History of The Reign of Philip The Second King of Spain History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain Part 89

[1515] Letter of Antonio Perez to the counsellor Du Vair, ap. Rauner, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 153.

[1516] "Mais afin de sauver l'honneur du sang royal, l'arret fut execute en secret et on lui fit avaler un bouillon empoisone, dont il mourut quelques heures apres, au commencement de sa vingt-troisieme annee." De Thou, Histoire Universelle, tom. V. p. 436.

[1517] "Mas es peligroso manejar vidrios, i dar ocasion da tragedias famosas, acaecimientos notables, violentas muertes por los secretos executores Reales no sabidas, i por inesperadas terribles, i por la estraneza i rigor de justicia, despues de largas advertencias a los que no cuidando dellas incurrieron en crimen de lesa Magestad." Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VII. cap. 22.

The admirable obscurity of the pa.s.sage, in which the historian has perfectly succeeded in mystifying his critics, has naturally led them to suppose that more was meant by him than meets the eye.

[1518] "Ex morbo ob alimenta partim obstinate recusata, partira intemperanter adgesta, nimiamque nivium refrigerationem, super animi aigritudinem (_si mod vis abfuit_), in Divi Jacobi pervigilio extinctus est." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 378.

[1519] Apologie, ap. Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. V. par. i. p. 389.

[1520] "Parquoy le roi conclud sur ses raisons que le meilleur estoit de le faire mourir; dont un matin on le trouva en prison estouffe d'un linge." Brantome, uvres, tom. I. p. 320.

A taste for jesting on this subject seems to have been still in fas.h.i.+on at the French court as late as Louis the Fourteenth's time. At least, we find that monarch telling some one that "he had sent Bussy Rabutin to the Bastile for his own benefit, as Philip the Second said when he ordered his son to be strangled." Lettres de Madame de Sevigne, (Paris, 1822.) tom. VIII. p. 368.

[1521] A French contemporary chronicler dismisses his account of the death of Carlos with the remark, that, of all the pa.s.sages in the history of this reign, the fate of the young prince is the one involved in the most impenetrable mystery. Matthieu, Breve Compendio de la Vida Privada de Felipe Segundo, (Span, trans.,) MS.

[1522] The Abbe San Real finds himself unable to decide whether Carlos took poison, or, like Seneca, had his veins opened in a warm bath, or, finally, whether he was strangled with a silk cord by four slaves sent by his father to do the deed, in Oriental fas.h.i.+on. (Verdadera Historia de la Vida y Muerte del Principe Don. Carlos, Span, trans., MS.) The doubts of San Real are echoed with formal solemnity by Leti, Vita di Flippo II., tom. I. p. 559.

[1523] Von Raumer, who has given an a.n.a.lysis of this letter of Antonio Perez, treats it lightly, as coming from "a double-dealing, bitter enemy of Philip," whose word on such a subject was of little value. (Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 155.) It was certainly a singular proof of confidence in one who was so habitually close in his concerns as the prince of Eboli, that he should have made such a communication to Perez. Yet it must be admitted that the narrative derives some confirmation from the fact, that the preceding portions of the letter containing it, in which the writer describes the arrest of Carlos, conform with the authentic account of that event as given in the text.

It is worthy of notice, that both De Thou and Llorente concur with Perez in alleging poison as the cause of the prince's death. Though even here there is an important discrepancy; Perez a.s.serting it was a slow poison, taking four months to work its effect, while the other authorities say that its operation was immediate. Their general agreement, moreover, in regard to the employment of poison, is of the less weight, as such an agency would be the one naturally surmised under circ.u.mstances where it would be desirable to leave no trace of violence on the body of the victim.

[1524] If we may take Brantome's word, there was some ground for such apprehension at all times. "En fin il estoit un terrible masle; et s'il eust vescu, a.s.surez-vous qu'il s'en fust faict aeroire, et qu'il eust mis le pere en curatelle." uvres, tom. I. p. 323.

[1525] "Li piu favoriti del Re erono odiati da lui a morte, et adesso tanto piu, et quando questo venisse a regnare si teneriano rovinati loro." Lettera del Nunzio, Febraio 14, 1568, MS.

[1526] Ante. p. 177.

It is in this view that Dr. Salazar de Mendoza does not shrink from a.s.serting, that, if Philip did make a sacrifice of his son, it rivalled in sublimity that of Isaac by Abraham, and even that of Jesus Christ by the Almighty! "Han dicho de el lo que del Padre Eterno, que no perdono a su propio Hijo. Lo que del Patriarca Abraham en el sacrificio de Isaac su unigenito. A todo caso humano excede la gloria que de esto le resulta, y no hay con quien comparalla." (Dignidades de Castilla y Leon, p. 417.) He closes this rare piece of courtly blasphemy by a.s.suring us that in point of fact Carlos died a natural death. The doctor wrote in the early part of Philip the Third's reign, when the manner of the prince's death was delicate ground for the historian.

[1527] Philip the Second is not the only Spanish monarch who has been charged with the murder of his son. Leovogild, a Visigothic king of the sixth century, having taken prisoner his rebel son, threw him into a dungeon, where he was secretly put to death. The king was an Arian, while the young prince was a Catholic, and might have saved his life if he had been content to abjure his religion. By the Church of Rome, therefore, he was regarded as a martyr; and it is a curious circ.u.mstance that it was Philip the Second who procured the canonization of the slaughtered Hermenegild from Pope Sixtus the Fifth.

For the story, taken from that voluminous compilation of Florez, "_La Espana Sagrada_," I am indebted to Milman's History of Latin Christianity (London, 1854, vol. I. p. 446), one of the remarkable works of the present age, in which the author reviews, with curious erudition, and in a profoundly philosophical spirit, the various changes that have taken place in the Roman hierarchy: and while he fully exposes the manifold errors and corruptions of the system, he shows throughout that enlightened charity which is the most precious of Christian graces, as unhappily it is the rarest.

[1528] Lettera di n.o.bili, Luglio 30, 1568, MS.

[1529] I have before me another will made by Don Carlos in 1564, in Alcala de Henares, the original of which is still extant in the Archives of Simancas. In one item of this doc.u.ment, he bequeathes five thousand ducats to Don Martin de Cordova, for his gallant defence of Mazarquivir.

[1530] Lettera del Nunzio, Luglio 28, 1568, MS.--Quintana, Historia de Madrid, fol. 369.

[1531] "Partieron con el cuerpo, aviendo el Rey con la entereza de animo que mantuvo sienpre, conpuesto desde una ventana las diferencias de los Consejos disposiendo la precedencia, cesando a.s.si la competencia."

Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VIII. cap. 5.

[1532] The particulars of the ceremony are given by the Nunzio, Lettera di 28 di Luglio, MS.--See also Quintana, Historia de Madrid, fol. 369.

[1533] Pinelo, a.n.a.les de Madrid, MS.--Quintana, Historia de Madrid, fol.

369.--Lettera del Nunzio, Luglio 28, 1568, MS.--Cabrera, Filipe Segundo, lib. VIII. cap. 5.

[1534] Carta del Rey a Zuniga, Agosto 27, 1568, MS.

[1535] "Digo la missa el Cardenal Tarragona, asistiendo a las honras 21 cardenales idemas de los obispos y arzobispos." Aviso de un Italiano platico y familiar de Ruy Gomez de Silva, MS.

[1536] "Oracion funebre," writes the follower of Ruy Gomez, "no la hubo, pero ye hizo estos epitaphios y versos por mi consolacion." Ibid.

Whatever "consolation" the Latin doggerel which follows in the original may have given to its author, it would have too little interest for the reader to be quoted here.

[1537] "Il Re como padre ha sent.i.to molto, ma come christiano la comporta con quells patienza con che dovemo ricevere le tribulationi, che ci manda Nostro Signore Dio." Lettera del Nunzio, Luglio 24, 1568, MS.

[1538] Raumer has given an extract from this letter, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 149.

[1539] Besides Brantome, and De Thou, elsewhere noticed in this connection, another writer of that age, Pierre Matthieu, the royal historiographer of France, may be thought to insinuate something of the kind, when he tells us that "the circ.u.mstance of Isabella so soon following Carlos to the tomb had suggested very different grounds from those he had already given as the cause of his death." (Breve Compendio de la Vida Privada del Rey Felipe Segundo, MS.) But the French writer's account of Philip is nearly as apocryphal as the historical romance of San Real, who, in all that relates to Carlos in particular, will be found largely indebted to the lively imagination of his predecessor.

[1540] "Aussi dit on que cela fut cause de sa mort en partie, avec d'autres subjects que je ne dirai point a ceste heure; car il ne se pouvoit garder de l'aimer dans son ame, l'honorer et reverer, tant il la trouvoit aymable et agreable a ses yeux, comme certes elle l'estoit en tout." Brantome, uvres, tom. V. p. 128.

[1541] "Luy eschappa de dire que c'avoit este fait fort meschamment de l'avoir fait mourir et si innocentement, dont il fut banny jusques au plus profond des Indes d'Espagne. Cela est tres que vray, a ce que l'on dit." Ibid., p. 132.

[1542] Apologie, ap. Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. V. par. i. p. 389.

Strada, while he notices the common rumors respecting Carlos and Isabella, dismisses them as wholly unworthy of credit. "Mihi, super id quod incomperta sunt, etiam veris dissimilia videntur." De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 379.

[1543] At the head of these writers must undoubtedly be placed the Abbe San Real, with whose romantic history of Don Carlos I am only acquainted in the Castilian translation, ent.i.tled "Verdadera Historia de la Vida y Muerte del Principe Don Carlos." Yet, romance as it is, more than one grave historian has not disdained to transplant its flowers of fiction into his own barren pages. It is edifying to see the manner in which Leti, who stands not a little indebted to San Real, after stating the scandalous rumors in regard to Carlos and Isabella, concludes by declaring: "Ma come io sorivo historia, e non romanzo, non posso afirmar nulli di certo, perche nulla di certo h possuto raccore." Leti, Vita di Filippo II., tom. I. p. 560.

[1544] "Monsieur le prince d'Hespaigne fort extenue, la vint saluer, qu'elle recent avec telle caresse et comportement, que si le pere et toute la compaignie en ont receu ung singulier contentement ledit prince l'a encores plus grand, comme il a demonstre depuis et demonstre lorsqu'il la visite, qui ne peut estre souvent; car outre que les conversations de ce pays ne sont pas si frequentes et faciles qu'en France, sa fievre quarte le travaille tellement, que de jour en jour il va s'extenuant." L'Eveque de Limoges au Roi, 23 fevrier, 1559.

Negociations relatives au Regne de Francois II., p. 272.

[1545] "Ayant ladite dame mis toute la peine qu'il a este possible a luy donner, aux soirs, quelque plaisir du bail et autres honnestes pa.s.setemps, desquels il a bon besoin, car le pauvre prince est si has et extenue, il va d'heure a heure tant affoiblissant, que les plus sages de ste court en out bien pet.i.te esperance." L'Eveque de Limoges au Roi, 1^er mars, 1569, Ibid., p. 291.

[1546] "La royne et la princesse la visitent bien souvent, et sopent en un jardin qui est aupres de la meson, et le prince avec elles, qui aime la royne singulierement, de facon qu'il ne ce peut soler de an dire bien. _Je croys qu'il voudrait estre davantage son parent._" Claude de ... a la Reine Mere, aout, 1560, Ibid., p. 460.

[1547] "On entendit aussi tres-souvent ce jeune Prince, lorsqu'il sortoit de la chambre de la Reine Elizabeth, avec qui il avoit de longs et frequens entretiens, se plaindre et marquer sa colere et son indignation, de ce que son pere la lui avoit enlevee." De Thou, Histoire Universelle, tom. V. p. 434.

[1548] "Vous dires-ge, madame, que sy se n'estoit la bonne compaignie ou je suis en se lieu, et l'heur que j'ai de voir tous les jours le roy mon seigneur, je trouverois se lieu l'un des plus facheux du monde. Mais je vous a.s.sure, madame, que j'ay un si bon mari et suis si heureuse que, quant il le seroit cent fois davantage, je ne m'y facherois point." La Reine Catholique a la Reine Mere, Negociations relatives au Regne de Francois II. p. 813.

[1549] Raumer, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 129.

[1550] Ibid., p. 130.

[1551] Ibid., ubi supra.

[1552] "Ceste taille, elle l'accompagnoit d'un port, d'une majeste, d'un geste, d'un marcher et d'une grace entremeslee de l'espagnole et de la francoise en gravite et en douceur." See Brantome, (uvres, tom. V. p.

129,) whose loyal pencil has traced the lineaments of Isabella as given in the text.

[1553] Raumer, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. I. p. 131.

[1554] Letter of Fourquevaulx, February 5, 1568, ap. Ibid., p. 139.

[1555] "Gli amici, in primo loco la Regina, la quale diceva che gli era amorevolissima, Don Giovanni d'Austria suo carissimo et diletissimozio,"

etc. Lettera del Nunzio, Marzo 2, 1568, MS.