the furtherance of those great affairs of which the king, his son, now had his hands full.'

Instructions had come from Valladolid to the local authorities of Plasencia and the Vera, requiring their implicit obedience to the order of the emperor; and contentment, or an approach to contentment, returned to the troubled minds of the household. Secretary Gaztelu candidly avowed that he had become reconciled to Yuste, and that as a residence it was far better than Xarandilla. Quixada admitted that the place seemed to agree with his master, and that his general health was excellent. While acknowledging the receipt of salmon from Valladolid, lampreys from the Tagus, and pickled soles sent by the duchess of Bejar, he nevertheless owned that his majesty's twinges of gout had lately been less frequent and less severe. On St. Martin's day, he said, he walked without assistance to the high altar to make his offering. You cannot think,' writes he to Vazquez, 'how well and plump he looks; and his fresh colour is to me quite astonishing. But,' he adds mournfully, 'this is a very lonely and doleful existence; and if his majesty came here in search of solitude, by my faith! he has found it.' In another letter he says, 'This is the most solitary and wretched life I have ever known, and quite insupportable to those who are not content to leave their lands and the world, which I, for one, am not content to do.'

Philip the Second assured the Venetian envoy at Bruxelles that his father's health seemed as completely restored by the air of Yuste as if he had been there for ten years. From the time of his arrival at the convent, he had been able to give close and regular attention to public affairs. It is worthy of remark that during the

1 Relatione of Badovaro. See chap. iii. p. 52.

greater part of his residence in Spain, from his landing at Laredo in September 1556, to the third of May 1558, his public despatches were always headed 'the emperor,' and addressed to 'Juan Vazquez de Molina, my secretary.' He wrote not only with the authority, but in the formal style, of a sovereign, and until his abdication of the imperial throne had been accepted by the diet, he considered himself, as in fact he was, emperor of the Romans. A dispute about precedence, the great question of diplomacy until the first French revolution, arising at the court of Lisbon between the ambassadors of France and Spain, he accredited the Spaniard as ambassador from himself as well as from his son, and so foiled the pretensions of the Frenchman. It soon became known that the recluse at Yuste had as much power as the regent at Valladolid, and the gate was therefore besieged with suitors. Women presented themselves, asserting that they were widows of veterans who had fought in Germany, in Italy, or in Africa,— 'a class of petitioners,' said Gaztelu, 'very prone to imposture,' which was therefore civilly referred to Valladolid. One Anton Sanchez, a venerable countryman from Criptana, came to complain of the maladministration of the villages and lands of the order of Santiago; he seemed respectable as well as venerable, and was kindly received and dismissed with letters of recommendation to the council of the orders. A fiery English courier, who had been kept waiting a whole month at court for the answer to his despatches, losing all patience, made his way across the mountains to lodge his complaint at Yuste. The emperor received him with perfect courtesy, and transmitted orders to Valladolid that his business should be concluded, and he sent home forthwith.

It has been frequently asserted that the emperor's life at Yuste was a long repentance for his resignation

2

of power; and that Philip was constantly tormented, in England or in Flanders, by the fear that his father might one day return to the throne.' This idle tale can be accounted for only by the melancholy fact, that historians have found it easier to invent than to investigate. An opinion certainly prevailed, even among those who had access to good political information, that Charles would resume power when his health was sufficiently re-established, an opinion founded, perhaps, on the fact that the cession of the imperial crown was still incomplete, and on the difficulty which the world found in believing that the first prince in Christendom had, of his own free will, descended for ever from the first throne in the world. But, however it may have arisen, the notion was justified by no word or deed of the emperor. So far from regretting his retirement, Charles refused to entertain several proposals that he should quit it. Although he had abdicated the Spanish crowns, Philip had not yet formally taken possession of them, and the princess-regent, fearing that the turbulent and still free people of Aragon might make that a pretext for refusing the supplies, was desirous that her father should summon and attend a Cortes at Monçon, in which the oath might be solemnly taken to the new king. The emperor's disinclination to move obliged her to find other means of meeting the difficulty, which was finally surmounted without disturbing his repose. Later in the year, in the autumn of 1557, it was confidently reported that the old cloistered soldier would take the command of an army which it was found necessary to assemble in Navarre, and at one mournful moment he had actually taken it into consideration whether he should leave his choir, his

1 G. Leti: Vita del' Imp. Carlo V., 4 vols., 12mo. Amsterd.: 1700, iv. 362-3. Amelot de la Houssaye: Memoires, 2 vols., 12mo. Amst.; 1700, i. 294.

* Relatione of Badovaro,

:

sermons, and his flowers, for the fatigues and privations of a camp. He was often urged, both by the king and the princess-regent, directly by letters, and covertly through his secretary and chamberlain, to instruct the prince of Orange to keep in abeyance as long as possible the deed of imperial abdication; the reasons alleged being that when the sceptre had absolutely departed, the pope would find fresh pretexts for interference in the internal affairs of the empire, and Spanish influence would be wofully weakened, in the duchy of Milan especially, and generally throughout Europe. But on this point Charles would listen neither to argument nor to entreaty he was willing to exercise his imperial rights so long as they remained to him; but he would not retard by an hour the fulfilment of the exact conditions to which he had subscribed at Bruxelles. Philip, on his side, seems to have been as free from jealousy as his father was free from repentance. Although frequently implored by his sister to return to Spain and relieve her of the burden of power, he continued in Flanders, maintaining that his presence was of greater importance near the seat of war, and that so long as their father lived and would assist her with his counsel, she would find no great difficulty in conducting the internal affairs of Castille. In truth, Philip's filial affection and reverence shines like a grain of fine gold in the base metal of his character: his father was the one wise and strong man who crossed his path whom he never suspected, undervalued, or used ill. The jealousy of which he is popularly accused, however, seems at first sight probable, considering the many blacker crimes of which he stands convicted before. the world. But the repose of Charles cannot have been troubled with regrets for his resigned power, seeing that in truth he never resigned it at all, but wielded it at Yuste as firmly as he had wielded it at Augsburg or Toledo.

He had given up little beyond the trappings of

royalty; and his was not a mind to regret the pageant, the guards, and the gold sticks.

The portion which he had reserved to himself of the wealth of half the world was one sixteenth part of the rents of the crown,' and a share of the profits of the silver mines of Guadalcanal. The sum thus raised must have fluctuated from year to year; nor has the amount been ascertained with any approach to exactness. Some writers have estimated it as high as one hundred thousand crowns; others have fixed it as low as twelve thousand ducats, or about fifteen hundred pounds sterling, a provision scarcely amounting to the half of that which his will directed to be made for his natural son, Don John. The truth probably lies between the two statements. A sum of thirty thousand ducats was at the emperor's disposal in the fortress of Simancas. Soon after he had settled himself at Yuste, he sent Gaztelu to Valladolid to arrange with Vazquez about the time and mode of paying the instalments of his revenue. He was likewise instructed to provide for the regular payment of certain alms to the convents in which daily prayers were to be said for the emperor's soul, the list being headed by the name of the great Dominican house of Our Lady of Atocha, the miraculous image which is still the favourite idol of Madrid. The envoy returned from Valladolid on the eighth of March, bringing the good news that the mines of Guadalcanal were producing in great and unusual abundance, and that the king of

The technical words of Gaztelu are, derechos de once y seis al millar,'' duties of eleven and six in the thousand;' of which I have been able to find no explanation. My friend, Don Pascual de Gayangos, thinks that it ought, perhaps, to have been 'onça y millar,' meaning one sixteenth of a thousand, or about 6 per cent. of the crown rents, the word onça,' or ounce, the of a pound being frequently used to denote that fraction.

2 Th. Juste: L'Abdication, p. 29.

Sandoval, Hist. de Carlos V., Lib. xxxii., c. 39, p. 820.