Extracts from the Inventory of the effects of Charles the Fifth at Yuste, p. 322

V., King of Aragon and
Naples, b. 1452; d. 1516.

Queen of Castille, b. 1450; m. 1469: d. 1494.

2nd, Germaine, dau. of-Ferdinand (the Catholic)=1st, Isabella (the Catholic),

Giov. Gal. Sforza, Duke of Milan; m. 1494.

THE CLOISTER LIFE

OF THE EMPEROR

CHARLES V.

IT

CHAPTER I.

THE IMPERIAL ABDICATION.

It

T is not possible to determine the precise time at which the emperor Charles the Fifth formed his celebrated resolution to exchange the cares and honours of a throne for the religious seclusion of a cloister. is certain, however, that this resolution was formed many years before it was carried into effect. With his empress, Isabella of Portugal, who died in 1538, Charles had agreed that so soon as state affairs and the ages of their children should permit, they were to retire for the remainder of their days-he into a convent of friars, and she into a nunnery. In 1542, he confided his design to the duke of Gandia; and in 1546, it had been whispered at court, and was mentioned by Bernardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared envoy of Venice, in a report to the doge.'

In 1548, Philip, heir-apparent of the Spanish monarchy, was sent for by his father to receive the

1 Relatione, Luglio, 1546; printed in Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V. Edited by Rev. W. Bradford. 8vo. London: 1850. p. 475.

B

oath of allegiance from the states of the Netherlands; and in 1551, he invested him with the duchy of Milan. When only in his eighteenth year, the prince had been left a widower by the death of his wife, Mary, daughter of John the Third of Portugal. On his return to Spain, he entered into negotiations for the hand of a second Portuguese bride, his cousin, the infanta Mary, daughter of his father's sister Eleanor, by the late king, Don Emanuel. After delays unusual even in Peninsular diplomacy, these negotiations had almost reached a successful issue, when the emperor, on the thirtieth of July, 1553, from Bruxelles, addressed Philip in a letter which produced a very memorable effect on the politics of Europe. Mary Tudor, he wrote, had inherited the crown of England, and had given him an early hint of her gracious willingness to become his second empress. For himself, this tempting opportunity must be foregone. "Were the dominions of that kingdom greater even than they are,' he said, 'they should not move me from my purpose-a purpose of quite another kind." But he desired his son to take the matter into his serious consideration, and to weigh well the merits of the English princess before he resolved to conclude any other match. In her childhood, the lady Mary had been betrothed to the emperor, and she was now eleven years older than his son. But Philip, who was preparing to marry an infanta of thirty-three, was quite willing to transfer his affections to a queen of thirty-seven. Usually slow to decide, he showed in this matter a promptitude of decision which proves how early in life he deserved the title, afterwards given to him by historians, of the Prudent. Concurring in the emperor's

Pero bien os puedo asegurar que otros muchos estados mas principales no me doblaran ni moveran del proposito en que estoi, que es bien diferente.' Emp. to Philip II. 30th July, 1553.

opinion, that one or other of them ought to marry the queen of England, and seeing that matrimony was distasteful to his father, he professed his readiness to take that duty on himself. He had, happily, not absolutely concluded the Portuguese match, and he would therefore at once proceed to break it off, on the plea that the dowry promised was insufficient. Father and son being thus of one mind, they opened the diplomatic campaign which ended in adding another kingdom to the hymeneal conquests for which the house of Austria was already famous,' and in placing Philip, as king-consort, on the throne of England. On the same day when Charles suggested to his son the propriety of breaking faith with his favourite sister's only child, he signed the first order for money to be spent in building his retreat at Yuste, a Jeromite convent in Estremadura in Spain; and as soon as the treachery had been completed and the prize secured, he began seriously to prepare for a life of piety and repose.

Rest and quiet were indeed urgently demanded by the state of his health. His constitution, naturally feeble, had long been undermined by violent attacks of gout. In 1550 that disease, flying to his head, had threatened him with sudden death. In 1552, when his army of sixty thousand men lay before Metz, and all his thoughts were bent on that celebrated siege, it was with difficulty, when he visited the lines, that he could sit his Turkish charger for a quarter of an hour at a time; his face was pale and thin, his eyes sunken, and

1 And so tersely celebrated in the epigram of Matthias Corvinus: Bella gerant alii; tu felix Austria nube!

Nam quæ Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus.

Fight those who will; let well starr'd Austria wed,
And conquer kingdoms in the marriage bed.