ON CARLOS, the son of Philip II. King of Spain and of his first wife Donna Maria of Portugal, was born at Valladolid on July 8, 1545. All the feasts and rejoicings were abruptly and painfully ended: the Queen, who appeared in good health, died four days after her confinement, before she was eighteen. History presents us with few personages the real facts of whose lives are so completely misrepresented as is the case with the Spanish Prince. Historians as eminent as Schiller, Alfieri, and Lord Russell, inspired by hatred of his father, have taken possession of the person of Don Carlos. They have made him an exaggerated victim of paternal hatred, an advocate for religious liberty-have endeavoured to prove that Isabel de la Paz was violently enamoured of him, and have even extended their patronage to his person, and represented him as full of charm and intelligence. By a simple narrative of the real events, M. Gachard in his important work on Don Carlos et Philippe II., and before him Prescott in his Life of Philip II., have shown the difference between this creature of imagination and the sickly youth who lived surrounded by doctors, and at the same time of habit so gross and gluttonous that a French ambassador, Fourquevaux, said he only had strength in his teeth.

From the moment of the Prince's birth, stories are told of his sanguinary instincts and of his moral and physical defects. Tiepolo writes to the Venetian Republic that he used to bite the breasts of his nurse; but this report, written eighteen years after the birth of Don Carlos, is no doubt an exaggeration.

Don Carlos et Philippe II. Don Carlos et Philippe II.

Philip II. and the Emperor Charles V. spared neither care nor expense on the Prince's education. Donna Leonor de Mascareñas, a noble Portuguese lady to whom the infancy of Philip II. had been intrusted, took charge of the Infante. The sisters of the King, and Donna Juana especially, tended him with the utmost care. Charles V. ap

pointed a train of officials and servants when he was four years old to attend on him. His household consisted of more than seventy members of the aristocracy. His four chief officers were, the Duke of Alva; Don Antonio de Rojas; Ruy Gomez, Prince of Eboli; and Don Juan de Benavides. His masters were the most learned men that Spain could produce.

Those who are of the opinion of M. Mérimée (Revue des Deux Mondes, April 1, 1859), that 'Don Carlos avait été systématiquement entouré d'imbéciles ou de coquins intéressés à le corrompre,' are completely mistaken. Munatoñes, one of his two instructors, was a distinguished ecclesiastic. The other, Honorato Juan, was first a soldier, a member afterwards of the Imperial Council, and a gentilhombre de corte finally, being a man of great learning, he took orders, and in 1564 was made Bishop of Osuna. Education, however, availed but little with the crooked nature of the royal pupil. Don Honorato, in a letter to the King in 1557, says:

In learning he advances very little, for he studies unwillingly; and so is it with the exercises of games and fencing: I am obliged to stimulate him with rewards. He rides sometimes, but I do not let him do so often, because he is too careless on horseback, and runs into great danger.

In March 1556 Don Carlos ap

peared for the first time in public at Valladolid by the side of Donna Juana, who was governing the country in the absence of the King her brother after the abdication of Charles V. During this time, notwithstanding the religious fervour of the Spaniards, and the precautions taken by the Government and the clergy, some of the clergy had embraced the Lutheran doctrines. The Inquisition persecuted these sectaries with the utmost severity, and two autos de fé were held in Valladolid ia 1559. Don Carlos attended the first, with the Princess Donna Juana and the court, during his father's absence. To the second he accompanied the King, who had just returned to the Peninsula. The Emperor Charles V. came soon after. The Infante went to meet him, and they remained together for a fortnight at Valladolid. All that is known of their intercourse is that he disputed with his grandfather as to whether he had been right or not in retreating before the Elector Maurice, and quarrelled with him about a stove which the Emperor had brought over from Belgium. Charles's opinion of his grandchild was certainly unfavourable, for he refused to receive him at Yuste. We find that from his youth, sloth, pride, obstinacy, and other bad instincts had developed themselves in Don Carlos, while he began to be subject to bilious and feverish attacks when he was twelve years old, and was seldom free from them during the remainder of his life. When

the Cortes met in Madrid in December 1559, he could not be recognised Prince of Asturias, for he was so weak from an attack of quartan ague that he could not go through the ceremony. In January of the following year he could not for the same reason go to Guadalajara to receive Isabel de Valois or assist at her marriage with his father.

The Queen made her entry into Toledo in February 1560: the Prince accompanied her, and they saw each other for the first time. Isabel showed great interest in Don Carlos, who was pale and emaciated. The King took advantage of this slight improvement in the Prince's health to accomplish his recognition as Infante.

This ceremony was performed in the nave of the cathedral of Toledo, February 22. Don Carlos left the Alcazar splendidly attired and mounted on a horse with magnificent trappings; his father rode at his side, with Don Juan of Austria, Alexander Farnese, and the flower of the Spanish nobility, who rivalled each other in magnificence. The Princess Donna Juana followed the procession in a litter surrounded by her ladies. The Queen was prevented from assisting by an attack of small-pox. On their arrival at the Cathedral Don Carlos was declared heir of the throne, and swore the customary oaths. His health, however, was still feeble: in the feasts that followed Don Juan of Austria took his place at the tournaments. He continued consumé par la fièvre, says Gachard, until it was determined to send him for change of air to Alcalá de

Henáres, a healthy village eighteen miles from Madrid.

Thither Don Carlos went in 1561, and took up his abode in the palace built by the Archbishops of Toledo, where now the archives are kept. He passed his time playing with a young elephant, a present of the King of Portugal, and among other extravagances he swallowed a large pearl. After an indisposition produced by his excesses in eating, he seemed in the spring of 1562 to grow decidedly better. He had passed two months quite free from fever, and was improving daily, when he fell down one morning over a staircase of the palace, and gave himself so severe a blow on the head, that in the ill

ness which followed his life was despaired of. Gachard follows Tiepolo's account, who says: 'Il caso, per quel che ho per buona via inteso, passò in questo modo.' Don Carlos had taken a fancy to a daughter of one of the palace servants: the members of his household encouraged the intrigue; but Don Garcia de Toledo, his guardian, knowing that the lovers met at a small staircase on the garden side, ordered the door to be nailed outside. His precautions were useless. A midnight appointment was again made at the foot of the stairs. The Prince ran down alone in the dark, and so precipitately that his foot slipped and he fell, striking his head.

In a history of Alcalá which I have found among the MSS. of the National Library, Madrid, the story is told somewhat differently. The gardener, it is said, had a daughter of whom Don Carlos became enamoured. Her father sent her to the Prince's rooms with a basket of flowers. Don Carlos saw her from his room and ran after her; the girl, seeing herself pursued, ran down the stairs into the garden; Don Carlos chased her and fell.

Any way he received a wound in the back part of the skull, which almost cost him his life, and disturbed further his already imperfect sanity. The foreign ambassadors who noticed the accident speak severely of the ignorance of the Spanish doctors. Challoner, the English envoy, says: 'Now I believe that God's minister, Nature, hathe, in despite of the surgeons' inconsiderate dealing, doone more for the Prince than they were ware of.' Among the physicians who tried their skill upon him was a Moor of the kingdom of Valencia, called Piterele, who at a moment of extremity was sent for by the King himself. The Prince, however, grew worse under his treatment; and the Licenciado Daza says in

his remarkable account of the illness that they determined to 'do away with the Moor and his drugs.' He was trepanned; and in one of the days in which the Prince was most ill the body of St. Diego de Alcalá was brought to his room that he might touch it.

He left his bed at the end of two months, and received the ambassadors and other personages of the court who came to felicitate him on his recovery. Most of the sovereigns of Europe sent their congratulations by special messengers. He appeared at this official reception with his head covered and a bandage over one of his eyes. He had vowed during his illness to give, if he recovered, to different churches four times his weight in gold and seven times in silver. His weight was ascertained, and amounted to no more than seventy-six pounds.

The Prince having regained his strength had to undergo further ceremonies. That at Toledo only comprehended the crown of Castille; and it was necessary that the same formality should be held in Aragon, Cataluña, and Valencia. Philip II. assembled the Aragonese Cortes at Monzon with the deputies of Valencia and Cataluña. But the King was obliged to go there alone. Don Carlos had had two attacks of fever brought on by gluttony, which prevented his accompanying his father. Philip proposed to the deputies that his son should receive their votes by proxy, but they would not consent, and the ceremony was postponed to the following year.

Recovered at last from his surfeit, Don Carlos went from Alcalá to Madrid in June 1564, to take part in some juegos de cañas, where, it is said, he gained great applause. His health continued to improve; but his person never developed itself as it ought to have done in a youth of that age. Every account of his contemporaries agrees about this. Dietrichstein,

who had been sent from Germany on a special mission, wrote to the King of Bohemia in this same June:

The Prince is now in excellent health. My portrait of him for your Majesty will not differ much from my previous one. His face is regular enough, and there is nothing disagreeable in his features. His hair is brown and straight; his head of middle size, the forehead low, the eyes gray, the lips neither thick nor thin, the chin rather long, and the face pale. Nothing in him reminds us of the blood of the Hapsbourgs. He is neither tall nor broadshouldered, and one of his shoulder blades is higher than the other. His chest sinks in, and he has a small hump in the lower part of his back. His left leg is longer than the right. His hips are large but badly shaped, and his legs are weak. His voice is shrill and feeble, and he has a difficulty in speaking; the words come out very slowly, and he pronounces badly the r and 1; but nevertheless he knows how to say what he wishes, and can make himself

understood.

The moral portrait of the Prince as we deduce it from the different contemporary descriptions is commonplace, if not wholly unfavourable. If we knew nothing of him but the dispositions of his will, said to have been his own composition, we might credit him with much

that was amiable:

I command (he there says) that my body shall be given back to the earth, of which it is formed, clothed with the habit of St. Francis, and that no monument should be made for me, or anything be placed on my grave but a plain jasper slab. ... I entreat the King my master, and charge my exscutors, that they should see that everything relating to my burial should be performed without ostentation or vanity. . . . I ordain that the sum of 10,000 ducats may be given in alms to ransom those captive Christians who are most in need of it for the welfare of their souls, or those who were taken in fulfilling their duty to God and the King my lord.... Item, I ordain that-besides 1,000 ducats which the King my lord directed to be delivered to Mariana Yarutas, spinster, who is at present in the monastery of St. John of Henáres, to help her marriage, or enable her to enter into a religious

order a further sum of 1,000 ducats should be given her if she takes the veil, or 3,000 for her marriage portion.'. . . I direct that my debts be paid; and, in consideration of my love and duty to the Reverend Father in Christ, Don Honorato Juan, bishop-elect of Osuna, my master, I ordain that his debts be paid also, as if they were my own, and I entreat and pray him to allow this in proof of the friendship I bear him. . . . bequeath also to the aforesaid Honorato Juan, my master, my cloths of gold and silver tapestry, those that represent the history of the imprisonment at Pavia of the Christian King Francis. To Quixada, my

equerry, I leave everything he has and may have of mine in his possession at the time of my death. . . . I ordain that if my slaves Diego and Juan, whom I apprenticed with Jacome Trezo, sculptor, should learn the said craft, and turn out honest men, they should be set free. I ordain that, as Don Martin de Cordova in 1563 defended so nobly the fortress of Maraquevir, surrounded by Turks and Moors, I promised to give him 3,000 ducats revenue for ever for himself and his heirs, as I have not been able to serve him as yet, as I hope to do if God gives me life, I order the said 3,000 ducats to be given to him. I also order that one year's salary may be given to every member of my household; and that with what remains of my property a college should be founded for friars of the Order of St. Francis, that they may pray to God for my soul.

Wherever in the will the Prince speaks of his father, he is respectful even to exaggeration, and there is nothing in the whole document but does credit to his memory. Dietrichstein to the same purpose says:

He is extremely pious, and a great lover of justice and truth. He detests falsehoods, and never forgives anyone that he has caught in a lie. He is fond of simple, virtuous, and honest people. being served well and punctually, and loves and favours those who serve him in this

manner.

He likes

Yet side by side with these praises we hear continual complaints of his indiscretions. Soranzo, the successor of Tiepolo the Venetian ambassador, writes:

The Prince neither listens to nor considers anyone. He takes little notice of his father,

Gachard says that he had a liking for one of his friends, Juan Esteben de Lobon, who had been his valet. He made this man keeper of his wardrobe and jewels. One day at the beginning of 1567, for some unaccountable reason, he fell into a violent passion, and threatened to throw him out of the window, called him a rogue and robber, and made him give a strict account of everything he had under his charge. A short time after he gave Don Alonso de Cordova a blow, saying he had been longing to do it for more than six months, on account of some words of Don Alonso's which had displeased him. He threatened Don Fadrique Enriquez, his major domo, with a dagger; and we also find among the lists of the expenses of Don Carlos indemnities paid to the persons whose children had been illtreated by his orders. The stories which Cabrera and Brantôme tell of his having obliged a shoemaker to eat up a pair of boots which did not fit him, cut into small pieces, and of his having ordered a house to be burnt down and the inhabitants put to death because some water had been spilt on him as he passed by, may very likely be true. He was savage also to animals: he shut himself in a stable for five hours, and illtreated the horses most dreadfully; and once he illused his father's favourite charger in such a way that it died a few days afterwards.

The aversion of this amiable youth extended particularly to everyone whom Philip II. honoured with his favour. One day he met the president of the Council of Castille, Don Diego Espinosa, who had prevented a comedian called Cisneros from acting before him. The Prince

seized him, and drawing his dagger, said, 'Miserable little priest, how dare you hinder Cisneros from attending me? By the life of my father I will kill you!' Espinosa only escaped a stab by kneeling for mercy. On another occasion when Philip II. had locked himself in with his ministers to treat of important affairs, Don Carlos, curious to hear what they were discussing, listened at the door, and knocked down one of his gentlemen who remonstrated with him. When the Duke of Alva went to take leave of him on his departure for the Low Countries, he flew into a passion, and drawing his sword, said the Duke should not go, for he would kill him. The Duke caught his arm and held him till some one came. These extravagances must necessarily have vexed the King; but notwithstanding, in June 1564 Philip consented to his son's taking part in the government of the kingdom, and gave him the presidency of the Council of State. He appointed at the same time Ruy Gomez de Silva, Prince of Eboli, to be his guardian, much to Don Carlos's disgust, for Eboli was a blind and devoted servant of the King, but he was so dextrous a courtier that he very soon gained the Prince's affection.

In the following February the Pope sent Don Carlos the hat and sword which are reserved for the Prince who has distinguished himself by his zeal for religion. It was the time when Count Egmont came to Spain. Cabrera and Brantôme say that Egmont had several interviews with Don Carlos, and persuaded him to go to Flanders. Gachard considers this unproved. Catherine de Medicis had long wished for an interview with Philip II., and after many communications it was resolved in the spring of 1565 that the Queen should meet her mother at Bayonne. The Queen left Madrid on April 9, accompanied by