to them and of which so few of those about them are capable Don Carlos who naturally loved all extraordinary men engaged the Count to entertain him as they rode along with a description of the last Battel in which he had commanded The Count who was charmed with his curiosity satisfi'd it fully and Don Carlos made appear an extreme impatiency of seeing himself in a condition to do something like that he heard related he assured the Count of Egmont that if ever the troubles in Flanders came to break out in an open War as the Governess seem'd to apprehend they would nothing should hinder h m from coming into those Provinces there to learn under him his Apprentiship of War The voyage of the Princes was not long the Town of Alcala presented Don Carlos with a Horse of great price but as furious as he was handsome The Prince having desired to see him mounted was ill satisfi'd with all those that rode him and would needs try how he could ride him himself The Horse whose mouth was already very much heated as soon as the Prince began to prick him took a fright and ran away with him with so much violence that Don Carlos thought it his best way to throw himself off but he did it so unfortunately that he was left for dead upon the place and though he came to himself some hours after yet when the Chirurgeons had examin'd the wound he had received in his head they all despaired of his life In this extremity he sent the Marquis of Posa his Favourite to carry his last Adieu to the Queen The Princess of Eboli went to him at the first report she heard of this accident to see after what manner he would receive her The dissimulation of the Queen who was not prepared for so rude a trial abandon'd her at this news and though her mouth accustom'd to be silent did not permit her grief to declare it self by complaints her silence and the disorder she was in discover'd more of her thoughts then all the words in the world could have done Yet how great soever her affliction seem'd to be there had been always so much friendship seen between her and Don Carlos that no body was surprised therewith But the Princess of Eboli that was a great proficient in the mysterious Sciences of Love could not comprehend how so violent a despair in the Queen should be nothing but an effect of friendship In the mean time the people inspir'd by the Inquisitors did not seem to discover any great sorrow for this misfortune but look'd upon it as a manifest punishment of God upon Don Carlos for his impiety The Queen who thought she had now nothing more to housewife could not refuse her self the sad consolation of letting the Prince know the pitiful condition in which he left her She wrote to him all that love and dispair can suggest most tender and most affecting and she made the Marquis of Posa go back to him with order presently to bring back her Letter in case he should not arrive at Alcala till after the death of Don Carlos The joy with which the Prince's soul was filled at the receit of this Letter was so great that it restored him his life As soon as he was out of danger the King made him be brought back to Madrid thinking that the animosity of the people would in part be appeased by this cruel adventure The first time the Queen saw Don Carlos she ask'd him for her Letter but how earnest soever she were to have it back the Prince to whom this testimony of her affection was dearer then the life it had rendred him persisted always in his resolution to keep it not thinking that this Letter was once more to decide his destiny At his return he found the Princess great with child and her greatness did provoke his jealousie to a degree that made him make so odd and unreasonable complaints to her that any body but she would have thought that he had lost his wits Whilst his Cure was finishing she lay in of the Illustrious Arch-Dutchess of Flanders who was afterwards Heiress of her Beauty and Wit as well as of her Name A little while after she fell dangerously fick of the Small Pox but the prayers of the people for her were so effectual that she recovered not onely with a greater degree of health but also much more beautiful then before Don Carlos had hardly had the time to testifie his joy to her for her recovery when she was forced to go to Bayonne whither the Court of France was come to meet her and where the charms of her conversation and her prudent and modest carriage did not cause less admiration of her in peoples minds then her beauty caused disturbance in their hearts Don Carlos saw with all the discontent imaginable these divers hinderances which Fortune raised up one after another to interrupt his commerce with the Queen when this last Voyage after which he thought he should have nothing more to fear drew upon them an affair which imbitter'd the sweetness of their life by some obstacles that never had an end Jeanne de Albret Queen of Navarre and Widow of the late King Anthony had a pretty while before this time declared her self of the New Religion and she was a Princess that govern'd her Subjects with a Piety that might well be an example to all her Sect and with a Justice whose equal perhaps had never been seen in the Court of any King Her Son whom she brought up in the same belief was look'd upon from that very time by the Religionaries of France as their Protector The Spaniards seeing that the pretensions of that House upon the upper Navarre fell into the hands of this Child brought up in an hereditary hatred against them that was sharpned by the difference of their Religion and upheld by a party so redoutable as was that of the Hugonots at that time to deliver themselves from all these fears resolved forcibly to take away this young Prince with the Queen his Mother the Princess his Sister out of the heart of their Dominions and to carry them into Spain put them into the hands of the Inquisition The chief of the Catholick party in France being of intelligence with the Duke D' Alva to deprive the Hugonots of so considerable a support as was that of the House of Navarre engaged themselves with joy to contribute whatsoever depended on them for the happy success of this enterprise An infamous Villain called Captain Dominick born in the Countrey of Bearn was charged with the execution of the business by reason of the perfect knowledge he had of the Countrey Part of the Troops that waited then at Barcellona for a favourable wind to pass into Barbary were appointed to advance themselves as far as Tarragona From this Town it was easie secretly to lead a considerable Body of Horse through the Mountains and so to
him an account on the King's part of the news they had received from Granada This Minister entertain'd him so late that the Prince seeing he had not night enough left to go so far as he desired before his flight could be discover'd thought it his best way to put it off till the morrow Rui Gomez retir'd himself after he had seen him in bed but being ignorant of the change of his resolution he set some of his most faithful and resolute men at all the avenues of the Prince's apartment It had been to be wish'd for the King's justification that Don Carlos had been taken in attempting to escape But when they had waited two or three hours without seeing any appearance of his coming out the King resolved to pass on not thinking that he ought to hazard all things for a formality Don John had observed the manner in which his chamber door was shut and whilst Don Carlos was yet at the Queen's chamber the King had commanded the maker of that extraordinary Lock to spoil the spring of it some how or other that so it might no more shut so close but that it might be open'd on the outside Whatsoever this Workman could do the spring made a great noise in opening but the Count of Lerma whom the King made enter first into the room found the unfortunate Prince sleeping so soundly that he had the leisure to take away the Swords and Pistols that were under his bolster without waking of him After this the Count sate down upon a Coffer that stood by his bed-side and in which Don John thought the Fire-arms were kept Then the King judging by the Count of Lerma's silence that he had done what he ought to do entred himself into the Chamber preceded by Rui Gomez the Duke of Feria the Great Commander and Don Diego de Corduba all armed with Swords and Pistols The Prince being awakened with much ado by Rui Gomez as soon as he had opened his eyes cried out that he was dead The King told him That all they did was for his good But Don Carlos seeing that he seized on a Box full of Papers that was under his bed entred into so furious a despair that he was going to throw himself all naked as he was into a great Fire pan full of Coals which the extremity of the cold had obliged his servants to leave lighted in his chimney They were fain to draw him from it by force and he appeared inconsolable that he had not had the time to smother himself in it They presently unfurnish'd his Chamber and in stead of so many magnificent things which they took out of it they put into it for its onely furniture a scurvy Groundpallet None of his Officers after that time ever appeared in his presence His Guards never let him go out of their sight They caused a mourning Suit to be made for him and he was no more waited upon but by men clothed in the same dress and who were unknown to him This unfortunate Heir of so many Crowns saw no more any thing about him which did not represent to his eyes the frightful image of death In the mean time the King saw the designs and intelligence of his Son by the Papers which he had seized He was astonished at the greatness of the danger he had run but he was yet more touched when amongst several Letters of the Queens Hand-writing he found one which appeared to him the most Passionate and most Amorous in the world It was that which the Marquess of Posa had carried to Alcala and which Don Carlos would never be perswaded to restore As the Queen had written it in the first transport of her grief for the Mortal Accident that had befallen that Prince she did not think any consequence could be drawn from what she could say to a Man whose life was despaired of or that it could produce any other consequence then to make him die more contentedly So that she had abandon'd her self to all her tenderness in writing it and had in it expressed the dearest and most secret Sentiments of her heart with all the violence that so lamentable an occasion could inspire Yet it was without any Passionate expressions that could interest her honour or so much as offend her Duty But the King drew very different consequences from it The fury he conceived for it was at first accompanyed with so lively a grief that it would perhaps have bereaved him of his Life if the desire of revenge so natural in those occasions had not preserved it But reflecting presently in himself That he was Master of those that had so cruelly offended him this agreeable thought made a barbarous joy succeed to the rage he had in his Soul which changed his tormenting despair into a tranquility full of horrour The same day Monteigni was clapt in prison to leave some time after his head upon a scaffold and the Marquis of Bergh in favour of Rui Gomez his ancient friend had leave to poison himself The intimacy of these Two Noble-men with Don Carlos was known to all the world They were both as well as he declared enemies of the Cardinal Spinosa Inquisitor General and this Enmity was enough in Spain to make a man suspected for his Religion They accused this Prelate to be the Authour of all those violent Counsels that the King had taken against their country but the Cardinal accused them themselves of having made several Packets of Calvin's Catechismes he brought out of France by the help of a Passport from Don Carlos All the passionate proceedings of this Prince against the Inquâ—sitors about the will of Charles the fifth were not as yet forgotten All these things joyned together did strangely dispose the people to believe the Innocent Prince engaged in the new opinions of which he had never so much as heard any body speak The King saw well that there was nothing but Religion that could make so strange an action as that he had done be endured He doubted not but that with these favorable dispositions and the proofs he had of his Son's intelligences he could if he would Sacrifice him with impunity to his revenge In this belief he put into the hands of the Cardinal Spinosa all the Originals he had found in Don Carlos his Cabinet excepting onely the Queen's Letters He established the Inquisitors Sovereign Judges between his Son and him and he protested he would wholly refer himself to their Judgment He knew that the choler of that sort of people never dies and that he should find their resentment against the Prince as violent after several years of interval since their quarrel as if it had been but a week before Although the King had made rigorous prohibitions to write of the imprisonment of Don Carlos into Forreign Countries the news of it was soon spread abroad The most part of the Princes of Christendom begg'd his pardon the Empress especially
Queen who was handsome enough to render this counterfeit probable and who appeared to be more in her favour then any of her other women He spared nothing of all he could imploy to corrupt her but it was impossible he could draw from her the secret of her Mistress because she knew it not for the Queen far from acquainting any body else with it would have been glad if she could to have hid it from her self He took pretence of talking to this Lady that so he might leave Don Carlos alone with the Queen and he became insensibly as commode as till then he had been troublesome He thought that if they were of intelligence with each other he should know nothing of it by interesting himself in their conversations because they would then take heed of him and that his assiduity would but make them hate him the worse and keep him the more out of their privacy into which he desired passionately to be admitted The Queen appeared so reserved that he despaired of entring into hers He attempted then to get that of the Prince whose free and ingenuous nature promised him a greater facility in this design he changed wholly his carriage towards him He used no more that familiarity which the quality of an Uncle gave him and he became the most respectful of his Courtiers He managed so dextrously the occasions of making People take notice of Don Carlos's good qualities that this Prince who suspected not his esteem of flattery because he knew that he deserv'd it came by degrees to think that his Uncle loved him Don Carlos did in the end even put a great deal of confidence in him but as that of a truly generous Man and who loves really never extends it self to the secret of his love when he is well used The Prince at length intrusted all things to his Uncles knowledge besides that one he desired to know Don John growing desperate with not being able to discover any thing resolved to take Counsel of some body that had more experience than himself in those matters As he was the handsomest and best proportion'd Prince in Europe he had at first mightily pleased the Princess of Eboli who knew not that the Queen was to be fatal to all her designes Yet she did not wholly spoile this last as she had done the others Don John was one of those happy complexions that are never sensible to beauty but in view of the pleasures it can give and that of the Princess of Eboli promising much touched at least his senses if it did not reach his heart as the Queens had done On the other side he consider'd the Princess as a person whose Counsels might serve him very considerably in a Court where all things were new to him He prevented by his officiousness the testimonies of good will which she sought to give him and appeared so transported with joy at the first Marks he saw of it in her that she well judged he would answer to greater with much ardour So that they had soon established a Commerce by so much the more agreeable as their hearts were not enough concerned in it to trouble their pleasures by jealousies and those other too delicate scrupulosities that great passions use to inspire Don John living in this manner with the Princess of Eboli resolved fully to acquaint her with all he knew concerning the love of Don Carlos It is easie to judge of the joy she had at the hearing of this news she was so taken up with it that she made no reflection upon the interest Don John took in the Queens heart Onely she counselled him continually to observe all things because how circumspect soever one be it is impossible not to forget one's self sometimes when one is truly in love And as she examined not the interest he seem'd to take in this matter so he was not too curious in searching out the reason of that zeal with which she promised him to employ her self in it He thought without deeper examination that it was an effect of the complaisance she had for him and of the curiosity ordinary to those of her sex It is probable that two so clear-sighted persons would soon have discovered what they had so much interest to know if it had not been for an accident which broke all their measures in absenting Don Carlos from the Court and which cannot well be understood without following the Story to its first source Among the reports that had run about in the world concerning the Emperour's retirement the most strange of all was that the continual negotiations he had had with the Protestants of Germany had bred in him some inclinations for their opinions and that he had hid himself in that solitude onely to have the greater liberty of ending his days in those exercises of piety that were most conformable to his secret disposition It was said he could not pardon himself the ill treatment he had made to those brave Princes of that party that the chance of War had brought into his power Their vertue which in the midst of their misfortune shamed his prosperity had bred in him by degrees some sort of esteem for their opinions He durst not any longer condemn a Religion to which so many great persons made it their glory to sacrifice all that men can have most precious in the world This esteem appeared by the choice he made of persons strongly suspected of Heresie for his Spiritual conduct as of the Doctor Cacalla his ordinary Preacher of the Archbishop of Toledo and above all of Constantine Pontius Bishop of Drossa and the Director of his Conscience It hath been known since that the Cell where he died at St. Justus was filled on all sides with little Papers written with his own hand concerning Justification and Free Grace which was not very far from the Doctrine of the Innovators But nothing confirmed this opinion so much as his Will there was almost no pious Legacies in it nor any foundations for Prayers for his Soul and it was made in a manner so different from those of all zealous Catholicks that the Inquisition of Spain thought it had right to take notice of it yet it durst not make any noise before the King's arrival But this Prince having signalized his entry into that Countrey by the exemplary punishment of all that were adherents to the new opinion the Inquisition growing bolder by his example attacked first the Archbishop of Toledo afterwards the Emperour 's ordinary Preacher and last of all Constantine Pontius The King having suffered them to be imprisoned all three the people look'd upon his patience as a Master-piece of his zeal for the true Religion but all the rest of Europe saw with horrour the Confessor of the Emperour Charles in whose arms that Prince expired and who had as it were received into his bosome his great Soul delivered to the most cruel and most shameful of all punishments and that too
by the hands of the King his Son In effect the Inquisition thinking fit in the prosecution of their Process to accuse these three persons of having an hand in making the Emperour's Will had the boldness to condemn them to be burnt with the Will The King awaken'd himself at this Sentence as at a clap of Thunder At first the jealousie he had of his Father's glory made him find some pleasure in seeing his memory exposed to this affront but afterwards having considered the consequences of this attempt he hinder'd its effect by the most gentle and secret ways he could choose thereby to save the honour of the holy Office and make no breach upon the Authority of that Tribunal As for Don Carlos at the first news he received of this business he talk'd of it onely as a matter fit for raillery but seeing that the Inquisition continued in good earnest its pursuit he conceived an indignation proportionable to what he owed to the memory of the Emperour To comprehend the reason of the particular interest he took in that business we must know that this great Personage who amongst other heroick qualities did sovereignly possess that of understanding himself in men had conceived extraordinary hopes of his Grandson When he retired himself into Spain he would needs have him along with him And it was in that excellent School of Wisdom and Magnanimity that Don Carlos had confirmed himself in his natuaal love for glory and for all Princely vertues The desire he had to answer worthily the pains of so illustrious a Preceptor had in some sort ripen'd his Wit before the time and made it bring forth fruits that were not to be hoped for in so early a season The Emperour knew how to manage the fiery and violent nature of the Prince with so much artifice and dexterity that he had visibly moderated it in a short time But it being to be feared lest this great ardour of mind should incline him to evil courses if he had endeavoured utterly to have suppressed it he gave it all the liberty necessary by encouraging him in the pursuit of glory of which one may say That this wise Governour abandon'd all the Beauties to the violence of his Pupil's desires It is easie to imagine that this education had imprinted in Don Carlos an extraordinary respect for the Emperour his Grandfather and that the endeavouring to blot the memory of that illustrious Deceased was an offence to him in the most sensible part of his Soul Don John and the Prince of Parma interressed in this glorious memory as well as he were not less provoked with the affront They blamed all three the King's weakness who did not resist this insolence with all the violence they could have wish'd and they conceived for him a contempt that never ended but with their lives And as they were yet too young to comprehend that the most absolute Kings have no rights so sacred in the minds of their people as those that are taken from the pretence of Religion they spake publickly of the attempt of the Inquisition with as great transports of passion as people of their quality were capable of having upon so justifiable a subject nay and they went so far as to threaten that they would utterly destroy the holy Office and all its supports The people who learn'd these passages no otherwise then as the Inquisitors or those who were employ'd by them were pleased to relate them did testifie how extremely they resented such proceedings The King fore saw at the very first the ill consequences that might follow unto the Princes from their indignation but knowing that they had so far forgot themselves as to blame some of his own actions he would not speak to them of it himself for fear of drawing upon him some disrespectful answer Rui Gomez whom he charged with this Commission acquitted himself of it with all the earnestness that the importance of the matter seem'd to require Don John and the Prince of Parma who had naturally more the mastery of themselves then Don Carlos rendred themselves to his reasons and Ambition being their predominant passion they had all the sorrow imaginable to have put so considerable an obsticle to their fortune as the hatred of the Inquisitors which by this means they had brought upon themselves and by consequence that of the People The Prince on the contrary whose nature was to be the more irritated by opposition could never be brought to confess that he was in the wrong In the mean time the Doctor Cacalla was burnt alive with an Effigies that represented Constantine Pontius who was dead some days before in the Prison The King was forced to suffer this Execution that so he might oblige the holy Office to suffer the Archbishop of Toledo to appeal to Rome and that the Emperour's Will might be no more spoken of This accommodation of affairs appeased Don Carlos but it did by no means please the Inquisitors and that being a sort of people incapable of pardoning they raised so great murmurings among the people that what care soever the King could take there was no way of making the noise cease but by absenting the Prince from the Court for some time Alcala was then in its greatest lustre and all the considerable persons that went into Spain fail'd not to visit so famous an University The King pretended that the Princes had the same curiosity and his pretence to hasten their voyage the more was that the Prince of Parma was shortly to leave them and to go under the conduct of the Count of Egmont into Flanders where he was to be married When Don Carlos knew this resolution and that now he must necessarily leave the Queen he began to see the precipice into which he had thrown himself and the interest of his love forced from his mind a repentance of his past carriage which was more then the interest of his safety and greatness could ever have done The King who could by no means endure to be separated from Rui Gomez obliged the Count of Egmont to take this Favourites place about the Princes during the voyage of Alcala This Count was one of the most accomplished Captains of of his age and was covered with the glory he had gotten in the last War at the Battels of St. Quintin and Gravelin and of so many great men that had been formed in Charles the Fifth's School no one had ever had a greater share then he in the esteem of that Emperour The Dutchess of Parma well foresaw the storm that since that time was raised in the Provinces which the King her Brother had intrusted her with and she judged it convenient to represent to him the inconveniences that were to be feared from those novelties he had a mind to introduce This Commission demanded a man of the quality and profession of the Count Egmont and one accustomed to speak to Princes with that noble liberty which is so useful