and lasting peace in which, as he told the statesgeneral, it had been his wish to retire from the world. While thus engaged, he seemed to be rehearsing the existence which he had so long planned for himself in the distant convent in Spain. His sole counsellor and confidant was the bishop of Arras. He was waited on by a few gentlemen of grave and venerable aspect, and clad in black; and he inhabited only a couple of rooms sombrely tapestried with black cloth. Here, on Palm-Sunday, 1556, he received the admiral de Coligny, ambassador of Henry the Second of France, sent to Bruxelles to witness the ratification by the king of Spain of the truce between the crowns. The Frenchman and his brilliant following nearly filled the small room in which they found the emperor dressed in a citizen's black gown of Florence serge and a Mantua bonnet, sitting beside his black writing-table. When the most Christian king's letter was put into his hand, it was with some difficulty that his gouty fingers broke the broad official seal. What will you say of me, my lord admiral,' said he; 'am I not a brave cavalier to break a lance with, I,-who can hardly open a letter?' After hearing the letter read by the bishop of Arras, and discussing its contents, he asked the ambassador about his master's health, and whether he was getting grey. On learning that a few white hairs were already visible on the head of Henry the Second, he said that he well remembered the time when he had first observed upon his own those unpleasant symptoms of decay. It was at Naples, after his return from Tunis, when he was being dressed and perfumed to pay his court to the ladies. At first he ordered his barber to pluck out the intruders. But for every white hair thus removed, he soon found that three more made their appearance; and he doubted not that, if he had persevered in the de pilatory process, he would soon have been as white as a swan. Brusquet, the famous jester of four kings of France,' had come in the train of the admiral. Recognising him, the emperor asked him how he did; to which Brusquet replied that his majesty was too gracious to notice one of the worms of the earth. 'Have you forgotten,' said Charles, what passed between you and the marshal de Strozzi on the day of spurs?' alluding to a battle in which that famous general had found his spurs of more use than his sword. 'I remember it well,' retorted Brusquet; 'it was at the very time when your Majesty bought those fine rubies and carbuncles which you wear on your fingers,' pointing to the emperor's hands, knotted and disfigured with gout. At this rough personal thrust Charles laughed heartily a laugh in which all the company joined—and said, 'I would not for a good deal have lost the lesson you have taught me, not to meddle with a man who looks like a harmless idiot, as you look, and assuredly are not.' He then courteously dismissed the admiral and his companions; and, going to an open window, stood there watching the cavalcade as it went glittering through the park, a well-timed appearance which dispelled a rumour that had been circulated of his being at the point of death.2 Sometime afterwards, a contagious malady breaking out at Bruxelles, the emperor removed for awhile from 1 Francis I., Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX. Brantome gives an account of Brusquet and his witticisms, in his Discours sur le mareschal Strozzi; œuvres, 8 tom. 8vo, Paris, 1787, iv. p. 435. He kept what he called a book of fools, and he inscribed in it the name of his master, Francis I., after Charles V. had been permitted to pass through France on his way to Ghent. But what,' said Francis, if I allow him to return as securely as he came?' 'Nay,' said Brusquet, if he ventures himself again in your power, I will erase your name, and put his in its place.' 2 Ribier; Lettres et Memoires d'etat: Voyage de M. l'Amiral. ii. p. 633. his home in the park to a still humbler retreat in the village of Grimberghe, near Vilvorde. He continued to linger in Flanders, partly on account of the difficulties which lay in the way of his renunciation of the imperial crown, but mainly from a desire to see his daughter, Mary, wife of his nephew, Maximilian, king of Bohemia. These royal personages being detained in Germany until July, his departure for Spain, which had been fixed for the month of June, was postponed until August. When Maximilian and Mary arrived, Bruxelles became for a few days the scene of tournays, banquets, and other sumptuous festivities. These ended, the emperor began his journey, and arrived on the thirteenth of August at his favourite city of Ghent. There he was lodged, for ten or twelve days, in the hotel of Ravenstein, the mansion of an old historic race, standing opposite the ancient palace of the counts of Flanders, in which he had first seen the light. On the twenty-sixth of August, he gave a farewell audience to the foreign ambassadors who had followed him from Bruxelles. He then took the road to Flushing, where the fleet had assembled to convey him to Spain. Besides the queens of France and Hungary, who were to be the companions of his voyage, he was attended to the coast by Philip the Second, Mary queen of Bohemia, and many of the nobles of the Netherlands. A good many days were spent at Flushing, or at Zuitburg, in waiting for favourable weather. Amongst the last things done on shore by the emperor was to write to his brother Ferdinand a long letter of advice as to the manner of dealing with the electoral diet in order to procure its unconditional acceptance of the act of abdication. He concluded it in these words: 'I am all ready, waiting with the queens my sisters, until it shall please God to send us a fair wind to set sail, being determined to let no opportunity slip, but to take the earliest occasion of proceeding on our voyage, which I pray God to prosper.-From Zuitburg, the twelfth of September, 1556." The royal party embarked on the following day. Lanz: Correspondenz, iii. p. 712. The place is supposed to be the village now called Wester-Souburg, near Flessingue, or Flushing. Juste: L'Abdication, p. 30, note. CHAPTER II. THE BAY OF BISCAY; LAREDO; BURGOS; F the royal ladies who were now about to accompany their imperial brother in his voyage, and, like him, to seek retirement in Spain, the elder was the gentle and once beautiful Eleanor, queen dowager of Portugal and of France. She was now in her fifty-eighth year, and much broken in health. In youth the favourite sister of the emperor, and in later days always addressed by him as madame ma meilleur sœur,' she had nevertheless been the peculiar victim of his policy and ambition. As a mere lad, he had driven from his court her first-love, Frederick, prince-palatine, that he might strengthen his alliance with Portugal by marrying her to Emanuel the Great, a man old enough to be her father, and tottering on the brink of the grave. When she became a widow, two years afterwards, her hand was used by her brother, first as a bait to flatter the hopes and fix the fidelity of the unfortunate constable de Bourbon, and next as a means of soothing the wounded pride and obtaining the alliance of his captive, the constable's liege lord. The French marriage was probably the more unhappy of the two. Francis the First never forgot that he had signed the contract in See his letters to her amongst the Papiers d'état du Cardinal de Granvelle d'après les manuscrits de la Biblioth. de Besançon, tom. i.—viii. 4to. Paris: 1840-50. |