to head the revolt.[1437] Strada speaks of Bergen and Montigny, then at Madrid, as the channel of communication through which Carlos engaged to settle the affairs of that distracted country.[1438] That a person of his ardent temper should have felt sympathy with a people thus bravely struggling for its liberties, is not improbable; nor would one with whom ”to think and to speak was the same thing,”[1439] be at all unlikely to express himself on the subject with much more freedom than discretion. And it may have been in allusion to this that his almoner, Suarez, in a letter without date, implores the prince ”to abandon his dangerous designs, the illusion of the Evil One, which cannot fail to bring mischief to himself and disquiet to the monarchy!”[1440] The letter concludes with a homily, in which the good doctor impresses on the prince the necessity of filial obedience, by numerous examples, from sacred and profane story, of the sad end of those who had impiously rejected the counsels of their parents.[1441]

But although it is true that this hypothesis would explain much that is enigmatical in the subsequent history of Carlos, I must confess I have met with no confirmation of it in the correspondence of those who had the direction of affairs in the Low Countries, nor in the charges alleged against Montigny himself,--where an attempt to suborn the heir-apparent, one might suppose, would have been paraded as the most heinous offence. Still, that Carlos regarded himself as the proper person to be intrusted with the mission to the Netherlands is evident from his treatment of Alva, when that n.o.bleman was appointed to the command of the army.

On that occasion, as the duke came to pay his respects to him previous to his departure, the prince fiercely said, ”You are not to go to Flanders; I will go there myself.” Alva endeavored to pacify him, saying that it was too dangerous a mission for the heir to the throne; that he was going to quiet the troubles of the country, and prepare it for the coming of the king, when the prince could accompany his father, if his presence could be spared in Castile. But this explanation served only to irritate Carlos the more; and, drawing his dagger, he turned suddenly on the duke, exclaiming, ”You shall not go; if you do, I will kill you.” A struggle ensued,--an awkward one for Alva, as to have injured the heir-apparent might have been construed into treason. Fortunately, being much the stronger of the two, he grappled with Carlos, and held him tight, while the latter exhausted his strength in ineffectual struggles to escape. But no sooner was the prince released, than he turned again, with the fury of a madman, on the duke, who again closed with him, when the noise of the fray brought in one of the chamberlains from an adjoining room; and Carlos, extricating himself from the iron grasp of his adversary, withdrew to his own apartment.[1442]

Such an outrage on the person of his minister was regarded by Philip as an indignity to himself. It widened the breach, already too wide, between father and son; and so great was this estrangement, that, when living in the same palace, they seem to have had no communication with each other.[1443] Much of Philip's time, however, at this period, was pa.s.sed at the Escorial, where he was watching over the progress of the magnificent pile which was to commemorate the victory of St. Quentin.

But, while in his retreat, the ministers placed about his son furnished the king with faithful reports of his proceedings.

[Sidenote: PROJECT OF FLIGHT.]

Such was the deplorable state of things, when Carlos came to the fatal determination to escape from the annoyances of his present position by flying to some foreign land. To what country is not certainly known; some say to the Netherlands, others to Germany. The latter, on the whole, seems the most probable; as in the court of Vienna he would meet with his promised bride, and friends who would be sure to welcome him.

As he was dest.i.tute of funds for such a journey, he proposed to raise them through a confidential agent, one of his own household, by obtaining loans from different cities. Such a reckless mode of proceeding, which seemed at once to proclaim his purpose, intimated too plainly the heedlessness of his character, and his utter ignorance of affairs.

But while these negotiations were in progress, a circ.u.mstance occurred, exhibiting the conduct of Carlos in such a light that it may claim the shelter of insanity. The story is told by one of the prince's household, an _ayuda de camara_, or gentleman of the chamber, who was present at the scene, which he describes with much simplicity.

For some days his master, he tells us, had no rest, frequently repeating, that ”he desired to kill a man with whom he had a quarrel!”[1444] The same thing he said--without, however, intimating who the man was--to his uncle, Don John of Austria, in whom he seems to have placed unbounded confidence. This was near Christmas, in 1567. It was customary on the twenty-eighth of December, the day of the Innocents, for the members of the royal family to appear together, and take the sacrament in public. Carlos, in order to prepare for this, on the preceding evening went to the church of St. Jerome, to confess and receive absolution. But the confessor, when he heard the strange avowal of his murderous appet.i.te, refused to grant absolution. Carlos applied to another ecclesiastic, but with as little success. In vain he endeavored to argue the case. They recommended him to send for more learned divines, and take their opinion. He did so forthwith; and no less than fourteen monks from the convent of Our Lady of Atocha, and two from another quarter, were brought together to settle this strange point of casuistry. Greatly shocked, they were unanimous in their opinion, that, under the circ.u.mstances, absolution could not be granted. Carlos next inquired whether he might not be allowed to receive an unconsecrated wafer, which would obviate the scandal that his omitting to take the sacrament would infallibly occasion in the court. The reverend body were thrown into fresh consternation by this proposal. The prior of Atocha, who was among the number, wis.h.i.+ng to draw from Carlos the name of his enemy, told him that this intelligence might possibly have some influence on the judgment of the divines. The prince replied, that ”his father was the person, and that he wished to have his life!”[1445] The prior calmly inquired, if any one was to aid him in the designs against his father. But Carlos only repeated his former declaration; and two hours after midnight the conclave broke up in unspeakable dismay. A messenger was despatched to the Escorial, where the king then was, to acquaint him with the whole affair.[1446]