STIRLING'S CLOISTER LIFE OF CHARLES THE FIFTH. * THE more inquiring

and critical character of the present age bids fair to disenchant history both of its fable and its romance, to the great loss of rhetoricians and rhetorical moralists. The supposed neglect of the Emperor Charles the Fifth during his retirement in the convent of Yuste has furnished a fruitful theme for reflections on the folly of resigning power and the shameless ingratitude of mankind. The story of his attention to mechanics (highly exag- gerated) has produced another well-known story illustrative of the tolerating spirit that was induced in the imperial mind by watch- ing in retirement the movements of watches. It turns out, that beyond an accidental absence of attendants on his first land- ing, and a delay on the part of Philip the Second to communicate his treaty with the Pope, because he feared his father would dis- approve of it, there is no foundation for the tale of neglect. He was consulted on every great occasion, and his opinion followed, as well by the Regent and Ministry of Spain as by his son Philip in Flanders; while, so far from the Emperor being in want of money, he had a strong box which in spite of hints he declined to open for the pressing financial wants of Spain, but directed an appli- cation to be made to churchmen for the needful. For the spirit of philosophical toleration ascribed to him, there are, unhappily, no grounds whatever. He was much more bigoted in the cloister than on the throne. What he regretted was, not that he had per- secuted, but that he had not persecuted more. When the pursuit of heretics broke out in Spain, he urged the Inquisition to greater romptitude than that body displayed, and wrote and spoke with

e virulence of a bigot.

" To the Xing (Philip) in Flanders he wrote in a similar strain, insisting on the necessity of vigour and severity. And as if the letter penned by the secretary were not sufficiently forcible and distinct, he added this postscript in his own hand—' Son, the black business which has risen here has shocked me as much as you can think or suppose. You will see what I have written about it to your sister. It is essential that you write to her yourself, and that you take all the means in your power to cut out the root of the evil with rigour and rude handling. But since you are better disposed and will assist more warmly than I can say or wish, I will not enlarge further there- on. Your good father, Charles.'

" After reading this letter and postscript, Philip wrote on the margin this memorandum of a reply for the guidance of his secretary—' To kiss his hands for what he has already ordered in this business, and to beg that he will carry it on, and [assure him] that the same shall be done here, and [that I will take care] to advise him of what has been done up to the present time.' • a . • • " During the progress of the bunt after heretics, Charles frequently con- versed with his confessor and the prior on the subject which lay so near his heart. So keen was his hatred of the very name of heresy, that be once re-

• The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. By William Stirling, au- thor of " Annals of the Artists of Spain." Published by Parker and Son.

proved Regla [his confessor] for citing, in his presence, in proof of some in- different topic, a passage from a book by one Juan Fero, because that forgot- ten writer was then known to have bean no Catholic. In looking back on the early religious troubles ofhis reign, it was ever his regret that he had

not put Luther to death when he had him in power. He had spared hint, he said, on account of his pledged word ; which, indeed, he would have been bound to respect in any case which concerned his own authority alone ; but he now saw that he had greatly erred in preferring the obligation of a promise to the higher duty of avenging upon that arch-heretic his offences against God. Had Luther • been remove he conceived that the plague might have been stayed, but now it seemed to rage with ever-increasing fury."

Even when he knew he was on his deathbed, the same intole- rant spirit was uppermost. His codicil, executed within a fort- night of his death, contains a charge to Philip, "by his love and allegiance and by his hope of salvation, ' to take care that the he- retics were repressed and chastised with all publicity and rigour, as their faults deserved, without respect of persons, and without regard to any plea in their favour.' " The means by which Mr. Stirling has been able to throw a new light on the closing years of this great monarch have been, in part, a wider examination and a more critical weighing of published. au- thorities. The chief source of his knowledge is a manuscript in the Foreign Office at Paris, to which he obtained access by an order of the President of the Republic, and the assistance of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, which it seems was necessary to get the order obeyed by " the unwilling officials of the archives." This manuscript was com- piled by the late Don Thomas Gonzalez, Keeper of the Royal Ar- chives (of Spain) in the Castle of Simancas : its most valuable portion, as far as related to Mr. Stirling's object, consisted - - - - "almost wholly of original letters, selected from the correspondence carried on between the courts at Valladolid and Bruxelles, and the retired Em- peror and his household, in the years 1556_ 1557, and 1558. The principal writers are Philip the Second, the Infanta Juana, Princess of Brazil and Re- gent of Spain, Juan Vazquez de Molina, secretary of state, Francisco de Eraso, secretary to the King, and Don Garcia de Toledo, tutor to Don Carlos, the Emperor, Luis Quixada, Chamberlain to the Emperor, Martin de Gaztelu, his Secretary, William Van Male, his gentleman of the chamber, and Mathisio and Cornell°, his physicians. The thread of the narrative is supplied by Gonzalez, who has done his part with great judgment, permitting the story to be told as far as possible by the original actors in their own words."

The letters of the Chamberlain Quixada and the Secretary Gaz- telu are very frequent ; and contain minute particulars of the habits, health, and daily doings of the Emperor, as well as of the feelings and opinions of his attendants, most of whom neither liked the place nor the friars. From his own researches and the information of this valuable document Mr. Stirling has composed one of the most agreeable and interesting pieces of historical biography we have met with. The occupations, the opinions, the behaviour, and the amusements of the Emperor, are described with a fulness which brings his life and habits completely before the reader ; the account stopping well short of the over-detail which tires. The landscapes of Ynste and its neighbourhood are described from personal inspection, as well as the present neglected and ruinous condition of the build- ing where one of the greatest of monarchs lived in sought privacy and breathed his last. The accommodations and furniture of the so-called palace, when Charles resided there, are painted chiefly from the business documents and inventories preserved by Gon- zalez. The changes of the weather, the visitations of sickness, and many other traits of the hourly comforts or discomforts which make up the sum of daily life, are presented from the private letters or gossipy official reports of chamberlain, secretary, and physician. Mr. Stirling has varied these domestic details by glimpses of public events, so far as they are necessary to under- stand the questions that engaged the attention of the Emperor. as well as by brief notices of the lives and characters of his at- tendants; all of whom, as may be supposed, were remarkable men. The whole of the book is animated by a lively pleasant manner, relieved by various knowledge illustrative of the subject, derived from extensive reading among authors who have treated of the man and the age.

Nor is the subject itself without an interest, apart from that liberal curiosity which impels us to search into the habits and de- meanour of distinguished men. Pope has ascribed the Emperor's retirement to an "adult complexion." The true cause seems to have been that which Charles himself assigned to the States of Flanders—his growing infirmities, which rendered him unequal to the labours of government. It is satisfactory to think that he enjoyed his retreat, so far as his broken health permitted. The pomps and vanities of sovereignty he had never eared for; of public business quite enough came to him to occupy his mind with its habitual employment ; and though his infirmities prevented any active sports, his natural tastes found amusement in gardening, music, and the arts ; for he carried with him a choice collection of pictures and curiosities, as well as the Italian mechanician Tor- riano. His religion, no doubt, degenerated into a bigotry for which neither his age nor his education can furnish an excuse, any more than they can for Calvin ; since other men in the same circum- stances were not actuated by the same atrocious spirit. His weak- ness was a love of good things, which prevailed over him all his life, and, coupled with his labours of mind and body, undoubtedly shortened his days. , Mr. Stirling thus describes his table.

"In this matter of eating, as in many other habits, the Emperor was him- self a true Fleming. His early tendency to gout was increased by his in- dulgences at table, which generally far exceeded his feeble powers of diges- tion. Roger Ascham, standing 'hard by the imperial table at the feast of Golden Fleece,' watched with wonder the Emperor's progress through 'sod beef, roast mutton, baked hare,' after which he fed well of a capon,' drinking also, says the Fellow of St. John's, the best that ever I saw ; he had his head in the glass five times as long as any of them, and never drank less than a good quart at once of Rhenish wine.' Eating was now the only physical gratification which he could still enjoy, or was unable to resist. He continued, therefore, to dine to the last upon the rich dishes against which his ancient and trusty confessor, Cardinal Loaysa, had protested a quarter of a century before. The supply of his table was a main subject of the corre- spondence between the Mavordomo and the Secretary of State. The weekly courier from Valladolid to 'Lisbon was ordered to change his route, that he might bring, every Thursday, a provision of eels and other rich fish (pescado grueso) for Friday's fast. There was a constant demand for anchovies, tunny, and other potted fish, and sometimes a complaint that the trouts of the country were too small; the olives, on the other hand, were too large, and the Emperor wished instead for olives of Perejon. One day, the Secretary of State was asked for some partridges from Gams, a place from whence the Emperor remembers that the Count of Osorno once sent him into Flanders some of the best partridges in the world. Another- day, sausages were wanted, of the kind which the Queen Juana, now in glory, used to pride herself in making in the Flemish fashion at Tordesillas,' and for the receipt for which the Secretary is referred to the Marquis of Dania. Both orders were punctually executed. The sausages, although sent to a land supreme in that manufacture, gave great satisfaction. Of the partridges, the Em- peror said that they used to be better ; ordering, however, the remainder to be pickled.

"The Emperor's weakness being generally known or soon discovered, dainties of all kinds were sent to him as presents. Mutton, pork, and game were the provisionsmost easily obtained at Xarantlilla ; but they were dear. The bread was indifferent, and nothing was good and abundant but chest- nuts, the staple food of the people. But in a very few days the castle larder wanted for nothing, One day the Count of Oropesa sent an offering of game ; another day a pair of fat calves arrived from the Archbishop of Zaragoza ; the Archbishop of Toledo and the Duchess of Frias were constant and mag- nificent in their gifts of venison, fruit, and preserves ; and supplies of all kinds came at regular intervals from Seville and from Portugal.

"Luis Quixada, who knew the Emperor's habits and constitution well, be- held with dismay these long trains of mules laden, as it were, with gout and bile. He never acknowledged the receipt of the good things from Valladolid without adding some dismal forebodings of consequent mischief; and along with an order he sometimes conveyed a hint that it would be much better if no meaUs were found of executing it. If the Emperor made a hearty meal without being the worse for it, the Mayordomo noted the fact with exulta- tion ; and ho remarked with complacency his Majesty's fondness for plovers, Which he considered harmless. But his office of purveyor was more com- monly exercised under protest ; and he interposed between his master and an eel-pie, as, in other days, he would have thrown himself between the im- perial person and the point of a Moorish lance."

The stoic doctrine that we can call nothing our own of which Fortune can deprive us goes too far, unless its interpretation be narrowed to the popular meaning of the term; since health and sanity itself are dependent upon extrinsic circumstances. In re- verses of fortune, in broken health, and in declining years, we must, depend for relief from vacuity upon those tastes and habits we have cultivated in ourselves. Charles had such. His early education'had been neglected, and he never had time to repair the neglect; but he loved and admired literature, and was fond of eloquence, especially of the pulpit. He also loved music, and was no mean connoisseur.

"Music, ever one of the favourite pleasures of Charles, here also lent its charms to soothe the cares which followed him from the world, and the dys- pepsia from which he Would- not even try to escape. A little organ, of ex- quisite tone, was long kept at the Escorial, with the tradition that it had been the eompanicin of his jounries, and the solace of his evenings when en- camped before Tunis. The order of St. Jerome being desirous to gratify the taste of their guest, the general had reinforced the choir of Yuste with four- teen or fifteen friars, chosen from the different monasteries under his sway, for their fine voices and musical skill. In the management of the choir and organ the Emperor took a lively interest ; and from the window of his bed- room his voice might often be heard to accompany the chant of the friars. His ear never failed to detect a wrong note, and the mouth whence it came ; and he would frequently mention the name of the offender, with the addition of hideputa bermeje? or some other epithet savouring more of the camp than the cloister. A singing-master from Plasencia being one day in the church, ventured to join in the service ; but he had not sung many bars before orders came down from the palace that the interloper should be silenced or turned out. Guerrero, a chapel-master of Seville, having composed and presented to the Emperor a book of masses and motets, one of the former was soon selected for performance at Yuste. When it was ended, the imperial critic remarked to his confessor that Guerrero was a cunning thief; and going over the piece, he pointed out the stolen passages, and named the masters whose works had suffered pillage."

He was likewise an observer of nature, and partial to what Bacon calls "the purest of human pleasures."

"The Emperor gave much of his leisure time and unemployed thought to his garden. He bad ever been a lover of nature, and a oherisher of birds and flowers. In one of his campaigns, the story was told, that a swallow having built her nest and hatched young upon his tent, he would not allow the tent to be struck when the army resumed its march, but left it standing for the sake of the mother and brood. From Tunis he is said to have brought not only the best of his laurels, but the pretty flower called the Indian pink ; sending it from the African shore to his gardens in Spain, whence, in time, it won its way into every cottage-garden in Europe. Yuste was a very paradise for these simple tastes and harmless pleasures. The Em- perOr spent part of the summer in embellishing the ground immediately be- low his windows: be raised a terrace, on which he placed a fountain, and laid out a parterre; and beneath it he formed a second parterre, planted like the first with flowers and orange-trees. Amongst his poultry were some In- dian fowls, sent him by the Bishop of Plasencia. He also caused a couple of fish-ponds to be formed with the water of the adjacent brook, and stored one of them with trout and the other with tench. It was evidently his wish to make himself comfortable in the retreat where he had a reasonable prospect of passing many. years." His death is described with minuteness, day by day ; and is a narrative of deep interest, forming in its peacefulness a striking contrast to that of many kings and conquerors. He was struck by his last illness on the 31st of August 1558, and at once felt it to be fatal. • He lingered to the 20th of September ; surrounded by attached servants, of whom the most devoted perhaps was his cham- berlain. An extract from the journal of the day before his death will illustrate Mr. Stirling's manner and Quixada's feelings. " September 19th.—Mathisio announced that the hot and cold fits con- tinued with great violence, and that his pulse was getting feebler and feebler. Dr. Gaudio had been ill and feverish all yesterday, and was no better to- day. At eight in the evening, Quixada wrote that a servant of the Arch- bishop of Toledo was just conic to say that the Primate might be looked for immediately; but it was now of no consequence when he arrivW, as all hope of the Emperor being able to attend to business was past.tailed to the sick room, the writer laid his pen down, and resumed it in three-quarters of an hour. He wrote thus—' The doctors.say the fever rises and his strength sinks. Ever since noon I have been keeping them from giving him extreme unction. They have been with me again to say it is time ; but I have sent them to feel his pulse once more, and I will not allow the thing to be done until the necessity for it is quite plain. Thrice have they thus tried to bury him, as it were ; and it goes to my very soul to see it.' The course of the pen was once more checked. I had written thus far, when the doctors came and urged me to make haste. We have therefore given his Majesty extreme unction. It seemed to me premature ; but I yielded to the opinion of those who ought to know best. You will understand how I, who have served him thirty-seven years, feel at seeing him thus going. May God take him to heaven ! But I say again, that, to my thinking, the end will not be tonight. God be with him, and with us all! The ceremony is just now over, nine at night, Monday, September 19th? "

The last day is still more minutely painted ; but the close of it must suffice for us. The Emperor's favourite preacher had been holding forth in a consoling and laudatory strain, when Charles interrupted him.

" At last the Emperor interposed, saying, The time is come : bring me the candles and the crucifix. These were cherished relics, which he had long kept in reserve for this supreme hour. The one was a taper from Our Lady's shrine at Montserrat, the other a crucifix, of beautiful workmanship, which had been taken from the dead hand of his wife at Toledo, and which afterwards comforted the last moments of his son at the Escorial. He re- ceived them eagerly from the Archbishop, and taking one in each hand, for some moments he silently contemplated the figure of the Saviour, and then clasped it to his bosom. Those who stood nearest to his bed now heard him say quickly, as if replying to a call, Ya, voy, Senor!' (' Now, Lord, I go?) As his strength failed his fingers relaxed their hold of the crucifix, which the Primate therefore took and held it up before him. A few moments of death-wrestle between soul and body followed ; after which, with his eyes fixed on the cross, and with a voice loud enough to be heard outside the room, he cried, Ay, Jesus !' and expired."