formed of the official personages, prebendaries of Jaen, royal chaplains, and their servants, eight Jeromites from Yuste, and twenty-four mendicant friars from other convents of the Vera. Religious services were performed at the halting-places each morning and evening during the ten days of march, in the course of which the principal incident was a quarrel between the Jeromites and the Franciscans about precedence, which was decided in favour of Yuste.' From Granada, Merida, and Valladolid were brought at the same time the remains of the empress Isabella and her two children, Fernando and Juan, who died in infancy, of the princess Mary, the first wife of Philip the Second, and of Eleanor and Mary, the queens of France and Hungary. The occasion of the first funeral solemnities in the new temple of the Escorial was marked by one of those terrific storms which visit the bleak sierra, sent, as the monks supposed, by the prince of darkness, in the hope of overthrowing the rising fortress of piety. A grand arch of timber, erected at the side portal, known as the kitchen gate, was blown away before the eyes of the trembling worshippers, and its hangings of rich brocade, rent into minute shreds, were scattered far and wide over the surrounding chase. The ceremonies within the church lasted for three days; the emperor's body was once more buried with all the rites used at the interment of a Jeromite friar; and his funeral oration was pronounced for the second time by his favourite preacher Villalva. With his empress, Charles was laid in a vault in front of the high altar. By the side of this magnificent altar, in a lofty niche, lined with precious jaspers, their monu 1 Bakhuizen van den Brink: La Retraite, p. 58-60. ment forms an appropriate ornament of the most splendid chapel ever created by the sombre genius of Castillian art, and the lavished wealth of the New World. Wrought in bronze by Leoni, their fine effigies, in mantles superbly emblazoned, kneel in the attitude of prayer, with joined palms, and uncrowned heads, and eyes fixed on the holy shrine. THOU, OF THE Children of Charles THE FIFTH, says the inscription, WHO SHALT SURPASS THE GLORY OF HIS ACTIONS, TAKE THIS PLACE: YE OTHERS REVERENTLY FORBEAR.' Eighty years afterwards the repose of the emperor was again broken. Philip the Second had provided a very simple vault for the reception of the ashes of his house, saying, 'I have built a dwelling for God, let my son, if he will, build for his bones and ours.' Philip the Third, accepting that humbler share of the work, commenced the celebrated pantheon, which, after the labour of thirty-three years, was finished by Philip the Fourth. On the sixteenth of March, 1654, the dust of the Austrian kings of Spain, and of their consorts who had continued the royal line, was translated to this splendid sepulchral chamber. Fray Juan de Avellanada pronounced a discourse on Ezekiel's text, 'O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!"-a burst of intrepid panegyric, worthy of the audience, which, after warning future kings of Spain that they must live well if they wished to sleep by the side of the holy Philip the Second, the preacher closed with a prayer to that glorified prince and his royal companions in bliss to become his advocates before the throne of the Almighty. Each of the 1 HUNC LOCUM SI QUIS POSTER. CAROLO V. HABITAM GLORIAM RERUM GESTARUM SPLENDORE SUPERAVERIS, IPSE SOLUS OCCUPATO, CETERI REVERENTER ABSTINETE. 2 Ezek. xxxvii. 4. Los Santos: Descripcion del Escorial, fol. 183-4. seven coffins was carried by three nobles and three Jeromite friars: the procession was headed by the remains of the fair Isabel of Bourbon, the first queen of Philip the Fourth, and it was closed by the dust of Charles the Fifth. After infinite splendid ceremonies, they were borne round the church in procession, and at last down the long marble staircase to their superb place of rest, which gleamed in the light of countless tapers and golden lamps, reflected from marble, and jasper, and gold, like a creation of oriental romance. The grandees who bore the coffin of Charles were the prime-minister Don Luis de Haro, the duke of Abrantes, and the marquess of Aytona. As the body was deposited in the marble sarcophagus, the coverings were removed to enable Philip the Fourth to come face to face with his great ancestor. The corpse was found to be quite entire, and even some sprigs of sweet thyme, folded in the winding-sheet, retained, said the friars, all their vernal fragrance after the lapse of fourscore winters. After looking for some minutes in silence at the pale dead face of the hero of his line, the king turned to Haro, and said, 'Cuerpo honrado, honoured body, Don Luis.' Very honoured,' replied the minister; words brief indeed, but very pregnant, for the prior of the Escorial considered that they comprised all that a Christian ought to feel on so solemn an occasion.' Once again, at the distance of four generations, the emperor's grave is said to have been opened by the descendant of that despised Anthony of Bourbon at whose claims on Navarre Charles had scoffed, and whose posterity had wrested from the house of Austria the Mr. Beckford used sceptre of Spain and the Indies. 1 'Exprimiendo Su Magestad en breves palabras todo aquel sentir, à que se puede alargar la piedad christiana en caso semejante.' Lo Santos: Descrip. del Escorial, fol. Madrid: 1657, fol. 156. to relate that when he was leaving Madrid, Charles the Third, as a parting civility, desired to know what favour he would accept at his hands. The boon asked and granted was leave to see the face of Charles the Fifth, in order to test the fidelity of the portraits by Titian. The finest portraits of Charles, as well as his remains, were then still at the Escorial. The marble sarcophagus being moved from its niche and the lid raised, the lights of the Pantheon once more gleamed on the features of the dead emperor. The pale brow and cheek, the slightly aquiline nose, the protruding lower jaw, the heavy Burgundian lip, and the sad and thoughtful expression, remained nearly as the Venetian had painted them, and unchanged since the eyelids had been closed by Quixada. There, too, were the sprigs of thyme, seen by Philip the Fourth, and gathered seven ages before in the woods of Yuste.' Those who have read this record of the last years of Charles the Fifth may perhaps desire to know somewhat of the subsequent fortunes both of the personages who have figured in its pages, and of the convent of Yuste and its miniature palace. Queen Mary of Hungary did not live to complete her preparations for returning to the Netherlands. It was with great reluctance that she had consented to resume the government of these rich, restless, and refractory provinces. Three years before, she had pleaded for her release from it, on the ground that time had For this curious anecdote I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Beckford's daughter, the duchess of Hamilton. He had left, unfor tunately, no note or memorandum of the fact, and therefore the date, and the names of the other witnesses of this singular spectacle cannot now be recovered. His letters prove that he was at Madrid at the close of 1787 and in the spring of 1795. I have been unable to obtain any corroborative evidence from Spain, and therefore the story must be taken simply as told by Mr. Beckford. enfeebled her powers, and that a new spirit was abroad which called for a new policy, and the energies of a younger ruler. It is but fitting,' she wrote to the emperor in the autumn of 1555, 'that a woman who has lived fifty years, of which twenty-four have been spent in the service of the state, should be content, for the remainder of her days, to serve one God and one master. I see also growing up in this country a young and vigorous generation, to whose ways I cannot and will not accommodate mine. Men's loyalty and respect to God and to their king are so poisoned, not here only, but everywhere else, that I would not desire to continue in power were I a man, and an able one. Being as I am, a woman, I assure your majesty, that I would rather work for my bread than remain here at the head of affairs." Yet to this anxious and arduous eminence, with faculties further impaired by time, and grief, and sickness, the entreaties of her brother had persuaded her to go back. Perhaps her active mind and frame, after a life of rapid marches and stormy councils, sunk under the intolerable weight of leisure and repose. Towards the close of July, she had had a slight attack of small-pox; but early in August, she was sufficiently recovered to propose to accompany her niece, the regent, in her visit to Yuste. At the beginning of September, she signified her willingness to return to Bruxelles, and began to prepare for the voyage. But her disorder returned with renewed violence later in the autumn, and she died at Cigales, on the twenty-eighth of October, 1558, five weeks after the death of her brother. On the night of her death, the barking bird' was once more seen and heard on the roof of the church of Yuste.3 The will of Mary ' Page 267. 'Papiers de Granvelle, tom. iv. p. 476. |