PRINCE CARLOS OF SPAIN AND HIS FATHER PHILIP II.

As long as the Spanish Inquisition existed, and its archives were kept from the public eye with the anxious jealousy which marked all the proceedings of that odious tribunal, History was obliged to suspend her verdict on the death of Prince Don Carlos, the eldest son of Philip II. and heir to his vast dominions. The evidence which was to be gathered from contemporary writers could not, in fairness, be finally weighed and appreciated, while there was a strong reason to believe that the most authentic documents relating to that mysterious event were still preserved, and might one day come to light.

It appears, however, that among the records of religious tyranny which the first abolition of the Inquisition, under the government of Joseph Bonaparte, allowed to see the light, nothing was found connected with the fate of the unfortunate Carlos of Austria. Such is the positive declaration of Don Juan Antonio Llorente, late Secretary to the Madrid Inquisition, who, disaffected to the establishment of which he was a confidential member, had, for some years, been collecting notes for a history of the Spanish Holy Office, which he completed under the French usurpation from a full examination of the contents of the inquisitorial archives.

Llorente, though not bound to enter into a critical examination of an obscure historical fact, which he has shewn to be unconnected with the subject of his work, thought proper to introduce, as an episode, a more complete and authentic account of the unfortunate life and untimely end of Prince Don Carlos than was ever published before. The narrative however, partakes of the character of the whole work, which is a mere assemblage of facts hastily and carelessly put together-a depository of authentic and highly curious information, from which a writer of more talent might compile a history of the Inquisition, of half the size and double the interest of the original.

Curiosity and a degree of unwillingness to acquiesce in some of the inferences of the Spanish writer, led us to some of the main sources from whence he deríves his information. This search having confirmed our former opinions, and afforded us a clearer view of a dark and melancholy transaction which history has not been able hitherto to unravel, we conceived that a short statement of the whole might not be unacceptable to the public.

The odious character of Philip II. has, more than any thing contained in the historical records of the time, contributed to the posthumous fame of his unhappy son Don Carlos. Novelists and dramatic poets having claimed him for their own, represent his character and person as adorned with every virtue and every grace which could set him in a striking contrast with his father.

Ma chi'l vede e non l'ama?

Ardito umano cor, nobil fierezza,

Sublime ingegno, e in avvenenti spoglie
Bellissim' alma*-

Truth, however, obliges us to dispel this pleasing delusion, and to withdraw from Carlos, though unfortunate and oppressed, much of the

Alfieri, Filippo. Att. I. Sc. 1.

sympathy which we formerly lavished upon him. To have a hero of romance thus stript of his honours, and plucked down even below the common level of mankind, must, as all acts of public degradation, be alike unpleasant to the spectator and the performer. For our parts, we confess that we undertook the task with reluctance. Indeed, if we feared that, by diminishing the interest hitherto claimed by the memory of Don Carlos, we relieved that of his father from a single atom of odium, and made his name more tolerable to the ear of freedom, we should not volunteer to bring a useless and dangerous truth into light. History has, and should ever possess, her gibbets, where criminals too powerful for human justice may be exposed in chains to the eyes of the remotest posterity: and, surely, we would not bring Philip of Spain an inch nearer our common earth, where he hanging upon Haman's cross of fifty cubits. But nothing we have been able to discover in the history of Carlos does in the least degree extenuate his father's villainy. The novelists and poets have flattered Philip's trait, indeed, by making him capable of the boldness of passion. He was a coward by nature-a coward placed upon the most powerful throne of Europe, bending an active, shrewd, and unfeeling mind on the sole object of gratifying his stern passions without the least exposure to real or imaginary danger. Fiction, in fact, has here, as in most cases, overshot her mark; for an ideal Philip who, in a fit of jealousy, could plunge a dagger into his son's bosom, would be almost lovely, compared with the cautious, calculating monster that could engage disease to do his work, in order to keep his hands from blood, lest the stain might disturb his conscience-for Philip, too, had a conscience.

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Carlos's misfortunes seem to have begun at his birth. His mother, Mary of Portugal, lost her life four days after he was born.* His grandfather, Charles V., from whose comprehensive genius, and truly princely feelings, he might have received the benefit of early care and example, was in Germany and the Netherlands during the prince's childhood. The absence of his father might be deemed a happy circumstance for the child's moral and mental growth; but it only threw him into the hands of his two paternal aunts, Mary the wife of Maximilian, afterwards Emperor, and at that time Regent of Spain, and Johanna, Dowager of Portugal.

Born, probably, with a violent temper, spoiled by his guardians, and surrounded by courtiers, tamed and trained by the most absolute of European monarchs, Carlos grew up in the full indulgence of a wayward disposition.

We seldom find historians tracing the characters of heirs-apparent from the nursery; much less collecting and recording the tricks and pranks of royal striplings. But as there was a powerful tyrant to flatter, the Spanish contemporary writers have left us a list of every misdemeanour of Carlos, commencing with the murder of some rabbits, which, when very young, were given him for his amusement. It is still more curious to observe, that Philip is said to have conceived an early dislike of his son, from a knowledge of this act of cruelty. So

In 1545.

exquisite was the sensibility of the patron of the Duke of Alva, the husband of our English Mary, the avowed encourager of assassination.

Cruelty to animals in children, is the natural result of thoughtlessness and inexperience. That nature had not denied to Carlos the kinder feelings of the human heart, is known from his strong and lasting attachment to his tutor, Don Honorato Juan, Bishop of Osma. Some fragments of the Prince's letters to that excellent man have been preserved, and are found translated in Llorente's work. They are the hasty and careless performances of a boy, who, in his hurry, leaves out parts of the sentences, and has not the patience to examine what he has written. Our author, who is determined to make out the unfortunate Carlos a monster whose death was a blessing to Spain," quotes these letters as proofs of a natural want of talents, or rather of common sense. Yet, he should have observed that the faults in the construction of the sentences which the letters exhibit, are such as no Spaniard, however dull and stupid, could fall into; whilst few among the crowd of royal pupils have left such a warm and sincere testimony of friendship for their instructors. That this was not a transient fit of childish fondness is evident from Carlos's subsequent conduct. At the very time when he is accused of leading a wild and outrageous life, he still cherished the recollection of his tutor, and so earnestly longed for his society, that he applied to the Pope for a dispensation of Bishop Juan's residence at Osma, that the good old man, who, probably, was his only true friend in the world, might live near him at court. The dispensation was obtained, but Juan did not avail himself of it. Such, however, as have studied the character of Philip, will be inclined to think with us, that though he would not prevent the application to the Pope, he secretly contrived to defeat its object. The Prince was surrounded by his father's spies, and it was inconsistent with the tyrant's fear of Carlos's early love of power to allow any real friend to be near him.

That Carlos was kept by the effects of his father's suspicion in a state of constant irritation, which finally produced a morbid feeling bordering upon insanity, is the firm conviction with which we have risen from the attentive perusal of the most authentic contemporary narratives. Philip never withdrew from the person of his son any of the pomp of state which became the heir of his crown. Even when he had confined Carlos with a firm determination of bringing him to an untimely end, he would not allow the grandees, to whom he had committed the custody of his person, to wear their swords in the presence of the unarmed prince. Carlos seems to have possessed at all times the liberty to injure both his person and reputation. The contemporary writers accuse him of personal violence against some of his attendants of the first rank; of indecent rioting about the streets at night; of wreaking his displeasure on one of his tradesmen in a brutal and most deliberate manner. Yet the King, who was regularly informed of every word and action of his son, never interfered in these matters. He only seems to have made it a rule to reward with confidential places near his person such as had exposed themselves to an insult from the prince.

It must be allowed, however, that Carlos's fits of ungovernable anger might well create a suspicion that he was labouring under a certain degree of insanity. That his own father encouraged at one time the

propagation of such a report appears from Cabrera's interpretation of an obscure sentence in Philip's Letter to his sister the Empress, wife of Maximilian II., on the occasion of the Prince's arrest.* The supposed mental derangement was attributed to a fall which Carlos, when a boy, had down the stairs of the palace of Alcalá de Henares. A severe contusion on the head and the spine occasioned such an alarm for his life, that the king ordered the body of a Franciscan friar, who had long before died in "odour of sanctity,"† to be laid upon the prince. This strange application was believed to have saved the royal sufferer; and the departed owner of the miraculous mummy was soon after sainted through the exertions of Philip at the court of Rome. No symptoms of real derangement appear, however, in the conduct of Carlos after recovery from the effects of his accident.

The true clue to the cause of his unfortunate violence is, we repeat, to be found in the odious system pursued by his unfeeling father during the whole course of his life. Philip's dislike of his son was only disguised by his interest in supporting the external show of respect which he believed to be due to a prince of Asturias, the heir of his throne. But the sternness and distance of the King's behaviour; the distrust of his own son, contrasted with the confidence he reposed in his favourites; the use he made of two sets of spies, some checking and thwarting the spirited young man, others yielding to his wishes in order to sift and draw out his inmost thoughts, dried up the sources of kindness in his heart, leaving it a prey to that vehemence of volition, the natural result of a princely education, which so easily degenerates into a state of mind nearly allied to real insanity.

Of the well-authenticated instances of Carlos's insolence, we do not recollect one which may not be traced with considerable probability to those sources. Among Philip's favourites, none enjoyed so high a degree of confidence and power as the Duke of Alva, the execrable instrument of Philip's tyranny, and Ruy Gomez de Silva, the vile pander of his unlawful pleasures, and himself the degraded husband of one of the King's mistresses.

The proud character of the first made him a marked object of Carlos's overbearing spirit. On the day when he was solemnly recognized as Prince of Asturias and successor to the Spanish throne, the Duke of Alva, who had superintended the arrangements for the ceremony, absented himself just at the time when he should have been among his peers to take the oath of recognition. Carlos, though not more than fourteen years old, observed the absence of his father's favourite, and stopping the solemn act, ordered messengers to summon Alva to his place. He appeared, after a long search, excusing himself with the numerous objects which on that day had claimed his care and attention. But the Prince, taking the excuse as an aggravation of what he conceived to be a premeditated insult, addressed the Duke in such language, that the offended grandee found it extremely difficult to avoid the guilt of treason which the Spanish law attaches to the act of laying violent hands on the heir of the crown.

Es de notar que le tenia por defetuoso en el juicio.-Cabrera, Vida de Phelipe II. lib. vii. c. xxii.

† He is known in the Spanish Catalogue of Saints by the name of San Diego de Alcalá.

The bitterness of the Prince's jealousy against Alva was raised to the highest pitch on the appointment of that nobleman to the government of the Netherlands. Carlos had looked up to that portion of the Spanish empire as the fittest stage for his first appearance in public life. He hoped that the precedent which had been made in his father, under whose care those countries were placed during the latter part of the life of Charles V., would be followed in his own behalf. Nothing, however, was more discordant with Philip's jealous and suspicious character than these views of his son. The Netherlands had broken into open rebellion against his authority, and he was anxious to send thither a man who, with the most inflexible character, should unite the most blind and implicit obedience to his will and authority. A restless and ambitious youth, but one step removed from the throne, was a very improper instrument of the punishment which Philip had determined to inflict on the revolted Flemings. The military talents, the severity of temper, and loyal attachment of Alva to his sovereign-some authors add the recommendation of Silva, Prince of Evoli, who wished to have the Duke removed to a distance-determined Philip to put him at the head of the army which was to be employed in the subjugation of Flanders. The new viceroy came to take leave of the Prince the day before he was to set off for his government. At the sight of a hated and successful rival, the ungovernable violence of Carlos broke out into the bitterest language, till raised, probably by the haughty and disdainful manner of the Duke, into a fit of rage, the Prince seized him by the middle, and would have thrown him out of the window into the ditch of the palace, but for the interference of some courtiers who came to Alva's assistance.

Carlos was not only disappointed of the objects of his ambition through the influence, as he imagined, of his father's favourites, but often found them meddling with his little plans of domestic amusement. An instance of this kind is mentioned by Cabrera.

Cisneros, an actor of celebrity, enjoyed the favour of the Prince, who, wishing to have a play performed privately in his apartments, ordered the comedian to get it up for a certain day. The King being, as usual, informed of his son's intentions, wished to defeat them by the same dark and crooked policy which he employed in the most important business of state. Philip's prime minister, Cardinal Espinosa, was directed to banish Cisneros out of the court before the day on which he was to play at the palace. Carlos, who seems to have constantly attributed his father's acts to those who were nothing but his blind instruments, fixed all his resentment on the Cardinal. Fortunately for that prelate his profession secured him, in a case of this kind, a mixed feeling of regard for his office and contempt of his person, on the part of every high-minded Spaniard. The Prince took an early opportunity of finding Espinosa alone; when, seizing him by the collar of his robe, "You scurvy parson," said he, "how dare you insult me by preventing Cisneros from obeying my orders? By my father's life, I will kill you!"* The terrified churchman, falling upon his knees, implored the Prince's forgiveness; who having no intention of executing the threat, allowed him to retire unhurt.

66 Curilla, vos os atreveis a mi, no dexando venir a servirme Cisneros! Por vida de mi padre que os tengo de matar.-Cabrera, ib.