History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 60 (1/2)

[325] ”Y que para ello les deis y mandeis dar todo el favor y calor que fuere necenario y para que los que fueren culpados sean punidos y castigados con la demostracion y rigor que la cualidad de sus culpas mereceran y esto sin exception de persona alguna.” Carta del Emperador a la Princesa, 3 de Mayo, 1558, MS.

[326] ”No se si toviera sufrimiento para no salir de aqui arremediallo.”

Carta del Emperador a la Princesa, 25 de Mayo, 1568, MS.

[327] The history of this affair furnishes a good example of the _crescit eundo_. The author of the MS. discovered by M. Bakhuizen, noticed more fully in the next note, though present at the ceremony, contents himself with a general outline of it. Siguenca, who follows next in time and in authority, tells us of the lighted candle which Charles delivered to the priest. Strada, who wrote a generation later, concludes the scene by leaving the emperor in a swoon upon the floor.

Lastly, Robertson, after making the emperor perform in his shroud, lays him in his coffin, where, after joining in the prayers for the rest of his own soul, not yet departed, he is left by the monks to his meditations!--Where Robertson got all these particulars it would not be easy to tell; certainly not from the authorities cited at the bottom of his page.

[328] ”Et j'a.s.sure que le cur nous fendait de voir qu'un homme voulut en quelque sorte s'enterrer vivant, et faire ses obseques avant de mourir.” Gachard, Retraite et Mort, tom. I. p lvi.

M. Gachard has given a translation of the chapter relating to the funeral, from a curious MS. account of Charles's convent life, discovered by M. Bakhuizen in the archives at Brussels. As the author was one of the brotherhood who occupied the convent at the time of the emperor's residence there, the MS. is stamped with the highest authority; and M. Gachard will doubtless do a good service to letters by incorporating it in the second volume of his ”Retraite et Mort.”

[329] Siguenca, Hist. de la Orden de San Geronimo, parte III. pp. 200, 201.

Siguenca's work, which combines much curious learning with a simple elegance of style, was the fruit of many years of labor. The third volume, containing the part relating to the emperor, appeared in 1605, the year before the death of its author, who, as already noticed, must have had daily communication with several of the monks, when, after Charles's death, they had been transferred from Yuste to the gloomy shades of the Escorial.

[330] Such, for example, were Vera y Figueroa, Conde de la Roca, whose little volume appeared in 1613; Strada, who wrote some twenty years later; and the marquis of Valparayso, whose MS. is dated 1638. I say nothing of Sandoval, often quoted as authority for the funeral, for, as he tells us that the money which the emperor proposed to devote to a mock funeral was after all appropriated to his real one, it would seem to imply that the former never took place.

It were greatly to be wished that the MS. of Fray Martin de Angulo could be detected and brought to light. As prior of Yuste while Charles was there, his testimony would be invaluable. Both Sandoval and the marquis of Valparayso profess to have relied mainly on Angulo's authority. Yet in this very affair of the funeral they disagree.

[331] Siguenca's composition may be characterized as _simplex munditiis_. The MS. of the monk of Yuste, found in Brussels, is stamped, says M. Gachard, with the character of simplicity and truth. Retraite et Mort, tom. I. p. xx.

[332] Mignet, Charles-Quint, p. 1.

[333] ”Estuvo un poco contemplandole, devia de pedirle, que le previniesse lugar en el Alcazar glorioso que habitava.” Vera y Figueroa, Carlos Quinto, p. 127.

[334] This famous picture, painted in the artist's best style, forms now one of the n.o.blest ornaments of the Museo of Madrid. See Ford, Handbook of Spain, p. 758.

[335] For the above account of the beginning of Charles's illness, see Siguenca, Orden de San Geronimo, parte III. p. 201; Vera y Figueroa, Carlos Quinto, p. 127; Valparayso, el Perfecto Desengano, MS.

[336] Vera y Figueroa, Carlos Quinto, p. 127.--Siguenca, Orden de San Geronimo, parte III. p. 201.--Carta de Luis Quixada al Rey, 17 de Setiembre, 1558, MS.

[337] The Regent Joanna, it seems, suspected, for some reason or other, that the boy in Quixada's care was in fact the emperor's son. A few weeks after her father's death she caused a letter to be addressed to the major-domo, asking him directly if this were the case, and intimating a desire to make a suitable provision for the youth. The wary functionary, who tells this in his private correspondence with Philip, endeavored to put the regent off the scent by stating that the lad was the son of a friend, and that, as no allusion had been made to him in the emperor's will, there could be no foundation for the rumor. ”Ser ansy que yo tenya un muchacho de hun caballero amygo myo que me abia encomendado anos a, y que pues S. M. en su testamento ni codecilyo, no azia memorya del, que hera razon tenello por burla.” Carta de Luis Quixada al Rey, 28 de Noviembre, 1558, MS.

[338] Codicilo del Emperador, ap. Sandoval, Hist. de Carlos V., tom. II.

p. 657.

[339] ”Si bien no sea necessario no os parece, que es buena compania para jornada tan larga.” Ibid., p. 617.

[340] Carta sobre los ultimos momentos del Emperador Carlos V., escrita en Yuste, el 27 de Setiembre, 1558, ap. Doc.u.mentos Ineditos, tom. VI. p.

668.

[341] Carta de Luis Quixada a Juan Vazquez, 25 de Setiembre, 1558, MS.--Carta del mismo al Rey, 30 de Setiembre, 1558, MS.--Carta del Arzobispo de Toledo a la Princesa, 21 de Setiembre, 1558, MS.

[342] ”Tomo la candela en la mano derecha la qual yo tenya y con la yzquyerda tomo el crucifixo deziendo, ya es tiempo, y con dezir Jesus acabo.” Carta de Luis Quixada a Juan Vazquez, 25 de Setiembre, 1558, MS.

For the accounts of this death-bed scene, see Carta del mismo al mismo, 21 de Setiembre, MS.--Carta del mismo al Rey, 21 de Setiembre, MS.--Carta del mismo al mismo, 30 de Setiembre, MS.--Carta del Arzobispo de Toledo a la Princesa, 21 de Setiembre, MS.--Carta del Medico del Emperador (Henrico Matisio) a Juan Vazquez, 21 de Setiembre, MS.--Carta sobre los ultimos momentos del Emperador, 27 de Setiembre, ap.

Doc.u.mentos Ineditos, vol. VI. p. 667.--Sandoval, Hist. de Carlos V., tom. II. p. 618.

The MSS. referred to may now be all found in the printed collection of Gachard.