CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEATH OF QUEEN ELEANOR.

THE year 1558 did not open auspiciously at Yuste. The emperor continued to be troubled with flying gout: he complained of itching and tingling in his legs, from the knees downwards; and he was sometimes seized with fits of vomiting. On the seventh of January he was unable to leave his bed, or to see the admiral of Aragon, who had come to state certain grievances which he had against the master of Montesa, and who was therefore dismissed to spend a few days in the pilgrimage to Guadalupe. The season itself was unhealthy, and so many members of the household were ill that Gaztelu proposed to reinforce the medical staff with another doctor, one Juan Muñoz, a good physician and surgeon, who had been sent by the regent to attend upon her

father at Laredo.

On the night of the eighth of January, the palace was broken into, and a sum of eight hundred ducats, set apart for charitable uses, stolen from a box in the emperor's wardrobe. The licentiate Murga was immediately set to discover the robbers, but his perquisitions attained no satisfactory end. It was evident that the household was not free from blame, but the emperor would not permit the persons suspected to be subjected to the torture, the usual mode of compelling evidence in those days, 'fearing,' said Gaztelu, mysteriously, 'that certain things might come out which had better remain

concealed." The culprits were never detected, nor was the cash recovered. It is somewhat remarkable that a few weeks afterwards the emperor divided two thousand ducats, as a largesse, among his attendants, each receiving a sum proportioned according to the amount of his salary.

While plagued by the depredations of thieves, the emperor was also teased by the contentions of thieftakers. The corregidor of Plasencia came over to Quacos and arrested one Villa, an alguazil under Murga, on pretence that he had exceeded his powers by exercising his office within the city jurisdiction, which, as the Plasencian affirmed, extended to the limits of the village. Charles was much displeased, and caused a complaint to be lodged at Valladolid, the result of which was that the corregidor was suspended from his functions, and the jurisdiction of Quacos enlarged by a fresh official act. The offender, however, was forgiven, and reinstated in a few weeks.

On the tenth of January, the emperor, though still in bed, gave audience to Don Juan de Acuña, who had recently come from Flanders; and the same day a rumour was brought by the count of Oropesa, that the duke of Alba had lately arrived at Bruxelles, and proposed resigning the viceroyalty of Naples, and the command of the army in Italy. At this rumour Charles displayed more displeasure than Quixada thought good for his health; and he refused to listen to the despatches from court relating to the Italian affairs until some days after they had arrived. When at last he permitted them to be read, and heard the secret articles of the treaty with

1 'Pues no se permite à Murga que ponga à question de tormento à los que se sospecha que podrian tener culpa, en lo que han pasado cosas que es mejor callarlas.' Gaztelu to Vazquez, 17th January, 1558.

the pope, he only remarked that the reserved conditions. were as bad as those which had been made public.

Disgraceful as the treaty was, the anger felt by the emperor may perhaps have arisen partly because the negotiations had been conducted without his knowledge or consent. Philip's love of temporizing was notorious; 'Time and I against two," was his favourite adage; and he often bought time at the price of golden opportunity. When the victory of St. Quentin had compelled the recal of Guise, Rome was so completely in the power of Alba, that there was no visible motive for hastening the pope's deliverance. Had the king wished to consult his father, an armistice of a few weeks would have given sufficient time for communication between Bruxelles and Yuste. It is therefore most probable that Philip, making, for reasons which he did not wish to explain, a peace which he felt the emperor must disapprove, purposely withheld from him any knowledge of the treaty until it was actually signed and sealed. It is certain that great and unaccountable delay took place in laying before him some of the subsequent transactions in Italy. Thus, although a rumour of Alba's departure had reached Yuste on the tenth of January, it was not until the twenty-seventh, that a letter, addressed to the emperor by Alba himself, and dated so far back as the twenty-third of September, 1557, reached Yuste by the hands of Luis de Avila. This letter announced that peace had been concluded, and described the state of matters at Rome; and further said that as the king's affairs were now in a prosperous condition, the duke intended soon to avail himself of his majesty's promise that his term of service in Italy should be short, and to embark for Lombardy; after which he trusted ere long

1 'Tiempo y yo para otros dos.'

to kiss the emperor's hand, and ask for some repose from his fatigues of twenty-five years. To this letter Charles deigned no answer, nor did he make any remark upon it, but refused to listen to its details of public affairs, with which he said he was already acquainted.

Alba was at this time already in the Netherlands. He was soon followed thither by cardinal Caraffa, the nephew to whom Paul the Fourth entrusted the duty of driving a bargain with the king of Spain about the money or territory with which the pontifical family were to be bribed over to keep the peace,'-a negotiation which the greedy churchman prolonged until far into the spring. Philip received the duke with all demonstrations of favour and gratitude, and was about to appoint him to an important post in Spain. A turn in the tide of events, however, induced him to alter this resolution, and to keep him about his own person in the capacity of president of the council of war.

The emperor, on the other hand, remained unreconciled to the shameful peace with the Caraffas, nor did he ever forgive Alba his share in the transaction. The duke was anxious to ascertain his opinion of his conduct in remaining at court, and to obtain permission to visit him at Yuste; and Gaztelu was therefore privately desired by Vazquez to note whatever fell from him on these topics. But Charles would neither express his opinion, nor record the permission required, showing a disposition, when his anger had cooled, rather to avoid the subject than to forgive the duke. Only two months before his death, hearing that Philip had presented Alba with one hundred and fifty thousand ducats, he remarked that the king of Spain did more for the duke

A. Andrea Guerra de Roma, &c, p. 315.

of Alba than the duke of Alba had ever done for the king of Spain.

But, on the whole, the emperor's displeasure, though very mortifying, was rather creditable to the duke. In his conduct towards the pope, Alba had exactly fulfilled his sovereign's commands, though he never approved of his policy. To kiss the toe of Paul, in the name of his master, he felt like an act of personal dishonour; and he said, even in the pontiff's presence-chamber, to some of the Italian leaders, Were I king of Spain, cardinal Caraffa should have gone to Bruxelles and done on his knees, what I have done this day to the pope." The shameful homage paid, the pontiff loaded him with honours and caresses; he invited him to dinner; and he offered to make over to him all the church patronage of the holy see on his estates in Spain. But this offer Alba declined, saying that the concession and the acceptance of such a boon would be liable to suspicion, which it was better to avoid. Had the emperor known of this noble act of self-denial, and of the reluctance with which his old comrade in arms had signed the treaty, he would surely have regarded him with different feelings; and, as it would have been easy for Alba to bring these facts under his notice, it is fair to conclude that he bore the undeserved blame from a sense of chivalrous honour to the king whom he served.

For the chagrin suffered by the emperor in Italian politics, little compensation was afforded by the state of things in the north. The victory of St. Quentin, signal as it was, and important as it ought to have been, had but a slight and transitory effect upon the fortune of

A. de Castro: Los Protestantes Españoles, i. p. 131. 2 J. A. de Vera: Vida del duque de Alva, p. 73. See also chap. iii.