of Charles. He hated innovation with the hatred of a king, a devotee, and an old man; and having fought for forty years a losing battle with the terrible monk of Saxony, he looked with suspicion even upon the great orthodox movement led by the soldier of Guipuzcoa. The infant company, although, or perhaps because, in favour at the Vatican, had gained no footing at the imperial court; and as its fame grew, the prelates around the throne, sons or friends of the ancient orders, were more likely to remind their master how its general had once been admonished by the holy office of Toledo, than to dwell on his piety and eloquence, or the splendid success of his missions in the east. In Bobadilla, one of the first followers of Loyola, the emperor had seen something of the fiery zeal of the new society; he had admired him on the field of Muhlberg, severely wounded, yet persisting in carrying temporal and spiritual aid to the wounded and dying; but on the publication of the unfortunate Interim, meant to soothe, but active only to inflame the hate of catholics and reformers, he had been compelled to banish this same good Samaritan from the empire for his virulent attacks upon the new decree.1 This unexpected opposition strengthened Charles's natural dislike to the company; and he afterwards rewarded with a colonial mitre the blustering Dominican Cano, who announced from the pulpits of Castille the strange tidings that the Jesuits were the precursors of antichrist foretold in the Apocalypse. His new confessor, Fray Juan de Regla, with monkish subserviency and rancour, espoused the same cause, and openly spoke of the company as an apt instrument of Satan or the great Turk. Latterly, how Nieremberg: Vidas de lg. Loyola y otros hijos de la Compania, fol. Madrid: 1645, p. 649-50. 2 Nieremberg: Vida de F. Borja, p. 173. ever, the vehement old pope, having frowned on the order as a thing of Spain and perdition, may perhaps have prepared his imperial rival to view it with a more favourable eye. His prejudices, in fact, at last yielded to the earnest and temperate reasonings of his ancient servant and brother-in-arms; and his feelings towards the Jesuits leaned from that time to approval and friendly regard. The talk of the emperor and his guest sometimes reverted to old days. Do you remember,' said Charles, 'how I told you, in 1542, at Monçon, during the holding of the Cortes of Aragon, of my intention of abdicating the throne? I spoke of it to but one person besides.' The Jesuit replied that he had kept the secret truly, but that now he hoped he might mention the mark of confidence with which he had been honoured. 'Yes,' said Charles; 'now that the thing is done, you may say what you will.' After a visit of five days at Xarandilla, Borja took his leave, and returned to Plasencia. The emperor appears usually to have given him audience alone, for no part of their conversations was reported either by the secretary or by the mayordomo. Nor is any notice taken of Borja in their correspondence, beyond the bare mention of his arrival and departure, and of the emperor's remark, that 'the duke was much changed since he first knew him as marquess of Lombay.' Of the emperor's few intimate friends, it happened that one other, Don Luis de Avila y Zuñiga, was now his neighbour in Estremadura. This shrewd politician, lively writer, and crafty courtier, a very different personage from father Francis the Sinner, was no less welcome at Xarandilla. He was one of the most distinguished of that remarkable band of soldier-statesmen who shed a lustre round the throne of the Spanish emperor and maintained the honour of the Spanish name for the greater part of the sixteenth century. At the holy see, under Pius the Fourth and Paul the Fourth, he had twice represented his master, and had attempted to urge on the lagging deliberations of the council of Trent; he had served with credit at Tunis; and he commanded the imperial cavalry during the campaigns of 1546 and 1547 in Germany, and at the siege of Metz. These services obtained for him the post of chamberlain, and the emperor's full confidence; and he was also made grand commander, or chief member after the sovereign, of the order of Alcantara. With these honours, and six skulls of the Virgins of Cologne, presented to him by the grateful elector, he returned to Plasencia, to share the honours with the wealthy heiress of Fadrique de Zuñiga, marquess of Mirabel, and to place the skulls in the rich Zuñiga chapel in the church of San Vicente.' He was now living in laurelled and lettered ease in the fine palace of the Mirabels, which is still one of the chief architectural ornaments of king Alonzo's pleasant city. Avila's literary tastes and acquirements had been acknowledged fifteen years before by the learned Florian de Ocampo, who had selected him from the herd of Castillian nobles, to honour him with the dedication of the first four parts of his edition of the Chronicle of Spain. This compliment was afterwards justified by the publication of Avila's own commentaries on the war of the emperor with the Protestants of Germany, a work by which he earned a high rank amongst the historians 1 A. F. Fernandez: Historia de Plasencia, fol. Madrid: 1627, p. 113. 2 Los quatro partes enteras de la cronica de España, que mando componer el Ser. Rey Don Alonso llamado et Sabio, fol. Zamora, 1541. See Southey's Chronicle of the Cid. 4to. London: 1808, p. v. 2 of his time. His Castillian was pure and idiomatic; and his style, for clearness and rapidity, was compared by his admirers to that of Cæsar. Besides these literary merits, the book, from the intimate relation existing between the author and the chief actor in the story, was invested with something of an official authority. It was accepted as a record, not merely of what the green-cross knight had seen, but of what the catholic emperor wished to be believed. At this time, therefore, it had already passed through several editions,' and had been translated into Latin, Flemish,3 and English,' into Italian" by the author himself, and twice into French, at Antwerp and at Paris." In Germany it had created a great sensation; the duke of Bavaria and the count-palatine were enraged beyond measure at the free handling displayed in their portraits by this Spanish master; the diet of Passau presented a formal remonstrance to the emperor against the libels of his chamberlain; and Albert, margrave of Brandenburg, who, by changing sides during the war, had peculiarly exposed himself to castigation, proposed that the author should maintain the credit of his pen by the prowess of his sword. The emperor, however, who approved the history and loved the historian, interposed to soothe the It appeared, says Nic. Antonio, first in Spain (without mentioning any town) in 1546, and again in 1547. By Van Male. See P. 70. In 8vo. (Steels): Antwerp, 1550. The Commentaries of Don Lewes de Avila and Suniga, great Master of Acanter, which treateth of the great wars in Germanie, made by Charles the Fifth, maxime Emperoure of Rome, &c. Sm. 8vo. London: 1555 (Black letter). The translator was John Wilkinson. In 12mo. Venice: 1549. By Mat. Vaulchier. 8vo. 1550. 8 R. Ascham: Discourse of Germany and the Emperor Charles his Court. 4to. London (Black letter): N. D. fol. 14. electors, cajole the diet, and forbid the duel; and a duke of Brunswick, some years after, did the obnoxious volume the honour of translating it into German. Pleased with his success, the author was probably employing his leisure at Plasencia in composing those commentaries on the war in Africa which, though perused and praised by Sepulveda, have not yet been given to the press. His first visit to the emperor was paid on the twentyfirst of January, 1557. He spent the night at Xarandilla, and returned home next day. Some weeks before, on the sixth of December, his father-in-law, the marquess of Mirabel, had likewise been graciously received. Early in January, the archbishop of Toledo and the bishop of Plasencia sent excuses for not paying their respects, both prelates pleading the infirm state of their health. The primate was the cardinal Juan Martinez Siliceo, to whom, eleven years before, the emperor had given that splendid mitre, not quite in accordance, it was said, with his own wish, but at the request of his son Philip, whose tutor the fortunate cardinal had been. The bishop of Plasencia was Don Gutierre de Carvajal, a magnificent prelate, who shared the emperor's tastes and gout. was the builder of the fine Gothic chapel attached to the church of St. Andrew at Madrid; and his coat of arms, or, with bend sable, commemorated on wall or portal his various architectural embellishments in all parts of his diocese.1 Charles received the excuses of both prelates with perfect good humour, entreating them not to put themselves to any inconvenience on his account, and remarking to Quixada, that neither of them were persons much to his liking. He P. de Salazar: Chronica de el Card. D. Juan de Tavera, 4to. Toledo: 1603, p. 355. A. Fernandez: Historia de Plasencia, p. 191. |