Volume III Part 29 (2/2)

[9] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. vi. lib. 10, cap. 7, 8.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 487.--Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 25.

[10] Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no. 69.--Carta del Rey a D. Diego Deza, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 235.

[11] A confidential secretary of King Jean of Navarre was murdered in his sleep by his mistress. His papers, containing the heads of the proposed treaty with France, fell into the hands of a priest of Pampelona, who was induced by the hopes of a reward to betray them to Ferdinand. The story is told by Martyr, in a letter dated July 18th, 1512. (Opus Epist., epist.

490.) Its truth is attested by the conformity of the proposed terms with those of the actual treaty.

[12] Carta del Rey a D. Diego Deza, Burgos, July 26th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 236.--Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 620- 627.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 495.--Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 15.

Bernaldez has incorporated into his chronicle several letters of King Ferdinand, written during the progress of the war. It is singular, that, coming from so high a source, they should not have been more freely resorted to by the Spanish writers. They are addressed to his confessor, Deza, archbishop of Seville, with whom Bernaldez, curate of a parish in his diocese, was, as appears from other parts of his work, on terms of intimacy.

[13] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 15.--Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, p. 622.--Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap.

4.--”Jean d'Albret you were born,” said Catharine to her unfortunate husband, as they were flying from their kingdom, ”and Jean d'Albret you will die. Had I been king, and you queen, we had been reigning in Navarre at this moment.” (Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 26.) Father Abarca treats the story as an old wife's tale, and Garibay as an old woman for repeating it. Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.

[14] Manifiesto del Rey D. Fernando, July 30th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 236.--Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 5.-- Garibay, Compendio, tom. iii. lib. 29, cap. 26.

[15] Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 2.--Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, pp. 603, 604.

[16] 16 See the king's third letter to Deza, Logrono, November 12th, apud Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 236.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom.

ii. lib. 30, cap. 12.--Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 7.-- Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 499.--Herbert, Life of Henry VIII., p.

24.--Holinshed, Chronicles, p. 571.

[17] Garcila.s.so de la Vega alludes to these military exploits of the duke, in his second eclogue.

”Con mas il.u.s.tre nombre los arneses de los fieros Franceses abollava.”

Obras, ed. de Herrera, p. 505.

[18] Such was the power of the old duke of Najara, that he brought into the field on this occasion 1100 horse and 3000 foot, raised and equipped on his own estates. Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 507.

[19] Memoires de Bayard, chap. 55, 56.--Fleurange, Memoires, chap. 33.-- Lebrija, De Bello Navariensi, lib. 1, cap. 8, 9.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. rey 30, cap. 21.--Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1512.

Jean and Catharine d'Albret pa.s.sed the remainder of their days in their territories on the French side of the Pyrenees. They made one more faint and fruitless attempt to recover their dominions during the regency of Cardinal Ximenes. (Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., cap. 12.) Broken in spirits, their health gradually declined, and neither of them long survived the loss of their crown. Jean died June 23d, 1517, and Catharine followed on the 12th of February of the next year;--happy, at least, that, as misfortune had no power to divide them in life, so they were not long separated by death. (Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, p. 643.--Aleson, Annales de Navarra, tom. v. lib. 35, cap. 20, 21.) Their bodies sleep side by side in the cathedral church of Lescar, in their own dominions of Bearne; and their fate is justly noticed by the Spanish historians as one of the most striking examples of that stern decree, by which the sins of the fathers are visited on the children to the third and fourth generation.

[20] Fla.s.san, Diplomatie Francaise, tom. i. p 296.--Rymer, Foedera, tom.

xiii. pp. 350-352.--Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. vi. lib. 11, p82, lib. 12, p. 168.--Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. lib. 30, cap 22.--”Fu cosa ridicola,” says Guicciardini in relation to this truce, ”che nei medesimi giorni, che la si bandiva solennemente per tutta. Ja Spagna, venne en araldo a significargli in nome del Re d'Ingbilterra gli apparati potentissimi, che ei faceva per a.s.saltare la Francia, e a sollecitare che egli medesimamente movesse, secondo che aveva promesso, la guerra dalla parte di Spagna.” Istoria, tom. vi. lib. 12, p. 84.

[21] Francesco Vettori, the Florentine amba.s.sador at the papal court, writes to Machiavelli, that he lay awake two hours that night speculating on the real motives of the Catholic king in making this truce, which, regarded simply as a matter of policy, he condemns _in toto_. He accompanies this with various predictions respecting the consequences likely to result from it. These consequences never occurred, however; and the failure of his predictions may be received as the best refutation of his arguments. Machiavelli, Opere, Lett. Famigl. Aprile 21 1513.

[22] Guicciardini, Istoria, tom. vi. lib. II, pp. 81, 82.--Machiavelli, Opere, ubi supra.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., epist. 538.

On the 5th of April a treaty was concluded at Mechlin, in the names of Ferdinand, the king of England, the emperor, and the pope. (Rymer, Foedera, tom. xiii. pp. 354-358.) The Castilian envoy, Don Luis Carroz, was not present at Mechlin, but it was ratified and solemnly sworn to by him, on behalf of his sovereign, in London, April 18th. (Ibid., tom. xiii.

p. 363.) By this treaty, Spain agreed to attack France in Guienne, while the other powers were to cooperate by a descent on other quarters. (See also Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. iv. part. 1, no 79.) This was in direct contradiction of the treaty signed only five days before at Orthes, and if made with the privity of King Ferdinand, must be allowed to be a gratuitous display of perfidy, not easily matched in that age. As such, of course, it is stigmatized by the French historians, that is the later ones, for I find no comment on it in contemporary writers. (See Rapin, History of England, translated by Tindal, (London, 1785-9,) vol. ii. pp.

93, 94. Sismondi, Hist. des Francais, tom. xv. p. 626.) Ferdinand, when applied to by Henry VIII. to ratify the acts of his minister, in the following summer, refused, on the ground that the latter had transcended his powers. (Herbert, Life of Henry VIII., p. 29.) The Spanish writers are silent. His a.s.sertion derives some probability from the tenor of one of the articles, which provides, that in case he refuses to confirm the treaty, it shall still be binding between England and the emperor; language which, as it antic.i.p.ates, may seem to authorize, such a contingency.

Public treaties have, for obvious reasons, been generally received as the surest basis for history. One might well doubt this, who attempts to reconcile the multifarious discrepancies and contradictions in those of the period under review. The science of diplomacy, as then practised, was a mere game of finesse and falsehood, in which the more solemn the protestations of the parties, the more ground for distrusting their sincerity.

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