upon that solâ— account had acknowledged her for Heiâ— apparent in the presence of her Father anâ— Mother She had come expresly from Flanders where she was married into Spaiâ— to receive their Oath They had solemâ—ly given it her and nothing could dischargâ— them from it so long as she lived The Oatâ— had been confirmed immediately after thâ— death of Queen Isabella and the right oâ— Queen Jane had been consummated wheâ— she took first with her Husband and sincâ— by her self alone the actual possession oâ— Castile The End of the Third Book BOOK IV. Containing the most memorable Affairs that happened in the Monarchy of Spain during the rest of the Year One Thousand Five Hundred and Sixteen and part of One Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen THE difficulties that I now mentioned were not so insuperable but that Chievres procured the Archduke Charles to be acknowledged King of Castille and Arragon duâ—ing the life of Jean his Mother to whom â—…ese Monarchies belonged and seeing 〈◊〉 nice an affair could not be brought â—…out by ordinary methods Posterity â—erhaps will not take it ill that here I reâ—…te the singular course that was taken 〈◊〉 it The first step was on the side of Maxiâ—…ilian the Emperor to whom Chievres â—aving communicated his design sent â—im word that the greatest Humane â—…ncern his Imperial Majesty had was â—o employ all his Power in the advancement of the Archduke his Grandson and that he ought the more willingly to contribute to it that what was desired of him was only a bare Title That it was to be feared that the Archduke having frequent calls to go from Spain to Italy the Low-Countries and Germany if he were no more but Governour of Castille and Arragon for the Queen his Mother the Spaniards impatient at his too frequent absence might chuse another Governour who might in the sequel take measures for changing his Dignity into that of a Monarch That there were but too many instances of the like attempt in Spain and that the only way to avoid it was to bind by a solemn Oath the Spaniards to the Archduke as soon as possible and to oblige them presently to own him for their King because no Nation in Europe being more jealous of their Reputation than that People and less able to endure to be upbraided with the violation of a publick Oath they would be true to that which they made to the Archduke what occasion soever he might give them by his ordinary removes That in all times it belonged to Emperors to adjust the Titles of other Christian Soveraigns and that it would not be thought strange if his Imperial Majesty made use of that right in relation to the Archduke That in the mean time his example would pass for a Law all over Europe and that other Potentates would not refuse to give the Archduke the Title of King when they saw that the Emperor had done so Maximilian found no inconvenience in the Proposition of Chievres In the Letters of Maximilian the First to his Grandson the Archduke and for direction of the Letter which immediately after he wrote from Vienna to the Archduke the Twentieth of June One Thousand Five Hundred and Sixteen he wrote with his own hand To the Catholick King and in following Letters continued to give him the same Title The rumor of it presently flew all over Europe but other Soveraigns refused to imitate the Emperor because it was not his Court then that the Reputation of Princes issued from or that distributed the Titles of Honour which were due unto them and that many Ages were already past since the Holy See was in Possession of that Prerogative Chievres was sensible of the necessity of that and in the second place addrest himself to Pope Leo X. He knew that his Holiness was extreamly vexed that the French had recovered the Dutchy of Milan the Year before One Thousand Five Hundred and Fifteen and that he sought for an occasion to drive them thence as Julius his Predecessor had done Chievres his Agents thereupon represented to him that the execution of his design depended solely on the greatness of the Archduke and that if that Prince were in possession of the Kingdoms of Castille and Arragon without expecting the death of his Mother he would be in a condition to help the Holy See to purge Italy of the French Whereas if he were necessitated to follow the course of Nature either he would not at all be King of Spain the Infanta his Brother wanting neither Inclination nor Friends to supplant him or it would be so late that the French would in the mean time have more than enough of time so to fortifie themselves in the Milanese that it would be impossible afterward to get them out of it The Reason of Chievres appeared to the Pope so solid that he wrote to the Archduke exhorting him to take the Title of Catholick King and gave it him There remained a third step which Chievres found to be incomparably more difficult than the former two It stood upon the Spaniard's giving the Archduke the Title of King immediately after the Imperial Court and that of Rome because if it had been demanded before of other Courts and that they had refused it the Spaniards who were not very inclinable to grant it would take that pretext for their excuse Neither was it necessary in desiring that favour to give them ground to think that it depended wholly on them because they would have drawn their advantage from that and if once they refused it there was no after attempt to be used and there would have been a necessity to wait till the death of Queen Jean But there are few Cabinet affairs which a Prudence refined by long Experience cannot unravel Chievres drew up a Letter so artificially and got the Archduke to sign it that on the one hand the Archduke intimated of what importance it was for the Spaniards that they should give him the Title of King yet without desiring it or exposing himself to a denial and on the other hand he so put them to it that they could not excuse themselves without putting into compromise the thing in the world that was dearest unto them which was the Glory of their Monarchy He insinuated at first into their minds without abating any thing of his Gravity and then acquainted them that his Grandfather the Emperor and the Pope had represented to him that it was absolutely necessary for the honour of God for the ease of the Catholick Queen in the infirmity wherewith Divine Majesty had thought fit to visit her for the repose of the Monarchies of Castille and Arragon and for preventing the designs of their Enemies that he should presently joyntly with his Mother take the name of King and discharge the duties of it That he had put an extream violence upon himself Amongst the Letters of Charles to the Spaniards in consenting to it and that he had not yielded
received investiture of them that it was not in the power of the Feudatary for any cause or pretext that might be to frustrate his eldest Son or the Male Children of that eldest Son by giving them to his other Children nor to deprive the Paternal Cousins how remote soever of the same in favours of their own Daughters Constant and uninterrupted custom had exactly agreed with these Laws and no instance could be given that they had ever been violated as to that particular in whole or in part It was not so in the Succession which the Archduke expected from the Catholick King and he had more reasons than one to fear that he might be disappointed of it though at first view it appeared to be full as sure as that of the Emperour For in the first place Ferdinand had sufficiently testified his displeasure that his Dominions one day should fall to the House of Austria by omitting nothing that could naturally be done to prevent it He acted not with so much sincerity as the House of Austria in the marriage of his Son (1) John of Arragon Prince of Spain and Daughter (2) Joan of Arragon surnamed the Fool. with the Son (3) Marguerite of Austria and Daughter (4) The Archduke Philip. of the Emperour and whereas Maximilian had given him an only Daughter he had only given to Maximilian for Philip of Austria the second of his four Daughters The Eldest he married in Portugal shewing by so publick a preference that he had rather his Succession should descend upon a Prince whose Grandfather was a Bastard and great Grandmother the Daughter of a Shoomaker Jew than be wanting in circumspection to remove his Son-in-Law the Archduke Philip from the succession to the Crowns of Castile and Arragon His forecast nevertheless was vain and in a very few years the Emperours Sons Wife became Heir apparent of so many Kingdoms Any but the Catholick King would in so sudden a revolution have adored the Order of Divine Providence and wholly submitted to it Nevertheless that Prince opposed it by a longer and more steady obstinacy than that of Jonas in declining to go to Niniveh His Wife was no sooner dead but that he married another in the sole prospect of having a Son by her and because he drew towards fifty years of age and that the disorders of his youth gave him ground at that age to distrust his own vigour he had his recourse to Physick and took Potions that were thought fit to supply that defect In the second place the Catholick King had lusty handsome Bastards and if he preferred them before the Children of his lawful Daughter in succeeding to the Throne he would in that do nothing contrary neither to the Custom of Spain nor the inclination of the Spaniards It was no new thing in that Country the remotest of Europe on the Affrican side to promote Bastards to the Throne in exclusion of lawful Children and Ferdinand himself descended in right Line from Henry the Second who was a Bastard There was besides another instance of that irregularity in his Family For his Uncle Alphonso of Arragon Elder Brother to John of Arragon his Father dying without Children by Testament which in that part was executed frustrated John of Arragon of the Kingdom of Naples and left it to a Bastard whom he had by a Person of quality Educated in that prospect In the third place the Catholick King could not only take from the Archduke Arragon and the Crowns that depended upon it but also he might by the way we shall now treat of hinder him from reigning in Castile and in the Monarchies annexed to it This young Prince drew his Title to Castile from Queen Isabella his Grandmother by the Mothers side and yet that Princess had not inherited it without violence and encroaching upon the most sacred and inviolable Laws of Civil Society Henry the Fourth her Brother King of Castile married the Infanta of Portugal and that Infanta during his marriage with her was brought to bed of a Daughter the most beautiful as they say that ever was born in Spain This Daughter by the Fundamental Laws of the State excluded her Aunt from succeeeding to so many Kingdoms because she was nearest by a degree and represented her Father Nevertheless the Aunt pretended that her Brother was impotent and that the Daughter that was fathered on him was begotten by his Favourite Don Bertram de la Cueva Duke of Albuquerque For that reason or under that pretext she made a great Party and raised a War in Castile But the Party of the Daughter proving the stronger the Aunt had her recourse to Ferdinand and gave her self to him having no other way to engage him to espouse her interest against her Neece Ferdinand having married the Aunt transported all the Forces of Arragon into Castile He overcame them who favoured his Wives Neece and dispossessed her of the Kingdom But was now in a condition to repay the injury which he had done her by recalling her into Castile where he had the Power raising her to the Throne and marrying her to one of his Bastards Upon the Reasons we have been mentioning Chievres made the reflections they deserved He long considered with himself the prejudice that might befal the Archduke by not entertaining an entire correspondence with his maternal Grandfather Nevertheless having put into the balance together the hurt that might redound to that Prince by breaking with France during his minority if he Leagued too strictly with the Catholick King and the injury the Catholick King might do him if he united not so closely with him he found the first alone to weigh far more than all the others put together and by the boldest result of prudence that is to be found in the History of Spain he judged it to be avoided rather than the rest He kept the Archduke in friendship with the French and Germans He thought it enough not to give the Catholick King any cause or pretext to complain of him in particular and in the following Books we shall find that his conduct in that point was as fortunate as it had been judicious The End of the First Book THE HISTORY OF Monsieur De Chievres The Second BOOK CONTAINING The most remarkable Occurrences in the Monarchy of Spain during the years One thousand five hundred and thirteen and One thousand five hundred and fourteen THat we may conceive the motives which induced Chievres to prefer the Paternal Grandfather of Charles of Austria his Pupil before the Maternal and that we may understand the advantages which Charles drew from that preference we must necessarily presuppose that Ferdinand the Catholick King who was the Maternal Grandfather spoken of here bounded not his ambition within Spain after he had entirely driven the Moors from thence by the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada It troubled him to be confined to one of the extemities of Europe without any appearance of
Austria in Germany it would be his own fault if he conquered not the Kingdom of France and that afterward the rest of Europe would make but a weak resistance whereas if the States to which the Archduke ought to succeed were divided and if the Testament of the Catholick King which continued him to the Inheritance of his Father and Paternal Grandfather held good in that particular If the Infanto Ferdinand had Spain and if by that means variance entred into the House of Austria not only the greatness of the Monarchy of Spain would be at a stand but also it would lose all that it held in Italy and in the Neighbourhood It was only then in that prospect and without any respect to the Archduke and his personal qualities that Zapata Carvaial and Vargas declared in his Favours and the advantage he reaped from it is no less singular for the causes of it than it is in it self The three Ministers represented to Ferdinand that seeing his Majesty thought fit that they should continue to speak to him with open heart as they had been wont to do He would still have the goodness to take in good part the liberty they took to tell him that he seemed to have changed his Conduct at the end of his life and by his last Will and Testament condemned his most considerable Actions and which had acquired him greatest Reputation That he had done them the honour to declare when he called them to his Council that his only intention in this World was the enlargement of his Territories and that though he had not expressed himself so plainly yet there needed no more but to study his past life to convince them of it That no Man in Europe was ignorant how Ferdinand the Catholick at the age of fifteen years had espoused the Party of the late Queen Isabella sister to Henry the fourth of Castile against the Infanta Jane the Daughter of that King in no other view but because Isabella by bestowing herself upn him had offered to unite the Crowns of Castile to those of Arragon and that if Jane had been so well advised as to have preferred his Alliance before that of the Prince of Portugal who sought her in Marriage her Party would not have succumbed and she had not past for a Bastard That after the union of Castile and Arragon for adding the Kingdom of Granada to them Division had been sown betwixt him who was King of it and his brother and the more powerful was so weakned by supporting the weaker against him that both at length were oppressed That for an accession also to Arragon by joyning thereto the Kingdom of Naples in the City of Tarento the Prince who carried the name of it and who was the only Son of the King of Naples was Besieged That he had been prevailed with to relie upon the Faith and Truth of the Spaniards whose General the Great Captain had sworn to him upon the Holy Sacrament to leave him in liberty and that notwithstanding he had been detained Prisoner and under a sure Guard sent into Spain where still he remained in Prison That in a word a pretended Bull from the Pope had been made use of for seizing the Kingdom of Navarre and for driving from thence John d' Albert who had Married the Heiress of it In the mean time his Catholick Majesty destroyed his own work by preferring the younger of his Grandsons before the elder and laid an everlasting impediment to the greatness that Spain began to be raised to by kindling betwixt the two Brothers a War which would not end but by the entire ruine of him that should be overcome and such a weakning of the Conqueror that Spain would be so far from expecting new Conquests under him that it would become a Prey to the first who should invade it That since the Spaniards had bestirred and delivered themselves from the Slavery of the Moors they had been oftener subject to Civil Wars than Foreign for no other reason but that the Nobles had been too powerful and more apt to give Laws to their Masters than to receive them from them That they had not behaved themselves more modestly nor reservedly under his Catholick Majesty but because after his Marriage with Queen Isabella the Nobility of Castile were apprehensive of succumbing under the Forces of Arragon which they doubted not but would pour in upon them and that the Nobles of Arragon had had a juster cause to fear their being run down by the Arms of those of Castile That if young Ferdinand were King one of the two would have time during his minority to take measures against him and would retain so little respect for his Person because he was but fourteen years of age and was not so well brought up as his elder brother that they would oblige him at least for some years to leave the publick administration to the Grandees of Castile and the chief of Arragon which would infallibly renew Civil Wars in Spain That if his Catholick Majesty suffering things to go according to their ordinary course called the Archduke to his Succession the Gentlemen of Castile and Arragon would want both a pretext and means of revolting A pretext in that the Archduke at sixteen years of Age was no less able to govern them than the wisest Kings of Spain have been And means seeing their Rebellion would instantly be crushed by the Forces which that Prince would raise in Flanders and Germany and might easily bring into Spain by occasion of the Treaty which he had ratified with the new King of France The Catholick King strangely surprized and nevertheless convinced with this discourse made answer that seeing he could not conveniently leave Castile and Arragon to the Infanto In the last Council given to Ferdinand He must at least resign to him the three great masteries of the Order of St. James Calatrava and Alcantara the Revenue whereof would be sufficient for the subsistence of a Prince of his quality That his Majesty at the same time he resolved to make him his Heir had written to the Court of Rome to have him invested into these three headships of Orders That the Affair had been negotiated first with Julius the second and since with Leo the tenth and that the chief difficulty that those two Popes had found in it proceeded from a Bull granted before by Julius to the Commander Padilla which assured him of succeeding to his Catholick Majesty in the great Mastery of Calatrava provided he outlived him That the Bull of Julius was insignificant since Padilla was dead and that so nothing now hindred the expedition of that which allowed his Majesty the resignation of the three Masteries in favour of the Infanto But the three Counsellors of State being encouraged by the success of their Remonstrances and perswaded that having obtained the chief point his Majesty would not long refuse to grant them what was but accessory replied to the Catholick
he jumps with Chievres wherein the greatness of the Spanish Monarchy is concerned but he is always against him when the Low-Countries have any competition with the Monarchy of Spain Chievres as being a Fleming will have his Country to be the basis of the greatness to which the Archduke Charles aspires and that the others which he is to inherit by the distraction of his Mother and the death of his Grandfathers should only be the accessory Ximenes on the contrary pretends that Spain must always be the centre of the Archdukes Grandeur and the Low-Countries be reduced into bare Provinces Chievres represents to him in vain that they belong not to the Archduke by right of conquest and that if Philip his Father had not possessed them they would not have given him in Marriage the heiress of Spain Ximenes makes no satisfactory reply but he persists in his project and in that considers not that he thereby provokes the Governour of a young Prince who well quickly become his Master It is not easie to determine whether fortune did good or hurt to Doctor Adrian Florent in taking him out of the Colledg of Louvain whereof he was principal to raise him to all the Dignities of the Church not excepting the Papacy He had a Genius for the functions that render men famous in Vniversities but he went no farther and amongst the many employments that he had afterward there was not one that suited with him He had acquired reputation in the Schools and in the Pulpit His Commentary upon the Master of Sentences was admired and certainly if that Book was not the most subtil of the three hundred of the same nature which then were to be found in Libraries it was at least the clearest and most methodical His Harangues for the preservation of the priviledges of Scholars had had better success than he had promised himself and not only the Archduke Philip confirmed them but besides honoured the Vniversity of Louvain by being a member of it It was thereupon imagined that it would be a disgrace to the Flemings to suffer Adrian to continue longer in Louvain and it was not so much to do him justice as to satisfie the publick desire that Chievres took him to be Preceptor to the Archduke Charles He did not discharge his commission ill so long as his business was to instruct his Scholar But when he was sent into Spain to negotiate with the Catholick King he neither answered the expectation of Chievres nor of the Spaniards who took him for the ablest man of his Nation in Cabinet Councils He discovered at first that his Majesty was an irreconcileable enemy to Chievres and from that he concluded that it would do irreparable prejudice to the interests of the Archduke obstinately to defend his Governour how innocent soever he was for that reason alone he declared against Chievres and if he was not powerful enough to supplant him it was not his fault if he was not sent home to his house and the Spaniards intrusted with the supreme direction of the Council of the Low-Countries He shew'd his weakness asmuch after the death of the Catholick King when he had the occasion of making use of the Commission which he brought from Flanders for being Regent of Castile and Arragon in case of that death He suffered himself unseasonably to be prevented by Cardinal Ximenes who gained him by promising him the second place in the Councils of Spain He had indeed that place but he wanted the Authority that ought to have gone along with it He complained sometimes that the Cardinal consulted with him only about matters of small importance and that he dispatched the rest without him But that was all he did and thought not that he ought to fall out with him about the matter For that he had the Bishoprick of Tortosa and it was left to men to judg whether or not that was a recompence proportionable to the power that he was deprived of Death quickly rid him of Ximenes as it protected Ximenes from the Catholick King and he was afterward so happy that he ingenuously confessed he could not comprehend his own happiness Leo the Tenth made him a Cardinal in prospect only of gratifying Charles the Fifth and the Conclave having spent several Months without coming to agreement about the person who should succeed to Leo in spight chose him Pope whence it came to pass that the people of Rome loaded the Cardinals with reproaches as they came out and threw stones at them Till then the quality of common Father had been so respected that the Popes who had lived least exemplarily laid it not altogether aside and made a fair shew at least Adrian neglected it at first and when he went from Spain to go take possession of St. Peter's Chair he carried with him into Lumbardy the six thousand Soldiers who two years after took Francis the first before Pavia Instead of keeping the Balance even He took a side that he might rather cast it and if his Pontificate which lasted but two and twenty Months had been of longer duration it would have raised a schism in the Church more dangerous than that of Urban the Sixth and Clement the Seventh John Manuel was in reality the Politician of his age most crost by fortune but by his ability and patience he forced her at length to be favourable His extraction was low but his way of writing wonderfully well and yet very fast was the reason that when he was very young he was chosen under-Secretary of the Council of State of Castile He was not full eighteen years old when he grew weary of his Employment though at first he thought himself most happy in obtaining it He considered that the three chief Ministers of Spain Zapata Carvaial and Vargas were not much promoted and that the richest of them had not a thousand Crowns a year though they had long served the Catholick Kings Ferdinand and Isabelle with all imaginable zeal and that they had facilitated to them the conquest of the Kingdoms of Granada and Naples That was not a reward proportionable to the greatness of their services and the truth is it cannot be denied but that the Catholick Kings were too great Husbands in that particular if it be not pretended for their excuse that the Revenues of Castile and Arragon were not sufficient to gratifie the tenth part of their most faithful servants Manuel who saw nothing but Crowns above his ambition was satisfied to continue under-Secretary of State during the life of Queen Isabelle his Soveraign but he carried his desires higher when the Archduke Philip of Austria and Jane of Arragon his Wife went to Spain to get themselves declared apparent heirs of Castile Manuel was perswaded that that young Prince loved an easie life too well to trouble himself with the weight of affairs and that if he insinuated himself into his favour before all other Spaniards he might govern him at his pleasure and obtain
from him whatever he should desire He was the first Spaniard that made his court to him and won so much upon him that none afterward could equal him in favour The Archduke upon his return into the Low-Countries took him not along with him and had no cause to repent of it seeing he served him incomparably better in Castile than he could have done in Flanders He was his spie during the sickness of Isabelle and discovered or at least thought so that the Testament attributed to that Queen was forged He gave the Archduke private notice of it supplied him with means to prove the forgery encouraged him to make haste back again into Spain and promised to gain him a great party among the Grandees What he wrote was not very probable and it was rationally to be presumed that the Catholick King would take the start of his Son-in-law and make sure of the Nobility of Castile before the Archduke could be in a condition to sollicite them to own him Nevertheless there was greater deference had to Manuel than he deserved The Archduke at his bare sollicitation set forth on his journey and extraordinary good luck covered the fault which he committed so very well that it was scarcely perceived He found that Manuel had acquired him the friendship of all the Grandees except the Dukes of Alva and Medina Sidonia who more for shame than affection would not abandon the Catholick King. The party was too unequal and maugre the opposition of those two Dukes the Archduke was declared King. The efforts of the Catholick King for maintaining the pretended Testament were too weak and he himself admired the inconstancy of human affairs when he saw his whole Court reduced to fifty persons It seemed at that time that Manuel's head turned round so pleased he was to insult over a Prince who had been so long his Master He thought it not enough to draw up the Articles which his Majesty was forced to sign but it 's said he also joyfully beheld him when mounted on a Mule without other Equipage he went to wait on his Son-in-law The reign of the Archduke was so short that nothing fell during it which Manuel thought worth the accepting but the Government of Burgos He obtained it and it was at the feast which he made for his Master to thank him therefore that that Prince as they say had the poyson given him of which he died There were some contemplative heads that thought it was given rather to put a stop to the prosperity of Manuel than to make away the new King Philip. Certainly the revolution was compleat and Manuel all of a sudden fell from the height of favour into the greatest abjection He supposed that the Catholick King would be revenged on him upon the same ground that he would have continued to persecute the Catholick King if the life of Philip had been longer and he Embarked for Flanders before he was apprehended The Archduke Charles and Chievres received him very well and it was none of his fault but that the Emperor Maximilian had deprived the Catholick King of the administration of Castile But the Emperour could not set out a Fleet to transport him into Spain and the Catholick King having setled his Authority wrote to the Archduke his Grandson and to Chievres that he would disinherit the former and ruin the latter if they did not punish Manuel That was a terrible threatning and he that made it was not of a humour to be appeased nor patiently to take a denial But on the other hand Manuel had obliged Philip who having been Father to the Archduke and Benefactor to Chievres required that there should be more consideration had for a Minister whom he had cherished than for the Catholick King that hated him The Expedient which Chievres found out to avoid those two Rocks was to put Manuel into prison during the life of the Catholick King with this qualification that he should have all the satisfaction that he could desire except his liberty He proposed to himself also besides to secure the person of Manuel who would have run the risk of being stab'd even though he had been environed with Guards But Politicians are nicer than other men in the offences which they pretend to have received Manuel who reasoned so quaintly about matters of State never thought of the motives which induced Chievres to do him a little hurt to preserve him from a greater mischief He conceived as great an aversion to him as he had entertained kindness for him before and was not at all moved at the pains which Chievres took to come in person and set him at liberty so soon as the Courier who brought the news of the death of the Catholick King was arrived at Bruxelles Chievres had not afterward a greater enemy than Manuel and the good offices he did him exasperated rather than sostened him The Archduke who could not be without either of them kept Chievres at Court and sent Manuel into Italy where he succeeded in two most difficult Intrigues The business was not only to perswade the Pope and Venetians to take from the Most Christian King Francis the First the Dutchy of Milan which he had recovered and to send the French beyond the Alpes but also to make them consent that the Spaniards who already possessed the Kingdom of Naples should also conquer that Dutchy that so they might enjoy two Thirds of Italy and that keeping it inclosed within the two extremities they might wait for an occasion of subjecting the rest There was no appearance that the Consistory and the Pregady would endure that so disadvantageous a proposal shall be made unto them but the industry of Manuel supplied the seeming impossibility of success He got a wonderful ascendant over the mind of Leo the Tenth and concluded with him in the year One thousand five hundred twenty and one the famous Treaty which gained the Spaniards the Territories which they still possess in Lumbardie His Eloquence had no less effect upon the Venetians and by two such brave Negotiations he ended his days THE Arguments Of the Several BOOKS Of the First BOOK THE Archduke Philip being resolved to go to Spain to take possession of the Kingdoms fallen to his Wife chose Chievres to govern the Low-Countries who fully answered the good opinion that he had of him The disposition of Charles of Austria Eldest Son of the Archduke is left by Will to Louis the Twelfth King of France for reasons which could neither be more just nor more urgent and Louis in that particular gives a mark of moderation which hath but one example in Antiquity in the person of Ildegerge King of Persia He nominates Chievres for Governour to the young Prince without any regard to the prejudice which it did to the French Monarchy Chievres discharges himself of his Commission by instructing his Pupil in his true interests and by obliging him to exercise of himself the chief functions of Soveraignty
He endeavours in conjunction with Gouffier Governour to the Count of Angouleme to root out of the hearts of their two Pupils the seeds of aversion which the Marriage of the Count with the Heiress of Bretagne who was promised to Charles had sow'd there and in the extreme difficulty that presented of remaining united with the Emperour or Catholick King Chievres wisely prefers the German before the Spaniard Of the Second BOOK Chievres takes all necessary measures for governing in the Low-Countries during the absence of the Archduke Philip of Austria who was gone to Spain to take possession of the Kingdoms of Castile fallen to his Wife But the Archduke dies not long after he had been Crowned King and Chievres is by the King of France made Governour of the Archduke Charles Eldest Son to Philip. He labours but in vain to hinder his Maternal Grandfather from the administration of Castile He endeavours to have it given to Maximilian the Paternal Grandfather of that Prince But Louis the Twelfth opposes it contrary to his own interests and thereby augments the power of his most dangerous enemy Manuel Secretary to Philip is persecuted by Ferdinand the Catholick King because he had too well served his Son-in-law Manuel withdraws to Flanders and Chievres receives him well in hopes that he 'll hinder Ferdinand from disposing of Castile at his pleasure But Ferdinand sets so many Engines at work that at length Chievres is forced to abandon the protection of Manuel and even to commit him to prison where he continues during the life of Ferdinand Cardinal Ximenes is no better treated for his having remained Neuter betwixt the Father-in-Law and Son-in-law Ferdinand resolves to take from him the Archbishoprick of Toledo and the Cardinal hath his recourse to Chievres who makes the Archduke his Pupil interpose He offers Ximenes a retreat in the Low-Countries and Ferdinand is so much afraid of it that he lets the Cardinal alone Of the Third BOOK FErdinand sets the Governour and Tutor of his Grandson against one another He perswades Dean Adrian that he will frustrate the Archduke of the Monarchies of Spain if Chievres be not deposed and the Dean possessed with the fear of that signs a Treaty whereby he engages himself to bring Chievres into disgrace But Chievres is informed of it and guards himself equally both against the Catholick King and the Dean He negotiates with the French a Treaty at Noyon and gives it so cunning a cast that he turns the accessory into the principal and the principal into the accessory He thereby secures to the Archduke the Succession of Spain and Ferdinand is so vexed at it that he joines with England for undoing him But in that particular the Archduke has no more regard to the offices of the King of England than to the exhortations of his Maternal Grandfather and Chievres remains in greater favour with him than before This puts Ferdinand out of all patience A dangerous design is formed against the life of Chievres He hath notice of it He acquaints the Archduke with the same and at the same time advises him most prudently to keep the thing secret The event made appear that the Council was good and Ferdinand at his death puts not in execution the design which he had formed of disinheriting the Archduke Of the Fourth BOOK CHievres being informed of the death of King Ferdinand resolved to have his Pupil declared King of Castile and Arragon during the life of the Queen his Mother and begins so difficult an Intrigue by obliging first the Emperour Maximilian and then the Court of Rome to give him the title of King. He writes immediately after to Cardinal Ximenes to assemble the States of the two Monarchies and there to cause the Archduke to be declared King jointly with the Catholick Queen Ximenes finds many more difficulties in it than he imagined but at length he overcomes them partly by policy and partly by his haughty way of acting There remains no more then but to take possession of the two Monarchies and the Archduke could not go thither without being in agreement with France He mediates a negotiation in the Town of Noyon where the Governour of Francis the first and of the Archduke in quality of Plenipotentiaries labour to unite their Pupils Gouffier Plenipotentiary of France acts sincerely but his candour succeeds not with him and Chievres signs a Treaty with him ambiguous enough to give the Archduke pretext of waving the execution of it when he might have a mind Francis provoked that his Governour had been over-reached favours the arming of John d' albert for the recovery of Navarre but the imprudence of that dispossest King makes him lose the occasion of re-establishing himself His forces having been unseasonably divided are cut in pieces and he loses his hopes of remounting the Throne by losing his life Chievres is moved at the oppression of the Indians whom the Spaniards forced to dig in the Mines He offers to perswade them to employ Negro-slaves in that toilsom labour but Cardinal Ximenes opposes it upon interest of State and the matter continues in suspence Of the Fifth BOOK XImenes having obliged the Catholick King to share with him his power in Castile enjoys not long the advantage of his Politicks The Grandees support him with so much the less patience that he continued to carry towards them with extraordinary haughtiness and not being able to dispatch him by open force they have recourse to artifice They give him a slow poyson and he takes it a minutes time before he who came to warn him of it arrived He takes Antidotes which do not serve his turn but only prolong his life for some Months For all he saw himself so near his end yet he undertook one of the boldest of all his actions by removing from the Infanto all his servants only one excepted The matter was carried on without tumult and the Catholick King arrives fortunately in Spain The Courtiers of his Majesty of whom Chievres was the most considerable resolve to acquire and preserve the friendship of Ximenes but his sternness makes it impossible for them He persists obstinately in solliciting the King his Master to exclude them all out of the Council of Spain and by that means obliges them to unite for procuring his disgrace They obtain it of the Catholick King and the news that the Cardinal received of it affects him so sensibly that a few hours after he expires After his death the weight of affairs lyes upon Chievres who discharges himself of his trust to a wonder in two occasions the one by all means to get the Infanto Ferdinand removed out of Spain and sent into Germany and the other in disposing the Emperour Maximilian who would have yielded the Empire to the Infanto to change his design and chuse the Catholick King for his Successor Of the Sixth BOOK THE greatest part of Spain conspire together for the disgrace of Chievres and this great man is
appearance it would be long before the rest could be recovered The Venetians were too wise to engage in the mean time in any other Affair and if they were constrained to espouse a new Party it would rather be against France which had in one day stripped them of all that in the space of three hundred years they had acquired by extraordinary prudence conduct and charge than against Spain which rested satisfied with the recovery of the maritime places of Apullia and Calabria without repaying the vast Sums lent by the Republick to the last King of Naples for which they were morgaged There was but one King for the three Kingdoms of the North Sweden Denmark and Norway and that Prince was Christiern the Second of the House of Oldenbourg His Father and Grandfather had laid up vast Treasures for him he had for Allies most of the Princes and Hausiatick Towns of Germany He had a great deal of Authority in several Circles and especially in that of the Lower Saxony and if Charles needed not his sollicitation for obtaining one day the Empire yet it was of extreme importance to him that he should not thwart it because he was sure he could never be chosen so long as he was against him That was the reason why Chievres advised him to design one of his Sisters for a Wife to that Prince and the Alliance was the more easie to be concluded at that time because the barbarous numour of Christiern which made him lose his Kingdoms and die in a Prison was not as yet known Both Parties were equally persuaded that they would find their advantage in it because the King of Denmark who had had Territories in Germany proposed to himself not only to preserve â—ut also to enlarge them if the eldest Son of his House died without male Issue by marrying the Emperours Grand-daughter and the House of Austria also raised the Authority which it had in Germany considerably by disposing all the North to second the Emperour in the Pretensions which he already had of rendering the Empire Hereditary in his Family Vladislaus King of Hungary was also King of Bohemia and Charles was told 〈◊〉 his Governour that he was the most â—…oper Prince of all to turn and manage the Germans provided there were as much Art employed to appease him as there had been imprudence committed in offending him To make this secret of State the more obvious to Charles Chievres informed him that the Kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia were no less Elective than the Empire and that the House of Austria during the space of fourscore years had been thinking of appropriating them for two reasons first because they bordered upon the ten Hereditary Provinces and could defend and cover them and secondly if that the fundamental Laws of those two Crowns were changed without the raising of any tumult and effusion of bloud the Germans would insensibly be accustomend to the form of Government that might be introduced into their Circles and would not think it strange that their Aristocracy turned into an absolute Monarchy There is no mounting up to the Thrones of Monarchies who chuse their Masters by Plurality of Voices but by Parties and Factions and theâ— House of Austria had formed two soâ— powerful Factions in the Kingdoms oâ— Hungary and Bohemia that there was no ground to fâ—ar but when they came to be vacant it would obtain them Nevertheless the success did not fully answer so quaint a project and though the measures of the House of Austria had been long before concerted and laid down with all possible circumspection yet were they not the Juster for that Mathias Corvinus the Son of the famous Jogn Huniades the terrour of the Turks stood in competition for these Crowns and would not be diverted from his Pretentions neither by the most advantageous Offers nor most terrible Menaces He had nothing to pretend for himself but the high reputation and merit of his Father but that merit and reputation were so well setled that they were sufficient to gain the greater and sounder part of the Estates of Hungary and Bohemia The Faction of the House of Austria was constrained to submit and Maâ—hias was so fortunate that the House of Austria afterward desired an accommodation with him That House waited for another opportunity of competition and promised it self a more favourable issue Nevertheless it was as far out in the second â—s in the first conjecture It had Vlaâ—islaus for Competitor and if that Prince â—ame short of that which caused the Election of Mathias he had in lieu thereof â—ersonal Charms which Nature had deâ—…ied to all those of the House of Austria He had no fine nor piercing Wit and it was not for that that those who were more â—…genious than he esteemed him They admired in Vladislaus an open free sweet and condescending temper which won upon hearts for this reason alone that there was nothing extraordinary in him and that every one found in him something suitable to his own humour All the qualities which were found in him might prove advantageous to those who should chuse him for their King and he seemed to have none that they needed to be afraid of They were assured before-hand that he would not of himself alter any of the Laws which he found established and that if they expected any new Law to be made by him he must be entreated to do it So that the sollicitations of the House of Austria hindered him not from being recognized King of Hungary and Bohemia and put into the possession of the two Crowns but the Factions that are formed in Elective States cause always unexpected revolutions when care has not been taken to stiâ—le them so soon as they begin to appear The Party of the House of Austria in Hungary and Bohemia was grown so strong during the Reign of Mathias what pains soever that great Prince had taken to break it and the great men of the higher Nobility of the two Kingdoms who were engaged therein were so strongly possessed with the Maxims of the House of Austria contrary to the peace of the Publick which were fortified by the setled pensions that they duly received from thence that the Austrians hardly met with any opposition when they endeavoured to Arm them against their own Country They yielded to the first instance that was made to them for that effect and gave a new precedent in Politicks That no men are sooner persuaded to disturb the Peace of their own Country than they who are most concerned to maintain it They took the Field with flying Colours marched to joyn the Forces which the House of Austria kept in readiness upon the Frontiers to second their revolt they joyned them joyned them abandoned Hungary and Bohemia to their Pillage and surprising Vladislaus unprovided reduced him to such extremity that he was constrained to make a * In the Treaties betwixt Hungary and Austria Treaty with the Emperour Maximilian the First bearing
was punctually informed of all and seeing her Son was under age and that she expected to be Regent if at that time he had hapned to be King she thought she might lawfully anticipate the function in a Juncture that could not be more important All the Courtiers who were of the humour to prefer the rising Sun before the setting were her friends and amongst these was the Mareschal de * Rene of Rohan Gie. Gie was a compleat Courtier and the Favourite of two successive Kings Charles the Eighth and Louis the Twelfth which was rare and without losing the good opinion which the Publick conceived of his probity during his twofold favour which is rarer still He was a great lover of his Country and if heretofore he was the cause that the French at the Battel of Fornona did not cut in pieces all the Italian Forces who attempted to hinder their passage it was because he thought the Conquerours could not gain so much by far in obtaining a total Victory as they might lose in the sequel of the fight by reason of the person of Charles the Eighth who was too deeply engaged in the Conflict He knew that the Queen designed her Daughter for the Archduke and was sensible of what consequence it would be for the Kingdom to frustrate the accomplishment of it So the Countess had no sooner given him notice that Madam was embarked and sollicited him to stop her as she passed through his Government of Anjou but that he consented to it though he foresaw the troublesom consequences of so bold an enterprise in their full extent He omitted nothing that might sweeten the bitterness of it His respects were most profound in diverting Madam from prosecuting her Journey He used her and those of her retinue with extraordinary civility he contracted debts to defray her charges with greater Magnificence which afterwards encumbred his Estate but to be short if he served the Countess in what she most desired he provoked the Queen in the point she was most sensible in and rendered her irreconcilable to him Her Majesty took it so ill that a Breton born her Subject and descended of a Family so often allied to the House of Dreux should dare to oppose what she most ardently desired that at the very instant she swore she would be his ruine and endeavoured to be as good as her word upon the first occasion that offered The King contrary to all expectation recovered and by incessant importunities she forced that good Prince to abandon his Favourite Gie was brought to a trial In the Memoires of Bretagne and it appears in the Papers of the Chamber of accounts of Bretagne that the Queen laid out 35000 Livers for carrying on his Process which at that time was a vast Sum in the mean time she had but half of her revenge and the Mareshal was only sentenced to be banished and to end his days in the lovely House of Verger seated in the same Province of Anjou where he had the unhappiness to displease the Queen The Countess nevertheless obtained her ends seeing the chief Persons of the Kingdom being assembled by the King's permission presented to his Majesty a most humble and judicious Petition They earnestly begg'd of him to grant his loyal Subjects the favour which they most ardently and with great Justice desired which was the marriage of Madam his Daughter with the Count of Angoulesm to the end that that Princess being one day to inherit in full the Dutchy of Bretagne and her younger Sister having no claim but to a very little share in the other Estates of her Mother which might be valued at a Sum of Mony the whole Province might be so incorporated with the French Monarchy that for the future it could not be dismembred from it though the most Christian Kings should leave none but Daughters The Juncture was favourable seeing the French demanded nothing of Louis the Twelfth but what he could honestly and with a good conscience grant The Emperour and Catholick King were the first that had violated the Treaty which promised Madam to their Grandson and their prevarication in that point was so evident that all the Potentates of Europe were convinced of it So his most Christian Majesty being discharged of his Oaths listened to the Address with his accustomed goodness and pass'd his word that Madam should marry the Count of Angoulesm and that the Marriage should be consummated so soon as she was of age The Queen who could neither break nor defer a resolution which was so odious to her promised her self to frustrate the accomplishment of it and they who knew how easily the King had sacrificed to her his Favourite thought that she proposed nothing in that beyond her power but the Countesses good fortune levelled that difficulty when at Court it seemed to be insuperable The Queen who in all appearance and according to all the Rules of Physick was like to out-live the King and to hold out to an extreme old age nevertheless died before him at the age of thirty seven years The Countess found no more opposition to her designs at Court The Friends of the Queen courted her favour and she was presented with what fitted her best of the Furniture and Rarities of the House of Bretagne Her Son married Madam and that Princess entertained as great an affection for her Husband as possible could be though like that of most part of other women it bordered not upon Jealousie Most of the particulars we have now related hapned before Chievres was Governour to Charles and those who before him were about that young Prince failed not to represent to him upon all occasions according to the Orders they had received from his two Grandfathers that the Count of Angoulesm in taking his Wife from him had done him an irreparable injury That it was an affront not to be suffered without infamy nor revenged but by the bloud of him that had given it That the truth was the Count was at that time below the anger of the Archduke being but as yet a private person but that he would not be always so and that the Monarchy of France look'd upon him as Heir apparent That when once he was King he ought to call him to an account by the way of Arms which was the only course Sovereigns had when they intended to reduce Persons of their own quality to reason and that in the mean time it would be a disgrace to the Archduke to entertain any communication with him That he ought not to propose to himself the Example of Maximilian his Grandfather who shewed no resentment but in word when King Charles the Eighth robbed him of his Wife Anne of Bretagne for it was not for want of courage that Maximilian suffered it but out of an absolute impossibility of revenging himself in that he was under the power of a Father when the injury was done to him That the Emperour Frederick the Third his
Father one of the most husbanding Princes that ever was refused to furnish him with Money and Forces for that purpose and that the Flemings his Sons Subjects would not engage in the quarrel of a Prince whom they look'd upon as a stranger since his Wife was dead and that he was no more but the Father of their Sovereign That after the death of Frederick when Maximilian had succeeded the occasion of revenge was lost by the Apoplexy which carried Charles out of the world at the age of twenty eight years but that the case was not alike neither in regard of the Archduke nor in regard of the Count of Angoulesm Towards the end of Philip de Comines That the Archduke was already Master of the Low Countries That his Subjects had so great a love for him that they would spend part of their Estates and their bloud in the quarrel That he would not want neither Spanish Gold nor German Soldiers and that in short the Count was of too strong a constitution to give any ground to fear that he would die before the Archduke had had the satisfaction he desired of him These discourses suiting with the revengeful humour of Charles and reiterated to him in an Age wherein the strong impressions that then are made commonly last as long as life had produced their effect and so animated the Archduke against the Count that he was impatient not to be in a condition of entering the Lists against his Adversary when Crievres foresaw the troublesom consequences that an enmity cultivated with so much care might have and thought it necessary to remedy it betimes though he made no doubt but that the Emperour and Catholick King would take it ill at his hands and prove his enemies if he succeeded in it He had formerly been acquainted in the Wars of Italy with Artas de Goussier Lord of Boisly Governour to the Count of Angoulesm and reckoned him the fittest man of the Kingdom for the Commission that was given him He was persuaded of his great integrity and promised himself from that to be seconded in the design of contracting a Friendship betwixt the Archduke and the Count which might procure to both a long repose and preserve to the Flemings and French the peace which they enjoyed He sollicited him to this by ways that are not known but it is to be believed that it was done without engaging the Archdukes honour and so prudently that neither the Count nor his Governour might draw any advantage from it in case the accommodation had not succeded Goussier on his part contributed thereto all that could be desired and laboured much to blot out of the Count's mind the dangerous impressions of the Archduke which were stamp'd in it as if he had been his most formidable enemy whilst Chievres on the other side acted efficaciously with the Archduke in convincing him by strong reasons that the injuries of Princes were not to be measured by the Standard of private persons and that he neither could nor ought to take it ill if the Count had done to him what he would have done to the Count if he had been in his place When the resentment was stifled on the one hand and diffidence removed on the other the two Governours sought an occasion to settle a commerce by Letters betwixt their two Princes which might entertain and encrease their good intelligence and took the first favourable opportunity that offered Mere chance brought it so about that it was on the Archdukes side and that he needed the offices of the Count in an affair of importance Henry Count of Nassau who possessed in the Provinces of Flanders Brabant Holland and Zealand fair remains of vast Estates which those of his Family had purchased there had so far insinuated himself into the favours of the Archduke that he would have been his Favourite if that Prince had been of an humour to have any and that to caution himself against that he had not taken the same measures almost which chast men commonly make use of to fortifie themselves against the lovely eyes of a Lady whom they are afraid to be smitten with he studied and played with his Master and Chievres was so far from opposing that he contributed to it because making it his business to place about the Archduke young Lords who might not corrupt the good seeds that he endeavoured to plant in him he thought Nassau not only one according to his mind but that also he might be useful in confirming the Archduke in the exercises of virtue by â—…ring him up by his example to the pracâ—… of it It was at that time the custom of the Low Countries to marry the eldest Sonâ— of Noble Families very young and Nassauâ— relations courted for him Elizabeth of Chalon Sister to the Prince of Aurange The Alliance was sutable and could not cause any umbrage for besides that the Families of France and of the Low Countries had full liberty to marry one with another without displeasing their Sovereigns if the House of Chalon had a great Estate in the Dutchy of Burgundy it had more in the French County and upon that account passed rather for a Flemish than French Family All the difficulty lay in the obtaining of the consent of the King Louis the Twelfth without which the Father of Elizabeth had discharged her to be given in marriage and there was but little probability that his Majesty would give it in favours of Nassau seeing it was contrary to the reason of State. Prince Philibert of Chalon the Brother of Elizabeth was the only Male of his Family He gave no promises of a long life in his youth though afterward be became very strong and Politicians looked upon his Sister already as the richest Heiress in Europe If Nassau married her he was a person powerfully setled in the Low Countries who would not change his Master though the Succession of Aurange should fall to his Wife and would spend in the Archdukes service the Revenue of the fair Estate of the House of Chalon in France whereas if the King gave to Elizabeth a French Husband the Estate would not go out of the Kingdom as neither to the rents nor property and the Husband would employ them in the service of his Majesty There needed then a strong recommendation to the King to prevail with him and Chievres advised Nassau to pray the Archduke that in this prospect he would employ the interest of the Count of Angoulesm with the King his Father-in-law The Archduke wrote obligingly to the Count about it and that Prince prepared by Goussier answered the Archduke in the same stile And seeing he already gloried in a generosity too high for the Age he lived in he granted more than was demanded of him and surmounted an obstacle which Nassau had not foreseen He thought it not enough to have obtained his Majesties consent but further won the Prince of Aurange in favours of Nassau who had and always
in a very short time it could not admit of a third because the impression that they must have made upon the body and the extreme violence that the same body must have been put to in supporting of them would have exhausted so many spirits that there could not remain enough for a fresh application of so large an extent In a word that Prince made a farther reflection that if the functions of the Soul were weakened in three violent exercises of the same force they would be much more weakened when these exercises were not only different but also contrary because then the distance would be greater and the obstacles more difficult to be surmounted From these three Principles Ferdinand concluded that to prevent Queen Isabella from expiring upon the news of her Sons death she must first be put into an extreme grief upon a false ground that then she must be carried from the extremity of sadness to that of joy by setting before her sight what she bewailed as lost and giving her by that means the speediest and most agreeable consolation that she could be capable of that lastly the person that was dearest to her next to her Son should come and tell her that God had removed him and should sweeten the bitterness of the tidings by so many reasons and examples that the grief occasioned thereby might produce no extraordinary effects So the Catholick King having taken such just measures that his Wife could not be informed of the death of her Son but from him caused some persons of credit to go and tell her that the King her Husband was dead of a sudden death She believed it the more easily that he had almost all the symptoms of those that are subject to that kind of death She was as deeply afflicted as she ought to be and in that condition she was let alone about an hour Her first transports of sorrow were hardly over when Ferdinand whom she expected to see no more appeared in her sight She was thereupon so ravished with joy that she could neither think of complaining of the trick that was put upon her nor of quarrelling those that had imposed it Her Husband let her alone in this fit of Joy almost as long as she had been in grief and then with very elaborate mollifying expressions told her that their Son was gone She was indeed moved at it but not so much as if it had been done in another manner and some days after she found her mind so much at ease again as to apply her self to Affairs of State. The most important Affair was to prevent the Successions of Castile and Arragon from devolving upon a foreign Family and not a Spanish and seeing their Catholick Majesties could not compass this design after the death of their only Son but by marrying again their eldest Daughter in Portugal they intimated to Manuel who had newly mounted the Throne of that Kingdom that if he sought her in marriage he should have her Manuel was too ambitious to refuse the Match that was offered him and seeing at that time he had a design of conquering the Indies and that he foresaw the advantage that the Alliance of the Catholick Kings would afford him in the execution thereof in the sole prospect of hastening his Marriage he neglected the usual Ceremonies in the Alliances of Kings He demanded no security for his going into Castile but appeared at the Court of the Catholick Kings sooner than he was expected and there married the Infanta Isabella to the extraordinary joy of the Spaniards passionate for the greatness of their Country who thereby saw all their Monarchies except that of Navarre united into one The new married Princes were acknowledged for Heirs apparent of * In Caramnel Castile and presumptive of Arragon and Ferdinand was so afraid lest the House of Austria into which his second Daughter was married might pretend any share in the Succession that he obliged the Queen his Wife forthwith to assemble the Estates of Castile in the City of Toledo where the Queen of Portugal received the Oath of all the Deputies Immediatly after he called the Estates of Arragon at Sarragossa where the same Ceremony was performed The joy of the People was redoubled by the Queen of Portugals being with Child which appeared before they were dismissed The Catholick Kings were afraid that some inconvenience might befal her if she accompanied the King her Husband who was upon his return into Portugal and would not suffer her to depart from Sarragossa before she was brought to bed They chose rather to stay there with her and divert her in expectation that she should give them an Heir and in the mean time the Castilian and Portuguese Nations conquered the Antipathy that had continued betwixt them for so many Ages and promiscuously spent their time at play Dancing Turnaments and running at the Ring The hopes that seemed almost certain of their being one day united contributed much to it but there have been few of such Festivals wherein the conclusion answered the beginning The Queen of Portugal had had no Children by the Infanto Alphonso her first Husband She was already twenty eight years of age when she was first with Child Physicians affirm that on such occasions the pains of Labour encrease proportionably as the woman who is brought to bed the first time is advanced in age and these three reasons with a fourth which modesty obliges me to suppress were the cause that her Portuguese Majesty could not be a Mother but at the cost of her life She was brought to bed in due time and of a Son but she died of it and all the hopes of the Catholick Kings were confined to their Grandson who was Christened by the name of Michael His Grandfather and Grandmother caused him to be acknowledged by the Estates of Castile and Arragon but he was so sickly that the Spaniards began to look upon the Archdutchess of the Low Countries and Philip of Austria her Husband as the Heirs apparent of their Monarchy The Catholick Queen was so persuaded of it when she was informed that the Archdutchess was on the four and twentieth of February One thousand five hundred brought to bed of a Son who was afterward the Archduke Charles to whom Chievres was Governour that by a spirit of Prophesie she applied upon the spot these words of the Acts of the Apostles The lot fell upon Matthias alluding to the Saint whose Feast was that day celebrated in the Church to signifie that the Child was born in so favourable a Juncture that he would succeed to her Crowns as well as to those of her Husband The event soon followed the Prediction and Charles was not as yet compleat five months old when the Infanto Michael died the twentieth of July the same year at the age of two years The regrate of the Catholick Kings therefore was not equal though on both sides it was great because Queen Isabella seeing an absolute
in that disposition contributed not a little as they say to keep him in it being assured to render himself necessary to his Master so long as it lasted There was no more Commerce betwixt the Father and Son in law but what could not civilly be discontinued and the Archduke to make a closer Union with the most Christian King against his Catholick Majesty made three agreements for the marriage of his eldest Son with Claude of France eldest Daughter to his Majesty But the Alliances which are most securely contracted in writing are not those which most frequently succeed best The death of Queen Isabella which happened the seventeenth of November One thousand five hundred and four was the cause or pretext that the three Contracts of marriage were not fulfilled and Ferdinand for all he was so politick a Prince could not ward a blow that was so disadvantageous to him and so favourable to his Son-in-law * In the Testament of Queen Isabella There was indeed a Testament of Queen Isabella found which ordained that the King her Husband during life should have the administration and Revenues of Castile but the Testament was no sooner examined than the Courtiers and Lawyers agreed in suspecting it to be forged The Archduke who had a mind to reign and saw himself excluded for a long time and perhaps for his whole life by an Act so inconsistent with Motherly affection had no regard to it and indeed it was hard to be believed that it could have been dictated and signed by Queen Isabella considering her humour all her life time in relation to her Husband for there hapned to that Princess what is but too common to Women who out of a Maxim of State marry Husbands as young again as themselves When Ferdinand and Isabella were married Ferdinand was but sixteen years old and Isabella two and thirty Her Jealousie of Ferdinand appeared soon after their marriage and it ought to be said here for her excuse that it was not without ground Ferdinand had slighted her and been often unfaithful though she was very beautiful and besides no woman living more scrupulous in the point of Chastity than her self He had loved other Ladies by whom he had the Archbishop of Sarragossa Don Alphonso d' Arragon and other Bastards who will be more properly mentioned in another place of this History Isabella had not therefore behaved her self the worse towards him but Injuries of that nature which are most patiently born with are not those for all that which make the smallest impressions in peoples minds and are soonest blotted out If Isabella had so much command over her self as during her life to dissemble the ramblings of her Husband it is not very likely that at her death she would reward him for them that is to say in a Juncture when there is no time for counterfeiting and when she was no longer to observe measures with him nor that she would have deprived her eldest Daughter of the enjoyment of the Kingdom of Castile which Nature Law Reason and the Custom of Spain gave to her to leave it to a fickle Husband who would not fail so soon as he should be a Widower to marry again nor to employ all sorts of means not only to secure to the Children of the second Marriage the Crowns of Arragon but also if possible to procure for them the Kingdoms of Castile in prejudice of the Children of his former bed Isabella had cause to fear it since the Father and Mother of Ferdinand had done as much for him and that the unfortunate Charles Prince of Vienne the Son of the first Wife of John King of Arragon had been poysoned to make way for the same Ferdinand who was only the Son of the second Be it as it will the Archduke was not amused by the Couriers whom his Father in law sent to stay him in Flanders under pretext that it might be prejudicial to the Archdutchess his Wife ready to lie in of a Daughter which was Mary Queen of Hungary He nevertheless departed with her for Spain in the month of January One thousand five hundred and seven and the new Queen of Castile had no prejudice by it Chievres was left Governour of the Low Countries and Manuel accompanied the Archduke Ferdinand was so ill informed of the course his Daughter and Son-in-law took that he went to wait for them at one end of Spain whilst they landed at the other All the great men of the Kingdom except two declared for them they were solemnly Crowned the People swore Allegiance to them without respect to the Testament of the late Queen and Ferdinand finding himself not to be the stronger caused an Accommodation to be proposed to his Son-in-law seeing he confided far more in his own management than in that of his Agents he sollicited with so much perseverance an interview with the King of Castile that he obtained it but it cost him dear and he must first pass through mortifications that were so much the more sensible to him as that he was the less accustomed to the like He was constrained to go to his Son-in-law trust himself in his hands to be satisfied with his bare word for a safe Conduct and to present himself in the posture of a Supplicant He appeared indeed in that manner accompanied with a small Retinue without Arms and mounted on Mules He could not have a private Conference with his Son-in-law and Manuel who was the man in the world he hated most because he imputed to him all the harshness he found in the King of Castile towards him made always a third person in the Conference Ferdinand at first lost his hopes of retaining the administration left him by his Wife and condescended at length to accept one half of the Revenues But he was positively denied any share and sent back extremely vexed that he had humbled himself in vain Cardinal Ximenes who was no less his Friend though he owed not his advancement to him mediated for him another interview with his Son-in law in the Vestry of the Church of Remedo a League from Vailladolid The two Kings discoursed alone without any other Witness but the Cardinal who kept the door They concluded at length that Ferdinand should absolutely renounce the administration of Castile upon two conditions The one that he should enjoy during life the three great Masteries of the Orders of St. James Callatrava and Alcantara The other that his Son-in-law should pay him yearly at Sarragossa whither he should immediately after the interview retire a moderate Pension which amounted but according to some to three Counts of Maravedis or to eight Counts at most according to others Ferdinand was no sooner in Arragon but that he laboured to be revenged for the pretended indignities received from his Son-in-law He supposed that the personal charms of that young Prince would indeed preserve to him the affections of the Castillians in time of Peace but he doubted that that
the late Queen Isabella and that it was she that had given him the command of the Spanish Army which he had conducted with so much success it was to be thought that he would have preserved the Kingdom of Naples for the Heiress of that Princess as sixteen years before he would have had the Kingdom of Granada which he had conquered united to Castile the Infidels having been chiefly subdued by the Castillian Forces If any thing could hinder him from doing it it must be the presence of Ferdinand and that Prince upon that very account alone did not stand deliberating if he should go to Naples He departed from Barcelona with his new Queen and his Voyage was more prosperous than he expected He found not in Italy the resistance which he expected and the Great Captain instead of fortifying himself in the Kingdom of Naples against Ferdinand who carried not along with him Forces enough to drive him out of it preferred the Grandeur of the Monarchy of Spain before his own interests merely upon the consideration that he had enlarged it by the accession of two Crowns He foresaw that Ferdinand would have no more Children and that his Grandson Charles of Austria succeeding to him would become the most powerful Monarch of Europe He also foresaw that if he resisted Ferdinand Spain would lose the Kingdom of Naples because the obstinate humour of that Prince would make him rather abandon it to France than leave it in the power of a revolted Subject Upon two such Metaphysical Principles the Great Captain of his own accord laid down the Vice-royalty of Naples He stayed not till Ferdinand should constrain him but reduced himself to the condition of a private man He came out of the Kingdom of Naples where he could do any thing went as far as Genoa to meet the Catholick King received him at the Harbour of that City and wholly submitted himself to his discretion That unexpected adventure was not the passage of the Reign of Frederick that most affected him he had two others which supervened so pat that he could not have drawn greater advantage from them though he had been the Author of the same The one was the death of the King of Castile * Philip of Austria his Son-in-law and the other the madness of the Queen of Castile †Jane of Arragon his Daughter The King of Castile remaining peaceable possessour of that Monarchy by his Father-in-laws retiring into Arragon minded nothing but his diversions and lived in too great a freedom with his principal Subjects not to give them occasion of abusing it The Government of Burgos the Capital City of old Castile was fallen void and the King gave it to his Favourite Manuel Manuel had no sooner taken possession of it but he invited his Master to a magnificent Feast It is not known whether the King of Castile eat and drank more than was fit whether any of his Enemies or Manuel found a way to convey Poyson into the choicest dainties of the entertainment or whether the great exercise which the King used immediately after so extraordinary a Dinner without giving his stomach time to concoct ruined the health of that young Prince which from his Infancy had never suffered any alteration but it is certain that he played long at Tennis after he rose from Table and that the same Evening which was the nineteenth of September One thousand five hundred and six he was taken ill of a Fever Seeing there appeared a Comet at that time and that the great men as well as the common people are persuaded that such Stars are not only the signs but also the causes of the death of Sovereigns it made so deep an impression upon the imagination of the King of Castile that during his sickness which lasted but seven days he complained at every moment of the Comet Nor did he lose the fancy of it in the height of a hot fit that seized him two days before he expired and and when he became light-headed he cried out in French even to his last gasp with a lamentable tone Ah Comet ah Comet He died the five and twentieth of September One thousand five hundred and six at the age of twenty eight years when he had only reigned two years and though he was a German by extraction and a Fleming by birth and that the Spaniards have a natural aversion to a Foreign Dominion yet they never lamented the death of any of their Kings so bitterly as they did his The shortness of his Reign was probably the cause of it and there is ground to think by what follows that if he had lived longer he had neither been so much nor so universally regretted He gave by handfuls and without distinction of persons In the distribution of his favours he had not so much regard to merit and services as to the diligence of those who first presented him their * In his Elogy Petitions and it is reported of him that his Council having one day asked him if he had granted the gift that they mentioned to him he made answer that he did not remember but that they might easily know it of him who they thought had received it if he had asked the same seeing in that case he was sure he had granted it Jane Queen of Castile loved him with too great a tenderness to be free from Jealousie She understood whilst she was in Flanders that he loved and was beloved of a Lady of Brabant That was enough to set her upon a revenge which was the first sign she gave of a distraction of mind She went to the place where her Rival was and called her before her She ordered two or three of her Servants to secure her hand and foot She fell upon her cut off her lovely head of hair and with her Scissors so disfigured the lovely traits of her face that the most charming beauty of the Low Countries durst not shew her self any more abroad The Archduke was extremely vexed at it but he was constrained to dissemble his displeasure when he perceived that the more he upbraided her with it the more enraged and furious she grew He carefully afterward avoided the giving her the least occasion of Jealousie By her he had two Sons who were both Emperours and three Daughters who were the Queens of Hungary France and Portugal he left her with Child of a third who was also Queen of Portugal and whether her grief for his death overcame her reason or that it only stirred up in her the dispositions to madness which were transmitted to her with the bloud of her maternal Grandmother Isabella of Portugal it is but too true that she lost her Judgment in so dreadful a manner that she never recovered a moments use of it during the whole fifty years that she lived after We leave it to Philosophers and Physicians to examine how the mad Isabella of Portugal could communicate to Jane of Arragon her
he failed to do it within a time limited Ferdinand knew Maximilian too well to be afraid of him so long as none but he made War against him because he was sure that in that case his Imperial Majesty would do it but weakly and but for a short time too But he apprehended that when the French saw him once engaged in the Conquest of the Kingdom of Naples and reduced to an inability of pursuing his point through the want of money they might treat with him to buy the places he had taken and hire the Forces employed in forcing them for in such a Juncture it would be impossible for Spain to preserve that Kingdom In that prospect Ferdinand proposed to himself by the means of France to divert the storm that threatned him and had his recourse to the mediation of Louis the Twelsth to hinder Maximilian from making War once more in Italy Louis had received causes of dissatisfaction from the Republick of Venice that he could not think of pardoning It had hindered him from recovering the Kingdom of Naples wherein had it not been for that Republick he must have succeeded and they had plainly enough intimated by their Embassadours at Paris that they would engage in all Leagues that might be formed against the disturbers of the peace of Italy Since their politick resolutions were unalterable and that there was no other expedient to take them off from the execution of the Counsels taken in the Pregadi but by attacking them so powerfully that they should have business enough to defend themselves Louis laboured to turn against them the four most considerable Powers of Europe which were the Holy See France Germany and Spain In the causes of the League of Cambray The Union of so many Adversaries of so contrary humours and interests did not appear very difficult because there was none of them from whom the Republick did not keep Towns which they would be very glad to recover In the Ecclesiastical state they possessed the most Important places of the Province of Romania in the Dutchy of Milan the Towns lying upon the River of Adda Istria and Friuli the places which heretofore the House of Austria had held by engagement and in the Kingdom of Naples the maritime Towns of Apulia France secretly negotiated the Preliminaries of that League and they were almost agreed when Ferdinand represented to the most Christian King that if he prevented not the misunderstanding that was like to degenerate into an open War betwixt his Catholick Majesty and the Emperour the Union of the four Potentates would be interrupted and perhaps would not all be formed by reason of the distrust that Pope Julius the Second might have that if he joyned alone with the French seeing they had many more Forces than he they might alone make their prosit of all the spoils of the Venetians Louis assaulted on the weak side employed his Ministers to reconcile his two most inveterate enemies and bestirred himself in it so vigorously that by his patience and perseverance he surpassed the great dissiculties that he met with therein The Emperour and Catholick King by his mediation disposed of the Crowns of Castile to which neither the one or other had any other right but that of conveniency as if they had been uncontrovertibly their own and though the Laws of the Country called to the Government the eldest of their Grandchildren when he was compleat Eighteen years of age yet they put him off by their own private authority till he were five and twenty The Emperour rested content with a Pension of fifty thousand Crowns a year for all the pretensions he had to Castile in quality of Paternal Grandfather to the two young Princes who were the lawful Heirs of it and the Catholick King secured himself at so easie a rate to reign so long as he lived as absolutely in that Monarchy as he did in Arragon Chievres with extreme indignation received the news of the conclusion of so unreasonable a Treaty and laid two considerable intrigues to break it off before it began to be put in execution the one was at the Court of France by the Countess of Angoulesm the Mother of Francis presumptive Successour to Louis the other in Germany by Margarite of Austria whom we have mentioned before The Countess of Angoulesm represented to the most Christian King that the Accommodation which he had made betwixt Germany and Spain was equally contrary to the Justice which he owed to himself and to that which he owed to the most illustrious Feudatary of his Crown That the three attempts made by his most Christian Majesty for the recovery of the Kingdom of Naples in seven years time since he lost it were sufficient to convince him that he could not succeed in it so long as the Germans and Spaniards acted in concert to hinder him from entering it as on the contrary their dis-union would infallibly open to him the way and that notwithstanding his Majesty instead of taking all courses to set Maximilian and Ferdinand at variance and at least of taking the advantage of the division fallen out betwixt them without his having a hand in it as he might in Conscience have done had interposed to make them friends and that successfully too which was the more insupportable to all true Frenchmen that they were sensible that had it not been for that Mediation the Kingdom of Naples would have been entirely reunited to the French Monarchy That the late King of Castile had upon his death-bed left the disposition of his eldest Son to his most Christian Majesty that besides he held of him because of his Counties of Flanders Artois and Charolois that he had indeed provided for the Education of that young Prince but that it seemed at present he had repented of the good he had done unto him by procuring him at least as much hurt seeing he frustrated him for seven whole years of the possession of the Kingdoms of Castile which by nature and the Laws belonged to him These urgent reasons of the Countess made no impression upon the mind of Louis because his Majesty neither could nor would undo his own work and if Chievres was strangely troubled at it he had occasion to take comfort in that his Pupil had afterwards the Kingdom of Navarre which Ferdinand could never have seized had he not been King of Castile as well as of Arragon in the Juncture that offered four years after However he left not off to apply himself to the Emperour by the Mediation of Margarite of Austria whose third Marriage with the Duke of Savoy had neither been longer nor more happy than the former with the Dauphin of France and the Prince of Spain who represented to him that his Imperial Majesty had rendered the House of Austria the most powerful Family in Christendom first by his Alliance with the Heiress of Burgundy and since by the Alliance of his Son with the Heiress of Spain but that
if he persisted resolute in the execution of a Treaty which he might break without being thought unfaithful since not only he was cheated in it more than the half of the just value but also he reserved not thereby the hundredth part of what belonged to him and would ruine the Family by dividing it in such a manner as it could never be re-united again That all Europe was persuaded that Ferdinand loved the younger Son incomparably better than the elder and that there were such evident marks of that preference that it could not be doubted seeing he had given his name to the younger That he took a particular care of his education that he visited him time after time in the Colledge of Alcala where he studied and that he brought him up in the hopes of being one day King of Castile and Arragon That it would be very hard to hinder that odd design if the Catholick King reigned in CAstile till the Archduke were five and twenty years of age compleat because that long space of time would be sufficient to settle the young Ferdinand so firm in Spain that though his elder Brother had a mind to force him thence yet he could not be able to do it and the hatred of the two Brothers would become indelible in that the elder would always lay claim to the Monarchies which his younger Brother had usurped from him and the younger would still be upon his guard against his elder Brother in the sole prospect of maintaining his Usurpation whereas if the Emperour had the administration of Castile during the Minority of the Archduke he would preserve that Monarchy for him and his Ministers would from thence so carefully watch all the actions of the Catholick King that it would be almost impossible for him to raise young Ferdinand to the Throne of Arragon If contrary to all appearance the Affair might still succeed yet young Ferdinand could not long sit on the Throne to which his Benefactor had raised him and there would be so little proportion betwixt his Forces and those of his elder Brother that he would be soon subdued which could not befall him if he possessed the two Monarchies of Castile and Arragon seeing in that case his elder Brother must cross over all France to which the most Christian King would never consent Maximilian had no more regard to the Remonstrances of Margarite of Austria than the most Christian King had to those of the Countess of Angoulesm whether it was that the word of his Imperial Majesty was already too far engaged or that he apprehended not the inconveniences which Chievres foresaw His Accommodation with the Catholick King was concluded he had his fifty thousand Crowns a year that were promised him duly payed and Ferdinand reigned so long as he lived with as much authority in Castile as Arragon though he had no right over the Castilians and was lawful King of the Arragonese But it seldom happens that private men concern themselves in the quarrels of their Sovereigns scotfree for if the Party they adhered to get the better of the other they seldom obtain a reward proportionable to the greatness of their services and if they succumb the unfortunate Prince for whom they declared abandons them to the discretion of the happy Prince whom they have offended or at least takes no care to comprehend them in his Articles of Agreement which is almost the same as if he abandoned them There was no mention neither of Chievres nor of Manuel made in the reconciliation of the Emperour and Catholick King but the Archdukes Governour sustained no prejudice thereby and all the storm broke upon the Favourite of his Father Ferdinand durst not attempt to remove Chievres from his Grandson Charles because Louis the Twelfth who had placed him there would have been concerned in honour to have maintained him and besides the People of the Low Countries would not have suffered him to have been deposed with what pretext soever that change had been coloured But Manuel who had not so good a back remained without a Protector Maximilian sacrificed him without scruple and Ferdinand made it a Principle of policy to drive him to the utmost extremity By that means he thought to over aw the more restless spirits of Castile and to render them so tractable that they would trouble him no more in the administration of their Monarchy It happened however that the People of the Low Countries where Manuel had taken sanctuary seconded but in half the violence of his Catholick Majesty They consented indeed that Manuel should be committed to Prison but they would not comply with Ferdinand to bring him to a Trial before the Supreme Court of Flanders In vain his Catholick Majesty declared himself Plaintiff and offered to make it out in lawful form that he had been the only cause of the mis-understanding that had been betwixt himself and the late King of Castile his son-in-law They shifted his Proposition by sending him this positive answer That it belonged not to the Subjects of the Archduke Charles such as were the Judges of the Low Countries to try an Affair that concerned another Subject of that Prince born in a Country far remote from theirs and over whom they had no Jurisdiction the Crimes in question not having been committed in Flanders That they were willing to believe upon the word of his Majesty that Manuel was guilty because he had been so unhappy as to give him occasion to think him so and that it was only upon that account that they had made sure of his Person that they would keep him in safe custody and be answerable for him But that seeing the Archduke was concerned in the Affair by reason of his Fathers reputation which might be blemished there was a necessity of staying till he was of age and that the Laws of Castile gave him Authority to assist at the Judgment of a Castilian Ferdinand was not satisfied with that excuse But it being impossible for him to obtain any more against Manuel he did not complain and the Flemings denied Manuel nothing which he desired to ease the irksomness of a Prison He continued there until the death of Ferdinand and came out immediately after * In the last Negotiation of Manuel His gratitude to the Archduke who went in Person with Chievres to take him out of Prison was such that thereafter he stirred up in his favours all the Princes of Italy against the French and gave him the occasion of taking from them the Dutchy of Milan The big belly of the Queen Germana was more than sufficient to comfort Ferdinand for that the sole Castilian whom he had proposed to undo had escaped from his revenge His Catholick Majesty had in the year One thousand five hundred and nine a Son who without dispute ought to disappoint the Archduke of the Kingdoms of Arragon Valencia Majorca Minorca Naples and Sicily The late King of Castile agreed to that and the
dissembled He prosecuted the Constable first in the usual course of Law and then by Arms but in so just a quarrel he was not seconded as he expected to have been The Faction of Grammont repaired indeed to his Banner but the Constable also received assistance from two sorts of people which he thought ought rather to have declared against him than for him The first were those who feared to be plundered by the Faction that should entirely root out the other and the other those who being accustomed to live under a Monarchy where the Royal Power was almost as much limited as in the Kingdom of Navarre In the Collection of the Laws of Navarre would not have their King become absolute by the overthrow of the Faction of Beaumont or at least that he should be in a condition of growing so if occasion put him upon desiring it So that the Party was no less equal when the King sided with those of Grammont than it was when the two Factions subsisted only by their own Forces and the Civil War was no less drawn out in length John d' Albert being impatient to have an end put to it because it hindered him from his ordinary business listned to the first proposals of peace that were made to him though they came from a Court every way to be suspected Ferdinand the Catholick King being frustrated of his hopes of uniting Navarre to Arragon and Castile by the Marriage of his only Son with Catharine de Foix waited for an opportunity of seizing it by craft and finding no more lawful fomented unjust ways He wanted a pretext of medling in the quarrel of those of Beaumont and Grammont before the King of Navarre interposed in it because the Monarchs of that time had that deference one for another not to take notice of what was done in neighbouring Kingdoms unless they were sollicited to it But after that the King of Navarre had declared against those of Grammont and that the Constable their head apprehending at long run to succumb under the force of the Gascons who would flock in to the succour of John d' Albert had had his recourse to the assistance of the Castilians Ferdinand let not so favourable an occasion slip and managed it so cunningly that at length it produced the effect which he expected from it The Constable was his Brother-in-law as having married Eleanor natural Daughter to the late John King of Arragon and upon that consideration chiefly he grounded his offer of mediation to the King of Navarre for accommodating him 〈◊〉 his Constable The King of Navarre who perceived not the drift of such a Proposition willingly accepted it and Ferdinand had no sooner drawn him into the snare so cunningly laid but that he prepared another for him more dangerous than the former He passed insensibly in regard of his Majesty of Navarre from a Mediation to a Guarranty and over-reached him by representing to him by Agents wonderfully cunning that the Constable was not a man religious in keeping his word and seeing the most sacred and solemn Tie amongst Christians was not powerful enough to oblige him he ought to bind him by so considerable a Guarant that he durst not unsay That the King offered to take it upon him upon no other motive but of making and entertaining peace amongst his Neighbours and besides seeing there was no probability that Navarre could be long in repose if the Constable departed not out of it for some years his Catholick Majesty was willing to allow him a retreat in Castile supposing he should refuse to remove far from his Places for fear his Enemies might seize them in his absence He proposed in the mean time to keep them in Sequestration and to put into them Garrisons sufficient to maintain them In a word if nothing detained him in Navarre but the great Estates which he possessed there he would give him the Equivalentor better in Arragon and Castile That overture at first seemed not to proceed but from a meer Principle of generosity Nevertheless examine it narrowly and it could not be neither more advantagious for Ferdinand nor more prejudicial to John d' Albert. For the most powerful Subject of his Majesty of Navarre was confirmed in his revolt by making him treat on even terms with his Master and by giving him Castile and Arragon for Guarants of the Treaty which he should make occasion was given to the most formidable Enemy of Navarre to make the Constable at his devotion when he should be retired within his Territories that Neighbour was received into the very Centre and best Places of Navarre from whence he might easily usurp the rest of the Kingdom and which was the greatest shame in the world the King of Navarre must consent that the Constable sold himself if I may so say to the Catholick King since it was proposed that he should receive considerable Estates from his Majesty in recompence for his Revenues in Navarre Nevertheless John d' Albert signed the Treaty with all the above-mentioned conditions and Ferdinands Garisons took possession of the Places of the Constable who went and lived at the Court of his Brother-in-law The Catholick King was Surety for him that he should raise no stirs in Navarre and gave him not only the Revenue but also the Propriety of the Marquisate of Huescar in the Kingdom of Granada the Revenue whereof exceeded the Rents which he had in Navdrre All the Politicians of the Age foretold the ruine of John d' Albert because of that and to speak the truth it seemed that it could not otherwise he than as they had predicted But God Almighty does not always permit that Sovereigns who are not so skilful in the Art of Government suffer so soon the punishment of their imprudence as he does not always neither permit the more subtil in that Art to reap the fruit of their intrigues John d' Albert took a Journey into Castile to sollicite the restitution of some places in the Principality of Viane which the Predecessors of Ferdinand had usurped from the Ancestors of the Queen of Navarre There he found the Count of Lerin his Constable with whom he made so sincere a reconciliation that the Castilians were no less surprised than vexed at it The Constable who for alliance and gratitudes sake was engaged in the concerns of Ferdinand leapt all of a sudden and without reserve from the Interests of his Brother-in-law and Benefactor to those of his Master and advised John d' Albert not to listen to the Proposals of the Catholick King which he offered of money to be paid within certain terms for the places that the King of Navarre demanded from him It was the Artifice of Ferdinand that having no intention to restore them and finding as yet no pretext of detaining them he would defer the restitution of them to another time under colour that the War he was engaged in with the Venetians so employed him that he had no
of which Francis the First was about to attempt the recovery by going into Italy in Person with a powerful Army But that the Royal Family of Dreux which for almost three hundred years had possessed Bretagne and that of Visconti which had held the Milanese as long had purchased fair Estates there with Towns and Castles from several private persons That these Estates ought not to be considered as Crown Lands in the succession of Louis and Anne of Bretagne and that by consequent Renée of France ought to come in for a share with the most Christian Queen That upon that account it might happen that Francis the First would refuse his Sister-in-law to the Archduke In the Instructions of the Count of Nassau as apprehending that one day the Archduke might put him to it in demanding too rigorously his share and in not accepting a valuable consideration to the end he might reserve to himself entries into France by Bretagne and into Italy by the Dutchy of Milan supposing France should reconquer it The Expedient which Chievres found for that and which he inserted in the Instructions was to anticipate and declare beforehand to the Council of Francis the First that the Archduke and Princess Renée at their Marriage should renounce the Successions of her Father and Mother for a certain Sum of money and all the circumspection that was required of the Count was to drive the Sum as high as possibly he could without breaking up the Treaty The second Obstacle consisted in that the Princess Renée was ugly and ill shaped which made him fear that the French might take a pretext from thence to condemn her to a single life for this reason that she would infallibly be slighted by him that should marry her Whereupon the Count of Nassau had Orders to represent that the Archduke was early convinced by his Governour That Sovereigns married not for their private satisfaction but for the good of their Subjects That he was fully instructed in the duties of marriage That the Princess and he were of the same age and seeing the qualities of her mind made sufficient mends for the defects of her body the Archduke would not fail to love her tenderly and to use her as kindly as if she were a most charming beauty The second Article of the Negotiation related to the restitution of Navarre because Francis the First upon his coming to the Crown had declared that he would have it restored to John d' Albert and that if he could not dispose the Catholick King to it he would break with him upon that consideration alone Chievres obliged Nassau to wave as much as he could treating of so nice a point by representing the impossibility of snatching that Crown out of the hands of his Catholick Majesty by any other course than that of the Sword and by adding that the Archduke had no hand in that usurpation and that it depended no more on him than it did on the most Christian King to restore John d' Albert but if the Council of France stood upon it and would not treat without that Nassau having protested that his Master had no power upon his Maternal Grandfather which was but too true should say that the Archduke as to that particular could do but two things and that he offered to the Christian King to do both The first was sincerely to use his interest with the Catholick King to dispose him to restore Navarre and the next to promise faithfully to restore it himself upon the death of his Maternal Grandfather The third Article remained which was properly the soul of the Negotiation It related to the assistance which the Archduke thought needful to him for obtaining the succession of Spain and Chievres expressed it in the most civil and reserved terms that could be No mention was made in it neither of the Catholick Kings design of frustrating the elder of his Grandchildren of the Monarchies of Castile and Arragon in favours of the younger nor of the youngers ambitious resolution by all means to comply with the kindness that his Grandfather had for him though he was sufficiently sensible of the injustice thereof It was only expressed in general terms that if according to the course of nature the Arch-duke out-lived his Maternal Grandfather and that he should meet with difficulties in obtaining the Succession of that Prince from what hand soever they might happen France who acknowledged the Archduke for next immediate lawful universal and apparent Heir of the two Monarchies to which the Laws in that case called him to reign alone and in exclusion of all others should assist him with Forces and Ships till he were peaceably setled in the possession of those two Kingdoms and should in no manner favour his Competitor even though he to engage the King of France more powerfully to his defence should offer actually to restore Navarre to John d' Albert. The Count of Nassau acquitted himself of so thorny a Commission sooner and more easily than was expected at the Court of Bruxelles because Francis the First persuaded himself that nothing could hinder him from recovering the Dutchy of Milan provided his Expedition into Italy were not diverted by the irruption of the Flemings into Picardy and Champagne and that then it would be at the option of his most Christian Majesty either to send an Army or to go in Person for the restauration of John d' Albert. In that prospect he offered Nassau six hundred thousand Crowns for the Portion of his Sister-in-law In the Treaties betwixt France and Austria and Nassau the more willingly accepted them that he would have been content with four hundred thousand if the Chancellour Du Prat and the Commissioners who treated with him had stood firm not to give him any more The second Article was more disputed because the French were positive that the Archduke should promise to declare for John d' Albert against the Catholick King supposing he absolutely should refuse the restitution of Navarre Nassau on the contrary maintained that it was no less against nature than good manners that a Grandson should espouse the quarrel of a stranger against his own Grandfather Francis was so impatient to conclude that after long debates he remitted it and the third Article was at length decided his Majesty resolving to imitate the example of Charles the Fifth his great great Grandfather who without the assistance of any other Sovereign had at his pleasure disposed of the Crown of Castile by the Arms of his Constable Du Guesclin So the Negotiation was ended at Paris in the beginning of the Summer One thousand five hundred and fifteen and Stephen Poncher who had been chief Minister of State to Louis the Twelfth was ordered to go to Flanders to be Witness to the Ratification of the Treaty The Archduke was gone into Holland and Poncher found him at the Hague He was received there with more Joy than Pomp but as the Archduke had Spies at
the Court of the Catholick King so had the Catholick King at his who discovered by means which Historians disagree about that the Grandson was taken off from the Interests of his Grandfather and that he had even called him an Usurper by confessing that he had unjustly seized the Kingdom of Navarre and by obliging himself to restore it so soon as it was in his power They acquainted the Catholick King with it who confirmed himself in the resolution that as we said before he had already taken of undoing Chievres and frustrating the Archduke not only of what he had acquired by Conquest but also of what he could pretend to in Spain The first step he made in his revenge was to put Navarre in a condition that though the Archduke would restore it yet his own Subjects might have right to take him off from it and to oppose the execution of his intentions For understanding of his Intrigue we must call to mind that the Monarchy of Castile was much more powerful in Spain than Arragon was before their union and that since Queen Isabella had enlarged it by joyning thereto the Kingdom of Granada It was more able than Arragon to preserve the Kingdom of Navarre when once that Kingdom were joyned to it and that was the only motive that made the Catholick King who till then had held the Kingdom of Navarre annexed to the Crown of Arragon change his Conduct and seek ways how he might joyn it to those of Castile He knew that John d' Albert with consent of the most Christian King raised a great Army in the Provinces of France adjoyning the Pryenees for recovery of his Crown and seeing he needed an extraordinary strength to resist him the States of Arragon and Castile were assembled at the same time that under one and the same pretext he might raise great Contributions in both Monarchies The Union of Navarre was offered to both and it was offered upon so much the better ground that that Crown on the one side bordered upon Castile and on the other upon Arragon so that it lay equally convenient for both Seeing Ferdinand had a design to impose upon those of Arragon he would not go himself to Sarragossa where the Estates were to assemble but thought it enough to send thither the Queen Germana in his place That Princess who had the Art of caressing and who besides for better deceiving the Arragonese was her Husbands blind made great Journeys and hastened to Monçon where the Estates had assembled themselves the Arragonese having declared that it was there and not at Sarragossa where according to the priviledges of the Country the Estates ought to meet She gained the two most powerful Bodies which were the Clergy and Nobility She represented to them according to the Instructions which she had received from the Catholick King that Arragon was much weaker than Castile and that if heretofore it had resisted it there were two such concurrent assistances of Heaven in the case that it would be a tempting of God to trust to the hopes of their continuance the one that all the Kings of Arragon to the number of twenty eight were always more witty and valiant than those of Castile and the next that the Castilians could never make War against the Arragonese longer than two years at a time and that at the end of that at farthest they had new Enemies or new Civil Wars to take them up which had obliged or to say better constrained them to give peace to the Arragonese That Arragon indeed was at present united to Castile but that it might be again separated from it and that in that case it would again return to its former state That to prevent Castile from reducing it then into a Province no better course could be taken than to joyn Navarre to Arragon because that encrease would render it so equal in strength to Castile that the Castilians durst not any more attempt to subject it That the only means of obliging the Catholick King to that seeing Navarre was his Conquest consisted in supplying him with moneys for the preserving it this one time only that is to say during the Campaign One thousand five hundred and fifteen because John d' Albert could make no other effort but that once and if he succeeded not France being discouraged by so constant a misfortune would no more protect him The Arrogonese being persuaded by a discourse which carried the more probability with it that they presumed themselves to be better beloved of the Catholick King than the Castilians by reason he was their Country man born and their Hereditary King willingly taxed themselves and furnished a vast Sum of Money considering the barrenness of their Country So that Queen Germana would have acquired a great deal of glory by her Negotiation had it not been for an adventure from which persons of her quality might seem to be exempted Anthony Augustine of Arragonian extraction but born in Catalonia had through his merit raised himself to the dignity of Vicechancellour of Arragon according to most Historians or of Chancellour according to others His Faction and Cabal was then strongest in the States and if one was not sure to obtain by his means what was desired it was certain at least there was nothing at all to be obtained if he opposed it The Queen who knew this very well made it her particular care to gain him and succeeded therein beyond what she expected seeing she made the Chancellour in love only by endeavouring to encrease his zeal for his Masters service Princesses have this unhappiness as well as other of their Sex that are inferiour to them that they cannot always captivate those whom they would and catch sometimes those whom they would not The Queen was so free in her civilities to the Chancellour In the History of that Chancellour and the Chancellour so well disposed to love the Queen that he was not aware of the Trap when his passion already bordered upon extravagance And the truth is instead of striving against it he applauded himself therein and valued himself most when he ought to have reckoned himself a fool He flattered himself with the hopes of a success which he had neither ground nor occasion to promise himself and fell into the extremity of doting by fancying that the Queen would be overjoyed to cherish the flame which she had kindled That the Interest of that Princess concurred in a very nice point with the passion which she had raised That she had no Children and that there was a necessity that by all means she should That it was but too apparent that she could have none by her Husband but that if she had so much modesty as not to court the help of another perhaps she would not have enough to refuse it when freely offered That there were some Junctures wherein if necessity lessened not the Crime yet it served to render it more excusable and that the Arragonese
enough in her favours to oblige the Spaniards to preserve to her the Monarchies that were fallen to her by the Successions of her Father and Mother and to take it strictly they could not excuse themselves from doing so without committing a great injustice seeing by owning the Archduke for King during the life of his Mother they put him actually in possession of a right which by the consent of all civilized Nations did not belong to him till after the death of that Princess So that neither the factions of the Cardinal nor the reasons of Carvaial were sufficient to render the Archdukes party the stronger The Admiral of Castille and Duke of Alva declared openly that it was not in their power to grant the Archduke what he demanded That twelve years ago upon the death of Queen Isabelle they had received and sworn Allegiance to Jean her eldest Daughter as their only Sovereign That it would be a violation of their Oath to make her eldest Son her Colleague who was not to Reign till after her death and would furnish Historians an ample ground of blackening their memory That the Archduke had gone too far in taking of himself the title of King and that if the Queen recovered her health Nature might very well make peace betwixt them without any necessity of a Foreign mediation or intercession But if the chief men of Castille and Arragon favoured him in that excess of boldness they run the risk of being abandoned by himself and by consequent of being lookt upon as Rebels The Marquess of Villena started a second Opinion more politick than prudent and more proper for avoiding than resolving the difficulty He said that seeing the Archduke did not demand their counsel he thought it not fit that they should give it him nor that they should expose themselves to the inconvenience just before mentioned The first of the two Opinions appeared to be so just and the second so safe that the one or other of them had infallibly prevailed in the Assembly if the Cardinal who foresaw it had not put in practice a piece of boldness that succeeded with him He interrupted the course of Voting and told them that it was not the case in hand to deliberate about a thing to be done but to approve of a matter already done That if the Archduke had done him the honour to have proposed to him the design which he had of taking the title of King he would perhaps have endeavoured to disswade him from it but since he had proceeded in it without communicating any thing of it to the Spaniards their glory and interest were equally concerned not to make a young Prince born to be their Master ridiculous upon his first entry into the World seeing he was bred up in the best dispositions that ever were for enlarging one day the Spanish Monarchy That to oblige him to quit the name and ensigns of Royalty when once he had taken them would draw upon him the contempt of all the Nations of Europe render him the object of their scorn spoil his credit with them as long as he lived and so baulk his courage that he would not dare for the future to undertake any thing either for invading or resisting an Enemy That he Ximenes himself thought it fit to take the Assembly off from committing a mistake by informing them of that most important Truth that in that juncture there was no mean betwixt taking from the Archduke the title of King and declaring him absolutely incapable of Reigning one day in Spain when it came to his turn and that if the Spaniards were so imprudent as to make the first of those two steps in relation to him it would be impossible for them to clear themselves of the second and not to submit hereafter to the rule of a Prince whom they had shamefully degraded Ximenes having spoken in so positive a strain gave not them the time of taking the Votes He sternly commanded Don Pedro Correa his intimate friend whom he had made Corregidor of Madrid To go and proclaim through the Town Queen Jean and Don Carlos her Son joyntly Kings of Castille and Arragon The Corregidor who was one of the Assembly and who apparently had put all things in a readiness for execution of the orders which he had received went out immediately and soon after the solemnity of the Proclamation was heard The Deputies who had not as yet given their Votes seeing that if they spake against what was actually a doing they would instantly occasion a Civil War for which they and their relations must be accountable approved the Cardinals discourse and the Orders that he had given Thus the boldest project that hath happened in the memory of man In the act of Proclamation was brought about with little intrigue and without any opposition and the Bishop of Tortosa gave account of it to the new Catholick King whom hereafter we shall name Charles and to Chievres without robbing Ximenes of the praise he merited by it Both of them were so well satisfied with it that they heartily pardoned that Cardinal for all that had displeased them in his former conduct and all the business in Flanders was the hastening of Charles his voyage into Spain for taking possession of the Kingdoms he now was installed in They foresaw but one impediment to it which concerned the Treaty concluded with France by the ministry of the Count of Nassau It hath been said before that Charles when as yet but Archduke had engaged himself to restore the Kingdoms of Naples and Navarre to the most Christian King and to John d' Albert so soon as the Catholick King his Grandfather were dead The condition was come and the French Ambassador at Bruxelles pressed the accomplishment thereof There was no pretext of delaying the restitution of the two Crowns seeing if Charles did not resolve to do it willingly and frankly to perform his promise Francis the First was in a better condition to force him to it by way of Arms than ever he had been before or perhaps than ever he could be for the future He had at the field of Warignan quelled the insupportable pride of the Swisse and forced that warlike Nation who thought they could domineer over Kings to make peace with him as he himself had desired He had recovered the Dutchy of Milan from Maximilian Sforza He had confirmed himself in that Conquest in the year One Thousand Five Hundred and Sixteen by the utter overthrow of that formidable Army which the Emperor had led in person into the Milanese The Forces of his most Christian Majesty which he had opposed against that Army were still on foot and it would have been easie for him to have taken Flanders by causing them to march thither as soon as Charles were gone In the mean time his Catholick Majesty was not in a condition to ward so dangerous a blow He had no more Soldiers than were necessary for his Convoy
in his voyage to Spain and the Flemings would not have assisted him in levying of more if they should have known that he only needed them for maintaining the usurpations of Naples and Navarre So they would have been exposed to the invasions of Francis the First and Charles would have lost incomparably more than the two Crowns we last named were worth Nevertheless in the juncture that then happened he could not restore them nor so much as pretend it was his intention without entirely forfeiting the Succession of his Mother For if he had attempted of his own Authority and without the consent of the Monarchies to which the two Kingdoms were annexed to write to the Viceroys to restore them they would not have obeyed him and if by Proxy he had demanded the consent of the Estates of Castille for the restitution of Navarre and the approbation of the Estates of Arragon for rendring Naples It would not only have been denied him but more the two Monarchies would have joyned in an interest common to both and passed immediately from Disobedience to a Revolt There was a necessity then of waiting till the Catholick King were in possession of his Kingdoms of Spain and till he had taken such just measures for the Restitutions in question as might assure him of success and upon so well grounded reasons Chievres wrote to Gouffier great Master of the Houshold to the most Christian King That it was absolutely necessary for preserving peace betwixt the two young Kings whom they had had the honour to Educate that they should have a conference together and that they should adjust a Treaty so advantageous to their Masters that neither of them might be â—empted to violate it what favourable occasion soever might present Gouffier â—hew'd the Letter to Francis the First â—ho thought it not enough to approve â—he interview but besides proposed the â—lace where it should be and for that â—nd named the Town of Noyon in Picarâ—y which was accepted of in the Counâ—il of Bruxelles Chievres on his part disposed Charles to â—…ve him an unlimited power and as if â—…e two Kings had agreed to leave to the â—…scretion of the two persons who had â—een their Governours all the prelimiâ—ary difficulties to the Negotiation they â—justed them after their own way to â—…e satisfaction of the Councils of both â—…ings In consideration of the more â—…vanced age of the most Christian King â—…e preference was given to Gouffier â—…at Chievres went to meet him at Noyon â—here he staid for him in the beginning of Summer One Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen and their ancient Friendship hindred them not from maintaining with equal vigour the Interests of their Masters They were longer than was expected in agreeing about their Affairs and Gouffier pretended that the Crowns of Naples and Navarre should be restored before the Catholick King went over to Spain His Reasons were that his Catholick Majesty was engaged to it by the Treaty of the Count of Nassau and that it was not the business to Negotiate of new In the Negotiation of Noyon but only to put in execution what was in formal terms resolved upon That the honour of Francis the First was concerned in the speediness of the Restitution and that if it was deferred the delay would be imputed to the weakness of his most Christian Majesty and by consequence would redound to his shame That the Kingdoms of Naples and Navarre had both been Usurped the first by the Infidelity and the second by the Jugling of the late King of Spain and that the matter was so evident that no man in all Europe doubted of it what care soever that cunning Prince had taken to dazle the eyes of the World by Manifesto's stuft with Falshoods and the discourses of his Agents That it was enough to France that Naples was directly Usurped from them and that John d' Albert had lost Navarre upon the only consideration that he would not break with Louis the Twelfth to make them with equal zeal solicite that the first of the two last mentioned Kingdoms should be restored to the King of France and the second to his Ally and that seeing there was no appearance that France could be in a better condition for the future than it was then in for recovering them nor that the Catholick King could be in a worse state for maintaining them by the way of Arms as wanting both men and money Francis the First would be for ever blamed if he let slip so favourable an occasion and Gouffier would in History pass for a notorious Prevaricator if he contributed to it in any manner whatsoever Chievres who had no satisfactory answer to make directly to such solid motives thought it enough to reply indirectly that the King his Master had the best and most sincere intentions in the World as to the matter in hand and seeing he knew him better than any man else he ought more to be credited than those who might have insinuated contrary thoughts into his most Christian Majesty But that Sovereigns as well as other men were liable to necessities and that that to which Charles was then reduced was the more excusable in that it was extream That it was true indeed he had fallen to a very large Succession but that it would wholly escape him if it were not managed with all imaginable care and industry That Navarre lay so very conveniently for the Monarchies of Castille and Arragon that they had no cause of fear from abroad but from thence and that the Pyrenean Mountains and the two Seas secured them on all other hands That as their Enemies being Masters of Navarre could presently bring whole Armies into the heart of their Countries so without that they could but weakly attack their Frontiers That to judge things aright the Kingdom of Naples was of no less importance to them seeing if they lost it they were certain not to keep Sicily long That nevertheless that was the Kingdom from whence Spain had Corn in the frequent scarcities to which it was subject and that these two motives would be enough to engage the Spaniards in a general Revolt if their new King obliged them presently to restore Naples and Navarre That it would be thought stranger that he should meddle in so nice an Affair upon his coming to the Crown in that he was a stranger That during the space of a Thousand years Spain had not been governed by Monarchs of that kind That they had never as yet seen Charles and that hardly any thing could make them endure that an absent stranger before he had taken possession of his Crowns should cut them short by two That before any such thing was attempted an infinite number of cautions must be taken and that he must begin the work by obtaining from the Estates an unlimited Authority That afterward a powerful Faction should be formed in the three Bodies which make up his Estates for disposing them to give
an entire satisfaction to the most Christian King And that in fine when the Catholick King were once assured of obtaining what he desired by proposing it the matter should be varnished over with so plausible colours that if it were not frankly consented to yet at least it should pass in Form and without Sedition That the Catholick King expected an happy success in this provided he were suffered to take his own way in Negotiating it and that Chievres durst undertake for it upon two conditions one that his Master were allowed time to go to Spain and there to dispose the minds of the People and the other that the promise of restoring in convenient time the two Kingdoms to the most Christian King and John d' Albert should be kept so secret that no Spaniard might dive into it The discourse of Chievres if rightly taken was captious seeing he demanded a present and most important favour such as the security of the Low-Countries during the absence of Charles for hopes so much the more uncertain that the fulfilling of them was remote and would absolutely depend upon the faithfulness of his Catholick Majesty who having obtained beforehand all that he could have desired perhaps would not take much care of performing his promise Nevertheless whether it was that Gouffier did not sufficiently reflect upon that or that he yielded to the importunities of inferiour Ministers who were appointed to Negotiate under him whom Chievres had charmed with his caresses the Court of France committed an irreparable fault and suffered themselves to be choused by a man whom then they had but too great ground to distrust They consented that Gouffier and Chievres should confer together about finding out an expedient that might a little more bind the Catholick King and nevertheless leave him as much liberty as he desired for disposing his new Subjects to satisfie France Several were proposed and that which the two Plenipotentiaries at length agreed upon was that there should be two Treaties of Noyon of the same date one which should be kept secret by the Parties concerned until the time of its execution and another which should be made publick so soon as it was signed By the first In the two Treaties of Noyon Charles obliged himself not to lose any time in the restitution of the Kingdoms of Naples and Navarre after he had taken possession of his maternal Crowns and to do it himself by his own absolute Authority if he could not obtain the consent of the Spaniards But the second only contained that the most Christian and Catholick Kings should agree upon Arbitrators who within a prefixed time should declare whether the Crowns of Arragon and Castille had any right or not to Naples and Navarre That if these Arbitrators decided in favour of Spain the two Kingdoms should remain united to it and that if their Sentence were to the disadvantage thereof the Catholick King should instantly restore them The other Articles of the two Treaties were in all things alike which may have given occasion to think that there was but one The three most considerable were that until the Arbitrators should decide to which of the two France or Spain the Kingdom of Naples belonged the Catholick King should pay to the most Christian King one hundred thousand Crowns a year as a quit-Rent That the Catholick King should espouse Lovisia of France who was yet but a year old and that if that young Princess died before the Marriage were consummated the Catholick King should Marry another of the most Christian King's Daughters in case he had more and that if he had none the Marriage of the Catholick King with Renee of France Sister-in-law to his most Christian Majesty should be accomplished as it was agreed upon in the former Treaty That in fine the Emperor Maximilian should restore to the Republick of Venice the City of Verona with this caution that he should put it into the hands of the French who should immediately after deliver it over to the Venetians and that the Senate of that Republick should pay to the Emperor two hundred thousand Crowns to reimburse the charges he had been at in Conquering that City Gouffier in this matter concluded the Treaty of Noyon and Politicians judged that he lost in it as much reputation as Chievres had acquired And truly if we may judge of the satisfaction of the two Kings with their Plenipotentiaries by the reward which they gave them it is certain on the one hand that Gouffier received none of Francis the First and on the other that Chievres was so well recompenced by Charles that he became the richest Subject in Christendom Maximilian the First and Philip had already given him the forfeiture of the Estate of the house of Gaure the Government of Nivelle the Collar of the Golden Fleece the great Bailliage of Haynault and two thousand Crowns for his extraordinary Embassy in France in the year One Thousand Five Hundred and One where he had made himself known to Louis the Twelfth according to his value though there was nothing concluded in the Peace which he went to Negotiate betwixt his most Christian Majesty and Ferdinand the Catholick King. Charles added to these by his Letters Patents of the twenty third of June Câ—e Thousand Five Hundred and Seventeen the charges of High Admiral of the Kingdom of Naples of Captain General of his Armies by Sea of alâ— the Kingdoms Territories and Principalities of his Catholick Majesty oâ— High Chamberlain and of chief Minister of State and by other Letters Patents of the fifteenth of December the same year the Dutchies of Sovia and Atri iâ— the Kingdom of Naples the particulaâ— Government of the Town of Escluse it Flanders the erection of the Barony oâ— Arscot into a Marquisat a Company oâ— an hundred Armed men maintained iâ— time of Peace as well as War and lastly the erection of the Lands of Beaumont into a County The multitude of these favours is upoâ— two accounts remarkable First because Charles was not liberal and that besides he had the more reason to dividâ— his bounty amongst several persons thaâ— never Prince was so well served as he was and by consequence was obliged to give so many Rewards as he and secondly because Chievres as hath been observed before never begg'd any thing of him neither for himself nor his Relations and thought it enough to deserve from a grateful Prince the Favours that he heaped upon him Seeing the accommodation of Noyon had surmounted all the obstacles that could obstruct Charles in taking possession of his maternal Estates he had not so great cause any more to fear the excess of Authority which Cardinal Ximenes took to himself in Spain and Chievres was of the opinion that he should be let alone to do so provided his actions struck neither directly nor indirectly at the personal advantages of his Catholick Majesty The Cardinal on his side vied in gratitude and served Charles with as
great application as if he had been indebted to him for the Regency He obliged the Grandees of Castille to receive his Orders and to execute them with as much expedition and submission as if they had had their King in the midst of Spain and seeing he foresaw that those Grandees who had a design to revolt could find but two plausible pretexts for so doing one upon account of the Queen Germana and the other on the part of the Infanta he caused both to be so narrowly observed and yet treated them so civilly that he took from them no less the occasions of attempting against his administration than the grounds of complaining of him It hath been observed that Queen Germana de Foix was not tempted with ambition and coveted no more but to live pleasantly and without trouble in Feasting and Dancing The late Catholick King left her at his death by a Codicil fifty thousand Ducats of Rent besides her Dowry assigned upon the Kingdom of Naples and if she had not been punctually paid it the Arragonese would have taken it ill as an affront done to the memory of their Hereditary King and have revenged themselves by raising troubles in Castille or by fomenting those which they found raised there to their hand In the mean time King Ferdinand on the one hand had left the Royal Treasury empty and on the other the Kingdom of Naples as affairs stood then was not able to pay the Catholick Queen the Summ that it was Rated at because the French having marched into Italy for the recovery of the Dutchy of Milan Raimond of Cardonna Vice-Roy of Naples was apprehensive that they might march next against him and that he might not be surprised had made extraordinary levies of Soldiers which had drained not only the Revenues of the Crown but also the purses of all the private persons who had been willing to lend him money The question was how all these Creditors should be payed and if it had not been done with all expedition considering the juncture of a minority they would not have failed to have risen All that Spain had from Naples was set apart for their re-imbursement and Cardinal Ximenes as bold as he was durst not have employed so necessary a Fund for other uses Nevertheless the Queen importuned him to be payed quarterly and the only expedient he found to satisfie her was to pay her with his own money upon assurances which Chievres sent him under the hand of the Catholick King that what he laid out for his Majesty upon that account should be faithfully repaid him The Infanta put the Cardinal to greater trouble because he was still possessed with a fancy that he should one day Reign in Castille and that others laboured to feed him in that conceit Whilst he was a hunting an Apparition had presented it self before him in the shape of a Hermit which told him as from God that he should be Monarch of all Spain and presently disappeared having left him in an anxious expectation of the future His Vision he had communicated to the Marquess Denia his Governour and to the Bishop Alvaro Osorio his Tutor and as men easily believe what they desire and are not undeceived but very late so the Governour and Tutor promised themselves the chief Dignities of Spain upon that idle Prediction Their whimsey was not the less durable for being so ill grounded and neither the last Will of King Ferdinand nor the publick recognition of the Archduke Charles as King by the Estates of both Monarchies were sufficient to undeceive them They constantly solicited Ximenes to give them leave to carry back the Infanto to the Town of Simancas appointed for his Education and though this Cardinal did not as yet foresee their real design yet he suspected it and plainly told them that the person of the Infanto was so dear to him that there might be fault found with his administration if he let him go out of his sight It was soon after discovered that his distrust was not without cause and that it was the intention of the chief Officers of the Infanto to expect at Simancas the favourable juncture which Heaven had promised and in the mean time to engage into the parties of that young Princes as many of the Grandees as possibly they could without discovering themselves too much The Spies whom the Cardinal entertained about them informed him of all the proceedings of the Marquess and Bishop and in all appearance it was to make such reports continue that he long detained the Infanto at Madrid under various pretexts But when he would no longer amuse him he told him plainly that his presence was so necessary for the publick good that he would not absent himself from the place where the Council of State was kept without disobliging the Catholick King his Brother When he thus spake he observed the looks of the Marquess and Bishop and perceiving that it put them to extream pain he took measures to prevent the Infanto's being carried away from him The cautions that he used were so quaint that this young Prince and his Servants were under restraint without perceiving it So that there being no more danger from the two chief persons of the State the Cardinal in the following manner reduced into order the most considerable of the Grandees This was Don Pedro Porto Carero called the Deuff who had carried on a long intriegue to get himself chosen Great Master of the Order of S. James after the death of King Ferdinand In the motives of the disgrace of the Great Captain He was Brother to the Duke of Escalone and an intimate friend of the Great Captain Gonsalvo who had made him privy to the Bulls which heretofore he had obtained from Pope Julius the Second for that Mastery in case he out-lived the Catholick King. The Great Captain dying before his Majesty Porto Carero supposed that seeing the Court of Rome had granted Gonsalvo the Bulls we have been mentioning it appeared that that Court had a design by all means to disunite those three great Masteries from the Crown of Castille and that by consequence such a favour having been granted not so much in consideration of the particular merit of him that had obtained it as for fear of rendering the Kings of Castille too powerful Porto Carero had ground to hope for it though his personal qualities came not near those of the Great Captain He had credit at the Court of Leo the Tenth and he employed it so dexterously that he obtained from his Holiness Bulls conform to those which had been granted by Julius but upon condition still not to make use of them till after the death of Ferdinand He had not as yet received them when his Catholick Majesty died but a few days after they arrived and there being no juncture more favourable to him than the division betwixt the Cardinal and the Governours of the Infanto he wrote to all the Commanders of the Order
Authority devolved upon the high Nobility during the time of minority or infirmity of their Kings when they were of long continuance and if the Nobility condescended that the late King Ferdinand should retain the Government for life yet it followed not that they had given him leave to dispose of it after his death The Duke of Infantado answered that he had at least as much ground to complain of the Cardinal as any other Grandee of Castille and that his Ancestors having left him considerable Estates of that nature which was pretended to be Lands of the Crown by consequence he had occasion to be apprehensive that they would begin at him in retrieving them that others might think it the less strange when they were dispossessed next that no favour had been shown to the most considerable Lord of Spain But that notwithstanding he was not of the opinion that any thing should be attempted in prejudice of the last Will of the late King nor contrary to the orders of the Catholick King Reigning though it was known that they were only provisional in what concerned Ximenes That that Cardinal had more experience and more ready money than they and that there was no doubt to be made but that he would root them out altogether if they gave him occasion to put the people on his side by letting them know that the Lords of Castille struck at the memory of the late King who had chosen him for Regent and at the Authority of the new King who had confirmed the Regency unto him That it was then absolutely necessary to find out another expedient than that of violence for degrading of him and that when such an one were found the Duke of Infantado should willingly declare himself for the common cause against the Favourite That was not an expedient to be fallen upon at first In the Chronicle of the Mâ—ndosa's and the Lords of Castille after many days thinking of it found none other that could relish with the Duke of Infantado but a Petition to the new King Charles which all of them signed beseeching him to give them another Regent than Ximenes It was an easie matter to foresee that it would not be granted and that his Majesty would wave giving an answer to it untill his arrival in Spain whither he promised to go day after day The Cardinal was so sure of it that he did not give himself the trouble of writing about it neither to the King nor Chievres Nay his foresight went a little further and as he was exceeding watchful to make the best of occurrences that were capable to encrease his Power so the Conspiracy of the Nobles offered him two means for that which he did not let slip The first was to lay before Chievres in a long Letter the absolute necessity of his Catholick Majestie 's sending him anâ— unlimited power if it was expected that he should in a signal manner reduce so many malecontents to reason And secondly to put himself in a posture not only not to be surprised but also to stifle the Sedition so soon as it should begin to break out Seeing it had been chiefly by the valour of the Castillian Nobility that the Mores were driven out of Spain they â—ad for a long time enjoyed the priviledge of carrying Arms both for themselves and Attendants which Townsâ—eople and Peasants had not but when â—hey were employed by Gentlemen If â—hat custom had continued the Cardinal â—ad one time or other been opprest because he could not be able in all places â—hrough which he was to go to have Armed men enough in readiness to resist â—he frequent attempts of the Nobility upâ—n his person Whereas if he put Arms into the hands of the Plebeians he would â—repare for himself in all places a vast â—umber of Guards who would think themselves exceedingly obliged to him â—or that favour and would not be wanâ—ing to him in time of need He took â—he occasion from the descent that the â—amous Corsair Barbarossa had then made 〈◊〉 the Kingdom of Granada from whence he had carried away several â—housand Spaniards and thereupon he â—ublished an Edict in name of Queen â—ean and King Charles hearing that since â—he Nobility whose Lands were upon the Coasts of Spain and the Garrisons which â—he Catholick Kings were wont to mainâ—ain there were not sufficient to hinder â—he spoils of the Infidels it was necessaâ—y to remedy such surprises for the future by opposing so many men capable of resisting the Turkish Pirats that they should not dare to set foot on Shore in a Country which they should find so well guarded That their Catholick Majesties had not thought it fit to Arm the Peasants because that would take them off from labouring the Land nor all the Inhabitants of Towns neither by reason that Commerce might thereby be interrupted but that they had only chosen the honest Burghers who having much to lose would take the greater care to keep it That those who would list themselves in that Militia should be exempted from the harder offices of the State That they should afterwards have priviledges granted to them proportionable to the Services which they rendered That care should be taken to set Officers over them to instruct them and that all that was demanded of them at present was to perform exercise every Sunday The Nobility at first perceived the intention of Ximenes and with all their might opposed it The Towns where they had got greater credit than he would not suffer the Commissaries appointed for the Musters to put the Edict in execution and the others received them with open Arms for besides that they were acceptable to the Burghers for the novelty of the Order which they brought them they rendred them masters of the State and opened to them the fair way which was that of Arms of raising themselves above the condition wherein they were born and of meriting the most important charges in the Monarchy which in progress of time would have so debased the Nobility that scarcely would there have been any more talk of them Thus Castille was divided into two Factions and as there are Mountains that cut it almost into two equal parts so the other side of the Hills was almost wholly for the Nobility and this side for Ximenes The Cardinals party was not the least seeing he had the bravest and most expert Soldiers of his Country-men for him and the only circumspection he was to use was to hinder his Enemies from possessing the Court of Bruxelles with bad impressions of his design In prospect of that he wrote to Chievres praying him to represent to the Catholick King in full Council that there was no other expedient than what he had put in practice for preserving his two Monarchies entire for him and without a farthing charge until his arrival in Spain That it was no new thing in Castille to Arm the People and that the Kings his Predecessors had done it as often
not out-live two months Most frequently they were forced to labour and the inhumanity of constraining them in this manner to shorten their days for the profit of others obliged Chievres to look out for means of easing them He hit upon a great many and that which he most approved because it was least chargeable to the Spaniards was to procure them other slaves at a cheap rate The greatest traffick on the Coast of Guinee consisted in Men whom they went to buy from all parts of the World. Fathers sold their Children and the Husbands their Wives And these Slaves being Blacks they were called Negroes They were strong labour how hard soever was no strange thing to them because they were accustomed to it from their youth They were subject to few diseases and though they were exposed to all the injuries of the Seasons yet they lived long and by consequence enriched those who bought them for a Crown a head provided they were not used with too much severity But if they were so used they immediately destroyed themselves by stopping their own breath upon no other account but to vex their pitiless Masters Chievres caused six hundred of them to be bought and sent into America where the Spaniards who lived in that new part of the World were informed of the advantage they might have in making use of those Black Slaves seeing they might have them so cheap But Cardinal Ximenes found a great deal to be said against it and pretended that if the Spaniards by not making use of the Slaves of Guinee had the displeasure to see their Works many times unfinished they had to make amends for that the satisfaction to be assured that the West-Indians whom they brought into their Houses would never wrong them by conspiring and rising against them Whereas the Negroes who were as malicious as strong would no sooner perceive themselves to be more numerous in the new World than the Spaniards but that they would lay their heads together to put the Chains upon them which now they carried for them Ayala was sent back to the Court of Bruxelles to exaggerate that inconvenience but Chievres was not satisfied with it He thought it was something else that set Ximenes at work and attributed to him a more refined consideration He drew it from the jealousie of the Spaniards for the Indies which went so far as not to suffer any other Nation but themselves to set footing there lest they might have a mind to divide the Wealth thereof with them Nevertheless if Negroes were transported thither there was ground to foresee that they would encrease and multiply much hard labour and bad usage not hindring that people from being extraordinarily fruitful and it being the interest of those who bought them to marry them together thereby to augment the number of their Slaves It would no longer then depend on the prudence of Spain to resist the multitude of Negroes They would no sooner know their own strength but that they would think of recovering their liberty and if their Insurrection prospered in one Region of America it would soon become universal by the assistance that those who had freed themselves would give to the rest to make them revolt after their example Besides the Spaniards were not sit for transporting of Slaves from one extremity of the World to the other and had not shipping enough to supply America and Peru with sufficient numbers whence it followed that in that case they stood in need of the Flemings and Hollanders the Subjects of the Catholick King and that so those People getting more knowledge in the Indies than it was fit they should would infallibly labour to settle there However the Catholick King notwithstanding the Remonstrance of Ximenes sent to the Island of Hispaniola the Negrees which Chievres had caused to be bought But sive years after he had occasion to repent of it because the Negroes revolted and had infallibly taken the Island if by singular good fortune just when their Rebellion broke out two Spanish Captains Melchior de Castro and Francis d' Avila had not come and more by cunning than strength put them again into Chains That irregularity of Chievres was probably the cause that he afterwards seconded the Cardinal in the execution of a design which appeared not to be much juster nor less interested and of which nothing but humane malice hindred the success The Indians complained that they were used by the Spaniards like Beasts and the complaint was but too true There was no Justice nor Magistrates for them They preached the Gospel to them in a manner that might make them abhor it No great care was taken to Baptize them nor were they more kindly used after they had received it Ximenes proposed the sending of Commissioners to them Louis de Figueroa Alphonso of St. John Monks of the Order of St. Jerome and the Alcaide Manzanedo for setling amongst the Indians Subjects of the Monarchy of Spain a Policy much like to that of the Pesants in Spain as if the three persons named had been sufficient for a work of that importance In the relation of the Fathers of St Jerome However Chievres got it to be approved in the Council of Bruxelles and the Commissioners set fail from the Coast of Andalusia They arrived without any hinderance in America but there they found so great opposition from their Country-men that they put hardly any thing of the Order which they had received from Ximenes in execution those who ought to have aided them by their Authority being the first that constrained them to Embark again and return back to the place from whence they came John d' Albert had no success in the recovery of his Kingdom of Navarre though the Treaty of Noyon had facilitated his entry into it and indeed it must be acknowledged for the justification of Chievres in the juncture we are to speak of that it was not his fault that that dispossessed King was not restored The measures that had been taken for that great design were so just that nothing hindred them from succeeding but the ill luck or bad conduct of John d' Albert. King Francis the First had suffered him to raise in the Provinces lying betwixt the Loire and the Pyrenean Hills an Army almost all old Soldiers and so much the better disciplined that they were punctually paid out of the moneys borrowed upon the Jewels of the Crown of Nâ—varre If it had marched into that Kingdom the Towns and Forts would have striven who should first have opened their Gates because four years subjection to the Monarchy of Castille was sufficient to make those of Navarre come to themselves again and find their deplorable mistake in delivering themselves up to their ancient and irreconcileable Enemies They could not endure that their Kingdom should be reduced into a Province and as it was the Faction of Beaumont which had been the cause of it so they also were the first that
that she saved her Husbands person and Estate Nevertheless she was so strongly perswaded that he would never pardon the offence that she had given him in discovering the Conspiracy whereof he was the Head that she left him presently after she had revealed it and went to her Brothers house where she continued till she died without ever suffering any motion to be made to her of returning to her Husband It appeared by the sequel that her fear was not ill grounded seeing the Constable having one day met Vilalva near his Castle of Lerin which they had been demolishing and silling up the Ditches of invited him to dinner in his House Vilalva at that time stood in extream need of such an invitation and besides he could not in civility refuse it He was but half way on his journey and had still a long way to go before he could come to the Castle of Eteille whither he was going He therefore accepted the Constables offer and dined in the Castle of Lerin But he had quickly cause to repent it seeing he died upon his arrival at the Castle of Eteille in the opinion of being poisoned There was no great care taken in sifting the matter and the Constable was thought sufficiently punished by the inability he and his Faction were reduced to of any more rising against the Castillians for want of places of retreat Thus Navarre was preserved to the Catholick King and neither his Majesty nor Chievres had any hand in it and Ximenes thinking nothing impossible for him after the success of such an enterprize thought he might take his own course and do his worst to the Queen Dowager Germana de Foix by wholly depriving her of what rendred her considerable in Spain after the death of King Ferdinand her Husband It hath been mentioned before that that Prince sent her to hold the Estates of Arragon and the certain advice that she received of the extremity to which he was reduced had obliged her to make all hast back again unto him She came only a few hours before he expired and nevertheless timely enough to represent to him that she was in great danger of being miserable and even of wanting necessaries for her subsistence if he provided not against it before his death That he was obliged to do so in Conscience seeing she was upon no other account deprived of the Estate which belonged to her Family in France but because she had married him That the late most Christian King Louis the Twelfth her Mothers Brother who had promised himself great advantages by marrying her to his Majesty had on the contrary found that that Alliance was more than one way fatal to him and that Francis the First his Successor looked upon her as another Helena who had brought Fire into her Country That the last of these Monarchs had given all the Estate which she ought to inherit to the younger Brothers of the * Lautrec Asparant and Lescun House and that there was no more support for her in France * Lautrec in the dâ—nations of Francis the First That all the Friends she had in her own Country were dead with Gaston de Foix her only Brother and that if his Catholick Majesty were taken from her she could find none neither in Spain under the Reign of young Charles seeing he would not look upon her but with horror when he should call to mind that she was within an Ace of depriving him of the Succession of Arragon and perhaps also of that of Castille which he would not have obtained if the Son she was brought to Bed of had lived to whom besides the Succession of Navarre was due That in fine to put so unwelcome an object out of her sight she earnestly besought her dear Husband to leave her in the remotest corner of his Kingdoms which was that of Naples an alimentary Pension sufficient to maintain her in Widowhood for the rest of her days according to her quality That there she would prepare to follow him to Heaven by praying incessantly night and day for him and by leading a life as much as lay in her power suitable to the purity of the Gospel So pathetick a discourse prevailed with Ferdinand to leave the Queen Germana besides her Dowry thirty thousand Ducats a year upon the Kingdom of Naples and the Article of the Testament as it was changed came immediately after that which gave Castille and Arragon solely to Charles But the three Ministers whom we mentioned before were not pleased with it though they thought it not proper at that time to oppose it the thing being but a trifle in comparison of what they had obtained of King Ferdinand which was the preferring of the elder of his Grandsons before the younger not only as to the Monarchies last named but also as to the three great Masteries Ximenes who had approved no more than they that Pension for life saw himself no sooner in a condition to revoke the grant made to Queen Germana by a Husband who otherwise had never been liberal but that without any scruple he both attempted and performed it It is true it was not done after his way that is to say openly and without fetching a compass seeing he thought it enough at first to pray Chievres to represent to the Catholick King that the Kingdom of Naples had been a long time French and that the Faction of Anjou was not as yet wholly extinct in it That it was too dangerous to suffer a French Queen to have any Revenue there because she might foment discontents in it and encrease the number of his Majesties Enemies That the thirty thousand Ducats ought to be allotted her upon another Fund and that Fund to be pitched upon in the middle of Castille That in all times the Towns of Arevalo Olmedo Madrigal and St. Mary of Nieva which came to the same Revenue had served for Dowry to the Dowagers of Castille That by good fortune they were not engaged to any Grandee of Spain and that Queen Germana could have no cause to find fault that they were given her in exchange for her Pension out of the Kingdom of Naples Chievres thought Ximenes was in the right and was confirmed in his opinion when he understood that Queen Germana weary of Widowhood thought of marrying the unfortunate Prince of Tarento the only Son of Frederick King of Naples whom the Great Captain had made prisoner and sent into Spain after he had sworn upon the Holy Sacrament to leave him in liberty The occasion that offered was the most favourable that could be desired because it was unseemly for the Catholick King to meddle with the Testament of his Grandfather which was so advantageous to him and for Chievres to propose it since he had Negotiated the Treaty of Noyon whereby the Kingdom of Naples was to return to France Whereas the Cardinal acting immediately of himself and of his own proper motion would solely also procure the envy to
clean to the end no offence might be given to their Eyes and Noses That they must be received by her in great pomp and by consequence with good company That her Majesty gave access but to too few people about her and that she must admit of a more numerous Train That she ought to Eat in publick at least once a day and that that was the time when the Musicians desired by their harmony to dispose her stomach to a more quick and easie digestion He made her afterwards accept of certain pleasant companies of both Sexes instructed to imitate her extravagancies and above all things to contradict her in nothing directly and not to cross her humours indirectly but by making her believe that they suited not with the Majesty of the greatest Queen in the World. He so tamed her by that means that she was checked with the least wink of an eye of Ferdinand Talavera whom the Cardinal placed about her instead of Leo Ferriera too old and grave for the discharge of the Commission of Governing her which the late King had given him and at length they accustomed her on Sundays and Holy-days to hear Mass in a Church at some distance from Tordesillas upon pretext that she would receive by the way and on the place the acclamations of God save the Queen from people who were drawn thither out of curiosity to see her or who were desired to be there on purpose to the end her weak mind might be convinced that these were undoubted signs that she was acknowledged for their Sovereign Ximenes received for this more acknowledgments of gratitude than for any other of his actions though it was not the most important of all The Catholick King thanked him for it in writing Chievres complemented him in the same manner Spain resounded his praises and the Grandees were so satisfied with it that they were not heard to murmur any more against him But shortly after there happened a revolt in the Kingdom of Granada the more difficult to be quelled because the Council oâ— Bruxelles fomented it when they thought of no such thing It was the Law oâ— Spain that the Admirals of each Kingdom which reached to the Mediterranean Sea or to the Ocean should have their Judicatures fixed in the most frequented Ports of their Coasts and that their Judges should there try all Criminal and Civil Causes that happened to Sea-men Soldiers on board of Ships Passengers and to the Militia appointed for the guard of the Sea-ports But in process of time an abuse had crept in which grew daily more and more insupportable The Coasts of Spain upon the Mediterranean Sea were not now so much exposed to the incursions of the Infidel Pirats after that Ximenes had taken Oran and the other places on the Coast of Barbary which we have mentioned and by consequence had no more need of so many Vessels nor Soldiers to guard them So the number of Justiceable persons in the Admiralties was diminished and the multitude of their Officers not having been proportionably supprest their Courts for most part had nothing to do They were therefore reduced to seek for practice if they had a mind to exercise their Jurisdictions and they found some by a means that tended to the establishment of Impunity for all sorts of Crimes in the Towns where it was in use Those who had been guilty of enormous Crimes and were by Royal Justice condemned to Death found ways to prove that they had been Seamen Soldiers Passengers or Coastguards and under that pretext demanded to be referred to the Courts of the Admiralty It durst not be refused them because the Admiral would have immediately interposed in the affair for the preservation of his Priviledges and would have had it examined in the Supream Council of Castille and Arragon Nevertheless so soon as the Prisoner was removed unto the Prisons of the Admiralty he was almost sure of his life seeing a little money could always bring him off In the complaints of the Malaguins The Town of Malaga in the Kingdom of Granada had the greatest Traffick of any because of its excellent Wines and as strangers came there in greatest numbers so the Officers of the Admiralty there absolved also more Criminals The Burghers had often complained of it to King Ferdinand and had besought him entirely to abolish the Courts of Admiralty or to diminish the number of the Judges But his Majesty had had no regard to their petitions whether he feared to disoblige all the Admirals of Spain whose cause in that particular was common with the Admiral of Granada or that he thought the Burghers of Malaga would be too free and by consequence grow insolent if the Court they complained of were abolished But after his death the Burghers of that Town applied themselves immediately to the new Catholick King without first addressing themselves to Ximenes They demanded of him no more the alternative of the suppression of the Offices of the Admiralty or of their reduction to a smaller number but purely the total suppression and by their Deputies whom they sent to the Court of Bruxelles maintained that since the reasons which heretofore obliged the Kings of Spain to enlarge the priviledges of Admirals ceased these priviledges ought to be reduced to Common Law. The new King caused their â—proposition to be examined in his Council and Chievres thought it not convenient either absolutely to grant their petition or yet to defer the answering of it The first seemed to him to be too severe and mortifying and the next too uncivil He gave advice to answer the Malaguins that his Majesty at such a distance could not determine what was to be reformed in the Admiralty of Granada but that he would quickly be upon the places and there endeavour to give satisfaction to his good Subjects of Malaga The advice was followed and the Cardinal had no sooner learnt it but he wrote positively to Chievres that he had committed a considerable Error and that it would not be long before he had cause to repent it That he was not well enough acquainted as yet with the Genius of the Spaniards and that that Nation haughty towards all kinds of men became infallibly insolent towards their Superiors when they seem to be afraid of them by managing them with too much circumspection That he thought he had only written a complement in the last words of his answer to the Malaguins but that he would sooâ— see them explain those words as seriously as if they were part of the chief Article of a Treaty nay and give them a more ample signification than he had intended The event was more troublesome that Ximenes had predicted and the Malsguins imagined that they had obtained what they desired for this only reason that on the one hand it had not been refused them and on the other that they had been civilly answered They thereupon made an Insurrection banished the Officers of the Admiralty they
Infanto upon the only account that Chievres had recommended him to him But because Tellez was then at Bruxelles whither the Catholick King had called him Ximenes in expectation of his return put in his place the Marquess of Aguilat who afterward got so much into his young Masters favour that he continued to be chief Governour The Infanto sometime after having begg'd of the King his Brother to continue him in the place he had about him which was granted All the other new Officers of the Infanto were chosen by the Cardinal who in an action of that importance trusted no man but himself None were preferred but for merit but in the preference of merit Ximenes followed two measures first that they should be of mean extraction and then that they should be obliged to no man but himself for their fortune He thought that these considerations would be sufficient to take them off from cabelling wherein their predecessors had imprudently engaged and if they were not sufficient yet on all hazards it would be the easier to turn them off also that they had no relations to protect them The Spaniards seemed very indifferent as to the alteration of all the Servants of the Infanto save only in the removal of the young Viscount of Altamira He was of the same Age with his Master and was placed about him as a Page of Honour They at first contented themselves to play together at the Infanto's vacant hours But afterward the Sympathy of their humours had linked them into a stricter friendship than their young years and the disproportion of their quality seemed to allow of The truth is the Viscount had extraordinary complaisant dispositions to engage his Master He was a perfect Courtier before he knew what was fit to be done to become so without any other guide but nature and his duty It was not enough for him to second the inclinations of the Infanto with all imaginable exactness but he prevented them by his foresight and he was observed never to have proposed any thing to him but what was agreeable The Infanto who on his part loved him most tenderly In the Elegics of the Altamites used all means possible to retain him He besought wept importuned and for the space of twenty four hours refrained eating and drinking But Ximenes was as inexorable upon the account of that Servant as he had been in respect of the rest The Viscount had an original sin which barred him from all favour He was the Nephew of the Bishop of Ozorio the Infanto's Tutor and if he had lived with that Prince he might have inspired into him such sentiments as his Uncle pleased The fear of this was not without ground and Ximenes sent the Viscount home to his Father with Orders to tarry there until the arrival of the Catholick King in Spain Thus the boldest action that was ever seen in Castille since the Mores made no more war against it was put in execution by a man who hardly shew'd any more signs of life but in enduring the sharp pains which he felt and that with such absolute Authority that he would employ none in it but himself alone Posterity perhaps will find it now difficult still to believe what we are about to relate But it is so true that there is no circumstance nor evidence of truth wanting to it Chievres had wisely apprehended that Ximenes was not powerful enough to change the Infanto's houshold at his pleasure and the reason of his fear was that the Governour and Tutor of that young Prince had for kinsmen and intimate friends two Spanish Lords of great credit and resolution who would not suffer without raising some Tumult that men from whom they expected much in case of a revolution in affairs should be turned out of place These two Lords were the Marquess of Astorga and the Count of Lemos both which allied to many Noble Families of the Country personally valiant and expert in War If they were to be kept in their duty it could only be by Letters which the Catholick King should write to them with his own hand to inform them that foâ— the good of the Monarchy he had resolved to order Ximenes to change all the houshold of the Infanto his Brother and that his Majesty looked upon the Marquess and Count as faithful Subjects who would be so far from opposing the execution of his pleasure that they would facilitate it as much as they could The two Letters were sent open to Ximenes and it was referred to his discretion to cause them to be delivered or to suppress them as he should judge convenient But he was offended at it answered haughtily that he could do very well without them and threw them into the fire It appeared in the sequel that â—e had no better opinion of himself than â—e ought to have seeing the Marquess â—nd Count did no more but murmur â—gainst him in secret and perceiving â—hemselves watched by Soldiers who â—vaited only for the least stirring on their â—art to apprehend them they took no â—xceptions outwardly at the disgrace of â—heir friends In fine Ximenes having preserved to â—pain the Town of Algiers had the good â—…ck also once more to save Oran which â—as besieged by the Mores He received â—he news of it a few days before he had â—he intelligence that the Catholick King â—ho had embarked in the beginning of â—eptember one thousand five hundred and â—eventeen in the Fleet which he had â—ent to him was about the end of the â—ame month landed in the Coast of the â—sturias He was so overjoyed thereat â—hat for some days he seemed to have reâ—overed his health He rose out of the â—ed where it was expected he should â—ave died said Mass applied himself â—o publick affairs and ate with the Corâ—leliers in their Refectory At that time â—e received a Letter from Chievres who â—onsulted him about two businesses of exâ—ream importance One to know what should be done with the Infanto and the other if the Catholick King should visit the Kingdoms of Arragon before those of Castille The reason why Chievres doubted of the first point was that it did not seem probable on the one hand that the Infanto could be left in a Country where he had been brought up in almost certain hopes of Reigning without exposing the people to a perpetual temptation of revolting And on the other hand it was not secure for his Brâ—ther the King to send him into any other of his Dominions For were it into the Low-Countries the Flemings would make him their Sovereign were it for no other reason but to hinder their Country from being reduced into a Province of the Spâ—nish Monarchy and if it were into It aâ—… they who loved their freedom would solicite the Infanto to seize the Kingdomâ— of Naples Sicily Sardinia Majorca anâ— Minorca to the end that in a Country which was heretofore head of the World there might be no foreign Sovereign buâ— the King
of France who holding nâ—thing there but the Dutchy of Milan might easily be driven from thence As to the other point Chievres represented that his Catholick Majesty having by storm been forced upon the Coast oâ— the Asturias in Castille and necessitated â—o land there the Castillians might think â—hemselves slighted if he went out of â—heir Country to go to Arragon before â—e were acknowledged amongst them That they would ground their disconâ—ents upon that pretext that their Counâ—ry was in all respects more considerable â—han that which was seemingly preferred â—efore it and that their grievances would be the more universal that they would be reckoned just But to look â—pon the reverse side of the Medal Arraâ—on dreaded nothing so much as to be â—o closely united to Castille that there was no more distinction made betwixt â—hem It had many times testified a diâ—trust of this to the late King who to remove the same had united the Kingdom of Naples to the Crown of Arragon notwithstanding it was chiefly conquered and preserved by the Forces of Castille It was to be feared that this apprehension might again be revived if the Catholick King held the Estates of Castille before those of Arragon seeing the Arragonese who would then suppose that the preference was due to them In the last Letters of Chievres to the Cardinal by reason that their Monarchy was more ancient than that of Castille would imagine that there was a design of incorporating them into one Whereas if they were first visited and the preservation of their priviledges solemnly sworn to whereof the principal was to leave them in the state they were in they would continue in that profound tranquillity which it was the Kings interest to maintain them in that so in the process of time and affairs they might not cross his designs Ximenes made answer that there was reason to consider what was to be done with the person of the Infanto and that that was the thing which had most perplexed him during his Regency That that young Prince alone had cut him out more work than all Spain together but that he ought not to create so much trouble to the Catholick King his elder Brother and Master That his Majesty would do well once for all to take a course as to that and that he agreed it was not fit to send him into any of the Dominions whereof he was actually in possession but that he ought to be sent and setled in Germany so that he might there render the house of Austria more considerable by forming a second branch which might constantly remain there whilst the first made its ordinary abode in Spain That the ten Hereditary Provinces were a very handsom allowance for a younger Brother and that the Infanto ought to rest satisfied provided his Catholick Majesty consented that he might have them upon condition that he should renounce the successions of his Father and Mother That by means of these Provinces the Infanto might marry the Princess of Hungary and Bohemia and one day facilitate the Election of the Catholick King to the Empire Whereas if he were disposed of in any other manner whatsoever the advantages would not be the same â—either as to the house of Austria in geneâ—al nor to the Spanish branch in particuâ—ar As to the Monarchy which the Catholick King ought first to honour with his presence Ximenes wrote to Chievres that it was not a thing to be deliberated about and that seeing it was the good fortune of the Castillians that he landed first in their Country they might have occasion to take it ill if he denied them that preference which the storm that forced him thither had given them That the same consideration would hinder the Arragonese from repining at it and that however it was his Catholick Majesty would never Reign absolutely in Spain unless he laid down this as a fundamental Maxim of Policy That Arragon was but as an accessory in respect of Castille which was to him in place of a principal and that since the two Monarchies were united and that Navarre was incorporated into Castille the Arragonese would be so invested by the Castillians that upon what occasion soever they might revolt the Forces of the Castillians alone would be sufficient to reduce them to obedience Whereas if the discontent of the Castillians might at any time break out into a Rebellion who just 〈◊〉 unjust soever the cause might be not only the Arragonese would be too weak 〈◊〉 quell them but besides no human means appeared capable to hinder the Arragonese from imitating them in their Insurrection and then his Majesty would utterly lose Spain without any hopes oâ— recovering it again The advice of Ximenes was exactly followed in these two Articles but thougâ— the Catholick King had so great a deserence for him yet it was very difficuâ— for the Spaniards who expected hiâ— death every minute to preserve the samâ— reverence towards him which till theâ— they had had Anthony de Rojas Bishoâ— of Granada President of the Council oâ— Castille bore envy to Ximenes which â—s but too common to those who having but the second place in a famous Society think however that they deserve â—he first He valued himself at least as much as he valued Ximenes and imagined that if that Cardinal had died before the coming of the Catholick King â—nto Spain he would have succeeded to â—im in the Regency He had been also â—etled that Ximenes had done a great maâ—y important businesses without commuâ—icating any thing of them to him and â—eeing the death of Ximenes would have â—eprived him of the means of resenting 〈◊〉 he resolved not to stay for that He â—id hold on the occasion that he judged â—ost proper for baulking Ximenes and â—epresented in Council when the Reâ—ent was not in a condition to be present â—hat seeing they had the Royal Authoriâ—y in their hands they ought to make â—ll hast to go meet the Catholick King to â—emand of him the confirmation thereof That it mattered not much whether Xiâ—enes was or was not at their head when they discharged themselves of that â—rst duty because his Regency also was â—xpired by the Kings arrival in Spain or â—t least so diminished that he was no â—ore to be considered but upon the account count of civility That the sickness of Ximenes afforded him a good excuse so long as he pleased for not rendring in person his duties to his Majesty but it was not the same case with the Council which ought always to be in action and lost proportionably its lustre as it continued absent from its Master It was not the Presidents interest alone who spake to this purpose to make all hast to Court the other Counsellors of State were no less earnest to appear there They knew that there had been a resolution taken of reducing their number to one half that as many Flemings might be put into their places and since none of them
Magistracy or Benefice in Castille Nay their forecast went a little farther and seeing they knew that the Arragonese and Flemings aspired only to their Offices and Benefices that they might convert the vast Revenues that belonged to them into ready money and transmit it into their own Country They revived one of their ancient Laws which upon pain of death prohibited the Exportation of Gold or Silver out of their Country without the consent of the States They inserted both these into the Articles which the Catholick King was to swear before he was owned for Monarch of Castille and presented them to him altogether He examined them with Chievres who immediately made his Master observe the cunning of the Castillians He represented to him that they intended to oblige him to conditions unknown to his Predecessors and that if he condescended to them the consequences thereof would be very bad for the house of Austria in general and in particular for him who ought to be the head of it That that house indeed was in a fair way of making the most powerful Monarchy that ever was in Christendom since the Family of Charlemagne but that that Monarchy would have a defect to which that of Charlemagne was not subject seeing the Territories of the house of Austria would be too remote one from another to afford mutual assistance in time of urgent necessity That there was no other remedy for that but to do in the Monarchy of Spain with some proportion what God hath done in the making of the Body of man wherein the parts are engaged by their own interest for the preservation one of another That if the Flemings and Arragonese were frustrated of the Magistracies and Benefices of Castille they would not put themselves to the trouble of assisting the Castillians against the Turks and Mores as if the Castillians enjoyed not the same priviledges in Arragon they would not vigorously oppose the French who threatned to take Arms again for restoring the posterity of John d' Albert to the Throne of Navarre That it was not the same in respect of the Flemings who could not indeed neither assist nor be assisted by Spain by Land France lying betwixt them But passage was open by Sea and as the Maritine Forces of the Low-Countries infinitely surpast those of Spain so Spain had incomparably more need of the Low-Countries than the Low-Countries had of it That the custom of giving Offices and Benefices to the Flemings in Castille must not be broken off then though the Castillians might not reciprocally have the like priviledges in Flanders and by consequence his Catholick Majesty ought not to engage himself in any thing to the contrary The Council approved the Arguments of Chievres who was afterwards Commissionated to adjust with the Deputies of Castille the manner how the King before he was acknowledged should take his Oath to maintain the priviledges of the Country The first conference was not over before Doctor Zumel who in quality of Deputy of the City of * Burgos was as yet the capital City of Castille Burgos was the chief of the rest and by consequence had right to speak before them perceived that Chievres was so well informed of the Laws and Customs of Castille that it would be impossible to impose upon him For Chievres made appear by a discourse no less eloquent than solid that the Kings of Castille had never engaged themselves neither not to bestow the Offices and Benefices of the Country upon strangers nor yet to hinder the Transportation of Gold and Silver out of the Kingdom He added that there had been no ground neither on the Castillians part to impose that obligation upon their Kings nor on the part of their Kings to charge themselves with it and proved it invincibly because Castille was neither delivered from the Tyranny of the Mores nor erected into a Monarchy nor enlarged at the cost of the Insidels but by the assistance of the French English and other Nations which the Croisadoes had drawn thither and the Castillians were so far from discouraging them by Laws and Customs which frustrated them of the Offices and Benefices of the Country that on the contrary there was a famous example of Alphonso the beloved who to hinder Henry of Burgundy from returning into France gave him his Daughter and Portugal That that Prince whose memory was so precious to the Spaniards and the other wise Founders of the Monarchy of Castille would have gone directly contrary to their own interests if they had acted otherwise seeing their Subjects not sufficing to inhabit the Countries which from time to time they recovered from the Mores nor to maintain them if they had reserved the Magistracies and Revenues of the Church for the Native Castillians they would have encouraged but a few to become their Country-men Whereas by admitting indifferently to the Offices and Benefices of Castille strangers as well as Natives they engaged them to their Country by the same bonds that they themselves were engaged to it That the same conduct was no less necessary in respect of Silver and Gold seeing it was known that most part of the excessive summs which the Kings of Castille had spent in their Conquests were not drawn neither from the Revenue of the Crown nor out of the purses of their subjects but had been furnished by the voluntary contributions of strangers concerned in the enlargement of the Christian Religion and that these strangers would not have continued as they did for many Ages their liberalities if the Castillians who received so much Gold and Silver from other people had been so ungrateful as to suffer none of it to return back into the places from whence it came By this discourse Zumel found that the Mine had taken vent and spent no more time in maintaining that the Articles in question were not novel He turned the affair another way and only told Chievres that if the thing were rightly taken neither he nor his Nephew were any way concerned in it That a long while ago their Letters of Naturalization had past in Castille and that his great places of high Chamberlain high Treasurer Steward of the Kings House and Head of the Council were in no danger no more than the Archbishoprick of Toledo to which his Nephew was provided That Castille being for the future to be the Center of the Monarchy of the house of Austria it were fit that it should have some priviledge more than the other Dominions which in respect of it would only be lookt upon as Provinces and that it desired no other but that the Native Castillians might be assured of their Offices Benefices their Gold and Silver and the wealth that might come to them from the Indies Chievres could not endure the opinion that the Spaniards had of him as if interest were capable to sway him He cunningly replied to Zumel that he well knew that neither he nor his Nephew had any way solicited for the Letters
them that Fleming who had been his Governour and suffered them not to practise upon him and upon the Cardinal his Nephew all that rage and malice could suggest to them He understood the Spanish humour perfectly well and knew that that people never part from a prejudice when once they have been possessed with it and execute in secret the sentences which they have pronounced when there is no security for them to do it otherwise Nevertheless he chose rather to expose his person to continual Plots than to permit the punishments which were only inflicted for his safety Of the two hundred that had been excepted out of the Oblivion there were but two punished and Chievres obtained pardon for the rest We shall see by and by that that Heroick clemency much like to that of Caesar was as unhappy as his but the series of affairs requires that we first treat of one of the most important services that Chievres rendred to the Emperor which was the preservation of Navarre to him It hath been observed that the Clergy Nobility and People of that Country were become all equally sorry that they had assisted the Spaniards to conquer their Country and that they impatiently waited for an occasion to deliver themselves from the yoke which they had put upon their own necks That presented as of it self and yet the most favourable that could be desired The Cardinal of Tortosa the Constable and Admiral of Castille standing in need of Troops to quell the Seditious thought it not enough to draw out of Navarre the greatest part of those that were in Garison there They had also ordered the Artillery to be transported from thence into the Kingdoms of Arragon and Valentia whether that it was absolutely necessary for them to batter down the Rebellion or that despairing to preserve Navarre during the Civil War they resolved at least to make the best of the Cannon that were there The thing was fully put in execution and the Navarrese wanting only an Army to second them in the defection which they were hatching demanded one of the Countess of Chateanbrian who at that time could do any thing in France They represented to her that their Crown sprang from her house and must return to it again That her three brothers Lautrec Asparaut and the Mareschal de Foix were the next Heirs to Henry d' Albert That that Prince not being as yet of Age to carry Arms had need that his Cousin-german should act for him That the recovery then in agitation was neither doubtful nor difficult that all that was necessary to be done was only to take a Frontier place and then to appear in the heart of the Country where they would be favourably received That on the one hand they would have the hearts of the people and on the other no Enemy in the Field Two of the Brothers of the Countess were employed Lautrec was Governour of the Dutchy of Milan and the Mareschal de Foix commanded the Cavalry there In the Letters of the Mareschal de Foix to the King. Asparaut only remained who having no less courage nor ambition than they lived at home for want of an employment that he judged worthy of himself The recovery of Navarre was the most signal opportunity of getting reputation that for some years had been offered Glory there was enough to be acquired in case it succeeded and no great honour to be lost if it succeeded not So that the Countess employed her interest with Francis the First to engage him in the War of Navarre She told him that it was his interest to do it and that he might do so without breaking with the Emperor That there was neither money nor Forces demanded from him but that he would only suffer under hand men to be raised in the Provinces lying betwixt the Loire and the Pyrenees That if the enterprise proved unfortunate it would suffice for his excuse to disown it and if successful his Majesty might deliberate in Council whether he should recal Asparaut or assist him to pursue his Conquests in Spain to the end France might in a Treaty of Peace exchange them with the Kingdom of Naples The King had no more measures to be observed with the Spaniards since the Emperor had refused to set on foot again the Negotiation of Montpellier His most Christian Majesty had too publickly declared that he would by all means have the house of Albert restored to the Throne of Navarre to neglect so favourable an occasion that offered of it self and now the time was come when the two greatest Monarchs of Europe were to begin a quarrel that was to out-last themselves and expose Hungary to the invasion of the Turks The Court of France thought it not enough to suffer the Families of Albert and Foix do as they thought best in Guyenne and Languedock where both had vast Estates but favoured them in secret as much as they could and the young Gentlemen of Gasconny being perswaded that they would please their King by listing themselves under Asparaut flocked to his Colours in great numbers The Army was on foot before the Emperor knew that it was a levying and the Historians who agree that it was made up of choice men do so vary about the number of the Soldiers that it is not possible to reconcile them Some reckon them only to have been Eight thousand but others again swell them up to thirty It is also more difficult to be decided whether or not there was any intelligence betwixt Asparaut and the Rebels of Spain for the Authors on the other side of the Pyrenees positively assert it and prove it by fragments of several Letters which they say were found in Asparaut's Cabinet The French writers formally maintain the contrary And certainly there is nothing of it neither amongst the Records of the house of Foix nor amongst the Papers of Robertet who at that time discharged alone the office of Secretary of State under Francis the First However it be the enterprize of Asparaut was well enough conducted in the beginning He made the best of the fault of the Mareschal of Navarre which was mentioned in the foregoing Book and thought it not fit to engage himself in the mountains as he had done leaving behind him the important place of S. John-Pie-de Port. He besieged it in the usual form and seeing nothing withstands the first impetuosity of the French the besieged at the end of five or six days capitulated though they had all things necessary for maintaining a longer siege Asparaut who would lose no time crossed over the Pyrenees by the memorable passage of Roncevaux and at his descent was joyned by all that remained in Navarre of the Faction of Grammont able to carry Arms. The Duke of Najara Viceroy for the Emperor had none of those qualities that serve to help men at a dead lift when they are left in the lurch by other peoples fault He was superfluously cautious in all manner
growing greater seeing he had the Pyrenean Mountains for a Barriere and crossing that Chain of Rocks which Nature seemed to have laid to hinder the two most powerful Kings of Christendom from marrying together he found on the other side France so powerful in that part where it bordered on him that there was much greater cause to fear that it might take from him his Territories of Biscay Arragon and Catalonia if he attacked France than there was hopes of conquering Guyenne and Languedock in it He resolved then to weaken it before he attacked it and seeing it had got footing in Spain by the acquisition that the most Christian King Louis the Eleventh had made of the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne from whence it might easily seize Catalonia the places whereof were not at all fortified at that time he made it his whole care to recover them and succeeded therein by a way not before practised Christian Princes having not been as yet accustomed to cheat under a pretext of Religion Louis the Eleventh had bought of John King of Arragon the Father of Ferdinand In the Contract of Engagement the two Counties by a Contract of Engagement which bore that his most Christian Majesty should lend upon the Counties three hundred thousand Livers that both should be put into his hands for security of the debt That the King of Arragon should have full liberty to redeem them within nine years to be reckoned from the Date of the Contract upon payment of the Principal and Interest but that if he failed upon any cause or pretext whatsoever to do it within the limited time he should lose his reversion and the propriety of Roussillon and Cerdagne should remain to France The King of Arragon let the time clapse through a mere inability of redeeming the Counties and Louis the Eleventh perceiving the ninth year almost expired without any offer from the King of Arragon of repaying his Money observed a formality which was not necessary and served only to give him what in Law is called abundantiam Juris He caused the King of Arragon to be summoned by a Herald to redeem the Counties and that Prince not having done it his most Christian Majesty united them to the French Monarchy and left them at his death to Charles the Eighth his only Son. Charles had been already nine years in peaceable possession of them and seeing by the Law of his State what had been united ten whole years successively could not for the future be dismembred Roussillon and Cerdagne were no more alienable than the other Provinces of France seeing two most Christian Kings had enjoyed them without molestation during the space of thirty years But it had pleased Louis the Eleventh to bring up Charles the Eighth in such a gross ignorance that he had no knowledge of his own affairs and Ferdinand taking that young Prince on his weak side corrupted as they say by money Oliver Maillard a Monk of the observance his Confessor That Cordelier represented to Charles that Christian Charity allowed not Christians of what quality soever they were to take advantage from the misfortunes of others and that notwithstanding that was a thing which the late King had done and which his most Christian Majesty continued to do That when Louis the Eleventh had caused the late King of Arragon to be summoned to repay the money lent upon the Counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne he found him in an utter incapacity of satisfying him and that nevertheless his Majesty had therefrom taken all the advantages that are allowed by the Law of Nations That the King of Arragon was at that time pestered in a Civil War and a Foreign War both at once seeing on the one hand the King of Castile incomparably stronger than he had entered his Dominions with an Army and on the other hand the Catalonians had revolted That his Majesty of Arragon died before these Affairs were concluded and that Ferdinand his Son was no more in a condition than he to redeem the two Counties since he was forced to employ all his own Revenue and that of the Queen of Castile his Wife for driving the Mahometan Moors out of the Kingdom of Granada and that by consequent the prescription expired not in respect of him because he was taken up in a Holy War That his most Christian Majesty therefore was no less obliged in conscience to restore him the Counties and that though in the Court of Man he had a very good right to demand the Money and the Interest of the Debt which his Predecessor had lent yet he had not so in the Court of Heaven since France had recovered more out of the same Counties than amounted to the first Sum lent That he must not neither make deduction of the Expences that the late most Christian King was forced to be at in raising an Army of forty thousand men even according to the account of Spanish Authors and sending them into Roussillon for the reduction of the Town of Perpignan that had revolted That the Rebellion of that important place ought neither to be imputed to the late King of Arragon who had no hand in it nor to Ferdinand his Son that had neither directly nor indirectly countenanced it and that so Roussillon and Cerdagne ought without farther delay to be restored to him Charles who was not sharp-sighted enough to distinguish the truth from the falshood in this Discourse of his Confessour obeyed the Father but not so implicitely as the Cordelier pretended he should His Majesty indeed restored the Counties without receiving either Principal or Interest of the money disbursed by his Father but in return he required two conditions of Ferdinand which would have been no less troublesom to him than the payment of the money had they been as faithfully performed as they were stipulated in a solemn Treaty * In the last Treaty of France for the Counties The first was that Ferdinand should enter into no League offensive or defensive against France the other that he should not marry any of his four Daughters neither in Germany England nor Flanders and that he should not give them any Husbands without the consent of the most Christian King or his Successours but before a year was over Ferdinand broke the first condition and made no more scruple afterward to violate the second Six months after he entered into the Pyrenean League of Italy against Charles his Benefactor and had the greatest hand in robbing him of his Conquests Not long after he formed the project of hedging in France on the side of Picardy Champagne and Burgundy as he bordered it already on the side of Guyenne and Languedock and made account of bringing into his Family the Low Countries and the ten Hereditary Provinces of the House of Austria That House was reduced to Maximilian the First the Emperour the Archduke Philip and the Archdutchess Margaret his Children The Archduke was so tender and had cost so